Ezekiel 20

20:1 AND it came to pass in the seventh year, in the fifth month, the tenth day of the month, that certain of the elders of Israel came to inquire of the LORD, and sat before me. 2, 3 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, speak unto the elders of Israel, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God: Are ye come to inquire of me? As I 4 live, saith the Lord God, I will not be inquired of by you. Wilt thou judge them, son of 5 man, wilt thou judge them? cause them to know the abominations of their fathers; and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God: In the day when I chose Israel, and lifted up mine hand unto the seed of the house of Jacob, and made myself known unto them in the land of 6 Egypt, when I lifted up mine hand unto them, saying, I am the LORD your God ; in that day I lifted up mine hand unto them, to bring them forth out of the land of Egypt into a land that I had espied for them, flowing with milk and honey, which is the glory of all lands : 7 and I said unto them, Cast ye away every man the abominations of his eyes, and defile not 8 yourselves with the idols of Egypt ; I am the LORD your God. But they rebelled against me, and would not hearken unto me ; they did not every man cast away the abominations of their eyes, neither did they forsake the idols of Egypt : then I said I would pour out my fury upon them, to accomplish my anger against them in the midst of the land of Egypt. 9 But I wrought for my name’s sake, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations, among whom they were, in whose sight I made myself known unto them, in bringing them 10 forth out of the land of Egypt. So I caused them to go forth out of the land of Egypt, and 11 brought them into the wilderness. And I gave them my statutes, and shewed them my 12 judgements, which if a man do, he shall live in them. Moreover also I gave them my sab- baths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD that 13 sanctify them. But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness : they walked not in my statutes, and they rejected my judgements, which if a man do, he shall live in them ; and my sabbaths they greatly profaned : then I said I would pour out my fury upon 14 them in the wilderness, to consume them. But I wrought for my name’s sake, that it should 15 not be profaned in the sight of the nations, in whose sight I brought them out. Moreover also I lifted up my hand unto them in the wilderness, that I would not bring them into the land which I had given them, flowing with milk and honey, which is the glory of all lands ; 16 because they rejected my judgements, and walked not in my statutes, and profaned my sab- 17 baths : for their heart went after their idols. Nevertheless mine eye spared them from de- 18 stroying them, neither did I make a full end of them in the wilderness. And I said unto their children in the wilderness, Walk ye not in the statutes of your fathers, neither observe 19 their judgements, nor defile yourselves with their idols : I am the LORD your God ; walk in 20 my statutes, and keep my judgements, and do them : and hallow my sabbaths ; and they 21 shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the LORD your God. But the children rebelled against me ; they walked not in my statutes, neither kept my judge- ments to do them, which if a man do, he shall live in them ; they profaned my sabbaths : then I said I would pour out my fury upon them, to accomplish my anger against them in the 22 wilderness. Nevertheless I withdrew mine hand, and wrought for my name’s sake, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations, in whose sight I brought them forth. 23 Moreover I lifted up mine hand unto them in the wilderness, that I would scatter them 24 among the nations, and disperse them through the countries ; because they had not executed my judgements, but had rejected my statutes, and had profaned my sabbaths, and their eyes 25 were after their fathers’ idols. Moreover also I gave them statutes that were not good, and 26 judgements wherein they should not live ; and I polluted them in their own gifts, in that they caused to pass through the fire all that openeth the womb, that I might make them desolate, to the end that they might know that I am the LORD. 27 Therefore, son of man, speak unto the house of Israel, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God : In this moreover have your fathers blasphemed me, in that they have committed 28 a trespass against me. For when I had brought them into the land, which I lifted up mine hand to give unto them, then they saw every high hill, and every thick tree, and they offered there their sacrifices, and there they presented the provocation of their offering, there also 29 they made their sweet savour, and they poured out there their drink offerings. Then I said unto them, What meaneth the high place whereunto ye go ? So the name thereof is called 30 Bamah unto this day. Wherefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord God : Do ye pollute yourselves after the manner of your fathers ? and go ye a whoring after their 31 abominations ? and when ye offer your gifts, when ye make your sons to pass through the fire, do ye pollute yourselves with all your idols, unto this day ? and shall I be inquired of by you, O house of Israel ? As I live, saith the Lord God, I will not be inquired of by you : 32 and that which cometh into your mind shall not be at all ; in that ye say, We will be as the 33 nations, as the families of the countries, to serve wood and stone. As I live, saith the Lord God, surely with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out, 34 will I be king over you : and I will bring you out from the peoples, and will gather you out of the countries wherein ye are scattered, with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, 35 and with fury poured out: and I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there 36 will I plead with you face to face. Like as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of 37 the land of Egypt, so will I plead with you, saith the Lord God. And I will cause you to 38 pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant; and I will purge out from among you the rebels, and them that transgress against me; I will bring them forth out of the land where they sojourn, but they shall not enter into the land of Israel: and ye 39 shall know that I am the LORD. As for you, O house of Israel, thus saith the Lord God: Go ye, serve every one his idols, and hereafter also, if ye will not hearken unto me: but my 40 holy name shall ye no more profane with your gifts, and with your idols. For in mine holy mountain, in the mountain of the height of Israel, saith the Lord God, there shall all the house of Israel, all of them, serve me in the land: there will I accept them, and there will I 41 require your offerings and the firstfruits of your oblations, with all your holy things. As a sweet savour will I accept you, when I bring you out from the peoples, and gather you out of the countries wherein ye have been scattered; and I will be sanctified in you in the sight 42 of the nations. And ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall bring you into the land 43 of Israel, into the country which I lifted up mine hand to give unto your fathers. And there shall ye remember your ways, and all your doings, wherein ye have polluted yourselves; and ye shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for all your evils that ye have committed. 44 And ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I have wrought with you for my name’s sake, not according to your evil ways, nor according to your corrupt doings, O ye house of Israel, saith the Lord God.

