Holy Bible

One man among them was clothed with linen. Ezekiel 9:2 Christ the Commander of the angels W. Greenhill, M. A. 1. Elect Jews under the law were saved by the mediatorial work of Christ incarnate, as we are under the Gospel. Christ frequently appeared as man, intimating thereby His future incarnation, and that that nature must concur to the making up of His mediatorship: He did not mediate for them as God, for us as man; but He mediated then as man promised, now He mediates as man manifested. 2. The Lord Christ is the chief commander of all angelical and human forces. He was in the midst of these six military angels that were to bring in the Chaldean forces at the several gates of the city; He was their General. 3. When judgments are abroad, and the godly are in danger, Christ mediates and intercedes for them. 4. Christ hath a special care of His in times of trouble; He appears with an inkhorn to write down what is said and done against them, to make known the mind of God to them, to seal and discriminate them from others. 5. Those who are upon great and public designs should begin with God, and consult with Him. These seven here go in and stand by the altar, inquire of God what His pleasure is. So have the worthies of God done ( Ezra 8:21 ). 6. Those who are employed by the Lord must be careful that they countenance no corruptions in worship. Neither Christ nor the angels would come at the false altar, which Ahaz had caused to be set up; but they go to God's altar, the brazen altar; by this they stood, not the other. 7. In times of judgment, as God discountenances false worship, so He discovers and countenances His own way of worship. ( W. Greenhill, M. A. ) With a writer's inkhorn. The man with the inkhorn J. G. Lambert, B. D. (to young men): — This man with the inkhorn may stand for a class — the whole class of writers and literary men. I would start from the position that the powers of literature belong of right to Jesus Christ, and that literature is included among those things of which Paul said to the Christian man: "All are yours, for ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's." I. THE CLOSE RELATION THAT EXISTS BETWEEN CHRISTIANITY AND LITERATURE. 1. One fact that meets us on the very threshold is this, that, humanly speaking, the Bible itself is a literary product. Had there been no such thing as literature there never could have been a Bible; for no one would have been able either to write or to read. As our Lord Jesus glorified the human body by His inhabitation of it in the Incarnation, so we may say literature is transfigured and glorified by this special inhabitation of the Divine Spirit in the books of the Old and New Testaments. 2. But, passing beyond the pages of the Bible, we see again how Christ-loving men have used the powers of literature for the advancement of God's kingdom in the world. In the early days of the Church, Christianity owed very much to the literary gifts of men like and , and . And when we see the great days of the Reformation dawning upon Europe, there is no doubt that we must associate that marvellous spiritual revival with the previous Revival of Letters. Luther was indebted for his knowledge of Greek to those Greek scholars who, after the Fall of Constantinople, came flocking to the West, and who spread abroad that interest in the Greek language and literature which by and by sent men back once more to the neglected pages of the Greek New Testament. And so we see Luther sitting all alone through the midnight hours in his high tower of the Wartburg Castle, in the very heart of the great Thuringian Forest. Before him lies his open Bible, and from the closest study of its pages he is seeking to apprehend the very mind of his Lord. When I was in the Wartburg some years ago I was shown the place on the wall which was struck by the famous inkhorn that Luther flung at the Devil. Luther did discomfit the devil with an inkhorn; but it was by that translation of the Bible which came from his pen, and which is still one of the masterpieces of German literature, and by those other writings which shook the hearts of men like a mighty trumpet blast, and destroyed, in most European lauds, the awful domination of Rome. 3. But, when we speak of literature, we have to go beyond the Bible, and beyond all purely religious writings. We have to think of that great world of books which includes history and science, philosophy, poetry, and fiction. And may we not say that the best books in those various departments, whether written by Christian men or not, are all of them full of facts and principles that really illustrate and corroborate the teaching of the Bible? II. SOME FRIENDLY COUNSELS WHICH ARE SUGGESTED BY THIS SUBJECT. 1. First, let me put the old apostolic injunction which Paul addressed to a young friend, "Give attendance to reading." All around us there is a great and growing devotion to athletic interests, which threatens in many cases to swallow up all interests of a higher kind. Now, bodily exercise is profitable, without doubt; but it cannot be profitable to exercise the body until we have no time or strength left for the cultivation of the mind. You must read diligently, eagerly, carefully, if you would enlarge and enrich and strengthen your mind. And let me exhort you here to begin to form a little library of your own as early as possible. Do not be content with borrowing books, but have your favourite authors around you in your own room. "A young man," says one, "may lodge in a very small room. But what do you mean by a small room? When I go into a young man's room, and see on the wall a shelf of books; when I take down Shakespeare, or Dante, or Tennyson, or Carlyle, I do not know the size of that room. The walls are nothing, for that man holds the ends of the earth. For every taste like literature, or art, or science, or philosophy, is a window in the smallest room, and through the windows a man can see anything, right on to the throne of God." 2. Next, I would say, take heed what you read. The world is full of bad books, as well as of good books, for the man with the inkhorn, in not a few cases, has sold himself to the service of the Devil. Beware of bad books! If a book fills your mind with evil thoughts, or leaves a bad taste in your mouth, cast it from you at once. Why should a man feed his soul on filth and garbage, when he is free to walk through the garden of the Lord, plucking all manner of pleasant fruits? And, apart from what is positively bad, do not spend too much time on what is scrappy or ephemeral. There are diversities of gifts, and diversities of taste. Provided you confine yourself to what is wholesome, whatever interests you most will be likely to profit you most. But do not forget that the Bible must come first. 3. Let me remind you that, as Christian young men, you should consecrate to Christ all the knowledge that you gain, and should use it as far as possible for the benefit of others. Remember, after all, that life is more than literature, and that Christianity is greater even than the Bible. Mohammedanism is the religion of a book, for above Mohammed himself stands the Koran. But Christianity is not the religion of a book: it is the religion of a life. Jesus Christ Himself is the Alpha and Omega of it, and it is love to Jesus, loyalty to Jesus, the service of Jesus, that are the true marks of a Christian. ( J. G. Lambert, B. D. ) The writer's inkhorn T. De Witt Talmage. No one ever had such Divine dreams as Ezekiel. In a vision this prophet had seen wrathful angels, destroying angels, each with a sword, but in my text he sees a merciful angel with an inkhorn. The receptacle for the ink in olden time was made out of the horn of a cow, or a ram, or a roebuck, as now it is made out of metal or glass, and therefore was called the inkhorn, as now we say inkstand. We have all spoken of the power of the sword, of the power of wealth, of the power of office, of the power of social influence, but today I speak of the power for good or evil in the inkstand. It is a fortress, an armoury, a gateway, a ransom, or a demolition. "You mistake," says someone, "it is the pen that has the power." No, my friend; what is the influence of a dry pen? Pass it up and down a sheet of paper, and it leaves no mark. It expresses no opinion. It gives no warning. It spreads no intelligence. It is the liquid which the pen dips out of the inkstand that does the work. Here and there a celebrated pen, with which a Magna Charta or a Declaration of Independence, or a treaty was signed, has been kept in literary museum or national archives, but for the most part the pens have disappeared, while the liquid which the pens took from the inkstand remains in scrolls which, if put together, would be large enough to enwrap the round world. 1. First, I mention that which is purely domestic. The inkstand is in every household. It awaits the opportunity to express affection or condolence or advice. Father uses it; mother uses it; the sons and daughters use it. It tells the home news; it announces the marriage, the birth, the departure, the accident, the last sickness, the death. That home inkstand, what a mission it has already executed, and what other missions will it yet fulfil! May it stand off from all insincerity and all querulousness. Oh, ye who have with recent years set up homes of your own! out of the new home inkstand write often to the old folks, if they be still living. A letter means more to them than to us, who are amid the activities of life, and to whom postal correspondence is more than we can manage. As the merciful angel of my text appeared before the brazen altar with the inkhorn at his side in Ezekiel's vision, so let the angel of filial kindness appear at the altars of the old homestead. 