以西結書註釋 第 1 章 第 8/19 段

Turn and return from all your impieties, and they shall not be to you for the punishment of iniquity.

Cast away from yourselves all your impieties by which you have acted impiously against me, and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit; and why do you die, O house of Israel?

Forsake, he says, the way of impiety, and take up another mind, and incline to my laws, that you may not reap death from your wickedness.

For by a new heart and a new spirit he named the soul's turning to better things;

then he lays bare his own goodness.

Turn back, and you shall live.

Knowing, he says, that I desire not the punishment, but the repentance of the sinner, make use of repentance, and receive the fruits of life.

This remedy is fitting for you also.

For God is God not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles, and himself Lord of all, rich toward all who call upon him. Let us therefore forsake the way of wickedness, whose end is destruction and ruin, and let us learn instead the divine journey, which leads up to the heavens, and grants us boldness before God;

which may we attain in Christ Jesus our Lord, with whom to the Father belongs the glory, together with the Holy Spirit, unto the ages of ages.

And do you take up a lamentation over the ruler of Israel.

What is your mother, a lioness? Foretell, he says, the things that shall befall the king of Israel, on account of which you lament him.

By the king of Israel he does not mean the one seated in Samaria;

for that kingdom had long since been dissolved;

but the one in Jerusalem.

For over all who then remained the king of Judah reigned;

and this the fourth book of Kingdoms teaches us, and the second of Paralipomena.

And by the mother of the king he named Jerusalem;

for from there the kings set forth;

and he calls her a lioness, not only because of the royal character of the city, but also because of the boldness of her disposition.

In the midst of lions she was nourished. She emulated, he says, the manner of the surrounding kings.

In the midst of lions she multiplied her whelps. And he signifies the things that came to pass after Josiah;

these ruled: Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jeconiah, Zedekiah.

And one of her whelps sprang away;

he became a lion, and learned to seize prey, and devoured men.

And nations heard concerning him, and he was caught in their pit, and they led him in a hook into the land of Egypt.

He means Jehoahaz, who, having succeeded his father Josiah, became impious toward the Deity, and lawless toward his subjects;

but Pharaoh Necho, king of the Egyptians, having taken him captive by the spear, brought him bound into Egypt, and there he paid the penalties of his lawlessness;

and this he signified in saying, He was caught in their pit. Then he adds:

And she saw that he was thrust away from her, and that her hope had perished, and she took another of her whelps;

And he went about in the midst of lions;

he became a lion, and learned to seize prey, and devoured men.

And he pastured in his own boldness, and laid waste their cities, and made desolate the land and its fulness by the sound of his roaring.

By these words he has intimated Jechoniah, the son of Joiakim;

for he is composing his discourse concerning those who were taken captive and who met the end of their life in a foreign land.

Therefore he has for the present passed over the mention of Joiakim;

for this man met his slaughter in Jerusalem.

In brief, then, he has recounted the transgression of Jechoniah, who, after reigning three months and a few days, filled the city with unjust bloodshed.

And that it is not Joiakim but Jechoniah whom he hints at through these words, what follows bears witness.

'And the nations set upon him round about from the regions, and they spread their nets over him, and in their pit he was taken.'

'And they put him in a muzzle and in a cage, and led him to the king of Babylon, and brought him into prison, so that his voice should no longer be heard upon the mountains of Israel.'

But Joiakim was not led away captive, but was slain in Jerusalem;

whereas Jechoniah suffered all the things aforementioned;

and fittingly, as of a lion, he named the assault of the campaign 'nets,' and the bonds placed about him 'muzzle' and 'cage';

for since he had figuratively called him a lion, he consequently also names figuratively the things that befell him;

for both the nets and the cage suit a lion.

Having narrated these things thus, he passes again to another kind of parable and says:

'Your mother is a vine, like the blossom of a pomegranate planted by water;

her fruit and her shoot came forth from abundant water.'

'And a rod of strength came upon her, over the tribe of rulers, and she was exalted in her greatness in the midst of trunks, and she beheld her greatness in the multitude of her branches.'

'Your mother,' he says, 'resembles a vine, and a pomegranate planted beside the bank of water, and through the irrigation thence luxuriant, adorned with blossoms and teeming with abundant fruit.'

It is fitting to note that he did not call the fruit 'good.'

And the phrase 'over the tribe of rulers' he has added, since he did not rule over all Israel, but over the ruling tribe of Judah.

