Ezekiel 36:1-15

CHAPTER 36.

ISRAEL REVENGED AND COMFORTED THE NEW HEART AND THE BLISSFUL HERITAGE.

IN this chapter we have a continuation of the present great theme of the prophet: Israel's prospective revival and prosperity as the Lord's covenant-people. Bat it treats of this under different aspects. In the first section (Ezekiel 36:1-15) the prophet unfolds the essential distinction between Israel and Edom with the other nations of heathendom, in that the former had, what the others had not, an interest in the power and faithfulness of God, in consequence of which Israel's heritage must revive and nourish, and the hopes of the heathen concerning it must be disappointed. In the next section (Ezekiel 36:16-21) the reason is given why the Lord had for a time acted toward his land and people as if their connection with him was an evil rather than a blessing; it is traced up to the incorrigible wickedness of the people, and the necessity of God's vindicating the cause of his holiness by exercising upon them the severity of his displeasure. Then in another section (Ezekiel 36:22-33) the purpose of the Lord for their future good is unfolded his purpose for his own name's sake to revive his cause among his people, and that in the most effectual manner, by first renewing their hearts to holiness, and then by restoring them to a flourishing condition outwardly. And in a short concluding section (Ezekiel 36:34-38) the general result is summed up, and the impressions noticed which the whole was fitted to produce upon the minds of others. We shall take up the chapter in these successive portions.

Ezekiel 36:1. And thou, son of man, prophesy to the mountains of Israel, and say, Mountains of Israel, hear the word of Jehovah.

Ezekiel 36:2. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Because the enemy says over you,” Aha! and the everlasting heights have become an inheritance for us:” (The prophecy takes the form of an address to the mountains of Israel, partly in allusion to the “Mount Seir” of the preceding prophecy, and partly also with reference to the original prophecy in Genesis 49:26, where the peculiar blessings of the covenant are spoken of in connection with the “everlasting hills.” The reference to this passage is especially manifest in the words put into the mouth of the adversaries, claiming the everlasting heights for their inheritance; as much as to say, We have seen an end of the blessings to Israel the heights with which these blessings were connected, and which stood as fixed natural memorials of them, have become ours. Here, too, the adversaries are personified as one הָאוֵֹב, the enemy; for, as was mentioned under last chapter, they were all represented in the Edomite the name Edom comprehends the whole.)

Ezekiel 36:3. Therefore prophesy and say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Because, because of their breathing and snuffing after you round about, (In regard to the second of the two verbs in this clause, שָּׁאַף, there is not much diversity of opinion now. It does not properly signify to swallow up, but to snuff up, in the manner of a wild beast, which with a keen and ravenous appetite smells after its prey, in order to seize and devour it. In this sense it is used by the Psalmist (in Psalms 56:1-2) of his cruel enemies: “Be gracious to me, God, for there snuffs after me man,” etc. The other verb, שַּׁמּוֹת, is generally derived from שָׁמַם, whose proper signification is, to be made desolate, although here it has sometimes still also by Ewald and Hävernick been rendered by, to make desolate, to lay waste. But this would more appropriately have been ascribed to the Chaldeans, not to the neighbouring enemies, who are regarded here as hunting after the land of Israel as an object of desire. I think therefore, with Hitzig, that the passage is to be explained from Isaiah 42:14, where the same two verbs are used together, and the אֶשֹׁם must be taken from the root נָשַׁם, to breathe, of which נְשָׁמָת, breath, is a derivative in very frequent use. Viewed thus, the surrounding enemies are strikingly and quite appropriately represented as breathing and snuffing like wild beasts after Canaan as their prey.) in order that you might be an inheritance to the remnant of the heathen, and ye have been taken up (literally, and are gone up) in the lips of talkers, (The expression here is best understood as an elliptical one: the lip of the tongue, for, the lip of a man of tongue, בָּעַל לָשׁוֹן, a talker, or speakers generally.) and are an infamy of the people;

Ezekiel 36:4. Therefore, mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord Jehovah; thus saith the Lord Jehovah to the mountains, and the hills, to the watered plains, and the valleys, and to the desolate wastes, and to the cities that are forsaken, which are for a prey and for a derision to the remnant of the heathen that are round about;

Ezekiel 36:5. Therefore, thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Surely in the fire of my jealousy I speak against the remnant of the heathen, and against Edom, all of it, (The כֻּלָּא is the Chaldaic form, for which many codices have substituted the more regular כֻּלָהּ. Such a Chaldaic termination, however, was not unnatural.) who have appointed my land for an inheritance to themselves with the joy of the whole heart, with contempt of soul, in order that they may plunder its pasturage. (The common rendering of this latter clause is, “that it may be cast forth as a prey.” But this is a very unnatural expression to be used of a land. Therefore taking מִגְרָשָׁהּ, not as an Aramaic inf., but as the substantive, and changing thus the pointing of לָבֹז, so as to make it the inf. instead of the noun, we have the sense: in order to plunder its pasturage; a quite suitable meaning. In Ezekiel 21:20, we have also לְמַעַן coupled with ל of the infinitive. In this, again, I follow Hitzig.)

