left side--referring to the position of the ten tribes, the northern kingdom, as Judah, the southern, answers to "the right side" ([Eze 4:6]). The Orientals facing the east in their mode, had the north on their left, and the south on their right ([Eze 16:46]). Also the right was more honorable than the left: so Judah as being the seat of the temple, was more so than Israel.
bear the iniquity--iniquity being regarded as a burden; so it means, "bear the punishment of their iniquity" ([Nu 14:34]). A type of Him who was the great sin-bearer, not in mimic show as Ezekiel, but in reality ([Is 53:4], [6, 12]).
5. three hundred and ninety days--The three hundred ninety years of punishment appointed for Israel, and forty for Judah, cannot refer to the siege of Jerusalem. That siege is referred to in [Eze 4:1-3], and in a sense restricted to the literal siege, but comprehending the whole train of punishment to be inflicted for their sin; therefore we read here merely of its sore pressure, not of its result. The sum of three hundred ninety and forty years is four hundred thirty, a period famous in the history of the covenant-people, being that of their sojourn in Egypt ([Ex 12:40], ; [Ga 3:17]). The forty alludes to the forty years in the wilderness. Elsewhere ([De 28:68]; [Ho 9:3]), God threatened to bring them back to Egypt, which must mean, not Egypt literally, but a bondage as bad as that one in Egypt. So now God will reduce them to a kind of new Egyptian bondage to the world: Israel, the greater transgressor, for a longer period than Judah (compare [Eze 20:35-38]). Not the whole of the four hundred thirty years of the Egypt state is appointed to Israel; but this shortened by the forty years of the wilderness sojourn, to imply, that a way is open to their return to life by their having the Egypt state merged into that of the wilderness; that is, by ceasing from idolatry and seeking in their sifting and sore troubles, through God's covenant, a restoration to righteousness and peace [Fairbairn]. The three hundred ninety, in reference to the sin of Israel, was also literally true, being the years from the setting up of the calves by Jeroboam ([1Ki 12:20-33]), that is, from 975 to 583 B.C.: about the year of the Babylonians captivity; and perhaps the forty of Judah refers to that part of Manasseh's fifty-five years' reign in which he had not repented, and which, we are expressly told, was the cause of God's removal of Judah, notwithstanding Josiah's reformation ([1Ki 21:10-16]; [2Ki 23:26], ).
6. each day for a year--literally, "a day for a year, a day for a year." Twice repeated, to mark more distinctly the reference to [Nu 14:34]. The picturing of the future under the image of the past, wherein the meaning was far from lying on the surface, was intended to arouse to a less superficial mode of thinking, just as the partial veiling of truth in Jesus' parables was designed to stimulate inquiry; also to remind men that God's dealings in the past are a key to the future, for He moves on the same everlasting principles, the forms alone being transitory.
7. arm ... uncovered--to be ready for action, which the long Oriental garment usually covering it would prevent ([Is 52:10]).
thou shalt prophesy against it--This gesture of thine will be a tacit prophecy against it.
8. bands--([Eze 3:25]).
not turn from ... side--to imply the impossibility of their being able to shake off the punishment.
9. wheat ... barley, &c.--Instead of simple flour used for delicate cakes ([Ge 18:6]), the Jews should have a coarse mixture of six different kinds of grain, such as the poorest alone would eat.
fitches--spelt or dhourra.
three hundred and ninety--The forty days are omitted, since these latter typify the wilderness period when Israel stood separate from the Gentiles and their pollution, though partially chastened by stint of bread and water ([Eze 4:16]), whereas the eating of the polluted bread in the three hundred ninety days implies a forced residence "among the Gentiles" who were polluted with idolatry ([Eze 4:13]). This last is said of "Israel" primarily, as being the most debased ([Eze 4:9-15]); they had spiritually sunk to a level with the heathen, therefore God will make their condition outwardly to correspond. Judah and Jerusalem fare less severely, being less guilty: they are to "eat bread by weight and with care," that is, have a stinted supply and be chastened with the milder discipline of the wilderness period. But Judah also is secondarily referred to in the three hundred ninety days, as having fallen, like Israel, into Gentile defilements; if, then, the Jews are to escape from the exile among Gentiles, which is their just punishment, they must submit again to the wilderness probation ([Eze 4:16]).
