{"commentary":{"id":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","website":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamieson-Fausset-Brown_Bible_Commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"db3d4c8b3c1f32ef9d1430a57392e02bda3a17aac1f9bbe398461de021a3cb13","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":66,"totalNumberOfChapters":1187,"totalNumberOfVerses":17056,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"EZK","commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Ezekiel","commonName":"Ezekiel","introduction":"The name Ezekiel means \"(whom) God will strengthen\" [GESENIUS]; or, \"God will prevail\" [ROSENMULLER]. His father was Buzi (Eze 1:3), a priest, and he probably exercised the priestly office himself at Jerusalem, previous to his captivity, as appears from the matured priestly character to be seen in his prophecies, a circumstance which much increased his influence with his captive fellow countrymen at Babylon. Tradition represents Sarera as the land of his nativity. His call to prophesy was in the fifth year from the date of his being carried away with Jehoiachin (see Kg2 24:11-15) by Nebuchadnezzar, 599 B.C. The best portions of the people seem to have been among the first carried away (Eze 11:16; Jer 24:2-7-8, Jer 24:10). The ungodly were willing to do anything to remain in their native land; whereas the godly believed the prophets and obeyed the first summons to surrender, as the only path of safety. These latter, as adhering to the theocratic principle, were among the earliest to be removed by the Chaldeans, who believed that, if they were out of the way, the nation would fall to pieces of itself. They were despised by their brethren in the Holy Land not yet captives, as having no share in the temple sacrifices. Thus Ezekiel's sphere of labor was one happier and less impeded by his countrymen than that of Jeremiah at home. The vicinity of the river Chebar, which flows into the Euphrates near Circeslum, was the first scene of his prophecies (Eze 1:1). Tel-Abib there (now Thallaba) was his place of residence (Eze 3:15), whither the elders used to come to inquire as to God's messages through him. They were eager to return to Jerusalem, but he taught them that they must first return to their God. He continued to prophesy for at least twenty-two years, that is, to the twenty-seventh year of the captivity (Eze 29:17), and probably remained with the captives by the Chebar the rest of his life. A treatise, falsely attributed to EPIPHANIUS, states a tradition that he was killed at Babylon by a prince of his people whom he had reproved for idolatry.\n\nHe was contemporary with Jeremiah and Daniel. The former had prophesied for thirty-four years before Ezekiel, and continued to do so for six or seven years after him. The call of Ezekiel followed the very next year after the communication of Jeremiah's predictions to Babylon (Jer 51:59), and was divinely intended as a sequel to them. Daniel's predictions are mostly later than Ezekiel's but his piety and wisdom had become proverbial in the early part of Ezekiel's ministry (Eze 14:14, Eze 14:16; Eze 28:3). They much resemble one another, especially in the visions and grotesque images. It is a remarkable proof of genuineness that in Ezekiel no prophecies against Babylon occur among those directed against the enemies of the covenant-people. Probably he desired not to give needless offence to the government under which he lived. The effect of his labors is to be seen in the improved character of the people towards the close of the captivity, and their general cessation from idolatry and a return to the law. It was little more than thirty years after the close of his labors when the decree of the Jews' restoration was issued. His leading characteristic is realizing, determined energy; this admirably adapted him for opposing the \"rebellious house\" \"of stubborn front and hard heart,\" and for maintaining the cause of God's Church among his countrymen in a foreign land, when the external framework had fallen to pieces. His style is plain and simple. His conceptions are definite, and the details even of the symbolical and enigmatical parts are given with lifelike minuteness. The obscurity lies in the substance, not in the form, of his communications. The priestly element predominates in his prophecies, arising from his previous training as a priest. He delights to linger about the temple and to find in its symbolical forms the imagery for conveying his instructions. This was divinely ordered to satisfy the spiritual want felt by the people in the absence of the outward temple and its sacrifices. In his images he is magnificent, though austere and somewhat harsh. He abounds in repetitions, not for