《Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers – Ezekiel》(Charles J. Ellicott)
Commentator
Charles John Ellicott, compiler of and contributor to this renowned Bible Commentary, was one of the most outstanding conservative scholars of the 18th century. He was born at Whitwell near Stamford, England, on April 25, 1819. He graduated from St. John's College, Cambridge, where other famous expositors like Charles Simeon and Handley Moule studied. As a Fellow of St. John's, he constantly lectured there. In 1847, Charles Ellicott was ordained a Priest in the Church of England. From 1841 to 1848, he served as Rector of Pilton, Rutlandshire. He became Hulsean Professor of Divinity, Cambridge, in 1860. The next three years, 1861 to 1863, he ministered as Dean of Exeter, and later in 1863 became the Lord Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol.
Conspicuous as a Bible Expositor, he is still well known for his Critical and Grammatical Commentaries on Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians and Philemon. Other printed works include Modern Unbelief, The Being of God, The History and Obligation of the Sabbath.
This unique Bible Commentary is to be highly recommended for its worth to Pastors and Students. Its expositions are simple and satisfying, as well as scholarly. Among its most commendable features, mention should be made of the following: It contains profitable suggestions concerning the significance of names used in Scripture.
00 Introduction
THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL.
Ezekiel.
BY
THE REV. F. GARDINER, D.D.,
Professor of Divinity, Middletown, Connecticut, U.S.A.
INTRODUCTION
TO
THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL.
THIS book is placed in the Authorised Version, as well as in the order of the Hebrew canon, third among the writings of the four greater prophets. This is certainly its true chronological place; for although Jeremiah and Daniel were both contemporary with. Ezekiel, yet the former began his prophecies long before, and the latter continued his visions long afterwards. Of its authenticity and canonicity there is no question.
I. The personal history of Ezekiel.—Nothing is known of this beyond what may be gathered from the book itself, and from the circumstances of the times in which the author lived. He is never mentioned in any other book of the Old Testament, and his writings are never directly quoted in the New, although some of the imagery in the Apocalypse is undoubtedly founded upon the visions of Ezekiel. Fortunately, however, everything which it is important to know may be learned from the sources mentioned.
His name, God will strengthen, like the names of so many others of the saints of old, was singularly appropriate to his life and work. In the opening of his book (Ezekiel 1:3) he speaks of himself as a “priest, the son of Buzi.” Of Buzi nothing whatever is known; but the fact that Ezekiel himself was of the Aaronic family is a most important one in the interpretation of his writings; for he was evidently “every inch a churchman,” and his strong ecclesiastical character pervades and gives tone to his prophecies. Whether he actually entered upon the exercise of priestly functions at Jerusalem cannot be known without a previous determination of the uncertain question of the age at which he was carried into captivity; but he was certainly well instructed in what seemed likely to be his future duties. These facts, taken in connection with the disordered condition of the country and the tendency to concentrate the priests in and around the holy city, make it probable that he lived in Jerusalem or its immediate vicinity.
The prophet was carried captive to Babylon with the king Jehoiachin (Ezekiel 1:2; comp. with Ezekiel 33:21) in the eighth year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar (B.C. 596), ten thousand of the more important part of the people being transplanted to Babylonia at the same time (2 Kings 24:14), eleven years before the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. According to Josephus (Antt. x. 6, 3), he was then a young man. This statement has been called in question, but seems likely to be true, from the fact that one of his prophecies is dated twenty-seven years later (Ezekiel 29:17), and that he apparently exercised his office for some time longer. However this may be, it is certain that he entered on his prophetic activity “by the river Chebar” (Ezekiel 1:3), where the mass of the captives had been planted. This river was formerly supposed to be the Chaboras. or Khabour, a stream emptying itself into the Euphrates about two hundred miles above Babylon; but this cannot be the river intended, since it is said to be “in the land of the Chaldæans,” and the name of Chaldæa was never extended so far north. Recent authorities generally identify it with the Nahr Malcha, or royal canal of Nebuchadnezzar, on the excavation of which it is supposed that the Jewish captives were employed for a time. These were doubtless “the rivers of Babylon” by whose side the Jewish exiles wept when they “remembered Zion” (Psalms 137:1). Here Ezekiel lived in his own house (Ezekiel 8:1), to which the elders of Judah resorted to receive his counsels. He was married, and when his wife died suddenly he was forbidden to mourn for her (Ezekiel 24:16-17). This occurred near the close of the ninth year of his captivity (Ezekiel 24:1), and left the exiled prophet to bear in solitude the great trials of his prophetic life.
