E
Z E K I E L
CHAP. VI.
In
this chapter we have, I. A threatening of the destruction of
Israel
for their idolatry, and the destruction of
their idols with them, ver. 1-7. II. A promise of the gracious return of a
remnant of them to God, by true repentance and reformation, ver. 8-10. III.
Directions given to the prophet and others, the Lord's servants, to lament
both the iniquities and the calamities of
Israel
, ver. 11-14.
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The
Destruction of Idolatry.
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B.
C. 594.
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1 And the word of the LORD
came unto me, saying, 2 Son of man, set thy face toward the
mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them, 3 And say, Ye
mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord GOD;
Thus saith the Lord GOD
to the mountains, and to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys; Behold,
I, even I, will bring a sword upon you, and I will destroy your high
places. 4 And your altars shall be desolate, and your images shall
be broken: and I will cast down your slain men before your idols.
5 And I will lay the dead carcases of the children of
Israel
before their idols; and I will scatter your
bones round about your altars. 6 In all your dwelling-places the
cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate; that your
altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and
cease, and your images may be cut down, and your works may be abolished.
7 And the slain shall fall in the midst of you, and ye shall know that I am
the LORD.
Here, I. The prophecy is directed to the mountains of
Israel
(v. 1, 2); the prophet must set his face towards them. If he
could see so far off as the
land
of
Israel
, the mountains of that land would be first and furthest seen; towards
them therefore he must look, and look boldly and stedfastly, as the judge
looks at the prisoner, and directs his speech to him, when he passes sentence
upon him. Though the mountains of
Israel
be ever so high and ever so strong, he must set his face against them,
as having judgments to denounce that should shake their foundation. The
mountains of Israel had been holy mountains, but now that they had
polluted them with their high places God set his face against them and
therefore the prophet must.
Israel
is here put, not, as sometimes, for the ten tribes, but for the whole land. The
mountains are called upon to hear the word of the Lord, to shame
the inhabitants that would not hear. The prophets might as soon gain attention
from the mountains as from that rebellious and gainsaying people,
to whom they all day long stretched out their hands in vain. Hear, O
mountains! the Lord's controversy (Mic. vi. 1, 2), for God's cause will
have a hearing, whether we hear it or no. But from the mountains the word
of the Lord echoes to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys;
for to them also the Lord God speaks, intimating that the whole land is
concerned in what is now to be delivered and shall be witnesses against this
people that they had fair warning given them of the judgments coming, but they
would not take it; nay, they contradicted the message and persecuted the
messengers, so that God's prophets might more safely and comfortably speak to the
hills and mountains than to them.
II. That which is threatened in this prophecy is the utter destruction of the
idols and the idolaters, and both by the sword of war. God himself is
commander-in-chief of this expedition against the mountains of Israel.
It is he that says, Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword upon you (v.
3); the sword of the Chaldeans is at God's command, goes where he sends it,
comes where he brings it, and lights as he directs it. In the desolations of
that war,
1. The idols and all their appurtenances should be destroyed. The high
places, which were on the tops of mountains (v. 3), shall be
levelled and made desolate (v. 6); they shall not be beautified,
shall not be frequented as they had been. The altars, on which they
offered sacrifice and burnt incense to strange gods, shall be broken to
pieces and laid waste; the images and idols shall be
defaced, shall be broken and cease, and be cut down, and all the fine
costly works about them shall be abolished, v. 4, 6. Observe here, (1.)
That war makes woeful desolations, which those persons, places, and things
that were esteemed most sacred cannot escape; for the sword devours one as
well as another. (2.) That God sometimes ruins idolatries even by the
hands of idolaters, for such the Chaldeans themselves were; but, as if the
deity were a local thing, the greatest admirers of the gods of their own
country were the greatest despisers of the gods of other countries. (3.) It is
just with God to make that a desolation which we make an idol of; for he is a
jealous God and will not bear a rival. (4.) If men do not, as they ought,
destroy idolatry, God will, first or last, find out a way to do it. When
Josiah had destroyed the high places, altars, and images, with the sword of
justice, they set them up again; but God will now destroy them with the sword
of war, and let us see who dares re-establish them.
