that God will bring his people back again, become their king himself, and set up the second David or Messiah.

The 35th chapter contains a prophecy of the desolation of the country of Seir or of the Edomites, who had rejoiced at the calamities of the Hebrews. These, says the prophet, c. xxxvi., will God bring back and multiply. This return and the restoration of the state are represented xxxvii. 1-14, in a vision, as a resurrection from the dead. Then, v. 15-28, shall Judah and Israel be indissolubly united as one people, maintain the worship of God, live under his protection, and receive the second David as their king.

Chapters xxxviii. xxxix. predict the expedition of Gog, the king of Magog, against the returned Hebrews when the country is to undergo a great revolution, Gog being conquered and sustaining a great slaughter. This is an image, somewhat strongly delineated, of the victories of the Maccabees over the Syrians.

Chaps. xl-xlviii. In these last nine chapters, the prophet, in the beginning of the twenty-fifth year, receives in a vision a statement of the magnitude of the temple and of its parts, of the duties of the Levites and priests, of the greatness of Jerusalem and its gates, of the duties and domains of the princes or kings, of the boundaries of the whole land, of its distribution among the twelve tribes, and of the name of the chief city which should be called nov nim, Jehovah

there. The Hebrews will then no more relapse into idolatry. Out of the temple a fountain shall spring which, on its progress to the Dead Sea, shall become a large stream with fruitful trees on its banks, and shall even sweeten the salt waters of that sea, c. xlvii. Comp. Ps. xlvi. 5. Joel iv. 18. Zach. xiv. 8. It is abundantly evident from this stream, which is a figure of happiness, and from the name of the chief city, that the whole description is only an image of the certain restoration of the Hebrews. The prophet sees the temple already standing, Jerusalem rebuilt, and the land divided. Should I venture to determine with more particularity the period referred to, it would seem to me most probable, that the representation is figurative of the times of the Maccabees, when the country received a large accession by conquests, many of the Jews returned from foreign lands, and the people lived under their own kings.]

The points in these prophecies which are principally worthy of attention, are the following. 1) That the prophet, more than one hundred m les distant from the scene, should have announced the beginning of the siege of Jerusalem on the very day it took place ; and like Jeremiah, should have constantly predicted the conquest and destruction of the city, and the carrying away of the inhabitants.2) That he should have foreseen also the flight of Zedekiah through the broken walls at night, together with the circumstances, that he should be overtaken by the Chaldeans, that he should not be slain but carried into their country, which however he should not see. This was verified by Nebuchadnezzar's causing his eyes to be put out.3) That moreover, like Jeremiah, he should plainly predict the return of the Hebrews to their country, and their perseverance in the worship of God, events so remote and in themselves improbable, and also the conquest of Idumea by the Hebrews.-4) That he should have announced not only the demolition of Tyre to be rebuilt no more, (for the new city was founded upon an island,) but also that its ruins should be thrown into the sea; a prediction which Alexander unconsciously verified.5) Lastly, that, like Jeremiah, he should have foretold the advent of that great Son of David at a period when David's family were deprived of royal dignity.

§ 143. Style of Ezekiel.

The work of Ezekiel contains many visions, which are not only mninutely described in all their circumstances and details, but even in some instances, repeated. His tropes and images do not always correspond accurately with nature. Comp. xvii. xxiii. 34. xxix. 7.[a] The prophet's style in reproving vice is vehement, indeed, but by no means sublime, and it is almost everywhere prosaic. His language is intermingled with many Chaldee words and forms, as might naturally be expected from his residence in Mesopotamia. Comp. A in

xvi, 13 '7', xvi. 20; as an article in i. 15, and

instead of

[a) St. John, in his Apocalypse, has exhibited many of Ezekiel's figures in a manner much more elegant and natural.]

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[6) GESENIUS observes that Ezekiel "has probably the greatest proportion of grammatical anomalies and errors of all the writers in the Old Testament." See his examination of the language of this prophet; Gesch. der Heb. Sprache und Schrift, § 11. S. 35. f. EICHHORN also, Einleit. 548, IV. Th. S. 242. f., enters at some length into a consideration of the language of Ezekiel, for the purpose of proving the identity of the author throughout the book. Tr.]

§ 144. Order of Ezekiel's Prophecies.

These prophecies have been digested in the order of time, as is attested by the titles; so that those which are destitute of titles are to be ascribed to the time mentioned in the title next preceding, especially as all the prophecies were prepared with particular care, and were certainly recorded by the prophet previously to their being uttered. Those only which were pronounced against the Heathen, although collected in c. xxv-xxxii., were not all written at the same time, nor have they been digested in chronological order. It is hardly possible to remove this difficulty, unless on the supposition, that some transcriber inconsiderately added those prophecies to xxiv. 27, where Ezekiel is said to be silent, and in doing so, wrote them out in the order in which he found them.[a] This will account for the total want of arrangement in this portion, and for the omission through forgetfulness of the predictions against the Edomites in xxxv., and against Gog and Magog in xxxviii. xxxix.

