Ezekiel 33

EzekielNotes on Ezekiel 1:1-28; Ezekiel 2:1-10; Ezekiel 3:1-27; Ezekiel 4:1-17; Ezekiel 5:1-17; Ezekiel 6:1-14; Ezekiel 7:1-27; Ezekiel 8:1-18; Ezekiel 9:1-11; Ezekiel 10:1-22; Ezekiel 11:1-25; Ezekiel 12:1-28; Ezekiel 13:1-23; Ezekiel 14:1-23; Ezekiel 15:1-8; Ezekiel 16:1-63; Ezekiel 17:1-24; Ezekiel 18:1-32; Ezekiel 19:1-14; Ezekiel 20:1-49; Ezekiel 21:1-32; Ezekiel 22:1-31; Ezekiel 23:1-49; Ezekiel 24:1-27; Ezekiel 25:1-17; Ezekiel 26:1-21; Ezekiel 27:1-36; Ezekiel 28:1-26; Ezekiel 29:1-21; Ezekiel 30:1-26; Ezekiel 31:1-18; Ezekiel 32:1-32; Ezekiel 33:1-33; Ezekiel 34:1-31; Ezekiel 35:1-15; Ezekiel 36:1-38; Ezekiel 37:1-28 by F. W. Grant, from the fourth volume of the Numerical Bible. Notes on Ezekiel 38:1-23; Ezekiel 39:1-29; Ezekiel 40:1-49; Ezekiel 41:1-26; Ezekiel 42:1-20; Ezekiel 43:1-27; Ezekiel 44:1-31; Ezekiel 45:1-25; Ezekiel 46:1-24; Ezekiel 47:1-23; Ezekiel 48:1-35, with a Historical Chart of the Prophets, Plans illustrating the Temple, and the Future Division of the Land, by J. Bloore. Division 3 (Ezekiel 33:1-33; Ezekiel 34:1-31; Ezekiel 35:1-15; Ezekiel 36:1-38; Ezekiel 37:1-28; Ezekiel 38:1-23; Ezekiel 39:1-29; Ezekiel 40:1-49; Ezekiel 41:1-26; Ezekiel 42:1-20; Ezekiel 43:1-27; Ezekiel 44:1-31; Ezekiel 45:1-25; Ezekiel 46:1-24; Ezekiel 47:1-23; Ezekiel 48:1-35).Resurrection and Restoration. There is a question made of where the division of the chapters actually comes here. The references to chapters 3 and 18 in the 33rd are manifest, and this is urged to show that it is a close and not a beginning, that it connects with what is past rather than with what is yet to come. Again, the whole chapter still speaks of judgment, as the former ones have done, not of deliverance. On the other hand, the significance of the re-opening of the prophet’s mouth is in this way lost, for in the 34th the judgment is but an introduction to the grace. It could not be rightly thought that this re-opening of the mouth was only more emphatically to repeat what had been already uttered, and that then again there was to be a close. Besides which, righteousness being the eternal character of God’s throne must be maintained in grace as in judgment, as we all know it has been; and this must be first made clear, that grace may have free way. Thus it is the announcement of the fall of the city, of the full execution of judgment foretold, that opens the mouth to predict the blessing. In the next chapter the false shepherds are removed that the true Shepherd may take their place, and it is Jehovah Himself who is manifested as this, the representative of whom is found in the true David raised up unto them. This is, of course, in Messiah, the Successor to David’s throne, and of whom David was but the type. The Shepherd being found, and the flock in His hand, the enemy is then answered; then the land is comforted by the rooting out of those who would possess themselves of it, and the restoration of a people reunited in heart to God; after which in the 37th chapter the nation as such is brought up from the dead, and Ephraim and Judah, long parted and at strife with one another, are made one in the land. There is yet one last enemy to be destroyed (Ezekiel 38:1-23; Ezekiel 39:1-29), and then the land is finally cleansed and the full blessing comes in the restoration of the dwelling-place of God among them. This is set before us in full detail, and the city is then and henceforward known by the blessed reality as His abode with them. It is Jehovah Shammah, “The Lord is there.” Subdivision 1 (Ezekiel 33:1-33; Ezekiel 34:1-31; Ezekiel 35:1-15; Ezekiel 36:1-38; Ezekiel 37:1-28.)Jehovah acting from and for himself. The previous chapters have shown us, then, that as far as man is concerned, all is gone. There is no hope for man that can come from himself. God must act if there is to be blessing, sovereignly and alone, and this is what the terms of the new covenant show. There is no further expectation from man, and no condition made with him. The restoration of the people must be a resurrection from the dead; for this, God alone is competent. But all His glory thus shines out, and there is fulness of blessing found -the dirge passes into a song.

