{"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":33,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["the sword--invaders. An appropriate illustration at the time of the invasion of Judea by Nebuchadnezzar.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["blood . . . upon his own head--metaphor from sacrificial victims, on the heads of which they used to lay their hands, praying that their guilt should be upon the victims.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["his iniquity--his negligence in not maintaining constant watchfulness, as they who are in warfare ought to do. The thing signified here appears from under the image.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["I have set thee a watchman--application of the image. Ezekiel's appointment to be a watchman spiritually is far more solemn, as it is derived from God, not from the people.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["thou shalt surely die--by a violent death, the earnest of everlasting death; the qualification being supposed, \"if thou dost not repent.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["Blood had by this time been shed (Eze 33:21), but Ezekiel was clear.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":10,"content":["be upon us--that is, their guilt remain on us. \n\npine away in them--if we suffer the penalty threatened for them in Eze 24:23, according to the law (Lev 26:39). \n\nhow should we . . . live?--as Thou dost promise in Eze 33:5 (compare Eze 37:11; Isa 49:14).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":11,"content":["To meet the Jews' cry of despair in Eze 33:10, Ezekiel here cheers them by the assurance that God has no pleasure in their death, but that they should repent and live (Pe2 3:9). A yearning tenderness manifests itself here, notwithstanding all their past sins; yet with it a holiness that abates nothing of its demands for the honor of God's authority. God's righteousness is vindicated as in Eze 3:18-21 and Eze. 18:1-32, by the statement that each should be treated with the closest adaptation of God's justice to his particular case.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["not fall . . . in the day that he turneth-- (Ch2 7:14; see Eze 3:20; Eze 18:24).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["give again that he had robbed-- (Luk 19:8). \n\nstatutes of life--in the obeying of which life is promised (Lev 18:5). If the law has failed to give life to man, it has not been the fault of the law, but of man's sinful inability to keep it (Rom 7:10, Rom 7:12; Gal 3:21). It becomes life-giving through Christ's righteous obedience to it (Co2 3:6).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":17,"content":["The way of the Lord--The Lord's way of dealing in His moral government.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["twelfth year . . . tenth month--a year and a half after the capture of the city (Jer 39:2; Jer 52:5-6), in the eleventh year and fourth month. The one who escaped (as foretold, Eze 24:26) may have been so long on the road through fear of entering the enemy's country [HENDERSON]; or, the singular is used for the plural in a collective sense, \"the escaped remnant.\" Compare similar phrases, \"the escaped of Moab,\" Isa 15:9; \"He that escapeth of them,\" Amo 9:1. Naturally the reopening of the prophet's mouth for consolation would be deferred till the number of the escaped remnant was complete: the removal of such a large number would easily have occupied seventeen or eighteen months.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["in the evening--(see on Eze 33:2). Thus the capture of Jerusalem was known to Ezekiel by revelation before the messenger came. \n\nmy mouth . . . no more dumb--that is, to my countrymen; as foretold (Eze 24:27), He spake (Eze. 33:2-20) in the evening before the tidings came.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":24,"content":["they that inhabit . . . wastes of . . . Israel--marking the blindness of the fraction of Jews under Gedaliah who, though dwelling amidst regions laid waste by the foe, still cherished hopes of deliverance, and this without repentance. \n\nAbraham was one . . . but we are many--If God gave the land for an inheritance to Abraham, who was but one (Isa 51:2), much more it is given to us, who, though reduced, are still many. If he, with 318 servants, was able to defend himself amid so many foes, much more shall we, so much more numerous, retain our own. The grant of the land was not for his sole use, but for his numerous posterity. \n\ninherited the land--not actually possessed it (Act 7:5), but had the right of dwelling and pasturing his flocks in it [GROTIUS]. The Jews boasted similarly of their Abrahamic descent in Mat 3:9 and Joh 8:39.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":25,"content":["eat with the blood--in opposition to the law (Lev 19:26; compare Gen 9:4). They did so as an idolatrous rite.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":26,"content":["Ye stand upon your sword--Your dependence is, not on right and equity, but on force and arms. \n\nevery one--Scarcely anyone refrains from adultery.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":27,"content":["shall fall by the sword--The very object of their confidence would be the instrument of their destruction. Thinking to \"stand\" by it, by it they shall \"fall.