2. Furthermore, the inkstand of the business man has its mission. Between now and the hour of your demise, O commercial man, O professional man, there will not be a day when you cannot dip from the inkhorn a message that will influence temporal and eternal destiny. There is a rash young man running into wild speculation, and with as much ink as you can put on the pen at one time you may save him from the Niagara rapids of a ruined life. On the next street there is a young man started in business, who through lack of patronage, or mistake in purchase of goods, or want of adaptation, is on the brink of collapse. One line of ink from your pen will save him from being an underling all his life, and start him on a career that will win him a fortune which will enable him to become an endower of libraries, an opener of art galleries, and builder of churches. 3. Furthermore, great are the responsibilities of the author's inkhorn. When a bad book is printed you do well to blame the publisher, but most of all blame the author. The malaria rose from his inkstand. The poison that caused the moral or spiritual death dropped in the fluid from the tip of his pen. But blessed be God for the author's inkhorn in ten thousand studies which are dedicated to pure intelligence, highest inspiration, and grandest purpose. They are the inkstands out of which will be dipped the redemption of the world. The destroying angels with their swords seen in Ezekiel's vision will be finally overcome by the merciful angel with the writer's inkhorn. Among the most important are the editorial and reportorial inkstands. You have all seen what is called indelible ink, which is a weak solution of silver nitrate, and that ink you cannot rub out or wash out. Put it there, and it stays. Well, the liquid of the editorial and reportorial inkstands is an indelible ink. It puts upon the souls of the passing generations characters of light or darkness that time cannot wash out and eternity cannot efface. Be careful how you use it. While you recognise the distinguished ones who have dipped into the inkstand of the world's evangelisation, do not forget that there are hundreds of thousands of unknown men and women who are engaged in inconspicuous ways doing the same thing! How many anxious mothers writing to the boys in town! How many sisters writing encouragement to brothers far away! How many bruised and disappointed and wronged souls of earth would be glad to get a letter from you! Stir up that consolatory inkhorn. All Christendom has been waiting for great revivals of religion to start from the pulpits and prayer meetings. I now suggest that the greatest revival of all time may start from a concerted and organised movement through the inkhorns of all Christendom, each writer dipping from the inkhorn nearest him a letter of Gospel invitation, Gospel hope, Gospel warning, Gospel instruction. The other angels spoken of in my text were destroying angels, and each had what the Bible calls a "slaughter weapon" in his hand. It was a lance, or a battle axe, or a sword. God hasten the time when the last lance shall be shivered, and the last battle axe dulled, and the last sword sheathed, never again to leave the scabbard, and the angel of the text, who Matthew Henry says was the Lord Jesus Christ, shall from the full inkhorn of His mercy give a saving call to all nations. That day may be far off, but it is hopeful to think of its coming. Is it not time that the boasted invention of new and more explosive and more widely devastating weapons of death be stopped forever, and the Gospel have a chance, and the question be not asked, How many shots can be fired in a minute? but how many souls may be ransomed in a day? Hail, Thou Mighty Rider of the white horse in the final triumph! Sweep down and sweep by, Thou Angel of the New Covenant, with the inkhorn of the world's evangelisation! ( T. De Witt Talmage. ) Set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh. Ezekiel 9:3-6 The protected people S. H. Tyng, D. D. I. GOD HAS A PEOPLE OF HIS OWN IN A WORLD OF SINNERS, WHO FEEL FOR HIS HONOUR, AND DESIRE TO SUSTAIN HIS AUTHORITY. These are the salt of the earth; the preservation of men. Set apart by the Lord, for Himself; made by the Holy Spirit, new creatures in Christ Jesus; standing with His robe of righteousness, complete in Him; instant in prayer; fruitful in holiness; and preferring the reproach of Christ to the treasures of the world; they are at once the ornament and the defence of mankind. And it imports an amazing amount of corruption and guilt in a land, when it is proclaimed that such men can but deliver their own souls, and shall be no longer the instruments to convey Divine blessings to others. These people of God have not sighed in listless idleness, or wept tears of fearful indolence, without an effort to stop the progress of man's iniquity. No. They are those who have first done all in active effort which they could do to restrain the wickedness of others; and who now, while they are mourning for their sins, are bearing their testimony with fidelity against them. Jealous for the honour of God, happy in the acceptance of a Saviour, knowing the comforts of the Holy Ghost, believing the revealed responsibility and destiny of sinful men, they long to the end of life for the salvation of the ungodly; and sigh and cry unto God, while they live, over a destruction in which they have no participation, and which men bring wholly upon themselves. II. THIS PEOPLE ARE ENTIRELY PROTECTED IN THE DESTRUCTION WHICH GOD BRINGS UPON THE UNGODLY. Amidst surrounding ungodliness, the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and He will hide them in His tabernacle, until the danger be overpast. They are marked by His infallible determination, and are sealed by His Spirit unto the day of redemption. Known by the mark of grace — grace which loved them, bought them, found them, brought them back, kept them, and crowned them — they stand before God, sanctified and secured. Happy in their eternal enjoyments. Happy in all their earthly sorrows. Happy, peculiarly in this, that they sighed and cried for the abominations of men, in their zeal for the honour of the Lord of hosts. III. WHILE THE PEOPLE OF GOD ARE THUS DISTINGUISHED AND PROTECTED, THE DESTRUCTION OF THE UNGODLY WILL BE ENTIRE. Long has God endeavoured to lead them to repentance; long has the Saviour stood waiting to receive them; long has the Divine Spirit exerted Himself to bring them back to Christ. And while all this was passing, they might have found a refuge in the Gospel, and have gained eternal life. But now the dispensation of mercy has been closed, and they are left, as they have chosen to be left, to the unbending operation of law. They die without mercy. They perish without redemption. They are destroyed forever. This destruction will begin with those who are most highly favoured with religious privileges. "Begin at My sanctuary," says the Lord to the angels of destruction. "Judgment must begin at the house of God," says the apostle Peter, as if in reference to this very passage of our text. Neither the pulpit nor the sanctuary; neither profession nor self-complacency shall afford protection to the sinner's soul. There is no respect of persons before the tribunal of the living God. The hypocrite shall be unveiled; the false professor shall be exhibited as he is; the self-righteous man shall be held up to view in his own deformities and unrepented sin shall everywhere see the destroying weapon, with an irreversible energy, coming upon itself. ( S. H. Tyng, D. D. ) The mark of life Dean Plumptre. The mark in this case was, as the Hebrew verb indicates, to be the letter Tau, the oldest form of which, as in Phoenician and earlier Hebrew alphabets, was that of a cross. Such a mark had been in use from the time of the Book of Job, as the equivalent of a signature (Job 21:36); or, as in later Arab use, was branded on sheep and cattle as a sign of ownership. To assume that there was any reference in it to the significance which was to attach to the sign of the cross in Christian symbolism would be, perhaps, too bold a hypothesis; but the fact that such a symbol appeared in the crux ansata (the cross with a handle to it) of Egyptian monuments, as the sign of life, may possibly have determined its selection in this instance, when it was used to indicate those who, as the people of Jehovah, bearing His stamp upon them, were to escape the doom of death passed upon the guilty. ( Dean Plumptre. ) Safety in time of destruction H. J. Owen. I. THE DESCRIPTION HERE GIVEN OF THOSE PERSONS WHOM THE MAN WITH THE WRITER'S INKHORN WAS COMMANDED IN THE DAY OF WRATH TO MARK UPON THE FOREHEAD. Idolatry, infidelity, mockery of God, appear to have been the principal part — the head and front of Israel's offending, and for this the destroyer was sent forth, and the hand of unrelenting, unsparing vengeance commanded to do its work. Are we individually and unfeignedly sighing and crying for England's abominations? Are we confessing our sins, and feeling the weight of personal transgressions, and acknowledging the power and faithfulness of God in pardoning and removing them? Are our hearts and hands uplifted for the land we dwell in? Are our voices as loud in prayer to God for mercy towards the guilty as they are to our fellow creatures in reprobation of them? II. WHAT IS THE NATURE OF THAT MARK TO WHICH THE PROPHET IN THE TEXT REFERS? We find similar language used by St. John in the Apocalypse ( Revelation 7:3, 4 ). Of whatever nature, then, the mark may be, it is expressive of, and a security for preservation. The allusion may be to the ancient custom of branding slaves upon the forehead, by which it was known whose property they were, or probably to that signalising mark of blood seen upon the door post of Israel, in Egypt, which secured them in the hour that the destroying angel smote the first-born of her oppressors. Both ideas may be involved, and from both we shall compound our idea of the mark. 1. There will be the blood, the mark of the blood, which blood, sprinkled upon the heart, disarms just vengeance, and secures it against the wrath of God. Is the blood upon your heart? — in plain terms, do you know its character, estimate its worth; rest upon its merits, and consider it as the mark of distinguishing grace and the security for certain preservation? 