Ezekiel 47:7 - Exposition

Now when I had returned בְּשׁוּבֵנִי is by the best interpreters, after Gesenius, regarded as an incorrect form for בְּשׁוּבִי (literally, in my returning ), though Schroder adheres to the transitive sense of the verb, and translates," when I had turned myself," and Hitzig takes the suffix נִי as a genitive of possession, and renders, "when he came back with me." In any case, on the return journey the prophet observed that at (or, on) the bank (or, lip ) of the river were very many trees on the one side and on the other. Hitzig supposes the trees had not been there when the prophet made the down journey, but sprang up when he had turned to his guide ( Ezekiel 47:6 ), and stood with his back to the river. Kliefoth's conclusion is better, that the trees had been there all the while, but that the prophet's attention had not been directed to them. The luxuriant foliage of this vision reappears in that of the Apocalyptic river ( Revelation 22:2 ).