63. when I am pacified] Better active: when I forgive thee. The word is the technical sacrificial word to “atone” or make atonement for. It probably means to “cover,” though it is no more used in the physical sense but only in reference to sins or guilt. Hence when God is the agent this covering of sin is pardon, Jeremiah 18:23; Deuteronomy 21:8 (be merciful to); 2 Chronicles 30:18. The important point is to retain the active sense of the word. An act of God is described, not an effect produced upon his mind.

The great grace of Jehovah in restoring Jerusalem will humble and ashame her, when she remembers her past evil. What all chastisements could accomplish but indifferently, goodness will accomplish fully. Jerusalem will no more “open her mouth,” but sit in abashed though glad silence before God. His goodness and her own sin will so fill her mind that the thoughts will be too deep for words. Formerly she accused God’s providence, thinking she suffered for the iniquities of generations before her; formerly she boasted of her place before Jehovah, and her sister Sodom was not in her mouth. Now her mind will muse on other things.

Though the language and conceptions of Ezekiel are less familiar and natural to western minds than those of some of the other writers of Scripture, his thoughts are very elevated.

(1) The figure of the adulterous wife expresses the conviction, felt by him very strongly, that all through her history Israel had sinned against Jehovah, especially in the matter of his service. While former prophets like Amos and Hosea condemn the ritual and the manner of the worship because this implies a false conception of Jehovah, a conception so false as to correspond in no sense to Jehovah as he really is, Ezekiel condemns the worship at the high places as in itself false. He regards the high places as Canaanite shrines, and the service there is no service of Jehovah. And when he says that Jerusalem was unfaithful with Egypt, Assyria and Babylon, besides expressing his belief that the kingdom of Jehovah is not as one among the other kingdoms, he assails the strange infatuation which the people displayed in adopting the gods and rites of the nations with which in successive ages they entered into relation. What took place in regard to the worship of the Canaanites when Israel entered upon possession of that land, took place all down the history as they successively came under the influence of the great states around.

(2) When the prophet charges Jerusalem with outbidding Samaria and Sodom in wickedness, his judgment agrees with that of Jeremiah, and is founded partly on the fact that Jerusalem had fuller knowledge of Jehovah from her more extended history, and consequently her sin was greater than that of Samaria. The judgment, however, may also be partly based on objective grounds. So far as appears from the prophets Amos and Hosea idolatry in the strict sense was not greatly prevalent in the North. What prevailed was mainly a sensuous worship of Jehovah, due to false conceptions of his nature, which probably had arisen from a long syncretism with the idea and service of the Baals. But in the later history of Judah idolatry in the sense of the worship of gods different from Jehovah greatly prevailed. Neither does the cruel rite of child-sacrifice appear to have invaded the Northern Kingdom.

(3) It is, however, when the prophet brings the sin of Jerusalem into connexion with that of Samaria and Sodom, which it exceeded, and lifts that strange fact up into the region of divine thoughts and providential operations, that his ideas become most profound. The sin of Jerusalem, so great amidst all God’s love and favour, reveals to himself the nature of sin and its power over men, and he remembers with compassion those heathen peoples, like Sodom, on whom his former judgments had so unsparingly fallen. His own people’s fall causes him to take to his heart the Gentile world. The Apostle Paul touches the same or a kindred idea when he says: By their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles; the casting away of them is the reconciling of the world (Romans 11:11-12).

Again when the prophet says that Jerusalem “shall be ashamed in that she has justified her sisters,” the thought is similar to that expressed by St Paul, “Salvation is come unto the Gentiles for to provoke them (Israel) to jealousy.’ Cf. Deuteronomy 32:21. The sight of other peoples received by her God awakens Israel to the meaning of her own past, and to recollections of her former relations to God. Finally the receiving again of Israel and the incoming of the Gentile peoples like Sodom illustrate the manner of salvation, shewing it to be of grace, a grace that is stronger to overcome sin and awaken sorrow for it than all judgments—he hath shut up all into disobedience that he might have mercy upon all. Neither the prophet nor the apostle moves in the region of second causes; they lift up the whole movement of salvation into the region of the divine thoughts and compassions.