Chap. 20. Another visit from the chieftains of the people. Ezekiel in reply to their in- quiries sets forth their national history, the national judgment and the hope of Divine mercy. This leads up to the prediction of the kingdom of the Messiah. B. C.

This chapter, with a new date, has its spe- cial occasion—the coming of certain elders of Israel to inquire of the Lord through the prophet. It has also its special strain of reply —essentially a résumé or historical review of the great trials which the Lord experienced with the Hebrew people on the point of their propensity to idolatry, showing that, over and over again, He had forbidden them to worship idols, had solemnly sworn that He would ex- terminate them with His judgments for this sin, but had spared them for His great mercy’s sake. As a historical sketch the chapter corre- sponds somewhat closely with Neh. 9; Ps. 78, and the speech of Stephen in Acts 7. Here pre- eminently the historical facts cited bear on the great points now present and prominent—viz., that the people were strangely infatuated tow- ard idolatry, that they had been on the verge of national ruin repeatedly for this sin; and that they had been spared only through the great mercy of God and to save the honor of His throne before the heathen; and not at all for their own sake or merit.

1. This new date is about eleven months later than the last named (8:1). H. C.—In the seventh year. Of Jehoiachin’s captivity. (Cf. chap. 1:2; 8:1.) All the prophecies recorded from the eighth chapter to this proba- bly belong to the sixth year of the Captivity. W. Lowth.

The elders of Israel. These were as in 14:1, from Ezekiel’s fellow-exiles, designated in gen- eral terms by the name of Israel, though more properly belonging to the kingdom of Judah. The use of the word Israel is the more appro- priate here, because in his reply the prophet refers to the history of the people from the very beginning. B. C.

2,3. The doom of the guilty people and city was fixed, and no prayer could reverse it. God “would not pardon.” (See 2 K. 24:4; Ezek. 14; Jer. 15; 7:16; 11:14; 14:11.) On the clause, “I will not be inquired of by you,” Jerome has this fine comment: “To the holy and to those who ask for right things, the prom- ise is given: ‘While they are yet speaking, I will say, Here I am.’ But to sinners, such as these elders of Israel were, and as those whose sins the prophet proceeds to describe, no an- swer is given, but only a fierce rebuke for their sins, to which He adds his oath; ‘As I live,’ to strengthen his solemn refusal.” H. C.

4. Wilt thou judge them? We should rather say, Wilt thou not judge them?—i.e., pro- nounce sentence upon them? (Cf. 22:2.) The repetition of the phrase is expressive of a strong desire that the act should be begun, and thus gives the force of an imperative. B. C.

5. Instead of allowing himself to be inquired of in prayer to avert His threatened judgments against the Jews, the Lord directs the prophet to set before these elders the long record of their national sins and provocations (verses 5-32). H. C.

5-9. The history of the ingratitude and rebellion of the people of Israel here begins as early as their beginning; so does the history of man’s apostasy from his Maker. No sooner have we read the story of our first parent’s creation, than we immediately meet with that of their rebellion; so we see here it was with Israel; a people designed to represent the body of mankind, both in their dealings with God and His with them. H.

