Глава 11

Removal of Jehovah from Jerusalem 1–3. At the exit from the church, at its eastern gate, a meeting was held at which the leaders, in the self-confident hope of the fortification of the city, wanted to dare to fight the Chaldeans. 4–13. God predicts through the prophet that Jerusalem, stained with blood, will fall into the hands of the enemy, who will carry out strict judgment on the traitors on the borders of Israel. 14–21. On the contrary, the captives, who are looked upon with contempt in Jerusalem, can hope for a better future if only they sincerely turn to God; Thus, here, in the same dramatic form of God’s judgment over Jerusalem, a new, already third reason for its fall is indicated (the first is the desecration of the church by idolatry, the second is wickedness: Eze. 9.9), the closest reason is the reckless attempt of the authorities to resist the Chaldeans. 22–25. After this prediction, the glory of the Lord continues its path and the vision ends. Ezek.11:1. And the spirit lifted me up, and brought me to the east gate of the house of the Lord, which faces the east. And behold, at the entrance to the gate there were twenty-five people; and among them I saw Jazania the son of Azur, and Phaltia the son of Vane, princes of the people. “And the spirit lifted me up and brought me,” as in Ezek.43.5 cf. Eze.3.14, 8.3, and not, as everywhere else before in this vision, simply “led” (and without a subject: Eze.8.7, 14, 16), perhaps in terms of distance in the difficulty of walking after the glory of the Lord, especially for the visionary state... - “To the eastern gate of the house of the Lord, which faces the east.” The last, apparently unnecessary addition, perhaps wants to say that this gate was the last in the church and nothing blocked the rising sun from here; The princes who conferred here, in equal numbers with the sun worshipers, like the latter, were turned to the east. – “At (lit.: “at”) the entrance to the gate”: under the arch formed by the thick wall in which the gate was built. In the east, trials are held at the gates and the perpetrators are immediately punished. In the present case, a meeting of the chiefs was apparently taking place at the eastern gate; that it did not take place at the city gates, but at the church gates, this undoubtedly indicates the actual existence of such a practice at that time, cf. Jer 26.10; this practice Ezekiel seems to want to bring out in Ezekiel 44.2–3. "Twenty-five people". If it is said about two of them, named by name, that they were princes of the people, then this should be applied to the rest, as their participation in such an important state meeting already shows. This is hardly just a round number (it is not said: “about”, as in Eze. 8.16 and here in LXX); it is probable that in reality there existed at that time a collegial institution consisting of such a number of members. Perhaps it consisted of 12 leaders of the tribes and 12 royal officials or military authorities with a military leader at their head according to 1 Chronicles 26 (Keil); others, based on rabbinical tradition, see in them the leaders of the 24 quarters of the city with a prince from the royal family. In any case, these 25 men are representatives of the entire civil government of Israel, just as the twenty-five priests mentioned in Ezekiel 8.16 are representatives of the religious government. Between them, two, like there one, turned out to be known to the prophet and, of course, also to his fellow prisoners, and he recognized their faces. The second of them, Phaltia, is mentioned must be because of what is told in Art. 13 cases - his sudden defeat by God, and the first Jezania - is mentioned, perhaps because he came forward in some way during the war or simply as the namesake of Jezania Eze. 8.11 (but not identical with him, as the patronymic shows). The very names and patronymics of these two princes of the people are significant: 1) in that three of them include the name of Jehovah, for an explanation of which see Ezek.8.11; 2) what gives the idea of ​​​​hope in God, which the Jews of that time nurtured without repentance for sins (Gengsteiberg): “Jezania Azur” - “God hears, the son of carelessness”, “Faltia Vaneev” - “God hastens, the son of God’s creation.” Since according to Chapter IX. the entire wicked population of Jerusalem was exterminated, and according to Chapter X. and the city itself was burned, then the appearance here of 25 leaders who talk about saving the city from being taken by the Chaldeans is considered an incongruity, which is attributed to the literary imprudence of Ezekiel. But with this reproach to Ezekiel, they forget that visions do not take into account the laws of space and time, because these laws have no force in the supersensible world into which visions penetrate. Ezek.11:2. And He said to me: Son of man! These are the people who have iniquity on their minds and who give bad advice in this city, “He (add. Russian translation; in slav. addition: “Lord”) told me.” Without subject; see explanation. Ezek.2.1. - “Lawlessness”, glory. more precisely: “vain”. - “Bad advice.” The following shows what it is. poem. In the council of man, the exact opposite of what has already been decreed in the council of God is decreed. Ezek.11:3. saying: “It’s not close yet; we will build houses; he is the cauldron, and we are the meat.” “Not yet near”, i.e. the fall of Judea. - “We will build houses,” the siege will end happily. Perhaps a deliberate misuse of Jeremiah's advice to the captives in Jeremiah 29:15. Dark Heb. the expression, however, allows for more than just this translation: glory: “Isn’t it a new house that you built together,” that is, after the first siege of Nebuchadnezzar, Jerusalem was rebuilt and repaired again, and the same will happen after the second. - “He (the city) is a cauldron, and we are meat.” No matter how difficult it is in the fire of a siege, the strong walls of the city will protect us from death as well as the walls of a cauldron protect meat from burning. Ezek.11:4. Therefore prophesy against them, prophesy, son of man. “Prophesy against them, prophesy.” In euros literal repetition, as in glory: “prophets na nya, prophets”, cf. Ezek.37.9 - to indicate the strength and spiritual intensity with which the prophet must now prophesy. Ezek.11:5. And the Spirit of the Lord came upon me and said to me, “Say, this is what the Lord says: What you say, O house of Israel, and what comes into your mind, I know.” “And the Spirit of the Lord came upon me,” although the prophet was already in a state of inspiration - in ecstasy; Therefore, ordinary inspiration is so different from ecstatic inspiration: the first imparts a special sharpness to the mind, the second – to spiritual perception and sensation. - “House of Israel”, because 25 princes represented it. - “And what comes to your mind.” Plans for treason and resistance to Nebuchadnezzar were initially kept secret. Ezek.11:6. You laid many of your slain in this city and filled its streets with corpses. Of course the death penalty, the occurrences of which, judging by the importance Ezekiel attaches to it, must have been very frequent; Wed Ezek.7:23, 9:9 and especially Ezek. 22.6, 12–13. Ezek.11:7. Therefore thus says the Lord God: Your slain, which you have laid in the midst of him, are meat, and he is a cauldron; but I will bring you out of it. Having indicated the guilt of the people's rulers, the prophet begins his threat to them with the ironic application of his comparison of the city with a cauldron: only the innocently murdered lie firmly and securely in Jerusalem, who, as it were, would not want to have their murderers near them even after the death, and the latter will have to leave Jerusalem; for what terrible purpose, says Art. 6–10. Wed Ezek.24.6 et al. “Lord God” in Greek. more correctly, simply “Lord”: solemnity is no more required here than in Art. 5, where it is simple: “Lord.” Ezek.11:8. You fear the sword, and I will bring the sword on you, says the Lord God. Ezek.11:9. And I will bring you out of it, and give you into the hand of strangers, and I will execute judgment on you. It is necessary that they pay with their blood for the innocently shed blood. And so the Lord delivers them into the very hands of their enemies. The walls of the city will not protect against the Chaldean sword. By breaking away from Babylon and entering into an alliance with Egypt, the people's rulers will not thereby eliminate the Chaldean sword, but, on the contrary, will attract it upon themselves. Wed. Proverbs 10.24. Ezek.11:10. You will fall by the sword; in the borders of Israel you will be judged, and you will know that I am the Lord. “You will fall by the sword,” where and as indicated further. - “On the borders of Israel I will judge you”; not only outside Jerusalem, but almost outside the country itself. Of course, the judgment of Nebuchadnezzar, who in this case, therefore, according to the view of God, took the place of God himself, the judgment he carried out on the treacherous Jews in the border (see explanation Eze. 6.14) Rivla, where, among others, the sons of Zedekiah and he were condemned to death. Slav. instead of “on the limits” - “on the mountains” - obviously, ορεων instead of οριων. – The goal of Jehovah’s actions is always the same for Ezekiel – knowledge of Him (cf. Eze. 6:7, 7:7). Ezek.11:11. It will not be a cauldron for you, and you will not be meat in it; I will judge you in the borders of Israel. The verse connects the beginning of prophetic speech with the end, and v. 12. adds another important reason for the death of the city, cf. Art. 18; Ezek.6.7. In the second half of the 12th century. negation may be implied, as in Isa. 11.12 Heb. T.; however wed. Ezek.20.32. The poems do not contain a single new thought, why LXX during the blessed. Jerome did not have them; but repetition is Ezekiel's specialty. Ezek.11:13. And it came to pass, while I was prophesying, that Phaltiah the son of Benai died. And I fell on my face, and cried out with a loud voice, and said: O Lord God! Do you really want to completely destroy the remnant of Israel? The threat of God immediately has an effect, which confirms the accuracy of the entire prediction. Undoubtedly, at the moment of the vision, when the prophet received the revelation of verses 4–12 (“when I prophesied”), the one mentioned in v. 1 suddenly died in Jerusalem. Faltia may be the head of a party hostile to true prophecies. The Prophet, of course, was able to see this death from Babylonia with no less clarity