2. The worshippers of idols and all their adherents should be destroyed
likewise. As all their high places shall be laid waste, so shall all their
dwelling-places too, even all their cities, v. 6. Those that
profane God's dwelling-place as they had done can expect no other than that he
should abandon theirs, ch. v. 11. If any man defile the temple of
God, him will God destroy, 1 Cor. iii. 17. It is here threatened that their
slain shall fall in the midst of them (v. 7); there shall be
abundance slain, even in those places which were thought most safe; but it is
added as a remarkable circumstance that they shall fall before their idols
(v. 4), that their dead carcases should be laid, and
their bones scattered, about their altars, v. 5. (1.) Thus their
idols should be polluted, and those places profaned by the dead bodies which
they had had in veneration. If they will not defile the covering of their
graven images, God will, Isa. xxx. 22. The throwing of the carcases among
them, as upon the dunghill, intimates that they were but dunghill-deities.
(2.) Thus it was intimated that they were but dead things, unfit to be rivals
with the living God; for the carcases of dead men, that, like them, have
eyes and see not, ears and hear not, were the fittest company for them.
(3.) Thus the idols were upbraided with their inability to help their
worshippers, and idolaters were upbraided with the folly of trusting in them;
for, it should seem, they fell by the sword of the enemy when they were
actually before their idols imploring their aid and putting themselves under
their protection. Sennacherib was slain by his sons when he was worshipping
in the house of his god. (4.) The sin might be read in this circumstance
of the punishment; the slain men are cast before the idols, to
show that therefore they are slain, because they worshipped those
idols; see Jer. viii. 1, 2. Let the survivors observe it, and take warning not
to worship images; let them see it, and know that God is the Lord, that
the Lord he is God and he alone.
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Mercy
Promised to the Penitent; Effect of Repentance.
B. C. 594.
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8 Yet will I leave a remnant, that ye may have some
that shall escape the sword among the nations, when ye shall be scattered
through the countries. 9 And they that escape of you shall
remember me among the nations whither they shall be carried captives, because
I am broken with their whorish heart, which hath departed from me, and with
their eyes, which go a whoring after their idols: and they shall loathe
themselves for the evils which they have committed in all their
abominations. 10 And they shall know that I am the LORD,
and that I have not said in vain that I would do this evil unto them.
Judgment had hitherto triumphed, but in these verses mercy rejoices against
judgment. A sad end is made of this provoking people, but not a full end. The
ruin seems to be universal, and yet will I leave a remnant, a little
remnant, distinguished from the body of the people, a few of many, such as are
left when the rest perish; and it is God that leaves them. This intimates that
they deserved to be cut off with the rest, and would have been cut off if God
had not left them. See Isa. i. 9. And it is God who by his grace works that in
them which he has an eye to in sparing them. Now,
I. It is a preserved remnant, saved from the ruin which the body of the nation
is involved in (v. 8): That you may have some who shall escape the
sword. God said (ch. v. 12) that he would draw a sword after
those who were scattered, that destruction should pursue them in
their dispersion; but here is mercy remembered in the midst of that wrath,
and a promise that some of the Jews of the dispersion, as they were
afterwards called, should escape the sword. None of those who were to fall
by the sword about Jerusalem shall escape; for they trust to
Jerusalem's walls for security, and shall be made ashamed of that vain
confidence. But some of them shall escape the sword among the nations,
where, being deprived of all other stays, they stay themselves upon God only.
They are said to have those who shall escape; for they shall be
the seed of another generation, out of which Jerusalem shall flourish again.
II. It is a penitent remnant (v. 9): Those who escape of you shall
remember me. Note, To those whom god designs for life he will give repentance
unto life. They are reprieved, and escape the sword, that they may
have time to return to God. Note, God's patience both leaves room for
repentance and is an encouragement to sinners to repent. Where God designs
grace to repent he allows space to repent; yet many who have the space want
the grace, many who escape the sword do not forsake the sin, as it is
promised that these shall do. This remnant, here marked for salvation, is a
type of the remnant reserved out of the body of mankind to be monuments of
mercy, who are made safe in the same way that these were, by being brought to
repentance. Now observe here,
1. The occasion of their repentance, and that is a mixture of judgment and
mercy-judgment, that they were carried captives, but mercy, that they escaped
the sword in the land of their captivity. They were driven out of their
own land, but not out of the land of the living, not chased out of the
world, as other were and they deserved to be. Note, The consideration of
the just rebukes of Providence we are under, and yet of the mercy mixed with
them, should engage us to repent, that we may answer God's end in both. And
true repentance shall be accepted of God, though we are brought to it by our
troubles; nay, sanctified afflictions often prove means of conversion, as to
Manasseh.
2. The root and principle of their repentance: They shall remember me among
the nations. Those who forgot God in the land of their peace and
prosperity, who waxed fat and kicked, were brought to remember him in
the land of their captivity. The prodigal son never bethought himself of his
father's house till he was ready to perish for hunger in the far country.
Their remembering God was the first step they took in returning to him. Note,
Then there begins to be some hopes of sinners when they have sinned against,
and to enquire, Where is God my Maker? Sin takes rise in forgetting
God, Jer. iii. 21. Repentance takes rise from the remembrance of him and of
our obligations to him. God says, They shall remember me, that is,
"I will give them grace to do so;" for otherwise they would for ever
forget him. That grace shall find them out wherever they are, and by bringing
God to their mind shall bring them to their right mind. The prodigal, when he
remembered his father, remembered how he has sinned against Heaven and
before him; so do these penitents. (1.) They remember the base affront
they had put upon God by their idolatries, and this is that which an ingenuous
repentance fastens upon and most sadly laments. They had departed from God to
idols, and given that honour to pretended deities, the creatures of men's
fancies and the work of men's hands, which they should have given to the God
of Israel. They departed from God, from his word, which they should
have made their rule, from his work, which they should have made their
business. Their hearts departed from him. The heart, which he requires
and insists upon, and without which bodily exercise profits nothing,
the heart, which should be set upon him, and carried out towards him,
when that departs from him, is as the treacherous elopement of a wife
from her husband or the rebellious revolt of a subject from his sovereign. Their
eyes also go after their idols; they doted on them, and had great
expectations from them. Their hearts followed their eyes in the choice of
their gods (they must have gods that they could see), and then their eyes
followed their hearts in the adoration of them. Now the malignity of this sin
is that it is spiritual whoredom; it is a whorish heart that departs
from God; and they are eyes that go a whoring after their idols.
Note, Idolatry is spiritual whoredom; it is the breach of a marriage-covenant
with God; it is the setting of the affections upon that which is a rival with
him, and the indulgence of a base lust, which deceives and defiles the soul,
and is a great wrong to God in his honour, (2.) They remember what a grief
this was to him and how he resented it. They shall remember that I am
broken with their whorish heart and their eyes that are full of this
spiritual adultery, not only angry at it, but grieved, as a husband is at the
lewdness of a wife whom he dearly loved, grieved to such a degree that he is
broken with it; it breaks his heart to think that he should be so
disingenuously dealt with; he is broken as an aged father is with the
undutiful behaviour of a rebellious and disobedient son, which sinks his
spirits and makes him to stoop. Forty years long was I grieved with this
generation, Ps. xcv. 10. God's measures were broken (so some); a
stop was put to the current of his favours towards them, and he was even
compelled to punish them. This they shall remember in the day of their
repentance, and it shall affect and humble them more than any thing, not so
much that their peace was broken, and their country broken, as that God was
broken by their sin. Thus they shall look on him whom they have pierced
and shall mourn, Zech. xii. 10. Note, Nothing grieves a true penitent so
much as to think that his sin has been a grief to God and to the Spirit of his
grace.
3. The product and evidence of their repentance: They shall loathe
themselves for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations.
Thus God will give them grace to qualify them for pardon and deliverance.
Though he had been broken by their whorish heart, yet he would not
quite cast them off. See Isa. lvii. 17, 18; Hos. ii. 13, 14. His goodness
takes occasion from their badness to appear the more illustrious. Note, (1.)
True penitents see sin to be an abominable thing, that abominable thing
which the Lord hates and which makes sinners, and even their services,
odious to him, Jer. xliv. 4; Isa. i. 11. It defiles the sinner's own
conscience, and makes him, unless he be past feeling, an abomination to
himself. An idol is particularly called an abomination, Isa. xliv. 19.
Those gratifications which the hearts of sinners were set upon as delectable
things the hearts of penitents are turned against as detestable things. (2.)
There are many evils committed in these abominations, many included in
them, attendant on them, and flowing from them, many transgressions in one
sin, Lev. xvi. 21. In their idolatries they were sometimes guilty of whoredom
(as in the worship of Peor), sometimes of murder (as in the worship of Moloch);
these were evils committed in their abominations. Or it denotes the
great malignity there is in sin; it is an abomination that has abundance of
evil in it. (3.) Those that truly loathe sin cannot but loathe themselves
because of sin; self-loathing is evermore the companion of true repentance.
Penitents quarrel with themselves, and can never be reconciled to themselves
till they have some ground to hope that God is reconciled to them; nay, then
they shall lie down in their shame, when he is pacified towards them, ch.
xvi. 63.