The state of the children of Israel in Egypt. They were taken thither to be formed into a nation, and were warned to abstain from the idolatry of the heathen. This purpose they entirely lost sight of in Egypt, yet God spared them and brought them into another state of probation. B. C.—They would not hearken to the Lord: hence while they were in Egypt the Lord solemnly threatened to pour out His fury and to exhaust (“accomplish”) his anger upon them. But He spared and saved His people then for His name’s sake, that the heathen might not reproach Him as unable to save His own people. H. C.

10-26. The history of the struggle between the sins of Israel, by which they endeavored to ruin themselves, and the mercies of God, by which He endeavored to save them and make them happy, is here continued; and the instances of that struggle in these verses have reference to what passed between God and them in the wilderness, in which God honored Himself and they shamed themselves. The story of Israel in the wilderness is referred to in the New Testament (1 Cor. 10; Heb. 3) as well as often in the Old, for warning to us Christians. H.

12. A quotation from Ex. 31: 13. The Sabbath was a sign of a peculiar people, was commemorative of the work of creation, and hallowed to the honor of Jehovah, the covenant God. As man honored God by keeping the Sabbath holy, so by the Sabbath God sanctified Israel, marked them as a holy people. Therefore to profane the Sabbath was to abjure their Divine Governor.

13. My Sabbaths they greatly polluted. We have no record of the actual non-observance of the sabbatical rest in the wilderness except at the first giving of the manna (Ex. 16: 27); and in the case of the man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath day (Num. 15: 32); but these were corrected on the spot, and the perpetual miracle of the cessation of the manna probably secured the formal observance of the day. The pollution of the Sabbath then must have consisted in failing to make the day holy in deed as well as in name by earnest worship and true heart service. B. C.

13-22. The strain of this chapter is that the Lord’s patience was repeatedly tried to the utmost, so that He was often on the point of exterminating the guilty people by His swift judgments; but restrained Himself through His great mercy, and to save His holy name from reproach before the heathen in whose sight He had brought them forth from Egypt and adopted them as His own peculiar people. This view of their national history was eminently forcible for Ezekiel’s time and for the circumstances of both the exiles and their brethren then just on the brink of exterminating ruin in their native land. H. C.

18. The Book of Deuteronomy contains the address to the children of those who perished in the wilderness. The whole history of Israel was a repetition of this course. The covenant was made with one generation, broken by them, and then renewed to the next. B. C.—But I said unto their children in the wilderness. This refers to the many pathetical exhortations contained in the Book of Deuteronomy, particularly those in chaps. 29, 30, 31 and 32, which were uttered after that rebellious generation were all consumed, as God had threatened them (see Num. 14: 32, 33; 26: 64, 65), and were designed as warnings to succeeding generations (De. 31: 16-21). W. Louth.

20. It admits of ample proof that the reasons given of God for enjoining the observance of the Sabbath—given specially in the fourth command itself, and in the passage Ex. 31: 13-17, which is specially under Ezekiel’s eye in our text—are of universal application. The Great Father of the race wrought six days in the creation and rested the seventh. He puts His own example not before Israel only, but before the race, and invites, nay more, commands them to follow it. He signifies to them that He would be remembered as their Creator and Father, and would have them set apart time for an object so vital. Then Ex. 31: 13-17 develops yet more fully the thought that in the Sabbath God aims to sanctify His people and to make it a visible sign of a special relationship between Himself and them. Yet here let it be carefully noted, it is His relation to them not as Hebrews, but as His children, His people. All these points are general, not special; good for the race, not restricted and of value to the Hebrews only. Indeed they show the Sabbath to be a glorious boon which no tribe or nation or age can afford to forego. Thus far the discussion of this great question respecting the universal obligation of the Sabbath as a Divine institution comes fairly within the province of the expositor of Ezekiel because it is legitimately involved in the sense of his words. Other points bearing on the question are: its institution in Eden; the traces of it in the seven-day periods during the deluge; its existence among the Hebrews prior to its announcement from Sinai (see Ex. 16: 22-30), and the proofs of its re-endorsement in the beginning of the Christian age. H. C.