Ezekiel 33:1-34

Section 1 (Ezekiel 33:1-33; Ezekiel 34:1-31.)The opening of the prophet’s mouth. The prophet’s mouth then is re-opened, because there is grace to be announced. Yet the affirmation of God’s righteous ways unchanged is the fitting introduction to this. The fall of the city shows the people now fully under judgment. Their false confidences are exposed. The law has spoken, and the people, by its verdict are Lo-ammi, without the blood of atonement for their sins, without the place in which alone it could be sprinkled before God, God Himself entirely withdrawn. Moreover, there are no true shepherds among the people only such as are not only inadequate, but false.

God must raise up the only Shepherd who can truly represent Him in His care for the feeble and scattered remnant who shall still remain an election, wholly of grace, and who are cast entirely upon Him -themselves also undone, apart from absolute grace. The true Shepherd is found in David (" the beloved “), the real fulfiller of that name and of the unrepenting promises of God to which “the sure mercies of David” are attached.

1. (1) The prophecy here does not begin with the date, as we might expect, that being found, however, in verse 17. God first prepares the message which the re-opened lips of the prophet are to utter. The message given is a repetition almost wholly of Eze 3:1-27; Ezekiel 13:1-23, a repetition which, for the purpose, is more effective than a wholly new statement. It is emphasized, however, in the first place that while men might naturally, and ordinarily would appoint themselves a watchman, the prophet is not appointed of the people, but of God in their behalf. Were there no word from Him, the accountability of the people would still remain, but God had provided a watchman for those too heedless and indifferent to care for their own interests, even the most weighty. How this, nevertheless, would increase the culpability of those who still refused the Voice that spoke to them!

How often had He spoken of the sword which He was bringing upon the land! Yet they had taken no heed. Instead of looking for every sign of approaching judgment, they hardened their hearts against all that was given them in this way -nay, pressed upon them by one event after another, and by one messenger after another. What then could there be at last but that which had now come? -the awful signs no more to be refused by their desolate city, and the triumph of the heathen enemy over those who, as the people of God, would have been sheltered from every possibility of successful assault. The second part of the address here begins at the 10th verse, in which the lesson of the 18th chapter is once more enforced. They would now be ready to plead, and indeed were pleading, that before the unbending righteousness of God it was impossible that men should live. But the Lord replies as He had declared abundantly already, that He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that they turn from their wickedness and live. For one who truly turned to Him, none of his past wickedness should be remembered against him. Could God go on with them in evil ways? Surely it would be impossible even for themselves to think so.

There was then but one alternative, and God still pleaded as He had been pleading, that they turn from their evil ways that they might live. Why would they die? Their death was of their own will and not His. If, then, even one who had been righteous, trusting in this past righteousness of his, gave himself up to wickedness, none of his righteous deeds could be remembered: in his iniquity that he had committed, he would surely die. But what is rather emphasized is the mercy that awaits even the worst and vilest who should turn to God. Yet the people would rest the blame of all upon the Lord’s ways as if they were not equal, whereas it was their own ways that are unequal, as their conscience must surely witness against them.

Much as men may seek to stifle the voice that speaks for God within them, yet it will one day have full utterance when they will be compelled to hear it. (2)We have now the confirmation of the judgment foretold in the destruction of the city: “And it came to pass in the twelfth year of our captivity, in the tenth month, on the fifth of the month, that one who had escaped out of Jerusalem came unto me, saying, The city is smitten. Now the hand of the Lord had been upon me in the evening before he that escaped came, and He had opened my mouth before he came to me in the morning, and my mouth was opened, and I writs no more dumb.” The date here is a significant one, “the twelfth year of our captivity” is, according to the numerical stamp upon it, the time of complete manifestation of the government of God with which the tenth month and the fifth day of the month combine to speak of the responsibility of man before God, of man who can never escape from the presence of Him whose eye is in every place, beholding the evil and the good. It is strange, however, to realize that the date here of the arrival of the man escaped from the city is more than sixteen months after it was taken. It has been naturally thought, therefore, that there must be a mistake in the text which, in common manuscripts of the Septuagint, seems to have been altered to suit. The well-known Alexandrian manuscript, however, agrees with the Hebrew which, as has been already seen, has its own internal evidence of being the correct one. No doubt the report of the capture had long preceded the actual coming of the refugee, delayed as he doubtless was by the conditions through which he had to make his way, and which there is no need to suppose to have been a direct one.