And the phrase 'She beheld her greatness in the multitude of her branches' signifies the arrogance that accrued to her from her prosperity.

'And she was broken off in wrath, she was cast to the ground, and a burning wind dried up her choice branches;

they were requited, and the rods of her strength were laid waste;

fire dried her up, fire consumed her.'

All figuratively and in the manner of a parable, as of a vine and a pomegranate;

and by 'burning wind' he named the onset of the enemies, and by 'fire' the punishment that overtook them from the divine wrath.

And he said that the rods of strength were dried up, because of the extinguishing of the kingdom.

Then again he teaches the evils that were to come to pass after the captivity of Zedekiah.

'And now they have planted her in the wilderness, in a land waterless and thirsty.'

In the end, when some had been slain and others led away as spear-captives, Nabuzardan set Gedaliah as ruler over the poor who were left there;

for the city was utterly desolate, or rather all Judaea, its walls torn down, its houses burned, and most of its inhabitants delivered over to slaughter and captivity.

'And now they have planted her in the wilderness.' But not even so, he says, will she remain, but the remnants too will meet destruction.

'For fire shall go forth,' he says, 'from the rods of her choice branches, and shall devour her.'

For Ishmael, being of royal lineage and envying Gedaliah, having employed toward him a coloured friendship, plots secretly against him, and slays also most of those with him;

and fearing what had been done, he flees;

and all the rest, dreading the wrath of the Chaldeans, came down to Egypt together with Jeremiah the prophet;

and this he indicated by saying, 'And fire shall go forth from the rods of her choice branches and shall devour her.'

'And there shall not be in her a rod of strength of a tribe, a sceptre for ruling;'

for then she was lamented by her own, and became to strangers a proverb of lamentation;

for men are wont to say concerning those who fall into the greatest calamities:

'May I not suffer such things as so-and-so has suffered.'

This, then, he called a parable of lamentation; and he added that there is not in her a rod of strength, nor tribe, nor sceptre.

For she had no ruler, nor any body able to constitute a tribe, before the return;

for after the return she again recovered her former splendour.

Having thus foretold these things, he sets in the midst of the prophecy a brief narrative, and to the narrative he straightway joins the prophecy.

'And it came to pass in the seventh year, in the fifth month, on the tenth of the month, that men came from the elders of the house of Israel to inquire of the Lord, and they sat down before my face.'

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

'Son of man, speak to the elders of Israel, and you shall say to them, Thus says Adonai the Lord:'

'Are you come to inquire of me? As I live, I will not answer you, says the Lord.'

'Will you take vengeance on them, with vengeance take vengeance, son of man? Will you take vengeance on them?'

Very fittingly does that which was spoken by God our Saviour accord with these very words:

'Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of God;'

This too Zedekiah did many times, and having put Jeremiah under oath to declare to him plainly the things that seemed good to God, when he had learned what was commanded, he did the contrary of these;

and those who went into Egypt after the captivity dared this same thing.

For this reason the God of all does not will to answer them;

for he himself knows, according to the teaching of the sacred Gospels, what is in man.

For this he signified when he said:

'Will you take vengeance on them, with vengeance take vengeance, son of man? Will you take vengeance on them?' — that is to say, Do not concern yourself with them, as though you were their guardian; do not accept their inquiry.

'But the iniquities of their fathers,' he says, 'testify against them.'

'...of Egypt, and I took hold of their hand, saying, I am the Lord your God.'

'In that day I took hold of them by my hand, to bring them out of the land of Egypt, into the land which I had prepared for them, a land flowing with milk and honey, it is a honeycomb above all the earth.'

'To these,' he says, 'O prophet, who have come to you, both point out my benefactions, and reckon up the transgressions of their fathers;'

'and I employed these words, wishing to deliver them from bondage, and to fulfil my promises, and to give the land that was promised, which is the mother of countless good things, and brings forth all manner of fruits to those who dwell therein;'

'and one would not err in declaring it better than all the earth, and in calling it a work of bees;'

for this he indicated when he said:

'It is a honeycomb above all the earth.' Thus he designated the honeycombs filled with honey.

'And he said,' he says, 'to them:'

'Let each one cast away the abominations of his eyes, and do not defile yourselves with the practices of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.'

'I exhorted them,' he says, 'to flee the fellowship of the impiety of the Egyptians, and to acknowledge my lordship, having taught them this through signs and wonders;'

'but they were by no means willing to give heed to my admonitions.'