Ezekiel 36:6. Therefore prophesy upon the land of Israel, and say to the mountains and the hills, to the watered plains and valleys, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Lo! I come, in my jealousy and in my fury I speak, because ye bear the reproach of the heathen.

Ezekiel 36:7. Therefore, thus saith the Lord Jehovah, I lift up my hand (i.e., I swear), surely the heathen that are round about you, they shall bear their shame.

Ezekiel 36:8. And ye mountains of Israel shall put forth your branches, and bear your fruit to my people Israel; for they are near to come.

Ezekiel 36:9. For, lo! I come to you, and turn toward you, and ye are tilled and sown:

Ezekiel 36:10. And I multiply upon you men, the whole house of Israel, all of it; and the cities shall be inhabited and the ruins built:

Ezekiel 36:11. And I multiply upon you man and beast, and they shall increase, and be fruitful; and I will settle you as in your olden times, and do good to you above your former state; and ye shall know that I am Jehovah:

Ezekiel 36:12. And I will make men to walk upon you, even my people Israel, and they shall possess thee, and thou shalt be to them for an inheritance, and thou shalt not again bereave them.

Ezekiel 36:13. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Because they say, “A devourer of men thou art, and a bereaver of thy nation,”

Ezekiel 36:14. Therefore thou shalt not devour men any more, and thy nation thou shalt not make to stumble any more, (There is here a play of words in the original which is necessarily lost in the translation. The prophet had mentioned the reproach against the laud as being only the grave of its people, devouring and bereaving them, like a cruel unnatural mother. But now in predicting the better future, while he says it should not devour any more, he suddenly changes the other verb, and instead of saying, לֹא תְשַּׁכְּלִי, thou shalt not bereave, he says, לֹא תְבַשְּׁלִי, thou shalt not make to stumble or fall. The Kri reading substitutes the former, evidently for the purpose of affording an easy explanation, and the ancient versions also express it. Most modern commentators adopt the Kri, so still Ewald and Hitzig; but Havernick properly adheres to the text. For the repetition of לֹא תְבַשְּׁלִי in the next verse is a proof that here a change of meaning is introduced, and a change that also very suitably prepares the way for the truths to be declared in the next section (Ezekiel 36:16, etc.), which unfolds the moral cause of the past destructions, the sins and defections of the people. Canaan must not only cease to devour and swallow up its people, but even to prove an occasion of stumbling to them. By being this in time past, it had necessarily proved a destroyer; but henceforth both cause and effect should be taken away. Throughout, the land is personified, and represented as doing that which was done on it.) saith the Lord Jehovah.

Ezekiel 36:15. And I shall make the slander of the heathen to be no more heard in thee, nor the reproach of the peoples shalt thou bear any more; and thy nation shalt thou not make to stumble any more, saith the Lord Jehovah.

This first section is mainly intended to exhibit the contrast that still existed, notwithstanding all appearances to the contrary, between Israel and the surrounding heathen. As matters now stood, it seemed to the eye of flesh that the dominion and the power were connected with heathenism, as if the conquering and predominating element were there, not with Israel. For at present the most depressed and desolate region in all that neighbourhood was the land of Israel; what should have been pre-eminently the land of blessing had now become emphatically the land of emptiness and desolation; instead of cherishing and supporting, it had, as it were, ejected its inhabitants, as if weary of their presence, or opened its bosom to become their common sepulchre. It lay now like a defenceless prey before the Edomite and other heathen adversaries, who had so long waited and longed for the day of evil, and who therefore rejoiced over the fall of Israel as their greatest triumph. But this triumph, the Lord here declares by his servant, would be short; nay, it was the very reason why he must soon bring on a change, and reverse the present aspect and condition of things. Because the name of Jehovah was associated with Israel, he cannot allow this appearance of impotence in Israel, and power in the adversaries, to continue; he cannot give up his people to the scorn of the wicked, or his land to be divided by them at pleasure as their proper inheritance; he must restore everything again to its appropriate place, and settle in due order the relations of things. And he will presently do it. Israel shall again return and possess the land, whose prosperity and fulness shall be restored as at first, even more than restored, for a higher state of felicity awaited them in the future than had been experienced in the past; and the reproach would be for ever taken away of the land proving the death-region of its inhabitants.

