some remarkable points of resemblance between Hab.iii and D.xxxiii, which suggest the possibility that the Deuteronomist (Jeremiah) may have received and adopted this 'Blessing of Moses' from the hand of his contemporary (VI.135).

In i.4, however, law-not the Law,' as always in Deuteronomy-means 'instruction, doctrine,' in a general sense. And this Prophet, like the rest, complains of the violence, strife, and unrighteousness of his people, i.2-4, not of their neglect of ritualistic observances.

JOEL, B.C.598.

292. JOEL has usually been regarded as the oldest of the prophets whose writings have come down to us: but OORT (Godg. Bijdr.1866) has shown conclusively that he must be placed in the age of Zedekiah; and he appears to have been one of Jeremiah's opponents, teaching that a Day of Jahveh' was at hand for the enemies of Israel, comp. Jer.xxviii.1-4.

By this late date is explained intelligibly the prediction in ii.28-32, that the spirit of prophecy should be poured out largely in the latter days. No trace of such an expectation appears in Amos and Hosea. But in Zedekiah's time the Messianic idea, which had originated in the hope of all Israel being again united under a Prince of David's line, had assumed a more spiritual form. And Jeremiah's writings show that very many Prophets' were, like Joel, announcing in his time, in opposition to his own views, the speedy deliverance of Israel and judgment upon its foes, comp.Jer.ii.8,26,30, iv.9, v.13,31,

* Thus Joel speaks in iii.1 of Jahveh 'bringing-again the Captivity of Judah and Jerusalem,' but he says nothing about the restoration of the Ten Tribes. Jerusalem, however, was never carried captive till the days of Jehoiachin; and the only question is whether these prophecies were written between that event and the destruction of Jerusalem, that is, in Zedekiah's reign, or after the final catastrophe. But ii.32, iii.16,17, imply that Jerusalem was still standing, and no intimation is given that it was in ruins and would have to be rebuilt.

vi.13, viii.1,10, xiii.13, xiv.13–15,18, xxiii.9–40, xxvi.7,8,11,16, xxxii.32, and especially xxviii, xxix, xxxvii.19.

293. In 1.5 we find a charge of drunkenness the only reproach against his fellow-countrymen which Joel makes in the whole of his prophecies; and even this applies only to individuals, and is not meant as a general accusation. He nowhere charges them with adultery, whoredom, robbery, lying, oppression, &c., as the other Prophets so frequently do; though he says that Jahveh requires of them true humiliation of soul, and not merely outward 'fasting and weeping and mourning,' a rending of the heart and not the garments.' Nor does he accuse them of idolatry, which OORT explains by reference to Josiah's Reformation, when all symbols of idolatry were destroyed out of Judah, but which may be partly due to the fact that in the eyes of Joel, if he was one of Jeremiah's opponents, the worship of the Sun-God was not regarded as 'idolatry,' comp. Jer.ii.8, xxiii.13.

*

294. In ii.3 Joel alludes to the fertility of the garden of Eden, comp. G.xiii.10. In ii.13 he quotes from E.xxxiv.6,7; though the argument as to the age of the OS, based upon the (supposed) very early age of Joel (VI.246), now falls to the ground.

Joel betrays no acquaintance whatever with the Ten Commandments, the Book of Deuteronomy, or the Levitical Legislation of the Pentateuch.

* Just as a strong Protestant Prophet' might inveigh against certain portions of the worship of the Church of Rome as idolatrous,' which would not appear sc in the eyes of devout Priests and laymen of that Church.

272

CHAPTER XV.

COMPARISON OF THE RESULTS WITH EZEKIEL.

EZEKIEL, B.C.595-573.

295. EZEKIEL was a Priest who had been carried away captive with Jehoiachin (xxxiii.21, xl.1), B.C.599. He began to prophesy in the 5th year of that Captivity (i.2), B.C.595, and continued to prophesy till the 27th year (xxix.17), and possibly even after that date, though no later utterance of his has come down to us. Thus he laboured for about twenty-two years, that is, seven years before (i-xxiv), and fifteen after (xxxiii-xlviii), the destruction of Jerusalem, B.C.588; and so the prophecies against the heathen (xxv-xxxii) are dated some immediately before, and others after, that event. He seems to have been called to be a Prophet in his riper years, when he was already married, xxiv.16–18; and he had probably acted for some time as Priest at Jerusalem, since he exhibits a thorough acquaintance with the Temple and its arrangements, viii, xl-xlviii.

296. The whole Book appears to be the result of Ezekiel having resolved, in the latter part of his life, to reproduce the substance of his prophecies in a form which might benefit not only his contemporaries, but the readers of future generations. He was, in fact, an author as well as a Prophet, and himself edited his own work, in which he gives a retrospective view of the fall of Jerusalem and of the causes which led to it, and embodies both his expectations as to the future of his people and his advice for the re-establishment of their institutions in

Church and State,—doing this very much from a priestly point of view, and using for the purpose the apparatus of visions, angelic appearances,* symbolic actions, the visits of 'Elders,' &c., as literary helps. By writing thus, however, at a later date, he has been led to assume, in prophecies ascribed to a much earlier time, the knowledge beforehand of events which had not then happened, but were well known to him at the time when he wrote.

297. Like his predecessors, Ezekiel condemns severely the moral offences of his people—their rebellious impudence, ii.3, 6-8, iii.7,9,26,27, xii.2,3,9,25, xvii.12, xxiv.3, xliv.6, reckless impiety, viii.12, cruelty and bloodshedding, ix.9, xviii.10, xxii. 3,6,9,12,13,27, xxxiii.25, xxxvi. 18, adultery, incest, and lewdness, xviii.6,11,15, xxii.9–11, xxxiii.26, injustice and oppression, viii.17, xviii.7,8,12,16-18, xxii.7,29, xxxiv.1-10,18-21, xlv.9, greed and dishonesty, xviii.8,13,17, xxii.12,13,27, xxxiii. 15, robbery, xviii.10, xxii.29, xxxiii.15, contempt of parents, xxii.7. And in xxii.23-30 he describes the guilt of Judah and Jerusalem as universal-among the Prophets, greedy of gain, v.25, the irreligious Priests, v.26, the rapacious Princes, v.27, who were cajoled by the lying Prophets, v.28, and the People of the land, v.29, so that there was not one to stand in the gap and save it, v.30.

298. But especially he denounces their idolatries, the unfailing source and support of all this corruption, vi.3,6-9,13, vii.20, xiv.3-6, xvi.15-21,† xx.28-32,39, xxii.3,4, xxiii, xxxvi.

* Ezekiel is the first to use the phrase 'glory of Jahveh,' in the sense of a visible glory (VI.App.101.v.). He may possibly have derived the forms of the cherubs in i.5, &c., comp.x.15,20,22, from the colossal statues of Nineveh, which his own eyes may have seen amidst the ruins of that city, destroyed about

B.C.625.

In xvi.2,3, &c., Ezekiel's language becomes metaphorical, and, like Hosea (253), he identifies the 'lovers' of adulterous Israel, whom she hires, with the Egyptians, Assyrians, &c., with whom she allied herself, doubtless worshipping their idols also, comp.xxiii.5-7,9,12,14-17,22, &c.

18,25, xliii.7-9. They lifted up their eyes to idols,' xviii.6,12, 15; they ate upon the mountains,' xviii. 6,11,15, xxii.9, i.e. partook of the sacrificial feasts on the idolatrous high-places; they had set up detestable things'-i.e. phalli, xvi.17, and other impure symbols-in the very Temple itself, v.11, comp. xliii.8, and Levite-Priests ministered to them before their idols, xliv.12. In the form of a vision, viii, he sees the abominations, which were either still practised in the Temple and reported to him by those who came from Jerusalem, or, perhaps, had been known by him to be practised in former days, when he served there himself in the discharge of his priestly office, and had witnessed such doings (222). And since they evidently thus worshipped the Sun in the Temple itself, viii. 14,16, and moreover went into the Sanctuary reeking with the blood of their innocent children, whom they had slain and burnt in the valley of the son of Hinnom, xxiii.37-39, comp. xvi.20,21,36, xx.31 -(N.B. v.26 refers to the doings of their forefathers, which they had followed)-it seems plain that the people generally still identified the Temple worship with that of the Sun-God. In short, the sins of Judah were twice as bad as those of Samaria, xvi.51,52; they were even worse than those of Sodom, xvi.48,52, comp. the whole passage, v.46-56. No wonder that the indignant Prophet pronounces in Jahveh's Name a sweeping judgment on these idolaters, ix.1-11

Slay utterly old and young, and maids and little-ones and women begin at My Sanctuary,' v.6.

....

and

299. Ezekiel, however, lays much more stress on ritualistic and ceremonial observances than any of his predecessors. He insists very strenuously on the observance of the Sabbath, xx.12,13,16,20,21,24, xxii.8,26, xxiii.38, xliv.24, xlv.17, xlvi.1, 3,4,12,* which for the exiles was a point of great importance,

* In xlv.17 Ezekiel mentions Feasts, New-Moons, Sabbaths, Solemnities,' in the order in which they always appear in the older writers, where the New-Moon