Commentary on Ezekiel 1 part 9/19

you shall return to your ancestral land, and shall enjoy My accustomed providence, offering gratefully the firstfruits of the good things you receive, and seeing Me graciously receiving them.

For, He says, 'As a sweet-smelling savour will I accept you, when I bring you out from the peoples, and gather you from the countries in which you were scattered; and I will be sanctified among you before the eyes of the peoples.'

'And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I bring you into the land of Israel, into the land concerning which I lifted up My hand to give it to your fathers.'

The phrase 'I will be sanctified' He has set down in the sense of 'I will be glorified';

for when all behold both My benefactions and your gratitude, they will reap much profit, seeing the weakness of those who are called their gods, and beholding My power through the benefaction shown to you.

'...of you, in all your wickednesses which you have committed.'

For the acknowledgment of sin is the beginning of shame;

wherefore, when conscience pricks us, we are wont to smite our brows.

This too He has here signified.

For, He says, having departed from your former lawlessness, and having embraced My worship, and obtaining My providence, you shall come to a perception of your former acts of impiety, and shall smite your faces, reckoning with how great evils you had been defiled.

'And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have dealt thus with you, that My name may not be profaned, not according to your evil ways, nor according to your corrupt practices, O house of Israel, says Adonai the Lord.'

'And with this care,' He says, 'will I deem you worthy, wishing through the benefaction shown to you to turn also all other men to the knowledge of Me;'

'for neither are you worthy of lovingkindness or of pardon, having been reared amid lawless practices.'

For those who have been deemed worthy of His name, yet live unworthily of it, stir the tongues of the senseless to blasphemy against Him;

this also God said concerning the Jews;

for we are named after Christ;

wherefore it behooves us all, according to the apostolic ordinance, whether we eat, or drink, or whatever we do, to do all things to the glory of God, and to be inoffensive to Jews and Greeks and to the Church of God, to whom be glory unto the ages of ages.

And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

Thus also Symmachus rendered it;

for Jerusalem lies toward the south, and the midday, and the southwest of Babylon.

And since it lies not due south, but inclines a little toward the west, He has of necessity added also 'the southwest,' as having such a position.

and because of the hardness of their mind;

for such is the nature of the oak;

and in addition to these things, because the trees in the forest are not planted in order, but there is much disorder among them;

and moreover because the forest is a dwelling-place of wild beasts.

And all these things at that time one might find in Jerusalem.

And you shall say to the forest of Nageb:

Thus says Adonai the Lord:

Behold, I kindle a fire in you, and it shall devour in you every green tree and every dry tree;

the flame that is kindled shall not be quenched.

And since He called Jerusalem a forest, He fittingly names also the expedition of the enemies a fire, and those slain by them burning trees;

and by 'green tree' and 'dry tree' He signifies those who flourish in wealth and those who live in poverty.

Then He teaches that even the nations lying between will share in the calamity;

And in it shall be burned every face from the south to the north;

And all flesh shall know that I the Lord have kindled it, and it shall not be quenched.

But the phrase 'from the south (apeliotes)' Symmachus again rendered 'from the midday.'

And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

Since, He says, they suppose the things spoken to be merely a parable and not truth, show them plainly that the forest of Nageb, that is, the southern and the meridional, this is Jerusalem.

And you shall say to the land of Israel:

Thus says Adonai the Lord: Behold, I am against you, and I will draw My dagger out of its sheath, and I will utterly destroy from you the unrighteous and the lawless.

By 'sheath,' that is, the case of the dagger, He names His longsuffering, upon the ceasing of which the punishment is thenceforth brought, bared, against those who deserve it.

And, showing also the justice of the punishment, He has well added, 'I will utterly destroy from you the unrighteous and the lawless.' Then He teaches also the things that would befall the other nations lying in the midst at that time.

'In return for which,' He says, 'I will utterly destroy from you the unrighteous and the lawless, so shall My dagger go forth out of its sheath, and it shall no longer turn back.'

'For on account of the transgressions in you,' He says, 'bringing forth the expedition of the Chaldeans as a kind of dagger from its case, I will deliver to the same punishment also those lying between you and the Chaldeans, and I will cause all to know by experience that I have authority over all things, and that I have justly enveloped them too in this calamity.'

And you, son of man, groan with the breaking of your loins, and in pangs you shall groan before their eyes.

Let your compassion, He says, follow upon the things spoken, and teach them by the things over which you groan that the things spoken are true.

And it shall be, if they say to you:

'For what cause do you groan?' then you shall say, 'For the tidings, because it is coming; and every heart shall be broken, and all hands shall be enfeebled, and every spirit shall faint, and all flesh, and all thighs shall be defiled with moisture;'

'behold, it is coming, and it shall be, says Adonai the Lord.'

