《Lange’s Commentary on the Holy Scriptures – Ezekiel (Vol. 1)》(Johann P. Lange)
Commentator
Johann Peter Lange (April 10, 1802, Sonneborn (now a part of Wuppertal) - July 9, 1884, age 82), was a German Calvinist theologian of peasant origin.
He was born at Sonneborn near Elberfeld, and studied theology at Bonn (from 1822) under K. I. Nitzsch and G. C. F. Lüheld several pastorates, and eventually (1854) settled at Bonn as professor of theology in succession to Isaac August Dorner, becoming also in 1860 counsellor to the consistory.
Lange has been called the poetical theologian par excellence: "It has been said of him that his thoughts succeed each other in such rapid and agitated waves that all calm reflection and all rational distinction become, in a manner, drowned" (F. Lichtenberger).
As a dogmatic writer he belonged to the school of Schleiermacher. His Christliche Dogmatik (5 vols, 1849-1852; new edition, 1870) "contains many fruitful and suggestive thoughts, which, however, are hidden under such a mass of bold figures and strange fancies and suffer so much from want of clearness of presentation, that they did not produce any lasting effect" (Otto Pfleiderer).
Introduction
THE BOOK
of the
PROPHET EZEKIEL
______
THEOLOGICALLY AND HOMILETICALLY EXPOUNDED
by
FR. WILHELM JULIUS SCHRÖDER, B.D,
Late Pastor Of The Reformed Church At Elberfeld, Prussia
TRANSLATED, ENLARGED, AND EDITED
by
PATRICK FAIRBAIRN, D.D,
Late Principal Of The Free Church College, Glasgow,
and
Rev. WILLIAM FINDLAY, M.A,
Larkhall, Scotland,
Aided By
Rev. THOMAS CRERAR, M.A, and Rev. SINCLAIR MANSON, M.A.
VOL. XIII OF THE OLD TESTAMENT: CONTAINING EZEKIEL AND DANIEL
PREFACE
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The thirteenth volume of this work embraces the Commentaries on the Prophetical Books of Ezekiel and Daniel.
I. The Commentary on Ezekiel was prepared (1873) by my friend, the Rev. F. W. J. Schröder, Pastor of the First Reformed Church at Elberfeld, a gentleman of thorough theological education, sound views, and great pulpit abilities. He intended to devote himself to art academic career, took the degree of B.D. (Lic. Theol.), in the University of Berlin, and began a Commentary on the Old Testament somewhat similar to that of Lange, issuing a volume on Genesis, which was well received. But when the celebrated Dr. F. W. Krummacher removed from Elberfeld to Berlin (in1847), Mr. Schröder, on his recommendation, was selected his successor, and continued in this pastoral charge till his death, in February, 1876. He looked forward with great interest to the appearance of the English translation of his work, on which he spent much labor and care.
The English edition was intrusted to the Rev. Dr. Fairbairn, of Glasgow, one of the fathers and founders of the Free Church of Scotland, and himself the author of a valuable Commentary on Ezekiel, as well as other well known theological works.[FN1] His lamented death delayed the work. But he had associated with him his pupil and friend, the Rev. Wm. Findlay, M.A, of Larkhall, Scotland, who, in connection with two other Scotch ministers, the Rev. Thomas Crerar, M.A. of Cardross, and the Rev. Sinclair Manson, M.A, Free Church College, Glasgow, completed the task. The translation has been executed as follows:
Rev. Wm. Findlay, pp1–179.
Rev. Thos. Crerar, 180–240.
Rev. Dr. Fairbairn, 241–331, (close of Ezekiel 34).
Rev. S. Manson, 331–492.
Many of the additions, which are numerous, have been extracted from Dr. Fairbairn’s Commentary and from his manuscript notes. His forte lay in the development of principles and comprehensive views rather than in critical notes and details. The chief additions are on the English literature of Ezekiel (p30), the vision of the Cherubim (pp52–54), the symbolical actions (pp77–78), the390 days (p81), the abominations in the Temple (pp104–106), Noah, Daniel and Job (p151), the marriage union of Jehovah and Israel (pp161–162), the Jewish Sabbath (p197), the Prince of Tyre (pp262–263), the Assyrian cedar (p284), the image of the Shepherd (p318), the divine promises in Ezekiel 34-37 (pp352–353), Gog and Magog (pp372–373), and especially on the vision of the Temple (pp439–444).
