And I cause you to pass under the rod, and bring you into the bond of the covenant, and purge out from among you the rebels, and them that transgress against Me; out of the land of your pilgrimage (the standing designation of Egypt in the Pentateuch) I will bring them forth, and into the land of Israel they shall not come, and ye shall know that I am the Lord." Here also, the stay in the wilderness appears as a state of trial, lying in the middle between the abode among the nations (corresponding to the bondage in Egypt, which was so not merely bodily, but spiritual also), and the possession of Canaan. And the result of this trial is a different one, according to the different condition of the individuals. Some shall be altogether destroyed; even the appearance of the communion with the Lord, which they hitherto maintained by having come out of the land of pilgrimage along with the others, shall be taken away; whilst the others, by the very means which brought about the destruction of the former, shall be confirmed in their communion with the Lord, and be more closely united to Him. Hosea, who, in consequence of the personification of the Congregation of Israel, has the whole more in view, regards chiefly the latter feature. A very remarkable circumstance in Ezekiel, however, requires to be still more minutely considered; because it promotes essentially the right understanding of the passage before us. What is meant [Pg 259] by the "wilderness of the nations?" Several interpreters think that it is the wilderness between Babylon and Judea. Thus, for example, _Manger_: "_I am disposed to think_ that the desert of Arabia itself is here called the wilderness of the nations, on account of the different nomadic tribes which are accustomed to wander through it." _Rosenmüller_ says: "He _seems_ to speak here of those vast solitudes which the Jews had to pass through, on their way from Babylon to Judea." But this "I am disposed to think," and this "he seems," on the part of these interpreters, show that they themselves felt the insufficiency of their own explanation. That nomadic tribes are straying through that wilderness, is not at all essential, and can therefore not be mentioned here, where only the essential feature--the nature and substance of the leading through the wilderness--are concerned. And we cannot at all perceive why just the wilderness between Babylon and Judea should be called the wilderness of the nations. It was no more travelled by nomadic tribes than was any other wilderness. And just as little was it characteristic of it, that it bordered upon the territories of various nations (_Hitzig_). Such a designation would throw us upon the territory of mere conjecture, on which we are, in Holy Scripture, never thrown, except through our own fault. But it is quite decisive that the words, "I bring you out of the wilderness of the nations," stand in a close relation to the words, "I