Ezekiel 20:43 - Exposition

And there shall ye remember , etc. The words stretch far and wide, and throw light on many of the problems that connect themselves with the conversion of the sinner and the eschatology of the Divine government. The whole evil past is still remembered after repentance and forgiveness. There is no water of Lethe, such as the Greeks fabled, such as Dante dreamt of as the condition of entering Paradise ('Purg.,' 31.94-105). The self-loathing and humility which grow out of that memory, the acceptance of all the punishment of the past as less than had been deserved,—these are the conditions and safeguards of the new blessedness. Ezekiel teaches us, i . e ; that it is possible to conceive of an eternal punishment, the punishment of memory, shame, self-loathing, as compatible with eternal life. So (in verse 44) the prophet ends what is perhaps, the profoundest and the noblest of his discourses, his "vindication of the ways of God to man."