And signifying this too, He added:

And they revolted from Me, and would not hearken unto Me; not one of them cast away the abominations of his eyes, and they forsook not the practices of Egypt.

each man cast not away the abominations of his eyes, and they left not the practices of Egypt.

Then He teaches the justice of His wrath.

And I said that I would pour out My fury upon them, to accomplish My anger against them in the midst of Egypt. Then He teaches His lovingkindness and His longsuffering, which He employs in governing the nature of men.

And I acted for the sake of My name, that it should by no means be profaned before the nations, in whose midst they were, and before whose eyes I made Myself known to them, in bringing them out of the land of Egypt.

I purposed, He says, to chastise them at once when they proved disobedient;

but since they were called My people, I did not exact justice upon them in the presence of their enemies, lest My name should in any way be profaned before the nations among whom they dwelt;

so that, He says, the punishment of these might not become an occasion for blasphemy against Me;

for I wished, through the benefits shown to these, to change also the minds of those others.

These things the book of Exodus teaches us more plainly.

Therefore, He says, having employed this longsuffering:

This people I brought out of the land of Egypt.

And I brought them out of the land of Egypt.

And I led them into the wilderness.

And I gave them My statutes, and made known to them My ordinances, which, if a man do them, he shall even live in them.

And I gave them My Sabbaths, to be for a sign between Me and between them, that they might know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them.

Having freed them, He says, from that bitter bondage, as in some wrestling-school I trained them in the wilderness in good and profitable laws, contriving life for them through the keeping of these;

for the laws were bestowers of life.

And He named them statutes and ordinances.

For the statutes are not one thing and the ordinances another, but the same are called by different names.

and 'ordinances' (dikaiomata), not only as being justly written and possessing what is right, but also as being able to justify the one who acts rightly.

It is necessary to note that, from these statutes and ordinances which are able to bestow life on those who keep them, He set the Sabbaths apart.

I made known to them My ordinances, having also declared the gain that comes from them:

Whoever, being a man, shall do them, he shall even live in them; then He added:

And My Sabbaths I gave them. And He did not say, That keeping them they might live in them;

but, That it might be for a sign between Me and between them, and that they might know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them. For I ordained for them the Sabbath rest, not as being able to bestow life on them, but that the distinctive mark of their polity might separate them from the practices of the nations, and lead them to the remembrance of My benefits;

for by resting from carnal affairs, by attendance upon God, and by the hearing of the divine oracles, they received the gain, learning from the divine oracles both that God is the Maker and the Benefactor;

therefore it is not the mere rest that gives life;

but attendance upon God.

And I said, He says, to the house of Israel in the wilderness:

Walk in My statutes. (13)

And the house of Israel provoked Me in the wilderness;

in My statutes they walked not, and they rejected My ordinances, which, if a man do them, he shall even live in them, and My Sabbaths they exceedingly profaned.

Again here too He mentioned the Sabbaths separately, not joining them with the other ordinances;

for these are not life-giving as those are, but contain a certain distinctive character of their polity.

For the commandments, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, and the others joined with these, the law of nature taught the rest of mankind as well;

but of the keeping of the Sabbath nature is not the teacher, but the ordinance of the law;

therefore, while sharing with the rest in the other matters, in the keeping of the Sabbath they were seen to have a certain polity peculiarly their own.

For none of the other nations kept this rest.

Nor did circumcision so separate them from the rest as the Sabbath did;

for circumcision all the Idumeans also had, deriving their race from Esau;

and the Ishmaelites likewise, and the Egyptians too, having learned it from the Jews, were zealous to keep it.

And this God made clear through the prophet Jeremiah, saying:

And I will visit upon all that are circumcised in their uncircumcision, upon Egypt, and upon Edom, and so forth.

But the keeping of the Sabbath the Jewish nation alone observed.

Then He teaches, on the one hand, His just wrath, and, on the other, His ineffable goodness.

And I said that I would pour out My fury upon them in the wilderness, to consume them utterly.

And I acted for the sake of My name, that it should by no means be profaned before the nations, in whose sight I had brought them out.

And these things also the divinely inspired Moses teaches, saying that God had said:

And now let Me alone, and being kindled with wrath I will destroy them, and I will make thee into a great nation. Then he recounts his own supplication, and at the end adds that:

If Thou shalt smite them, Egypt will hear, and will say:

Because the Lord was not able to bring them into the land which He had promised to their fathers, He consumed them in the wilderness. This too He here intimated, saying:

And I acted for the sake of My name, that it should by no means be profaned before the nations, in whose sight I brought them out. Then He relates more fully that, though He had purposed to subject them all to utter destruction in the wilderness, inasmuch as they had trampled upon the ordinances that bestow life and had profaned the Sabbaths.