When you groan, He says, they will of necessity ask, wishing to learn the cause of your suffering;

so to those who ask, answer: 'Foreseeing the evils that are to come, and the grievous tidings, and the dread thereupon coming upon all, I groan and lament the calamities of my kinsfolk.'

And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

Son of man, prophesy, and you shall say:

Thus says Adonai the Lord: Say to the sword:

'Sword, be sharpened, and be enraged;'

'that you may slay victims, be sharpened; that you may become bright, ready for slaughter, slay, bring to naught, thrust aside every tree.'

By 'sword' He again figuratively calls the punishment brought through the Babylonians both upon the Jews and upon the other nations lying between.

'I will make My arrows drunk with blood, and My sword shall devour flesh.' For in these words too, by 'sword' and 'arrows' He designated the punitive operation, exacting the deserved penalties from those who are liable.

'to give it into the hands of those who pierce through.'

'For this sword,' He says, 'having been made ready, He put into the hands of those fit for chastising;'

and He signifies the Chaldeans.

Such also is that which was spoken by God through Isaiah against the Babylonian, or rather the Assyrian:

'Shall the axe boast itself apart from him that hews with it? or shall the saw be exalted apart from him that draws it? likewise if one should lift a rod, or a piece of wood.' And again, 'Woe to the Assyrians, the rod of My wrath and of My anger is in their hands.' The rod of chastisement, then, and the axe, and the saw—instruments that consume plants—which He there named, here He has called a sword, whetted indeed and made bright by the punishment of those chastised, and, as it were, put into the hands of the Babylonians as into those of certain executioners.

And this punishment He above also called a fire, wishing by the many appellations to strike terror, and to bring to repentance those who cleave to impiety.

Cry out and wail, son of man, for it has come upon the people, this, upon all the leaders of Israel; those who sojourn with Me have become to the sword together with My people.

What can rival this goodness? He punishes justly, and yet bids the prophet lament;

for He does not punish willingly, but constrained by the lawlessness of the people.

And in the manner of a woman He charges the prophet to marvel, that not the people alone, but also their rulers were delivered to the sword, and—what is most grievous of all—'Those who sojourn with Me,' He says, 'have become to the sword together with My people.' For the priests, having shared with the people in lawlessness, shared also in the punishment.

For these He named 'those who sojourn,' inasmuch as they pass their time within, in the divine temple, and have been entrusted with the priestly ministrations.

For no small benefit will come through the punishment to those who are left behind; for this shall be established as the beginning of their justification.

For this shall be established as the beginning of their justification.

For even if now the tribe that is separated from the other nations be cast off (and by this he signifies the whole Jewish people), yet it shall exist again, and shall obtain a recalling.

And you, son of man, prophesy, and clap hand upon hand, and double the sword; the third sword is the sword of the slain, the great sword of the slain.

He calls 'third sword' the campaign that came against Jerusalem in the ninth year of the reign of Zedekiah.

But in number it is the fourth.

Yet since the one that came upon Jechoniah had happened without bloodshed (for the king went out of his own accord to Nebuchadnezzar together with his mother, and his wife, and his princes, and thus was led away captive to Babylon), he fittingly calls the one that came upon Zedekiah the third sword, reckoning the engagements and the pitched battles, but not simply the incursions.

The third sword is the great one, of the slain. Then he teaches why exactly he is commanded to clap his hands.

And you shall throw them into consternation, that their heart may be broken, and that the fainting ones may be multiplied at every gate of theirs.

They are given over to the slaughters of the sword.

Do and say, he says, the things able to terrify them, that their hearts may be broken — that is to say, that the stubbornness of their heart may be softened and, as it were, crushed by the foretelling of the grievous things.

And it is enough to strike them with terror, that they shall be given over to slaughter, and that all the gates shall be full of the slain.

Then by a certain personification he signifies the permission granted by him.

'Well done, it has become sharp for slaughter; it is well made for flashing; pass through like lightning!'

(v. 10) 'Be sharpened on the right and on the left, wherever your face may be roused.'

The sword, he says, is double-edged, whetted on both sides;

sharpened exceedingly to a keen edge, casting forth flashes like lightning.

For you shall have me too as a fellow-worker.

For this he disclosed by adding:

And I too will clap my hand upon hand, and will let loose my wrath; I the Lord have spoken to you.

I know, O Lord, that a man's way is not his own, nor shall a man go and direct his own way — teaching that none of such things comes to pass apart from the working or the permission from above;

for he works the things that are fitting, but permits the rest in another mode of dispensation, both yielding to the free will of men, and in this manner exacting penalties for their sins.

