59 lines
11 KiB
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59 lines
11 KiB
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<title>Blue Letter Bible: Text Commentaries</title>
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Title = 'The Book of the Prophet Ezekiel';
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<p id="Chapter4" align="center">Commentary by A. R. FAUSSET<br>CHAPTER 4
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<p id="Eze4_1"><a onclick="return mV('Eze',4,'1-17');">Eze 4:1-17</a>. SYMBOLICAL VISION OF THE SIEGE AND THE INIQUITY-BEARING.
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<p><b>1. tile</b>—a sun-dried brick, such as are found in Babylon, covered with cuneiform inscriptions, often two feet long and one foot broad.
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<p id="Eze4_2"><b>2. forth</b>—rather, "watch tower" (<a onclick="return mV('Jer',52,4);">Jer 52:4</a>) wherein the besieges could watch the movements of the besieged [GESENIUS]. A wall of circumvallation [<i>Septuagint</i> and ROSENMULLER]. A kind of battering-ram [MAURER]. The first view is best.
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<br><br><b>a mount</b>—wherewith the Chaldeans could be defended from missiles.
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<br><br><b>battering-rams</b>—literally, "through-borers." In <a onclick="return mV('Eze',21,22);">Eze 21:22</a> the same <i>Hebrew</i> is translated "captains."
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<p id="Eze4_3"><b>3. iron pan</b>—the divine decree as to the Chaldean army investing the city.
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<br><br><b>set it for a wall of iron between thee and the city</b>—Ezekiel, in the person of God, represents the wall of separation between him and the people as one of iron: and the Chaldean investing army. His instrument of separating them from him, as one impossible to burst through.
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<br><br><b>set...face against it</b>—inexorably (<a onclick="return mV('Psa',34,16);">Psa 34:16</a>). The exiles envied their brethren remaining in Jerusalem, but exile is better than the straitness of a siege.
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<p id="Eze4_4"><b>4.</b> Another symbolical act performed at the same time as the former, in vision, not in external action, wherein it would have been only puerile: narrated as a thing ideally done, it would make a vivid impression. The second action is supplementary to the first, to bring out more fully the same prophetic idea.
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<br><br><b>left side</b>—referring to the <i>position</i> of the ten tribes, the <i>northern</i> kingdom, as Judah, the <i>southern,</i> answers to "the right side" (<a onclick="return mV('Eze',4,6);">Eze 4:6</a>). The Orientals facing the east in their mode, had the north on their <i>left,</i> and the south on their <i>right</i> (<a onclick="return mV('Eze',16,46);">Eze 16:46</a>). Also the right was more honorable than the left: so Judah as being the seat of the temple, was more so than Israel.
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<br><br><b>bear the iniquity</b>—iniquity being regarded as a <i>burden;</i> so it means, "bear the <i>punishment</i> of their iniquity" (<a onclick="return mV('Num',14,34);">Num 14:34</a>). A type of Him who was the great <i>sin-bearer,</i> not in mimic show as Ezekiel, but in reality (<a onclick="return mV('Isa',53,4,6,12);">Isa 53:4, 6, 12</a>.
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<p id="Eze4_5"><b>5. three hundred and ninety days</b>—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 <a onclick="return mV('Eze',4,'1-3');">Eze 4:1-3</a>, and in a sense restricted to the literal siege, but comprehending the <i>whole</i> 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 (<a onclick="return mV('Exd',12,40,41);">Exd 12:40-41</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Gal',3,17);">Gal 3:17</a>). The forty alludes to the forty years in the wilderness. Elsewhere (<a onclick="return mV('Deu',28,68);">Deu 28:68</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Hsa',9,3);">Hsa 9:3</a>), 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 <a onclick="return mV('Eze',20,'35-38');">Eze 20:35-38</a>). 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 <i>sin</i> of Israel, was also literally true, being the years from the setting up of the calves by Jeroboam (<a onclick="return mV('1Ki',12,'20-33');">1Ki 12:20-33</a>), that is, from 975 to 583 B.C.: <i>about</i> the year of the Babylonians captivity; and perhaps the forty of Judah refers to that part of Manasseh's fifty-five year's 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 (<a onclick="return mV('1Ki',21,'10-16');">1Ki 21:10-16</a>; <a onclick="return mV('2Ki',23,26,27);">2Ki 23:26-27</a>).
