Translator's Preface

Translator's Preface

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE

An Interest of no ordinary kind is excited in the mind of the Biblical Student by the mention of ”Calvin’s Lectures On Ezekiel.” The last Work which a great man leaves unfinished, because arrested by the hand of death, becomes at once an heirloom to posterity. After the lapse of nearly three hundred years, we read this affecting sentence with a tear and a sigh: “When this last Lecture was completed, that most illustrious man John Calvin, who had previously been weakened by sickness, then became so much worse that he was compelled to lie on his couch, and could not proceed further in his explanation of Ezekiel: This is the reason why he stopped at the end of the twentieth chapter, and did not complete the work so happily begun.” Afflicted as Calvin was for the last few years of his life, the wonder is that he accomplished so much in preaching, lecturing, and dictating; and although we have still to mourn over so much unfinished, we are filled with astonishment at the labors he achieved.

The vigor of his mind and the stores of his learning are amply displayed in his Commentary On Ezekiel. And that the modern reader may enter fully into those valuable explanations of the text which he will find in the ensuing pages, it will be desirable to furnish him with a slight sketch of the times in which this Prophet lived. We shall then add such critical remarks as may illustrate our Author’s exposition of the Sacred Text.

“Thy sons shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon,” were the ominous words of Isaiah to a king of Judah, and after the lapse of a century they were fulfilled to the letter. Kings, and priests, and nobles, and people were all swept away by the remorseless monarch, and planted here and there along the lenny banks of the river Chebar. There Ezekiel pined in misery among three thousand captives of rank, who, according to Josephus, graced the triumph of Nebuchadnezzar. Either a priest or the son of a priest, (for the sense is doubtful, Ezekiel 1:4,) here he was compelled to linger during twenty-two years of his life, while he was wrapt in prophetic vision, and carried on the wings of the soul to the city of his fathers. Here he tarried in body, while his spirit was at home with the Cherubim within the Temple, among their wings and wheels, and burning movements, and mysterious brightness. Here he often gazed upwards into the firmament above him, and in the clear azure of an eastern sky beheld the sapphire throne, and the appearance of the glory of Jehovah resting majestically upon it! Here he experienced the prophetic inspiration, and was strengthened to proclaim in Jehovah’s Name the mysteries of punishments and desolation. He was permitted to enunciate the great truths of God’s moral government of his ancient ones — to proclaim the eternal connection between obedience and happiness, transgression and ruin. Nor was he alone in his declarations of vengeance against every man “that setteth up his idols in his heart.” When he entered on his office, Jeremiah had completed the thirty-fourth year of his apostleship, and was contemporary with him for at least eight years. Amidst insult, obloquy, and scorn, he proclaimed before the faithless king the coming hosts of the Chaldeans; while Zephaniah was still prophesying in Judaea, and Daniel proclaiming the power of holiness in the land of Babylon.

Ezekiel is remarkably silent as to his personal history, so that we are unable to ascertain his age, at either the commencement or the close of his mission. Josephus supposes him to have been but a youth when hurried from the land of his fathers, but Havernick remarks with justice, that he displays so fully the matured character of a priest in his intimate acquaintance with the details of the Temple service, that he may well be supposed to have attained the age of thirty before his removal. The death of his wife is the only personal event to which he refers, in the ninth year of the Captivity, (Ezekiel 24:18,) and it seems probable that he spent the whole of his remaining life on the banks of the Chebar. He had evidently acquired a commanding influence over his fellow-prisoners, as their elders frequently came to enquire concerning God’s message at his lips. (Ezekiel 8; Ezekiel 19; Ezekiel 20; Ezekiel 23) The traditions respecting his death are various, but as they rest on no solid foundation, they may be permitted to die out in the obscurity of intentional silence.

Note 1. Havernick, Commentar uber Ezelkiel. Erlangen, 1843, See also Wielder Bibl. Relaworterbuch, art. Ezechiel. Leipsic, 1833.

Before we can enter with satisfaction into any views of the style and interpretation of an ancient author, it is desirable to ascertain the genuineness and authenticity of the writing on which we are about to comment. And as Biblical Criticism has made great pretensions to advancement since the time of Calvin, it becomes necessary for his modern Editor to be in some degree acquainted with its progress, to be prepared to state some definite conclusions for the guidance of less instructed enquirers.