And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

And you, son of man, appoint for yourself two ways, for the sword of the king of Babylon to enter in;

from one country the two beginnings shall come forth; prepare a hand marking at the beginning of the way of each city.

You shall appoint a hand marking at the beginning of the way, for the sword to enter in against Rabbath of the sons of Ammon, and against Judah in Jerusalem.

As in a drawing, he says, sketch out one way dividing in two, the one running straight toward Jerusalem, the other extending to Rabbath of the sons of Ammon;

for since Nebuchadnezzar, setting out from Babylon, campaigned both against Judaea and against the Ammonites, God foretells these things through the prophet.

And he said 'Rabbath of the sons of Ammon,' since there is also another of the same name, that of Amman;

and this city of Amman some say is the one now called Philadelphia in Arabia, which even to this day is named Amman in the local tongue.

For coming upon the way that divides in two, he says — the one branch of which leads into Judaea, the other into Rabbath — he will use divination by rods, and likewise inspection of the entrails of victims, wishing to learn against which he must first make his campaign;

and while these things are being done by him, he says:

At his right hand the divination fell upon Jerusalem, to cast up a rampart, and to open the mouth in shouting, and to raise the voice with a cry of the trumpet, to throw up ramparts against her gates, and to cast up a mound, and to build siege-engines.

It is fitting to know that the demons know none of the things to come;

but conjecturing from present circumstances, they attempt to foretell;

and there are times when they hit the mark straight, but often they also miss entirely.

And this one may see not only from the facts, but may also be taught from the divine Scripture.

For having declared through Zedekiah the false prophet the victory of Ahab, they fell away from the truth;

for he not only was defeated when he drew up in battle, but was even slain.

And here too, knowing the law given to Israel, and seeing the manner of life outside these ordinances, and moreover giving heed to the prophetic predictions, they were taught the divine indignation from every side;

this then they signified beforehand to the impious king by means of the divinations, that he must first campaign against Jerusalem, and use palisades and mounds, and all the other engines of war.

But while these things are being done by him, he says, the besieged despise them — not because they are emboldened by virtue, but because they are sick with insensibility.

And he divining a divination before them, as though keeping seven-day feasts of weeks for them.

Thus, he says, are they disposed, as though the divinations were signifying good things for them;

for this he hinted at by the phrase 'before them,' that is, as though the divinations had come to pass on their behalf, and as though celebrating a week of weeks they thus spend their time;

and this was one of the three greatest feasts;

but the outcome, he says, will not follow their opinions.

...to be captured. For the remembrance of their transgression will be the cause of their capture.

You, he says, became the cause both of the enemies' boldness and of the demons' truthfulness;

for the wickedness of your practices, and the excess of your impiety, both stripped you of my grace, and caused you to fall under the enemies — who, making their incursions against you by means of divination, see the outcomes following the divinations;

since therefore you became procurers of their truthfulness as well, you shall fittingly be captured, and be given over to punishment.

From here he passes over to the rulers, both the king and the priests, and says:

And you, profane, lawless one, ruler of Israel, whose day has come at the season of iniquity's end;

thus says Adonai the Lord:

Take away the mitre, and put off the crown; this shall not be such as it was.

You indeed, he says, O priest, on account of your transgression have been stripped of the priestly mitre;

and you, O king, having lived in impiety, have deprived yourself of the crown.

Let each rule therefore lay aside its own symbols;

for this siege, he says, is not like those of old;

for the kingdom belonging to you has received its end.

You humbled, he says, the lofty, and exalted the lowly by injustice. For using injustice as your ally, you humbled the lofty on account of virtue, and by your words raised up the lowly on account of injustice, corrupting what is just.

Injustice, injustice will I make it.

For this reason, he says, I will exact from you the penalties of this injustice.

Neither shall this be such as it was, until he come to whom it belongs, and I will give it over to him. For than the former sieges, he says, this one is more grievous;

yet, he says, I will not utterly quench the spark of the royal lineage, until he come to whom it belongs and to whom it is fitting, and to him I will hand over the kingdom.

This also the blessed Paul says:

Until the seed should come to whom it had been promised, ordained through angels by the hand of a Mediator. And Jacob the patriarch, blessing Judah, said:

Neither shall this be such as it was, until he come to whom it belongs, and I will give it over to him. For even if Jerusalem endured siege and sacking by Nebuchadnezzar, yet it was not such as that under the Romans after the saving Cross.

For after the former captivity, when seventy years had passed, it was rebuilt again, and recovered its former prosperity;

but after the saving Cross it endured the final desolation.