Its very place in the Jewish Decalogue is by no means an obscure intimation that its authority is altogether superior to that of the merely Jewish ordinances. The ceremonial law was merely Jewish; the details of legislation again, whereby the equitable principles of Jewish jurisprudence were carried into specific enactment, were merely Jewish. But all these are very broadly distinguished from that Decalogue in which the fourth commandment has a place. The ten “words” announce principles; they are not of the nature of national statutes; they do not prescribe penalties. And accordingly, as a body of Divine principles, as a summary of human morality, of duty toward God and man, they occupy a position of glory and supremacy amid the ordinances of Israel altogether unique. As Sinai, the holy mountain, was fenced off from the camp of the congregation by bounds which none might pass and live, so are the ten words of Jehovah fenced off from the enactments of the Mosaic law. These ten words, and these ten only, were spoken by the Most High Himself. These, and these only, were written by the finger of God on two tables of stone. These two tables were placed in the holy ark called “the Ark of the Covenant,” which itself was placed within the second veil, in the midst of the Holy of Holies, and underneath the cherubim of glory, in the innermost heart of the most holy and most secret shrine of the Divine presence and glory. Surely all this bespeaks an essential distinction and superiority in the Decalogue as compared with the merely national and the necessarily temporary laws and observances of the Mosaic economy. . . . It is not easy to imagine a more apparently incredible paradox than that one commandment of a merely national scope and temporary obligation should have been associated, in a summary of moral duty, with nine others of perpetual obligation; that it should have been placed in the very central niche of all the commandments, as on one side directly touching the honor and worship of God, and on the other the rights and well-being of man; that equally with all the other commandments it should have been spoken by the voice of the Most High and written by the Divine finger on one of the tables of stone; and yet that this one “word” alone of all the ten should be merely ceremonial and temporary, the rest being all of a moral nature and of permanent obligation. Surely it must be felt as if no arguments could establish such a paradox as this. Rigg (See Vol. II., pp. 174-183.)

If the seventh-day rest formed part of the grand plan, not only of creation, but also of revelation and redemption—to which the whole after-development of that plan was made conformable, and therefore running through the entire Scriptures, as veins and arteries through the human body—it cannot be rooted out without marring the entire Scriptures and destroying the whole plan. If it has been formally blessed and hallowed of God, no matter when and where, and that blessing and hallowing nowhere recalled, then those Divine acts of blessing and hallowing forever establish its perpetuity. If founded in the example of God, that example being eternal, the appointment must be eternal likewise; and that example being set at the beginning, in the presence of the world, is the common property and standard of the world, and therefore must be universal in its obligation. If this seventh-day rest be the only rest created for man, being alike the prophetic germ and foundation of the whole, all the other rests being but its development, and the rest of heaven its termination and completion, then this seventh-day rest must ever remain that it may stand as the prophecy, pledge, and perpetual witness of that coming rest, until its full and complete realization hereafter. If ordained at the beginning, and having an antecedent existence prior to the organization of the Jewish commonwealth, and afterward entering into the national constitution of that people as the principles of morality enter into the legislation of any Christian country, the subsequent overthrow of that commonwealth has no bearing upon the question of its existence, and having survived that wreck, there remains nothing else to endanger its perpetuity. If the Incarnate Son—by whom the Father created all things, and who ended His work on the seventh day by resting; who was the rock that followed Israel through the wilderness; who, in such glorious epiphany from the summit of the burning mount, authoritatively repeated and proclaimed that law; and who afterward so clearly asserted this as His high and sole prerogative, being “Lord of the Sabbath”—if He should proclaim the law repealed, then it would be repealed indeed! But instead of this, He at all times recognized its binding authority; He obeyed it Himself; He interpreted it, and died leaving it, with His interpretation annexed, as the expressed statute of His kingdom, as much so as He left the law of murder or adultery or profanity, with His interpretation annexed, as the law of that kingdom. Instead of repealing, He actually entered into argument with the Pharisees to show that His acts were all conformable thereto. And instead of removing, He positively asserted that He did not come to destroy, but to fulfil, or, in other words, to maintain. Stacy.

How that former seventh day pales in the effulgence of the resurrection morning! Where, in all that is known of the history of man, where, in all that is known of God, is there an event at once so great in its own elements, so important as a manifestation of the Divine to man, so transcendent in its relation to man’s happiness and hope! How could it be possible that Christ’s redeemed should live in slavery to the day He spent in the tomb and neglect the day of His rising! Their joy, their hope, their heart, was in the first day, the Lord’s day, which they and all the Church kept from the resurrection. The seventh day, whatever it represented, gradually faded and was forgotten. The day of the Lord’s rising was the one day for the hopes of man. It and no other could possibly be the Lord’s Day. . . . When the old land-bound Sabbath passed into the world-wide Lord’s Day it girdled the earth with universal brotherhood in the Lord. In whatever strange land, of whatever strange tongue, the believer now joins in that day’s worshipping assembly, the sense of brotherhood glows within him. Over all the world, from the western skirts of the Pacific around with the sun to its starting point, that day, dotting the whole globe with gatherings in the name of our Lord, busied alike in prayer and praise and promise in His name, makes a testimony to the unity and brotherhood of Christian faith which no man, without wilfulness, can gainsay.

