The Pulpit Commentary — Ezekiel — Volume 2 — Section 295

derived its designation, after tlie event, from through, that remain-upon the fe.oe of the the passing through it or through the land land. Here, ago.in, the old play upon the of the searchers, in which case the stopping word "passengers" recurs, e.nd with it two of the passengers can only have alluded to or three difficnltiui!. (l) It is not clear the fact that, ns the "buriere" proceeded whether the commissioners consisted of two ·with tlie work of interment, tliey were com- classes of officers, "passers through," or pelled to turn away their faces and stop "searchers," who scoured the land in their noses because of tlie noisome effluvium search of unburied skeletons or bones, which arose from the corpses. The first whioh, however, they did not bury; and interpretation is the best, though the first '' buriers" proper, who, accompanying these and second might be combined by making searchers, conducted the interment of such the first "passengers" stand for the travellers skeletons or bones 11s were found (Hengsten- 11nd the !IOOOnd for the invaders, whose berg, Keil); or whether the commissioners career should there be stopped; and to this were only one body, who both searched and ,iew a certain countenance is lent by the buried (Ewald and Smend). (2) It is statements which follow, that there should doubtful whether the ntt in c•~ilo-ntt Gog and all his multitude-literally, all his should be taken as the sign of the iiccusa- noisy tumult-be buried, and that the valley ti ve, and the clause translated as in the ever afterwards should bear the name of Revised Version, in which case the "pas- Hamon-gog, or, Gog's multitude. sengers" that should be buried could only Vere. 12, 13.-The time that should be pe the "invaders" as above (see ver. 11); occupied in Gog's funeral should be seven or as a preposition, in which case the months-so great should be the nnmber of rendering of the Authorized Version must tlie dead-the sacred number seven recall- stand, e.nd the " passengers " be regarded ing the seven years consumed in the burn- as the "searchers." (3) It is open to debate ing of the weapons (ver. 9), and reminding whether vcr. 14 should not close with the one of the "seven times heated " furnace initial words of ver. 15, e.s Ewald pro- into which the Hebrew children were cast, poses, " And the pe.sseagers shall search and of the "seven times" of N ebucbad- and pass through iu the land; " or at nezzar's humiliation (Dan. iii. 19; iv. 23), least whether the first clause in ver. 15 The parties who should conduct his ob- should not form e.n independent sentence, sequies ehonld be the house of lllre.el, even thus: "And they that pass through in all the people of the land, indicating the the land shall pass through," as in the common joy occasioned by the barbaric Revised Version, in .which case the sight- chieftain's overthrow. The motive which ing of unburied bones (ver. 15) would not should impel them in their work would be necessarily be the work of "searchers," but a desire to cleanse the land from the defile- of any one, the verb n1;1:;,J being impersonal. rneu t it had contracted from the corpses of It is impossible to decicle dogmatically in the slain (comp. Numb. xix. 11,22; xiii. 11, question of so much difficulty; but the 19; xxxv. 33); and the end should be that Revised Veraion appears to present the the work shonld be to them, not for "a most exact rendering of the Hebrew, and remembrance" (Ewald), but e. renown, not upon the whole the most intelligible ac- because they should have Lelped to bury count of what was intended to tako pie.cc, Gog (Hengstenberg), or through burying viz. the appointment of o. special body of Gog should he.ve proved themselves his commissioners, who sboulu be designated conquerors (Smend), e.nd in virtne of Jeho- both "passengers," in ironico.l e.llnsion to va.h's protection the possessors of his gruve Gog who Lad meant to pnss through the (Hitzig), but because in the day when laJJd, and "buriers," from the nature of the J eJ;ovah glorified himself through Gog's taak delegated to them, viz. the interlllcnt destruction, he (Jehovah) should ulso be of the •• passengers," i.e. the Gogites, untl glorified by their (Israel's) zeal "to show who should begin their w01·k 11fter tho wuin tbemsel ves a holy people by sweeping all body of the slain had been removed, i.e. at uncleanness away" (Keil). the end of the seven months of burying. Ver. 14.-When the work of burying Ver. 15 describes the method of pro- Gog should have gone on for seven months, cedure these " searchers " and " buriers," ut the end ofthe.t time the Israelites should should follow. U these were distinct from sever out (comp. Deut. x. 8) men of oon- each other, the "searchers "-if they were the tinue.l employment; literally, men of con- same, any others-on disoovel'ing e. man's tiuuance; i.e. pereo11s hired for a continuous bone should set up a sign by it; litero.lly, work or devoted to a constant occupation, build near it a pillar; eroot a heap of stone whose business it should be paBllllllr (comp. 2 Kings uiii. 17; Jar. uxi. 21) through the la.nd to buey with the pae- to call the attention of the buriers, who, on sengers those that remain-or, as the Be- coming to the spot, should inter it in th11 n,ed Veroiun rea.ds, to bur11 them that paH valley of Hamon-gog. oa. :axrx.1-29.] THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL. 306