Take thee a sharp knife. Ezekiel 5:1-4 God's judgments upon the wicked W. Greenhill, M. A. 1. Wicked men are of little worth; take a whole city of them, they are of no more account with God than a little hair of the head or beard. 2. It is the privilege of Christ to appoint whom and what instruments He pleases to execute His pleasure upon sinners. 3. When God hath been long provoked by a people, He comes with sharp and sweeping judgments amongst them. 4. There is no standing out against God; whatever our number or strength is, His judgments are irresistible. 5. The judgments and proceedings of God with sinners are not rash, but most carefully weighed. 6. There is no escaping of God's judgments for hard-hearted sinners. 7. In great judgments and general destructions, God of His infinite mercy spares some few. Ezekiel must take a few and bind up in his skirts, all must not be destroyed; the fire and sword devoureth many, but the dispersion preserved some, and some few are left in Judah. God is just, and yet when He is in the way of His judgments, he forgets not mercy: a little of the hair shall be preserved, when the rest goes to the fire, sword, and wind. 8. The paucity preserved in common calamities are not all precious, truly godly. Reprobates for the present escape as well as elect vessels; some choice ones may be cut off, and some vile ones may be kept. In a storm cedars and oaks are smitten, when bushes and briers are spared; and yet after they are cut up and cast into the fire. Sinners may escape present wrath, but there is wrath to come ( Luke 3:7 ). 9. God may take occasion, from the sin of some, to bring in judgment upon all. He must take of the remnant preserved, and throw into the fire, and out of that fire went forth fire into all the house of Israel. ( W. Greenhill, M. A. ) This is Jerusalem: I have set it in the midst of the nations. Ezekiel 5:5 Jerusalem in the midst of the nations Jerusalem was designed to have a good influence upon the nations and countries round about, and was set in the midst of them as a candle upon a candlestick to spread the light of Divine revelation, which she was blessed with, to all the dark corners of the neighbouring nations, that from them it might diffuse itself further, even to the ends of the earth. Jerusalem was set in the midst of the nations, to be as the heart in the body, to invigorate this dead world with a Divine life, to be an example of everything that is good. ( M. Henry . ) As I live, saith the Lord God. Ezekiel 5:11 The Divine oath John Burnett, B. D. I. THE FORM OF THE DIVINE OATH. When men swear, they do it "by the greater" ( Hebrews 6:16 ). God cannot do this. So He swears by Himself. II. THE USE OF THE DIVINE OATH. God utters His word clearly and plainly, calling on men to believe it. When they will not, He tries a new expedient, backing it up with an oath. Was ever grace more conspicuous, and forbearance more extraordinary? III. EXAMPLES OF THE DIVINE OATH. 1. The oath used in connection with the Priesthood of Christ ( Psalm 110:4 , as interpreted in Hebrews 7 ). 2. The oath used in connection with the believer's safety ( Hebrews 7:17-18 ). Blessed safeguard! 3. The oath used in connection with the sincerity of the Gospel call ( Ezekiel 33:11 ). Must not God be terribly in earnest? 4. The oath used in connection with the ultimate triumph of the Christian cause ( Isaiah 45:23 ). Can such a purpose be defeated? Encouraged by this, let the Church go forward. 5. The oath used in connection with the doom of the unbelieving ( Psalm 95:11 ). Then, "Acquaint now thyself," etc. ( Job 22:21 ). "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ," etc. ( Acts 16:31 ). ( John Burnett, B. D. ) Thus shall Mine anger be accomplished. Ezekiel 5:13 God's anger against sinners W. Greenhill, M. A. 1. God goes on by degrees in His wrath against a people. He had in times past corrected them like a father, He would now execute them like a judge; the drops of His wrath had done no good, now they should have the full vials. 2. Wrath let out against a sinful people, ofttimes lies long upon them. "I will cause My fury to rest upon them." They were seventy years under God's displeasure in Babylon. 3. God takes pleasure in executing judgment, in accomplishing His wrath, and causing His fury to rest upon impenitent and incurable sinners, He will be comforted in it ( Proverbs 1:26 ). 4. The Word of God may be preached among a people, and they, through ignorance and malice, not know it, nor entertain it. 5. Wicked men shall be convinced, and left without excuse. "They shall know that I the Lord have spoken"; they eyed men and not Me, they deemed it man's voice, not Heaven's; but they shall find that it was the voice of God amongst them. 6. God will justify His servants in their zealous labours for Him. "They shall know that I have spoken it in My zeal." It is God speaks in the prophets; it is His zeal they express. Let men be zealous against sin, the iniquities of the times, they are counted mad, fiery fellows, troublers of Israel, seditious, factious, etc. 7. The Lord is intense, and will not recall His indignation, when He deals with unfaithful, covenant-breaking persons. As in God's zeal there is intense love towards His Church (when God promises mercy to His people, it is sealed with this, "The zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do it," 2 Kings 19:31 ), so here is intense hatred, wrath against His enemies. ( W. Greenhill, M. A. ).

Benson Commentary Ezekiel 5:1 And thou, son of man, take thee a sharp knife, take thee a barber's rasor, and cause it to pass upon thine head and upon thy beard: then take thee balances to weigh, and divide the hair . Ezekiel 5:1 . Take thee a sharp knife, take thee a barber’s razor — The latter expression explains the former; and cause it to pass upon thy head, &c. — Hair being then accounted an ornament, and baldness a token of sorrow, therefore shaving denoted calamity or desolation. “Among the Arabs,” says Harmer, chap. 6. observ. 23, “there cannot be a greater stamp of infamy than to cut off any one’s beard: and many among them would prefer death to this kind of punishment. And as they would think it a grievous calamity to lose it, so they carry things so far as to beg for the sake of it, ‘By your beard, by the life of your beard, do.’ In like manner some of the benedictions are, ‘God preserve your blessed beard, God pour his blessings on your beard.’ And when they would express their value for a thing, they say, ‘It is worth more than his beard.’ I never had so clear an apprehension, I must confess, as after I had read these accounts, of the intended energy of that thought of Ezekiel, where the inhabitants are compared to the hair of the prophet’s head and beard. The passage seems to signify, that though the inhabitants of Jerusalem had been dear to God, as the hair of an eastern beard to its owner, yet that they should be taken away and consumed, one part by pestilence and famine, another part by the sword, and a third by the calamities of an exile.” See note on 2 Samuel 10:4 . And then take the balances, &c. — A symbol of God’s justice, as the razor was of his wrath; to weigh and divide the hair — What the prophet is here commanded to do was by way of another emblematical representation of what was to happen to the inhabitants of Judea and Jerusalem. The hair signified the Jewish people; shaving the hair with a razor, the divine vengeance; the weighing of the hair in the balances, the divine equity, which metes out to every one what is just and right; the dividing of the hair, the punishments allotted to different persons of them. Ezekiel 5:2 Thou shalt burn with fire a third part in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled: and thou shalt take a third part, and smite about it with a knife: and a third part thou shalt scatter in the wind; and I will draw out a sword after them. Ezekiel 5:2-4 . Thou shall burn a third part in the midst of the city — In the midst of that portraiture of the city, which the prophet was commanded to make, chap. Ezekiel 4:1 . This signified the destruction of the inhabitants within the city by famine and pestilence; for both famine and pestilence may be said to burn, as they make great havoc, and consume as fast as fire. Thou shalt take a third part, and smite about it with a knife — To show that a third part of the inhabitants should be slain with the sword; either in the sallies they made out of the city against the enemy, or when the city was taken by assault. A third part thou shalt scatter in the wind — This signified that a part of them should be dispersed into various countries, as the chaff is dispersed by the wind; I will draw out a sword after them — My vengeance shall pursue them in their dispersions, and they shall be everywhere exposed to suffer violence and injury. Also take a few and bind them in thy skirts — The Hebrew is, in thy wings. This signified that a small part of them should be preserved in the land; and accordingly we find that Nebuzar-adan, captain-general of the king of Babylon, left a few of them in the land under Gedaliah, as we read Jeremiah 40:5-6 . Then take of them again, and cast them into the midst of the fire — This expressed the calamity and destruction which should arise from this small remnant differing among themselves: some espousing the part of Gedaliah, who had been set over them by the Babylonians, and was a good man; and others joining themselves to Ishmael, one of the blood of David, but a wicked man; who formed a conspiracy against Gedaliah, and treacherously slew him, which was the occasion of the utter ruin of that poor remainder of the Jews, which were left in their native country. For thereupon some of them went down into Egypt, where they were all consumed according to Jeremiah’s prophecy against them, Jeremiah 44:11 , &c., and the rest who remained in the land were entirely carried away captive by Nebuzar- adan, Jeremiah 52:30 . Ezekiel 5:3 Thou shalt also take thereof a few in number, and bind them in thy skirts. Ezekiel 5:4 Then take of them again, and cast them into the midst of the fire, and burn them in the fire; for thereof shall a fire come forth into all the house of Israel. Ezekiel 5:5 Thus saith the Lord GOD; This is Jerusalem: I have set it in the midst of the nations and countries that are round about her. Ezekiel 5:5-6 . Thus saith the Lord, This is Jerusalem — Here the explication of the foregoing type is given, namely, that the hair to be shaved off signified Jerusalem, which was to be destroyed. I have set it in the midst of the nations — I set Jerusalem in the midst of the heathen nations, that it might be a pattern of religion and virtue to them: that the Egyptians, Syrians, Arabians, &c., might take example from her. Jerusalem was set in the midst of the nations to be as the heart in the human body, to invigorate the dead world with a divine life, as well as to enlighten the dark world with a divine light. And she hath changed my judgments into wickedness — Instead of following my judgments, and the precepts I gave her for the conduct of life, she hath given herself up to wickedness. More than the nations — She hath sinned against clearer light and stronger convictions of duty than the heathen nations, and therefore has contracted greater guilt, and deserved greater punishment than they. And my statutes more than the countries round about her — None of the countries round about had the statutes of Jehovah delivered to them, for he made known his statutes only to Israel: the meaning of this therefore must be, that the nations round about were more observant of the statutes and precepts delivered to them by men than the Israelites were of those delivered to them by God. Thus we find from Jeremiah, that the Rechabites were much more observant of the precepts (though no easy ones) which their father or first founder enjoined them, than the Israelites were of the commandments given them by God. Ezekiel 5:6 And she hath changed my judgments into wickedness more than the nations, and my statutes more than the countries that are round about her: for they have refused my judgments and my statutes, they have not walked in them. Ezekiel 5:7 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because ye multiplied more than the nations that are round about you, and have not walked in my statutes, neither have kept my judgments, neither have done according to the judgments of the nations that are round about you; Ezekiel 5:7-9 . Therefore, because ye multiplied more than the nations — Their multiplying, in the common sense of the word, was a blessing promised to them, and could not be alleged against them as a crime; therefore a word ought to be supplied here, as is done in many versions, namely, because ye multiplied your crimes, or wickedness, more than the nations, &c., neither have done according to the judgments [or manners] of the nations that are round about you — Namely, by persevering in the religion of your forefathers: you have not been so constant and zealous for the true religion as they have been for a false