ornament, but for force and weight. Poetical parallelism is not found except in a few portions, as in the seventh, twenty-first, twenty-seventh, twenty-eighth, twenty-ninth through thirty-first chapters. His great aim was to stimulate the dormant minds of the Jews. For this end nothing was better suited than the use of mysterious symbols expressed in the plainest words. The superficial, volatile, and wilfully unbelieving would thereby be left to judicial blindness (Isa 6:10; Mat 13:11-13, &c.); whereas the better-disposed would be awakened to a deeper search into the things of God by the very obscurity of the symbols. Inattention to this divine purpose has led the modern Jews so to magnify this obscurity as to ordain that no one shall read this book till he has passed his thirtieth year.\n\nRABBI HANANIAS is said to have satisfactorily solved the difficulties (Mischna) which were alleged against its canonicity. Ecclesiasticus 49:8 refers to it, and JOSEPHUS [Antiquities, 10.5.1]. It is mentioned as part of the canon in MELITO'S catalogue [EUSEBIUS, Ecclesiastical History, 4.26]; also in ORIGEN, JEROME, and the Talmud. The oneness of tone throughout and the repetition of favorite expressions exclude the suspicion that separate portions are not genuine. The earlier portion, the first through the thirty-second chapters, which mainly treats of sin and judgment, is a key to interpret the latter portion, which is more hopeful and joyous, but remote in date. Thus a unity and an orderly progressive character are imparted to the whole. The destruction of Jerusalem is the central point. Previous to this he calls to repentance and warns against blind confidence in Egypt (Eze 17:15-17; compare Jer 37:7) or other human stay. After it he consoles the captives by promising them future deliverance and restoration. His prophecies against foreign nations stand between these two great divisions, and were uttered in the interval between the intimation that Nebuchadnezzar was besieging Jerusalem and the arrival of the news that he had taken it (Eze 33:21). HAVERNICK marks out nine sections:--(1) Ezekiel's call to prophesy (Eze. 1:1-3:15). (2) Symbolical predictions of the destruction of Jerusalem (Eze. 3:16-7:27). (3) A year and two months later a vision of the temple polluted by Tammuz or Adonis worship; God's consequent scattering of fire over the city and forsaking of the temple to reveal Himself to an inquiring people in exile; happier and purer times to follow (Eze. 8:1-11:25). (4) Exposure of the particular sins prevalent in the several classes--priests, prophets, and princes (Eze. 12:1-19:14). (5) A year later the warning of judgment for national guilt repeated with greater distinctness as the time drew nearer (Eze. 20:1-23:49). (6) Two years and five months later--the very day on which Ezekiel speaks--is announced as the day of the beginning of the siege; Jerusalem shall be overthrown (Eze. 24:1-27). (7) Predictions against foreign nations during the interval of his silence towards his own people; if judgment begins at the house of God, much more will it visit the ungodly world (Eze. 25:1-32:32). Some of these were uttered much later than others, but they all began to be given after the fall of Jerusalem. (8) In the twelfth year of the captivity, when the fugitives from Jerusalem (Eze 33:21) had appeared in Chaldea, he foretells better times and the re-establishment of Israel and the triumph of God's kingdom on earth over its enemies, Seir, the heathen, and Gog (Eze. 33:1-39:29). (9) After an interval of thirteen years the closing vision of the order and beauty of the restored kingdom (Eze. 40:1-48:35). The particularity of details as to the temple and its offerings rather discountenances the view of this vision being only symbolical, and not at all literal. The event alone can clear it up. At all events it has not yet been fulfilled; it must be future. Ezekiel was the only prophet (in the strict sense) among the Jews at Babylon. Daniel was rather a seer than a prophet, for the spirit of prophecy was given him to qualify him, not for a spiritual office, but for disclosing future events. His position in a heathen king's palace fitted him for revelations of the outward relations of God's kingdom to the kingdoms of the world, so that his book is ranked by the Jews among the Hagiographa or \"Sacred Writings,\" not among the prophetical Scriptures. On the other hand, Ezekiel was distinctively a prophet, and one who had to do with the inward concerns of the divine kingdom. As a priest, when sent into exile, his service was but transferred from the visible temple at Jerusalem to the spiritual temple in Chaldea. \n\n\n\nNext: Ezekiel Chapter 1\n\n","order":26,"numberOfChapters":48,"sha256":"77a36f7a59a5d4db239b980af31f7a75c9b226da690c4d0154330b6770f5cfc5","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/EZK/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"EZK","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":48,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/EZK/48.