Commentary on Ezekiel

Contents

Whole commentary staged (chapters 0-48; about 99,000 words of the Greek). Chapters 41-42 have no heading in the OCR and sit inside 40.1; chapters 44, 45, 46 and 48 have no readable verse numbers and are one section each (N.1).

Reading pages: 0.1–0.4 · 1.1–1.26 · 2.1–3.27 · 4.4–6.14 · 7.1–9.9 · 10.1–12.28 · 13.2–16.5 · 16.6–16.56 · 16.60–17.24 · 18.5–19.13 · 20.5–20.49 · 21.1–21.31 · 22.6–22.30 · 23.4–23.49 · 24.1–25.6 · 26.7–27.33 · 28.1–28.24 · 29.1–30.20 · 31.3–31.16 · 32.1–33.33 · 34.2–34.31 · 35.5–36.37 · 37.1–38.21 · 39.3–40.1 · 43.1–46.1 · 47.1–48.1

1. 0.1Theodoret begins his preface by explaining why the prophets seem obscure: the soul's sight is clouded by unbelief, precious things are always hidden, and the prophecies were veiled so that the Jews would not destroy books promising blessing to the nations.
2. 0.2Theodoret urges readers to pray for understanding rather than blame Scripture for obscurity, then dates Ezekiel's call and lists the earlier captivities of Israel and Judah down to Nebuchadnezzar's first campaign.
3. 0.3Theodoret recounts the reigns of Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin and Zedekiah and the fall of Jerusalem, argues from Kings, Chronicles and Daniel that Jehoiachin's captivity was the third of Jerusalem, and dates Ezekiel's first prophecy to its fifth year.
4. 0.4Theodoret places Ezekiel among the prophets of the exile (after Daniel, Jeremiah, Zephaniah and Uriah, before Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi), outlines the book's contents, and prays before beginning.
5. 1.1On Ezek 1:1–2 Theodoret rejects reckoning the 'thirtieth year' by the jubilee and counts it from God's sentence of captivity in Josiah's eighteenth year, then explains that the opened heavens and the 'vision of God' mean a spiritual vision, not a sight of God's being.
6. 1.3On Ezek 1:3 Theodoret says that God's revealing himself in Babylon shows he rules all peoples and cares for the exiles, that the vision beside water foreshadows baptism, and that 'the hand of the Lord' means the working of the Spirit.
7. 1.4On Ezek 1:4 Theodoret explains that the vision answered the false prophets who promised a quick return, and reads the storm wind, cloud, fire and brightness as the Babylonian assault, the burning of Jerusalem, and God's glory revealed through punishment.
8. 1.5On Ezek 1:5–10 Theodoret stresses that the prophet saw only likenesses of the heavenly powers, and reads their faces, wings and hands as God's all-seeing oversight, and the lion, calf and eagle as kingship, priesthood and prophecy, all subject to God.
9. 1.11On Ezek 1:11–12 Theodoret says that the angels' covering wings show that even they do not know everything and are content not to pry, and that their straight course shows their obedience to God.
10. 1.13On Ezek 1:13–14 Theodoret reads the coals, lamps and lightning among the living creatures as signs of coming punishment, citing the Psalms' use of the same images.
11. 1.15On Ezek 1:15–16 Theodoret explains that a wheel the colour of hyacinth accompanied each living creature and that the four wheels were exactly alike.
12. 1.17On Ezek 1:17–25 Theodoret explains the 'wheel within a wheel' as a figure that moves in all four directions without turning, signifying God's presence everywhere; identifies the wheels with Paul's 'Thrones'; and reads the cherubim's eyes as fullness of knowledge.
13. 1.26On Ezek 1:26–28 Theodoret says God appears in different forms to suit each need while being formless in himself, and reads the human figure of electrum and fire as a foreshadowing of the incarnation: one form, two natures, the divine bearing the human.
14. 2.1On Ezek 1:28–2:1 Theodoret notes that the prophet saw only the likeness of God's glory, fell down in fear as even the seraphim veil their faces, and was called 'son of man' to remind him of his nature while being told to stand and take courage.
15. 2.2On Ezek 2:2 Theodoret explains that God's power steadied the terrified prophet so that he could stand and listen.
16. 2.3On Ezek 2:3 Theodoret marvels that God, after Israel's long rebellion, still calls them back to health though he knows their obstinacy.
17. 2.4On Ezek 2:4 Theodoret describes the people's shamelessness and explains the word 'Adonai.'
18. 2.5On Ezek 2:5 Theodoret explains that God's 'if perhaps' does not imply ignorance but upholds human free will: God foreknows the outcome, yet offers every remedy so that his justice is vindicated at the judgment.
19. 2.6The opening of Ezek 2:6, telling the prophet not to fear the people; the rest is lost in the scan.
20. 2.10Fragments of Ezek 2:8–10: the prophet is told to obey rather than imitate the rebels, and sees a hand holding a scroll written on both sides with lamentation, song and woe.
21. 3.1On Ezek 3:1–3 Theodoret explains that the scroll of lamentation shows why God spoke of 'if perhaps they hear,' and notes that 'scrolls' are rolled books such as the Jews still use for Scripture.
22. 3.2On Ezek 3:3–7 Theodoret says lamentation over sin is sweet like honey and the scroll was eaten spiritually; he contrasts the prophets, sent to one unresponsive nation, with the apostles, who changed the whole world, and stresses that Israel's refusal came from will, not nature.
23. 3.8On Ezek 3:8–11 Theodoret explains that God makes the prophet's forehead hard so that he will persevere through insult and violence, and must speak only God's words; the 'if perhaps' again appeals to free will.
24. 3.12On Ezek 3:12 Theodoret explains the prophet's journey by the Spirit and the angels' hymn, and, comparing Moses who saw only God's 'back,' interprets God's 'place' as his goodness, through which the uncontainable God lets the worthy receive him.
25. 3.13On Ezek 3:13 Theodoret explains the noise of the moving cherubim and wheels.
26. 3.14On Ezek 3:14 Theodoret says the Spirit's grace carried the prophet through the air and that 'the hand of the Lord' again means the Spirit.
27. 3.15On Ezek 3:15 Theodoret says the prophet was carried to the exiles at the Chobar and waited silently seven days for God's word.
28. 3.16On Ezek 3:16–17 Theodoret compares the prophet to a lookout posted on a hill to warn of enemy raids.
29. 3.18On Ezek 3:18 Theodoret stresses that God holds the watchman accountable for the wicked he fails to warn, so much does God desire sinners' repentance; personal virtue does not excuse neglect of souls in one's care.
30. 3.19On Ezek 3:19 Theodoret says the watchman who warns is guiltless, and that the wicked are punished whether warned or not, since nature itself suffices to know what is right and teaching is an added gift.
31. 3.20On Ezek 3:20 Theodoret distinguishes a righteous man who stumbles and rises, like David, from one who abandons the right road altogether, and says the watchman who fails to warn such a man shares the guilt.
32. 3.21On Ezek 3:21 Theodoret says that warning a brother brings life to both, and urges his readers to care for one another's salvation, ending with a doxology.
33. 3.22On Ezek 3:22 Theodoret says the prophet was sent to the plain because quiet helps the mind contemplate divine things.
34. 3.23On Ezek 3:23–24 Theodoret notes that even the pure in heart cannot bear divine visions without falling, and that God now begins to have the prophet act out his prophecy.
35. 3.25On Ezek 3:25–26 Theodoret pictures God as a trainer preparing the prophet like an athlete for suffering and silence, and tells him not to fear those who defy God.