(4) The prophet predicts the restoration of Jerusalem, Samaria and Sodom, and that Jerusalem, though like a sister to them in wickedness, shall receive all these greater and smaller sisters as daughters. There shall then in the new kingdom of Jehovah be only one mother city, all other cities or peoples shall be her children. To the prophet’s mind the identity of Samaria and Sodom remains even when they are destroyed, and they shall remember and turn to the Lord. There is in such passages, what is not unusual in Ezekiel, a struggle between the spiritual conception or fact and the external form in which he still feels it must be embodied. It is the spiritual conception of the conversion to Jehovah even of peoples like Sodom that fills his mind; but he is unable to give this expression in any other way than by saying that Sodom shall return to her former estate.

CHAPTER 17

Ch. 17 The treacherous vineplant—King Zedekiah’s disloyalty to the King of Babylon

The chapter is without date. Nebuchadnezzar appeared in Palestine in the ninth year of Zedekiah to punish his disloyalty and intrigues with Egypt. The present passage assumes this disloyalty and may be dated a year or two earlier (c. 590).

The chapter contains these divisions:

First, Ezekiel 16:1-10. The riddle of the great eagle.

Secondly, Ezekiel 16:11-21. Explanation of the riddle.

Thirdly, Ezekiel 16:22-24. Promise that Jehovah will set up in Israel a kingdom that shall be universal.

Verse 63. - That thou mayest remember. The words paint vividly the attitude of the penitent adulteress, humble, contrite, silent, ashamed (Hosea 3:3-5), and yet with a sense that she is pardoned, and that the husband against whom she has sinned is at last pacified. Revised Version, when I have forgiven thee. The Hebrew verb so rendered is that which expresses the fullest idea of forgiveness, and which marked both the "day" and the "sacrifice" of atonement (Numbers 8:12; Leviticus 23:27, et al.). This, according to the received etymology, was represented in the mercy seat, the ἱλαστήριον, of the ark of the covenant (cophereth, as from caphar). So the prophet closes with the wet, Is of an eternal hope what had at first seemed to heal up to nothing but eternal condemnation. How far the prophet expected a literal fulfilment in the restoration of Sodom and Samaria, we cannot define with certainty; but the ideal picture of the purification of the waters of the Dead Sea in ch. 47:8 suggests that it entered into his vision of the future. For us, at least, it is enough to pass from the temporal to the eternal, from the historical to the spiritual, and to see in his words the noblest utterance of mercy prevailing over judgment - a theodikea, a "vindication of the ways of God to man," like that of Romans 11:33-36.



