Ezekiel 47:1-12

Ezekiel 47, 48. The Holy Land, its Beauty, Boundaries, and Divisions.

Now that the Temple and its worship, which are indispensable to the welfare of the land, have been described, Ezekiel directs his parting glance to the land itself, introducing his description with a beautiful and suggestive picture, particularly refreshing after the long stretch of minute ceremonial detail, of the life-giving stream that flowed from the heart of the sanctuary. The clearness and keenness with which the prophet's imagination is working, comes out in the frequent repetition of the word Behold.

Ezekiel 47:1. The River of Life. From under the threshold of the Temple the prophet, led by his supernatural guide, is startled to see water trickling out and flowing past the altar eastwards, growing deeper and stronger as it flows, in the direction of the Dead Sea, into which it finally falls. On the banks of the river were trees both fair and fruitful, which yielded food for the hungry, and healing for the sick; to all the desert region through which it flowed it brought beauty and life, and the life which it brought to the waters of the Dead Sea was abundantly evidenced by the shoals of fish, which recalled the teeming life of the great (Mediterranean) sea. The eyes of the prophet's faith can see even the fishermen with their boats and nets, all the way from Engedi on the middle of its western shores to Eneglaim on the north. Only the salt swamps and marshes in the neighbourhood of the sea would remain unaffected, in order that salt in the future might be as abundant as now. This splendid imagination vividly suggests the beneficent and life-giving influences that will stream forth from the Church of God upon the sick and famished souls of a dead and arid world. (In Ezekiel 47:8, into the sea, etc. should read into the salt waters.)