Clarke Adam Clarke's Bible Commentary in 8 Volumes: Volume 7, The Book of the Prophet Ezekiel

1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5183-2148-1
Verlag: Krill Press
Format: EPUB
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E-Book, Englisch, 302 Seiten

Adam Clarke was a 19th century British Methodist best known for his scholarly commentaries on the Bible, a multi-volume, comprehensive work.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Clarke, Adam

Leseproben

INTRODUCTION
.................. EZEKIEL THE PROPHET WAS THE son of Buzi; and was of the sacerdotal race, as himself informs us, chap. 1:3, and was born at a place called Saresa, as the pseudo-Epiphanius tells us in his Lives of the Prophets. He was carried captive by Nebuchadnezzar into Babylon, with Jeconiah king of Judah, and three thousand other captives of the principal inhabitants, and was sent into Mesopotamia, where he received the prophetic gift; which is supposed, from an obscure expression in his prophecies, chap. 1:1, to have taken place in the thirtieth year of his age. He had then been in captivity five years; and continued to prophesy about twenty-two years, from A.M. 3409 to A.M. 3430, which answers to the fourteenth year after the destruction of Jerusalem. About three months and ten days after this conquest of Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar made another descent, and again besieged the city; and Jehoiachin, who succeeded his father Jehoiakim, was obliged to surrender. The victorious Chaldeans carried off all the inhabitants of note into Babylon, leaving none behind but the very poorest of the people. See 2 Kings 24:8-16. These captives were fixed at Tel-abib, and other places on the river Chebar, which flows into the east side of the Euphrates at Carchemish, nearly two hundred miles northward of Babylon. There, as Archbishop Newcome observes, he was present in body, though, in visionary representation, he was sometimes taken to Jerusalem. With this same learned writer I am of opinion that, the better to understand the propriety and force of these Divine revelations, the circumstances and dispositions of the Jews in their own country, and in their state of banishment, and the chief historical events of that period, should be stated and considered. Most writers on this Prophet have adopted this plan; and Archbishop Newcome’s abstract of this history is sufficient for every purpose. “Zedekiah, uncle to the captive king Jehoiachin, was advanced by Nebuchadnezzar to the kingdom of Judah; and the tributary king bound himself to subjection by a solemn oath in the name of Jehovah, Ezekiel 17:18. But notwithstanding the Divine judgments which had overwhelmed Judah during the reigns of his two immediate predecessors, he did evil in the sight of God, 2 Chronicles 36:12. Jerusalem became so idolatrous, impure, oppressive, and blood-thirsty, that God is represented as smiting his hands together through astonishment at such a scene of iniquity, chap. 22:13. The Prophet Jeremiah was insulted, rejected, and persecuted; false prophets abounded, whose language was, ‘Ye shall not serve the king of Babylon,’ Jeremiah 27:9. ‘I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon,’ Jeremiah 28:2. They even limited the restoration of the sacred vessels, and the return of Jehoiachin and his fellow captives, to so short an interval as two years, Jeremiah 28:3, 4. Zedekiah, blinded by his vices and these delusions, flattered by the embassies which he had received from Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, and Sidon, Jeremiah 27:3, and probably submitting with his accustomed timidity to the advice of evil counsellors, Jeremiah 28:25, rebelled against his powerful conquerors, and sent ambassadors into Egypt for assistance, Ezekiel 17:15. Hence arose a third invasion of the Chaldeans. Pharaoh-hophra, king of Egypt, did not advance to the assistance of Zedekiah till Jerusalem was besieged, Jeremiah 37:5. The Babylonians raised the siege with the design of distressing the Egyptians in their march, and of giving battle when advantage offered: but Pharaoh, with perfidy and pusillanimity, returned to his own country; and left the rebellious and perjured king of Judah to the rage of his enemies, Jeremiah 37:7. Before the siege was thus interrupted, Zedekiah endeavored to conciliate the favor of God by complying so far with the Mosaic law as to proclaim the sabbatical year a year of liberty to Hebrew servants, Exodus 21:2. But such was his impiety and so irresolute and fluctuating were his counsels, that, on the departure of the Chaldeans, he revoked his edict, Jeremiah 34:11; upon which God, by the Prophet Jeremiah, proclaimed liberty to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine; and commissioned these messengers of his wrath to avenge himself on his people, Jeremiah 34:17. When the siege was resumed, we have a farther instance of Zedekiah’s extreme infatuation; his rejection of Jeremiah’s counsel, given him by the authority of God, to preserve himself, his