2. There is the mark of servitude. III. GOD'S COMMAND TO THE DESTROYERS. First the man with the inkhorn goes forth to secure God's chosen, and then goes forth the command unto the men with the slaughter weapons. "Begin at My sanctuary," slay, spare not. Christendom, generally, is His professed house, and England, in peculiar, is His sanctuary. The other nations have tasted a little of these judgments, and war and pestilence and forebodings of fresh evil are now among the bitter ingredients of the Continental cup of vengeance. But the time is come when judgment in her severest form must begin at the house of God — begin with us, and shake with its most appalling force, not merely those institutions which papal and schismatical revenge are bent on destroying, but the imposing fabric of evangelical profession. This sanctuary needs cleansing. This amalgamation of wheat and tares under the common aspect of wholesome grain needs sifting. ( H. J. Owen. ) The distinguishing signs of the righteous J. Burns, D. D. I. THE CHARACTERS DESCRIBED. 1. The characters are those who inwardly feel and lament on account of the abominations of men. They thus feel — (1) From a remembrance of their own former condition. (2) From a sincere concern for the glory of God. (3) From a deep compassion and love to souls. 2. The evidence of this inward feeling for souls. (1) The cry of a godly example. (2) The cry of earnest entreaty and admonition. (3) The cry of fervent prayer for their salvation. II. THE MARK APPOINTED. 1. A mark of distinction. 2. A Divine mark. 3. This mark is prominent. "In the forehead." Grace, in its essence, is secret, but always visible in its effects. 4. This mark is essential. III. THE DELIVERANCE SECURED. 1. From destruction. 2. Personal. 3. Certain.Application — 1. The subject furnishes a test of Christian character. Do we sigh and cry, etc. 2. It should be a stimulus to increased exertion. 3. Urge upon the exposed sinner the necessity of immediately obtaining the mark. ( J. Burns, D. D. ) The mark of deliverance E. Payson, D. D. When God visits the world, or any part of it, with His desolating judgments, He usually sets a mark of deliverance on such as are suitably affected with the sins of their fellow creatures. I. WHAT IS IMPLIED IN BEING SUITABLY AFFECTED WITH THE SINS OF OUR FELLOW CREATURES? That we are naturally disposed to be little or not at all affected with the sins of others, unless they tend, either directly or indirectly, to injure ourselves, it is almost needless to remark. If our fellow creatures infringe none of our real or supposed rights, and abstain from such gross vices as evidently disturb the peace of society, we usually feel little concern respecting their sins against God; but can see them following the broad road to destruction with great coolness and indifference, and without making any exertion, or feeling much desire to turn their feet into a safer path. This being the case, it is evident that a very great and radical change must take place in our views and feelings before we can be suitably affected with the sins of our fellow creatures, if the conduct of the persons mentioned in our text is the standard of what is suitable. 1. If we fear sin more than the punishment of sin; if we mourn rather for the iniquities than for the calamities which we witness; if we are more grieved to see God dishonoured, His Son neglected, and immortal souls ruined, than we are to see our commerce interrupted, our fellow citizens divided, and our country invaded it is one proof that we resemble the characters mentioned in our text. 2. Being suitably affected with the sins of our fellow creatures implies the diligent exertion, by every means in our power, to reform them. This attempt must be made —(1) By our example. Men are imitative beings; the force of example is almost inconceivably great, and there is, perhaps, no man so poor or insignificant as not to have some friend or dependant who may be influenced by his example.(2) By our exertions. We must endeavour ourselves, and exert all our influence to induce others, to banish from among us intemperance, profanity, violations of the Sabbath, neglect of religious institutions, and other prevailing sins of the age and country in which we live.(3) By our prayers. Exertion without prayer, and prayer without exertion, are alike presumptuous, and can be considered as only tempting God — and if we neglect either, we have no claim to be numbered among the characters described in our text. 3. Those who are suitably affected with the sins of their fellow creatures will certainly be much more deeply affected with their own. While they smart under the rod of national calamities, they will cordially acknowledge the justice of God, and feel that their own sins have assisted in forming the mighty mass of national guilt. II. ON SUCH AS ARE THUS AFFECTED, GOD WILL SET A MARK OF DELIVERANCE, WHEN THOSE AROUND THEM ARE DESTROYED BY HIS DESOLATING JUDGMENTS. This may be inferred — 1. From the justice of God. As they have separated themselves from others by their conduct, it requires that a mark of separation and deliverance should be set upon them by the hand of a righteous God. Hence the plea of Abraham with regard to Sodom, a plea of which God tacitly allowed the force. Witness the preservation of guilty Zoar for the sake of Lot, and the declaration of the destroying angel, I cannot do anything till thou be come thither. 2. From God's holiness. As a holy God He cannot but love holiness; He cannot but love His own image; He cannot but love those who love Him. But the characters of whom we are speaking evince by their conduct that they do love God. His cause, His interest, His honour, they consider as their own. A holy God, therefore, will, nay, He must, display His approbation of holiness by placing upon them a mark of distinction. 3. From His faithfulness. God has said, Them that honour Me I will honour. ( E. Payson, D. D. ) The character of Zion's mourners T. Boston, D. D. In the text we have two things. 1. A party distinguishing themselves from others in a sinning time. And this they do by their exercise, not by any particular name of sect or party, but by their practice.(1) The heavy exercise they have on their spirits at such a time. It is expressed by two words, both passive, importing that there is a load and a weight of grief and sorrow on them: which makes them sigh when others laugh; oppresses their spirits while others go lightly: and makes them cry. The word rather signifies to groan, as a deadly wounded man, who is hardly able to cry ( Jeremiah 51:52 ).(2) The ground of this their heavy exercise, the abominations done in the midst thereof. 2. Here is God's distinguishing that party from others in a suffering time, seeing to their safety when the men with the slaughter weapons were to go through.(1) Who gives the orders concerning them: The Lord said.(2) Who gets the orders about them: He that was clothed with linen, having a writer's inkhorn by his side. This is Jesus Christ, the Angel of the covenant. He appears here in all His offices: He is among the destroying angels as a king; He is clothed in linen as a priest; He has a writer's inkhorn by His side as a prophet.(3) The charge given concerning them.(i) To go through the midst of Jerusalem, the high streets. The mourners would be found there, by their carriage among others, testifying their dislike of the God-provoking abominations abounding among them.(ii) To set a mark upon them. This is to be done before the destroying angels get the word to fall on, to show the special care that God has of His own in the time of the greatest confusion.(iii) To set it in their foreheads. In the Egyptian destruction the mark was set on their door posts, because their whole families were to be saved; but here it was to be set on their foreheads, because it was only designed for particular persons. I. TIMES OF ABOUNDING SIN ARE HEAVY TIMES, TIMES OF SIGHING AND GROANING TO THE SERIOUS GODLY, ZION'S MOURNERS. I am to give the import of this exercise, and therein the character of Zion's mourners, to whom times of abounding sin are heavy times, times of sighing and groaning. 1. Zion's mourners are godly persons, who in respect of their state have come out from the world lying in wicked. ness, and joined themselves to Jesus Christ ( 1 John 5:19 ). 2. Waking godly persons, not sleeping with the foolish virgins. 3. Mourners for their own sins ( Ezekiel 7:16 ). 4. Public spirited persons, who are concerned to know how matters go in the generation wherein they live: how the interest of the Gospel thrives, what regard is had to the law and honour of God, what case religion is in, — whether Satan's kingdom is gaining or losing ground. 5. Tender persons, careful to keep their own garments clean in a defiling time, and dare not go along with the course of the times ( Revelation 3:4 ). 6. Zealous persons, opposing themselves to the current of abominations, as they have access ( Psalm 69:9 ). 7. Persons affected at the heart for the sins of the generation, to the making of them sigh and groan on that account before the Lord, when no eye sees but the all-seeing One ( Jeremiah 13:17 ).(1) The abominations done lie cross to the grain and disposition of their souls: otherwise they would not make them sigh and groan.(2) They are a burden to their spirits, as vile and filthy things are to the senses.(3) They are wounds to their hearts, they groan like wounded men ( Jeremiah 15:18 ).(4) Their grief vents itself in sighs and groans, as native indications of the affections of their hearts ( 2 Corinthians 5:4 ). II. WHY SUCH TIMES ARE HEAVY TIMES, TIMES OF SIGHING AND GROANING TO ZION'S MOURNERS. 