36. 3.27On Ezek 3:27 Theodoret says the words 'he who hears, let him hear' show that obedience is a free choice, each receiving the reward of his choice.
37. 4.4On Ezek 4:1–5 Theodoret explains the brick as a picture of besieged Jerusalem built on sand, the iron pan as God's refusal to help, and the days on the prophet's left side as Israel's iniquity, the divided kingdoms counted together as one people.
38. 4.6On Ezek 4:6 Theodoret explains the forty days for Judah as the forty years left of the seventy-year exile, and the one hundred and fifty for Israel as the years until Nehemiah rebuilt Jerusalem's walls under Artaxerxes, giving the reign lengths that make up the total.
39. 4.7On Ezek 4:7–10 Theodoret explains that the prophet's bonds show there will be no return before the appointed time, and that the mixed-grain bread eaten by weight foretells the famine of the siege.
40. 4.11On Ezek 4:11–12 Theodoret explains the measured water as a sign of the siege's want and the bread baked on dung as a sign of the defilement the exiles would suffer among the nations.
41. 4.13On Ezek 4:13 Theodoret begins to explain that the exiles, mixed with foreign nations, could not keep the law; the rest of the comment is lost.
42. 4.14On Ezek 4:14–15 Theodoret notes that the prophet pleaded his lifelong observance of the law, and God kindly let him use cow dung instead of human dung.
43. 4.16On Ezek 4:16–17 Theodoret says the baking by weight foretells the famine in Jerusalem and the unclean fuel the exiles' life among the nations, and that the punishment is just.
44. 5.1On Ezek 5:1–4 Theodoret interprets the shaving and dividing of the prophet's hair as Jerusalem's fate by famine, pestilence, sword and exile, the few hairs kept as the survivors who later fled to Egypt, and the fire spreading to all Israel as later calamities down to the dispersion after the cross.
45. 5.5On Ezek 5:5–6 Theodoret explains that God placed Israel, with its distinctive law, at the center of the world to benefit all nations, but Jerusalem did the opposite.
46. 5.7On Ezek 5:7–10 Theodoret says Jerusalem, having copied and outdone the nations' wickedness, would be judged publicly before them, and notes that the cannibalism foretold happened in both the Babylonian and the Roman sieges.
47. 5.11On Ezek 5:11–12 Theodoret explains that 'holy things' include the temple defiled by idols, and illustrates the word 'loathe' from Rebekah and the Psalms; Jerusalem's lawlessness was so great that the merciful God would not spare it.
48. 5.13On Ezek 5:13 Theodoret explains that God is impassible and that 'anger' is a human word for his punishing acts, which aim at making the people know him.
49. 5.14On Ezek 5:14 Theodoret notes the bitterness of being mocked by neighbors and explains 'daughters' as Jerusalem's dependent towns.
50. 5.15On Ezek 5:15 Theodoret says Jerusalem's ruin will make all who hear of it groan.
51. 5.16On Ezek 5:15–17 Theodoret says God repeats his threats of famine, beasts and sword so that fear may bring the people to repentance before the punishment comes.
52. 6.1On Ezek 6:1–2 Theodoret explains that God speaks to the senseless mountains to rebuke the people, as the man of God once spoke to Jeroboam's altar.
53. 6.3On Ezek 6:3–4 Theodoret explains that the mountains and valleys are addressed because the people had built idol altars everywhere on them.
54. 6.5On Ezek 6:5–6 Theodoret says the idol altars filled with corpses would prove that the demons gave no help, and that God punishes like a physician to end idolatry.
55. 6.7On Ezek 6:7–10 Theodoret calls punishment a teacher of the knowledge of God and the mother of repentance: the survivors in exile will remember God, mourn their idolatry, and see that their punishment was just and beneficial.
56. 6.11On Ezek 6:11–13 Theodoret says the prophet is told to applaud the justice of God's sentence on Israel's idolatry under every green tree.
57. 6.14Ezek 6:14: the land will be laid waste from the wilderness of Deblatha.
58. 7.1On Ezek 7:1–13 Theodoret explains 'the end has come' as the end of Judah's affairs, stresses that God threatens in order not to punish, and reads the 'plaiting' and 'rod' as the bonds of sin and the punishment that their lawlessness made to flower.
59. 7.14On Ezek 7:14 Theodoret says the people's confidence in their strength is vain, for no one will be able to fight.
60. 7.15On Ezek 7:15–16 Theodoret says war outside and famine inside leave no defence, and the survivors will moan like doves.
61. 7.17On Ezek 7:17–19 Theodoret describes the besieged throwing away weapons and wealth in despair, since gold and silver cannot buy food or deliverance in the day of God's wrath.
62. 7.20On Ezek 7:20–23 Theodoret says the gold and silver Israel used for pride and idols would be plundered by the Babylonians, who would also profane the temple, God's 'oversight,' entering it armed and unpurified.
63. 7.24On Ezek 7:24 Theodoret notes that God calls the sanctuary 'their holy things,' since he accepted their offerings out of care for them, not need.
64. 7.25On Ezek 7:25 Theodoret says they will seek peace in their distress and not find it.
65. 7.26On Ezek 7:26–27 Theodoret says the loss of vision, law and counsel still holds among the Jews of his day, points to Zedekiah's flight, and closes with an exhortation to repentance and a doxology.
66. 8.1On Ezek 8:1 Theodoret notes that Ezekiel, exiled with Jehoiachin, dates his visions and acted as a guide to the exiles' elders.
67. 8.2On Ezek 8:2–3 Theodoret explains that God appears in varied likenesses, that the prophet's journey to Jerusalem was a vision while he sat among the elders, and that the 'image of jealousy' was an idol in the temple provoking God's jealousy.
68. 8.4On Ezek 8:4–5 Theodoret says God shows the prophet the idol at the temple gate to teach him that the coming punishment is just.
69. 8.6On Ezek 8:6–16 Theodoret describes the abominations shown to the prophet—animal images worshipped by the elders in secret, women mourning Tammuz (Adonis), men turning their backs to the temple to worship the sun—as the folly and impiety that justify the punishment.
70. 8.17On Ezek 8:17 Theodoret says God chose Israel to lead other nations from impiety, but they spread impiety instead and filled the land with lawlessness.
71. 8.18On Ezek 8:18 Theodoret compares God's refusal to spare Jerusalem to a surgeon who must cut regardless of the patient's cries.
72. 9.1Ezek 9:1: the vengeance on the city has drawn near.
73. 9.4On Ezek 9:2–4 Theodoret explains the six executioners coming from the north, where the idolatry was, and the seventh man in priestly dress who marks those who mourn the city's sins, as Paul mourned for sinners, so that they are spared.
74. 9.5On Ezek 9:5–6 Theodoret sees both God's severity and his care for the righteous, and explains 'begin from my holy ones' as the elders set apart for God's service who had profaned the temple.
75. 9.7On Ezek 9:7–8 Theodoret says the temple defiled by idols is now defiled by the slaughter of the lawless, and compares the prophet's plea for the remnant to Paul's wish to be accursed for his people.
76. 9.9On Ezek 9:9 Theodoret says the people's crimes came from their belief that God does not see.
77. 10.1On Ezek 10:1 Theodoret notes that the living creatures are now named cherubim, meaning 'full of knowledge.'
78. 10.2On Ezek 10:2 Theodoret notes that only the man in priestly dress, not the six executioners, may approach the cherubim to take fire to scatter over the city.