As to the Genuineness Of Ezekiel’s Writings, it has never been seriously called in question by the learned, either Jew or Christian. Some self-sufficient Critics have impugned the last nine chapters: Their valueless arguments will be found, by those who wish to search for such unsatisfactory materials, in Rosenmuller, while their refutation is completed by Jahn, in his Introduction to the Sacred Books of the Old Testament, and is rendered accessible to the mere English reader by Hartwell Horne So little weight, however, is attached to such opinions, that even Gesenius allows a “oneness of tone” to be so conspicuous throughout Ezekiel’s Prophecies, as to forbid the suspicion that any portions of them are not genuine. This Book formed part of the Canon in the Catalogues of Melito and Origen, of Jerome and of the Talmud. Josephus, indeed, refers to two Books of Ezekiel, probably dividing his prophecies into two parts. His language has necessarily given rise to some discussion, which Eichhorn has set at rest as satisfactorily as the data will allow.

Note 2. Introduction, volume 4.

Note 3. Antiq. 10:5, section 1.

Note 4. Einleitung, volume 3

The Arrangement Of The Various Predictions has been the subject of a variety of opinions. Some have supposed that Chronological Order has been interfered with, and that different collections of the separate Prophecies might be made with advantage. But Havernick, in his valuable Commentary, published as late as 1843, maintains that the present arrangement is correct. It proceeds, he asserts, in the order of time, and connects, as it ought to do, the Prophecies against foreign nations with those against Israel and Judah. Hence he divides the Book into the following nine Sections: —

1. The Call to the Prophetic Office. (Ezekiel 1-3:15.)

2. The Symbolical Representations foretelling the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem. (Ezekiel 4:16 through Ezekiel 7.)

3. A Series of Visions, a year and two months later than the former. In these he is shown the Temple polluted by the worship of Adonis, the consequent vengeance on the priests and people, and the prospect of happier times and a purer worship. (Ezekiel 8-11.)

4. A Series of Reproofs and Warnings against the prevailing sins and prejudices of his day. (Ezekiel 12-19.)

5. Another Series of Warnings, one year later, still announcing the coming judgments. (Ezekiel 20-23.)

6. Predictions, two years and five months later, announcing the very day of the Siege Of Jerusalem, and assuring the captives of its complete overthrow. (Ezekiel 24.)

7. Predictions against Foreign Nations. (Ezekiel 25-32.)

8. After the Destruction of the City, The Future Triumph of The Kingdom of God on Earth. (Ezekiel 33-39.)

9. Symbolic Representations of The Times Of Messiah, and the prosperity of the Kingdom of God. (Ezekiel 40-48.)

There is a negative merit in Calvin’s Lectures, which has not been imitated by some later Commentators. He never makes those observations on Ezekiel’s Style And Diction which would reduce him to the level of a merely human writer. Grotius and Eichhorn, Lowth and Michaelis dwell on his erudition and genius, and assign him the same rank among the Hebrews which Aeschylus holds among the Greeks. They praise his knowledge of architecture, and his skill in oratory. They call him bold, vehement, tragical; “in his sentiments elevated, warm, bitter, indignant; in his images fertile, magnificent, harsh, and sometimes almost deformed; in his diction grand, weighty, austere, rough, and sometimes uncultivated; abounding in repetition, not for the sake of ornament and gracefulness, but through indignation and violence.”

Note 5. Lowth, Hebrews Prael., 21:279. 8vo, 2nd. ed.

Such language as this clearly implies a very different view of the Prophet’s character and mission from that taken by Calvin. He looked upon him as a grand instrument in the hands of The Most High, and would have instinctively felt it to be profane thus to reduce him to the level of the Poets and Seers of heathenism. In this feeling we ought to concur. The modern method of criticizing the style and matter of The Hebrew Prophets deserves our warmest reprobation. They are too often treated as if their thoughts and their language were only of human origin. Their visions, their metaphors, and their parables, are submitted to the crucible of a worldly alchemy, in entire forgetfulness that these men were the special messengers of God. To them it was commanded — “The word that I shall say unto thee, that shalt thou speak.” “Thou canst not go beyond the word of The Lord, to say less or more.” It is not for us to speak, as Bishop Lowth does, of a “remarkable instance of that exaggeration which is deservedly esteemed the characteristic of this poet.” And again, of “an image, suggested by the former part of this Prophecy, happily introduced and well pursued.” All such language as this, whether in praise or blame of the imagery and expressions of the Prophets of the Old Testament, is highly irreverent. It is scarcely consistent with simple and confiding views of Divine inspiration. They assume principles of interpretation, and of exegesis, totally at variance with that implicit confidence in the plenary inspiration of the Prophets, with which the early reformers were imbued.