II. The Commentary on Daniel is the work of Prof. Zöckler (1870), whom the readers of Lange already know as one of the largest and ablest contributors to the Old Testament part of this Commentary.
The English edition of Daniel is the work of the Rev. Dr. Strong, of Drew Theological Seminary, aided by the Rev. G. Miller, B.D, of Walpach Centre, N. J, who prepared the first draft of the translation. Dr. Strong has inserted the Biblical Text with its emendations and Critical Notes, and has made all the additions to the Commentary. The most extensive of these are the synoptical view of Daniel’s prophecies, in tabular form, given in the Introduction, originally prepared by Dr. Strong for another work, and the excursus on the Seventy Weeks. Dr. Strong has everywhere added the interpretations of later or unnoticed Commentaries, especially those of Dr. Keil and Moses Stuart. He differs from the German author with respect to the genuineness of certain parts of Ezekiel 11 ( Ezekiel 11:5-25), and hopes he has fully vindicated the complete integrity of the text, as well as cleared up those difficulties which the author has confessedly left unsolved. Dr. Zöckler himself admits, in the Preface, that his doubts concerning Ezekiel 11. are purely subjective, (the supposed analogia visionis propheticœ,) and that the external testimonies are all in favor of the integrity of the text.
PHILIP SCHAFF
New York, Oct., 1876
AUTHOR’S PREFACE
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In the following exposition of the Book of Daniel, the undersigned has occupied an exegetical and critical position, the peculiarity of which will probably not be overlooked, on a careful comparison with the views and methods of other recent expositors. While he has held fast to the authenticity of the book as a whole, although it was difficult for him to change his former opinion respecting the composition of the book, that it originated during the Maccabæan age, and to conform it to the results of the thorough investigations of M. v. Niebuhr, Pusey, Zündel, Kranichfeld, Volck, Füller, and others, which demonstrated its composition during the captivity, he is still obliged to retain his former doubts with respect to the greater portion of Ezekiel 11. (particularly vs5–39). The reasons which determine him to this conclusion, are certainly of an internal character only. They result in the conviction that a particularizing prophecy, embracing the history of centuries, as it is found in that section, forms so marked a contrast to everything in the line of specializing prediction that occurs elsewhere in the prophetic literature of the Old Testament, that only the theory of an interpolating revision of its prophetic contents, imposed on it during the period of the Seleucid persecutions, or soon afterward, seems to afford a really satisfactory explanation of its particulars. Granted, that in the face of the unanimous testimony of all the external witnesses to the integrity of the prophet’s text, the subjective nature of a criticism, such as is involved in this conclusion, may be censured; granted, that it may be termed inconsequent, that the intimate unity of the well-planned, well-adapted, and well-arranged work is thus broken through at but a single point; yet the analogia visionis propheticœ, which furnishes the motive for our decision, appears to us to be no less a certain, objectively admissible, and most weighty criterion in critical questions like the present, than is the analogia fidei in the domain of Scriptural dogmatics. Nor was the solution of the many difficulties that were encountered, as it resulted from the assumption of an ex eventu interpolation at a single point, permitted to restrain us from submitting the progressive results of our investigation to the careful inspection of Biblical scholars belonging to wider circles, so far as the plan and design of the theological and homiletical Bible-work permitted such a course. [The American reviser has taken the liberty of combating the author’s view as to the interpolation of the passage in question.]
In the treatment of a prophetic book like the one before us, it is evident that the homiletic element must occupy a very subordinate place. Nor could it be a principal aim for an exegete to obtain dogmatic results and modes of presenting them, from such a prophet as Daniel. For this reason we have preferred to follow the example of one of our esteemed co-laborers (Dr. Bähr, in his exposition of the Books of Kings), and accordingly we have given the title of “Ethico-fundamental principles related to the history of salvation” to the section ordinarily devoted to that object, and in the same connection we have noticed the apologetic questions that presented themselves, and also have indicated what was suitable for practical and homiletical treatment, in addition to the features designated by that heading.
We have devoted an especially careful attention, as in the case of our former exposition of the Song of Solomon, to the history and literature of the exposition of this prophet, both as a whole and with reference to its principal parts severally. Especially has the history of the exposition of the difficult and important vision of the70 weeks of years, ( Ezekiel 9, 24-27,) been sketched by us as thoroughly as was possible, more thoroughly, we believe, than in any of the recent and latest commentaries on Daniel.