79. 10.4On Ezek 10:4–7 Theodoret explains the glory's withdrawal, the thunder-like sound of the cherubim's wings, and the ranks among the heavenly powers shown by who may approach the cherubim.
80. 10.8On Ezek 10:8–13 Theodoret notes that the colors and the order of the faces differ from the first vision, which shows that the prophet saw likenesses suited to the need rather than the angels' nature; the calf's face comes first as a type of priesthood.
81. 10.15On Ezek 10:15 Theodoret notes that the prophet recognizes the creatures of his first vision and now learns their name.
82. 10.16On Ezek 10:16–17 Theodoret explains that the wheels moved with the cherubim of their own accord because they too had spiritual life.
83. 10.18On Ezek 10:18–19 Theodoret says the glory returned to the cherubim once the coals were taken, and stresses that what rode on them was God's glory, not God himself, who is uncircumscribed and everywhere.
84. 10.20On Ezek 10:20–21 Theodoret explains that the cherubim now appear with eight wings instead of four, signifying the prophet's increased knowledge, not a change in their nature.
85. 11.1On Ezek 11:1–3 Theodoret says Jerusalem's leaders, trusting their new houses and calling the city a cauldron that would keep them safe, refused to believe the prophets' warnings of capture.
86. 11.5On Ezek 11:5–10 Theodoret explains that the leaders, who filled the city with the corpses of their own people, would not die safely in it but would be handed to their enemies and judged outside it.
87. 11.11On Ezek 11:11–15 Theodoret says Jerusalem's leaders will die far from the city because they sank below even the nations; when the prophet fears for the remnant, God answers that the exiles mocked by Jerusalem will be kept as his people.
88. 11.16On Ezek 11:16 Theodoret explains the 'little sanctuary' as the comfort and hope God would give the exiles before bringing them home.
89. 11.17On Ezek 11:17–18 Theodoret says the promise of return and purification was fulfilled after the exile, as Ezra and Maccabees show, when the Jews abandoned idolatry.
90. 11.19On Ezek 11:19–20 Theodoret explains the 'new heart' and 'new spirit' not as a change of nature or an abolition of free will, but as God's help turning the will from hardness to obedience.
91. 11.21On Ezek 11:21 Theodoret says those in Jerusalem who did not learn from the exiles' sufferings will receive the punishment they deserve.
92. 11.22On Ezek 11:22–25 Theodoret sees the glory leaving Jerusalem for the Mount of Olives as a type of Christ, who, showing two natures in one person, pronounced judgment on Jerusalem and ascended from that mountain; he ends by urging purity of heart and a doxology.
93. 12.1On Ezek 12:1–11 Theodoret explains that the people's blindness is chosen, not natural, and that the prophet's acted-out departure through the wall foreshadowed Zedekiah's flight from Jerusalem by night, as Jeremiah narrates.
94. 12.12On Ezek 12:12–13 Theodoret explains the prophecy that Zedekiah would be caught and taken to Babylon without seeing it, fulfilled when he was captured near Jericho and blinded after watching his sons killed.
95. 12.14On Ezek 12:14–15 Theodoret says those who escape the slaughter will be scattered so that they learn that idols are powerless and God is Lord.
96. 12.16On Ezek 12:16 Theodoret says the survivors will testify among the nations that their exile is the just penalty for their own impiety.
97. 12.17On Ezek 12:17–18 Theodoret reads the prophet's anxious eating and drinking as a sign of the famine of the siege.
98. 12.19On Ezek 12:19–22 Theodoret explains that Ezekiel in Babylon prophesied to Jerusalem while Jeremiah in Jerusalem wrote to the exiles, so that their agreement across a great distance would prove their words divine.
99. 12.23On Ezek 12:23 Theodoret says that those who took God's delay as proof that the prophecies were false must learn that their fulfilment is at hand.
100. 12.24On Ezek 12:24–25 Theodoret says God will silence the flattering false prophets and swiftly fulfil what his true prophets have spoken.
101. 12.28Ezek 12:28: none of God's words will be delayed any longer.
102. 13.2On Ezek 13:2–5 Theodoret turns to the false prophets, who speak from their own heart rather than the Spirit, and explains, with Symmachus, that like foxes in ruins they left the people's breaches unrepaired and exploited their weakness.
103. 13.6On Ezek 13:6–7 Theodoret says the false prophets misused God's name for divinations he never gave.
104. 13.8On Ezek 13:8–11 Theodoret says the false prophets will be cut off from God's people because they promised peace when God threatened war; their comforting words were whitewash on a rotten wall.
105. 13.12On Ezek 13:11–16 Theodoret reads the storm that brings down the plastered wall as the Chaldean invasion, the wall's bonds as the king and rulers, and the false prophets' peace as exposed by the siege; he then turns to the false prophetesses, instruments of the devil.
106. 13.17On Ezek 13:17–18 Theodoret, with Symmachus, reads the false prophetesses' cushions and veils as soothing, false words that please the hearer but harm the soul and draw people away from God.
107. 13.19On Ezek 13:19 Theodoret condemns the false prophetesses for selling false oracles for scraps of food, with the result that the people condemned the innocent and spared the guilty.
108. 13.20On Ezek 13:20–21 Theodoret says God will expose the false prophetesses by the very sufferings of the people, freeing them from their lies to acknowledge him.
109. 13.22On Ezek 13:22–23 Theodoret says the false prophetesses disheartened the righteous and emboldened the wicked, and so will be destroyed and the people freed from them.
110. 14.4On Ezek 14:1–5 Theodoret explains that God 'answers' those who consult prophets only to confirm their own idolatrous designs by permitting them to be deceived by false prophets, as happened with Ahab and Zedekiah son of Chenaanah.
111. 14.6On Ezek 14:6 Theodoret notes God's call to repentance as the way to salvation.
112. 14.7On Ezek 14:7–10 Theodoret explains that God 'deceives' the false prophet only by permitting the deceit he freely chooses, and punishes both him and the one who consults him with evil intent.
113. 14.11On Ezek 14:11–20 Theodoret says God punishes to reclaim his people, and that the righteousness of Noah, Daniel and Job saves only themselves: without repentance no one benefits from the righteous, as the Ninevites were saved by their own repentance.
114. 14.21On Ezek 14:21–23 Theodoret explains the four judgments on Jerusalem and says God spares some survivors so that their evident wickedness will show the exiles that the punishment was just.
115. 15.6On Ezek 15 Theodoret explains the parable of the vine wood, useless for anything but burning, as Israel fit only for punishment, and urges his readers to be gold and precious stones, not wood and straw for the fire.
116. 16.1God has Ezekiel confront Jerusalem with her sins, as a physician makes a patient aware of a disease so that the cure can work.
117. 16.3Jerusalem's Canaanite “ancestry” means that she copied Canaan's impiety, and the uncut navel and unwashed infant picture Israel still drawing nourishment from Egypt's idolatry.
118. 16.5As soon as Israel left Egypt and received the level way of the law, she turned aside to crooked ways, though God then gave her every care.
119. 16.6God found Israel stained with idolatry, called her to sacrifice to him alone, made her grow, and then bound himself to her by covenant and oath, as in a marriage.
120. 16.9The washing, anointing, and adornment of the bride stand for God's teaching, the anointed priesthood, the people's wealth, and the tabernacle.
121. 16.11The bride's jewelry stands for virtue, the law's yoke, the restraint of the commandments, good teaching and good repute, and also for the real wealth Israel took from Egypt and Canaan.
122. 16.14Israel's fame among the nations came from the beauty God gave her through his commandments and laws.
