According to their sins,

B. C. cir. 594. Ol. XLVI. 3. Tarquinii Prisci, R. Roman., cir. annum 23.

thine abominations that are in the

so shall they be punished.

M. cir. 3410.

B. C. cir. 594. Ol. XLVI. 3. Tarquinii Prisci R. Roman,

N

n Heb. upon thee.- Lo Ver. 4.- -P Ver. 7.-9 Jer. vi. 7. rOr, tumult. 8 Or, their tumultuous persons.- - Jer. xvi. 5, 6; chap. xxiv. 16, 22.—u Ver. 7.-— Heb. though their life were

mountains. "Now will I shortly pour out," ver. 8. Here they come !

Verse 10. Behold the day] The same words are repeated, sometimes varied, and pressed on the attention with new figures and new circumstances, in order to alarm this infatuated people. Look at the day! It is come!

The morning is gone forth] It will wait no longer. The rod that is to chastise you hath blossomed; it is quite ready.

Pride hath budded.] Your insolence, obstinacy, and daring opposition to God have brought forth their proper fruits.

Verse 11. Violence is risen up into a rod of wickedness] The prophet continues his metaphor: "Pride has budded."-And what has it brought forth? Violence and iniquity. To meet these, the rod of God cometh. There is such a vast rapidity of succession in the ideas of the prophet that he cannot wait to find language to clothe each. Hence we have broken sentences; and, consequently, obscurity. Something must be supplied to get the sense, and most critics alter words in the text. Houbigant, who rarely acknowledges himself to be puzzled, appears here completely nonplussed. He has given a meaning; it is this: "Violence hath burst forth from the rod; salvation shall not proceed from them, nor from their riches, nor from their turbulence: there shall be no respite for them." Calmet has given no less than five interpretations to this verse. The simple meaning seems to be, that such and so great is their wickedness that it must be punished; and from this punishment, neither their multitude nor struggles shall set them free.. They may strive to evade the threatened stroke; but they shall not succeed, nor shall they have any respite. Our Version is to be understood as saying,-None of the people shall be left; all shall be slain, or carried into captivity nor shall any of theirs, their princes, priests, wives, or children, escape. And so deserved shall

W

cir. annum 23.

14 They have blown the trumpet, even to make all ready: but none goeth to the battle: for my wrath is upon all the multitude thereof. 15 The sword is without, and the pestilence and the famine within: he that is in the field shall die with the sword; and he that is in the city, famine and pestilence shall devour him. -16 But they that escape of them shall escape, and shall be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them mourning, every one for his iniquity.

a

17 All hands shall be feeble, and all

W

yet among the living.- Or, whose life is in his iniquity. Heb. his iniquity. -y Deut. xxxii. 25; Lam. i. 20; chap. v. 12. Chap. vi. 8.a Isa. xiii. 7; Jer. vi. 24; chap. xxi. 7.

their desolation appear, that none shall lament them. This may be as good a sense as any, and it is nearest to the letter.

Verse 12. Let not the buyer rejoice, nor the seller mourn] Such is now the state of public affairs, that he who through want has been obliged to sell his inheritance, need not mourn on the account; as of this the enemy would soon have deprived him. And he who has bought it need not rejoice in his bargain, as he shall soon be stripped of his purchase, and either fall by the sword, or be glad to flee for his life.

Verse 13. For the seller shall not return] In the sale of all heritages among the Jews, it was always understood that the heritage must return to the family on the year of jubilee, which was every fiftieth year; but in this case the seller should not return to possess it, as it was not likely that he should be alive when the next jubilee should come; and if he were even to live till that time, he could not possess it, as he would then be in captivity. And the reason is particularly given; for the vision—the prophetic declaration of a seventy years' captivity, regards the whole multitude of the people; and it shall not return, i. e., it will be found to be strictly true, without any abatement.

Verse 14. They have blown the trumpet] Vain are all the efforts you make to collect and arm the people, and stand on your own defence; for all shall be dispirited, and none go to the battle.

Verse 15, The sword is without] War through all the country, and pestilence and famine within the city, shall destroy the whole, except a small remnant. He who endeavours to flee from the one shall fall by the other.

Verse 16. They-shall be on the mountains like doves of the valleys] Rather, like mourning doves, haggeayoth, chased from their dove-cotes, and separated from their mates.

Verse 17. All knees shall be weak as water.] Calmet understands this curiously: La frayeur dont on sera

The glory of the Lord

appears to the prophet.

a Chap. xiv. 1; xx. 1; xxxiii. 31.- b Chap. i. 3; iii. 22.
NOTES ON CHAP. VIII.

Verse 1. In the sixth year, in the sixth month, in the fifth day of the month] This, according to Abp. Usher, was the sixth year of Ezekiel's captivity. The sixth day of the fifth month of the ecclesiastical year, which answers to August, A. M. 3410.

This chapter and the three following contain but one vision, of which I judge it necessary, with Calmet, to give a general idea, that the attention of the reader may not be too much divided.

The prophet, in the visions of God, is carried to Jerusalem, to the northern gate of the temple, which leads by the north side to the court of the priests. There he sees the glory of the Lord in the same manner as he did by the river Chebar. At one side he sees the image of jealousy. Going thence to the court of the people, he sees through an opening in the wall seventy elders of the people, who were worshipping all sorts of beasts and reptiles, which were painted on the wall. Being brought thence to the gate of the door of the house, he saw women weeping for Tammuz or Adonis. As he returned to the court of the priests, between the porch and the altar, he saw twenty-five men with their backs to the sanctuary and their faces towards the east, worshipping the rising This is the substance of the vision contained in the eighth chapter.

sun.

