Turning from the city of Jerusalem to the land generally, the Prophet Ezekiel addresses himself to Israel, the nation whom God had chosen, and who had rejected God. By a striking figure of speech, he delivers his message to the mountains and hills, the water courses and ravines of Palestine. How dear all these features of the land of his fathers must have been to the prophet, we can easily imagine; national and religious associations must, in the course of centuries, have gathered round every portion of the territory which Jehovah had given to the descendants of Abraham. The apostrophe to the country was at the same time a word to the nation; the people and the land were identified. The artist, the poet, may deal with scenery apart from the living inhabitants who dwell amidst it. But the patriot, the prophet, the preacher, love the land for the people's sake who make it their home. To Ezekiel the land of Israel was -

I. A SCENE OF IDOLATRY. Before its possession by the Israelites, the land of Canaan was a stronghold of idolatry and of idolatrous rites and practices of the foulest and cruellest kind. The commission which the children of Israel received was a commission to extirpate the idolaters, and to purse the land of its heathen abominations. Yet the candid and faithful record of Old Testament Scripture informs us that from the first the chosen people were led away by the example and influence of the ancient dwellers in the land, and learned to practise the abominations they were appointed to repress. One great aim of the seers and prophets was to reproach the nation because of prevailing idolatry and superstition, and to summon them to return to their allegiance, ever due to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It is evident that the worship of the deities adored by the surrounding nations was prevalent even among those who were called to a purer faith; and that some of the kings, both of Judah and of Israel, sanctioned and encouraged idolatrous observances and idolatrous priesthoods. Thus the high places and the ravines of Palestine were defiled by the rites of folly, cruelty, and lust. These heathen deities were embodiments in imagination of the lusts which corrupt the human heart.

II. A SCENE OF PROPHETIC PROTEST AND REBUKE. It was a token of Divine mercy and forbearance that the apostate Israelites were not left to the delusions and errors, the defection and rebellion, into which they had suffered themselves to be led. The voice of the Lord's prophets was heard upon the mountains, and throughout the valleys, which had been abandoned to those who practised the fanatical, bloodthirsty, and polluted observances distinctive of Canaanitish and Phoenician idolatry. Impressions were produced upon individuals which resulted in a return to the service of Jehovah. There were temporary reformations, distinguished by penitence and by vows. But the reader of the prophetic Scriptures cannot but admit that there was no great national movement in the right direction. Notwithstanding faithful rebuke, severe denunciation, compassionate promise, the people returned again and again to their former follies. It was as though Israel had resolved that no exhortation and no threat should avail to keep the nation faithful to him who bad exalted, defended, and prospered it, and who bad borne with the manners of the rebellious people, not only in the wilderness, but in the land of promise. It was as though nothing short of captivity and exile, conjoined with the destruction and desolation of the capital, could teach the lesson which it was Israel's vocation first to acquire, and then to communicate to the world around.

III. A SCENE OF DESOLATION AND OF DEATH. The Prophet Ezekiel speaks here with conviction and certainty. There rises before his mind a vision which can only fill his heart with grief and mourning. It is a satisfaction, indeed, to his righteous soul to foresee the high places destroyed, the altars desolate, the images broken, and the works of idolaters abolished. But this is not all. He sees the dead carcases of the children of Israel, the scattered bonus, the slain in the midst of the city, etc. And the vision of the depopulated land, the deserted and silent city, the vanquished and decimated nation, profoundly affects his patriotic and sensitive nature. It is a stern lesson, this which he has to teach; it is a terrible punishment, this which he has to anticipate and to foretell. Yet the lesson and the punishment are the Lord's. It is the word of the Lord which the prophet has to declare, the Lord of Israel who is at the same time the King of righteousness and of judgment. God brings the sword upon his own people; covers his own land with ruin and desolation. For his authority must not be defied, his laws must not be broken; his name must not be dishonoured with impunity. "The way of transgressors is hard." "The wages of sin is death." Until this lesson is learned, there is no place for the publication of clemency, for the proffer of mercy. The Law comes before the gospel; and they who do not honour the Law will not appreciate the gospel. It is in the midst of wrath that God remembers mercy.

APPLICATION.

1. There is such a thing as national guilt and apostasy. In our own time, individualism is carried to such an extreme that this fact is apt to be overlooked. A nation sins by its collective acts, and a nation suffers the just punishment of its evil doing. History is ever teaching this lesson, which men - good and bad - in their absorption in personal interests, are prone to overlook.

2. The Church has responsibility for witnessing against national errors, for warning the people of the inevitable consequences of apostasy from God, and for uttering clearly and boldly the mind and will of him who is eternal righteousness and eternal love. - T.

Taking chapters 6 and 7 as revealing the character of God, in how awful a light is the Divine Being made to appear! How infinite, for example, are His resources of judgment and penalty! He attributes to Himself the exercise of every possible action of vengeance and humiliation: "I will bring a sword"; "I will destroy your high places"; "I will cast down your slain men"; "I will lay the dead carcasses"; "I will scatter your bones"; "I will break the whorish heart"; "He that is afar off shall die of the pestilence"; "He that is near shall fall by the sword; the man who remained was to die by famine; and thus, and thus, in every way, God said, "I will accomplish My fury." He said He would stretch out His hand upon the idol-cursed hills and mountains, and green tree and thick oak, and He would make the fair land desolate, yea, more desolate than the wilderness toward Diblath. These are the judgments of the living God! Think of every disease that can afflict the human body; think of every force of nature that can strike human edifices and habitations; think of every trouble that can assail the sanity of the mind; think of every spectre and image that can come along the highway of the darkness and fill night and sleep with mortal fear; think of every appeal that can be addressed to the imagination; think of all possible terror, and loss, and shame, and ruin; multiply all these realities and possibilities by an unrestrained imagination, and even then we have hardly begun to touch the resources of God when He arises to shake terribly the earth and to inflict upon the nations the judgments which they have deserved and defied. Wonderful is the striking frankness of all these declarations on the part of the Most High God. There is mercy even in the terribleness of the revelation. An opportunity for repentance was created by the very awfulness of the method of revelation. Threatenings are meant to lead to promises. The thunderstorm is sent to avert us from a way that is wrong and to drive us to consideration on account of sin. God does not fulminate merely for the sake of showing His greatness; when He makes us afraid it is that He may bring us to final peace. Nothing is more evident than that underneath all these denunciations, and in explanation of them, there is a sublime moral reason. These judgments are not exhibitions of omnipotence; they are expressions of a moral emotion on the part of God. The people had departed from Him — they had done everything in their power to insult His majesty and to call into question His holiness and His justice; they had worshipped false gods; they had been faithful to forbidden altars; they had made a study of profanity and blasphemy; they had defied heaven in all their abominations; and not until the cup of their iniquity was full did the last beam of light vanish from the skies, and the whole heaven become darkened with thunderclouds. When judgment begins at the house of God, it burns with infinite indignation; there are no mitigating circumstances, there are no palliations whatsoever; the judgment is inflicted upon men who knew the right and yet pursued the wrong, who were intrusted with the custody of the truth, and yet threw it down and went with eagerness to the altar of falsehood that they might worship and obey a lie. How terrible, then, must be our judgment when God comes to visit us! What have we not known? With what treasures have we not been intrusted?

(J. Parker, D. D.)