one. Or, as others interpret the clause, You have exceeded them in superstition and idolatry, and fallen short of them in moral duties. Therefore, behold, I, even I, am against thee — I will vindicate my laws from being contemned as they have been by you; for why should I suffer it to be said, See how they who profess to worship the true and only God, live immersed in wickedness, and without any virtue? And I will do in thee that which I have not done — As your sins have particular aggravations above those of other nations, so your punishment shall be proportionably greater. I will not do any more the like — The punishments you shall suffer shall be more remarkable for their greatness than those I shall at any time inflict upon other nations. Ezekiel 5:8 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I, even I, am against thee, and will execute judgments in the midst of thee in the sight of the nations. Ezekiel 5:9 And I will do in thee that which I have not done, and whereunto I will not do any more the like, because of all thine abominations. Ezekiel 5:10 Therefore the fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of thee, and the sons shall eat their fathers; and I will execute judgments in thee, and the whole remnant of thee will I scatter into all the winds. Ezekiel 5:10-11 . The fathers shall eat the sons, &c. — Fathers eating their children, and children their fathers, expresses the height of misery, and the most grievous famine. We have sufficient proof that such instances happened in the Jewish nation amidst their more than common calamities. Josephus relates some instances of parents eating their children during the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans; and we have further evidence of such horrid acts having been done by them in the extremity of famine, from the texts referred to in the margin. And the whole remnant of them will I scatter, &c. — This is another judgment threatened against them by Moses, and remarkably fulfilled in this their last dispersion, in which they are to be found in every part of the known world, and yet live everywhere like strangers only upon sufferance: see note on Deuteronomy 28:64 . Because thou hast defiled my sanctuary — Hast profaned my temple by placing idols in it, and worshipping them. With all thy detestable things, and all thine abominations — These are expressions of the same signification, denoting idols. Therefore will I also diminish thee — Will make thee of less account, and take from thee all honours as thou hast from me, as much as lay in thy power: or, as some interpret the clause, I will cut off or destroy, by diminishing, (as the word ??? is used Numbers 27:4 ,) without showing any pity or compassion. See the margin. Ezekiel 5:11 Wherefore, as I live, saith the Lord GOD; Surely, because thou hast defiled my sanctuary with all thy detestable things, and with all thine abominations, therefore will I also diminish thee ; neither shall mine eye spare, neither will I have any pity. Ezekiel 5:12 A third part of thee shall die with the pestilence, and with famine shall they be consumed in the midst of thee: and a third part shall fall by the sword round about thee; and I will scatter a third part into all the winds, and I will draw out a sword after them. Ezekiel 5:12-13 . A third part of thee, &c. — In this verse is given an explication of what the burning of the hair, the smiting of it with a knife, &c., signified: see on Ezekiel 5:2 . And I will draw out a sword after them — My anger shall still pursue them, even into the countries whither they shall be banished and carried captives. As this was particularly fulfilled in those that went into Egypt, (see on Ezekiel 5:4 ,) so it has been remarkably verified in the several persecutions and massacres they have undergone at different times in most of the countries of Europe, in latter ages: see note on Deuteronomy 28:65 . Thus shall mine anger be accomplished — My anger shall be appeased toward them, after I have executed due punishment upon them for their sins. And I will cause my fury — Or rather, my wrath, or indignation, as, ???? should be rendered, for to apply the word fury to God, is highly improper and indecent: to rest upon them — To be satisfied in punishing them. And I will be comforted — Here we have a strong instance of the metaphor called anthropopathia, by which the qualities of men are ascribed to God. As men sometimes find some sort of ease and rest in their minds upon venting their anger on just occasions, and bringing offenders to condign punishment; so God is here described as feeling ease and satisfaction in executing his justice on obstinate offenders: compare Ezekiel 16:42 ; Ezekiel 21:17 ; and see note on Isaiah 1:24 . They shall know that I have spoken it in my zeal — Out of a just concern for my own honour and authority, which they have slighted and despised. Ezekiel 5:13 Thus shall mine anger be accomplished, and I will cause my fury to rest upon them, and I will be comforted: and they shall know that I the LORD have spoken it in my zeal, when I have accomplished my fury in them. Ezekiel 5:14 Moreover I will make thee waste, and a reproach among the nations that are round about thee, in the sight of all that pass by. Ezekiel 5:15 So it shall be a reproach and a taunt, an instruction and an astonishment unto the nations that are round about thee, when I shall execute judgments in thee in anger and in fury and in furious rebukes. I the LORD have spoken it . Ezekiel 5:15-17 . So it shall be an instruction to the nations — They shall learn from such an example of vengeance to fear me, and be afraid of my judgments. When I shall send upon them the evil arrows of famine — Hail, tempest, drought, mildew, locusts, all which contribute to make a famine. So will I send upon you famine and evil beasts — Wild beasts multiply in a land when it becomes uninhabited, Exodus 23:29 . This likewise is a punishment which, among others, was threatened against the Jews by Moses: see the margin. Pestilence and blood shall pass through thee — Blood signifies any unusual sort of death, and may denote here such a pestilence as would destroy multitudes; or that, in addition to destruction by pestilence, they should be slaughtered by their enemies throughout their land. Ezekiel 5:16 When I shall send upon them the evil arrows of famine, which shall be for their destruction, and which I will send to destroy you: and I will increase the famine upon you, and will break your staff of bread: Ezekiel 5:17 So will I send upon you famine and evil beasts, and they shall bereave thee; and pestilence and blood shall pass through thee; and I will bring the sword upon thee. I the LORD have spoken it . Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary Ezekiel 5:1 And thou, son of man, take thee a sharp knife, take thee a barber's rasor, and cause it to pass upon thine head and upon thy beard: then take thee balances to weigh, and divide the hair . THE END FORETOLD Ezekiel 4:1-17 - Ezekiel 7:1-27 WITH the fourth chapter we enter on the exposition of the first great division of Ezekiel’s prophecies. The chaps, 4-24, cover a period of about four and a half years, extending from the time of the prophet’s call to the commencement of the siege of Jerusalem. During this time Ezekiel’s thoughts revolved round one great theme-the approaching judgment on the city and the nation. Through contemplation of this fact there was disclosed to him the outline of a comprehensive theory of divine providence, in which the destruction of Israel was seen to be the necessary consequence of her past history and a necessary preliminary to her future restoration. The prophecies may be classified roughly under three heads. In the first class are those which exhibit the judgment itself in ways fitted to impress the prophet and his hearers with a conviction of its certainty; a second class is intended to demolish the illusions and false ideals which possessed the minds of the Israelites and made the announcement of disaster incredible; and a third and very important class expounds the moral principles which were illustrated by the judgment, and which show it to be a divine necessity. In the passage which forms the subject of the present lecture the bare fact and certainty of the judgment are set forth in word and symbol and with a minimum of commentary, although even here the conception which Ezekiel had formed of the moral situation is clearly discernible. I. The certainty of the national judgment seems to have been first impressed on Ezekiel’s mind in the form of a singular series of symbolic acts which he conceived himself to be commanded to perform. The peculiarity of these signs is that they represent simultaneously two distinct aspects of the nation’s fate-on the one hand the horrors of the siege of Jerusalem, and on the other hand the state of exile which was to follow. That the destruction of Jerusalem should occupy the first place in the prophet’s picture of national calamity requires no explanation. Jerusalem was the heart and brain of the nation, the centre of its life and its religion, and in the eyes of the prophets the fountain-head of its sin. The strength of her natural situation, the patriotic and religious associations which had gathered round her, and the smallness of her subject province gave to Jerusalem a unique position among the mother-cities of antiquity. And Ezekiel’s hearers knew what he meant when he employed the picture of a beleaguered city to set forth the judgment that was to overtake them. That crowning horror of ancient warfare, the siege of a fortified town, meant in this case something more appalling to the imagination than the ravages of pestilence and famine and sword. The fate of Jerusalem represented the disappearance of everything that had constituted the glory and excellence of Israel’s national existence. That the light of Israel should be extinguished amidst the anguish and bloodshed which must accompany an unsuccessful defence of the capital was the most terrible element in Ezekiel’s message, and here he sets it in the forefront of his prophecy. The manner in which the prophet seeks to impress this fact on his countrymen illustrates a peculiar vein of realism which runs through all his thinking. { Ezekiel 4:1-3 } Being at a distance from Jerusalem, he seems to feel the need of some visible emblem of the doomed city before he can adequately represent the import of his prediction. He is commanded to take a brick and portray upon it a walled city, surrounded by the towers, mounds, and battering-rams which marked the usual operations of a besieging army. Then he is to erect a plate of iron between him and the city. and from behind this, with menacing gestures, he is as it were to press on the siege. The meaning of the symbols is obvious. As the engines of destruction appear on Ezekiel’s diagram, at the bidding of Jehovah, so in due time the Chaldaean army will be seen from the walls of Jerusalem, led by the same unseen rower which now controls the acts of the prophet. In the last act Ezekiel exhibits the attitude of Jehovah Himself, cut off from His people by the iron wall of an inexorable purpose which no prayer could penetrate. Thus far the prophet’s actions, however strange they may appear to us, have been simple and intelligible. But at this point a second sign is as it were superimposed on the first, in order to symbolise an entirely different set of facts-the hardship and duration of the Exile ( Ezekiel 4:4-8 ). While still engaged in prosecuting the siege of the city, the prophet is supposed to become at the same time the representative of the guilty people and the victim of the divine judgment. He is to "bear their iniquity"-that is, the punishment due to their sin. This is represented by his lying bound on his left side for a number of days equal to the years of Ephraim’s banishment, and then on his right side for a time proportionate to the captivity of Judah. Now the time of Judahs exile is fixed at forty years, dating of course from the fall of the city. The captivity of North Israel exceeds that of Judah by the interval between the destruction of Samaria (722) and the fall of Jerusalem, a period which actually measured about a hundred and thirty-five years. In the Hebrew text, however, the length of Israel’s captivity is given as three hundred and ninety years-that is, it must have lasted for three hundred and fifty years before that of Judah begins. This is obviously quite irreconcilable with the facts of history, and also with the prophet’s intention. He cannot mean that the banishment of the northern tribes was to be protracted for two centuries after that of Judah had come to an end, for he uniformly speaks of the restoration of the two branches of the nation as simultaneous. The text of the Greek translation helps us past this difficulty. The Hebrew manuscript from which that version was made had the reading a "hundred and ninety" instead of "three hundred and ninety" in Ezekiel 4:5 . This alone yields a satisfactory sense, and the reading of the Septuagint is now