There is no record of the time of the close of his prophetic activity or of his life, and the few traditions that remain about him are of little value. Of great interest, however, are—
II. His relations with contemporary prophets.—The great prophet of Judæa during Ezekiel’s youth, and for a long time after he was carried into captivity, was Jeremiah. Jeremiah was himself a priest who occupied a large share of public attention, and exercised a powerful influence upon the destinies of the nation during the most susceptible years of Ezekiel’s life. Neither of them ever mentions the other’s name, yet it is scarcely possible that the young priest Ezekiel should not have personally known the older priest and great prophet at Jerusalem. After he had gone into captivity, and in the year before he was called to the prophetic office, Jeremiah sent a prophecy to Babylon, predicting its overthrow (Jeremiah 51:59); and on another occasion, whether earlier or later is unknown, he sent by another messenger to rebuke the false prophets who had risen up among the captives (Jeremiah 29:21-28). These false prophets had undertaken to thwart Jeremiah and to put a stop to his prophesying, and his denunciation of them must have removed a great obstacle from the way of Ezekiel; while, on the other hand, Ezekiel’s own prophecies among the captives must have helped to sustain Jeremiah’s authority among the remnant at Jerusalem.
Meantime, while these relations appear to have existed between the prophet of Judæa and the captive by the river Chebar, the “royal prophet” Daniel had also begun his series of wonderful revelations at the court of Babylon. He makes no mention of Ezekiel, as indeed he scarcely speaks of anything outside the immediate scope of his own prophecies; but Ezekiel speaks of him by name three times: twice for his eminent holiness (Ezekiel 14:14; Ezekiel 14:20), and once for his great wisdom (Ezekiel 28:3); but as Daniel was early raised to high office in the internal administration of the kingdom, and must have been intimately acquainted with the affairs of his own captive people, it is hardly possible that he should not have known personally one so eminent among them as Ezekiel. Daniel was of noble, if not of royal, birth (Daniel 1:3), and hence could not have failed to know Jeremiah before he was himself carried from Jerusalem. Thus there seems to have been a very interesting personal connection between these three great prophets, all engaged in their Divine mission at the same time, but under strikingly different circumstances, and each with his own strongly-marked individuality. God was thus pleased to vouchsafe to His Church in the time of its utmost distress and need a fulness of prophetic counsel such as marked no other period of the old dispensation. The only time at all comparable to it was that other critical period, more than a century before, when the northern kingdom had been carried into captivity—a period which was distinguished by the prophecies of Isaiah, Hosea, Amos, and Micah.
The prophecies of Daniel are of so peculiar a character, and, for the most part, embrace such a far reaching sweep of time, that they throw comparatively little light upon those of Ezekiel. Jeremiah, on the other hand, prophesying at the same time and about the same events, is constantly parallel to Ezekiel, and both his prophecies and his interwoven historical narrative should be read in connection with Ezekiel. The two will be found of great value in mutually illustrating each other.
