Chapter XI. The Sword Unsheathed. Chapter xxi.
The date at the beginning of ch. xx. introduces the fourth and last section of the prophecies delivered before the destruction of Jerusalem. It also divides the first period of Ezekiel's ministry into two equal parts. The time is the month of August, 590 b.c., two years after his prophetic inauguration and two years before the investment of Jerusalem. It follows that if the book of Ezekiel presents anything like a faithful picture of his actual work, by far his most productive year was that which had just closed. It embraces the long and varied series of discourses from ch. viii. to ch. xix.; whereas five chapters are all that remain as a record of his activity during the next two years. This result is not so improbable as at first sight it might appear. From the character of Ezekiel's prophecy, which consists largely of homiletic amplifications of one great theme, it is quite intelligible that the main lines of his teaching should have taken shape in his mind at an early period of his ministry. The discourses in the earlier part of the book may have been expanded in the act of committing them to writing; but there is no reason to doubt that the ideas they contain were present to the prophet's mind and were actually delivered by him within the period to which they are assigned. We may therefore suppose that Ezekiel's public exhortations became less frequent during the two [pg 160] years that preceded the siege, just as we know that for two years after that event they were altogether discontinued.
In this last division of the prophecies relating to the destruction of Jerusalem we can easily distinguish two different classes of oracles. On the one hand we have two chapters dealing with contemporary incidents—the march of Nebuchadnezzar's army against Jerusalem (ch. xxi.), and the commencement of the siege of the city (ch. xxiv.). In spite of the confident opinion of some critics that these prophecies could not have been composed till after the fall of Jerusalem, they seem to me to bear the marks of having been written under the immediate influence of the events they describe. It is difficult otherwise to account for the excitement under which the prophet labours, especially in ch. xxi., which stands by the side of ch. vii. as the most agitated utterance in the whole book. On the other hand we have three discourses of the nature of formal indictments—one directed against the exiles (ch. xx.), one against Jerusalem (ch. xxii.), and one against the whole nation of Israel (ch. xxiii.). It is impossible in these chapters to discover any advance in thought upon similar passages that have already been before us. Two of them (chs. xx. and xxiii.) are historical retrospects after the manner of ch. xvi., and there is no obvious reason why they should be placed in a different section of the book. The key to the unity of the section must therefore be sought in the two historical prophecies and in the situation created by the events they describe.[47] It will therefore help to clear the ground if we commence with the oracle [pg 161] which throws most light on the historical background of this group of prophecies—the oracle of Jehovah's sword against Jerusalem in ch. xxi.[48]
The long-projected rebellion has at length broken out. Zedekiah has renounced his allegiance to the king of Babylon, and the army of the Chaldæans is on its way to suppress the insurrection. The precise date of these events is not known. For some reason the conspiracy of the Palestinian states had hung fire; many years had been allowed to slip away since the time when their envoys had met in Jerusalem to concert measures of united resistance (Jer. xxvii.). This procrastination was, as usual, a sure presage of disaster. In the interval the league had dissolved. Some of its members had made terms with Nebuchadnezzar; and it would appear that only Tyre, Judah, and Ammon ventured on open defiance of his power. The hope was cherished in Jerusalem, and probably also among the Jews in Babylon, that the first assault of the Chaldæans would be directed against the Ammonites, and that time would thus be gained to complete the defences of Jerusalem. To dispel this illusion is one obvious purpose of the prophecy before us. The movements of Nebuchadnezzar's army are directed by a wisdom higher than his own; he is the unconscious instrument by which Jehovah is executing His own purpose. The real object of his expedition is not to punish a few [pg 162] refractory tribes for an act of disloyalty, but to vindicate the righteousness of Jehovah in the destruction of the city which had profaned His holiness. No human calculations will be allowed even for a moment to turn aside the blow which is aimed directly at Jerusalem's sins, or to obscure the lesson taught by its sure and unerring aim.
We can imagine the restless suspense and anxiety with which the final struggle for the national cause was watched by the exiles in Babylon. In imagination they would follow the long march of the Chaldæan hosts by the Euphrates and their descent by the valleys of the Orontes and Leontes upon the city. Eagerly would they wait for some tidings of a reverse which would revive their drooping hope of a speedy collapse of the great world-empire and a restoration of Israel to its ancient freedom. And when at length they heard that Jerusalem was enclosed in the iron grip of these victorious legions, from which no human deliverance was possible, their mood would harden into one in which fanatical hope and sullen despair contended for the mastery. Into an atmosphere charged with such excitement Ezekiel hurls the series of predictions comprised in chs. xxi. and xxiv. With far other feelings than his fellows, but with as keen an interest as theirs, he follows the development of what he knows to be the last act in the long controversy between Jehovah and Israel. It is his duty to repeat once more the irrevocable decree—the divine delenda est against the guilty Jerusalem. But he does so in this instance in language whose vehemence betrays the agitation of his mind, and perhaps also the restlessness of the society in which he lived. The twenty-first chapter is a series of rhapsodies, the product of a state bordering on ecstasy, where different aspects of the impending judgment are set forth by the help of vivid images which pass in quick succession through the prophet's mind.
I
The first vision which the prophet sees of the approaching catastrophe (vv. 1-4) is that of a forest conflagration, an occurrence which must have been as frequent in Palestine as a prairie fire in America. He sees a fire break out in the “forest of the south,” and rage with such fierceness that “every green tree and every dry tree” is burned up; the faces of all who are near it are scorched, and all men are convinced that so terrible a calamity must be the work of Jehovah Himself. This we may suppose to have been the form in which the truth first laid hold of Ezekiel's imagination; but he appears to have hesitated to proclaim his message in this form. His figurative manner of speech had become notorious among the exiles (ver. 5), and he was conscious that a “parable” so vague and general as this would be dismissed as an ingenious riddle which might mean anything or nothing. What follows (vv. 7-10) gives the key to the original vision. Although it is in form an independent oracle, it is closely parallel to the preceding and elucidates each feature in detail. The “forest of the south” is explained to mean the land of Israel; and the mention of the sword of Jehovah instead of the fire intimates less obscurely that the instrument of the threatened calamity is the Babylonian army. It is interesting to observe that Ezekiel expressly admits that there were righteous men even in the doomed Israel. Contrary to his conception of the normal methods of the divine righteousness, he conceives of this judgment as one which involves righteous and wicked in a common ruin. Not that God is less than righteous in this crowning act of vengeance, but His justice is not brought to bear on the fate of individuals. He is dealing with the nation as a whole, and in the exterminating judgment of the nation good men [pg 164] will no more be spared than the green tree of the forest escapes the fate of the dry. It was the fact that righteous men perished in the fall of Jerusalem; and Ezekiel does not shut his eyes to it, firmly as he believed that the time was come when God would reward every man according to his own character. The indiscriminateness of the judgment in its bearing on different classes of persons is obviously a feature which Ezekiel here seeks to emphasise.
But the idea of the sword of Jehovah drawn from its scabbard, to return no more till it has accomplished its mission, is the one that has fixed itself most deeply in the prophet's imagination, and forms the connecting link between this vision and the other amplifications of the same theme which follow.