iv. Vv. 19‐22.—At present the inhabitants of Jerusalem are proud of the ill‐gotten and ill‐used wealth stored up within her, and doubtless the exiles cast covetous eyes on the luxury which may still have prevailed amongst the upper classes in the capital. But of what avail will all this treasure be in the evil day now so near at hand? It will but add mockery to their sufferings to be surrounded by gold and silver which can do nothing to allay the pangs of hunger. It will be cast in the streets as refuse, for it cannot save them in the day of Jehovah’s anger. Nay, more, it will become the prize of the most ruthless of the heathen (the Chaldæans); and when in the eagerness of their lust for gold they ransack the Temple treasury and so desecrate the Holy Place, Jehovah will avert His face and suffer them to work their will. The curse of Jehovah rests on the silver and gold of Jerusalem, which has been used for the making of idolatrous images, and now is made to them an unclean thing. v. Vv. 23‐27.—The closing strophe contains a powerful description of the dismay and despair that will seize all classes in the state as the day of wrath draws near. Calamity after calamity comes, rumour follows hard on rumour, and the heads of the nation are distracted and cease to exercise the functions of leadership. The recognised guides of the people—the prophets, the priests, and the wise men—have no word of counsel or direction to offer; the prophet’s vision, the priest’s traditional lore, and the wise man’s sagacity are alike at fault. So the king and the grandees are filled with stupefaction; and the common people, deprived of their natural leaders, sit down in helpless dejection. Thus shall Jerusalem be recompensed according to her doings. “The land is full of bloodshed, and the city of violence”; and in the correspondence between desert and retribution men shall be made to acknowledge the operation of the divine righteousness. “They shall know that I am Jehovah.” IV It may be useful at this point to note certain theological principles which already begin to appear in this earliest of Ezekiel’s prophecies. Reflection on the nature and purpose of the divine dealings we have seen to be a characteristic of his work; and even those passages which we have considered, although chiefly devoted to an enforcement of the fact of judgment, present some features of the conception of Israel’s history which had been formed in his mind.