4. Chap. ii, 12-27. The second portrayal of the great and terri ble day is in turn followed by another call to penitence, fasting, and prayer, and also the promise of deliverance and glorious recompense. So the double proclamation of judgment has for each announcement a corresponding word of counsel and hope.

The second part of the prophecy is distinguished by the words, "And it shall come to pass afterward" (1278), a formula which simply indicates the indefinite future.

1. Chap. ii, 28-32 (Hebrew text, chap. iii). In accordance with the prayer of Moses (Num. xi, 29), Jehovah promises a great outpouring of his Spirit upon all the people, so that all will become prophets. This token of grace is followed by wonders in heaven and earth (D'nin, prodigious signs, like the plagues of Egypt):

And I will give wonders in the heavens and in the land,

Blood, and fire, and columns of smoke;

The sun shall be turned to darkness,

And the moon to blood,

Before the coming of the day of Jehovah

The great and the terrible.

And it shall come to pass that all who call upon the name

of Jehovah shall be saved.

For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance,

As Jehovah has said,

And in the remnant whom Jehovah calls.

2. Chap. iii, 1-17 (Heb. iv, 1-17). The great day of Jehovah will issue in a judgment of all nations (comp. Matt. xxv, 31-46). Like the combined armies of Moab, Ammon, and Seir, which came against Judah and Jerusalem in the time of Jehoshaphat, the hostile nations shall be brought down into "a valley of Jehoshaphat " (verses 2, 12), and there be recompensed according as they had recompensed Jehovah and his people (comp. Matt. xxv, 41-46).

Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of judgment!
For near is the day of Jehovah,

In the valley of judgment (verse 14).

Jehovah, who dwells in Zion, will make that valley—a valley of judgment to his enemies-like another valley of blessings to his people. Comp. 2 Chron. xx, 20-26.

3. Chap. iii, 18-21 (Heb. iv, 18-21). The judgment of the nations shall be followed by a perpetual peace and glory like the composure and rest which God gave the realm of Jehoshaphat (2 Chron. xx, 30). The figures of great plenty, the flowing waters, the fountain proceeding from the house of Jehovah, Judah and

Jerusalem abiding forever, and "Jehovah dwelling in Zion," are in substance equivalent to the closing chapters of Ezekiel and John. Thus this oldest Apocalypse virtually assumes a sevenfold structure, and repeats its revelations in various forms. The Joel's prophecy first four sections refer to a day of Jehovah near at a generic Apochand, an impending judgment, of which the locust alypse. scourge had, perhaps, already appeared as the beginning of sorrows; the last three stand out in the more distant future (afterward the last days, Acts ii, 17). The allusions of the book to events of the reign of Jehoshaphat have led most critics to believe that Joel prophesied soon after the days of that monarch, but beyond those allusions this ancient prophet is unknown. The absence of any thing to determine his historical standpoint, and the farreaching import of his words, render his oracles a kind of generic prophecy capable of manifold applications.

EZEKIEL'S VISIONS.

The numerous parallels between the Book of Ezekiel and the Revelation of John have arrested the attention of all. Peculiarities of readers.' But the number and extent of Ezekiel's proph- Ezekiel. ecies carry him over a broader field than that of any other apocalyptic seer, so that he combines vision, symbolico-typical action, parable, allegory, and formal prophesying. "Ezekiel's style of prophetic representation," says Keil, "has many peculiarities. In the first place the clothing of symbol and allegory prevails in him to a greater degree that in all the other prophets; and his symbolism and allegory are not confined to general outlines and pictures, but elaborated in the minutest details, so as to present figures of a boldness surpassing reality, and ideal representations which produce an impression of imposing grandeur and exuberant fulness."

2

Ezekiel's prophecies, like Joel's, may be divided into two parts: the first (chapters i-xxxii) announcing Jehovah's judg Analysis of ments upon Israel and the heathen nations; the second Ezekiel's proph(chapters xxxiii-xlviii) announcing the restoration and ecies.

final glorification of Israel. The first part, however, is not without gracious words of promise (xi, 13-20; xvii, 22-24), and the second contains the fearful judgment of God (xxxvii, xxxviii) after the manner of the judgment of all nations described in the second part of Joel (iii, 2–14). Our space will permit us only to notice here the closing section of this great apocalypse, which is comprised in chap

1See a list of parallels between Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah, and John, in the Speaker's Commentary on Ezekiel, pp. 12-16.

9 Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Ezekiel, vol. i, p. 9. Edinb., 1876.

The new tem

city.

ters xl-xlviii, and contains an elaborate vision of the kingdom of God, and is the Old Testament counterpart of the new heaven and new land portrayed in Rev. xxi and xxii. Ezekiel is ple, land, and carried in the visions of God to a very high mountain in the land of Israel (xl, 2; comp. Rev. xxi, 10) and sees a new temple, new ordinances of worship, a river of waters of life, new land and new tribal divisions, and a new city named JEHOVAH-SHAMMAH. The minuteness of detail is characteristic of Ezekiel, and no one would so naturally have portrayed the Messianic times under the imagery of a glorified Judaism as a prophet who was himself a priest. From his historical standpoint, as an exile by the rivers of Babylon, smitten with grief as he remembered Zion, and the ruined city and temple, and the desolated land of Canaan (comp. Psa. cxxxvii), no ideal of restoration and glory could be more attractive and pleasing than that of a perfect temple, a continual service, a holy priesthood, a restored city, and a land completely occupied, and watered by a never-failing river that would make the deserts blossom as the rose.

vision of Eze

kiel.