And what have we gained by listening to the teachers of Modern Germany, and passing by as antiquated the giant expounders of Geneva? The question is an important one, and the answer to it implies much laborious reading and much patient thought. It requires some acquaintance with the writers on Biblical hermeneutics from Calvin’s time to our own — some symmetry of mind to pass a judicial sentence with candor and precision. This, at least, the casual reader may perceive, viz., a striking difference between the modern Neologian and the ancient Genevan tone in treating these sublime subjects; and the question will recur, what shall we gain by deserting Calvin and taking up with Eichhorn? That we may present the readers with some data for estimating fairly our defense of Calvin, we will make a few extracts from this well-known writer, selecting him simply as an average specimen from many others of even greater celebrity. In the 545th section of his introduction to the Old Testament, he speaks of his “originality,” of “the lively fiction of his inexhaustible imagination,” and of his “gathering materials for his poems.” In a few sections afterwards he adds, that his poems are “inventions,” and “a work” of art, and “manifest the wild shoots of a heated imagination.”

Note 6. Volume 3. 8vo, Leipsic, 1783.

Note 7. Section 547.

Note 8. Section 551.

If this be the result of the elaborate researches of modern times, then we may surely throw ourselves back into the arms of older and sounder Commentators. They never delight in banishing The Almighty from his own Word: they never treat him as a stranger in his own land. His agency is with them no intermitting tide, carrying a shifting wave of glory from strand to strand, and leaving only a dreary waste of centuries between, strewed only with the wrecks of his broken workmanship. The long line of Hebrew Seers were either inspired of God, or their writings are deceptions.

Men of Calvin’s faith and devotion believed that beneath the surface of their imagery, and parables, and oriental diction, lay concealed a living power which energized all this glowing machinery, which marshaled the thoughts within the speaker’s mind, and then clothed them in the burning words and the glowing phrases which spoke alternately either joy or sadness to the hearer’s soul. If the proverb of the Royal Sage is true — “Death and life are in the power of the tongue,” then the Master-mind of the Divine Artist touched Ezekiel’s tongue with living flame, and gave his language more elevation, dignity, and majesty, than the most exalted genius, or the richest imagination could accomplish. And if these views be comforting and refreshing to the soul, we “gain a loss” by passing away from Geneva, as it was to Neology as it is. For where are we to stop in our downward course? When we allow ourselves to speak of the traditional creation-week of Moses, or the rocks on which Ezekiel stranded, we are hastening on the high road to the myths of Strauss, or the pantheism of Emerson and Parker.

The voice of an Apostle should still sound in our ears.” Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy or vain deceit,” when we find M. Comte, in his remarkable work “Cours de Philosophic Positive,” speaking of a radical incompatibility between Theology and positive Philosophy — treating as chimerical all attempts to reconcile Modern Science with Divine Revelation, and in reliance on the irresistible tendency of our present scientific speculations, entertaining the hope of getting rid of the “Hypothesis of a God.” (Tome 4:51. Lecon.) Our wisdom lies in resisting the first temptation to this downward progress. If we allow Exchhorn and Gesenius to lead us into discussions about the Prophet’s “polite genius” instead of his divine inspiration, and to attribute his language to the temper and talent of the man instead of to the guiding power of God’s Holy Spirit, then there is no step of skepticism and infidelity which we may not ultimately reach.

Note 9. Einleitung in das A. T., volume 3, and Geschichte der Hebrews Sprache u. Schrift, p. 35.

This warning proceeds from no blind admirer of antiquated error, and from no thoughtless despiser of modern science. Let us have the freest and fullest right of search into all the language of Ancient Prophecy: we claim and we court the minutest investigations, while an experience of no limited extent leads us to reject the haughty boastings of the last new skeptics over the writings of men, within the fringes of whose shadow the present generation are not worthy to tread.

