He brought me back to the door of the house; and behold, waters flowed out from under the threshold of the house eastward, for the front of the house faced toward the east. The waters came down from underneath, from the right side of the house, on the south of the altar. Then he brought me out by the way of the gate northward, and led me around by the way outside to the outer gate, by the way of the gate that looks toward the east. Behold, waters ran out on the right side.
When the man went out eastward with the line in his hand, he measured one thousand cubits, and he caused me to pass through the waters, waters that were to the ankles. Again he measured one thousand, and caused me to pass through the waters, waters that were to the knees. Again he measured one thousand, and caused me to pass through waters that were to the waist. Afterward he measured one thousand; and it was a river that I could not pass through; for the waters had risen, waters to swim in, a river that could not be walked through.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 5 Whereby are meant the spiritual graces that should be…
Whereby are meant the spiritual graces that should be given to the Church under the kingdom of Christ.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–5 Eze 47:1 Afterward he brought me again unto the…
Eze 47:1 Afterward he brought me again unto the door of the house; and, behold, waters issued out from under the threshold of the house eastward: for the forefront of the house [stood toward] the east, and the waters came down from under from the right side of the house, at the south [side] of the altar.
Ver. 1. Afterward he brought.] Christus mystagogus me duxit. Yεω επου, Follow God whithersoever he leadeth thee; this was an ancient rule among the heathens. Christo ducente et docente.
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And, behold, waters issued out,] i.e., The gospel of grace, and the gifts of the Holy Ghost thereby conveyed into the hearts of believers, and poured out upon the world by the death of Christ. The prophet seems to allude to those waters, which by conduits were conveyed to the altar to wash away the blood of the sacrifices and filth of the temple, which else would have been very offensive and noisome. See the like in Zec 14:8, where the eastern and western Churches also are pointed out. See Rev 22:1.
From under the threshold.] Quod gloria Dei dudum triverat. {a} Christ is that door, {Joh 10:7} and fountain of living water. {Jer 2:13 Isa 12:3; Isa 55:1} And from the temple at Jerusalem flowed forth the waters of saving truth to all nations; and first eastward, not Romeward, though the faith of the Romans was not long after spoken of throughout the whole world. {Rom 1:8}
{a} Oecolamp.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5 After that the temple was measured, and the ordinances…
After that the temple was measured, and the ordinances of it were settled, and what pertained to prince and people assigned, &c., he brought me; the angel, or the Spirit of God, Eze 1:3 3:22. The house; the temple itself. Waters issued out: some do observe that there were aqueducts laid under ground, which from some fountain were conveyed to cleanse and purge away the blood of sacrifices poured fourth, and the excrements of the slain beasts, of which some would remain after the greatest care. However, they would need much water about their temple services, and this was conveyed in pipes from the fountain Etare, as Dr. Lightfoot observes from their rabbins, and from Aristaeus an eye-witness; these gave. occasion or ground of this vision. From under the threshold; the fountain lay to the west, the conduit pipes were laid to bring the water to the temple, and so must run eastward, and perhaps one main pipe might be laid under the east gate of the temple. From the right side; on the south side of the temple, for so the south is to a man whose face looketh toward the east. At, or towards, the south side of the altar, for so it seems they were conveyed to run, till they came to the altar, and were conveyed by the right side of it into a room they called the well room. The spiritual meaning I refer to the private meditations of Christians; thus far of the aqueducts.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v1 This part of Ezekiel's vision must so necessarily have…
This part of Ezekiel's vision must so necessarily have a mystical and spiritual meaning that thence we conclude the other parts of his vision have a mystical and spiritual meaning also; for it cannot be applied to the waters brought by pipes into the temple for the washing of the sacrifices, the keeping of the temple clean, and the carrying off of those waters, for that would be to turn this pleasant river into a sink or common sewer. That prophecy, Zac 14:8, may explain it, of living waters that shall go out from Jerusalem, half of them towards the former sea and half of them towards the hinder sea. And there is plainly a reference to this in St. John's vision of a pure river of water of life, Rev 22:1. That seems to represent the glory and joy which are grace perfected. This seems to represent the grace and joy which are glory begun. Most interpreters agree that these waters signify the gospel of Christ, which went forth from Jerusalem, and spread itself into the countries about, and the gifts and powers of the Holy Ghost which accompanied it, and by virtue of which it spread far and produced strange and blessed effects. Ezekiel had walked round the house again and again, and yet did not till now take notice of those waters; for God makes known his mind and will to his people, not all at once, but by degrees. Now observe,
I. The rise of these waters. He is not put to trace the streams to the fountain, but has the fountain-head first discovered to him (Eze 47:1): Waters issued out from the threshold of the house eastward, and from under the right side of the house, that is, the south side of the alter. And again (Eze 47:2), There ran out waters on the right side, signifying that from Zion should go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, Isa 2:3. There it was that the Spirit was poured out upon the apostles, and endued them with the gift of tongues, that they might carry these waters to all nations. In the temple first they were to stand and preach the words of this life, Act 5:20. They must preach the gospel to all nations, but must begin at Jerusalem, Luk 24:47. But that is not all: Christ is the temple; he is the door; from him those living waters flow, out of his pierced side. It is the water that he gives us that is the well of water which springs up, Joh 4:14. And it is by believing in him that we receive from him rivers of living water; and this spoke he of the Spirit, Joh 7:38, Joh 7:39. The original of these waters was not above-ground, but they sprang up from under the threshold; for the fountain of a believer's life is a mystery; it is hid with Christ in God, Col 3:3. Some observe that they came forth on the right side of the house to intimate that gospel-blessings are right-hand blessings. It is also an encouragement to those who attend at Wisdom's gates, at the posts of her doors, who are willing to lie at the threshold of God's house, as David was, that they lie at the fountainhead of comfort and grace; the very entrance into God's word gives light and life, Psa 119:130. David speaks it to the praise of Zion, All my springs are in thee, Psa 87:7. They came from the side of the altar, for it is in and by Jesus Christ, the great altar (who sanctifies our gifts to God), that God has blessed us with spiritual blessings in holy heavenly places. From God as the fountain, in him as the channel, flows the river which makes glad the city of our God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High, Psa 46:4. But observe how much the blessedness and joy of glorified saints in heaven exceed those of the best and happiest saints on earth; here the streams of our comfort arise from under the threshold; there they proceed from the throne the throne of God and of the Lamb, Rev 22:1.
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II. The progress and increase of these waters: They went forth eastward (Eze 47:3), towards the east country (Eze 47:8), for so they were directed. The prophet and his guide followed the stream as it ran down from the holy mountains, and when they had followed it about a thousand cubits they went over across it, to try the depth of it, and it was to the ankles, Eze 47:3. Then they walked along on the bank of the river on the other side, a thousand cubits more, and then, to try the depth of it, they waded through it the second time, and it was up to their knees, Eze 47:4. They walked along by it a thousand cubits more, and then forded it the third time, and then it was up to their middle - the waters were to the loins. They then walked a thousand cubits further, and attempted to repass it the fourth time, but found it impracticable: The waters had risen, by the addition either of brooks that fell into it above ground or by springs under ground, so that they were waters to swim in, a river that could not be passed over, Eze 47:5. Note, 1. The waters of the sanctuary are running waters, as those of a river, not standing waters, as those of a pond. The gospel, when it was first preached, was still spreading further. Grace in the soul is still pressing forward; it is an active principle, plus ultra - onward still, till it comes to perfection. 2. They are increasing waters. This river, as it runs constantly, so the further it goes the fuller it grows. The gospel-church was very small in its beginnings, like a little purling brook; but by degrees it came to be to the ankles, to the knees: many were added to it daily, and the grain of mustard seed grew up to be a great tree. The gifts of the Spirit increase by being exercised, and grace, where it is true, is growing, like the light of the morning, which shines more and more to the perfect day. 3. It is good for us to follow these waters, and go along with them. Observe the progress of the gospel in the world; observe the process of the work of grace in the heart; attend the motions of the blessed Spirit, and walk after them, under a divine guidance, as Ezekiel here did. 4. It is good to be often searching into the things of God, and trying the depth of them, not only to look on the surface of those waters, but to go to the bottom of them as far as we can, to be often digging, often diving, into the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, as those who covet to be intimately acquainted with those things. 5. If we search into the things of God, we shall find some things very plain and easy to be understood, as the waters that were but to the ankles, others more difficult, and which require a deeper search, as the water to the knees or the loins, and some quite beyond our reach, which we cannot penetrate into, or account for, but, despairing to find the bottom, must, as St. Paul, sit down at the brink, and adore the depth, Rom 11:33. It has been often said that in the scripture, like these waters of the sanctuary, there are some places so shallow that a lamb may wade through them, and others so deep that an elephant may swim in them. And it is our wisdom, as the prophet here, to begin with that which is most easy, and get our hearts washed with those things before we proceed to that which is dark and hard to be understood; it is good to take our work before us.
III. The extent of this river: It issues towards the east country, but thence it either divide itself into several streams or fetches a compass, so that it goes down into the desert, and so goes into the sea, either into the dead sea, which lay south-east, or the sea of Tiberias, which lay north-east, or the great sea, which lay west, Eze 47:8. This was accomplished when the gospel was preached with success throughout all the regions of Judea and Samaria (Act 8:1), and afterwards the nations about, nay, and those that lay most emote, even in the isles of the sea, were enlightened and leavened by it. The sound of it went forth to the end of the world; and the enemies of it could no more prevail to stop the progress of it than that of a mighty river.
IV. The healing virtue of this river. The waters of the sanctuary, wherever they come and have a free course, will be found a wonderful restorative. Being brought forth into the sea, the sulphureous lake of Sodom, that standing monument of divine vengeance, even those waters shall be healed (Eze 47:8), shall become sweet, and pleasant, and healthful. This intimates the wonderful and blessed change that the gospel would make, wheresoever it came in its power, a a great change, in respect both of character and condition, as the turning of the dead sea into a fountain of gardens. When children of wrath became children of love, and those that were dead in trespasses an sins were made alive, then this was fulfilled. The gospel was as that salt which Elisha cast into the spring of the waters of Jericho, with which he healed them, Kg2 2:20, Kg2 2:21. Christ, coming into the world to be its physician, sent his gospel as the great medicine, the panpharmacon; there is in it a remedy for every malady. Nay, wherever these rivers come, they make things to live (Eze 47:9), both plants and animals; they are the water of life, Rev 22:1, Rev 22:17. Christ came, that we might have life and for that end he sends his gospel. Every thing shall live whither the river comes. The grace of God makes dead sinners alive and living saints lively; everything is made fruitful and flourishing by it. But its effect is according as it is received, and as the mind is prepared and disposed to receive it; for (Eze 47:11) with respect to the marshes and miry places thereof, that are settled in the mire of their own sinfulness, and will not be healed, or settled in the moisture of their own righteousness, and think they need no healing, their doom is, They shall not be healed; the same gospel which to others is a savour of life unto life shall to them be a savour of death unto death; they shall be given to salt, to perpetual barrenness, Deu 29:23. Those that will not be watered with the grace of God, and made fruitful, shall be abandoned to their own hearts' lusts, and left for ever unfruitful. He that is filthy, let him be filthy still. Never fruit grow on thee more for ever. They shall be given to salt, that is, to be monuments of divine justice, as Lot's wife that was turned into a pillar of salt, to season others.
V. The great plenty of fish that should be in this river. Everything living moving thing shall be found here, shall live here (Eze 47:9), shall come on and prosper, shall be the best of the kind, and shall increase greatly; so that there shall be a very great multitude of fish, according to their kinds, as the fish of the great sea, exceedingly many. There shall be as great plenty of the river fish, and as vast shoals of them, as there is of salt-water fish, Eze 47:10. There shall be no great numbers of Christians in the church, and those multiplying like fishes in the rising generations and the dew of their youth. In the creation the waters brought forth the fish abundantly (Gen 1:20, Gen 1:21), and they still live in and by the waters that produced them; so believers are begotten by the word of truth (Jam 1:18), and born by it (Pe1 1:23), that river of God; by it they live, from it they have their maintenance and subsistence; in the waters of the sanctuary they are as in their element, out of them they are as fish upon dry ground; so David was when he thirsted and panted for God, for the living God. Where the fish are known to be in abundance, thither will the fishers flock, and there they will cast their nets; and therefore, to intimate the replenishing of these waters and their being made every way useful, it is here foretold that the fishers shall stand upon the banks of this river, from En-gedi, which lies on the border of the dead sea, to En-eglaim, another city, which joins to that sea, and all along shall spread their nets. The dead sea, which before was shunned as noisome and noxious, shall be frequented. Gospel-grace makes those persons and places which were unprofitable and good for nothing to become serviceable to God and man.
VI. The trees that were on the banks of this river - many trees on the one side and on the other (Eze 47:7), which made the prospect very pleasant and agreeable to the eye; the shelter of these trees also would be a convenience to the fishery. But that is not all (Eze 47:12); they are trees for meat, and the fruit of them shall not be consumed, for it shall produce fresh fruit every month. The leaf shall be for medicine, and it shall not fade, This part of the vision is copied out into St. John's vision very exactly (Rev 22:2), where, on either side of the river, is said to grow the tree of life, which yielded her fruit every month, and the leaves were for the healing of the nations. Christians are supposed to be these trees, ministers especially, trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord (Isa 61:3), set by the rivers of water, the waters of the sanctuary (Psa 1:3), grafted into Christ the tree of life, and by virtue of their union with him made trees of life too, rooted in him, Col 2:7. There is a great variety of these trees, through the diversity of gifts with which they are endued by that one Spirit who works all in all. They grow on the bank of the river, or they keep close to holy ordinances, and through them derive from Christ sap and virtue. They are fruit-trees, designed, as the fig tree and the olive, with their fruits to honour God and man, Jdg 9:9. The fruit thereof shall be for meat, for the lips of the righteous feed many. The fruits of their righteousness are one way or other beneficial. The very leaves of these trees are for medicine, for bruises and sores, margin. Good Christians with their good discourses, which are as their leaves, as well as with their charitable actions, which are as their fruits, do good to those about them; they strengthen the weak, and bind up the broken-hearted. Their cheerfulness does good like a medicine, not only to themselves, but to others also. They shall be enabled by the grace of God to persevere in their goodness and usefulness; their leaf shall not fade, or lose its medicinal virtue, having not only life in their root, but sap in all their branches; their profession shall not wither (Psa 1:3), neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed; that is, they shall not lose the principle of their fruitfulness, but shall still bring forth fruit in old age, to show that the Lord is upright (Psa 92:14, Psa 92:15), or the reward of their fruitfulness shall abide for ever; they bring forth fruit that shall abound to their account in the great day, fruit to life eternal; that is indeed fruit which shall not be consumed. They bring new fruit according to their months, some in one month and others in another: so that still there shall be one or other found to serve the glory of God for the purpose he designs. Or each one of them shall bring forth fruit monthly, which denotes an abundant disposition to fruit-bearing (they shall never be weary of well-doing), and a very happy climate, such that there shall be a perpetual spring and summer. And the reason of this extraordinary fruitfulness is because their waters issued out of the sanctuary; it is not to be ascribed to any thing in themselves, but to the continual supplies of divine grace, with which they are watered every moment (Isa 27:3); for, whoever planted them, it was that which gave the increase.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–5 Afterward he brought me again unto the door of…
Afterward he brought me again unto the door of the house,.... The door of the temple, even of the holy of holies; hither the prophet is said to be brought again, or "brought back" (x); for he was last in the corners of the outward court, viewing the kitchens or boiling places of the ministers; but now he was brought back into the inner court, and to the door that led into the holiest of all:
and, behold! for it was matter of admiration, as well as of observation and attention:
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waters issued out from under the threshold of the house eastward; this is a new thing, to which there was nothing like it, either in the first or second temple. Ariateas (y) indeed relates what he himself saw,
"a never failing conflux of water, as of a large fountain, naturally flowing underneath, and wonderful receptacles under ground; to each of which were leaden pipes, through which the waters came in on every side, for about half a mile about the temple, and washed away the blood of the sacrifices;''
and so the Talmudists (z) say, there was an aqueduct from the fountain of Etam, and pipes laid from thence to supply the temple with water, for the washing and boiling of the sacrifices, and keeping the temple clean: but these waters are quite different; they are such as came out of the temple, and not what were carried by pipes into it; nor were they a common sewer to carry off the filth of it, but formed a delightful and useful river. The fountain of them is not declared, only where they were first seen to issue out,
under the threshold of the house eastward; the threshold of the door of the most holy place; so that they seem to take their rise from the holy of holies, the seat of the divine Majesty, and throne of God, with which agrees Rev 22:1, and so the Talmudists (a) say, that this fountain came first from the house of the holy of holies, under the threshold of the door of it, which looked to the east:
for the fore front of the house stood toward the east; the holy of holies was at the west end of the temple; but the front of it, and so the door into it, was to the east, and from hence these waters flowed:
and the waters came down from under from the right side of the house; they are said to "come down", because the temple was high built upon the top of a mountain; and "from under", that is, the threshold of the door of it; or rather in subterraneous passages, till they appeared from under that; and this was "on the right side of the house"; that is, on the south side: for, suppose a man standing with his face to the east, as the prophet did, when he turned himself to see which way the waters flowed, having his face to the west when he first saw them come out; the south then must be on his right hand, and so it follows:
at the south side of the altar; of the altar of burnt offerings, which stood before the house.
(x) "reduxit me", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius, Starckius. (y) Hist. 70. Interpret. p. 32, 33. Ed. Oxon. 1692, (z) T. Hieros. Yoma, fol. 41. Cippi Hebr. p. 10. (a) T. Bab. Yoma, fol. 77. 2.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1–3 The vision of the holy waters, ver. 1-12. The…
The vision of the holy waters, ver. 1-12. The borders of the land of Canaan, ver. 13-23.
Eastward - The fountain lay to the west, the conduit pipes were laid to bring the water to the temple, and so must run eastward, and perhaps one main pipe might be laid under the east-gate of the temple. The right side - On the south-side of the temple.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1–5 The vision of the holy waters issuing out of…
CHAPTER XLVII
The vision of the holy waters issuing out of the temple, and
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their virtue; an emblem of the power of God's grace under the
Gospel, capable of healing all but the incorrigibly impenitent,
represented by the marshy ground that cannot be healed, 1-12.
Also a description of the several divisions of the Holy Land
indiscriminately shared betwixt Jews and proselytes; to denote
that in after times the privileges now enjoyed by the Jews
should be also extended to the Gentiles, 13-23.
NOTES ON CHAP. XLVII
Verse 1. Behold, waters issued out from under the threshold] Ezekiel, after having made the whole compass of the court of the people, is brought back by the north gate into the courts of the priests; and, having reached the gate of the temple, he saw waters which had their spring under the threshold of that gate, that looked towards the east; and which passing to the south of the altar of burnt-offerings on the right of the temple, ran from the west to the east, that they might fall into the brook Kidron, and thence be carried into the Dead Sea. Literally, no such waters were ever in the temple; and because there were none, Solomon had what is called the brazen sea made, which held water for the use of the temple. It is true that the water which supplied this sea might have been brought by pipes to the place: but a fountain producing abundance of water was not there, and could not be there, on the top of such a hill; and consequently these waters, as well as those spoken of in Joe 3:18, and in Zec 14:8, are to be understood spiritually or typically; and indeed the whole complexion of the place here shows, that they are thus to be understood. Taken in this view, I shall proceed to apply the whole of this vision to the effusion of light and salvation by the outpouring of the Spirit of God under the Gospel dispensation, by which the knowledge of the true God was multiplied in the earth; and have only one previous remark to make, that the farther the waters flowed from the temple, the deeper they grew.
With respect to the phraseology of this chapter, it may be said that St. John had it particularly in view while he wrote his celebrated description of the paradise of God, Re 22:1 &c. The prophet may therefore be referring to the same thing which the apostle describes, viz., the grace of the Gospel, and its effects in the world.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 3 Eze 47:1. He brought me again to the door…
Eze 47:1. He brought me again to the door of the house — The door of the temple, described Eze 41:2. And behold, waters issued from under the threshold eastward — Ezekiel had repeatedly walked round the house, and had surveyed the doors of it, but had not discovered this stream of water springing from under its threshold till now. Thus God makes known his mind and will to his people, not all at once, but by degrees. Dr. Lightfoot tells us, that there was a large quantity of water conveyed in pipes under ground from the fountain of Etam, for the uses of the temple; and some commentators seem disposed to interpret this part of Ezekiel’s vision, of that water. Others think he only alludes to it, or draws his similitude from it, but is to be mystically understood. Whether he allude to any such conduit, or stream of water, or not, that the waters here spoken of are to be understood mystically, will hardly be doubted by any that consider what is stated concerning their direction and course, their continual increase, and salubrious effects; circumstances all utterly inapplicable to the water said to be brought in pipes for the uses of the temple. The fore-front of the house stood toward the east, and the waters came down from under the right side of the house, and proceeded eastward — They did not therefore come to the temple, as if intended for the purposes of washing the sacrifices, carrying off the filth, and keeping every part clean and wholesome; but they issued from it, and proceeded to refresh and fertilize other places. The prophecy of Zec 14:8, that living waters should go forth from Jerusalem, half of them toward the former sea, and half toward the hinder sea; and St. John’s vision (Rev 22:1) of a pure river of water of life, proceeding out of the throne of God and the Lamb, elucidate this part of Ezekiel’s vision, and direct us in the application of it. It is undoubtedly to be understood of the gospel of Christ, which went forth from Jerusalem, and spread itself into the countries around; and of the gifts and graces of the Holy Ghost which accompanied it, and by virtue of which it diffused its influence far and wide, and produced the most blessed effects. Thus Isaiah foretold that out of Zion should go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, Isa 2:3. At Jerusalem it was that the Spirit was poured out upon the apostles, enduing them with the gift of tongues, that they might carry these waters to all nations; and in the temple first they stood and preached the words of this life. But this temple of Ezekiel was not so much designed to be an emblem of the material temple, built after the return of the Jews from Babylon, or of the Jewish Church, which had its principal seat there, as of the Christian Church, the temple built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, of which Jesus Christ is at once the foundation and chief corner-stone; nay, and also its threshold and door of entrance: and from him springs the well, and from him proceed the rivers of living water, which refresh and comfort the souls of true believers, and render them fruitful to the praise and glory of God: see Joh 4:10; Joh 4:14; Joh 7:38-39. Through these waters, the places, which had before been a mere wilderness, are made like Eden; and what had been a dry and barren desert, becomes like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness are found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of melody, Isa 51:3; Isa 30:25, where see the notes.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–5 The vision of the waters; or, the blessings which…
The vision of the waters; or, the blessings which flow from this source to animate and refresh all the inhabitants of the earth. Compare Isa 44:8...; Joe 3:18. Ezekiel’s description is adopted and modifled by Zechariah and in Rev. (compare the marginal references) Hebrew tradition speaks of a spring of water, named Etham, said to be identical with the well-waters of Nephtoah Jos 18:15, on the west of the temple, whose waters were conducted by pipes into the temple-courts for the uses needed in the ministration of the priests. The waters of Shiloah Psa 46:4; Isa 8:6 flowed from the rocks beneath the temple-hill. It is quite in the manner of Ezekiel’s vision to start from an existing feature and thence proceed to an ideal picture from where to draw a spiritual lesson. The deepening of the waters in their course shows the continual deepening of spiritual life and multiplication of spiritual blessings in the growth of the kingdom of God. So long as the stream is confined to the temple-courts, it is merely a small rill, for the most part unseen, but when it issues from the courts it begins at once to deepen and to widen. So on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended upon the company of believers, little then but presently to develop into the infant Church in Jerusalem.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1–2 Waters. These waters are not to be understood literally,…
Waters. These waters are not to be understood literally, (for there were none such that flowed from the temple) but mystically of the baptism of Christ, and of his doctrine and his grace; the trees that grow on the banks are Christian virtues; the fishes are Christians, that spiritually live in and by these holy waters; the fishermen are the apostles, and apostolic preachers; the fenny places, where there is no health, are such as by being out of the Church are separated from these waters of life. (Challoner) --- It is not probable that real water or fishes were found, ver. 9. But this must be explained of the Church and of baptism, in a higher and more proper sense. (Worthington) --- Joel, (iii. 18.) before the captivity, and Zacharias, (xiv. 8.) after that event, speak of fountains as still to appear, and of course not in either temple, though Pilate made aqueducts for the purpose, (Josephus, Jewish Wars ii. 13.) which Tacitus, (An. v.) Maundrel, (p. 148.) and others mention. But the prophets allude not to them, but to Christ, the fountain of water springing up unto life eternal, John iv. 14., and vii. 38. (Calmet) --- Villalpand understands it of waters brought into the temple to wash the victims; but it seems to refer more to the grace and doctrine of Christ. (Menochius)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 (2) The Holy Land and the Holy City (Ezekiel…
(2) The Holy Land and the Holy City (Ezekiel 47, 48).
Ch. 47. 1 And he brought me back to the opening of the house, and, behold, waters issued from below the threshold of the house eastward: for the front [the face] of the house is toward the east, and the waters came down 2 from under, from the right side of the house, south of the altar. And he brought me forth the way of the north gate, and made me go round the way without to the outer gate, the way of the eastward-looking [gate]; and, behold,3 waters came purling out from the right side. When the man went forth to the east, there was a measuring-line in his hand. And he measured a thousand cubits, and made me pass through in the water—waters to the ankles 4 And he measured a thousand, and made me pass through in the water—waters to the knees [they reached]. And he measured a thousand, and made me pass 5 through—waters to the loins. And he measured a thousand—a river [was it then] which I could not pass through, because the waters rose up, waters of swimming, a river that could not be waded. 6And he said unto me, Hast thou seen, son of man ? And he led me, and brought me back to the bank 7 of the river. When I returned, behold, on the bank of the river very many 8 trees, on this side and on that. And he said unto me, These waters, going out as they do to the east boundary, then flow down over the steppe, and come to the sea, brought forth [they come] to the sea, and the waters are healed. 9 And it cometh to pass that every living thing which shall creep, whithersoever the double stream shall come, shall live; and very many fish are there, for these waters come thither, and they shall be healed; and everything 10 liveth to which the river cometh. And it cometh to pass that fishers shall stand on it [shall place themselves over it], from En-gedi even unto En-eglaim there shall be a spreading-place for nets; as to their kind, their fishes shall be as 11 the fishes of the great sea, very many. Its mire [its swamps] and its pools [holes], 12 these shall not be healed; they are given to salt. And [yet] on the river there shall rise up, on its bank, on this side and on that, every kind of tree for food; its leaf [foliage] shall not fade, nor its fruit cease; according to its months it bears first-fruits, for its waters flow forth from the sanctuary; and its fruit is for food and its leaf [foliage] for healing. 13Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: The territory itself, the land which ye shall take to you for an inheritance, 14 [shall be] for the twelve tribes of Israel; for Joseph [two] portions. And ye inherit it, every one as his brother, which I lifted up My hand to give to 15 your fathers; and [so] this land falleth to you for inheritance. And this is the border of the land on the north side, from the great sea on the way to Hethlon, to come to Zedad; 16Hamath, Berothah, Sibraim, which is between the border of Damascus and the border of Hamath; Hazar the middle, which is on the border of Hauran. 17And the border from the sea is from Hazar-Enon, the border of Damascus, and [in the] north northward there is the border 18 of Hamath; and [this] as the north side. And as to the east side, from between Hauran, and Damascus, and Gilead, and the land of Israel, is the Jordan; from the border ye shall measure to the east sea; and [this] as 19 the east side. And as to the south side, to the right; from Tamar to the waters of Meriboth-Kadesh is the inheritance [to the river] to the great sea; and 20 [this] as the side to the right southward. And with respect to the west side, the great sea from the border to over against the way to Hamath; this is the 21 west side. And ye divide this land for you according to the tribes of Israel. 22 And it cometh to pass that ye shall allot [divide] it as an inheritance to you and to the strangers sojourning in your midst, who have begotten children in your midst; and they are to you as the native among the children of Israel; 23 with you shall they share in the inheritance among the tribes of Israel. And it cometh to pass, that in the tribe with which the stranger sojourns, there shall ye give him his inheritance. Sentence of the Lord Jehovah.
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Eze_47:1. Sept.: Κ. εἰσηγαγεν με ἐπι τα προθυρα ... ἀπο του κλιτους του θεξιου ἀπο νοτου ἐπι το θυσιαστηριον.
