EZEKIEL 14 COMMENTARYEDITED BY GLENN PEASE

Idolaters Condemned1 Some of the elders of Israel came to me and sat down in front of me.

BARNES, "Elders of Israel - Some of the fellow-exiles of Ezekiel, among whom he ministered.

CLARKE, "Then came certain of the elders of Israel unto me - These probably came to tempt him, or get him to say something that would embroil him with the government. They were bad men, as we shall see in the third verse.

GILL, "Then came certain, of the elders of Israel unto me,.... The Syriac version adds, "to consult the Lord"; by the prophet. These, according to Kimchi, were the elders of the captivity, the heads of the captives that were now in Babylon with Ezekiel: but there are others that think they were some that came from Jerusalem to Babylon on some business or another; and having heard much of the prophet, came to visit him, and to hear his prophecies, and inquire of the Lord by him: and sat before me; silent and pensive, as persons in anxiety and distress; or as hearers of him, for sitting is a hearing gesture; they sat and heard with great attention, gravity, and seriousness, with seeming affection and reverence; and all this was not in a visionary way, but was a real fact; see Eze_33:31.

HENRY 1-2, "Here is, I. The address which some of the elders of Israel made to the 1

prophet, as an oracle, to enquire of the Lord by him. They came, and sat before him,Eze_14:1. It is probable that they were not of those who were now his fellow-captives, and constantly attended his ministry (such as those we read of Eze_8:1), but some occasional hearers, some of the grandees of Jerusalem who had come upon business to Babylon, perhaps public business, on an embassy from the king, and in their way called on the prophet, having heard much of him and being desirous to know if he had any message from God, which might be some guide to them in their negotiation. By the severe answer given them one would suspect they had a design to ensnare the prophet, or to try if they could catch hold of any thing that might look like a contradiction to Jeremiah's prophecies, and so they might have occasion to reproach them both. However, they feigned themselves just men, complimented the prophet, and sat before him gravely enough, as God's people used to sit. Note, It is no new thing for bad men to be found employed in the external performances of religion.

JAMISON, "Eze_14:1-23. Hypocritical inquirers are answered according to their hypocrisy. The calamities coming on the people; but a remnant is to escape.

elders — persons holding that dignity among the exiles at the Chebar. Grotius refers this to Seraiah and those sent with him from Judea (Jer_51:59). The prophet’s reply, first, reflecting on the character of the inquirers, and, secondly, foretelling the calamities coming on Judea, may furnish an idea of the subject of their inquiry.sat before me — not at once able to find a beginning of their speech; indicative of anxiety and despondency.

K&D, "The Lord Gives No Answer to the IdolatersEze_14:1 narrates the occasion for this and the following words of God: There came to me men of the elders of Israel, and sat down before me. These men were not deputies from the Israelites in Palestine, as Grotius and others suppose, but elders of the exiles among whom Ezekiel had been labouring. They came to visit the prophet (v. 3), evidently with the intention of obtaining, through him, a word of God concerning the future of Jerusalem, or the fate of the kingdom of Judah. But Hävernick is wrong in supposing that we may infer, from either the first or second word of God in this chapter, that they had addressed to the prophet a distinct inquiry of this nature, to which the answer is given in vv. 12-23. For although their coming to the prophet showed that his prophecies had made an impression upon them, it is not stated in v. 1 that they had come to inquire of God, like the elders in Eze_20:1, and there is no allusion to any definite questions in the words of God themselves. The first (Eze_14:2-11) simply assumes that they have come with the intention of asking, and discloses the state of heart which keeps them from coming to inquire; and the second (Eze_14:12-23) points out the worthlessness of their false confidence in the righteousness of certain godly men.

CALVIN, “Here Ezekiel relates an event worthy of notice. For this was not a mere vision, but a real transaction, since some of the elders of Israel came to him for the sake of consultation. He says that he sat, as men who are perplexed and astonished

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by evils are accustomed to do, when they see no remedy. The gesture then which the Prophet describes was a sign of anxiety and despair. A person wishing for an answer is said to sit before another; but since it is probable that they disputed among themselves about beginning, and did not immediately discover how they should commence, hence they became anxious to consult the Prophet. Ezekiel, indeed, might be touched and softened by pity when he saw them seeking God in this way. For this was a sign of repentance when they turned to the true and faithful servant of God. But since they had no sincerity, the Prophet is warned in time against supposing them to come with cordiality. Hence God instructs his servant not to give way with too much facility when he sees old men coming to be disciples. But he shows their hypocrisy, because superstition still reigned in their hearts; nay, they desired openly to violate God’s law, and they did not disguise this feeling whenever occasion offered. First, he says they have set up idols in their hearts; by which words he means that they were addicted to superstition, so that idols obtained a high rank in their hearts; as Paul exhorts the faithful, that the peace of God which passes all understanding may obtain the rule in their hearts (Philippians 4:7; Colossians 3:15); so on the other hand the Prophet says that these men had given supreme sway to idols. And again an implied comparison must be remarked between God and idols. For God has erected the seat of his empire in our hearts: but when we set up idols, we necessarily endeavor to overthrow God’s throne, and to reduce his power to nothing. Hence the most heinous crime of sacrilege is here shown in those old men who caused idols to rise above their hearts. For hence it follows that all their senses were drowned in their superstitions.

He adds, they placed the stumblingblock of their iniquity before his face. By this second clause he signifies their hardness and perverseness; as if he had said, although the doctrine of the law was put before their eyes, yet they had no regard for piety, and despised even God’s threats, as if he were not going to be their judge. When, therefore, the sinner is not moved by any admonitions, and is more than convicted of his impiety, and is compelled, whether he will or not, to suffer God’s anger, and yet afterwards despises it, he is said to put the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face. For many slide away by error and thoughtlessness, because they do not think they can attempt anything against God. But here Ezekiel expresses that there was a gross contempt of God in these old men, and even a professed rebellion against him. Now he asks, Shall I by inquiring be inquired of by them? Some translate, Shall I, when consulted or asked, answer them? But this comment seems to me too remote from the mind of the Prophet; and it is probable that they thought this to be the sense, because they could not understand what else the

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Prophet meant. But God shows that this was like a wonder, since these old men dared to break forth, and to pretend to have some desire to inquire the truth. Hence their impudence is shown here, because they did not hesitate to place themselves before God’s servant, and to pretend a regard for piety when they had none. God says, therefore, can it be done? For this question expresses the absurdity of the thing, and that for the above mentioned purpose, that their wickedness may be the more apparent in their daring to insult the face of God. For what else is it than openly to reproach God when impure men approach him, and wish to become partakers of his counsel? Meanwhile they show by their whole life that they are most inveterate enemies of the whole heavenly doctrine. Afterwards it follows —

COFFMAN, "Verse 1

PROPHECIES AGAINST IDOLATROUS INQUIRERS

Keil divided this chapter into two parts. "God will not allow idolaters to inquire of him (Ezekiel 14:1-13), and the righteousness of the godly will not avert the judgment (Ezekiel 14:14-23)."[1]

Ezekiel 14:1-3

"Then came certain of the elders of Israel unto me. And the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, Son of man, these men have taken their idols into their heart, and put the stumblingblock of their iniquity before their face: should I be inquired of at all by them?"

"Certain of the elders ..." (Ezekiel 13:1) The prophecies here, although directed to this group of elders actually concerned all of Israel. Their having taken their idols into their heart was no slight violation but a fundamental crime against God.

"These men ..." (Ezekiel 14:3). According to Taylor, this expression, in context, 4

"designates them as contemptible."[2]

"Should I be inquired of at all by them ..." (Ezekiel 14:3)? In the Hebrew language, a question like this, "requires a negative answer";[3] and therefore the meaning here is simply that men with idols in their hearts have no right whatever to seek any information from God.

COKE, "Introduction

CHAP. XIV.

God answereth idolaters according to their own heart. They are exhorted to repent, for fear of judgments by means of seduced prophets. God's irrevocable sentence of famine, of noisome beasts, of the sword, and of pestilence. A penitent remnant shall be reserved for example to others.

Before Christ 593.Verse 1

Ezekiel 14:1. Then came certain of the elders— The prophet tells us neither the names nor the intention of these elders of Israel, nor the time when they came to him. But the manner wherein God speaks, gives us to understand, that they came only to tempt him, as the Pharisees came to Christ, and with no design to profit by what they heard, or to correct their faults. See Calmet.

ELLICOTT, "This chapter consists of two distinct but closely-connected prophecies, the first of which (Ezekiel 14:1-11) was called out by the coming of the elders to enquire of the prophet, and announces to them that God will not answer, but will destroy idolatrous enquirers; while the second (Ezekiel 14:12-23) shows the falsity of the hope that God will spare the land for the sake of the righteous that may

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be therein. Both of these are closely connected with the prophecies that have gone before, and are doubtless placed in their chronological order, as uttered in the second year of Ezekiel’s ministry, the sixth or seventh year of his captivity.

Verse 1

(1) Certain of the elders of Israel.—There is no distinction intended here between the elders of Israel and the elders of Judah mentioned in , and therefore there is no occasion to suppose a deputation sent to the prophet from Jerusalem. Israel is now becoming the ordinary name of the existing nation, except where it is used with some special mark of distinction. The object of their enquiry is not mentioned, nor is it even expressly said that they made any enquiry; but the message to them implies this, and from what is said to them we may probably gather what was uppermost in their minds. Already told by the previous prophecies that God would not spare Jerusalem for its own sake, and that His long forbearance hitherto was no warrant for its continuance, they still evidently cherished the hope that, however sinful they might be in themselves, their city would yet be delivered for the sake of the holy men who lived therein. With such thoughts in their minds the elders came and sat before the prophet, in whose fearless words they had already learned to have confidence, and waited what he might have to say to them.

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 14:1 Then came certain of the elders of Israel unto me, and sat before me.

Ver. 1. Then came certain of the elders unto me.] Rulers and chieftains of the captives in Babylon, pretending to be far better than those elders at Jerusalem, complained about in Ezekiel 8:11-12, but indeed no better; nay, so much the worse, because they had lost the fruit of all their afflictions, and were as arrant hypocrites as those veteratores old hands, the scribes and Pharisees, that came to John’s baptism and to our Saviour’s sermons, with evil and exulcerate minds.

“ Non omnes sancti qui calcant limina Templi. ”

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A Doeg may set his foot as far within the sanctuary as a David.

And sat before me.] Demurely and, to see to, devoutly. But why could they not stand to hear the Word of God for reverence sake? Balak did so, [Numbers 23:18] though a king; and Eglon, though unwieldy; [ 3:20] and a better man than they both, Constantine the Great, as Eusebius (a) records, and further tells us, that being pressed, after long time of hearing, to sit down, with a stern countenance he answered, It were a great sin in me not to hear with utmost attention when God is speaking.

POOLE, "Verse 1

EZEKIEL CHAPTER 14

God reproveth those hypocrites, who came to inquire of him with idolatry in their hearts, Ezekiel 14:1-5. They are exhorted to repent, for fear of his judgments, Ezekiel 14:6-11. No intercession shall save the guilty land from God’s judgment of famine, Ezekiel 14:12-14, noisome beasts, Ezekiel 14:15,16, the sword, Ezekiel 14:17,18, the pestilence, Ezekiel 14:19, or from the four judgments together, Ezekiel 14:20,21. A remnant shall be left for the instruction and consolation of others, Ezekiel 14:22,23.

Then, Heb. And, that we need not inquire the precise time of this prophecy.

Certain of the elders; men of note, that were in office and power among the Jews, called here elders, &c.

Of Israel; who were yet in Jerusalem; not the elders who were now, and had been

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some time, in Babylon.

Sat before me: see Ezekiel 8:1.

BI, "These men have set up their idols in their heart.

Heart idols

The Lord is now going to search the heart, to turn out the corners of the inmost recesses of the mind, the idol and favourite sin. He will proceed to do a spiritual work; He will lay aside His hammer with which He has broken the wall, and no more will He tear and rend the garments which cover falsehood: He will enter the heart, He will name the idols one by one which occupy that secret sanctuary; He will name them, He will bring them forth to judgment, and He will conduct that most penetrating of all criticism, the judgment of the thought and motive and purpose of man. “Then came certain of the elders of Israel unto me,”--came to be looked through, weighed, measured, and adjudged. No office can save men from Divine criticism. How comforting is this thought, though terrible in some aspects! It were well that our judges should be judged, else who can tell to what extremes of folly they might go, hounded on by ambition, or stung to further issues by envy and malice? The higher the office, the greater the responsibility; the larger the privileges, the greater the sin if they are outraged; the more brilliant the genius, the more infamous the mischief if that genius be perverted. The able man, the man of faculty and education, can do more sin in one moment than a poor uneducated soul can do in a lifetime. Elevation aggravates sin. The place of the disease indicates its fatal character--“in their heart.” This is heart disease. Men almost whisper when they indicate that some friend is suffering from disease of the heart; there is hopelessness in the tone: great allowance should be made, they say, for a man who is suffering from heart disease; be must not be startled, or excited, or suddenly pounced upon; his wishes must be gratified, they must as far as possible even be anticipated; and any little impatience he may show must be looked at charitably. The talk is humane, the considerateness is full of affection, the conditions imposed are suggested by reason. Is there not a higher disease of the heart? What is the meaning of this disease of the heart, this idolatry in the inmost soul? When a moral

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disease is of the heart it means that the disease is liked, enjoyed; it is wine drunk behind the door, it is a feast of fat things eaten in secrecy; every mouthful so sweet, so good, so rich. When a disease is of the heart in a moral and spiritual sense it means that it is consented to; it is voluntary, it is personal, it is desired; there would be a sense of loss without it. Disease of this kind, too, is most difficult of eradication. It is not in the skin, or it might be cut out; it is not in the limb, or it might be amputated, and the knife might anticipate mortification: the evil is in the heart; no knife can touch it, no persuasion can get at it; nothing can be done with it but one thing--only a miracle of the Holy Ghost can overcome that difficulty and turn that disease into health. “Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.” Are we chargeable with heart idolatry? We have no idols of a visible kind, it may be, yet we may be the veriest pagans in our hearts. We say, How distressing that poor human nature should fall down before stock and stone and worship it! and we, inflated pagans, worship a golden calf, a tinsel crown, a sounding name, a crafty policy. Are we chargeable with heart idolatry? Certainly we are. No man can escape this accusation. It is subtle, far reaching, all but ineradicable. If we do not face such difficulties our piety is a stucco that will peel off in the wet weather, and leave the ghastly moral ugliness exposed to public scorn. Doubt may be an idol used to diminish responsibility. Others, again, may have in the heart an idol called Ignorance, kept there for the purpose of diminishing service: we will not go into the dark places of the city, then we need not attend to the cries which are said to be arising there from overborne and hopeless humanity; we will keep on the broad thoroughfare, where the gaslight is plentiful; we shall see the surface and outer shape of things, and then retire to rest, saying that, say what fanatics may, there is really a good deal of solid happiness in the city. Have we not an idol in the heart we call Orthodoxy, which We keep there in order to enlarge moral licence? Is there not an intellectual orthodoxy and a spiritual heterodoxy often united in the same man? “Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus Saith the Lord God: Repent.” When did the Lord ever conclude a discourse without some evangelical tone in it? The Bible is terrific in denunciation, awful beyond all other books in its denunciation of sin and its threatening of perdition; yet through it, and through it again, and ruling it, is a spirit of clemency and pity and mercy and hope, yea, across hell’s burning mouth there lies the shadow of the Cross. (J. Parker, D. D.)

