The idea that the spiritual transformation of Israel was to be effected during a second sojourn in the wilderness, although a very striking one, occurs only here in the book of Ezekiel, and it can hardly be considered as one of the cardinal ideas of his eschatology. It is in all probability derived from the prophecies of Hosea, although it is modified in accordance with the very different estimate of the nation's history represented by Ezekiel. It is instructive to compare the teaching of these two prophets on this point. To Hosea the idea of a return to the desert presents itself naturally as an element of the process by which Israel is to be brought back to its allegiance to Jehovah. The return to the desert restores the conditions under which the nation had first known and followed Jehovah. He looks back to the sojourn in the wilderness of Sinai as the time of uninterrupted communion between Jehovah and Israel—a time of youthful innocence, when the sinful tendencies which may have been latent in the nation had not developed into actual infidelity. The [pg 185] decay of religion and morality dates from the possession of the land of Canaan, and is traced to the corrupting influence of Canaanitish idolatry and civilisation. It was at Baal-peor that they first succumbed to the attractions of a false religion and became contaminated with the spirit of heathenism. Then the rich produce of the land came to be regarded as the gift of the deities who were worshipped at the local sanctuaries, and this worship with its sensuous accompaniments was the means of estranging the people more and more from the knowledge of Jehovah. Hence the first step towards a renewal of the relation between God and Israel is the withdrawal of the gifts of nature, the suppression of religious ordinances and political institutions; and this is represented as effected by a return to the primitive life of the desert. Then in her desolation and affliction the heart of Israel shall respond once more to the love of Jehovah, who has never ceased to yearn after His unfaithful people. “I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak to her heart: ... and she shall make answer there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt” (Hos. ii. 14, 15). Here there may be a doubt whether the wilderness is to be taken literally or as a figure for exile, but in either case the image naturally arises out of Hosea's profoundly simple conception of religion.
To Ezekiel, on the other hand, the “wilderness” is a synonym for contention and judgment. It is the scene where the meanness and perversity of man stand out in unrelieved contrast with the majesty and purity of God. He recognises no glad springtime of promise and hope in the history of Israel, no “kindness of her youth” or “love of her espousals” when she went after Jehovah in the land that was not sown (Jer. ii. 2). The difference between Hosea's conception and Ezekiel's is that in the view of the exilic prophet there never has been any true response [pg 186] on the part of Israel to the call of God. Hence a return to the desert can only mean a repetition of the judgments that had marked the first sojourn of the people in the wilderness of Sinai, and the carrying of them to the point of a final decision between the claims of Jehovah and the stubbornness of His people.
If it be asked which of these representations of the past is the true one, the only answer possible is that from the standpoint from which the prophets viewed history both are true. Israel did follow Jehovah through the wilderness, and took possession of the land of Canaan animated by an ardent faith in His power. It is equally true that the religious condition of the people had its dark side, and that they were far from understanding the nature of the God whose name they bore. And a prophet might emphasise the one truth or the other according to the idea of God which it was given him to teach. Hosea, reading the religious symptoms of his own time, sees in it a contrast to the happier period when life was simple and religion comparatively pure, and finds in the desert sojourn an image of the purifying process by which the national life must be renewed. Ezekiel had to do with a more difficult problem. He saw that there was a power of evil which could not be eradicated merely by banishment from the land of Israel—a hard bed-rock of unbelief and superstition in the national character which had never yielded to the influence of revelation; and he dwells on all the manifestations of this which he read in the past. His hope for the future of the cause of God rests no longer on the moral influence of the divine love on the heart of man, but on the power of Jehovah to accomplish His purpose in spite of the resistance of human sin. That was not the whole truth about God's relation to Israel, but it was the truth that needed to be impressed on the generation of the Exile.
Of the final issue at all events Ezekiel is not doubtful. He is a man who is “very sure of God” and sure of nothing else. In man he finds nothing to inspire him with confidence in the ultimate victory of the true religion over polytheism and superstition. His own generation has shown itself fit only to perpetuate the evils of the past—the love of sensuous worship, the insensibility to the claims and nature of Jehovah, which had marked the whole history of Israel. He is compelled for the present to abandon them to their corrupt inclinations,[58] expecting no signs of amendment until his appeal is enforced by signal acts of judgment.
But all this does not shake his sublime faith in the fulfilment of Israel's destiny. Despairing of men, he falls back on what St. Paul calls the “purpose of God according to election” (Rom. ix. 11). And with an insight akin to that of the apostle of the Gentiles, he discerns through all Jehovah's dealings with Israel a principle and an ideal which must in the end prevail over the sin of men. The goal to which the history points stands out clear before the mind of the prophet; and already he sees in vision the restored Israel—a holy people in a renovated land—rendering acceptable worship to the one God of heaven and earth. “For in My holy mountain, in the [pg 188] mountain heights of Israel, saith the Lord Jehovah, there shall serve Me the whole house of Israel: there will I be gracious to them, and there will I require your oblations, and the firstfruits of your offerings, in all your holy things” (ver. 40).
There we have the thought which is expanded in the vision of the purified theocracy which occupies the closing chapters of the book. And it is important to notice this indication that the idea of that vision was present to Ezekiel during the earlier part of his ministry.
Chapter XIII. Ohola And Oholibah. Chapter xxiii.
The allegory of ch. xxiii. adds hardly any new thought to those which have already been expounded in connection with ch. xvi. and ch. xx. The ideas which enter into it are all such as we are now familiar with. They are: the idolatry of Israel, learned in Egypt and persisted in to the end of her history; her fondness for alliances with the great Oriental empires, which was the occasion of new developments of idolatry; the corruption of religion by the introduction of human sacrifice into the service of Jehovah; and, finally, the destruction of Israel by the hands of the nations whose friendship she had so eagerly courted. The figure under which these facts are presented is the same as in ch. xvi., and many of the details of the earlier prophecy are reproduced here with little variation. But along with these resemblances we find certain characteristic features in this chapter which require attention, and perhaps some explanation.