III. The character of the captivity.—Judæa had been made tributary to Babylon some years before Nebuchadnezzar’s accession to the throne, and while he was still acting as the general of his aged father. Jehoi-akim, in the third year of his reign (2 Kings 24:1), had rebelled against him, and had been conquered and carried captive to Babylon (2 Chronicles 36:6) eight years before the captivity of Ezekiel. It is not known how many other captives were taken at the same time, the only mention of them being in Daniel 1:3, when certain “of the king’s seed and of the princes” (among whom were Daniel and his three companions) were selected from the general company of “the children of Israel” to be trained in the learning and tongue of the Chaldæans. It is generally supposed that but few of them were kept in the city of Babylon itself, and that the others were placed in the same region with the subsequent captives “by the river Chebar.” They would thus have had time to make homes for themselves, to become familiar with the language and the country, and hence to be of no small service to their brethren when the 10,000 fresh captives arrived. Especially must the learning, the wisdom, the high station of Daniel, together with his familiarity with affairs, have been of great importance to them.’ It was still eleven years later than this great captivity of Nebuchadnezzar’s eighth year (which was also the captivity of Ezekiel) that Zedekiah’s rebellion forced Nebuchadnezzar to a fresh capture of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple (2 Kings 25:1-12). The “rest of the people of the city, and the fugitives,” and “the multitude” were carried off at this time, which was “in the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar” (2 Kings 25:8). By observing that the first year of Nebuchadnezzar was the fourth of Jehoiakim (Jeremiah 25:1), this and the following dates may be synchronised with those of the Jewish history. Meantime, several minor deportations, amounting in all to 4,600 people, are mentioned by Jeremiah (Jeremiah 52:28-30) as occurring in the seventh and the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, and a subsequent one in the twenty-third year. These later captives lived in and around Jerusalem under wicked and idolatrous kings, going down from one wickedness to another, while the captives of Ezekiel’s time had been for years under the elevating influences of affliction and of the prophet’s counsels. There was, therefore, a marked difference in the character of the people whom he addressed before and after the destruction of Jerusalem. The following table of the several recorded deportations may be useful :—
1. / Daniel 1:1. / Jehoiakim III(6).(6) The Roman numerals refer to the years of the reign. Nebuchadnezzar is here spoken of as “king” before the formal beginning of his reign, which occurred in the following year. The third year afterwards is called in Daniel 2:1 the second year of Nebuchadnezzar. (Comp. also Jeremiah 25:1). / Jehoiakim, Daniel, and others.
2. / Jeremiah 52:28. / Nebuchadnezzar VII. / 3,023.
3. / 2 Kings 24:14 / Nebuchadnezzar VIII. / 10,000, with Jehoiachin and Ezekiel.
4. / Jeremiah 52:29. / Nebuchadnezzar XVIII. / 832.
5. / 2 Kings 25:11. / Nebuchadnezzar XIX. / “Rest of the city”, and “remnant of the multitude.”
6. / Jeremiah 52:30. / Nebuchadnezzar XXIII. / 745.
It thus appears that the progress of the captivity, from first to last, covered twenty-four years, from B.C. 605 to 581, or from thirteen years before to eleven years after the beginning of Ezekiel’s prophecies. It is probable that the comparatively small deportations of the seventh and eighteenth years of Nebuchadnezzar took place in the early part of the same campaigns which terminated with the great deportations of the eighth and nineteenth. The numbers mentioned amount in all to 14,600, but in two instances the number is not given, and the latter of these probably included many more captives than all the others together. There were still left behind “of the poor of the land to be vine-dressers and husbandmen” (2 Kings 25:12), which implies a certain degree of sifting of the people, the captives being those in better social position, and hence, on the whole, likely to be more intelligent, and more easily brought under the prophet’s influence in their affliction.
In regard to the condition of the people in their captivity, it is not improbable that they may at first have been treated with some rigour. Nebuchadnezzar was evidently annoyed and irritated by their repeated rebellions, and showed himself capable of no little harshness towards them. (See Jeremiah 52:24-27; 2 Kings 25:7.) He was also engaged in the construction of magnificent public works, and on the accession of so large a body of captives, would naturally have employed them for this purpose, and especially for making his royal canal. At the same time, he was a man of too much breadth of view to indulge in national animosity, and from the first he placed Daniel and his Jewish companions in offices of high honour and trust, while the condition of the captives generally appears to have rapidly ameliorated. It has already appeared that in the sixth year of his captivity Ezekiel was living in his own house (Ezekiel 8:1). It was but little more than thirty years from the last date of his prophecy to the decree of Cyrus for their return. At that time only a portion of the exiles cared to exchange the comforts of the land of their exile for the difficulties of removal to the home of their fathers, and they who remained behind were able to help those who went “with vessels of silver, with gold, with goods, and with beasts, and with precious things” (Ezra 1:6); and at a little later period the Book of Esther represents them as numerous, with powerful friends at the court, and of sufficient wealth to tempt the cupidity of their enemies. The impression obtained, on the whole, is that they speedily rose, and were encouraged to rise, from a servile condition to one of comfort, and in many cases of opulence.