123. 16.15Proud of the fame God gave her, Jerusalem trusted herself, left God, and gave herself to every idol, which the prophet calls sexual immorality.
124. 16.16Jerusalem made idols out of the very clothes, silver, gold, oil, and food God had given her, which is why the prophet calls her idolatry sexual immorality.
125. 16.21The sacrifice of children to idols is the most loathsome of Jerusalem's crimes, and she forgot the helpless state from which God raised her.
126. 16.23Only the opening words of the lemma survive in the scan.
127. 16.24Jerusalem took up the animal-gods of Egypt and the gods of Assyria and Chaldea, so God will strip her of the law's splendor and make her a laughing-stock to her neighbors.
128. 16.28Jerusalem took up the gods of every nation, so that her idolatry outstrips that of the cities subject to her and has made her the model of impiety.
129. 16.31Unlike a prostitute who sells herself from need, Jerusalem spent God's own gifts on her idols, like a wife who robs her husband for her lovers.
130. 16.32Jerusalem is worse than an adulterous wife who takes pay, since she pays her lovers.
131. 16.33Those who serve demons with God's gifts receive nothing good from them, but only draw the demons' rule upon themselves.
132. 16.34Only the opening words of the lemma survive in the scan.
133. 16.35God will withdraw his providence from Jerusalem and punish her for her lawlessness, above all for sacrificing her children to demons.
134. 16.37God will punish Jerusalem through the very nations whose gods she loved, joined by those she hated, so that all see her shame.
135. 16.38Jerusalem will receive the punishment of the adulteresses and murderers whose lawlessness she imitated.
136. 16.39The captivity will strip Jerusalem of her temple and wealth, and the very poverty it brings will cure her of idolatry.
137. 16.42Like a jealous husband, God will punish and then cease his jealousy, though even the punishment falls short of what Jerusalem's ingratitude deserved.
138. 16.44The proverb “like mother, like daughter” fits Jerusalem, whose “mother” is the Hittite.
139. 16.45Samaria and Sodom are Jerusalem's sisters in impiety: God was once the God of the nations too, and Jerusalem copied first Samaria and then Sodom.
140. 16.47Jerusalem sinned worse than Sodom and Samaria because she had the law, the prophets, and the temple, while Sodom had only the natural law.
141. 16.52Jerusalem's greater guilt makes Samaria and Sodom look righteous by comparison; the dishonor of siege and captivity will make her recognize her God.
142. 16.53Theodoret reads the “restoration” of Sodom, Samaria, and Jerusalem as a return to their original desolation, since Scripture often speaks of past events in the future tense.
143. 16.56Jerusalem knew Sodom's fate and still persisted in sin, and she despised the curse she had sworn to at Mount Ebal, so she reaps what she sowed.
144. 16.60After punishment God will remember his covenant and give an eternal new covenant of grace through the apostles, in which Jews and nations share; the chapter ends with a call to self-examination and prayer.
145. 17.5The great eagle of the parable is Nebuchadnezzar, led by God to Jerusalem, who carried the young king Jeconiah to Babylon and set up Zedekiah as a humbled, tribute-paying king.
146. 17.6Zedekiah's kingdom was a weak, shrunken vine, no longer the vine of the psalm that filled the land, and its reaching out meant its alliance with Egypt.
147. 17.7The second eagle is Pharaoh Hophra, to whom Zedekiah sent money, breaking his oath to Nebuchadnezzar, in hope of protection for himself and his people.
148. 17.9Egypt's help would not save Zedekiah but hasten his ruin; Babylon's army, the burning wind, took the king captive, enslaved the people, and burned the city.
149. 17.11Nebuchadnezzar took the young king to Babylon and made Zedekiah king under a sworn covenant, keeping his kingdom weak; Zedekiah broke the oath at once.
150. 17.15Zedekiah's revolt and appeal to Egypt break his sworn covenant, and God asks whether a covenant-breaker can escape.
151. 17.16Zedekiah, who swore by the true God, broke the oath that a pagan king had required of him, so he will die in Babylon, and Egypt's help will fail.
152. 17.18After foretelling Zedekiah's capture, Theodoret argues that the cedar shoot planted and “hung” on Israel's mountain fits neither Zerubbabel nor the Maccabees, but only Christ, David's heir, crucified on Golgotha, whose church shelters the faithful.
153. 17.24God, who lowers the high and raises the low, will make a shoot spring from desolate Jerusalem, as Isaiah foretold of the root of Jesse.
154. 18.5God rejects the proverb about sour grapes: each soul belongs to him and answers only for its own sins, and he begins to describe the righteous man.
155. 18.7Only the opening words of the lemma survive in the scan.
156. 18.8Only the opening words of the lemma survive in the scan.
157. 18.9The righteous man will live, but a wicked son of a righteous father who walks the opposite road has done lawlessness.
158. 18.13A wicked son cannot be saved by his father's virtue, but reaps what he himself has sown.
159. 18.14A righteous son of a wicked father is described: he shuns idols, respects others' marriages, hates greed, and helps the needy.
160. 18.17The righteous son will live, though his father died for his own injustice, because he chose God's road rather than his father's.
161. 18.20Each person bears his own righteousness or lawlessness, and the prophet repeats it so that it is remembered.
162. 18.21God punishes no one for another, and he receives and gives life even to the worst transgressor who repents and chooses righteousness.
163. 18.23God wills repentance, not death, as his prophets, laws, promises, and threats show, and as the kings from Hezekiah to Josiah's sons prove; a righteous man who wholly abandons righteousness dies in his sins, but one who stumbles and repents is saved.
164. 18.25Israel accuses God's way of being unjust, though their own choice of injustice is what deserves accusation.
165. 18.29The facts show that God's judgments are right and Israel's choices lawless, and the prophet turns to exhortation.
166. 18.31God calls Israel to a new heart and spirit, since he desires repentance, not death; Theodoret applies this to Jews and nations alike and closes the chapter with prayer.
167. 19.1The lament is for the kings of Judah: Jerusalem, the lioness, bred four bold kings in quick succession after Josiah.
168. 19.3The first captured cub is Jehoahaz, taken to Egypt by Pharaoh Neco; the second is Jeconiah, who in his three-month reign filled Jerusalem with killings.
169. 19.8Jeconiah was caught like a lion and taken to Babylon; then the prophet compares Jerusalem to a well-watered vine whose prosperity, God's gift, bred arrogance.
170. 19.12The broken, burned vine pictures the enemy's onslaught and God's punishment that ended Judah's kingdom.
171. 19.13After Jerusalem's fall even the remnant under Gedaliah was destroyed, when Ishmael killed him and the rest fled to Egypt, leaving Judah without a ruler until the return.
172. 20.5God refuses to answer elders who inquire without intending to obey, and he recounts how he brought Israel from Egypt, spared them for his name's sake, gave them life-giving laws, and gave the Sabbath not as a source of life but as a sign that set them apart and kept them attending on God.
173. 20.13The Sabbath, unlike the moral commandments taught by nature and unlike circumcision, which other nations shared, was a law given to set Israel apart as a sign between God and them.
174. 20.14God spared Israel in the wilderness for the sake of his name among the nations, as Moses' intercession after the golden calf shows.
175. 20.17God spared the wilderness generation's children and urged them to forsake their fathers' ways and keep his laws and Sabbaths.
176. 20.21The second wilderness generation also rejected God's laws and Sabbaths.
177. 20.23God swore to scatter Israel but held back for the sake of his name among the nations.