Like the old, the new Sabbath is a day of rest. From the urgency of bread-winning and the often more coercive spur of ambition, it is a respite, a vacation. But it speaks, as Israel’s could not, with a plain and positive utterance of a better rest—a perpetual release from all urgency and spurring, and from every wearing or wearying infliction whatsoever; an epoch of holy, blessed and perfectly free activity; the rest—much more than rest, the unbroken ease, busy, loyal, joyous ease, that shall pervade the Messianic kingdom of the Lord. . . . By her sociality, pure and beneficent, springing spontaneously from the feeling of common relationship to her redeeming Lord; by her instruction, sound, comforting and stimulating, having as its premise that man lives by and through and for God, and edifying and building up the minds of believers through meditation on the whole Word of God; by her leisure, detached from merely earthly and personal affairs, busy with the activity of holy love, and inspired to private prayer and public worship, and every Christian word and work through love to the Lord, and to them who love the Lord, and to them for whom the Lord died—thus the Church, in a wider and happier sense than did Israel, does remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy—her own Sabbath, the holy festival of the Lord’s day. The tongue of the Church is this day given to her Lord. She tells His story, she declares His purposes, she confesses her faith on Him, she expresses her loyalty. For all that the Church is, for all she may do and for all she may become, each member has his own responsibility and his own free spontaneity. Whatever he does counts as his heart moves him. So on this day he lays his heart against the millionfold heart of the Church to feel her vast, deep, triumphant life. He sees with the mental eye, as the framing and the background of all the instruction, comfort and encouragement which precept and promise and prophecy afford, a view of the thronged city of God, of the splendid capital and mansions of the redeemed, of the magnificent harmony and busy ease and consummate civilization of the Lord’s kingdom. He breathes while lifted up the fragrance of many-voiced prayer that on this day enwraps the earth as a film of the resonant air of heaven; and in this bracing atmosphere his veins tingle with consciousness of unlimited desire and capacity and destiny—his own and the Church’s own when the Lord shall come.

And so on the day that marks God’s authority over human times, on the day our Lord has honored as His official day before His Church, on the day which the Holy Ghost has sealed as the epoch of the new covenant (the New Testament), on this day believers come together as a public body to give their public testimony of loyalty, and that they may together commune with the Lord. While aglow before the mystery of His person, wherein the brotherhood of man blends with Divine Sonship, while absorbed in the wonder of His love, which, stronger than death, by the intensity of its sacrifice, transmutes the universal curse into a universal privilege, while transfigured with the beauty of His nature, reflected somewhat within each one and diffused over the spiritual aspect of the world-circling commemoration, a tender awe falls upon the assembly; the Lord is there. Then, like the early patriarchs, and like Israel at Pentecost, the feast of weeks, the Church partakes together of the sacrificial meal. Each one realizes that it is the Lord who died for him, a sinner; who redeemed, reconciled, saved him by giving His own body to be bruised for him, His own blood to be sprinkled on the soil for him. Each one perceives that the whole aggregate of like-minded souls who commune thus with their Lord are inseparably joined together by this communion in one body, and this body is the Lord’s own body, living, growing, the organ of His spirit, the eternal and the holy temple of His own Divine humanity. And each one apprehends that the Lord of all is the man Jesus. He whose quivering body was torn, whose warm blood was shed, who rested in Joseph’s tomb, and awoke in immortal humanity, and rose above man’s observation or comprehension before the apostle’s eyes, and dwells now in occupation that we can only most dimly conceive as we lift our uneducated eyes with loving awe and dependent reverence toward His majesty—Jesus, the very man, our brother; Jesus enthroned at the right hand of God—Himself incomprehensibly transfigured with the outshining of His own divinity, but Himself the Lamb slain through the ages; Himself the head over His own body, the Church; Himself the same Jesus who ascended from Olivet, who will come again in His own day (who knows how soon?) to put down all enmity, to establish all authority, to reign in righteousness over His Church, and with His Church over the universe! Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly. We wait Thy day. Grey.

25. Equally remarkable and bold is the statement that the whole of the Mosaic law was not equally good. When first the Israelites came out of Egypt, God gave them “statutes and judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them.” But when they rebelled, and despised God’s judgments, and polluted His Sabbaths, which He had given as a special sign of His covenant with them, then He “gave them statutes which were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live” (20:11, 25). Such teaching is the more remarkable as coming from a priest, and one who was in general so strict himself in the observance of the Levitical precepts. (See 4:14.) Paul himself did not more plainly teach that much of the law was a burden too heavy for men to bear. R. P. S.