generally accepted as representing what Ezekiel actually wrote. There is still a slight discrepancy between the hundred and thirty-five years of the actual history and the hundred and fifty years expressed by the symbol; but we must remember that Ezekiel is using round numbers throughout, and moreover he has not as yet fixed the precise date of the capture of Jerusalem when the last forty years are to commence. In the third symbol ( Ezekiel 4:9-17 ) the two aspects of the judgment are again presented in the closest possible combination. The prophet’s food and drink during the days when he is imagined to be lying on his side represents on the one hand, by its being small in quantity and carefully weighed and measured, the rigours of famine in Jerusalem during the siege-"Behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem: and they shall eat bread by weight, and with anxiety; and drink water by measure, and with horror" ( Ezekiel 4:16 ); on the other hand, by its mixed ingredients and by the fuel used in its preparation, it typifies the unclean religious condition of the people when in exile-"Even so shall the children of Israel eat their food unclean among the heathen" ( Ezekiel 4:13 ). The meaning of this threat is best explained by a passage in the book of Hosea. Speaking of the Exile, Hosea says: "They shall not remain in the land of Jehovah; but the children of Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and shall eat unclean food in Assyria. They shall pour out no wine to Jehovah, nor shall they lay out their sacrifices for Him: like the food of mourners shall their food be; all that eat thereof shall be defiled: for their bread shall only satisfy their hunger; it shall not come into the house of Jehovah". { Hosea 9:3-4 } The idea is that all food which has not been consecrated by being presented to Jehovah in the sanctuary is necessarily unclean, and those who eat of it contract ceremonial defilement. In the very act of satisfying his natural appetite a man forfeits his religious standing. This was the peculiar hardship of the state of exile, that a man must become unclean, he must eat unconsecrated food unless he renounced his religion and served the gods of the land in which he dwelt. Between the time of Hosea and Ezekiel these ideas may have been somewhat modified by the introduction of the Deuteronomic law, which expressly permits secular slaughter at a distance from the sanctuary. But this did not lessen the importance of a legal sanctuary for the common life of an Israelite. The whole of a man’s flocks and herds, the whole produce of his fields, had to be sanctified by the presentation of firstlings and firstfruits at the Temple before he could enjoy the reward of his industry with the sense of standing in Jehovah’s favour. Hence the destruction of the sanctuary or the permanent exclusion of the worshippers from it reduced the whole life of the people to a condition of uncleanness which was felt to be as great a calamity as was a papal interdict in the Middle Ages. This is the fact which is expressed in the part of Ezekiel’s symbolism now before us. What it meant for his fellow exiles was that the religious disability under which they laboured was to be continued for a generation. The whole life of Israel was to become unclean until its inward state was made worthy of the religious privileges now to be withdrawn. At the same time no one could have felt the penalty more severely than Ezekiel himself, in whom habits of ceremonial purity had become a second nature. The repugnance which he feels at the loathsome manner in which he was at first directed to prepare his food, and the profession of his own practice in exile, as well as the concession made to his scrupulous sense of propriety ( Ezekiel 4:14-16 ), are all characteristic of one whose priestly training had made a defect of ceremonial cleanness almost equivalent to a moral delinquency. The last of the symbols { Ezekiel 5:1-4 } represents the fate of the population of Jerusalem when the city is taken. The shaving of the prophet’s head and beard is a figure for the depopulation of the city and country. By a further series of acts, whose meaning is obvious, he shows how a third of the inhabitants shall die of famine and pestilence during the siege, a third shall be slain by the enemy when the city is captured, while the remaining third shall be dispersed among the nations. Even these shall be pursued by the sword of vengeance until but a few numbered individuals survive, and of them again a part passes through the fire. The passage reminds us of the last verse of the sixth chapter of Isaiah, which was perhaps in Ezekiel’s mind when he wrote: "And if a tenth still remain in it [the land], it shall again pass through the fire: as a terebinth or an oak whose stump is left at their felling: a holy seed shall be the stock thereof." { Isaiah 6:13 } At least the conception of a succession of sifting judgments, leaving only a remnant to inherit the promise of the future, is common to both prophets, and the symbol in Ezekiel is noteworthy as the first expression of his steadfast conviction that further punishments were in store for the exiles after the destruction of Jerusalem. It is clear that these signs could never have been enacted, either in view of the people or in solitude, as they are here described. It may be doubted whether the whole description is not purely ideal, representing a process which passed through the prophet’s mind, or was suggested to him in the visionary state but never actually performed. That will always remain a tenable view. An imaginary symbolic act is as legitimate a literary device as an imaginary conversation. It is absurd to mix up the question of the prophet’s truthfulness with the question whether he did or did not actually do what he conceives himself as doing. The attempt to explain his action by catalepsy would take us but a little way, even if the arguments adduced in favour of it were stronger than they are. Since even a cataleptic patient could not have tied himself down on his side or prepared and eaten his food in that posture, it is necessary in any case to admit that there must be a considerable, though indeterminate, element of literary imagination in the account given of the symbols. It is not impossible that some symbolic representation of the siege of Jerusalem may have actually been the first act in Ezekiel’s ministry. In the interpretation of the vision which immediately follows we shall find that no notice is taken of the features which refer