Three different interpretations of these closing chapters of EzeInterpretation kiel have been maintained. (1) The first regards this of the closing description of the temple as a model of the temple of Solomon which was destroyed by the Chaldæans. The advocates of this view suppose that the prophet designed this pattern to serve in the rebuilding of the house of God after the return of the Jews from their exile. (2) Another class of interpreters hold that this whole passage is a literal prophecy of the final restoration of the Jews. At the second coming of Christ all Israel will be gathered out from among the nations, become established in their ancient land of promise, rebuild their temple after this glorious model, and dwell in tribal divisions according to the literal statements of this prophecy. (3) That exposition which has been maintained probably by the majority of evangelical divines may be called the figurative or symbolico-typical. The vision is a Leviticoprophetic picture of the New Testament Church or kingdom of God. Its general import is thus set forth by Keil: "The tribes of Israel which receive Canaan for a perpetual possession are not the Jewish people converted to Christ, but the Israel of God; i. e., the people of God of the new covenant gathered from among both Jews and Gentiles; and that Canaan in which they are to dwell is not the earthly Canaan or Palestine between the Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea, but the New Testament Canaan, the territory of the kingdom of God, whose boundaries reach from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth. And the temple upon a very

high mountain in the midst of this Canaan in which the Lord is enthroned, and causes the river of the water of life to flow down from his throne over his kingdom, so that the earth produces the tree of life with leaves as medicine for men, and the Dead Sea is filled with fishes and living creatures, is a figurative representation and type of the gracious presence of the Lord in his Church, which is realized, in the present period of the early development of the kingdom of heaven, in the form of the Christian Church, in a spiritual and invisible manner, in the indwelling of the Father and the Son through the Holy Spirit in the hearts of believers, and in a spiritual and invisible operation in the Church, but which will eventually manifest itself when our Lord shall appear in the glory of the Father to translate his Church into the kingdom of glory in such a manner that we shall see the Almighty God and the Lamb with the eyes of our glorified body, and worship before his throne." 1

This symbolico-typical interpretation recognizes a harmony of Ezekiel's method and style with other apocalyptic representations of the kingdom of heaven, and finds in this fact a strong argument in its favour. The measurements recorded, the ideal character of the tribe divisions, and especially the river of healing waters flowing from the threshold of the temple into the eastern sea, are insuperable difficulties in the way of any literal exposition of the vision. The modern chiliastic notion of a future return of the Jews to Palestine, and a revival of the Old Testament sacrificial worship, is opposed to the entire genius and spirit of the Gospel dispensation."

REVELATION OF DANIEL.

il

by

Daniel's double of

All interpreters agree that the empires or world-powers denoted by the various parts of the great image in Dan. ii, 31-45, Principles and by the four beasts from the sea (Dan. vii), are the lustrated same. The prophecy is repeated under different symbols, revelation but the interpretation is one. This double revelation, empires. then, will be of special value in illustrating the hermeneutical principles already enunciated. But in no portion of Scripture do we need to exercise greater discrimination and care. These prophecies, in their details, have been variously understood, and the most able and accomplished exegetes have differed widely in their explanations. And not only in matters of minor detail, but there. prevails, even to this day, a notable divergence of opinion in regard

1 Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Ezekiel, vol. ii, p. 425. Edinb., 1876. ? For extended arguments in favour of the symbolico-typical, and against the literal, interpretation of Ezek. xl-xlviii, see the commentaries on this prophet by Fair< bairn, Schroeder, Cowles, and Currey.

to three out of the four great kingdoms which occupy so prominent a position in the recorded visions and dreams.

Three errors.

A critical study of the current English literature of Daniel's prophecies begets the conviction that three serious errors have had much to do in vitiating the process pursued by a large number of expositors. (1) There appears with many an obvious desire to make the book itself a contribution to apologetics. When the interpretation of any writing is made subservient to such an ulterior polemical purpose, there is usually more than a probability that the interpreter will be too much governed by considerations outside the purpose of pure exegesis. (2) Some writers, observing a remarkable resemblance between the Book of Daniel and the Apocalypse of John, rush to the conclusion that the similar symbols of both books must refer to the same great events in the history of the world. This fact of similarity has been construed as if it were in itself a proof that the fourth beast of Dan. vii, is identical with the first beast of Rev. xiii, 1-10, and the little horn of Dan. vii, and the second beast of Rev. xiii, 11-18 are both alike symbols of the papacy of Rome. (3) There is, further, a singularly persistent presumption that the Book of Daniel, and also the Apocalypse of John, may reasonably be expected to contain an outline history of European politics, and the chronicles of ancient, mediæval, and modern times have been ransacked, and even tortured, to find the ten kings referred to by the prophet. One is amazed at the amount of imperious dogmatism which often appears in the works of some who follow these erroneous methods.

It must be conceded, therefore, that a faithful exposition of Daniel requires the most painstaking care. All dogmatism must be set aside, and we should endeavour to place ourselves in the very position of the prophet, and study with minute attention his language and his symbols. Where such wide differences of opinion have prevailed we cannot for a moment allow any a priori assumptions of what ought to be found in these prophecies, or of what ought not to be found there.' All such assumptions are fatal to

1 The Roman Empire, the papacy, the Momammedans, the Goths and Vandals, the French Revolution, the Crimean War, the United States of America, and our late civil war between the North and the South, have all been assumed to have such an importance in the history of humanity and of the Gospel that we should expect to find some notice of them somewhere in the prophets of the Bible. Daniel and the Revelation of John, abounding as they do in vision and symbol, have been searched more than other prophecies with such an expectation. We find even Barnes writing as follows: "The Roman Empire was in itself too important, and performed too important an agency in preparing the world for the kingdom of the Redeemer, to be omitted in such an enumeration."-Notes on Dan. ii, 40, p. 147. On the same principle we