Page 8 - NOTES ON EZEKIEL

2 NOTES ON EZEKIEL.

Jeremiah to be left with the poor in the land, and
afterwards to be taken away with those who faithlessly
fled to Egypt for a security they might have enjoyed
in submission to their Babylonish master where they
were; and so he wept and groaned with the beloved
but unworthy remnant to the last. It was for Daniel
to be carried captive in the third year of Jehoiakim
when Nebuchadnezzar verified the solemn warning to
Hezekiah; though in Babylon God did not leave
Himself without witness and shewed where wisdom
and His secret alone lay, even when He had raised up
the Gentile empires and made His people Lo-ammi.
Ezekiel was one of those carried into captivity in the
subsequent reign* of Jehoiakin, son of Jehoiakim,
when the king of Babylon swept away all the better
sort from the land and our prophet among the rest.
There remained but one step lower, the calamitous
reign of Zedekiah, that the anger of Jehovah might
cast them all out from His presence because of mani­
fold provocation and incurable rebellion. In view of
this time, though also leaping over the times of the
Gentiles of which Daniel treats, and dwelling richly
on Israel’s restoration at last, Ezekiel prophesied
among the captives in Chaldea.
The holy energy, indignant zeal for God, and the

* “ The thirtieth year” (Ezekiel i. 1) has greatly perplexed
the learned. But it seems plain that the starting-point is the
era of Nabopolassar, father of Nebuchadnezzar, who became
king of Babylon b. c. 625, about the date when Hilkiah found the
book of the law in the temple so pregnant with blessing to
Josiah and the righteous in Judah. This last is referred to in
the Chaldee paraphrase of Jonathan ben Uzziel.