Companion to the Bible

by E. P. Barrows

The structure of this book is peculiar. Its five chapters constitute five poetical compositions, each complete in itself so far as outward form is concerned, but the whole inwardly bound together as parts of one great theme. The first and second chapters consist each of twenty-two verses, arranged in the order of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet; that is, the first verse beginning with the first letter, the second with the second, and so on. Each of the verses, moreover, contains as a rule three clauses. The third chapter contains sixty-six short verses of one clause each, the first three beginning with the first letter of the alphabet, the next three with the second, and so throughout. In this central chapter, therefore, the alphabetic structure reaches its culmination. The fourth chapter is like the first and second, with the exception that the verses generally consist of two clauses each. The fifth chapter contains twenty-two short verses of one clause each, like those of the third, but not arranged alphabetically.

The more artificial structure of the third chapter marks it at once as peculiar. In this the prophet, as the representative of the pious part of the nation, bewails the calamities that have come upon himself and his country, expresses his firm confidence in God and his purpose to wait for deliverance in patient submission to his will, exhorts his countrymen to repentance, and offers up his fervent prayer to God that he would remember his suffering people and punish their persecutors. The fifth chapter is a complaint of Zion in prayer to God in view of the terrible calamities that have come upon her. The other three chapters (the first, second, and fourth) are occupied mainly with a description of these calamities.

III. EZEKIEL.

15. Ezekiel was especially the prophet of the captivity. Daniel, his contemporary, received in Babylon glorious revelations respecting the future history of God's kingdom; but he was a statesman, exercising the prophetical office, like David, only in an incidental way. Ezekiel, on the contrary, was expressly called and consecrated, like his predecessors Isaiah and Jeremiah, to the prophetical office. Like Isaiah, he has given us but few particulars concerning his personal history. He was the son of Buzi, and of priestly descent (1:3); belonged to that company of captives of the better class of the people who had been carried away with Jehoiachin by the king of Babylon when he made Zedekiah king in his stead (2 Kings 24:8-16); and lived with other captives at Tell-abib on the Chebar (perhaps the ancient Chaboras, a branch of the Euphrates), where he had a house and was married (1:1-3; 3:15; 8:1; 24:15-18). That he was held in high honor by his fellow-captives, as a true prophet of God, is manifest from the manner in which they assembled at his house to inquire of the Lord through him (8:1; 14:1; 20:1). Of his personal standing and reputation, as well as of the character of his hearers, we have an interesting notice in chap. 33:30-32, where instead of "talking against thee" (verse 30) we may better render, as in the margin of our English version, "talking of thee:" "Also, thou son of man, the children of thy people are still talking of thee by the walls and in the doors of the houses, and speak one to another, every one to his brother, saying, Come, I pray you, and hear what is the word that cometh forth from the Lord. And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness. And lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear thy words, but they do them not." Ezekiel was called to the prophetical office "in the fifth year of king Jehoiachin's captivity" (1:2), from which date he constantly reckons. Jeremiah's activity as a prophet continued not only through the eleven years of Zedekiah's reign, but for a considerable period afterwards; so that the two prophets were for some time contemporary, the one prophesying in Jerusalem and afterwards in Egypt, the other among the captives in Mesopotamia. The latest date which the prophecies of Ezekiel furnish is the twenty-seventh year of Jehoiachin's captivity, about twenty-two years from the time when he was called to his office. How much longer he prophesied we have no means of determining.

The date with which the book of Ezekiel opens is "the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month," which was also "the fifth year of king Jehoiachin's captivity" (verse 2), or five hundred and ninety-five years before Christ. Reckoning back from this date thirty years, we come to the eighteenth year of Josiah, when he repaired the temple, and solemnly renewed the worship of God; and also to the first year of Nabopolassar, the father of Nebuchadnezzar, who made Babylon independent of the Assyrian monarchy, and thus established a new era. Some have assumed the former of these two eras as that from which the prophet reckons; but the latter is more probable. Writing, as he does, under the Chaldean monarchy, it is natural that he should give, at the outset, a date by which the chronology of the whole series of his prophecies may be determined in reference to Chaldean history. Elsewhere he dates from Jehoiachin's captivity.

16. It is not worth while to raise any questions concerning the purity of Ezekiel's Hebrew, as compared with that of the earlier writers. The Holy Spirit is not concerned about the classic style of a prophet. He selects men whose natural qualities, providential training, and sanctified hearts fit them for the work assigned to them; and under his inspiration they speak and write in the dialect to which they and their hearers are accustomed. Ezekiel's style is marked by Chaldaisms, as might have been expected from the circumstances in which he wrote. At the same time it is as forcible as it is peculiar, a style every way adapted to the work laid upon him. He was sent to "a rebellious nation;" to "impudent children and stiff-hearted," with the charge: "Be not afraid of them, neither be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns be with thee, and thou dost dwell among scorpions: be not afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious house" (2:3, 4, 6). How well he fulfilled his mission his prophecies show, in which there is a wonderful fire and vehemence, joined with a wonderful variety of representation and imagery. Proverbs, parables, riddles, symbolic actions, vivid portraitures of human wickedness, terrible denunciations of God's approaching judgments, and glorious visions of future peace and prosperity in reserve for the true Israel—these are all familiar to him, and are set forth often with an exuberant fulness of imagery. When summoned by God to judge "the bloody city" of Jerusalem, ripe for the judgments of heaven, he heaps one upon another the black crimes of which she is guilty (22:6-12). The repetitions so remarkably characteristic of his style are those of energy, not of weakness. They are the repetitions of a battering-ram that gives blow upon blow till the wall crumbles before it. The same may be said of his amplifications, as in chaps. 1, 16, 23, 27, etc. He had a remarkable adaptation to his office; and his influence must have been very great in bringing about the reformation of the nation which took place during the captivity.

17. Ezekiel abounds in allegoric and symbolic representations. These give to many of his prophecies a dark and mysterious character, and make them difficult of interpretation. Jerome long ago called the book "an ocean and labyrinth of the mysteries of God." Nevertheless, the common reader finds in him much that is plain of apprehension, and full of weighty instruction. Reserving the general subject of the interpretation of prophecy for another place, we add here a few words respecting the nature of allegories and symbols, and the principles upon which they are to be interpreted.

An allegory is a narrative of a real event expressed in figurative language; that is, where one historic transaction is described under the image of another. Thus in chap. 17:1-10, the two great eagles are Nebuchadnezzar and Pharaoh; the highest branch of the cedar is Jehoiachin; the cropping off and carrying away of this branch is his removal by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon, etc. So also the extended descriptions of Jerusalem in chap. 16, and of Jerusalem and Samaria in chap. 23, under the figure of lewd women. For other beautiful examples of allegory see Judges 9:8-15; Isa. 5:1-6; Psa. 80; Mark 12:1-9.

In scriptural usage parables are not always distinguished from allegories. But properly speaking parables are narratives of supposed incidents—at least of incidents the reality of which is of no consequence—for the purpose of illustrating important truths; while allegories are figurative descriptions of actual events.

A symbol represents some great truth or event of the future under the form of an action, or some material structure or arrangement. Prophetic symbols take the form of actions, and are of two kinds: