Ezekiel 12

Ezekiel 12:11-21

9. And when her sister Aholibah saw this, she was more corrupt in her inordinate love than she, and in her whoredoms more than her sister in her whoredoms. 12. She doted upon the Affyrians her neighbours, captains and rulers clothed most gorgeously, horsemen rid-

ing upon horses, all of them desirable young men. 13. Then I saw that she was defiled, that they took both one way. 14. And that she increased her whoredoms: for when she saw men pourrrayed upon the wall, the images of the Chaldeans pourrrayed with vermilion. 15. Girded with guides upon their loins, exceeding in dyed attire upon their heads: all of them princes to look to, after the manner of the Babylonians of Chaldea, the land of their nativity. 16. And as soon as she saw them with her eyes, she doted upon them, and sent messengers unto them into Chaldea. 17. And the Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they denied her with their whoredom, and she was polluted with them, and her mind was alienated from them. 18. So she discovered her whoredoms, and discovered her nakedness: then my mind was alienated from her, like as my mind was alienated from her sister. 19. Yet she multiplied her whoredoms, in calling to remembrance the days of her youth, wherein she had played the harlot in the land of Egypt. 20. For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is at the flesh of afters, and whose issue is like the issue of horses. 21. Thus thou calledest to remembrance the lewdness of thy youth, in bruising thy teats by the Egyptians, for the paps of thy youth.

Far from taking warning by Samaria’s fate, Jerusalem not only copied but exceeded her abominations. She is called Aholibah, or, my tabernacle is in her, God having chosen Zion for his peculiar abode, and this exceedingly aggravated the guilt of her apollacy.

1. She took the same way to defile herself her sister had done, doating upon the Affyrians; admiring the deeds and military appearance of their expections and soldiers; courting their alliance; depending on them for protection; increasing her idols beyond what Samaria had done, v. 14. falling in love with the very pictures of their desired heroes, who were pourrrayed in rich attire on the walls of their temples, v. 14, 15. and lending messengers to Chaldea to form a league, and adopt their idols and worship, v. 16. And no sooner had she taken the Babylonians to her adulterous bed, and denied herself with their idols, than she was alienated from them, as lurk and loathing often succeed each other. She rebelled under Jehoiakim and Zedekiah, 2 Kings xxiv. 1, 20. and cast off the alliance with Babylon, v. 17. and calling to mind with pleasure the idolatries of the Egyptians, v. 21. returned to play the harlot with them, during on these paramours, as better sailing her inflatable lewdness, v. 20. openly discovering her whoredoms and her wickedness, as a heaven proliferate hardened against shame. Note, (1.) Inordinate appetites indulged only grow more fickle and craving. (2.) Long habit of sin gives effrontery to the lewd, and they dare avow and boast of what others blush to name, and detestify but to think of.

2. God saw and abhorred such shameless idolatry, and his mind was alienated from her, as it was from her sister. He cast off Judah also from her relation to him, and left her, as a wife divorced, to all the miseries which must arise when his protection was withdrawn. Note, They who provoke God to cast them from his favour, have only themselves to blame for the miseries which follow.

3. ¶ Therefore, O Aholibah, thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I will raise up thy lovers against thee, from whom thy mind is alienated, and I will bring them against thee on every side; 23. The Babylonians, and all the Chaldeans, Pekod and Shoa, and Koa, and all the Affyrians with them: all of them desirable young men, captains and rulers, great lords and renowned, all of them riding upon horses. 24. And they shall come against thee with chariots, wagons, and wheels, and with an assembly of people which shall set against thee bockler, and shield, and helmet round about: and I will set judgment before them, and they shall judge thee according to their judgments. 25. And I will set my jealousy against thee, and they shall deal furiously with thee: they shall take away thy nose and thine ears, and thy remnant shall fall by the sword: they shall take thy sons and thy daughters, and thy relative shall be devourred by the fire. 26. They shall also strip thee out of thy cloaths, and take away thy fair jewels. 27. Thus I will make thy lewdness to excite from thee, and thy whoredom brought from the land of Egypt: so that thou shalt not lift up thine eyes unto them, nor remember Egypt any more. 28. For thus saith the Lord GOD,

Behold, Before Chief Dio

Ezekiel 12:21-28

The ruin of Jerusalem is the burden of this chapter. 1. The prophet, by removing his fluff, and getting his lodgings, may be a sign to set forth Zedekiah’s flight out of Jerusalem on the utmost confusion, when the Chaldeans took the city, ver. 1—16. 2. The prophet, by eating his meat with trembling, may be a sign to set forth the famine in the city during the days, and the confirmation that the inhabitants should be in, ver. 17—20. 3. A message is sent from God to assure the people that all these predictions should shortly be accomplished, and not be deferred, as they mainly hoped, ver. 21—28.

