him (8:1; 14:1; 20:1).  Of his personal standing and reputation, as well as of the character of his hearers, we have an interesting notice in chap. 33:30-32, where instead of “talking against thee” (verse 30) we may better render, as in the margin of our English version, “talking of thee:”  “Also, thou son of man, the children of thy people are still talking of thee by the walls and in the doors of the houses, and speak one to another, every one to his brother, saying, Come, I pray you, and hear what is the word that cometh forth from the Lord.  And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them:  for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness.  And lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument:  for they hear thy words, but they do them not.”  Ezekiel was called to the prophetical office “in the fifth year of king Jehoiachin’s captivity” (1:2), from which date he constantly reckons.  Jeremiah’s activity as a prophet continued not only through the eleven years of Zedekiah’s reign, but for a considerable period afterwards; so that the two prophets were for some time contemporary, the one prophesying in Jerusalem and afterwards in Egypt, the other among the captives in Mesopotamia.  The latest date which the prophecies of Ezekiel furnish is the twenty-seventh year of Jehoiachin’s captivity, about twenty-two years from the time when he was called to his office.  How much longer he prophesied we have no means of determining.

The date with which the book of Ezekiel opens is “the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month,” which was also “the fifth year of king Jehoiachin’s captivity” (verse 2), or five hundred and ninety-five years before Christ.  Reckoning back from this date thirty years, we come to the eighteenth year of Josiah, when he repaired the temple, and solemnly renewed the worship of God; and also to the first year of Nabopolassar, the father of Nebuchadnezzar, who made Babylon independent of the Assyrian monarchy, and thus established a new era.  Some have assumed the former of these two eras as that from which the prophet reckons; but the latter is more probable.  Writing, as he does, under the Chaldean monarchy, it is natural that he should give, at the outset, a date by which the chronology of the whole series of his prophecies may be determined in reference to Chaldean history.  Elsewhere he dates from Jehoiachin’s captivity.

16.  It is not worth while to raise any questions concerning the purity of Ezekiel’s Hebrew, as compared with that of the earlier writers.  The Holy Spirit is not concerned about the classic style of a prophet.  He selects men whose natural qualities, providential training, and sanctified hearts fit them for the work assigned to them; and under his inspiration