It may now fairly be enquired, how far Calvin’s Interpretations Of The Visions Of Ezekiel have been superseded by the researches of modern times? And it may also be asked, whether the speculations of modern German divines — the children of the Reformation — have set aside the Biblical hermeneutics of their great forerunner? Those questions are worthy of our attentive replies.

The general principle of Calvin’s Interpretation of The Visions of Ezekiel is an immediate appeal to the miraculous interposition of God. He saw in them God acting directly and powerfully on the Prophet’s mind, and through him on the people. He did not consider them as merely illustrating God’s general Providence and government of the world, or as portraying any ordinary operations of his grace in the souls of the people; he looked upon them as representing a miraculous and visible interference with the ordinary laws of the Nation’s discipline. His perception of the obstinacy, ingratitude and perverseness of the Jews was so great, that he considered their remarkable idolatry and profaneness justified any breach of the laws of nature, with the view of restoring them to obedience, and securing their salvation. The moral end to be attained always appeared to him to justify the physical disturbance of the laws which regulate our outward existence. The inestimable value of the soul, when compared with anything earthly, rendered no miracle improbable to his mind, if it only tended to that ultimate result.

Comparing the Interpretations of Calvin with those of modern Continental Divines, we have no reason to conclude that the views of the great Reformer have been superseded. The progress of Biblical Criticism during the last 800 years has indeed been accompanied with some clearer views of the details, but the fundamental principles of these Lectures On Ezekiel have never been successfully impugned. The Miracles of the Old Testament have been boldly assailed, both at home and abroad, and no slight outpouring of infidel wrath has fallen upon the Calvin interpretation of those of Ezekiel. Germany, the birthplace of the Reformation, has been also the seed-bed of spurious Rationalism. The novelty of any opinion on Biblical subjects has now become a sufficient atonement for its absurdity, and he receives the greatest applause from the many, who casts farthest from him whatsoever has commanded the veneration of ages. The direct interposition of Jehovah’s power in the affairs of men, as related in the writings of the Hebrews, has lately exercised the ingenuity of German skeptics to an almost incredible extent. The mysticism of the School of Schelling has rivaled the extravagancies of the theory of accommodation proposed by the celebrated Semler.

Professors of theology in various celebrated Universities have arisen, who have rejected with contempt whatever portion of the Old Testament they could not reconcile with their own individual reason, and who have rested their instruct, ions on gratuitous assertions and groundless hypotheses, which make a larger demand on our credulity than the Miracles do on our faith. Eichhorn, Bonsdorf, Rosenmuller, and Wegscheider, are names with which the reader of Foreign Theology has become too familiar. Their theories have now given place to many a later development, including the speculative Christology of Schleiermacher, and the fanciful myths of Strauss. Highly as we value some of the grammatical and philosophical labors of this School of Hebraists, we cannot but deem them morally incompetent to be our guides in Scriptural interpretation. Far from despising the showy guesses of genius, or the solid treasures of learning, we would pause before we tender the homage of our admiration to those who profess to reconcile the study of Divinity with what they term The Enquiring Spirit of the Age. Our reverence must not be withdrawn from the piety and simplicity of a Calvin, to be prostituted to the praise of a paradoxical erudition, or a perverted ingenuity.

Nor is our view of Calvin as a Commentator overstated, in the opinion of one of the giants of orthodoxy of modern Germany. Hengstenberg, who has earned undying repute by parrying the deadly thrusts of the heroes of Rationalism, Dr. Wette Von Bohlen, Vatke and Hitzig, characterizes Calvin by saying — “This man stands still farther above his followers than above his predecessors. One cannot sufficiently wonder how such a leader could have had such followers. [...] It is impossible for any man who had carefully studied the Commentaries of Calvin to become so thoroughly and consistently superficial, as all of them show themselves to be.” For instance both Von Bohlen and Vatke have asserted that there is no trace of the existence of the Pentateuch in the Older Prophets, and hence they have invented an argumentum a silentio, on which they lay it down as an axiom, that the Older Prophets knew nothing of the Pentateuch, and that the Law was for the first time committed to writing about the times of Ezekiel!

