Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/866

Rh 830 E Z E E Z K not possibly have written more. In connexion with his theory of the late origin of the priestly legislation in the Pentateuch, Graf, in 1866, arguing from admitted simi larities of style, gave it out as his belief that Ezekiel was the author of certain chapters of Leviticus (xviii.-xxiii., xxv., xxvi.). This view, which in substance has subse quently been adopted by Coleuso and a few others, is manifestly one which does not admit of anything like demonstration. On the other hand, the larger and more interesting inquiry as to the relative priority of the Levitical and Deuteronomic legislations does not fall to be discussed in this place (see PENTATEUCH). It remains that something should be said of EzekiePs place as an author and as a religious teacher. His work may be judged from the purely literary point of view more fairly perhaps than that of any of the earlier prophets, for, unlike them, he was a writer much more than he was a preacher. His oracles were sometimes written before they were spoken; sometimes he wrote what he had no intention of speaking at all. He may be called one of the first sopherim or scribes, if we use that word in its higher sense as denoting &quot; bookmen,&quot; and not mere readers or copyists. As a leader of public opinion, he handled a variety of sub jects in a corresponding variety of styles, but always with a manner entirely his own. His prose is invariably simple and unaffected; if there be any obscurity at all, it is really caused by his excessive desire to make it impossible for his reader to misunderstand him. His poetry has suffered much at the hands of translators, and the student who is wholly dependent on our Authorized Version will be often at a loss to understand the comparisons to /Eschylus, Dante, or Milton which have occasionally been suggested. More than that of any other prophet, it has been subjected to the extremes of exaggerated praise and undue depreciation by its critics. The sympathetic modern reader, however, will be able to find in it a sublimity, a tenderness, a beauty, a melody, wholly peculiar to itself. Chapter xix., which even Schrader pronounces &quot; masterly,&quot; may be specially referred to ; also chapters xxviii. and xxxii. As a religious teacher, it is natural to compare Ezekiel with Jeremiah, his older contemporary, on the one hand, and with his immediate successor, the author of Isa. xl.-lxvi., on the other. It has frequently been said (most strongly perhaps by Duhm) that the contrast is very great, and very much to the disadvantage of Ezekiel. The three men, nevertheless, have much that is common to them all. If Ezekiel sometimes (and especially in his closing chapters) shows a preponderating externalisrn, a tendency to delight in the fulness and minuteness of his ceremonial details, it must not be forgotten that Jeremiah too looked forward to a restored sanctuary and a reorganized priesthood as essen tial elements in the perfected theocracy of the future. And if the &quot;Great Unnamed&quot; be justly regarded as one of the loftiest and purest exponents of the spiritual religion of coming days, we must at the same time remember that Ezekiel too had bidden men seek above all things that city, open only to the pure in heart, of which the glory is that &quot;the Lord is there.&quot; Ezekiel is nowhere mentioned by name in the New Testament, and the direct traces of his writings there, apart from those in the Apocalypse, are comparatively few. Matt. vii. 24-27 compared with Ezek. xiii. 10-13, and John x. 16 compared with Ezek. xxxiv, 22, 23, may be referred to Both directly, however, and also through the writer of the Apocalypse, his influence upon Christian thought, and especially upon Christian eschatology, has been con siderable. Literature. For the ancient, mediaeval, and earlier modern com- aentaries, see Carpzow and other works of introduction. The most important works of recent date are those of Ewald, Die Proplietcn des alten Bundcs, vol. ii. 2nd. ed., 1868, Engl. tr. 1877; Havernick, Commcntar ii. d. Proph. Ezcchiel, 1843 ; Hitzig, D. Proph. Ezcchid, 1847 ; Fairbairn, Exposition of the Book of Esekiel, 1851 Kliefoth, D. Buch Ezechiels, 1865 ; Heugsteuberg, D. Wcissagungcnd. Pr. Ezechicls, 1867 ; Keil, D. Proph. Ezcchiel, 1868 ; The Speaker s Commentary, vol. vi.,1876. Seu also Ewald s Ge- schichte d. V. Isr., iv. 18 if.; Kuenen, Godsdicnst van Israel, vol. ii., and Profeten en Profetie, 1875, Eng. tr. 1877 ; Schrader s article &quot;Ezekiel&quot; in Scheukcl s Bibel-Lexicon ; Duhm, Die Theologie dcr Propheten, 1875. On the critical questions see Zunz, Gottesdienstliche Vortrage, p. 157-299, and Gesammelte Schrif- tcn, 1875; Graf, D. gcschichtliche Biicher des A. B. 1866 ; Kuenen, in Theol. Tijdschrift for Sept. 1870; Coleuso, The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua critically examined, part vi., 1872; Klostermann on &quot;Ezekiel &quot; in the Studien u. Kritiken for 1877. The English reader may be referred to The Holy Bible with various renderings and readings, London, 1876. Bunsen s Bibdicerk will also be found useful by the ordinary reader of German. (J. S. BL. ) EZKA (?$ i.e., help; v Eo-8pas; Usdras), the famous scribe, was a priest of the line of Zadok. According to the genealogy given in Ezra vii. 1-5, his father s name was Seraiah. If we identify this Seraiah with the person men tioned in Ezra ii. 2, Neh. xii. 1, then the Ezra who is the subject of the present article may well be identified, as has been done by Michaelis and others, with the Ezra named in the last-quoted texts ; and in this case he must have been a very old man even at the beginning of that public work with which his name is chiefly associated. But a careful comparison of the genealogy in 1 Ch. vi. 4-15 with that in Ezra vii. leads rather to the conclusion that the latter has most probably been abridged, so far as the more immediate and less eminent ancestors of our Ezra are concerned. They are omitted probably because, though closely con nected with Joshua, the son of Josadak, they did not avail themselves of the permission, granted by Cyrus, to :;eturn to Jerusalem in 536. They do not seem on that account, however, to have lost much, if any, of the social influence to which their high rank in the priesthood entitled them. Josephus tells us, somewhat mysteriously, that Ezra himself was high-priest of the Jews who were left in Babylon. Be this as it may, we know that when he first appears in history, in the seventh year of Artaxerxes Longimanus (458 B.C.), he is already a man of great learning, zeal, and authority, enjoying the confidence, not only of his own compatriots, but also of the Persian king. It is to be regretted that we should so imperfectly know what was the true condition of the Jews in Babylon during the years that immediately followed the close of the &quot; exile.&quot; We have various indications, however, that many of them devoted themselves to the study of the written law, kept up friendly intercourse with their compatriots in Jerusalem, regularly sent free-will offerings to the temple there (Philo, Ad Caium, 1013), and made occasional pilgrimages thither (Zech. vi. 9). In Judea, on the other hand, the fifty-eight years between 516 and 458, which are passed over in silence in the history, do not seeni to have been more prosperous than the twenty preceding years of which the record has been preserved. Whether influenced by un favourable reports of the condition of affairs at Jeru salem, or proceeding upon knowledge personally obtained in some previous visit, Ezra, who had &quot; been directing his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments,&quot; asked and re ceived in the above-mentioned year the royal authority to make an official visit to Judea. From the terms of his com mission, which are given in Ezra vii. 12-26, we learn that very considerable powers and privileges were at that time conferred upon him. On the first day of the first month of the Jewish year he set out on his westward journey, carrying with him many valuable offerings, and accompanied by some 1500 of his fellow-countrymen. The first considerable halt was made at &quot;the river of Ahava,&quot; a locality which has not been identified as yet (it is called Tlieras in 1 Esdras