than those with double vision. What must the captives to whom Ezekiel recounted his vision (Ezek. 11.25) must have felt when news of the death of Phaltia subsequently came to them from Jerusalem! This death struck the prophet not only with natural pity for the deceased, but mainly as a terrible sign that in this way the entire remnant of Israel could be destroyed, which the Lord promised to preserve through Jeremiah: Jer 4:27, 5:10. “O” (cf. Ezek.9.8) in Hebrew. interjection of a heavy sigh “Ahag”, which LXX probably read in two: “woe is me, woe is me.” Ezek.11:15. son of man! to your brothers, to your brethren, to your half-bloods, and to the whole house of Israel, those who live in Jerusalem say to all of them: “Live far from the Lord; This land has been given to us to take possession of.” God corrects the prophet’s erroneous view that Jerusalem is the last thing left of Israel: the prophet forgets about his brothers, half-blooded (glorified: “the men of your captivity”; in the Hebrew word “geula” for such a meaning you need to release one letter: “gola”), brothers (repetition from the strength of feeling), about the whole house of Israel - the scattered ten-tribe kingdom - about all of them in the aggregate (prophetic allusion to the future union of Judah and Israel; glory: “passed away”, i.e. died according to the Jerusalemites). According to Hebrew, here the nominatives are independent: “and your brothers,” etc. “Have you forgotten about them?” The prophet, God reproaches him, with his fear for the remnant of Israel, without noticing it himself, takes the point of view of the proud Jerusalemites, who do not consider the captives to be the people of God only because they live “far from the Lord,” that is, the church and do not own the Holy Place. earth: St. the earth was considered something inseparable from Jehovah, like pagan lands from their gods: 1 Samuel 26.19; 2 Kings 17.23; Jer 48.7; only in difficult circumstances were they freed from this view: Ezek.8.12; Wed Jer 24.1. The view given by the prophet is very characteristic of the daring arrogance of those remaining in Palestine, who looked upon themselves as the exclusive heirs of the covenant promise to Abraham in Gen. 15.18. Ezek.11:16. To this say: this is what the Lord God says: although I have sent them away to the nations and although I have scattered them throughout the lands, I will be for them a kind of sanctuary in the lands where they have gone. "Earth" see explanation. Ezek.5.5. - “I will be a kind of sanctuary for them,” glory. “to sanctify little” the further from the church, the less holiness for Ezekiel; On this principle his entire division of the future St. is built. lands between the priests, Levites, princes and people (ch. XLVIII). True, even in a foreign country, Jehovah remains the God of Israel; but in the unclean (cf. Eze. 4.9, etc.) country of captivity, He cannot be honored with full cult, sacrifices, etc. Thus, the prophet does not essentially challenge the Jerusalemites’ view of captivity as a difficult departure from Jehovah, but promises in the next verse a quick return to the Holy Place. land; therefore, the Jewish connecting union is more accurately translated into slav. “and” than in Russian. "But" . Ezek.11:17. Then say: This is what the Lord God says: I will gather you from the nations and bring you back from the lands where you are scattered; and I will give you the land of Israel. “Then”: glory: “for this reason”, see explanation of Art. 16. – “You”. Speech with 3 l plural. pathetically turns into 2 l.; but glory. "I" . Ezekiel 11:18. And they will come there and cast out from her all her abominations and all her abominations. The speech moves again to 3 liters, because, by the way, what is predicted applies more to the next generation than to the modern one. "Upon returning to St. land, the first step will be the elimination of everything that could harm the purity of the country, as the future bearer of true worship of God, that is, the elimination of idols and churches; this painstaking care for the purity of the land, which here, as in Chapter VI, appears to be responsible for the abominations committed in it, is characteristic of Ezekiel’s ideals of purity and cult”; Wed Ezek.39.11–16 (Krechm.). After the captivity, the Jews, indeed, irrevocably abandoned idolatry. But beyond the destruction of all traces of idolatry, the own strengths of those who have returned do not extend: everything else, that is, internal renewal, is the work of Jehovah v. 19; but Kretschmar here speaks from the difficult experience of Ezekiel’s soul-saving activity. Ezek.11:19. And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit in them, and I will take the heart of stone out of their flesh, and I will give them a heart of flesh, Ezek.11 Ezek.36.26; Wed Deuteronomy 30.6; Jer 24.7, 32.39. The heart is the seat of feeling, but also of volitional decisions (Ezek.38.10) and in the latter respect it is essentially the same with the spirit. All feeling, thinking and behavior of the Jews upon returning from captivity will be directed towards Jehovah, and not towards idols. But the full realization of this promise became possible only in Christianity with its grace-filled rebirth of man (2 Cor 3.3). - “One Heart”. LXX: “new”, reading instead of “echad”, “one”, “akher” - “other”, which is more suitable to the context. Ezek.11:20. that they may walk in My commandments, and keep My statutes, and do them; and they will be My people, and I will be their God. The verse indicates how the spiritual renewal of Israel will be expressed: in the fulfillment of moral and ritual laws. “Ordinances”, “statutes” are terms of the Mosaic legislation; explain see Ezek.5.6. The Prophet Ezekiel here rises to the heights of the Christian view of the inner relationship of the renewed human heart to God, when it cannot do anything else but good, since this lies in its very being, just as it lies in the essence of nature for the sun to shine, for a tree to bear fruit. Although the idea of ​​the spiritual rebirth of man could have been inspired by Ezekiel XXIV ch. Jeremiah, but it received greater clarity and separation from him. Ezek.11:21. And whose heart is carried away after their abominations and abominations, I will turn their behavior on their head, says the Lord God. The threat hardly applies to those of the captives who returned to Judea who will not leave idolatry (for such, according to the previous thoughts, are hardly possible), but rather to those who remained in Jerusalem, rather than the speech returning to its beginning. Beginning of the verse in Hebrew. not entirely smooth. 21b Ezek.9.10, 16.43. Ezek.11:22. Then the Cherubim lifted up their wings, and the wheels beside them; and the glory of the God of Israel was above them. If the previous (v. 21) threat refers to the Jerusalemites, then it is immediately carried out through the removal of the Lord from the city. The removal of the glory of the Lord begins, as in Ezek.10.19, with the raising of the wings of the cherubim for flight or separation from the earth and the movement of the wheels. Ezek.11:23. And the glory of the Lord rose up from the midst of the city and stood over the mountain that was on the east of the city. The mountain that is east of the city is Olivet, called by the last name in 2 Samuel 15.30; Zechariah 14.4. It is 818 meters high and dominates the city. According to Zechariah, from this mountain God will bring judgment on wickedness and save his people. The Rescuer ascended from it. The glory of the Lord follows a straight line to the east: from the Holy of Holies through the threshold of the church, the eastern gate and the eastern mountain, without, of course, having to go around it. This mountain formed the horizon line and, starting from it, the prophet could no longer follow the movement of the glory of the Lord, but only assume that it went further to the east, so that later from there it would return to the mysterious church of the end of times (Ezek. 43.2). Why the glory of the Lord stopped on the Mount of Olives, various guesses are made about this. The Mount of Olives lay on the extreme (eastern) periphery of the city district, just as the eastern gate of the church, at which was the penultimate stop of the glory of the Lord, lay on the same periphery of the church; and the stopping here, as there, of the glory of the Lord could be a sign of the difficulty for the Lord of parting with his age-old dwelling in Zion. This is a more probable assumption than the one according to which God wanted to watch the burning of the city from the mountain (the course of the description assumes this punishment had already been accomplished) or wanted to stay on it until returning to the new church (removing to such proximity could not be so difficult and solemn); others suggest that from this mountain the glory of the Lord had to ascend to heaven, and the rabbis say that the Shekinah remained for 3 months on the mountain, unsuccessfully calling the people to repentance (Stanley, Palestine, p. 186). Ezekiel 11:24. And the spirit lifted me up and carried me to Chaldea, to the immigrants, in a vision, by the Spirit of God. And the vision that I saw departed from me. The final fact of ecstasy is that the prophet feels himself transported to his actual location. It is not said that this transfer is accompanied by the same sensation (of being held by the hair and floating through the air) as the transfer to Jerusalem; on the contrary, the addition: “in vision, by the spirit of God” seems to indicate a greater spirituality of sensation. “By the Spirit of God” - only here in Ezekiel; it is somewhat unexpected here: “the spirit... carried me... by the Spirit of God,” and, if genuine, it must be the power of God in general, the direct participation of God in the transfer of the prophet. Ezek.11:25. And I told the immigrants all the words of the Lord that He had revealed to me. Since the vision was intended not for the prophet personally (as in part of Chapter I), but for the people, the prophet retells it to the immigrants, that is, to the elders who were closest to him at the time of the vision (Ezek. 8.1), and through them or in addition to them and to the masses. “All the words of the Lord”, i.e. everything seen, and not only heard, i.e., for example, Ezek.11.4-21, as shown by the frequent use of Heb. “davar” “word” in the meaning of “thing”, and a further definition to “the words of the Lord that He revealed”, glory. “show” (not “said”). You might be interested in: