Positive prophecy in behalf of the Land (1) Ezekiel 36:1. The mountain land of Israel shall be delivered out of the hand of the heathen round about, who have usurped it. These nations shall bear their shame. (2) Ezekiel 36:8. The land shall in the age to come be luxuriantly fruitful. The reproach... [ Continue Reading ]
Cf. Ezekiel 25:3; Ezekiel 26:2. _ancient high places_ "High places" is not used here in the usual religious sense of rural sanctuaries, but said of the mountain land of Israel, cf. Deuteronomy 32:13; Micah 3:12. On ancient or "eternal" as an epithet of mountains cf. Genesis 49:26; Deuteronomy 33:15;... [ Continue Reading ]
_Because_ lit. _because, because_, Ezekiel 13:10. The passage throughout betrays passionate feeling on the part of the prophet. His patriotism is aglow as the loved mountains of his native land rise before his mind; cf. the pathetic words in reference to the exiled king, Ezekiel 19:9. Hence the exci... [ Continue Reading ]
_fire of my jealousy_ "Jealousy" is injured self-consciousness; it is the reaction of Jehovah's sense of himself against the injurious conduct of Edom and the nations in relation to him or that which is his, cf. _my_land. _to cast it out_ The expression is difficult both in grammar (as Ezekiel 17:9... [ Continue Reading ]
_borne the shame of the heathen_ The shame cast on them by the heathen, cf. Ezekiel 36:15; Ezekiel 34:29.... [ Continue Reading ]
_lifted up mine hand_ The gesture of taking an oath, Ezekiel 20:5. Strictly the rendering is _I lift up_, so _I speak, Ezekiel 36:5_. _bear their shame_ As Israel has borne the shame of the reproaches and taunts of the heathen, so they, when their destruction cometh (as it is near), shall bear the... [ Continue Reading ]
_at hand to come_ The presentiment of the prophet is that the restoration of the people and the age to which all these promises which he gives (ch. 33 37) belong is close at hand.... [ Continue Reading ]
Positive promise to the mountain-land of Israel. In the age of the regeneration, which is at the door, it shall be luxuriantly fruitful (Ezekiel 36:8), and populous (Ezekiel 36:10); it shall no more kill its inhabitants with scarcity (Ezekiel 36:13), nor any more be subject to the reproach of the na... [ Continue Reading ]
Cf. Ezekiel 36:33; Isaiah 58:12; Isaiah 61:4; Zechariah 8:12.... [ Continue Reading ]
Jeremiah 31:27; Jeremiah 33:12-13; Hosea 2:23; Zechariah 8:4-5. On "old estates," i.e. former condition, cf. Ezekiel 16:55. _your beginnings_ i.e. early or former estate, Job 8:7; Job 42:12. The phrase "increase and bring fruit (multiply)," common in some parts of Pent. (Priests" Code), is wanting... [ Continue Reading ]
_bereave them of men_ Properly the term means to bereave of children, here it is used generally, to bereave the people, i.e. destroy its members, Jeremiah 15:7.... [ Continue Reading ]
Comp. the report of the spies, Numbers 13:32, "the land is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof." The land whose population perishes of scarcity is regarded as itself devouring them. It is doubtful if there is any reference to such things as the unhealthy situation of the land (2 Kings 2:19... [ Continue Reading ]
Read PEOPLES for people, as usual. _cause thy nations to fall_ Rather: BEREAVE THY NATION any more. The same word is read Ezekiel 36:14, but corrected in Heb. MARG., and the same correction should be made here (shakal = bereave, kashal = fall). The clause is wanting in LXX.... [ Continue Reading ]
Not for Israel's sake but for his own name's sake does Jehovah do all this in behalf of his people The passage is remarkable and deserves to be studied almost more than any other part of Ezek. when one is seeking to understand his general conceptions. It exhibits his philosophy of history (cf. ch.... [ Continue Reading ]
Israel's past history and the principles which it illustrates 17. When in their own land the people defiled it with their doings. The land was "holy" being sanctified by Jehovah's presence in it. The sins of the people, idolatry and bloodshed, desecrated it and made it unclean. Holy embraces "clean... [ Continue Reading ]
The effect of these sins was to awaken the fury of Jehovah. The "blood" may be murder from violence or judicial murder, so often reprobated in the earlier prophets, or it may be the sacrifice of children, Ezekiel 16:36; Ezekiel 23:37.... [ Continue Reading ]
The consequences of Jehovah's wrath the people were scattered by him among all the nations, Ezekiel 7:3; Ezekiel 18:30.... [ Continue Reading ]
These disasters which the people of Jehovah brought on themselves led to the desecration of his name among the heathen. The nations judged him weak and unable to protect his people. In the eyes of the nations the interests of the god and his people were one; if a people was subdued by another it was... [ Continue Reading ]
