Part 320 (2/2)
”As Babylon hath caused the slain of Israel to fall, so at Babylon shall fall the slain of all the land. Ye that have escaped the sword, go ye, stand not still; {342} remember the Lord from afar, and let Jerusalem come into your mind. We are ashamed, because we have heard reproach; confusion hath covered our faces: for strangers are come into the sanctuaries of the Lord's house.
”'Wherefore, behold, the days come,' saith the Lord, 'that I will do judgment upon her graven images; and through all her land the wounded shall groan. Though Babylon should mount up to heaven, and though she should fortify the height of her strength, yet from me shall spoilers come unto her,' saith the Lord.
”The sound of a cry from Babylon, and of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans! for the Lord spoileth Babylon, and destroyeth out of her the great voice; and their waves roar like many waters, the noise of their voice is uttered: for the spoiler is come upon her, even upon Babylon, and her mighty men are taken, their bows are broken in pieces: for the Lord is a G.o.d of recompenses, he shall surely requite. 'And I will make drunk her princes and her wise men, her governors and her deputies, and her mighty men; and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake,' saith the King, whose name is the Lord of hosts. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: 'The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly overthrown, and her high gates shall be burned with fire; and the peoples shall labour for vanity, and the nations for the fire; and they shall be weary.'”
The word which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, when {343} he went with Zedekiah the king of Judah to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. Now Seraiah was chief chamberlain. And Jeremiah wrote in a book all the evil that should come upon Babylon, even all these words that are written concerning Babylon. And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, ”When thou comest to Babylon, then see that thou read all these words, and say, 'O Lord, thou hast spoken concerning this place, to cut it off, that none shall dwell therein, neither man nor beast, but that it shall be desolate for ever.' And it shall be, when thou hast made an end of reading this book, that thou shalt bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst of Euphrates: and thou shalt say, 'Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise again because of the evil that I will bring upon her: and they shall be weary.'”
{344}
EZEKIEL
(The book of Ezekiel differs from every other book of prophecy in the fact that none of it was written in Palestine. It was written in Babylonia, whither Ezekiel had been taken captive while still a youth.
The captives knew what was going on in Jerusalem. When the city was first taken, at the occasion when Ezekiel was made captive, the Babylonians were content to carry off ten thousand of the best of the people, with great treasure. The writer of Kings says that ”none remained, save the poorest of the people of the land.” Over this poor remnant of a wrecked state the Babylonian government set up a king.
For nine years he remained loyal to Babylon. Then, with the foolish hope that Egypt would help him when war came, he revolted against the power of Babylon. Soon Babylonian armies appeared before Jerusalem, and, two years after, the city fell. More captives were deported, the city was burned, the walls broken down, no king set up, but only a governor, and the kingdom of Israel, over which only one family had ruled since the time of David, nearly five hundred years before, was forever at an end. The fall of Jerusalem was in 586 B. C.
With every device of vision and picture and pleading Ezekiel tried to keep the captives true to their country and their G.o.d. It is good to know that he succeeded in his attempt. The Jews in Babylonia kept their faith, and, in later years, it was from them that these prophetic books went, together with a strong influence for religious reform, back to Palestine.)
I
A LAMENTATION FOR THE PRINCES OF ISRAEL
Moreover, take thou up a lamentation for the princes of Israel, and say, ”What was thy mother?
”A lioness: she couched among lions, in the midst of the {345} young lions she nourished her whelps. And she brought up one of her whelps; he became a young lion: and he learned to catch the prey, he devoured men. The nations also heard of him; he was taken in their pit: and they brought him with hooks unto the land of Egypt. Now when she saw that she had waited, and her hope was lost, then she took another of her whelps, and made him a young lion. And he went up and down among the lions, he became a young lion: and he learned to catch the prey, he devoured men. And he knew their palaces, and laid waste their cities; and the land was desolate, and the fulness thereof, because of the noise of his roaring. Then the nations set against him on every side from the provinces: and they spread their net over him; he was taken in their pit. And they put him in a cage with hooks, and brought him to the king of Babylon; they brought him into strong holds, that his voice should no more be heard upon the mountains of Israel.
”Thy mother was like a vine, in thy blood, planted by the waters: she was fruitful and full of branches by reason of many waters. And she had strong rods for the sceptres of them that bare rule, and their stature was exalted among the thick boughs, and they were seen in their height with the mult.i.tude of their branches. But she was plucked up in fury, she was cast down to the ground, and the east wind dried up her fruit: her strong rods were broken off and withered; the fire consumed them. And now she is planted in the wilderness, in a dry and thirsty land. And fire is gone out of the rods of her branches, it hath {346} devoured her fruit, so that there is in her no strong rod to be a sceptre to rule. This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation.”
II
THE DOOM OF TYRE
(The description of Tyre is particularly valuable, because it gives such a vivid picture of the commercial activity of a great city in ancient times.)
And it came to pa.s.s in the eleventh year, in the first day of the month, that the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, ”Son of man, because that Tyre hath said against Jerusalem, 'Aha, she is broken that was the gate of the peoples; she is turned unto me: I shall be replenished, now that she is laid waste:' therefore thus saith the Lord G.o.d: Behold, I am against thee, O Tyre, and will cause many nations to come up against thee, as the sea causeth his waves to come up. And they shall destroy the walls of Tyre, and break down her towers: I will also sc.r.a.pe her dust from her, and make her a bare rock. She shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea; for I have spoken it, saith the Lord G.o.d: and she shall become a spoil to the nations. And her daughters which are in the field shall be slain with the sword: and they shall know that I am the Lord.” For thus saith the Lord G.o.d: ”Behold, I will bring upon Tyre Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, king of kings, from the north, with horses, and with chariots, and with hors.e.m.e.n, and a company, and much people. He shall slay with the sword thy daughters in the {347} field: and he shall make forts against thee, and cast up a mount against thee, and raise up the buckler against thee. And he shall set his battering engines against thy walls, and with his axes he shall break down thy towers. By reason of the abundance of his horses their dust shall cover thee: thy walls shall shake at the noise of the hors.e.m.e.n, and of the wagons, and of the chariots, when he shall enter into thy gates, as men enter into a city wherein is made a breach. With the hoofs of his horses shall he tread down all thy streets: he shall slay thy people with the sword, and the pillars of thy strength shall go down to the ground. And they shall make a spoil of thy riches, and make a prey of thy merchandise: and they shall break down thy walls, and destroy thy pleasant houses: and they shall lay thy stones and thy timber and thy dust in the midst of the waters. And I will cause the noise of thy songs to cease; and the sound of thy harps shall be no more heard. And I will make thee a bare rock: thou shalt be a place for the spreading of nets; thou shalt be built no more: for I the Lord have spoken it, saith the Lord G.o.d.”
Thus saith the Lord G.o.d to Tyre: ”Shall not the isles shake at the sound of thy fall, when the wounded groan, when the slaughter is made in the midst of thee? Then all the princes of the sea shall come down from their thrones, and lay aside their robes, and strip off their broidered garments: they shall clothe themselves with trembling; they shall sit upon the ground, and shall tremble every moment, and be astonished at thee. And they shall take up a lamentation for thee, and say to thee, 'How art thou {348} destroyed, that wast inhabited of seafaring men, the renowned city, which wast strong in the sea, she and her inhabitants, which caused their terror to be on all that haunt it!' Now shall the isles tremble in the day of thy fall; yea, the isles that are in the sea shall be dismayed at thy departure.”
For thus saith the Lord G.o.d: ”When I shall make thee a desolate city, like the cities that are not inhabited; when I shall bring up the deep upon thee, and the great waters shall cover thee; then will I bring thee down with them that descend into the pit, to the people of old time, and will make thee to dwell in the nether parts of the earth, in the places that are desolate of old, with them that go down to the pit, that thou be not inhabited; and I will set glory in the land of the living: I will make thee a terror, and thou shalt be no more: though thou be sought for, yet shalt thou never be found again,” saith the Lord G.o.d.
(The prophet here draws a striking picture of Eastern commerce. He pictures Tyre as a s.h.i.+p, trading in the commodities of all the nations of the world, but wrecked at last and destroyed by the storm.)
The word of the Lord came again unto me, saying, And thou, son of man, take up a lamentation for Tyre; and say unto Tyre, O thou that dwellest at the entry of the sea, which art the merchant of the peoples unto many isles, thus saith the Lord G.o.d: Thou, O Tyre, hast said, ”I am perfect in beauty.”
Thy borders are in the heart of the seas, thy builders have perfected thy beauty. They have made all thy planks of fir trees from Senir: they have taken cedars from Lebanon to make a mast for thee.
<script>