It was probably after much wandering that the refugee had found a place at last where he could rest in safety. Until this time, then, the message waited: God dealing with the people in a way suited to the persistency with which they clung to their false hopes, and hardened themselves in obstinate pride of heart that would not listen to the plainest announcements. Now, with the living witness in their midst, they could at least doubt no more that the blow had actually fallen. The first utterance of the prophet after this, which is addressed to those yet remaining in the desolate land, shows how readily still these hopes would rally; “Son of man,” says the Lord to him, “they that inhabit those waste places in the land of Israel speak, saying, Abraham was one, and he inherited the land, and we are many; the land is given us for a possession.” Had this been the boldness of faith, it might indeed still have been admirable; for the inheritance, as we know, however much the people might even for long years lose possession of it, could never be finally alienated from the children of him to whom God had promised it. But this was another thing, as the character of those who made these utterances showed, mere desperadoes as they were, whose works declared them to be anything but Abraham’s children. Their very conduct is held up before them, therefore. It was not for such to possess the land, surely, and they are warned by the Voice that speaks to them through the prophet: “Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: As I live, surely they that are in the waste places shall fall by the sword, and him that is in the open field will I give to the beasts to be devoured, and they that are in the strongholds and in the caves shall die of the pestilence; and I will make the land a desolation and an astonishment, and the pride of her strength shall cease. And the mountains of Israel shall be desolate that none shall pass through them. And they shall know that I am Jehovah (how differently should they have learned this!) when I have made the land a desolation and an astonishment because of all their abominations which they have committed.” Among the exiles, however, a transient effect might seem to have been produced by the fulfilment of the prophet’s words. They were now coming to hear the message that he had for them, sitting before God as if His people, and hearing words which, however, they never followed. “Behold,” says the Lord to him, “thou art unto them as a lovely song, a pleasant voice, and one that playeth well upon an instrument; and they hear thy words, but they do them not” -there was no true faith with them. They would know that the prophet had spoken to them only by the voice of the judgment which would overtake them, as it had in fact already overtaken them. They would believe when it was too late, when the prediction was fulfilled, but that would be only to make it vain as to the whole meaning of it. It was no true faith that did not anticipate the fulfilment. Thus everywhere, as one sees, the ruin of man is complete. There could be no proper hope, no expectation any longer, and here the first utterance closes. 2. (1) In the chapter following, we have again no date given as to the time of the message, nor is there another until we come to the closing vision of the temple in the restored land, which is the only other in the book. That which follows here seems now to pour forth without any pause; and while we have once more judgment, in the opening, it is now manifestly connected with blessing, as the way to it. If the people are to be according to God, it must be as Isaiah has said (Isaiah 4:4), “By the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning,” or as Ezekiel himself has said elsewhere (Ezekiel 20:38) by purging out from them the rebels and those that transgress against God. Thus we find that the judgment now before us is upon the false shepherds, those who only feed themselves, and make a prey of the sheep. “And the word of Jehovah came unto me saying, Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say unto them, even unto the shepherds, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Woe to the shepherds of Israel that feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flock? Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill those that are fattened; but ye feed not the sheep. The weak have ye not strengthened, nor have ye healed the sick, nor have ye bound up that which was broken, nor have ye brought again that which was driven away, nor have ye sought that which was lost; but with oppression and rigor ye have ruled over them.” How thoroughly this gives the character of those whom the Lord charged in His day with similar conduct. The rule of the rabbins was an oppressive one, and while they assumed to stand for God and for His word, self-seeking characterized them throughout, and thus of necessity the sheep were scattered: “They were scattered because there was no shepherd: and they became food to all the beasts of the field and were scattered. My sheep wandered through all the mountains and upon every high hill; yea, my sheep have been scattered upon all the face of the earth, and there was none that searched or sought after them.” Nothing stirs the heart of the true shepherd like the wanton abuse or neglect of the sheep, and here is One whose heart never needed to be stirred, but abides continually with His people, however long He may have patience, and however much circumstances may seem to argue that He has forgotten them. Therefore, as we shall see, it is Jehovah Himself who is manifested as the Shepherd of Israel, and that in the One raised up to them in tender grace; One who is Himself Man, and a stranger to nothing in man, except man’s inherent evil. (2) The doom of the shepherds is therefore now announced. It is the judgment of love which smites for deliverance. There must be an end of this false assumption of the shepherd’s place without the shepherd’s heart -an assumption so peculiarly offensive to Him whose heart is with the sheep, who is afflicted in all the afflictions of His people, and who, when He arises for their help, will make a thorough work of it. (3) Thus the Lord declares that He will come in and search for His sheep and examine their condition. The language is human language, and we see here, according to what Ezekiel has shown us elsewhere, the likeness of a Man upon the throne. God speaks as if He were ignorant; therefore to examine into everything were a first necessity; and in truth there is what answers to this. God is careful to expose fully the evil with which He is dealing, that in His government He may be justified by all His creatures. This is the meaning of all those solemn assurances of a day of judgment to come, when the books are opened, and all the history of those brought before the judgment-seat is thoroughly entered into. There are crises of judgment which anticipate this, in which God allows the character of things fully to come out, allowing to come to a head the evil upon which He is going to smite, and bringing out the secret thoughts of men’s hearts into open day.

