Ezekiel 33:30

Also, thou son of man— Bishop Pococke informs us, that the Coptics spend their holy days in sauntering about and sitting under their walls in winter, and under the shady trees in summer. This, doubtless, is to be understood of those of the poorer sort, who have no places more proper for conversation with their friends: the better sort of houses in the East having porches or gateways, according to Dr. Shaw, with benches on each side, where the master of the family receives visits, and dispatches business; few persons, not even the nearest relations, having farther admission, except upon extraordinary occasions. Now will not these two circumstances greatly illustrate the passage before us? It is somewhat strange, that our translators should have rendered the word בךֶ beka, against thee; when the LXX rendered it, of, or concerning thee; it is the same Hebrew particle that is used, Psalms 87:3. Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God! and the following words incontestably shew, that they were speaking honourably of Ezekiel, and indeed assuming the appearance of those whom Malachi mentions, chap. Ezekiel 3:16. Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another, &c. It was winter, in the tenth month, answering to the latter end of December and first part of January, when these things were transacted; therefore they sat under the walls for the benefit of the sun, rather than under trees to avoid its heat, while they talked concerning Ezekiel; while persons among them in better circumstances sat in their porches or gateways. That they use their porches or gateways in winter as well as summer, appears from Bishop Pococke, who, waiting on a person of distinction in Upper Egypt [an aga of the Janizaries], found him sitting, according to their custom, under the gateway of his house, when he made him this visit on the 29th or 30th of December. The explication, therefore, of those commentators must appear something like inadvertency, who make this talking of Ezekiel by the walls, and in the doors of their houses, to signify the same thing with their talking of him in their public places of concourse, and in their private meetings. As this sitting and talking under the walls is particularly practised by the Coptics in their holy-days, may not these words of Ezekiel be supposed also to refer to such times? And if so, will they not shew that the Israelites observed their sabbaths in their captivity? And that so early as the time of the first destruction of Jerusalem, they used to assemble to the prophets on those days, to hear if they had received any messages from the Lord the preceding week, and to receive those advices which their calamitous circumstances made peculiarly seasonable? Those assemblies might be more ancient, but of this antiquity at least the passage here seems to make them. Such another assembly, it may be, was that mentioned in chap. Ezekiel 8:1. See the Observations, p. 16.