was enacting this sign against the house of Israel and the house of Judah, the Lord said to Ezekiel, “ Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet and fitches and put them in one vessel and make bread thereof according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side; three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof. And thy meat which thou shalt eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day: from time to time shalt thou eat it. Thou shalt drink also water by measure, the sixth part of an hin: from time to time shalt thou drink. And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight."

And the Lord adds in explanation, saying, "Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles, whither I will drive them." This explanation is the key to the whole subject, for when the Lord says to the prophet," Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the heathen whither I will drive them," he is speaking of what he will do with the ten tribes of Israel future to Ezekiel's day. And moreover, as the house of Israel has never since the time of their dispersion, some 130 years previous to Ezekiel's day, returned from their dispersion, or ever existed as a people and nation even up to this nineteenth century of the Christian era, it follows as an actual necessity that the sign that Ezekiel was required to enact with so much care refers to what God intends to do with both the house of Israel and the house of Judah future to the times in which we live, even in the latter days. And there is therefore nothing in the past to which these things can be applied. And here is the fatal error that men have fallen into in endeavoring to interpret these words of the Lord by applying them to things in the past, when the Lord himself says distinctly that they apply to the future, saying, “Thus shall the house of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles, whither I will drive them." Note that the Lord does not say, "Thus shall they eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles whither I have driven them," but "among the Gentiles, whither I will drive them."

The words of the Lord are pure words and mean just what they say, and if men would read them more carefully, they would make fewer blunders and mistakes by which they throw everything into wild disorder. Who is so void of understanding as not to see that before the Lord can drive the house of Israel out of their own land among the Gentiles he must first bring them from among the Gentiles where they have now been scattered for nearly twenty-five hundred years, commencing long before Ezekiel lived?

When this scriptural view of Ezekiel's prophecies is taken, then all things. become plain and easy of interpretation, and speaking further of the famine. in Jerusalem, during the siege, the Lord says (4:16), "Moreover, he said unto me, Son of man, Behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem, and they shall eat bread by weight and with care, and they shall drink water by measure, and with astonishment, that they may want bread and water, and be astonished one with another, and consume away for their iniquity."

These remarkable signs that the prophet Ezekiel was required to perform in the presence of the people were to show to them the terrible straits that they were to be brought into in the latter days when, as Moses testifies, they were to be besieged in all their cities till they would kill and eat one another

for food in the terrible famine and distress to which they would be reduced by their enemies.

Now Ezekiel points out in explaining these signs: first, that the house of Israel and the house of Judah were to be besieged in the city of Jerusalem wherein they are to be gathered and where they are to make their last stand against the enemy, and in which they will be closely shut up and besieged after the manner of the sign that the Lord showed them by the hand of Ezekiel, until the sons eat their fathers, and the fathers eat their sons; second, that after the city is captured, broken up, and destroyed, and two-thirds of the inhabitants perish by the famine, the pestilence, and the sword, the remainder that is left of the house of Israel and the house of Judah are then to be driven into captivity, the house of Israel for a period of 390 years, and the house of Judah for a period of forty years. These captivities are measured; they commence with the second downfall of the whole house of Israel in the latter days, and they terminate during the reign of Christ and his brethren on the earth.

Now the full meaning and application of these remarkable signs is very forcibly set forth in the fifth chapter, where the mighty events which mark the fall of the kingdom of Israel and the city of Jerusalem are most graphically described as follows: "And thou, son of man, take thee a sharp knife, take thee a barber's razor, and cause it to pass upon thine head, and upon thy beard; then take thee balances to weigh, and divide the hair. Thou shalt burn with fire a third part in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled; and thou shalt take a third part, and smite about it with a knife; and a third part thou shalt scatter in the wind; and I will draw out a sword after them. Thou shalt also take thereof a few in number, and bind them in thy skirts. Then take of them again, and cast them into the midst of the fire, and burn them in the fire; for thereof shall a fire come forth into all the house of Israel." Then follows the application.

