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and desolation of the city and temple; and upon the .misfortunes of Zedekiah, of whom he speaks in a most respectful, tender, and affecting manner :—

“The anointed of Jehovah, the breath of our nostrils, was taken in their toils,

the nations."

on this book

conclusion of it, he speaks of their fallen royalty; attributes all their calamities to their rebellion and wickedness; and acknowledges that there can be no end to their misery, but in their restoration to the Divine favour.

Under whose shadow we said, We shall live among derable time after the rest: for it supposes the temple This last chapter was probably written some consito be so deserted, that the foxes walked undisturbed among its ruins, and that the people were already in captivity.

At the end he speaks of the cruelty of the Edomites, who had insulted Jerusalem in her miseries, and contributed to its demolition. These he threatens with the wrath of God.

The fifth chapter is a kind of form of prayer for the Jews, in their dispersions and captivity. In the ( 27 )

VOL. IV.

The poem is a monument of the people's iniquity and rebellion; of the displeasure and judgment of GoD against them; and of the piety, eloquence, and incomparable ability of the poet.

417

INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK

OF THE

PROPHET

EZEKIE L.

EZEKIEL the prophet was the son of Buzi; and was of the sacerdotal race, as himself forms us, chap. i. 3, and was born at a place called Saresa, as the pseudo-Epiphanius tes us in his Lives of the Prophets. He was carried captive by Nebuchadnezzar into Babylon, with Jeconiah king of Judah, and three thousand other captives of the principal unhabitants, and was sent into Mesopotamia, where he received the prophetic gift; which is supposed, from an obscure expression in his prophecies, chap. i. 1, to have taken place in the the peth year of his age. He had then been in captivity five years; and continued to prophesy about twenty-two years, from A. M. 3409 to A. M. 3430, which answers to the four-'. town. I year after the destruction of Jerusalem.

About three months and ten days after this conquest of Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar made anobber descent, and again besieged the city; and Jehoiachin, who succeeded his father Johorak, was obliged to surrender. The victorious Chaldeans carried off all the inhabitants. of note ute Babylon, leaving none behind but the very poorest of the people. See 2 Kings TOYS 16. These captives were fixed at Tel-abib, and other places on the river Chebar, worch flows into the east side of the Euphrates at Carchemish, nearly two hundred miles northward of Babylon. There, as Archbishop Newcome observes, he was present in body, though, in visionary representation, he was sometimes taken to Jerusalem.

With this same learned writer I am of opinion that, the better to understand the propriety and force of these Divine revelations, the circumstances and dispositions of the Jews in their own country, and in their state of banishment, and the chief historical events of that period, shou'd be stated and considered. Most writers on this Prophet have adopted this plan; and Archbishop Newcome's abstract of this history is sufficient for every purpose.

Zedekiah, uncle to the captive king Jehoiachin, was advanced by Nebuchadnezzar to the kingdom of Judah; and the tributary king bound himself to subjection by a solemn oath in the end of Jehovah, Ezek. xvii. 18. But notwithstanding the Divine judgments which had www.amed Judah during the reigns of his two immediate predecessors, he did evil in the God, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 12. Jerusalem became so idolatrous, impure, oppressive, and Assay, that God is represented as smiting his hands together through astonishment at uçà a ace of iniquity, chap. xxii. 13. The Prophet Jeremiah was insulted, rejected, and poses ud; false prophets abounded, whose language was, Ye shall not serve the king of Helg for. xxvii. 9. I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon,' Jer. xxviii. 2. They even limited the restoration of the sacred vessels, and the return of Jehoiachin and his tellow captives, to so short an interval as two years, Jer. xxviii. 3, 4. Zedekiah, blinded by his vaya and these delusions, flattered by the embassies which he had received from Edom, Mo Ammon, Tyre, and Sidon, Jer. xxvii. 3, and probably submitting with his accustomed unity to the advice of evil counsellors, Jer. xxviii. 25, rebelled against his powerful conquercus, and sont ambassadors into Egypt for assistance, Ezek. xvii. 15. Hence arose a s of the Chaldeans. Pharaoh-hophra, king of Egypt, did not advance to the fedekiah till Jerusalem was besieged, Jer. xxxvii. 5. The Babylonians raised we woh the design of distressing the Egyptians in their march, and of giving battle ge vlered: but Pharaoh, with perfidy and pusillanimity, returned to his own ( 27 )