1. Because of the dishonour they see done to God by these abominations ( Psalm 69:9 ). 2. Because of the wounds they see given to religion and the interest of Christ by these abominations, and the advantage they see accruing to the interest of the devil and his kingdom thereby ( Romans 2:24 ). (1) An arrow of grief for the loss on Christ's side. (2) An arrow of grief for the gain on the devil's side. 3. Because of the fearful risk they see the sinners themselves run by these their abominations ( Psalm 119:53 ). 4. Because of the contagion to others they see ready to spread from these abominations ( Matthew 18:7 ; Ecclesiastes 9:1 ). 5. Because of the judgments of God which they see may be brought upon those yet unborn, by reason of these abominations. Hence says the prophet ( Hosea 9:13, 14 ). 6. Because of the Lord's displeasure with the generation for these abominations ( Jeremiah 15:1 ). 7. Because of the common calamity in which they see these abounding abominations may involve themselves and the whole land. ( T. Boston, D. D. ) Mourning for other men's sins S. Charnock, B. D. I. IT IS A DUTY. If we are by the prescript of God to bewail in confession the sins of our forefathers, committed before our being in the world, certainly much more are we to lament the sins of the age wherein we live, as well as our own ( Leviticus 26:40 ). 1. This was the practice of believers in all ages. Seth called the name of his son, which was born at the time of the profaning the name of God in worship, Enos, which signifies sorrowful or miserable, that he might in the sight of his son have a constant monitor to excite him to an holy grief for the profaneness and idolatry that entered into the worship of God ( Genesis 4:26 ). The rational and most precious part of Lot was vexed with the unlawful deeds of the generation of Sodom, among whom he lived ( 2 Peter 2:7, 8 ). The meekest man upon earth, with grief and indignation breaks the tables of the law when he sees the holiness of it broken by the Israelites, and expresseth more his regret for that, than his honour for the material stones, wherein God had with His own finger engraven the orders of His will. David; a man of the greatest goodness upon record, had a deluge of tears, because they kept not God's law ( Psalm 119:136 ). Besides his grief, which was not a small one, horror seized upon him upon the same account ( Psalm 119:53 ). How doth poor Isaiah bewail himself, and the people among whom he lived ( Isaiah 6:5 ). Perhaps such as could hardly speak a word without an oath, or by hypocritical lip service, mocked God in the very temple. 2. It was our Saviour's practice. He sighed in His spirit for the incredulity of that generation, when they asked a sign, after so many had been presented to their

Benson Commentary Ezekiel 9:1 He cried also in mine ears with a loud voice, saying, Cause them that have charge over the city to draw near, even every man with his destroying weapon in his hand. Ezekiel 9:1-2 . He cried also in mine ears — Namely, the man whom he had seen upon the throne; with a loud voice — This denoted the terribleness of the judgments which were going to be inflicted. Cause them that have charge, &c. — That is, says Lowth, “the angels who had the charge of executing God’s judgments upon the city.” Or it may be intended of the Chaldean army, or of its principal leaders, who had a charge or commission against Jerusalem, to avenge the divine justice of it, because of its heinous provocations. The passage is prophetical of the slaughter which should be made of its inhabitants. And behold, &c. — No sooner was the command given, than these ministers of God’s displeasure appear ready to execute it. Six men — In the vision they appeared as men, and the prophet terms them according to their appearance. From the way of the higher gate — See note on Ezekiel 8:14 . Which lieth toward the north — The Babylonians made their inroads into Palestine, as has been more than once observed, from the north, and by this gate it seems, the Chaldeans first entered into the city. And every man a slaughter-weapon in his hand — Prepared for the work to which they were called. And one among them was clothed with linen — A garment proper to the priesthood; and the habit in which the angels often appeared, Daniel 10:5 ; Daniel 12:6-7 . This person, at least, seems to have been an angel, who had the charge given him of preserving those that were to be saved amidst the general destruction; with a writer’s inkhorn by his side — That he might set a mark on those who were to be preserved amidst the general slaughter. Thus, Revelation 7:2 , St. John in a vision saw an angel with the seal of the living God, and therewith the servants of God were sealed in their foreheads; “in allusion,” says Bishop Newton, “to the ancient custom of marking servants in their foreheads, to distinguish what they were, and to whom they belonged.” The position of the inkhorn, by the side of this writer, may appear strange to a European reader, but according to Olearius, Dr. Shaw, and others, the custom of placing it by the side continues in the East to this day. And they went in and stood beside the brazen altar — To denote that the men ordained to destruction were offered up as so many sacrifices to God’s justice. The destruction of the wicked is elsewhere expressed by the name of a sacrifice: see Ezekiel 39:17 ; Isaiah 29:2 ; Isaiah 34:6 . Ezekiel 9:2 And, behold, six men came from the way of the higher gate, which lieth toward the north, and every man a slaughter weapon in his hand; and one man among them was clothed with linen, with a writer's inkhorn by his side: and they went in, and stood beside the brasen altar. Ezekiel 9:3 And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon he was, to the threshold of the house. And he called to the man clothed with linen, which had the writer's inkhorn by his side; Ezekiel 9:3-4 . And the glory of God was gone to the threshold of the house — Namely, that glorious symbol of the divine presence which had been wont to appear between the cherubim upon the mercy-seat, was departed out of that inner sanctuary to the threshold or door of the temple, to show that God would shortly forsake his house, and withdraw himself from the Jews, because of their idolatries and other sins. The word cherub here stands for cherubim, as Ezekiel 10:2 . We must distinguish this apparition of the divine glory, which had its usual residence in the temple, from that which was shown particularly to Ezekiel 1:26 ; Ezekiel 3:23 . And he called to the man clothed with linen — He who sat on the throne, Ezekiel 1:26 , namely, the Son of God, gave his commands to the angel; and the Lord (Hebrew, Jehovah ) said unto him, Go through the midst of the city — From the one end to the other, or rather through all parts of it; and set a mark, &c. — To signify that distinction which God, by his providence, makes in times of common calamity between some and others, Isaiah 26:20 ; Jeremiah 39:16 ; Malachi 3:18 . For God in his greatest wrath against his enemies has a reserve of mercies for his people. Upon the foreheads of the men that sigh — Namely, out of grief, or who mourn for the sins and miseries of others; and cry for all the abominations, &c. — Who dare openly bewail the abominations of this wicked city, and so bear their testimony against it. The Vulgate renders the clause, Et signa Thau super frontes virorum gementium, &c. that is, “mark with the letter Thau the foreheads of the men who grieve, &c.” And it has been a long and prevailing opinion in the Christian Church, that the letter Thau was the mark here intended, namely, in the Samaritan character, supposed to have been used at that time by the Jews, and that the letter was written in the form of a cross, as St. Jerome attests in his commentary on the place. The prevalence of this opinion shows, at least, how early this use of the form of the cross prevailed in the Christian Church, which made way for the superstition and idolatry of the Papists in that particular. It is of more consequence to observe, that whatever this mark was, it was set upon the persons here described to signify that God owned them as his, and would spare and preserve them in the time of this general destruction. Observe, reader, a work of grace in the soul is to God a mark upon the forehead, which he will acknowledge as his mark, and by which he knows them that are his; and those who keep themselves pure in times of common iniquity, God will keep safe in times of common calamity. They that distinguish themselves shall be distinguished; they that cry for other men’s sins, shall not need to cry for their own afflictions; for they shall either be delivered from them, or comforted under them. Observe again: God is more careful of his people than vindictive against his enemies; for he orders the sealing of the mourners before the destruction of the rebels. Ezekiel 9:4 And the LORD said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof. Ezekiel 9:5 And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: Ezekiel 9:5-7 . To the others he said, Go ye after him and smite — That is, cut off and destroy all that are either guilty of, or accessory to the abominations of Jerusalem, and even all that do not sigh and cry for them, or that are not affected with grief and sorrow on account of them. Let not your eyes spare — You must not save any whom God has doomed to destruction. None needs to be more merciful than God is, and he had said, Ezekiel 8:18 , My eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity. Take notice, reader, those that live in sin, and hate to be reformed, shall perish in sin, and deserve not to be pitied; for they might easily have prevented their ruin, but would not. Slay utterly old and young, &c. — Make no distinction of age or sex. This was awfully fulfilled, partly by the sword of the Chaldeans, 2 Chronicles 36:17 , and partly by famine and pestilence, each of which calamities swept away multitudes. And begin at my sanctuary — That sanctuary, the horrid profanation of which Ezekiel had seen, as is described in the former chapter; they must begin there, because there the wickedness began which provoked God to send these judgments: the debaucheries of the priests were the poisoning of the springs from which all the corruption of the streams flowed. The wickedness of the sanctuary was of all other the most offensive to God, and therefore there the slaughter must begin. Begin there to try if the people will take warning by the judgments of God upon their priests, and will repent and reform: begin there, that all the world may see and know that the Lord, whose name is Jehovah, is a jealous God, and hates sin most in those that are nearest to him. Indeed when judgments are abroad in the earth, they commonly begin at the house of God, 1 Peter 4:17 , because such persons sin against greater light and clearer convictions, and abuse greater privileges than others. You only have I known, and therefore will I punish you, Amos 3:2 . God’s temple is a sanctuary, a place of refuge and protection for penitent sinners, but not for any that go on still in their trespasses; neither the sacredness of the place, nor the eminence of any one’s office or station in it, will be their security. But come not near any man upon whom is the mark — Do not harm, nay, do not so much as threaten, or put in fear, any one of these. The sense is, I will so order it by my providence, that none whom I have designed for preservation shall be destroyed. This prediction was remarkably fulfilled. Nebuchadnezzar gave particular orders that Jeremiah should be protected, Baruch and Ebed- melech were secured, and it is likely others of Jeremiah’s friends for his sake; God had promised that it should go well with his remnant, and that they should be well treated, Jeremiah 15:11 ; and we have reason to think that none of the mourning, praying remnant fell by the sword of the Chaldeans, but God found out some way or other to secure them all; as in the last destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, the Christians were all secured in a city on the mountains, called Pella, and none of them perished with the unbelieving Jews. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house — Namely, those who committed idolatry in the several courts and apartments belonging to the temple; that is, they strictly observed the orders given them, and began at God’s sanctuary, as they were commanded. And he said, Defile the house, and fill the courts with slain — God, abhorring the temple, as having been polluted with idolatry, here not only declares that he will no longer own it for his place of residence, but delivers up both the inner and outward courts belonging to it to be polluted with blood and slaughter. Let us observe well, that if the servants of God’s house defile it with their sins, God will justly suffer its enemies to defile it with their acts of violence. If the ministers and members of God’s church pollute it with their errors and impieties, God will take away its wall of defence, and expose it to the ravages of persecutors. And they went forth and slew in the city — So it was represented to the prophet in his vision, which was still continued, as a prediction of what should shortly be done in reality. Ezekiel 9:6 Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house. Ezekiel 9:7 And he said unto them, Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain: go ye forth. And they went forth, and slew in the city. Ezekiel 9:8 And it came to pass, while they were slaying them, and I was left, that I fell upon my face, and cried, and said, Ah Lord GOD! wilt thou destroy all the residue of Israel in thy pouring out of thy fury upon Jerusalem? Ezekiel 9:8 . And while they were slaying, and I was left — Having, as it is to be supposed, the mark of preservation set upon his forehead by the protecting angel. He seems to speak as if he thought he alone was preserved amidst the common destruction, although, certainly, all those who had a mark set upon them were preserved as well as he. I fell upon my face and cried, &c. — I appeared to myself in my vision to do so, namely, to fall down in a posture of supplication, to deprecate God’s anger, (see Numbers 12:5 ; and Numbers 16:4 ; Numbers 16:22 ; Numbers 16:45 ,) and to beseech him not to make an utter end of those small remains that were left of the Jewish nation, Jerusalem being almost the only place which was not in the enemy’s power. Ezekiel 9:9 Then said he unto me, The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great, and the land is full of blood, and the city full of perverseness: for they say, The LORD hath forsaken the earth, and the LORD seeth not. Ezekiel 9:9-10 . Then said he, The iniquity of the house of Israel, &c., is exceeding great — Here we have God’s denial of the prophet’s request for a mitigation of the judgment, and the justification of himself in that denial. 1st, Nothing could be said in extenuation of their guilt. God was as willing to show mercy as the prophet could desire, but here the case would not admit of it: it was such that mercy could not be granted without injuring justice; and it was not fit that one attribute of God should be glorified at the expense of another. Their crimes were so flagrant, that to grant them a reprieve would be a connivance at their sins. The land is full of blood — Blood unjustly shed, which always cries for vengeance. And the city full of perverseness — All judgment was perverted; in judges, to injustice; in priests, to idolatry; in all, to skepticism, or atheism. For they say, The Lord hath forsaken the earth — And hath left us to do what we will in it, and whatever wrong we do, he either knows it not, or will not take cognizance of it. Now how can those expect benefit from the mercy of God who thus bid defiance to his justice? Therefore, 2d, Nothing can be done to mitigate the sentence. Mine eye shall not spare, &c. — I have borne with them as long as it was fit such impudent sinners should be borne with, and therefore I will now recompense their way on their head. Ezekiel 9:10 And as for me also, mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity, but I will recompense their way upon their head. Ezekiel 9:11 And, behold, the man clothed with linen, which had the inkhorn by his side, reported the matter, saying, I have done as thou hast commanded me. Ezekiel 9:11 . And the man clothed with linen reported the matter — Gave an account of what he had done in pursuance of his commission; he had found out all that mourned in secret for the sins of the land, and cried out against them by a public testimony, and he had marked them in order to their preservation. Lord, I have done as thou hast commanded me — We do not find that those who were commissioned to destroy reported what destruction they had made, but he who was appointed to protect reported his matter; for it would be more pleasing, both to God and the prophet, to hear of those that were saved than of those that perished. Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary Ezekiel 9:1 He cried also in mine ears with a loud voice, saying, Cause them that have charge over the city to draw near, even every man with his destroying weapon in his hand. YOUR HOUSE IS LEFT UNTO YOU DESOLATE Ezekiel 8:1-18 ; Ezekiel 9:1-11 ; Ezekiel 10:1-22 ; Ezekiel 11:1-25 ONE of the most instructive phases of religious belief among the Israelites of the seventh century was the superstitious regard in which the Temple at Jerusalem was held. Its prestige as the metropolitan sanctuary had no doubt steadily increased from the time when it was built. But it was in the crisis of the Assyrian invasion that the popular sentiment in favour of its peculiar sanctity was transmuted into a fanatical faith in its inherent inviolability. It is well known that during the whole course of this invasion the prophet Isaiah had consistently taught that the enemy should never set foot within the precincts of the Holy City-that, on the contrary, the attempt to seize it would prove to be the signal for his annihilation. The striking fulfilment of this prediction in the sudden destruction of Sennacherib’s army had an immense effect on the religion of the time. It restored the faith in Jehovah’s omnipotence which was already giving way, and it granted a new lease of life to the very errors which it ought to have extinguished. For here, as in so many other cases, what was a spiritual faith in one generation became a superstition in the next. Indifferent to the divine truths which gave meaning to Isaiah’s prophecy, the people changed his sublime faith in the living God working in history into a crass confidence in the material symbol which had been the means of expressing it to their minds. Henceforth it became a fundamental tenet of the current creed that the Temple and the city which guarded it could never fall into the hands of an enemy; and any teaching which assailed that belief was felt to undermine confidence in the national deity. In the time of Jeremiah and Ezekiel this superstition existed in unabated vigour, and formed one of the greatest hindrances to the acceptance of their teaching. "The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord are these!" was the cry of the benighted worshippers as they thronged to its courts to seek the favour of Jehovah. { Jeremiah 7:4 } The same state of feeling must have prevailed among Ezekiel’s fellow exiles. To the prophet himself, attached as he was to the worship of the Temple, it may have been a thought almost too hard to bear that Jehovah should abandon the only place of His legitimate worship. Amongst the rest of the captives the faith in its infallibility was one of the illusions which must be overthrown before their minds could perceive the true drift of his teaching. In his first prophecy the fact had just been touched on, but merely as an incident in the fall of Jerusalem. About a year later, however, he received a new revelation, in which he learned that the destruction of the Temple was no mere incidental consequence of the capture of the city, but a main object of the calamity. The time was come when judgment must begin at the house of God. The weird vision in which this truth was conveyed to the prophet is said to have occurred during a visit of the elders to Ezekiel in his own house. In their presence he fell into a trance, in which the events now to be considered passed before him; and after the trance was removed he recounted the substance of the vision to the exiles. This statement has been somewhat needlessly called in question, on the ground that after so protracted an ecstasy the prophet would not be likely to find his visitors still in their places. But this matter-of-fact criticism overreaches itself. We have no means of determining how long it would take for this series of events to be realised. If we may trust anything to the analogy of dreams-and of all conditions to which ordinary men are subject the dream is surely the closest analogy to the prophetic ecstasy-the whole may have passed in an incredibly short space of time. If the statement were untrue, it is difficult to see what Ezekiel would have gained by making it. If the whole vision were a fiction, this must of course be fictitious too; but even so it seems a very superfluous piece of invention. We prefer, therefore, to regard the vision as real, and the assigned situation as historical; and the fact that it is recorded suggests that there must be some connection between the object of the visit and the burden of the revelation which was then communicated. It is not difficult to imagine points of contact between them. Ewald has conjectured that the occasion of the visit may have been some recent tidings from Jerusalem which had opened the eyes of the "elders" to the real relation that existed between them and their brethren at home. If they had ever cherished any illusions on the point, they had certainly been disabused of them before Ezekiel had this vision. They were aware, whether the information was recent or not, that they were absolutely disowned by the new authorities in Jerusalem, and that it was impossible that they should ever come back peaceably to their old place in the state. This created a problem which they could not solve, and the fact that Ezekiel had announced the fall of Jerusalem may have formed a bond of sympathy between him and his brethren in exile which drew them to him in their perplexity. Some such hypothesis gives at all events a fuller significance to the closing part of the vision, where the attitude of the men in Jerusalem is described, and where the exiles are taught that the hope of Israel’s future lies with them. It is the first time that Ezekiel has distinguished between the fates in store for the two sections of the people, and it would almost appear as if the promotion of the exiles to the first place in the true Israel was a new revelation to him. Twice during this vision he is moved to intercede for the "remnant of Israel," as if the only hope of a new people of God lay in sparing at least some of those who were left in the land. But the burden of the message that now comes to him is that in the spiritual sense the true remnant of Israel is not in Judaea, but among the exiles in Babylon. It was there that the new Israel was to be formed, and the land was to be the heritage, not of those who clung to it and exulted in the misfortunes of their banished brethren, but of those who under the discipline of exile were first prepared to use the land as Jehovah’s holiness demanded. The vision is interesting, in the first place, on account of the glimpse it affords of the state of mind prevailing in influential circles in Jerusalem at this time. There is no reason whatever to doubt that here in the form of a vision we have reliable information regarding the actual state of matters when Ezekiel wrote. It has been supposed by some critics that the description of the idolatries in the Temple does not refer to contemporary practices, but to abuses that had been rife in the days of Manasseh and had been put a stop to by Josiah’s reformation. But the vision loses half its meaning if it is taken as merely an idealised representation of all the sins that had polluted the Temple in the course of its history. The names of those who are seen must be names of living men known to Ezekiel and his contemporaries, and the sentiments put in their mouth, especially in the latter part of the vision, are suitable only to the age in which he lived. It is very probable that the description in its general features would also apply to the days of Manasseh; but the revival of idolatry which followed the death of Josiah would naturally take the form of a restoration of the illegal cults which had flourished unchecked under his grandfather. Ezekiel’s own experience before his captivity, and the steady intercourse which had been maintained since, would supply him with the material which in the ecstatic condition is wrought up into this powerful picture. The thing that surprises us most is the prevailing conviction amongst the ruling classes that "Jehovah had forsaken the land." These men seem to have partly emancipated themselves, as politicians in Israel were apt to do, from the restraints and narrowness of the popular religion. To them it was a conceivable thing that Jehovah should abandon His people. And yet life was worth living and fighting for apart from Jehovah. It was of course a merely selfish life, not inspired by national ideals, but simply a clinging to place and power. The wish was father to the thought; men who so readily yielded to the belief in Jehovah’s absence were very willing to be persuaded of its truth. The religion of Jehovah had always imposed a check on social and civic wrong, and men whose power rested on violence and oppression could not but rejoice to be rid of it. So they seem to have acquiesced readily enough in the conclusion to which so many circumstances seemed to point, that Jehovah had ceased to interest Himself either for good or evil in them and their affairs. Still, the wide acceptance of a belief like this, so repugnant to all the religious ideas of the ancient world, seems to require for its explanation some fact of contemporary history. It has been thought that it arose from the disappearance of the ark of Jehovah from the Temple. It seems from the third chapter of Jeremiah that the ark was no longer in existence in Josiah’s reign, and that the want of it was felt as a grave religious loss. It is not improbable that this circumstance, in connection with the disasters which had marked the last days of the kingdom, led in many minds to the fear and in some to the hope that along with His most venerable symbol Jehovah Himself had Vanished from their midst. It should be noticed that the feeling described was only one of several currents that ran in the divided society of Jerusalem. It is quite a different point of view that is presented in the taunt quoted in Ezekiel 11:15 , that the exiles were far from Jehovah, and had therefore lost their right to their possessions. But the religious despair is not only the most startling fact that we have to look at; it is also the one that is made most prominent in the vision. And the Divine answer to it given through Ezekiel is that the conviction is true; Jehovah has forsaken the land. But in the first place the cause of His departure is found in those very practices for which it was made the excuse: and in the second, although He has ceased to dwell in the midst of His people, He has lost neither the power nor the will to punish their iniquities. To impress these truths first on his fellow-exiles and then on the whole nation is the chief object of the chapter before us. Now we find that the general sense of God-forsakenness expressed itself principally in two directions. On the one hand it led to the multiplication of false objects of worship to supply the place of Him who was regarded as the proper tutelary Divinity of Israel; on the other hand, it produced a reckless, devil-may-care spirit of resistance against any odds, such as was natural to men who had only material interests to fight for, and nothing to trust in but their own right hand. Syncretism in religion and fatalism in politics-these were the twin symptoms of the decay of faith among the upper classes in Jerusalem. But these belong to two different parts of the vision which we must now distinguish. I. The first part deals with the departure of Jehovah as caused by religious offences perpetrated in the Temple, and with the return of Jehovah to destroy the city on account of these offences. The prophet is transported in "visions of God" to Jerusalem and placed in the outer court near the northern gate, outside of which was the site where the "image of Jealousy" had stood in the time of Manasseh. Near him stands the appearance which he had learned to recognise as the glory of Jehovah, signifying that Jehovah has, for a purpose not yet disclosed, revisited His Temple. But first Ezekiel must be made to see the state of things which exists in this Temple which had once been the seat of God’s presence. Looking through the gate to the north, he discovers that the image of Jealousy has been restored to its old place. This is the first and apparently the least heinous of the abominations that defiled the sanctuary. The second scene is the only one of the four which represents a secret cult. Partly perhaps for that reason it strikes our minds as the most repulsive of all; but that was obviously not Ezekiel’s estimate of it. There are greater abominations to follow. It is difficult to understand the particulars of Ezekiel’s description, especially in the Hebrew