Mental idolatry

The father of modern philosophy and science has shown us that there are in the 9

mind of man, as man, natural idols which act as impediments to his acquisition of knowledge and his search after truth. Till these idols are overthrown and broken in pieces and taken away it is simply useless for man to pursue knowledge. His efforts will be neutralised and their results vitiated. Now, if this is so in the matter of human science, it is none the less worthy of our regard in the matter of Divine truth and of the knowledge of God. We cannot know God, whom to know is eternal life, as long as these natural obstacles are not taken out of the way. We cannot serve Him acceptably as long as, instead of being dethroned, they are still set up in our hearts. What, then, is the practical bearing of this truth? First, there must be a single eye to the knowledge of God. If we have not determined with ourselves that God, and the knowledge of God, and the fear of God, is more to be desired, and if we personally do not desire it more than wealth, or ease, or success, or the applause of men, or position in life, or influence, or comfort, or anything else, then we may be never so punctual in our religious duties, never so zealous for the outward honour of God, never so eager for the triumph of particular principles, or a particular party, or a particular cause, but for all that there is still enshrined in some inner recess, some secret corner of our hearts, an idol which disputes with the Most High God the possession and sovereignty of them. Again, not only must there be a clear and undimmed perception of God as the one sole object of our services, but there must also be a readiness to sacrifice anything in order to know and to serve Him. How many there are in the present day, not, thank God, who cannot afford to be religious--for that brings with it no slur in our times, but rather the reverse--but how many there are who dare not follow Truth whithersoever she may lead, who cannot afford to obey their own convictions, and therefore stifle them with the excuses of propriety or usage or convenience. This is a hard thing, and it is so because the claims of truth and the idol in the heart cannot both be acknowledged. And there is no condition of life where this does not apply. It is hard for the man of science, whose name has been identified with certain theories and principles, to sacrifice his name and fair renown to the growing conviction of counter theories and principles which will make the past a blank, or show it to have been a mistake. It is hard for the religious partisan, whose life has been east in a particular mould, and whose sympathies are linked to one form of opinion and practice, to yield to the force of truth when it comes with the authority of conviction to the mind and compels the acknowledgment of previous error and misunderstanding. But more than this, it is hard not to approach the consideration of religious truth with a distinct bias; but it is certain that the existence of any such bias must damage our appreciation of the truth. Unless we can see all round a thing, we can have no true apprehension of the thing. We may view it partially, but shall have no conception of it as a whole. The idol in possession of the mind will prevent the entrance of the true idea. But if this is true, and in proportion as it is, there are certain general principles

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to which it behoves us all to give heed when we come to the worship of God. First of all, we must empty ourselves of ourselves. We must come as though our present knowledge of God were as nothing, and as if God were still to be known and learnt. The whole of what we have must be sacrificed for the sake of what we are to have and to gain. As long as sin, in one of its innumerable forms, lurks in the heart or on the conscience, the service of God will be a vain thing, because the pursuit of truth is a lie. It is that practised dishonesty, it is that cherished lust, it is that pampered self-love, it is that incurable indolence, it is that willingly defiled imagination, it is that malice and envy which vitiates all your worship and renders all your religion a lie. There is One who searches the heart, and who cleanses it because He searches it. There is One whose blood cleanses us from all sin, if we are willing to walk in the light, as He is in the light. It is in direct personal communion with this heart-searcher, with this sin-bearer, but only so, that we become sinless. But if anything is suffered to interfere with that direct personal intercourse and communion, no matter what it is, even though it should be some sacred word or ordinance of His own, that is an idol which interferes with our worship and service of Him, and therefore an idol which must be broken down. (S. Leathes, D. D.)

Idolaters inquiring of God

I. What is meant by the setting up of idols?

1. It is oppressive to men in their natural state to think of the spiritual, omnipresent, heart-searching God. Accordingly they have brought down their conception of God to something that can be apprehended by sense. They have thus tried to satisfy the religious instinct within them, while at the same time pleasing themselves. It is much easier to have an object of worship that we can see, or touch, or taste. An idol, too, is not so exacting as the incorruptible and sin-hating God. Being material, it cannot require heart worship.

2. We are in no danger of worshipping idols of wood and stone. But the tendency of human nature is always the same, and where there is not renewing grace there is something creaturely that is idolised--it may be some place of power, or wealth, or some sensual pleasure, or child, or creation of the mind.

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II. The inquiring. These Israelites did not mean by setting up their idols utterly to east off Jehovah. They meant still to connect Him with their past history as their national deity. And so we can understand their going to inquire of one of the Lord’s prophets. There were cross-currents in their life. There was the idolatrous current which led them to do what was forbidden by God, and yet there was the old current which led them to inquire of God. We may find an analogy to this still.

1. There is this inquiring when we ask for light and help in prayer, while at the same time we are determined to follow what pleases ourselves.

2. There is this inquiry when we search the Bible while yet we are resolved to see in it only certain things.

III. The divine treatment.

1. Why it must be futile to inquire of God while bent on our own way.

2. How God shows the futility of inquiring of Him while we are bent on our own way. “I the Lord will answer him.”

Idols in the heart

I. The principle laid down. As a magnet attracts out of rubbish only the bits of iron for which it has an affinity, so the idol-idea in a man’s mind will make him fix on whatever will minister to it, and neglect everything else. The very Word of God will be but a mirror in which he sees reflected the thought which possesses his soul.

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II. The working of this principle.

1. The apostles, like the rest of the Jews, had a settled conviction that the Messiah would be a great temporal Prince.

2. Another instance is found in those who seek a system of Church government in the New Testament.

3. The controversy as to the ultimate doom of the unbelieving. Restorationist, annihilist, and believer in endless torment--all appeal to same Word, and often to same texts.

III. Practical use. Three common idols--

1. The thought that to repent of sin and turn to Jesus at last hour will be enough.

2. The thought that good works are not essential to salvation.

3. The thought that the new life of faith must be ushered in with some great and overwhelming spasm of feeling. (J. Ogle.)

The idols in the heart a barrier to the truth

I. The idols that are in the heart and the stumbling blocks that are before the face, are the sins with which God’s people are sometimes chargeable.

II. Men professing to inquire after God while their idols are in their hearts, and 13

their stumbling blocks before their faces; or, the gross inconsistency of seeking to mingle the service of God with the pursuit of sin.

1. Men may pray from the influence of custom.

2. From the promptings of conscience.

3. From the desire to stand, well with their fellow men.

4. From a yam desire to set themselves right with God.

III. God taking notice of the idols that are in men’s hearts, and the stumbling-blocks that are before their faces, or the faithful warnings which God addresses to those who follow sin while they profess to serve Him.

1. He intimates that He is perfectly acquainted with us.

2. He tells us that He cannot answer the requests of those who indulge in sin.

3. He shows us how unreasonable it is to expect that He will be inquired of by us. (Evangelical Preacher.)

Heart disease the worst disease

Manton says, “What would we think of a man who complained of the toothache, or of a cut finger, when all the while he was wounded at the heart? Would it not seem very strange?” Yet men will lament anything sooner than the depravity of their

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hearts. Many will confess their wandering thoughts in prayer, but will not acknowledge the estrangement of their hearts from God. They will be sorry for having spoken angrily, but not for having a passionate heart. They will own to Sabbath breaking, but never lament their want of love to Jesus, which is a heart matter. The evil of their hearts seems nothing to them: their tongues, hands, feet, are all that they notice. What! will they cry over a cut finger, and feel no fear when they have a dagger thrust into their bowels? Oh, madness of sinners, that they trifle most with that disease which is the most dangerous, and lies at the bottom of all other ills. God’s great complaint of men is that they set up in their hearts idols which they themselves think nothing of. Certain in our day are so far gone that they even deny that the human heart is diseased. What then? It does but prove the intimate connection between the heart and the eyes. A perverted heart soon creates a blinded eye. Of course, a depraved heart does not see its own depravity. Oh that we could lead men to think and feel aright about their hearts; but this is the last point to which we can bring them! They beat about the bush, and mourn over any and every evil except the source and fountain of it all. Lord, teach me to look within. May I attend even more to myself than to my acts. Purge Thou the spring, that the stream may no longer be defiled. I would begin where Thou dost begin, and beseech Thee to give me a new heart. Thou sayest, “My son, give Me thine heart.” Lord, I do give it to Thee, but at the same time I pray, “Lord, give me a new heart”; for without this my heart is not worth Thy having. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Idolatry in the heart

Travellers tell us that there is a tribe in Africa so given to superstition that they fill their huts and hovels with so many idols that they do not even leave room for their families. How many men there are who fill their hearts with the idols of sin, so that there is no room for the Living God, or for any of His holy principles! (John Bate.)

WHEDON, "Verse 1

THE IDOLATROUS ELDERS INQUIRE IN VAIN OF JEHOVAH CONCERNING THE FUTURE, Ezekiel 14:1-5.

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1. Then came certain of the elders of Israel — Ezekiel’s sermons have at last aroused deep interest, and the chief men among the exiles, notwithstanding his fearful arraignment of the most popular prophets, come to him to inquire of the future. Ezekiel’s word to them is very different from the soft, smooth messages which he has been condemning (chap. 13). He openly exposes the iniquity of their hearts, and declares that Jehovah will have no speech with such as they (Ezekiel 14:3).

PETT, "Introduction

Chapter 14 Those In Captivity Share in the Condemnation of Those in Jerusalem.

Ezekiel was now to stress that those who had gone into exile shared the condemnation of Jerusalem because of their evil ways. They were really no different from those who were still in Jerusalem because they still engaged in idolatry and the ways associated with it. And unless they turned from it they too would bear their judgment.

Verses 1-3

‘Then certain of the elders of Israel came to me and sat before me, and the word of Yahweh came to me saying, “Son of man, these men have taken their idols into their heart, and put the stumblingblock of their iniquity before their face. Should I be enquired of at all by them?” ’

The elders of the Israelites in captivity now came to Ezekiel. He had clearly made an impression on them and they were seeking Yahweh’s words through him. But they had not come as true believers, men firmly committed to the covenant with Yahweh, but as those who sought Yahweh’s advice as One among others. They were compromisers. They believed in Yahweh to a certain extent, but they served other

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gods too, the gods of their captors. However, they were probably hoping to receive some word of comfort and hope in their predicament. Yahweh was the specialist on Jerusalem.

But God knew the truth about them. He knew their hearts. They were still involved in similar idol worship to that which had called down God’s judgment on Jerusalem, and their hearts were with them and not with Yahweh. Thus Yahweh called them ‘these men’ in contempt.

‘The stumblingblock of their iniquity.’ Another way of speaking of idolatry. It either referred to their idols which caused them to stumble and fall into iniquity (compare Ezekiel 7:19 where it was their gold and silver; Ezekiel 14:4; Ezekiel 14:7 where it was seemingly the idols themselves; Ezekiel 18:30 where it was their transgressions which included idolatry), or to the fact that they had encouraged and participated in idolatrous rites, thus leading the people astray, encouraging them in idolatry and putting a stumblingblock before them, causing them also to stumble (compare Ezekiel 44:12). It basically referred to what caused men to stumble. It is a phrase unique to Ezekiel.

‘Should I be enquired of at all by them?’ They had no right to seek His face, for they sought the face of idols. He would not hear those who simply treated Him as one of a pantheon of gods. He would not listen to any but those who were totally true to Him (compare Psalms 66:18; 1 Kings 18:21).