In what sense did God give the people these statutes? Only in the sense of suffering their wicked kings to enjoin them. Not unfrequently God is said in the Scriptures to do what He only permits to be done. He was said to harden Pharaoh’s heart, when, in fact, according to the record, He only suffered him to harden his own heart, and when the most direct agency which He exerted toward that result was in removing the plagues under which that proud king quailed and relented. For what purpose in this case did the Lord give the people “statutes not good and judgments whereby they should not live?” The passage itself supplies the answer. Because they did not execute His judgments, but despised His statutes, polluted His Sabbaths and set their eyes on their father’s idols, therefore God suffered them to be ensnared into deeper idolatry by the royal influence of Jeroboam, Ahab, Omri and Manasseh. It was a Divine judgment upon them for their persistent love of idols. The Lord gave them their way to let them see and to let all the world in coming ages see what idolatry is; what it leads to; how fearfully it curses a people of itself, and how terribly God will punish it. On the same principle God gave up the heathen nations to idolatry and to deep moral corruption. So Paul affirms (Rom. 1:21, 24, 26, 28; 2 Thess. 2:11). H. C.

Civil laws, whatever be their source, to be adapted to the wants of any given community, must arise out of circumstances, and be relative to certain specific ends; which ends, under other circumstances, it might be the height of folly to pursue. When Solon was asked whether he had prepared the best laws of which he was capable for the Athenians, he replied: “I have prepared the best that they were able to receive.” Of much the same nature is that declaration of Divine wisdom to the Jews, which has so perplexed biblical inquirers: “I gave them also statutes that were not good”—that is, laws not absolutely the best, though they were relatively so. Montesquieu, with that penetration which belongs to all his philosophical reflections, has observed that the passage cited above is the sponge that wipes out all the difficulties which are to be found in the law of Moses. This view of the meaning and force of the passage is confirmed by the words of our Saviour. He has told us that Moses tolerated divorce among the Jews because of the hardness of their hearts. It is reasonable to conclude that he permitted the continuance of other social evils on the same principle. It is implied in our Lord’s declaration that if the Jews of Moses’ time had been less hard-hearted or prejudiced, less wedded to old notions and usages, several of His statutes would have been different from what they were. Is it not also involved that the excellence which Moses claims, and most justly, as belonging to his laws is, as it respects some of them at least, a relative rather than an absolute excellence?

The principle that laws must be relative to circumstances, that they must grow out of the state of society and be adapted to its wants, is founded in reason and confirmed by experience. It is, therefore, a just and solid principle, and must commend itself as such to every enlightened judgment. But it involves this clear and certain inference that God never intended the Mosaic laws to bind any nation but the Hebrews; and that it would be quite foolish to detach particular parts from the rest, and to attempt the ingrafting of them on other systems, to which they must prove incongruous. The fundamental principle of the Hebrew polity—the suppression of idolatry and the maintenance of the worship of the one true God—so diverse from that of every other government ever known among men, could not but enter essentially into the frame of the laws. Besides this, the circumstances of climate, soil, situation, political relations, character and power of the neighboring nations, customs, mode of life, prevalent notions as to honor and disgrace, and the nature and severity of punishments, species and sources of crime, kinds of disease, etc., would modify a Divine quite as much as they would a human legislation; and still more, perhaps, in proportion to its superior wisdom. If God were now by special revelation to enact a code of civil laws for every nation on the globe, it is not likely that any two of them would agree in every particular. It is certain, for example, that in such a code framed for the United States, there would be wanting the old Hebrew laws respecting divorce, polygamy, blood-avengement, usury, the double portion of the first born son, the exclusion of daughters from the inheritance, the marriage of a deceased brother’s childless widow, and the sumptuary laws in general; for none of the reasons on which these laws were based has any existence among us; and to separate a law from its principle is like sundering the body from the head or heart. E. C. W.

29. Bamah. The Hebrew word for high place. Another instance of the perversion of God’s laws. When the Israelites first entered Canaan they were to set up the tabernacle on a high place, and upon this and upon no other they were to worship Jehovah. This was the high place (1 Sam. 9 : 12 foll. ; 1 K. 3 : 4). But the Israelites followed the custom of the country, and set up idol worship on every high hill, and the word high place (Bamah), or in the plural high places (Bamoth), became a by-word. (Cf. Bamoth Baal, Josh. 13 : 17.) Bamoth occurs on the Moabitic stone, which records the erection of high places in honor of Kamos (Chemosh). B. C.