Ezekiel 16:63But this disgrace will not be the conclusion. Because of the covenant which the Lord concluded with Israel, Jerusalem will not continue in misery, but will attain to the glory promised to the people of God; - and that in such a way that all boasting will be excluded, and Judah, with the deepest shame, will attain to a knowledge of the true compassion of God. - Yet, in order that all false confidence in the gracious promises of God may be prevented, and the sinful nation be thoroughly humbled, this last section of our word of God announces the restoration of Sodom and Samaria as well as that of Jerusalem, so that all boasting on the part of Israel is precluded. - Ezekiel 16:53. And I will turn their captivity, the captivity of Sodom and her daughters, and the captivity of Samaria and her daughters, and the captivity of thy captivity in the midst of them: Ezekiel 16:54. That thou mayest bear thy shame, and be ashamed of all that thou hast done, in comforting them. Ezekiel 16:55. And thy sisters, Sodom and her daughters, will return to their first estate; and Samaria and her daughters will return to their first estate; and thou and thy daughters will return to your first estate. Ezekiel 16:56. And Sodom thy sister was not a discourse in thy mouth in the day of thy haughtinesses, Ezekiel 16:57. Before thy wickedness was disclosed, as at the time of the disgrace of the daughters of Aram and all its surroundings, the daughters of the Philistines, who despised thee round about. Ezekiel 16:58. Thy wrong-doing and all thy abominations, thou bearest them, is the saying of Jehovah. Ezekiel 16:59. For thus saith the Lord Jehovah, And I do with thee as thou hast done, who hast despised oath to break covenant. Ezekiel 16:60. And I shall remember my covenant with thee in the days of thy youth, and shall establish an everlasting covenant with thee. Ezekiel 16:61. And thou wilt remember thy ways, and be ashamed, when thou receivest thy sisters, those greater than thou to those smaller than thou; and I give them to thee for daughters, although they are not of thy covenant. Ezekiel 16:62. And I will establish my covenant with thee; and thou wilt perceive that I am Jehovah; Ezekiel 16:63. That thou mayest remember, and be ashamed, and there may no longer remain to thee an opening of the mouth because of thy disgrace, when I forgive thee all that thou hast done, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah. - The promise commences with an announcement of the restoration, not of Jerusalem, but of Sodom and Samaria. The two kingdoms, or peoples, upon which judgment first fell, shall also be the first to receive mercy; and it will not be till after then that Jerusalem, with the other cities of Judah, will also be restored to favour, in order that she may bear her disgrace, and be ashamed of her sins (Ezekiel 16:54); that is to say, not because Sodom and Samaria have borne their punishment for a longer time, but to the deeper shaming, the more complete humiliation of Jerusalem. שׁוּב שׁבוּת, to turn the captivity, not "to bring back the captives" (see the comm. on Deuteronomy 30:3), is here used in a figurative sense for restitutio in statum integritatis, according to the explanation given of the expression in Ezekiel 16:55. No carrying away, or captivity, took place in the case of Sodom. The form שׁבית, which the Chetib has adopted several times here, has just the same meaning as שׁבוּת. שׁבית שׁביתיך does not mean the captives of thy captivity, since the same word cannot be used first as a concrete and then as an abstract noun; nor does the combination serve to give greater emphasis, in the sense of a superlative - viz. "the captivity of thy captivities, equivalent to thy severest or most fearful captivity," - as Stark and Hvernick suppose. The genitive must be taken as explanatory, as already proposed by Hengstenberg and Kliefoth: "captivity, which is thy captivity;" and the pleonastic mode of expression is chosen to give greater prominence to the thought, "thine own captivity," than would have been given to it by a suffix attached to the simple noun. בּתוכהנה, in their midst, does not imply, that just as Judah was situated now in the very midst between Sodom and Samaria, so its captives would return home occupying the centre between those two (Hitzig); the reference is rather to fellowship in captivity, to the fact that Jerusalem would share the same fate, and endure the same punishment, as Samaria and Sodom (Hengst., Klief.). The concluding words of Ezekiel 16:54, "in that thou comfortest them," do not refer to the sins already committed by Israel (as Kliefoth, who adopts the rendering, "didst comfort them," imagines), but to the bearing of such disgrace as makes Jerusalem ashamed of its sins. By bearing disgrace, i.e., by its endurance of well-merited and disgraceful punishment, Jerusalem consoles her sisters Samaria and Sodom; and that not merely by fellowship in misfortune, - solamen miseris etc. , (Calvin, Hitzig, etc.), - but by the fact that from the punishment endured by Jerusalem, both Samaria and Sodom can discern the righteousness of the ways of God, and find therein a foundation for their hope, that the righteous God will bring to an end the merited punishment as soon as its object has been attained (see the comm. on Ezekiel 14:22-23). The turning of the captivity, according to Ezekiel 16:55, will consist in the fact that Sodom, Samaria, and Jerusalem return לקדמתן, to their original state. קדמה does not mean the former or earlier state, but the original state, as in Isaiah 23:7. Kliefoth is wrong, however, in explaining this as meaning: "as they were, when they came in Adam from the creative hand of God." The original state is the status integritatis, not as a state of sinlessness or original righteousness and holiness, - for neither Jerusalem on the one hand, nor Samaria and Sodom on the other, had ever been in such a state as this, - but as an original state of glory, in which they were before they had fallen and sunk into ungodly ways.