2 Then the word of the Lord came to me:

GILL, "And the word of the Lord came unto me,.... While the elders were sitting 17

before him, and whispered secretly and powerfully the following things in his ears:

K&D 2-5, "Eze_14:2-5And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, Eze_14:3. Son of man, these men have let their idols rise up in their heart, and have set the stumbling-block to guilt before their face: shall I allow myself to be inquired of by them? Eze_14:4. Therefore speak to them, and say to them, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Every man of the house of Israel who lifteth up his idols in his heart, and setteth the stumbling-block to his sin before his face, and cometh to the prophet, to him do I, Jehovah, show myself, answering according thereto, according to the multitude of his idols; Eze_14:5. To grasp the house of Israel by their heart, because they have turned away from me, all of them through their idols. - We have not to picture these elders to ourselves as given up to gross

idolatry. ֶהֱעָלה ַעל ֵלב means, to allow anything to come into the mind, to permit it to rise up in the heart, to be mentally busy therewith. “To set before one's face” is also to be understood, in a spiritual sense, as relating to a thing which a man will not put out of his mind. ל ִמְכׁש , stumbling-block to sin and guilt (cf. Eze_7:19), i.e., the idols. Thus the two phrases simply denote the leaning of the heart and spirit towards false gods. God does not suffer those whose heart is attached to idols to seek and find Him. The interrogative clause 'ַהִאָּדֹרׁש וגו contains a strong negation. The emphasis lies in the infinitive absolute ִאָּדֹרׁש et placed before the verb, in which the ה is softened into א, to avoid writing ה twice. ִנְדַרׁש, to allow oneself to be sought, involves the finding of God; hence in Isa_65:1 we have ִנְדַרׁש as parallel to ִנְמָצא. In Eze_14:4, Eze_14:5, there follows a positive declaration of the attitude of God towards those who are devoted to idolatry in their heart. Every such Israelite will be answered by God according to the measure of the multitude of his idols. The Niphal ַנֲעֶנה has not the signification of the Kal, and does not mean “to be answerable,” as Ewald supposes, or to converse; but is generally used in a passive sense, “to be answered,” i.e., to find or obtain a hearing (Job_11:2; Job_19:7). It is employed here in a reflective sense, to hold or show oneself answering. בה, according to the Chetib for which the Keri ,ָבּה suggests the softer gloss בא, refers to 'ְּבֹרב גל which follows; the nominative being anticipated, according to an idiom very common in Aramaean, by a previous pronoun. It is written here for the sake of emphasis, to bring the following object into more striking prominence. ב is used here in the sense of secundum, according to, not because, since this meaning is quite unsuitable for the ב in Eze_14:7, where it occurs in the same connection (ִּבי). The manner in which God will show Himself answering the idolatry according to their idols, is reserved till Eze_14:8. Here, in Eze_14:5, the design of this procedure on the part of God is given: viz., to grasp Israel by the heart; i.e., not merely to touch and to improve them, but to bring down their heart by judgments (cf. Lev_26:41), and thus move them to give up idolatry and return to the living God. ֹנָזרּו, as in Isa_1:4, to recede, to draw away from God. ֻּכָּלם is an emphatic repetition of the subject belonging to ֹנָזרּו.

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TRAPP, "Ezekiel 14:2 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

Ver. 2. And the word of the Lord came.] Lest the prophet, seeing these seniors coming thus unto him, should favour them too far, God uncaseth them, as he doth mostly such gross hypocrites in this present life; Jeroboam and his wife, Ananias and Sapphira, Simon Magus, and others for instance. How else indeed should the name of such wicked wretches rot as they must? [Proverbs 10:24-29]

3 “Son of man, these men have set up idols in their hearts and put wicked stumbling blocks before their faces. Should I let them inquire of me at all?

CLARKE, "These men have set up their idols in their heart - Not only in their houses; in the streets; but they had them in their hearts. These were stumbling-blocks of iniquity; they fell over them, and broke the neck of their souls. And should God be inquired of by such miscreants as these?

GILL, "Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart,.... Though they look so grave and demure, seem so devout and religious, and hear with so much attention and reverence, and express such a desire of consulting me by thee, they are no other than idolaters; and though they are at such a distance from their native place, and have not their idols with them, yet they have them in their fancy and imagination, and their hearts are after them, and are set upon them; these engross their affections, they are near and dear unto them, notwithstanding all their pretensions: or, they "have caused their idols to ascend upon their heart" (p); their hearts are the altars on which they worship them, and the throne on which they have placed them; they are held in the highest esteem by them, and have the greatest honours done them, and have the ascendant over them; even their "dunghill" gods, as the word (q) signifies; though

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they are but dung, filthy and abominable, these they lay upon their hearts; and what else is man's righteousness, when made an idol of, trusted to, and depended on? it is no other, as the apostle says, than "loss" and "dung", Phi_3:8; and so every carnal lust that is gratified and indulged is no other than an idol, or a dunghill god, set up in the heart: and put the stumbling block of their iniquity before their face; whenever they had an opportunity of so doing; for their hearts were not only inwardly affected to idols, but they outwardly worshipped them; set them before them, and bowed the knee to them, and prayed: and these idols are called "the stumbling block of their iniquity", because by worshipping these they fell into sin, and so into ruin; they were the occasion of their sin, and of their punishment; they stumbled at them, and fell, even though they were before their eyes; nay, they set them themselves before their face, which shows their obstinacy and resolution to continue in idolatry, though it would be their ruin: should I be inquired of at all by them? suffer them to come near me, and put a question to me, or be consulted by them through thee? no, I will not: or, "am I seriously inquired of by them?" so some (r) render the words; no, I am not; or, "being asked, shall I answer them?" so the Targum and Vulgate Latin version: or, "answering shall I answer them" (s)? no, I wilt not, they deserve no answer from me; they shall have none other of me than such an one as follows.

HENRY, "The account which God gave the prophet privately concerning them. They were strangers to him; he only knew that they were elders of Israel; that was the character they wore, and as such he received them with respect, and, it is likely, was glad to see them so well disposed. But God gives him their real character (Eze_14:3); they were idolaters, and did only consult Ezekiel as they would any oracle of a pretended deity, to gratify their curiosity, and therefore he appeals to the prophet himself whether they deserved to have any countenance or encouragement given them: “Should I be enquired of at all by them? Should I accept their enquiries as an honour to myself, or answer them for satisfaction to them? No; they have no reason to expect it;” for, 1. They have set up their idols in their heart; they not only have idols, but they are in love with them, they dote upon them, are wedded to them, and have laid them so near their hearts, and have given them so great a room in their affections, that there is no parting with them. The idols they have set up in their houses, though they are now at a distance from the chambers of their imagery, yet they have them in their hearts, and they are ever and anon worshipping them in their fancies and imaginations. They have made their idols to ascend upon their hearts (so the word is); they have subjected their hearts to their idols, they are upon the throne there. Or when they came to enquire of the prophet they pretended to put away their idols, but it was in pretence only; they still had a secret reserve for them. They kept them up in their hearts; and, if they left them for a while, it was cum animo revertendi - with an intention to return to them, not a final farewell. Or it may be understood of spiritual idolatry; those whose affections are placed upon the wealth of the world and the pleasures of sense, whose god is their money, whose god is their belly, they set up their idols in their heart. Many who have no idols in their sanctuary have idols in their hearts, which is no less a usurpation of God's throne and a profanation of his name. Little children, keep yourselves from those idols. 2. They put the stumbling-block of their iniquity before their face. Their silver and gold were called the stumbling-block of their iniquity (Eze_7:19), their idols of silver and gold, by

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the beauty of which they were allured to idolatry, and so it was the block at which they stumbled, and fell into that sin; or their iniquity is their stumbling-block, which throws them down, so that they fall into ruin. Note, Sinners are their own tempters (every man is tempted when he is drawn aside of his own lust), and so they are their own destroyers. If thou scornest, thou alone shalt bear it; and thus they put the stumbling-block of their iniquity before their own faces, and stumble upon it though they see it before their eyes. It intimates that they are resolved to go on in sin, whatever comes of it. I have loved strangers, and after them I will go; that is the language of their hearts. And should God be enquired of by such wretches? Do they not hereby rather put an affront upon him than do him any honour, as those did who bowed the knee to Christ in mockery? Can those expect an answer of peace from God who thus continue their acts of hostility against him? “Ezekiel, what thinkest thou of it?”

JAMISON, "heart ... face — The heart is first corrupted, and then the outward manifestation of idol-worship follows; they set their idols before their eyes. With all their pretense of consulting God now, they have not even put away their idols outwardly; implying gross contempt of God. “Set up,” literally, “aloft”; implying that their idols had gained the supreme ascendancy over them.

stumbling-block of ... iniquity — See Pro_3:21, Pro_3:23, “Let not them (God’s laws) depart from thine eyes, then ... thy foot shall not stumble.” Instead of God’s law, which (by being kept before their eyes) would have saved them from stumbling, they set up their idols before their eyes, which proved a stumbling-block, causing them to stumble (Eze_7:19).inquired of at all — literally, “should I with inquiry be inquired of” by such hypocrites as they are? (Psa_66:18; Pro_15:29; Pro_28:9).

COKE, "Ezekiel 14:3. These men have set up their idols— They are not only inclined to idolatry in their hearts, but have actually set up idols, and worshipped them. However, the prophet shews plainly, that their idolatries consisted not in intirely deserting, but in polluting the religion of Moses with foreign worship. Div. Leg. vol. 4: p. 47.

ELLICOTT, "(3) Have set up their idols in their heart.—It was not the open idolatry of Judæa which is reproved among these elders of the captivity; that had already passed away, but still their heart was not right. Like Lot’s wife, they longed for that which they dared not do. With such a disposition, they were in the greatest danger, putting “the stumbling-block of their iniquity,” the temptation to sin, directly before them. And not only so, but they kept themselves in a state of alienation from God, so that it was idle to imagine He would allow Himself to be enquired of by them. The question implies the negative answer which is fully

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expressed in the following verses.

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 14:3 Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart, and put the stumblingblock of their iniquity before their face: should I be enquired of at all by them?

Ver. 3. These men have set their idols in their hearts.] Though they would seem to abhor idols, yet the devil is at inn with them, and their hearts are no better than so many idol temples, as thou wouldst easily perceive hadst thou but my fiery eyes, and couldst see their insides as I do. Sustulerunt stercoreos deos suos super cor suum, (a) they have laid their dungy deities upon their very hearts; a place where I only should be by right, for it is the bridal bed.

And put the stumblingblock of their iniquity,] i.e., They are impudent sinners, as the scholiast (b) interprets it, and resolved of their course whatever comes of it.

Should I be inquired of (c) at all by them?] q.d., No, never; I scorn the motion, I abhor such ludibrious devotion as this is. Away with it. Piscator rendereth the words, An ergo serio interrogor ab eis? Thinkest thou that I am seriously sought unto by these? q.d., Nothing less.

POOLE, "Verse 3

These men; who probably were come from Jerusalem, sent by Zedekiah, and mentioned by Jeremiah, Jeremiah 51:59; some of the courtiers, who, more out of curiosity than religion, give a visit to this famous prophet.

Have set up their idols in their heart; resolved idolaters, their heart was totally addicted to their idolatrous worship and ceremonies, immersed in it.

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The stumbling-block of their iniquity; their idols, so expressed, because they were both the object of their sin, and occasion of their ruin. They account these idols to be gods, and worship, fear, trust in, and plead for them; this is their sin, and ere long this shall bring ruin on them. Can these men seriously consult me? Is it fit I should give counsel to obstinate, resolved sinners, who come to inquire, but will not hearken? Should I help them in their distress, who depend on idols which I hate?

4 Therefore speak to them and tell them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: When any of the Israelites set up idols in their hearts and put a wicked stumbling block before their faces and then go to a prophet, I the Lord will answer them myself in keeping with their great idolatry.

BARNES, "Omit “that cometh.”According to the multitiude of his idols - i. e., I will give him an answer as delusive as the idols which he serves. Compare Micaiah’s answer to Ahab 1Ki_22:15.

CLARKE, "According to the multitude of his idols - I will treat him as an idolater, as a flagrant idolater.

GILL, "Therefore speak unto them, and say unto them,.... That is, speak unto them as a prophet, and as from the Lord, and say what follows; so the Targum,

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"prophesy unto them and say unto them;'' thus saith the Lord God, every man of the house of Israel, that setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face; let him be who he will, one in public office, an elder of Israel, or a private person; no respect will be had, no distinction made, nor favour shown; being an idolater in heart and practice, secretly and openly, he shall bear the punishment of his sin: and cometh to the prophet: the Prophet Ezekiel, as the elders of Israel now did, or any other prophet of the Lord: the Vulgate Latin version adds, "inquiring of me by him"; expecting to have an answer, and one according to their wishes: I the Lord will answer him that cometh; that cometh to the prophet; or, as the Targum, "that cometh to ask instruction of me:'' here is a various reading, a "Keri" and a "Cetib"; we follow the Keri, or marginal reading, בא, "that cometh"; and so does the Targum; but the "Cetib", or written text, is בה, "in it", thus; "I the Lord will answer him in it" (t); in the question he puts to the prophet, or to the Lord by him; or in that time, immediately; but not with smooth things, as he expects, but with terrible things in righteousness; not in a way of grace and mercy, but in a way of judgment; not as he desires, but as he deserves: according to the multitude of his idols; in proportion to the number of his gods, and his idolatrous actions, shall the answer or punishment be: or these words may be connected with the word cometh, and be read thus, "that cometh with the multitude of his idols" (u); with his heart full of idols, set up there; which is an instance of his hypocrisy, seen and detected by the Lord; and of his impudence, in daring to come unto him in such a manner; and of his folly, to expect a gracious answer from the Lord, this being his case. The Targum understands it quite otherwise, as if the answer the Lord would give would be a kind and agreeable one, paraphrasing this clause thus, "although he is mixed (implicated or entangled) in the multitude of the worship of his idols.''