And again, having mentioned the Sabbaths separately, He adds:

Yet My eye spared them, so as not to blot them out, and I did not make them to be for a consummation in the wilderness.

He preserved them, and brought them into the land promised to their forefathers.

And I said, He says, to their children in the wilderness:

Walk not in the customs of your fathers, and keep not their ordinances, and mingle not yourselves with their practices;

walk in My statutes, and keep My ordinances, and do them.

And My Sabbaths sanctify ye, and it shall be for a sign between Me and between you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God.

And to their children too, He says, separated from the teaching of their fathers, I exhorted in the wilderness, and counselled them to be delivered indeed from their ancestral ways, but to acknowledge My lordship, and to follow My statutes, and to fulfil the ordinances that had been given, and to recognize, through the keeping of the Sabbaths, the distinctive mark of their polity, and to be led by the law to the Lawgiver;

but these too, He says, continued to despise these laws.

And their children also provoked Me;

in My statutes they walked not, and My ordinances they kept not, so as to do them, which, if a man do them, he shall even live in them, and My Sabbaths they profaned.

Then He adds that these also, in turn, He had purposed to bring to justice for their impiety, and to deliver some of them to captivity, and others to slaughter.

For this He signified when He said:

And I lifted up My hand against them in the wilderness, to scatter them among the nations, and to disperse them in the countries.

But lest from this some harm should come to the Egyptians also, and to the Canaanites, this indeed, He says, I did not do, but, (25)

And I gave them statutes that were not good, and ordinances in which they shall not live.

Some, therefore, have taken these words as referring to the worship of idols, understanding the phrase 'I gave' in the sense of 'I permitted.'

But it is quite plain that they have not grasped the meaning of what was said.

For the impious worship of idols no one in his right mind would call good, but exceedingly evil.

The fountain of wisdom, then, the lawgiver of piety, the accuser of impiety, did not call the utmost impiety good; for He names it the very boundary of wickedness.

For He names it the very limit of vice.

The passage, therefore, is hinting at something else.

For 'Since,' He says, 'I gave them statutes which a man shall do, and shall live by them'—and by these words He means the ten precepts of the law—

but they transgressed these, and went on trampling them without fear, I bound and nailed them to other ordinances, which are indeed unable to furnish them any life, yet by the keeping of and preoccupation with these they are held back from the transgression of those necessary laws.

By these He is hinting at the commandments concerning leprosy, a dead man's bone, a carcass, a bodily discharge, and other such things, and the frequent lustrations on their account, and the sacrifices offered for these.

For being engaged in the observance of such things, they were no longer able in like manner to despise those necessary and beneficial laws.

For this reason He did not say that He had given them evil ordinances, but 'not good.'

For He was neither teaching vice, nor were these things in and of themselves productive of virtue, but they compelled the people to frequent the divine temple continually and to wait upon God.

For he who believed himself to be defiled would run to the purification, and in coming he would receive a remembrance of God.

And this remembrance would banish the impious disposition, and persuade him to keep the divine laws.

In themselves, therefore, they were not good;

for they did not accord with the divine purpose, but were fitted to the weakness of those for whom the laws were laid down.

Yet they were not good, nor necessary, but they led on to the good and the necessary.

'And I will defile them in their gifts, when I cause to pass through every one that opens the womb, that I may lay them waste, that they may know that I am the Lord.'

'And I sent them away according to the practices of their hearts';

that is: since they gained no benefit from My exhortations, I henceforth left them to follow their own reasonings, no longer enduring to guide them.

This too He indicated here when He said:

'I will defile them in their gifts.' And Aquila rendered this more clearly when he said:

'And I defiled them in their decrees, in causing to pass over every one that opens the womb';

for I permitted them to be defiled by their own practices, in passing their children through the fire and offering the firstborn of their children to the demons, thereupon bringing on them the fitting punishments.

'Thus says Adonai the Lord:

In this too your fathers provoked Me by their transgressions, wherein they trespassed against Me.'

'And I brought them into the land, concerning which I lifted up My hand to give it to them; and they saw every high hill and every shady tree, and they sacrificed there to their gods, and they set there the provocation of their offerings, and they placed there the savour of their sweet odour, and they poured out there their drink offerings.'