But how could a restoration of Sodom and her daughters (Gomorrah, etc.) be predicted, when the destruction of these cities was accompanied by the sweeping away of all their inhabitants from off the face of the earth? Many of the commentators have attempted to remove the difficulty by assuming that Sodom here stands for the Moabites and Ammonites, who were descendants of Lot, who escaped from Sodom. But the untenableness of such an explanation is obvious, from the simple fact that the Ammonites and Moabites were no more Sodomites than Lot himself. And the view expressed by Origen and Jerome, and lately revived by Hvernick, that Sodom is a typical name denoting heathenism generally, is also unsatisfactory. The way in which Sodom is classed with Samaria and Jerusalem, and the special reference to the judgment that fell upon Sodom (Ezekiel 16:49, Ezekiel 16:50), point undeniably to the real Sodom. The heathen world comes into consideration only so far as this, that the pardon of a heathen city, so deeply degraded as Sodom, carries with it the assurance that mercy will be extended to all heathen nations. We must therefore take the words as referring to the literal Sodom. Yet we certainly cannot for a moment think of any earthly restoration of Sodom. For even if we could conceive of a restoration of the cities that were destroyed by fire, and sunk into the depths of the Dead Sea, it is impossible to form any conception of an earthly and corporeal restoration of the inhabitants of those cities, who ere destroyed at the same time; and in this connection it is chiefly to them that the words refer. This does not by any means prove that the thing itself is impossible, but simply that the realization of the prophecy must be sought for beyond the present order of things, in one that extends into the life everlasting.

As Ezekiel 16:55 elucidates the contents of Ezekiel 16:53, so the thought of Ezekiel 16:54 is explained and still further expanded in Ezekiel 16:56 and Ezekiel 16:57. The meaning of Ezekiel 16:56 is a subject of dispute; but so much is indisputable, that the attempt to Kliefoth to explain Ezekiel 16:56 and Ezekiel 16:57 as referring to the future, and signifying that in the coming day of its glory Israel will no longer carry Sodom as a legend in its mouth as it does now, does violence to the grammar, and is quite a mistake. It is no more allowable to take ולא היתה as a future, in the sense of "and will not be," than to render כּמו עת חרפּת redner ot naht " (Ezekiel 16:57), "it will be like the time of scorn." Moreover, the application of בּיום גּאוניך to the day of future glory is precluded by the fact that in Ezekiel 16:49 the word גּאון is used to denote the pride which was the chief sin of Sodom; and the reference to this verse very naturally suggests itself. The meaning of Ezekiel 16:56 depends upon the rendering to be given to לשׁמוּעה. The explanation given by Rosenmller and Maurer, after Jerome, - viz. non erat in auditione, i.e., non audiebatur, thou didst not think at all of Sodom, didst not take its name into thy mouth, - is by no means satisfactory. שׁמוּעה means proclamation, discourse, and also report. If we adopt the last, we must take the sentence as interrogatory (לוא for הלוא), as Hengstenberg and Hitzig have done. Although this is certainly admissible, there are no clear indexes here to warrant our assumption of an interrogation, which is only hinted at by the tone. We therefore prefer the meaning "discourse:" thy sister Sodom was not a discourse in thy mouth in the day of thy haughtinesses, that thou didst talk of the fate of Sodom and lay it to heart when thou wast in prosperity. The plural גּאוניך is more emphatic than the singular. The day of the haughtinesses is defined in Ezekiel 16:57 as the period before the wickedness of Judah had been disclosed. This was effected by means of the judgment, which burst upon Jerusalem on the part of Babylon. Through this judgment Jerusalem is said to have been covered with disgrace, as at the time when the daughters of Aram, i.e., the cities of Syria, and those of the Philistines (Aram on the east, and the Philistines on the west, Isaiah 9; 11), scorned and maltreated it round about. This refers primarily to the times of Ahaz, when the Syrians and Philistines pressed hard upon Judah (2 Kings 15:37; 2 Kings 16:6; and 2 Chronicles 28:18-19). It must not be restricted to this, however; but was repeated in the reign of Jehoiachin, when Jehovah sent troops of the Chaldaeans, Aramaeans, Ammonites, and Moabites against him, to destroy Judah (2 Kings 24:2). It is true, the Philistines are not mentioned here; but from the threat in Ezekiel 25:15, we may infer that they also attempted at the same time to bring disgrace upon Judah. שׁאט equals שׁוּט, according to Aramaean usage, to treat contemptuously, or with repudiation (cf. Ezekiel 28:24, Ezekiel 28:26). Jerusalem will have to atone for this pride, and to bear its wrong-doing and its abominations (Ezekiel 16:58). For zimmâh, see the comm. on Ezekiel 16:43. The perfect נשׂאתים indicates that the certainty of the punishment is just as great as if it had already commenced. The reason assigned for this thought in Ezekiel 16:59 forms a transition to the further expansion of the promise in Ezekiel 16:60. ועשׂית (Ezekiel 16:59) has been correctly pointed by the Masoretes as the 1st person. The ו is copulative, and shows that what follows forms the concluding summary of all that precedes. אותך for אתּך, as in Ezekiel 16:60, etc., to deal with any one. The construction of עשׂה, with an accusative of the person, to treat any one, cannot be sustained either from Ezekiel 17:17 and Ezekiel 23:25, or from Jeremiah 33:9; and Gesenius is wrong in assuming that we meet with it in Isaiah 42:16.