Eze_47:2. ...το ὑδωρ κατεφερετο—Vulg.: … aquæ redundantes—
Eze_47:3. κκωθς ἐξοδος ἀνδρος ἐξεναντιας. Κ. μητρον ... κ. διηγθεν ἐν ... ὑδωρ ἀφεσεως. Vulg.: … et traduxit me per aquam—
Eze_47:4. … κ. διηλθεν ... ὑδωρ ἑως των μηρων ... ἑως ὀσφυος—
Eze_47:5. … χειμαῤῥους, κ. οὐκ ἠδυνατο ... ἐξυβριζεν ... ὑδωρ ὡς ῥοιζος χειμαῤῥου ὁ οὐ διαβησοντα. Another reading: לא יןכל, Syr., Arabs.)
Eze_47:6. Sept.: … ἐπι το χειλος του ποταμου (7) ἐν τ. ἐπιστροφη μου.
Eze_47:8. … εἰς την Γαλιλαιαν την προς ἀςατολα ... ἐπι την Ἀραβιαν . . . θαλασσαν ἐπι το ὑδωρ της ἐκβολης— Vulg.: … quæ egrediuntur ad tumulos sabuli orientalis … ad plana deserti, intrabunt mare et exibunt—(Another reading: הגָלילה, Syr., Chald., Arabs, in hexaplis Origenes.)
Eze_47:9. … πασα ψυχη των ζωων των ἐκζεοντων . . . ὁ ποταμος . . . ὑγιασει κ. ζησεται παν . . . ἐκει ζησεται.
Eze_47:10. … ψυγμος σαγηνων ἐσται, κατʼ αὐτην ἐσται κ. ὡς οἰ—Vulg.: … plurimæ species erunt piscium ejus, sicut—(Another reading: דיגים.)
Eze_47:11. … ἐν τη διεκβ ολη αὐτου κ. ἐν τ. ἐπιατροφη αὐτου κ. ἐν τ. ὑπεραρει αὐτου—Vulg.: In littoribus autem … in salinas dabuntur. (Another reading: ובבאיו, et in redditibus suis. Sept., Syr.)
Eze_47:12. … παν ξυλον βρωσιμον οὐ μ πσλσιωθη ἐπʼ αὐτου, οὐδε μη ἐκλειπη ὁ καρπος αὐτου της καινοτνος αὐτου πρωτοβολησει . . . κ. ἡ ἀναβασις αὐτων εἰς ὑγειαν. Vulg.: … afferet primitiva—
Eze_47:13. … Ταυτα τα ὁρια κκτακληρονομησετε της, ταις δωδεκα . . . προσθεσις σχοινισματος. Vulg.: Hic est terminus in quo possidebitis terram in … quia Joseph duplicem funiculum habet. (Another reading: זה, גיא.)
Eze_47:15. … της μεγαλης τ. κκταβαινουσης κ. πεισχιζουσης, της εἰσοδου Ἡμαθελδαμ.
Eze_47:16. Μαωσθηρας, Ἐφραμηλειαμ, ἀνα μεσον τ. ὁριων Ἠμαθ . . . Δαμασκου, Εὐναν κ. του εὐναν, αἱ εἰσιν ἐπανω—Vulg.: … et confinium Emath, domus Tichon quæ est—
Eze_47:17. … ἀπο τ. αὐλης του Αἱναν. (Another reading: זאת פאת.)
Eze_47:18. … ἀνα μεσον της Ὠρκνιτιδος . . .ὁ Ἰορδανης θιοριζει ἐπι τ. θαλασσαν τ. προς ἀνατολας Φοινικωνος—Vulg. … de medio Auran … Jordanis disterminans ad mare orientale; metiemini etiam plagam—(Another reading: זאת פאת ׃עד הים, etiam, Eze_47:19.)
Eze_47:19. … προς νοτον κ. λοβα ἀπο Θαιμαν κ. Φοινικωος ἑως ὑδατος Μαριμωθ Καδης, παρεκτεινον ἐπι—Vulg.: Plaga autem australis meridiana … aquas contradictions Cades, et torrens usque—(Another reading: מריבַת, Vulg., Syr., Chald.)
Eze_47:20. Τουτο το μερος νοτος κ. λιΨ, τουτο το μερος της θαλασσης τ. μεγαλης διοριζει, ἑως κατεναντι της εἰσοδου Ἠμαθ, ἑως εἰσοδου αὐτου—Vulg.: … a confinio per directum, donec venias—(Another reading: ואת פאת־ים.)
Eze_47:22. Sept: Βαλειτε αὐτην ἐν κληρω . . .προσηλυτοις . . . μεθ’ ὑμως φαγονται ἐν κληρονομια—Vulg.: … vobiscum divident possessionem—
Eze_47:23. … ἐν φυλη προσηλυτων ἑν τοις προσηλυτοις μετ’ κὐτων. Ἐκει δωσετε . . .αὐτοις—
EXEGETICAL REMARKS
As the entrance of the glory of the God of Israel (Ezekiel 43, 44) forms the centre for the first section of this closing vision of the glory of Jehovah’s kingdom, namely, for the temple and its service, so the waters of life from the temple give the key-note for the second section,—the holy land and the holy city,—and at the same time furnish the interpretation of the second and there by of the first section.
Eze_47:1-12. The Waters of Life.1
ADDITIONAL NOTE
[“It is necessary to take the first part of this chapter apart from the second, which relates to a different subject, the new division of the land, and which ought to have formed part of Ezekiel 48. The vision contained in the first twelve verses of this chapter is a thing by itself, although it stands in close connection with what precedes, and springs naturally out of it. The prophet has been exhibiting, by means of a variety of detailed representations, the blessed results to the Lord’s people of His re-occupying His temple. The way now stands open to them for a free and elevating communion with the Lord; and the work proceeds, on their part, by the regular employment of all spiritual privileges and the faithful discharge of holy ministrations. God is duly glorified in His people, and His people are blessed in the enjoyment of His gracious presence and the benefit of His fatherly administration. But what is to be the nature of the kingdom in this new form, in respect to the world without? Is it to be of a restrictive or expansive character? Is the good it discloses and provides for a regenerated people to be confined, as of old, to a select spot, or is it to spread forth and communicate itself abroad for the salvation of the world at large? In an earlier prophecy (Ezekiel 17), when speaking of the future Head of the divine kingdom under the image of a little twig, plucked from the top of a cedar in Lebanon, and planted upon a lofty mountain in Israel, the prophet had represented this not only as growing and taking root there, but as winning the regard of all the trees of the field, and gathering under its ample foliage beasts of every kind and birds of every wing. The kingdom of God, as thus exhibited, seemed to carry a benign and diffusive aspect toward the entire world. And should it be otherwise now, when presented under the different but more detailed and variegated form of a spiritual house, with the living God Himself for the glorious Inhabitant, and a royal priesthood for its ministering servants? No; it is for humanity, mankind as a whole, that God was thus seen dwelling with men; and though everything presents itself, according to the relations then existing, as connected with a local habitation and circumscribed bounds, yet the good in store was to be confined within no such narrow limits; it was to flow forth with healthful and restorative energy, even upon the waste and dead places of the earth, and invest them with the freshness of life and beauty.
“This fine idea is presented by the prophet under a pleasing natural image. He is brought back by the angel from the outer court, where he was standing, to the door of the temple on the east; and there he sees a stream of water gushing from beneath the threshold, and running in the direction of south-east, so as to pass the altar on the south. He is then brought outside by the north gate, and carried round to where the waters appeared beyond the temple-grounds, that he might witness the measurements that were to be made of them, and the genial effects they produced.”—Fairbairn’s Ezekiel, pp. 489–491.—W. F.]
The bringing back of the prophet in Eze_47:1 is explained from the circumstance that he had tarried (Eze_46:21) in the outer court; latterly, at the sacrificial kitchens for the people. The opening of the house is the temple gate, where the entrance into the holy place of the temple opens.—מִתַּחַת stands first by itself, both times parallel to each other, to describe the very first impression, namely, that the waters (Häv.: “in particular, living spring water is often in Scripture a symbol of the divine blessings, Isa_41:17 sq., Eze_44:3”) came forth from below, and so did not pour down from the heavens, but issued from the depth of the sacred foundation upon the mountain; and this is without doubt to be thought of in connection with the filling of the house with the glory of Johovah (Ezekiel 43, 46). What Tacitus observes (Hist. v. 12) about “a never-drying fountain, whole mountains hollowed out below the surface, and ponds and cisterns for keeping the rain water;” or when Robinson does not doubt that there is in the rock “an artificial well at a depth of some 80 feet below the Haram,”—all this serves for understanding the prophet only by way of contrast;—he means and intends to describe nothing of the kind. [W. Kraft (Topographie von Jerusalem) thinks that the prophetic contrast refers to the spring known only to the priests as hidden, and whose water served only for the outward cleansing of the people.]—The מִשְּׂתַּן הַבַּיִת that follows subjoins the more exact definition of the first מִתַּחַת, as: below the threshold of the door of the temple, מִתַּחַת without a ל, so that we have to seek the fountain-head not at this threshold, but farther in in the house.—The reason for saying eastward is the “eastern” position of the temple front; the waters which issued from below the house flowed toward the place where the glory of the Eternal had entered the house. Even Hitzig’s dictum, which makes קָדִימָה to mean: “in the east,” does not destroy the very expressive causal nexus of the two sections of these concluding chapters of Ezekiel; but W. Neumann acutely observes: “The circumstance that the water flows east appears significant to the seer, and yet again, on the other hand, natural; for, says he, the front of the house is toward the east. According to Eze_47:12, the spring is the bearer of the mysteries of the sanctuary, and consequently the means of bearing along its ideal substance; and to this the פָּנִים [properly: ‘the constantly changing multiform aspects or manifestations of the soul through the exterior, the complex unity of which we call the countenance,’ Stier] corresponds; because the soul of the temple looks to the east, the gushing stream flows in the same direction.”—This already indicates the farther course of the water as to its direction immediately after its gushing forth under the threshold of the door of the temple. But before treating of this direction, mention is again made of this so characteristic gushing forth. While, however, after the first מִתַּחַת, to avoid repeating the מ before מִפְתַּן, it is merely said: מִתַּחַת מִפְתַּן הַבַּיִת, there now follows after the second מִתַּחַת the more exact statement: מִכֶּחֶף הַבַּיִת׳, from the “shoulder” of the house, i.e. the right one. מִתַּחַת means here neither: in the south = beneath (Jdg_7:8), which is sufficiently expressed by מִנֶּגֶב, nor: downwards (Hitzig), which is sufficiently expressed by יֹרְדִים What is meant to be described is a stream of water flowing from the temple, not one conducted into the temple; hence the brook Etham cannot be supposed, from which Lightfoot brings the water by means of subterranean channels for washing the victims and cleansing the house. (Comp. also the combination of Judah Leo in Lundius, die alten jüd. Heiligth.) Dereser infers from יֹרְדִים that the fountain “fell into the earth on the south side of the altar of burnt-offering in the court of the priests, and flowed on under it until it reappeared outside of the courts of the temple.” יָרַד is employed to accord both with Eze_47:8, and also in general with, the view current in Israel, according to which that which tends towards the abode of the Highest ascends, and hence that which comes out from it will descend. Keil: “because the temple lay higher than the inner court.”—הַיְמָנִית. After the repeatedly marked eastern direction, there can be no doubt which right side is meant; a person looking to the east has the south on his right, as also מִנֶּגֶב plainly indicates. This מִנֶּגֶב has its signification in reference to the altar of burnt-offering, which stood before the porch of the temple (Eze_40:47): לַמִּזְבֵּח, the right (south) side of the house, the south part of the east side. The fact that the water issued “from the south end of the threshold,” Hengst. explains from the circumstance that “the altar of burnt-offering lay immediately before the east door of the sanctuary; the water must therefore issue not from the middle of the threshold, if it was not to meet with an immediate hindrance; it must first come forth where the altar no longer stood in the way.” This is quite natural. Neumann speaks of “the prominence given to the right side as the side of good fortune and power.” He says: “If even in the feasts of the Bedouins the cupbearer must hand the cup to the drinker from the right, to prevent complaint of want of respect, how could that which was here commanded by a heavenly hand for healing (Eze_47:8) come from another quarter?” [Klief.: “But the temple had two thresholds, one before the flight of steps at the door of the fore-porch, and one at the west end of the porch, before the temple gate. If, then, Eze_47:1 speaks in the outset of the door of the temple, that shows us that we have to understand the latter threshold. If the temple is the body, and its fore-porch the head, then its right shoulder is in the angle which the south wall of the temple porch forms with the east wall of the temple. The threshold of the door of the temple abutted with its south end on this corner, and thence under the threshold the fountain gushed out and ran down into the inner court.”] “The water,” says Häv., “comes from the sanctuary;” that is to say, “it is the fulness of blessing which is poured out over the community from the new manifestation of God. Without this going before, the people cannot serve the Lord in the new manner; and the service of God, again, is itself a grace and a gift from Him. If the fountain proceeding from God is simply a testimony to His revelation of Himself, then it cannot be a mere material fountain.”
Eze_47:2. In the court, surrounded with buildings and walls, Ezekiel cannot descry the farther course of the waters. For this he is brought forth through the north gate, for the outer east gate is always shut, and to go out through the south gate the prophet would be obliged to cross over the waters. [Neumann infers, from comparing Eze_40:35; Eze_44:4, that the guide had a preference for the north gate (but see Eze_46:9), and seeks the reason in the significance of the north in the prophecies.] He proceeds on the outside along the wall of the outer court, the way to the east gate, as the outer gate is more exactly designated. [Neumann erroneously, because against the prophet’s uniform mode of expression, refers the epithet eastward-looking to the way.] The thrice repeated דֶּרֶךְ thus emphasizes and depicts the circuit which Ezekiel had to take, because the aim of the prophet’s going—the regaining a view of the waters—is the main matter. Whether the waters flowed forth over or under the courts is not expressly stated; at all events they ran under the surrounding walls, and doubtless under the stone pavement of the outer court.—וְהִנֵּה־מַיִםresumes verbally, when the waters were seen again, the וְהִנֵּה־מַיִם of Eze_47:1, so that the מַיִם without the article occasions no difficulty whatever; no other waters can be imagined than those which the prophet had seen before.—מְפַכִּים (Piel particip. of פָּכָה) only in this passage, thus a unique and not less pictorial expression. Ges.: “to trickle;” and Umbreit adduces its affinity with בָּכָה, so that he gets “weeping” waters, which would portray such an “insignificant commencement of the issue” as does not harmonize with Eze_47:1. How can that be thought of as trickling here which has already flowed through the courts? The affinity of the expression with בָּקַק, “to pour out,” likewise observed by Gesenius, would lead to a signification such as: to gush out. Hitzig goes back to פָּכַך, a word which does not exist; and Meier to בָּכַך, “to burst forth” (?). Hengst thinks of פַּךְ “a bottle,” and supposes a “gurgling,” like the “sound which the emptying bottle makes,” which, however, does not correspond to the “character of fulness and livingness” which, according to him, the waters in themselves must have; he translates, indeed: “gushed out.” Neumann assumes a radical signification: “to break up,” “to set free;” hence: פָּכָה, “to break forth.” To translate it with Keil: “to purl,” very probably comes nearest the figure.—מִן־הַכָּתֵף הַיְמָנִית; Hitzig: “not the south side of the whole temple-circuit, but: the southern half of the east front;” Neum.: “on the beholder’s right hand, when he has come out here from the north;” Hengst.: “the right side is here also the south-east, the south side of the east gate, where the water comes forth only because it has taken its rise oh the south-east side of the temple;” Klief.: “the angle which the eastern outer gate formed with the wall of the outer court is meant.” At all events this is meant to be expressed, that the waters which Ezekiel here saw again were the waters which came from the sanctuary.
Eze_47:3. Hengstenberg translates: “When the man went forth to the east with the measuringline in his hand, he measured a thousand cubits,” etc. Ezekiel’s guide is, in distinction from Eze_47:2 (וַיּוֹץִיאֵנִי), now considered by himself(בְּץֵאת־הָאִישׁ). He had קָו (Eze_40:3 : פָּתִיל)—from קָוָה, according to Gesenius: “to twist;” according to Meier: “to bring together”—in his hand, which is remarked because of what follows, where not merely the farther course of the waters, but still more their peculiarities during the course, are set forth. Following the waters in an eastern direction, the man measured a thousand cubits.—מֵי אַפְסָיִם give the experience of the prophet, whom the man makes to wade in the water from one bank to the other; hence it is not appositional to בַּמַּיִם, but an independent clause, the meaning of which many attempts have been made to distort, when yet it must contain a statement corresponding to the following increments. Kimchi, making use of Gen_47:15, interprets it: “water of vanishing” = little water. The dual form: אַפְסָיִם, certainly does not refer to an abstraction, but, as uniformly, denotes things paired naturally or artificially; in the connection here, without doubt, a corporeal duality, but not, as Genesius: “foot-soles” (“shallow water which only wets the soles”); against which Hitzig justly observes that the water reached to the foot-soles in the very beginning. אֶפֶם is not exactly the same as פַּם, that is, “extension,” flat of the hand, and hence also flat of the foot, foot-sole, but אַפְםָיִם rather suggests כֻּתֹּנֶת פַּסִּים, a garment extended so as to reach to the ankles. [Neumann thinks that “waters of the foot-soles” probably were waters of only the depth of the sandals, which the prophet had put off(!) in the court of the priests, and again put on; and that, in conformity with the phrase: אַפְסֵי אֶרֶץ, we cave to think of the two ends, the two lower extremities of the body, that is, the feet: waters of the extremities were waters which scarcely covered the feet.]—בָּאַמָּה, measured by the measure, which was a cubit-measure.
Eze_47:4. After the second measuring of a thousand cubits, i. e. of distance along the course of the waters, the result of the waters becoming always deeper is מַיִם בִּרְכָּיִם, an ungrammatical form, so much the more striking, as we have the stat. constr. מֵי before and after. See Hitzig’s explanation, which, however, is a mere conjecture, while the supposition of a separate clause (waters, to the knee they reach) is easier, and at the same time more emphatic. After a third measuring, we have waters to the loins. But after the fourth measuring of another thousand cubits, i. e. in all, at a distance of four thousand cubits, it is
Eze_47:5—a river! נַחַל looks like an exclamation of Ezekiel’s surprise on seeing what reminds him of the impetuous rush of a mountain torrent. The going through, hitherto possible, is no longer so, for the waters גָאוּ, “swelled,” “grew in height” (Job_8:11; Job_10:16; comp. also Exo_15:1) to מֵי־שָׂחוּ, in which swimming was possible, yea, necessary, if one were to cross from bank to bank—to a river which cannot be waded. The prophet describes the increasing volume of water by the two parallel clauses: “waters of swimming,” “a river that could not be waded.”
The question in Eze_47:6 indicates the halting-place in the vision, whereby what had been already seen, that is, the out-flow and on-flow of the waters in gradually increasing strength, is, in passing over to what follows, marked off as a thing apart by itself. Yet it is specially the continuous increase of the waters to which the prophet’s attention is called. Keil: “A natural brook cannot in so short distances have increased so mightily, unless brooks fell into it on all sides, which was not the case here.” Hengst.: “The Messianic salvation crescit eundo, while the streams of worldly enterprise dry up after a brief course—are streams whose waters lie (Isa_58:11; Job_6:15 sq.). Comp. the supplement through the person of the Mediator of salvation in Eze_17:22-23; and in the New Testament, the parables of the mustard seed and the leaven. The same progress which is exhibited in its efficacy among the nations shows itself also in the life of individuals, making them become great out of small, fathers in God out of children.” Neum. calls attention to the Messianic element in the designation: son of man, and observes that “the seer was thereby reminded that his vision was for mankind, that this swelling stream flowed on to the days of the completion of the human race.” The וַיּוֹלִכֵנִי taken by itself may be a mere recording here of what had taken place before,—“a wading in to the neck” (Isa_8:8), as Hengst. expresses it,—in order to get the knowledge indicated in Eze_47:5; or, according to others, it is to be taken in conjunction with וַיְשִׁבֵנִי׳, as defining it more exactly: he brought me back to come up again out of the water.—עַל־שְׂפַת׳, to the bank (up to the bank), etc. Neumann, Kliefoth, and Keil understand it thus: And he made me go, namely, away from the last-mentioned place, and brought me back to the bank of the river (Ewald, too, in his last edition: “and made me go and return on the bank of the stream”). According to this, the prophet was led on the bank, in order to learn the depth of the waters,—but he was rather led through three times, and hence the fourth time probably just in and out again!—and brought back to the bank, to see that it was covered with trees. It seems, however, to agree better with the end intended, to understand עַל׳ as stating the purpose; for, as Hengst. says, the attention is now to be turned to the bank, to observe it, and not as hitherto the waters in their bed. [Hitzig makes the guide measure at a distance from the water, and the prophet, after his last vain attempt, come to the guide; whereupon the latter put his question to the prophet, and returned with him to the bank of the river, and during the time that Ezekiel’s back was turned to the river, its bank became adorned with trees. Häv.: “from the end, from the point where the river flows into the Dead Sea(!), the prophet returned once more to its bank.”]
Eze_47:7. בְּשׁוּבֵנִי, literally: “when I turned myself back.” Hitzig disputes the transitive signification of the verb, but indisputably the objective suffix נִי is attached to the infinitive; whereas Hitzig takes the suffix as genitive of possession: “when he came back with me.” On the return of the prophet (בְּשׁוּבֵנִי seems to comprehend the וַיּוֹלִכֵנִי וַיְשִׁבֵנִי of Eze_47:6)—who would probably have followed the course of the water still farther had it depended on him, but is obliged to return to the edge of the bank, just because he has to notice the bank of the river, and that (as Eze_47:8 shows) as far back as the sanctuary—that is realized which was intended with a וְהִנֵּה, as in Eze_47:1-2; it is the third stage in the vision. How much the matter treated of refers to the brink of the river, the repeated mention of it shows. But the fact that “so long as the beholder followed the measurer, he saw nothing of the trees oh the bank,” arises from the nature of the process in the vision. The looking forward gave Ezekiel the knowledge of the progressive fulness and depth of the waters; not until he looks back does he come to know—with a view to what follows—the fertilizing, enlivening effect of these waters. עֵץ, as the words: very many, show, is collective (Gen_1:11 sq., Eze_2:9), and in accordance with Eze_47:12 is to be understood of fruit-bearing trees. (The phrase: on the brink of the river, indicates the cause. It has been said that Ezekiel interchanges עַל and אֶל; but when the bringing of the prophet out of the water and on to the bank was referred to, עַל was employed in Eze_47:6; here, where the reference is to the trees growing on and overshadowing the bank, we have simply אֶל.) But it confuses the meaning of the waters when Hengst. finds here “the need of salvation denoted by hungering as well as by thirsting.” Nothing has been said of this in connection with the waters. It is not the case that “life or salvation is here represented in the shape of the fruit-tree, as before by the water”(for which Hengst. compares Isa_55:1 sq.).—It cannot with strictness be said that “the trees have here no independent import, but come into account only for their fruit,” for there is not the slightest mention here of their fruit. It would be better, with Hitzig, to call to mind Eze_36:35, and to think of the restoration, cultivation, and fertilization of the land in general, as a blessed dwelling-place for Israel. The trees are not very “great,” but very “many,”—not one tree, as in Eze_17:22 sq.; Dan_4:7 [10] sq. “That this stream here depends on the four streams watering the garden of Eden (Genesis 2), and this forest on the tree of life, is a gratuitous assertion. Nothing is said of the immortality-giving power of the trees, and the waters no more bear fish of paradise on their waves than do the rivers in Psa_1:3” (Neum.).
Eze_47:8. Corresponding to the twofold direction of the prophet’s observation, the interpretation, which now begins, tells us regarding the course of the waters and the effects they shall produce. Had the prophet desired to follow the water farther, this desire would have been met by the saying: “these waters go out;” in other words, as they come out from the sanctuary, Eze_47:1-2 (יֹצְאִים, Eze_47:1), i.e. take their departure thence, so their progress is directed out “toward,” “to” (אֶל), etc.—The statement: הַגְּלִילָה הַקַּדְמוֹנָה, is no such “general” determination of the region in which the waters are to prove themselves effectual as Hengstenberg supposes. At any rate, what is thereby designated is not—as the exegesis of the Fathers, following the Sept., delighted to maintain, in view of Jesus’ residence there—הַנָּלִיל of Jos_20:7;, the גְּלִיל הַגּוֹיִם of Isa. 8:23 [Isa_9:1]; the northern district in the tribe of Naphtali, called הַגָּלִילָה in 2Ki_15:29—the later Galilee. On the contrary, הַקַּדְמוֹנָה expressly distinguishes it from that Galilee. The very word גְּלִילָה, the feminine formation from גָּלִיל, evidently denotes with the article a definite district; there were several גְּלִילוֹת׳, Jos_13:2 (Joel 4:4 [Joe_3:9]), Jos_22:10 sq. Derived as it is from גָּלַל, “to break off,” “to roll off,” a “section,” something “bounded off,” is to be understood; and because it is here in the east, the border-land there, lying opposite the centre of the land, would be meant, as distinguished from every other border district.—After the statement of the direction (יָצָא אֶל), there follows the account of the course of the waters, as also it is said in the outset in Eze_47:1 (יֹרְדִים) that the waters, namely, came down (וְיָרְדוּ) “flowed down,” עַל, that is, over.—הָעֲרָבָה, defined by the article, is to be interpreted by the context. From the intransitive עָרַב, to be “contracted,” hence to be “arid,” “dry,” heath, wilderness, steppe is meant.—Geographically, the Arabah is the whole valley of the Jordan, extending even beyond the Dead Sea; comp. our Comment. on Deuteronomy 1.; but in accordance with the previous definition, we find ourselves in that part of the Ghor which lies above the Dead Sea.—After יָצָא and יָרַד, we have now בּוֹא, the coming to the goal. How much stress is laid upon this goal, as that which is to be defined in respect to the course of the waters, is shown by the repetition of אֶל־הַיָּמָּה after הַיָּמָּה. As the Dead Sea is called in Deu_3:17; Deu_4:49, יָם הָעֲרָבָה, so in Eze_47:18 of our chapter it is designated the “east sea;” and thus we cannot with other expositors understand here the western, the Mediterranean Sea, which, moreover, is distinguished in Eze_47:10 as “the great sea.” If the Arabah, the μεγα πεδιον of Josephus, which he names ἐρημιαν, is an unhealthy plain “full of salt clay,” then this is only the fitting introduction to the Dead Sea, with its well-known peculiarity.—הַמּוּצָאִים (particip. Hoph.) אֶל־הַיָּמָּה has, following the Sept., been translated: “into the sea of the mouths,” inasmuch as the Jordan falls into it, and, according to Gadow (in the Journal of the German Oriented Society, 1848, 1 p. 61), forms “a slimy delta.” [Ewald: “into the sea, into the sea of the muddy waters;” מוּצָא, “muddy,” “foul” !] The comparison of Zec_14:8 and the dual form in Eze_47:9 have led others to suppose a dividing of the waters, so that יָמָּה refers one time to the east, but afterwards also to the west. “The prophet,” says Umbreit, “sets out first and specially from the Dead Sea; he does not, however, confine himself to it, but makes the waters flow also into the great west and world sea. For the sea of the wilderness appears, indeed, as the most fitting symbol of the death of sin (‘the Lord hath no pleasure in the death of the sinner, but that he should turn and live’); but until now there is no water altogether healthy, and for this very reason there is a flowing forth of the fountain of life still farther into the world of sin and of death.” [According to the Midrashim, the river divides itself into twelve waters, which flow to the twelve tribes; it is even said to flow on so far as to Calabria and into Barbary.] It only remains that, in accordance with the stress laid upon the issuing forth of the waters in question in Eze_47:1-2, and again in Eze_47:12, we understand the expression: brought forth, used of the waters on their way to the sea, as an emphasizing again of the fact that they proceeded from the temple, and that this is done just here in order to pass on to the purpose effected by them when they have reached their goal. (Hengst.: reference “to the higher hand, which executes, according to deliberate counsel, the plan of salvation.” Neum.: “waters that well forth from the threshold of the temple, that come to the Dead Sea. Not only that, but, moreover, having arrived at the Dead Sea, they are brought forth; thus the sanctuary of the blessing expressly connects itself with the doomed domain of the curse.”)—The waters of which it is said that they are healed are self-evidently (2Ki_2:22) the waters of the Dead Sea, as is shown also by what follows. The spiritual signification of the waters is now told to the prophet: healing of the dead, which accordingly means only sick unto death, is the aim of their being brought forth from the sanctuary to the Dead Sea, to the east boundary; that is, we might say, from Israel into the world, which is thereby auspiciously symbolized as in the east, consequently with a reference to the rising of the Sun of Righteousness (Mal. 3:20 [Eze_4:2]). [Grotius explains וְנִרְפּאוּ in this way, that the waters flowing in continue wholesome, notwithstanding their flowing through.] The character of the water of the Dead Sea has already been correspondingly described by Diodorus: ἐχει διαπικρον και καθ’ ὑπωρβολη δυσωδες. Comp. Tacitus, Hist. v. 6. Jerome calls it mare amarissimum, quod Græce λιμνη ἀσφαλτου, id est, stagnum bituminis vocatur. Comp. von Schubert (Reise in d. Morgenl. 3 p. 85), who remarks on the deceptive appearance for thirsty persons of the “clear and pure” water. Comp. moreover, von Raumer’s Palästina, p. 61 sq.; Robinson’s Physical Geography of the Holy Land, p. 209 sq. [Hengst.: “The wilderness is in Scripture a figure of ungodliness (?), and so a fitting emblem of the world estranged from God and excluded from His kingdom, Psa_107:5. In Joel, the valley of the acacias, the tree of the wilderness, corresponds to the Arabah here. Comp. also Isa_35:6. As a symbol of the corrupt world lying in wickedness (1Jn_5:19), the Dead Sea is the more appropriate, as it owes its origin to a judgment on the corrupt world, and the spiritual eye discerns under its waves the figure of Sodom and Gomorrah (Ezekiel 16).”]
