And the hand of the Lord was

upon me, and the Lord brought me midst of a plain, and this was full of out in spirit, and placed me in the

Καὶ ἐγένετο ἐπ' ἐμὲ χεὶρ Κυρίου, καὶ ἐξήγαγέ με ἐν πνεύματι Κύριος, καὶ ἔθηκέ με ἐν μέσῳ τοῦ πεδίου, καὶ τοῦτο ἦν μεστὸν ὁστέων ἀνθρω- human bones. ην πίνων.

TARG. OF JONATHAN.

The spirit of prophecy from before the Lord settled upon me, and he brought me in the spirit of prophecy which had settled upon me from before the Lord, and placed me in the midst of a field which was full of the bones of men.

VULG. VERS.

Facta est super me manus Domini, et eduxit me in spiritu Domini; et dimisit me in medio campi, qui erat plenus ossibus.

COMMENTARY.

The hand of the Lord was upon me. The usage which employs "hand of the Lord" for "power of the Lord," or supernatural illapse of the Divine Spirit upon the mind of the prophet, is of frequent occurrence with the sacred writers. Thus ch. 33. 22, "Now the hand of the Lord was upon me in the evening." Ch. 40. 1, "In the self-same day the hand of the Lord was upon me, and brought me thither." The Targum of Jonathan, given above, discloses its true import; "The spirit of prophecy from before the Lord settled upon me." The precise manner in which this influence was exerted upon the prophets, it is not necessary to determine. They were, by a supernatural power, brought into an entranced condition similar to that of Paul, when he says of himself, that he was caught up into the third heaven, and knew not whether he was in the body or out of the body.

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And carried me out in the Spirit of the Lord. Heb. **** The grammatical construction is here subject to some doubt. According to our version, which is derived from the Lat. Vulg., it is the hand of the Lord which leads the prophet forth, but this does violence to syntax, as it makes "hand" to be both masculine and feminine in the same verse. The Greek, doubtless, represents the true construction of the original; zai rayé μe ev ἐν πveúμati zúgios, and the Lord led me out in Spirit. This the Hebrew will readily admit, and indeed the position of the accents. requires it; "The Lord carried me out in spirit." Here, again, we have the true clue to the sense afforded in the version of the Targum: "And he led me forth in the spirit of prophecy which had settled upon me from before the Lord." It was not a real but a mental leading forth to the scene of the vision. Such an influence came upon him as to transport him in spirit to the place described. It is the usual phraseology for expressing the condition of prophetic ecstasy or trance, in which the subject is often in body in one place and in spirit conveyed to another. In this peculiar psychical state, the laws of which are but imperfectly understood, the unreal becomes to the beholder for the time real, and he is surrounded by scenery which is to him invested with the character of bona fide existence, and which in his waking moments, and in his normal state, he describes just as it was presented to his mind's eye. This entranced condition seems to have been repeatedly the lot of Ezekiel, in the course of his discharge of the prophetic functions to which he was called. Thus, ch. 8. 1-3, "And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I sat in mine house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, that the hand of the Lord God fell there upon Then I beheld, and lo a likeness as the appearance of fire: from the appearance of his loins even downward, fire: and from his loins even upward, as the appearance of brightness, as the colour of amber. And he put forth the form of an hand, and took me by a lock of mine head; and the spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the inner gate that looketh toward the north; where was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provoketh to jealousy." So again, ch. 11. 24, "Afterwards the spirit took me up, and brought me in a vision by the Spirit of God into Chaldea, to them of the captivity."

me.

Altogether similar was the state into which Daniel and John were brought in the reception of these divine communications which were made to them relative to the future destinies of the church and the world; nor do we suppose that eminently good men in other ages have been wholly strangers to supernatural illapses very

nearly akin to those of the prophets. That this state has often been simulated by religious enthusiasts, and bold claims put forth to extraordinary revelations, which were prompted solely by a spirit of delusion, must indeed be admitted; but this is not sufficient to disprove the fact, that genuine influences of this nature are occasionally. vouchsafed to the pious in all periods of the church. The spurious and the counterfeit rather argues the existence of the true and the real, and the fact that Satan may transform himself into an angel of light does not invalidate, but rather confirms, the doctrine that there are angels of light whom he would fain personate. The source of such alleged spiritual phenomena must be judged of by their accordance with the general tenor of Scripture, and by the practical teachings and deportment of those who lay claim to them. Nothing of this nature must be admitted for a moment to be of God which in any manner goes to contravene or supersede the obvious import of the written word; and in the case of the prophets, it is probable that a certain ineffable self-evidencing power went with the disclosures accorded to them, which put their divine origin beyond question.

And set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones. The original word for set down () signifies properly to cause to rest, and implies a gentle demission or alighting, as from an aerial flight. It would seem that the prophets in their ecstasy conceived themselves to be borne by a sailing motion through the air, and the term here employed is peculiarly appropriate to the easy and gentle lighting down of a winged being from the atmosphere. Thus, ch. 40. 2, "In the visions of God brought he me into the land of Israel, and set me (and made me to rest) upon a very high mountain." This was a similar transportation in the spirit to that which we are now considering.--The Heb.

pa, from spa to cleave, has primarily the signification of valley, as formed by the cleaving of mountains, but its more frequent sense is that of plain (nedíov), as rendered by the Greek and Syriac. The Arabic has solitude or desert. The Heb. usage will be seen from the following examples. Gen. 11. 2, "And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain (p) in the land of Shinar." The site of Babylon is well known to be an extensive plain. If we suppose a primary allusion in the prophecy to the condition of the Jews in Babylon, the propriety of the proposed rendering is still more apparent. So, Ezek. 3. 22, 23, "And the hand of the Lord was there upon me; and he said unto me, Arise, go forth into the plain (pa), and I will there talk with thee. Then I arose, and went forth into the plain (a); and behold, the glory of the Lord stood there, as the glory which I saw by the river of Chebar: and I fell on my face." This is probably the import of the term in the present connexion. The "bones.

spoken of are not expressly said to have been human bones, but this is the natural inference, and such is the actual rendering of both the Chaldee and the Greek. These bones, as if the remains of numerous unburied corses, were strewed in every direction over the surface of the plain, and in the midst of them the prophet is in imagination set down.

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COMMENTARY.

2. And caused me to pass by them round about. The original is here rendered peculiarly emphatic and expressive by the duplication of the term rendered round about; "He caused me to pass by them, around, around," as if required by repeated circuits to make the most intent survey of these mournful mementoes of mortality-these accumulated relics of what had once been a multitudinous host of living men, fresh in the strength of manhood, acting, hoping, fearing, loving, but now sunk down to a mere ghastly residuum of dried and withered bones! The image of the lonely traveller or the meditative sage walking to and fro amid the ruins of an ancient city, pondering upon its dilapidated palaces, tracing out the course of its crumbling walls, or deciphering its dimmed inscriptions, comes upon the spirit full of sombre and affecting impressions. But what is this compared with the effect of which we are conscious, when called to contemplate ideally a scene like the present? Here is a prophet of God standing, not in the midst of mouldering pillars, arches, and towers, but of the ruins of man himself! It is not the relics of the work of his hands which he surveys, but of the hand of his works! The temple may be