10. twenty shekels--that is, little more than ten ounces; a scant measure to sustain life ([Jr 52:6]). But it applies not only to the siege, but to their whole subsequent state.
11. sixth ... of ... hin--about a pint and a half.
12. dung--as fuel; so the Arabs use beasts' dung, wood fuel being scarce. But to use human dung so implies the most cruel necessity. It was in violation of the law ([De 14:3]; [23:12-14]); it must therefore have been done only in vision.
13. Implying that Israel's peculiar distinction was to be abolished and that they were to be outwardly blended with the idolatrous heathen ([De 28:68]; [Ho 9:3]).
14. Ezekiel, as a priest, had been accustomed to the strictest abstinence from everything legally impure. Peter felt the same scruple at a similar command ([Ac 10:14]; compare [Is 65:4]). Positive precepts, being dependent on a particular command can be set aside at the will of the divine ruler; but moral precepts are everlasting in their obligation because God cannot be inconsistent with His unchanging moral nature.
abominable flesh--literally, "flesh that stank from putridity." Flesh of animals three days killed was prohibited ([Le 7:17], ; , ).
15. cow's dung--a mitigation of the former order ([Eze 4:12]); no longer "the dung of man"; still the bread so baked is "defiled," to imply that, whatever partial abatement there might be for the prophet's sake, the main decree of God, as to the pollution of Israel by exile among Gentiles, is unalterable.
16. staff of bread--bread by which life is supported, as a man's weight is by the staff he leans on ([Le 26:26]; [Psa 105:16]; [Is 3:1]).
by weight, and with care--in scant measure ([Eze 4:10]).
17. astonied one with another--mutually regard one another with astonishment: the stupefied look of despairing want.
Chapter 5
Eze 5:1-17. Vision of Cutting the Hairs, and the Calamities Foreshadowed Thereby
1. knife ... razor--the sword of the foe (compare [Is 7:20]). This vision implies even severer judgments than the Egyptian afflictions foreshadowed in the former, for their guilt was greater than that of their forefathers.
thine head--as representative of the Jews. The whole hair being shaven off was significant of severe and humiliating ([2Sa 10:4], ) treatment. Especially in the case of a priest; for priests ([Le 21:5]) were forbidden "to make baldness on their head," their hair being the token of consecration; hereby it was intimated that the ceremonial must give place to the moral.
balances--implying the just discrimination with which Jehovah weighs out the portion of punishment "divided," that is, allotted to each: the "hairs" are the Jews: the divine scales do not allow even one hair to escape accurate weighing (compare [Mt 10:30]).
2. Three classes are described. The sword was to destroy one third of the people; famine and plague another third ("fire" in [Eze 5:2] being explained in [Eze 5:12] to mean pestilence and famine); that which remained was to be scattered among the nations. A few only of the last portion were to escape, symbolized by the hairs bound in Ezekiel's skirts ([Eze 5:3]; [Jr 40:6]; ). Even of these some were to be thrown into the fiery ordeal again ([Eze 5:4]; [Jr 41:1], 2, &c.; [Jr 44:14], &c.). The "skirts" being able to contain but few express that extreme limit to which God's goodness can reach.
5-6. Explanation of the symbols:
Jerusalem--not the mere city, but the people of Israel generally, of which it was the center and representative.
in ... midst--Jerusalem is regarded in God's point of view as center of the whole earth, designed to radiate the true light over the nations in all directions. Compare Margin ("navel"), [Eze 38:12]; [Psa 48:2]; [Jr 3:17]. No center in the ancient heathen world could have been selected more fitted than Canaan to be a vantage ground, whence the people of God might have acted with success upon the heathenism of the world. It lay midway between the oldest and most civilized states, Egypt and Ethiopia on one side, and Babylon, Nineveh, and India on the other, and afterwards Persia, Greece, and Rome. The Phoenician mariners were close by, through whom they might have transmitted the true religion to the remotest lands; and all around the Ishmaelites, the great inland traders in South Asia and North Africa. Israel was thus placed, not for its own selfish good, but to be the spiritual benefactor of the whole world. Compare [Psa 67:1-7] throughout. Failing in this, and falling into idolatry, its guilt was far worse than that of the heathen; not that Israel literally went beyond the heathen in abominable idolatries. But "corruptio optimi pessima"; the perversion of that which in itself is the best is worse than the perversion of that which is less perfect: is in fact the worst of all kinds of perversion. Therefore their punishment was the severest. So the position of the Christian professing Church now, if it be not a light to the heathen world, its condemnation will be sorer than theirs ([Mt 5:13]; [11:21-24]; [He 10:28], ).
