{"commentary":{"id":"keil-delitzsch","name":"Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary","website":"https://worthy.bible/commentaries/keil-delitzsch-commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"bb5cc0f9cfe0a93b3c903bb6972c6bc8c4e9f2bd3be6c2a6d276737cf9c5edce","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":39,"totalNumberOfChapters":909,"totalNumberOfVerses":6516,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"EZK","commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","name":"Ezekiel","commonName":"Ezekiel","introduction":"The Prophecies of Ezekiel\n\nIntroduction\n\nI. The Person of the Prophet\n\nEzekiel, יחזקאל (Ezekiel 1:3; 24:24), i.e., יחזק אל, God strengthens, ̓Ιεζεκιήλ (lxx and Book of Sirach, ch. 49:8), in the Vulgate Ezechiel, while Luther, after the example of the lxx, writes the name Hesekiel, was the son of Busi, of priestly descent, and was carried away captive into exile to Babylon in the year 599 b.c. - i.e., in the eleventh year before the destruction of Jerusalem - along with King Jehoiachin, the nobles of the kingdom, many priests, and the better class of the population of Jerusalem and of Judah (Eze 1:2; Eze 40:1; cf. Kg2 24:14.; Jer 29:1). He lived there in the northern part of Mesopotamia, on the banks of the Chaboras, married, and in his own house, amidst a colony of banished Jews, in a place called Tel-abib (Eze 1:1; Eze 3:15, Eze 3:24; Eze 8:1; Eze 24:18). In the fifth year of his banishment, i.e., 595 b.c., he was called to be a prophet of the Lord, and laboured in this official position, as may be shown, twenty-two years; for the latest of his prophecies is dated in the twenty-seventh year of his exile, i.e., 572 b.c. (Eze 29:17). Regarding the other circumstances and events of his life, as also of his death, nothing is known. The apocryphal legends found in the Fathers and in the Rabbinical writings, to the effect that he was put to death by a prince of his own nation for rebuking his idolatry, and was buried in the tomb of Shem and Arphaxad, etc. (cf. Carpzov, Introd. ii. p. 203ff.), are without any historical value. So much alone is certain, that he ended his life among the exiles, where God had assigned him his sphere of labour, and did not, like his contemporary Daniel (comp. Dan 1:21; Dan 10:1), outlive the termination of the Captivity and the commencement of the redemption of Israel from Babylon, as his prophecies do not contain the slightest allusion to that effect.\n\nII. The Times of the Prophet\n\nEzekiel, like Daniel, is a prophet of the exile, but in a different fashion from the latter, who had been already carried away prisoner before him to Babylon on the first capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar in the reign of Jehoiakim, and who lived there upwards of seventy years at the Babylonian and Medo-Persian court, and who held from time to time very important offices of State. Daniel was placed by God in this high position, which afforded him a view of the formation and evolution of the world-kingdom, in order that from this standpoint he might be enabled to see the development of the world-kingdoms in the struggle against the kingdom of God, and to predict the indestructible power and glory of the latter kingdom, which overcomes all the powers of the world. Ezekiel, on the other hand, was appointed a watcher over the exiled nation of Israel, and was in this capacity to continue the work of the earlier prophets, especially that of Jeremiah, with whom he in several ways associates himself in his prophecies; to preach to his contemporaries the judgment and salvation of God, in order to convert them to the Lord their God. - Rightly to understand his work as a prophet, the ripe fruit of which lies before us in his prophetic writings, we must not only keep in view the importance of the exile for the development of the kingdom of God, but also form a clear conception of the relations amidst which Ezekiel carried on his labours.\n\nWhat the Lord had caused to be announced by Moses to the tribes of Israel while they were yet standing on the borders of the Promised Land, and preparing to take possession of it, viz., that if they should persistently transgress His commands, He would not only chastise them with heavy punishments, but would finally drive them out of the land which they were about to occupy, and disperse them among all nations (Lev 26:14-45; Deut 28:15-68) - this threatening, repeated by all the prophets after Moses, had been already executed by the Assyrians upon the ten tribes, who had revolted from the house of David, and was now in process of fulfilment by the Chaldeans upon the kingdom of Judah also. In the reign of Jehoiakim, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, for the first time invaded Judah, captured Jerusalem, made Jehoiakim tributary, and carried away to Babylon a number of Israelitish youths of noble birth and of the blood-royal, amongst whom was Daniel, along with a portion of the vessels of the temple, in order that these youths might be trained up for the service of his court (Dan 1:1-7). With this invasion of the Chaldeans begin the seventy years of Chaldean servitude and exile in Babylon, predicted by Jeremiah. As Jehoiakim, so early as three years afterwards, revolted against Nebuchadnezzar, the latter, after a lengthened siege, took Jerusalem a second time, in the third month of the reign of Jehoiachin, and carried away into captivity to Babylon, along with the captive monarch and the members of his court, the nobles of Judah and Jerusalem, a great number of priests, warriors, carpenters, and smiths, leaving behind in the land only the meaner portion of the people, over whom he appointed as his vassal King Mattaniah, the uncle of the banished monarch, whose name he changed to Zedekiah (Kg2 24:10-17; Jer 29:2). By this removal of the heart and strength of the nation the power of the kingdom of Judah was broken; and although Nebuchadnezzar did not at that time destroy it, but still allowed it to remain as a subject kingdom under his sway, yet its existence could not be of any long duration. Judah had fallen too deeply to recognise in the calamities which she had suffered the chastening hand of her God, and to bow herself repentantly under His mighty arm. Instead of listening to the voice of the prophet Jeremiah, and bearing the Chaldean yoke in patience (Ch2 36:12), both monarch and people placed their trust in the assistance of Egypt, and Zedekiah broke the oath of fealty which he had sworn to the king of Babylon. To punish this perfidy, Nebuchadnezzar again marched against Jerusalem, and by the capture and burning of the city and temple in the eleventh year of Zedekiah's reign put an end to the kingdom of Judah. Zedekiah, who had fled from the beleaguered city, was taken by the Chaldeans, and brought with his sons to Riblah into the presence of King Nebuchadnezzar, who first caused the sons of Zedekiah to be put to death before the eyes of their father; next, Zedekiah himself to be deprived of sight, and then commanded the blind monarch to be conducted in chains to Babylon (2 Kings 25:1-21; Jer 52:1-30). Many military officers and priests of rank were also put to death at Riblah; while those who had been taken prisoners at Jerusalem, along with the deserters and a great portion of the rest of the people, were led away into exile to Babylon (2 Kings 25:1-21; Jer 52:1-30). By this catastrophe the Old Testament theocracy lost its political existence; the covenant people were now driven out of their own land amongst the heathen, to bear the punishment of their obstinate apostasy from the Lord their God. Nevertheless this dispersion among the heathen was no entire rejection of Israel; it was merely a suspension, and not an annihilation, of the covenant of grace. Man's unfaithfulness cannot destroy the faithfulness of God. \"In spite of this terrible judgment, brought down upon them by the heaviest transgressions, Israel was, and remained,\" - as Auberlen (The Prophet Daniel, p. 27, 2nd ed.) well remarks - \"the chosen people, through whom God was still to carry out His intentions towards humanity. His gifts and calling may not be repented of\" (Rom 11:29). Even after the Babylonian exile the theocracy was not again restored; the covenant people did not after their return again recover their independence, but remained, with the exception of the short period when under the Maccabees they won for themselves their freedom, in constant dependence upon the heathen world-rulers, until, after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, they were completely dispersed among all the nations of the earth. The kingdom of God, however, was not really to perish along with the external theocracy; it was only to pass into a new phase of development, which was intended to be the medium of transition towards its renewal and perfection in that kingdom of God which was to be founded by Christ. To pave the way to this end, and at the same time to serve as a witness to the exiles, that Israel, notwithstanding its dispersion among the heathen, still remained God's people, the Lord raised up in Ezekiel, the son of a priest, a prophet of uncommon power and energy in the midst of the captives, \"one who raised his voice aloud, like a trumpet, and showed to Israel its misdeeds - whose whole manifestation furnished the most powerful testimony that the Lord was still amongst His people; who was himself a temple of the Lord, before whom the visible temple, which yet remained standing for a short time at Jerusalem, sank back into its nothingness; a spiritual Samson, who seized with mighty arm the pillars of the idol temple, and dashed it to the ground; a powerful, gigantic nature, which was fitted by that very qualification to effectually subdue the Babylonian spirit of the time, which delighted in powerful, gigantic, and grotesque forms; standing alone, but equal to a hundred of the sons of the prophets\" (Hengstenberg's Christol. II. p. 531).\n\nThe call of Ezekiel to the prophetic office took place in the fifth year of the reign of Zedekiah, in the fourth month of the year (Eze 1:1-2), at a point of time when, amongst those who had remained behind in the land, as well as amongst those who had been carried to Babylon, the hope of the speedy downfall to the Babylonian monarchy, and of the return of the exiles to their native country, which was then to follow, was very strong, and was powerfully encouraged by the lying statements of false prophets; cf. Jer 29. In the same year and month prophesied Hananiah, a prophet from Gibeon, in the temple at Jerusalem, before the eyes of the priests and the whole people, saying that Jehovah would break the yoke of the king of Babylon, and within two years bring back to Jerusalem all the temple-vessels carried away by Nebuchadnezzar, as well as King Jechoniah and all the captives who had been brought to Babylon, Jer 28:1-4. And the prophet Jeremiah, who with the word of the Lord rebuked and opposed those lying predictions and empty hopes, and foretold that the Babylonian servitude would be of long duration, was violently assailed and persecuted by the lying prophets, even by those of them who were to be found in Babylon; cf. Jer 28:5-17; Jer 29:21-32. This delusion regarding the political condition of affairs, this spirit of resistance to the decree of the Lord, had seized not only upon the people, but also upon the nobles and the king, so that they formed and eagerly carried on conspiracies against the king of Babylon. The meeting of the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, and Sidon, with Zedekiah in Jerusalem, had no other object than this (Jer 27:3). The embassy, moreover, sent by Zedekiah to Babylon (Jer 24:3), as well as his own journey thither in the fourth year of his reign (Jer 51:59), were intended merely to deceive the king of Babylon, by assurances of devotion and fidelity, in order that the intended revolt might be carried out. But this baseless hope of a speedy liberation from the Babylonian yoke was ignominiously disappointed: in consequence of the treacherous rebellion of Zedekiah, Nebuchadnezzar, after a blockade and siege of a year and a half, captured Jerusalem, burnt the city and temple to the ground, and destroyed the kingdom of Judah. By this blow all the supports upon which the God-alienated nation had vainly relied were broken. The delusive statements of the false prophets had proved to be lies; the predictions of the Lord's prophets, on the contrary, had been strikingly justified as divine truth. The destruction of Jerusalem, the burning of the temple, and the downfall of the kingdom, form accordingly a turning-point for the prophetic labours of Ezekiel. Hitherto, prior to the calamity, he had to announce to the people (animated with the hope of speedy liberation from exile) the judgment of the downfall of Jerusalem and Judah, although such preaching found little acceptance. The time, however, had now arrived when, in order to preserve from despair the nation languishing in exile, and given over to the scorn, contempt, and tyranny of the heathen, he was able to open up the sources of comfort by announcing that the Lord, in requital of the ignominy heaped upon His people, would overwhelm all the heathen nations with destruction, but that, if His people whom they had oppressed would repent and return to Him, He would again gather them out of their dispersion; would make of them a holy nation, walking in His commands and yielding Him a willing service; would conduct them back to their own land; would give them His servant David for a prince, and once more gloriously establish His kingdom.