The transition is now made to the effects of the waters flowing to the Dead Sea. Very impressively Eze_47:9 begins first of all with the prophetic וְהָיָה (Neum.: “it has then come to pass, then the fact lies open to observation”): what manifests itself in consequence of the healing of the water, in reference to the water itself, as an effect of the healing waters of the sanctuary.—But what of כָּל־נֶפֶשׁ חָיָּה? Is there, then, any living thing in the Dead Sea? There is not, although Prince Pückler asserts that he ate there fishes taken living from the Dead Sea. The Jordan carries in some, or “they voluntarily accompany its waves” (von Schubert), but “they must soon pay with their life for their love of travel, because they die in the salt brine, or because this brine thrusts out their light bodies to the shore.” A fish seen by Robinson, and said to have been caught in the Dead Sea, was found near the mouth of the Jordan, and dying in a state of exhaustion. “Neither fishes nor snails live in this very salt lake” (von Schubert). “Some herons,” Gadow relates, “sought the little fishes washed into the sea, that died instantly in the sharp lye; I myself observed some wrestling with death. Sea fishes which Marshal Marmont at Alexandria cast into water taken from the Dead Sea, died in two or three minutes.” Thus “living things” can only be spoken of in respect to the Dead Sea as things that were alive and then died there, or that live but must die when they come thither. But the mode of expression employed is rather a prophetic anticipation, picturing as it does in the healed water, in contrast to the death dominating it, life already preserved,—life, too, which, through אֲשֶׁר יִשְׁרֹץ, significantly alludes to Gen_7:21; Gen_8:17 (death and preservation), and Gen_1:21 (creation). Quite as readily could a contrast to the Jordan carrying the living to death in the Dead Sea be found in the following words: everything whithersoever the double stream shall come shall live. Hitzig: “which creeps in every place to which rivers (נְחָלִים, pointed as plural) come.” (Ewald: נַחְלָם.) Keil: “which swarms wherever the brook comes.”—נַחֲלַיִם. What is the meaning of the dual, where hitherto we have always had נַחַל? Keil thinks the best solution is that of Hengstenberg, who, referring to Jer_1:2, explains “two rivers” as equivalent to strong river, remarking that the doubled often stands for the distinguished (Job_11:6; Isa_61:7). He might have known that already Umbreit translates it: “two rivers,” and in doing so refers to “the fulness of the water.” The aualis emphaticus, too, of Stier (Lehrgeb. p. 218) comes to the same thing, as he also cites for it Jeremiah 1. The original “waters” (מַיִם) have grown in Eze_47:5 to a נַחַל; may they not now, when they have mixed with the waters of the Dead Sea, when הַמַּיִם הָאֵלֶה and the healed הַמָּיִם have been expressly named side by side in Eze_47:8, be very appropriately (not indeed as Maurer: because of the similarity with מַיִם) expressed succinctly by the dual form נַחֲלַיִם, and by נַחֲלַיִם indefinitely, because of their rushing streams sweeping away death and opening up the way to life? Thus, as Neum.: “We see it at once, the result of the flowing in is manifest in the sea itself; the river is not lost in it, but neither does the river swallow up the sea; it impenetrates it with its living power, and wherever the eye follows these united streams, it beholds the swarming newly produced life,” etc. Klief.: “When the waters of the river shall come into the waters of the sea, they will divide themselves,” etc.—יִחְיֶה, to retain life and to enjoy life, in pregnant contrast to the dying of which this sea is suggestive. Keil: “to revive, to come to life.” [Hitzig, too, remarks on the masculine construction of נֶפֶשׁ (יִחְיֶה and יִשְׁרֹץ), so that חַיָּה appears as a substantive in the genitive dependent on נֶפֶשׁ. Neum.: “Thus everything, that in the power of life bears in itself the germ of life, shall unfold this germ; the view which underlies is not that of the feminine, of what is upheld by the Spirit, but of what breathes independently.”]—The description of this life accords with the nature of the water, the healthy vital power of which finds expression in its fulness and the multitude of its fishes. But we have first “everything that creeps and moves quickly, שָׁרַץ, said of every kind of animal mobility” (Neum.), in order primarily to give pictorial expression to life in general in the all-sided manifold swarm. The following clause adds the more special: and there are very many הַדָּגָה (a collective, expressing at the same time the most different kinds), a feminine form of דָּג, which, from דָּגָה, “to become thick,” denotes first of all, as here too in accordance with the context, the strong large sea-fish, and then fish in general. (Umbr.: “to live and multiply most abundantly.”)—The cause of this, which was formerly incorporated in the general description, is now taken by itself, in order to explain the special case of the fishes: for these waters come thither and they shall be healed, i.e., as this repetition from Eze_47:8 clearly shows, the waters of the Dead Sea, to which שָׁמָּה also points.—But the description reaches its full height of expression of life with the clause: and everything liveth, etc. First, everything, etc.; then, the many fishes of various kinds in particular—in other words, the Dead Sea in its piscine life; finally, the whole Dead Sea as such. Hence formerly שָׁם, whereas the two following times שׁמָּה; as also the preceding וְיֵרָפְאוּ (imperf. Niphal) is illustrated by וָחָי כֹּל׳, and therefore also we have הַנָחַל, from Eze_47:5 sq., in antithesis to the waters of the Dead Sea. “The Dead Sea has become a sea of life” (Neum.). [Ewald: every one that draws water out of it. Calmet: every land, however unfruitful, provided only the river waters it, shall be at once made most fruitful. Dereser: “all the regions of the Dead Sea, to which the water penetrates, shall swarm with fish.”]
Eze_47:10. וְהָיָה again. [“Out of death there arises, by the omnipotence and grace of God, a rich life. The new community is numerous, innumerable as the fishes of the sea,” Häv.] Because not only the life of the sea, but the (Dead) Sea itself as alive is exemplified in the abundance of fish, this abundance is described partly as to the employment it occasions, and partly as to the numerous kinds of fish. In the former respect, יעָמְדוּ עָלָיו (Qeri: עָמְדוּ, “they have placed themselves,” one sees them standing), “fishers place themselves over it” (the river, not the Dead Sea, but also not the whole length of the river on its banks, but where the Dead Sea touches it, because the filling of it with fish-life is the subject in hand). With this agrees also the statement as to locality given: מֵעֵין גֶּדִי וְעד־עֵין עֶגְלַיִם, which has given occasion to so many disquisitions. These must be two points lying near each other, as the same expression: עֵין׳ and עֵין׳, and not less the difference, which is simply that between a “kid” and “two calves,” seems designed to show. Hengst. thinks that perhaps עֶגְלַיִם is a dual, such as that in Eze_47:9 : “the double calf in parallelism with the kid.” He supposes “the fountains are named after the finders,” “the calf had distinguished itself by the discovery” (!). Seriously, however, En-gedi (“kid’s fountain,” which reminds Sepp of the ibex, seldom pursued here by a hunter) is “Ain-Didi,” on the west bank of the Dead Sea, the southmost point inhabited by the Israelites, with an Egyptian climate and Egyptian products; and regarding En-eglaim (“two-calves’ fountain”), Jerome says that it is situated at the beginning of the Dead Sea, where the Jordan flows in, that is, northward. Since the death of living things occurs at the entrance into the Dead Sea, we feel certain that this is the right place. Hengst. finds “En-gedi obliquely over against the Eglaim mentioned in Isa_15:8;” for, “as obviously the whole compass of the sea is intended, En-eglaim is to be looked for on the east side.” Ewald: “the whole present stretch along the Dead Sea.” Neum. disregards any geographical basis: “Two fountains (עין) flow now into the Dead Sea, both of them living and full of fish, into the dark depths of death; but in those days of salvation, a river of life shall flow from the one to the other. No longer shall there be only small and quickly-dying fishes moving here and there before the mouths of the fountains; the whole intervening water, now waste and dead, shall then become alive, and swarm with the fishes of the great sea,”—מִשְׁטוֹחַ [Ewald: “a casting-place for nets”] is distinguished by Neumann from מִשְׁטָח in Eze_26:5; Eze_26:14. Gesenius holds both forms to have the same signification: place of spreading out. In order, however, to suppose the act of spreading out, we must with Neumann take the fishers as a spreading out of the nets; they will be quite absorbed in that occupation, will be nothing else; and this is not so inadmissible as Kliefoth supposes; while Rosenmüller’s interpretation of the יִהְיוּ, as referring to the places, that they shall be places for spreading out the nets, can quite well be extracted out of the phrase: from En-gedi even unto, etc., although it is not so obvious.—לַחֲרָמִים, whether for the take, or, after the take, for drying, which, however, is done as fresh preparation for new labour, for a new take. [Hengst.: “The question is not of fishers who will arrange after their kind the fish caught, but only of those who catch fish of different kinds.”] By the nets is characterized not only the fulness, but also the manifoldness, the various kinds of fishes that may be or are caught.—לְמִינָהּ, “as to the kind” (collective), intentionally (as Raphe shows) without Mappiq, means at bottom the same as with ה: “in respect to their kind;” care is always taken to express the variety of kinds corresponding to the דָּגָה here and in Eze_47:9. “Life is depicted with far more significance not by multitudes alone, but by the variegated mixture of the most different kinds, which are commingled together” (Neum.).—“Allusion to the account of creation (comp. also Eze_47:9): the new community, a similar creation of God’s” (Häv.).—דְּגָתָם, not: of the healed מַיִם of the sea, nor of the נַחֲלַיִם of Eze_47:9, nor of the banks between En-gedi and En-eglaim, but of the fishers, or the nets.—The comparison with the fishes of the great sea, said to be very many, is connected, as Hitzig observes, with the לְמִינָה: there shall live in it the many kinds of fish of the great sea, and many of each kind,—as the fishes, sq., is proverbial for this—and not merely the few kinds of small fresh-water fish. The fish of the Mediterranean thus compared are, moreover, conceived of as living, so that this too shows that the Mediterranean cannot have been spoken of previously. [Hengst.: “The sea is a symbol of the world; accordingly men appear as the living creatures in the sea, as the fishes (Rev_8:9). Hitherto there were only dead fishes, only unspiritual, unsaved men. Thus the meaning of the fishers cannot be doubtful: the fishes are the men who have attained to life through the Messianic salvation; the fishers are the messengers of this salvation, who gather those who are quickened into the kingdom of God, introduce them into the fellowship of the Church,’ Luk_5:11; Mat_13:47, etc.]
Eze_47:11. בִּצֹּאת (Qeri: בצאתיו) is singular; the plural of the Qeri appears to be put because of the following plural, וּגְבָאָיו. Gesenius: בִּצֹּאתָיו, incorrectly written for בִּצּוֹתָיו. בִּצָּה is a moist place. Rashi: marais (marsh). One might perhaps make the distinction to be what is turned into swamp by the natural recession of the sea from the bank, and the artificially constructed salt-pits (Zep_2:9). These form the exception from the rule of healing and quickening; they are the places in which the healing waters produce no effect. “We have just observed the fishers placing themselves from one fountain to the other, that the life of the sea may become conspicuous through them; but here in the pools is death” (Neum.). “The waters even which the river brought to them,” thinks Hitzig, “would become corrupt, if left standing along with the whole mass of water without any fresh inflow.” J. D. Michaelis: “Palestine would lose much were it to lose this salt, got without labour, and were the Dead Sea to become quite fresh; hence this gift of nature is to remain.” Hitzig’s view and reasons, even if satisfactory for the וְלֹא יֵרָפְאוּ, are certainly not so for the לְמֶלַח נִתָּנוּ; which clause, moreover, is not to be explained on the ground of utility (as is done by Michaelis), it is the expression of a judgment. “Those districts,” says Hävernick, “in which the salt-deposits proper were formerly found, shall also henceforth be such waste places. The thought is this: only those who bar themselves against the gracious stream of divine love, and are unwilling to regain health, are henceforth to be given over to the curse, continuing to exist as monuments thereof (Zec_14:17).” Around the sea of death there lingers on a death which abides: this is the second death, the death unto death. What is given to salt is entirely forfeited to death. Klief.: “They shall be made into salt.” Hengst.: “The salt comes into consideration here not as seasoning, as frequently, but as the foe of fertility, life, and prosperity (Job_39:6). A contrast to deliverance from the corrosive power of the salt, which would be effected by the waters from the sanctuary were access afforded to them; they remain given over to salt: he that believeth not the Son of God shall not see life, etc., Joh_3:36.”—In Eze_47:12, that of which the seer obtained merely a general view in Eze_47:7 is now more exactly particularized to him, as the conclusion of the entire section. After the contrast (Eze_47:11) to the healing effect of the waters of the sanctuary (Eze_47:8), there comes in what follows something antithetical, and therefore parallel to Eze_47:9 sq.: the quickening effects as regards the banks of the river, and so back to the source of the waters, form a parallel to the quickening effects as regards the goal, in relation to the Dead Sea. In fine, viewed forward or backward, they are the waters of life; as on the one hand they sustain life, so on the other they produce fruit.—הַנַּחַל, as the waters since Eze_47:5, on their way to the Dead Sea, and considered in contrast thereto (Eze_47:9), have been designated, so that the reference is to their course from their coming out of the temple walls.—The description: on the river, is amplified thus: “on its bank on both sides.” The “rising up” forms also, no doubt, an antithetical pendant to the former deepening and deepening and descending of the waters.—מַאֲכָל, “what is edible” (Hengst.: “all fruit-bearing trees;” Hitzig: “every tree of edible fruit”). Klief.: “they shall bear edible fruits of all sorts.” Their described quality, however, is not this alone, that they are trees of food, and hence yield food—not wild, acid, hard fruit; but an abiding freshness of life and vigour distinguishes this growth of trees (which is elsewhere expressed by ever-flowing, never-failing waters), both as to the leaf (נָבַל, Psa_1:3, “to fade,” “to fall off,” cognate with נָפַל) and the fruit (תָּמַם). In respect to the latter it is said: according to its months, that is, as these change (Hitzig: distributively), יְנַכֵּר, said of the “first commencement,” of the “first of a thing;” hence בִּכּוּרִים, the first-fruits, signify, according to Hitzig, that the trees produce fresh fruit every month; and this, according to Hengst., “indicates the uninterrupted enjoyment of salvation;” or the fruit is as eagerly desired and hailed with as much joy as early first-fruits, or generally as superior fruit, which can claim, as it were, the right of the first-born (Deu_21:16). Comp. Rev_22:2. Neum.: “The thought in fact is: what used to delight the heart every year, will henceforth be furnished every month. According to Horapollo, the palm puts forth a new branch with every new moon. The month is looked on as the property of the trees, because the change of the moon always enables them to put forth in similar change the life welling up in them.” We are not to compare here the enchanted gardens of Alcinous (Odyss. vii. 114 sq.). The reason assigned, too, which makes the leading thought the active principle of the effects, accords with the closing character of the verse: its (not: the stream’s, as Neumann, but: the trees’, this forest’s) waters, namely, the waters “proceeding from the sanctuary.” Hitzig: “from the dwelling-place of Him who is the Author of all life and fertility.” Neum.: “a deep disclosure regarding what the temple of his God was to the prophet. With Him is the fountain of life, and in His light we see light, Psa_36:10 [9]. But this is just the sanctuary; because its source is holy, therefore the flood of the river produces fruitful germs. And קָדוֹשׁ is not moral purity, but sublime, transcendent purity, which sheds its enlightening beams over all the dark places of the earth. Hence the lofty praise of the seraphim in Isa_6:3.”—As formerly the fishes were for the nets of the fishers, so now the fruit of the trees is for food, etc. וְהָיוּ (Qeri: וְהָיָה, which is unnecessary), for פִּרְיוֹ is not necessarily the fruit of each and every tree, but can be taken collectively with the plural. As we have here a reference to paradise and the first creation (Gen_2:9), so we have also to redemption, the future salvation, in the phrase and its (the forest’s) leaf, לִתְרוּפָה—Hitzig: “for medicine;” on which he remarks: “doubtless for external application, since the leaf is laid upon wounds as soft and cooling, apart from its special healing virtue; תְּרוּפָה is derived from רָפָא.” In this too, the thought of mending and of healing is united and conjoined in this closing clause, so that in this sense “medicine” is by no means “a very unsuitable disharmony in these figures of perfection,” as Neumann says, whose thoughts run on “the blessed salvation enlivened by a sweet life of rapture,” and on “adorning life with fragrant chaplets.” This last would as mere ornament be altogether out of place here. Hengst.: “Salvation must present itself for the terribly sick heathen world, above all, in the form of saving grace. Besides the nourishing fruits, therefore, are named also the healing leaves.” Häv.: “The trees are trees of life, with allusion at the same time to Psalms 1; the figure of the fishes refers to the extent, the greatness of the community; and this figure of the trees to its nature, in so far as the divine grace transforms it into truly living members, who themselves bear rich fruit, and thereby become a means of life and recovery to others also.” [Philippson says of the entire section: “This description answers to no fountain actually existing in Jerusalem, and contains suppositions which no actually existing fountain could fulfil. Hence it belongs to the realm of those prophetic intuitions of the future land, in which this land appeared, altered in its nature, endowed with the most glorious fertility and wonderful virtues. We have to consider this section as a poetical resting-point of the prophet, in which, between dry narration and representation, the prophet’s enraptured soul expatiated on the prospects of his people.” According to this, the hope of the Jews of the present should finally be æsthetics.]
Eze_47:13-23. The Fixing of the Boundaries in the Holy Land
Hengstenberg, in accordance with his view of the concluding portion of Ezekiel, makes the prophet return from the distant Messianic future, the prospect into which, according to him, suddenly opened in Eze_47:1-12, to the lower salvation, the temple and city of the future, which formed the presupposition of the higher salvation. According to Hitzig, “the previous section forms the transition to this, inasmuch as in that section Ezekiel first of all, following the course of the river, turns himself away from the temple and the idea of the Terumah; in other words, it still remains to treat of the land itself from which that Terumah was selected.” It would be an entire break in these closing chapters, which hang so closely together, were Eze_47:1-12 an insertion of essentially different character, meaning, and signification from that which precedes them, and that which follows them. But if Eze_47:1-12 are decidedly symbolical, and their contents specially Messianic, then we have in them the key for everything in these chapters, both what precedes and what follows, not merely “the transition” to what follows. Then the temple is a symbol of the new revelation of God among Israel in their own land; then the partly indicated, partly instituted worship as to acts, persons, and times, symbolizes the future worshipping in spirit and in truth; then the blessing, which abolishes even the Dead Sea in its character of curse, cannot leave the Holy Land untouched, but only with the fixing of its boundaries and the division of the enclosed territory among the tribes (Ezekiel 48) will the theocracy of the future he complete. We cannot say, with Ewald, that “the whole book might have been perfectly well concluded with the last great figure in Eze_47:1-12.” Ewald himself is compelled to admit that “the position of the sanctuary and its immediate environs in Eze_47:1-8 is not yet explained with sufficient clearness;” but what still follows finds its explanation less by reference to this, than by the fact that in Eze_45:1 the division of the land by inheritance is presupposed, without our having up to this point heard anything regarding it, except the prophecy of the return of Israel into their again reviving land (Eze_34:25 sq., Eze_36:8 sq., Eze_37:21 sq.). Only by what follows from Eze_47:13 to the end of the book do the people of God attain to rest, as the glory of God came to its rest by its re-entrance into the sanctuary (Ezekiel 43). In the sense of such a connection, comp. Rev_21:3 : και σκηνωσει μεταὐτων, και αὐτοι λαοι αὐτου ἐ σονται; the sanctuary with its environs still continues in Ezekiel 48. the main point of view. Not merely, as Häv. says, “does the whole representation take its departure from the sanctuary, and so naturally also returns thither,” but the close of Ezekiel’s book is intended to depict the glory of God by the glory of His kingdom (Introd. § 5). Thus neither the incidental presupposition of the division of the land by inheritance, nor the oblation to be set apart as defined in Ezekiel 45., nor, in particular, the city—which, it is true, is to belong to Israel as a whole (Eze_45:6)—can suffice; but all Israel must in their tribes colonize the land, in order, after everything has been bounded off externally and internally, to see the glory of Jehovah in the sanctuary, as the foundation of the glory of Israel in their own land, brought to full expression. “Hence,” as Hävernick observes, “this impresses also upon the whole land a new aspect, a more glorified conformation.”
Eze_47:13. A solemn introduction marks off the following section (comp. Eze_46:1; Eze_46:16). נֵּה, Gesenius: “unquestionably a false reading for זֶה (as Eze_47:15). So read also the Sept., Vulg., Chald., and fourteen manuscripts.” This is easy to say, also easy to imagine, but the analogy of בַּג for בַּז, after Eze_25:7 (which see), cannot be applied here. Although we can hardly say, with Hengstenberg, that it “would almost seem as if Ezekiel wished to tease scribes and critics, and to put them to the test” (!!), still, the propagation of such a clerical error as גֵּה for זֶה in Eze_47:13 is so much the more difficult to imagine, as the matter is really different in Eze_47:15, where we have זֶה, from what it is here. Hengst. makes נֵּה to be of similar import with גֵּהָה in Pro_17:22, which word, occurring only there, signifies, according to him, “the inwards”! He translates thus: “(this is) the inside of the border,” and observes on it: “The stem is גָּהָה or גָּוָה; cognate is גּו, middle (in Chald. גּו), נֵּיא, valley, as the interior enclosed by mountains.” All this might be allowed; but that גּוֹי, “people,” is “the interior, the centre, in antithesis to individuals as the periphery,” is so far from correct, that the direct opposite would be nearer the mark. The stem signifies: to draw together; and hence גּוֹי (people) and גֵּו (body) refer to “connection.” A signification such as: body, suits the גֵּהָה of Pro_17:22 in its parallelism there with גֵּרֶם, and a similar signification would be the suitable one here in Ezekiel. For the question in Eze_47:13 is not concerning גְבוּל in the sense of “border,” as in Eze_47:15, but concerning the territory itself, whose borders are first defined in Eze_47:15 sq. Eze_47:13-14, introductory to the fixing of the boundaries, and Eze_47:22-23, which conclude it, give us to understand that the division of the land among the twelve tribes of Israel is the dominating design; only with reference to this, that is to say, preparatively, are the boundaries of the land to be treated of.—אֶת־הָאָרֶץ explains גּה גְּבוּל sufficiently; אֲשֶׁר is accusative.—לִשְׁנֵי׳ is, according to Hitzig, distributive, and denotes the point of view which is to obtain in the division of the land, since all Israel, the re-united people of God, shall return to their land (Ezekiel 37.); from which point of view, also, the curt יוֹסֵף חֲבָלִים = Joseph shall receive of it (plural) “inheritances” (measured off portions of land), is directly explained, without our needing, with Ewald, to punctuate dual חֶבְלַיִם, although two portions are meant, in accordance with the ancient prophetic injunction of Jacob, the patriarch of the tribes (Gen_48:5). The more exact determination is so much the more presupposed as understood; “as Levi is to have no other portion of land except that in the sacred Terumah, the tribes can only be made twelve in number when (as always) the tribe of Joseph is counted and treated as two, Ephraim and Manasseh” (Klief.). Comp. Jos_17:14 sq. [The Sept. translate the nom. pr. יוֹסֵף.] Already Eusebius has observed in the Prœp. ev., that Plato, too, divides his ideal state into twelve parts, and the capital likewise.
After the determination concerning the point of view of the number twelve for the division of the land, as it has been in Eze_47:13 first stated generally, and then specialized in Joseph, Eze_47:14 lays down the second principle for the division of the land: into equal parts. What was said regarding Joseph is not in contradiction with this principle, as Hitzig maintains, for, as Keil justly replies, the words: ye inherit it, אִישׁ כְּאָחִיו, only affirm that of the twelve tribes which Israel numbers in relation to נַחֲלָה, the one shall receive as much as the other. Comp. the opposite principle in Num_26:54; Num_33:54; and comp. Eze_48:1 sq. There is no reason for supposing that אֲשֶׁר signifies: “inasmuch as,” or: “because.” Comp. Eze_20:28; Eze_20:42.—The symbolical character of these introductory regulations, which the very norm of the symbolical number twelve leaves scarcely questionable, must be beyond all question, unless the principle of equality in division here laid down should go on the strange supposition that each tribe would comprehend the same number of individual members, or, in contrast to the first division of the land, the new division, with all its appearance of justice, should yet in fact and reality be practically unjust, namely, because treating the more populous tribe exactly as the weaker. This Philippson also admits, when he remarks “that this would be more contradictory to the Mosaic law than all the other deviations of the prophet taken together;” but he gets over the difficulty by saying that only the same direction from east to west is given for the tribal portions, and that the equal division among the individual Israelites is spoken of. Bunsen, on the contrary, maintains “the ideal nature of the plan.” The number twelve of the tribes of Israel expresses the whole of the people, but it does so according to their idea, and thus in a spiritual manner; but still more does the equal share of each tribe in the common inheritance make the land of promise become a symbol of something else than the earthly Canaan. (Comp. 2Pe_1:1; Psa_37:11; Psa_37:29.) The seed now has come to whom the land was promised by Jehovah (Gen_12:7; Gen_17:8; Gal_3:7; Gal_3:16).
Eze_47:15. We have here the fixing of the boundaries, which (as in Numbers 34., Joshua 15) is done with reference to the four cardinal points; but here, instead of south, west, north, and east, the order is north, east, south, west, just as also in Ezekiel 48. the several tribes follow from north to south. Hengst. explains the difference “from this circumstance, that in ancient times Israel came from the south into the land; here, on the contrary, the return is from the land of the north.” Klief.: “We must so understand this deviation that the Holy Land will in that future be indeed the same as the old Holy Land, but yet in a certain sense opposed to the old, the counterpart of the old Canaan.”.—After that גֵּה has preceded with Eze_47:13-14, it can now be said with וְ of the boundaries proper: וְזֶה גְּבוּל׳.—The north boundary begins from the Mediterranean Sea (as in Num_34:7 sq.), hence in the west, and proceeds on the way to Hethlon, to come to Zedad (לְבוֹא, of the direction whither). Since צְּדָד or צָדָד with ה locale helps also to determine the boundary in Num_34:8, doubtless on the north-east, as the antithesis to the point of departure on the west naturally suggests, so certainly no other Zedad is to be thought of. Robinson holds it to be Sudud, four hours from Hasia, on the west entrance of the wilderness, east of the road which leads from Damascus to Emesa; Keil declares himself against this. Hethlon is unknown. Gesenius places it in Syria of Damascus.
Eze_47:16. A more detailed account, by means of several other places, of the north boundary as compared with the other boundaries.—Hamath, of which Keil says: not the city on the Orontes, but the kingdom whose south border forms the north border of Canaan; while Gesenius takes it for this important Syrian city (Epiphania), and compares Num_13:21; Num_34:8. Hitzig denies that here at the beginning the land of the city could be meant, and therefore, appealing to the Sept., he takes it as a gloss (from Eze_48:1) to Zedad, the word before it.—בֵּרוֹתָה is, according to Gesenius = בֵּרוֹתַי (2Sa_8:8), a city in the kingdom of Aram-Zobah; is it perhaps the seaport of Berytus in Phœnicia?—סִבְרַיִם (identical with זִפְרֹן in Num_34:9?) is further defined by the clause: which is between, etc., without thereby becoming clearer.—The closer definition: which is on, or: “toward” the border of Hauran (חַוְרָן), brings the middle Hazer (חָצֵר הַתִּיכוֹן, “middle court”) into relation with the transjordanic Auranitis, without, however, defining the latter more exactly.