HENRY 4-6, " The answer which God, in just displeasure, orders Ezekiel to give them, Eze_14:4. Let them know that it is not out of any disrespect to their persons that God refuses to give them an answer, but it is laid down as a rule for every man of the house of Israel, whoever he be, that if he continue in love and league with his idols, and come to enquire of God, God will resent it as an indignity done to him, and will answer him according to his real iniquity, not according to his pretended piety. He comes to the prophet, who, he expects, will be civil to him, but God will give him his answer, by punishing him for his impudence: I the Lord, who speak and it is done, I will answer him that cometh, according to the multitude of his idols. Observe, Those who set up idols in their hearts, and set their hearts upon their idols, commonly have a multitude of them. Humble worshippers God answers according to the multitude of his mercies, but

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bold intruders he answers according to the multitude of their idols, that is, 1. According to the desire of their idols; he will give them up to their own hearts' lust, and leave them to themselves to be as bad as they have a mind to be, till they have filled up the measure of their iniquity. Men's corruptions are idols in their hearts, and they are of their own setting up; their temptations are the stumbling-block of their iniquity, and they are of their own putting, and God will answer them accordingly; let them take their course. 2. According to the desert of their idols; they shall have such an answer as it is just that such idolaters should have. God will punish them as he usually punishes idolaters, that is, when they stand in need of his help he will send them to the gods whom they have chosen, Jdg_10:13, Jdg_10:14. Note, The judgment of God will dwell with men according to what they are really (that is, according to what their hearts are), not according to what they are in show and profession. And what will be the end of this? What will this threatened answer amount to? He tells them (Eze_14:5): That I may take the house of Israel in their own heart, may lay them open to the world, that they may be ashamed; nay, lay them open to the curse, that they may be ruined. Note, The sin and shame, and pain and ruin, of sinners, are all from themselves, and their own hearts are the snares in which they are taken; they seduce them, they betray them; their own consciences witness against them, condemn them, and are a terror to them. If God take them, if he discover them, if he convict them, if he bind them over to his judgment, it is all by their own hearts. O Israel! thou hast destroyed thyself. The house of Israel is ruined by its own hands, because they are all estranged from me through their idols.Note, (1.) The ruin of sinners is owing to their estrangement from God. (2.) It is through some idol or other that the hearts of men are estranged from God; some creature has gained that place and dominion in the heart that God should have.

JAMISON, "and cometh — and yet cometh, reigning himself to be a true worshipper of Jehovah.

him that cometh — so the Hebrew Margin reads. But the Hebrew text reading is, “according to it, according to the multitude of his idols”; the anticipative clause with the pronoun not being pleonastic, but increasing the emphasis of the following clause with the noun. “I will answer,” literally, reflexively, “I will Myself (or for Myself) answer him.”according to ... idols — thus, “answering a fool according to his folly”; making the sinner’s sin his punishment; retributive justice (Pro_1:31; Pro_26:5).

CALVIN, “Here God seems to treat those hypocrites too indulgently who pretend to ask his advice and yet despise his counsel. But God here rather threatens what would be destructive to the wicked than promises anything which they ought to expect. It is indeed a singular testimony of God’s grace when he answers us: for prophecy is an image of God’s paternal anxiety towards us and our salvation. But sometimes prophecy only ends in destruction; and this is but an accident. Although, therefore, God’s word by itself is naturally to be greatly desired, yet when God answers as a judge, and takes away all hope of pardon and pity, no taste of his favor can then be perceived. Thus this passage must be understood. God pronounces that he would answer, but whom? The reprobate, and those who tauntingly inquired of

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the Prophet what they should do. When he answers them, he only shows himself the avenger of their perfidy; and thus his answer contains nothing else but the fearful judgment which hangs over all the reprobate. For God does not here impose a perpetual law on himself; for he does not always act in the same way towards all the reprobate, but says that those impious ones should feel that they shall not profit by their cunning and artifices, since they shall find the difference between God and Satan: for they were accustomed to lies, and had itching ears; hence they wished to have some pleasing and flattering answer from the servant of God, since the false prophets gratified their inclinations. What then does God say? I will answer them, but far otherwise than they either wish or desire: for I will answer them according to the multitude of their idols: for they bring with them the material for their own condemnation: hence they shall take back nothing from me but the seal of that condemnation which is already placed upon their hearts, and appears on their hands. In fine, God here laughs at the foolish confidence of those who inquire about future events of his prophets; but meanwhile they have their heart bound up with superstitions, so as openly to show their gross impiety: hence he says, that he would answer them, not as they thought, but as they deserved.

COFFMAN, ""Therefore speak unto them, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Every man of the house of Israel that taketh his idols into his heart, and putteth the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to the prophet; I Jehovah will answer him therein according to the multitude of his idols; that I may take the house of Israel in their own heart, because they are all estranged from me through their idols. Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Return ye, and turn yourselves from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations."

"That taketh his idols into his heart ..." (4). The repeated mention of the idols having been received in the hearts of God's people is exceedingly significant. It means that they had learned to love the pagan gods and goddesses. Their secret devotion belonged to their idols. The licentious ceremonies with which they had worshipped their idols were dear to their hearts, and they strongly desired to renew such practices. God's word they neither believed nor trusted.

"I, the Lord will answer him ..." (Ezekiel 14:4). Eichrodt labeled this as a "contradiction" of the proposition that idolatrous inquirers would get no answer

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from God. No, God did not indicate any such refusal to answer the inquiring idolaters; he merely declined to send them any message through a true prophet. They would get an answer, all right, it would be directly from God Himself. "This answer would not have any relation at all to the curiosity of the inquirers; there would be no words; it would consist of the execution of a sentence spelled out in Ezekiel 14:8."[4]

"That I may take the house of Israel in their own heart ..." (Ezekiel 14:5). God was here fighting to keep his people; and what is meant here is that, through his judgments against them, he will touch their consciences and bring down their proud hearts. God's purpose was always their restoration and salvation, never their destruction. "Still, this is a threat of punishment."[5] "After all, to turn to other gods was a crime worthy of death as clearly spelled out in the Law of Moses (Exodus 20:3-5; Leviticus 19:4; 26:1; and Deuteronomy 5:8; 12:3; 27:15)."[6]

"Return ye, and turn yourselves from your idols ..." (Ezekiel 14:6) The infinite mercy of God is here seen in the fact that, while in the very act of pronouncing a sentence of death upon his Chosen People, God here made one last solemn plea for them to forsake the evil idolatrous ways to which their hearts so avidly desired to return, in which guilty state they were already ensnared, and instead to give up all of their evil practices and return wholeheartedly to the Lord.

ELLICOTT, "(4) Will answer him that cometh.—The words that cometh, not being in the original, should be omitted. The verb answer in the original is in the passive, and has a reflexive sense=“I will show myself answering,” a softer form than the English. The principle that when man persists in going counter to God’s known will He will allow him to misunderstand that will, is abundantly established by such instances as that of Balaam (Numbers 22:20) and of Micaiah (1 Kings 22:15). No man can hope to know what God would have him to do unless his own heart is truly submissive to the Divine will. The threat here is, that the man coming to inquire of God with a heart full of idolatry, shall receive no true answer from that Omniscience which he does not respect; but will rather find himself deceived by the illusions of his own heart. This idea is more fully developed in the following verse. (Comp. Isaiah 44:20.)

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TRAPP, "Ezekiel 14:4 Therefore speak unto them, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD Every man of the house of Israel that setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to the prophet; I the LORD will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols;

Ver. 4. I the Lord will answer him.] Or, As I am the Lord (oath wise), I will answer him, but with bitter answers

According to the multitude of his idols,] i.e., As by his abominations he hath well deserved; or, concerning the multitude of his idols; that is a sin he shall be sure to hear of, and to suffer for.

POOLE, " Mince not the matter, lessen not, neither vary, what I say unto thee, but declare fully and undauntedly

unto them, though great men, and who will compliment with thee.

Every man, without exception, whoever be the man among the Israelites, that hath his heart riveted to idols, and yet comes to the prophet, as if it were to know what were best to be done, and what will be the issue of these times and things, I will answer him but little to his satisfaction or safety; such answer shall such receive, as in seeing they shall not see, &c. I will declare the greatness of their sin and punishment; they multiplied idols, this their sin, I will multiply their sorrows; they first run into darkness of idolatry, I will leave them to the darkness of misery. I will give answer, but in just judgment, and with severe reproofs, and menaces, and commands.

SIMEON "HEART IDOLATRY CONDEMNED

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Ezekiel 14:4. Thus saith the Lord God: Every man of the house of Israel that setteth tip his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumbling-block of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to the prophet; I the Lord will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols.

IT is gratifying to see the ordinances of religion well attended — — — but it is painful to reflect how few there are who derive any saving benefit from them; or rather, how many there are who find them, not a savour of life unto life, but rather a savour of death unto their deeper condemnation — — — If we inquire into the reason of this, we must trace it, not to the word itself, (for that, if dispensed aright, is quick and powerful, as in the days of old,) but to the manner in which the ordinances are attended. Men come up to the House of God, just as the Elders of Israel came before the Prophet Ezekiel, with idols in their hearts; and, being unwilling to part with them, they provoke God to withhold from them his blessing, without which not the ministry of Paul himself could be of any avail.

In the case of Ezekiel’s hearers, we see,

I. What inconsistencies are found in the Church of God—

One would have supposed that these Elders of Israel would either have renounced Jehovah altogether, or have put away the idols which estranged their hearts from him. But they wished to keep up an appearance of godliness in the midst of all their impiety; and therefore came to the prophet for instruction, at the very time that they addicted themselves to the worship of their idols.

Thus it is that men come up to the house of God at this day: they cannot altogether renounce their profession of regard for God; but,

1. They set up idols in their hearts—29

[The cares and pleasures of this world are as dominant in the hearts of the generality as in the heathen themselves. And a love to these is declared by God himself to he idolatry [Note: Colossians 3:5 and Philippians 3:19.] — — — And shall I say that these “idols are set up in their hearts?” Yes, verily, and in their houses also: for you may live for years in the houses of the generality of Christians, and hear nothing, and see nothing, but what tends to exalt the creature above the Creator, and proves, that Mammon, rather than Jehovah, is the god whom they serve — — —]

Yet they wish to be thought the Lord’s people—

[They would be indignant if they were accounted heathens. They suppose themselves to be Christians, notwithstanding they have not one real mark of Christianity about them. If a mere attendance on public ordinances would suffice, all were well: but if an inquiry be made, who or what stands highest in their regards, not the worshippers of Baal, with their vestments on, can shew more clearly “whose they are, and whom they serve.” The inconsistency of the elders who came to Ezekiel, is apparent to all; but, if candidly examined, it is a perfect representation of that which is found in the great mass of Christians at the present day. In truth, the prophet himself marks the correspondence, when he says, “They came to him, as Gods people came; and sat before him as God’s people, and heard his words, but would not do them: for with their mouth they shewed much love; but their heart went after their covetousness [Note: Ezekiel 33:31-32.].” A juster description of the great mass, even of the better sort of Christians, is not to be found in all the book of God.]

That we may guard you against these inconsistencies, we proceed to shew,

II. The fearful disappointment in which they will surely issue—

They cannot but be highly displeasing to a God of truth and holiness. Indeed he tells

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us, in our text, how such inquirers shall fare. He will answer them,

1. In a way of silent contempt—

[Amongst men, silence is often the severest answer: and such an answer shall all such worshippers receive. God even puts the question to us, “Shall I be inquired of by them? As I live, saith the Lord, I will not be inquired of by them [Note: ver. 3. with Ezekiel 20:3.].” Of this indignant contempt we see an instance in Saul; whom “God answered not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets [Note: 1 Samuel 28:6.].” And this exactly accords with the experience of multitudes, who, though they have attended the house of God ten thousand times, have never received one answer to their prayers; and, though they have as often sat before the prophets of the Lord, have never found any efficacy in the word, to convert and save their souls — — —]

2. In a way of infatuating delusion—

[They come with their prejudices and vain conceits, no one of which do they desire to have rectified and removed. God therefore gives them over to blindness and hardness of heart, and to the very delusions which they have chosen [Note: Isaiah 66:4.]. He has plainly declared, that he will do this “to those who love not the truth, but have pleasure in unrighteousness: he will give them over to strong delusion, that they may believe a lie, and perish in their sins [Note: 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12.].” In fact, these people prefer the prophets that will deceive them [Note: Isaiah 30:9-11. Jeremiah 5:31.]; and they will either be given up to the guidance which they affect [Note: ver. 9. with Jeremiah 23:17-18.], or be left under the influence of eyes that cannot see, and ears that cannot hear [Note: Isaiah 6:9-10. 2 Corinthians 4:4.] — — —]

3. In a way of just and indignant reprehension—

[Against persons of this description, our blessed Lord himself, meek and lowly as he 31

was, spake in the severest terms [Note: Matthew 23:13-33.]. And, verily, God will answer them “according to the multitude of their idols;” “setting his face against them, and consigning them over to the judgments which their hypocrisy has deserved [Note: ver. 8. Matthew 24:31.]. His word to them is the very reverse of that which will be uttered to his obedient people: “Say to the righteous, that it shall be well with them; for they shall eat the fruit of their doings: but woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him; for the reward of his hands shall be given unto him [Note: Isaiah 3:10-11.].”]

And now,

1. Examine, I pray you, with what dispositions you have come hither at this time—

[In coming hither, to inquire of the Lord, have ye been sincerely desirous to know his will; and fully determined, through grace, to obey it without reserve? O! judge yourselves; for God knoweth your hearts, and his judgment will be according to truth — — —]

2. Look to it, that this message from God produce in your hearts its due effect—

[If you will approve yourselves to God, you must “be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own souls [Note: James 1:22-25.]” — — —]

BI, "Verse 4

Ezekiel 14:4

I the Lord will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols.

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Answered according to their idols

With them, as froward, the All-seeing will, in the psalmist’s terribly bold phrase, “show Himself froward”; they will incur that penalty which Scripture describes as a blinding of their eyes and a hardening of their heart, and which essentially consists in their being left to themselves without the light which they do not sincerely seek for--left, in fact, to take their own way, and see what will come of it. This line of Biblical language has caused difficulties which cannot be passed over; the more so, because one passage in which it is found (Isaiah 6:10) is of all passages in the Old Testament the one most frequently cited in the New Testament; and St. John, with a startling distinctness, attributes the “blinding” and “hardening” to the Lord. The explanation must be found in that law of ethical life whereby persistency in self-will--the process, as Shakespeare, in an awfully vivid passage, calls it, of “growing hard in viciousness”--does inevitably produce moral insensibility. All serious moralists, whatever be their theological standpoint, will admit this to be a fact; and all who believe in a God will see in it a revelation of His character, so that when it works He is, in fact, allowing it to take its course. And it is the method of Scripture writers to impress the fact on men’s minds with a concrete vividness, by representing such action on God’s part as a literal penal infliction. There, anyhow, stands the fact, and we have to reckon with it. Let us’ also fear, and be on our guard, lest, for lack of the single-eyed purpose which our Lord insists upon in His great sermon, we too should be left in the great darkness which waits like a shadow on hardness of heart. (Canon Bright.)