\n\nIII. The Book of Ezekiel\n\nThe collection of the prophecies placed together in this book, as forming a complete unity, falls into two main divisions: - I. Announcements of judgment upon Israel and the heathen nations, Ezekiel 1-32; II. Announcements of salvation for Israel, Ezekiel 33-48. Each of these main divisions is subdivided into two sections. The first, namely, contains the prophecies of judgment (a) upon Jerusalem and Israel, Eze 3:22-24; (b) upon the heathen nations, Ezekiel 25-32. The second main division contains (c) the predictions of the redemption and restoration of Israel, and the downfall of the heathen world-power, Ezekiel 33-39; (d) the prophetic picture of the re-formation and exaltation of the kingdom of God, Ezekiel 40-48; and the entire collection opens with the solemn dedication of Ezekiel to the prophetic office, Ezekiel 1:1-3:21. The prophecies of the first, third, and fourth parts are throughout arranged in chronological order; those of the second part - the threatenings predicted against the heathen nations - are disposed according to their actual subject-matter. This is attested by the chronological data in the superscriptions, and confirmed by the contents of the whole of the groups of prophecies in the first three parts. The first part contains the following chronological notices: the fifth year of the captivity of Jehoiachin (Eze 1:2) as the time of Ezekiel's call to the office of prophet, and of the first predictions regarding Jerusalem and Israel; then the sixth (Eze 8:1), seventh (Eze 20:1), and ninth years of the captivity of that monarch (Eze 24:1). The second part contains the predictions against seven foreign nations, of which those against Tyre fall in the eleventh (Eze 26:1), those against Egypt in the tenth (Eze 39:1), twenty-seventh (Eze 29:17), eleventh (Eze 30:20 and Eze 31:1), and twelfth years of the exile. Of the two last parts, each contains only one chronological notice, namely, Eze 33:21, the twelfth year of the captivity, i.e., one year after the destruction of Jerusalem; and Eze 40:1, the twenty-fifth year of the captivity, or the fourteenth after the destruction of Jerusalem. The remaining prophecies, which bear at their head no note of time, connect themselves closely as to their contents with those which are furnished with chronological data, so that they belong to the same period with those. From this it appears that the prophecies of the first part wholly, those of the second part to a great extent, date before the destruction of Jerusalem; those of the third and fourth parts proceed from the time after this catastrophe. This chronological relationship is in favour of the view that the prophecies against foreign nations, Ezekiel 25-32, are not - as the majority of expositors suppose - to be assigned to the second, but rather to the first half of the book. This view is confirmed, on the one hand, by the contents of the prophecies, inasmuch as these, without an exception, announce only the downfall of the heathen nations and kingdoms, making no reference to the future forgiveness and conversion of the residue of these nations, and through this very peculiarity connect themselves closely with the prophecies of threatening against Israel in the first part; on the other hand, by the resemblance which exists between Ezekiel 30:1-20 and Eze 3:16-21, compared with Eze 18:19-32, and which leaves no doubt upon the point that Ezekiel 33:1-20 marks out to the prophet the task which was to occupy his attention after the destruction of Jerusalem, and consequently forms the introduction to the second half of his prophecies. - For further remarks upon the contents and subdivisions of the book, see the expositions in the introductory observations to the individual sections and chapters.\n\nEzekiel's style of prophetic representation has many peculiarities. In the first place, the clothing of symbol and allegory prevails in him to a greater degree than in all the other prophets; and his symbolism and allegory are not confined to general outlines and pictures, but elaborated in the minutest details, so as to present figures of a boldness surpassing reality, and ideal representations, which produce an impression of imposing grandeur and exuberant fulness. Even the simplest prophetic discourse is rich in imagery, and in bold, partly even strange, comparisons, and branches out into a copiousness which strives to exhaust the subject on all sides, in consequence of which many peculiar expressions and forms are repeated, rendering his language diffuse, and occasionally even clumsy. These peculiarities of his style of representation it has been attempted, on the one hand, to explain by the influence of the Babylonian spirit and taste upon the form of his prophecy; while others, again, would regard them as the result of a literary art, striving to supply the defect of prophetic spirit, and the failing power of the living word, by the aid of learning and an elaborate imitation of actual life. The supposed Babylonian spirit, however, in the forms of our prophet's symbolism, has no existence. The assertion of Hvernick, that \"the whole of these symbols has a colossal character, which points in many ways to those powerful impressions experienced by the prophet in a foreign land - Chaldea - and which here are grasped and given out again with a mighty and independent spirit,\" remains yet to be proved. For the observation that these symbols, in reference to form and contents, resemble in many respects the symbols of his contemporary Daniel, is not sufficient for the purpose, and cannot in itself be accepted as the truth, by reference to the picture of the eagle, and the comparison of rich men to trees, cedars, in Ezekiel 17, because these pictures already occur in the older prophets, and lions as well as cedars are native in Palestine. Just as little are Babylonian impressions to be recognised in the vision of the field with the dead men's bones, Ezekiel 37, and of the new temple, Ezekiel 40, so that there only remains the representation of the cherubim with four faces, in Ezekiel 1 and 10, which is peculiar to Ezekiel, as presumptive evidence of Chaldean influence. But if we leave out of account that the throne, upon which the Lord appears in human form, indisputably forms the central point of this vision, and this central point has no specific Babylonian impress, then the representation of the cherubim with faces of men, lions, oxen, and eagles, cannot be derived from the contemplation of the Assyrian or Chaldean sculptures of human figures with eagle heads and wings, or winged oxen with human heads, or sphinxes with bodies of animals and female heads, such as are found in the ruins of ancient Nineveh, inasmuch as the cherubim of Ezekiel were not pictures of oxen with lions' manes, eagles' wings, and human countenances furnished with horns - as W. Neumann has still portrayed them in his treatise upon the tabernacle - but had, according to Ezekiel, Eze 1:5, the human form. There are indeed also found, among the Assyrian sculptures, winged human figures; but these Ezekiel had no reason to copy, because the cherubic images in human form, belonging toe Solomon's temple, lay much nearer to his hand. The whole of Ezekiel's symbolism is derived from the Israelitish sanctuary, and is an outcome of Old Testament ideas and views. As the picture of the idea temple in Ezekiel 40ff. is sketched according to the relations of Solomon's temple, which was burnt by the Chaldeans, so the elements for the description of the majestic theophany, in Ezekiel 1 and 10, are contained in the throne of Jehovah, which was above the cherubim, who were over the covering of the ark of the covenant; and in the phenomena amid which was manifested the revelation of the divine glory at the establishment of the covenant on Sinai. On the basis of these facts, Isaiah had already represented to himself the appearance of the Lord, as a vision, in which he beholds Jehovah in the temple, sitting on a high and lofty throne, and, standing around the throne, seraphim with six wings, who began to sing, \"Holy, holy\" (Isa 6:1-13). This symbolism we find modified in Ezekiel, so as to correspond with the aim of his vocation, and elaborated to a greater extent. The manner in which he works out this vision and other symbols certainly gives evidence of his capacity to describe, distinctly and attractively in words, what he had beheld in spirit; although the symbolism itself is, just as little as the vision, a mere product of poetic art, or the subjective framework of a lively fancy, without any real objective foundation; for it rests, in harmony with its contents and form, upon views which are spiritually real, i.e., produced by the Spirit of God in the soul of the prophet, in which the art of the author is reduced to a faithful and distinct reproduction of what had been seen in the spirit.\n\nIt is only the abundance of pictures and metaphors, which is in this respect characteristic of Ezekiel, and which betrays a lively imagination, and many-sidedness of his knowledge. These qualities appear not merely in the sketch of the new temple (Eze 40:1), but also in the description of the widespread commerce of Tyre (Ezekiel 27), and of the relations of Egypt (Ezekiel 29 and 31), as well as in the endeavours manifest in all his representations, - not merely in the symbolical descriptions and allegorical portraits (Ezekiel 16 and 23), but also in the simple discourses, in the rebukes of the current vices and sins, and in the threatenings of punishment and judgment, - to follow out the subject treated of into the most special details, to throw light upon it from all sides, to penetrate through it, and not to rest until he has exhausted it, and that without any effort, in so doing, to avoid repetitions. This style of representation, however, has its foundation not merely in the individuality of our prophet, but still more in the relations of his time, and in his attitude towards that generation to whom he had to announce the counsel and will of the Lord. As symbolism and the employment of parables, pictures, and proverbs is, in general, only a means for the purpose of presenting in an attractive light the truths to be delivered, and to strengthen by this attractiveness the impression made by speech and discourse, so also the copiousness and circumstantiality of the picture, and even the repetition of thoughts and expressions under new points of view, serve the same end. The people to whom Ezekiel was not to preach repentance, by announcing the divine judgment and salvation, was \"a rebellious race, impudent and hard-hearted\" (Eze 3:7-9, Eze 3:26; Eze 12:2, etc.). If he was faithfully and conscientiously to discharge the office, laid upon him by the Lord, of a watcher over the house of Israel, he must not only punish with stern words, and in drastic fashion, the sins of the people, and distinctly paint before their eyes the horrors of the judgment, but he must also set forth, in a style palpable to the senses, that salvation which was to bloom forth for the repentant nation when the judgment was fulfilled.