About the same time he saw six men come from the higher gate with swords in their hands; and among them, one with an ink-horn. Then the Divine Presence left the cherubim, and took post at the entrance of the temple, and gave orders to the man with the ink-horn to put a mark on the foreheads of those who sighed and prayed because of the abominations of the land; and then commanded the men with the swords to go forward, and slay every person who had not this mark. The prophet, being left alone among the dead, fell on his face, and made intercession for the people. The Lord gives him the reason of his conduct; and the man with the ink-horn returns, and reports to the Lord what was done. These are the general contents of the ninth chapter.

с

Chap. i. 26, 27.d Chap. i. 4.- - Dan. v. 5.

The Lord commands the same person to go in between the wheels of the cherubim, and take his hand full of live coals, and scatter them over the city. He went as commanded, and one of the cherubim gave him the coals; at the same time the glory of the Lord, that had removed to the threshold of the house, now returned, and stood over the cherubim. The cherubim, wheels, wings, &c., are here described as in the first chapter. This is the substance of the tenth chapter.

The prophet then finds himself transported to the east gate of the temple, where he saw twenty-five men, and among them Jaazaniah the son of Azur, and Pelatiah the son of Benaiah, princes of the people, against whom the Lord commands him to prophesy, and to threaten them with the utmost calamities, because of their crimes. Afterwards God himself speaks, and shows that the Jews who should be left in the land should be driven out because of their iniquities, and that those who had been led captive, and who acknowledged their sins and repented of them, should be restored to their own land. Then the glory of the Lord arose out of the city, and rested for a time on one of the mountains on the east of Jerusalem, and the prophet being carried in vision by the Spirit to Chaldea, lost sight of the chariot of the Divine glory, and began to show to the captivity what the Lord had shown to him. This is the substance of the eleventh chapter. We may see from all this what induced the Lord to abandon his people, his city, and his temple; the abominations of the people in public and in private. But because those carried away captives with Jeconiah acknowledged their sins, and their hearts turned to the Lord, God informs them that they shall be brought back and restored to a happy state both in temporal and spiritual matters, while the others, who had filled up the measure of their iniquities, should be speedily brought into a state of desolation and ruin. This is the sum and intent of the vision in these four chapters. Verse 2. The appearance of fire] See the note on chap. i. 27.

Verse 3. The image of jealousy]

סמל

□ semel

The Jewish elders found

A. M. 3410. B. C. 594. Ol. XLVI. 3. Anno Tarquinii Prisci,

the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz. 15 Then said he unto me, Hast R. Roman., 23. thou seen this, O son of man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these.

16 And he brought me into the inner court of the LORD's house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the LORD, " between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east.

Joel ii. 17. Chap. xi. 1. Jer. ii. 27; xxxii. 33. Deut. iv. 19; 2 Kings xxiii. 5, 11; Job xxxi. 26; Jer. xliv. 17. Or, Is there any thing lighter than to commit.

rpe that is cleped Adonpdes. He is fabled to have been a beautiful youth beloved by Venus, and killed by a wild boar in Mount Lebanon, whence springs the river Adonis, which was fabled to run blood at his festival in August. The women of Phœnicia, Assyria, and Judea worshipped him as dead, with deep lamentation, wearing priapi and other obscene images all the while, and they prostituted themselves in honour of this idol. Having for some time mourned him as dead, they then supposed him revivified, and broke out into the most extravagant rejoicings. Of the appearance of the river at this season, Mr. Maundrell thus speaks: "We had the good fortune to see what is the foundation of the opinion which Lucian relates, viz., that this stream at certain seasons of the year, especially about the feast of Adonis, is of a bloody colour, proceeding from a kind of sympathy, as the heathens imagined, for the death of Adonis, who was killed by a wild boar in the mountain out of which this stream issues. Something like this we saw actually come to pass, for the water was stained to a surprising redness; and, as we observed in travelling, had stained the sea a great way into a reddish hue." This was no doubt occasioned by a red ochre, over which the river ran with violence at this time of its increase. Milton works all this up in these fine lines :

"Thammuz came next behind,

Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured
The Syrian damsels to lament his fate,
In amorous ditties all a summer's day;
While smooth Adonis, from his native rock,
Ran purple to the sea, suffused with blood
Of Thammuz, yearly wounded. The love tale

worshipping the rising sun.

A. M. 3410.
B. C. 594.
Ol. XLVI. 3.
Anno

Tarquinii Prisci,
R. Roman., 23.

17 Then he said unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? for they have filled the land with violence, and have returned to provoke me to anger: and, lo, they put the branch to their nose.

Infected Sion's daughters with like heat : Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch Ezekiel saw, when by the vision led, His eye surveyed the dark idolatries Of alienated Judah." Par. Lost, b. i. 446. Tammuz signifies hidden or obscure, and hence the worship of his image was in some secret place.

Verse 16. Five and twenty men] These most probably represented the twenty-four courses of the priests, with the high priest for the twenty-fifth. This was the Persian worship, as their turning their faces to the east plainly shows they were worshipping the rising sun.

Verse 17. They put the branch to their nose.] This is supposed to mean some branch or branches, which they carried in succession in honour of the idol, and with which they covered their faces, or from which they inhaled a pleasant smell, the branches being odoriin their sacred ceremonies is well known to all persons ferous. That the heathens carried branches of trees acquainted with classic antiquity; and it is probable that the heathen borrowed those from the use of such branches in the Jewish feast of tabernacles. There of this clause; but the former are not worth repeating, are many strange, and some filthy, interpretations given

and I abominate the latter too much to submit to defile my paper with them. Probably the Brahminic Linga is here intended.

It really seems that at this time the Jews had incorporated every species of idolatry in their impure worship,-Phoenician, Egyptian, and Persian. I might add that some imagine the image of jealousy to be a personification of idolatry itself.