以西結書註釋 第 1 章 第 6/19 段

Having thus struck them with the ignobility of Canaan, he recounts in detail both their lawlessness and his own benefaction.

'Your navel was not cut,' he says.

That is: You still draw the Egyptian nourishment.

And he calls her birth the exodus from Egypt.

The sons of physicians say that the embryo in the womb has the navel as a kind of root, and through it is nourished and grows;

since, therefore, the midwives are wont to cut off the protruding part of the infant's navel, he says figuratively, by way of metaphor:

'Your navel was not cut off' — instead of: Even to this day you draw from the maternal womb, that is, from Egypt, the nourishment of impiety.

And you were not washed in water for salvation. This too, perhaps, is by metaphor from infants, who after birth are washed and cleansed and freed from the maternal blood.

'You then,' he says, 'were not freed from these things, but even to this day you bear the marks of the maternal womb.'

Nor were you salted with salt, and you were not wrapped in swaddling-clothes. 'You did not receive,' he says, 'the salt of instruction, nor the swaddling-clothes brought to you through the Law' — which are applied to infants, so that if any of the limbs be turned aside from straightness during the birth-pangs, it may be set straight and receive its proper form.

Nor did my eye spare you, to do to you one of all these things, to suffer anything for your sake;

and you were cast out upon the face of the plain in the crookedness of your soul, in the day you were born.

For immediately, he says, and at once upon being born, and delivered from Egypt, and taught the equity of the Law by me, you turned aside, ever loving the crooked and perverse things.

For here by 'plain' he designated equity.

'But I,' he says, 'in Egypt gave you no law, nor the salt of the commandments, nor the circumcision of the navel, nor the setting-straight of the limbs through the swaddling-clothes;

but after the deliverance from there, I deemed you worthy of every kind of care.

I passed by you, and saw you defiled in your blood;

and I said to you, 'In your blood live'; and I said to you:

'Be multiplied blamelessly, as the shoot of the field I have made you.'

For having beheld you defiled with the blood of idolatry, and welcoming the blood of the sacrifices, I permitted you to sacrifice — not to idols, but to me.

For this is what He indicated when He said:

'Multiply innocently'; that is, not lawlessly but lawfully;

not sacrificing to demons, but to God;

for if you do this, you shall sprout like a flourishing field, and you shall be adorned with fruits of every kind.

'And you were multiplied and made great, and you entered into cities of cities.' The work, He says, followed upon My blessing;

'As the sunrise of the field have I appointed you';

and you, having received the blessing, gained both multitude and greatness;

you were shown forth as notable and illustrious, and you held the greatest of cities under your hand.

Having thus briefly shown her origin and her increase, He again expounds her growth in detail.

'Your breasts,' He says, 'were made erect, and your hair grew.' He says all these things figuratively, by a metaphor drawn from children, showing through them the greater disposition.

By 'breasts' He calls the discernment of the rational faculty (for the breasts cover over the heart), and by 'hair' the adornment that comes from maturity.

'But you,' He says, 'were naked and unseemly.' For you had not yet received the covering of the Law. (8)

'And I passed through you and saw you;

and behold, your time was the time of those who dissolve;

and I spread My wings over you, and covered your unseemliness, and swore to you, and entered into covenant with you, says Adonai the Lord.'

For having seen you now fit to receive fellowship with Me through the Law, I stretched out, as it were certain wings, the teaching of the saving commandments, and covered over the nakedness of lawlessness;

and upon the union there followed also a dowry-contract.

'For I entered,' He says, 'into covenant with you.' And since an oath too had to be inserted into the contract, I did not decline to do even this;

but though I was fully trustworthy and promising by My word alone, I added an oath to the word as well.

This is easy to learn for anyone who wishes to consult the writings of the Law;

for he will find, even in the song of the blessed Moses, the very God of all things saying:

'I will lift up My hand to heaven, and I will swear by My right hand, and I will say:

I live forever.' 'And you became Mine,' He says.

That is: You were joined to Me, and the marriage was completed.

'And I washed you in water, and rinsed away your blood, and anointed you with oil.'

'And I clothed you with embroidered garments, and put on you sandals of hyacinth, and girded you with fine linen, and wrapped you in hair-work.'

He went through His particular benefactions one by one;

'for first,' He says, 'I washed you with the water of teaching, and I brought purifications and sprinklings.'

'Then I anointed you with oil.' Here He goes on to expound the forms of the priesthood.

For the priests were anointed with the holy oil;

and they themselves also put on the linen and hyacinth vestments.

He hints too at the wealth, both bodily and spiritual, that came to this very people through His providential care.

