The Pulpit Commentary — Ezekiel — Volume 1 — Section 323

God w011ld not ultimnooly punish the iu- "a paternal affection towards the whole nocPnt for the guilty. Ho had to work out, human race whioh he oreated and formed." according to the light givE>n him, his vindi- Ezekiel antioipates here, and yet more fully CRtion of the wavs of God to mRn, to sketch in ver. 32, the teaohing of St. Paul, that at least the outlines of a theodicy. Did " God willetb that all men should be saved" he, in doing this, c-0me forward as a pro- (l Tim. ii. 4). The soul that einnetb, it phet, correcting and setting aside the shall die. The sentence, though taken teaching of the Law? At first, and on a from the Law, which ordered cnpital Bnrface new, he might seem t-0 do so. punishment for the offences named, cannot But it was with him as it was afterwards be limited t-0 thot punishment. " Death" with St. Paul. He •• established the Law" and "life" are both used in their highest in the very kaching which seemed to con- and widest meaning-" life" as inoluding all tradict it. He does not deny (it would that makes it worth living, "death" for the have been idle t-0 do so) that the sins of loss of that only true life which is found the fathers are "l'isited upon the children, in knowing God (John xvii. 3). i.e. affect those children for evil. What he Vere. 5-9.-The verses that follow are does is to define the limits of that law. noticeable as forming one of the most com- .And he may Lave found his starting-Point plete pictures of a righteous life presented in that very book wliich, for him and hie in the Old Testament. It was che.raoteristic generation, was the great embodiment of the of Ezekiel that he starts from the avoidance Law as a whole. If men were forbidden, of sins against the first table of the com- es in Deut. xxiv. 16, to put the children to mandment.a. To eat upon the mountains death for the sins of the fathers : if that was to take part in the sacrificial feasts on wa.s to be the rule of human justice,-the the places, of which he had already spoken justice of God could not be less eq nite.ble (eh. xvi. 16; comp. x.xii, 9: Dent. xii. 2), than the rule which he prescribed for his The words, lifted up his eyes, as in Dent. iv. creatures. It is not without interest to 19 and Ps. cxxi. 1, implied every form of note the parallelism between Ezekiel and idolatrous adoration. The two sins that the Greek poet who was likest t-0 him, as in follow seem to us, as compared with each his genill8, so e.lso in the courage with other, t-0 stand on a very different footing. To which he faced the problems of the uni- Ezekiel, however, they both appeared as verse. lEschylus also recognizes(' Agam.,' mala prohibita, to each of which the Law 727-756) that there is a righteous order in assigned the punishment of death (Lev. the seeming anome.lies of history, Men xvlii. 19; x.x. 10, 18: Deut. xxii. 22), each might say, in their proverbs, that prosperity involving the dominance of animal passions, as such provoked the wrath of the gods, in the one case, over the sacred rights of and brought on the downfall of a "woe others; in the other, over a law of self- insatiable; " and then he adds- restraint which rested partly on physical "Bnt I, apart from all, grounds, the aet condemned frustrating the Hold this my creed alone." final cause of the union of the sexes ; partly, also, on its ethical significance. The pro- .And that creed is that punishment comes minence given to it implies that the sin only when the children reproduce the im- was common, and that it brought with it pious recklessness of their fathers. "Justice an infinite degradation of the holiest ties. ehioes brightly in the dwellings of those Ver. 7.-Hath restored to the debtor his who Jove the right, and rule their life by pledge. The law,found in Exod. xxli.25 and law." Into the deeper problem raised by Deut. xxiv. 6, 13, was a striking instance of the modern t!ionght of inherited tendeucies the considerateness of the Mosaic Law. The developed by the environment, which itself garment which the debtor hail pledged as a originates in the past, it was not given to security was to be restored to him at night. Eztkiel or lEschylus to enter. Such e. law implied, of course, the return Ver. 3.-btress is laid on the fact that the of the pledge in the morning. It was pro- proverb w!iich implied unrighteousness in bably often used by the debtor for his God is no longer to be used in Israel. own fraudulent advantage, and it was a 'l'hu-~, among the people in whom he was natural consequence tb11t the creditor should mariifesting his rii;liteousness for the edu~ be tempted to evade compliance with it, cation <;f mankind, it should be seen to The excellence of the man whom Ezekiel haV{, r:o force whatever. The thought was describes was that he resisted the tempta- 11n e8H:ntially heathen thought-a half. tion. Rath spoiled n<1ne by violence. Comp. truth distorted info a falsehood. Lev. vi. 1-5, which Ezeldel probably had Ver. 4.-:Behold, all souls are mine, etc. specially in view. The sin, common enough The words imply, not only crr·ation, owner- at all times (1 Sam. xii. 3), would seem tc ship, :d,bulute authority, ou the part of God, have been specially charactNi&tic of the Lm, a, e,cri Cahin could recognize (in we.), time in which Ezekiel lived, from the king on. xvm. 1-32.) 'l'HE BOOK O"B' 'l'HE PIWPHET EZ:8KIEL.