178. 20.25Theodoret rejects reading the “ordinances not good” as idolatry permitted by God; they are the ritual laws on purity and sacrifice, not evil in themselves, given to keep a law-breaking people busy and near the temple so that they would keep the Ten Commandments.
179. 20.26God gave Israel over to its own ways, so that they defiled themselves by sacrificing their firstborn to demons, and in the promised land they filled every hill with idol worship.
180. 20.29God mocks the famous high place Bama and refuses to answer inquirers who keep their fathers' idolatry and child sacrifice.
181. 20.32Israel's plan to become like the idol-worshiping nations will fail, for God swears to rule over them by discipline.
182. 20.34God promises first to bring the exiles back from captivity.
183. 20.35The “wilderness of the peoples” is the nations, long empty of God; their conversion will shame Israel and expose its disobedience.
184. 20.37God will gather the faithful, whom Theodoret identifies with the apostles and believers, while the rebellious will again be scattered, which he sees fulfilled in the Roman dispersion after the cross.
185. 20.39If Israel stops profaning God's name by idolatry, they will return to their land and offer acceptable firstfruits on his holy mountain.
186. 20.41God will accept the returned exiles and be glorified among the nations, and Israel will remember its sins with shame.
187. 20.44God restores Israel for his name's sake, not for their merit; Christians, who bear Christ's name, must take care not to bring blasphemy on it.
188. 20.45The southern forest against which Ezekiel prophesies is Jerusalem, southwest of Babylon, hard as oak, disorderly, and full of beasts.
189. 20.47The fire in the forest is the enemy army, which will consume rich and poor in Jerusalem alike.
190. 20.48The fire of war will spread from Chaldea to Jerusalem so that all nations learn that God is Master of the world.
191. 20.49Because the people dismiss the prophecy as a mere parable, God has Ezekiel restate it plainly.
192. 21.1God has Ezekiel say plainly that the southern forest of the parable is Jerusalem.
193. 21.3The sword drawn from its sheath is God's punishment, released when his long-suffering ends, and it strikes the unjust.
194. 21.4The Chaldean army, God's sword, will strike not only Jerusalem but the nations between, so that all learn his authority.
195. 21.6The prophet's groaning is to show the people that the threatened disaster is real.
196. 21.7Ezekiel groans to announce coming disaster; the sharpened sword is God's punishment through Babylon, as in the Song of Moses.
197. 21.11The whetted sword is put into the Chaldeans' hands, as Isaiah calls Assyria God's axe and rod: the punisher is only God's tool.
198. 21.12God, who punishes unwillingly, has the prophet lament that even the rulers and the priests, who shared the people's sin, fall by the sword.
199. 21.13The just punishment will begin the people's justification: though thrust away, the Jewish people will be recalled.
200. 21.14The “third sword” is Nebuchadnezzar's final siege under Zedekiah, the third battle though the fourth invasion, since Jeconiah surrendered without a fight.
201. 21.15The prophecy is meant to break the people's hardness; the two-edged sword goes wherever it turns because God works with it.
202. 21.17God works what is good and permits evil through human free will; Ezekiel is to draw the fork in the road where Nebuchadnezzar chose between Jerusalem and Rabbath of the Ammonites.
203. 21.21At the fork Nebuchadnezzar consulted rods, idols, and livers to decide which city to attack first.
204. 21.22Demons do not know the future but guess from events; knowing God's anger against lawless Jerusalem, they pointed Nebuchadnezzar's divination there.
205. 21.23Jerusalem's people thought the omens favored them, but their own lawlessness caused their capture and made the pagan omens come true.
206. 21.25Priest and king lose turban and crown, for this siege ends the kingdom; they had humbled the virtuous and exalted the unjust.
207. 21.27God would keep the royal line until Christ, to whom the kingdom belongs, as Jacob's blessing and Paul foretold; the later Roman desolation of Jerusalem, Theodoret says, was worse than Babylon's.
208. 21.28The sword is turned against Ammon; pagan divination seemed true only because demons passed on what the prophets foretold, while deceiving the Jews through false prophets.
209. 21.31God will destroy Babylon as easily as blowing on a fire, which happened when the Medes and Persians took the city by night during a festival.
210. 22.6Jerusalem, the city of blood, has shortened God's patience as in Noah's day; her rulers kill even kin, curse parents, and oppress strangers, orphans, and widows, against the law.
211. 22.8Jerusalem profaned the Sabbath, harbored murderers and idolaters, and committed incest with stepmothers and intercourse with menstruating women, all forbidden by the law.
212. 22.11The sins of Jerusalem rise from adultery to incest with daughters-in-law and sisters, to bribery and usury, which the prophet ranks with murder and idolatry; God will act as he has spoken.
213. 22.16Exile will cure Israel's uncleanness, teach it to know God, and make God's power known among the nations.
214. 22.17Israel is counterfeit silver mixed with base metals; God will make Jerusalem a furnace and the enemy its coals, to consume the incurable and refine the rest.
215. 22.23Jerusalem is a land without rain because it shed off the prophets' teaching like rock.
216. 22.25Jerusalem's rulers devour lives for gain, so that widows multiply.
217. 22.26Jerusalem's priests failed to teach the difference between holy and common, clean and unclean, and ignored Sabbath-breaking, while its rulers killed for gain.
218. 22.28The false prophets whitewashed the rulers' crimes, flattering them in God's name, and they will fall.
219. 22.29The false prophets lied to please the rulers and to profit, while the poor and strangers were oppressed.
220. 22.30God sought one righteous man to stand in the breach and found none, though he would have spared Sodom for a few; so believers must not presume on his patience.
221. 23.4Oholah and Oholibah are Samaria and Jerusalem, sisters born of one people who learned idolatry in Egypt, received the law as a marriage covenant, and then fell away, Samaria first with the golden calves.
222. 23.5Samaria's “lovers” are the Assyrians and their gods, whom Israel courted when it bought Assyrian help, while it never gave up the idolatry learned in Egypt.
223. 23.9God handed Samaria over to the Assyrians she had courted.
224. 23.10Samaria, given over to the Assyrians she loved, was destroyed and her people taken captive; Jerusalem then did worse, trusting in Assyrian alliance and gods.
225. 23.13Jerusalem fell in love with painted images of Chaldeans, mere colors and craft, and then broke faith with the Babylonians she had invited.
226. 23.18God turned from Jerusalem as from Samaria; his “soul” is a human way of speaking, since God is incorporeal.
227. 23.19Jerusalem's new idolatry revived the memory of her old sins in Egypt, which God had let fall into forgetfulness.
228. 23.20Jerusalem served the gods of Egypt and Chaldea alike, an adultery of the soul; God will bring her Babylonian lovers against her with every army and cruelty.
229. 23.27Punishment will make Jerusalem recognize and loathe the idolatry that brought her calamity.
230. 23.28God hands Jerusalem over to the Chaldeans she first loved and then hated, so that her punishment exposes her impiety to all.
231. 23.30Jerusalem's own immorality, copying the nations, brought her these evils.
232. 23.31Jerusalem will drink the same cup of punishment as Samaria.
233. 23.32The deep, wide cup is the long and total disaster of the seventy years, ending Jerusalem's feasts and leading her to repentance.
234. 23.35Jerusalem preferred bodily pleasures to God's service, and enslavement to pleasure led her into idolatry.
235. 23.36Ezekiel is to arraign Samaria and Jerusalem for their spiritual adultery, child sacrifice, and profanation of God's holy things and Sabbaths.
236. 23.39Child sacrifice to demons, on the Sabbath, followed by entering God's temple, is the height of impiety.
237. 23.40The courtesan's preparations picture Jerusalem's alliances with Assyria and Chaldea and her part in the demons' festivals, where she set God's incense and oil before idols.
238. 23.42The revelers from the wilderness are idolaters, desolate souls who taught Jerusalem impiety to music, and she adorned her idols with God's own gifts.
239. 23.43God had warned through the prophets that worship of lifeless idols was adultery; demons and Chaldeans used Samaria and Jerusalem as one uses a prostitute.
240. 23.45The pagan executioners are “righteous” only by comparison with Jerusalem, and they will punish her as an adulteress and murderess.
241. 23.46The destruction of Samaria and Jerusalem will be a lesson to every city to turn from impiety.
242. 23.49Jerusalem will reap the impiety she freely chose, and the punishment will teach her God's lordship; Theodoret prays that believers learn it through gratitude instead.
243. 24.1Ezekiel records the day the siege of Jerusalem began, so that exiles and besieged alike would see the prophecy fulfilled and know their defeat was punishment for sin.
244. 24.3In the parable of the cauldron, the city is the pot, the choice pieces its nobles, the bones beneath its poor who starved first, and the fire the Babylonian army.
245. 24.6The rust in the cauldron is Jerusalem's sin, which even the fire of disaster did not remove, and this time no one escaped by lot.
246. 24.7Jerusalem's bloodshed lies exposed like blood on bare rock; God will heat the empty cauldron until its rust of sin is burned away, since she refused to be cleansed by repentance.
247. 24.14God judges Jerusalem by its schemes, and he tells Ezekiel not to mourn the death of his wife, since his silent grief is to be a sign.
248. 24.18Ezekiel's silent grief at his wife's death is a type of God's unwilling punishment of Israel, his bride, and of the people's coming grief, too great for mourning rites; when the fugitive arrives, the prophet will speak again.
249. 25.6God will punish Ammon, Moab, Edom, and the Philistines for gloating over Judah's fall and taking revenge, so that they learn his power; Theodoret urges believers to put away grudges before sunset.
250. 26.7Tyre gloated over Jerusalem's fall, hoping to gain power, so God will send Nebuchadnezzar to besiege and lay her waste until she is a bare rock for drying nets.
251. 26.9Nebuchadnezzar will raze Tyre and the islands will lament her; “never rebuilt” means, in light of Isaiah, that she would never again be built in idolatry, and Tyre has since received the knowledge of God.
252. 26.19The flood that drowns Tyre is Babylon's army; her impious citizens go down to the dead and will not rise to the land of life in the coming age.
253. 26.21Since one Spirit speaks in all the prophets, Ezekiel's “forever” does not contradict Isaiah's seventy years: “age” can mean a limited time, or the old pagan Tyre is gone for good, replaced by a Christian city.
254. 27.7Tyre, pictured as a splendid ship, was built and adorned with timber, ivory, linen, and purple brought from Bashan, Sanir, the Greek islands (Kittim), Egypt, and Greece (Elisa).
255. 27.8Sidonians, men of Arad, and the wise of Byblos served Tyre's ships and counsels, and merchants came to her from the farthest west.
256. 27.11Tyre's army and garrison were drawn from many nations, Persians, Lydians, Libyans, Aradians, and Medes, who hung their armor on her walls.
257. 27.12Carthage, called Tarshish in Hebrew and Syriac, supplied Tyre with metals.
258. 27.13Greece and its neighbors sold slaves and bronze vessels to Tyre.
259. 27.14Togarmah, identified with Phrygia, sold horses, horsemen, and mules to Tyre.
260. 27.15Rhodes sent ivory and ebony, Carthage fine cloth and spices, and Judah and Israel grain, honey, oil, and perfumes to Tyre's mixed population.
261. 27.28The catalog of Tyre's trading partners, from Damascus and Ionia to Arabia, Sheba, and Carthage, ends with the ship of Tyre, swollen with wealth and forgetful of its Benefactor, wrecked by the south wind of Babylon while sailors and merchants lament.
262. 27.33Tyre's wealth profited her nothing; the “forever” of her ruin is lifted, as with Nineveh, because God releases his sentences on those who repent, and Tyre's descendants turned to God.
263. 28.1Theodoret reads the oracle against the prince of Tyre (Ezek 28:1–13) of both the visible king and the devil who worked in him, whose pride is overthrown by the believing nations.
264. 28.14The cherub, the holy mountain and the fiery stones of Ezek 28:14 fit only the devil before his fall, not the king of Tyre.
265. 28.15The devil was blameless at his creation and fell by his own turning to evil.
266. 28.16The devil's fall (Ezek 28:16) is read with Isa 14:12–15: once lord of the nations, he lost his tyranny through the cross and is trampled by the pure.
267. 28.17The devil, proud of the gifts God gave him, lost his rank and was cast down to be mocked by those who keep theirs.
268. 28.18The devil, once a holy archangel, profaned his holiness and led man to the same fall; both he and the king of Tyre are consumed by the fire of their own sins.
269. 28.19The devil's followers mourn the fall of the idols; the lament for Tyre ends and the prophet turns to Sidon.
270. 28.20God threatens Sidon with death and the sword so that it may learn his lordship (Ezek 28:20–23).
271. 28.24Israel's neighbours will no longer harass it; God disciplines Israel in judgment, not anger, and promises return and the knowledge of God, to which Theodoret exhorts his readers.
272. 29.1The oracles against Egypt begin (Ezek 29:1–2).
273. 29.3Pharaoh, the boastful dragon of the Nile, and his subjects will be cast out because Egypt led Israel to trust in a broken reed instead of God (Ezek 29:3–10).
274. 29.12Egypt's desolation is limited to forty years and part of the land, for God punishes in measure and then heals.
275. 29.13Egypt is restored after forty years but remains a lowly kingdom, as its later subjection to the Persians and Macedonians shows.
276. 29.16Israel will no longer lean on Egypt; Egypt is promised to Nebuchadnezzar as wages for the siege of Tyre, showing that nothing happens without God's permission (Ezek 29:16–18).
277. 29.19Egypt is given to Nebuchadnezzar; after its fall Israel's horn will spring up and it will heed the prophets (Ezek 29:19–21).
278. 30.4The day of the Lord comes on Egypt and its allies, including the Jews who fled there against God's will; Nebuchadnezzar is God's instrument (Ezek 30:1–13).
279. 30.13Theodoret reads Ezek 30:13–16 as the overrunning of Egypt's cities by the enemy, swift as a flood.
280. 30.17The fall of Heliopolis, Boubastos and Taphnas brings the darkness of calamity (Ezek 30:17–18).
281. 30.19God's judgments on Egypt are meant to teach the Egyptians humility and his lordship.
282. 30.20The prophecies are dated out of order because they were given at different times; Pharaoh, refusing the remedy of repentance after a first blow, will be broken and Babylon strengthened (Ezek 30:20–26).
283. 31.3God asks Pharaoh whom he resembles and points to Assyria, the proud cedar-like cypress whose top reached the clouds (Ezek 31:1–3).
284. 31.4The waters that fed the Assyrian tree are the subject nations whose tribute sustained his armies.
285. 31.5The tribute of many nations made the Assyrian king proud.
286. 31.6The birds and beasts under the tree are the peoples of the empire, and its branches its officials, as in Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the tree.
287. 31.7The tree's many branches are the empire's many satraps, fed by its far-reaching roots.
288. 31.8The Assyrian tree, greater than all kings, was handed over for its pride to Cyrus; more deeply it is the devil, handed over to Christ, the ruler of the nations, whose believing peoples overthrew his temples (Ezek 31:8–12).
