Ezekiel, Daniel

Carl L. Beckwith, Carl L. Beckwith

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780830898145
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Commento della Bibbia

The Reformation era revolution in preaching and interpreting the Bible did not occur without keen attention to the Old Testament Scriptures. This is especially true with regard to the Hebrew prophets. Ezekiel and Daniel, replete with startling, unnerving imagery and visions, apocalyptic oracles of judgment and destruction, captivated the reformers as they sought to understand their time and themselves through the lens of Scripture. Equally, these prophetic books underscored the covenantal promises to God's people and the hope of restoration, which the Reformers understood to be the righteousness of Christ made available in faith.Reformation commentary on the prophets Ezekiel and Daniel are windows into the biblical, theological and pastoral minds of the reformers as they engage the details of the texts, make theological judgments and apply fresh reading of Scripture to their contemporary hearers. Familiar passages, such as Ezekiel's dazzling vision of the wheels, the building of the temple, or Daniel's four beasts, are given new layers and textures.This volume collects the comments of the monumental figures like Luther, Calvin and Melancthon, alongside many lesser known and read thinkers, such as Heinrich Bullinger, Hans Denck, Giovanni Diodati, Johann Gerhard, John Mayer, Matthew Mead, Johann Oecolampadius, Jakob Raupius, Johann Wigand and Andrew Willet. Several beloved English Puritans are included as well: Richard Baxter, John Bunyan, Thomas Manton and John Owen. The wealth of Reformation interpretation on these books of Scripture is brought together for the first time.

EZEKIEL

PREFACE

OVERVIEW: Our commentators begin with the place of Ezekiel’s prophesy in relationship to Jeremiah, highlighting specifically the role Ezekiel was to play for God. Ezekiel, like Jeremiah, tempers his harsh judgments against the people with promises of Christ’s kingdom and the heavenly Jerusalem. Moreover, Ezekiel proved a real comfort to Jeremiah, who now had a companion in speaking the things of God. Finally, some comment is made about the reading restrictions historically placed on parts of Ezekiel among Jews and the various difficulties to be encountered in the book.

JEREMIAH AND EZEKIEL. JOHANNES OECOLAMPADIUS: In the order of the books of the prophets, Ezekiel follows Jeremiah. They both have the same argument and both flourished at the same time. Jeremiah was older and preceded Ezekiel into the office of prophet. Jeremiah preached in Jerusalem and Ezekiel in Babylon. They both corroborated each other’s prophecy. Ezekiel was taken to Babylon at the time of Jeconiah. COMMENTARY ON THE PROPHET EZEKIEL.1

JEREMIAH AND EZEKIEL. MARTIN LUTHER: Ezekiel, like Daniel and many more, along with King Jeconiah, went willingly into captivity in Babylon, following the counsel of Jeremiah. The prophet Jeremiah constantly advised that the people should surrender to the king of Babylon—and thus live; they should not resist—or they would be destroyed ( Jeremiah 21). Now when the people arrived in Babylon, as Jeremiah shows in chapter 24, they became impatient and regretted beyond measure that they submitted. For they saw that those who stayed in Jerusalem and had not surrendered still possessed the city and everything else, and hoped to make Jeremiah a liar and to defend themselves against the king of Babylon and remain in their own land.

In Jerusalem the false prophets helped this notion along by constantly consoling the people that their city would not be captured, and that Jeremiah was a lying heretic. Along with this (as it usually does) went the fact that those at Jerusalem boasted that they were holding honestly and firmly to God and fatherland. They claimed that the others who had surrendered had deserted God and fatherland and were thus faithless traitors who were unable to trust or hope in God, but had gone over to the enemy because of the vile talking of Jeremiah, the liar. This hurt and embittered greatly those who had surrendered to Babylon, and their captivity became a double one. O how many a hefty curse they must have wished on Jeremiah, whom they had followed and who had led them astray so miserably!

For this reason God raised up in Babylon this prophet Ezekiel, to encourage the captives and to prophesy against the false prophets at Jerusalem, as well as to substantiate the word of Jeremiah. Ezekiel does this thoroughly; he prophesies much harder and far more than Jeremiah that Jerusalem shall be destroyed and the people perish, along with the king and princes. Yet he promises also that the captives shall return home to the land of Judah. This is the most important thing that Ezekiel did in his time; he deals with this matter down to chapter twenty-five.