\n\nClosely connected with this is the other peculiarity of Ezekiel's style of prophecy, namely, the marked prominence assigned to the divine origin and contents of his announcements, which distinctly appears in the standing form of address - \"Son of man\" - with which God summons the prophet to speech and action; in the continual use of אדני יהוה; in the formulae כּה אמר יי' or נאם יי'; in the introduction to almost every discourse of God's requirement to him to prophesy or to do this and that; and in the formula which recurs frequently in all the discourses - \"Ye shall know that I am Jehovah.\" The standing address, \"Son of man,\" and the frequent call to speech and action, are likewise regarded by modern critics as a token of the failure of the prophetic spirit-power. Both phrases, however, could only be held to convey so much, if - in conformity with the view of Ewald, who, agreeably to the naturalistic representation of prophecy, assumes it to be a result of high poetic inspiration - they had been selected by Ezekiel of his own free choice, and employed with the intention of expressing the feeling of his own profound distance from God, and of imparting to himself courage to prophesy. If, on the contrary, according to the Scriptural conception of prophecy, God the Lord addressed Ezekiel as \"son of man,\" and called him, moreover, on each occasion to utter predictions, then the use of the God-given name, as well as the mention of the summons, as proceeding from God only, furnishes an evidence that Ezekiel does not, like the false prophets, utter the thoughts and inspirations of his own heart, but, in all that he says and does, acts under a divine commission and under divine inspiration, and serves to impress the rebellious nation more and more with the conviction that a prophet of the Lord is in their midst (Eze 2:5; Eze 33:33), and that God had not departed with His Spirit from Israel, notwithstanding their banishment among the heathen. In favour of the correctness of this view of the expressions and phrases in question, there speak decisively the manner and fashion in which Ezekiel was called and consecrated to the prophetic office; not only the instruction which God communicates to him for the performance of his calling (Ezekiel 2:1-3:21), - and which, immediately upon the first act of his prophetic activity, He supplements to the effect of enjoining upon him dumbness or entire silence, only then permitting him to open his mouth to speak when He wishes to inspire him with a word to be addressed to the rebellious people (Eze 3:26-27; cf. Eze 24:27 and Eze 33:22), - but also the theophany which inaugurated his call to the prophetic office (Ezekiel 1), which, as will appear to us in the course of the exposition, has unmistakeably the significance of an explanation of a reality, which will not be dissolved and annihilated with the dissolution of the kingdom of Judah, and the destruction of Jerusalem, and of the temple of that covenant of grace which Jehovah had concluded with Israel.\n\nIt is usual, moreover, to quote, as a peculiarity of Ezekiel's prophecies, the prominence given to his priestly descent and disposition, especially in the visions, Ezekiel 1, cf. Ezekiel 10, Ezekiel 8-11 and 40-48, and in the individual traits, as Eze 4:13., Eze 20:12., Eze 22:8; Eze 36:24, etc. etc., which Ewald explains as \"a result of the one-sided literary conception of antiquity according to mere books and traditions, as well as of the extreme prostration of spirit intensified by the long duration of the exile and bondage of the people;\" while de Wette, Gesenius, and others would see in it an intellectual narrowness on the part of the prophet. The one view is as groundless and perverse as the other, because resting upon the superficial opinion that the copious descriptions of the sacred articles in the temple were sketched by Ezekiel only for the purpose of preserving for the future the elevating recollection of the better times of the past (Ewald). When we recognise, on the contrary the symbolical character of these descriptions, we may always say that for the portrayal of the conception of the theophany in Ezekiel 1 and 10, and of the picture of the temple in Ezekiel 40, no individual was so well fitted as a priest, familiar with the institutions of worship. In this symbolism, however, we may not venture to seek for the products of intellectual narrowness, or of sacerdotal ideas, but must rise to the conviction that God the Lord selected a priest, and no other, to be His prophet, and permitted him to behold the future of His kingdom on earth in the significant forms of the sanctuary at Jerusalem, because this form was the symbolical covering which presented the closest correspondence to the same. - Still less to the passages Eze 4:13., Eze 20:12., and others, in which stress is laid upon the ceremonial commands of the law, and where their violation is mentioned as a cause of the judgment that was breaking over Israel, furnish evidence of priestly one-sidedness or narrowness of spirit. Ezekiel takes up towards the Mosaic Law no other position than that which is taken by the older prophets. He finds impressed on the precepts, not only of the Moral, but also of the Ceremonial Law, divine thoughts, essential elements of the divine holiness, attesting itself in and to Israel; and penetrated by a sense of the everlasting importance of the whole law, he urges obedience to its commands. Even the close adherence to the Pentateuch is not at all peculiar to him, but is common to all the prophets, inasmuch as all, without exception, criticize and judge the life of the nation by the standard of the prescriptions in the Mosaic Law. Ezekiel, with his nearest predecessor Jeremiah, is in this respect only distinguished from the earlier prophets, that the verbal references to the Pentateuch in both occur with greater frequency, and receive a greater emphasis. But this has its ground not so much in the descent of both from a priestly family, as rather in the relations of their time, especially in the circumstance that the falling away of the nation from the law had become so great, in consequence of which the penal judgments already threatened in the Pentateuch upon transgressors had fallen upon them, so that the prophets of the Lord were obliged, with all their energy, to hold up before the rebellious race not merely the commandments, but also the threatenings of the law, if they were faithfully to discharge the office to which they had been called.\n\nThe language of Ezekiel is distinguished by a great number of words and forms, which do not occur elsewhere, and which, probably, were for the greater part coined by himself (see an enumeration of these in the Manual of Historico-Critical Introduction, ֗77, Rem. 6), and shows a strong leaning towards the diction of the Pentateuch. It has, however, been unable to resist the influences of the inaccurate popular dialect, and of the Aramaic idiom, so that it betrays, in its many anomalies and corruptions, the decline and commencement of the dying out of the Hebrew tongue (cf. ֗17, of the Historico-Critical Manual), and reminds us that the prophet's residence was in a foreign country.\n\nThe genuineness of Ezekiel's prophecies is, at the present day, unanimously recognised by all critics. There is, moreover, no longer any doubt that the writing down and relation of them in the volume which has been transmitted to us were the work of the prophet himself. Only Ewald and Hitzig, for the purpose of setting aside the predictions which so much offend them, have proposed very artificial hypotheses regarding the manner and way in which the book originated; but it appears unnecessary to enter into a closer examination of these, as their probability and trustworthiness depend only upon the dogmatic views of their authors.\n\nFor the exegetical literature, see the Historico-Critical Manual, vol. i. p.353 (new ed. p. 254), where is also to be added, as of very recent date, Das Buch Ezechiels. Uebersetzt und erklהrt von Dr. Th. Kleifoth . Zwei Abtheilungen. Rostock, 1864 and 1865.\n\nReview of Ezekiel 40-48\n\nHaving now completed our exposition in detail, if we take a survey of the substance of the entire vision in Ezekiel 40-48, on comparing it with the preceding prophecies of the restoration of Israel (Ezekiel 34-37), we obtain the following picture of the new constitution of the kingdom of God: - When the Lord shall gather the sons of Israel from their banish","order":26,"numberOfChapters":45,"sha256":"db775625119fd2725999f715f1694a6855c73e2a45a0c64071a8a71cda15bb81","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/EZK/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"EZK","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":48,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/EZK/48.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"EZK","chapter":48},"totalNumberOfVerses":157},"chapter":{"number":37,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":1,"content":["Eze 37:1. There came upon me the hand of Jehovah, and Jehovah led me out in the spirit, and set me down in the midst of the valley; this was full of bones. Eze 37:2. And He led me past them round about; and, behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and, behold, they were very dry. Eze 37:3. And He said to me, Son of man, will these bones come to life? and I said, Lord, Jehovah, thou knowest. Eze 37:4. Then He said to me, Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, Ye dry bones, hear ye the word of Jehovah. Eze 37:5. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah to these bones, Behold, I bring breath into you, that ye may come to life. Eze 37:6. I will create sinews upon you, and cause flesh to grow upon you, and cover you with skin, and bring breath into you, so that ye shall live and know that I am Jehovah. Eze 37:7. And I prophesied as I was commanded; and there was a noise as I prophesied, and behold a rumbling, and the bones came together, bone to bone. Eze 37:8. And I saw, and behold sinews came over them, and flesh grew, and skin drew over it above; but there was no breath in them. Eze 37:9. Then He said to me, Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Come from the four winds, thou breath, and blow upon these slain, that they may come to life. Eze 37:10. And I prophesied as I was commanded; then the breath came into them, and they came to life, and stood upon their feet, a very, very great army. Eze 37:11. And He said to me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel; behold, they say, our bones are dried, and our hope has perished; we are destroyed! Eze 37:12. Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I will open you graves, and cause you to come out of your graves, my people, and bring you into the land of Israel. Eze 37:13. And ye shall know that I am Jehovah, when I open your graves, and cause you to come out of your graves, my people. Eze 37:14. And I will put my Spirit into you, and will place you in your land, and ye shall know that I, Jehovah, have spoken and do it, is the saying of Jehovah. - This revelation divides itself into two sections. Eze 37:1-10 contain the vision, and Eze 37:11-14 give the interpretation. There are no particular difficulties in the description of the vision, so far as the meaning of the words is concerned. By a supernatural intervention on the part of God, Ezekiel is taken from his own home in a state of spiritual ecstasy into a valley which was full of dead men's bones. For the expression 'היתה עלי יד יי, see the comm. on Eze 1:3. In the second clause of Eze 37:1 יהוה is the subject, and is not to be taken as a genitive in connection with בּרוּח, as it has been by the Vulgate and Hitzig in opposition to the accents. בּרוּח stands for בּרוּח אלהים (Eze 11:24), and אלהים is omitted simply because יהוה follows immediately afterwards. הניח, to set down, here and Eze 40:2; whereas in other cases the form הנּיח is usually employed in this sense. The article prefixed to הבּקעה appears to point back to Eze 3:22, to the valley where Ezekiel received the first revelation concerning the fate of Jerusalem and its inhabitants. That עצמים are dead men's bones is evident from what follows. העבירני עליהם, not \"He led me over them round about,\" but past them, in order that Ezekiel might have a clear view of them, and see whether it were possible for them to come to life again. They were lying upon the surface of the valley, i.e., not under, but upon the ground, and not piled up in a heap, but scattered over the valley, and they were very dry. The question asked by God, whether these bones could live, or come to life again, prepares the way for the miracle; and Ezekiel's answer, \"Lord, Thou knowest\" (cf. Rev 7:14), implies that, according to human judgment, it was inconceivable that they could come to life any more, and nothing but the omnipotence of God could effect this.