1915. THE word of the LORD also came unto me, saying, 2. Son of man, thou dwellest in the midst of a rebellious house, which have eyes to see, and see not; they have ears to hear, and hear not; for they are a rebellious house. 3. Therefore thou son of man, prepare thee a fluff for removing, and remove by day in their sight, and thou shalt remove from thy place to another place in their sight; it may be they will consider, though they be a rebellious house. 4. Then shalt thou bring forth thy fluff by day in their sight, as fluff for removing; and thou shalt go forth at even in their sight, as they that go forth into captivity. 5. Dig thou through the wall in their sight, and carry out thereby. 6. In their sight shalt thou bear it upon thy shoulders, and carry it forth in the twilight: thou shalt cover thy face that thou see not the ground: for I have set thee for a sign unto the house of Israel. 7. And I did so as I was commanded: I brought forth my fluff by day, as fluff for captivity, and in the even I sluggled through the wall with mine hand, I brought it forth in the twilight, and I bare it upon my shoulder in their sight. 8. And in the morning came the word of the LORD unto me, saying, 9. Son of man, hath not the house of Israel, the rebellious house, laid unto thee, What do I thou? 10. Say thou unto them, Thus faith the LORD God, Thus burden ascertain the prince in Jerusalem, and all the house of Israel that are among them. 11. Say, I am your sign: like as I have done, so shall it be done unto them: they shall remove and go into captivity. 12. And the prince that is among them shall bear upon his shoulder in the twilight, and shall go forth: they shall dig through the wall in carry out thereby: he shall cover his face that he see not the ground with his eyes. 13. My net alfo will I spread upon him, and he shall be taken in my flare; and I will bring him to Babylon to the land of the Chaldeans, yet shall he not see it, though he shall die there. 14. And I will scatter toward every wind all that are round above him to help him, and all his hands, and I will draw out the sword after them. 15. And they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall scatter them among the nations, and disperse them in the countries. 16. But I will leave a few men of them from the sword, from the famine, and from the pestilence, that they may declare all their abominations among the heathen whether they come, and they shall know that I am the LORD.

1914.—16. Though many among the captives in Babylon profited under the visitation, yet multitudes were still hardened; flattered by their faith prophets with hope of a speedy return to Jerusalem, and deaf to the admonition of God’s messengers, warning them in respect of their sins, and patiently submit to his will in hearing their appointed seventy years captivity. They were a rebellious house, and would not see nor hear, and who so blind as those? To affect them therefore, not only by warnings but by the most expensive signs of the certain and terrible destruction of Jerusalem, the prophet is enjoined.

1. To prepare his fluff for removing, his twilight of captivity, as if going into a far country; and this openly in the light of the people, removing from place to place as one untested, and seeking an abode: in the twilight he must dig through the wall of his house, and carry out thereby his fluff, bearing it upon his own shoulders in a mournful habit, and with a dejected look, as one giving into captivity; covering his face and thinking off in the dark, as one ashamed and afraid of discovery. Thus he must be a sign to that rebellious house. It may be they will consider, and, though not moved with what they heard, he affected with what they saw, though they be a rebellious house. God thus tries every method with sinners, and considers must not despair of re-

peating their labours with the most hardened and oblivious: it may be they will repeat: and the most distant hope should encourage our perseverance in our work.

2. The prophet instantly obeys, 6, 7. however laborious the work, of strange it might appear. They who have God’s commands must never hesitate. We must be ready to do or suffer any thing for his glory and the good of men’s souls; and count all our worldly fluff not worth a thought, if he calls us at any time to remove, knowing that we have in heaven a better and a more abiding faithance.

3. The Lord the next morning gives the prophet the explication of what he had enjoined, which he is to communicate to the people, who would naturally be inquisitive what he meant by this conduct; or perhaps they ridiculed him at his work, and, bantering, cried, What do I show? What is this strange fellow about? He must tell them, this burden of the prophetic word respected the prince Zedekiah and all the house of Israel: Ezekiel is their sign herein; as he hath done, so shall they. Their king, in whom they truffed, and by whole influence they hoped to be set at liberty and refused to their own country, so far from helping them, should be endowed himself, and follow them to Babylon. Prefiled by the believers, and the city no longer tenable, by night he shall attempt to escape, breaking through the wall of the city for privacy, and carrying a bundle of his most valuable effects or provision with him; his face covered with shame at his miserable plight, or with a mask to prevent his being known: but vain the attempt: God’s net, the Chaldean army, should be spread over him, and he takes as a bird in a flame, led captive into Babylon, and dying there; yet doomed never to see the place, his eyes being put out, in just punishment of his perfidy, by the conqueror, Jer. xxxix. 7. His guards scattered, his faeces fled, yet pursued by the sword, few shall be suffered to escape, and these dispersed in heathen lands, being monuments of divine vengeance; or perhaps there brought to repentance, acknowledging their abominations, and justifying God in his judgments. Thus, faith he, they shall know that I am the Lord, omniscient, just, and almighty. Note, God will make himself known, rather in the torture of his wrath to the impenitent, or in the riches of his grace to the humble.

