VII. The Holy Mountain and Eternal Peace

THE LORD

So shall ye know that I am the LORD your God, dwelling in Zion my holy mountain: then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass through her any more. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop down sweet wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the brooks of Judah shall flow with waters; and a fountain shall come forth of the house of the LORD, and shall water the Valley of Acacias. Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom shall be a desolate wilderness, for the violence done to the children of Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in their land. But Judah shall be inhabited for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation. And I will cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed: for the LORD dwelleth in Zion.

The imagination is called upon to follow through seven successive Visions a continuous movement. The first Vision presents the Land of Judah desolate and mourning. This is brought home to usas it might be in a modern oratorio-by a succession of choruses. A Chorus of old men cry out upon a desolation never seen in their days or in the days of their fathers before them; a Chorus of revellers awake from their revelry to find how famine has eaten up the means of revelling; a Chorus of priests cry that there is nothing left for offerings to the LORD; a Chorus of husbandmen tell of fields and vineyards despoiled. Then the various choruses seem to draw together into a Chorus of the whole People of Judah, painting the utter ruin of their land. With the second Vision the Judgment is seen advancing to a climax. The sudden sound of the trumpet seems to proclaim a Day of Judgment begun. In a combination of prose and verse (something like the Doom form) we have pictured the progress of a mysterious foe, in front of them the land like the garden of Eden, behind them a desolate wilderness. Now the foe is close at hand; there is darkness and rocking earthquake, and for climax a Voice recognized as the Voice of the God of Judgment. The third Vision opens with a surprise: the Voice of God is a voice calling to repentance, and there is a response from the People,

Who knoweth whether he will not turn and leave a blessing behind him? The fourth Vision brings the turning point: a God changing from judgment to mercy. The speech of God is not to be read as a promise: what omnipotence speaks our imagination reads as visibly present, and the earth is seen to lose its horrors and become smiling nature again. The movement continues to a fifth Vision: an 'Afterward' of sanctification for high and low. If we have signs of judgment, it is now judgment on behalf of Judah against the nations of the world. In the sixth Vision this new judgment is advancing to its climax. Voices are heard, summoning the nations of the earth "to the valley of the LORD'S Decision," calling Jehovah's hosts "to the valley of the LORD's Decision"; the prophetic spectator has a glimpse of "multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of the LORD'S Decision." Then again all is darkness and earthquake; until, with the seventh Vision, the darkness has passed, and the Holy Mountain of Peace stands out from a ruined world. The work of Providence has run its full course, and judgment has changed into salvation.

We have yet to deal with a third of the literary forms distinguishing the Bible from modern literature. This is Emblem Prophecy. I will speak first of the simpler examples Emblem of this that are to be found in any of the prophetic Prophecy books; and then of the elaboration of Emblem Prophecy that characterises the Book of Ezekiel.

In modern times we are accustomed to sermons on texts, the text being usually a verse or two from the Bible. Similar discourses on texts are found in the Books of Wisdom. But in the prophetic books the text of a discourse is an object-text: something exhibited to the eye, or sounded to the ear, makes a starting point for preaching. Ezekiel will appear holding in his hand the broken fragments of a stick, which he proceeds to join together: this is text sufficient for a sermon on the healing of the feud between Israel and Judah. Jeremiah appears in the public streets wearing the wooden collar of the slave: he is to speak of the enslavement of the nations by Nebuchadnezzar. Suddenly, one of the hostile prophets runs up to him and snaps the wooden collar in two: the "two pieces" of the collar in the hands of Hananiah become a text

for the false prophet's proclamation that within "two years" the sacred vessels of the LORD will be brought back to Jerusalem. Or, the emblem text is some reiterated cry. In the famous preaching of Jonah to the men of Nineveh there is no sermon in our sense of the word. The prophet advancing slowly through the vast city at every few yards ejaculates, "Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown": this, and nothing more. But the reiteration of the mysterious words at last produces a panic, which brings the city and its king to repentance. Such emblem texts are part of a widespread tendency in ancient literature to use dumb show as a prelude to discourse or dramatic action. Every reader will remember how in Shakespeare's Hamlet is introduced the play of the Murder of Gonzago; this murder play is preluded by a piece of dumb show in which poison is seen being poured into the ear of a sleeper. The principle underlying such usage is that dumb show is mysterious, and raises a sense of wonder; when the action or discourse follows it strikes a mental attitude in the audience which has been quickened into receptivity.