But the Jews themselves do not even dare to set foot within those borders, being barred by law.

'Nor shall this be such' — that is to say, of the kind that is to come.

'For I will preserve the race until He come to whom it belongs, and I will deliver it to Him.' For when, He says, that One shall appear, to whom the promises pertain, then, having handed over the kingdom to Him, I will consign these to utter destruction.

From here he turns the prophecy against the Ammonites; for being disposed with hatred toward the Jews, they rejoiced over their calamities.

For being hatefully disposed toward the Jews, they took delight in these people's misfortunes.

'And you, son of man, prophesy and say:'

'Thus says Adonai the Lord to the sons of Ammon, and concerning their reproach:'

'A sword, a sword drawn for slaughter, and drawn for consummation;'

'be roused, that you may flash in your vain vision and in your divining of falsehoods.'

But it was not the sword that divined, rather those who wielded it.

He called the divination and the vision false, as being alien to the truth.

For even if at that time it foretold true things, yet it was because the divine prophets were proclaiming beforehand the divine decree, and what it had heard from them it seemed to announce in advance.

For the wicked demons, living in league with malice, conveyed to Nebuchadnezzar through divinations the words of the prophets, while to the Jews through the false prophets they proclaimed the contrary, promising them peace and the flight of their enemies;

so that, disobeying and contradicting God, and being stripped of their accustomed forethought, they might be delivered by justice into the hands of their enemies, and the demons' oracles might be shown to be true.

Thus, having commanded the sword to be laid upon the necks of those who had lived lawlessly and wickedly, as though their limit and their end had arrived, He gives the charge, saying:

'Return to your sheath; do not stay in this place where you were begotten; in your own land will I judge you.'

But you, He says, O Babylonians, whom I name a sword, who have done these things which I commanded, I will exact from you the penalty for your impiety not here, but in your own land.

'And I will pour out My wrath upon you; in the fire of My anger will I breathe upon you.'

By these words He showed the ease of the divine power.

For just as, He says, it is easy to breathe, so it is a light and very simple matter to hand you over to every kind of punishment.

'And I will deliver you into the hands of barbarous men who devise destruction.'

(v. 32) 'In the fire you shall be for devouring;'

'your blood shall be in the midst of your land;'

'there shall be no remembrance of you, for I the Lord have spoken.'

By these words He intimated the uprising of the Medes and Persians against Babylon, who brought against its walls every kind of siege-engine, and having entered within the city by night during a feast, subdued the whole city, burned down the greater part of it, and filled all the houses and streets with blood.

'And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:'

'Will you judge the city of bloods? And will you set before her all her iniquities? and you shall say, Thus says Adonai the Lord.'

He turned the discourse again to Jerusalem, and charges the prophet, after the manner of a judge, to convict the lawless deeds she has dared to commit;

he calls her a city of bloods, as having wrought many unjust slaughters;

wherefore, applying the same appellations again, he cries out, saying:

'O city that sheds blood in the midst of herself, that her time may come, and that makes devices against herself, to defile herself.'

You, He says, draw calamities upon yourself, O city, having employed evil designs and put them into deed, and through them raging madly, and being filled with unjust bloodshed;

and by 'time' he named the calamity.

'In your bloods which you have shed you have fallen, and in your devices which you have made you were defiled, and you have brought your days near, and have brought on the time of your years.'

For when iniquity grows greater, it cuts short the term measured out according to the divine long-suffering;

this one may see to have happened also in the case of Noah;

for having granted a term of a hundred and twenty years to the men of that time for repentance, and seeing impiety increasing, He shortened the term, and in the hundredth year He brought upon them the punishment by the flood;

this too He intimated here, saying:

'And you have brought your days near, and have brought on the time of your years.' Then He recounts the fruits of lawlessness.

For this cause, He says, I will make you an object of malicious joy and a laughingstock to all your neighbors and those bordering upon you, and indeed also to those who dwell far off.

'And they shall mock you, and shall cry out against you: Unclean is she who was renowned, and abounding in her iniquities.' For, taking pleasure in your evils, they shall name you unclean and lawless, and notorious in wickedness.

Then He enumerates the kinds of wickedness.

'They were mingled together in you, that they might shed blood.'

He began the accusation from the rulers, since subjects follow their rulers;

for when the head is in an evil condition, the body must needs share in its infirmity;

he says therefore that they abstained from nothing pertaining to their kindred, but even confounded the rights of kinship, working unjust slaughters.

'Father and mother, He says, they reviled in you.'

This too is one of the things forbidden by the law.