\nAfter this introduction there follows in Eze 37:4. the miracle of the raising to life of these very dry bones, accomplished through the medium of the word of God, which the prophet addresses to them, to show to the people that the power to realize itself is inherent in the word of Jehovah proclaimed by Ezekiel; in other words, that Jehovah possesses the power to accomplish whatever He promises to His people. The word in Eze 37:5, \"Behold, I bring breath into you, that ye may come to life,\" announces in general terms the raising of them to life, whilst the process itself is more minutely described in Eze 37:6. God will put on them (clothe them with) sinews, flesh, and skin, and then put רוּח in them. רוּח is the animating spirit or breath = רוּח היּים (Gen 6:17; Gen 7:17). ,קרםἁπ. λεγ. in Syriac incrustare, obducere. When Ezekiel prophesied there arose or followed a sound (קול), and then a shaking (רעשׁ), and the bones approached one another, every bone to its own bone. Different explanations have been given of the words קול and רעשׁ. קול signifies a sound or voice, and רעשׁ a trembling, and earthquake, and also a rumbling or a loud noise (compare Eze 3:12 and Isa 9:4). The relation between the two words as they stand here is certainly not that the sound (קול) passes at once into a loud noise, or is continued in that form; whilst רעשׁ denotes the rattling or rustling of bones in motion. The fact that the moving of the bones toward one another is represented by ותּקרבוּ (with Vav consec.), as the sequel to רעשׁ, is decisive against this. Yet we cannot agree with Kliefoth, that by קול we are to understand the trumpet-blast, or voice of God, that wakes the dead from their graves, according to those passages of the New Testament which treat of the resurrection, and by רעשׁ the earthquake which opens the graves. This explanation is precluded, not only by the philological difficulty that קול without any further definition does not signify either the blast of a trumpet or the voice of God, but also by the circumstance that the קול is the result of the prophesying of Ezekiel; and we cannot suppose that God would make His almighty call dependent upon a prophet's prophesying. And even in the case of רעשׁ, the reference to Eze 38:19 does not prove that the word must mean earthquake in this passage also, since Ezekiel uses the word in a different sense in Eze 12:18 and Eze 3:12. We therefore take קול in the general sense of a loud noise, and רעשׁ in the sense of shaking (sc., of the bones), which was occasioned by the loud noise, and produced, or was followed by, the movement of the bones to approach one another.\nThe coming together of the bones was followed by their being clothed with sinews, flesh, and skin; but there was not yet any breath in them (Eze 37:8). To give them this the prophet is to prophesy again, and that to the breath, that it come from the four winds or quarters of the world and breathe into these slain (Eze 37:9). Then, when he prophesied, the breath came into them, so that they received life, and stood upright upon their feet. In Eze 37:9 and Eze 37:10 רוּח is rendered by some \"wind,\" by others \"spirit;\" but neither of these is in conformity with what precedes it. רוּח does not mean anything else than the breath of life, which has indeed a substratum in the wind, perceptible to the senses, but it not identical with it. The wind itself brings no life into dead bodies. If, therefore, the dead bodies become living, receive life through the blowing of the רוּח into them, what enters into them by the blowing cannot be a symbol of the breath of life, but must be the breath of life itself - namely, that divine breath of life which pervades all nature, giving and sustaining the life of all creatures (cf. Psa 104:29-30). The expression פּחי בּהרוּגים points back to Gen 2:7. The representation of the bringing of the dead bones to life in two acts may also be explained from the fact that it is based upon the history of the creation of man in Gen 2, as Theodoret\n(Note: \"For as the body of our forefather Adam was first moulded, and then the soul was thus breathed into it; so here also both combined in fitting harmony.\" - Theodoret.)\nhas observed, and serves plainly to depict the creative revivification here, like the first creation there, as a work of the almighty God. For a correct understanding of the vision, it is also necessary to observe that in Eze 37:9 the dead bones, clothed with sinews, flesh, and skin, are called הרוּגים, slain, killed, and not merely dead. It is apparent at once from this that our vision is not intended to symbolize the resurrection of all the dead, but simply the raising up of the nation of Israel, which has been slain. This is borne out by the explanation of the vision which God gives to the prophet in Eze 37:1-14, and directs him to repeat to the people. The dead bones are the \"whole house of Israel\" that has been given up to death; in other words, Judah and Ephraim. \"These bones\" in Eze 37:11 are the same as in Eze 37:3 and Eze 37:5, and not the bodies brought to life in Eze 37:10; though Hitzig maintains that they are the latter, and then draws the erroneous conclusion that Eze 37:11-14 do not interpret the vision of the first ten verses, but that the bones in the valley are simply explained in these verses as signifying the dead of Israel. It is true that the further explanation in Eze 37:12. of what is described in Eze 37:5-10 as happening to the dead bones is not given in the form of an exposition of the separate details of that occurrence, but is summed up in the announcement that God will open their graves, bring them out of their graves, and transport them to their own land. But it does not follow from this that the announcement is merely an application of the vision to the restoration of Israel to new life, and therefore that something different is represented from what is announced in Eze 37:12-14. Such a view is at variance with the words, \"these bones are the whole house of Israel.\" Even if these words are not to be taken so literally as that we are to understand that the prophet was shown in the vision of the bones of the slain and deceased Israelites, but simply mean: these dead bones represent the house of Israel, depict the nation of Israel in its state of death, - they express so much in the clearest terms concerning the relation in which the explanation in Eze 37:12-14 stands to the visionary occurrence in Eze 37:4-10, namely, that God has shown to Ezekiel in the vision what He commands him to announce concerning Israel in Eze 37:12-14; in other words, that the bringing of the dead bones to life shown to him in the vision was intended to place visibly before him the raising of the whole nation of Israel to new life out of the death into which it had fallen. This is obvious enough from the words: these bones are the whole house of Israel. כּל־בּית ישׂראל points forward to the reunion of the tribes of Israel that are severed into two nations, as foretold in Eze 37:15. It is they who speak in Eze 37:11. The subject to אמרים is neither the bones nor the dead of Israel (Hitzig), but the כּל־בּית ישׂראל already named, which is also addressed in Eze 37:12. All Israel says: our bones are dried, i.e., our vital force is gone. The bones are the seat of the vital force, as in Psa 32:3; and יבשׁ, to dry up, applied to the marrow, or vital sap of the bones, is substantially the same as בּלה in the psalm (l.c.). Our hope has perished (cf. Eze 19:5). תּקוה is here the hope of rising into a nation once more. נגזרנוּ לנוּ .: literally, we are cut off for ourselves, sc. from the sphere of the living (cf. Lam 3:54; Isa 53:8), equivalent to \"it is all over with us.\"\nTo the people speaking thus, Ezekiel is to announce that the Lord will open their graves, bring them out of them, put His breath of life into them, and lead them into their own land. If we observe the relation in which Eze 37:12 and Eze 37:13 stand to Eze 37:14, namely, that the two halves of the 14th verse are parallel to the two Eze 37:12 and Eze 37:13, the clause 'וידאתּם כּי אני in Eze 37:14 to the similar clause in Eze 37:13, there can be no doubt that the contents of Eze 37:14 also correspond to those of Eze 37:12 - that is to say, that the words, \"I put my breath (Spirit) into you, that ye may live, and place you in your own land\" (bring you to rest therein), affirm essentially the same as the words, \"I bring you out of your graves, and lead you into the land of Israel;\" with this simple difference, that the bringing out of the graves is explained and rendered more emphatic by the more definite idea of causing them to live through the breath or Spirit of God put into them, and the הביא by הנּיח, the leading into the land by the transporting and bringing them to rest therein. Consequently we are not to understand by נתתּי רוּחי בכם either a divine act differing from the raising of the dead to life, or the communication of the Holy Spirit as distinguished from the imparting of the breath of life. רוּחי, the Spirit of Jehovah, is identical with the רוּח, which comes, according to Eze 37:9 and Eze 37:10, into the bones of the dead when clothed with sinews, flesh, and skin, i.e., is breathed into them. This spirit or breath of life is the creative principle both of the physical and of the ethical or spiritual life. Consequently there are not three things announced in these verses, but only two: (1) The raising to life from a state of death, by bringing out of the graves, and communicating the divine Spirit of life; (2) the leading back to their own land to rest quietly therein. When, therefore, Kliefoth explains these verses as signifying that for the consolation of Israel, which is mourning hopelessly in its existing state of death, \"God directs the prophet to say - (1) That at some future time it will experience a resurrection in the literal sense, that its graves will be opened, and that all its dead, those deceased with those still alive, will be raised up out of their graves; (2) that God will place them in their own land; and (3) that when He has so placed them in their land, He will put His Spirit within them that they may live: in the first point the idea of the future resurrection, both of those deceased and of those still living, is interpolated into the text; and in the third point, placing them in their land before they are brought to life by the Spirit of God, would be at variance with the text, according to which the giving of the Spirit precedes the removal to their own land. The repetition of עמּי in Eze 37:12 and Eze 37:13 is also worthy of notice: you who are my people, which bases the comforting promise upon the fact that Israel is the people of Jehovah.