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<p id="Eze4_6"><b>6. each day for a year</b>—literally, "a day for a year, a day for a year." Twice repeated, to mark more distinctly the reference to <a onclick="return mV('Num',14,34);">Num 14:34</a>. 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 <i>principles,</i> the <i>forms</i> alone being transitory.
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<p id="Eze4_7"><b>7. arm...uncovered</b>—to be ready for action, which the long Oriental garment usually covered it would prevent (<a onclick="return mV('Isa',52,10);">Isa 52:10</a>).
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<br><br><b>thou shalt prophesy against it</b>—This gesture of thine will be a tacit prophecy against it.
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<p id="Eze4_8"><b>8. bands</b>— (<a onclick="return mV('Eze',3,25);">Eze 3:25</a>).
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<br><br><b>not turn from...side</b>—to imply the impossibility of their being able to shake off the punishment.
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<p id="Eze4_9"><b>9. wheat...barley,</b> etc.—Instead of simple flour used for delicate cakes (<a onclick="return mV('Gen',18,6);">Gen 18:6</a>), the Jews should have a coarse mixture of six different kinds of grain, such as the poorest alone would eat.
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<br><br><b>fitches</b>—spelt or <i>dhourra.</i>
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<br><br><b>three hundred and ninety</b>—The forty days are omitted, since these latter typify the <i>wilderness period</i> when Israel stood <i>separate from the Gentiles and their pollution,</i> though partially chastened by stint of bread and water (<a onclick="return mV('Eze',4,16);">Eze 4:16</a>), whereas the eating of the polluted bread in the three hundred ninety days implies a forced residence "<i>among the Gentiles</i>" who were polluted with idolatry (<a onclick="return mV('Eze',4,13);">Eze 4:13</a>). This last is said of "Israel" primarily, as being the most debased (<a onclick="return mV('Eze',4,'9-15');">Eze 4:9-15</a>); they had <i>spiritually</i> sunk to a level with the heathen, therefore God will make their condition <i>outwardly</i> 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 <i>among Gentiles,</i> which is their just punishment, they must submit again to the wilderness probation (<a onclick="return mV('Eze',4,16);">Eze 4:16</a>).
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<p id="Eze4_10"><b>10. twenty shekels</b>—that is, little more than ten ounces; a scant measure to sustain life (<a onclick="return mV('Jer',52,6);">Jer 52:6</a>). But it applies not only to the siege, but to their whole subsequent state.
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<p id="Eze4_11"><b>11. sixth...of...hin</b>—about a pint and a half.
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<p id="Eze4_12"><b>12. dung</b>—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 (<a onclick="return mV('Deu',14,3);">Deu 14:3</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Deu',23,'12-14');">23:12-14</a>); it must therefore have been done only <i>in vision.</i>
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<p id="Eze4_13"><b>13.</b> Implying that Israel's peculiar distinction was to be abolished and that they were to be outwardly blended with the idolatrous heathen (<a onclick="return mV('Deu',28,68);">Deu 28:68</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Hsa',9,3);">Hsa 9:3</a>).
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<p id="Eze4_14"><b>14.</b> Ezekiel, as a priest, had been accustomed to the strictest abstinence from everything legally impure. Peter felt the same scruple at a similar command (<a onclick="return mV('Act',10,14);">Act 10:14</a>; compare <a onclick="return mV('Isa',65,4);">Isa 65:4</a>). <i>Positive precepts,</i> being dependent on a particular command can be set aside at the will of the divine ruler; but <i>moral precepts</i> are everlasting in their obligation because God cannot be inconsistent with His unchanging moral nature.
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<br><br><b>abominable flesh</b>—literally, "flesh that stank from putridity." Flesh of animals three days killed was prohibited (<a onclick="return mV('Lev',7,17,18);">Lev 7:17-18</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Lev',19,6,7);">19:6-7</a>).
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<p id="Eze4_15"><b>15. cow's dung</b>—a mitigation of the former order (<a onclick="return mV('Eze',4,12);">Eze 4:12</a>); 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.
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<p id="Eze4_16"><b>16. staff of bread</b>—bread by which life is supported, as a man's weight is by the staff he leans on (<a onclick="return mV('Lev',26,26);">Lev 26:26</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Psa',105,16);">Psa 105:16</a>; <a onclick="return mV('Isa',3,1);">Isa 3:1</a>).
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<br><br><b>by weight, and with care</b>—in scant measure (<a onclick="return mV('Eze',4,10);">Eze 4:10</a>).
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<p id="Eze4_17"><b>17. astonied one with another</b>—mutually regard one another with astonishment: the stupefied look of despairing want.
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