The truth here taught is therefore, in theological language, the sovereignty of the divine grace. Ezekiel’s statement of it is liable to all the distortions and misrepresentations to which that doctrine has been subjected at the hands both of its friends and its enemies; but when fairly treated it is no more objectionable than any other expression of the same truth to be found in Scripture. In Ezekiel’s case it was the result of a penetrating analysis of the moral condition of his people which led him to see that there was nothing in them to suggest the possibility of their being restored. It is only when he falls back on the thought of what God is, on the divine necessity of vindicating His holiness in the salvation of His people, that his faith in Israel’s future finds a sure point of support. And so in general a profound sense of human sinfulness will always throw the mind back on the idea of God as the one immovable ground of confidence in the ultimate redemption of the individual and the world. When the doctrine is pressed to the conclusion that God saves men in spite of themselves, and merely to display His power over them, it becomes false and pernicious, and indeed self‐contradictory. But so long as we hold fast to the truth that God is love, and that the glory of God is the manifestation of His love, the doctrine of the divine sovereignty only expresses the unchangeableness of that love and its final victory over the sin of the world. 2. The intellectual side of the conversion of Israel is the acceptance of that idea of God which to the prophet is summed up in the name of Jehovah. This is expressed in the standing formula which denotes the effect of all God’s dealings with men, “They shall know that I am Jehovah.” We need not, however, repeat what has been already said as to the meaning of these words.(171) Nor shall we dwell on the effect of the national judgment as a means towards producing a right impression of Jehovah’s nature. It is possible that as time went on Ezekiel came to see that chastisement alone would not effect the moral change in the exiles which was necessary to bring them into sympathy with the divine purposes. In the early prophecy of ch. vi. the knowledge of Jehovah and the self‐condemnation which accompanies it are spoken of as the direct result of His judgment on sin,(172) and this undoubtedly was one element in the conversion of the people to right thoughts about God. But in all other passages this feeling of self‐loathing is not the beginning but the end of conversion; it is caused by the experience of pardon and redemption following upon punishment.(173) There is also another aspect of judgment which may be mentioned in passing for the sake of completeness. It is that which is expounded in the end of the twentieth chapter. There the judgment which still stands between the exiles and the return to their own land is represented as a sifting process, in which those who have undergone a