they speak and write in the dialect to which they and their hearers are accustomed.  Ezekiel’s style is marked by Chaldaisms, as might have been expected from the circumstances in which he wrote.  At the same time it is as forcible as it is peculiar, a style every way adapted to the work laid upon him.  He was sent to “a rebellious nation;” to “impudent children and stiff-hearted,” with the charge:  “Be not afraid of them, neither be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns be with thee, and thou dost dwell among scorpions:  be not afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious house” (2:3, 4, 6).  How well he fulfilled his mission his prophecies show, in which there is a wonderful fire and vehemence, joined with a wonderful variety of representation and imagery.  Proverbs, parables, riddles, symbolic actions, vivid portraitures of human wickedness, terrible denunciations of God’s approaching judgments, and glorious visions of future peace and prosperity in reserve for the true Israel—­these are all familiar to him, and are set forth often with an exuberant fulness of imagery.  When summoned by God to judge “the bloody city” of Jerusalem, ripe for the judgments of heaven, he heaps one upon another the black crimes of which she is guilty (22:6-12).  The repetitions so remarkably characteristic of his style are those of energy, not of weakness.  They are the repetitions of a battering-ram that gives blow upon blow till the wall crumbles before it.  The same may be said of his amplifications, as in chaps. 1, 16, 23, 27, etc.  He had a remarkable adaptation to his office; and his influence must have been very great in bringing about the reformation of the nation which took place during the captivity.

17.  Ezekiel abounds in allegoric and symbolic representations.  These give to many of his prophecies a dark and mysterious character, and make them difficult of interpretation.  Jerome long ago called the book “an ocean and labyrinth of the mysteries of God.”  Nevertheless, the common reader finds in him much that is plain of apprehension, and full of weighty instruction.  Reserving the general subject of the interpretation of prophecy for another place, we add here a few words respecting the nature of allegories and symbols, and the principles upon which they are to be interpreted.

An allegory is a narrative of a real event expressed in figurative language; that is, where one historic transaction is described under the image of another.  Thus in chap. 17:1-10, the two great eagles are Nebuchadnezzar and Pharaoh; the highest branch of the cedar is Jehoiachin; the cropping off and carrying away of this branch is his removal by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon, etc.  So also the extended descriptions of Jerusalem in chap. 16, and of Jerusalem and Samaria in chap. 23, under the figure of lewd women.  For other beautiful examples of allegory see Judges 9:8-15; Isa. 5:1-6; Psa. 80; Mark 12:1-9.