289. 31.13The faithful rejoice at the devil's fall, and former pagans pull down the idols' temples.
290. 31.14The fall of the Assyrian (and of the devil and his demons) is a warning to others not to seize power beyond their station.
291. 31.15The mourning deep, Lebanon and the trees are the subject nations and the officials of the empire; the “paradise of God” means the world's kingdoms or the angelic powers.
292. 31.16The fall of the Babylonian king, and of the devil, shakes the nations; his son Belshazzar and his teaching perish, and Pharaoh, uncircumcised in heart, will share his fate (Ezek 31:16–18).
293. 32.1Pharaoh, a would-be lion and a sea-dragon like the devil, will be netted by the Babylonian army, his land darkened and laid waste so that Egypt learns God's lordship (Ezek 32:1–15).
294. 32.16The cities of the nations lament Egypt, whose towns are brought down to death because it did not circumcise its heart (Ezek 32:16–20).
295. 32.21The mighty dead greet the fallen king of Egypt, as in Isaiah's taunt over Babylon (Ezek 32:21).
296. 32.22Even the renowned Assyrian king and his army lie slain in their graves, having earned shame for the terror they caused (Ezek 32:22–23).
297. 32.24Elam and the other nations lie in their mass graves, uncircumcised and slain (Ezek 32:24–25).
298. 32.26Theodoret identifies Tubal and Meshech of Ezek 32:26 with the Iberians and the Cappadocians.
299. 32.27The slain lie with their useless swords, punished for the terror they spread (Ezek 32:27–28).
300. 32.29Edom's rulers, who used their strength for bloodshed, lie among the slain.
301. 32.30With death the terror of the mighty perishes; they lie in shame, uncircumcised in heart (Ezek 32:30).
302. 32.31Pharaoh, uncircumcised in heart, will share the fate of the slain nations; Theodoret urges the circumcision of the heart by the Spirit (Ezek 32:31–32).
303. 33.1God calls Israel the prophet's people because of its sin, and sets the image of the watchman: whoever ignores his warning is responsible for his own death (Ezek 33:1–5).
304. 33.6A watchman who fails to warn is answerable for the blood of those who perish, though they die for their own sins (Ezek 33:6).
305. 33.7The prophet is Israel's watchman and must pass on God's warnings with all zeal (Ezek 33:7).
306. 33.8The prophet who fails to warn the sinner shares his guilt; Israel despairs of salvation through repentance (Ezek 33:8–10).
307. 33.11God does not desire the sinner's death; the righteous who turn to evil die, and sinners who repent live (Ezek 33:11–15).
308. 33.16Israel accuses God's way of being crooked, though it is their own ways that are perverse (Ezek 33:16–19).
309. 33.20God will judge each according to his ways (Ezek 33:20).
310. 33.21News of Jerusalem's fall reaches the prophet, whose mouth God had opened the evening before (Ezek 33:21–22).
311. 33.23The survivors in Judea boast that, if Abraham alone held the land, they will hold it all the more (Ezek 33:23–24).
312. 33.25Israel's survivors cannot claim the land while they eat blood, worship idols, kill and commit adultery; God will make the land desolate (Ezek 33:25–29).
313. 33.30The exiles flock to hear the prophet but have no intention of obeying; their heart does not agree with their tongue (Ezek 33:30–31).
314. 33.32The prophet is to his hearers like pleasant music: they enjoy his words but do not obey them (Ezek 33:32).
315. 33.33When the prophecy is fulfilled the people will know a prophet was among them; the oracle against the shepherds, kings and priests, follows.
316. 34.2God asks the shepherds of Israel whether shepherds exist to feed themselves or the sheep (Ezek 34:1–2).
317. 34.3The milk, wool and fat are the tithes, sacrifices and taxes that priests and kings took while neglecting the people (Ezek 34:3).
318. 34.4The shepherds neglected the sick and straying and persecuted the strong, the prophets, mocking them as they did so (Ezek 34:4).
319. 34.5The beasts that devour the neglected sheep are the demons and Israel's enemies (Ezek 34:5).
320. 34.6Unchecked idolatry scattered the flock; God will remove the shepherds, which Theodoret takes as the end of Jewish kingship and high priesthood, and save his sheep through Christ (Ezek 34:6–10).
321. 34.11God's seeking of his scattered sheep on the cloudy day is, mystically, the gathering of the Church from Jews and gentiles out of the darkness of ignorance before the incarnation (Ezek 34:11–12).
322. 34.13The good pasture and the high mountain are the Gospel teaching, which surpasses the law; the many folds are the churches throughout the world, the mountains of Israel the prophets, and the shepherd Christ (Ezek 34:13–15).
323. 34.16Christ seeks the lost like Paul, binds up the broken like the tax collector and the harlot, strengthens Peter, and guards the strong; the sheep, being rational, are answerable too (Ezek 34:16).
324. 34.17God will judge between sheep and sheep (Ezek 34:17).
325. 34.18The fat sheep who foul the pasture and water are the rich who waste their wealth and leave the poor nothing, like the rich man in the parable of Lazarus (Ezek 34:18–19).
326. 34.20God will judge between the strong sheep who push the weak aside and the weak, and will save his flock (Ezek 34:20–22).
327. 34.23The one shepherd “David” is Christ, called servant as man by nature, not by rank, who makes one flock of Jews and gentiles (Ezek 34:23).
328. 34.24Christ is the David with whom God makes a covenant of peace, uniting Jews and gentiles; the evil beasts are demons and savage men (Ezek 34:24–25).
329. 34.26The rain of blessing is the apostles' teaching, as rain stands for teaching in Isa 5:6 (Ezek 34:26).
330. 34.27The fruitful trees are believing gentiles and Jews; the hope of peace, the broken yoke, and the plant of peace (Christ, from whom Christians are named) fulfil the promise both for the returning Jews and for the Church (Ezek 34:27–29).
331. 34.30The true Israel, God's people, are all who see God by faith, as Paul and John the Baptist teach; the prophecy fits the Church more truly than the returned Jews (Ezek 34:30).
332. 34.31The promises of Ezek 34 cannot refer to Zerubbabel, whose return was beset by enemies, but to the salvation of the world; Theodoret urges readers to test interpretations and hold to the true one.
333. 35.5Edom, Israel's kin, is condemned to desolation for its lasting hatred and its treachery in Israel's distress; God's “hand” and anger are figures suited to human hearers (Ezek 35:1–6).
334. 35.7Seir will be utterly desolate because Edom boasted it would seize both Israel's lands, though God had given Edom its own land and spared it from Israel (Ezek 35:7–10).
335. 35.11God hears Edom's blasphemies against Israel's mountains and will judge it; he does not repeat them, teaching us not to repeat blasphemy (Ezek 35:11–13).
336. 35.14Edom will be desolate while all others rejoice, a punishment without the comfort of shared misfortune, yet meant to teach it to know God (Ezek 35:14–15).
337. 36.5God promises the desolate mountains of Israel restoration and punishes the boastful nations, chief among them Edom, for their scorn (Ezek 36:1–7).
338. 36.8The mountains of Israel will bear fruit again for the returning people, as the rebuilt cities of Palestine show; only Jerusalem stays desolate because of the cross; Israel's exile was the just reward of its idolatry and bloodshed (Ezek 36:8–19).
339. 36.20Israel's conduct in exile caused the nations to blaspheme God, first as weak, then as approving their wickedness (Ezek 36:20).
