66 consequent upon their awaking from the dust. The one class awakes to life and honor, the other to shame and dishonor. Now this we affirm to be wholly unsustained by a fair construction of the original. According to that the distinction is between those who awake to life, and those who do not awake at all. In the outset all are represented as sleeping. Out of these all a portion ( many) (many) awake; the rest remain unawakened. This is the ground of the distinction. These,” i. e. the awakened, awake to everlasting life," and those," i. e. the other class, who abide in the dust, who do not awake at all, remain subject to the shame and ignominy of that spiritual death which marked their previous condition. The awaking" is evidently predicated of the "many," and not of the whole. Consequently the" these," in the one case, must be understood of the class that awakes, and the "those," in the other, of that which remains asleep. There is no ground whatever for the idea that the latter awake to shame and contempt. It is simply because they do not awake that this character pertains to them. The error 66 וְאֵלֶּה אֵלֶּה in our translation has arisen from rendering the pronouns ENT "And by some--and some, instead of by these--and those referring respectively to subjects previously indicated. By the former method a distinction is constituted between those who are awakened; by the latter, between those who are and those who are not awakened. The difference is all important, and though the force of the criticism can be fully appreciated only by those who are conversant with the Hebrew, yet the common reader can scarcely fail to perceive from the following examples how strongly our interpretation is fortified by current usage when these words are taken distributively : Josh. 8. 22," So they were in the midst of Israel-these on this side, and those on that side." 2 Sam. 2. 13, they sat down, the one ( these) on the one side of the pool, and the other ( and those) on the other side of the pool." 1 Kings, 20. 20, “And they pitched one over against the other (ÊN DEI DEN these over against those) seven days." In one single instance, and only one, in the whole Bible, do we find these terms used in a sense which affords countenance to the rendering in question. This is in Ps. 20. 7,“ Some ( these) trust in chariots, and some ( and those) in horses: but we will remember," &c. The whole weight of authority is evidently in favor of the construction we have given to the phrase. The first denotes those who awoke, the second those who remained asleep. Life and glory crowned the first, shame and execration clothed the last. Thus understood the passage yields a clear and consistent sense, in which no violence is done to the phrase, many of them that sleep. Its restricted import is preserved, which is otherwise lost. Nor must we here omit to remark that the usage which obtains in regard to the Hebrew term 71 or 7E; to awake, does not so well admit of its being taken, in such a figurative relation, in any but a good sense. The Psalmist says of himself, Ps. 17. 15," As for me, I shall behold thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake (7), with thy likeness." But while it appropriately expresses the awaking of the righteous to a beatified state, it is undoubtedly contrary to the genius of the word to apply it to any change or transition in the state of the wicked. Nor can we here refrain from adducing again the strikingly parallel passage of Isaiah, ch. 26. 19" Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake (p) and sing, for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast forth her dead." These are doubtless the "many" of Daniel, for Gabriel, who is the speaker in this part of the book, tells the prophet that he will "show him that which is noted in the Scripture of truth," i. e. what is contained in the writings of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and other prophets. Here, therefore, he gives an important item of his explanation by pointing to those who are to "awake" from the dust and sing. As for the rest, who did not enter into this number, they are undoubtedly designated in a preceding verse, Is. 26. 14: "They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise; therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish." We should not be surprised if the progress of biblical investigation should yet establish the most intimate relation between these texts and that intensely mysterious portion of the Apocalypse which announces the spiritual quickening, in the first resurrection, of those saints who lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years, and of "the rest of the dead who lived not (ovu ŋoav-erroneously rendered "lived not again") until the thousand years were finished;" or, rather, perhaps "as long as the thousand years were finishing," i. e. during the whole course of the millennium, without any implication that they should live when that period had expired. 66 It is moreover worthy of notice that the term here rendered contempt (1) occurs only once elsewhere, under a slight change of form (17), and that is in Is. 66. 