\nIf, therefore, our vision does not set forth the resurrection of the dead in general, but simply the raising to life of the nation of Israel which is given up to death, it is only right that, in order still further to establish this view, we should briefly examine the other explanations that have been given. - The Fathers and most of the orthodox commentators, both of ancient and modern times, have found in Eze 37:1-10 a locus classicus for the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, and that quite correctly. But their views differ widely as to the strict meaning and design of the vision itself; inasmuch as some regard the vision as a direct and immediate prophecy of the general resurrection of the dead at the last day, whilst others take the raising of the dead to life shown to the prophet in the vision to be merely a figure or type of the waking up to new life of the Israel which is now dead in its captivity. The first view is mentioned by Jerome; but in later times it has been more especially defended by Calov, and last of all most decidedly by Kliefoth. Yet the supporters of this view acknowledge that Eze 37:11-14 predict the raising to life of the nation of Israel. The question arises, therefore, how this prediction is to be brought into harmony with such an explanation of the vision. The persons noticed by Jerome, who supported the view that in Eze 37:4-10 it is the general resurrection that is spoken of, sought to remove the difficulties to which this explanation is exposed, by taking the words, \"these bones are the whole house of Israel,\" as referring to the resurrection of the saints, and connecting them with the first resurrection in Rev 20:5, and by interpreting the leading of Israel back to their own land as equivalent to the inheriting of the earth mentioned in Mat 5:5. Calov, on the other hand, gives the following explanation of the relation in which Eze 37:11-14 stand to Eze 37:1-10 : \"in this striking vision there was shown by the Lord to the prophet the resurrection of the dead; but the occasion, the cause, and the scope of this vision were the resurrection of the Israelitish people, not so much into its earlier political form, as for the restoration of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and the establishment of the worship of God, both of which were indeed restored in the time of Zerubbabel, but were first brought to perfection at the coming of Jesus Christ.\" He also assumes that the raising of the dead is represented in the vision, \"because God would have this representation exhibited for a figure and confirmation of the restitution of the people.\" And lastly, according to Kliefoth, Eze 37:11-14 do not furnish a literal exposition of the vision, but simply make an application of it to the bringing of Israel to life. - We cannot regard either of these views as correct, because neither of them does justice to the words of the text. The idea of the Fathers, that Eze 37:11-14 treat of the resurrection of the saints (believers), cannot be reconciled either with the words or with the context of our prophecy, and has evidently originated in perplexity. And the assumption of Calov and Kliefoth, that Eze 37:11-14 contain simply an application of the general resurrection of the dead exhibited in Eze 37:1-10 to the resurrection of Israel, by no means exhausts the meaning of the words, \"these bones are the whole house of Israel,\" as we have already observed in our remarks on Eze 37:11. Moreover, in the vision itself there are certain features to be found which do not apply to the general resurrection of the dead. In proof of this, we will not lay any stress upon the circumstance that Ezekiel sees the resurrection of the dead within certain limits; that it is only the dead men's bones lying about in one particular valley, and not the dead of the whole earth, though a very great army, that he sees come to life again; but, on the other hand, we must press the fact that in Eze 37:9 those who are to be raised to life are called הרוּגים, a word which does not signify the dead of all kinds, but simply those who have been slain, or have perished by the sword, by famine, or by other violent deaths, and which indisputably proves that Ezekiel was not shown the resurrection of all the dead, but simply the raising to life of Israel, which had been swept away by a violent death. Kliefoth would account for this restriction from the purpose for which the vision was shown to the prophet. Because the design of the vision was to comfort Israel concerning the wretchedness of its existing condition, and that wretchedness consisted for the most part in the fact that the greater portion of Israel had perished by sword, famine, and pestilence, he was shown the resurrection of the dead generally and universally, as it would take place not in the case of the Israelites alone, but in that of all the dead, though here confined within the limits of one particular field of dead; and stress is laid upon the circumstance that the dead which Ezekiel saw raised to life instar omnium, were such as had met with a violent death. This explanation would be admissible, if only it had been indicated or expressed in any way whatever, that the bones of the dead which Ezekiel saw lying about in the בּקעה represented all the dead of the whole earth. But we find no such indication; and because in the whole vision there is not a single feature contained which would warrant any such generalization of the field of the dead which Ezekiel saw, we are constrained to affirm that the dead men's bones seen by Ezekiel in the valley represent the whole house of Israel alone, and not the deceased and slain of all mankind; and that the vision does not set forth the resurrection of all the dead, but only the raising to life of the nation of Israel which had been given up to death.\nConsequently we can only regard the figurative view of the vision as the correct one, though this also has been adopted in very different ways. When Jerome says that Ezekiel \"is prophesying of the restoration of Israel through the parable of the resurrection,\" and in order to defend himself from the charge of denying the dogma of the resurrection of the dead, adds that \"the similitude of a resurrection would never have been employed to exhibit the restoration of the Israelitish people, if that resurrection had been a delusion, and it had not been believed that it would really take place; because no one confirms uncertain things by means of things which have no existence;\" - Hvernick very justly replies, that the resurrection of the dead is not to be so absolutely regarded as a dogma already completed and defined, or as one universally known and having its roots in the national belief; though Hvernick is wrong in affirming in support of this that the despair of the people described in Eze 37:11 plainly shows that so general a belief cannot possibly be presupposed. For we find just the same despair at times when faith in the resurrection of the dead was a universally accepted dogma. The principal error connected with this view is the assumption that the vision was merely a parable formed by Ezekiel in accordance with the dogma of the resurrection of the dead. If, on the contrary, the vision was a spiritual intuition produced by God in the soul of the prophet, it might set forth the resurrection of the dead, even if the belief in this dogma had no existence as yet in the consciousness of the people, or at all events was not yet a living faith; and God might have shown to the prophet the raising of Israel to life under this figure, for the purpose of awakening this belief in Israel.\n(Note: No conclusive evidence can be adduced that the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead was not only known to Ezekiel, but was regarded by the people as indisputably sure, as both Hengstenberg (Christology, vol. III p. 51, transl.) and Pareau (Comment. de immortal. p. 109) assume. Such passages as Isa 25:8 and Isa 26:19, even if Ezekiel referred to them, merely prove that the belief or hope of the resurrection of the dead could not be altogether unknown to the believers of Israel, because Isaiah had already declared it. But the obvious announcement of this dogma in Dan 12:2 belongs to a later period than our vision; and even Daniel does not speak of it as a belief that prevailed throughout the nation, but simply communicates it as a consolation offered by the angel of the Lord in anticipation of the times of severe calamity awaiting the people of God.)\nIn that case, however, the vision was not merely a parable, but a symbolical representation of a real fact, which was to serve as a pledge to the nation of its restoration to life. Theodoret comes much nearer to the truth when he gives the following as his explanation of the vision: that \"on account of the unbelief of the Jews in exile, who were despairing of their restoration, the almighty God makes known His might; and the resurrection of the dead bodies, which was much more difficult than their restoration, is shown to the prophet, in order that all the nation may be taught thereby that everything is easy to His will;\"\n(Note: His words are these: ἐπειδή γὰρ δι ̓ ἥν ἐνόσουν ἀπιστίαν τἀς χρηστοτέρας ἀπηγόρευσαν ἐλπίδας οἱ ἐκ τῆς ̓Ιουδαίας αἰχμάλωται γενόμενοι, τὴν οἰκείαν αὐτοῖς ὁ τῶν ὅλων Θεὸς ἐπιδείκνυσι δύναμιν, καὶ τὴν πολλῷ τῆς ἀνακλήσεως ἐκείνης δυσκολωτέραν τῶν νεκρῶν σωμάτων ἀνάστασιν ἐπιδείκνυσι τῷ προφήτῃ καὶ δι ̓ ἐκείνου πάντα διδάσκει τὸν λαὸν, ὡς πάντα αὐτῷ ῥᾴδια βουλομένῳ.)\nand when, accordingly, he calls what occurs in the vision \"a type not of the calling to life of the Jews only, but also of the resurrection of all men.\" The only defect in this is, that Theodoret regards the dead bones which are brought to life too much as a figurative representation of any dead whatever, and thereby does justice neither to the words, \"these bones are the whole house of Israel,\" which he paraphrases by τύπος τοῦ ̓Ισραὴλ ταῦτα, nor to the designation applied to them as הרוּגים, though it may fairly be pleaded as a valid excuse so far as הרוגים is concerned, that the force of this word has been completely neutralized in the Septuagint, upon which he was commenting, by the rendering τοὺς νεκροὺς τούτους. - Hvernick has interpreted the vision in a much more abstract manner, and evaporated it into the general idea of a symbolizing of the creative, life-giving power of God, which can raise even the bones of the dead to life again. His exposition is the following: \"There is no express prediction of the resurrection in these words, whether of a general resurrection or of the particular resurrection of Israel; but this is only though of here, inasmuch as it rests upon the creative activity of God, to which even such a conquest of death as this is possible.\"\n(Note: The view expressed by Hofmann (Schriftbeweis, II 2, pp. 507ff.) is a kindred one, namely, that it is not the future resurrection of the dead, or the resurrection of the deceased Israelites, which is indicated in the vision, and that it does not even set forth to view the unconditioned power of God over death, or an idea which is intended as a pledge of the resurrection of the dead; but that by the revelation made manifest to the prophet in the state of ecstasy, the completeness of that state of death out of which Israel is to be restored is exhibited, and thus the truth is set before his eyes that the word of prophecy has the inherent power to ensure its own fulfilment, even when Israel is in a condition which bears precisely the same resemblance to a nation as the state of death to a human being.)