EZEKIEL’S CITY AND RIVER.
By W. Trevoc
THE prophet Ezekiel writes of a vision which was given him during the twenty-fifth year of Israel’s captivity in Babylon. In the view given, he was carried to the land of Israel and set upon a very high mountain, and there shown the frame of a city lying to the south from where he stood. The city and all that pertained to it were things which seemed to be in prospect for Israel in Palestine after they should be restored to their own land. The description begins with the fortieth chapter, and continues to the conclusion of the book, embracing nine chapters. A hurried reading of some portions of the vision, without studying the connection, may cause one to mistake the application. Some conclude from reading it that there must be a future age of probation in order to make way for its fulfilment. Others think that they find a description of the river of life in the forty-seventh chapter. But these conclusions are not warranted, and they would not be entertained if the whole nine chapters were studied together, and the whole relation of things was fully grasped. By carefully studying the last seven verses of chapter 39, it is readily seen that the Lord had in store a glorious state of prosperity and favor for Israel, when they should return from Babylon. But their realization of this depended upon their faithfulness in representing the truth in the earth. The prophet was given in vision the measure and plan of the city and temple which they were to prepare. The vision gave in detail the order and manner of sacrifices and burnt-offerings which were intended to prevail. Chapters 40:39; 43:18-27. It was only the typical Levitical worship. Chapter 40:46. It was to be in all its appointments a service of shadows, looking forward to a great offering yet to be made, and therefore could not have been intended for a time this side of the death of Christ, which was the true offering and antitype of all that was truly offered in the Levitical system. It can not possibly apply in the perfect state—the time when death is to be no more, when sorrow, pain, and crying will not be known—for the vision gave advice about death, and concerning matrimony. It even speaks of the second marriages of the priests who were to serve in the time described. The river described was to be a stream issuing from the threshold of the house or temple, and running thence eastward until it emptied into the Dead or Salt Sea. Read verses 8 to 11 inclusive, of chapter 47, and see that the water was to so change the condition of the sea into which it was to empty, that it, the sea, would be a place in which things could live. It was no longer to be a dead body of water, but an element in which5the fish, and of course other water animals, could subsist. Water enough was to be thrown into the Dead Sea to raise its surface to an altitude that its border should reach to Engedi. The water level of the Dead Sea is now registered as 1,312 feet below the level of the Mediterranean Sea. The city of Engedi is located on the west side of the Dead Sea, about 400 feet above its level. This site places Engedi in the basin, which dips toward the Salt Sea, but some 900 feet below the level of the Great or Mediterranean Sea. It would be possible to go up the valley of the river where Engedi stands, to a point 900 feet above, and from thence tunnel westward to the water of the Mediterranean. In this way, the water of the Great Sea could be thrown into the Dead Sea, and this would heal the Dead or Salt Sea, and perhaps increase its depth until the water margin would reach to Engedi. If this were done, then fish could live in it, and the fishermen could then make it a place to spread forth their nets and catch fish. It would certainly be a remarkable thing to see men netting where the city now stands, 400 feet above the water level of the sea. But let the reader notice that the fish were to be caught, and great numbers of them too, and they in kind like the fish of the Great Sea—at the point where the river which the prophet saw in vision should unite with the sea. Certainly this can not be true of the River of Life, and its union with the sea where it shall deposit its living waters. Had Israel proved faithful to their trust, the prosperity of the country and the city as described in the vision doubtless would have been seen; but believing the vision to have been a conditional prophecy, it will never be fulfilled, because the people proved unfaithful to their trust. It can not apply in the future age, for then the people are not to marry, nor be given in marriage, nor will they die, nor will sacrifices then be offered. Jesus Christ is the only effectual sacrifice, and His offering is “once for all.” W. TREVOC.