Eze_47:17 “states the north border for the third time,” says Klief. (without, however, being able to solve the difficulty of the double Hamath in Eze_47:16), “but so that it, after Eze_47:16 has named the series of Israelitish border places, defines the boundary by border places outside of Israel.” His view is, that “Damascus and Hamath are the boundaries on the north, in this way, that the north-east Damascene border place opposite the north-east Israelitish border place, Zedad, is Hazar-Enon, while on the north side the land of Hamath extends itself.”—The point of departure from the Mediterranean Sea is once more repeated; hence this must be the most western point of the north border.—חֲצר עֵינוֹן (עֵינָן), “fountain court” (Num_34:9), Keil sets down as “the fountain of Lebweh in the Beca, on the watershed between the Orontes and Leontes. The calling of Hazar-Enon the border from the sea, indicates that it forms the most eastern boundary-point for the north border drawn from the sea, as it is added: the border of Damascus, that is: the border place from Damascus, or: “on the border,” etc. (Hengst.), or: toward the border, etc.—וְצָפוֹן צָפוֹנָה, according to Hengst., “denotes first the north border, to which all the places named belong,” and then “northward” gives the “special in the general;” for “the north border Was no straight line, but had its more northern and less northern points; the most northern was Hamath.” Häv.: “The repetition strengthens the conception: northward and northward.”—וְאֵת פְּאַת׳, doubtless as accusative, with: looks to, or: measures off, understood. Hävernick finds “the boundary-line drawn here with still greater exactness than in Numbers 34, partly to indicate the still sharper and more definite fixing of the limits of the new Canaan than of the old, and partly to express here too the thought that the new community shall obtain the fullest possible possession of the promised land.” However unknown the various places named may be, thus much seems certain, that the only design of the many names is to draw the boundary with full sufficiency.
Eze_47:18 defines as the east border briefly the Jordan, agreeing in this with Num_34:10 sq., only with different local colouring. Hauran, Damascus, and Gilead are put on the east, and the land of Israel on the west side. Keil makes the remarkable sequence: Hauran, Damascus, Gilead, to have arisen through regard to the Jordan, which does not reach so far as Damascus; if it had, the sequence must have been Damascus, Hauran, Gilead. While Klief. insists on this, that Numbers 34 gives in addition the district east of the Jordan conceded to the transjordanic tribes, whereas, according to the statement here, the Holy Land of the future shall no longer have any portion not fully incorporated; Hengst., on the contrary, maintains the continuance of the frontier land, referring for this to Psalms 40.; Mic_7:14; Jer_1:19; Zec_10:10 : also in Num_32:30; Num_33:51; Jos_22:9, the, land of Canaan lying west of Jordan is in the same way set over against, e.g., Gilead.—The border from which they are to measure is the above-defined north border. The east sea is the Dead Sea, in distinction from the west, the Mediterranean Sea.
Eze_47:19. The south border. The nearer definition of the direction by תֵימָנָה marks only the transition to the place where the determination of the southern boundary begins. Tamar, says Hengst., “does not occur elsewhere in the Old Testament;” it is, according to him, to be sought for “in the extreme south-east, at the end of the Dead Sea.” Robinson’s conjecture in favour of Thamara, that is, Kurnub, lies open to many objections. On the other hand, the waters of Meriboth-Kadesh, that is, the waters of strife, are those known of old. Hengst. observes: “Only instead of the singular in Num_27:14, the plural Meriboth is put, to point to this, that the strife there involves in it a whole fulness of rebelliousness,—a solemn nota bene for those who, like their fathers, were still to the present day a house of rebelliousness.” These waters of Kadesh (Numbers 20) in the wilderness of Zin were near Kadesh Barnea (Num_34:4).—נַחֲלָה, accented as “inheritance,” is retained by Hengstenberg: “the inheritance (reaches) to the great sea,” who cites for this the oldest translators, Sept., Jonathan, and the Syriac. The possession here (according to him) corresponds to the border of the land in the case of the first two sides. On the other hand, already Hävernick (Vulg.) thinks of the “river of Egypt,” the Wady el Arish, which appears throughout in the Old Testament as the extreme south-western boundary of Palestine; also Num_34:5 is (in his view) decisive for this acceptation, and consequently for a change of the punctuation into נַחְלָה. Comp. Jos_15:4. Hitzig: “in the direction of the river to the great sea;” and for this he urges in addition that Ῥινα κοροῦρα is also called simply Νεελ, that is, נַהַל, with the omission of the genitive.—The Mediterranean Sea is given as boundary-point on the south-west.
Eze_47:20. The west border, with which the fixing of the boundaries concludes. As it is formed by the Mediterranean Sea, only the terminating points south and north have to be noticed. In the former respect stands מִגְּבוּל, that is, from the south border defined in Eze_47:19; in the latter, עַד־נֹכַח לְבוֹא חֲמָת, that is, to over against the place where one comes into the territory of Hamath, which was set down in Eze_47:17 as the north boundary; comp. Num_34:6. Klief. further observes: “The Philistine coast district is here, as with Moses, included in the Holy Land; the fact that it was not conquered by the Israelites happened against the will of God: the Holy Land of the future shall be the real, entire, full Holy Land.”
Eze_47:21. A concluding clause referring back to Eze_47:13, as well as preparing for Eze_47:22 sq.
Eze_47:22. Like a codicil to a will; Ewald: “and with the genuine prophetic innovation, that the protected should have quite as many rights as the ancient sons of the soil.” וְהָיָה, comp. Eze_47:9-10.—Häv.: “The prophet’s perspective extends itself beyond the borders of Israel to those of the Gentile nations. Israel arrived at the goal of its development forms at the same time a fresh point of connection for the Gentiles. He who connects himself with the true, perfect Church, enjoys the same privileges and blessings as Israel itself. That which the Old Testament contains in the weak type in relation to strangers passes here into complete fulfilment.” Hitzig: The prophet draws here the inference from Lev_19:34; the limitation and exception in Deu_23:3-4 is here omitted. For this he gives as reasons: inasmuch as “residence in a strange land could even weaken an exclusive disposition,” and “the lessening of the population of Israel made them wish for and favour the accession of strangers.” Hengst., on the contrary, holds that what is here said does not primarily refer to “strangers in general,” but to those who have begotten children in your midst, hence to those “who have been naturalized in Israel in the times of affliction,” as similarly Abarbanel. Hengst. urges against “the hosts of the heathen,” “the boundaries of the land confined between the Jordan and the Mediterranean.” (Might we not imagine we perceived here the rationalismus vulgaris?) The question, too, “concerns only the strangers already naturalized in Israel.” He says: the exception which the Ammonites and Moabites make (Deuteronomy 13) in regard to the reception of born heathen into the community of God serves only to confirm the rule. “Already, in the state in which Moses found the people, there was a considerable foreign element, the whole posterity of the servants who went down to Egypt with Jacob. A fresh accession took place in Egypt at the time of the exodus (Exo_12:38; Num_11:4). In 1Ch_2:34-35 we have an example that these Egyptian strangers were considered in the partition of the land, and, indeed, in the territory of the tribe to which they had attached themselves. Further, Moses gives in Num_10:29 sq. the friendly invitation to his Midianitish brother-in-law to share with his tribe the lot of Israel. Hobab, says Knobel, shall accordingly have a share in the land. Hobab consented, and we find his race afterward in the Hebrew land. Comp. Jdg_1:16; Jdg_4:11; Jeremiah 35. Only apparently at variance with Ezekiel is the conduct of Ezra toward the heathen wives (Ezr_9:10), and that of Nehemiah (Ezekiel 13.) toward the heathen men who had settled among the Israelites. Ezekiel speaks of those who had attached themselves to Israel by inward inclination at a time when it had no form nor comeliness, and when there was nothing in it to desire but the true God; Ezra and Nehemiah are zealous against the attempt to give heathendom equal rights in the midst of Israel, and to break down the partition-wall so necessary in the pre-Christian times. Both the attraction which Ezekiel commends, and the repulsion for which Ezra and Nehemiah are zealous, arise rather from the same principle; it is the true God who here binds and there severs.”—Hitzig remarks on the clause: who have begotten children, etc., that for their sake the fathers received a landed possession, but the childless proselyte did not. Keil understands it of permanent settlement in Israel, in contrast to temporary or transitory residence there. “Here too there is, analogous to Isa_56:3 sq., attached to the promise a condition, the idea of which is already involved in Deu_23:7-8 (that Edomites and Egyptians shall only in the third generation enter into the congregation of the Lord). This involves the close, firm, and faithful attaching of oneself to the congregation, whereby one has to the utmost removed and excluded himself from the national communion of heathens. Comp. also Lev_25:45.” Certainly not testifying to an already very prevalent custom, but in a prophetic mode of expression, Eze_47:23 adds again a וְהָיָה. The more general sense of this specializing Hävernick expresses to the following effect: “Heathendom forms no new church alongside of Israel, no proper tribe alongside of the twelve families of Israel. It is absorbed into Israel as God’s holy ordinance, which continues unalterable, as an ensign for the Gentiles, into the one true Church, which has existed from the beginning and shall exist for ever.” Very rightly does Kliefoth point out the connection of our prophetic passage with the prediction in Eze_36:36; Eze_37:9; Eze_37:28; only he wrongly adduces Eze_44:9, which compare. “There shall henceforth be no distinction between the members of God’s people born of the seed of Abraham and those born of the Gentiles.”
HOMILETIC HINTS
On Ch. 47
Eze_47:1 sq. “Before his view stands a paradise of the nation returned to God, from whom the fountain of life flows forth in richest effusion, filling the land and all waters with healing virtues,—behold in this the word of God in its vigour of heavenly life, destroying disease and death!” (Umbreit.)—“From the restored temple issues finally salvation for the whole world” (Hengst.).—“For this is the most intrinsic characteristic of these waters, that they spread through the world the consecration of the most holy place” (Neum.).—The waters of life in their significance, whence they come, and whither they flow.—“Water, which makes the unfruitful land fruitful, and affords refreshing drink to the thirsty, is in Scripture a figure of the blessing and salvation which already in paradise are represented as a watering of the ground (Gen_13:10). Comp. in Isa_12:3 the wells of salvation, and in Isa_44:3 the Spirit as the blessing, for the root of disease is sin” (Hengst.).—“In the Church of the New Covenant there is a river of living water, the rich gifts of the Holy Ghost, which flow out into it. Only we must come and taste this water, that we may be made whole, Joh_7:37 sq.”(Tüb. Bib.)—“The watering of Canaan implies a great spiritual fruitfulness” (Lampe).—“The gospel is no invention of man, but an outflow from God in Christ” (Starck).—The Eastern and the Western Church.—“The water is the fatherly kindness and compassion of God, out of whose treasury innumerable benefits flow to us. The water turns at once to the altar of Christ, because we behold in Christ the love of God, and from Him flow upon mankind the spiritual streams of blessing which are to quicken and give health to the world, Joh_13:10; Joh_4:10” (Heim-Hoff.).—“By this water is signified the preaching of the gospel, which offers to us grace and the forgiveness of sins in Christ. Water cleanses so do God’s word and grace (John 13), of which baptism is the symbol. Also the course of the gospel, as the course of these waters, no one can stop” (Lavater).—“It is the water of life, which Oriental mysticism in vain seeks for in other places” (Umbreit).
Eze_47:2. “The kingdom of God cometh not with outward show (Luk_17:20); at first it has even an insignificant appearance, but soon it grows and increases mightily (Mat_13:31-32)” (W.).—“That the waters at first flow out so gently is meant to intimate how entirely different is the process in the kingdom of grace from that in the course of worldly things. For whatever glorious or great thing takes place in the kingdoms of the world creates great wonder and surprise in its very beginning; but the kingdom of God cometh not so (Luk_17:20). In the kingdom of God, things proceed from little to great: in the kingdoms of the world, often from great to little; Satan, as Luther says, begins his things with lofty impetuosity, but finally they end in nothing, and everything comes to disgrace” (Hafenreffer).—“At first it appeared an insignificant work, with a few disciples in Judea; then it was preached in Samaria, and soon after in the whole world” (Lavater).
Eze_47:3 sq. “Faith has always to do with the water here, namely, because it is constantly occupied with consideration of the word of God” (Starck).—“No one has learned so much, that there is not more to learn still. Christianity is prefigured in the water through which Ezekiel was brought. Experience teaches that the longer Christians exercise themselves in godliness, the less value they set on themselves; they confess finally that they cannot reach the bottom: they can depend upon nothing that is theirs, but must submit themselves simply and solely to the grace and mercy of God” (Scriver).—To him that hath shall be given, that he may have abundance.—“The mysteries of the gospel are like a deep river, which finally becomes so deep that one cannot sound it, Eph_3:18” (Tüb. Bib.).—“When reason cannot fathom the divine mysteries because of their depth, the faith which trusts to the truth and wisdom of God, as it were, swims across, Luk_1:34 sq.” (Starck).—“We find here a twofold figure; the one is the four measurements of a thousand cubits each, the other is the four depths of the waters. The one refers to the exceeding great extension of the kingdom of Christ toward all the four quarters of the globe; the other to the different degrees in the measure of the Spirit to which the nations called to the kingdom of Christ shall gradually attain,” etc. (Meyer.)—“The four world-kingdoms in Daniel are like a shadow of the four great epochs in space and time, through which the waters of life diffuse their fulness over the world, gradually transforming it until its peace shall become as a river, and its righteousness as the waves of the sea (Isa. 47:18); until the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah as the waters cover the sea,” Isa_11:9 (Neum.).—“So the books, too, of the Holy Scriptures are, as to their contents, like these waters, of dissimilar depth. Some come only to the ankles, others to the knees, or even to the loins, and some are altogether unfathomable, like these last nine chapters of our prophet” (Pfeiffer).—“At first the word of God seems to us like water which reaches only to the ankles; one thinks it is not so deep, one will easily wade through. But when a man reflects diligently with heartfelt prayer, then his understanding is more and more opened in the divine illumination; then it already reaches his knees—he acquires a far higher esteem for it (Psa_119:129). When he advances farther, he gets always deeper into the hidden wisdom, and Holy Writ is to him a water which comes to his loins; he is so captivated therewith, that he finds in it his highest satisfaction, and forgets over it everything else in the world. Finally, it becomes a water over which he must swim; he cannot fathom the mysteries” (Glassius).—“The river of life, which is at first small, always grows in volume, because the grace and knowledge of Christ should always increase in us; and the divine love and mercy should appear to us always greater, more glorious, and more worthy of admiration, the more attentively we consider them. For who can comprehend their height and depth? Who is so void of understanding as not to be astonished, when he considers that the God of immortality interests Himself in poor mortal man, yea, in the sinner, who so often rises up against Him and breaks His word, imparts to him heavenly treasures, makes him immortal and a partaker of the divine nature? Of this spiritual blessing more and more is always imparted to believers. Here we have sprinkling, cleansing, the taking away of the heart of stone, and the impartation of the new heart, and the anointing with the Holy Ghost. In such measure does the water of life increase” (Heim-Hoff.).—“Friends of missions behold here a glorious emblem of missions, particularly of the most blessed missionary activity proceeding from Israel” (Richter).
Eze_47:6. “In this life we see darkly and through means of the word, hereafter face to face, 1Co_13:12” (Starck).
Eze_47:7. The gospel makes fruitful trees on all sides.—“How wholesome, how fruitful is the living water of the gospel, and of the gifts of the Spirit which it gives us! They restore health, they bring forth fruits of blessedness which endure unto eternity, Joh_4:14” (Tüb. Bib.).—Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord (Jer_17:7 sq.).—“Believers are trees planted by the rivers of water (Psalms 1); they flourish to the glory of God (Isaiah 61), and produce rich and ripe fruit (Psa_92:13 sq.)” (Starke).
Eze_47:8. First urbi, and then orbi, holds good of the Messiah.—Salvation is of the Jews, but it is a salvation for the world.—“Covered with loose pebbles and wild rifted rocks, furrowed by dry torrent-beds, enclosed and obscured at the sides by lofty chains of mountains, the Arabah exhibits only here and there traces of fertility in the growth of herbs and plants, where fountains and streams flow down from the mountains; it is the evening gloom of the wilderness-night, the land in which is the darkness of evening (Isa_24:11; Jer_2:6). The steppe a world in the bonds of death, where the mystery moulders below in silence, and shoots up in roses of the grave” (Neum.).—God’s sanctuary a well-spring of life for the Dead Sea of the world (Psa_87:7).—The Dead Sea in the darkness of nature, in the light of the promise.—God’s thoughts of peace over the abysses of the world’s wretchedness.—Judgment and grace.—The world is a desert and a Dead Sea.—“Oh the greatness of the grace of God, which desires not the death of the sinner, but his healing!” (Starck.)—By conversion we lose our former salt.—“In other cases a clear and wholesome stream, which flows into a muddy and putrid lake like this, becomes corrupt; it is otherwise with the gospel, which brings recovery and health to the earthly-minded heart” (Starke).—“The gospel is a word of life to them who believe in it (Joh_6:68); and its spiritual rivers are living waters to them who drink thereof (Joh_4:10)” (Tüb. Bib.).—“It is a power of God, but man will not let the power work, Heb_4:2” (Starke).
Eze_47:9. “The sea, the restlessly swelling depth, an emblem of disquiet (Isa_57:20), unfruitful (Isa_23:3), boiling up with violent impetuosity (Job_7:12; Psa_46:4 [3]), even in its most glorious aspect only darkling night, like phosphorescent gleams around a corrupt tree, awakening a painful desire and longing for launching forth on distant voyages (Deu_30:13), and down even to the shady abyss (Lam_2:13), unfathomable and dark, the most natural expression of the dark and destructive power of death (Jer_51:42; Mic_7:19), its harshness increased by the flood supersaturated with salt,” etc. (Neum.).—“In the Dead Sea of the world there arises just such a gladsome swarm of those who have become partakers of life from God, as formerly of ordinary fishes in the natural sea at the creation. The salvation is for all, without distinction of nation, rank, or age” (Hengst.).—“From death into life, from the service of sin into the glorious liberty of the children of God, come rich and poor, young and old, bond and free, Jews and Greeks, who receive into them the law of the spirit of life. For whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Heim-Hoff.).—“The fishes in the water and the drops in a river are innumerable; so also the multitude of believers shall be amazing, Isa_60:7” (Starke).—“The two rivers are the two Testaments, the two sacraments” (Starck).
Eze_47:10. “The ministers of the Church are compared to fishers, because of the contempt with which they are regarded by the rich and powerful of this world; because of their labour by day and by night, in heat and in cold; because of the fruitlessness of their labour at times, when they say with Peter, We have caught nothing; because, too, of the dangers they incur in stormy weather; because of their confidence, which, as in the case of the husbandman, must rest on God; because of the various kinds of implements which they use, nets, hooks, etc., preaching, inviting, admonishing, etc. And they rescue souls from the abyss” (Starck).—Nets and fishers everywhere, this is the appearance which the world in Christ presents.—“The world is the sea, the fishes are the men; so long as the fishes swim freely hither and thither at their own will, they profit no one, but when caught they are profitable. In the same May, so long as men walk according to their own lusts and pleasures, they are of no real use either to God or their neighbour; but when they are caught or converted by the gospel net, then they are profitable to God and their neighbour, Phm_1:11” (Starke).
Eze_47:11. “In the Dead Sea of the world the marshes and swamps are originally of the same nature as the main sea; the only difference is, that they shut themselves off from the healing waters, which flow from the sanctuary. Comp. the saying: Ye would not, and the drawing of the Father (Joh_6:44), which comes to meet the longing of the soul. It is, however, sufficient punishment for the world that lieth in wickedness that it continues as it is” (Hengst.).—“The mud-puddles probably indicate separatist, self-contained parties, which do not receive those streams of salvation, and consequently cannot be healed. To these belong Gog’s adherents, Ezekiel 38.” (Richter.)—“Such, too, are those who entrench themselves against the truth and craftily wrest the Scriptures throughout; people of this kind are not easily brought to the knowledge of the truth” (Berl. Bib.).—“Over the figures of light there comes once more a dark shadow. Yea, nothing can rescue from death that which is his own (Isa_26:14). All transformation is only the fruit of a ripening, during which there is constant need of being put in mind of the day of wrath, which comes on the earth, as here on Israel” (Neum.).—He who will not have Christ wills to have eternal death.—No salvation out of Christ.—“The eyes of God regard him who opposes Christ as a morass, because he prefers the wilderness of sin to eternal salvation, Joh_3:19” (Starck).—“He who, in case of conversion, still seeks to retain bypaths and bosom sins, is not upright before God. Divided allegiance is of no avail here, Mat_6:24” (Starke).—“The ungodly, who despise God’s word, or do not persevere in the path of life, remain dry and unfruitful. Blessed, on the contrary, is the godly man who meditates on the law of the Lord day and night (Psalms 1). He is always flourishing, always alike; he walks in the ways of the Lord, and edifies and elevates others” (Heim-Hoff.).
Eze_47:12. The blessed growth close by the river of life.—Evergreen leaves, yet not leaves merely, but also fruit! Thus it is with life from God’s sanctuary.—Hypocrisy and true piety.—“The never-fading of the leaves implies the perseverance of believers in temptations, in persecutions, in death” (Starck).—“The works of believers, which in other respects are done even by unbelievers, are fragrant of faith and love, and are therefore fitted for converting the heathen” (Berl. Bib.).—“Would that all men knew how well it is with him who is included in the number of Christians, of true members of Jesus! Then one always goes onward (and never backward) in his happiness; he is in the path of life, and always receives grace for grace” (Rothe).—Healing and sanctification.—“A pleasant figure of the blessing imparted to mankind from the dwelling among us of the Godman. His word flows forth from Him, swelling through all lands with ever-increasing power, and always more and more disclosing its fulness. He who holds to it and is rooted in it brings forth fruit continually, and it has power to quicken even what has long been lifeless, and to turn the curse into a blessing. In Christ we have this as a matter of daily experience; Ezekiel in vision saw it in the future; his prophecies have respect to us” (Diedrich).
Eze_47:13 sq. “In the community of God every one has his place and his share according to his gifts, 1Co_12:28” (Tüb. Bib.).—“Who can define the boundaries of the Church, especially in the last days? But as here the boundaries of Canaan are defined, so the boundaries of the Church are faith and life in the Scriptures of the apostles and prophets, which accordingly no one is to overpass, Gal_6:16” (Starke).—The Church of God has her boundaries within and without. The inheritance of the saints in light (1Jn_3:1 sq.).—“God gives to His children very differently; from him to whom a double portion has been given, a corresponding return is required” (Starck).—“In the New Covenant the same grace is offered to all men. God is not a respecter of persons. It is one and the same Christ, one Spirit for all, Gal_3:26” (Starck).
Eze_47:22 sq. “Oh what comfort it is that the Gentiles are no longer to be strangers and foreigners from the promise, but citizens, and of the household of God! Eph_2:19” (Starke).—“It is not birth, but the new birth, that makes men children of God” (Starck).—“Here, under earthly figures, the Jerusalem that is above, with her children, is typified, and the calling of the Gentiles from east and west and the utmost bounds of the earth is described; for many shall come from the east and from the west, and sit down to eat with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of God, Ps. 47:10 [Psa_47:9]”(Heim-Hoff.).—“God here opens to all the holy gates of His Church, and prescribes to the Church herself the commandment of meekness, love, and brotherly kindness” (Hafenreffer).—“Those who were formerly strangers shall then be heirs of the whole world. In Christ, in faith, in the New Covenant, the alien disappears. Those who were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and far off, and they who are nigh, are made one; the two are made one new man, Eph_2:12. For he who is in Christ is through faith Abraham’s seed, and an heir and possessor of his promise, Gal_3:28-29. The incorporation of believers into Christ makes a complete unity, and a new spiritual body, consisting of all true members without distinction, for in the new creation all members prosper alike before God, etc.” (Berl. Bib.)—Right and title in the faith.
Footnotes:
[1]W. Neumann: The Waters of Life. An Exegetical Disquisition on Eze_47:1-12. Berlin, 1848. Somewhat hyperbolical, but written with intelligent and hearty appreciation, in the spirit of the language and faith of the prophets of Israel.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On v1 1-12. These verses describe the mysterious supernatural stream flowing…
1-12. These verses describe the mysterious supernatural stream flowing from underneath the sacred threshold of the temple (see note Eze_46:1-2), the waters of which turn the desert into a paradise and even sweeten the Dead Sea; a plain symbol of the power of a holy religion in the midst of a redeemed people. These living waters of blessing (compare Isa_8:6; Joe_3:18; Rev_22:1-2) “trickled forth” (Eze_47:2, R.V., margin) from under the threshold and passing eastward and a little south of the altar, which was directly in front of the temple porch (Eze_40:47), descended the mountain gathering volume as it went, though seemingly without tributaries, until within four thousand cubits (about one and one third miles) from its source it had become a mighty torrent which no one could cross (Eze_47:5). These waters plunge on into that deep depression in the Jordan valley which the Hebrews well called the “Arabah” (R.V., Eze_47:8), or “desert” — no traveler has ever failed to be impressed with its wildness and awful desolation — and everywhere the miraculous life-giving power of these waters is seen, for “along the bank of the river” (Eze_47:6) is “every sort of tree whose fruit is edible; their leaves shall not wither, nor their fruit fail; monthly they shall bear fresh fruit; for their waters issue from the sanctuary, and their fruit shall be for food, and their leaves for healing” (Eze_47:12; compare Eze_47:7 and Rev_22:2). And still continuing, these miraculous waters flow into the “sea of the Arabah” (Deu_3:17), the Dead Sea, and at their coming that strange lake, whose salty and sulphurous banks had been absolutely devoid of vegetation, and in which no fish could ever live, suddenly becomes as full of fish as the Mediterranean (Eze_47:10), and “every living creature” (R.V., Eze_47:9) which inhabits the sea begins to swarm in its waters. From the Oasis of En-gedi (on the middle of the west shore) even unto En-eglaim (probably situated at the extreme end of the sea) this most blistered and poisonous part of the world — God’s “awful vale of judgment” (Gen_19:24-28) — becomes full of beauty and fertility and life, the place most prized by fishermen. Only a few fens and marshes remain unhealed (Eze_47:11) in order that a supply of salt may still be obtained from them. “So there is nothing — nothing so sunken, so useless, so doomed — but by the grace of God it may be redeemed, lifted, and made rich with life.” (See G.A. Smith, Historical Geography, p. 511, etc.) Ezekiel’s prophecy has never been, nor can it ever be, fulfilled literally in Palestine, but in the course of providential history it has been more than fulfilled. “From the throne of God, yet also from the Church of God, the fertilizing stream has flowed. Derelict as that Church has been in its duty, cruel in its conscience, worldly in its lusts, superstitious in its fears, material and ritualistic in its conceptions of life, nevertheless through its gates has flowed the constantly deepening stream of the river of life. Whatever desert those waters have touched has bloomed; wherever that stream has come life has come; and on its banks have grown every sort of tree whose leaves have been for the healing of the nations.” — Lyman Abbott. Natural symbols are constantly used by the prophet to image spiritual and natural conditions. (Compare, for example, Joe_2:30-31; Act_2:19-20.) An ancient Jewish Midrash on Exo_12:12, explains this passage according to the Messianic hope: “The Holy One will bring forth living waters from Jerusalem, and will cure with it all diseases, as it is said Eze_47:9, and shall make the trees bring forth fruit every month, Eze_47:12.”
1. Under the threshold… at the south side of the altar — “There was a fountain connected with the temple hill the waters of which fell into the valley east of the city and made their way toward the sea; and long ere this time the gentle waters of this ‘brook that flowed fast by the oracle of God’ had furnished symbols to the prophets (Isa_8:6). Such waters in the East are the source of every blessing to men.” — Davidson. The main religious teaching is that man’s blessings flow from the sanctuary of Jehovah. The waters of life start from the dwelling place of the Author of life. The symbols by which this thought was expressed would have been quite intelligible to the heathen among whom the captives lived. According to Babylonian tradition the threshold of the palace of Beltis-Allat, the lioness-queen of the lower world and goddess of fertility, stood upon a spring which had the property of restoring to life all who bathed in it or drank of its waters (Trumbull, Threshold Covenant, p. 115, etc.).
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–4 1. From the outer court (Eze_46:23) the prophet was…
1. From the outer court (Eze_46:23) the prophet was brought again to the door of the house. There he saw waters issuing from beneath the threshold on the right, that is the south side, which flowed east, passing the altar on the south side.
