:11" pll\nted in tl1e wilderness, in 11 <lry and thirsty ll\n<l." The expression is fignrntive, settin_g forth their C'Xile n.~ a condition oppose4 to their growth and prosperity. "Such :i wil<lerness may even be in the midst of a cultivatc>d land." ln some respects, "Babylon was as a wilderness to those of the people that were carrie<l captive thither." They had lost their national life, their ancestral estntes, many of their religious pri,ileges, etc. (2) Eflicient rulers are no more. "Her strong rods were broken and withrre<l; the fire consumed them . . . . She hath no strong rod to be a sceptre to rule." The words, perhaps, refer to Zedekiah and his miserable overthrow (2 Kings xxv. 4-7). And there wn.~ no one to retrieve their fallen fortunes, or to reign efficiently o,er the remnant of them that was left in the land (cf. Isa. iii. 6-8). (3) Manifest progress is exchanged for desolation and ruin. "She was plucked up in fury, she was cast down to the ground, and the east wind dried up her fruit.••• And fire is gone out of a rod of her branches, which hath devoured her fruit." The commentary on these clauses we have in 2 Kinirs xxv. 8-26; 2 Chron. xxxvi. 17-20; Jer. Iii. 12-30; and in Lamentations. 2. The instrument of this i·uin. "The east wind dried up her fruit" (cf. eh. xvii. 10; Hos. xiii. 15). The east wind points to the Chaldeans as the instrument of the Divine judgment. The figure is appropriate, both because the Chaldean~ dwelt in the cast, and because the east wind is often injurious to vegetable life. 3. Th~ cause of this ruin. " Fire is gone out of a rod of her branches, which bath devoured her fruit." "The fire goes out from the chief stem of the branches: it does not take its rise from the Chaldees, but proceeds from the royal family itself, which by its crimes called doITT1 the Divine vengeance." It was Zedekiah, by his base treachery towards Nebuchadnezzar, that at last brought on the ruin (eh. xvii. 15-21). "'l'he desolation of kingdoms," says Greenhill, "usually have been by their own kings and rulers, by those they have brought forth and set up; their follies, cruelties, treacheries, have fired and consumed their kingdoms." CONCLUSION. 1. Prosperity, both individual and national, is of God. 2. Ruin, both itndivid'/.(,(1,l and national, is self-caused. "The fire of one's own unrighteousness kindles the wrathful jndgment of God." "Men first become parched, then the fire consumes them." "0 Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself!" 3. Sin invariably leads to sorrow. It first causes lamentation to the good, and then leads to general lamentation. Sin may be co=itted amidst mirth and music, but it will speedily lead to mourning and woe. "This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation."-W. J.
EXPOSITION. CHAPTER XX. tell them, as other prophets were doing, that the time of their deliverance, and of that of Ver. 1.-A new date is given, and includes Jerusalem, was at hand. Passing into the what follows to eh. xxiii. 49. The last prophetio state, Ezekiel delivers the dis- note of time was in eh. viii. 1, and eleven course that follows. months and five <lays had passed, during Ver. 3.-As I live, eaith the Lord God, which the prophecies of the intervening etc. 'fhe inquirers are answered, but not as chapters had been written or spoken. We they expected. Instead of hearing of the may note further that it was two years one " times and see.sons " of the events that were month and five days after the prophet's call in the near future, the prophet at once to bis work (eh. i.), and two years and five enters on his stem work as a preooher. rnonths before the Chaldeans besieied The general principle that determines the JerUBalem (eh. xxiv. 1). The immediate oc- refusal to answer has beP.n given in casion here, as in eh. viii. I, was that some of eh. xiv. 3. the elders of Israel had come to the prophet Ver. 4.-Wilt thou judge them, etc.? The to inquire what message of the Lord he had doubled question !1as the force of a strong tu gi rn them in the present crisis. Whether imperative. The prophet is directed, as it any stress is to be laid on the fact that here were, to assume the office of a judge, and as tLe elders are said to be "of Israel," and in such to prnes home upon hie hearers, and cli. viii. I "of Judah," is doubtful (see note on through them upon others, their own sins eh. xiv. 1). Ezekiel seems to use the two and those of their fathers. He is led, in ,n,r<ls as interchangeable. Here, however, it doing so, to yet another survey of the nation'd :iB stated more definitely that they came to history; not now, as in eh. xvi., in figurative iuquire, probably in the hope the.the would language, but directly. cm. xx. 1-40.] THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL. 355