Page 227 - NOTES ON EZEKIEL

CHAPTER XL. 2 2 1
past sins) in respect of God’s presence in a new and
suited sanctuary—a presence never more to be lost,
least of all when time yields to eternity and to the
new heavens and earth in their fullest meaning.
It is commonly laid down that the four main lines of
divergence among interpreters are these—1 , the his-
torico-literal, adopted by Villalpandus, Grotius, &c.,
who make these chapters (xl.-xlviii.) a prosaic descrip­
tion, intended to preserve the memory of Solomon’s
temple ; 2, the historico-ideal of Eichhorn, Datlie, &c.,
which makes them a vague announcement of future
good ; 3, the Jewish theory of Lightfoot, <fcc., which
assumes that the idea was actually adopted by the re­
turned remnant; and 4, the Christian or allegorical
hypothesis, which was that of Luther and other re­
formers, and followed elaborately by Cocceius, &c.,
and indeed generally by many to the present day, which
essays to discover in them an immense system symbolic
of the good in store for the church. But this leaves
out the fifth and, I have no doubt, the only true inter­
pretation, which sees in these chapters the suited
conclusion to the entire prophecy, and especially akin
to the chapters which precede—the prediction of the
complete re-establishment in the last days of Israel
then converted and in the possession of every promised
blessing for ever in their land, with the glory of Jeho­
vah in their midst. This is the only proper Messianic
fulfilment of the vision, which accordingly must be
taken in its simple and just grammatical import, literal,
symbolic, or figurative, as the context in each passage
may decide.
Thus, in the vision that follows in the chapter before