to exile, but only of those which announce the siege of Jerusalem. It may therefore be the case that Ezekiel did some such action as is here described, pointing to the fall of Jerusalem, but that the whole was taken up afterwards in his imagination and made into an ideal representation of the two great facts which formed the burden of his earlier prophecy. II. It is a relief to turn from this somewhat fantastic, though for its own purpose effective, exhibition of prophetic ideas to the impassioned oracles in which the doom of the city and the nation is pronounced. The first of these ( Ezekiel 5:5-17 ) is introduced here as the explanation of the signs that have been described, in so far as they bear on the fate of Jerusalem; but it has a unity of its own, and is a characteristic specimen of Ezekiel’s oratorical style. It consists of two parts: the first ( Ezekiel 5:5-10 ) deals chiefly with the reasons for the judgment on Jerusalem, and the second ( Ezekiel 5:11-17 ) with the nature of the judgment itself. The chief thought of the passage is the unexampled severity of the punishment which is in store for Israel, as represented by the fate of the capital. A calamity so unprecedented demands an explanation as unique as itself. Ezekiel finds the ground of it in the signal honour conferred on Jerusalem in her being set in the midst of the nations, in the possession of a religion which expressed the will of the one God, and in the fact that she had proved herself unworthy of her distinction and privileges and tried to live as the nations around. "This is Jerusalem which I have set in the midst of the nations, with the lands round about her. But she rebelled against My judgments wickedly more than the nations, and My statutes more than [other] lands round about her: for they rejected My judgments, and in My statutes they did not walk. Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, even I am against you; and I will execute in thy midst judgments before the nations, and will do in thy case what I have not done [heretofore], and what I shall not do the like of any more, according to all thy abominations" ( Ezekiel 5:5-9 ). The central position of Jerusalem is evidently no figure of speech in the mouth of Ezekiel. It means that she is so situated as to fulfil her destiny in the view of all the nations of the world, who can read in her wonderful history the character of the God who is above all gods. Nor can the prophet be fairly accused of provincialism in thus speaking of Jerusalem’s unrivalled physical and moral advantages. The mountain ridge on which she stood lay almost across the great highways of communication between the East and the West, between the hoary seats of civilisation and the lands whither the course of empire took its way. Ezekiel knew that Tyre was the centre of the old world’s commerce, (See chapter 27) but he also knew that Jerusalem occupied a central situation in the civilised world, and in that fact he rightly saw a providential mark of the grandeur and universality of her religious mission. Her calamities, too, were probably such as no other city experienced. The terrible prediction of Ezekiel 5:10 , "Fathers shall eat sons in the midst of thee, and sons shall eat fathers," seems to have been literally fulfilled. "The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of My people." { Lamentations 4:10 } It is likely enough that the annals of Assyrian conquest cover many a tale of woe which in point of mere physical suffering paralleled the atrocities of the siege of Jerusalem. But no other nation had a conscience so sensitive as Israel, or lost so much by its political annihilation. The humanising influences of a pure religion had made Israel susceptible of a kind of anguish which ruder communities were spared. The sin of Jerusalem is represented after Ezekiel’s manner as on the one hand transgression of the divine commandments, and on the other defilement of the Temple through false worship. These are ideas which we shall frequently meet in the course of the book, and they need not detain us here. The prophet proceeds ( Ezekiel 5:11-17 ) to describe in detail the relentless punishment which the divine vengeance is to inflict on the inhabitants and the city. The jealousy, the wrath, the indignation of Jehovah, which are represented as "satisfied" by the complete destruction of the people, belong to the limitations of the conception of God which Ezekiel had. It was impossible at that time to interpret such an event as the fall of Jerusalem in a religious sense otherwise than as a vehement outburst of Jehovah’s anger, expressing the reaction of His holy nature against the sin of idolatry. There is indeed a great distance between the attitude of Ezekiel towards the hapless city and the yearning pity of Christ’s lament over the sinful Jerusalem of His time. Yet the first was a step towards the second. Ezekiel realised intensely that part of God’s character which it was needful to enforce in order to beget in his countrymen the deep horror at the sin of idolatry which characterised the later Judaism. The best commentary on the latter part of this chapter is found in those parts of the book of Lamentations which speak of the state of the city and the survivors after its overthrow. There we see how quickly the stern judgment produced a more chastened and beautiful type of piety than had ever been prevalent before. Those pathetic utterances, in which patriotism and religion are so finely blended, are like the timid and tentative advances of a child’s heart towards a parent who has ceased to punish but has not begun to caress. This, and much else that is true and ennobling in the later religion of Israel, is rooted in the terrifying sense of the divine anger against sin so powerfully represented in the preaching of Ezekiel. III. The next two chapters may be regarded as pendants to the theme which is dealt with in this opening section of the book of Ezekiel. In the fourth and fifth chapters the prophet had mainly the city in his eye as the focus of the nation’s life; in the sixth he turns his eye to the land which had shared the sin, and must suffer the punishment, of the capital. It is, in its first part ( Ezekiel 6:2-10 ), an apostrophe to the mountain land of Israel, which seems to stand out before the exile’s mind with its mountains and hills, its ravines and valleys, in contrast to the monotonous plain of Babylonia which stretched around him. But these mountains were familiar to the prophet as the seats of the rural idolatry in Israel. The