The blight of the idol

A man’s vision determines what kind of revelation he will accept. It will guide him in the choice of his prophet: “Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart, and put the stumbling block of their iniquity before their face: should I be inquired of at all by them?” (Ezekiel 14:3). When an inquirer comes with his idol in his heart, he is not an inquirer, but a claimant; he has brought with him the only answer which he is prepared to entertain: he falls over the stumbling block of his iniquity, and misses the light of the bright and morning star. How that “according to” reverberates through the prophet’s messages! Here it declares that every idol

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carries with it a lie that will be believed for truth. There is an atmosphere in which the true prophet cannot draw his breath and speak distinctly; the false prophet can and that is the disaster. “Mischief shall come upon mischief, and rumour shall be upon rumour; then shall they seek a vision of the prophet; but the law shall perish from the priest, and counsel from the ancients” (Ezekiel 7:26). when idols flourish, ideals perish. (H. E. Lewis.)

PETT, "Verse 4-5

“Therefore speak to them and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh, Every man of the house of Israel who takes his idols into his heart and puts the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and comes to the prophet. I, Yahweh, will answer him in accordance with it according to the multitude of his idols, that I may take the house of Israel in their own heart, because they are all estranged from me through idols.’ ”

Yahweh warned that He would not pretend that things were well. All those who were taken up with idols, and chose to come before them in worship, thus making them a stumblingblock in their religious lives, would receive a straight answer when they came to God’s prophet. In accordance with the number of their idols He would answer them, with warnings of severe judgment.

‘That I may take the house of Israel in their own heart.’ This may indicate that His purpose in this was that He might turn their hearts towards Him and capture them. For it was idolatry, and the immorality that went with them, that was causing His hostile attitude towards them and thus estranged them. Or it may mean that His intention was to take them captive in judgment just as they were, with their inner hearts set on idols.

5 I will do this to recapture the hearts of the 34

people of Israel, who have all deserted me for their idols.’

BARNES, "That I may take ... - i. e., that I may take them, as in a snare, deceived by their own heart.

GILL, "That I may take the house of Israel in their own heart,.... By which they are ensnared, and drawn aside to their ruin; being given up to strong delusions, to believe a lie, and worship idols; God threatening to answer them by righteous judgments, and thereby take the wickedness, the hypocrisy, and idolatry, that were in their hearts, and expose and make it manifest unto others; or, by punishing them, to draw out the corruption and sin that were in them, that it might be seen what a wicked people they were. The Targum interprets the text in another way, "that I may bring near the house of Israel, and put repentance into their hearts;'' because they are all estranged from me through their idols; they grew shy of God and his worship, when they fell into idolatry. Alienation from God, from the life of God, from the law of God, from the worship of God, and of the affections from him, is owing to some idol or another set up in the heart, or before the eye; whatever is worshipped besides God, or gains the ascendant in the heart, alienates from him; and God will not admit of a rival, he cannot and will not bear it; and for this reason he inflicts punishment, or answers in a terrible way.

JAMISON, "That I may take — that is, unveil and overtake with punishment the dissimulation and impiety of Israel hid in their own heart. Or, rather, “That I may punish them by answering them after their own hearts”; corresponding to “according to the multitude of his idols” (see on Eze_14:4); an instance is given in Eze_14:9; Rom_1:28; 2Th_2:11, God giving them up in wrath to their own lie.

idols — though pretending to “inquire” of Me, “in their hearts” they are “estranged from Me,” and love “idols.”

CALVIN, “He shows God’s object in being unwilling to dismiss without an answer the hypocrites who still impiously trifled with him. He says, that I may seize the house of Israel in their heart. It is yet asked how the impious are seized, when God answers them neither according to the opinion of their mind nor their expectation, but pronounces what they dislike and fear most grievously. I reply, that the impious

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are answered when they are driven to madness, and God thus extracts from them what was formerly hidden in their own hearts. He says, therefore, that their impiety may be manifest to all, I will answer them. For as long as God spares the impious, they endeavor to soothe him by a kind of flattery; but when they see that they take nothing by their false blandishments, then they roar, nay, bellow furiously against God: thus they are caught in their own hearts: that is, all their former dissembling is made bare, so that all may easily perceive that there never was a spark of piety in their hearts. God, therefore, bears witness that his answers would be of this kind, that he may take the house of Israel in their hearts; that is, that his severity may draw out into the light what was formerly hidden; for the word of God is a two-edged sword, and examines all the sentiments of men. (Hebrews 4:12.) Some are so slain by this sword that they grow wise again; but others are stung with fury when they see that they must engage with the power of God; therefore they are seized in their own hearts when God twists from them what they would willingly have kept always hidden. Since they have estranged themselves from me, literally, in their idols. This passage is explained in two ways, as we have said. Some say, because they separated themselves; but I approve of the other version, because they have alienated themselves, and we shall understand the point more clearly afterwards when the subject leads us to it. They alienated themselves, then, from God; that is, when they had utterly declined from God’s law; yet, as long as this was concealed, they still wore their masks. The separation of which the Prophet here speaks seems to be referred to this pretense. Since, then, they so alienated themselves from me by their idols; that is, he says they are deceived in thinking that they cannot be discovered, and that their abominations, however foul they are, will remain secret. And this agrees with the last clause, namely, that he would seize the hypocrites in their own heart.

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 14:5 That I may take the house of Israel in their own heart, because they are all estranged from me through their idols.

Ver. 5. That I may take the house of Israel in their own heart.] Ut deprehendam, or, as others, ut reprehendam; that I may convince their consciences of their impieties, and sting them to the heart with unquestionable conviction and horror.

Because they are all estranged from me.] And fallen in with the devil, who is ειδωλοχαρης, as saith Synesius, a great promoter of idolatry. Idola sunt prima

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saliva, et initium deficiendi a Deo. (a) Idolatry paveth the way to utter apostasy.

POOLE, " That I may convince and pierce their very hearts, or lay open what is in their heart, and discover their hypocrisy and impiety; because they have shamefully followed idols, which now in their distress neither know the cause, or can frame a remedy; and what folly is it to choose such gods! what greater impiety than this, to adhere to idols, and forsake God, the only true God and Saviour?

Estranged from me; minds that increase their averseness to God. Idolatry draws the man more and more from the Lord.

BI, "Verse 5-6

Ezekiel 14:5-6

They are all estranged from Me through their idols.

Alienation from God

We read here, in God’s own words, His rule of dealing with persons who come to Him in a certain disposition of mind.

1. The word “estranged” implies a former condition of close relationship and affection, from which they have since fallen. You would not apply the term to foreigners. You would not say of a Frenchman that he was estranged from this country, simply because he never belonged to it; but if an Englishman resided so long in Paris as to lose his patriotism and interest in our affairs, you would say that he was estranged. So, again, you would not say of a mere acquaintance, if you ceased to see him, that he was estranged from you; but if the love of an old friend grow

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cold, if a child become indifferent to his home, or a husband fail in his devotion to his wife, you describe such a falling off as estrangement. In this temper certain elders of Israel presented themselves before the prophet of God. They came to inquire His will and seek His aid. What self-delusion, then, is this! what blindness of heart! Men coming to God to inquire of Him, and not knowing that there is that within them which will forbid God’s hearing them! Who has persuaded them to come this way at all? No voice but that of their own heart! And yet do you say that it is their heart which bars the way of God against them? “Estranged from Me through their idols!” Oh, to us, who may be as these elders of Israel, how hard does this rule of God press upon us! Like them, only far more favoured in all spiritual blessings, with everything to turn our feet towards God, the very currents of society swaying us in this direction, the breeze of fashion gently impelling us hither, the hand of custom with its constant but almost unfelt pressure laid upon the helm of our daily life to guide us within the haven of the Church. We learn to say our prayers, and prayer becomes a trick of words. Bibles are cheap, and in every man’s hand. And yet, even now, there may be amongst us some who do not remember, that with idols in our heart we are estranged from God, and that He will not be inquired of by us at all!

2. But this is not the worst. The question God puts expects the answer “No”; and yet it is not the answer which He gives it. His answer admits us to a nearer view of His mysterious dealings with man. We see Him work by a rule that we know nothing of, a rule of mystery, marvellous and inscrutable, but one which example and experience teach us He applies with unerring force. When men thus estranged and alienated from Him in heart present themselves in person before Him, He does not refuse them an audience. They pray--He hears--their prayer is answered: but how fatal is the gift which He grants! “I the Lord will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols.” What illustrations of the Divine conduct does Scripture offer both in the Old Testament and the New! The Jews clamoured for a king, and God gave them one, but in this wise,--“I gave thee a king in Mine anger, and took him away in My wrath.” They cried in the wilderness for flesh,--“So they did eat, and were well filled, for He gave them their own desire; they were not disappointed of their lust. But while the meat was yet in their mouths,” etc., “and smote down the chosen men that were in Israel.” Balaam received the king’s messengers a second time, and though God had once answered him, he professed to inquire of Him again. He came with idols in his heart, his affection estranged from God: and what was the result? Did God forbid his praying? Oh that He had done so! Did He refuse his prayer? Alas! He granted it, saying, “Rise up and go with

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them.” And Balaam, too happy to get the permission, went. But God’s anger was kindled because he went: and the end was that he fell from sin to sin, selling himself to do the tempter’s work; and he died among God’s enemies, his own pious prayers and blessings ringing the curse of the hypocrite in his ears. There is yet another example nearer the person of the blessed Lord Himself; and therefore the warning is more terrible. Jesus chose but twelve to help Him in His work; and even on one of these He looked--a man with idols in his heart--and said of him, “Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?” This man came near to Christ, as the eleven: he passed as one of them. He was with them almost up to the very last; he just wanted a little time to go away and finally arrange the plot, and that time he had. God gave him the opportunity,--say not gave, but permitted him. Jesus looked at him and said, “What thou doest, do quickly.” Was ever prayer heard like that? was ever man on earth answered after the multitude of his idols like that?

3. God’s purpose in answering the evil desires of hearts alienated from His love. Their heart is to become their snare, the net in which they shall be caught, the pitfall in which they shall be entrapped. Your talents and tastes and affections and ruling desires,--the gifts with which nature’s hand has made you rich, the inheritance with which you started in life,--your physical strength, your youth, your beauty, your wit, your attractiveness, your amiable temper, your power of sympathy, your grace of manner, your aptitude for business, your strong will, your influence over others--with these you made your casts early in life: they have brought you in glittering spoils and stores of comfort, and have enriched your home with pleasures and with wealth. But these very instruments of gain, what else have you done with them? Have they entangled you too much in the world? impeded you on your way to God? implicated you dangerously with others? Have you ensnared others, and made inextricable confusion in their projects of a peaceful, holy, happy life? And now, as you grow older, are you so involved in this world’s business that you cannot escape its toils? When Christ, the rightful Master of your heart, calls to you from the quiet shore, and bids you leave your nets, and become, if not expressly “fishers of men,” yet at least servants in His work, is your heart free to follow Him? is your heart His at all? nay, is your heart your own to give? Have you not given it away already to idols, to false gods, to the world? or it may be, you have lost your heart in sin! (Archdeacon Furse.)

Things that estrange the heart from God

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It was a true and beautiful remark made by the mother of Wm. Allan, the Quaker chemist, when she was seeking to win her son to give more attention to religion, and to devote less time to the prosecution of his studies in his favourite and fascinating science: “Remember, my boy, that Christ cast even the doves out of the temple.” The lesson thus gently taught was effectually taken to heart. Young Allan learned, with lasting profit, that the most innocent and lawful of earthly objects of interest may not occupy that central place in our affections which our Saviour claims for Himself; but in the souls of the redeemed all other desires will, without painful effort, arrange themselves at due distances from this centre.

Repent, and turn yourselves from your idols.--

Repentance

1. Repentance is a turning from sin to God. It is not any turning, but a turning of the judgment, so that men judge otherwise of God, of His laws and ways, of sin, of themselves, than before; a turning of the will and affections, so that they are carried wholly and fully unto God (Joel 2:12).

2. Repentance is a continued act. It is a grace, and must have its daily operation, as well as other graces. Where a spring breaks forth it is always flowing.

3. Sinners should stir up themselves, and do the utmost which lies in their power to further their turning unto God. “Turn yourselves from your idols”; use all arguments you can to cause your hearts to turn from idols, and from other sinful ways. Consider--

4. True repentance and turning to the Lord doth manifest itself in the effects and fruits of it: it hath meet fruit (Matthew 3:8), worthy fruit (Luke 3:8). Now, here are three effects thereof in these words:

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Sin not tolerated

When his people at Wittenberg showed him their licences to sin, Luther’s answer was, “Unless you repent you will all perish.”. . . “Please God, I’ll make a hole in his drum,” he said, when he first heard of Tetzel selling these indulgences. (Anecdotes of Luther.)

6 “Therefore say to the people of Israel, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Repent! Turn from your idols and renounce all your detestable practices!

GILL, "Therefore say unto the house of Israel,.... Deliver out the following exhortation to repentance unto them; for God's end, in all his threatenings and judgments, is to bring men to repentance: thus saith the Lord God, repent, and turn yourselves from your idols; or, "turn, and cause to be turned from your idols" (w); turn yourselves from the worship of idols, as the Targum, and do all that in you lies to turn others from the same; particularly your wives and young men, as Kimchi: and the rather they were obliged to do this, since in all probability they had been the means of drawing them into idolatry: and turn away your faces from all your abominations; their idols, detestable to God, and ought to have been so to them; these he would have them turn their faces from, not so much as look at them, much less worship them, that they might not be ensnared by them; this is said, in opposition to their setting of them before their face, Eze_14:3.

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JAMISON, "Though God so threatened the people for their idolatry (Eze_14:5), yet He would rather they should avert the calamity by “repentance.”

turn yourselves - Calvin translates, “turn others” (namely, the stranger proselytes in the land). As ye have been the advisers of others (see Eze_14:7, “the stranger that sojourneth in Israel”) to idolatry, so bestow at least as much pains in turning them to the truth; the surest proof of repentance. But the parallelism to Eze_14:3, Eze_14:4 favors English Version. Their sin was twofold: (1) “In their heart” or inner man; (2) “Put before their face,” that is, exhibited outwardly. So their repentance is generally expressed by “repent,” and is then divided into: (1) “Turn yourselves (inwardly) from your idols”; (2) “Turn away your faces (outwardly) from all your abominations.” It is not likely that an exhortation to convert others should come between the two affecting themselves.

K&D 6-8, "(Eze 14:2) And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

CALVIN, “Now God shows why he had threatened the false prophets and the whole people so severely, namely, that they should repent; for the object of God’s rigor is, that, when terrified by his judgments, we should return into the way. Now, therefore, he exhorts them to repentance. Hence we gather the useful lesson, that whenever God inspires us with fear, he has no other intention than to humble us, and thus to provide for our salvation, when he reproves and threatens us so strongly by his prophets, and in truth is verbally angry with us, that he may really spare us. But the exhortation is short, that they may be converted and turned away from their idols, and may turn their faces from all their abominations. When he uses the word :heshibev, in the second clause, some understand “wives;” but this is frigid ,השיבוothers think the verb transitive, but yet impersonal, thus make yourselves return: this also is harsh. (40) I have no doubt that the Prophet here exhorts the Israelites that each should desire to reconcile himself to God, and at the same time bring others with him. As many were mutually the authors of evils to each other, he now orders them to do their utmost to bring back others with them: and surely this is a true proof of our repentance, when we are not only converted to God one by one, but, when we stretch forth our hand to our brethren, and recall them from error; especially if they have wandered away through our fault, we must take care to make up for the injury by at least equal diligence. The sense therefore of the Prophet is, first, that, the Israelites should repent; next, that one should assist another to repentance, or that they should mutually unite in the pursuit of piety, just as each was previously corrupted by his companion and brother. This seems to be the full meaning. Besides, this series must be remarked: because many show zeal in seizing

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others, and stretching out the hand to free them from error; but they themselves never think of repenting. But the Holy Spirit here shows us the true method of proceeding, when he commands us to repent, and then extends our desires to our brethren who have need of our exhortations. At length he adds, withdraw your faces, or turn away from all your abominations. A part is here put by the Prophet for the whole, since turning away the face means the same as withdrawing all the senses. Since, therefore, they had been almost affixed to their own abominations to which they had cast their eyes, and were completely intent upon them, he orders them to turn away their faces, so as to bid them farewell. It follows —

ELLICOTT, "(6) Repent and turn.—The announcements of the previous verses form the basis for the earnest call to a true repentance. There can be no hope for Israel in any merely outward reformation; they have to do with the Searcher of hearts, and the only repentance acceptable to Him is that which has its seat in the affections of the heart.

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 14:6 Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord GOD Repent, and turn [yourselves] from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations.

Ver. 6. Repent, and turn yourselves.] Or, Turn others; for true converts will be converting their brethren. They like not to go to heaven alone.

And turn away your faces.] Alii dicunt uxores vestras, saith Lavater here; your wives, which are according to your hearts, like as in water face answereth to face. Wean them from their idols, and win them over to the true God.

POOLE, " Unto the house of Israel; to these men the elders, whoever they are, give charge that they repent, and by them send word to the residue of the house of Jacob that they do so too.

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Repent; be sorry and testify your sorrow for such sins.

And turn yourselves; renounce them for future, cease to be idolaters, let your visible carriage in reforming all be seen too. Amend heart and ways, let not your heart be towards idols in point of religion, nor your practice in point of outward deportment be vicious and immoral.

WHEDON, "Verse 6

STATEMENT OF THE DIVINE LAW WHICH CONTROLS EVEN FALSE PROPHECY, Ezekiel 14:6-11.

6. Repent — The Lord will give to these idolaters no view of the future until they pluck their idols out of their hearts and turn away from sin.

PETT, "Verses 6-8

“Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh, Return you and turn yourselves from idols, and turn away your faces from all your abominations. For every one of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel, who separates himself from me, and takes his idols into his heart, and puts the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and comes to the prophet to enquire for himself concerning me. I Yahweh will answer him by myself. And I will set my face against that man, and will make him an astonishment, for a sign and a proverb, and I will cut him off from among my people, and you will know that I am Yahweh.’ ”

The constant repetition reveals how hard God was trying to drum in this lesson to Ezekiel’s hearers, the people in exile. Idolatry had for so long been a hindrance to Israel’s faith, as today Mammon and Sex are, and God was determined to root it out. He again called on them to ‘return’ to Him and ‘turn’ themselves from idols,

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and the abominations that were a part of their worship.

But if they did not do so, and yet sought to a prophet to try to justify their position, He would not answer through the prophet. Indeed He would deceive the prophet (Ezekiel 14:9). And He would Himself answer in judgment those who refused to reject idols. He would set His face against them and treat them in such a way that all would remember it. They would become a sign. What happened to them would become proverbial. For He would destroy them from among His people. Then would all know that He was truly Yahweh, the living, holy God, Who would never condone sin and unfaithfulness.

‘Return you and turn yourselves from idols, and turn away your faces from all your abominations.’ A positive response was being called for, a turning about. It was not enough to be ‘sorry’, they had to take positive action, a resolve once and for all to have nothing to do with idols. This reflects a mistake made by many that all they have to do is keep on saying sorry to God before they race back to the things they love. But God requires a total turning about, a true repentance, reflected not so much in tears as in obedience.

‘The strangers who sojourn.’ Note also that this was to apply to any who would take up permanent residence among the people of Israel. It was necessary that they too reject idolatry. (LXX here calls them ‘proselytes’). Otherwise they would bring down the judgment of God on Israel. The success of this ministry was revealed in that when exiles did return to Jerusalem they were particularly careful to spurn idolatry and refuse ‘fellowship’ with outsiders. Possibly in fact, as men will, they became too careful. But at least the lesson was learned.

7 “‘When any of the Israelites or any foreigner residing in Israel separate themselves from me and set up idols in their hearts and put a wicked stumbling block before their faces and then go to

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a prophet to inquire of me, I the Lord will answer them myself.

BARNES, "The stranger - They who sojourned among Israel, though they were not of Israel, were bound to abstain from idol-worship Lev_17:10; Lev_20:2.

By myself - Or, as in Eze_14:4, “according to” Myself. He who comes to inquire with a heart full of idolatry shall have his answer,(1) “according to the multitude of his idols” - in delusion,(2) “according to the holiness of God” - in punishment.

The inquiry was hypocritical and unreal - but God will answer not by the mouth, but by the hand, not by word but by deed, not by speech but by a scourge.

CLARKE, "And cometh to a prophet - Generally supposed to mean a false prophet.

I the Lord will answer him by myself - I shall discover to him, by my own true prophet, what shall be the fruit of his ways. So, while their false prophets were assuring them of peace and prosperity, God’s prophets were predicting the calamities that afterwards fell upon them. Yet they believed the false prophets in preference to the true. Ahab, about to engage with the Syrians, who had possession of Ramoth-Gilead, asked Micaiah, the prophet of the Lord, concerning the event; who told him he should lose the battle. He then inquired of Zedekiah, a false prophet, who promised him a glorious victory. Ahab believed the latter, marched against the enemy, was routed, and slain in the battle, 1Ki_22:10, etc.

GILL, "For everyone of the house of Israel,.... King and subjects, princes and people, high and low, rich and poor, of every rank, sex, and age: or of the stranger that sojourneth in Israel; the proselytes; whether of righteousness, such as were circumcised, and embraced the Jewish religion; or of the gate, who were only inhabitants with them; one as another were obliged to worship the God of Israel, and abstain from idolatry; there was but one law to the Israelite and to the stranger, respecting this matter: which separateth himself from me; from the worship of God, and so from communion with him; turns his back on him, and becomes an apostate from him, by

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joining himself with idols: and setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face; these things are repeated, partly to observe the heinousness of the sin they were guilty of; and partly to show the stupidity of this people, which required things to be said over and over, before they could take them in, and be convinced of their evil: and cometh to a prophet to inquire of him concerning me; this explains what such persons would come to a prophet for, Eze_14:4; and exposes their hypocrisy: I the Lord will answer him by myself; not by the prophet to whom he comes, but by himself: or, "in my word", as the Targum; yet not by words, but by blows; not in mercy, but in wrath; and in such manner, that it shall appear to come from the Lord, and to be according to truth and justice.

HENRY 7-8, " The extent of this answer which God had given them - to all the house of Israel, Eze_14:7, Eze_14:8. The same thing is repeated, which intimates God's just displeasure against hypocrites, who mock him with the shows and forms of devotion, while their hearts are estranged from him and at war with him. Observe, 1. To whom this declaration belongs. It concerns not only every one of the house of Israel (as before, Eze_14:4), but the stranger that sojourns in Israel; let him not think it will be an excuse for him in his idolatries that he is but a stranger and a sojourner in Israel, and does but worship the gods that his father served and that he himself was bred up in the service of; no, let him not expect any benefit from Israel's oracles or prophets unless he thoroughly renounce his idolatry. Note, Even proselytes shall not be countenanced if they be not sincere: a dissembled conversion is no conversion. 2. The description here given of hypocrites: They separate themselves from God by their fellowship with idols; they cut themselves off from their relation to God and their interest in him; they break off their acquaintance and intercourse with him, and set themselves at a distance from him. Note, Those that join themselves to idols separate themselves from God; nor shall any be for ever separated from the vision and fruition of God, but such as now separate themselves from his service and wilfully withdraw their allegiance from him. But there are those who thus separate themselves from God, and yet come to the prophets with a seeming respect and deference to their office, to enquire of them concerning God, in order to satisfy a vain curiosity, to stop the mouth of a clamorous conscience, or to get or save a reputation among men, but without any desire to be acquainted with God or any design to be ruled by him. 3. The doom of those who thus trifle with God and think to impose upon him: “I the Lord will answer him by myself; let me alone to deal with him; I will give him an answer that shall fill him with confusion, that shall make him repent of his daring impiety.” He shall have his answer, not by the words of the prophet, but by the judgments of God. And I will set my face against that man, which denotes great displeasure against him and a fixed resolution to ruin him. God can outface the most impenitent sinner. The hypocrite thought to save his credit, nay, and to gain applause, but, on the contrary, God will make him a sign and a proverb, will inflict such judgments upon him as shall make him remarkable and contemptible in the eyes of all about him; his misery shall be made use of to express the greatest misery, as when the worst of sinners are said to have their portion appointed them with hypocrites, Mat_

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24:51. God will make him an example; his judgments upon him shall be for warning to others to take heed of mocking God: for thus shall it be done to the man that separates himself from God, and yet pretends to enquire concerning him. The hypocrite thought to pass for one of God's people, and to crowd into heaven among them; but God will cut him off from the midst of his people, will discover him, and pluck him out from the thickest of them; and by this, says God, you shall know that I am the Lord. By the discovery of hypocrites it appears that God is omniscient: ministers know not how people stand affected when they come to hear the word, by God does. And by the punishment of hypocrites it appears that he is a jealous God, and one that cannot and will not be imposed upon.

JAMISON, "stranger — the proselyte, tolerated in Israel only on condition of worshipping no God but Jehovah (Lev_17:8, Lev_17:9).

inquire of him concerning me — that is, concerning My will.by myself — not by word, but by deed, that is, by judgments, marking My hand and direct agency; instead of answering him through the prophet he consults. Fairbairn translates, as it is the same Hebrew as in the previous clause, “concerning Me,” it is natural that God should use the same expression in His reply as was used in the consultation of Him. But the sense, I think, is the same. The hypocrite inquires of the prophet concerning God; and God, instead of replying through the prophet, replies for Himself concerning Himself.

CALVIN, “Ezekiel again returns to threats, because exhortations was not sufficiently effectual with such hardened ones; for we have seen that they were obdurate in their vices and almost like untamed beasts. For unless God’s judgment had been often set before them, there had been but small fruit of teaching and exhortation. This then is the reason why God here sets before them his vengeance: a man, a man, says he, or a stranger who sojourns among Israel. When he adds strangers, he doubtless speaks of the circumcised who professed to be worshipers of the true God, and so submitted to the law as to refrain from all impieties. For there were two kinds of strangers, those who transacted business there, but were profane men, continuing uncircumcised. But there were others who were not sprung from the sacred race, and were not indigenous to the soil, but yet they had been circumcised, and as far as religion was concerned, had become members of the Church; and God wishes them to be esteemed in the same class and rank as the sons of Abraham. The law shall be the same for the stranger and the home-born, wherever the promise is concerned, (Numbers 15:15,) and the same sentiment is repeated in many places. Thus the word foreigners is now to be explained. But this circumstance exaggerates the crime of the chosen people. For if any one settled in the land of Canaan and embraced God’s law, this was an accidental event: but the Israelites were by nature heirs of eternal life, for the adoption was continued

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through successive ages. Since then they were born sons of God, it was the more disgraceful to depart from his worship. And so when Ezekiel here gravely rebukes the strangers, he shows how much more atrocious the crime was in the case of those who were bound by a more sacred bond to the worship of God. He says, and he was separated from after me. The Prophet yesterday said מעלי, megneli, from near or from towards me: here he more clearly expresses declension, when men reject the teaching of the law, and openly show that they pay no obedience to God. For he is said to follow God or to walk after him, who proposes to himself God as a guide, and is devoted to his precepts, and holds on in the way pointed out by him. Thus by the obedience of faith we follow God or walk after him: so we recede from him when we reject his law, and are openly unwilling to bear his yoke any longer. Hence he shows of what kind the separation of the people or of individuals from God is, namely, when they refuse to follow his law. The Israelites indeed wished God always to remain united to them, but they made the divorce, although they denied it: hence the Prophet cuts away from them beforehand this prop of backsliding, when he says that they separated from God by not following him.

