Page 30 - NOTES ON EZEKIEL

24 NOTES ON EZEKIEL.

“ And thou, son of man, take thee a sharp knife, a
barber’s razor be taken to thee, and cause it to pass
upon thy head and upon thy beard, and take to thee
weighing balances, and divide the hair. Thou shalt
burn with fire a third part in the midst of the city,
when the days of the siege are fulfilled: and thou shalt
take a third part, and smite about it with a knife: and
a third part thou shalt scatter in the wind; and I will
draw out a sword after them. Thou shalt also take
thereof a few in number, and bind them in thy skirts.
Then take of them again, and cast them into the midst
of the fire, and burn them in the fire; for thereof shall
a fire come forth into all the house of Israel.” (Yer.
1—4.) The application is certain and immediate, being
furnished in the following words of the prophet:
“ Thus saith the Lord Jehovah; This is Jerusalem: I
have set it in the midst of the nations and countries
that are round about her. And she hath changed my
judgments into wickedness more than the nations, and
my statutes more than the countries that are round
about her: for they have refused my judgments and my
statutes, they have not walked in them.” (Yer. 5, 6.)
The form in which the God of Israel communicated
the dismal lot and unsparing destruction about to fall
on the Jews is the more impressive, because both in the
manner in which the prophet was ordered to bake his
bread and to shave off his hair, there was a departure
from ceremonial in a way which could not be justified
otherwise than by the authority of God Himself or the
moral exigencies of His people. Here no doubt it could
be, though assuredly Ezekiel as a priest would feel all
deeply. The converse of this one has in the vision of