4. Moreover, the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 18. Son of man, “eat thy bread with quaking, and drink thy water with trembling and with carefulness, 19. And say unto the people of the land, Thus faith the LORD God, of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and of the land of Israel, They shall eat their bread with carefulness, and drink their water with admonishment, “that her land may be desolate from y all that is therein, because of the violence of all them that dwell therein. 20. And the cities that are inhabited shall be laid waite, and the land shall be desolate, and ye shall know that I am the LORD.

5. 17—18. Ezekiel is still having a sign unto them.

He must eat his bread with trembling, and drink his water with fear and carefulness, as if he was in danger of want, or expected it would be shatched from him; intimating the disease to which the inhabitants of Jerusalem should be reduced during the stage, terrified by their enemies without, dreaming the ravages of famine within, and expecting shortly that both their bread and water would fail, and they miserably perish for want; the land being doomed to desolation universal, the cities wafted, the country ravaged, uncultivated, and desolate of man and beall; and this because of the violence therein, the bloodshed, oppression, and injustice exercised among them. And these judgments would teach them that knowledge of God which in their prosperity they refused to learn. Note, (1.) They who abate falsely of bread justly are punished with pining want. (2.) Those afflicted, on ourselves or others, are singular blessings to us, which lead us to a deeper knowledge of and acquaintance with God.

21. And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 22. Son of man, what is that proverb, that ye have in the land of Israel, saying, “The days are prolonged, and every vision falleth? 23. Tell them therefore, Thus faith the LORD God, I will make this proverb to cease, and they shall no more use it as a proverb in Israel: but say unto them, The days are at hand, and the effect of every vision. 24. For there shall be no more any vain vision, nor flattering divinations within the house of Israel. 25. For I am the LORD: I will speak, and the word that I shall speak shall come to pass: it shall be no more prolonged: for in your days, O rebellious house, will I lay the word, and will perform it, faith the LORD God. 26. Again the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 27. Son of man, behold, they of the house of Israel say, The vision that he forth is for many days to come, and

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he prophesieth of the times that are far off. 25. Therefore say unto them, Thus faith the LORD God, There shall none of my words be prolonged any more, but the word which I have spoken shall be done, faith the LORD God.

The awful warnings the prophet gave were too plain to be mistaken, and the signs too forcible not to make some impression. Here we are told what methods they took to evade the conviction. They affirmed that the time for the threatened judgments was prolonged, and would not yet arrive; to that they might hope for peace in their days, v. 22. and that the prophets’ vision looked forward to some very distant foeism, so that they need not disturb themselves about the event: nay, some dated after the evil never would come, every vision foolish, or perplex: do not are sinners to abuse God’s patience, to harden their hearts because judgment is not forcibly executed, and to flatter themselves that the tritest of God are mere longbears. Nor did the false prophets fail to encourage the delusion, v. 24. so that the sayings were industrially propagated, and became proverbial: by frequent repetitions they began to believe their own lie. Against this deceit the prophet sets his face, and from God affirms them their neglect of his judgments itself but hasten them.

1. He will silence their false hopes, by bringing on them the threatened punishment, when every vision should take effect, their lying prophets be abashed, and their delusive proverbs confounded, v. 23, 24. Note, They who will not believe the warnings of God, will too late be terribly convinced by the infliction of his judgments.

2. God will do this certainly and suddenly. I am the Lord, whose truth is inviolable, his power almighty, his justice inexorable, and he will execute all his threatenings. Since he hath spoken, it shall be done. No longer respite shall be granted, but wrath to the untermest come on the rebellious house of Israel, and that quickly; the days are at hand, even in your days, their eyes should see the destruction: within five or six years the whole should be accomplished. And the time affirms is repeated, v. 28. to cut off all doubts of the event, since heaven and earth shall sooner pass away than may yet or little fall of God’s word. Note, It is the folly of sinners, when they hear of death and judgment, to put far from them the evil day, and defer the grave work of preparing for eternity to a more enormous fusion: when lo! their hour arrives, they bow, they fall, the grave receives them, a warning to others of the students of procrastination, and a loud call to-day, whilst it is called to-day, to work out their salvation with fear and trembling.