1–12. The river issuing from the temple. The prophet saw a stream issuing from beneath the threshold of the house, which pursued its way eastward, passing the altar on the south side and emerging into the open on the right hand of the outer east gate. A thousand cubits from the gate the waters were ankle deep, but speedily they became a river so deep that it could be crossed only by swimming (Eze_47:3-5). A luxuriant nature attended the course of the stream; trees grew on every side, ever green and with unfailing fruit, the leaves of which possessed a healing virtue (Eze_47:7; Eze_47:12). The desert place to the east became transformed, and the bitter waters of the Dead Sea into which the river flowed were made sweet, and swarmed with life like the great sea on the west. Fishermen peopled the shores from En-gedi to En-eglaim; only the marshes by the seaside remained salt (Eze_47:6-12).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5 The first twelve verses of this chapter constitute what…
XLVII.
The first twelve verses of this chapter constitute what is generally known as “the vision of the living waters;” the latter part of the chapter, Eze_47:13-23, more properly belongs with Ezekiel 48, and, with that, gives an account of the boundaries of the land, of its distribution among the tribes, and of the building of the holy city.
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The ideal character of this vision of the waters is so plain upon its face that little need be said on this point. The stream is represented as issuing from the summit of “a very high mountain” (Eze_40:2), and as constantly and rapidly increasing its volume, without the accession of tributaries, so that in a little more than a mile it becomes a river no longer fordable. The trees upon its banks, too, are evidently symbolical, and its effect upon the Dead Sea (as already said in the introductory note to Ezekiel 40-48) is such as could not naturally occur. Such imagery is common in prophecy. Joel (Joe_3:18) says, “All the rivers of Judah shall flow with waters, and a fountain shall come forth of the house of the LORD, and shall water the valley of Shittim.” Zechariah (Zec_14:8), “Living waters shall go out from Jerusalem, half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea;” and finally, the description of the “pure river of water of life” in Rev_22:1-3, is evidently founded upon this passage of Ezekiel. Passages in which water is used as the symbol of the influence of the Spirit are too numerous and familiar to need quotation. (Comp. Isa_44:3; Eze_36:25-27; Zec_13:1, &c.)
Ezekiel, having in the previous chapters described the dwelling of the Lord among His people with characteristic minuteness of detail, now proceeds to set forth the blessings that flow from this presence.
(1) Door of the house.—This is the entrance of the Temple itself; the waters come out from under its threshold, just as in Rev_22:1 they proceed “out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.” The prophet, who had just been in the outer court (Eze_46:21, &c.), is brought in to the door of the house that he may see the waters.
From the right side of the house.—Although the waters issue directly from the threshold which was in the centre of the east front of the Temple, and their general course was due east, it was necessary that they should be deflected a little at the start to the south in order to pass the porch and the altar, as well as both the inner and outer gateways.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–5 As the first part of Ezekiel"s vision (Ezekiel 40-43)…
As the first part of Ezekiel"s vision (Ezekiel 40-43) dealt with the temple, or "house," and the second (Eze 44-47) with the ritual, or "worship," so the third, which beans with the present chapter, (Eze 47 Eze 48) treats of the land, or "inheritance" setting forth first its relation to the temple (vers. 1-12) and to outlying countries (vers. 13-21), and secondly its division among the tribes, inclusive of the priests, Levites, sanctuary, prince, and city, (Eze_48:1-23) with a statement of the dimensions and gates of the last (vers. 24-35). The opening section of the present chapter (vers. 1-12) is by Kliefoth and others connected with the second part as a conclusion, rather than with the third part as an introduction; but, taken either way, the passage has the same significance or nearly so. If read in continuation of the foregoing, it depicts the blessed consequences, in the shape of life and healing, which should flow to the land of Israel and its inhabitants from the erection in their midst of the sanctuary of Jehovah, and the observance by them of the holy ordinances of Jehovah"s religion. Viewed as a preface to what follows, it exhibits the transformation which the institution of such a culture would effect upon the land before proceeding to speak of its partition among the tribes. The prophet"s imagery in this paragraph may have taken as its point of departure the well-known fact that the waters of Shiloah (Isa_8:6; Psa_46:4) appeared to flow from under the temple hill, the Pool of Siloam having been fed from a spring welling up with intermittent action from beneath Ophel (see Conder, "Handbook to the Bible," p. 334; King, "Recent Discoveries on Temple Hill," p. 173). To Isaiah "the waters of Shiloah that go softly," had already been an emblem of the blessings to be enjoyed under Jehovah"s rule; (Isa_8:6) to Joel (Joe_3:18) "a fountain," coming forth from the house of the Lord and watering the valley of Shittim, or the Acacia valley, on the borders of Moab, on the other side of Jordan, where the Israelites halted and sinned, (Num_25:1 Num_33:49) had symbolized the benefits that should be experienced by Israel in the Messianic era when Jehovah should permanently dwell in his holy mount of Zion; to Ezekiel, accordingly, the same figure naturally occurs as a means of exhibiting the life and healing, peace and prosperity, that should result to Israel from the erection upon her soil of Jehovah"s sanctuary and the institution among her people of Jehovah"s worship. Zechariah (Zec_13:1 Zec_14:8) and (Rev_22:1, Rev_22:2) undoubtedly make use of the same image, which, it is even probable, they derived from Ezekiel (comp. Ecc 24:30, Ecc 24:31, in which Wisdom is introduced as saying, "I also came out as a brook from a river, and as a conduit into a garden. I said, I will water my best garden, and will water abundantly my garden bed; and, lo, my brook became a river, and my river became a sea").
Having completed his survey of the sacrificial kitchens in the outer court, (Eze_46:19-24) the prophet was once more conducted by his guide to the door of the house, or of the temple in the strict sense, i.e. of the sanctuary. There he perceived that waters issued (literally, and behold waters issuing) from under the threshold of the house, i.e. of the temple porch. (see Eze_40:48, Eze_40:49; and comp., Eze_9:3) eastward, the direction having been determined by the fact that the forefront of the house stood or was toward the east. He also noticed that the waters came down (or, descended ) the temple having been situated on higher ground than the inner courtfrom under the threshold, from the right side of the house literally, from the shoulder (Eze_40:18, Eze_40:40, 41 41:2, 26 46:2-9) of the house, the right. The two clauses are not to be conjoined as by Hengstenberg, Ewald, and Smend, as if they meant, from underneath the right side of the house; but kept distinct, to indicate the different features which entered into the prophet"s picture. The first was that the waters issued forth from under the threshold of the house; the second, that they proceeded from the right side or shoulder of the house, i.e. from the corner where the south wall of the porch and the east wall of the temple joined; (see Eze_41:1) the third, that the stream flowed on the south side of the altar, which stood exactly in front of the temple perch, (see Eze_40:47) and would have obstructed the course of the waters had they issued forth from the perch doorway instead of from the comer above described.
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Vers. 1-5The vision of the waters.
Hitherto most of Ezekiel"s representations of the happy age of the restoration have been given in somewhat prosaic details which could be realized in actual facts. But now he returns to his figurative style, and sets before us a narrative picture of the glorious future. He passes from the regulations of the priesthood and the government to a description of a fountain of water issuing from the temple in the most natural way, as though all these things were equally sure to happen in the course of time. But the prophet can scarcely have been anticipating a repetition of Moses" miracle at the rock of Horeb, because his subsequent language would be absurd if we read it literally. It must be, therefore, that the prophecy is here symbolical. The blessings of the Messianic era are like waters flowing from under the threshold of the temple.
I THE BLESSING OF THE WATERS. In a dry land streams of water are most highly valued. Their banks, fringed with green, tell a pleasing story of the life and fertility that they bring wherever they flow. The blessings of the gospel are like living waters.
1. Cleansing. God has opened a fountain for all uncleanness.
2. Life. Christ gives the water of life. Without his grace our souls are parched and perishing.
3. Refreshment. The water is continually flowing; it is no stagnant pool. The life which it first quickens is daily fed by its invigorating supplies. The good Shepherd leads his flock by the still waters for repeated cheering and refreshing.
4. Beauty. Where the water flows the land is green and fair. The beauty of holiness springs up by the channel of Christ"s grace.
5. Fruitfulness. There grow by the water fruit-bearing trees. Christian fruitfulness springs from the ever fresh supplies of Christ"s grace.
II THE SOURCE OF THE WATERS.
1. From God. The stream issues from the temple where God visits the earth and has his typical dwelling. It is he who sends forth the life-giving flood. We have the gospel of the grace of God. From him, and him alone, comes our salvation.
2. By sacrifice. The stream is to flow from under the altar on which sacrifices are offered. God"s grace is given to us in Christ, and by means of his great atoning sacrifice. Christ especially claimed to give living waters. (Joh_4:10) It is by his death that we live. From his cross the stream now flows for the healing of the nations.
3. Through worship. The temple had to be built, the altar set up, and the services duly conducted. We receive grace through faith when we yield our hearts and lives to Christ.
III THE COURSE OF THE WATERS.
1. Outflowing. They rise in the temple; but they are not shut up in the sacred enclosure; they flow out for the good of the people. The gospel rose in Judaism, and passed out to the Gentile world. The grace of Christ is for the people generally, chiefly for those who thirst and faint for need of it.
2. Increasing. The small stream becomes a mighty river. He giveth more grace." The blessings of Christ increase with time. The more we know of him, and the longer we follow him, the more of his grace flows to us. The gospel widens its area as it flows down the ages. The tiny stream, represented by the upper room at Jerusalem, becomes the mighty river of Christendom. As the area of influence widens, the grace of Christ comes in ever more and more abundant supplies, so that there is enough for all.
HOMILIES BY J.R. THOMSON Vers. 1-12The holy waters.
The beauty and even sublimity of this portion of Ezekiel"s prophecies must impress every reader of imagination and taste. Upon the suggestion of the waters of Siloam taking their rise from the temple rock, and the watercourse of the Kedron threading its way among the rocky deserts until it reaches the expanse of the Dead Sea, the poet-prophet describes a river which has its source in the sanctuary of Jehovah, and which broadens and deepens as it flows, until it becomes a stream of vastest blessing, diffusing health and life for the benefit of multitudes of men. Under this similitude Ezekiel pictures the spiritual blessings brought by God, through the channels of his grace and faithfulness, not to Israel alone, but to all mankind.
I THE SOURCE OF THE HOLY WATERS. AS the rain comes down from heaven, filters in the soil, and wells up a living spring, so the blessings of the gospel have their fountain in the very mind and heart of God himself. But, as conveyed to men, they have a well-spring human and earthly. The student of human history, who looks beneath the surface of things, and seeks to understand the growth of thought and of morals, turns his attention to the Hebrew people, wondering that from them, as from a wellhead of ethical and religious life, should flow blessings so priceless for the enrichment of humanity. Yet so it is; the temple at Jerusalem is the symbol of a Divine revelation. The justest and noblest ideas which have entered into the intellectual and spiritual life of man have very largely issued from Moses and the Hebrew prophets. How far Ezekiel entered into this truth may not be certain; yet since he was a cosmopolite, in relation with Babylon, Egypt, and Tyre, and knew well the mental and moral state of the nations of antiquity, it seems reasonable to believe that he had enough of the critical spirit to compare the debt of the world to the Hebrews as compared with the people that figure so vastly in secular history. He was certainly right in tracing to Israelitish sources the waters of life, fruitfulness, and healing which were to bring blessing to mankind.
II THE WIDENING AND DEEPENING OF THE HOLY WATERS. It is here that Ezekiel passes from history to prophecy. Possessed by the Spirit of God, he was able to look into the future and behold the wonder yet to be. It is, indeed, marvelous that, in a period of national depression, when national extinction seemed to human foresight to be imminent, the prophet of the exile should have had so clear a perception of the reality of things, and so clear a foresight of the spiritual future of the world, which must in his apprehension have appeared bound up with the continuity of the history and religious life of Israel. The river, like the temple from which it proceeded, was the emblem of what was greater than itself. Christian commentators have taken pleasure in tracing Correspondences between the gradual increase of the stream and the growth of true and spiritual religion. Beginning with Judaism, the stream of truth and blessing widened and deepened into Christianity; and Christianity itself, commencing its course in the besom of Israel, soon came to include in its ever-widening flood, its ever-deepening volume of blessing, all the nations comprehended in the dominion of Rome. And following centuries have witnessed the constant broadening of the life-giving and beneficent stream, so that none can place a limit to the area which shall be fertilized and refreshed by the waters that first flowed from the courts of the temple at Jerusalem.
III THE BENEFICENCE OF THE HOLY WATERS. Among the results of the presence of the waters of life may be observed the following.
1. Healing. The salt and bituminous waters of the Dead Sea are represented as being healed and restored to sweetness by this inflow of the sweet and wholesome waters issuing from the sanctuary. By this may be understood the power of pure and supernatural religion to heal the corruptions of sinful society. Certainly, as a matter of fact, not a little has been done in this direction in the course of the centuries, as the Church has taken possession, first of the Roman empire, and then of the nations of the North, and as, in these latter days, it has, with missionary zeal, penetrated the foulness of the remotest heathenism.
2. Life. And this in two several directions. The prophet saw very many trees on the banks of the river, and a very great multitude of fish in its translucent waters. Life, both vegetable and animal, life of every kind and order, is the result of the stream"s full and beneficent flow. Corresponding with this is the spiritual life which results from the benign and wholesome influence of true Christianity. The Lord Jesus came that men might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. Life of the spirit, the very life of God himself such is the issue of the Divine interposition and provision.
3. Fruitfulness and abundance. The fishers spread their nets and draw up from the waters a great supply of fish; the husbandmen go forth into the gardens and vineyards by the river-side and gather great crops of fruit. The river of the water of life, like the streams of Damascus creating a green oasis in the Syrian desert, brings fertility, a wealth of blossom and of fruit, wherever it flows. Righteousness and holiness, patience and peace, devotion and hope, such are the harvest for which the world is indebted to the sweet waters of the Divine sanctuary. T.
HOMILIES BY J.D. DAVIES Vers. 1-12The river of salvation.
The prophet has advanced from step to step in his outline sketch of Israel"s destined glory. The temple is now complete. The throne is to be erected on a foundation of righteousness. The better order for sacrificial worship is instituted. The climax of blessing is almost reached. One great defect had been manifest in Israel"s past history. They lived for themselves. They were the exclusive favorites of Jehovah. This defect shall be remedied. Israel shall henceforth be a blessing to the world. From under the temple altar a stream of life is seen to flow, which deepens as it flows, and which shall irrigate and vitalize whatever is Barren in the land. From Israel, as from a center, gracious power shall go forth to penetrate with new life the human race. Such is the significance of the vision. Yet this structure of future hope rests upon a groundwork of fact. Within recent years it has been discovered that immense reservoirs of water exist under the identical spot where once the altar stood. Ezekiel borrowed the material of Iris vision from the physical features of the temple area, and from the formation of the country lying to the east. By a geographical necessity, this stream flowed (in Ezekiel"s day) down the valley of Jehoshaphat, along the valley of the Kedron, through land blasted with desolation, and found its way into the Dead Sea. With this raw material of fact the prophet weaves a gorgeous tapestry of prophecy. He foresees the glorious reality of Messiah"s day. He limos in outline the magnificent results of Calvary.. Pentecost, with its far-reaching consequences, was filling his heart with joy: hence he describes in glowing colors man"s regenerated state through the abounding grace of God.
I MARK THE SOURCE OF THIS LIFE GIVING STREAM. "Behold, waters issued out from under the threshold of the house eastward the waters came down from under from the fight side of the house, at the south side of the altar." Here we have an early unfolding of God"s great plan of salvation an anticipation of the closing vision in John"s Apocalypse. There is vital instruction in every line. The stream had its rise under the altar, which altar is the emblem of the Saviors cross. Hence we learn that the stream of Divine mercy, the river of life to men, has its source in suffering rod sacrifice and death. Atoning death, the outburst of pent-up love, is the spring of life to the world. Such was the spectacle to the prophet s eye; this was revelation enough for the moment; yet there was a gracious fact further back. The real, invisible source of this salvation is in the heart of infinite love; but for wisest reasons the stream flows through the channel of the cross. Therefore, to the eye of man the most fitting spot whence this stream should seem to rise is the altar in the temple, where for ages God had been sought and his mercy had been found. The plural word "waters" signifies "abundance." They gushed forth in copious plentifulness. The impression made upon the mind was the very opposite to stint or reluctance. It was a generous overflow, a glad relief from previous restraint. Such is the quality of God"s mercy to men. It leaps forth in generous abundance. There is no limit to his kindness. His love is equal to men"s largest needs equal to the salvation of the race. If God is the purveyor, there can be no lack. He gives with the heart of a Father and with the freeness of a King.
II MARK THE RAPID GROWTH OF THE STREAM. At the distance of a thousand cubits from its source the waters reached only to a man"s ankles. Another like distance was measured, now they reached the knees; and soon the stream was a river to swim in a fiver that could not be forded. Impressive picture this of the development of God"s plan of redemption! In Eden there was only an obscure promise. Down to the days of Abraham the rill of experienced mercy reached only to the ankles. But it steadily grew in depth and fullness. It would be a waste of blessing if God should disclose his grace faster than man has capacity to receive. In Paul"s day the stream had swelled in volume, so that, having tried his sounding-line, he stood confounded, and could only exclaim, "Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!" Still the stream rolls on and increases in magnitude. At its banks every thirsty soul may drink and live. For six thousand years it has been flowing, and, instead of giving any sign of diminution, the volume still increases and shall increase. For this saving knowledge shall cover the earth as the natural water fills the caverns of ocean. So important did God conceive it to be that Ezekiel should know of this steady increase, that he caused him to test it by personal experiment. It did not suffice that Ezekiel looked upon this increasing volume with his eye; he must go into it, and have deepest knowledge of the fact. They who preach to others must have personal experience of the truth. Theory and tradition and speculation will not suffice for the instruction of men. The preacher sent from God must declare what he has "tasted and handled and felt of the good word of life." Attention is summoned: "Son of man, hast thou seen this?
III MARK THE SALUTARY EFFECTS OF THIS STREAM. "Everything shall live whither the river cometh." The prophet soon left the region of natural fact. There then a stream flowing out from under the temple; but its waters were not sweet; it did not grow in bulk as it proceeded; it did not bring fertility and life to the district. The country through which the Kedron flows is the most rocky and desolate to be found in Palestine. Although this little stream has been flowing for ages into the Dead Sea, it has not perceptibly alleviated its bitterness. Nauseous and pungent to the taste as ever is that water. Though beautiful to the eye as the Sea of Galilee, no animated life is on its shores; all verdure is wanting; and not the tiniest animalcula can live in its depths. It is the scene of silence and desolation. Pathetic emblem this of man"s moral barrenness!
1. Food is provided. To this natural spectacle what a contrast does Ezekiel"s picture present! This copious stream brings life and beauty to both its banks. Here grows every tree that can yield fruit. Here no scarcity can be found, for the trees bear in constant succession. As soon as one sort of fruit is exhausted another is purple with ripeness. No winter is here; it is perpetual summer. Such fruits may be enumerated:
(1) knowledge;
(2) repentance;
(3) pardon;
(4) peace;
(5) obedience;
(6) adoption;
(7) Divine communion;
(8) strength;
(9) purity;
(10) patience;
(11) hope;
(12) immortality.
Already the deserts of earth have blossomed; already these fruits of Paradise have been tasted. For long years the prophecy has ripened into fact.
1. Medicine. "The leaf thereof shall be for medicine." The provision which God makes is always complete. Man is not only the subject of hunger, he is a victim of disease. He is racked with pain, torn with sorrows, tormented with a thousand cares. And as in nature the leaves and cells of plants contain medicine for every bodily disease; so in his kingdom of grace God has furnished remedies for all care and sorrow. "The leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations." And what else can these leaves be except the truths and promises of the gospel of Christ? Is it not a fact well attested that these words and pledges of Jehovah have alleviated the distress of many an anguished soul? acted as cooling balm to many a fevered heart? How many men, fettered with chains of despair, have broken them by virtue of the promise, "Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out! How many no tongue can tell. And like healing medicine to a thousand afflicted souls has bee, the whispered assurance, I will never leave thee; and this, My grace is sufficient for thee." "He has sent forth his word and healed them.
2. There is perpetual virtue. Of these trees "the leaf shall not fade." As a willow planted by the riverside is well-nigh always verdant, so the trees of righteousness were beauteous in immortal verdure because their roots were nourished by the river of God. Human nature (unvisited by God"s grace)is a desert more bald and sterile than the hill-country of Judaea. But wherever this crystal stream of mercy comes, life luxuriant, joyous life appears. The plants of holiness flourish of the Lord, full of sap." A thousand such deserts have already blossomed, and the prophecy is undergoing fulfillment before our eyes.
3. Abundant life is yet another effect. "There shall be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither." It is in keeping with the allegory that the prophet should speak only of fish as the kind of life generated by this stream. Yet as the result of this human life was sustained. Population increased, for men found useful occupation. The whole circumference of the Dead Sea became a scene of activity the home of industry and plenty. Again we have a graphic sketch of the life-giving grace of our God. Wherever it has penetrated it has been life from the dead. Bodily life has been valued and prolonged. The curative art has developed. Domestic life has been enriched. All forms of intellectual life have unfolded. National life has been purified and organized. Population has grown. Best of all, the spiritual life in man has been awakened, and practical love to the human race has flourished. A moral revolution among mankind is in progress. The regeneration of society is proceeding.
4. Exceptional barrenness is incurable. "But the miry places thereof, and the marshes thereof, shall not be healed; they shall be given to salt." There is a certain physical condition of barren land which no abundance of water will fertilize. So in the kingdom of grace resistance of Divine influence is possible. Among the chosen twelve there was a Judas. In the first Church avarice and hypocrisy wrought havoc of death. Some always "resist the Holy Ghost." Some "count themselves unworthy of everlasting life." To some in his day Jesus spake with pathetic sorrow, "Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life. D.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON Vers. 1-12The river of life.
In this noble vision we have a prophecy of that great redeeming power which Jesus Christ should introduce to the world, and we have some insight given us of its triumphs in the far future. Of this wonderful river we have to inquire into
I ITS DIVINE SOURCE. The river flowed "from under the threshold of the house from the very dwelling-place of Jehovah. The river of life has its source in the Divine, in God himself, in his fatherly yearning, in his boundless pity, in his redeeming purpose. The heavens themselves pour down the rains, which feed the springs, which make the rivers of earth; but from above the clouds, from one whom "the heaven of heavens cannot contain," comes that river of life which a wasted and despoiled world is waiting to receive. It is a Divine mind alone that could conceive, a Divine heart alone that-could produce, such a benevolent force as this.
II ITS SPIRITUAL CHARACTER. The river of the gospel of Christ is the river of Divine truth. The kingdom of God is to be established by purely moral and spiritual agencies. When violence is used to promote it, there is a miserable departure from its essential spirit, and there is a serious injury done to its final triumph. For it wins by other and better means. And as water is itself composed of two elements, so the truth of God in the gospel of Christ is twofold. It includes the truth we most want to know concerning ourselves our nature, our character, our position before God, our possibilities in the present and in the future; and also the truth we most want to know concerning God his character and disposition, his purpose of mercy, his supreme act of self-denying love, his overtures of grace, his summons to eternal life.
III ITS TWO SOVEREIGN VIRTUES.
1. That of renewal. All kinds of fish live in its waters (vers. 9, 10); many trees grow and thrive on its banks, nourished by its streams (ver. 7); "everything lives whither the river cometh" (ver. 9).
2. That of cleansing. Such are the virtues of this river that, flowing into the Dead Sea, it sweetens even its salt waters and cleanses them of their bitterness, so that fish once more live therein: "Its waters are healed" (ver. 8). Such is the gracious and beneficent action of the truth of the gospel of Christ.
(1) It is the source of new life; it revives and it sustains. It finds men and communities in spiritual death, and it imparts a new and blessed life; before it comes is a dreary moral waste, after its waters have begun to flow there is beauty and fertility. Peoples that seemed wholly lost to wisdom and to righteousness are regained; homes that appeared hopelessly darkened with sin and shame are made light with its beams of truth and grace; hearts that were desolate and deathful are filled with peace and joy and immortal hope. Everything lives where this blessed river comes.
(2) It is the one great cleansing power. Into the darkest and foulest places it enters, and it brings with it sweetness and purity; corruption cannot live where its waters pass, but disappears before them. This is true, not only of the hearts and the homes of men, but of districts, of cities, of countries.
IV ITS GLORIOUS ABUNDANCE. (Vers. 3-5.) Once a small stream, it is now a broad, deep river, whose course nothing can check, whose waters are inexhaustibly full, whose beneficence nothing can measure. It has come down these many centuries, it has girdled the whole earth, it will flow on and on until all the nations have been renewed.
1. Have we partaken of its life-giving waters?
2. Are we gaining therefrom the healing and the growth they will yield? C.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 5 He measured a thousand cubits.
Eze_47:1-12
He measured a thousand cubits.
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Curious things in life
This chapter is a chapter of measurement. Everything is meted out, as it were, by so many cubits and inches. The voice is very dogmatic:--This is the north side (Eze_47:17); This is the east side (Eze_47:18); This is the south side (Eze_47:19); This is the west side (Eze_47:20). So shall ye divide. Everything is done for us in grand totals. What, then, is the suggestion of wisdom? Surely it is, Lord, teach me where I am bounded, and how I am limited, and help me with patience and eager expectancy to do my little days work with all industriousness and heart-loyalty, knowing that that servant shall be blessed who shall be found working steadily at his humble lot whenever his Lord cometh. By following out this doctrine of measurement, we shall get rid of a great deal of fret and worry and excitement, and we shall be able to welcome weird-looking guests into the house, and say, For Gods sake you are welcome, though we do not know you, and we do not like you at first; the Lord sent you this way; and presently, that weird face will become beauteous as the face of a child angel. How curious is life, and from certain points how utterly unmanageable! From other points of view, how beauteous is life, how well-proportioned, and how easily handled if we would only keep our own hands off it, and let God do what He will! Look at your own industry and endeavour in the market place, and in all the pursuits of business. What a curious law it is that in order to do a few things we must do many. The things you do without any positive or profitable result are really profitable to you in another way. Your disappointments are your educators, as well as your satisfactions. You are taught patience, your ambition is limited if not rebuked; you say again and again, We must do a thousand things by way of endeavour in order to accomplish half a dozen things by way of positive and literal success. What a curious thing it is that though we know that only one can find the prize, yet we all go out to seek for it! We are accustomed to the illustration of a treasure being lost in the darkness, and on the broad thoroughfare. A thousand men get to know that a purse has been lost. It was only a purse, only one individual could find it and take it, and yet all the thousand are looking round and groping about for it. Do you not know that only one person can get that? You know it, but something says to you, Perhaps you are the one person. Could we just have that amount of faith in the Christian Church, we should have a revival of godliness. Here is salvation; let us suppose that only one man can get it: who knows who that one man is? Strive to enter in at the strait gate. A still more extraordinary thing is this, and curious in its way, that although we know we may at any moment die, our plans are laid as if we were going to live forever. Ask any man how long he will live, and he will tell you he does not know. Ask him if he may this very day die, and he will say, Certainly, this very day I may cease to live upon the earth. Now examine his plans--his plans of business, his plans of home, his plans of education--and you will not find one of them limited to the day. And the most curious part of it is that the man cannot help it. He could not be bound by the sunrising and the sunsetting. He will tell you plaintively that he may never live to see the sunset, yet his whole life is set in plans that shall endure for years and ages. He never says, Tonight at six oclock, I may be a dead man, therefore I will draw my lines accordingly. He says, Tonight at six oclock I may be a dead man, but the world will not be dead; the individual may go, but the race will remain; man dies, but humanity abides; and my last act, if it be my last act, upon earth, shall be an act of generous contribution to the progress of the total world. Do not stifle these voices. In all labour there is profit. Even in the things you have done without result you have found some advantage to the soul if you have laboured faithfully. And as for that larger life, we know not what it is, it is enough to know meantime that it is larger. God is always enlarging and ennobling the outlook of man. We might also notice as a curious thing in all this measurement, that when we have done our best there comes a point when we must simply leave results. We cannot follow our own labour beyond a certain point. The agriculturist has done what he can in the field; now, he says, I must wait. I cannot hasten the sun or the processes of nature. So with the training of your children: all you can do is to show them a noble example. You can be chivalrous in the midst of your family, you can give them the best education in your power, you can encourage all that is good and beautiful in their nature, and then you must wait. And so with business. You can apparently be driving your business with tremendous energy which ends in nothing. Really, a quiet industry may often do more than a vehement importance. You can be industrious, faithful, honourable, generous, and having done all you can, not as an atheist, but as a believer in God, you must say, Now, Lord, the harvest is in Thine hands: I have done what I can in my poor little field; Thou knowest that I have spared no energy and no thought: now let the harvest be as Thou wilt; if I come back in the autumn and find this field sterile, the day of harvest a day of sorrow, help me to say, Thy will be done: I will leave it all now; I have tried to be a faithful and honest servant; and then if the harvest be golden, abundant, and far beyond the resources of our accommodation, to Gods name be the praise; He always surprises us by the infinity, the boundlessness of His gifts. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Sounding the depth of Divine things
It is good to be often searching into the things of God, and trying the depth of them, not only to look on the surface of these waters, but to go to the bottom of them as far as we can, to be often digging, often diving, into the mysteries of the kingdom of God, as those who covet to be intimately acquainted with those things. (M. Henry.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Ezekiel 47, 48
RENEWAL AND ALLOTMENT OF THE LAND
Ezekiel 47, 48
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IN the first part of the forty-seventh chapter the visionary form of the revelation, which had been interrupted by the important series of communications on which we have been so long engaged, is again resumed. The prophet, once more under the direction of his angelic guide, sees a stream of water issuing from the Temple buildings and flowing eastward into the Dead Sea. Afterwards he receives another series of directions relating to the boundaries of the land and its division among the twelve tribes. With this the vision and the book find their appropriate close.