Thus as to His flock, Jehovah will examine their whole condition and all that has led to it. Their scatterings shall cease when the Voice is heard which.

His people know -which does not scatter, but brings together; and this, therefore, by removing every cause of scattering. Yet scattering may be at times the very thing that is of God, which He permits to avoid worse evil: nevertheless it is only permission for a brief time. What is in His heart is gathering, not scattering. And so He declares that He will deliver His flock out of all the places whither they were scattered in the cloudy and dark day. He has realized the darkness of it, and He will bring them out from the peoples, and gather them from the countries, and bring them into their own land. It has been their own land in His mind all the way through; and if for a time it has refused to own them as its inhabitants, there is no setting aside of the purposes which, with God, can never be repented of.

The mountains of Israel sball welcome them again, and all the springs shall be set running for their benefit, and all the habitable places of the country shall be filled with them. The mountains, which so peculiarly characterize the land of Israel, shall provide good pasture for them, lifted up and kissed as it were by the light of heaven.

That is where God would ever have His people feed, and there are the fat pastures to be provided now. He will feed them and make them to lie down. How thoroughly these things go together in His mind -provision and rest, in which all the evils that have afflicted them in the long past shall be put away, the lost restored, the wounded bound up, the weak strengthened; but, on the other hand, the fat and the strong destroyed! We know what this means: God is thinking of those who have been feeding themselves at the cost of the sheep, and have become fat through the spoiling of others. They of necessity will be the objects of swift, sure judgment: “I will feed the flock with judgment,” says the Lord. (4) The searching which the Lord institutes is to go down deeper than merely with certain heads of the people: “Behold,” says the Lord, “I judge between sheep and sheep,” not merely between sheep and shepherds. “The rams and the he-goats” seem to speak not alike of objects of His judgment. The rams belong to the flock themselves, but the he-goats are alien to it. They are, as we know, in the Lord’s own picture of judgment, representatives of those whom the Son of Man puts upon His left hand, as He puts the sheep upon His right. Among the sheep there are those who have from God a certain natural place as leaders, and when God is working among His people, as in the days to come, these must of necessity come to the front. Leaders among the people of God are always recognized. It is the character of the leading which determines as to what it is before God.

The true leader is he who leads by the Word itself, and to faith in it, and not in the leader, therefore. And he who says, “Follow me as I follow Christ” puts Christ before the eyes of His people as the measure by which he himself and all his leading is to be measured.

