The Pulpit Commentary — Ezekiel — Volume 1 — Section 298

which God had enabled them to acqnlre---position, prosperity, power-they ba.rl abused by making them occasions of sin. '.Chey reposed in them the trust which they should havo reposed in God alone. How oft.en ba.ve men abused their prosperity in a similar manner I A man by the blessing of God succeeds in his business undertakings, and then attributes all his success to his tact, perseverance, a.nd energy, and places bis supreme confidence in those powers or in himself. How vain is such confidence (cf. Prov. xxviii. 26; Jer. ix. 23) I And another, who has prospered in his worldly affairs, places his trust in his riches. This a.lso is vain (cf. Ps. xlix. 6, 7; Iii. 7; 1 Tim. vi. 17). "He who has a high opinion of himself has no desire for grace; a.nd the more he trusts in himself, the more quickly will he squander gifts and blessings. Self-exaltation leads from grace, just as self-knowledge leads to grace" (Schroder). 3. Perversion of the position which they had attained through the favour of God. "And playedst the harlot because of thy renown." The eminence which they bad attained by means of bis blessing they turned into an occasion of exalting themselves against him. "God made this people above all nations," says Greenhill, "in praise, in name, in honour, that they might be a holy people unto him (Deut. ::txvi. 19); their renown should have encouraged them to holiness, and it was an incentive unto looseness. Solomon had great renown abroad in the nations (1 Kings iv. 31); that drew the princes to bestow their daughters upon him (1 Kings xi. 3); he had seven hundred wives, princesses; his name made way for unlawful marriages, and they made way for unlawful gods." Their prosperity and fame they thus perverted in saddest, l!infullest manner. II. THE DREAD PROGRESS OF THIS APOSTASY. The apostasy itself consisted of the worship of idols, or the giving unto idols the homage which was due to God alone, and the formation of forbidden political alliances, or reposing in nations the confidence which should have been placed alone in God. The beginning of the apostasy seems to have been in the latter part of the reign of Solomon, when his heathen "wives turned away bis heart after other gods" (1 Kings xi. 4-B). It entered upon another stage when the ten tribes under Jeroboam began to worship the true God by means of the images of the calves which were set up at Dan and Bethel. Afterwards the people began to adopt the vile idols of their heathen neighbours. Hut in the paragraph before us the chief stages of this apostasy are : 1. The manufacture and worship of idols. (Vers. 16-18.) 2. The building of chambers for their idolatrous practices. (Vera. 24, 25.) Not content with the high places, or natural heights, set apart for worship, they erected these vaulted chambers in the thoroughfares of the city. "The natural heights," says Hengstenberg, "are too far from the people hungering after idols. They wish to plant idolatry in the city thoroughfare, and so build for themselves artificial heights. We must distinguish between the thought and its clothing. The thought is that the objects of idolatry became the prime impulse of the popular life, by which is to be understood much less religious than political adultery, though both went band- in-hand." 3. The sacrifice of their children to Moloch. (Vers. 20, 21.) From eh. xx. 26 it appears that they offered their first born to this revolting heathen deity. The god was supposed to be present in the fire, and the children who were made to pass through it were devoured by it. Aben Ezra says that "to cause to pass through" is the same as" to burn." And the Jews did this notwithstanding the most solemn and titern warnings against it. "The offender who devoted his offspring to Moloch was to be put to death by stoning; and in case the people of the land refused to inflict upon him this judgment, Jehovah would himself execute it, and cut him off from among bis people (Lev. xviii. 21; xx. 2-5)." But they had become guilty even of this atrocity. The Lord calls these children whom they so cruelly sacrificed, his children. "Thou hast slain my children." They were his because be is "the Father of spirits." His also because they were born under the covenant, and bore in themselves the mark of the covenant. So these people had gone from bad to worse, until their sins were now calling loudly for vengeance. There is no standing still in sin. When man has departed from God, unless means be used and efforts be made to return unto him, he will depr.rt ever to a greater distance; the breach between them will grow wider until it becomes a great and awful gulf. Bewo.re of the first faint alienation of the heart from him. Stop the very beginnings of departure from him. Keep close to him in true and tender alfec t.ion, and loyal and loving service,  298 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL. [oH. xvI. 1-63,