'And toward the sojourner, He says, they behaved with injustice in you.' This too the law had forbidden, speaking thus:

'And you shall not mistreat a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.' From what you yourselves suffered, He says, learn kindness;

but they transgressed even this law without fear.

'The orphan and the widow they oppressed in you.' But the good God legislates the very opposite;

'For judge, He says, the orphan, and do justice to the widow.' And in the law:

'You shall not glean your vineyard afterward, He says, and it shall be for the orphan, and for the widow, and for the sojourner.' But these people not only imparted no good thing to them, but even dealt evilly with them.

And things more grievous than this:

'And My holy things they despised, and My Sabbaths they profaned in you.'

For My laws, He says, they trampled, and the day honored with rest they outraged with unlawful labor.

And things yet more impious than these:

'Robber men were in you, that they might shed blood;'

'upon the mountains they ate in you.'

For you had dwelling within you both those who lived in lawlessness, being murderers and defiled with slaughter, and those who upon the mountains honored the demons and reveled in the idolatrous precincts. 'And unholy things, He says, they did in the midst of you.' Then He recounts each of these things.

'And the shame of a father they uncovered in you, and her who was set apart in her uncleanness they humbled in you.'

With stepmothers, He says, they consorted;

for this He named 'the uncovering of a father's shame';

for so He also called it in the law.

'For the nakedness of your father's wife, He says, you shall not uncover, for it is your father's nakedness.' For being most lecherous, He says, and exceedingly licentious, they did not even abstain from women enduring the affliction of their issue;

which is not only unlawful, but also exceedingly unclean.

Then He continues, accusing them of lewdness.

'Each one acted lawlessly with his neighbor's wife, and each one defiled his daughter-in-law in impiety.'

And this is an intensification of lawlessness;

For it is not the same thing to have intercourse with another man's wife as it is to plot against one's own son's marriage;

but as adultery is graver than fornication, so union with one's daughter-in-law is more impious than adultery.

'And each one humbled his sister, his father's daughter, in you.' Here too he clearly showed the excess of the abomination, by indicating that man and woman are the offspring of one father.

From there he proceeds to the accusation of covetousness.

'They persisted,' he says, 'in selling off justice, and gave up innocent lives for money';

then at the last he places, as a kind of crowning point, the sum of their evils.

'They took usury and interest in you.' Now even if this were not placed last as the more grievous offence, yet since it was nonetheless ranked together with the things already mentioned, it was sufficient to strike terror into those who practise it and to persuade them to flee this form of insatiable greed, as being coupled with the exceedingly impious and lawless.

For it was numbered together with murderers and idolaters, and with the most lustful and dissolute.

Having thus recounted the forms of wickedness, he next teaches also the punishment that is to come: 'And I will bring your wickedness to full completion, upon those in oppression;'

'but me you have forgotten,' says the Lord Adonai.

(13, 14.) 'Behold therefore I will strike my hand against my hand over the things you have brought to completion, and the things you have done, and over your bloodshed that has come to pass in your midst.'

'Since you refused,' he says, 'to keep remembrance of me and of my laws, I will bring upon you such dreadful things that your hands shall grow slack and your heart, filled with utter confusion, shall despair of salvation.'

Then, the infallibility of what has been spoken:

'I the Lord have spoken, and I will do it.' 'The dignity of him who has spoken,' he says, 'confirms what has been said;'

for it is enough for you, having learned who it is that has uttered them, to believe what has been spoken.

'And I will scatter you among the nations, and I will disperse you throughout the lands.'

'And your uncleanness shall be removed from you;'

(16.) 'And I will take my inheritance in you before the eyes of the nations, because I am the Lord.'

'For when,' he says, 'you become captives and sojourners, then, taught by experience, you shall learn to be sober-minded; and having ceased from your former lawlessness, you shall learn that I am your God and Lord, and you shall be called my inheritance, and through you the nations among whom you dwell shall learn my worth and power.'

And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

'Son of man, behold, the house of Israel has become for me all mixed together with copper, and tin, and iron, and lead; in the midst of a furnace they are mingled with silver.'

'This people, O prophet,' he says, 'has become like adulterated silver, which has much admixture of copper, and iron, and tin, and lead.'

This too God says through Jeremiah the prophet:

'Call them rejected silver, for the Lord God has rejected them.' And through the materials mentioned he indicated the manifold forms of their wickedness;

and this again it is possible to learn through Jeremiah the prophet;

for making this same accusation against the Jews, he too said:

'The bellows has failed of its fire, the lead has failed; in vain does the silversmith work his silver;'

'their wickednesses have not been melted away.' Whereupon he added:

'Call them rejected silver, for the Lord God has rejected them.' By the 'bellows' he named the divine energy;