Despising the oath (אלה) points back to Deuteronomy 29:11-12, where the renewal of the covenant concluded at Sinai is described as an entrance into the covenant and oath which the Lord then made with His people. - But even if Israel has faithlessly broken the covenant, and must bear the consequence punishment, the unfaithfulness of man can never alter the faithfulness of God. This is the link of connection between the resumption and further expansion of the promise in Ezekiel 16:60 and the closing words of Ezekiel 16:59. The remembrance of His covenant ins mentioned in Leviticus 26:42 and Leviticus 26:45 as the only motive that will induce God to restore Israel to favour again, when the humiliation effected by the endurance of punishment has brought it to a confession of its sins. The covenant which God concluded with Israel in the day of its youth, i.e., when He led it out of Egypt, He will establish as an everlasting covenant. Consequently it is not an entirely new covenant, but simply the perfecting of the old one for everlasting duration. For the fact itself, compare Isaiah 55:3, where the making of the everlasting covenant is described as granting the stedfast mercies of David, i.e., as the fulfilment of the promise given to David (2 Samuel 7). This promise is called by David himself an everlasting covenant which God had made with him (2 Samuel 23:5). And the assurance of its everlasting duration was to be found in the fact that this covenant did not rest upon the fulfilment of the law, but simply upon the forgiving grace of God (compare Ezekiel 16:63 with Jeremiah 31:31-34). - The bestowal of this grace will put Israel in remembrance of its ways, and fill it with shame. In this sense, וזכרתּ (and thou shalt remember), in Ezekiel 16:61, is placed side by side with זכרתּי (I will remember) in Ezekiel 16:60. This shame will seize upon Israel when the establishment of an everlasting covenant is followed by the greater and smaller nations being associated with it in glory, and incorporated into it as children, though they are not of its covenant. The greater and smaller sisters are the greater and smaller nations, as members of the universal family of man, who are to be exalted to the glory of one large family of God. The restoration, which is promised in Ezekiel 16:53 and Ezekiel 16:55 to Sodom and Samaria alone, is expanded here into a prophecy of the reception of all the greater and smaller nations into fellowship in the glory of the people of God. We may see from this that Sodom and Samaria represent the heathen nations generally, as standing outside the Old Testament dispensation: Sodom representing those that were sunk in the deepest moral degradation, and Samaria those that had fallen from the state of grace. The attitude in which these nations stand towards Israel in the everlasting covenant of grace, is defined as the relation of daughters to a mother. If, therefore, Israel, which has been thrust out among the heathen on account of its deep fall, is not to return to its first estate till after the return of Sodom, which has been destroyed, and Samaria, which has been condemned, the election of Israel before all the nations of the earth to be the first-born son of Jehovah will continue unchanged, and Israel will form the stem of the new kingdom of God, into which the heathen nations will be incorporated. The words, "and not of thy covenant," have been taken by most of the commentators in the sense of, "not because thou hast kept the covenant;" but this is certainly incorrect. For even if "thy covenant" really formed an antithesis to "my covenant" (Ezekiel 16:60 and Ezekiel 16:62), "thy covenant" could not possibly signify the fulfilment of thy covenant obligations. The words belong to bânōth (daughters), who are thereby designated as extra-testamental - i.e., as not included in the covenant which God made with Israel, and consequently as having no claim by virtue of that covenant to participate in the glory of the everlasting covenant which is hereafter to be established. - When this covenant has been established, Israel will know that God is Jehovah, the unchangeably true (for the meaning of the name Jehovah, see the commentary on Genesis 2:4); that it may call to mind, sc. both its sinful abominations and the compassionate grace of God, and be so filled with shame and penitence that it will no more venture to open its mouth, either for the purpose of finding excuses for its previous fall, or to murmur against God and His judgments, - namely, when the Lord forgives all its sins by establishing the everlasting covenant, the kernel and essence of which consists in the forgiveness of sins (cf. Jeremiah 31:34). Thus will the experience of forgiving grace complete what judgment has already begun, viz., the transformation of proud and haughty sinners into meek and humble children of God, for whom the kingdom has been prepared from the beginning.

