Page 87 - NOTES ON EZEKIEL

CHAPTER XVII. 81
Lad utterly failed and only lived to bring fresh obloquy
on His name of Jehovah who had chosen them. The
day was not yet come for the Second man, the last Adam,
true son of David and of man. Hence God provision­
ally left this universal supremacy in the hands of the
basest of men for the deepest lesson to those who pre­
ferred their ways to the living God; and the birthplace
of exaltation against the true God and of false gods
became the scourge and prison of Israel in the persons
of David’s house and the people still left in their low
state. But they, above all Zedekiah, whom most of all
it became to know the will of God, sought the help of
Egypt in the fond hope of gaining independence of
Babylon. To turn thus toward Pharaoh was rejection
of Jehovah, not merely of Nebuchadnezzar, and would
entail their own destruction with no great effort on the
part of their Chaldean master. A blast of that “ east
wind” would suffice to wither up the fruitless vine, to
dry it up utterly in the beds or terraces where it grew.
“ Moreover the word of Jehovah came unto me,
saying, Say now to the rebellious house, Know ye not
what these things mean? tell them, behold, the king
of Babylon is come to Jerusalem, and hath taken the
king thereof, and the princes thereof, and led them with
him into Babylon ; and hath taken of the king’s seed,
and made a covenant with him, and bath taken an oath
of him: he hath also taken the mighty of the land:
that the kingdom might be base, that it might not lift
itself up, but that by keeping of his covenant it might
stand. But he rebelled against him in sending his
ambassadors into Egypt, that they might give him
horses and much people Shall he prosper? shall he
a