Page 9 - NOTES ON EZEKIEL

INTRODUCTION. 3
moral authority of the prophet in reproving Israel,
are strikingly apparent. Borne along, as in the ma­
jestic chariot of Jehovah’s glory which he describes
with the resistless might of its wheels below and
wings above as the Spirit led, he nowhere flatters the
people, but even in the captivity administers the
sternest rebuke of the sins, not yet repented of, which
had brought Israel so low. The roll spread before
him and eaten by him was written within and without,
lamentations and mourning and woe; and the prophet
was to tell the rebellious people all Jehovah’s words
with his forehead made as an adamant, harder than
flint. He, and he only save Daniel, it will be observed,
has the title “ Son of man,” excepting of course the
Master but lowliest of servants, whose it was to appro­
priate every title of shame, suffering, and rejection,
till the day come when they too shall be manifested
with Him in glory.
Those who occupy themselves with the outer frame­
work of the truth have not failed to notice the strong
sense of clean and unclean, of Levitical sanctity,
of temple imagery, of feasts and priests and sacrifices,
so natural to one of the sacerdotal family. Of course
these features are obvious and indisputable; but far
from a rigid imitation of the Pentateuch we shall find
that God asserts His title to modify, omit, or add in
that day, when his fellow-prophet Jeremiah explicitly
declares (Jer. xxxi. 31—34) that Jehovah will make
a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the
house of Judah, “not according to the covenant I
made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by
the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt,