Ezekiel 4:6

And when thou hast accomplished them,.... The three hundred and ninety days, by lying so long on the left side, bearing the sins of the house of Israel in this way; or, as Cocceius renders the words,

And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year.

When thou hast almost accomplished, or when about to accomplish them, i.e. forty days, before the three hundred and ninety do expire, at the end of three hundred and fifty days turn thou to thy right side, and bear the iniquity of the house of Judah; and that this is the true account appears from this verse, compared with ,2 8:1, say some, and those very learned men. Others will have the forty days distinct from the three hundred and ninety, and reckon them by themselves, and so the better and grammatical construction in the Hebrew seems to carry it, for it speaks in the perfect tense, and lying. a second time. But be these numbers distinct or but one, is no great concern; either way they do plainly speak God’ s wonderful patience with Israel and Judah, and point out the time of the miseries of both for their sinfulness. Again, Heb. a second time. Thou shalt bear the iniquity: see . Of the house of Judah; of the two tribes, say some; of the royal family, say others, and countenance it with ; and then Israel distinguished is the whole body of the two tribes, and the remnant of the ten tribes that escaped, and embodied with the two tribes; as some did at the first division, others afterward in Asa’ s, Jehoshaphat’ s, Hezekiah’ s, and Josiah’ s time, leave their places and came to Jerusalem. Forty days; it is plain they are so many years, but not so plain where to begin them, whether from Manasseh, or more probably from Josiah’ s renewing covenant, until the destruction of the temple, which is forty years; during which time God deferred to punish, expecting whether they would keep covenant and walk with God, or retain their idolatries and wicked ways, which latter they did for thirteen years of Josiah’ s reign, for eleven of Jehoiakim, and eleven of Zedekiah’ s reign, and five of his captivity, which amount to just forty years; and they are mentioned, say some, apart from the three hundred and ninety, because they were more wickedly abused to promote sin.

Ezekiel 4:6 And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year.Ver. 6. And when thou hast accomplished them.] That is, art within forty years of accomplishing them. Thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days,] i.e., Years, beginning at the eighteenth year of Josiah; or, as others compute it, at his thirteenth year, and ending them in the eleventh of Zedekiah, which are the bounds of Jeremiah’ s prophecy. A very learned man yet living observeth, that God doth here set and mark out Judah’ s singular iniquity by a singular mark; for that they had forty years so pregnant instructions and admonitions by so eminent a prophet as Jeremiah, yet were they impenitent to their own destruction. And the like may well be said of Dr Ussher, that prophet of Ireland, who, upon the toleration of Popery there, preaching before the State at Dublin upon a special solemnity, made a full and bold application of this text unto them in these very words: From this year, said he - viz., A.D. 1601 - will I reckon the sin of Ireland; and dare say that those whom you embrace shall be your ruin, and you shall bear this iniquity. And it happened accordingly; for, forty years after - viz., A.D. 1641 - began the rebellion and destruction of Ireland, done by those Papists and Popish priests then connived at. Dr Ussher’ s Funeral Sermon, by Dr Bern. 39.

(5) The years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days.—Comp. Numbers 14:34. In regard to the number of the years, see Excursus II. at the end of this book. (6) The iniquity of the house of Judah forty days.—This forty days is clearly subsequent and additional to the 390 days, making in all a period of 430 days. (On these numbers see Excursus II. at the end of this book.) The great disproportion between the two is in accordance with the difference in the two parts of the nation, and the consequent Divine dealings with them. Judah had remained faithful to its appointed rulers of the house of David, several of whose kings had been eminently devout men; through whatever mixture with idolatry it had yet always retained the worship of Jehovah, and had kept up the Aaronic priesthood, and preserved with more or less respect the law of Moses. It was now entering upon the period of the Babylonish captivity, from which, after seventy years, a remnant was to be again restored to keep up the people of the Messiah. Israel, on the other hand, had set up a succession of dynasties, and not one of all their kings had been a God-fearing man; they had made Baal their national god, and had made priests at their pleasure of the lowest of the people, and in consequence of their sins had been carried into a captivity from which they never returned. B: ON CHAPTER 4:5, 6.The explanation of the periods of time here mentioned has occasioned great difficulty and difference of opinion among the commentators. The subject may be best approached by first observing what points are clearly determined in the text itself, and then excluding all interpretations which are inconsistent with these. In the first place, it is expressly stated in each of these verses that these days represent years. No interpretation, therefore, can be admitted which requires them to be literal days. Secondly, it is plain that the period is one of “bearing their iniquity”; not a period in which they are becoming sinful, but one in which they are suffering the punishment of their sin. Thirdly, it is plain from the whole structure of the symbolism that this period is in some way intimately connected with the siege of Jerusalem. Finally, the two periods of 390 and of forty days are distinct. If the symbolism was carried out in act, they must have been consecutive, and it is still the natural inference that they were so, even if it was only in vision. The two periods together, then, constitute 430 days; yet this is not to be emphasised, since no express mention is made of the whole period. These points of themselves exclude several of the explanations that have from time to time been put forward.

