in the doors of the houses, and speak
one to another, every one to his brother, saying, Come, I pray you, and
hear what is the word that cometh forth from the Lord. And they come
unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people,
and they hear thy words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth
they show much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness. And
lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant
voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear thy words, but
they do them not." Ezekiel was called to the prophetical office "in the
fifth year of king Jehoiachin's captivity" (1:2), from which date he
constantly reckons. Jeremiah's activity as a prophet continued not only
through the eleven years of Zedekiah's reign, but for a considerable
period afterwards; so that the two prophets were for some time
contemporary, the one prophesying in Jerusalem and afterwards in Egypt,
the other among the captives in Mesopotamia. The latest date which the
prophecies of Ezekiel furnish is the twenty-seventh year of Jehoiachin's
captivity, about twenty-two years from the time when he was called to
his office. How much longer he prophesied we have no means of
determining.

The date with which the book of Ezekiel opens is "the thirtieth
year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month," which
was also "the fifth year of king Jehoiachin's captivity" (verse
2), or five hundred and ninety-five years before Christ.
Reckoning back from this date thirty years, we come to the
eighteenth year of Josiah, when he repaired the temple, and
solemnly renewed the worship of God; and also to the first year
of Nabopolassar, the father of Nebuchadnezzar, who made Babylon
independent of the Assyrian monarchy, and thus established a new
era. Some have assumed the former of these two eras as that from
which the prophet reckons; but the latter is more probable.
Writing, as he does, under the Chaldean monarchy, it is natural
that he should give, at the outset, a date by which the
chronology of the whole series of his prophecies may be
determined in reference to Chaldean history. Elsewhere he dates
from Jehoiachin's captivity.

16. It is not worth while to raise any questions concerning the purity
of Ezekiel's Hebrew, as compared with that of the earlier writers. The
Holy Spirit is not concerned about the classic sty