they had shown a bad example in practising idolatry. The duties and
prerogatives of each one, the tithes and offerings, the sacrifices, the
solemn festivals, the preparation of the feasts,--all was foreseen and
prearranged with scrupulous exactitude. Ezekiel was, as we have seen, a
priest; the smallest details were as dear to him as the noblest offices
of his calling, and the minute ceremonial instructions as to the killing
and cooking of the sacrificial animals appeared to him as necessary to
the future prosperity of his people as the moral law. Towards the end,
however, the imagination of the seer soared above the formalism of the
sacrificing priest; he saw in a vision waters issuing out of the very
threshold of the divine house, flowing towards the Dead Sea through a
forest of fruit trees, "whose leaf shall not wither, neither shall the
fruit thereof fail." The twelve tribes of Israel, alike those of whom
a remnant still existed as well as those which at different times
had become extinct, were to divide the regenerated land by lot among
them--Dan in the extreme north, Reuben and Judah in the south; and they
would unite to found once more, around Mount Sion, that new Jerusalem
whose name henceforth was to be Jahveh-shammah, "The Lord is there."*

* Ezek. xlvii., xlviii. The image of the river seems to be
borrowed from the _vessel of water_ of Chaldaean mythology.

The influence of Ezekiel does not seem to have extended beyond a
restricted circle of admirers. Untouched by his preaching, many of the
exiles still persisted in their worship of the heathen gods; most of
these probably became merged in the bulk of the Chaldaean population,
and were lost, as far as Israel was concerned, as completely as were
the earlier exiles of Ephraim under Tiglath-pileser III. and Sargon. The
greater number of the Jews, however, remained faithful to their hopes of
future greatness, and applied themselves to discerning in passing events
the premonitory signs of deliverance. "Like as a woman with child, that
draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her
pangs; so have we been before Thee, O Lord.... Come, my people, enter
thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself for
a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. For, behold, the
Lord cometh forth out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the
earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and
shall