{"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":36,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["Literally, \"Because, even because.\" \n\nswallowed you up--literally, \"panted after\" you, as a beast after its prey; implying the greedy cupidity of Edom as to Israel's inheritance (Psa 56:1-2). \n\nlips of talkers--literally, \"lips of the tongue,\" that is, of the slanderer, the man of tongue. Edom slandered Israel because of the connection of the latter with Jehovah, as though He were unable to save them. Deu 28:37, and Jer 24:9 had foretold Israel's reproach among the heathen (Dan 9:16).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["Inanimate creatures are addressed, to imply that the creature also, as it were, groans for deliverance from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God (Rom 8:19-21) [POLANUS]. The completeness of the renewed blessedness of all parts of the land is implied. \n\nderision-- (Psa 79:4).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["to cast it out for a prey--that is, to take the land for a prey, its inhabitants being cast out. Or the land is compared to a prey cast forth to wild beasts. FAIRBAIRN needlessly alters the Hebrew pointing and translates, \"that they may plunder its pasturage.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["the shame of the heathen--namely, the shame with which the heathen cover you (Psa 123:3-4).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["lifted . . . mine hand--in token of an oath (Eze 20:5; Gen 14:22). \n\nthey shall bear their shame--a perpetual shame; whereas the \"shame\" which Israel bore from these heathen was only for a time.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["they are at hand to come--that is the Israelites are soon about to return to their land. This proves that the primary reference of the prophecy is to the return from Babylon, which was \"at hand,\" or comparatively near. But this only in part fulfilled the prediction, the full and final blessing in future, and the restoration from Babylon was an earnest of it.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":10,"content":["wastes builded-- Isa 58:12; Isa 61:4; Amo 9:11-12, Amo 9:14, where, as here (Eze 34:23-24), the names of David, Messiah's type, and Edom, Israel's foe, are introduced in connection with the coming restoration.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":11,"content":["do better . . . than at your beginnings--as in the case of Job (Job 42:12). Whereas the heathen nations fall irrevocably, Israel shall be more than restored; its last estate shall exceed even its first.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["to walk upon you--O mountains of Israel (Eze 36:8)! \n\nthee . . . thou--change from plural to singular: O hill of Zion, singled out from the other mountains of Israel (Eze 34:26); or land. \n\nthou shall no more . . . bereave them of men--Thou shalt no more provoke God to bereave them of children (so the ellipsis ought to be supplied, as Ezekiel probably alludes to Jer 15:7, \"I will bereave them of children\").\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["Thou land devourest up men--alluding to the words of the spies (Num 13:32). The land personified is represented as doing that which was done in it. Like an unnatural mother it devoured, that is, it was the grave of its people; of the Canaanites, its former possessors, through mutual wars, and finally by the sword of Israel; and now, of the Jews, through internal and external ills; for example, wars, famine (to which Eze 36:30, \"reproach of famine among the heathen,\" implies the allusion here is).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["bereave--so the Keri, or Hebrew Margin reads, to correspond to \"bereave\" in Eze 36:13; but \"cause to fall\" or \"stumble,\" in the Hebrew text or Chetib, being the more difficult reading, is the one least likely to come from a corrector; also, it forms a good transition to the next subject, namely, the moral cause of the people's calamities, namely, their falls, or stumblings through sin. The latter ceasing, the former also cease. So the same expression follows in Eze 36:15, \"Neither shalt thou cause thy nations to fall any more.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":17,"content":["removed woman-- (Lev 15:19, &c.).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":18,"content":["The reason for their removal was their sin, which God's holiness could not let pass unpunished; just as a woman's legal uncleanness was the reason for her being separated from the congregation.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":20,"content":["profaned my holy name, when they--the heathen \n\nsaid to them--the Israelites. \n\nThese, &c.--The Israelites gave a handle of reproach to the heathen against God, who would naturally say, These who take usury, oppress, commit adultery, &c., and who, in such an abject plight, are \"gone forth\" as exiles \"out of His land,\" are specimens of what Jehovah can or will effect, for His people, and show what kind of a God this so-called holy, omnipotent, covenant-keeping God must be! (Isa 52:5; Rom 2:24).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["I had pity for mine holy name--that is, I felt pity for it; God's own name, so dishonored, was the primary object of His pitying concern; then His people, secondarily, through His concern for it [FAIRBAIRN].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["not . . . for your sakes--that is, not for any merit in you; for, on the contrary, on your part, there is everything to call down continued severity (compare Deu 9:5-6). The sole and sure ground of hope was God's regard to \"His own name,\" as the God of covenant grace (Psa 106:45), which He must vindicate from the dishonor brought on it by the Jews, before the heathen.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":23,"content":["sanctify--vindicate and manifest as holy, in opposition to the heathen reproaches of it brought on by the Jews' sins and their punishment (see on Eze 36:20). \n\nsanctified in you--that is, in respect of you; I shall be regarded in their eyes as the Holy One, and righteous in My dealings towards you (Eze 20:41; Eze 28:22).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":24,"content":["Fulfilled primarily in the restoration from Babylon; ultimately to be so in the restoration \"from all countries.