word bamah, which means properly "the height," had come to be used as the name of an idolatrous sanctuary. These sanctuaries were probably Canaanitish in origin; and although by Israel they had been consecrated to the worship of Jehovah, yet He was worshipped there in ways which the prophets pronounced hateful to Him. They had been destroyed by Josiah, but must have been restored to their former use during the revival of heathenism which followed his death. It is a lurid picture which rises before the prophet’s imagination as he contemplates the judgment of this provincial idolatry: the altars laid waste, the "sun-pillars" broken, and the idols surrounded by the corpses of men who had fled to their shrines for protection and perished at their feet. This demonstration of the helplessness of the rustic divinities to save their sanctuaries and their worshippers will be the means of breaking the rebellious heart and the whorish eyes that had led Israel so far astray from her true Lord, and will produce in exile the self-loathing which Ezekiel always regards as the beginning of penitence. But the prophet’s passion rises to a higher pitch. and he hears the command "Clap thy hands, and stamp with thy foot, and say, Aha for the abominations of the house of Israeli." These are gestures and exclamations, not of indignation, but of contempt and triumphant scorn. The same feeling and even the same gestures are ascribed to Jehovah Himself in another passage of highly charged emotion. { Ezekiel 21:17 } And it is only fair to remember that it is the anticipation of the victory of Jehovah’s cause that fills the mind of the prophet at such moments and seems to deaden the sense of human sympathy within him. At the same time the victory of Jehovah was the victory of prophecy, and in so far Smend may be right in regarding the words as throwing light on the intensity of the antagonism in which prophecy and the popular religion then stood. The devastation of the land is to be effected by the same instruments as were at work in the destruction of the city: first the sword of the Chaldaeans, then famine and pestilence among those who escape, until the whole of Israel’s ancient territory lies desolate from the southern steppes to Riblah in the north. Chapter 7 is one of those singled out by Ewald as preserving most faithfully the spirit and language of Ezekiel’s earlier utterances. Both in thought and expression it exhibits a freedom and animation seldom attained in Ezekiel’s writings, and it is evident that it must have been composed under keen emotion. It is comparatively free from those stereotyped phrases which are elsewhere so common, and the style falls at times into the rhythm which is characteristic of Hebrew poetry. Ezekiel hardly perhaps attains to perfect mastery of poetic form, and even here we may be sensible of a lack of power to blend a series of impressions and images into an artistic unity. The vehemence of his feeling hurries him from one conception to another, without giving full expression to any, or indicating clearly the connection that leads from one to the other. This circumstance, and the corrupt condition of the text together, make the chapter in some parts unintelligible, and as a whole one of the most difficult in the book. In its present position it forms a fitting conclusion to the opening section of the book. All the elements of the judgment which have just been foretold are gathered up in one outburst of emotion, producing a song of triumph in which the prophet seems to stand in the uproar of the final catastrophe and exult amid the crash and wreck of the old order which is passing away. The passage is divided into five stanzas, which may originally have been approximately equal in length, although the first is now nearly twice as long as any of the others. 1 Ezekiel 7:2-9 -The first verse strikes the keynote of the whole poem; it is the inevitableness and the finality of the approaching dissolution. A striking phrase of Amos 8:2 is first taken up and expanded in accordance with the anticipations with which the previous chapters have now familiarised us: "An end is come, the end is come on the four skirts of the land." The poet already hears the tumult and confusion of the battle; the vintage songs of the Judaean peasant are silenced, and with the din and fury of war the day of the Lord draws near. 2 Ezekiel 7:10-13 -The prophet’s thoughts here revert to the present, and he notes the eager interest with which men both in Judah and Babylon are pursuing the ordinary business of life and the vain dreams of political greatness. "The diadem flourishes, the sceptre blossoms, arrogance shoots up." These expressions must refer to the efforts of the new rulers of Jerusalem to restore the fortunes of the nation and the glories of the old kingdom which had been so greatly tarnished by the recent captivity. Things are going bravely, they think; they are surprised at their own success; they hope that the day of small things will grow into the day of things greater than those which are past. The following verse is untranslatable; probably the original words, if we could recover them, would contain some pointed and scornful antithesis to these futile and vainglorious anticipations. The allusion to "buyers and sellers" ( Ezekiel 7:12 ) may possibly be quite general, referring only to the absorbing interest which men continue to take in their possessions, heedless of the impending judgment. {cf. Luke 17:20-30 } But the facts that the advantage is assumed to be on the side of the buyer and that the seller expects to return to his heritage make it probable that the prophet is thinking of the forced sales by the expatriated nobles of their estates in Palestine, and to their deeply cherished resolve to right themselves when the time of their exile is over. All such ambitions, says the prophet, are vain-"the seller shall not return to what he sold, and a man shall not by wrong preserve his living." In any case Ezekiel evinces here, as elsewhere, a certain sympathy with the exiled aristocracy, in opposition to the pretensions of the new men who had succeeded to their honours. 3 Ezekiel 7:14-18 -The next scene that rises before the prophet’s vision is the collapse of Judah’s military preparations in the hour of danger. Their army exists but on paper. There is much blowing of trumpets and much organising, but no men to go forth to battle. A blight rests on all their efforts; their hands are paralysed and their hearts unnerved by the sense that "wrath rests on all their pomp." Sword, famine, and pestilence, the ministers of Jehovah’s vengeance, shall devour the inhabitants of the city and the country, until but a few survivors on the tops of the mountains remain to mourn over the universal desolation. 