Full of perverseness; for they say— Full of oppression; because they say.
REFLECTIONS.—1st, We have heard the provocations of this people, and we here see that their judgment lingereth not.
1. A charge is given to the destroyers to approach; and instantly six warriors appear armed. Their business is, as ministers of wrath, to destroy the city. They come from the north, where the image of jealousy stood; from which quarter also their destruction advanced: and they went in and stood beside the brazen altar, waiting for orders, or intimating that judgment would begin at the house of God; where the priests ministered, whose hand had been chief in the transgression. A seventh personage differently clad, appears among them, arrayed not as a warrior but as a priest, with a writer's inkhorn by his side; and this may signify the great high-priest of our profession Christ Jesus, represented here as marking down in his book, who were sincere among the multitude of his enemies. Note; (1.) God never wants ministers of wrath, when he has vengeance to execute against sinners. (2.) They who have profaned the altar by their wickedness, justly fall as sacrifices before it. (3.) The saints of God need not fear, whatever judgments are on the earth; their Lord and Saviour governs the whole, and will protect them from evil.
2. God's glory, the Shechinah, removes from between the cherubims to the threshold of the house, as ready now to depart from the devoted temple, when he had given the last directions to separate the few precious from the vile. And,
[1.] He called to the man clothed with linen, &c. God's first care is for his believing people: they were but few, yet precious in his sight. They could not behold these abominations practised by their countrymen without the bitterest concern and anguish, which they terrified publicly, and lamented before God in private. On them, therefore, God commands a distinguishing mark to be set, on the foreheads, that they might be known to belong to God, see Revelation 7:3 in allusion to the marks on servants, or to the blood on the lintels and side-posts of the Israelites in Egypt, to guard them from the destroying angel. Note; (1.) God's people cannot without the deepest concern behold a world lying in wickedness; they remonstrate against the evil, and with tears before God and man lament over perishing souls. (2.) They who distinguish themselves by a concern for God's glory, shall be distinguished by his care for their safety.
[2.] To the others he said, to the six destroyers, Go ye after him, through the city, and slay with unrelenting severity both young and old, all of every age and sex, beginning at the sanctuary: the priests, who were chief in iniquity, must be the first and chief sufferers; and none must be spared, but those on whom is God's mark; these they may not touch, nor come near. No sooner is the command issued, than the destroyers obey, beginning with those ancients, the five-and-twenty, or the seventy, which were before mentioned, profaning God's temple with their idolatries. Nor need they fear to defile God's house with the blood of the slain, since they have his commission. Because these ancients have polluted it with their abominations, God will more pollute it with their dead carcases: and when they have begun their bloody work in the sanctuary, they must finish it in the city by a general massacre; and it is done. Note; (1.) They who persist in their impenitence will die without mercy. (2.) None in a judgment day will meet so terrible a doom as those who, being appointed to admonish others, have seduced and destroyed the souls to whom they were ordained to minister.
2nd, We have,
1. The prophet an intercessor in behalf of this miserable people. While the execution was performing, and the prophet alone in the temple, all who were there besides being slain, he fell upon his face in great humility, and cried and said, Ah, Lord God, wilt thou destroy all the residue of Israel, in thy pouring out of thy fury upon Jerusalem? he dreaded a total excision, and fain would stay the avenging arm. Note; A gracious soul cannot unmoved behold the miseries coming on the wicked, and fain would avert the dreadful storm by his prayers.
2. God cannot grant his request; their iniquities are such as admit of neither pardon nor reprieve: their sins are most aggravated; their land full of blood; murders the most inhuman, and every atrocious crime prevailing; the city is fall of perverseness; no justice or truth is regarded; and, atheistical in principles as in practice, they blasphemously dared to deny the government of his providence, and flattered themselves with impunity in their iniquity: therefore God threatens with unsparing hand to punish them, to shut up his compassions, and to refuse to be in-treated by them or for them, bringing upon them the wrath which they had so highly provoked and deserved. Note; Though we may never cease to cry to God, there is a time when sinners are past the efficacy of prayer.
3. The man clothed with linen, &c. reports, that the divine orders were accomplished; the genuine people of God marked; the wicked destroyed. Oh, that all might learn from these awful lessons to turn to God, and walk with him in holiness of heart and life!