Page 102 - NOTES ON EZEKIEL

96 NOTES ON EZEKIEL.

children in the wilderness were as had as their fathers
who fell; and nothing but His own care for the name
they profaned stood between Israel and destruction.
But now the hand that was lifted up to the seed of
Jacob’s house for purposes of mercy and goodness was
lifted up to them in the wilderness, before they even
entered the land of Canaan, that He would scatter them
among the nations and disperse them through the
countries. Compare Leviticus xxvi. and D uteronomy
xxviii.,xxxii. On the other hand, when it became a ques­
tion of carrying out the long-suspended threat, Amos is
explicit that the captivity and dispersion of the people
befell them because of their idolatrous rebellion against
Jehovah in the wilderness. “ Have ye offered unto me
sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O
house of Israel ? But ye have borne the tabernacles of
your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your
god, which ye made to yourselves. Therefore will I
cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith
Jehovah, whose name is The God of hosts.” (Amos
v . 25—27.)
robber}', for instance, are always evil, the Lord Himself in finishing
the work of redemption inaugurates and sanctions another day as
the expression of the Christian’s fellowship with the Father and
the Son, as a sort of firstfruits. What ignorance to find fault with
this, which is really God’s wisdom and grace! Alas! even all
saints have not such knowledge of God. Yet it is only one of the
proofs how far Christendom is fallen; and men who ought to
understand talk still of the Christian sabbath, as if the sabbaths of
Jehovah had not been taken up and enjoined as a sign that Israel
might know Jehovah who sanctified them. But we, Christians,
stand on the footing of redemption accomplished and of the new crea­
tion, not the old, and hence meet on the first day of the week, not
on the last like the Jews.