4. The glory that will redound to God by their repentance (v. 10):
"They shall know that I am the Lord; they shall be convinced of it
by experience, and shall be ready to own it, and that I have not said in
vain that I would do this evil unto them, finding that what I have said is
made good, and made to work for good, and to answer a good intention, and that
it was not without just provocation that they were thus threatened and thus
punished." Note, (1.) One way or other God will make sinners to know and
own that he is the lord, either by their repentance or by their ruin. (2.) All
true penitents are brought to acknowledge both the equity and the efficacy of
the word of God, particularly the threatenings of the word, and to justify God
in them and in the accomplishment of them.
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The
Prophet's Lamentation.
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B.
C. 594.
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11 Thus saith the Lord GOD;
Smite with thine hand, and stamp with thy foot, and say, Alas for all the evil
abominations of the house of Israel! for they shall fall by the sword, by the
famine, and by the pestilence. 12 He that is far off shall die of
the pestilence; and he that is near shall fall by the sword; and he that
remaineth and is besieged shall die by the famine: thus will I accomplish my
fury upon them. 13 Then shall ye know that I am the LORD,
when their slain men shall be among their idols round about their
altars, upon every high hill, in all the tops of the mountains, and under
every green tree, and under every thick oak, the place where they did offer
sweet savour to all their idols. 14 So will I stretch out my hand
upon them, and make the land desolate, yea, more desolate than the wilderness
toward Diblath, in all their habitations: and they shall know that I am
the LORD.
The same threatenings which we had before in the foregoing chapter, and in the
former part of this, are here repeated, with a direction to the prophet to
lament them, that those he prophesied to might be the more affected with the
foresight of them.
I. He must by his gestures in preaching express the deep sense he had both of
the iniquities and of the calamities of the house of Israel (v. 11): Smite
with thy hand and stamp with thy foot. Thus he must make it to appear that
he was in earnest in what he said to them, that he firmly believed it and laid
it to heart. Thus he must signify the just displeasure he had conceived at
their sins, and the just dread he was under of the judgments coming upon them.
Some would reject this use of these gestures, and call them antic and
ridiculous; but God bids him use them because they might help to enforce the
word upon some and give it the setting on; and those that know the worth of
souls will be content to be laughed at by the wits, so they may but edify the
weak. Two things the prophet must thus lament:-- 1. National sins. Alas!
for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel. Note, The sins of
sinners are the sorrows of God's faithful servants, especially the evil
abominations of the house of Israel, whose sins are more abominable and
have more evil in them than the sins of others. Alas! What will be in the
end hereof? 2. National judgments. To punish them for these abominations they
shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence. Note, It is
our duty to be affected not only with our own sins and sufferings, but with
the sins and sufferings of others; and to look with compassion upon the
miseries that wicked people bring upon themselves; as Christ beheld
Jerusalem and wept over it.
II. He must inculcate what he had said before concerning the destruction that
was coming upon them. 1. They shall be run down and ruined by a variety of
judgments which shall find them out and follow them wherever they are (v.
12): He that is far off, and thinks himself out of danger, because out
of the reach of the Chaldeans' arrows, shall find himself not out of the reach
of God's arrows, which fly day and night (Ps. xci. 5): He shall die of the
pestilence. He that is near a place of strength, which he hopes will be to
him a place of safety, shall fall by the sword, before he can retreat. He
that is so cautious as not to venture out, but remains in the city,
shall there die by the famine, the saddest death of all. Thus
will God accomplish his fury, that is, do all that against them
which he had purposed to do. 2. They shall read their sin in their punishment;
for their slain men shall be among their idols, round about their altars,
as was threatened before, v. 5-7. There, where they had prostrated
themselves in honour of their idols, God will lay them dead, to their own
reproach and the reproach of their idols. They lived among them and shall die
among them. They had offered sweet odours to their idols, but there shall
their dead carcases send forth an offensive smell, as it were to atone for
that misplaced incense. 3. The country shall be all laid waste, as, before, the
cities (v. 6): I will make the land desolate. That fruitful,
pleasant, populous country, that has been as the garden of the Lord, the glory
of all lands, shall be desolate, more desolate than the wilderness towards
Diblath, v. 14. It is called Diblathaim (Num. xxxiii. 46; Jer.
xlviii. 22), that great and terrible wilderness which is described,
Deut. viii. 15, wherein were fiery serpents and scorpions. The land of
Canaan is at this day one of the most barren desolate countries in the world.
City and country are thus depopulated, that the altars may be laid waste
and made desolate, v. 6. Rather than their idolatrous altars shall
be left standing, both town and country shall be laid in ruins. Sin is a
desolating thing; therefore stand in awe and sin not.
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