Ezekiel 47:12 - Exposition

The effect of the river upon the vegetation growing on its banks is the last feature added to the prophet's picture. Already referred to in Ezekiel 47:7 , it is here developed at greater length. The "very many trees" of that verse become in this all trees , or every tree for meat , i.e. every sort of tree with edible fruit (comp. Le 19:23), whose leaf should not fade or wither, and whose fruit should not be consumed or finished, i.e. should not fail, but continue to bring forth new fruit , i.e; early or firstfruits, according to his (or, its) months ; or, every month ; the לְ in לָחֱדָשִׁים being taken distributively, as in Isaiah 47:13 (compare לַיוֹם , "every day," in Ezekiel 46:13 ). This remarkable productivity, the prophet saw, was due, not so much to the fact that the tree roots sucked up moisture from the stream, as to the circumstance that the waters which they drank up issued out of the sanctuary. To the same circumstance were owing the nutritive and medicinal properties of their fruit and leaves respectively. The picture in this verse is unmistakably based on Genesis 2:9 , and is as clearly reproduced by the Apocalyptic seer in Revelation 22:2 . On this whole vision the remarks of Thomson, in 'The Land and the Book', are worthy of being consulted.