RECONCILIATION. According to the interpretation of our Sages, the death of those men might be laid to Gedaliah, since timely notice had been given to him by Johanan, the son of Kariah,1 of the treachery of Ismael, and that by order of Bahalis, king of Ammon, he came to kill him; he would not believe him, and made light of it, or by flight he might have escaped, and saved these people: therefore, it may be said, Ismael smote them by the hand of Gedaliah, the Holy Scripture imputing the crime to him, as if he had actually committed it. R. David Kimchi translates this word cause, which is one of its many meanings. When the widow from Tekoah came to intercede in favour of Absalom, David said to her, 18 281 77 “Joab probably was the cause of thy coming;" in this way, the verse would say that these men were slain by cause of Gedaliah, for the intention of Ismael was only to have killed him. This word also means place, as 17 by ws “every man in his place:"3 according to this, there is no difficulty either, for these men were killed in the place where Gedaliah was. Don Isaac Abarbanel gives another interpretation to the word, which is wound, as is found repeatedly in the plagues of Egypt. The text would then say, that in that pit were then thrown the corpses of those that were wounded at the murder and death of Gedaliah; and there is no contradiction. QUESTION 17. Jer. 52:23. And there were ninety and six Ibid. And all the pomegranates upon the pomegranates on a side. net-work were a hundred round about. RECONCILIATION. In the first book of Kings, it says, that the capitals upon the two pillars had two hundred pomegranates, and this agrees with what Jeremiah says, that is, that all the pomegranates were one hundred, that is, on each. And what he says of ninety-six being on one side, is that Solomon placed these pillars at the porch of the temple close to the wall, by which four pomegranates were not seen so the texts do not disagree. 1 Jer. 40:14. 22 Sam. 14:19. 3 Num. 2:17. 11 Kings 7:20. EZEKIEL. QUESTION. Ezek. 5:7. Neither have ye done according to the judgements of the nations around you. Ezek. 11:12. And have done after the manners of the heathens among you. RECONCILIATION. These verses are applicable to different considerations: in the latter the prophet reproves the people of Israel for imitating the idolatries and profane worship of the surrounding heathen; and in the first he accuses them of fickleness and inconstancy in religion, not imitating therein their neighbours, which is what Jeremiah says, "Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but my people have changed their glory for what doth not profit." This is the interpretation of Rashi. The ancients solve the difficulty in another way, saying, that in all the nations of the world there are good and bad, some strict observers of their religion, other remiss, more resembling atheists and libertines, than men following any religion, and in this sense the prophet might say both; for, in laxity, Israel imitated the bad of the heathen, and in zeal did not imitate their good qualities. They adduce, as an example of this reproof, the history of the battle, which Jehoshaphat king of Judah, Jehoram king of Israel, had, combined with the king of Edom, against the king of Moab, and the Holy Scripture relates2 that seeing his forces so unequal, he took with him the choice of his army, and with them endeavoured to break through the forces of the king of Edom, but could not finding himself foiled in the attempt, he took his eldest son and heir, and offered him on the wall as a burnt-offering, and there was great indignation against Israel. Some say this first-born son was the son of the king of Edom, who was his prisoner, and that, irritated in having failed in his enterprise, he immolated the son: others, that he took him in that battle, and burnt him, from which resulted his indignation against Israel for not endeavouring to rescue him. But the ancient Sages consider this differently, and apparently more conformably to the text, which is, that the king of Moab sacrificed his own son as a burnt-offering addressed to the First Cause, or, according to others, to his idols: the reason was, that he imagined it was more from some miraculous than natural cause, that he had not succeeded; thereupon he consulted some astrologers, who told him that the Hebrews always had in their favour the merits of the patriarch Abraham, who prepared to sacrifice his only son, solely in obedience to the Lord who had commanded it; the king replied, "If on those grounds, God is propititous to this people, I will do the same for his service;" and thereupon he took his first-born son and sacrificed him as a burnt-offering on the wall. From this the Holy Scripture says great indignation resulted on Israel, because, if he sacrificed him to the Lord God of Israel, it was a gross insult for a heathen to perform so heroic an action; whose virtue and zeal they do not imitate by observing his holy law, and if he sacrificed him to a vain deity, it was also an affront to them, since a heathen, for vain idolatry, chose to immolate the heir to his crown and empire; and they did nothing of moment for the service of the Sovereign Lord, Creator of heaven and earth, but, on the contrary, irritated Him by their wicked actions. The ancients also apply the same idea to Sennacherib, who, escaping from that powerful army destroyed by the angel in one night, they say, on inquiring the cause the Lord performed so many miracles for that people, they answered him, that the merit of Abraham was sufficient for that and much more: he wished then to imitate it; but his children, learning his determination, killed him while praying in the Temple. Now, taking up the thread of the question, what the prophet reproves Israel for in the first verse is, that they did not even imitate the zeal of the pious heathen-their neighbours, who were strict observers of their religion; but they only imitated the wicked among them in their laxity and idolatries. Or it may be said, the prophet here speaks of those wicked Israelites who separate from the flock, and neither observe the law of Moses, nor that of the Gentiles they had been converted to and which they do not believe, living like Atheists without any