This thought brings the entire prophecy to a close, - a prophecy which embraces the whole of the world's history and the New Testament, the parallel to which is contained in the apostle's words, "God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all" (Romans 11:32). - As the punishment threatened to the adulteress, i.e., to the nation of Israel that had despised its God and King, had been fulfilled upon Jerusalem and the Jews, and is in process of fulfilment still, so has the promise also been already fulfilled, so far as its commencement is concerned, though the complete and ultimate fulfilment is only to be expected in time to come. The turning of the captivity, both of Jerusalem and her daughters, and of Samaria and her daughters, commenced with the establishment of the everlasting covenant, i.e., of the covenant made through Christ, and with the reception of the believing portion of Israel in Judaea, Samaria, and Galilee (Acts 8:5., Acts 8:25, Acts 9:31). And the turning of the captivity of Sodom commenced with the spread of the gospel among the heathen, and their entrance into the kingdom of Christ, inasmuch as Sodom with her daughters represents the morally degraded heathen world. Their reception into the kingdom of heaven, founded by Christ on earth, forms the commencement of the return of the forgiven to their first estate on the "restitution of all things," i.e., the restoration of all moral relations to their original normal constitution (compare Acts 3:21 and Meyer's comm. thereon with Matthew 17:11), which will attain its perfection in the παλιγγενεσία, the general restoration of the world to its original glory (compare Matthew 19:28 with Romans 8:18. and 2 Peter 3:13). The prophecy before us in Ezekiel 16:55 clearly points to this final goal. It is true that one might understand the return of Jerusalem and Samaria to their original state, which is predicted here as simply relating to the pardon of the covenant nation, whose apostasy had led to the rejection of both its parts; and this pardon might be sought in its reception into the kingdom of Christ and its restoration as the people of God. In that case the complete fulfilment of our prophecy would take place during the present aeon in the spread of the gospel among all nations, and the conversion of that portion of Israel which still remained hardened after the entrance of the full number of the Gentiles into the kingdom of God. But this limitation would be out of harmony with the equality of position assigned to Sodom and her daughters on the one hand, and Samaria and Jerusalem on the other. Though Sodom is not merely a type of the heathen world, the restoration of Sodom and her daughters cannot consist in the reception of the descendants of the cities on which the judgment fell into the kingdom of God or the Christian Church, since the peculiar manner in which those cities were destroyed prevented the possibility of any of the inhabitants remaining alive whose descendants could be converted to Christ and blessed in Him during the present period of the world. On the other hand, the opinion expressed by C. a Lapide, that the restoration of Sodom is to be referred and restricted to the conversion of the descendants of the inhabitants of Zoar, which was spared for Lot's sake, when the other cities of the plain were destroyed, is too much at variance with the words of the passage to allow of our accepting such a solution as this. The turning of the captivity of Sodom and her daughters, i.e., the forgiveness of the inhabitants of Sodom and the other cities of the plain, points beyond the present aeon, and the realization can only take place on the great day of the resurrection of the dead in the persons of the former inhabitants of Sodom and the neighbouring cities. And in the same way the restoration of Samaria and Jerusalem will not be completely fulfilled till after the perfecting of the kingdom of Christ in glory at the last day.