How good to have those who, if they have found a bit of good pasture, must run. to tell others of it! And this is a kind of leading open to all that have hearts for it. How different the conduct of those of whom the Lord speaks here, who not only have eaten up all the good pasture for themselves, but must tread down and spoil what is left of it: not satisfied with drinking of the clear waters, they must foul the residue with their feet. I low this applies to such as rose up in Israel after this, when the rule of the priest was changed for the rule of the rabbi, is obvious to all; who, as our Lord said, were “teaching for doctrine the commandments of men,” and putting their own word before the word of God. They made the flock eat what they had trodden with their feet, and drink what they had fouled with them. And it is not in Israel only that these things have taken place.

Alas, how Christendom has copied them in fullest detail! But God is going to judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep.

The lean sheep are His objects now -the people who have suffered from these things, and whom He sees suffering. Thus He will save His flock that they may no more be a prey, and will judge between sheep and sheep. (5) Now we come to what is God’s complete thought for them. He has one true Shepherd that is to be set over them; in that sense, only one; there is not another, and “He shall feed them, even my servant David.” “The introduction of David without anything further or particular,” says Schroeder, “confirms what is stated by Hengstenberg, that the Messiah, the glorious offspring of David, had in the time of the prophet been for long a lesson of the catechism.” That is true, and it is sweet to think how God necessarily supposes that they will know who is spoken of here, the true David, of whom the one in history was only a type. He is to take up David’s place and office in a more glorious fashion: David’s Son is also David’s Lord, “the Beloved,” as His name means; and our hearts recognize Him in this way: “He shall feed them, and He shall be their Shepherd.” And thus alone it can be that Jehovah will be their God. Thus alone will “the covenant of peace” be theirs -the peace by a covenant never to be broken, and as a consequence, all nature at peace with them, evil beasts gone: “They shall dwell in safety in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods.” Eden, but a better Eden, has come for them; and from the hill of God, His dwelling-place among them, the object for every eye and every heart, blessing shall flow out to all the places round about. Heaven yields its seasonable showers: “There shall be showers of blessing.” Thus the curse is removed, and the land yields its increase. The tree of the field comes to its fruit, not casts it, and in all this they shall know that it is Jehovah who has brought them into this blessing; it is Jehovah who has burst the bands of their yoke and delivered them; it is Jehovah who has come in with the deliverance which is now eternal.

They shall be no more a prey, nor shall they fear it. There shall be no danger nor thought of danger. How blessed to think of such a time at hand, and for a world trodden by the feet of oppressors, as the world has been. But the attention is turned once more to God’s central figure for them: “I will raise up for them,” says He, “a plant of renown.” Neither shame nor hunger can be their portion when God has done this. “A plant for a name” is the literal rendering, which reminds us at once of the Name in which is all the revelation of God for man, which has been in His thought from the beginning -revelation come to its completion, and all things taking shape according to this. For this Immanuel (Jehovah, revealed in Christ) is among them; the bond of His humanity is never to be broken, and Israel as His people are compassed with those blessed arms which are yet to be seen about the whole creation of God, linking it forever with God. They need not fear, then, to recognize the weakness which as creatures necessarily belongs to them. It is the wholesome lesson which they have taken so long to learn, and which we are all so slow to learn, though a very simple one: “Ye my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, are men, and I am your God, saith the Lord Jehovah.” What does this mean? -that we are men. The word is “adam”: God “called their name Adam, in the day that He created them” -a name which comes from adamah, “the ground.” Yes, just to learn that we are men! Have we learnt it? Do we act and speak as if we had truly learnt it? That they were formed out of the clay is not the whole matter, of course, and it is not what made them the offspring of God, or in His likeness, but it is the suited word to keep us humble; yet, even so, it is a word of triumph too, of God’s triumph, for in them the dust of the ground is made to shine with a new glory. He has taken up this very dust, not putting it away as if the material thing were unsuited for Him, but developing all the capacities which are latent in it, which are not capacities of the spirit but for the spirit, in which matter itself becomes a fitted servant of the spirit, and God as the Creator is revealed all through in the goodness of His work.

The dust of the ground is become man, and God Himself has met us in Christ, claiming man, even man’s flesh as His, of which He is not, and never will be, ashamed. Is it not the display of His glory, is it not His triumph, this wonder of divine condescension, this stooping of divine love?! Yes, men are thus the sheep of His pasture, and they have no cause to forget, but ever to remember and thank and bless Him ever that they are men.