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"EZK","chapter":48},"totalNumberOfVerses":932},"chapter":{"number":11,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":2,"content":["he--the Lord sitting on the cherubim (Eze 10:2). \n\nwicked counsel--in opposition to the prophets of God (Eze 11:3).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["It is not near--namely, the destruction of the city; therefore \"let us build houses,\" as if there was no fear. But the Hebrew opposes English Version, which would require the infinitive absolute. Rather, \"Not at hand is the building of houses.\" They sneer at Jeremiah's letter to the captives, among whom Ezekiel lived (Jer 29:5). \"Build ye houses, and dwell in them,\" that is, do not fancy, as many persuade you, that your sojourn in Babylon is to be short; it will be for seventy years (Jer 25:11-12; Jer 29:10); therefore build houses and settle quietly there. The scorners in Jerusalem reply, Those far off in exile may build if they please, but it is too remote a concern for us to trouble ourselves about [FAIRBAIRN], (Compare Eze 12:22, Eze 12:27; Pe2 3:4). \n\nthis city . . . caldron . . . we . . . flesh--sneering at Jer 1:13, when he compared the city to a caldron with its mouth towards the north. \"Let Jerusalem be so if you will, and we the flesh, exposed to the raging foe from the north, still its fortifications will secure us from the flame of war outside; the city must stand for our sakes, just as the pot exists for the safety of the flesh in it.\" In opposition to this God says (Eze 11:11), \"This city shall not be your caldron, to defend you in it from the foe outside: nay, ye shall be driven out of your imaginary sanctuary and slain in the border of the land. \"But,\" says God, in Eze 11:7, \"your slain are the flesh, and this city the caldron; but (not as you fancy, shall ye be kept safe inside) I will bring you forth out of the midst of it\"; and again, in Eze 24:3, \"Though not a caldron in your sense, Jerusalem shall be so in the sense of its being exposed to a consuming foe, and you yourselves in it and with it.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["prophesy . . . prophesy--The repetition marks emphatic earnestness.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["Spirit . . . fell upon me--stronger than \"entered into me\" (Eze 2:2; Eze 3:24), implying the zeal of the Spirit of God roused to immediate indignation at the contempt of God shown by the scorners. \n\nI know-- (Psa 139:1-4). Your scornful jests at My word escape not My notice.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["your slain--those on whom you have brought ruin by your wicked counsels. Bloody crimes within the city brought on it a bloody foe from without (Eze 7:23-24). They had made it a caldron in which to boil the flesh of God's people (Mic 3:1-3), and eat it by unrighteous oppression; therefore God will make it a caldron in a different sense, one not wherein they may be safe in their guilt, but \"out of the midst of\" which they shall be \"brought forth\" (Jer 34:4-5).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["The city is a caldron to them, but it shall not be so to you. Ye shall meet your doom on the frontier.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["The Chaldean sword, to escape which ye abandoned your God, shall be brought on you by God because of that very abandonment of Him.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["out of the midst thereof--that is, of the city, as captives led into the open plain for judgment.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":10,"content":["in the border of Israel--on the frontier: at Riblah, in the land of Hamath (compare Kg2 25:19-21, with Kg1 8:65). \n\nye shall know that I am the Lord--by the judgments I inflict (Psa 9:16).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":11,"content":["(See on Eze 11:3).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["(Deu 12:30-31).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["Pelaliah--probably the ringleader of the scorners (Eze 11:1) was an earnest of the destruction of the rest of the twenty-five, as Ezekiel had foretold, as also of the general ruin. \n\nfell . . . upon . . . face--(See on Eze 9:8). \n\nwilt thou make a full end of the remnant--Is Pelatiah's destruction to be the token of the destruction of all, even of the remnant? The people regarded Pelatiah as a mainstay of the city. His name (derived from a Hebrew root, \"a remnant,\" or else \"God delivers\") suggested hope. Is that hope, asks Ezekiel, to be disappointed?