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INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF EZEKIEL.

country; and left the rebellious and perjured king of Judah to the rage of his enemies, Jer. xxxvii. 7. Before the siege was thus interrupted, Zedekiah endeavoured to conciliate the favour of God by complying so far with the Mosaic law as to proclaim the sabbatical year a year of liberty to Hebrew servants, Exod. xxi. 2. But such was his impiety, and so irresolute and fluctuating were his counsels, that, on the departure of the Chaldeans, he revoked his edict, Jer. xxxiv. 11; upon which God, by the Prophet Jeremiah, proclaimed liberty to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine; and commissioned these messengers of his wrath to avenge himself on his people, Jer. xxxiv. 17. When the siege was resumed, we have a farther instance of Zedekiah's extreme infatuation; his rejection of Jeremiah's counsel, given him by the authority of God, to preserve himself, his family, and his city, by a surrender to the Chaldeans. Thus, after a siege of eighteen months; Jerusalem was stormed and burnt, Jer. xxxix. 1, 2; Zedekiah was taken in his flight; his sons were slain before his eyes; his eyes were afterwards put out, agreeably to the savage custom of eastern conquerors; and he was carried in chains to Babylon, Jer. xxxix. 5-7

"The exiles on the river Chebar were far from being awakened to a devout acknowledgment of God's justice by the punishment inflicted on them: they continued rebellious and idolatrous, Ezek. ii. 3; xx. 39, they hearkened to false prophets and prophetesses, Ezek. xiii. 2, 17; and they were so alienated that he refused to be inquired of by them. In vain did Ezekiel endeavour to attract and win them by the charms of his flowing and insinuating eloquence; in vain did he assume a more vehement tone to awe and alarm them by heightened scenes of calamity and terror.

"We know few particulars concerning the Jews at Babylon. They enjoyed the instruction and example of the Prophet Daniel, who was carried away captive to that city in the third year of Jehoiakim, eight years before the captivity of Ezekiel, Dan. i. 1. Jeremiah cautioned them not to be deceived by their false prophets and diviners, Jer. xxix. 8, 9, 15, 21; against some of whom he denounced fearful judgments. He exhorted them to seek the peace of the city where they dwelt; to take wives, build houses, and plant gardens, till their restoration after seventy years, Jer. xxix. 5, 6, 7, 10. He also comforted them by a prediction of all the evil which God designed to inflict on Babylon: he assured them that none should remain in that proud city, but that it should be desolate for ever. The messenger, when he had read the book containing these denunciations, was commanded to bind a stone to it, and cast it into the Euphrates, and say, Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil which I will bring on her,' Jer. li. 59–64. It farther appears, by Divine hymns now extant, see Psa. lxxix., cii., cvi., and cxxxvii., that God vouchsafed to inspire some of these Babylonian captives with his Holy Spirit. Nebuchadnezzar appointed Gedaliah ruler of the people that remained in Judea, 2 Kings xxv. 23; Jer. xl. 5; and the scattered military commanders and their men, together with other Jews who had taken refuge in the neighbouring countries, Jer. xl: 7, 11, submitted to his government on the departure of the Chaldeans. The Jews employed themselves in gathering the fruits of the earth, Jer. xl. 12, and a calm succeeded the tempest of war: but it was soon interrupted by the turbulence of this devoted people. Ishmael slew Gedaliah; and compelled the wretched remains of the Jews in Mizpah, the seat of Gedaliah's government, to retire with him towards the country of the Ammonites, Jer. xli. 10; a people hostile to the Chaldeans, Jer. xxvii. 3. Johanan raised a force to revenge this mad and cruel act, Jer. xli. 11-15; pursued Ishmael, overtook him, and recovered from him the people whom he had forced to follow him: but the assassin himself escaped with eight men to his place of refuge. The succeeding event furnishes another signal instance of human infatuation. Johanan, through fear of the Chaldeans, many of whom Ishmael had massacred, together with Gedaliah, Jer. xli. 3, conceived a design of retreating to Egypt, Jer xli. 17; but before he executed this resolution, he formally consulted the Prophet Jeremiah The prophet answered him in the name of Jehovah, Jer. xlii., that if Johanan and the peopl abode in Judea, God would build them, and not pull them down: would plant them, and not pluck them up;' but if they went to sojourn in Egypt, they should die by the sword, by