The significance of this verse 29 seems to be that God protested against those localities for worship; but the people insisted and still kept up the usage under that name well known among themselves and deeply offensive and odious to their God. In harmony with this the psalmist says (78 : 58), “For they provoked Him to anger with their high places.” H. C.

The threatenings which are pronounced against the Jews in this chapter should act as a warning to all who read it. God had given them a law which was holy, just and good; but their disobedience and want of faith converted into a curse what was intended for a blessing. On us also has God bestowed a still more valuable blessing, even the promise of redemption and sanctification through Christ Jesus. But in order to attain this blessing certain conditions must be fulfilled; we also must walk in His statutes, keep His judgments and hallow His Sabbaths. If we examine our hearts and lives, it will but too plainly appear how greatly we have failed in fulfilling our part of this holy covenant. Let us then earnestly entreat the Lord to pardon our innumerable transgressions, and to loathe ourselves in our own sight for all the evils that we have committed. So shall we escape the heavy vengeance with which we are threatened, the mercy of God will pardon our past backslidings, and our perseverance in a righteous course will, through the mercies of our Redeemer, entitle us to a share in that heavenly Canaan, of which a land flowing with milk and honey gives but a faint resemblance. Travell.

33-38. Here the tone changes to exhortation and promise. God would yet put forth His mighty hand to redeem a remnant and restore them to piety and to consequent prosperity. The temptation to be like the heathen must be withstood and its very thought repelled. Verses 35, 36 are a beautiful analogy between this process of discipline and that by which the Lord sifted, proved and tried His people in the wilderness of Sinai. So also in Hos. 2 : 14-23. The cases are not only analogous in the principle involved, but in the means used and even partially in the minute point of a wilderness life, for these exiles were led forth through a long wilderness route from Canaan to Chaldea. “I will cause you to pass under the rod,” looks to the usage of shepherds in numbering their flocks, perhaps nightly as they entered the fold, or after a purchase, to verify the number. So God will bring His dear people carefully into His fold, taking pains to see that all are there, and consecrating them to Himself. The sifting processes of His providence will expel the rebels of unsubdued heart. They will never return to His land.

39-44. The scope of verse 39 I take to be, Play the hypocrite with Me no longer. If ye will persist in serving idols, go on ; but cease to mix up the worship of idols with the worship of the living God ! No more pollute Me, My name and My temple, with your gifts and idols. For lo, in My holy mountain there shall be none but pure hearts and true lives. Hypocrites can have no place there. There I will accept the honest and faithful worshippers ; they shall penitently loathe and forsake their abominations, and shall know in their own blessed experience that I am the Lord their Saviour and Redeemer. This strain of promise is eminently precious after so long and so terrible a recital of God’s holy displeasure against His apostate people, His grievous heart-trials with them, and His fearful judgments upon them. At this point our Hebrew Bibles close this chapter. It is manifestly the close of this special theme and strain. The remaining verses (45-49) belong properly to the next chapter. H. C.

44. And ye shall know that I am the Lord. As in the height of God’s vengeance on the sins of this wretched people, the distant prospect always terminated in a mercy ; so with a mercy and a promise of better times the whole of this prophetic scene is closed, in order that those to whom it is addressed should, however criminal, not be left in an utter state of desperation, but be afforded some shadow of repose in the prospect of future peace and tranquillity. The idea of mercy is naturally attached to that of repentance and reformation ; and with mercy the prophecy ends. Bp. Warburton.

20 : 45, 46 AND the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face toward the south, and drop thy word toward the south, and prophesy against the forest of the field in the South ; and say to the forest of the South, Hear the word of the LORD ; Thus saith the Lord God : Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree : the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burnt thereby. And all flesh shall see that I the LORD have kindled it : it shall not be quenched. Then said I, Ah Lord God ! they say of me, Is he not a speaker of parables ?

21 : 1, 2 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face toward Jerusalem, and drop thy word toward the sanctuaries, and prophesy against the land of Israel ; and say to the land of Israel, Thus saith the LORD : Behold, I am against thee, and will draw forth my sword out of its sheath, and will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked. Seeing then that I will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked, therefore shall my sword go forth out of its sheath against all flesh from the south to the north : and all flesh shall know that I the LORD have drawn forth my sword out of its sheath ; it shall not return any more. Sigh therefore, thou son of man ; with the breaking of thy loins and with bitterness shalt thou sigh before their eyes. And it shall be, when they say unto thee, Wherefore sighest thou ? that thou shalt say, Because of the tidings, for it cometh : and every heart shall melt, and all hands shall be feeble, and every spirit shall faint, and all knees shall be weak as water ; behold, it cometh, and it shall be done, saith the Lord God.

