Ezekiel 40:1,2 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

In the five and twentieth year of our captivity Of the captivity of those that were carried away with Jehoiachin, eleven years before Jerusalem was taken. In the beginning of the year In the month Nisan; in the tenth day of the month The day that the paschal lamb was to be taken up in order to the feast on the fourteenth day; in the fourteenth year after that the city was smitten Zedekiah's reign commenced from Jehoiachin's captivity, in the eleventh year of whose reign the city was destroyed, Jeremiah 52:5-6. So the fourteenth year after its destruction must be coincident with the twenty-fifth of Jehoiachin's captivity. In the selfsame day the hand of the Lord was upon me, &c. I was actuated by a divine power, which brought me, in vision, from the land of my captivity to the place where Jerusalem had stood. In the visions of God brought he me This plainly declares that the prophet was not transported to the land of Israel in body, but only that it appeared to him, in his vision, as if he were transported thither, and things were represented to his mind just the same as if he had been actually there. And set me upon a very high mountain This expression is thought to point out mount Moriah, on which the temple was built. Or, if that mountain could not properly be so characterized, the prophet's station may be considered as merely represented in vision, without a corresponding real one. Michaelis thinks nothing more is signified by it “than that Jerusalem, and the true worship of God, should be very much exalted, and made known to all the world.” Or is it not rather so denominated, as representing the seat of the Christian Church, foretold by the prophets to be established on the top of the mountains, Isaiah 2:1; Micah 4:1: compare Revelation 21:10. By which was the frame of a city The portrait of a city. By this was signified the temple, on the south of the mountain where the prophet was set, which, with all its courts, buildings, and walls encompassing the courts, and the whole area, or holy mountain, resembled a city for largeness.