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INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF EZEKIEL.

true meaning till we can ascertain the true reading. But after having laboured in this way, I must express myself as the learned professor of the oriental tongues at Parma, J. B. De Rossi: Tanta hic in suffixis præsertim pronominibus codicum inconstantia ac varietas, ut tæduerit me laboris mei, ac verius ego quod olim de uno Zachariæ versu (xi. 5) dolens inquiebat Norzius, de toto Ezechielis libro usurpare possim, angustiatam fuisse animam meam ob varietates multas, et avertisse faciem meam ab eis. "That there is so much inconstancy and variation among the MSS., especially in the suffixed pronouns, that I was weary of my labour; and I could more truly say of the whole book of Ezekiel, than Norzius did relative to one passage in Zechariah, who, bitterly complaining of the many variations he met with, said, My soul was perplexed with them, and I turned away my face from them."" As most of our printed editions have been taken from a very inadequate collation of MSS., especially of this prophet, much remains to be done to restore the text to a proper state of purity. When this is done it is presumed that several of the difficulties in this book will be removed. In many instances Abp. Newcome has been very successful.

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On the famous controversy relative to GoG and MAGOG, I must refer the reader to the notes on chap. xxxviii. and xxxix., where the best accounts I have met with are detailed. There are only two schemes that appear at all probable; that which makes Gog Antiochus Epiphanes, king of Assyria, and that which makes him Cambyses, king of Persia. The former, as being the most probable, and the best supported in all its parts by the marks given in the prophecy, I have in a certain measure adopted, for want of one more satisfactory to my own mind. The character of Ezekiel as a poet has been drawn at large by some of the most eminent critics of these and other countries. Lowth, Michaelis, and Eichhorn, are the chief. Abp. Newcome has quoted largely from the latter; and from his work, which is now very scarce and extremely dear, I shall present my readers with the following extracts:

"The two first visions are so accurately polished, chap. i.—vii., viii.—xi., and demanded so much art to give them their last perfection and proportion, that they cannot possibly be an unpremeditated work. And if, according to the commonly received opinion, they were publicly read by Ezekiel as we read them now, he must have seriously designed them as a picture, and finished them in form. The intention of his visions might make this necessary. He designed no doubt to make deep impressions upon the people whom he was to guide; and by highly labouring the Divine appearances, to open their ears for his future oracles and representations. The more complete, divine, and majestic the Divine appearances were which he represented, the deeper veneration was impressed upon the mind towards the prophet to whom such high visions were communicated. Most of the parts which compose Ezekiel, as they are generally works of art, are full of artificial and elaborate plans.

"The peculiarities of language in the first chapter are to be found in the middle and end of the book. The same enthusiasm which in the beginning of his prophecies produced the magnificent Divine appearances, must also have built the temple of God at the conclusion. As in the beginning every thing is first proposed in high allegorical images, and afterwards the same ideas are repeated in plain words, thus also in the middle and at the end in every piece, allegorical representation is succeeded by literal. Throughout the style is rather prose than verse; and rough, hard, and mixed with the Chaldee.

"The division of Ezekiel into two parts has been adopted by several writers. They continue the former part to the thirty-ninth chapter, and consider the last nine chapters from the fortieth as a separate book. This division is possible. From the eleventh chapter a new elevated scene commences. Before there was nothing but oracles, full of misfortunes, punishments, death, and ruin; visions concerning the destruction of the government, and concerning the flight and state of the last king; and pictures of the universal corruption, idolatry, and superstition of Israel. From the fortieth chapter a new temple rises before the eyes of the holy seer; he walks round about it in Palestine; he measures the city and country for their new inhabitants; he orders sacrifices, feasts, and customs. short, a Magna Charta is planned for priests, kings, and people, in future and better times. Lastly, from hence prosaic

In

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