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":25,"content":["The external restoration must be preceded by an internal one. The change in their condition must not be superficial, but must be based on a radical renewal of the heart. Then the heathen, understanding from the regenerated lives of God's people how holy God is, would perceive Israel's past troubles to have been only the necessary vindications of His righteousness. Thus God's name would be \"sanctified\" before the heathen, and God's people be prepared for outward blessings. \n\nsprinkle . . . water--phraseology taken from the law; namely, the water mixed with the ashes of a heifer sprinkled with a hyssop on the unclean (Num 19:9-18); the thing signified being the cleansing blood of Christ sprinkled on the conscience and heart (Heb 9:13-14; Heb 10:22; compare Jer 33:8; Eph 5:26). \n\nfrom all your idols--Literal idolatry has ceased among the Jews ever since the captivity; so far, the prophecy has been already fulfilled; but \"cleansing from all their idols,\" for example, covetousness, prejudices against Jesus of Nazareth, is yet future.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":26,"content":["new heart--mind and will. \n\nspirit--motive and principle of action. \n\nstony heart--unimpressible in serious things; like the \"stony ground\" (Mat 13:5, Mat 13:20), unfit for receiving the good seed so as to bring forth fruit. \n\nheart of flesh--not \"carnal\" in opposition to \"spiritual\"; but impressible and docile, fit for receiving the good seed. In Eze 18:31 they are commanded, \"Make you a new heart, and a new spirit.\" Here God says, \"A new heart will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you.\" Thus the responsibility of man, and the sovereign grace of God, are shown to be coexistent. Man cannot make himself a new heart unless God gives it (Phi 2:12-13).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":27,"content":["my spirit-- (Eze 11:19; Jer 32:39). The partial reformation at the return from Babylon (Ezr 10:6, &c.; Neh. 8:1-9:38) was an earnest of the full renewal hereafter under Messiah.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":28,"content":["ye . . . my people, . . . I . . . your God-- (Eze 11:20; Jer 30:22).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":29,"content":["save . . . from all . . . uncleannesses--the province of Jesus, according to the signification of His name (Mat 1:21). To be specially exercised in behalf of the Jews in the latter days (Rom 11:26). \n\ncall for . . . corn--as a master \"calls for\" a servant; all the powers and productions of nature are the servants of Jehovah (Psa 105:16; Mat 8:8-9). Compare as to the subordination of all the intermediate agents to the Great First Cause, who will give \"corn\" and all good things to His people, Hos 2:21-22; Zac 8:12.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":30,"content":["no more reproach of famine among the heathen--to which their taunt (Eze 36:13), \"Thou land devourest up men,\" in part referred.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":31,"content":["remember your . . . evil ways--with shame and loathing. The unexpected grace and love of God, manifested in Christ to Israel, shall melt the people into true repentance, which mere legal fear could not (Eze 16:61, Eze 16:63; Psa 130:4; Zac 12:10; compare Jer 33:8-9).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":35,"content":["they shall say--The heathen, who once made Israel's desolation a ground of reproach against the name of Jehovah Himself (Eze 36:20-21); but now He so vindicates its sanctity (Eze 36:22-23) that these same heathen are constrained to acknowledge Israel's more than renewed blessedness to be God's own work, and a ground for glorifying His name (Eze 36:36). \n\nEden--as Tyre (the type of the world powers in general: so Assyria, a cedar \"in the garden of God, Eden,\" Eze 31:8-9), in original advantages, had been compared to \"Eden, the garden of God\" (Eze 28:13), from which she had fallen irrecoverably; so Israel, once desolate, is to be as \"the garden of Eden\" (Isa 51:3), and is to be so unchangeably.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":36,"content":["Lord . . . spoken . . . do it-- (Num 23:19).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":37,"content":["I will yet for this be inquired of--so as to grant it. On former occasions He had refused to be inquired of by Israel because the inquirers were not in a fit condition of mind to receive a blessing (Eze 14:3; Eze 20:3). But hereafter, as in the restoration from Babylon (Neh. 8:1-9:38; Dan. 9:3-20, 21, 23), God will prepare His people's hearts (Eze 36:26) to pray aright for the blessings which He is about to give (Psa 102:13-17, Psa 102:20; Zac 12:10-14; Zac 13:1). \n\nlike a flock--resuming the image (Eze 34:23, Eze 34:31).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":38,"content":["As the holy flock--the great flock of choice animals for sacrifice, brought up to Jerusalem at the three great yearly festivals, the passover, pentecost, and feast of the tabernacles.\n\nThree stages in Israel's revival present themselves to the prophet's eye. (1) The new awakening of the people, the resurrection of the dead (Eze 37:1-14). (2) The reunion of the formerly hostile members of the community, whose contentions had affected the whole (Eze 37:15-28). (3) The community thus restored is strong enough to withstand the assault of Gog, &c. (Eze. 38:1-39:29) [EWALD].\n\n\n\n\nNext: Ezekiel Chapter 37\n\n"]}],"introduction":"ISRAEL AVENGED OF HER FOES, AND RESTORED, FIRST TO INWARD HOLINESS, THEN TO OUTWARD PROSPERITY. (Eze. 36:1-38)\n\nmountains of Israel--in contrast to \"Mount Seir\" of the previous prophecy. They are here personified; Israel's elevation is moral, not merely physical, as Edom's. Her hills are \"the everlasting hills\" of Jacob's prophecy (Gen 49:26). \"The enemy\" (Edom, the singled-out representative of all God's foes), with a shout of exultation, \"Aha!\" had claimed, as the nearest kinsman of Israel (the brother of their father Esau), his vacated inheritance; as much as to say, the so-called \"everlasting\" inheritance of Israel and of the \"hills,\" which typified the unmoved perpetuity of it (Psa 125:1-2), has come to an end, in spite of the promise of God, and has become \"ours\" (compare Deu 32:13; Deu 33:15).\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/EZK/36.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"EZK","chapter":36},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/EZK/37.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"EZK","chapter":37},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/EZK/35.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"EZK","chapter":35},"numberOfVerses":29}