The Pulpit Commentary — Ezekiel — Volume 2 — Section 32

t11a broth (Revised Version). The verb is used tho.n those of the husband, and his personal in Exod. xxx. 33, 35, of the concoction of berenvement seemed as a small thing com- the anointing oil, and the cognate adjecti vo pared with the desolation of bis country. in Job xli. 81 for the "boiling" of the He wns to refrain from all conventional w11ter co.used by the crocodile. We a.re re- signs of mourning, from weeping and wail- minded of the "bubble, bubble" of tho ing, from the loud sighing (for forbear to witches' co.uldron in 'Mo.cbeth.' cry, read, with the Revised Version, aigh, Ver. 11.-Thon set it empty upon the ooals, l,u,t not awud), from the head covered or etc. The empty cauldron is, of l',Ourse, the sprinkled with ashes (Isa. lxi. 3), and from city bereaved of its inlmbitants. 'l'be fire t!JO bare feet (2 Sam. xv. 30; Isa. x:x. must go on till the rust is consumed. There 2), from the covered lips (Lev. xiii. 45; is, however, in spite of the seemingly terrible Micah iii. 7), which were "the trappings and hopelessness of tho sentence, a gl!'am of the garb of woe" in such a cBSe. Eat not hope, as there had been in eh. xvi. 42. When the bread of men. The words point to the the punishment had done its full work, then custom, more or less common in all nations Jehovah might cause his fury to rest (ver. anJ at all times, of a funeral feast, like the 13). Till then he declares, through the parentaliaof the Romans. Wine also was com- prophet, there will be no mitigation of the monly part of such a feast (Jer. xvi. 7). The punishment. The word has gone forth, and primary iden of tl.ie custom seems to have there will be no change of purpose. been tl,at the mourner's friends sent the Ver. 12.-She hath wearied herself with mo.terials for the feast as a token of their lies, etc. ; better, it (keeping to the imege of sympathy. the cauldron) is worn cmt with labours; sc. Ver. 18.-So I spBke unto the people in with tho pains taken to cleanse it, and yet the morning, etc. In yet another way the the rust l"Cmains. The fire must burn, the calling of the prophet superserled the natural retributive judgment must continue, till the impulses of tbe man. He knew thnt his work is done. wife's hours were numbered, yet the dny Vers. 15-17.-Behold, I take away from was spent, not in ministering at her death- thee, etc. The next word of the Lord, com- bed, but in one last effort to impress the ing after an interve.l, is of an altogether ex- teachings of the time upon the seared con- ceptional character, BB giving one solitary sciences and hardened hearts of his country- glimpse into the personal home life of the men and neighbours. I cannot help referring prophet. The lesson which the history to the poem 'Ezekiel,' by B. M., published teaches is, in substance, the same as that of in 1871, as expressing the meaning of the Jer. xvi. 5. The cahm,ity tho.t fa.Us on the history better than any oomments.ry. nation will swallow up all personal sorrow, Ver. 19.-We must reod between the lines but it is brought home to Ezekiel, who may what had passed in that eventful night of have read those words with wonder, by 11, sorrow. The rumour must have spread new and terrible experience. We are left to among the exiles of Tel-Abib that the pro- conjecture whether anything in the prophet's phet had lost the wife whom he loved so home lifo furnished a staJ"ting-point for the tenderly. They were ready, we may ima- terrible message that was now borne in upon gine, to offer their consolations and their his soul. Ho.d his wife been ill before? or, o.s sympathy. And, behold, he oppeers as one tho words, with a stroke, suggest, did it fall on whom no special sorrow hnd fallen. But on him, as a thunderbolt" out of the blue"? that strange outward hardness had the effect I mention, only to reject, the view that the which it wns meant to hove. It roused them wife's death belongs as much-to the category to ask questions, o.nd it wo.s one of the cases of symbolic visions as tho boiling cauldron. in which the prudens interrogatio, which if 'fo me suoh a view seems to indicate on in- not in itself the dimidium scientim, at least capacity for entering into a prophet's life prepared the way for it. The form of their nnd calling ns grent ns that which sees questiou implies that they heid o. forecast nothing but o.n nllegory in the history of that the strange conduct wa8, in somo way, Gomer in Hos. ii., iii. We, who uccept the connected with the prophet's work. Wilt Scripture record as we find it, mny believe thou not tell ns wb.at these things 11re to that Ezekiel was taught, as the earlier p!"o- ns1 phet, to interpret his work by his own per- Ver. 21.-The desire of your eyes. There sonal experience. To Ezekiel himself the is something exquisitely pathetic in the loss of one who is thllll described as the iteration of the phrase of ver. 17. To the desire ( or, delight) of his •fes (the word is priest Ezekiel himself, to the people whom used of things in 1 Kings xx. 6, of young he addressed, the temple WBS as deo.r as the warriors in Lam. ii. 4, of sons and daughters wife to the husband. It WILS also " the in ver. 25), must have been, at first, as tLe pride of their power" (Revised Version), crowning sPrrow of his life; but the feelings the "pity of their soul" (margin). The of the pntriot-prophet were stronger even former phwse comes from Lov. xxvi. 19. EZEKIEL-Il. D  THE BOOK OF 'l'HE PROPHET EZEKIEL. [oH. XXIV. 1-27.