\nThe calling to life of the thoroughly dried dead bones shown to the prophet in the vision, is a figure or visible representation of that which the Lord announces to him in Eze 37:11-14, namely, that He will bring Israel out of its graves, give it life with His breath, and bring it into its own land; and consequently a figure of the raising of Israel to life from its existing state of death. The opening of the graves is also a figure; for those whom the Lord will bring out of their braves are they who say, \"Our bones are dried,\" etc. (Eze 37:11), and therefore not those who are deceased, nor even the spiritually dead, but those who have lost all hope of life. We are not, however, to understand by this merely mors civilis and vita civilis, as Grotius has done. For Israel was destroyed, not only politically as a nation, but spiritually as a church of the Lord, through the destruction of its two kingdoms and its dispersion among the heathen; and in a very large number of its members it had also been given up to the power of physical death and sunk into the grave. Even then, if we keep out of sight those who were deceased, Israel, as the people of God was slain (הרוּג), without any hope of coming to life again, or a resurrection to new life. But the Lord now shows the prophet this resurrection under the figure of the raising to life of the very dry bones that lie scattered all around. This is fulfilled through the restoration of Israel as the people of Jehovah, to which the leading of the people back into the land of Israel essentially belongs. The way was opened and prepared for this fulfilment by the return of a portion of the people from the Babylonian captivity under Zerubbabel and Ezra, which was brought to pass by the Lord, by the rebuilding of the cities of Judah and the temple which had been destroyed, and by the restoration of political order. But all this was nothing more than a pledge of the future and complete restoration of Israel. For although the Lord still raised up prophets for those who had returned and furthered the building of His house, His glory did not enter the newly erected temple, and the people never attained to independence again, - that is to say, not to permanent independence, - but continued in subjection to the imperial power of the heathen. And even if, according to Ezra, very many more of the exiles may have returned to their native land, by whom, for example, Galilee was repopulated and brought into cultivation again, the greater portion of the nation remained dispersed among the heathen. The true restoration of Israel as the people of the Lord commenced with the founding of the new kingdom of God, the \"kingdom of heaven,\" through the appearing of Christ upon the earth. But inasmuch as the Jewish nation as such, or in its entirety, did not acknowledge Jesus Christ as the Messiah foretold by the prophets and sent by God, but rejected its Saviour, there burst afresh upon Jerusalem and the Jewish nation the judgment of dispersion among the heathen; whereas the kingdom of God founded by Christ spread over the earth, through the entrance of believers from among the Gentiles. This judgment upon the Jewish people, which is hardened in unbelief, still continues, and will continue until the time when the full number of the Gentiles has entered into the kingdom of God, and Israel as a people shall also be converted to Christ, acknowledge the crucified One as its Saviour, and bow the knee before Him (Rom 11:25-26). Then will \"all Israel\" be raised up out of its graves, the graves of its political and spiritual death, and brought back into its own land, which will extend as far as the Israel of God inhabits the earth. Then also will the hour come in which all the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and come forth out of their graves to the resurrection (Dan 12:2; Joh 5:25-29); when the Lord shall appear in His glory, and descend from heaven with the trump of God (Th1 4:16), to call all the dead to life, and through the judgment upon all the nations to perfect His kingdom in glory, and bring the righteous into the Canaan of the new earth, into the heavenly Jerusalem, to the imperishable life of everlasting blessedness.\nAll these several factors in the restoration of Israel, which has been given up to the death of exile on account of its sins, though far removed from one another, so far as the time of their occurrence is concerned, are grouped together as one in the vision of the coming to life of the dead bones of the whole house of Israel. The two features which are kept distinct in the visionary description - namely, (1) the coming together of the dry bones, and their being clothed with sinews, flesh, and skin; and (2) the bringing to life of the bones, which have now the form of corpses, through the divine breath of life - are not to be distinguished in the manner proposed by Hengstenberg, namely, that the first may be taken as referring to the restoration of the civil condition - the external restitutio in integrum; the second, to the giving of new life through the outpouring of the Spirit of God. - Even according to our view, the vision contains a prophecy of the resurrection of the dead, only not in this sense, that the doctrine of the general resurrection of the dead is the premiss, or the design, or the direct meaning of the vision; but that the figurative meaning constitutes the foreground, and the full, literal meaning of the words the background of the prophetic vision, and that the fulfilment advances from the figurative to the literal meaning, - the raising up of the people of Israel out of the civil and spiritual death of exile being completed in the raising up of the dead out of their graves to everlasting life at the last day. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["Reunion of Israel as One Nation under the Future King David\nThis word of God directs the prophet to represent by a sign the reunion of the tribes of Israel, which have been divided into two kingdoms (Eze 37:15-17), and to explain this sign to the people (Eze 37:18-21), and predict its sanctification and blessedness under the reign of the future David (Eze 37:22-28). What is new in this word of God is the express prediction embodied in a symbolical action, of the reunion of the divided tribes of Israel into one single people of God, which has been already hinted at in the promise of the raising to life of \"the whole house of Israel\" (Eze 37:11). This brief indication is here plainly expressed and more fully developed.\nEze 37:15-28\nEze 37:15. And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, Eze 37:16. And thou, son of man, take to thyself a piece of wood, and write upon it: Of Judah, and the sons of Israel, his associates; and take another piece of wood, and write upon it: Of Joseph, the wood of Ephraim, and the whole house of Israel, his associates; Eze 37:17. And put them together, one to the other, into one piece of wood to thee, that they may be united in thy hand. Eze 37:18. And when the sons of thy people say to thee, Wilt thou not show us what thou meanest by this? Eze 37:19. Say to them, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I will take the wood of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel, his associates, which I put thereon, with the wood of Judah, and will make them into one stick, that they may be one in my hand. Eze 37:20. And the pieces of wood upon which thou hast written shall be in thy hand before their eyes. Eze 37:21. And say to them, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I will take the sons of Israel out of the nations among whom they walk, and will gather them from round about, and lead them into their land. Eze 37:22. I will make them into one nation in the land, upon the mountains of Israel, and one king shall be king over them all; and it shall not become two nations any more, and they shall not henceforth be divided into two kingdoms any more; Eze 37:23. And shall not defile themselves by their idols and their abominations, and by all their transgressions; but I will help them from all their dwelling-places, in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them; so that they shall be my people, and I will be their God. Eze 37:24. And my servant David will be king over them, and be a shepherd for them all; and they will walk in my rights, and keep my statutes and do them. Eze 37:25. And they will dwell in the land which I gave to my servant Jacob, in which their fathers dwelt; there will they dwell, and their children's children for ever; and my servant David will be a prince to them for ever. Eze 37:26. And I make a covenant of peace with them for ever, an everlasting covenant shall be with them; and I will place them, and multiply them, and put my sanctuary in the midst of them for ever. Eze 37:27. And my dwelling will be over them; I will be their God, and they will be my people. Eze 37:28. And the nation shall know that I am Jehovah, who sanctifieth Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for ever.\nThe symbolical action commanded in Eze 37:16 and Eze 37:17, which the prophet no doubt performed in all its external reality (cf. Eze 37:19 and Eze 37:20), is easily understood, and expresses the thing to be represented in the the clearest manner. The writing of the names of the tribes composing the two kingdoms recalls to mind the similar act on the part of Moses (Num 17:1-13 :17ff.). But the act itself is a different one here, and neither the passage referred to nor Eze 21:15 furnishes any proof that עץ signifies a staff or rod. Ezekiel would undoubtedly have used מטּה for a staff. Nor have we even to think of flat boards, but simply of pieces of wood upon which a few words could be written, and which could be held in one hand. The ל before the names to be written upon each piece of wood is the sign of the genitive, indicating to whom it belongs, as in the case of the heading to David's psalms (לדוד). This is evident from the fact that in אץ אפרים the construct state is used instead. The name is to indicate that the piece of wood belongs to Judah or Ephraim, and represents it. The command to Ezekiel to write upon one piece of wood, not only Judah, but \"the sons of Israel, his associates,\" arose from the circumstance that the kingdom of Judah included, in addition to the tribe of Judah, the greater portion of Benjamin and Simeon, the tribe of Levi and those pious Israelites who emigrated at different times from the kingdom of the ten tribes into that of Judah, who either were or became associates of Judah (Ch2 11:12., Ch2 15:9; Ch2 30:11, Ch2 30:18; Ch2 31:1). In the writing upon the second piece of wood, אץ אפרים is an explanatory apposition to ליוסף, and an accusative governed by כּתב. But the command is not to be understood as signifying that Ezekiel was to write the words עץ אפרים upon the piece of wood; all that he was to write was, \"Joseph and the whole house of Israel, his associates.\" The name of Joseph is chosen, in all probability, not as the more honourable name, as Hvernick supposes, but because the house of Joseph, consisting of the two powerful tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, formed the trunk of the kingdom of the ten tribes (Kliefoth). The \"whole house of Israel, his associates,\" are the rest of the tribes belonging to that kingdom. The two pieces of wood, with these inscriptions upon them, Ezekiel is to put together, and hold in his hand bound together in one. מה־אלּה לּך, what these (two pieces of wood) are to thee, is equivalent to, what thou meanest to indicate by them. For the rest, compare Eze 24:19. In the word of God explaining the action (Eze 37:19), the wood of Joseph is not the piece of wood with Joseph's name written upon it, but the kingdom represented by this piece of wood which was in Ephraim's hand, inasmuch as the hegemony was with the tribe of Ephraim. Instead of the wood, therefore, the tribes (not staffs) of Israel, i.e., the Israelites who constituted these tribes, are mentioned as his associates. God will put these upon the wood of Joseph (עליו), i.e., will join them together, and then place them with the wood of Judah, i.e., the kingdom of Judah, and unite them into one wood (or nation). את־עץ , the construction of which has been misunderstood by Hitzig, is neither in apposition to עליו, nor governed by נתתּי: \"and will put them thereupon, upon the wood of Judah\" (Hitzig and Kliefoth), or, \"I add them to it, (namely) with the wood of Judah\" (De Wette); but it is dependent upon לקח, \"I take the wood of Joseph...and the tribes of Israel, his associates, which I put thereon, along with the wood of Judah, and make them into one wood.\" The construction is rendered obscure simply by the fact that the relative clause, \"which I put thereon,\" is attached to the principal clause 'אני לקח וגו by Vav consec. In בּידי, \"they shall be one in my hand,\" there is probably an antithesis to בּיד אפרים, those who have come into Ephraim's hand, the tribes severed by Ephraim from the kingdom of God, will God once more bring together with Judah, and hold in His hand as an undivided nation. - In Eze 37:20 the description of the sign is completed by the additional statement, that the pieces of wood on which the prophet has written are to be in his hand before their eyes, and consequently that the prophet is to perform the act in such a way that his countrymen may see it; from which it follows that he performed it in its outward reality. The fulfilment of the instructions is not specially mentioned, as being self-evident; but in Eze 37:21-28 the further explanation of the symbolical action is given at once; and the interpretation goes beyond the symbol, inasmuch as it not only describes the manner in which God will effect the union of the divided tribes, but also what He will do for the preservation of the unity of the reunited people, and for the promotion of their blessedness. This explanation is arranged in two strophes through the repetition of the concluding thought: \"they will be my people,\" etc., in Eze 37:23 and Eze 37:27. Each of these strophes contains a twofold promise.