7. multiplied--rather, "have been more abundantly outrageous"; literally, "to tumultuate"; to have an extravagant rage for idols.
neither have done according to the judgments of the nations--have not been as tenacious of the true religion as the nations have been of the false. The heathen "changed" not their gods, but the Jews changed Jehovah for idols (see [Eze 5:6], "changed My judgments into wickedness," that is, idolatry, [Jr 2:11]). The Chaldean version and the Masora support the negative. Others omit it (as it is omitted in [Eze 11:12]), and translate, "but have done according to the judgments," &c. However, both [Eze 11:12] and also this verse are true. They in one sense "did according to the heathen," namely, in all that was bad; in another, namely, in that which was good, zeal for religion, they did not. [Eze 5:9] also proves the negative to be genuine; because in changing their religion, they have not done as the nations which have not changed theirs, "I (also) will do in thee that which I have not done."
8. I, even I--awfully emphatic. I, even I, whom thou thinkest to be asleep, but who am ever reigning as the Omnipotent Avenger of sin, will vindicate My righteous government before the nations by judgments on thee.
9. See on [Eze 5:7].
that which I have not done--worse than any former judgments ([La 4:6]; [Da 9:12]). The prophecy includes the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and the final one by Antichrist ([Zec 13:8], ; ), as well as that by Nebuchadnezzar. Their doom of evil was not exhausted by the Chaldean conquest. There was to be a germinating evil in their destiny, because there would be, as the Lord foresaw, a germinating evil in their character. As God connected Himself peculiarly with Israel, so there was to be a peculiar manifestation of God's wrath against sin in their case [Fairbairn]. The higher the privileges the greater the punishment in the case of abuse of them. When God's greatest favor, the gospel, was given, and was abused by them, then "the wrath was to come on them to the uttermost" ([1Th 2:16]).
10. fathers ... eat ... sons--alluding to Moses' words ([Le 26:29]; [De 28:53]), with the additional sad feature, that "the sons should eat their fathers" (see [2Ki 6:28]; [Jr 19:9]; [La 2:20]; ).
11. as I live--the most solemn of oaths, pledging the self-existence of God for the certainty of the event.
defiled my sanctuary--the climax of Jewish guilt: their defiling Jehovah's temple by introducing idols.
diminish--literally, "withdraw," namely, Mine "eye" (which presently follows), that is, My favors; [Job 36:7] uses the Hebrew verb in the same way. As the Jews had withdrawn from God's sanctuary its sacredness by "defiling" it, so God withdraws His countenance from them. The significance of the expression lies in the allusion to [De 4:2], "Ye shall not diminish aught from the word which I command you"; they had done so, therefore God diminishes them. The reading found in six manuscripts, "I will cut thee off," is not so good.
12. Statement in plain terms of what was intended by the symbols ([Eze 5:2]; see [Eze 6:12]; [Jr 15:2]; ).
draw out ... sword after them--([Le 26:33]). Skeptics object; no such thing happened under Zedekiah, as is here foretold; namely, that a third part of the nation should die by pestilence, a third part by the sword, and a third be scattered unto all winds, and a sword sent after them. But the prophecy is not restricted to Zedekiah's time. It includes all that Israel suffered, or was still to suffer, for their sins, especially those committed at that period ([Eze 17:21]). It only received its primary fulfilment under Zedekiah: numbers then died by the pestilence and by the sword; and numbers were scattered in all quarters and not carried to Babylonia alone, as the objectors assert (compare [Ezr 1:4]; [Es 3:8]; Ob 14).
pestilence ... and famine--signified by the symbol "fire" ([Eze 5:2]). Compare [Is 13:8]; [La 5:10]; plague and famine burning and withering the countenance, as fire does.
13. cause my fury to rest upon them--as on its proper and permanent resting-place ([Is 30:32], Margin).
I will be comforted--expressed in condescension to man's conceptions; signifying His satisfaction in the vindication of His justice by His righteous judgments ([De 28:63]; [Pr 1:26]; [Is 1:24]).
they shall how--by bitter experience.