4 Ezekiel 7:19-22 -At present the inhabitants of Jerusalem are proud of the ill-gotten and ill-used wealth stored up within her, and doubtless the exiles cast covetous eyes on the luxury which may still have prevailed amongst the upper classes in the capital. But of what avail will all this treasure be in the evil day now so near at hand? It will but add mockery to their sufferings to be surrounded by gold and silver which can do nothing to allay the pangs of hunger. It will be cast in the streets as refuse, for it cannot save them in the day of Jehovah’s anger. Nay, more, it will become the prize of the most ruthless of the heathen (the Chaldaeans); and when in the eagerness of their lust for gold they ransack the Temple treasury and so desecrate the Holy Place, Jehovah will avert His face and suffer them to work their will. The curse of Jehovah rests on the silver and gold of Jerusalem, which has been used for the making of idolatrous images, and now is made to them an unclean thing. 5 Ezekiel 7:23-27 -The closing strophe contains a powerful description of the dismay and despair that will seize all classes in the state as the day of wrath draws near. Calamity after calamity comes, rumour follows hard on rumour, and the heads of the nation are distracted and cease to exercise the functions of leadership. The recognised guides of the people-the prophets, the priests, and the wise men-have no word of counsel or direction to offer; the prophet’s vision, the priest’s traditional lore, and the wise man’s sagacity are alike at fault. So the king and the grandees are filled with stupefaction; and the common people, deprived of their natural leaders, sit down in helpless dejection. Thus shall Jerusalem be recompensed according to her doings. "The land is full of bloodshed, and the city of violence"; and in the correspondence between desert and retribution men shall be made to acknowledge the operation of the divine righteousness. "They shall know that I am Jehovah." IV. It may be useful at this point to note certain theological principles which already begin to appear in this earliest of Ezekiel’s prophecies. Reflection on the nature and purpose of the divine dealings we have seen to be a characteristic of his work; and even those passages which we have considered, although chiefly devoted to an enforcement of the fact of judgment, present some features of the conception of Israel’s history which had been formed in his mind. 1. We observe in the first place that the prophet lays great stress on the world-wide significance of the events which are to befall Israel. This thought is not as yet developed, but it is clearly present. The relation between Jehovah and Israel is so peculiar that He is known to the nations in the first instance only. as Israel’s God, and thus His being and character have to be learned from His dealings with His own people. And since Jehovah is the only true God and must be worshipped as such everywhere, the history of Israel has an interest for the world such as that of no other nation has. She was placed in the centre of the nations in order that the knowledge of God might radiate from her through all the world; and now that she has proved unfaithful to her mission, Jehovah must manifest His power and His character by an unexampled work of judgment. Even the destruction of Israel is a demonstration to the universal conscience of mankind of what true divinity is. 2. But the judgment has of course a purpose and a meaning for Israel herself, and both purposes are summed up in the recurring formula "Ye [they] shall know that I am Jehovah," or "that I, Jehovah, have spoken." These two phrases express precisely the same idea, although from slightly different starting-points. It is assumed that Jehovah’s personality is to be identified by His word spoken through the prophets. He is known to men through the revelation of Himself in the prophet’s utterances. "Ye shall know that I, Jehovah, have spoken" means therefore, Ye shall know that it is I, the God of Israel and the Ruler of the universe, who speak these things. In other words, the harmony between prophecy and providence guarantees the source of the prophet’s message. The shorter phrase "Ye shall know that I am Jehovah" may mean Ye shall know that I who now speak am truly Jehovah, the God of Israel. The prejudices of the people would have led them to deny that the power which dictated Ezekiel’s prophecy could be their God; but this denial, together with the false idea of Jehovah on which it rests, shall be destroyed forever when the prophet’s words come true. There is of course no doubt that Ezekiel conceived Jehovah as endowed with the plenitude of deity, or that in his view the name expressed all that we mean by the word God. Nevertheless, historically the name Jehovah is a proper name, denoting the God who is the God of Israel. Renan has ventured on the assertion that a deity with a proper name is necessarily a false god. The statement perhaps measures the difference between the God of revealed religion and the god who is an abstraction, an expression of the order of the universe, who exists only in the mind of the man who names him. The God of revelation is a living person, with a character and will of His own, capable of being known by man. It is the distinction of revelation that it dares to regard God as an individual with an inner life and nature of His own, independent of the conception men may form of Him. Applied to such a Being, a personal name may be as true and significant as the name which expresses the character and individuality of a man. Only thus can we understand the historical process by which the God who was first manifested as the deity of a particular nation preserves His personal identity with the God who in Christ is at last revealed as the God of the spirits of all flesh. The knowledge of Jehovah of which Ezekiel speaks is therefore at once a knowledge of the character of the God whom Israel professed to serve, and a knowledge of that which constitutes true and essential divinity. 3. The prophet; in Ezekiel 6:8-10 , proceeds one step further in delineating the effect of the judgment on the minds of the survivors. The fascination of idolatry for the Israelites is conceived as produced by that radical perversion of the religious sense which the prophet