The exalted city.
Ezekiel now comes to an elaborate vision of the restored condition of the Jews—first that of their city, and then that of the temple which is its crowning glory. Being well acquainted with his native land, which he could never forget in the weary days by the waters of Babylon, he was able to picture its scenes when inspired with prophetic sight. He sees the city of the future, "upon a very high mountain." As the Swiss pines for his mountain home when banished to some dreary fiat land, the Jewish highlander turns in thought from the low river-banks of Mesopotamia to the longed-for heights of his native Judaea. It is a happy thing for him to dream of a city crowning a mountain height. Jerusalem is a mountain-city, standing some two thousand feet above the level of the Mediterranean. Viewed from the wilderness, which, indeed, sinks down another eighteen hundred feet to the Dead Sea, its domes and minarets seem to float in the air like the habitations of a city in cloud-land. The visionary Jerusalem appears to the wrapt seer as an even more exalted city.
I. THE CITY OF GOD. Ezekiel conceives his vision of the great future under the image of a splendid city. St. John beheld the heavenly city, the new Jerusalem, as the type of the glorious Church of God, or of human society Christianized. The Greeks conceived their ideal of perfected human life after the model of a pattern city. Undoubtedly, writing as he was to the captives of Babylon, Ezekiel intended to direct attention to the earthly Jerusalem, which, after being destroyed, was to be rebuilt. Thus only could his language be understood by his contemporaries. But the definite, material prediction embodies and exemplifies ideas that may be applied to the spiritual restoration of man, illustrated by this city prospect.
1. There is to be a blessed life on earth. The mountain-city is terrestrial. The Apocalyptic new Jerusalem is let down from heaven. The city of God is set up here in the Christian Church, as St. Augustine showed. But alas! it is as yet but a poor realization of the grand prophetic dream. A few shanties mark the site of the glorious city of the future. That city is yet to be.
2. This blessed life will be social. Perhaps the ancient and the Eastern prized the city—well-walled and safe-guarded—more than we do in the crowded West, with our modern love of the country. But the essential thought here is that the perfect state is social. In the perfect city order is supreme through universal love—a strange contrast to our miserable cities of sin and selfishness. It is the best that, being corrupted, becomes the worst.
II. ITS EXALTED POSITRON.
1. It is in the land of Israel. Men must enter the Holy Land to reach the Holy City. Its citizens were Jews—as indeed most of the inhabitants of Jerusalem are at the present day. We must be the true people of God, i.e. true followers of Christ, if we would enjoy the privileges of the glorious future.
2. It is "set upon a very high mountain." The exaltation of the city suggests many advantages.