family, and his city, by a surrender to the Chaldeans. Thus, after a siege of eighteen months, Jerusalem was stormed and burnt, Jeremiah 39:1, 2; Zedekiah was taken in his flight; his sons were slain before his eyes; his eyes were afterwards put out, agreeably to the savage custom of eastern conquerors; and he was carried in chains to Babylon, Jeremiah 39:5-7. “The exiles on the river Chebar were far from being awakened to a devout acknowledgment of God’s justice by the punishment inflicted on them: they continued rebellious and idolatrous, Ezekiel 2:3; 20:39, they hearkened to false prophets and prophetesses, Ezekiel 13:2, 17; and they were so alienated that he refused to be inquired of by them. In vain did Ezekiel endeavor to attract and win them by the charms of his flowing and insinuating eloquence; in vain did he assume a more vehement tone to awe and alarm them by heightened scenes of calamity and terror. “We know few particulars concerning the Jews at Babylon. They enjoyed the instruction and example of the Prophet Daniel, who was carried away captive to that city in the third year of Jehoiakim, eight years before the captivity of Ezekiel, Daniel 1:1. Jeremiah cautioned them not to be deceived by their false prophets and diviners, Jeremiah 29:8, 9, 15, 21; against some of whom he denounced fearful judgments. He exhorted them to seek the peace of the city where they dwelt; to take wives, build houses, and plant gardens, till their restoration after seventy years, Jeremiah 29:5-7, 10. He also comforted them by a prediction of all the evil which God designed to inflict on Babylon: he assured them that none should remain in that proud city, but that it should be desolate for ever. The messenger, when he had read the book containing these denunciations, was commanded ‘to bind a stone to it, and cast it into the Euphrates, and say, Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil which I will bring on her,’ Jeremiah 51:59-64. It farther appears, by Divine hymns now extant, see Psalm 79., 102., 106., and 137., that God vouchsafed to inspire some of these Babylonian captives with his Holy Spirit. Nebuchadnezzar appointed Gedaliah ruler of the people that remained in Judea, 2 Kings 25:23; Jeremiah 40:5; and the scattered military commanders and their men, together with other Jews who had taken refuge in the neighboring countries, Jeremiah 40:7, 11, submitted to his government on the departure of the Chaldeans. The Jews employed themselves in gathering the fruits of the earth, Jeremiah 40:12, and a calm succeeded the tempest of war: but it was soon interrupted by the turbulence of this devoted people. Ishmael slew Gedaliah; and compelled the wretched remains of the Jews in Mizpah, the seat of Gedaliah’s government, to retire with him towards the country of the Ammonites, Jeremiah 41:10; a people hostile to the Chaldeans, Jeremiah 27:3. Johanan raised a force to revenge this mad and cruel act, Jeremiah 41:11-15; pursued Ishmael, overtook him, and recovered from him the people whom he had forced to follow him: but the assassin himself escaped with eight men to his place of refuge. The succeeding event furnishes another signal instance of human infatuation. Johanan, through fear of the Chaldeans, many of whom Ishmael had massacred, together with Gedaliah, Jeremiah 41:3, conceived a design of retreating to Egypt, Jeremiah 41:17; but before he executed this resolution, he formally consulted the Prophet Jeremiah. The prophet answered him in the name of Jehovah, Jeremiah xlii., that if Johanan and the people abode in Judea, God would ‘build them, and not pull them down: would plant them, and not pluck them up;’ but if they went to sojourn in Egypt, they should ‘die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence;’ and should become an ‘execration, and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach.’ Notwithstanding this awful assurance, and the many prophecies of Jeremiah, which the most calamitous events had lately verified, Johanan defied the living God and his prophet, and madly adhered to his determination. Not long after the destruction of Jerusalem, the siege of Tyre was undertaken by Nebuchadnezzar. It continued for the space of thirteen years; and many think that the conquest of the Sidonians, Philistines, Ammonites, Moabites, and Idumeans, coincided with this period, the Chaldean being able to make powerful detachments from his vast forces. See the prophecies, Jeremiah 27:2, 3; 48., 49., and Ezekiel 25:After the reduction of that famous city, Nebuchadnezzar made his descent on Egypt, which he subdued and ravaged throughout; and at this time Johanan and his Jewish colonists experienced the vengeance of the conqueror, together with the Egyptians. So widely did Nebuchadnezzar spread his victories and devastations, that, according to the learned chronologer Marsham, Lond. edit. 1672, fol. p. 556, s. 18, this might justly be called the era of the subversion of cities. — Omnis eo terrore AEgyptus, et Indi, Omnis Arabs, omnes vertebant terga Sabaei. VIRG. AEn....