An end - When the end is come upon the wicked world, then an only evil comes upon it. The sorest of temporal judgments have their allays; but the torments of the damned are an evil, an only evil.
The morning - The fatal morning, the day of destruction. Sounding - Not a mere echo, not a fancy, but a real thing.
Is come - Of your wickedness; pride and violence in particular.
None - They shall be utterly wasted for their sins. Wailing - The living shall not bewail their dead friends, because they shall judge the dead in a better case than the living.
Mourn - Men usually part with their estates grieving that they must transmit their right to others; but let them now think how little a while they could have kept them, and how little time they shall keep them who have bought them.
Yet alive - For if any should survive the captivity, yet the conqueror wasting and destroying all, would confound all ancient boundaries. Touching - The evils threatened are designed against all the multitude of Israel. Strengthen - Nor shall any one man of them all he able to secure himself, by any sinful contrivance.
They - The house of Israel have summoned in all fit for arms. None - There is not a man going to the war. Wrath - That displeasure which takes away their courage.
Without - In the countries. Within - The besieged city. Field - Whoever is in the field.
Iniquity - Either for the punishment of their iniquity, or for their iniquity itself.
Baldness - Either by pulling off the hair amidst their sorrows, or cutting it off in token of mourning.
Cast - That they may be the lighter to fly. Removed - Carried away into Babylon. Not satisfy - They shall afford them no comfort. Stumbling - block - This silver and gold they coveted immeasurably, and abused to pride, luxury, idolatry and oppression; this that they stumbled at and fell into sin, now they stumble at and fall into the deepest misery.
The beauty - The temple, and all that pertained to it, which was the beauty and glory of that nation. He set - God commanded it should be beautiful and magnificent. Images - Their idols. Far from them - I have sent them far from the temple.
It - My temple.
Turn - Either from the Jews, or from the Chaldeans, neither relieving the one nor restraining the other. Secret place - The temple, and the holy of holies. Robbers - The soldiers.
A chain - To bind the captives.
The pomp - The magnificence and glory, wherein they boasted; or the temple that the Jews gloried in.
Seek - But in vain. The priest - He shall have no words either of counsel or comfort to say to them. Ancients - Nor shall their senators know what to advise.
The king - Zedekiah. The prince - Every magistrate. Troubled - Hang down, and melt away. What can men contrive or do for themselves, when God is departed from them? All must needs be in tears, all in trouble, when God comes to judge them according to their deserts, and so make them know, that he is the Lord, to whom vengeance belongeth.
Sixth year - Of Jeconiah's captivity. Sixth month - Elul or our August. The elders - The chief of those that were now in captivity. They were come either to spend the sabbath in religious exercises, or to enquire what would become of their brethren in Jerusalem. The hand - The spirit of prophecy.
A likeness - Of a man; the man whom he had seen upon the throne. Fire - This fire might denote the wrath of God against Jerusalem.
And - This, and all the passages to the end of the 16th verse, was done in vision only. Inner gate - To the door of the gate of the inner court. The north - The temple courts had four gates towards the four quarters, and this was the north gate, which opened into the great court where Ahaz had set up his Damascen altar, and where the idols were set up. The image - Baal, which Manasseh had set up, Josiah had destroyed, but succeeding kings had again set it up. Jealousy - Because it was so notorious an affront to God, who had married Israel to himself.
Northward - Ahaz had removed it from the middle of the court and set it near this north gate, to which it gave name. Entry - In the very passage to the temple, to affront the worship of God.
They - The generality of the Jews. Great abominations - The notorious idolatries. Here - In this court, in view of my temple. Far off - Not that they designed this, but no other could be expected.
The door - The second door, for there were two in the north side.
A door - A private door, by which the priests entered into the chamber of their imagery, to perform idolatrous worship to their images.
Are doing - Under the approach of judgments, in this very place, under the walls of my temple.
Every form - Of such creatures as the Egyptians, or any others with whom the Jews had acquaintance, worshipped.
Seventy - Heads of the tribes or families, who should have been examples of true religion, not ringleaders in idolatry. Shaphan - Mentioned 2Kings 22:9. Shaphan was forward in reforming under Josiah and his son is as forward in corrupting the worship of God.
Seeth not - They deny God's care of them and their affairs, and therefore they must chuse some other god.
Greater - Either because added to all the rest: or, because some circumstances in these make them more abominable.
The door - Of the outer court, or court of the women, so called, because they were allowed to come into it. Weeping - Performing all the lewd and beastly rites of that idol, called by the Greeks, Adonis.
Greater - These later wickednesses may be accounted greater, because acted in a more sacred place.
Inner court - The innermost, that which was next the temple, called here the Lord's house. At the door - Before he saw abominations in the gates of the courts, now he is come to the very house itself. The porch - That stately porch, beautified with the curious and mighty brass pillars, Jachin and Boaz. Altar - The brazen altar for burnt - offerings, which was placed in the court before the front of the temple, and is here represented in its proper place. Their backs - In contempt of God, and his worship. The sun - In imitation of the Persians, Egyptians, and other eastern idolaters; these Jews turn their back on God who created the sun, and worship the creature in contempt of the Creator.
Violence - All injustice is here meant towards all sorts of men, whom they first despise and next destroy. Returned - From injustice against man they return to impiety against God. The branch - As the worshippers of Bacchus waved their Thyrsus, the stalk wreathed with ivy, and bowed their bodies and often kissed the branches, so did these idolatrous Jews.
Will not hear - The time was, when God was ready to have heard, even before they cried: but now they cry aloud, and yet cry in vain. It is the upright heart which God regards, and not the loud voice.
He - The man whom he had seen upon the throne. Them - Those whom God hath appointed to destroy the city: perhaps angels. Every man - Every one; 'tis an Hebrew idiom. Each of these had a weapon proper for that kind of destruction which he was to effect; and so, some to slay with the sword, another with the pestilence, another with famine. In his hand - Denoting both expedition in, and strength for the work.
He - The man whom he had seen upon the throne. Them - Those whom God hath appointed to destroy the city: perhaps angels. Every man - Every one; 'tis an Hebrew idiom. Each of these had a weapon proper for that kind of destruction which he was to effect; and so, some to slay with the sword, another with the pestilence, another with famine. In his hand - Denoting both expedition in, and strength for the work.
One Cherub - One of the four. And took - As a servant that reaches what his master would have. Went out - Out of the temple.
Looked - Attentively viewed. Beryl stone - Of sea - green.
They - The wheels. This intimates the references of providence to each other, and their dependences on each other: and the joint tendency of all to one common end, while their motions appear to us intricate and perplexed, yea, seemingly contrary.
When - The wheels moved by the cherubim, or that spirit of life, which moved the living creatures. They went - They were so framed, that they could move on all four sides without the difficulty and delay of turning. Head - Of the living creatures.
And - Now he describes both the cherubim and wheels as full of wisdom, and as governed by an excellent wisdom. The wheels - Which the four cherubim had to move, govern, and direct.
The wheels - As to their frame and motion. It was cried - Still there was one who guided, as by vocal direction. Unto them - To each of them.
Every one - Of the living creatures, chap.1:6.
For - There is a perfect harmony between second causes in their dependence on, and subjection to, the one infinite, wise, good, holy, and just God. The spirit of God directs all the creatures, upper and lower, so that they shall serve the divine purpose. Events are not determined by the wheel of fortune, which is blind, but by the wheels of providence, which are full of eyes.