THE JUDGMENT OF JERUSALEM

"Thus saith the Lord God, This is Jerusalem: I have set it in the midst of the nations and countries that are round about her. And she hath changed my judgments into wickedness more than the nations, and my statutes more than the countries that are round about her; for they have refused my judgments and my statutes, they have not walked in them." This statement shows that the Lord had called upon the nations to accept and obey his statutes and judgments, that they might derive the benefits which would flow therefrom by becoming partakers in the hope of Israel. But we are here told that this they had refused to do, but served other gods, and walked after the imagination. of their own hearts.

This no doubt accounts for the fact that when faithless Israel is spoken of as a harlot they also are called women, for in this chapter (verse 8) the Lord says of Israel and Jerusalem, "Behold, I, even I, am against thee, and will execute judgments in the midst of thee, in the sight of the nations." This same thing is spoken of elsewhere as being done in the sight of women, saying, "They shall burn their houses with fire, and execute judgments upon thee in the sight of many women (Ezek. 16:41). Moreover, the judgments that

these lewd women of the nations see executed upon Aholah and Aholibah are to be a warning to them, as it is said (Ezek. 23: 48), " Thus will I cause lewdness to cease out of the land, that all women may be taught not to do after your lewdness." And when these nations are employed to execute judgment upon the rebellious house of Israel, under the symbol of locusts and under the sounding of the fifth trumpet, they are described as having hair, as the hair of women (Rev. 9:8), thus identifying them as the very people that Ezekiel spoke of, that had refused the Lord's command to identify themselves with his people.

But the Lord continues (Ezek. 5:7) saying, "Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, Because ye be multiplied more than the nations, that are round about you, and have not walked in my statutes, neither have kept my judgments, neither have done according to the judgments of the nations that are round about you, therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I, even I, am against thee, and will execute judgments in the midst of thee, in the sight of the nations. And I will do in thee that which I have not done, and whereunto I will not do any more the like, because of all thine abominations." This passage is worthy of special attention, inasmuch as this judgment upon Jerusalem and her people is to exceed in severity anything that has ever been. done in the past, or anything that is ever to be done in the future, counting from the time that this judgment is poured out. Now how shall we determine definitely when this is to be fulfilled? How shall we know whether this has transpired in the past, or whether it is yet to transpire in the future? We reply, By comparison, for there can be but one such period in Israel's history; and as this is the grand climax of Israel's punishment, we find that there are other prophets which have spoken of this same judgment, and in the same style of language as that which the Lord employs by the hand of his servant Ezekiel.

The Lord speaking again by the mouth of Jeremiah says, "For thus saith the Lord, We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace. Ask ye now and see whether a man doth travail with child? wherefore do I see every man with his hand upon his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness? Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it. It is even the time of Jacob's trouble. But he (the remnant, the true Jacob) shall be saved out of it" (30:5-7).

Again Jesus, speaking of the end of the (Mosaic) world, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the sorrows and evils that are to attend it, says, For then shall be great tribulation, such as there was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be" (Matt. 24:21). Again in the vision of Daniel recorded in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth chapters, the angel said to Daniel, speaking of the fall and overthrow and destruction of the king of the north upon the mountains of Israel and what was to befall Daniel's people in the latter days, "And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people; and there shall be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book" (that is, written among the living in Jerusalem [Isa. 4:3]). "And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall

awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt" (Dan. 12: 1-2). This revelation by the hand of Daniel proves that this unprecedented time of trouble in Israel's history that Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Jesus spake of, transpires in connection with the resurrection of many of the dead at the last day.

We have cited these instances to prove that the prophet Ezekiel, in that portion of his writings which we are interpreting, is treating of those great events in the history of Israel and the nations which cluster around the resurrection of the dead, and the knowledge of this fact invests his prophecy with double importance to all honest readers and inquirers after the truth.

But what are the evils, the tribulations, and the nature of the sorrows that are to befall the people of Israel in those days? "Therefore the fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of thee, and the sons shall eat the fathers; and I will execute judgments in the midst of thee, and the whole remnant of thee will I scatter into all winds" (Ezek. 5: 10). Thus the Lord reproduces here by the hand of the prophet Ezekiel what he had before said to Moses in giving to Israel the second law, and also what he said in the first part of the law, in the last of the four series of sevens, of plagues, which are also manifest under the seven vials of the seven last plagues as appears in the Revelation, saying, 66 And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat, and I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you" (Lev. 26: 29-30).

It is during these terrible sieges that the idolatrous Israelites are driven to such extremities that they eat one another, for the Lord says in this same connection (verse 25), “And I will bring a sword upon you, which shall avenge the quarrel of my covenant: and when ye are gathered together in your cities, I will send the pestilence among you; and ye shall be delivered into the hand of your enemies. And when I have broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread by weight, and ye shall not be satisfied." These are the extremities and the distresses to which the rebellious house will be reduced when the Lord shall judge his people; and Moses also testifies (Deut. 28: 50) that the nation of fierce countenance shall distress them and besiege them in all their cities till they shall eat their sons and daughters, and till their high walls come down wherein they trusted, and until they are delivered into the enemies' hands for destruction. (Verse 64) "The Lord shall scatter you among all people from the one end of the earth even unto the other, and there thou shalt serve other gods which neither thou nor thy fathers have known."

Now all these things the testimony of Ezekiel confirms, both as to their idolatry and wickedness, and the punishment that they will be subjected to for all their transgressions, saying (5:11), "Wherefore, as I live, saith the Lord God, Surely, because thou hast defiled my sanctuary with all thy detestable things, and with all thine abominations, therefore will I also diminish thee, neither shall mine eye spare, neither will I have any pity. A third part of thee shall die with the pestilence, and with famine shall they be consumed in the midst of thee; and a third part shall fall by the sword round about

thee: and I will scatter a third part into all winds, and I will draw out a sword after them."

Now what does the Lord here charge against his people as the procuring cause why he visits them with such deadly destruction? He says, "As I live, saith the Lord God, Surely, because thou hast defiled my sanctuary with all thy detestable things, and with all thine abominations." This is what the Lord charges against them; they have done worse than their fathers, for Manasseh king of Judah, "reared up altars for Baalam, and made groves, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them. Also he built altars in the house of the Lord, whereof the Lord had said, In Jerusalem shall my name be forever, and he built altars for all the hosts of heaven in the courts of the house of the Lord, and he caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom. Also he observed times, and used enchantments, and used witchcrafts, and dealt with a familiar spirit, and with wizards. He wrought much evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger" (II Chron. 33: 1-7). And to complete his iniquity, "he set a carved image, the idol which he had made, in the house of the Lord, of which God had said to David, and to Solomon his son, In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen before all the tribes of Israel, will I put my name for ever."

These abominations of Manasseh will be exceeded by the kings of Israel in the latter days, for they will set up again in the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem the "abomination that maketh desolate," and they will also admit strangers into the Lord's house, as it is said (Ezek. 7:22), “My face will I also turn from them, and they shall pollute my secret place (the holy of holies) for the robbers shall enter into it, and defile it."

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It is because they will be guilty of such abominations as these that the Lord has declared that he will reduce the populous house of Israel, who will then be as the stars of the sky and as the sand of the sea for multitude, down to a remnant, by famine, by the pestilence, and by the sword, and the nation will be destroyed, save a small remnant. Then the Lord says (verse 13), “Thus shall mine anger be accomplished, and I will cause my fury to rest upon them, and I will be comforted, and they shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it in my zeal, when I have accomplished my fury in them. Moreover I will make thee waste, and a reproach among the nations that are round about thee, in the sight of all that pass by. So it shall be a reproach and a taunt, an instruction and an astonishment unto the nations that are round about thee, when I shall execute judgments in thee, in anger and in fury, and in furious rebukes. I the Lord have spoken it. When I shall send upon them the evil arrows of famine, which shall be for their destruction, and which I will send to destroy you, and I will increase the famine upon you, and will break your staff of bread. So will I send upon you famine and evil beasts, and they shall bereave thee; and pestilence and blood shall pass through thee; and I will bring the sword upon thee. I the Lord have spoken it."

A LIST OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF ISRAEL IN THE LATTER DAYS

These things were shown to the prophet Ezekiel in vision, in the spirit, to see and describe what the rebellious house will do in those times which are