text (the LXX is simpler); but it seems impossible to escape the impression that there was something obscene in a worship where idolatry appears as ashamed of itself. The essential fact, however, is that the very highest and most influential men in the land were addicted to a form of heathenism, whose objects of worship were pictures of "horrid creeping things, and cattle, and all the gods of the house of Israel." The name of one of these men, the leader in this superstition, is given, and is significant of the state of life in Jerusalem shortly before its fall. Jaazaniah was the son of Shaphan, who is probably identical with the chancellor of Josiah’s reign whose sympathy with the prophetic teaching was evinced by his zeal in the cause of reform. We read of other members of the family who were faithful to the national religion, such as his son Ahikam, also a zealous reformer, and his grandson Gedaliah, Jeremiah’s friend and patron, and the governor appointed over Judah by Nebuchadnezzar after the taking of the city. The family was thus divided both in religion and politics. While one branch was devoted to the worship of Jehovah and favoured submission to the king of Babylon, Jaazaniah belonged to the opposite party and was the ringleader in a peculiarly obnoxious form of idolatry. The third "abomination" is a form of idolatry widely diffused over Western Asia-the annual mourning for Tammuz. Tammuz was originally a Babylonian deity ( Dumuzi ), but his worship is specially identified with Phoenicia, whence under the name Adonis it was introduced into Greece. The mourning celebrates the death of the god, which is an emblem of the decay of the earth’s productive powers, whether due to the scorching heat of the sin or to the cold of winter. It seems to have been a comparatively harmless rite of nature-religion, and its popularity among the women of Jerusalem at this time may be due to the prevailing mood of despondency which found vent in the sympathetic contemplation of that aspect of nature which most suggests decay and death. The last and greatest of the abominations practised in and near the Temple is the worship of the sun. The peculiar enormity of this species of idolatry can hardly lie in the object of adoration; it is to be sought rather in the place where it was practised, and in the rank of those who took part in it, who were probably priests. Standing between the porch and the altar, with their backs to the Temple, these men unconsciously expressed the deliberate rejection of Jehovah which was involved in their idolatry. The worship of the heavenly bodies was probably imported into Israel from Assyria and Babylon, and its prevalence in the later years of the monarchy was due to political rather than religious influences. The gods of these imperial nations were esteemed more potent than those of the states which succumbed to their power, and hence men who were losing confidence in their national deity naturally sought to imitate the religions of the most powerful peoples known to them. In the arrangement of the four specimens of the religious practices which prevailed in Jerusalem, Ezekiel seems to proceed from the most familiar and explicable to the more outlandish defections from the purity of the national faith. At the same time his description shows how different classes of society were implicated in the sin of idolatry-the elders, the women, and the priests. During all this time the glory of Jehovah has stood in the court, and there is something very impressive in the picture of these infatuated men and women preoccupied with their unholy devotions and all unconscious of the presence of Him whom they deemed to have forsaken the land. To the open eye of the prophet the meaning of the vision must be already clear, but the sentence comes from the mouth of Jehovah Himself: "Hast thou seen, Son of man? Is it too small a thing for the house of Judah to practise the abominations which they have here practised, that they must also fill the land with violence, and (so) provoke Me again to anger? So will I act towards them in anger: My eye shall not pity, nor will I spare." { Ezekiel 8:17-18 } The last words introduce the account of the punishment or Jerusalem, which is given of course in the symbolic form suggested by the scenery of the vision. Jehovah has meanwhile risen from His throne near the cherubim, and stands on the threshold of the Temple. There He summons to His side the destroyers who are to execute His purpose-six angels, each with a weapon of destruction in his hand. A seventh of higher rank clothed in linen appears with the implements of a scribe in his girdle. These stand "beside the brasen altar," and await the commands of Jehovah. The first act of the judgment is a massacre of the inhabitants of the city, without distinction of age or rank or sex. But, in accordance with his strict view of the Divine righteousness, Ezekiel is led to conceive of this last judgment as discriminating carefully between the righteous and the wicked. All those who have inwardly separated themselves from the guilt of the city by hearty detestation of the iniquities perpetrated in its midst are distinguished by a mark on their foreheads before the work of slaughter begins. What became of this faithful remnant it does not belong to the vision to declare. Beginning with the twenty men before the porch, the destroying angels follow the man with the inkhorn through the streets of the city, and slay all on whom he has not set his mark. When the messengers have gone out on their dread errand, Ezekiel, realising the full horror of a scene which he dare not describe, falls prostrate before Jehovah, deprecating the outbreak of indignation which threatened to extinguish "the remnant of Israel." He is reassured by the declaration that the guilt of Judah and Israel demands no less a punishment than this, because the notion that Jehovah had forsaken the land had opened the floodgates of iniquity, and filled the land with bloodshed and the city with oppression. Then the man in the linen robes returns and announces, "It is done as Thou hast commanded." The second act of the judgment is the destruction of Jerusalem by fire. This is symbolised by the scattering over the city of burning coals taken from the altar-hearth under the throne of God. The man with the linen garments is directed to step between the wheels and take out fire for this purpose. The description of the execution of this order is again carried no further than what actually takes place before the prophet’s eyes: the man took the fire and went out. In the place where we might have expected to have an account of the destruction of the city, we have a second description of the appearance and motions of the merkaba, the purpose of which it is difficult to divine. Although it deviates slightly from the account in chapter 1, the differences appear to have no significance, and indeed it is expressly said to be the same phenomenon. The whole passage is certainly superfluous, and might be omitted but for the difficulty of imagining any motive that would have tempted a scribe to insert it. We must keep in mind the possibility that this part of the book had been committed to writing before the final redaction of Ezekiel’s prophecies, and the description in Ezekiel 8:8-17 may have served a purpose there which is superseded by the fuller narrative which we now possess in chapter 1. In this way Ezekiel penetrates more deeply into the inner meaning of the judgment on city and people whose external form he had announced in his earlier prophecy. It must be admitted that Jehovah’s strange work bears to our minds a more appalling aspect when thus presented in symbols than the actual calamity would bear when effected through the agency of second causes. Whether it had the same effect on the mind of a Hebrew, who hardly believed in second causes, is another question. In any case it gives no ground for the charge made against Ezekiel of dwelling with a malignant satisfaction on the most repulsive features of a terrible picture. He is indeed capable of a rigorous logic in exhibiting the incidence of the law of retribution which was to him the necessary expression of the Divine righteousness. That it included the death of every sinner and the overthrow of a city that had become a scene of violence and cruelty was to him a self-evident truth, and more than this the vision does not teach. On the contrary, it contains traits which tend to moderate the inevitable harshness of the truth conveyed. With great reticence it allows the execution of the judgment to take place behind the scenes, giving only those details which were necessary to suggest its nature. While it is being carried out the attention of the reader is engaged in the presence of Jehovah, or his mind is occupied with the principles which made the punishment a moral necessity. The prophet’s expostulations with Jehovah show that he was not insensible to the miseries of his people, although he saw them to be inevitable. Further, this vision shows as clearly as any passage in his writings the injustice of the view which represents him as more concerned for petty details of ceremonial than for the great moral interests of a nation. If any feeling expressed in the vision is to ‘be regarded as Ezekiel’s own, then indignation against outrages on human life and liberty must be allowed to weigh more with him than offences against ritual purity. And, finally, it is clearly one object of the vision to show that in the destruction of Jerusalem no individual shall be involved who is not also implicated in the guilt which calls down wrath upon her. II. The second part of the vision (chapter 11) is hut loosely connected with the first. Here Jerusalem still exists, and men are alive who must certainly have perished in the "visitation of the city" if the writer had still kept himself within the limits of his previous conception. But in truth the