The Pulpit Commentary — Ezekiel — Volume 2 — Section 47

was about to allow the idolatrous Chaldeans to enter into it and destroy it. Their calamities were caused by their crimes. Their sufferiugs were the righteous retribu- tion of their sins. II. A PEOPLE THAT SHOULD NOT MOURN THE LOSS OF EVEN THEm HOST PRECIOUS POSSESSIONS. ".And ye shall do as I have doue: ye shall not cover your lips nor eut the bread of men. And your tires shall be upon your heads," etc. The 'outward demonstrations of mourning are thus forbidden to the Jews in their distress. 'l'he c~~ering of. the f~ce~ from the uppe~ lip downwards was a sign of mourning (cf. Lev. :xm. 45; Micah m. 1). In great grief the mourners partook of food which their neigh- bours prepared and sent to them (cf. Jer. xvi. 7, Revised Version). Tliis is here called "the bread of men." In many cases of mourning the head-dress was taken off, and dust or ashes sprinkled upon the head (cf. Lev. x. 6; Job ii. 12; Isa. lxi. 3; Lam. ii. 10). But David and his companions in a season of deep distress went weeping with their beads covered (2 Sam. :xv. 30). It was also customary for mourners to go bare- foot, as David did on the occasion just referred to. All these visible symbols of grief were to be absent from the house of Israel during the great distresses that were coming ~~on _t~em. Yet our text speaks of their great sorrow. "Ye shall pine away in your m1qmt1_es, and _n~oan one toward another." We suggest, by way of explanation: 1. Their calamities would so overwhelm them a.s to leave them no power to think of the reremonu:il of mourning. Their losses and miseries would stun them with amaze- ment and anguish of soul. "As in the prophet's case," says Schroder," the misfortune of his wife's drath disappears in the deep shadows of the overthrow of Jerusalem and Judah, so all the personal feelings of the exiles" (and we must not limit this to them to the exclusion of their fellow-countrymen) '' shall be absorbed in this destruction of the last remnant of the kingdom and city. One and another shall be benumbed with pain, so that no comfort shall come from any quarter; on the contrary, a desolating feeling of guilt shall be general-such shall be their knowledge of the Lord." 2. Their consciousness of the sin which caused their calamities should check the outward ea:hibi- tions of sorrow because of them. This is well set forth by Fairbairn: "In the typical part of the delineation, it was not because the prophet was insensible to the loss he sustained by the death of his wife that he was to abstain from the habiliments and usages of mourning; but because there was another source of grief behind, of which this was but the sign and presage, and in itself so much greater and more appalling, that his spirit, instead of venting itself in expressions of sorrow at the immediate and ostensible calamity, was rather to brood in silent 11gouy and concern over the more Elistressing evil it foreshadowed. And in like manner with the people, when all their fond hopes and visions were fina!Jy exploded, when the destruction of their beautiful temple, snd the slaughter of their sons and daughters, came home to them as dreadful realities, they could only refrain from bewailing the loss of what had so deep a hold on their desires and affections, by having come to discern in this the sign of what was still greatly more dreadful and appalling. And what might that be but the blood- stained guilt of their iniquities, which had brought on the catastrophe? . . . The over- whelming sense should then break in upon them of the iniquities to which they had clung with such fatal perverseness, absorbing their spirits, and turning their meanings into a new and higher direction. The agonies of bereavement would be in a manner lost under the self-inflicted pains of contrition and remorse (cf. eh. vi:. 16). Yet the description must be understood with certain qualifications, and indeed is to be viewed as the somewhat ideal delineation of a state of things that should be found, rather than the exact and literal description of what was actually to take place. , .. The people should, on the occurrence of such a fearful catastrophe, have sunk under an overpower- ing sense of their guilt and folly, and, like the prophet, turned the tide of their !(rief and mourning rather against the gigantic evil that lay behind, seen only in the chambers of imagery, than what outwardly appeared; they should have bewailed the enormous sine that had provoked the righteous displeasure of God, rather than the present troubles in which that displeasure had taken effect. And such, undoubtedly, was the case with the better and more enlightened portion of the reople; but many still cleaved to th~ir idols, and would not receive the instruction given thtm, either by the prophet's parabolical example or by the reality of God's afflicting dispensations." CoNULUBION. Mark well the dread coDsequcnccs of persistence in sin.-W. J, ou. xxv.1-17.] THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL. 49