Of the most recent exegetical and critical literature on this prophet, it was unfortunately impossible to notice two works that appeared while this book was in press: the commentary of Keil (in Keil and Delitzsch’s Bible-work on the O. T.), and the monograph by P. Caspari, Zur Einführung in das Buch Daniel (Leipsic, Dörffling und Franke).
May our attempt to add a further new and independent contribution to the exegetical literature on the most mysterious and difficult of all the prophets, which has recently been enriched by somewhat numerous, and in some respects not unimportant treatises, find that tolerant reception, at least on the part of Bible students who share our views in substance, which it may appropriately claim, in view of the unusual difficulty attending the execution of its object.
Dr. ZÖCKLER
Greifswald, April, 1869
THE PROPHET EZEKIEL
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INTRODUCTION
§ 1. Name Of The Prophet, And Its Meaning
In Hebrew, Jĕchedsĕqçl; according to the Greek translation, Jezeki-el; in Sirach in Grecized form, Jezeki-elos, as Josephus also writes the name; in Latin (Vulgate), Ezechi-el; Luther, Heseki-el.
יְחֶזְקֵאל is a compound either of יֶֽחֶזַק אֵל (Ewald) or of יְחַזֵּק אֵל (Gesenius). In the former case the meaning of the name, according to prevailing linguistic usage, would be the intransitive one: “God is strong (firm)” (Hengstenberg: “or he in relation to whom God becomes strong”); in the other case the name of the prophet would mean: “God strengthens,” i.e. “whom God makes firm (hardens)” (Baumgarten: “whose character is a personal confirmation of the strengthening of God”). The verb חזק may be compared with ἰσχύω (ἰσχύς), “to be strong;” in its radical meaning it has a transitive character (“to straiten,” “to press,” “to make firm,” “to fetter”). Hiller in the Onomasticon sacrum translates the name Ezekiel: Deus prævalebit; and a similar explanation is given by Witsius also (Treatise, De Prophetis in capt. Babyl, Miscell. s. i19, 6), J. H. Michaelis, and others.
The names of the prophets have their providential element, so that they may produce the impression of emblems in word. What the character of the time is in the divine judgment and the special task of the prophet, his calling from God, and therefore also his comfort against men, appear to have found expression in the name.
“Like all the names of the canonical prophets, the name of Ezekiel also is not such a name as he had borne from his youth, but an official name which he had assumed at the beginning of his calling” (Hengstenberg).
When passages like Ezekiel 1:3; Ezekiel 3:14 in Ezekiel are quoted for the explanation of his name, we arrive at no further result than something like what may be said distinctively of the prophetic order in general,—this compulsion of the human spirit by the Spirit of God, as a result of superior divine power. The holy men of God were φερόμενοι ὑπὸ πνεύματος ἁγίον, 2 Peter 1:21; God carried them along with Him ( Ezekiel 3:14), proved Himself first of all in themselves to be the strong God. But while “the hand of Jehovah was upon him,” and “was strong upon him,” there is besides a distinctive, peculiar element in Ezekiel, as contrasted e.g. with Jeremiah (comp. his first appearance, Jeremiah 1:4-7; Jeremiah 20:7), or even as in the case of Jonah. The interpretation of the name assumes a more individual aspect only when passages like Ezekiel 3:8-9 are also taken into consideration. Hard against hard (חזק) is accordingly the mission of our prophet, the counter-hard he is to be according to God’s will. God stands fast to His purpose, alike as respects judgment and as respects salvation: this is the stamp of the time according to God in the name of Ezekiel, the objective programme of his mission for those to whom he is sent, and let the heathen also know it. And for the accomplishment of such a task God strengthens him (the subjective side), i.e. in conformity with his nature, which Isaiah, of course, of another type from that of his parallel Jeremiah (§§ 2, 4). Ezekiel has not the “tender heart” and “soft disposition,” but is “an individuality already endowed by nature with admirable strength of mind” (Hävernick). Where the man is iron, the divine preparation consists in this, that God makes him steel, hardens him,—lends to his natural power and energy the consecration of a sword of God (Isaiah=God (is) salvation, God (is) gracious; Ezekiel=God (is) hard).