The Pulpit Commentary — Ezekiel — Volume 2 — Section 442

HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vera. 1-12.-The holy waters. The beauty and even sublimity of this portion of Ezekiel's prophecies must impress every reader of imagination and taste. Upon the suggestion of the waters of Siloam taking their rise from the temple rock, and the watercourse of the Kedron threading its way among the rocky deserts until it reaches the expanse of the Dead Sea, the poet-prophet describes a river which has its source in the sanctuary of Jehovah, and which broadens and deepens as it flows, until it becomes a stream of vastest blessing, diffusing health and life for the benefit of multitudes of men. Under this similitude Ezekiel pictures the spiritual blessings brought by God, through the channels of his grace and faithrulness, not to Israel alone, but to all mankind. I. 'l'BE SOURCE OF THE HOLY WATERS. As the rain comes down from heaven, filters in the soil, and wells up a living sprini;_, so the blessings of the gospel have their fountain in the very mind and heart of uod himself. But, as conveyed to men, they have a well-spring huwan and earthly. The student of human history, who looks beneath the surface of things, and seeks to understand the growth of thought and of morals, turns his attention to the Hebrew people, wondering that from them, as from a well-head of ethical and religious life, should flow blessings so priceless for the enrich- ment of humanity. Yet so it is; the temple at Jerusalem is the symbol of a Divine revelation. The justest and noblest ideas which have entered into the intellectual and spiritual life of man have very largely issued from Moses and the Hebrew prophets, How far Ezekiel entered into this truth may not be certain; yet since he was a cosmo- polite, in relation with Babylon, Egypt, and Tyre, and knew well the mental and moral state of the nations of antiquity, it seems reasonable to believe tbnt he hnd enough of the critical spirit to compare the debt of the world to the Hebrews as com- pared with the people that figure so vastly in secular history. He was certainly right in tracing to Israelitish sources the waters of life, fruitfulness, and bee.Jina0 which were to bring blessing to mankind. II. THE WIDENING A.ND DEEPENING OF THE HOLY WATERS. It is here that Ezekiel passes from history to prophecy. Possessed by the Spirit of God, he was able to look into the future and behold the wonder yet to be. It is, indeed, marvellous that, in a period of national depression, when national extinction seemed to human foresight to be imminent, the prophet of the exile should have had so clear a perception of the reality of things, and so clrar a foresight of the spiritual future of the world, which must in his apprehension have appeared bound up with the continuity of the history and religious life of Israel. 'l'he river, like the temple from which it proceeded, was the emblem of what was greater than itself. Christian commentators have taken pleasure in tracing correspondences between the gradual iucrease of the stream and tho 458 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL. [oH. XLVll, 1-23.