Page 29 - NOTES ON EZEKIEL

CHAPTERS IV ., V. 23

and with astonishment; that they may want bread
and water, and be astonied one with another, and con­
sume away for their iniquity.” (Ver. 9—17.) In his
measure Ezekiel is to taste the condition of Israel
under the righteous dealings of God, not because he
was personally out of divine favour, but on the contrary
because he was near enough to God to enter into the
reality of their wretchedness, though only the Son of
man could in grace go down into its depths and take it
up perfectly and suffer to the full, yea far beyond all
that ever was or can be their portion. Jesus in His
zeal for God and love for His people alone could bear
the burden, whether in government or in atonement;
but for both the glory of His person fitted Him with­
out abating one jot of what was due to God, and with
the deepest results of blessing, as for us now, so for the
godly Jew in the latter day. Never did He shield
Himself, as Ezekiel does here, from an adequate taste
of the ruin-state of Israel; never did He deprecate save,
if possible, that cup of unutterable woe which it was
His alone to drink, but drink it He did to the dregs
that grace might reign through righteousness unto
eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.

CHAPTEB V.

Chapter v. adds fresh particulars of unsparing and
destructive judgment; for the preceding chapter bad
not gone beyond the Chaldean siege of Jerusalem with
its attendant though most distressing miseries.