\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["thy brethren . . . brethren--The repetition implies, \"Thy real brethren\" are no longer the priests at Jerusalem with whom thou art connected by the natural ties of blood and common temple service, but thy fellow exiles on the Chebar, and the house of Israel whosoever of them belong to the remnant to be spared. \n\nmen of thy kindred--literally, \"of thy redemption,\" that is, the nearest relatives, whose duty it was to do the part of Goel, or vindicator and redeemer of a forfeited inheritance (Lev 25:25). Ezekiel, seeing the priesthood doomed to destruction, as a priest, felt anxious to vindicate their cause, as if they were his nearest kinsmen and he their Goel. But he is told to look for his true kinsmen in those, his fellow exiles, whom his natural kinsmen at Jerusalem despised, and he is to be their vindicator. Spiritual ties, as in the case of Levi (Deu 33:9), the type of Messiah (Mat 12:47-50) are to supersede natural ones where the two clash. The hope of better days was to rise from the despised exiles. The gospel principle is shadowed forth here, that the despised of men are often the chosen of God and the highly esteemed among men are often an abomination before Him (Luk 16:15; Co1 1:26-28). \"No door of hope but in the valley of Achor\" (\"trouble,\" Hos 2:15), [FAIRBAIRN]. \n\nGet you far . . . unto us is this land--the contemptuous words of those left still in the city at the carrying away of Jeconiah to the exiles, \"However far ye be outcasts from the Lord and His temple, we are secure in our possession of the land.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":16,"content":["Although--anticipating the objection of the priests at Jerusalem, that the exiles were \"cast far off.\" Though this be so, and they are far from the outer temple at Jerusalem, I will be their asylum or sanctuary instead (Psa 90:1; Psa 91:9; Isa 8:14). My shrine is the humble heart: a preparation for gospel catholicity when the local and material temple should give place to the spiritual (Isa 57:15; Isa 66:1; Mal 1:11; Joh 4:21-24; Act 7:48-49). The trying discipline of the exile was to chasten the outcasts so as to be meet recipients of God's grace, for which the carnal confidence of the priests disqualified them. The dispersion served the end of spiritualizing and enlarging the views even of the better Jews, so as to be able to worship God everywhere without a material temple; and, at the same time, it diffused some knowledge of God among the greatest Gentile nations, thus providing materials for the gathering in of the Christian Church among the Gentiles; so marvellously did God overrule a present evil for an ultimate good. Still more does all this hold good in the present much longer dispersion which is preparing for a more perfect and universal restoration (Isa 2:2-4; Jer 3:16-18). Their long privation of the temple will prepare them for appreciating the more, but without Jewish narrowness, the temple that is to be (Eze. 40:1-44:31). \n\na little--rather, \"for a little season\"; No matter how long the captivity may be, the seventy years will be but as a little season, compared with their long subsequent settlement in their land. This holds true only partially in the case of the first restoration; but as in a few centuries they were dispersed again, the full and permanent restoration is yet future (Jer 24:6).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":17,"content":["(Eze 28:25; Eze 34:13; Eze 36:24).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":18,"content":["They have eschewed every vestige of idolatry ever since their return from Babylon. But still the Shekinah glory had departed, the ark was not restored, nor was the second temple strictly inhabited by God until He came who made it more glorious than the first temple (Hag 2:9); even then His stay was short, and ended in His being rejected; so that the full realization of the promise must still be future.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":19,"content":["I will give them--lest they should claim to themselves the praise given them in Eze 11:18, God declares it is to be the free gift of His Spirit. \n\none heart--not singleness, that is, uprightness, but oneness of heart in all, unanimously seeking Him in contrast to their state at that time, when only single scattered individuals sought God (Jer 32:39; Zep 3:9) [HENGSTENBERG]. Or, \"content with one God,\" not distracted with \"the many detestable things\" (Eze 11:18; Kg1 18:21; Hos 10:2) [CALVIN]. \n\nnew spirit-- (Psa 51:10; Jer 31:33). Realized fully in the \"new creature\" of the New Testament (Co2 5:17); having new motives, new rules, new aims. \n\nstony heart--like \"adamant\" (Zac 7:12); the natural heart of every man. \n\nheart of flesh--impressible to what is good, tender.