It is clear, from the whole tenor of this prophecy, that the good it contemplates and promises for Israel must have begun at an early period to be realized; for not only is it expressly said that it was near to come, or nigh at hand, but the Edomites and other heathen neighbours are represented as still occupying the same relations towards Israel as they had done only henceforth themselves bearing the reproach which they were then casting upon Israel, and incapable of any longer speaking scornfully of the covenant land and people. I should hold it to be a dishonest shift, first to take the terms of the prophecy in their literal import, and then say there has as yet been no fulfilment in the past, but there shall be one in the future a literal Israel shall yet find the literal Canaan all that is here predicted. For if there has been no fulfilment in the past of a literal kind, neither can there be in the future; there shall certainly want two most essential elements of literality: first, the nearness of accomplishment spoken of by the prophet; and the existence of the Edomites and other heathen neighbours, who for the present rejoiced in Canaan as lying at their feet, but were again to find its reproach and humiliation become their own, while it and Israel were exalted. These ancient adversaries are for ever gone; the external relations of that olden time have entirely ceased; and if Israel were restored to-morrow, it would be necessary to take this part of the prophecy in another than the literal sense.

But do we, on the other hand, hold by nothing literal in the interpretation, and look for nothing literal in the fulfilment? By no means. We regard the passage as a prophecy of the full return of prosperity and blessing to the Lord's covenant-people, and even the perpetual enjoyment of this exhibited under the form of the Old Testament relations, the only ones lying within the ken of the prophet. As soon as the prophecy was uttered, it was the duty of the Lord's people to deal with him respecting the fulfilment of the word, and to look for the fulfilment in the most exact and literal manner. There can be no question that some amongst them did this; and, within a period that might justly be called near, the Lord showed, by a marvellous turn in providence, how ready he was on his part to accomplish what was promised, and how he laid open to them the way of a speedy return to national greatness and prosperity. The opportunity was not embraced as it should have been by the children of the dispersion: only a comparatively small number of them actually returned to the land of their fathers when the opening was presented to them; and of those who did, many still wanted the spirit of piety, which alone God promised to bless. Still, with all the shortcomings and imperfections that existed, a certain fulfilment of the most literal kind began at an early period to be given to the prophecy. People of the stock of Israel did again possess the land of their fathers; by them the mountains of Israel were again cultivated, and for them the land yielded its fruit; there again, as of old, the seed of man and of beast did greatly increase and multiply, so that the region was known for ages as one of the most fertile and prosperous in Asia; and that too while the old and hereditary enemies of Israel in the neighbourhood sank into comparative insignificance, and lost their original place in the scale of nations. Had Israel but seen in all this the hand of God, and viewed the whole in connection with his unchangeable righteousness, there should certainly have been nothing wanting to complete the correspondence between the description of the prophet and the facts of history; the fulfilment would have been, not partial and temporary, but full and permanent, while the old relations lasted; and even when they changed, the good for the natural Israel, so far from ceasing, would only have risen to a higher sphere, and passed into a nobler realization.

So long, therefore, as the relations of the prophet's time existed that is, so long as the kingdom of God was connected with the people of Israel as a distinct nation, with the land of Canaan as their proper inheritance, and heathen rivals and enemies for their neighbours so long as this was the case, we hold that as nothing but a literal fulfilment should have been looked for, so a very considerable fulfilment of this nature, and one that sufficiently marked the hand of God, did take place. Still all was then marred with imperfection. The religion itself of the covenant-people was such, it could make nothing perfect; and we can only look for the promised good being realized in any degree of completeness when the better things of the new dispensation come in. But then, at the same time, the old relations of necessity give way: the outward Israel are no longer distinctively the covenant-people; all the children of faith of every land become the seed of blessing, and heirs according to the promise. And while it is only under the Gospel dispensation that we can expect the perfect realization of the promised good, we must now no longer expect it after the old form, or according to the simply literal interpretation. The good is too great and expansive to be now shut up within such narrow limits; for since wherever there is a royal priesthood offering up spiritual services to God, there the incense and offerings of the temple are perpetuated (Malachi 1:11; 1 Peter 2:5); so wherever there are members of Christ, there also are the mountains of Canaan, there are the people who have the promise of all things for their portion, on whom descends the blessing life for evermore. Nor can the old evils properly return again; for the good is avowedly connected with nothing but a spiritual qualification, and is entirely dissevered from a merely ancestral relationship or a political existence in the world.

We can see nothing fanciful or arbitrary in this mode of interpretation, and are persuaded that it rests upon an indispensable necessity, partly in the nature of things, and partly in the operations of the human mind. For the grounds of this we refer to the remarks on the preceding chapter, and proceed to the next section of the prophecy.