Page 39 - NOTES ON EZEKIEL

CHAPTER VIII.
It is evident that chapters viii.—xi. really form the
parts, according to the chapters, of one connected vision.
First, the excessive idolatry of Judah in Jerusalem
is set forth, beginning with the house of God; secondly,
destruction is ordered of God for all left in the city,
save a marked remnant of those that sighed and cried
for all the abominations done there, a destruction ex­
pressly beginning at Jehovah’s sanctuary; thirdly, the
part played by the cherubim and other agents of divine
judgment, ere the glory of Jehovah slowly takes each
step of departure; and fourthly, the denunciation of
woes on the princes and the people yet left, with assur­
ance to the righteous of a sanctuary in Jehovah Him­
self where there was no other in the heathen lands of
their dispersion, and of final mercy in gathering them
back while all else must perish, the glory retiring from
the city to the Mount of Olives. From chapter xii. to
xix. inclusive are various connected circumstances and
expositions of His ways on God’s part.
“ And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth
month, in the fifth day of the month, as I sat in mine
house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, that the
hand of the Lord Jehovah fell there upon me. Then I
beheld, and lo a likeness as the appearance of fire; from
the appearance of his loins even downward, fire; and
from his loins even upward, as the appearance of
brightness, as the colour of amber. And he put forth
the form of an hand, and took me by a lock of mine
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