Page 267 - NOTES ON EZEKIEL

CHAPTER XLVII. 261
-and this because Jehovah-Jesus reigns in virtue of His
cross.
After our prophet, Zechariah declares that half
of the living waters should go to the hinder sea or the
Mediterranean, and half to the former or eastern sea,
thus adding very materially to what Joel had predicted;
and this should be alike in summer as in winter. For
its source was higher than the creature supplies.
Ezekiel, between these two prophets, will tell us of
the manner and effects of these waters, which point to
an energy altogether different from man’s or nature’s
so evidently that Henderson is obliged here to
depart from his previous interpretation. So far as the
temple and its ordinances are concerned, he owns their
literality. Here he gives this up, because there was
nothing left for the Jews to do in bringing about the
realization of the vision. But this is in every way
erroneous ; for (1) the Jews could do as little to bringing
back the visible display of Jehovah’s glory as in
causing healing waters to flow from the temple, and
yet the return of the cherubim is the grandest feature
in all this vision from first to last; and (2) we have
already seen that, in what might be thought more with­
in the compass of the Jews, a vast deal of the descrip­
tion, and even ritual, wholly differs from what existed
among the remnant who returned to the land from
Babylon. It would be hard to point out a single par­
ticular of agreement between their history and the pro­
phecy.
The only just conclusion then is that the vision, as
a whole and in all its parts, belongs to the future, and
supposes the kingdom to be set up over Israel, restored
once more, and planted for ever in their land. In this