But in the Book of Ezekiel emblem prophecy can go far beyond this, and produces passages that seem difficult to readers who are unprepared for them. I cite, as it stands in the Book of Ezekiel, an example of this elaborate emblem prophecy, and will then go into the question of its interpretation.

Ezekiel: The Mimic Siege of Jerusalem

Thou also, son of man, take thee a tile, and lay it before thee, and pourtray upon it a city, even Jerusalem: and lay siege against it, and build forts against it, and cast up a mount against it; set camps also against it, and plant battering rams against it round about. And take thou unto thee an iron pan, and set it for a wall of iron between thee and the city: and set thy face toward it, and it shall be besieged, and thou shalt lay siege against it. This shall be a sign to the house of Israel.

Moreover lie thou upon thy left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it: according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon it, thou shalt bear their iniquity. For I have appointed the years of their iniquity to be unto thee a number of

days, even three hundred and ninety days: so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. And again, when thou hast accomplished these, thou shalt lie on thy right side, and shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah; forty days, each day for a year, have I appointed it unto thee. And thou shalt set thy face toward the siege of Jerusalem, with thine arm uncovered; and thou shalt prophesy against it. And, behold, I lay bands upon thee, and thou shalt not turn thee from one side to another, till thou hast accomplished the days of thy siege. Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and spelt, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof; according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side, even three hundred and ninety days, shalt thou eat thereof. And thy meat which thou shalt eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day: from time to time shalt thou eat it. And thou shalt drink water by measure, the sixth part of an hin: from time to time shalt thou drink. And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it in their sight with dung that cometh out of man. And the LORD said, Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their bread unclean, among the nations whither I will drive them. Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem: and they shall eat bread by weight, and with carefulness; and they shall drink water by measure, and with astonishment: that they may want bread and water, and be astonied one with another, and pine away in their iniquity.

And thou, son of man, take thee a sharp sword, as a barber's razor shalt thou take it unto thee, and shalt cause it to pass upon thine head and upon thy beard: then take thee balances to weigh, and divide the hair. A third part shalt thou burn in the fire in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled; and thou shalt take a third part, and smite with the sword round about it; and a third part thou shalt scatter to the wind, and I will draw out a sword after them. And thou shalt take thereof a few in number, and bind them in thy skirts. And of these again shalt thou take, and cast them into the midst of the fire, and burn them in the fire; therefrom shall a fire come forth into all the house of Israel.

The most varied interpretations have been put upon this passage by commentators. Some have taken so literally the words of the Divine instructions that they have fancied Ezekiel-in the spirit of a St. Symeon Stylites-lying on his side for more than a year together as a protest against the sins of Israel and Judah. Other commentators have whittled away the expressions in the text so as to make them mere metaphors. The key to the interpretation of this prophecy is to remember that an emblem is only the text, or brief starting point, for discourse. We know, in the case of Ezekiel, that the people are accustomed to come to the house of the prophet, and await the moment of his inspiration; further, we know that these assemblies are daily meetings. The significance of the passage quoted is that for four hundred successive days the text of the daily sermon is some item of the diverse emblematic action prescribed to the prophet; he may be seen attacking or defending, dealing with conditions of famine or exile, prostrating himself for a shorter period when the question is of Judah's doom, for a longer period when it is the doom of more guilty Israel. What Ezekiel would do in the way of dumb show on any single day need not occupy more than a minute or couple of minutes: then dumb show would give place to spoken discourse. The chapter that follows the passage given above is a summary of the matter that would make the four hundred discourses. That a single type of emblem, with what it typifies, should be reiterated without break for daily ministrations extending over more than a year will not seem strange to one who follows the situation of the prophet Ezekiel and the captives to whom he ministers.

But Emblem Prophecy in Ezekiel can go even further then this. So far I have assumed that the emblem is no more than the text or starting point of a discourse. But in certain parts of the Book of Ezekiel the emblematic action is maintained through the whole of a discourse. We get a unique form of art, in which oratory and histrionic action move side by side, each enhancing the other. I will cite an extreme case, only premising that what is here given need not necessarily be understood as the discourse of a single occasion; it may be a grouping of four different discourses all turning upon the same symbolism of the Sword.