The Pulpit Commentary — Ezekiel — Volume 1 — Section 377

}Jis name Jehovah. 'l'ho very reverse would be much more in harmony with it, namely, that the heathen should become like Israel." The Church of God is not to be conformed to and lost in the world; but the world is to be conformed to the Church anrl to be included therein. The kingdoms of the world are to become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ (Rev. xi. 15). And so the Lord declares that the evil desians of hie sinful pooplo should fail. He can utterly foil the deepest, subtlest schemet of man; and he will do so when those schemes are exposed to his holy will (cf. Job v. 12-14; Ps. x.x..xiii. 10, 11; Prov. xxi. 30; Isa. viii. 10; Acts v. 38, 39).-W. J. Vere. 33-38.-The sovereignty of God in the punishment of sin. "As I Jive, saith the Lord God, surely with a mighty hand, and with a stretched-out arm," etc. The connection of this paragraph with what has gone before, and especially with ver. 32, is of the closest character; it is, in fact, essential. Three leading points requirs attention. I. 'l'HE SOVEREIGNTY OF GoD OVER MEN, NOTWITHSTANDING THEIR srns, .ASSERTED. (Ver. 33.) 'fhe Israelites had resolved to be as the heathen, to conform to their usages, and to mingle themselves with them. But the Lord does not readily loose them from their allegiance to him. The sins of men do not invalidate the sovereignty of God over them. Men cannot by any means annul his right to rule over them. Moral obligations are eternal. The Lord here asserts : 1. Bis solemn determination to maintain his sovereignty over Israel. "As I live, saith the Lord God, surely . . . will I rule over you." 'l'he oath indicates the settled and unchangeable purpose of the Lord Jehovah. He will not forego his kingly authority over his creatures. 2. His sufficient power to maintain his sovereignty over Israel. "Surely with a mighty hand, and with a stretched- out arm, and with fury poured out, will I rule over you." 'l'here is a reference here to his great and terrible acts in the land of Egypt for the deliverance of his people there- from (cf. Exod. vi. 6; Deut. iv. 34). The .Almighty is at no loss for means and instru- ments to maintain his authority. "'l'he kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord, and against his Anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder," etc. (Ps. ii. 2-6). If men will not bow to the sceptre of his mercy, they will be made to feel the rod of his anger. "There is no shaking off God's dominion," says M. Henry ; "rule he will, either with the goldell sceptre or with the iron rod; and those that will not yield to the power of his grace shall be made to sink under the power of his wrath." II. THE SOVEREIGNTY OF Goo OVER MEN MANIFESTED IN THE PUNISHMENT OF THEIR BINS. (Vers. 34-36.) These verses, we think, should be regarded as figurative. The people of the house of Israel had said within themselves," We will be as the heathen, as the families of the countries, to serve wood and stono." The Lord hy his prophet declares that they shall not be as the nations ; they shall not be lost amongst them ; for he will find them out with his judgments. "I will bring you out from the peoples, and will gather you out of the countries wherein ye are scattered," etc. There is here a reference to their captivity in Babylon. The objection that they were in one land only, and amongst one people only, whereas the prophet speaks of "peoples" and "countries," is not of much weight, seeing that the Babylonian empire was so great as to be spoken of in the terms applied to it in Jer. xxvii. 1-7. "To those who fancied that with the removal into exile the judicial activity of God was already closed, and the dawn of the day of grace was immediately approaching, he announces a new phase of this judicial activity, similar to that which first came over Israel in the wilderness. If they are really led out of the former state into the new one, in which they underlie a second judgment,/ormally they are led into the wilderness, which here designates a state similar to that in which Israel was formerly in the wildernes~. The wilderness is designated as 'the wilderness of tho peoples,' in contradistinction to the former wilderness, where was only the howling of wild beasts (Dent. xxxii. 10), lions, serpents, and the like (Deut. viii. 15; Isa. xxx. 6). 'rbe new wilderness is one in which Israel is in the midst of the peoples, and can therefore be no ordinary wilderness, for wildcm..:ss and peoples exclude one another. It must rather be a symbolic or typical desigu.1tiun of the state of punishment and purification " (Hcngstenberg). "\Ve have a sornewlrn,t similar use of the word" wilderness" in eh. xix. 13 and Hos. ii. 14. What the JJUuish- ments thus indicated precisely were anJ. when they were inflicteJ. we know not, bc,,1Llst1  380 THE DOOK OF THE PROPHE1' EZEKIEL. [011. xx, 1-49.