The Pulpit Commentary — Ezekiel — Volume 2 — Section 458

nee.rly twice ns large as the whole of when it will recei'Ue an e:zact and complete Jud1B& (see Conder's • Handbook to the fulfilment, when the soil of Palestine will Bible,' p. 273); or divided the territory be divided, the temple erected at Jerusalem, (which they did not possess) from the and the worship of Jehovah established entrance of He.math to the river of Egypt? therein precisely a.a here outlined by Ezekiel. Assuredly, if Ezelriel's plan we.a thus one (I) It is not difficult to understand how which could not have been carried out, even this idea. should from the first have been had be meant it, Ezekiel may be credited favoured by Jewish interpreters, who still with having had sufficient sense not to expected Messiah, and believed that when mean it. he came he would not only replace the (4) Then on the litere.l hypothesis, what Jewish people in their own land, but set is to be made of the'' Tery high mountain" up the precise civil and religions arrange- on which the temple we.a seen to rest, and ments that are here sketched.. (2) But of the river that incree.sed without receiving besides these, not a few Christian mille- any tributaries along its course; and of the narie.ns have embraced this interpretation, sea, whose waters were rendered salubrious holding, as they do, not only that Jesus is and made to teem with fish by the flowing the Messiah, but tllat in connection with into them of the temple-stream? A hill and prior to his second coming-which whose maximum elevation above the sea they consider will introduce the thousand wae not more than 2528 feet could hardly years' reign of the risen saints npon the have been represented as e. "very bigb earth-all the details of this vision will be mountain ; " a water-canal or spring could carried out: the J ewe, who she.II then have sca.rcely have been made to do duty for a become converted to Christianity, will re- freely flowing river; while a visit to the turn to their own land, which they will Dead Sea will convince the most sceptical divide amongst themselves as here repre- that it& waters are to-day as unwholesome sented, erect e. temple after the specifica- and fatal to life, both vegetable and animal, tions here laid down, and institute a wor- as they ever were. Considerations such as ship in accordance with the Torah here these are sufficient to indicate that the enjoined. Of thiil view e. represente.til'o prophet never intended his le.ngae.ge to may be found in M. Baumgarten, who be taken litemlly, or bis "house" to be thinks that the poin!.8 of contact between rego.rded as e. new temple, his Torah as a Ezekiel's temple and Solomou'a are too new ritual, and his territorial distribution numerous and close for one to resolve the scheme as e. new land e.ot for the returned whole picture into symbol and allegory, exiles. and who asks how, when Israel has re- (5) If more be needed to demonstro.te turned to her God, she ouia:ht to give ex- that the prophet, in writing down these pression to her faith and obedience, if not temple - measurements, sacrificial ordin- in the forms and ordinances which Jehovah ances, and land arrangements, was not has given to them-these forms and ordin- draugbting a new constitution for post- ances being those embodied in Ezekiel'a exilic lsro.el, it may be found in this, temple-vision (see Herzog's 'Real-Encyclo- that be removed the temple so completely pii.die,' art. "Ezcchiel "). But llgninst this beyond the precincts of the city. What- view, whether in its Jewish or Christian ever eignificanoe mlly hllve le.in in that ns form, whioh expects a future glorifirotion a symbol (to be considered in the sequol), of the land, people, and religion of Israel, it is obvious that no Jewish patriot could serious and insurmountable difficulties press, have been expeoted to ncquiesce in such lln (l) The objections 11lre11dy mentioned as orro.ngement (already it has been seen that declaring 11g11inet the former view of n pro- they did not), on the supposition that it gramme for the poet-exilic e.ge spcal< with woe meant to be actually put in force; and equnl force age.inst this, which simply hence it may be almost pronounced certo.in transfers the building of the tt,mplo, the that, whatever notions may have lurked in institution of the ritual, and tho dividing the prophet's mind regarding it, he never of the land to o futuro Messie.nio nge, oither aeriously proposed it aij a model to be with the Jews, that of a first, or with tho copied by the builders of the post-exilic millenarions, that of a second, coming. It age. is true the advocatee of this theory ex- 2. A second view deserving mention, if perience no difficulty in dealing with any less extended, is that of those who, while of the unusual phenomena which ordinarily finding in the temple-vision a new con- hamper the litero.l interpretation, 11uch a.a slitution for restored and reunited Israel, the rapidly increasing river, the sweeten- and while conceding that in some small ing of the waters of the Dead Sea, and the measure or degree it may have been put exceeding high mountain, because they in force subsequent to the exile, neverthe- anticipate such a glorifico.tion of Pales- less anticipate the coming of a goldffl age, tine in the Meeeie.nic, or millennii.11, er11, 111 474 THE BOOK OF 'l'HE PROPlttT EZEKIEL. [en. :x.tvttt. t--a5,