Consequently the prophecy before us goes beyond Romans 11:25., inasmuch as it presents, not to the covenant nation only, but, in Samaria and Sodom, to all the larger and smaller heathen nations also, the prospect of being eventually received into the everlasting kingdom of God; although, in accordance with the main purpose of this prophetic word, namely, to bring the pride of Israel completely down, this is simply hinted at, and no precise intimation is given of the manner in which the predicted apokatastasis will occur. But notwithstanding this indefiniteness, we must not explain away the fact itself by arbitrary expositions, since it is placed beyond all possible doubt by other passages of Scriptures. The words of our Lord in Matthew 10:15 and Matthew 11:24, to the effect that it will be more tolerable in the day of judgment for Sodom than for Capernaum and every other city that shall have rejected the preaching of the gospel, teach most indisputably that the way of mercy stands open still even for Sodom itself, and that the judgment which has fallen upon it does not carry with it the final decision with regard to its inhabitants. For Sodom did not put away the perfect revelation of mercy and salvation. If the mighty works which were done in Capernaum had been done in Sodom, it would have stood to the present day (Matthew 11:23). And from this it clearly follows that all the judgments which fell before the time of Christ, instead of carrying with them the final decision, and involving eternal damnation, leave the possibility of eventual pardon open still. The last judgment, which is decisive for eternity, does not take place till after the full revelation of grace and truth in Christ. Not only will the gospel be preached to all nations before the end comes (Matthew 24:14), but even to the dead; to the spirits in prison, who did not believe at the time of Noah, it has been already preached, at the time when Christ went to them in spirit, in order that, although judged according to man's way in the flesh, they might live according to God's way in the spirit (1 Peter 3:19; 1 Peter 4:6). What the apostle teaches in the first of these passages concerning the unbelievers before the flood, and affirms in the second concerning the dead in general, is equally applicable according to our prophecy to the Sodomites who were judged after man's way in the flesh, and indeed generally to all heathen nations who either lived before Christ or departed from this earthly life without having heard the gospel preached. - It is according to these distinct utterances of the New Testament that the prophecy before us respecting the apokatastasis of Sodom, Samaria, and Jerusalem is to be interpreted; and this is not to be confounded with the heretical doctrine of the restoration, i.e., the ultimate salvation of all the ungodly, and even of the devil himself. If the preaching of the gospel precedes the last judgment, the final sentence in the judgment will be regulated by the attitude assumed towards the gospel by both the living and the dead. All souls that obstinately reject it and harden themselves in unbelief, will be given up to everlasting damnation. The reason why the conversion of Sodom and Samaria is not expressly mentioned, is to be found in the general tendency of the promise, in which the simple fact is announced without the intermediate circumstances, for the purpose of humbling Jerusalem. The conversion of Jerusalem also is not definitely stated to be the condition of pardon, but this is assumed as well known from the words of Leviticus 26, and is simply implied in the repeated assertion that Jerusalem will be seized with the deepest shame on account of the pardon which she receives.

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