Page 74 - NOTES ON EZEKIEL

68 NOTES ON EZEKIEL.
out from one fire, and another fire shall devour them:
and ye shall know that I am Jehovah, when I set my
face against them. And I will make the land desolate^
because they have committed a trespass, saith the Lord
Jehovah.” (Ver. 6—8.)
How energetic is the assurance ! Not only would
Jehovah give the inhabitants of Jerusalem like the vino
for fuel, but he would “ set His face against them.” And;
what does not this portend to such as know His name
and His necessary hatred of evil! As if it were not
definite enough that Jehovah thus proclaims His settled
antagonism, it is added that they shall go out from the
fire, and the fire shall devour them. So indeed it was
with the guilty city of the Great King. If the fire was
left here, it was but to encounter the fire there. Escape
there was none ; for no real repentance followed, nor
was God mocked. And He who had of old judged
mankind as a whole, or in the narrowest circle of their
guilt, must deal with yet more nicety of care in the case
of His own elect people in their capital. Had they
hearkened to Him and walked in His ways, He would
have both subdued their enemies and satisfied them­
selves with all good things; but they would not hearken
to Jehovah and chose them strange gods of the heathen.
Thus Jehovah must either acquiesce in His own
dishonour if He sustained Jerusalem in spite of its.
apostasy, or compel them to know that He is Jehovah
when He set His face against them. Sorrowful alter­
native! As the first could not be, the latter was the only
course merited by their iniquities—the only road open
till Messiah came, and, bearing their judgment, made
it righteous for the mercies of God to begin afresh on