Doctrines such as these have been industriously propagated by three critics of great influence, viz., Spencer, Le Clerc, and J. D. Michaelis. The labors of Spencer in his work De Legibus Hebraeorum Ritualibus, have, in recent times, found a kindred spirit in the virulent hostility of Strauss. In both there is the same icy coldness, the same religious weakness, the same attempt to destroy that sense of God’s presence, so conspicuously honored in Calvin’s Comments on this Prophet and the others. Spencer denies all spiritual meaning to the Visions of God’s agents, and to the appearances of the Cherubim, allowing, indeed, at times, a ratio mystica et typica, but retracting it immediately on spiritual meaning being alluded to. The grossness of his idea of God, and the lowness of his views of symbolical interpretation, may be judged of from the following passage: — “Deus interim, ut superstirtoni quovis pacto irefur obviam, ritus non paneos, mulforum annorum et gentiurn usu cohonestatos, quos ineptias norat esse tolerabiles in sacrorum suorum numerum adoptavit.” This shallow and shortsighted system spread rapidly among those who boasted themselves to be disciples of the early Reformation, because they no longer appreciated the spiritual nature of the Prophetic symbols, as so ably explained by Calvin in his Lectures.

After Spencer we have Le Clerc, who is as superficial and as unsatisfying as most Arminians of his School. Whatever indicates a living God — taking interest in the punishment or the consolation of the Hebrews, sending them Prophets to warn and to threaten — he calls anthropomorphism. He only plays with the husk, and finds no kernel. He had a kind of horror of any superhuman interposition: Miracle and Prophecy were alike rejected; everything beyond the operation of merely natural causes was put out of sight and artfully explained away.

At length Michaelis, in his Mosaisches Recht, Mosaic Jurisprudence, and in his Annotations for the Unlearned, labored most assiduously to unsettle the foundations of the Biblical Writings as inspired.

The Modern School, who look down contemptuously upon THE Credulity Of The Early Reformers, and fancy themselves emancipated from the trammels of their narrow systems, boasts in its skill of detecting truth by means of Internal Evidence. This is a weapon of two-edged power; and if used in the spirit of an earnest and sober criticism, may be used successfully in support, of the integrity of the Ancient Scriptures. Let the reader, in turning over these Lectures on Ezekiel, endeavor to discover traces of the previous existence of The Pentateuch: let him do for this Prophet what Havernick has done with reference to Hosea and Amos — scrutinizing their writings line by line, and tracing such expressions and idioms as prove them to have been familiar with The Mosaic Writings, and he will become familiar with the true use of this important instrument of Biblical Exegesis. Let him afterwards consult with diligence and apply with discretion the principles of Hengstenberg’s Christologie des Alter Testaments. He will find it profoundly learned and unweariedly laborious, illustrating fully the intimations of Ancient Prophecy respecting Messiah’s Kingdom. The reader, who has set himself at the feet of Calvin, will discover it to be a most satisfactory exposition of these Predictions. Its candor, and honesty, and accomplished philology, stand out in strong contrast with the arrogance of the Rationalists, and rebukes by its enlightened orthodoxy the reckless skepticism of their system.

Nor are such cautions without their use among ourselves. The inferences from supposed Internal Evidence have, even in our own country, been most wild and baseless. What must be our own danger, when an intimate friend of Southey, Coleridge, and Mackintosh, whose writings produced some influence on the literature of the day, could gravely put forward the following expose of his views: “I have attained the inference that the feast of Purlin is the Magophonia of Darius; the 31st Ezekiel an elegy on the death of Cyrus killed by the Massagetae; and the 14th Isaiah an elegy on the death of Cambyses, both by the same author; whom, on the ground of internal evidence, I am venturing to separate from among the different Prophets, and to call Daniel, and who is, I think, the finest ode writer in the world. Nay, Daniel is to claim of Ezekiel 25 to 32, and Ezekiel 35 to 39; of Jeremiah 46 to 51; and of Isaiah 13 to 23, and Isaiah 11 to 13; but of this last allotment I am doubtful.” Here we have a fair specimen of the manner in which every unsound opinion may be propagated under the specious plea of respecting the Internal Evidence.