For, lo, I will save thee from afar,
And thy seed from the land of their captivity;
And Jacob shall again be quiet and at ease,
And none shall make him afraid.” (Ibid. xlvi. 27.)
Ezekiel the Priest, the son of Buzi, prophesied in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Cebar, about five hundred and ninety-five, to five hundred and seventy-four years before the civil era. In the thirty-sixth chapter he describes the restoration of Judah and Israel in words so plain and clear that nobody could possibly mistake them, and in the next chapter, by the wonderful vision of dry bones reviving, he shows that, however unpromising the state of Israel may seem, while they are dispersed through the world, yet will God most certainly effect the reunion of the tribes which is here foretold:—
“Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them—it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; and I will establish them, and multiply them, and will set My sanctuary in the midst of them for ever.” (Ibid. xxxvii. 26.)
Chapters thirty-eight and thirty-nine give a most circumstantial description of the return, which excluded the possibility of an allegorical explanation.
Obadiah prophesied about five hundred and eighty-seven years before the civil era:—
“But in Mount Zion there shall be those that escape,
And it shall be holy;