\" Just retribution! Some fell by the sword of Ishmael; others by the Chaldeans in revenge for the murder of Gedaliah (Jer. 40:1-44:30). \n\ncaves-- (Jdg 6:2; Sa1 13:6). In the hilly parts of Judea there were caves almost inaccessible, as having only crooked and extremely narrow paths of ascent, with rock in front stretching down into the valleys beneath perpendicularly [JOSEPHUS, Wars of the Jews, 1.16.4].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":28,"content":["most desolate-- (Jer 4:27; Jer 12:11). \n\nnone . . . pass through--from fear of wild beasts and pestilence [GROTIUS].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":30,"content":["Not only the remnant in Judea, but those at the Chebar, though less flagrantly, betrayed the same unbelieving spirit. \n\ntalking against thee--Though going to the prophet to hear the word of the Lord, they criticised, in an unfriendly spirit, his peculiarities of manner and his enigmatical style (Eze 20:49); making these the excuse for their impenitence. Their talking was not directly \"against\" Ezekiel, for they professed to like his ministrations; but God's word speaks of things as they really are, not as they appear. \n\nby the walls--in the public haunts. In the East groups assemble under the walls of their houses in winter for conversation. \n\nin the doors--privately. \n\nwhat is the word--Their motive was curiosity, seeking pastime and gratification of the ear (Ti2 4:3); not reformation of the heart. Compare Johanan's consultation of Jeremiah, to hear the word of the Lord without desiring to do it (Jer. 42:1-43:13).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":31,"content":["as the people cometh--that is, in crowds, as disciples flock to their teacher. \n\nsit before thee--on lower seats at thy feet, according to the Jewish custom of pupils (Deu 33:3; Kg2 4:38; Luk 10:39; Act 22:3). \n\nas my people--though they are not. \n\nhear . . . not do-- (Mat 13:20-21; Jam 1:23-24). \n\nthey show much love--literally, \"make love,\" that is, act the part of lovers. Profess love to the Lord (Mat 7:21). GESENIUS translates, according to Arabic idiom, \"They do the delights of God,\" that is, all that is agreeable to God. Vulgate translates, \"They turn thy words into a song of their mouths.\" \n\nheart goeth after . . . covetousness--the grand rival to the love of God; therefore called \"idolatry,\" and therefore associated with impure carnal love, as both alike transfer the heart's affection from the Creator to the creature (Mat 13:22; Eph 5:5; Ti1 6:10).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":32,"content":["very lovely song--literally, a \"song of loves\": a lover's song. They praise thy eloquence, but care not for the subject of it as a real and personal thing; just as many do in the modern church [JEROME]. \n\nplay well on an instrument--Hebrew singers accompanied the \"voice\" with the harp.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":33,"content":["when this cometh to pass--when My predictions are verified. \n\nlo, it will come--rather, \"lo it is come\" (see Eze 33:22). \n\nknow--experimentally, and to their cost.\n\nHaving in the thirty-third chapter laid down repentance as the necessary preliminary to happier times for the people, He now promises the removal of the false shepherds as preparatory to the raising up of the Good Shepherd.\n\n\n\n\nNext: Ezekiel Chapter 34\n\n"]}],"introduction":"RENEWAL OF EZEKIEL'S COMMISSION, NOW THAT HE IS AGAIN TO ADDRESS HIS COUNTRYMEN, AND IN A NEW TONE. (Eze. 33:1-33)\n\nto the children of thy people--whom he had been forbidden to address from Eze 24:26-27, till Jerusalem was overthrown, and the \"escaped\" came with tidings of the judgment being completed. So now, in Eze 33:21, the tidings of the fact having arrived, he opens his heretofore closed lips to the Jews. In the interval he had prophesied as to foreign nations. The former part of the chapter, at Eze. 33:2-20, seems to have been imparted to Ezekiel on the evening previous (Eze 33:22), being a preparation for the latter part (Eze 33:23-33) imparted after the tidings had come. This accounts for the first part standing without intimation of the date, which was properly reserved for the latter part, to which the former was the anticipatory introduction [FAIRBAIRN]. \n\nwatchman-- Eze 33:1-9 exhibit Ezekiel's office as a spiritual watchman; so in Eze 3:16-21; only here the duties of the earthly watchman (compare Sa2 18:24-25; Kg2 9:17) are detailed first, and then the application is made to the spiritual watchman's duty (compare Isa 21:6-10; Hos 9:8; Hab 2:1). \"A man of their coasts\" is a man specially chosen for the office out of their whole number. So Jdg 18:2, \"five men from their coasts\"; also the Hebrew of Gen 47:2; implying the care needed in the choice of the watchman, the spiritual as well as the temporal (Act 1:21-22, Act 1:24-26; Ti1 5:22).\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/EZK/33.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"EZK","chapter":33},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/EZK/34.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"EZK","chapter":34},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/EZK/32.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"EZK","chapter":32},"numberOfVerses":22}