'And I wrapped you in hair-work.' This is a braid made from hair, placed upon the heads of women.

Figuratively, then, He indicated through His manifold care the comeliness bestowed upon them.

He also hints, as I think, at the tabernacle constructed of hairy skins, in which the sacrifices for sin were offered, and those for consecration, and divine revelations took place from the mercy-seat, when God conversed with His high priest.

'And I adorned you with adornment, and put bracelets about your hands, and a necklace upon your neck.'

'And I put a ring upon your nostril, and rings upon your ears, and a crown of boasting upon your head.'

Each of these ought to be understood figuratively.

The bracelets placed about the hands signify practical virtue;

and that placed upon the neck, the yoke of the Law;

and the ring set in the nostril, the overthrow of wickedness through the commandments, applied like a bridle, by a metaphor from bulls, which receive the iron bridle in their nostrils and by it are led about here and there.

That He also likened their insolence to oxen, the prophet Hosea is witness, speaking in the person of God:

'As a heifer stung to frenzy, Ephraim was frenzied.' And the earrings brought to the ears He calls the good teaching, which brings adornment to the hearing through obedience;

and the crown set upon the head, the good repute that comes from piety, from lawfulness, and from all good things.

'And you were adorned with gold and silver, and your wrappings were of fine linen, and hair-work, and embroidered stuff.'

Each of these too may be understood in this way;

and this too ought to be added to what has been said: that through these things He hints not at spiritual matters only, but also signifies bodily prosperity.

For immediately upon coming out of Egypt they took from the Egyptians vessels of silver and gold, and despoiled the Egyptians, demanding a just wage for their forced labor.

And indeed they also plundered all the wealth of the nations dwelling in Palestine.

'Fine flour, and honey, and oil you ate.' You enjoyed, He says, all the good things of the earth.

'And you became exceedingly, exceedingly beautiful.'

You possessed the comeliness that comes from lawfulness, by fulfilling the Law.

'And you were guided into a kingdom.' You so increased, He says, as to become fearful to all your neighbors, and to enjoy royal honor.

For this is what He hinted at by the words He added: (14)

'And a name went forth for you among the nations, in your beauty.'

For you became notable and much-spoken-of everywhere.

Then He states the cause of this as well:

'And you trusted in your beauty.'

This is the beginning of evils: to forsake the divine hope, and to pride oneself on one's own achievements.

'And you played the harlot upon your name, and poured out your fornication upon every passer-by;

it became his, and it shall not be.' Having become most renowned, He says, and thinking greatly of yourself because of it, you departed from Me, and ran aground upon the utmost licentiousness, receiving not one lover, nor two, but everyone who wished to pass by you;

and you consorted with each one, unlawfully accepting intercourse.

For this is what He indicated when He said:

'It became his, and it shall not be'; that is, You were joined to others, being in no way suited to them;

for you had dedicated yourself to Me from the beginning.

By 'fornication' here He calls idolatry;

and by 'every passer-by,' the various schemes of the demons.

'And you took of your garments, and made for yourself sewn idols, and played the harlot with them, and you shall not enter into things that shall not be, nor shall come to pass.'

'Novel,' He says, 'and strange are your practices of idolatry.'

For you did not merely emulate the evils of others, but you yourself also devised others, fashioning images of idols out of garments, and proclaiming them gods, and this though I had forbidden you such things through the Law.

And you took the vessels of your boasting from My silver and from My gold, which I had given you, and you made for yourself male images, and you committed fornication with them.

Taking the silver and the gold from Me, He says, you fashion gods out of My gifts, and these you preferred to the worship of Me.

He called them 'male images' because he figuratively names idolatry as fornication.

And you took, He says, your embroidered garment and clothed them, and set My oil and My incense before their face.

The good things, He says, which you received from Me, these you offered to those adulterous demons—adorning some of them and decking them out in varied splendour, while for others you performed sacrifices and drink-offerings.

And it came to pass, says the Lord Adonai.

(20) And you took your sons and your daughters, whom you had borne, and you sacrificed them to them for consumption.

Then the rebuke follows in the manner of irony.

'As though your fornications were a small matter'—from which it is plain and altogether clear that here he calls the service of the idols 'fornication.'

And you slew, He says, your children and gave them up in offering them as an expiation to them.

This is beyond all your fornication and your abominations.

For of all things this is truly the most loathsome and most defiled: the unjust slaughter of children, which those maddened people performed as an act of averting evil, foolishly imagining, as they supposed, that they were thereby contriving deliverance from ills for themselves.

And you did not remember the days of your infancy, when you were naked and unseemly and weltering in your blood, and yet you lived.

You did not take to mind, He says, the former things—how I, finding you naked and bereft of all providence and stained crimson with idolatrous blood, took you and washed you clean, and caused you to enjoy life and every care.

And it came to pass, after all your iniquities—Woe, woe to you, says the Lord Adonai.

As the fruit of this thankless disposition, He says, you reap lamentation and mourning.

Then he sets forth her impiety at greater length.

And you built for yourself a house of harlotry, and you made for yourself a display-place in every open square.

And at the head of every road you built your brothels, and you ruined your beauty, and you spread your legs for every passer-by.

These things one might learn more clearly both from the history of the Judges and from the record of the Kingdoms;

for everywhere, both in the houses and in the marketplaces, they set up the images of the idols;

and they filled the very bodies of men with this impiety, and even in the very temple of God they built altars to the accursed demons, and set up figures and likenesses of demons.

Convicting the excess of such fornication, he shows her laid out simply for all who wished to consort with her—in that she filled with idols the roads and the open squares and the marketplaces, and marred the beauty of true religion, and received every passer-by into such wantonness, now worshipping the gods of the Egyptians, now those of the Assyrians and Chaldeans.

And teaching this, he added:

And you multiplied your fornication.

(29) And you committed fornication with the sons of Egypt, your neighbours, the men of great flesh, and in many ways you committed fornication so as to provoke Me to anger.

Again figuratively he named 'men of great flesh' those who clung with excess to the service of the idols.

For these worshipped he-goats and oxen and sheep, and dogs and apes, and crocodiles and ibises and hawks.

And behold, I will stretch out My hand against you, and I will remove your ordinances, and I will deliver you into the souls of those who hate you, the daughters of the foreigners who turn aside from your way, in which you acted impiously.

I will stir up My hand for chastisement, He says, and I will strip you of the splendour of the Law, and make you an object of gloating to your enemies, and cause the neighbouring cities to laugh at you—cities that did not emulate the excess of your impiety.

And you committed fornication with the sons of Assur, He says, and not even so were you satisfied; and you committed fornication, and were not filled.

And you multiplied your acts of fornication toward the land of Canaan, and toward the Chaldeans, and not even by these were you satisfied.

Each nation, He says, served its own idols;

but you, having worshipped the gods of all, and having embraced the service of the idols everywhere, have not to this very day taken your fill of impiety.

By what remedy shall I effect the cleansing of your foul sores? For you have dared the deeds of a woman who has scraped away all shame from her brow, and who pursues her wantonness shamelessly and openly.

And you committed fornication threefold in your daughters. The transgression of your subject cities, He says, is threefold in you; and she who ought to have become the teacher of true religion, this one proved to be the archetype of all impiety.

In that you built, He says, your brothel at the head of every road, and made your display-place in every open square, and did not become like a harlot gathering hire.

For neither did the need of necessities lead you to this wantonness;

for while enjoying all good things and revelling in My gifts, you offered to those the things which were given to you by Me.

For the woman, He says, even she who commits adultery under her husband with strangers, is like you—she who takes hire from her own husband and gives hire to all who commit fornication with her.

And going through the same at greater length, so as clearly to expose the absurdity:

For to all harlots, He says, hire is given; but you gave hire to all your lovers, and burdened them so that they should come to you round about in your fornication.

For no one ever received any good thing from the avenging demons;

but those who choose to serve them, offering to them the things bestowed by God, draw upon themselves the mastery of these demons.

For this he hinted at when he said:

And there was in you something perverse beyond other women in your fornication, and after you they shall not commit fornication;

for in that you gave hire and hire was not given to you, there came to be in you what is perverse.

For you resemble, He says, wanton women who are laid out for all in fellowship with their many lovers;

but in offering hire and not receiving it, you continually do the opposite of those women;

wherefore both those before you and those after you, in this species of wantonness, you have surpassed.

Having thus laid bare her transgression, from her deeds he imposes the appellation, and says:

Thus says the Lord Adonai:

Because you poured out your copper, and your shame shall be uncovered in your fornication toward your lovers, and toward all the devices of your lawless deeds, and in the blood of your children whom you gave to them.

Coinage that is spurious and has taken in an admixture of other substances is called 'debased-with-copper.'

Since therefore, He says, you mixed into My laws no small transgression, but poured out much copper, so that the nature of the gold no longer even appears, but your whole coinage is seen to be of copper—I will henceforth strip you of My providence, and fill you with shame, exacting from you the penalties of your manifold transgression, and especially of the unjust slaughter of your children, which you offered to the murderous demons.

you emulated the impiety of the Chaldeans and Assyrians, of the Canaanites and Egyptians;

these I will use as instruments against you, bringing upon you the punishments you deserve;

and I will join to your lovers also those who are hated by you, so that both these and those may behold your great transgression.

