Page 47 - NOTES ON EZEKIEL

CHAPTER X. 41
over the threshold of the house; and the house was filled
with the cloud, and the court was full of the brightness
of Jehovah’s glory. And the sound of the cherubim’s
wings was heard even to the outer court, as the voice
of the Almighty God when he speaketh.” (Ver. 4, 5.)
The glory was departing, not coming to dwell there.
Jehovah is leaving the seat which He was pleased to
choose—not leaving it for ever, for He has chosen it for
ever. But meanwhile He is morally driven away by
the iniquities and apostasy of His own people. The
prophecy of Ezekiel is explicit that He will return
and dwell there, never more to quit His home as long
as the earth lasts, for His people will then enjoy the
rest of God under Messiah and the new covenant. But
as David was forced to say in his last words that his
house was not so with God, in like manner does our
prophet here tell in mysterious symbols the rupture of
the ties between God and Israel through the solemn
signs of their judgment. In every way did He make
it conspicuous to the prophet, if peradventure they
might hear and live, arrested by the strange sights and
sounds he was given to recount from the Lord. What*
over He might do at other times, it was unmistakably
Jehovah who directed the sweeping destruction of His
own city and sanctuary. Thus the faith of the believer
would be strengthened by the dealings which cleared
the ground of every tree which He had not planted.
Next we have the execution of the command in the
vision, that all might be rendered the more impressive
and sure to such as flattered themselves that, whatever
the sharp lessons and chastenings of Jehovah, it could
not be that He would disown Israel, and that, whatever