After that, to chapter thirty-four, he extends his prophecy also to all the other lands round about, which the king of Babylon was to afflict. There follow in addition four chapters [34–37] on the spirit and kingdom of Christ, and after that on the last tyrant in Christ’s kingdom, Gog and Magog [38–39]. At the end Jerusalem is rebuilt, and Ezekiel encourages the people to believe that they shall go home again [40–48]. Yet in the Spirit he means the eternal city, the heavenly Jerusalem, of which the Apocalypse also speaks [Rev 21]. PREFACE TO THE PROPHET EZEKIEL.2

JEREMIAH AND EZEKIEL. JOHN CALVIN: Before I proceed any farther, I will briefly consider the themes that Ezekiel discusses. He has almost everything in common with Jeremiah, as we have said, but especially this: that he announces final destruction to the people, because they were not holding back from piling evil deed upon evil deed, thereby inciting the vengeance of God more and more. Therefore, he threatens them, and not just once, because the hard-heartedness of the people was so great, that to utter the threats of God only three or four times would not be enough, unless he were to repeat them incessantly.

Yet Ezekiel also shows the reasons why God decided to deal with his people so severely, certainly because they were so polluted with many superstitions, because they were deceitful, greedy, merciless, filled with crime, given to extravagance, and depraved by lust. All these things are listed by our prophet, to show that the vengeance of God is not too severe, since the people continued to reach the greatest godlessness and to amass a great pile of evil deeds. . . .

The prophets demonstrate the guilt of the people with no other intention than to stir them to repentance, if only they would believe it is possible for those who are estranged from God to be reconciled to him. Accordingly this is the reason why whenever our prophet, as well as Jeremiah, rebukes the people, he tempers the severity of correction by weaving in promises. . . .

But after chapter 40 he deals more richly and extensively with the rebuilding of the temple and the city. According to this declaration he announces a new position of the people, royal authority would flourish and the priesthood would recover its former excellence. For the rest of the book he will explain the remarkable kindnesses of God, which were to be hoped for after the close of the seventy years. Here it is useful to remember what we observed in the case of Jeremiah. While the false prophets were promising the people a return after three or five years, the true prophets were proclaiming what would really happen, so the people might submit themselves patiently to God, enduring his just corrections, not discouraged by the duration of years. EZEKIEL I.3

DIFFICULTY OF EZEKIEL. MATTHEW MEADE: It must be said of this prophecy, as was said of Paul’s epistles, that there are some things in them hard to be understood, full of obscurity and difficulty, which made Jerome say, there is in this book a sea of Scripture so deep and a labyrinth of the mysteries of God so difficult, and therefore as the reading of the beginning of Genesis and the book of Canticles was forbidden to the Jews (as Jerome says) until they were thirty years of age, so was the beginning and ending of this prophecy.

There are in it dark visions hard to be unfolded, uncertain chronologies difficult to be found out, mystical parables hard to be opened and many enigmatic hieroglyphics not easily understood. Such as the portrait tile (Ezek 4), the removing of the household baggage (Ezek 12), the useless vine branch (Ezek 15), the two eagles and a vine (Ezek 17), the boiling pot (Ezek 24), the dry bones (Ezek 37), and the like. But among all of them none has more darkness and difficulty attending it than of the wheel and cherubim mentioned in the first and tenth chapters. THE VISION OF THE WHEELS.4

WHO SHOULD READ EZEKIEL? MARTIN LUTHER: St. Jerome and others write that it was, and still is, forbidden among the Jews for anyone under thirty years of age to read the first and last parts of the Prophet Ezekiel [1:4-28; 40:2–48:35] and the first chapter of Genesis. To be sure, there was no need of this prohibition among the Jews, for Isaiah [29:11-12] prophesies that the entire Holy Scriptures are sealed and closed to the unbelieving Jews. St. Paul says as much in 2 Corinthians 8:14-16, that the veil of Moses remains over the Scriptures, so long as they do not believe in Christ. A NEW PREFACE TO THE PROPHET EZEKIEL.5

THE NEED FOR EZEKIEL. JOHN CALVIN: Now we must consider God’s purpose for selecting Ezekiel as his prophet. For thirty-five years Jeremiah had not ceased to cry out, but with little success. Therefore, seeing that the prophet, Jeremiah, had worn himself out, God wanted to give him a helper. And it was certainly no small relief, when Jeremiah, who was in Jerusalem, learned that the Holy Spirit was speaking harmoniously thr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Abbreviations
• General introduction
• A Guide to Using this Commentary
• Introduction to Ezekiel & Daniel
• Ezekiel
• Daniel
• Timeline of the Reformation
• Biographial Sketches of Reformation-Era Figures
• Bibliography
• Author Index
• Subject Index
• Scripture Index
• Notes
• Praise for the Reformation Commentary on Scripture
• About the Author
• More Titles from InterVarsity Press
• Copyright Page