The Pulpit Commentary — Ezekiel — Volume 2 — Section 179

hnd been grouped with other forms of good capture of J crusnlem took plooe in the nnd evil. Here it stands out in solitary pre- fourth month of the eleventh yenr (Jer. eminence. The reason may possibly be xxxix. 2; Iii. 6) from the captivity of found in the fact that a time of exile and Jehoiaohin and the beginning of Zedekio.h'e suffering was likely to make the sin, which 1-eign. Are wo t.o assume some error of the penitent thus showed that he had re- transcription? or is it within the limits ot nounced, a. specially common one. The probability that eighteen months would pass sllrring rnnn pfodged bis garment or his without any direct communication from Je- tools for the Joan of money or of food at a ~usalem of what hod passed there? There price far below its value. There was a renl 18, I conceive, nothing improbable in what self-sacrifice, a proof of the power of the is stated. Tllo exiles of Tel-Abib were not faith that worketb by love, when the creditor on the high-roads of commerce or of war. restored it. The primary duty, when a man All previous communications were cut off turned from evil, was, as far a.s in him lay, by the presence of the Ohaldee.n armies. to overcome his besetting sin and make In the words, one that had escaped, the restitution for the past. Compare the words prophet clearly referred to the intimation of the Baptist (Luke iii. 12-14), and those given him o.t the time of his wife's death of Zaoohiens (Luke xix. 8). The statutes of (eh. xxiv. 26), When the fugitive entered life. The words are used as in eh. :n. 11 and he saw that the hour had at last come. One Lev. xviii 5, on the assumption that, if a. would give much to know who the fugitive man kept the statutes, he should (in the was, but we can only conjecture. Had highest sense of the word) live in them. Baruch been sent by Jeremiah to bear the It was reserved for the fuller iUnmination tidings to his brother prophet? Such a of St. Paul, taught by a representative expe- mission would have been e. fulfilment of rience t.o proclaim the higher truth that the J er. xiv. 5. A later tradition ascribes to Law, ordained for life, was yet the minister Ba.ruch a prominent pn.rt as a tea.oiler among of condemnation and death unless there was the exiles of Baby Ion (Bar. i. 2) shortly after eomething higher than itself t.o complete the destruction of Jerusalem. the work which it could only begin (Rom. Ver. 22.-Now the hand of the Lord. vii. 10; riii. 3; comp. also Heb. vii. 19). When the messenger arrived he found the Ver. 17.-The way of the Lord is not equal. prophet in a state of ecstasy. This was in The prophet now proclaims what he had the evening. ID that prophetic ecstasy his been taught, perhaps then, without pr~ mouth was opened, o.nd the long silence claiming it, in eh. xviii. 25-30. Men a.re broken, and though he had not heard the dealt with by the Divine Judge, not as their message with his outward ears, he hod fathers have been before them, not even to.ken, as it were, that meBBage aa hiJ text. as they themselves have been in times It was not till his discourse was ended, and past, but exactly a.a they a.re. Where could the moruiug came, that he himself heard there be a more perfect rule of equity? the terrible tidings from the lips of the The question how far Ezekiel thinks of the messeuger. Then a change came over him. judgment itself as final, whether there is He was no more dumb. The Jong silence the possibility of repentance and pardon was broken. Had the silence lasted, we after it has fallen, and during its con- ask, from eh. iii. 26 onward? Had the tinuance, is not directly answered. He is whole intervening period been one of simply speaking, we must remember, of a judgment symbolic action, and of written but unspoken on this side the grave, and therefore what prophecies? The words at first suggest that we ee.11 the problems of eschatology were conclusion; but it is travened by the facts; not before him. But the language of the by the commo.nds of eh. xii. 10, 23; by the document which lies o.t the basis of his order to "prophesy" in eh. xiii. 2 ; by the theology (Lev. xxvi. 41) asserts that if men message to apco.k unto the elders in oh. xiv. repented o.nd "accepted " their earthly 4; by the question, " Doth he not speak punishment, then Jehovah would remember parables?" of eh. xx. 49. I infer, therefore, his covenant, and would not destroy them that, though the silence had been dominant, utterly. And Li~ own Jangu11ge o.s to it had not been unbroken. To some, at Sodom and Sa.maria. (eh. xvi. 53) indicates a least, a message had been spoken. Othors leaning t.o the wider hope. If the problems may have been allowed to read the written of the unseen world had been brought before prophecies. The death of the prophet's him, we may believe that he would have wife tended, probably, to the continuance dealt with them as with those vrith which of the silence, and it seems a. legitimate he actually came in contact, and that there inference from eh. xxiv. 27 that it had oon- also his words would have been," 0 house of tinued from thnt date onwnrd. Israel, 0 sons of men, are not my ways Ver. 24.-They that inhabit those waste■ equal? are not your ways unequal?" of the land. The utterance that follows Ver. 21.-In the twelfth year, cto. The was probe.bly the direot result of who~ OB. xx:xm. 1-33.] THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL. 185