At length he repeats what we saw yesterday, he who caused his idols to ascend unto his heart, he who placed the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, that is, was drowned in his own superstitions, so that his idols bore sway in his heart: lastly, he who is so forward in audacity that he did not conceal his wish to oppose the Almighty:if any one, says he, came to a prophet to inquire of him in me, or my name, I will answer him. He confirms what we saw yesterday, that he could no longer bear the hypocrites who deluded themselves so proudly. And certainly when they openly worshipped idols, and were fined with many superstitions, what audacity and pride it was to consult true prophets? It is much the same as if a person should want only insult and rail at a physician, and not only load him with reproaches, but even spit in his face: and should afterwards go and ask his advice, saying, “What do you advise me to do? How must I be cured of this disease?” Such pride could not be borne between man and man. How then will God permit such reproaches to go unpunished? For this reason he says that he would answer, but after his own manner, as if he had said — they seek flatteries, but I will answer in myself: that is, in my natural character. I will not change it according to their pleasure, for they change my character by their fictions, but they are deceived: they profit nothing when they expect me to answer according to their views:I will answer, says he, in myself; that is, they shall feel that the answer proceeds from me, and they shall have no reason for thinking that my servants will be submissive to them, as they are accustomed to abuse the false prophets whom they buy for

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reward, because they are venal. For when any one is venal he is compelled to flatter like a slave. For there is no freedom but in a good and upright conscience. Hence God here separates his servants from impostors who make a trade of their flatteries. Now it follows —

COFFMAN, ""For every one of the house of Israel, as of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that separateth himself from me, and taketh his idols into his heart, and putteth the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to the prophet, to inquire for himself of me; I Jehovah will answer him by myself; and I will set my face against that man, and will make him an astonishment, for a sign and a proverb, and I will cut him off from the midst of my people; and ye shall know that I am Jehovah. And if the prophet be deceived and speak a word, I, Jehovah, have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people."

"That separateth himself from me ..." (Ezekiel 14:7). No double minded person can be right in God's sight. The secret love and adoration of idols cut every guilty soul completely off from God. This sin, whether committed by the racial stock of Israel, by sojourners living in Israel under God's protection, was fatal to any satisfactory relationship with God.

"I will answer him by myself ..." (Ezekiel 14:7). This meant that God would answer, not through the words of any true prophet, but by the summary execution of terrible penalties upon the idolater.

"I will set my face against that man ..." (Ezekiel 14:8). Here is spelled out the penalty: (1) spiritual death, (2) being cut off from God's people, and (3) the experiencing of some terrible earthly calamity, of the type that would get public attention and make the victim an astonishment and a proverb. Two examples of this in the New Testament are the sudden death of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:5-11) and the stroke that took away Herod Agrippa II at Caesarea (Acts 12). Nothing could be more terrible for any mortal than the fact of God having set his face against that man.

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"I have deceived that prophet ..." (Ezekiel 14:9). As Cooke noted, "A statement like this is not intelligible unless we take into consideration the thought patterns of oriental mind."[7] We have the same pattern in the thinking of believers even today. When a loved one is lost, we have all heard it said that, "The Lord has called him home." This merely by-passes secondary and subordinate causes and attributes all that happens to the eternal will of God. God's "deceiving a false prophet" here was in no sense an evil act upon God's part. "As a matter of fact the false prophet had brought the deception upon himself"[8] a by his own evil desires and deeds.

What is in view here is God's judicial blinding, hardening, or deception of wicked men. The classical example in the Old Testament is that of Pharaoh. The Lord indeed "hardened Pharaoh's heart"; but that occurred only after the Bible had declared no less than ten times that, "Pharaoh had hardened his own heart." Does the equivalent of such a thing happen today? Most assuredly, it does.

"And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness" (2 Thessalonians 2:11-12 KJV).

It was possible to say of this self-deceived prophet that God had deceived him, because, "The consequences of his sin,. as well as the moral law of God which he violated were God's ordinances, and because the penalty of deception, was according to God's will, therefore his state of deception could quite properly be attributed to God."[9] This line of reasoning, however, suggests no amelioration of the false prophet's guilt. "No man can possibly become a false prophet without criminal blame upon himself."[10]

This passage forbade any true prophet to provide God's Word to idolaters; and, by definition, that meant that any prophet speaking with an idolater was, of course, an evil-doer himself.

It is amazing, as Calvin said, that, "Neither imposters nor frauds take place apart 51

from the will of God." Keil quoted Calvin's remark, and then added that, "This can happen only with persons who have first admitted evil into themselves. Furthermore, the penalty of God's judgment shall fall upon both alike, the deceived prophet, and the idolatrous inquirer."[11]

ELLICOTT, "(7) Or of the stranger.—Under the Mosaic legislation, “the stranger” living among the Israelites was bound to observe a certain outward deference to the law of the land, just as a foreigner in any country now is bound to respect in certain things the law of the country in which he lives. Israel being a theocracy, its fundamental law against idol-worship could not be violated with impunity by those who sought the protection of its government (Leviticus 17:10; Leviticus 20:1-2, &c.). In this case, however, outward idolatry is not alleged, as the accusations of this verse and Ezekiel 14:4 refer only to the secret idolatry of the heart; and the point insisted upon is not so much the idol-worship in itself, as the hypocrisy of attempting to join with this the enquiring of the Lord. God declares that He will answer such hypocrisy, in whomsoever it may be found, not by the prophet through whom the enquiry is made, but by Himself interposing to punish the enquirer, and to make him an example to deter others from a like course.

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 14:7 For every one of the house of Israel, or of the stranger that sojourneth in Israel, which separateth himself from me, and setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to a prophet to enquire of him concerning me; I the LORD will answer him by myself:

Ver. 7. For every one of the house of Israel.] The same over again, and yet no win repetition: Duris enim illis capitibus res non potuit satis inculcari, to these dizzards nothing could be said too much.

Or of the stranger.] But proselyted to the Jewish religion, as Jethro, who was the first of that kind that we read of.

Which separateth himself from me.] As a harlot doth from her husband. See Hosea 52

4:14; Hosea 9:10.

I the, Lord will answer him by myself.] Non verbis sed verberibus; not with words, but with blows. Or, According to my most holy truth and justice; or, By myself -scil., do I swear that I will do it. See Ezekiel 14:4.

POOLE, "Verse 7

For every Jew of the seed of Abraham, and every proselyte, who withdraws himself from me, and worships idols, keeps them in his heart to the increase of their own sin and my displeasure, yet forsooth comes to the prophet to inquire how his God resenteth what they do, and what God will do with them, what they should do, what they may expect, yet all this while dote on idols, and resolutely hold on in unjust practices, they shall find by the answer it was not the prophet, but the God of the prophet, that answered them, so dreadful, searching, and astonishing shall my answer be.

BI, "Verse 7

Ezekiel 14:7

Which separateth himself from Me.

Point of contact disturbed by sin

Dr. Cortland Meyers says that one of the electric bells in his home recently refused to ring. He failed to discover the cause. An electrician was sent for. After some time spent over it he found that right up under the bell, so insignificant as to be almost imperceptible, was a place where the point of contact was lost. It is often so with the

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Church. “Battery all right, machinery and wires all right, but the point of contact is defective”--disobedience, pride, covetousness have estranged the heart from God. (R. Venting.)

Sin’s power to separate man from God

A man never gets to the end of the distance that separates between him and the Father, if his face is turned away from God. Every moment the separation is increasing. Two lines start from each other at the acutest angle, are farther apart from each other the farther they are produced, until at last the one may be away up by the side of God’s throne, and the other away down in the deepest depths of hell. (A. Maclaren.)

WHEDON, " 7. I the Lord will answer him by myself — In matters of judgment the Lord will not speak by proxy. If they do not repent, they will hear from him in person. The future, of which they are so anxious to learn, will come all too soon, and the answer which they seek will be their total destruction.

8 I will set my face against them and make them an example and a byword. I will remove them from my people. Then you will know that I am the Lord.

BARNES, "Will make him - Or, I will make him amazed Eze_32:10; or, astonished, so as to be a sign and a proverb.

GILL, "And I will set my face against that man,.... And look him out of 54

countenance, notwithstanding all his daring impudence and presumption in coming to a prophet of the Lord, and inquiring of him by him, when guilty of gross idolatry; which mast needs be the case, when the face of God is set against a man. The Targum renders it, "my fury", or "wrath"; and indeed that is what is meant; when God sets his face against a man, he pours out his wrath, or inflicts punishment on him; see Psa_34:16. Jarchi's note is, "as a man that says I am at leisure from all business, and I will attend to this;'' laying aside all other business, wholly giving himself up to one thing, on which he is set. Dreadful is a man's case, when the Lord thus sets himself against him! and will make him a sign and a proverb; a spectacle of horror to look at, because of his misery; and a proverb, to be took up, and spoke of, as Zedekiah and Ahab were, Jer_29:22; and I will cut him off from the midst of my people; by a sudden death, which the Jews call death from heaven, or by the immediate hand of God; and which is answering by himself, as in Eze_14:7; and ye shall know that I am the Lord; that is, those that remain, are not cut off, but are reclaimed by these examples from idolatry, and are brought to repentance, the remnant among them that should be saved; these should know and acknowledge the Lord was omniscient, and knew the hypocrisy of those men above described; and was omnipotent, and could make good his threatenings, and inflict deserved punishment; and that he was holy, just, and true, in all his ways.

JAMISON, "And I will set my face against that man — (See on Lev_17:10).and will make him a sign — literally, “I will destroy him so as to become a sign”; it will be no ordinary destruction, but such as will make him be an object pointed at with wonder by all, as Korah, etc. (Num_26:10; Deu_28:37).

CALVIN, “Here God adds, that the execution of his wrath would be ready when the prophet had denounced it. For profane men always fabricate for themselves empty treaties, and when God threatens they say that it is only thunder without lightning. Since the prophetic threats moved the reprobate either nothing or but little, so God now shows that he would not only answer what they did not wish to hear, but they should perceive by its effect how truly he had spoken. And this ought to be understood from the last sentence; for when God answers by himself, he neither is nor strikes the air with threatening words, but denounces what he determined to fulfill and accomplish in his own time. For God never answers in himself without joining the effect with the prophecy. But hypocrites are too stupid to acknowledge this, unless a clearer explanation was afforded. This then is the reason why the

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Prophet brings a message respecting the effect.

He says, I will put my face upon that man: when God speaks openly against us, this is sufficient for our destruction; but he wished to express more in this case, namely, that prophets were the heralds of his wrath, and that hypocrites should be admonished about the penalties which await them, and even now hang over them, since his hand is stretched out against them. He is said to place his face against another who rises against him, or descends to a contest and engages hand to hand. So also God pronounces that he would be an adversary to all the reprobate who thus endeavored to elude him. He says, I will place him for a sign and a proverb. He marks the heaviness of the punishment by these words: for God sometimes chastises the faults of men, but after a common and accustomed manner. But when punishment excites the wonder of all and is like a portent, then God puts forth the sign of his wrath in no common fashion, as they say. The Prophet then means this, and hence at the same time admonishes us how detestable a crime it is to decline from the pure worship of God. For God chastises thefts and lewdness, drunkenness, deceits, and rapines: but not always so rigorously that the punishment is remarkable, and turns the minds of all towards itself. Hence from the greatness of the punishment the atrocity of the crime is made known. He now adds, for proverbs. This phrase is taken from the law, as the prophets who are the interpreters of Moses make use of words from it. (Deuteronomy 28:37.) When any remarkable slaughter occurs it is said to be for a proverb, as all persons usually boast when speaking of any slaughter, that none is equal to it or more horrible. But, משל, meshel, is also used for a disgrace: as if he had said, it should not only be material for remark among the whole people, but their name should be subject to reproach and contempt. At length he adds, I will cut him off from my people. This is most severe of all, for even the hope of pity is taken away. A person may be a wonder for a time: then his calamity may be the subject of vulgar taunts and proverbs: and yet God is still exorable, and may not cut him off from his people. But when any one is cut off from God’s people, his safety is already beyond hope. It is not in vain that this sentence is so often repeated, you shall know that I am Jehovah, says he, since we even formerly saw hypocrites always put a veil before them, since they think they have only to do with the prophets, and thus they despise mortals with security. Hence God here inscribes his name on his word, that they may know that he has spoken, and may experience the effect of his words by his hand. It follows —

ELLICOTT, "(8) Will make him a sign.—The text of the Hebrew is here preferable 56

to its margin, which has been followed by our translators, as well as by the ancient versions. There is a similar threat in Deuteronomy 28:37; and the clause should be rendered, “will make him desolate (or destroy him) for a sign and a proverb.” The English almost loses the idea of the wonder which will be occasioned by the severity of God’s dealings with the false worshipper.

TRAPP, "Verse 8

Ezekiel 14:8 And I will set my face against that man, and will make him a sign and a proverb, and I will cut him off from the midst of my people; and ye shall know that I [am] the LORD.

Ver. 8. And I will set my face against that man.] Vultuose torveque illum intuear. I will look him to death. Or, Laying aside all other business, I will see to it that he be soundly paid.

And will make him a sign and a proverb.] That when men would express a great punishment upon any, they shall resemble it to his, as the Jews did to Ahab’s and Zedekiah’s, that naughty couple, [Jeremiah 29:22] and the heathens to that of Tantalus (a) and Tityus.

And I will cut him off from the midst of my people.] This is yet a further and a more formidable menace; this is far worse than to he a byword to the people.

POOLE, " My face; my displeased face, my wrath, which none can bear; the phrase Leviticus 17:10 20:3 Ezekiel 15:7.

A sign of Divine vengeance, provoked by sin and executed on the sinner.