I.
The Temple stream, to which Ezekiels attention is now for the first time directed, is a symbol of the miraculous transformation which the land of Canaan is to undergo in order to fit it for the habitation of Jehovahs ransomed people. Anticipations of a renewal of the face of nature are a common feature of Messianic prophecy. They have their roots in the religious interpretation of the possession of the land as the chief token of the Divine blessing on the nation. In the vicissitudes of agricultural or pastoral life the Israelite read the reflection of Jehovahs attitude towards Himself and His people: fertile seasons and luxuriant harvests were the sign of His favour; drought and famine were the proof that He was offended. Even at the best of times, however, the condition of Palestine left much to be desired from the husbandmans point of view, especially in the kingdom of Judah. Nature was often stern and unpropitious, the cultivation of the soil was always attended with hardship and uncertainty, large tracts of the country were given over to irreclaimable barrenness. There was always a vision of better things possible, and in the last days the prophets cherished the expectation that that vision would be realised. When all causes of offence are removed from Israel and Jehovah smiles on His people, the land will blossom into supernatural fertility, the ploughman overtaking the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed, the mountains dropping new wine and the hills melting. {Amo_9:13} Such idyllic pictures of universal plenty and comfort abound in the writings of the prophets, and are not wanting in the pages of Ezekiel. We have already had one in the description of the blessings of the Messianic kingdom; and we shall see that in this closing vision a complete remodelling of the land is presupposed, rendering it all alike suitable for the habitation of the tribes of Israel.
The river of life is the most striking presentation of this general conception of Messianic felicity. It is one of those vivid images from Eastern life which, through the Apocalypse, have passed into the symbolism of Christian eschatology. "And He showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruits every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." {Rev_22:1-2} So writes the seer of Patmos, in words whose music charms the ear even of those to whom running water means much less than it did to a native of thirsty Palestine. But John had read of the mystic river in the pages of his favourite prophet before he saw it in vision. The close resemblance between the two pictures leaves no doubt that the origin of the conception is to be sought in Ezekiels vision. The underlying religious truth is the same in both representations, that the presence of God is the source from which the influences flow forth that renew and purify human existence. The tree of life on each bank of the river, which yields its fruit every month and whose leaves are for healing, is a detail transferred directly from Ezekiels imagery to fill out the description of the glorious city of God into which the nations of them that are saved are gathered.
But with all its idealism, Ezekiels conception presents many points of contact with the actual physiography of Palestine; it is less universal and abstract in its significance than that of the Apocalypse. The first thing that might have suggested the idea to the prophet is that the Temple mount had at least one small stream, whose "soft-flowing" waters were already regarded as a symbol of the silent and unobtrusive influence of the Divine presence in Israel. {Isa_8:6} The waters of this stream flowed eastward, but they were too scanty to have any appreciable effect on the fertility of the region through which they passed. Further, to the southeast of Jerusalem, between it and the Dead Sea, stretched the great wilderness of Judah, the most desolate and inhospitable tract in the whole country. There the steep declivity of the limestone range refuses to detain sufficient moisture to nourish the most meagre vegetation, although the few spots where wells are found, as at Engedi, are clothed with almost tropical luxuriance. To reclaim these barren slopes and render them fit for human industry, the Temple waters are sent eastward, making the desert to blossom as the rose. Lastly, there was the Dead Sea itself, in whose bitter waters no living thing can exist, the natural emblem of resistance to the purposes of Him who is the God of life. These different elements of the physical reality were familiar to Ezekiel, and come back to mind as he follows the course of the new Temple river, and observes the wonderful transformation which it is destined to effect. He first sees it breaking forth from the wall of the Temple at the right-hand side of the entrance, and flowing eastward through the courts by the south side of the altar. Then at the outer wall he meets it rushing from the south side of the eastern gate, and still pursuing its easterly course. At a thousand cubits from the sanctuary it is only ankle-deep, but at successive distances of a thousand cubits it reaches to the knees, to the loins, and becomes finally an impassable river. The stream is of course miraculous from source to mouth. Earthly rivers do not thus broaden and deepen as they flow, except by the accession of tributaries, and tributaries are out of the question here. Thus it flows on, with its swelling volume of water, through "the eastern circuit," "down to the Arabah" (the trough of the Jordan and the Dead Sea), and reaching the sea it sweetens its waters so that they teem with fishes of all kinds like those of the Mediterranean. Its uninviting shores become the scene of a busy and thriving industry; fishermen ply their craft from Engedi to Eneglaim, and the food supply of the country is materially increased. The prophet may not have been greatly concerned about this, but one characteristic detail illustrates his careful forethought in matters of practical utility. It is from the Dead Sea that Jerusalem has always obtained its supply of salt. The purification of this lake might have its drawbacks if the production of this indispensable commodity should be interfered with. Salt, besides its culinary uses, played an important part in the Temple ritual, and Ezekiel was not likely to forget it. Hence the strange but eminently practical provision that the shallows and marshes at the south end of the lake shall be exempted from the influence of the healing waters. "They are given for salt." (Eze_47:11).
We may venture to draw one lesson for our own instruction from this beautiful prophetic image of the blessings that flow from a pure religion. The river of God has its source high up in the mount where Jehovah dwells in inaccessible holiness, and where the white-robed priests minister ceaselessly before Him; but in its descent it seeks out the most desolate and unpromising region in the country and turns it into a garden of the Lord. While the whole land of Israel is to be renewed and made to minister to the good of man in fellowship with God, the main stream of fertility is expended in the apparently hopeless task of reclaiming the Judean desert and purifying the Dead Sea. It is an emblem of the earthly ministry of Him who made Himself the friend of publicans and sinners, and lavished the resources of His grace and the wealth of His affection on those who were deemed beyond ordinary possibility of salvation. It is to be feared, however, that the practice of most Churches has been too much the reverse of this. They have been tempted to confine the water of life within fairly respectable channels, amongst the prosperous and contented, the occupants of happy homes, where the advantages of religion are most likely to be appreciated. That seems to have been found the line of least resistance, and in times when spiritual life has run low it has been counted enough to keep the old ruts filled and leave the waste places and stagnant waters of our civilisation ill provided with the means of grace. Nowadays we are sometimes reminded that the Dead Sea must be drained before the gospel can have a fair chance of influencing human lives, and there may be much wisdom in the suggestion. A vast deal of social drainage may have to be accomplished before the word of God has free course. Unhealthy and impure conditions of life may be mitigated by wise legislation, temptations to vice may be removed, and vested interests that thrive on the degradation of human lives may be crushed by the strong arm of the community. But the true spirit of Christianity can neither be confined to the watercourses of religious habit, nor wait for the schemes of the social reformer. Nor will it display its powers of social salvation until it carries the energies of the Church into the lowest haunts of vice and misery with an earnest desire to seek and to save that which is lost. Ezekiel had his vision, and he believed in it. He believed in the reality of Gods presence in the sanctuary and in the stream of blessings that flowed from His throne, and he believed in the possibility of reclaiming the waste places of his country for the kingdom of God. When Christians are united in like faith in the power of Christ and the abiding presence of His Spirit, we may expect to see times of refreshing from the presence of God and the whole earth filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
II.
Ezekiels map of Palestine is marked by something of the same mathematical regularity which was exhibited in his plan of the Temple. His boundaries are like those we sometimes see on the map of a newly settled country like America or Australia-that is to say, they largely follow the meridian lines and parallels of latitude, but take advantage here and there of natural frontiers supplied by rivers and mountain ranges. This is absolutely true of the internal divisions of the land between the tribes. Here the northern and southern boundaries are straight lines running east and west over hill and dale, and terminating at the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan Valley, which form of course the western and eastern limits. As to the external delimitation of the country it is unfortunately not possible to speak with certainty. The eastern frontier is fixed by the Jordan and the Dead Sea so far as they go, and the western is the sea. But on the north and south the lines of demarcation cannot be traced, the places mentioned being nearly all unknown. The north frontier extends from the sea to a place called Hazar-enon, said to lie on the border of Hauran. It passes the "entrance to Hamath," and has to the north not only Hamath, but also the territory of Damascus. But none of the towns through which it passes-Hethlon, Berotha, Sibraim-can be identified, and even its general direction is altogether uncertain.
From Hazar-enon the eastern border stretches southward till it reaches the Jordan, and is prolonged south of the Dead Sea to a place called Tamar, also unknown. From this we proceed westwards by Kadesh till we strike the river of Egypt, the Wady el-Arish, which carries the boundary to the sea. It will be seen that Ezekiel, for reasons on which it is idle to speculate, excludes the transjordanic territory from the Holy Land. Speaking broadly, we may say that he treats Palestine as a rectangular strip of country, which he divides into transverse sections of indeterminate breadth, and then proceeds to parcel out these amongst the twelve tribes.
A similar obscurity rests on the motives which determined the disposition of the different tribes within the sacred territory. We can understand, indeed, why seven tribes are placed to the north and only five to the south of the capital and the sanctuary. Jerusalem lay much nearer the south of the land, and in the original distribution all the tribes had their settlements to the north of it except Judah and Simeon. Ezekiels arrangement seems thus to combine a desire for symmetry with a recognition of the claims of historical and geographic reality. We can also see that to a certain extent the relative positions of the tribes correspond with those they held before the Exile, although of course the system requires that they shall lie in a regular series from north to south. Dan, Asher, and Naphtali are left in the extreme north, Manasseh and Ephraim to the south of them, while Simeon lies as of old in the south with one tribe between it and the capital. But we cannot tell why Benjamin should be placed to the south and Judah to the north of Jerusalem, why Issachar and Zebulun are transferred from the far north to the south, or why Reuben and Gad are taken from the east of the Jordan to be settled one to the north and the other to the south of the city. Some principle of arrangement there must have been in the mind of the prophet, and several have been suggested; but it is perhaps better to confess that we have lost the key to his meaning.
The prophets interest is centred on the strip of land reserved for the sanctuary and public purposes, which is subdivided and measured out with the utmost precision. It is twenty-five thousand cubits (about eight and one-third miles) broad, and extends right across the country. The two extremities east and west are the crown lands assigned to the prince for the purposes we have already seen.
In the middle a square of twenty-five thousand cubits is marked off; this is the "oblation" or sacred offering of land, in the middle of which the Temple stands. This again is subdivided into three parallel sections, as shown in the accompanying diagram. The most northerly, ten thousand cubits in breadth, is assigned to the Levites; the central portion, including the sanctuary, to the priests; and the remaining five thousand cubits is a "profane place" for the city and its common lands. The city itself is a square of four thousand five hundred cubits, situated in the middle of this southmost section of the oblation. With its free space of two hundred and fifty cubits in width belting the wall it fills the entire breadth of the section: the communal possessions flanking it on either hand, just as the princes domain does the "oblation" as a whole. The produce of these lands is "for food to them that serve (i.e., inhabit) the city." (Eze_48:18) Residence in the capital, it appears, is to be regarded as a public service. The maintenance of the civic life of Jerusalem was an object in which the whole nation was interested, a truth symbolised by naming its twelve gates after the twelve sons of Jacob. Hence, also, its population is to be representative of all the tribes of Israel, and whoever comes to dwell there is to have a share in the land belonging to the city. (Eze_48:19) But evidently the legislation on this point is incomplete. How were the inhabitants of the capital to be chosen out of all the tribes? Would its citizenship be regarded as a privilege or as a onerous responsibility? Would it be necessary to make a selection out of a host of applications, or would special inducements have to be offered to procure a sufficient population? To these questions the vision furnishes no answer, and there is nothing to show whether Ezekiel contemplated the possibility that residence in the new city might present few attractions and many disadvantages to an agricultural community such as he had in view. It is a curious incident of the return from the Exile that the problem of peopling Jerusalem emerged in a more serious form than Ezekiel from his ideal point of view could have foreseen. We read that "the rulers of the people dwelt at Jerusalem: the rest of the people also cast lots, to bring one of ten to dwell in Jerusalem, the holy city, and nine parts in [other] cities. And the people blessed all the men that willingly offered themselves to dwell at Jerusalem." {Neh_11:1-2} There may have been causes for this general reluctance which are unknown to us, but the principal reason was doubtless the one which has been hinted at, that the new colony lived mainly by agriculture, and the district in the immediate vicinity of the capital was not sufficiently fertile to support a large agricultural population. The new Jerusalem was at first a somewhat artificial foundation, and a city too largely developed for the resources of the community of which it was the centre. Its existence was necessary more for the protection and support of the Temple than for the ordinary ends of civilisation; and hence to dwell in it was for the majority an act of self-sacrifice by which a man was felt to deserve well of his country. And the only important difference between the actual reality and Ezekiels ideal is that in the latter the supernatural fertility of the land and the reign of universal peace obviate the difficulties which the founders of the post-exilic theocracy had to encounter.
This seeming indifference of the prophet to the secular interests represented by the metropolis strikes us as a singular feature in his programme. It is strange that the man who was so thoughtful about the salt-pans of the Dead Sea should pass so lightly over the details of the reconstruction of a city. But we have had several intimations that this is not the department of things in which Ezekiels hold on reality is most conspicuous. We have already remarked on the boldness of the conception which changes the site of the capital in order to guard the sanctity of the Temple. And now, when its situation and form are accurately defined, we have no sketch of municipal institutions, no hint of the purposes for which the city exists, and no glimpse of the busy and varied activities which we naturally connect with the name. If Ezekiel thought of it at all, except as existing on paper, he was probably interested in it as furnishing the representative congregation on minor occasions of public worship, such as the Sabbaths and new moons, When the whole people could not be expected to assemble. The truth is that the idea of the city in the vision is simply an abstract religious symbol, a sort of epitome and concentration of theocratic life. Like the figure of the prince in earlier chapters, it is taken from the national institutions which perished at the Exile; the outline is retained, the typical significance is enhanced, but the form is shadowy and indistinct, the colour and variety of concrete reality are absent. It was perhaps a stage through which political conceptions had to pass before their religious meaning could be apprehended. And yet the fact that the symbol of the Holy City is preserved is deeply suggestive and indeed scarcely less important in its own way than the retention of the type of the king. Ezekiel can no more think of the land without a capital than of the state without a prince. The word "city"-synonym of the fullest and most intense form of life, of life regulated by law and elevated by devotion to a common ideal, in which every worthy faculty of human nature is quickened by the close and varied intercourse of men with each other-has definitely taken its place in the vocabulary of religion. It is there, not to be superseded, but to be refined and spiritualised, until the city of God, glorified in the praises of Israel, becomes the inspiration of the loftiest thought and the most ardent longing of Christendom. And even for the perplexing problems that the Church has to face at this day there is hardly a more profitable exercise of the Christian imagination than to dream with practical intent of the consecration of civic life through the subjection of all its influences to the ends of the Redeemers kingdom.
On the other hand we must surely recognise that this vision of a Temple and a city separated from each other-where religious and secular interests are as it were concentrated at different points, so that the one may be more effectually subordinated to the other-is not the final and perfect vision of the kingdom of God. That ideal has played a leading and influential part in the history of Christianity. It is essentially the ideal formulated in Augustines great work on the city of God, which ruled the ecclesiastical polity of the mediaeval Church. The State is an unholy institution; it is an embodiment of the power of this present evil world: the true city of God is the visible Catholic Church, and only by subjection to the Church can the State be redeemed from itself and be made a means of blessing. That theory served a providential purpose in preserving the traditions of Christianity through dark and troubled ages, and training the rude nations of Europe in purity and righteousness and reverence for that by which God makes Himself known. But the Reformation was, amongst other things, a protest against this conception of the relation of Church to State, of the sacred to the secular. By asserting the right of each believer to deal with Christ directly, without the mediation of Church or priest it broke down the middle wall of partition between religion and everyday duty; it sanctified common life by showing how a man may serve God as a citizen in the family or the workshop better than in the cloister or at the altar. It made the kingdom of God to be a present power wherever there are lives transformed by love to Christ and serving their fellow men for His sake. And if Catholicism may find some plausible support for its theory in Ezekiel and the Old Testament theocracy in general, Protestants may perhaps with better right appeal to the grander ideal represented by the new Jerusalem of the Apocalypse-the city that needs no Temple, because the Lord Himself is in her midst.
"And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof." {Rev_21:2-3; Rev_21:22-23}
It may be difficult for us amid the entanglements of the present to read that vision aright-difficult to say whether it is on earth or in heaven that we are to look for the city in which there is no Temple. Worship is an essential function of the Church of Christ; and so long as we are in our earthly abode worship will require external symbols and a visible organisation. But this at least we know, that the will of God must be done on earth as it is in heaven. The true kingdom of God is within us; and His presence with men is realised, not in special religious services which stand apart from our common life, but in the constant influence of His Spirit, forming our characters after the image of Christ, and permeating all the channels of social intercourse and public action, until everything done on earth is to the glory of our Father which is in heaven. That is the ideal set forth by the coming of the holy city of God, and only in this way. can we look for the fulfilment of the promise embodied in the new name of Ezekiels city, Jehovah-shammah, -
THE LORD IS THERE.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 THE VISION OF THE HOLY WATERS ISSUING FROM THE…
THE VISION OF THE HOLY WATERS ISSUING FROM THE TEMPLE. (Chap. 47)
EXEGETICAL NOTES.—Eze_47:1. “The house eastward.” The house is the Temple itself; the waters issued from beneath the south-east corner and flowed along the south of the porch which projected into the inner court.
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Eze_47:2. “There ran out waters on the right side.” “The waters flow eastward—towards the Kedron, thence towards the Jordan, and so along the Ghor to the Dead Sea. The main point in the picture is the rapid augmentation from a petty stream into a mighty river, not by the influx of side-streams, but by its own self-supply from the sacred miraculous source in the Temple.”—Henderson.
Eze_47:3. “To the ankles.” This may coincide with the step gained in the baptism of Cornelius (Acts 10) and the opening of the Church to the Gentiles.
Eze_47:4. “To the knees—loins.” The mission of St Paul and Barnabas (Act_13:1-4) is another marked epoch in the Church’s history; and the time of St Paul’s martyrdom denotes an increase in the Gentile Church, which corresponds with the waters reaching to the loins.
Eze_47:5. “Waters to swim in.” “When under Constantine the Roman Empire had become Christian, the Church may be contemplated as the full river, to flow on throughout time to the final completion of Isaiah’s prophecy, Eze_11:9.”—Speaker’s Commentary.
Eze_47:7. “Very many trees.” Trees were the natural consequence of abundance of water (Psa_1:3; Rev_22:2). The luxuriant fertility of the ground on the shore of the Dead Sea under the fresh springs of Engedi well illustrate this.
Eze_47:8. “Into the sea, the waters shall be healed.” The Dead Sea, covering the guilty cities, Sodom and Gomorrah. In its bituminous waters no vegetable or animal life is said to be found. But now death is to give place to life in Judea and throughout the world, as symbolised by the healing of these death-pervaded waters (Joh_4:14; Rev_22:2-3).
Eze_47:9. “Whithersoever the rivers shall come.” Heb., “the two rivers.” This new river is to come into the Dead Sea through the same plain as the Jordan. The Jordan always flowed, but now, when another river comes in and two rivers flow into the sea, the waters shall be healed. Hengstenberg interprets the two rivers as meaning strong river.
Eze_47:10. “From Engedi unto Eneglaim.” Engedi, now Ain-Jidy, west of the Dead Sea, David’s place of refuge. En-eglaim, on the confines of Moab, near where the Jordan enters the Dead Sea. These limits comprise between them the whole Dead Sea. “Their fish shall be according to their kinds.” “Jerome quotes an ancient theory that there are 153 kinds of fishes, all of which were taken by the apostles (Joh_21:11), and not one remained uncaptured, signifying that both the noble and base-born, the rich and the poor, and every class, are being drawn out of the sea of the world to salvation.”—Fausset.
Eze_47:11. “Not be healed; given to salt.” “Those districts in which the salt-deposits proper were formerly found shall henceforth be waste places. The thought is this—Only those who bar themselves against the gracious stream of Divine love and are unwilling to regain health are henceforth to be given over to the curse, continuing to exist as monuments thereof.”—Hävernick. What is given to salt is entirely forfeited to death.
Eze_47:12. “Shall grow all trees for meat”—trees of life-giving and life-restoring virtue shall bloom, similar in properties to and exceeding in number the tree of life in Eden (Rev_2:7; Rev_22:2; Rev_22:14). “Whose leaf shall not fade”—expressing not only the unfailing character of the heavenly medicine of the tree of life, but also that the graces of the believer, which are the leaves, and his deeds, which are the fruits that flow from those graces, are immortal (Psa_1:3; Jer_17:8; Mat_10:42; 1Co_15:58).
Eze_47:13. “This shall be the border.” Substantially the same as Numbers 34; there the description begins with the south, here with the north. “Joseph shall have two portions”—according to the original promise of Jacob to Joseph (Gen_48:5; Gen_48:22; Jos_14:4.) Joseph’s sons were given the birthright forfeited by Reuben, the first-born (1Ch_5:5). The special mention of Joseph’s portions was to express that the twelve portions were to be exclusive of Levi’s land, which was to be provided out of the oblation.
Eze_47:14. “One as well as another.” Ezekiel is speaking of tribes, not individuals. Each tribe is to have an equal breadth of land assigned to it.
Eze_47:15. “The way of Hethlon to Zedad”—on the north boundary of Canaan. Names of places in the actual northern border are given, not to mark exact geographical position, but to show that the original promise will be fulfilled.
Eze_47:16. “Hamath”—at the foot of Mount Hermon, on the Orontes. “Berothah”—probably the same as Berothai, a city in Syria conquered by David (2Sa_8:8). “Hazarhatticon”—the middle Hazar, to distinguish it from Hazar-enan. “Hauran”—Auranitis, a tract in Syria, south of Damascus.
Eze_47:18. “Unto the east sea”—the Dead Sea.
Eze_47:19. “From Tamar”—a village near the southern end of the Dead Sea. “To Kadesh”—on the borders of the Wilderness of Sin, where the children of Israel strove with Moses. “The river to the great sea.” Literally, “riverward to the great sea.” By the river is meant a torrent-stream entering the Mediterranean near Rhinocolura, now El Arish. This is the river of Egypt mentioned in Num_34:5.
Eze_47:22. “And to the strangers that sojourn among you.” Here is quite a new feature in the distribution of the land. Not only the Israelites by descent, but those who join themselves to Israel by allegiance to the true God, shall have a right of inheritance. The difference which existed under the old covenant between Jew and Gentile is now at last done away (Rom_10:12; Gal_3:28; Col_3:11).
HOMILETICS
THE RIVER OF THE WATER OF LIFE
(Eze_47:1-12.)
I. Has its source in the Temple of God (Eze_47:1-2). Not from the Temple as such, but from the presence and activity of Him whose glory filled theTemple. All the spiritual blessings that now enrich the world appear to issue from the Church of God, and so they do; but not from the Church as an organisation, but from Him who gives life, form, and stability to the organisation itself. This important fact is liable to be overlooked. Ezekiel had gone round the Temple repeatedly, prospecting, measuring, admiring, until his soul was filled with amazement at its colossal proportions and gorgeous ritual; but not till it was specially revealed to him did he see the waters issuing from under the threshold of the house, and became aware of their mysterious and Divine source. So we are apt to be so absorbed in contemplating the outward structure and vast movements of the Church as to lose sight for the time of the Divine power that gives vitality and meaning to the whole. It is a blessed moment for us when we are brought by the Spirit to “the door of the house”and shown the secret of all this mighty energy. It is our wisdom frequently to wait in meditation and prayer at the threshold of God’s house, the fountain-head of all blessing, until our souls are penetrated with the thought that the excellency of the power in Temple-work is not of man, but of God. Then we can say with David, “All my springs are in Thee” (Psa_87:7).
II. Widens and deepens in its progressive outflow (Eze_47:3-5). Beginning as a small rill of water at the Temple threshold, the river, within a little more than a mile’s space, rapidly widens and deepens so as to be unfordable, and this not by the aid of contributary streams, but from itself. Here we see the miraculous character of the river and its evident ideal teaching, as a stream rising at the top of a mountain, feeding itself and so quickly augmenting, is at variance with all known natural laws. It is a type of the River of the Water of Life, flowing in Gospel channels, and spreading and deepening among the nations of the earth. What a suggestive study to trace the course of this river in its steady advances through the world! In many places the wilderness has been transformed into a garden of Eden. Our knowledge of Divine truth, like the waters of the Sanctuary, is shallow at first, but should grow in depth and preciousness with the years. So in our experience of spiritual things: there should be constant progress from grace to grace.
III. Imparts fertility and blessing wherever it flows (Eze_47:6-12). This mystic river produced extraordinary effects. Wherever it circulated vegetation was quickened, trees remarkable for fruitfulness and medicinal properties sprang up on its banks, and the bituminous waters of the Dead Sea, cured of their deadly poison, swarmed with fish. Barrenness gives place to fertility and abundance, and the river-course is a scene of animation and increasing activity. So the Gospel—the River of the Water of Life—brings life, health, beauty, and fruitfulness wherever it comes. Dead souls are quickened into life, diseased souls healed, feeble souls strengthened, and the spiritual life of believers is made more intense and productive. Like the fabled goddess whose pathway was beautified with flowers which sprang up wherever she set her feet, so the course of the Gospel river may be distinctly traced by the flowers and fruits of grace that adorn and enrich its banks.
LESSONS.—
1. Christ is the source and His Word the channel of soul-refreshing life.
2. Wherever the Gospel spreads it produces life and fruitfulness.
3. True religion is progressive, and flourishes best by disseminatiny itself.
THE VISION OF THE WATERS
(Eze_47:9.)
We take the holy waters to be the emblems of the Gospel—that wondrous scheme of mercy, perfected by the atonement of Christ, made vital by the everlasting Spirit and adapted to the salvation of the world.
I. The source of the holy waters. While through the Temple come to us the tidings of our peace, the blessing itself does not originate there, but is conveyed to it from a source invisible and afar. In God’s great provision for the restoration of the fallen race there are both instrumental and efficient agencies. He has appointed means, and a Divine and perpetual resident to infuse those means with life. They who love the river of the Temple are the likeliest, walking on its banks, to find its source issuing from the throne. While we thus appreciate the uses of the Temple as an instrumentality of blessing, and rejoice in the waters as they flow, we must remember always that they issue from the foundation of the house and have their springs in the everlasting hills; in other words, that God is the one source of life. Though the Saviour has ascended up on high, He has shed forth His Spirit. That Spirit lives on earth, the perpetuator of the Gospel impression, the inspirer of all thought that is holy, the great and living agent in the conversion of mankind. Men say the truth is power, but it is not, alone. It is feeble as the pliant osier or the bruised reed against the malignant enmity of evil. But let the Spirit animate it, and it shall overcome all hostility, and be brave and mighty to prevail.