religion; for it is better to profess one, even if erroneous, than none whatever. QUESTION 2. Ezek. 9:2. And, behold, six men came from the way of the upper gate, which looketh to the north, and each armed with his weapon in his hand. Ezek. 43:3. And it was according to the vision that I saw, like the vision I saw when I came to destroy the city; and the visions were like the visions I saw by the river Chebar. If six men were sent to destroy the city of Jerusalem, how does Ezekiel say, in the singular, when I came ? RECONCILIATION. The Chaldean paraphrase solves this difficulty, by substituting the word 'nan'sa, "when I prophesied," instead of 'Na, "when I came," as if he had said, when I prophesied the destruction of the city, performed and executed by the six men." Who the six men were that the prophet saw in that vision, conspiring with offensive weapons to destroy the city, is a difficult matter to understand; but the ancients in the Guemara1 conjecture they were 1 Sabat, c. 5. those angels who are the ministers of justice, namely, yp "Indignation," "Anger," "Wrath," n'n "Destroyer," "Finisher," and Sanp "Blotter out ;" and the angel habited in linen to have been the angel Gabriel, whom the Lord ordered to go into the city, and mark the forehead of the righteous, who mourned at the abominations committed in the city, with the lettern, which signified 'n "he shall live," in the same manner as the blood of the paschal lamb was put on their door-posts by the Lord's command to the Israelites in Egypt,2 so that the destroying angel in slaying the firstborn should not enter their houses on seeing that sign.3 Ezek. 9:8. QUESTION 3. And it came to pass, while they were slaying them, and I was left, that I fell upon my face and cried, and said, Oh Lord God, wilt thou destroy all the remnant of Israel? Ezek. 14:13. And will cut off man and beast from it. 14. Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they, by their righteousness, should deliver only their souls. If the prophet Ezekiel was so esteemed by the Lord, that when the six men went through the city slaying, he found himself left alone, as the first verse testifies, because all the remainder merited death, some from their own wickedness, and others, because they assented to it, as the ancient Sages observe, what is the reason that, speaking of the righteous, who, by their own merits, might have saved Jerusalem, he mentions only these three, and makes no account of himself, Jeremiah, and other holy prophets? RECONCILIATION. The Sages solve this difficulty admirably, saying, that, in a manner, each of these three saw the world built, destroyed, and rebuilt, because Noah saw the earth reduced to chaos, and, after the flood, restored to its primitive state. Daniel saw his country, Jerusalem, (a world in miniature) destroyed, and, in his days, flourish again by the rebuilding of the Temple. Job saw his house and family (a small world to him) entirely destroyed, and afterwards prosperously flourish. He names these three for their constancy and firmness, each having been tried,-Noah, without fear of being killed, building, in sight of the world, the ark in which he intended only to save himself; Job against Satan; and Daniel in the lion's den. He names them, as similar occurrences only took place with these three saintly men, and therefore says, they only would have escaped as they had before. He names them also from having escaped the three evils of which the prophet here speaks,-sword, famine, and wild beasts. The Lord preserved Noah from ferocious animals in the ark, from the famine that happened in his time, as He announced at his birth. "This will comfort us, because of the 3 This shews the precision of the tures; they assert that the sign borne out by the text; "they sh posts," forming the letter n thus: 212 ground which the Lord hath cursed;" from sword, when they who saw he alone would escape the wreck of the deluge with life, wished to kill him. Job escaped the famine in Jacob's time, when he is said to have flourished; from the sword, as he said, he cleaveth my veins asunder, and doth not spare;" from wild beast, as his cattle are termed 7, which is applicable to untamed animals. Daniel escaped famine during the three years Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem, in the time of Jehoiachim; the sword, when he was taken prisoner; and then from the lion's den. QUESTION 4. Ezek. 16:3. Thus saith the Lord to Jeru salem, thy habitation and thy nativity is from the land of Canaan. Ibid. Thy father an Ammonite, and thy mother a Hittite. Where, if the birth-place was Canaan, how could the father be an Ammonite, and the mother a Hittite? RECONCILIATION. Although the prophet Ezekiel was at this period in Babylon, the Lord commanded him that he should write from thence this reproof to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And as men readily adopt the customs of the country they reside in, or the affections, inclinations, and habits of their forefathers, whose lives serve as examples, therefore, the prophet reproves Israel for the vices they were attached to; he says, by their actions, they shew that they had sojourned in Canaan, whose heathen customs they had adopted, contrary to the command of God," after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do." Besides, they led people to believe that their father had been an Ammonite, and their mother a Hittite, since they followed their idolatries, and that their parents were not the saintly Abraham and virtuous Sarah, whose conduct they should have imitated: so that his saying this, is only to point out to them that they were unworthy such ancestors; for by their actions, they seemed to be children of vile parents, Ammonites, and from another country. By which the doubt is solved. QUESTION 5. Ezek. 18:5. If a man be just, and doeth justice and judgment, &c. he shall surely live, saith the Lord. Eccles. 7:15. There is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness; there is a wicked that prolongeth (his life) in his wickedness. Where the prophet Ezekiel asserts that the righteous shall live, how does Solomon say, that the just often perishes in his righteousness? RECONCILIATION. As the knowledge of a disease is the first step toward its cure, it is cl |