Verse 6. Forty days] Reckon, says Archbishop Newcome, near fifteen years and six months in the reign of Manasseh, two years in that of Amon, three months in that of Jehoahaz, eleven years in that of Jehoiakim, three months and ten days in that of Jehoiachin, and eleven years in that of Zedekiah; and there arises a period of forty years, during which gross idolatry was practiced in the kingdom of Judah. Forty days may have been employed in spoiling and desolating the city and the temple.

6. In Ezekiel 4:5 the number of days for Israel is stated to be 390, and in Ezekiel 4:6 the number for Judah 40. The number 390 creates a difficulty. Several things have to be borne in mind. 1. To bear iniquity means to bear the penalty of it. The period of bearing iniquity, therefore, does not refer to the time of sinning but to the time of being punished for sin. Consequently any allusion to the period of the duration of the Northern Kingdom is excluded. 2. The representation in this prophet, as in all the prophets, is that the overthrow of the state is due to the sin of the people, and this overthrow with the continued state of the Exile and its hardships is the punishment of the people’s sin. To be subdued by the heathen and driven into exile is for the people to have to bear their iniquity. Hence restoration is impossible until the iniquity of the people is paid off, or atoned in suffering (Isaiah 40:2). Israel’s bearing of iniquity comes to an end with the Restoration: “Cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, her iniquity pardoned.” 3. It is the view of all the prophets, Ezekiel included, that the Restoration will embrace all the existing captives both of the North and South, every one called by Jehovah’s name (Isaiah 43:6-7; cf. Isaiah 11:12 seq.; Jeremiah 3:12; Jeremiah 3:18; Ezekiel 37:16 seq. &c.). And this restoration is final. 4. It follows from all this that the periods during which Israel and Judah bear their iniquity terminate simultaneously. Israel bears iniquity longer than Judah because it began to bear earlier. It is evident (cf. Ezekiel 4:9) that the whole period of bearing iniquity in exile Isaiah 390 years, not 390 + 40 or 430, but 350 + 40, the 40 years of Judah running parallel to the last 40 of Israel. The period of 40 years for Judah’s exile is confirmed by ch. Ezekiel 29:11-14, where it is said that Egypt shall be carried into captivity 40 years by Nebuchadnezzar, and at the end of that period restored, though not to its former greatness. Forty years is the period of Chaldean supremacy; at the end of that period Babylon shall fall, a new world arise, and the captive nations shall be restored. Now the prophet cannot possibly have supposed that Israel went into exile 350 years before Judah. From the fall of Samaria (722) to the destruction of Jerusalem (586) is only 136 years. In Ezekiel 4:5 LXX. reads 190 (so Ezekiel 4:9); in Ezekiel 4:4 the reading Isaiah 150, which probably is an addition (Field’s Hex.). The number 190 is probably the original one. It is not quite certain from what point the prophet computed, whether from the fall of Samaria (722), which is most natural, or from the deportation of the Northern tribes by Tiglath Pileser twelve years earlier; as he spoke also before the fall of Jerusalem even this point may be somewhat indefinite.

6. Lie again on thy right side… forty days, etc. — The left side represented the northern kingdom (Israel), which lay to the left, according to Hebrew geography; the right represented the southern