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Schedule for the Week Ending August 16, 1913
Sunday
August
10
Jeremiah
50
Monday
"
11
"
51, 52
Tuesday
"
12
Lamentations
1, 2
Wednesday
"
13
"
3, 4, 5
Thursday
"
14
Ezekiel
1, 2, 3
Friday
"
15
"
4, 5, 6
Sabbath
"
16
"
7, 8, 9
We close the reading of Jeremiah, and the book of Lamentations, written by him, consisting of poetic Hebrew acrostics, and read nine chapters of the book of Ezekiel. Ezekiel was contemporary with Jeremiah. While Jeremiah was God's prophet in Jerusalem, Ezekiel was God's prophet among the captives whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried away with King Jehoiachin in 597 B.C. to Babylonia, where he was settled near the river Chebar. His name means "God strengthens," and he also was of the priesthood. The book consists of two principal parts,—first, earnest discourses to the people of God concerning moral conduct, prophecies regarding Judah and Jerusalem and other kingdoms, and a prophecy of a part of what the Lord would do for His people if they would but yield to Him, in chapters 37 to 48.
In our reading for this week comes the vision of the first chapter, of the four living creatures. These strange beings which are called creatures, said to have the likeness of a man and of a lion and of an ox and of an eagle, represent, it may be, companies of God's angels in these forms, but acting with such harmony that they appear as one creature. The four objects represented in each of these creatures were, according to tradition, the standards under which the house of Israel pitched, the man representing the standard of Reuben, the lion of Judah, the ox of Ephraim, the eagle of Dan. They may also well indicate God's wisdom and strength and patience and glory. From the fact that they moved upon the earth, with their wheels within wheels responsive to the Spirit of God, they would indicate the work which God was carrying on in the world. To the prophet it seemed to be all confusion, but to the infinite God it was working out just the very best that could be worked out for His people.
These living creatures were not, as has been said, the foundation of the throne of God, or the throne, because we are told in the twenty-sixth verse that above these living creatures there was a firmament, and the throne itself was above the firmament, whence God directed. The living creatures were upon the earth. God would show Ezekiel, by this vision, that whatever the powers of earth were seeking to do regarding God's people, the Lord had a care over them.
Very searching are the words of the prophet to his people, and he himself suffers in becoming an example in a temporary way of what is coming to them permanently, as, for instance, in the fourth chapter, where he depicts upon the ground with an iron pan and the figure of a city the awful calamities which shall befall the Jews; where he himself lies upon his left side for the house of Israel 390 days, and upon his right for the house of Judah 40 days, each day representing a year for the captivity of God's people, covering the captivity of Israel and the remainder of the captivity of Judah, to the restoration after the seventy years' captivity. But not all of the sufferings of the prophet were to come in his own person. We shall read of these later on.
The awful idolatry of Israel is pointed out in the eighth chapter, and the worst of all idolatry was the example of the elders of Israel worshiping the sun with their faces toward the east, the most abominable of all idolatrous worship, because the most degrading to humanity. The judgment of it all is shown in the ninth chapter, a prediction also of the last days and the final judgment, when God would send His angels through the midst of His professed people, and set a mark upon the foreheads of "the men that sigh and that cry over all the abominations that are done in the midst thereof."