II. The progress of the holy waters. You observe that in the context the progress of these waters is said to have been gradual and constant. The prophet saw them first reaching to the ankles, then to the knees, then to the loins, and then they became a river too deep to be forded, even a river to swim in. There was no ceasing in the flow, there was no ebbing of the waters; they flowed gradually and constantly in the ever-deepening stream. And this is only a description of the progress of the Gospel of Christ. Small and feeble in its beginnings—those trembling but earnest fishermen, its earliest preachers—with wealth and rank and patronage and power all arrayed against its progress—with Cæsars conspiring to strangle it, and armies marched out against its fugitive sons—how marvellous was its triumph! And though after the establishment of Christianity there was a seeming eclipse of faith, and corruptions blemished the comeliness of the bride of Christ, the gradual progress among the nations did not cease. One after another they received her teachings and submitted to her sway. Insensibly she moulded the institutions of society and stamped upon them her own image. Sanguinary codes were relaxed; unholy traffic terminated; cruelty had her arm paralysed and her sword blunted; fraud and lust and drunkenness became no longer things of glorying, but of shame; there was a gradual uplifting in the moral health, as if there flowed around the people the bracing air-waves of a purer atmosphere; and men wondered whence the healing came. The river had done it all: flowing on, now through the darkling brake, and now over the open plain; now fertilising the swards upon its banks; now rejoicing in the depth of its own channel—imperceptible almost in the increasing volume of its waters to those who continually beheld it, and yet, to those that gazed only at intervals, seemed to have both widened and deepened every day. And it is rolling on still. Perhaps there never was an age of such quickened religious activity as the one in which we are privileged to live. There are two thoughts suggested by this gradual and constant progress of the Gospel. The first encourages our faith; the second reminds us of our responsibility. If we believe, with all the firmness of a settled conviction, that the Gospel is of God, we may rest in the assurance that it must and will prevail; and this hearty faith in its triumphant destiny will save us from the extremes of feeling—from undue elation in seasons of unusual promise, and from unusual depression in seasons of peculiar languor. The other thought addresses itself solemnly to ourselves. It is quite impossible for us to live in times like ours, when not only the ordinary religious privileges exist and are enjoyed, but when there is so much of special unction with the Word, and such large and manifest workings of the Holy Ghost, without entailing an added amount of responsibility. Beware of attributing the Holy Spirit’s work to evil agency. That is marvellously like the sin that has no forgiveness. Beware of setting yourselves in an attitude of resistance to good influences. The waters wear the stones, but do not change their nature. Beware of delaying yourselves into hardness of heart. The waters petrify sometimes, and there are some moral petrifactions, alas! which cannot be broken even by the hammer of the Word.
III. The efficacy of the holy waters. How complete and how effectual the healing! “Everything shall live whither the river cometh.” And this is true of the Gospel. Not only can it reach every man, but each part of every man. Life for the understanding, that it may no longer be smitten by error—life for the imagination, that its strange fires may be quenched and a purer flame be kindled in their stead—life for the memory, that it may no longer be haunted by the wraiths of ghostly sins—life for the affections, that they may revel in a pure attachment which is not idolatry, ever increasing and yet ever satisfied—life for the whole nature, that it may not be dead in trespasses and sins—life for the destiny, that it may not even be sullied by the shadow of death, but exult in an ever-brightening inheritance through an eternal day. It shall flow into the desert, and love to God shall be implanted where was formerly enmity, and the whole nature shall be turned about to serve Him. It shall flow into the sea, and though the proud waves shall resist its entrance, it shall overcome their frantic waters and heal them of their plague. Some of you have seen, as I have, a very fine illustration of this, so far as earthly things can illustrate heavenly in nature’s bounteous kingdom. I stood last summer at the point of confluence, near the fair city of Geneva, where two great rivers meet but do not mingle. Here the Rhone, “the arrowy Rhone,” rapid and beautiful, pours on, its waters of that heavenly blue which it is almost worth a pilgrimage to see; there the Arve, turbid and muddy, partly from the glaciers from which it is so largely fed, and partly from the clayey soil which it upheaves in its impetnous path, brawls hoarsely in its passionate course; and for a long distance beyond the point of junction they roll side by side with no barrier between them but their own innate repulsions, each making now and then an encroachment upon the other, but beaten back again into its own domain. Like mighty rival forces of good and evil do they seem, and for a long time the issue is doubtful. But far down the long valley, if you look again, you find that the frantic Arve is mastered, and the Rhone has coloured the entire surface of the stream with its own emblematic and beautiful blue. I thought, as I gazed upon it, that it symbolised the long-protracted conflict between truth and error; but in meditating upon the flowing of these healing waters, and reading that they shall flow into the sea and heal it, the vision of the scene rose up before me, fresh and vivid as the facts of yesterday.”—W. Morley Punshon, D.D.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Eze_47:1-12. “The effect of the establishment of the mountain of the house of the Lord on the top of mountains, or of Christianity generally, is a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit signified by these waters. As they were not to be seen before the issue of the man with the measuring-line, they are to accompany the preaching of the Word by the ministers of Christ, and the operations of the Spirit shall become the more admirable and profound as they proceed in their spread over all the world, as is signified by their increasing depth. By them shall the evil influences of the world be healed and everlasting life conveyed to all that will receive them. Still, some shall harden even then under its influence, and become more rank and nauseous in sin than before, as is signified by the unhealed bays.”—M‘Farlan.
—“Issuing as this stream does from the threshold of the Temple, from the very foot of the throne of God, it must be, like all the special manifestations of God to His Church, itself of a spiritual nature, and only in its effects productive of outward material good. It is the efflux of that infinite fulness of life and blessing which is treasured up in His spiritual Temple, and continually pours itself forth as the operations of His grace proceed among men. It is emphatically a river of life. Wherever it is experienced, the barren soil of nature fructifies, the dead live again, the soul is replenished with joy and gladness. Instead of spending itself, like the streams of nature, as it advances through the moral deserts of the world, it multiplies and grows, until corruption is changed into incorruption, mortality is swallowed up of life, and the earth, which God had cursed for man’s sin, is transformed into the inheritance of the saints in light.”—Fairbairn.
Eze_47:1-5. “Ezekiel’s Temple, with its ritual, ministers, and congregation, symbolises the presence of Jehovah in the midst of a loyal people. The waters are the blessings which flow from this source to animate and refresh all the inhabitants of the earth. The deepening of the waters in their course shows the continual deepening of spiritual life and multiplication of spiritual blessings in the growth of the Kingdom of God.”—Speaker’s Commentary.
—“In the Kingdom of God things proceed from little to great: in the kingdoms of the world often from great to little. Satan begins his things with lofty impetuosity, but finally they end in nothing and everything comes to disgrace.”—Hafenreffer.
Eze_47:1-2. The Progress of Truth. “
1. As it is Christ who makes known the things of the Temple, so He makes known some at one time, some at another.
2. The waters of the Gospel, the gifts and graces of the Spirit, flow from Zion.
3. These spiritual waters, although they flow from Zion, Christ is the fountain and original of them.
4. Sanctuary waters are not common but choice mercies; they are right-side mercies, south-side blessings.”—Greenhill.
Eze_47:1. The Gradualness of Divine Revelation—
1. Accommodated to our imperfect faculties.
2. Suited to our varying circumstances.
3. Educative in its process.
4. Enables us more clearly to grasp the meaning and grandeur of the truths unfolded.
Eze_47:3-9. “The Atheistic Idea. It is affirmed that Christianity is waning because of the advancement of science. The business of the scientist is with matter. There is something back of matter—a force beneath life. No painter, there is no picture: no God, there is no nature. What doctrine has science demolished?
1. Has science done away with the Incarnation? The scientist knows that the sum of the history of nature is made up by the entrances at epochs of higher types of being. Are not all these appearances prophecies of the grand entrance of the Higher Being?
2. Has science done away with the Atonement? The law everywhere manifest is the dependence of one creature on another.
3. Has science done away with sin? Sin is as much a fact, a phenomenon of human life, as the circulation of the blood.
4. Where is Christianity waning? In Germany? Compare this century with the last. A short time ago thousands of students flocked to the great universities to hear the doctrines of Fichte, Hegel, Kant, and the Rationalists of Tubingen. Now scarcely a class of twenty can be collected for that purpose. In France? Compare this century with the times when a deluge of blood followed the blasphemies of Rousseau, D’Alembert, Diderot, and Voltaire. In England? Compare the Britain of to-day with the Britain of yesterday, when Chubb, Hume, and Bolingbroke could sneer at the story of the Cross—when the clergy were immoral. In America? Compare it with the time when the students in our colleges called themselves by the names of leading French atheists. Where will you find such a college to-day?
5. What is the motive-power of science? Compare the ages of faith and the ages of scepticism and see the results. How high has science lifted the shadows that rest on the human heart? It is only this blessed religion, this radiance from the throne of God, that can lighten the gloom.”—Homiletic Monthly.
Eze_47:3-5. The Temple-River emblematic of Religion in the different stages of Human Life.
1. Childhood. “The waters were to the ankles” (Eze_47:3). Religion may be shallow and yet genuine.
2. Youth. “The waters were to the knees” (Eze_47:4). Still exposed to much of the world and its attractions, yet standing in the truth.
3. Manhood. “The waters were to the loins” (Eze_47:4). In the midway of life’s struggle, but deepening in piety.
4. Old age. “Waters to swim in, a river that could not be passed over” (Eze_47:5). A more prolonged and profound study of the truth revealing its unfathomable vastness and prompting the strongest veteran-swimmer to exclaim, “Oh, the depth of the riches!” (Rom_11:33).
—“Holy Scripture and its revelations also resemble these sacred waters, in that whosoever searches into them will find some parts intelligible to all who sincerely desire to know them. Other parts require a deeper investigation; others a deeper still; and others are beyond our depth, and in respect to these, we can only adore the infinitude of God’s unsearchable wisdom, and humbly wait for His own time of revealing their now hidden meaning. The growth of grace in the individual soul, similarly, is a progressive work, beginning with but a small stream from the fountain-head, but sure to go on increasing until it is expanded into the boundless and unfathomable river of heavenly pleasures (Psa_36:8).”—Fausset.
—“This vision may be applied—
1. To the gradual discoveries of the plan of salvation.
(1.) In the patriarchal ages.
(2.) In the giving of the Law.
(3.) In the ministry of John the Baptist.
(4.) In the full manifestation of Christ by the Holy Ghost.
2. To the growth of a believer in the grace and knowledge of God.
(1.) The seed of the Kingdom.
(2.) The blade from that seed.
(3.) The ear out of that blade.
(4.) The full corn in that ear.
3. To the discoveries a penitent believer receives of the mercy of God in his salvation.
(1.) A little child, born of God, he begins to taste and feed on the heavenly food.
(2.) He grows up and increases in stature and strength, and becomes a young man.
(3.) He becomes matured in the Divine life, and has his spiritual senses exercised so as to become a father in Christ.
4. To the progress of Christianity.
(1.) A few poor fishermen.
(2.) Afterwards many Jews.
(3.) Then the Gentiles of Asia Minor and Greece.
(4.) The continent and isles of Europe.
(5.) Now spreading through Africa, Asia, and America, at present these waters are no longer a river, but an immense sea; and the Gospel-fishers are daily bringing multitudes of souls to God.”—A. Clarke.
—The Spread of the Gospel. “
1. Christ is the architect and measurer of all things belonging to His Church. 2. The motion of Sanctuary waters is not accidental, but according to Divine appointment.
3. The doctrine of the Gospel is never rightly understood unless taught by Christ.
4. The doctrine of the Gospel, the conversion of sinners, and the graces of the Spirit proceed gradually.
5. The Gospel has depths and mysteries no human understanding can comprehend.
6. Sanctuary waters afford comfort to the saints in their deepest distresses.”—Greenhill.
Eze_47:5. “There was no such natural course of waters in the place, nor is it imaginable that in three miles or thereabouts the waters should so rise; but it is emblematical, hath a deep mysterious meaning, and includes spiritual things and their wonderful growth from small beginnings, and these from the Temple.”—Pool.
—“This marks the rich and overflowing grace which God designs to shed down on the earth in the Gospel age and in the glory of the latter day; and it apprises believers that they should not remain in a loitering state, trampling the shallow waters of grace, but go on to a deeper baptism of the Spirit till they can swim in the abounding streams.”—Sutcliffe.
—“Representing the fathomless depth of the Scriptures, which is such that we may well do by it as the Romans did by a lake, the depth whereof they could not sound, and dedicated it to Victory: also the abundance of spiritual graces in the Church, the love of Christ which passeth all knowledge, and the over-abounding goodness of God. Speaking of this subject, Chrysostom said: ‘I am like a man digging in a deep spring; I stand here, and the water rises upon me; I stand there, and still the water rises upon me. It is indeed a sea that has neither bank nor bottom.’ ”—Trapp.
Eze_47:6. “Hast thou seen this?” A Suggestive Question—
1. As asked by the well-informed. He knows more than I do, or why the question?
2. As addressed to the anxious inquirer. This may meet my case.
3. As addressed to the thoughtless and indifferent. There is a world of knowledge hitherto closed to him.
4. Indicates there is much we miss for want of a keener insight into truth.
Eze_47:7-10. Fishers in Gospel Waters. “
1. The waters of the Gospel have their own course.
2. That people without the Gospel are like the Dead Sea (Eze_47:8).
3. The waters of the Sanctuary have curing and quickening virtue (Eze_47:8-9).
4. The preachers of the Gospel are fishers (Eze_47:10).
5. These Gospel-fishers catch fish of all sorts (Eze_47:10).”—Greenhill.
Eze_47:8; Eze_47:11. The Power of the Gospel—
1. Seen in its penetrating the most unlikely places. “The desert—the Dead Sea” (Eze_47:8).
2. Efficacious in giving life and healing to all who accept it. “The waters shall be healed” (Eze_47:8).
3. Inefficacious where it is resisted and rejected. “The miry places and marshes shall be given to salt” (Eze_47:11).
Eze_47:8. “God’s Sanctuary a well-spring of life for the Dead Sea of the world (Psa_87:7). God’s thoughts of peace over the abysses of the world’s wretchedness. In other cases a clear and wholesome stream which flows into a muddy and putrid lake becomes corrupt: it is otherwise with the Gospel, which brings recovery and health to the earthly-minded heart. It is a power of God, but man will not let the power work.”—Lange.
Eze_47:11. “Those whom the Gospel waters of life do not reach, through their own indolence and carnality, shall be given over to everlasting barrenness; nor can any more awful punishment be imagined than that the sinner should be given up to the unrestricted and everlasting workings of his own sin, bitterness, and filthiness.”—Fausset.
—The Hebrew language often expresses irremediable barrenness and unprofitableness by being given up to salt, salt being equivalent to barrenness in that language. When Abimelech destroyed Shechem he sowed the ground whereon it stood with salt, to denote that it should never be cultivated or inhabited again (Jdg_9:45).
—“Unsound, rotten parts, neither sea nor yet sound ground, an emblem of hypocrites. Low land, sopped with the overflowings of unhealthful waters, neither fit to breed fish as the sea, nor bear trees as the land.”—Pool.
Eze_47:9-12. Spiritual Influence—
1. Vitalises all it touches (Eze_47:9).
2. The active principle of fertility and plenty (Eze_47:9-10; Eze_47:12).
3. Cannot be resisted without disaster (Eze_47:11).
4. Is ever flowing from the Divine Temple. “Because they issued out of the sanctuary” (Eze_47:12).
5. Is both the food and medicine of the soul. “The fruit shall be for meat, and the leaf for medicine” (Eze_47:12).
Eze_47:10. “The ministers of the Church are compared to fishers because of the contempt with which they are regarded by the rich and powerful of this world; because of their labour by day and night, in heat and cold; because of the fruitlessness of their labour at times—‘We have caught nothing;’ because of the dangers they incur in stormy weather; because of their confidence, which, as in the case of the husbandman, must rest on God; because of the various kinds of implements they use. They rescue souls from the abyss.”—Starck.
Eze_47:11-12. Moral Barrenness and Fruitfulness. “
1. Those places and persons to which the waters of the Sanctuary come, or coming do not heal, are designed to barrenness and destruction (Eze_47:11).
2. True Christians are fruitful (Eze_47:12).
3. The cause of fruitfulness is the doctrine and grace of the Gospel (Eze_47:12).
4. The holy examples of true saints are medicinal (Eze_47:12).”—Greenhill.
Eze_47:12. Never-ending Spring. “The text a promise and picture of a neverfading spring. Goodness and spiritual beauty are eternal.
1. The everlasting youthfulness of a Christly soul.
2. The everlasting fruitfulness of a Christly soul.
3. The explanation of the glorious phenomenon is in this—‘Because their waters issued out of the sanctuary.’ A sacred place, a pure sanctuary, a holy fountain where the soul may cleanse itself from the dust and stains of the world. Fruit for meat and leaves for medicine. A healthy inner life ensures a fruitful outer life. A Christly soul is always young and beautiful.”—Homiletic Monthly.
—“The blessed growth close by the river of life. Evergreen leaves, yet not leaves merely, but also fruit! Thus it is with life from God’s Sanctuary.”—Lange.
HOMILETICS
THE INHERITANCE OF THE GOOD
(Eze_47:13-23.)
I. Is secured by Divine promise (Eze_47:14). That promise was declared and ratified in the most solemn manner—“Concerning the which I lifted up Mine hand.” Though the inheritance is not in possession, and all appearances are against the realisation of the promise, yet it is enough that the promise is made. Israel is kingless and portionless, bereft of Temple and all its imposing ceremonials, fretting in slavery and sorrow, moaning in poverty and ruin, and with no prospect of immediate deliverance, yet the inheritance is sure, for God hath promised. The Divine Word is more valid than the best-authenticated legal document.
II. Is explicitly defined (Eze_47:15-20). To show that it is no baseless hope, no Utopian dream, but a substantial, blessed reality. Its boundaries are clearly described and exactly measured to show that every inch of its frontiers is guarded with the presence and power of Jehovah, and to inspire an unwavering assurance of its realisation and enjoyment. The Lord deals in neither false measures nor false promises.
III. Is enjoyed by the obedient irrespective of nationality (Eze_47:21-23). The distinction between Jew and Gentile is abolished. The inheritance is made free for all nations. Whoever fears God and works righteousness unites himself to the true Israel, the perfect Church of the Messiah, shall enjoy the same privileges as the faithful and obedient descendants of Abraham. Tribes, classes, nations, are absorbed and lost in the spiritual unity of an imperishable brotherhood. Christ is all and in all.
LESSONS.—
1. The Divine promise never fails.
2. The faithful servants of Jehovah have a rich inheritance here and hereafter.
3. National strifes and jealousies will be unknown in the heavenly Kingdom.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Eze_47:13-23. “A people settled in the inheritance of their God is the proper result of the re-establishment of the covenant and the renewal of their souls after its principles of righteousness. There is no more reason for understanding this portion according to the letter than those which went before. The whole vision is of a piece—a pictorial representation of the future things of God’s Kingdom under the image of the past, yet so altered and adjusted as to indicate the vast superiority of what was to come compared with what hitherto had been.”—Fairbairn.
—The Heritage of the Faithful. “
1. Here we have the great extent of the Church under Christ.
2. The state of Christians in the Church and all their spiritual blessings are of free grace.
3. The one and same inheritance belongs to the believing Jew and Gentile.”—Greenhill.
Eze_47:13-14. The Divine Faithfulness—“
1. Is not impaired by the lapse of time, or by the fickleness of man.
2. Is solemnly declared. ‘Concerning which I lifted up mine hand.’
3. Seen in the kindness shown to succeeding generations. ‘To give unto your fathers: this land shall fall unto you for inheritance.”
4. Should elicit an exclusive and unwavering confidence.
Eze_47:13. “Who can define the boundaries of the Church, especially in the last days? But as here the boundaries of Canaan are defined, so the boundaries of the Church are faith and life in the Scriptures of the apostles and prophets, which accordingly no one is to overpass (Gal_6:16). God gives to His children very differently; from him to whom a double portion has been given a corresponding return is required.”—Starck.
Eze_47:22-23. The Impartiality of God—
1. Seen in His equitable treatment of the faithful in all ages and nations.
2. Is continually promoting the spiritual unity of the human race.
3. Will be terribly evident in His punishment of the finally impenitent.
Eze_47:22. “It is not birth, but the new birth, that makes men children of God. Here under earthly figures the Jerusalem that is above with her children is typified, and the calling of the Gentiles from east and west and the utmost bounds of the earth is described. God here opens to all the holy gates of His Church, and prescribes to the Church herself the commandment of meekness, love, and brotherly kindness.”—Lange.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 We take the holy waters mentioned in the text…
Eze 47:9
We take the holy waters mentioned in the text to be the emblems of that wondrous scheme of mercy, perfected by the atonement of Christ, made vital by the Ever-present Spirit, and adapted to the salvation of the world.
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I. Notice the source of the waters. There is said to have been a very copious fountain on the west side of Jerusalem. The prudent Hezekiah, foreseeing that in a time of siege, an enemy might cut off its streams, conducted them by a secret aqueduct into the city. It may be, that there was some subtle connection of thought between this fountain and the vision which floated before the senses of Ezekiel, as there was a stream from this same fountain into the temple, and from the foundations of the holy house the holy waters sprang. Be this as it may, the truth is significantly told, that while through the temple come to us the tidings of our peace, the blessing itself does not originate there, but is conveyed to it from a source invisible and afar.
II. Notice the progress of the waters, thus flowing from the foundations of the temple. In the context the progress of these waters is said to have been gradual and constant. And this is only a description of the progress of the Gospel of Christ. There are two thoughts suggested by this gradual and constant progress of the Gospel. The first encourages our faith; the second reminds us of our responsibility.
III. Notice the efficacy of these waters. The places to which they flowed are striking. They did not wend their course to spots that were only slightly defective and easily healed. They flowed "into the desert and into the sea"—"into the desert" amidst whose endless sands no streams had flowed before; "into the sea," the Dead Sea in whose sad and sluggish waters nothing which had breath could live. Thus their mission was both to supply that which was lacking, and to cleanse that which was impure. And this is true of the Gospel of Christ. There is no desert of worldiness which the Gospel cannot turn into a garden; there is no Dead Sea of error which the Gospel cannot purge of its pollution, and change into a receptacle of life.
W. Morley Punshon, Sermons, 2nd series, p. 155.
Eze 47:9
Notice:—
I. The spring of this life-giving river. It had its spring out of sight; the fountain head was invisible, but it proceeded out of the sanctuary of God. Its waters flowed by the altar of sacrifice; they touched it; they crossed its shadow; they got permission, as it were, to go on their way from the altar. How pointedly this tells of the Holy Spirit, the river of the water of eternal life, proceeding out of the throne of God! It is God’s own essence, communicated to us men over the cross of Jesus, for His name’s sake.
II. The size of the river. In its growing tide we have symbolised the gift of the Holy Spirit (1) to the patriarchs; (2) to the pious Israelites, such as Joshua and Caleb and the seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to the image of Baal, and especially to the prophets: (3) during the ministry of Christ; (4) on the Day of Pentecost.
III. The service of the river. "Everything shall live whither the river cometh." It shall come into hearts hard as the nether millstone, and soften them; unto families poor as beggars, and enrich them; unto neighbourhoods that have been desert, and cause them to rejoice and blossom as the rose; unto natures which have been unprofitable, and make them plenteously to bring forth the fruit of good works.
J. Bolton, Family Treasury, Dec. 1863, p. 307.
Consider:—
I. The bearing of the Gospel on men’s social condition. (1) It is capable of the clearest proof that Christianity is the only thing that has given purity and loveliness to the household. The Lord Jesus has revolutionised, if not created, family life. (2) The religion of Jesus has promoted kindness between man and man.
II. Consider the influence of the Gospel upon civil liberty. The Bible contains no treatise on civil government, but its principles lay the axe to the root of every form of despotism. Jesus has taught us not only to assert freedom of conscience for ourselves, but to respect and defend its exercise by others.
III. Look at the department of literature, and you will see how, when the river of the Gospel has flowed into a nation, it has quickened that also into richer growth. Avowedly religious writers, of course, have been indebted to it for their all; but even those who have had no directly spiritual aim have been largely beholden to its quickening power.
IV. Look at the influence of Christianity upon science. Physical sciences have made the greatest progress in countries where Protestant Christianity has taken the strongest hold. In standing up for liberty of conscience and of opinion for themselves, the witnesses for religious truth have won also for science the right to hold and teach its own deductions and beliefs. The Gospel teaches men to follow truth at every hazard, and every new triumph of science will in the end give a new impulse to spiritual religion.
V. From the day when Paul was carried in a corn-ship from Malta to Puteoli, commerce and Christianity have been mutual helpers. Sometimes the trader has gone before the missionary, but wherever the missionary has settled and succeeded, he has by his very success given an impulse to commerce.
W. M. Taylor, Christian World Pulpit, vol. x., p. 273.
References: Eze 47:9.—W. Guest. Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiii., p. 184. Eze 47:11.—Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Ecclesiastes to Malachi, p. 294. Eze 47:12.—J. G. Rogers, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 120, and vol. xxix., p. 168; J. P. Gledstone, Ibid., vol. xix., p. 327. Eze 48:35.—J. Keble, Sermons for Various Occasions, p. 256.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v1 Section 6 (Eze 47:1-12).
Section 6 (Eze 47:1-12).
The victory over curse
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Brought back to the door of the House the prophet sees waters issue from under its threshold. They flow from the House on the right side, that is, the south, because the prophet stands facing east, or looking toward the altar, so that the south is on his right hand. On the south of the altar he sees the stream flowing eastward. The two east gates being closed he is brought out of the north gate, and led around outside the wall of the outer court to the east gate, and there the water was flowing out on the right side.
The stream is then four times measured at successive points of 1,000 cubits, so that at 4,000 cubits the depth was too great for a man to pass through.
The prophet now traverses the banks of this river, and finds both banks clothed with a luxuriant growth of trees of fadeless leaf and never-failing fruit, supplying medicine and food.
The easterly direction is again noticed (ver. 8), and in addition Ezekiel is told that the river flows into the Dead Sea, healing its waters so that they teem with life, for "everything shall live whither the river cometh." Its waters are waters of life issuing from the Sanctuary of the living God. Only the marshes and pools are not healed; they are reserved as a means of supplying salt.
This whole picture is one that inspires the mind and heart with, the bright anticipation of that blessedness of life which will characterize the Millennial earth. Then creation will bear witness to the power and glory of God in a way man has never known since the fall. But let us range a little through the fields of Scripture, for the lesson of these life-giving waters. This symbol of the river meets us at the beginning in the Garden, and we find it again in the glory-scene which closes the inspired volume. Between these far distant points the references are numerous, teaching us lessons of blessing from God and fellowship with Him.
We go to Eden. There are its four rivers. It will repay us, however to consider a little the whole setting of the wonderful second chapter of Genesis. It furnishes us with features of the Millennial age, which, as the porch to the House, introduces the eternal state, but which being this bears the character of that to which it thus belongs. These visions of Ezekiel, if not giving us the seventh day in the dispensational order, certainly refer to the sixth, and that leads into the sabbath-keeping which remains to the people of God. In the order of creation the sixth day has witnessed the completion of God’s work. Suitably it closes with the Head of all set in the place of Lordship over the new scene of blessing. In this we have a type of our blessed Lord, God’s Man, to whom all has been subjected, and who will bring all into subjection to Himself. In beautiful sequence to this the seventh day comes in -the day of God’s rest. The eternal rest will result from the work of subjugation accomplished by the Second Man, and so He is called "the Father of Eternity" (Isa 9:6, New Trans.). Of that final rest this first sabbath of the re-fashioned, re-furnished earth is a type. Notice that from this day is omitted the formula constantly repeated on the previous days, "Evening was, and morning was." Is it not as though God would have us understand that in His thought this day should have no end? Blessed be God, that final day will endure eternally. Precious, too, it is to note that on this day God is not occupied with work, or the work done, but with the day. He blesses it, and sanctifies it. Blessed intimation that the eternal day shall have the blessing of God resting upon it with no element of disturbance to intrude.
Three things are mentioned. First, God ended His work -the dawning of the seventh day brought with it the end of His labor. Second, God rested; this is what the day brought in for Him -rest. Third, God blessed and sanctified it. The blessing of the day can alone consist in the delight and satisfaction of God concerning the accomplished work which thus makes rest possible. It is sanctified, in that it is set apart to the enjoyment of this delight and satisfaction. Who shall say what the men sure of these things is to be in that sabbath-keeping of God into which His people shall enter with Him?
Apart from redemption we know man could never enter into and enjoy God’s rest. This finds illustration in Israel, who as the one nation brought into relation to God on the ground of redemption, is commanded to observe the seventh day -the sabbath, the observance of which is associated with the thought of redemption as typified in the sacrificial system, and by means of priesthood-relation between God and the redeemed. All this finds its fulfilment, both as to redemption and priesthood, in the Lord Jesus. Thus the true and final rest of God, of which Israel’s sabbath was a type, is now sure of fulfilment, and secured for God’s redeemed people.