For I will uncover, He says, your wickednesses before them, and they shall see all your shame. (38)

And I will judge you with the judgment of adulteresses and of those who shed blood, and I will set you in the blood of My wrath and jealousy.

For you shall pay the penalties of murderous and adulterous women;

And I will deliver you into their hands, and they shall raze your brothel.

That is, the precincts of the demons.

And they shall pull down your platform. By these words he hinted at the divine temple;

for their base and foundation and pedestal was the worship performed in that place.

And they shall strip off your garments, and take the vessels of your boasting, and leave you naked and unseemly. By these words he signified the sacking and the enslavement.

And they shall bring up crowds against you, and stone you with stones, and slay you with their swords;

and they shall burn your houses with fire, and execute judgments upon you in the sight of many women.

These things came about at the time of the captivity;

but figuratively he went through them as concerning an adulterous woman being stoned, and slaughtered, and set on fire.

For this reason, continuing in the figure of speech, he added:

'And they shall execute judgments upon thee in the sight of many women.' By 'women' he does not mean women in the literal sense, but figuratively he so names the cities; for since she too is a city, he brings her, as though a woman, into the court of judgment.

Then he hints at the benefit that comes from the punishment.

'And I will turn thee away from harlotry, and thou shalt no more give hire.' For being stripped of thy prosperity, and delivered over to captivity, thou shalt no longer have the resources for that evil supply; and want shall become for thee the occasion of benefit.

'And I will loose my fury upon thee, and my jealousy shall be removed from thee, and I will rest, and will be no more troubled.'

Again figuratively, as in the case of a husband jealous over his wife's adultery, he spoke these things also.

'For by employing punishment,' he says, 'I will put a stop to thy licentiousness, and I will be freed from my concern over thee;'

'for no longer shall thy lovers stir me to jealousy.'

'And this punishment I will bring upon thee:'

'Because thou didst not remember the day of thy infancy, and didst grieve me in all these things;'

'therefore behold, I also have recompensed thy ways upon thy head, saith the Lord Adonai.'

'Thou,' he says, 'didst draw upon thyself the onset of these evils, being unwilling to take to mind what manner of thing thou wast made from what thou hadst been, and how, though thou wast worthless and small and altogether obscure, I rendered thee renowned and exceedingly conspicuous.'

'And thus I have not dealt with thee according to all thy impiety, in all thy transgressions.' 'Thou dost endure,' he says, 'nothing worthy of thy sins;'

'for small is the punishment when compared with the impiety.'

'These are all the things which I spoke against thee in a proverb, saying:'

'As is the mother, so is the daughter.'

'The current proverb suits thee,' he says, 'namely, that the daughter resembles the mother;'

and above he named her mother the Hittite.

'Thou art the daughter of thy mother, who thrust away her husband and her children; and the sister of thy sisters, who thrust away their husband and their children.'

For God had of old been named as theirs also, before they received the ruin of idolatry;

wherefore he said that they too thrust away both their husband and their children, having denied God and having sacrificed their children to the demons.

Then he makes the discourse plainer:

'Your mother was a Hittite, and your father an Amorite.'

(40) 'Thine elder sister is Samaria, she and her daughters, who dwell at thy left hand; and thy younger sister, who dwells at thy right hand, is Sodom and her daughters.'

He calls Samaria the elder sister, naming her so not according to time, but according to her teaching of impiety;

for according to time, Sodom is the elder;

but since she first emulated the practices of Samaria, and then by degrees extended her lawlessness until she came to be likened even to Sodom.

And he addresses Sodom as the younger sister, as having later embraced kinship with her;

for he called the fellowship in impiety a kinship.

And the phrase 'at the right hand and at the left hand' he has set down on account of the position of the places;

and Samaria is at the left hand, being situated more to the north.

And he names as daughters both of the one and of the other the cities and villages subject to them.

'And not even as in their ways didst thou walk, nor didst thou do according to their iniquities;'

'thou didst but little exceed them in all thy ways.'

'Thou hast increased,' he says, 'by thine inventions their wicked practices, and thou art in danger of carrying off the prize of impiety.'

'As I live, saith the Lord Adonai, Sodom thy sister, she and her daughters, has not done as thou hast done, thou and thy daughters.'

Then he shows the difference:

'Yet this was the iniquity of Sodom: in pride, and in fulness of bread, and in abundance she and her daughters lived luxuriously;'

'this was in her and in her daughters;'

'and they did not support the hand of the poor and needy, and they boasted greatly.'

'And they committed iniquities before me, and I took them away, as I saw fit.'

'Being overfed,' he says, 'through the abundance of good things, they ran aground into pride and arrogance, and they despised those in want, enjoying every kind of luxury;'

'whence they fell into the utmost licentiousness, and underwent penalties worthy of their impieties.'

'And Samaria did not sin according to the half of thy sins; but thou didst multiply thine iniquities beyond them, and thou didst justify thy sisters in all thy sins, and in all thy transgressions which thou hast committed.'

This comparison he makes not merely according to the quality of the sin, but according to the quality of the guardianship shown.

For even though Samaria sinned and dared countless lawless deeds, yet she was far from the divine temple, and had at least some small excuse, being subject to another king and unable to perform the ordinances in the divine temple.

And Sodom had neither prophet nor lawgiver, but enjoyed only the instruction of the natural law.

But thou, having both a law, and priests, and prophets, and the divine temple, and the lawful worship, didst practise the impiety of those others;

wherefore thou dost show those others to be worthy of pardon.

'And do thou also bear thy torment, exceeding that in which thou didst corrupt thy sisters by thy sins, wherein thou didst transgress beyond them, and didst justify them beyond thyself.'

He did not simply say 'thou didst justify,' but 'beyond thyself.'

'For thou, having imitated their lawlessness, hast no defence, being aided by law and prophets;'

'but they, on account of the excess of thy impiety, are willing to obtain pardon.'

'And be thou ashamed, and bear thy dishonour, in that thou hast justified thy sisters.' When one who is in honour does not understand it, being clothed with dishonour he comes to a perception of his former honour.

And so Jerusalem too, not having recognized the honour given her by God, came through the siege and captivity to know her own God.

'The shame of my face has covered me, at the voice of him that reproaches and speaks against me, at the presence of the enemy and persecutor.' (53)

'And I will turn back their turnings,' he says, 'the turning of Sodom and of her daughters, and I will turn back the turning of Samaria and of her daughters.'

It is fitting to know the peculiarities of Scripture;

for neither is it possible otherwise to discern its aim.

It has, then, among many other peculiarities, this one also: that it speaks of things that have already happened as though they were yet to be, and of things yet to be as though they had already happened.

So then here also he speaks of things that have already happened as though they were yet to be:

'Sodom, and the cities under her, has turned away from me;'

'and likewise also Samaria together with her subjects.'

'But I too turned away, and exacted the penalties for what she sinned.'

'And of thee likewise again I will turn back thy turning in the midst of them;'

(54) 'that thou mayest bear thy torment, and be dishonoured because of all that thou didst in provoking me to anger.'

'The same things,' he says, 'thou too shalt suffer as they did, and thou shalt pay the penalties for the offences thou hast committed against me.'

'And thy sister Sodom and her daughters shall be restored, as they were from the beginning;'

'and thou, and thy daughters shall be restored, as ye were from the beginning.'

Here he named 'restoration' not the one to the better, but the one to the worse;

For the phrase 'given to meditation' concerning Sodom is added once again in accordance with the idiom peculiar to Scripture.

What He says is of this sort:

Just as Sodom, though it was splendid and inhabited by a great multitude, I transformed into its ancient state and made it utterly uninhabited, such as it was before it was settled;

so also, having stripped from you every comeliness, I will bring it about that you return to your former condition.

And if Sodom your sister was not spoken of by report in your mouth in the days of your pride,

before your wickednesses were uncovered, in the manner in which you are now a reproach of the daughters of Syria, and of all who are round about you, and of the daughters of the foreigners who encompass you round about.

'If you had not learned,' He says, 'the punishment of the Sodomites, and their utter destruction had not been bandied about in your mouth, in the manner in which your own besiegement is now spoken of in the cities of Syria and Palestine, what greater evil could you have wrought? For not even their example profited you; but though you knew both the crimes they dared and the evils brought upon them, you nonetheless persisted in your lawlessness.'

Your impieties and your iniquities, you shall bear them yourself, says the Lord.

Thus says Adonai the Lord:

And I will do to you just as you did, as you dishonored the curse, so as to transgress My covenant.

The Law had a curse attending upon those who transgressed it;

and He commanded that the six tribes, standing upon Mount Gebal, should recite this, and that all the people should add 'Amen,' as it were subscribing and assenting to the curse of the Law.

'Since therefore,' He says, 'you did not even fear the curse, but fearlessly transgressed My covenant, receive the sheaves of your own sowing.'

Then He promises also the good things that come after the punishment.

And I will remember My covenant which was with you in the days of your infancy;

and I will establish for you an everlasting covenant.