and proceeds from the house of Jehovah, and the living water that flows from Jerusalem, according to Zec 14:8, are of course not earthly streams that are constantly flowing, as distinguished from the streams caused by rain and snow, which very soon dry up again, but spiritual waters of life (Joh 4:10, Joh 4:14; Joh 7:38); and, in fact, as a comparison of Eze 47:7-12 with Rev 22:1-2 clearly shows, the “river of the water of life, clear as a crystal,” which in the New Jerusalem coming down from God upon the earth (Rev 21:10) proceeds out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, and on both sides of which there grows the tree of life, that bears its fruit twelve times a-year, or every month, and the leaves of which are for the healing of the nations. The partially verbal agreement between the description of this river of water in Rev 22:2, and that in Eze 47:12, overthrows the millenarian view, that the glorification of Judah and Jerusalem, predicted by Joel, Zechariah, and Ezekiel, will be a partial glorification of the earth, viz., of the Holy Land, which takes place before the creation of the new heaven and the new earth.
Verse 19
On the other hand, the curse of desolation will fall upon Egypt and Edom, on account of the sin which they have committed upon the sons of Judah. חמס בּני, with the genitive of the object, as in Oba 1:10; Hab 2:8, Hab 2:17, etc. This sin is then more precisely defined, as consisting in the fact that they had shed innocent blood of the sons of Judah, i.e., of the people of God, in their land (‘artsâm, the land of the Egyptians and Edomites, not of the Judaeans): that is to say, in the Egypt in the olden time, more especially by the command to slay all the Hebrew boys (Exo 1:16), and in the Edom of more recent times, probably when throwing off the dominion of Judah (see at Amo 1:11 and Oba 1:10). These nations and lands had both thereby become types of the power of the world in its hostility to God, in which capacity they are mentioned here, and Edom again in Isaiah 34 and 63; cf. Jer 49:7. and Eze 35:1-15.
Verse 20
On the other hand, Judah and Jerusalem shall dwell for ever, - a poetical expression for “be inhabited,” both land and city being personified, as in Isa 13:20, etc. Thus will Jehovah, by means of the final judgment upon the heathen, wipe away the bloodguiltiness that they have contracted in their treatment of His people, and manifest Himself as King of Zion. With these
