Page 16 - NOTES ON EZEKIEL

10 NOTES ON EZEKIEL.
their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising
up betimes, and sending; because he had compassion
on his people, and on his dwelling place; but they
mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words,
and misused his prophets, until the wrath of Jehovah
arose against his people, till there was no remedy.”
It was in view of a final and yet more completely
desolating stroke that Ezekiel was raised up to bear
testimony. “ On the fifth of the month, which was
the fifth year of king Jehoiachin’s captivity, the word
of Jehovah came expressly unto Ezekiel the priest
the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the
river Chebar; and the hand of Jehovah was there upon
him. And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out
of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself,
and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst
thereof as the colour of amber, out of the midst of the
fire. Also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of
four living creatures. And this was their appearance;
they had the likeness of a man.” (Yer. 2—5.)
Had this been all, it had been much to rebuke the
Jewish pride which counted God so bound to their
race and land, that they never weighed His threat of
the change in progress for Israel till it came. Alas!
they realize it not till this day, but, refusing to hear
of His judgment of their sins, they would fain cheat
themselves into the delusion that their dispersion is
a mission to teach the Gentiles that God is the God
of Israel rather than that He has for thousands of
years refused to be called their God because of their
idolatry crowned by the rejection of the Messiah and
of the gospel. A fresh storm-cloud of divine indigna­