two have little in common, except the Temple, which is the scene of both, and the cherubim, whose movements mark the transition from the one to the other. The glory of Jehovah is already departing from the house when it is stayed at the entrance of the east gate, to give the prophet his special message to the exiles. Here we are introduced to the more political aspect of the situation in Jerusalem. The twenty-five men who are gathered in the east gate of the Temple are clearly the leading statesmen in the city; and two of them, whose names are given, are expressly designated as "princes of the people." They are apparently met in conclave to deliberate on public matters, and a word from Jehovah lays open to the prophet the nature of their projects. "These are the men that plan ruin, and hold evil counsel in this city." The evil counsel is undoubtedly the project of rebellion against the king of Babylon which must have been hatched at this time and which broke out into open revolt about three years later. The counsel was evil because directly opposed to that which Jeremiah was giving at the time in the name of Jehovah. But Ezekiel also throws invaluable light on the mood of the men who were urging the king along the path which led to ruin. "Are not the houses recently built?" they say, congratulating themselves on their success in repairing the damage done to the city in the time of Jehoiachin. The image of the pot and the flesh is generally taken to express the feeling of easy security in the fortifications of Jerusalem with which these light-hearted politicians embarked on a contest with Nebuchadnezzar. But their mood must be a gloomier one than that if there is any appropriateness in the language they use. To stew in their own juice, and over a fire of their own kindling, could hardly seem a desirable policy to sane men, however strong the pot might be. These councillors are well aware of the dangers they incur, and of the misery which their purpose must necessarily bring on the people. But they are determined to hazard everything and endure everything on the chance that the city may prove strong enough to baffle the resources of the king of Babylon. Once the fire is kindled, it will certainly be better to be in the pot than in the fire; and so long as Jerusalem holds out they will remain behind her walls. The answer which is put into the prophet’s mouth is that the issue will not be such as they hope for. The only "flesh" that will be left in the city will be the dead bodies of those who have been slain within her walls by the very men who hope that their lives will be given them for a prey. They themselves shall be dragged forth to meet their fate far away from Jerusalem on the "borders of Israel." It is not unlikely that these conspirators kept their word. Although the king and all the men of war fled from the city as soon as a breach was made, we read of certain high officials who allowed themselves to be taken in the city. { Jeremiah 52:7 } Ezekiel’s prophecy was in their case literally fulfilled; for these men and many others were brought to the king of Babylon at Riblah, "and he smote them and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath." While Ezekiel was uttering this prophecy one of the councillors, named Pelatiah, suddenly fell down dead. Whether a man of this name had suddenly died in Jerusalem under circumstances that had deeply impressed the prophet’s mind, or whether the death belongs to the vision, it is impossible for us to tell. To Ezekiel the occurrence seemed an earnest of the complete destruction of the remnant of Israel by the wrath of God, and, as before, he fell on his face to intercede for them. It is then that he receives the message which seems to form the Divine answer to the perplexities which haunted the minds of the exiles in Babylon. In their attitude towards the exiles the new leaders in Jerusalem took up a position as highly privileged religious persons, quite at variance with the scepticism which governed their conduct at home. When they were following the bent of their natural inclinations by practising idolatry and perpetrating judicial murders in the city, their cry was, "Jehovah hath forsaken the land; Jehovah seeth it not." When they were eager to justify their claim to the places and possessions left vacant by their banished countrymen, they said, "They are far from Jehovah: to us the land is given in possession." They were probably equally sincere and equally insincere in both professions. They had simply learned the art which comes easily to men of the world of using religion as a cloak for greed, and throwing it off when greed could be best gratified without it. The idea which lay under their religious attitude was that the exiles had gone into captivity because their sins had incurred Jehovah’s anger, and that now His wrath was exhausted and the blessing of His favour would rest on those who had been left in the land. There was sufficient plausibility in the taunt to make it peculiarly galling to the mind of the exiles, who had hoped to exercise some influence over the government in Jerusalem, and to find their places kept for them when they should be permitted to return. It may well have been the resentment produced by tidings of this hostility towards them in Jerusalem that brought their elders to the house of Ezekiel to see if he had not some message from Jehovah to reassure them. In the mind of Ezekiel, however, the problem took another form. To him a return to the old Jerusalem had no meaning; neither buyer nor seller should have cause to congratulate himself on his position. The possession of the land of Israel belonged to those in whom Jehovah’s ideal of the new Israel was realised, and the only question of religious importance was, Where is the germ of this new Israel to be found? Amongst those who survive the judgment in the old land, or amongst those who have experienced it in the form of banishment? On this point the prophet receives an explicit revelation in answer to his intercession for "the remnant of Israel." "Son of man, thy brethren, thy brethren, thy fellow-captives, and the whole house of Israel of whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, They are far from Jehovah: to us it is given-the land for an inheritance! Because I have removed them far among the nations, and have scattered them among the lands, and have been to them but little of a sanctuary in the lands where they have gone, therefore say, Thus saith Jehovah, so will I gather you from the peoples, and bring you from the lands where ye have been scattered, and will give you the land of Israel." The difficult expression "I have been but little of a sanctuary" refers to the curtailment of religious privileges and means of access to Jehovah which was a necessary consequence of exile. It implies, however, that Israel in banishment had learned in some measure to preserve that separation from other peoples and that peculiar relation to Jehovah which constituted its national holiness. Religion perhaps perishes sooner from the overgrowth of ritual than from its deficiency. It is a historical fact that the very meagreness of the religion which could be practised in exile was the means of strengthening the more spiritual and permanent elements which constitute the essence of religion. The observances which could be maintained apart from the Temple acquired an importance which they never afterwards lost; and although some of these, such as circumcision, the Passover, the abstinence from forbidden food, were purely ceremonial, others, such as prayer, reading of the Scriptures, and the common worship of the synagogue, represent the purest and most indispensable forms in which communion with God can find expression. That Jehovah Himself became even in small measure what the word "sanctuary" denotes indicates an enrichment of the religious consciousness of which perhaps Ezekiel himself did not perceive the full import. The great lesson which Ezekiel’s message seeks to impress on his hearers is that the tenure of the land of Israel depends on religious conditions. The land is Jehovah’s, and He bestows it on those who are prepared to use it as His holiness demands. A pure land inhabited by a pure people is the ideal that underlies all Ezekiel’s visions of the future. It is evident that in such a conception of the relation between God and His people ceremonial conditions must occupy a conspicuous place. The sanctity of the land is necessarily of a ceremonial order, and so the sanctity of the people must consist partly in a scrupulous regard for ceremonial requirements. But after all the condition of the land with respect to purity or uncleanness only reflects the character of the nation whose home it is. The things that defile a land are such things as idols and other emblems of heathenism, innocent blood unavenged, and unnatural crimes of various kinds. These things derive their whole significance from the state of mind and heart which they embody; they are the plain and palpable emblems of human sin. It is conceivable that to some minds the outward emblems may have seemed the true seat of evil, and their removal an end in itself apart from the direction of the will by which it was brought about. But it would be a mistake to charge Ezekiel with any such obliquity of moral vision. Although he conceives sin as a defilement that leaves its mark on the material world, he clearly teaches that its essence lies in the opposition of the human will to the will of God. The ceremonial purity required of every Israelite is only the expression of certain aspects of Jehovah’s holy nature, the bearing of which on man’s spiritual life may have been obscure to the prophet, and is still more obscure to us. And the truly valuable element in compliance with such rules was the obedience to Jehovah’s expressed will which flowed from a nature in sympathy with His. Hence in this chapter, while th