\nThe first (Eze 37:21-23) promises (a) the gathering of the Israelites out of their dispersion, their restoration to their own land, and their union as one nation under the rule of David (Eze 37:21, Eze 37:22); (b) their purification from all sins, and sanctification as the true people of the Lord (Eze 37:23). The second strophe (Eze 37:24-27) promises (a) their undisturbed eternal abode in the land, under David their prince (Eze 37:25); (b) the blessedness conferred upon them through the conclusion of an everlasting covenant of peace (Eze 37:26 and Eze 37:27). This second promise, therefore, constitutes the completion of the first, securing to the nation of Israel its restoration and sanctification for all time. The whole promise, however, is merely a repetition of that contained in Ezekiel 34:11-31 and Eze 36:22-30. - The three factors - the gathering out of the nations, restoration to the land of Israel, and reunion as one people - form the first act of divine grace. The union of the Israelites, when brought back to their land, is accomplished by God giving them in David a king who will so rule the reunited people that they will not be divided any more into two peoples and two kingdoms. The Chetib יהיה is not to be altered into the plural יהיוּ, as in the Keri; but גּוי is to be supplied in thought, from the preceding clause, as the subject to the verb. The division of the nation into two kingdoms had its roots, no doubt, in the ancient jealousy existing between the two tribes Ephraim and Judah; but it was primarily brought to pass through the falling away of Solomon from the Lord. Consequently it could only be completely and for ever terminated through the righteous government of the second David, and the purification of the people from their sins. This is the way in which Eze 36:23 is attached to Eze 36:22. For Eze 36:23 compare Eze 14:11 and Eze 36:25. Different interpretations have been given of the words, \"I help them from all their dwelling-places, in which they have sinned.\" They recall to mind Eze 36:29, \"I help them from all their uncleannesses.\" As הושׁע מן signifies, in that case, \"to preserve therefrom,\" so in the present instance the thought can only be, \"God will preserve them from all the dwelling-places in which they have sinned.\" Hengstenberg is of opinion that the redemption from the dwelling-places does not take place locally, but spiritually, through the cleansing away of all traces of sin, first from the hearts, and then, in consequence, from all around. In this way is the land changed, through the power of the Lord, into another land, from a sinful to a holy one; just as before it had been changed from a holy to a sinful one through the guilt of the people. But if this were the only thought which the words contained, Ezekiel would certainly have placed the וטהרתּי אותם before 'והושׁעתּי וגו. As the words read, the deliverance of the people from their sinful dwelling-places is to precede their purification, to prepare the way for it and bring it to pass, and not to follow after it. The dwelling-places, at or in which they have sinned, cannot be the settlements in foreign lands, as Hitzig supposes, but only the dwelling-places in Canaan, to which the Lord would bring them after gathering them from their dispersion. הושׁע does not signify, \"leading out from these dwelling-places,\" which is the explanation given by Kliefoth, who consequently thinks that we must understand the words as denoting the leading over of Israel from the present Canaan, or the Canaan of this life, to which its sins adhere, to the glorified, new, and eternal Canaan. This view is utterly irreconcilable both with the words themselves and also with the context. Even if הושׁע meant to lead out, it would not be allowable to transform the \"leading out\" from the sinful Canaan into a \"leading in\" to the glorified and heavenly Canaan. Moreover, the further development of this promise in Eze 37:25 also shows that it is not in the glorified, eternal Canaan that Israel is to dwell, but in the earthly Canaan in which its fathers dwelt. It is obvious from this, that in all the promise here given there is no allusion to a transformation and glorification of Canaan itself. The helping or saving from all dwelling-places in which they have sinned would rather consist in the fact, therefore, that God would remove from their dwelling-places everything that could offer them an inducement to sin. For although sin has its seat, not in the things without us, but in the heart, the external circumstances of a man do offer various inducements to sin. Before the captivity, Canaan offered such an inducement to the Israelites through the idolatry and moral corruption of the Canaanites who were left in the land. And with reference to this the Lord promises that in future, when His people are brought back to Canaan, He will preserve them from the sinful influence of their dwelling-places. But this preservation will only be effected with complete success when God purifies Israel itself, and, by means of its renovation, eradicates all sinful desire from the heart (cf. Eze 36:26-27). In this way וטהרתּי is appended in the most fitting way to 'והושׁעתּי . - Through the removal of all sinful influences from around them, and the purifying of the heart, Israel will then become in truth the people of God, and Jehovah the God of Israel (Eze 37:23).\nIsrael, when thus renewed, will walk in the rights of the Lord and fulfil His commandments, under the protection of its one shepherd David, i.e., of the Messiah (Eze 37:24, cf. Eze 36:27, and Eze 34:23); and its children and children's children will dwell for ever in its own land, David being its prince for ever (Eze 37:25, and cf. Eze 36:28 and Eze 34:24). What is new in this promise, which is repeated from Ezekiel 34 and 36, is contained in לעולם, which is to be taken in the strict sense of the word. Neither the dwelling of Israel in Canaan, nor the government of the David-Messiah, will ever have an end. לעולם is therefore repeated in Eze 37:26 in the promise of the covenant which the Lord will make with His people. The thought itself has already been expressed in Eze 34:25, and בּרית שׁלוּם is to be understood, both here and there, as comprehending all the saving good which the Lord will bestow upon all His sanctified people. There are only two factors of this salvation mentioned here in Eze 37:26 and Eze 37:27, namely, the multiplication of the people, as the earthly side of the divine blessing, and the establishing of His eternal sanctuary in the midst of them as the spiritual side. These two points refer back to the former acts of God, and hold up to view the certain and full realization in the future of what has hitherto been neither perfectly nor permanently accomplished on account of the sins of the people. וּנתתּים, in Eze 37:26, is not to be taken in connection with והרבּיתּי אותם, so as to form one idea in the sense of dabo eos multiplicatos (Venema and Hengstenberg), for we have no analogies of such a mode of combination; but נתתּים, I make, or place them, is to be taken by itself, and completed from the context, \"I make them into a nation, and I multiply them (cf. Eze 36:10-11, Eze 36:37). Ezekiel has here Lev 26:9 and Lev 26:11 in his mind, as we may see from the fact that the words, \"I give my sanctuary in the midst of them for ever,\" are obviously formed after Lev 26:11, \"I give my dwelling in the midst of them;\" in such a manner, however, that by the substitution of מקדּשׁי for משׁכּני, and the addition of לעולם, the promise is both deepened and strengthened. In the change of משׁכּני into מקדּשׁי, he may indeed have had the words of Exo 25:8 floating before his mind, \"they shall make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them;\" nevertheless he deliberately selected the expression \"my sanctuary,\" to indicate that the Lord would dwell in the midst of Israel as the Holy One, and the Sanctifier of His people. Moreover, the words are not, \"my dwelling will be in the midst of them, or among them\" (בּתוכם), but עליהם, over them. This expression is transferred from the site of the temple, towering above the city (Psa 68:30), to the dwelling of God among His people, to give prominence to the protective power and saving grace of the God who rules in Israel (cf. Hengstenberg on Psa 68:30). The sanctuary which Jehovah will give in Israel for ever, i.e., will found and cause to endure, that He may dwelling the midst of it to shelter and bless, is the temple, but not the temple built by Zerubbabel. As an objection to this Jewish interpretation, Jerome has justly said: \"but how could it be said to stand 'for ever,' when that temple which was built in the time of Zerubbabel, and afterwards restored by many others, was consumed by Roman fire? All these things are to be taken as referring to the church in the time of the Saviour, when His tabernacle was placed in the church.\" There is no reference whatever here to the rebuilding of the temple by Zerubbabel; not because that temple did not stand for ever and was destroyed by the Romans, but chiefly because God did not make it His abode, or fill this temple with His gracious presence (Shechinah). The sanctuary which God will place for ever among His people is the sanctuary seen by Ezekiel in Ezekiel 40ff.; and this is merely a figurative representation of the \"dwelling of God in the midst of His people through His Son and Holy Spirit\" (cf. Vitringa, Observv. I. p. 161), which began to be realized in the incarnation of the Logos, who is set forth in Joh 1:14 as the true משׁכּן, in the words ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν, and is continued in the spiritual dwelling of God in the heart of believers (Co1 3:16; Co1 6:19), and will be completed at the second coming of our Lord in the \"tabernacle (σκηνή) of God with men\" of the new Jerusalem, of which the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple, since Israel will then first have become in truth the people of God, and Jehovah (God with them) their God (Rev 21:3, Rev 21:22). - The promise concludes in Eze 37:28 with an allusion to the impression which these acts of God in Israel will make upon the heathen (cf. Eze 36:36). From the fact that Jehovah erects His sanctuary in the midst of Israel for ever, they will learn that it is He who sanctifieth Israel. קדּשׁ, to sanctify, means, \"to remove from all connection either with sin or with its consequences. Here the reference is to the latter, because these alone strike the eyes of the heathen; but the former is presupposed as the necessary foundation\" (Hengstenberg). The words rest upon the promises of the Pentateuch, where God describes Himself as He who will and does sanctify Israel (compare Exo 31:13; Lev 22:31-33). This promise, which has hitherto been only imperfectly fulfilled on account of Israel's guilt, will be perfectly realized in the future, when Israel will walk in the ways of the Lord, renewed by the Spirit of God.