24, where it is applied to dead carcasses which are devoured by worms, and thence become an abhorring (1877) to all flesh," where the language is undoubtedly figurative, and points to a state of moral corruption and putridity characteristic of those who remained in an attitude of persevering transgression against God. As this passage throws light upon the use of the term as here employed, and strikingly confirms the above interpretation, so it becomes a question of deep exegetic import, whether both prophets do not in fact refer to precisely the same period of time, and set before us the same grand order of events. But upon this question our limits will not permit us here to enter. The evidence is, on the whole, we think, decisive, that Daniel speaks of a mystical and not of a literal resurrection. It is the portraiture of the effects of a grand moral influence which is to be put forth upon a large body of his people; and his people are the Jews. But the drift of the symbolic visions of Ezekiel is to describe, as we have seen, the same result in regard to the same people. Why, then, shall we not regard these Scriptures as legitimately parallel in their scope, as we have intimated in our foregoing exposition? ADDENDUM-B. [As an apposite conclusion and crowning of the present expository essay, I have determined to append the following remarks on the closing chapters of Ezekiel, from a work on the "Second Advent," by the Rev. John Fry, Rector of Desford, Leicestershire, Eng. ; published at London, 1822, in two vols. 8vo. The work is now of rare occurrence, and though devoted to the maintenance of the theory of the premillennial personal coming of Christ, from which I am forced entirely to dissent, yet it contains a large amount of valuable comment upon the prophetic Scriptures. With that portion of the work now subjoined which respects the final destiny of the Jews, I have no difficulty in according, except so far as it carries the implication of a personal, visible, bodily manifestation and reign of Christ on the earth, during the space of a thousand years, and in intimate connexion with the predicted ascendency and glory of restored Israel. For this general theory of interpretation I find no sufficient warrant in the oracles of God, and therefore am constrained to reject it altogether. As I interpret these oracles, they come much nearer to announcing an elevation and sublimation of the natural into the sphere of the spiritual, rather than a bringing down of the spiritual into the domain of the natural. While I anticipate, moreover, the most august developments of Providence on the field of human destiny, of which the dawnings may even now be perceived by the enlightened eye, I look with equal confidence for a gradual accomplishment of all the splendid purposes of Infinite Wisdom. Indeed, if there be any one principle of paramount importance to be established in connexion with the interpretation of prophecy, that principle I believe to be the gradualism of its fulfilment.] General Remarks on the concluding Chapters of Ezekiel. AFTER the destruction of the last mortal foe of the Israelites, after their complete restoration, and after the outpouring of the Spirit upon them, we have a description, first, of a temple to be built, with certain regulations respecting the worship to be celebrated therein; and, next, of the city and territory which the worshippers of this temple possess. I perceive nothing to render it doubtful, that the fulfilment of this prophecy is to be expected in the same order in which we find it placed in the vision before us, after the final restoration, and after the destruction of the last foe by the immediate hand of the great Redeemer; not, as some have supposed, previously to these events, so as to be merely introductory to the establishment of Messiah's kingdom.* It is a part, I conceive, of that grand final dispensation. It shows us what will be the situation of the Israelitish nation when restored to be the grand metropolitan nation of the renovated earth, under the reign of Christ and his saints. His dominion is to be bounded only by the extreme borders of the earth; but the seat of his kingdom is to be at Zion and Jerusalem. There he sits "upon the throne of his kingdom;" not so much, as we have had cause to reflect before, after the manner of an earthly monarch in his palace, but as the Elohim of Israel, enshrined in his sanctuary, according to the typical model exhibited in the ancient tabernacle which was pitched in the camp of Israel. The THEOCRACY will be restored:" at Salem" will be his tabernacle-at Jerusalem, the "place of his feet," which he will "render glorious." Here a sanctuary and temple is to be built, not to receive, as Solomon's temple, the contents of "an earthly tabernacle of this building," but of that "made without hands, eternal in the heavens." Here the visible symbols of the divine presence are to be exhibited. Here the GOD-MAN is manifested-to anticipate the language of future oracles-coming "in the glory of His Father, and in His own glory, and the glory of His holy angels." He is still the Vicegerent of His Father. He "comes again with glory," yet still with delegated glory; every tongue is to confess him Lord to the glory of God the Father. But He comes also "with His own glory," the glory ordained Him as the first-born of every creature the righteous and victorious Son of Man. But this glory he shares with all "the children of the resurrection," who appear with him in glory," in such sort that the King of Saints is as "the first-born among many brethren." This part of the glory that is to be manifested, we have before considered as symbolized by the cherubim and seraphim, both as molten and wrought about the mercy-seat and tabernacle, and also as seen in the visions of the prophets, attendant on "a resemblance like the appearance of a man." Besides this glory, or these glories, is enumerated "the glory of the holy angels." They will be seen ascending and descending upon the Son of Man, "angels and principalities being made subject to him" in his capacity of King of Saints. How these glories are particularly manifested in the holy mountain of Jehovah's house, or in what manner Christ and His saints will govern the nations upon earth, "reigning from Jerusalem to the end of earth," we can, perhaps, have no very adequate idea at * See the interesting work of Mr. Pirie on the Restoration of Israel. |