40:1 In the five and twentieth year of our captivity, in the {a} beginning of the year, in the tenth [day] of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city was smitten, in the same day the hand of the LORD was upon me, and brought me there.
(a) The Jews counted the beginning of the year after two sorts: for their feasts they began to count in March and for their other affairs in September: so that this is to be understood of September.
40:1 Of our captivity - Of those that were carried away into captivity with Jeconiah eleven years before Jerusalem was burnt. And this falls in with the three thousand three hundred and seventy fourth year of the world, about five hundred and seventy four years before Christ's incarnation. The beginning - In the month Nisan. The tenth day - The day that the paschal lamb was to be taken up in order to the feast on the tenth day. Brought me - To Jerusalem, the place where it did stand.
40:1-49 The Vision of the Temple. - Here is a vision, beginning at ch. 40, and continued to the end of the book, ch. 48, which is justly looked upon to be one of the most difficult portions in all the book of God. When we despair to be satisfied as to any difficulty we meet with, let us bless God that our salvation does not depend upon it, but that things necessary are plain enough; and let us wait till God shall reveal even this unto us. This chapter describes two outward courts of the temple. Whether the personage here mentioned was the Son of God, or a created angel, is not clear. But Christ is both our Altar and our Sacrifice, to whom we must look with faith in all approaches to God; and he is Salvation in the midst of the earth, Ps 74:12, to be looked unto from all quarters.