A new subject begins in ver. 4 of Gen 2:1-25, that of the relationships in which the new head of creation is placed, in all of which we see him to be a figure of Christ. We see Him here as Heir of all and Ruler over all, with His consort, the Church, of whom the woman is a type; yet may we not also see here a picture of the Son of Man and His kingdom? Following what is plainly introductory, showing how God has acted in view of man, we get the account of the garden -its location and planting, then the river and its parts (of special interest to us now); and finally man’s place, service and privileges in the garden. Many details might profitably engage our attention, but we must confine ourselves to noting that the garden is located "eastward in Eden." Eden means delight; and the east suggests the glory of God. Here too is "every tree pleasant to the sight and good for food" -fullest ministry to satisfy and refresh. In the midst of this the river and its four branches fill an important place. Does it not suggest the ministry of the Spirit from whom alone rivers of living water can flow, and that in a universal character, for all the creation (the four parts), such as shall mark that day to which this whole scene points, including that of Ezekiel’s vision, as we have seen? Indeed, Israel can look forward to blessings of the Spirit such as never yet enjoyed. God will put His Spirit within them (Eze 36:27), and pour it out upon them collectively (Isa 44:3), when their time of trial and desolation is over (Isa 32:15), never to return (Eze 39:29). Nor will this blessing be confined to Israel, as Joel plainly predicts, telling us also the time when the outpouring of the Spirit will take place. It will be after God has interposed on behalf of His people, overthrowing the aggressive power of the north, and restoring its fruitfulness to the land. If Eden’s rivers then speak of the Spirit and His ministry, let us see what we may learn from a study of them. Should they not teach us the character of His ministry? That we know has for its subject Christ and His things, so this is what comes before us.
Pison, "increase," is first; it compasses the land of Havilah, "anguish," or "travail," where the gold is which is good. Gold is the symbol of God’s glory. Increase for eternity has been accomplished by Christ through the encompassment of the land of anguish -the birth-pains of the new creation of which He is the Beginning. There, nevertheless, has been found in all its wealth the glory of God. And if faith now can say, "And the gold of that land is good," how much more in the eternal day! It is added, "There is bdellium and the onyx-stone." The Hebrew word for bdellium means "in trouble," and that for onyx-stone, "their recompense." Here perchance we get a hint of faith’s connection with the sufferings of Christ and the glories which follow. It is given to those who find their increase through the anguish of Christ, not only to believe but to suffer for Him; but to suffer leads to being glorified with Him, and so there is both the trouble and the recompense. Both of them bring us in their way into a knowledge of the glory of God.
The second Edenic river is Gihon, "the bringer-forth." It surrounds the whole land of Cush, "terror," or "black." Christ is our Deliverer from the land of our terror and blackness. God in His mercy thus brings out of darkness into marvelous light. If in the first river we read the lesson of the cross from the Godward side -God glorified in Christ -here in the second the enemy is in view. But he is a smitten enemy, all his power has been encompassed, he is annulled, captivity led captive, and now nothing can separate God’s redeemed people from His love in Christ Jesus, their Bringer-forth. Thus we can speak of being delivered from the authority of darkness and translated into the kingdom of the Son of His love. To this end Christ first entered the land of terror and blackness, and came forth as the firstborn from among the dead. Those who believe share in His triumph.
Hiddekel, the third, means "thorn of God." It "goeth in front of Assyria," "a footstep," or "to go forward," and in front lies the thorn of God -the thorn is the significant sign of the curse, which God Himself must bring in because of sin. How man in his every forward move as independent of God, following the inclination of his own will, guided by his own wisdom, meets with the thorn in such a path. Blight falls in some form upon even his greatest and highest achievements, for close by the gourd under which he seeks rest and in which he greatly rejoices, there is the worm which causes it to wither. Then the sultry east wind blows, and man faints. The thorn of God is there. To this creation is subject, and groans. But, thank God, there is deliverance. There is One who has worn the crown of thorn, but who is now crowned with glory and honor. Into His hand all power and judgment has been committed. He has made peace by the blood of the cross. He will remove the blight of sin from creation, and as the Sun of Righteousness chase away all the shadows of its long night, and under His wings of healing grace and power gather all things together in one. Viewing the lesson here from another angle, we may say that because sin and man’s ruin brought in the curse, it must be borne, the judgment involved be fully endured, if God’s purposes are to go forward to ultimate success. Christ has accomplished the needed work and all is assured. Then it is no wonder that in the fourth place we have Euphrates, "fruitfulness." This is the grand result which shall be made good throughout the length and breadth of the universe.
Are not the features of this picture again before us in Ezekiel? From the house filled with God’s glory the river flows out, past the altar of sacrifice where the work of judgment has been accomplished, down to the sea of death, removing its curse, bringing fruitfulness and life where barrenness and death had reigned, for the Deliverer has come out of Zion, and creation sings its Hallelujah. At 4,000 cubits the waters are to swim in -4x10x10x10, the creature brought into the power and blessing of the full manifestation of the divine order as it relates to God and man (the threefold ten).*
{*In the concluding section of Gen 2:1-25, do we not get a type of all the redeemed creation ranged under the headship of Christ? First we have the counsel of God (ver. 18), then all the animal creation is brought to Adam and he gives them their names. All creation comes into relation to its head, Adam, the figure of Him who was to come, God’s Man, the appointed Heir of all things, and the One who as Last Adam is set far above all principality and power and every name named. Notice there are three families mentioned; the cattle, the fowl of the heaven, and the beast of the field. May not this speak to us first of Israel, of whom in the prophets, the domesticated animal is the type; then of heavenly powers; and finally the Gentile nations, of whom the beasts of the field are used in a typical way in Scripture. Lastly we have the man’s special helpmeet, suggesting the Church, the Bride of Christ.}
These suggestions may help us to see how important a place the rivers fill in instruction as to the blessings of God. But let us go on. We read of the Israelites after the Red Sea crossing, "They came to Elim; and twelve springs of water were there, and severity palm trees; and they encamped there by the waters." By the way we must pass the bitter waters of Marah -sorrow and trial which the cut down tree cast in makes sweet, but rest is found at Elim where the waters flow, bringing forth abundant fruit and shade realized under the government of God (12=4x3), fully manifest in creative goodness meeting creature weakness, which as realized and bringing us into dependence upon God assures the creature’s fullest blessing. Again in this we have the testimony (2) given to God’s mastery over evil, the victory of good (6), through His manifest power to bless (12=6x2). Such waters are sweet and unfailing in the joy and provision they supply.
Twice the waters flow from the smitten rock, bringing life and refreshment to Israel’s host. On the first occasion the lesson is plainly that of the Cross, by which alone all spiritual blessing is realized. The second time when Moses was told to take the rod of Aaron that budded and speak to the rock, we get a beautiful type of the resources of Christ in resurrection priesthood, through the exercise of which the living waters flow -flow, as we may say, from the throne upon which He sits. No second smiting was needed. In this Moses erred. The one Sacrifice suffices, and in the power of its abiding efficacy, and of life out of death, the waters now flow down from the Sanctuary where He is enthroned. These are still waters beside which He leads, and where the green pastures of blessed ministry and fellowship are found for those who know the Lord to be their Shepherd. Ho will be so known to Israel, and among the nations in that day to which Ezekiel refers.
Then as the Shepherd of Israel He will feed His flock (Isa 40:11: Eze 37:24), for they will no longer refuse "the waters of Shiloah which flow softly" (Isa 8:6). Of that day no more beautiful description than that of Isa 35:1-10 could be given. "The wilderness and the dry land shall be gladdened; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. . . for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and torrents in the desert" ("plain," or Arabah, the same word as in Eze 47:8). It is then that "judgment shall roll down as waters, and righteousness as an overflowing stream" (Amo 5:24). Jerusalem shall be a quiet habitation, for there "the mighty Jehovah will be for us a place of rivers" (Isa 33:21, New Trans.).
These and other passages in the prophets show how the symbol of water is used to express the fulness of blessing and fellowship with God. It is also used of God Himself. Jehovah charges His people with having forsaken Him, "the fountain of living waters" (Jer 13:1-27; Jer 17:13). And the figure in this connection finds beautiful application in the words of the prophet, "Blessed is the man that confideth in Jehovah, and whose confidence Jehovah is. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out its roots by the stream, and he shall not see when heat cometh, but his leaf shall be green; and in the year of drought he shall not be careful, neither shall he cease to yield fruit" (Jer 17:7-8).
In relation to the blessing and glory of the days toward which Ezekiel looks we read, "The Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall shepherd them, and shall lead them to fountains of waters of life, and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes" (Rev 7:17; Rev 21:6; see Notes). Indeed the last passage mentioned gives almost the last gospel invitation in the Book of God, and this may well remind us of how this figure of living water is used to express the precious fulness and permanence of God’s grace in His Son (Joh 4:1-54), while he who receives from His hand this gift of God becomes a vessel from which shall flow "rivers of living water." "This He said concerning the Spirit, which they that believe on Him were about to receive" (Joh 7:37-39). Thus we have life from God in the blessed fulness of His grace and in the power of the Holy Spirit presented to us under this figure of water. Truly, it issues out of the Sanctuary, yea, it is the outflow of God, of Christ, of the Spirit. These divine Persons are the Fountains from whence such waters flow, and of whose very being they partake bringing the recipient into the fulness of God. However true it is that only the blessing and glory of Christianity, and so of what is heavenly, fully express the preciousness of this figure, it is also true that the coming age of earth’s jubilee will enjoy, in the divinely granted measure, like blessing and fellowship in the power of the Spirit and His ministry as then poured out (Joe 2:28-29; Isa 44:3; Eze 18:31; Eze 37:1; Eze 37:14; Eze 39:29).
We must not forget that water is also a figure of the Word of God. So the Lord uses it in Joh 3:1-36 (see Notes, pp. 492 -494), in Joh 13:1-38, where it is indispensable for communion. In the laver of the Tabernacle we read the lesson of its important relation to all priestly activity (Exodus, Notes, p. 240).
This general testimony of Scripture helps us to see the significance and importance of the river which flows from the Sanctuary in Ezekiel’s vision. These thoughts find confirmation as we consider the results of it reaching the Dead Sea -figure as that is of utter barrenness, death, and judgment. The inflow of these living waters so changes all, that life and fruitfulness fill the place of curse and death. Only the stream flowing out from the glory of God, by way of the altar of sacrifice, can transform the wilderness into a garden, overcoming the havoc wrought by sin. Within the limits of the purpose of God "there is nothing -nothing too sunken, too useless, too doomed -but by the grace of God it may be redeemed, lifted and made rich with life." The chief of sinners has been saved, and he is now in glory. Certainly Israel, new-born and blessed with the outflowing stream of life in the Spirit’s power will be as different in her moral and spiritual condition from that’ of her past history as will be the future physical change of the Dead Sea and its surroundings compared with that of its present existing state.*
{*See Appendix.}
Yet the past must be remembered, the work of judgment must not be forgotten: and this will serve its own purpose. "But its marshes and its pools shall not be healed; they shall be given up to salt" -the witness of the inflexible righteousness and Changeless holiness of the divine nature, acting in both preservative and sanctifying power. Doubtless from this source of supply will come, as of old, the salt used in the temple service.* God’s grace is seasoned with salt -the preservative energy of the divine will.
{*"The salt of the Dead Sea was anciently much in request for use in the temple service. It was preferred before all other kinds for its reputed effect in hastening the combustion of the sacrifice, while it diminished the unpleasant smell of the burning flesh. Its deliquescent character (due to the chlorides of alkaline earths it contains) is also noticed in the Talmud" -(Smith’s Bible Dictionary).}
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v1
Ezekiel
THE RIVER OF LIFE
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Eze 47:1.
Unlike most great cities, Jerusalem was not situated on a great river. True, the inconsiderable waters of Siloam-’which flow softly’ because they were so inconsiderable-rose from a crevice in the Temple rock, and beneath that rock stretched the valley of the Kedron, dry and bleached in the summer, and a rainy torrent during the rainy seasons; but that was all. So, many of the prophets, who looked forward to the better times to come, laid their finger upon that one defect, and prophesied that it should be cured. Thus we read in a psalm: ‘There is a river, the divisions whereof make glad the City of our God.’ Faith saw what sense saw not. Again, Isaiah says: ‘There’-that is to say, in the new Jerusalem-’the glorious Lord shall be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams.’ And so, this prophet casts his anticipations of the abundant outpouring of blessing that shall come when God in very deed dwells among men, into this figure of a river pouring out from beneath the Temple-door, and spreading life and fertility wherever its waters come. I need not remind you how our Lord Himself uses the same figure, and modifies it, by saying that whosoever believeth on Him, ‘out of him shall flow rivers of living waters’; or how, in the very last words of the Apocalyptic seer, we hear again the music of the ripples of the great stream, ‘the river of the water of life proceeding out of the Throne of God and of the Lamb.’ So then, all through Scripture, we may say that we hear the murmur of the stream, and can catch the line of verdure upon its banks. My object now is not only to deal with the words that I have read as a starting-point, but rather to seek to draw out the wonderful significance of this great prophetic parable.
I. I notice, first, the source from which the river conies.
I have already anticipated that in pointing out that it flows from the very Temple itself. The Prophet sees it coming out of the house-that is to say, the Sanctuary. It flows across the outer court of the house, passes the altar, comes out under the threshold, and then pours itself down on to the plain beneath. This is the symbolical dress of the thought that all spiritual blessings, and every conceivable form of human good, take their rise in the fact of God’s dwelling with men. From beneath the Temple threshold comes the water of life; and wherever it is true that in any heart-or in any community-God dwells, there will be heard the tinkling of its ripples, and freshness and fertility will come from the stream. The dwelling of God with a man, like the dwelling of God in humanity in the Incarnation of His own dear Son, is, as it were, the opening of the fountain that it may pour out into the world. So, if we desire to have the blessings that are possible for us, we must comply with the conditions, and let God dwell in our hearts, and make them His temples; and then from beneath the threshold of that temple, too, will pour out, according to Christ’s own promise, rivers of living water which will be first for ourselves to drink of and be blessed by, and then will refresh and gladden others.
Another thought connected with this source of the river of life is that all the blessings which, massed together, are included in that one word ‘salvation’-which is a kind of nebula made up of many unresolved stars-take their rise from nothing else than the deep heart of God Himself. This river rose in the House of the Lord, and amidst the mysteries of the Divine Presence; it took its rise, one might say, from beneath the Mercy-seat where the brooding Cherubim sat in silence and poured itself into a world that had not asked for it, that did not expect it, that in many of its members did not desire it and would not have it. The river that rose in the secret place of God symbolises for us the great thought which is put into plainer words by the last of the apostles when he says, ‘We love Him because He first loved us.’ All the blessings of salvation rise from the unmotived, self-impelled, self-fed divine love and purpose. Nothing moves Him to communicate Himself but His own delight in giving Himself to His poor creatures; and it is all of grace that it might be all through faith.
Still further, another thought that may be suggested in connection with the source of this river is, that that which is to bless the world must necessarily take its rise above the world. Ezekiel has sketched, in the last portion of his prophecy, an entirely ideal topography of the Holy Land. He has swept away mountains and valleys, and levelled all out into a great plain, in the midst of which rises the mountain of the Lord’s House, far higher than the Temple hill. In reality, opposite it rose the Mount of Olives, and between the two there was the deep gorge of the Valley of the Kedron. The Prophet smooths it all out into one great plain, and high above all towers the Temple-mount, and from it there rushes down on to the low levels the fertilising, life-giving flood.
That imaginary geography tells us this, that what is to bless the world must come from above the world. There needs a waterfall to generate electricity; the power which is to come into humanity and deal with its miseries must have its source high above the objects of its energy and its compassion, and in proportion to the height from which it falls will be the force of its impact and its power to generate the quickening impulse. All merely human efforts at social reform, rivers that do not rise in the Temple, are like the rivers in Mongolia, that run for a few miles and then get sucked up by the hot sands and are lost and nobody sees them any more. Only the perennial stream, that comes out from beneath the Temple threshold, can sustain itself in the desert, to say nothing of transforming the desert into a Garden of Eden. So moral and social and intellectual and political reformers may well go to Ezekiel, and learn that the ‘river of the water of life,’ which is to heal the barren and refresh the thirsty land, must come from below the Temple threshold.
II. Note the rapid increase of the stream.
The Prophet describes how his companion, the interpreter, measured down the stream a thousand cubits-about a quarter of a mile-and the waters were ankle-deep another thousand, making half a mile from the start, and the water was knee-deep. Another thousand-or three-quarters of a mile-and the water was waist-deep; another thousand-about a mile in all-and the water was unfordable, ‘waters to swim in, a river that could not be passed over.’ Where did the increase come from? There were no tributaries. We do not hear of any side-stream flowing into the main body. Where did the increase come from? It came from the abundant welling-up in the sanctuary. The fountain was the mother of the river-that is to say, God’s ideal for the world, for the Church, for the individual Christian, is rapid increase in their experience of the depth and the force of the stream of blessings which together make up salvation. So we come to a very sharp testing question. Will anybody tell me that the rate at which Christianity has grown for these nineteen centuries corresponds with Ezekiel’s vision-which is God’s ideal? Will any Christian man say, ‘My own growth in grace, and increase in the depth and fulness of the flow of the river through my spirit and my life correspond to that ideal’? A mile from the source the river is unfordable. How many miles from the source of our first experience do we stand? How many of us, instead of having ‘a river that could not be passed over, waters to swim in,’ have but a poor and all but stagnant feeble trickle, as shallow as or shallower than it was at first?
I was speaking a minute ago about Mongolian rivers. Australian rivers are more like some men’s lives. A chain of ponds in the dry season-nay! not even a chain, but a series, with no connecting channel of water between them. That is like a great many Christian people; they have isolated times when they feel the voice of Christ’s love, and yield themselves to the powers of the world to come, and then there are long intervals, when they feel neither the one nor the other. But the picture that ought to be realised by each of us is God’s ideal, which there is power in the gospel to make real in the case of every one of us, the rapid and continuous increase in the depth and in the scour of ‘the river of the water of life,’ that flows through our lives. Luther used to say, ‘If you want to clean out a dunghill, turn the Elbe into it.’ If you desire to have your hearts cleansed of all their foulness, turn the river into it. But it needs to be a progressively deepening river, or there will be no scour in the feeble trickle, and we shall not be a bit the holier or the purer for our potential and imperfect Christianity.
III. Lastly, note the effects of the stream.
These are threefold: fertility, healing, life. Fertility. In the East one condition of fertility is water. Irrigate the desert, and you make it a garden. Break down the aqueduct, and you make the granary of the world into a waste. The traveller as he goes along can tell where there is a stream of water, by the verdure along its banks. You travel along a plateau, and it is all baked and barren. You plunge into a wâdy, and immediately the ground is clothed with under-growth and shrubs, and the birds of the air sing among the branches. And so, says Ezekiel, wherever the river comes there springs up, as if by magic, fair trees ‘on the banks thereof, whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed.’
Fertility comes second, the reception of the fertilising agent comes first. It is wasted time to tinker at our characters unless we have begun with getting into our hearts the grace of God, and the new spirit that will be wrought out by diligent effort into all beauty of life and character. Ezekiel seems to be copying the first psalm, or vice versa, the Psalmist is copying Ezekiel. At any rate, there is a verbal similarity between them, in that both dwell upon the unfading leaf of the tree that grows planted by rivers of water. And our text goes further, and speaks about perennial fruitfulness month by month, all the year round. In some tropical countries you will find blossoms, buds in their earliest stage, and ripened fruit all hanging upon one laden branch. Such ought to be the Christian life-continuously fruitful because dependent upon continual drawing into itself, by means of its roots and suckers, of the water of life by which we are fructified.
There is yet another effect of the waters-healing. As we said, Ezekiel takes great liberties with the geography of the Holy Land, levelling it all, so his stream makes nothing of the Mount of Olives, but flows due east until it comes to the smitten gorge of the Jordan, and then turns south, down into the dull, leaden waters of the Dead Sea, which it heals. We all know how these are charged with poison. Dip up a glassful anywhere, and you find it full of deleterious matter. They are the symbol of humanity, with the sin that is in solution all through it. No chemist can eliminate it, but there is One who can. ‘He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.’ The pure river of the water of life will cast out from humanity the malignant components that are there, and will sweeten it all. Ay, all, and yet not all, for very solemnly the Prophet’s optimism pauses, and he says that the salt marshes by the side of the sea are not healed. They are by the side of it. The healing is perfectly available for them, but they are not healed. It is possible for men to reject the influences that make for the destruction of sin and the establishment of righteousness. And although the waters are healed, there still remain the obstinate marshes with the white crystals efflorescing on their surface, and bringing salt and barrenness. You can put away the healing and remain tainted with the poison.
And then the last thought is the life-giving influence of the river. Everything lived whithersoever it went. Contrast Christendom with heathendom. Admit all the hollowness and mere nominal Christianity of large tracts of life in so-called Christian countries, and yet why is it that on the one side you find stagnation and death, and on the other side mental and manifold activity and progressiveness? I believe that the difference between ‘the people that sit in darkness’ and ‘the people that walk in the light is that one has the light and the other has not, and activity befits the light as torpor befits the darkness.
But there is a far deeper truth than that in the figure, a truth that I would fain lay upon the hearts of all my hearers, that unless we our own selves have this water of life which comes from the Sanctuary and is brought to us by Jesus Christ, ‘we are dead in trespasses and sins.’ The only true life is in Christ. ‘If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink. He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The Lifegiving Stream
The Lifegiving Stream
Ezekiel was now brought in his vision to the door of the Temple proper. Here he saw a stream of water which came from beneath the threshold somewhat to the S. of the entrance, and ran eastwards, crossing the inner court on the S. of the altar, and leaving the outer court on the S. of the outer E. gate. It rapidly deepened till it became an unfordable river, with trees on both its banks. It traversed the barren region between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, and entering the latter removed its bitterness, so that its waters, hitherto lifeless, were filled with fish. Only the salt marshes bordering the Dead Sea were unaffected by the river, as they were necessary for the supply of salt to the country. The trees on the banks of the river were evergreen and bore fruit every month. Their fruit was nourishing and their leaves medicinal. This picture probably had its origin in the fact that a small stream of water actually arose in the Temple hill, but everything in the account of Ezekiel's river points to the greatest possible change in the physical conditions of the coming age, a change that would involve the miraculous, as no natural stream could increase in volume without tributaries. To Ezekiel this river was not a mere symbol of spiritual refreshment. The perfect kingdom, of God still presented itself to him in an earthly form, accompanied by outward fertility and other material blessings. This passage is the basis of Rev_22:1, Rev_22:2. For a similar, yet different, picture of physical change in the future age see Zec_14:8.
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1. Right side] i.e. S.: so in Eze_47:2.
2. Ezekiel was led from the inner court through the inner and outer N. gates, round to the outside of the outer E. gate. This was necessary, as both the inner and outer E. gates were shut.
8. East country] the wilderness of Judaea, between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. Desert] RV 'Arabah', the great depression of the Jordan valley and Dead Sea.
9. Rivers] should be 'river,'as in LXX.
10. Engedi.. En-eglaim] places on the shore of the Dead Sea. The situation of the latter is unknown. The great sea] the Mediterranean.
12. Be consumed] RV 'fail', According to his months] RV 'every month', Medicine] RV 'healing.'
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 1. The waters of healing from the temple (Eze…
III. THE VISION CONCERNING THE LAND (47-48)
CHAPTER 4 7
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1. The waters of healing from the temple (Eze 47:1-12)
2. Borders of the land (Eze 47:13-21)
3. Concerning the stranger in the land (Eze 47:22-23)
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 The Stream of Living Waters
The Stream of Living Waters
v. 1. Afterward He brought me again unto the door of the house, from the outer court to the main portal of the Temple; and, behold, waters issued out from under the threshold of the house eastward, symbolical of the divine blessings which flow from His Church; for the forefront of the house stood toward the east, the Temple facing in the same direction as had the Tabernacle and the Temple of Solomon, and the waters came down from under from the right side of the house, at the south side of the altar, welling up from below the center of the Sanctuary as its fountainhead.
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v. 2. Then brought He me out of the way of the gate northward, for the portal on the east was locked, and led me about the way without unto the utter gate by the way that looketh eastward, so that Ezekiel might follow the course of the wonderful stream; and, behold, there ran out waters on the right side, before the southern half of the front.
v. 3. And when the Man that had the line in His hand went forth eastward, He measured a thousand cubits, namely, at this distance from the walls; and He brought me through the waters: the waters were to the ankles.
v. 4. Again He measured a thousand, namely, from the first place of crossing, and brought me through the waters: the waters were to the knees, being supplied and increased in this marvelous manner from the sacred miraculous source in the Temple. Again He measured a thousand and brought me through: the waters were to the loins, ever growing deeper.
v. 5. Afterward He measured a thousand, and it was a river, it had grown to the dimensions of a great stream, that I could not pass over, for the waters were risen, waters to swim in, a river that could not be passed over, like an impetuous mountain torrent, swollen by the spring rains, making swimming necessary if a person wanted to cross at all.
v. 6. And He said unto me, in order to impress upon the prophet every detail of the picture, Son of man, hast thou seen this? Then He brought me, and caused me to return, to the brink of the river, back to the bank of the stream which he had apparently attempted to wade.
v. 7. Now, when I had returned, his attention now being directed to the bank rather than to the stream, behold, at the bank of the river, lining it on either side, were very many trees on the one side and on the other.
v. 8. Then said He unto me, These waters issue out toward the east country, the term used designating the entire valley of the Jordan, and go down into the desert, a word used of the steppes of Southeastern Judea, and go into the sea, here the Dead Sea; which being brought forth into the sea, the waters shall be healed, its deadly saltness being relieved so that it could again be inhabited by fishes.
v. 9. And it shall come to pass that everything that liveth, which moveth, literally, "every living soul that creepeth," which had the breath of life in itself, whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live, on account of the fullness of life borne by them; and there shall be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither, their freshness enabling the fishes to live and to multiply most abundantly, for they, the waters of the Dead Sea, shall be healed; and everything shall live whither the river cometh, being endowed with a miraculous vitality by coming into contact with it.
v. 10. And it shall come to pass that the fishers shall stand upon it from En-gedi, on its western shore, where David had once found refuge, even unto Eneglaim, on the eastern shore, in the confines of Moab; they shall be a place to spread forth nets; their fish shall be according to their kinds as the fish of the Great Sea, exceeding many.
v. 11. But the miry places thereof, the swamps formed by the natural recession of the waters, and the marshes thereof shall not be healed; they shall be given to salt, unfit for cultivation and for every living thing.
v. 12. And by the river upon the bank thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat, springing lip and bearing the richest kind of food, whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed; it shall bring forth new fruit according to his months, fruit maturing every month, because their waters they issued out of the Sanctuary, and were thus filled with marvelous life; and the fruit thereof shall be for meat and the leaf thereof for medicine, its foliage for healing. Without attempting to give an interpretation of every detail of this picture, its general meaning is clear. The miraculous river pictures the spread of the Gospel, the gaining of new members for the Church, the increase of divine blessings in the Messianic era. The trees represent the wonderful blessings given through the ministry of the Word. The fishermen of the Lord are busily engaged in bringing in the base-born and the noble, the rich and the poor, out of the sea of the world to the salvation earned by Jesus Christ. "Searching into the deep things of God, we find some easy to understand, others more difficult, others beyond our reach, of which we can only adore the depths. " Where the stream of the Gospel flows, the putrid and poisonous waters of this world are cleansed, but the swamps and morasses of men’s hatred and enmity toward God are shut off, by their own fault, from His mercy. All this, and more, is indicated in Rev 22:1-6, where we also have a description of the final perfection of the Church of Christ.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3 for the front of the temple faced east
for the front of the temple faced east
"for the front of the temple was its east side"
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to the right of the altar
This is the right side of the altar when a person looks at it while they are facing east, so it is on the south side of the altar. AT: "on the south side of the altar"
the gate facing east
"the eastern gate" or "the eastern gate of the outer wall"
translationWords
temple
threshold
house
face
altar
gate
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3 47:1-12 Once the Temple was restored to its central…
47:1-12 Once the Temple was restored to its central place among God’s people, its beneficial influence, pictured here as a river, would spread outward, transforming death to life.
47:1 The source of the stream was within the Temple. • to the right of the altar on its south side: This location in Solomon’s Temple was occupied by the Sea, a massive bronze pool that provided the water needed for cleansing (1 Kgs 7:23, 39). It also symbolized the subjugation of the forces of chaos (often represented by the sea) in the ordered cosmos of the Temple. In Ezekiel’s vision, the static Sea had been transformed into a dynamic, life-giving river (cp. Gen 2:10-14; Ps 46).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.