Cf. Ezekiel 20:9; Ezekiel 20:14.... [ Continue Reading ]
_do not_this _for your sakes_ Not for what Israel has been or deserved. The ref. is to Israel's past history; such a meaning as that it is not for any interest which he has in Israel or in order to benefit them that Jehovah delivers them, but only to magnify his own name is entirely extraneous to th... [ Continue Reading ]
_sanctify my great name_ To sanctify is the opposite of to profane. As the latter term means to detract from the power, majesty or purity of Jehovah, or from any of those attributes which belong to his godhead, to sanctify is to manifest or make these attributes conspicuous. Hence the effect of Jeho... [ Continue Reading ]
Dogmatically, sprinkling with clean water might seem merely to express the idea of the forgiveness of past sins. The figure is taken from the washings by which ceremonial defilement was removed, and the figure is part of the idea. By their relation to the idols and service of them the people contrac... [ Continue Reading ]
_A new heart_ The "heart" is used here generally of the nature. Formerly their heart was strong, obdurate, unimpressible and rebellious (Ezekiel 2:4; Ezekiel 3:7); now they shall receive a "heart of flesh," impressible and soft, sensitive to the divine admonitions and will. The phrase shews that in... [ Continue Reading ]
_put my spirit_ This great promise is one which does not appear prominently in the prophets till the exile. In Isaiah 11 the Messianic king has the spirit of Jehovah in all the manifoldness of his operation, and in Ezekiel 32:15 the hope is expressed that "the spirit shall be poured on us from on hi... [ Continue Reading ]
Again, the consequence of walking in Jehovah's statutes will be that they shall inherit the land for ever, cf. Ezekiel 28:25; Ezekiel 37:25. The promise attached to the fifth commandment the first commandment with promise belongs to the commandments given to Israel as a whole. The keeping of them wa... [ Continue Reading ]
_save you from … uncleannesses_ Or, I WILL SAVE (deliver) YOU OUT OF YOUR … The phrase "save out of" is pregnant, meaning "save you by purifying you from" …, hardly, save you from the consequences of … Cf. Ezekiel 37:23, and reading there. _call for the corn_ Cf. Ezekiel 34:27; Ezekiel 34:29; Hosea... [ Continue Reading ]
Cf. Ezekiel 34:27 _seq_.... [ Continue Reading ]
Cf. Ezekiel 6:9; Ezekiel 16:61; Ezekiel 16:63. Omit the words "in your own sight," ch. Ezekiel 20:43.... [ Continue Reading ]
The verse is closely connected with the preceding: ye shall remember your former evil, for not for your sakes do I this not because of your good deserving (Ezekiel 36:22); on the contrary their own ways when thought upon could only cause them shame. In Leviticus 26:45 "for their sakes" means "to the... [ Continue Reading ]
The order stated here is of course a necessity: as the sins of the people caused them to be cast out of their land, their forgiveness must precede their restoration to it. In the prophets events are not events merely, they are exhibitions of moral principles. So in Isaiah 40-66. the restoration of I... [ Continue Reading ]
The prophet returns to the lessons which Israel's history, the author of which is their God, will read to the nations of the world. When they behold the desolated land of Israel become like the garden of Eden they shall form another judgment regarding Jehovah, and know that which he is, and the mean... [ Continue Reading ]
_I … build … plant_ Perhaps; HAVE BUILDED … PLANTED. The words hardly express a general characteristic of Jehovah, but refer to the fact that it is he who has restored Israel comp. last words of the verse. Reflecting on Jehovah's restoration of the people the nations will recognise not merely his po... [ Continue Reading ]
_yet … be inquired of_ Almost: _I will let myself be inquired of_, which embraces not merely the enquiry or request on the part of the people, but the response to it on the part of the Lord. Cf. Ezekiel 14:3; Ezekiel 20:3; Ezekiel 20:31. As usual "this" refers to what follows the multiplication of t... [ Continue Reading ]
A single point in the Lord's restoration of Israel is made prominent, the multiplication of the people. The terrible threats of the diminution of their numbers (Ezekiel 36:12), and of the destruction both of those remaining in the land and those going into exile, were no doubt to a great extent fulf... [ Continue Reading ]
_the holy flock_ i.e. the sacrificial sheep. The solemn feasts (where solemn has its proper sense of "customary," appointed) may be the three great yearly festivals, though in point of fact Ezek. does not refer to Pentecost, or the feast of weeks, in his concluding Chapter s. The comparison shews th... [ Continue Reading ]