[a) Comp. xxvi. xxx. xxxi. which belong to the period of his silence.]

§ 145. Of the last nine chapters of Ezekiel.

Some writers deny that the last nine chapters are to be attributed to Ezekiel.[a] But the arguments on which this hypothesis rest are by no means sufficient to sustain it.-1) The obscurity of these chapters is urged. But certainly this is not at variance with the opinion that they were written by Ezekiel, for many other parts of his work are less perspicuous, not to say, that descriptions of this kind, particularly of buildings, can scarcely be made very intelligible without the aid of drawings.-2) These chapters are supposed to contain commands which were disregarded by the Hebrews after their return, and therefore it is inferred that they did not then exist.

or at least were not ascribed to Ezekiel. But this supposition is unfounded for those chapters do not contain commands, but an emblematic or figurative representation intended to confirm the certainty of the return, and the re-establishment of divine worship.—3) It is further objected, that the prophet could not possibly retain in memory the numbers of so many measurements as were perceived by him in his vision. But this is of little weight; for as the impressions of the visions were the more vehement on account of the outward senses being at rest, there would be the less difficulty in retaining them in the memory. Besides there are persons who commit numbers to memory with great facility, and if the objectors to these prophecies allow that visions constitute merely the dress and form in which the prophets announce their predictions,[b] there would have been no need of memory in the case.- -4) JOSEPHUS, Ant. X. v. 1., attributes to Ezekiel two books of the Babylonian Captivity. But as by the second book of Ezekiel, he means the last nine chapters, how is it possible thence to infer that Ezekiel is not their author? There is no necessity therefore to apply the language of Josephus to Jeremiah,[c] which can not be done without violence to the series of the discourse.

CORRODY, I. Th. S. 105, conjectures, that some Hebrew, who returned later than the great body of his brethren, made up these chapters, in order to effect a new distribution of the country by which he might acquire a portion for himself. But this conjecture is altogether worthless, for no such impostor would have written so largely and in such a manner of the temple and of the division of the country among the tribes, and at the same time forget entirely the distribution among individuals.

Nothing therefore can be established in opposition to the genuineness of these prophecies; and it is confirmed by their contents. The visions, the manner of conveying reproof the multitude of circumstantial particulars, the character of the language and style, in all which respects Ezekiel is remarkably distinguished from other writers, prove that he must have been the author of these chapters. No imitation could possibly have been so successful.

[a) This suspicion was first advanced by OEDER in his Freye Untersuchung ueber einige Bücher des A. T., 1771. and subsequently main

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tained by G. T. L. VOGEL in his edition of Oeder's work, mit Zugabe und Anmerkungen, and by CORRODI in his Versuch einer Beleuchtung der Gesch. des Kanons. It is rejected with scorn by EICHHORN, Einleit, § 549. IV. Th. S. 248. ff., and by DE WETTE, Einleit. § 223. ann. a. and BERTHOLDT, S. 1491. ff. Tr.]

(b) This is an argumentum ad hominem, resorted to by Jahn, as sufficient to confute his antagonists, who, in all probability, maintained on this subject opinions similar to those of Eichhorn. This latter writer explicitly avows his sentiments as follows: "All ecstasies and visions are, in my opinion, mere poetic fiction: and [he refers particularly to those of Ezekiel] another writer of a different age and of a different disposition, or gifted with less fancy and invention, would have expressed the same ideas in an entirely different manner." Einleit. Th. IV. S. 257. Tr.] [c) As is done by EICHHORN, Einleit. § 540, 549. Tr.]

Whether Ezekiel wrote the Prophecies against the Heathen.

An anonymous writer in the Monthly Magazine and British Register, for March, 1798, p. 189, denies that the prophecies in c. xxv—— xxxii, xxxv, xxxvi, and xxxviii, xxxix, are Ezekiel's. His reasons are so exceedingly trifling, that they are not worthy of refutation. Nor indeed is this necessary, for these very parts of the book contain evidence that they are the work of this prophet; very many particulars which Ezekiel is accustomed to introduce elsewhere are found in these prophecies; as, for instance, the designation of the year, the month and the day, on which a revelation was communicated; the remarkable phraseology son of man corresponding with the usage in the Aramaan dialect; the forms, set thy face towards or againstprophesy against-hear the word of Jehovah-thus saith the Lord Jehovah the word of Jehovah came to me—they shall know that I am Jehovah-take up a lamentation for. In these chapters, as in c. i— xxiv, the terms and are frequently applied to kings, the same devices for conducting sieges, p, a circumvallation, and ♫bbo, a mound, are mentioned, comp. c. xxvi. 8. with iv. 2. xvii. 17 xxi. 27. (22), and in fine the same particularity and multitude of circumstances occur. Indeed xxviii. 14. contains a reference to the vision mentioned in i. 13. x. 2. If the mentioning the regions of the departed more frequently than is usual (see xxvi. 20. xxxi. 14—17.

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