The Pulpit Commentary — Ezekiel — Volume 2 — Section 311

munity or kingdom of God e.s that b&d been Dr. Ourrey, in the 'Speaker's Oomment11ry,' shown him in vision. His materie.l he ar- follows, believes to have been e. jubilee range~ in three main divisions, speaking year, whioh begCLn on the tenth dCLy of the first of a re-erected temple (ob. :r.l.-xliii.), seventh month. As, however, the pre.otioe of commencing the year with this month next of e. reorganized worship (eh. :r.liv.- was not introduced among the Jews till :d ri.), and le.stly of a redistributed territory after the exile, and us Ezekiel everywhere (eh. :r.l,ii., xlviii.). The.t Ezekiel, sorrowing follows the purely Mose.io arrangement of ornr the first Israel's glories whioh had the year, the presumption is that the begin- rnnisbed with the fall of Jerusalem and ning of the year here alluded to was the month Abib, and that the tenth day or the the burning of her temple, and filled with month was the day on which the Torah eRger anticipe.tions of the golden era wbioh enjoined the selection of e. Iamb for the wns then beginning to loom up before him Passover. Indeed, the two clauses in Eze- in ever fairer proportions e.nd brighter kiel read like e.n e.bbrevintion of the Mose.io colours,-that Ezekiel himself me.y he.ve statute (Exod. xii. 2, 3)-a circumstance sufficiently striking o.nd probably significo.nt, inwardly believed or hoped the picture he though emphasis should not, with Hengeten- was then placing on his ce.nve.s would be berg, be laid upon the fact that every word ultime.tely realized upon the old soil, is by in Ezekiel's oopy is fouud in the Exodus no means improbable; the.t the Holy Spirit, original. On that day, which wo.s the the real Author of the temple-vision, was anniversary of the beginning of e. merciful deliverance to Israel in Egypt, of the initial draughting for the new Isre.el, soon to arise step in e. gre.oious process of tro.nsforming from th o ashes of the old, e. fresh religious Phare.oh's captives into a nation,-on tho.t and politico.I constitution, which could not day (for emphasis the selfsame day, as in be satisfied with any merely local, temporal, eh. xxiv. 2), the prophet's soul wee re.pt and material realization, such a.s might be into o.n ecstasy (see on eh. i. 3), in which he seemed to be transported thither, i.e. to- given to it in Palestine on the close of the wards the smitten city, and e. disclosure erile, but reached out to something larger, made to him concerning tbe.t new com- broader, and more spiritual, even to the munity which Jehovah was about to form Israel of Messianic times, i.e. to the Church out of old Israel. of God in Chrit;tian ages ;-tbe.t the Holy Ver. 2.-In the visions or God; i.e. in the clairvoyant state JVhich had been super- Spirit had some such design is at least an induced upon him by the hand of God, o.nd idea which one might be pardoned for enter- in which he became conscious both of bodily taining. (For the different views which sense.tionse.nd mento.l perceptions tro.nscend- ha rn been hP,ld as to the proper interpre- ing those that were possible to him in hie tation of this vision, see note e.t the end of nature.I condition. Upon a very high moun- tain (oomp. Matt. iv. 8; Luke iv. 5). Schro- eh. xl viii.) der stands e.Ioue in taking 'I:! e.s " beside " Vere. 1-4.-The introduction to the t1iBion. rather than "upon," other inierpreters con- Ver. 1.-ln the five and twentieth year sidering that r,1$ has here the force of '11, of our captivity; i.e. in B.O. 575, assuming as in oh. xviii. 6, and oh. xxxi. 12. 'l'liet Jehoiakin's deportation to have taken place this mountain, though resembling the temple B.O. 600, i.e. in the fiftieth year of the hill in Jerusalem, was not that in reality, prophet's age, in the twenty-fifth of his but "the mountain of the Lord's house" of prophetic calling, and in the fourteenth Messianic times (see on eh, xliii. 12; o.n,1 after the fall of J erusalern, As the last comp. eh. xvii. 22, 23 : xx. 40 ; lee. ii. 2 ; note of time we.a the twelfth year ( eh. xxxii. Micah iv. 6), may be inferred from its 17), it may be assumed the interval was greater altitude than that of either Morin.h le.1gely occupied in receiving aud delivering or Zion, which pointed obviously to tho the proph~cies that fall between those dates, loftier spiritunl elevation of the new ,reru- though it is more than likely a period •of se.lem. As the frame of a oity on the south. eilcuce preceded the vision of which this What Ezekiel beheld was not " besi<lc➔ ., ur last sec lion of the book preserves an account. "by" (Authorized Version), but "on" the If not tlie lRst of the prophet's utterances mountain, en<l wnsnot, as liii,vernick, 1<;w11,J.1, (see eh. x.xix. 17), it was beyond question and Kliefoth suppose, tbo new city of Jem, tl,e grandest Rnd most momentous. Acoord- salem, though this might with e. fair mee.suro lngly, the prophet notes with his customary of accuracy be d~scribcd as lying south of exactness that the Yision came to him in the Moriah on which the temple stood, but the ~egi.nning of the ye~r, which Bit~ig, whol!l WIDJ>lo itpelf, which, with its well~ 1111d ll'e.te~, ea. XL, 1-49.l THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL. 321