340. 36.21God restores Israel not for its own sake but to vindicate his name before the nations; what follows applies only to those who accept the Gospel (Ezek 36:21–24).
341. 36.25The clean water is baptism, the new heart and Spirit the grace given through the apostles after Christ, which persuades without compelling free will; the promises of grain and fruit are bodily blessings for the returned Jews (Ezek 36:25–30).
342. 36.31Restored Israel will remember and loathe its former sins (Ezek 36:31).
343. 36.32God acts for his own sake, not Israel's merit; Israel should be ashamed of its ways (Ezek 36:32).
344. 36.33When God forgives Israel, its cities and land will be rebuilt and tilled (Ezek 36:33–34).
345. 36.35The desolate land will become like Eden, and the nations will know that the Lord has done it (Ezek 36:35–36).
346. 36.37God will be found by Israel and multiply them like the festal flocks of Jerusalem; Theodoret closes with an exhortation to love and fear God (Ezek 36:37–38).
347. 37.1Ezekiel's vision of the plain of bones is a spiritual vision given by the Holy Spirit (Ezek 37:1).
348. 37.2The valley of dry bones teaches the exiles that God can restore them, and teaches Christians the ease of the bodily resurrection (Ezek 37:2–6).
349. 37.7The bones come together and are clothed with flesh before the spirit enters, as Adam's body was formed before the soul was breathed into it (Ezek 37:7–8).
350. 37.9At the prophet's word the souls return to their bodies and a great multitude rises (Ezek 37:9–10).
351. 37.11The bones are a type of despairing Israel, and the vision shows the hope of restoration (Ezek 37:11).
352. 37.12God will raise his people from the graves of exile and join Judah and Ephraim into one nation under one king; the everlasting shepherd-king David is Christ, son of David by the flesh and servant by the nature he assumed, not Zerubbabel (Ezek 37:12–25).
353. 37.26The everlasting covenant of peace and God's sanctuary among his people are fulfilled in Christ, our peace, and in the churches and altars given to Jews and gentiles alike (Ezek 37:26–27).
354. 37.28The nations come to know God through the Jews: Christ, the apostles, the cross and resurrection, and the prophetic books all came from them (Ezek 37:28).
355. 38.1Theodoret identifies Gog and Magog as Scythian nations and Mosoch as the Cappadocians, noting that Ros was rendered “head” (Ezek 38:1–2).
356. 38.3God's bridle on Gog means that the invasion happens only by God's will or permission (Ezek 38:3–4).
357. 38.5Gog's allies include Persians, Ethiopians, Lydians, Libyans and Phout, ancestor of the western Libyans (Ezek 38:5).
358. 38.6Gog's invasion is placed after the return from Babylon, when Judea's cities were unwalled; teachers of the Church said Zerubbabel defeated these nations and built the temple from their spoils; a recent Scythian raid on the East shows the distance is no objection (Ezek 38:6–12).
359. 38.13Gog's greed is plain to the trading nations; his defeat “at the last of the days” after the return makes God known to the nations, as the destruction of Sennacherib's army once did (Ezek 38:13–16).
360. 38.17Earlier prophets (Hosea, Joel, Micah, Zechariah) foretold the defeat of these nations after the return; God's wrath is spoken of in human terms, and the earthquake may be both figurative and real (Ezek 38:17–20).
361. 38.21Gog's armies will destroy each other in panic and be struck by hail, fire and brimstone, so that the nations learn God's power (Ezek 38:21–23).
362. 39.3Gog's weapons will fall from his hands and his armies become food for birds and beasts (Ezek 39:1–5).
363. 39.6After Gog's destruction even the islands will be at peace (Ezek 39:6–7).
364. 39.7Gog's defeat will vindicate God's name before the nations, and Israel will burn the invaders' weapons for seven years (Ezek 39:7–10).
365. 39.11Gog's host will be buried in a great ravine, the Polyandrion of Gog, recalling the slaughter of Sennacherib's army; the burial and the search for bones will take months (Ezek 39:11–15).
366. 39.16The summons of birds and beasts to God's “sacrifice” figuratively describes the slaughter of Gog's kings, champions and people (Ezek 39:16–19).
367. 39.20The “sacrificial” animals are the horses, riders and warriors of Gog's army (Ezek 39:20).
368. 39.21Through Gog's destruction the nations will see God's justice, and Israel will know him as Lord from then on (Ezek 39:21–22).
369. 39.23Gog's defeat shows the nations that Israel's exile was punishment for sin, not God's weakness; restored Israel will recognise its guilt, though many chose not to return (Ezek 39:23–28).
370. 39.29God's promise not to turn away depends on human obedience; Theodoret rejects as Judaizing the view of some Christians that Gog's invasion is still to come, since the nations already know God through the cross and the apostles (Ezek 39:29).
371. 40.1Theodoret summarizes in paraphrase Ezekiel's vision of the new temple (Ezek 40–42): its date, gates, courts, chambers, tables, the priests of Zadok, the nave and Holy of Holies, the carvings, the table before the Lord, and the priests' chambers.
372. 43.1The glory of God returns to the temple by the east gate; the earlier vision of the city's destruction is recalled, and Theodoret notes that the divine nature cannot be circumscribed (Ezek 43:1–4).
373. 43.5God's glory fills the new temple as it filled the tabernacle and Solomon's temple; his dwelling “for ever” is fulfilled not in the type but among the saints in heaven, as Christ promised, since Israel profaned God's name even after the return (Ezek 43:5–7).
374. 43.8Israel profaned the temple by treating it as their own houses and later killed the heir, so the vineyard went to others; the two propitiatories of Ezekiel's altar are the old type and Christ, the four cubits between them the four Gospels (Ezek 43:8–17).
375. 43.16The altar's base, the Ariel, of twelve cubits signifies the twelve apostles, the foundation of the Church; the larger propitiatory is Christ; salt in the sacrifices signifies reasoned piety (Ezek 43:16–27).
376. 44.1Theodoret paraphrases Ezek 44: the east gate shut for the Lord alone (also a figure of the virginal womb); foreigners and idolatrous Levites excluded; the Zadokite priests' linen garments, hair, abstinence from wine, marriage (only a virgin or a priest's widow, not a widow or divorced woman), judging, feasts, mourning and portion.
377. 45.1Theodoret paraphrases Ezek 45: land set apart for the priests so that they may be content and not wrong the people, just weights and measures (with their equivalents), the offerings due to the leader, and the feasts.
378. 46.1Theodoret paraphrases Ezek 46: the east gate opened on Sabbaths and new moons, the order of worship and of entering and leaving, the high priest's voluntary offerings, the rule on gifts of land, and the priests' kitchens.
379. 47.1The water flowing from the temple is baptismal rebirth through Christ, spreading from the Jews to all nations; its four measurings are the four Gospels, the impassable fourth being John's; the trees on its banks are faith and good works (Ezek 47:1–8).
380. 47.9The river gives life to all it reaches; its many fish and fishermen are those saved through baptism and those who bring them in, and the new people fills the world like the sea (Ezek 47:9–10).
381. 47.11The unhealed marshes are superficial Christians, whose punishment yet benefits others; the ever-fruitful trees are the saints; Israel's borders are described, and proselytes receive an inheritance with the tribes (Ezek 47:11–23).
382. 48.1Theodoret paraphrases the division of the land and the city of Ezek 48, refers its rebuilding to the return, and refutes at length Apollinarius's expectation of a rebuilt Jerusalem and temple with Jewish-Christians keeping the law, from Christ's words, Paul's letters and the churches of Jerusalem; the commentary ends with a request for the readers' prayers.