\nThus does this prophecy of Ezekiel span the whole future of the people of God even to eternity. But the promise in which it culminates, namely, that the Lord will erect His sanctuary in the midst of His restored people, and there take up His abode above them for ever (Eze 37:26.), is of importance as helping to decide the question, how we are to understand the fulfilment of the restoration to Canaan into the land given to the fathers, which is promised to all Israel; whether, in a literal manner, by the restoration of the Israelites to Palestine; or spiritually, by the gathering together of the Israelites converted to the Lord their God and Saviour, and their introduction into the kingdom of God founded by Christ, in which case Canaan, as the site of the Old Testament kingdom of God, would be a symbolical or typical designation of the earthly soil of the heavenly kingdom, which has appeared in the Christian church. - These two different views have stood opposed to one another from time immemorial, inasmuch as the Jews expect from the Messiah, for whose advent they still hope, not only their restoration to Palestine, but the erection of the kingdom of David and the rebuilding of the temple upon Mount Zion, together with the sacrificial worship of the Levitical law; whereas in the Christian church, on the ground of the New Testament doctrine, that the old covenant has been abolished along with the Levitical temple-worship through the perfect fulfilment of the law by Christ and the perpetual efficacy of His atoning sacrifice, the view has prevailed that, with the abolition of the Old Testament form of the kingdom of God, even Palestine has ceased to be the chosen land of the revelation of the saving grace of God, and under the new covenant Canaan extends as far as the Israel of the new covenant, the church of Jesus Christ, is spread abroad over the earth, and that Zion or Jerusalem is to be sought wherever Christendom worships God in spirit and in truth, wherever Christ is with His people, and dwells in the hearts of believers through the Holy Spirit. It was by J. A. Bengel and C. F. Oetinger that the so-called \"realistic\" interpretation of the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament - according to which, after the future conversion to Christ of the Jewish people who are hardened still, the establishment of the kingdom of God in Palestine and its capital Jerusalem is to be expected - has been revived and made into one of the leading articles of Christian hope. By means of this \"realistic\" exposition of the prophetic word the chiliastic dogma of the establishment of a kingdom of glory before the last judgment and the end of the world is then deduced from the twentieth chapter of the Apocalypse; and many of the theologians of our day regard this as the certain resultant of a deeper study of the Scriptures. In the more precise definition of the dogma itself, the several supporters diverge very widely from one another; but they all agree in this, that they base the doctrine chiefly upon the prophetic announcement of the eventual conversion and glorification of all Israel. - As Ezekiel then stands out among all the prophets as the one who gives the most elaborate prediction of the restoration of Israel under the government of the Messiah, and he not only draws in Ezekiel 40-48 a detailed picture of the new form of the kingdom of God, but also in Ezekiel 38 and 39, in the prophecy concerning Gog and Magog, foretells an attack on the part of the heathen world upon the restored kingdom of God, which appears, according to Rev 20:7-9, to constitute the close of the thousand years' reign; we must look somewhat more closely at this view, and by examining the arguments pro and con, endeavour to decide the question as to the fulfilment of the Old Testament prophecies concerning the future of Israel. In doing this, however, we shall fix our attention exclusively upon the exegetical arguments adduced in support of the chiliastic view by its latest supporters.\n(Note: These are, C. A. Auberlen, \"The Prophet Daniel and the Revelation of John;\" also in a treastise on the Messianic Prophecies of the Mosaic times, in the Jahrbb.f. deutsche Theologie, IV pp. 778ff.; J. C. K. Hofmann, in his Weissagung und Erfllung im A. u. N. Testamente, and in the Schriftbeweis, vol. II p. 2; Mich. Baumgarten, article \"Ezekiel\" in Herzog's Cyclopaedia, and here and there in his commentary on the Old Testament; C. E. Luthardt, The Doctrine of the Last Things in Treatises and Expositions of Scripture (1851); and Dr. Volck, in the Dorpater Zeitschfit fr Theologie und Kirche, IX pp. 142ff.; and others.)\nThe prophetic announcement, that the Lord will one day gather together again the people of Israel, which has been thrust out among the heathen for its unfaithfulness, will bring it back into the land given to the fathers, and there bless and greatly multiply it, has its roots in the promises of the law. If the stiff-necked transgressors of the commandments of God - these are the words of Lev 26:40-45 - bear the punishment of their iniquity in the land of their enemies, and confess their sins, and their uncircumcised heart is humbled, then will the Lord remember His covenant with the patriarchs, and not cast them off even in the land of their enemies, to destroy them, and to break His covenant with them; but will remember the covenant which He made with their ancestors, when He brought them out of Egypt before the eyes of the nations to be their God. He will, as this is more precisely defined in Deu 30:3., gather them together again out of the heathen nations, lead them back into the land which their fathers possessed, and multiply Israel more than its fathers. On the ground of this promise, of which Moses gives a still further pledge to the people in his dying song (Deu 32:36-43), all the prophets announce the restoration and ultimate glorification of Israel. This song, which closes with the promise, \"Rejoice, ye nations, over His people; for He will avenge the blood of His servants, and repay vengeance to His adversaries, and expiate His land, His people,\" continues to resound - to use the words of Hofmann (Schriftbeweis, II 2, pp. 89, 90) - \"through all the Old Testament prophecy. Not only when Obadiah (Oba 1:17) and Joel (Joe 3:5) promise good to their nation do they call Mount Zion and the city of Jerusalem the place where there is protection from the judgment upon the nations of the world; but Micah also, who foretells the destruction of the temple and the carrying away of his people to Babylon, beholds Mount Zion exalted at last above all the seats of worldly power, and his people brought back to the land of their fathers (Eze 4:1; Eze 7:14). The same Isaiah, who was sent to harden his people with the word of his prophecy, is nevertheless certain that at last a holy nation will dwell in Jerusalem, a remnant of Israel (Isa 4:3; Isa 10:21); and the holy mountain of Jehovah, to which His scattered people return from all the ends of the world, is that abode of peace where even wild beasts do no more harm under the rule of the second David (Isa 11:9, Isa 11:11). After all the calamities which it was the mournful lot of Jeremiah to foretell and also to witness, Jehovah showed this prophet the days when He would restore His people, and bring them back to the land which He gave to their fathers (Jer 30:3).... And the same promise is adhered to even after the return. In every way is the assurance given by Zechariah, that Judah shall be God's holy possession in God's holy land.\"\n(Note: Compare with this the words of Auberlen (der Prophet Daniel, p. 399, ed. 2): \"The doctrine of the glorious restoration of Israel to Canaan, after severe chastisement and humiliation, is so essential and fundamental a thought of all prophecy, that the difficulty is not so much to find passages to support it, as to make a selection from them. By way of example, let us notice Isa 2:2-4; Isa 4:2-6; Isa 9:1-6, Isa 9:11 and Isa 9:12; more especially Isa 11:11., 24ff., 60ff.; Jer 30-33; Eze 34:23-31, 36-37; Hos 2:16 -25; Hos 3:4-5; Hos 11:8-11; Hos 14:2.; Joe 3:1-5; 4:16-21; Amo 9:8-15; Oba 1:17; Mic 2:12-13; Mic 4:1-13; Mic 5:1-15; Mic 7:11-20); Zep 3:14-20; Zac 2:4., Zac 8:7., Zac 9:9., Zac 10:8-12; 12:2-13:6; Zac 14:8.\" Auberlen (pp. 400f.) then gives the following as the substance of these prophetic descriptions: \"Israel having been brought back to its own land, will be the people of God in a much higher and deeper sense than before; inasmuch as sin will be averted, the knowledge of God will fill the land, and the Lord will dwell again in the midst of His people at Jerusalem. A new period of revelation is thus commenced, the Spirit of God is richly poured out, and with this a plenitude of such gifts of grace as were possessed in a typical manner by the apostolic church. And this rich spiritual life has also its perfect external manifestation both in a priestly and a regal form. The priesthood of Israel was more especially seen by Ezekiel, the son of a priest, in his mysterious vision in ch. 40-48; the monarchy by Daniel, the statesman; while Jeremiah, for example, unites the two (Jer 33:17-22). What took place only in an outward way, i.e., in the letter, during the Old Testament times, and withdrew, on the other hand, into the inward and hidden spirit-life during the time of the Christian church, will then manifest itself outwardly also, and assume an external though pneumatic form. In the Old Testament the whole of the national life of Israel in its several forms of manifestation, domestic and political life, labour and art, literature and culture, was regulated by religion, though only at first in an outward and legal way. The church, on the other hand, has, above all, to urge a renewal of the heart, and must give freedom to the outward forms which life assumes, enjoining upon the conscience of individual men, in these also to glorify Christ. In the thousand years' reign all these departments of life will be truly Christianized, and that from within. Looked at in this light, there will be nothing left to give offence, if we bear in mind that the ceremonial law of Moses corresponds to the priesthood of Israel, and the civil law to the monarchy. The Gentile church has only been able to adopt the moral law, however certainly it has been directed merely to the inwardly working means of the word, or of the prophetic office. But when once the priesthood and the kingly office have been restored, then, without doing violence to the Epistle to the Hebrews, the ceremonial and civil law of Moses will unfold its spiritual depths in the worship and constitution of the thousand years' reign.\")\nContinued in next section \n[continued from previous section]\nThis restoration of Israel Ezekiel describes, in harmony with Jer 31, though in a much more detailed picture, in the following way: - \"The condition of things in the future will differ from that in the past, simply in the fact that Israel will then have a heart converted to fidelity and obedience by the Spirit of God (Eze 11:19; Eze 36:27), and will live in good peace and prosperity under the shelter of its God, who is known and acknowledged by all the world (Eze 36:23). The land to which it is restored, a land most decidedly represented by Ezekiel as the same as that in which its fathers lived (Eze 37:25), appears throughout merely as a happy earthly dwelling-place, and the promise of its possession as an assurance given to a nation continuing to propagate itself in peace\" (Hofmann, p. 576). This manner of depicting the condition of the Israel restored and glorified by the Messiah, as a peaceful settlement and a happy life in the land of the fathers, a life rich in earthly possessions, is not confined, however, to Jeremiah and Ezekiel, but stands out more or less conspicuously in the Messianic pictures of all the prophets. What follows, then, from this in relation to the mode in which these prophecies are to be fulfilled? Is it that the form assumed by the life of the people of Israel when restored will be only a heightened repetition of the conditions of its former life in Palestine, undisturbed by sin? By no means. On the contrary, it follows from this that the prophets have depicted the glorious restoration of Israel by the Messiah by means of figures borrowed from the past and present of the national life of Israel, and therefore that their picture is not to be taken literally, but symbolically or typically, and that we are not to expect it to be literally fulfilled.\nWe are forced to this conclusion by the fact that, through the coming of Christ, and the kingdom of heaven which began with Him, the idea of the people of God has been so expanded, that henceforth not the lineal descendants of Abraham, or the Jewish nation merely, but the church of confessors of Jesus Christ, gathered together out of Israel and the Gentiles, has become the people of God, and the economy of the Old Testament has ceased to constitute the divinely appointed from of the church of God. If, therefore, the Jewish people, who have rejected the Saviour, who appeared in Jesus Christ, and have hardened themselves against the grace and truth revealed in Him, are not cast off for ever, but, according to the promises of the Old Testament and the teaching of the Apostle Paul (Rom 11), will eventually repent, and as a people turn to the crucified One, and then also realize the fulfilm"]}]},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/EZK/37.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"EZK","chapter":37},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/EZK/38.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"EZK","chapter":38},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/EZK/35.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"EZK","chapter":35},"numberOfVerses":2}