8,9. And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, prophesy, and say, Thus saith the LORD: Say, A sword, a sword, it is sharpened, and also furbished: it is sharpened that 10 it may make a slaughter; it is furbished that it may be as lightning: shall we then make mirth? 11 the rod of my son, it contemneth every tree. And it is given to be furbished, that it may be handled: the sword, it is sharpened, yea, it is furbished, to give it into the hand of the slayer. 12 Cry and howl, son of man: for it is upon my people, it is upon all the princes of Israel: 13 they are delivered over to the sword with my people: smite therefore upon thy thigh. For there is a trial; and what if even the rod that contemneth shall be no more? saith the Lord 14 God. Thou therefore, son of man, prophesy, and smite thine hands together; and let the sword be doubled the third time, the sword of the deadly wounded: it is the sword of the 15 great one that is deadly wounded, which entereth into their chambers. I have set the point of the sword against all their gates, that their heart may melt, and their stumblings be multi- 16 plied: ah! it is made as lightning, it is pointed for slaughter. Gather thee together, go to 17 the right; set thyself in array, go to the left; whithersoever thy face is set. I will also smite mine hands together, and I will satisfy my fury: I the LORD have spoken it. 18, 19 The word of the LORD came unto me again, saying, Also, thou son of man, appoint thee two ways, that the sword of the king of Babylon may come; they twain shall come forth out 20 of one land: and mark out a place, mark it out at the head of the way to the city. Thou shalt appoint a way, for the sword to come to Rabbah of the children of Ammon, and to 21 Judah in Jerusalem the defenced. For the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination: he shook the arrows to and fro, he consulted 22 the teraphim, he looked in the liver. In his right hand was the divination for Jerusalem, to set battering rams, to open the mouth in the slaughter, to lift up the voice with shouting, to 23 set battering rams against the gates, to cast up mounts, to build forts. And it shall be unto them as a vain divination in their sight, which have sworn oaths unto them: but he bringeth iniquity to remembrance, that they may be taken. 24 Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Because ye have made your iniquity to be remembered, in that your transgressions are discovered, so that in all your doings your sins do ap- 25 pear; because that ye are come to remembrance, ye shall be taken with the hand. And thou, O deadly wounded wicked one, the prince of Israel, whose day is come, in the time of 26 the iniquity of the end; thus saith the Lord God: Remove the mitre, and take off the crown: 27 this shall be no more the same: exalt that which is low, and abase that which is high. I will overturn, overturn, overturn it: this also shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him. 28 And thou, son of man, prophesy, and say, Thus saith the Lord God concerning the children of Ammon, and concerning their reproach; and say thou, A sword, a sword is drawn, 29 for the slaughter it is furbished, to cause it to devour, that it may be as lightning: whiles they see vanity unto thee, whiles they divine lies unto thee, to lay thee upon the necks of the wicked that are deadly wounded, whose day is come, in the time of the iniquity of the end. 30 Cause it to return into its sheath. In the place where thou wast created, in the land of thy 31 birth, will I judge thee. And I will pour out mine indignation upon thee; I will blow upon thee with the fire of my wrath: and I will deliver thee into the hand of brutish men, skilful 32 to destroy. Thou shalt be for fuel to the fire; thy blood shall be in the midst of the land; thou shalt be no more remembered: for I the LORD have spoken it.

45-49. This paragraph, which in the Hebrew text, LXX. and Vulgate, commences the twenty-first chapter, has been by our translators attached to the twentieth. It belongs to the following chapter, as it contains a prophecy delivered in a form which is there explained. It may, however, be regarded as a link between the foregoing and following prophecies, being a general introduction to seven words of judgment about to be pronounced in development of that which has just been delivered (Kliefoth). B. C.

45-48. Remarkably the prophets set the face toward the country or the people to whom their prophecies were addressed. (See chap. 6:2 and 13:17, etc.) “The south” and “the forest of the south field,” as here used, are manifestly Jerusalem and Judah, thought of as “the south” for the same reason that Babylon—Ezekiel’s residence then—was “the north.” Judah and Jerusalem are thought of as a forest which is combustible—fit material for the fires of Jehovah’s judgments. A terrible figure of a ruin before which nothing can stand! H. C.