Lamentations 5

Lamentations 5:22

22. But thou hast utterly rejected us; ] Thou art resolved to cast off the Jews of this generation, and wilt not shew us any favour, till the seventy years of our captivity are expired. W. Lowth. It is to be observed, that though the Babylonians had reduced the Jews to their present deplorable condition, yet the Prophet attributes all these misfortunes to God; and says, that it was God Himself, who had cast off his people, and delivered his temple, his altars, and his city, into the hands of the idolaters. The enemies of the Jews could not have hurt them, if God had not withdrawn his protection from the people that He had chosen. God is the dispenser of afflictions to mankind: but in his Church particularly nothing happens without his will. It is also to be considered, that, when God thus exposes his Church to sufferings, He does not design to destroy it, but only to reform and purify it by his corrections. And the same judgment should be passed on all the evils which befall men in this life. Ostervald. # THE BOOK OF THE # PROPHET EZEKIEL. ## INTRODUCTION.

EZEKIEL, who was the third of the great Prophets, was, like his contemporary Jeremiah, of the sacerdotal race. He was carried away captive to Babylon with Jehoiachin, king of Judah, in the year of the world 3406, before Christ 598; and was placed with many others of his countrymen upon the banks of the river Chebar in Mesopotamia, where he was favoured with the Divine revelations contained in this book. He began to prophesy in the fifth year of his captivity, and is supposed to have prophesied about twenty-one years. The boldness with which he censured the idolatry and wickedness of his countrymen, is said to have cost him his life: but his memory was greatly revered, not only by the Jews, but also by the Medes and Persians.

The Divine instructions were first revealed to him in a glorious vision, in which he beheld a representation, or, as he reverently expresses it, “the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord,” attended by his cherubim symbolically pourtrayed. “The word of the Lord came expressly” unto him, and he received his commission by a voice, which was followed by a forcible influence of the Spirit, and by awful directions for his conduct. He appears to have executed his high trust with great fidelity. The author of Ecclesiasticus says of him, that “he directed them who went right,” chap. xlix. 9; which may be considered as a merited encomium on the industry with which he endeavoured to guide and instruct his countrymen in righteousness.

Ezekiel represents himself as the author of this book, in the beginning and other parts of it: and justly assumes the character and pretensions of a Prophet: as such he has been universally considered.

This book may be considered under the five following divisions. The first three chapters contain the glorious appearance of God to the Prophet, and his solemn appointment to his office, with instructions and encouragements for the discharge of it. From the 4th to the 24th chapter inclusive, he describes, under a variety of visions and similitudes, the calamities impending over Judea, and the total destruction of the temple and city of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, occasionally predicting another period of yet greater desolation, and more general dispersion. From the beginning of the 25th to the end of the 32nd chapter, the Prophet turns his attention to those nations, who had unfriendly triumphed over the Jews in their affliction: predicting that destruction of the Ammonites, Moabites, and Philistines, which was effected by Nebuchadnezzar, that mighty instrument of God’s wrath against the wickedness of man; and particularly he foretells the ruin and desolation of Tyre and Sidon, the fall of Egypt, and the base degeneracy of its future people, in a manner so forcible, in terms so accurately and minutely descriptive of their several fates and present condition, that nothing can be more interesting than to trace the accomplishment of these prophecies in the accounts of historians and travellers. From the 32nd to the 40th chapter, he inveighs against the accumulated sins of the Jews collectively, and the murmuring spirit of his captive brethren; exhorts them earnestly to repent of their hypocrisy and wickedness, upon the assurance that God will accept sincere repentance; and encourages them to resignation by promises of deliverance, and by intimations of spiritual redemption. In the two last chapters of this division, under the promised victories to be obtained over Gog and Magog, he predicts the final return of the Jews from their dispersion in the latter days; with an obscurity, however, that can be dispelled only by the event. The last nine chapters contain a remarkable vision of the structure of a new temple and a new polity, applicable in the first instance to the return from the Babylonian captivity, but in its ultimate sense referring to the glory and prosperity of the universal Church of Christ.

St. Jerome observes, that the visions of Ezekiel are among the things in Scripture “hard to be understood.” This obscurity arises, in part at least, from the nature and design of the prophecies themselves: they were delivered amidst the gloom of captivity; and though calculated to cheer the drooping spirits of the Jews, and to keep alive a watchful and submissive confidence in the mercy of God, yet they were intended to communicate only such a degree of encouragement, as was consistent with a state of punishment, and to excite an indistinct expectation of future blessings upon the condition of repentance and amendment. But, though mysterious in themselves, the predictions are related by the Prophet in a plain and historical manner. He seems to have been desirous of conveying the strong impressions, which he received, as accurately as they were capable of being described. It ought to be observed, that the last twelve chapters of this book bear a very striking resemblance to the concluding chapters of the Book of Revelation.

The style of this Prophet may be characterized as bold, vehement, and tragical: as often worked up to a kind of tremendous dignity. His book is highly parabolical, and abounds with figures and metaphorical expressions. He is employed rather in exciting our terrour than in moving our pity. He displays a rough but majestick dignity; an unpolished, though noble simplicity: excelled perhaps in other respects by most of the Prophets;