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":20,"content":["walk in my statutes--Regeneration shows itself by its fruits (Gal 5:22, Gal 5:25). \n\nthey . . . my people, . . . I . . . their God-- (Eze 14:11; Eze 36:28; Eze 37:27; Jer 24:7). In its fullest sense still future (Zac 13:9).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["whose heart . . . after . . . heart of . . . detestable things--The repetition of \"heart\" is emphatic, signifying that the heart of those who so obstinately clung to idols, impelled itself to fresh superstitions in one continuous tenor [CALVIN]. Perhaps it is implied that they and their idols are much alike in character (Psa 115:8). The heart walks astray first, the feet follow. \n\nrecompense . . . way upon . . . heads--They have abandoned Me, so will I abandon them; they profaned My temple, so will I profane it by the Chaldeans (Eze 9:10).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":23,"content":["The Shekinah glory now moves from the east gate (Eze 10:4, Eze 10:19) to the Mount of Olives, altogether abandoning the temple. The mount was chosen as being the height whence the missiles of the foe were about to descend on the city. So it was from it that Jesus ascended to heaven when about to send His judgments on the Jews; and from it He predicted its overthrow before His crucifixion (Mat 24:3). It is also to be the scene of His return in person to deliver His people (Zac 14:4), when He shall come by the same way as He went, \"the way of the east\" (Eze 43:2).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":24,"content":["brought me in a vision--not in actual fact, but in ecstatic vision. He had been as to the outward world all the time before the elders (Eze 8:3) in Chaldea; he now reports what he had witnessed with the inner eye.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":25,"content":["things . . . showed me--literally, \"words\"; an appropriate expression; for the word communicated to him was not simply a word, but one clothed with outward symbols \"shown\" to him as in the sacrament, which AUGUSTINE terms \"the visible word\" [CALVIN].\n\n\n\n\nNext: Ezekiel Chapter 12\n\n"]}],"introduction":"PROPHECY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CORRUPT \"PRINCES OF THE PEOPLE;\" PELATIAH DIES; PROMISE OF GRACE TO THE BELIEVING REMNANT; DEPARTURE OF THE GLORY OF GOD FROM THE CITY; EZEKIEL'S RETURN TO THE CAPTIVES. (Eze. 11:1-25)\n\neast gate--to which the glory of God had moved itself (Eze 10:19), the chief entrance of the sanctuary; the portico or porch of Solomon. The Spirit moves the prophet thither, to witness, in the presence of the divine glory, a new scene of destruction. \n\nfive and twenty men--The same as the twenty-five (that is, twenty-four heads of courses, and the high priest) sun-worshippers seen in Eze 8:16. The leading priests were usually called \"princes of the sanctuary\" (Isa 43:28) and \"chiefs of the priests\" (Ch2 36:14); but here two of them are called \"princes of the people,\" with irony, as using their priestly influence to be ringleaders of the people in sin (Eze 11:2). Already the wrath of God had visited the people represented by the elders (Eze 9:6); also the glory of the Lord had left its place in the holy of holies, and, like the cherubim and flaming sword in Eden, had occupied the gate into the deserted sanctuary. The judgment on the representatives of the priesthood naturally follows here, just as the sin of the priests had followed in the description (Eze 8:12, Eze 8:16) after the sin of the elders. \n\nJaazaniah--signifying \"God hears.\" \n\nson of Azur--different from Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan (Eze 8:11). Azur means \"help.\" He and Pelatiah (\"God delivers\"), son of Benaiah (\"God builds\"), are singled out as Jaazaniah, son of Shaphan, in the case of the seventy elders (Eze 8:11-12), because their names ought to have reminded them that \"God\" would have \"heard\" had they sought His \"help\" to \"deliver\" and \"build\" them up. But, neglecting this, they incurred the heavier judgment by the very relation in which they stood to God [FAIRBAIRN].\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/EZK/11.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"EZK","chapter":11},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/EZK/12.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"EZK","chapter":12},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/EZK/10.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"EZK","chapter":10},"numberOfVerses":22}