They were not satisfied, He says, with their gainsaying in Egypt and their transgressions in the wilderness, but even upon entering into the land promised to them they filled it with much impiety, building altars on all the hills and in the groves, setting up idols, and offering to them drink offerings and various sacrifices.

And the phrase 'They set there the provocation of their offerings' is equivalent to: By those lawless offerings of theirs they roused up My wrath.

'And I said to them, What is Abama (or, as Symmachus put it, What is Bama), that you go in there? And they called its name Bama unto this present day.'

This is a place made notorious through the impiety concerning idols.

He said to them, then: What sort of gain do you get from there? What benefit will come to you from the Bama, that you have thus made it notorious, so that its very name has remained fixed up to the present time?

'If in the iniquities of your fathers you defile yourselves, and go forth after their abominations,

and in the firstfruits of your labours and in your set-apart offerings, in causing your children to pass through the fire, you defile yourselves with all your imaginations unto this present day—shall I then answer you, O house of Israel? As I live, I will not answer you, neither shall this thing that is in your spirit come to pass.'

You hope, He says—while your fathers' lawlessness and impiety hold sway among you, and all these things which I have recounted are being ventured by you—to obtain some answer from Me.

Do not deceive yourselves;

for it is among things impossible that I should answer your inquiries while impiety is being ventured by you.

And I persuade you by the events themselves to cast away such a hope also;

for this He signified when He said, 'And this thing that is in your spirit shall not come to pass.' (verse 32)

'And it shall not be, in the manner in which you say, We will be as the nations, and as the tribes of the earth, to serve wood and stone.'

Nor indeed shall that purpose of yours reach its end, that—making gods of wood and stone in a manner like all the nations—you should offer to God the honour befitting these.

Again He has used the customary oath;

for according to the blessed Apostle, since He has no one greater by whom to swear, He says:

'No longer,' He says, 'will I use My accustomed long-suffering, but I will bare My kingship and My authority by way of chastisement;'

for by the phrase 'the mighty hand and the high arm' He indicated at once both the powerful and the punitive;

then He also teaches the manner of the chastisement.

'And I will bring you out from the peoples, and I will gather you from the countries wherein you were scattered, with a mighty hand, and with a high arm, and with burning wrath.'

'Then I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I will enter into judgement with you face to face.'

'As I entered into judgement with your fathers in the wilderness of Egypt, so will I judge you, says Adonai the Lord.'

And He calls 'the wilderness of the peoples' the nations that of old were void of God;

and by this He foreshowed that, when piety had been carried to the nations, these too would depart from the worship of idols, being put to shame by the transformation of the once impious nations.

For the very events themselves, He says, almost crying aloud, then convict your disobedient and lawless disposition, displaying the ready obedience of the peoples who once were destitute;

just as, therefore, having entered into judgement with your fathers in the wilderness, I delivered them over to utter destruction,

so also upon you will I bring the punishment;

and this He has made clearer through what follows, when He says:

'And I will cause you to pass under My rod, and I will bring you in by the number of the covenant;'

'And I will purge out from among you the impious, and those who have revolted.'

For the impious, and those who have forsaken My legislation, using the rod, I will scatter abroad; but those worthy of the number, and who have become keepers of My covenant, I will bring in, and account them worthy of My providence.

And by these things He signified both the apostolic band and those who through it came to believe the divine proclamation;

then, continuing in His threat against the wicked, He adds:

'and you shall know that I am the Lord.' For having brought them back from the captivity, He says, these same men who employed an impious manner of life I will again scatter among all the nations.

And this received its fulfilment after the cross of our Saviour;

for the Romans, having enslaved them, sowed them abroad throughout the inhabited world, and drove them out from their royal city.

Having thus foretold the grievous things, the lover of mankind again offers them exhortation and counsel;

for He calls to mind His own promises;

and He said that He does not desire the death of the lawless man, but rather that he should turn and live.

'And you, O house of Israel, thus says Adonai the Lord:

Put away, each of you, his own practices;

and after these things, if you hearken to Me, and do not any longer profane My holy name in your gifts and in your practices,

there the whole house of Israel shall serve Me completely upon the land, and there I will accept them, and there I will require your firstfruits, and the firstfruits of your set-apart offerings, in all your consecrated things.'

For if you consent to be persuaded, He says, and cease from profaning My holy name (for being called by My name, yet living lawlessly and offering gifts to the idols, you attach to Me the blasphemy of impiety),