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A proverb; of whom every body shall speak with taunt and curse, Deuteronomy 28:37.

I will cut him off; either by an immediate stroke from heaven, or else in an undeniably vindictive way, Leviticus 20:3.

From the midst of my people; openly, as what is done in the sight of all, or as one separated from God’s people by this dreadfill excommunication, and who shall have no portion with them in this or the next life.

9 “‘And if the prophet is enticed to utter a prophecy, I the Lord have enticed that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand against him and destroy him from among my people Israel.

BARNES, "I the Lord hare deceived that prophet - A deep truth lies beneath these words, namely, that evil as well as good is under God’s direction. He turns it as He will, employing it to test the sincerity of men, and thus making it ultimately contribute to the purification of His people, to the confirmation of the righteous, to the increase of their glory and felicity. The case of the false prophets who deceived Ahab 1 Kings 22 is a striking representation of this principle. The Lord sends forth an evil spirit to persuade Ahab to his ruin. Toward the close of the kingdom of Judah false prophets were especially rife. The thoughts of men’s hearts were revealed, the good separated from the bad, and the remnant of the people purged from the sins by which of late years the whole nation had been defiled.

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CLARKE, "I the Lord have deceived that prophet - That is, he ran before he was sent; he willingly became the servant of Satan’s illusions; and I suffered this to take place, because he and his followers refused to consult and serve me. I have often had occasion to remark that it is common in the Hebrew language to state a thing as done by the Lord which he only suffers or permits to be done; for so absolute and universal is the government of God, that the smallest occurrence cannot take place without his will or permission.

GILL, "And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing,.... That is pleasing to men, and is not true, in hope of reward and applause, but it never comes to pass, and his expectations are not answered: I the Lord have deceived that prophet; by sending a lying spirit to him, as to Ahab's prophets, 1Ki_22:22; by giving him up to strong delusions, to believe a lie, and publish it, 2Th_2:11; and to his own heart's lusts; being willing, for the sake of gain, to prophesy smooth things, though false to the people, promising them peace when there was none; and then by frustrating his predictions, and disappointing him of his ends and views. R. Saadiah interprets this, as Kimchi observes, of God revealing and making it manifest that he was deceived; but more is meant by it than this, or even a bare permission; for though God is not the author of sin, yet he wills it to be done for wise ends and purposes, and sometimes in a way of judgment, as a punishment for sin; and which was the case here; both with respect to the prophet that deceived, who as the fruit of his sin, his covetousness, was given up in just judgment to a reprobate mind; and the people that were deceived, who, rejecting the true prophets of the Lord, were willing to have smooth things prophesied to them: and I will stretch out my hand upon them; his avenging hand; the stroke of his power, as the Targum; a heavy one, and that for giving heed to a lying spirit; for uttering falsehood, and that with a wicked design, to gain the applause of the people, or for filthy lucre's sake: and I will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel; by some sore judgment or sudden death, and so be made a public example of.

HENRY 9-10, " The doom of those pretenders to prophecy who give countenance to these pretenders to piety, Eze_14:9, Eze_14:10. These hypocritical enquirers, though Ezekiel will not give them a comfortable answer, yet hope to meet with some other prophets that will; and if they do, as perhaps they may, let them know that God permits those lying prophets to deceive them in part of punishment: “If the prophet that flatters them be deceived, and gives them hopes which there is no ground for, I the Lord have deceived that prophet, have suffered the temptation to be laid before him, and suffered him to yield to it, and overruled it for the hardening of those in their wicked courses who were resolved to go on in them.” We are sure that God is not the author of sin, but we are sure that he is the Lord of all and the Judge of sinners, and that he often makes use of one wicked man to destroy another, and so of one wicked man to deceive another. Both are sins in him who does them, and so they are not from God; both are punishments to

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him to whom they are done, and so they are from God. We have a full instance of this in the story of Ahab's prophets, who were deceived by a lying spirit, which God put into their mouths (1Ki_22:23), and another in those whom God gives up to strong delusions, to believe a lie, because they received not the love of the truth, 2Th_2:10, 2Th_2:11. But read the fearful doom of the lying prophet: I will stretch out my hand upon him and will destroy him. When God has served his own righteous purposes by him he shall be reckoned with for his unrighteous purposes. As, when God had made use of the Chaldeans for the wasting of a sinful people, he justly punished them for their rage, so when he had made use of false prophets, and afterwards of false Christs, for the deceiving of a sinful people, he justly punished them for their falsehood. But herein we must acknowledge (as Calvin upon this place reminds us) that God's judgments are a great deep, that we are incompetent judges of them, and that, though we cannot account for the equity of God's proceedings to the satisfying and silencing of every caviller, yet there is a day coming when he will be justified before all the world, and particularly in this instance, when the punishment of the prophet that flattereth the hypocrite in his evil way shall be as the punishment of the hypocrite that seeketh to him and bespeaks smooth things only, Isa_30:10. The ditch shall be the same to the blind leader and the blind followers.VI. The good counsel that is given them for the preventing of this fearful doom (Eze_14:6): “Therefore repent, and turn yourselves from your idols. Let this separate between you and them, that they separate between you and God; because they set God's face against you, do you turn away your faces from them,” which denotes, not only forsaking them, but forsaking them with loathing and detestation: “Turn from them as from abominations that you are sick of; and then you will be welcome to enquire of the Lord. Come now, and let us reason together.”

JAMISON, "I the Lord have deceived that prophet — not directly, but through Satan and his ministers; not merely permissively, but by overruling their evil to serve the purposes of His righteous judgment, to be a touchstone to separate the precious from the vile, and to “prove” His people (Deu_13:3; 1Ki_22:23; Jer_4:10; 2Th_2:11, 2Th_2:12). Evil comes not from God, though God overrules it to serve His will (Job_12:16; Jam_1:3). This declaration of God is intended to answer their objection, “Jeremiah and Ezekiel are but two opposed to the many prophets who announce ‘peace’ to us.” “Nay, deceive not yourselves, those prophets of yours are deluding you, and I permit them to do so as a righteous judgment on your willful blindness.”

K&D 9-11, "Eze_14:9-11No prophet is to give any other answer. - Eze_14:9. But if a prophet allow himself to be persuaded, and give a word, I have persuaded this prophet, and will stretch out my hand against him, and cut him off out of my people Israel. Eze_14:10. They shall bear their guilt: as the guilt of the inquirer, so shall the guilt of the prophet be; Eze_14:11. In order that the house of Israel may no more stray from me, and may no more defile itself with all its transgressions; but they may be my people, and I their God is the saying of the Lord Jehovah. - The prophet who allows himself to be persuaded is not a

prophet ִמִּלּב (Eze_13:2), but one who really thinks that he has a word of God. ִּפָּתה, to persuade, to entice by friendly words (in a good sense, Hos_2:16); but generally sensu

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malo, to lead astray, or seduce to that which is unallowable or evil. “If he allow himself to be persuaded:” not necessarily “with the hope of payment from the hypocrites who consult him” (Michaelis). This weakens the thought. It might sometimes be done from unselfish good-nature. And “the word” itself need not have been a divine oracle of his own invention, or a false prophecy. The allusion is simply to a word of a different character from that contained in Eze_14:6-8, which either demands repentance or denounces judgment upon the impenitent: every word, therefore, which could by any possibility confirm the sinner in his security. - By ֲאִני ָה ְיה (Eze_14:9) the apodosis is introduced in an emphatic manner, as in Eze_14:4 and Eze_14:7; but ִּפֵּתיִתי cannot be taken in a future sense (“I will persuade”). It must be a perfect; since the persuading of the prophet would necessarily precede his allowing himself to be persuaded. The Fathers and earlier Lutheran theologians are wrong in their interpretation of ִּפֵּתיִתי, which they understand in a permissive sense, meaning simply that God allowed it, and did not prevent their being seduced. Still more wrong are Storr and Schmieder, the former of whom regards it as simply declaratory, “I will declare him to have gone astray from the worship of Jehovah;” the latter, “I will show him to be a fool, by punishing him for his disobedience.” The words are rather to be understood in accordance with 1Ki_22:20., where the persuading (pittâh) is done by a lying spirit, which inspires the prophets of Ahab to predict success to the king, in order that he may fall. As Jehovah sent the spirit in that case, and put it into the mouth of the prophets, so is the persuasion in this instance also effected by God: not merely divine permission, but divine ordination and arrangement; though this does not destroy human freedom, but, like all “persuading,” presupposes the possibility of not allowing himself to be persuaded. See the discussion of this question in the commentary on 1Ki_22:20. The remark of Calvin on the verse before us is correct: “it teaches that neither impostures nor frauds take place apart from the will of God” (nisi Deo volente). But this willing on the part of God, or the persuading of the prophets to the utterance of self-willed words, which have not been inspired by God, only takes place in persons who admit evil into themselves, and is designed to tempt them and lead them to decide whether they will endeavour to resist and conquer the sinful inclinations of their hearts, or will allow them to shape themselves into outward deeds, in which case they will become ripe for judgment. It is in this sense that God persuades such a prophet, in order that He may then cut him off out of His people. But this punishment will not fall upon the prophet only. It will reach the seeker or inquirer also, in order if possible to bring Israel back from its wandering astray, and make it into a people of God purified from sin (Eze_14:10 and Eze_14:11). It was to this end that, in the last times of the kingdom of Judah, God allowed false prophecy to prevail so mightily, - namely, that it might accelerate the process of distinguishing between the righteous and the wicked; and then, by means of the judgment which destroyed the wicked, purify His nation and lead it on to the great end of its calling.

CALVIN, “Here God meets that foolish thought in which many minds are rapt up. When they had their own impostors at hand, they thought that all God’s threats could be repelled as it were by a shield. Jeremiah and Ezekiel threaten us, say they, but we have others to cheer us with good hope: they promise that all things shall be

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joyful and prosperous to us: since, therefore, only two or three deprive us of the hope of safety, and others, and those, too, far more numerous, promise us security, we have no need to despair. Since they thus oppose their impostors to the true prophets, and imagine a kind of conflict, in which imposture prevails and God’s truth is vanquished, he says there is no reason why the flatteries of the false prophets should deceive you. For if you say that they bear also the prophetic name and office, I reply, that they err through your fault; for I deceive them because your impiety deserves it. This may as yet be obscure, but I will endeavor to explain it by a familiar example. At this time we see that many through sloth withdraw themselves from all fear, and promise themselves freedom from punishment, while they reject all care for God. O, say they, what have I to do with religion? for this only occasions me trouble; whoever wishes to give himself up seriously to God amidst, these dissension’s and divisions will enter a labyrinth. Since, therefore, many think themselves free from fault, even if they reject God, this doctrine may be turned against them. There are, indeed, at this day dissension’s in religion which disturb many; but do you think that this happens rashly: Oh! we know not which party to follow: inquire; for God has not so given the rein to Satan and his ministers, that the Church is disturbed, and men are mutually opposed by chance. But when this happens by the just judgment of God, it is certain that no one can be deceived unless of his own accord. For the Prophet takes that principle from Moses, whenever false prophets come forth, that this is a proof of faithfulness and of sincere piety. Thy God tries thee, says Moses, whether you love him. (Deuteronomy 8:3.) Since, therefore, no false prophet arises without the just judgment of God, and since God wishes to distinguish between sincere worshipers and hypocrites, it follows that no one can be excused on this pretext, of differing opinions which arise by wise ordination. For since God wishes to make an experiment, as I have said, concerning his servants and sons, and since false prophets so mingle all things, and involve the clear daylight in darkness, no one who truly and heartily seeks God shall be entangled among their snares.

But Ezekiel will proceed still further, as I have previously hinted, namely, that all impostures and errors do not spring up rashly, but proceed from the ingratitude of the people itself. For if they had not so willingly given themselves up to the false prophets, God would doubtless have spared them. But, since false prophets abounded on every side, and were so plentiful everywhere, hence it may be understood that, the people were worthy of such impostures. Now then we perceive the meaning of the Holy Spirit when God pronounces that he is the author of all the error which the false prophets were thus scattering abroad. For it is not sufficient to

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observe merely the sound of the words, and then to illicit the substance of the prophetic teaching; but we must attend to the Spirit’s purpose. I have already explained why the Prophet says this, namely, that the Israelites should cease to turn their backs according to their custom, saying, that if they remained in doubt amidst various opinions, this ought not to be imputed to them as a crime. For he answers, that the false prophets only took this license, because the people deserved to be blinded: and in fine, he says that Satan’s lies multiplied not at random or at the will of men, but because God repays a graceless and perfidious people with a just recompense. So Paul says that error has a divine efficacy, when men prefer embracing a lie to the truth (2 Thessalonians 2:11), and do not submit themselves to God, but rather shake off his yoke. Now, therefore, whoever wishes to excuse himself under the pretext of simplicity for not acquiescing in God’s word, this answer is at hand — that all things are thus mingled by God’s just decree. Since, therefore, Satan eclipses the light whenever clouds are scattered to disturb the weak, we here find God to be the author of it, since man’s impiety deserves it. For the Prophet does not here discourse profanely about God’s absolute power, as they say; but when he brings forward God’s name, he takes it for granted that God is not delighted with such disturbance, when false prophets seize upon his name. It is certain, then, that God does not delight in such deception; but the cause must be thought, as we shall soon see: the cause is not always manifest; but without controversy this is fixed, that God punishes men justly, when true religion is so rent asunder by divisions, and truth is obscured by falsehood.

We must hold, then, that God does not rage like a tyrant, but exercises just judgment. Besides, this passage teaches us that neither impostures nor deceptions arise without God’s permission. This seems at first sight absurd, for God seems to contend with himself when he gives license to Satan to pervert sound doctrine: and if this happens by God’s authority, it seems perfectly contradictory to itself. But let us always remember this, that God’s judgments are not without reason called a profound abyss (Psalms 36:6), that when we see rebellious men acting as they do in these times, we should not wish to comprehend what far surpasses even the sense of angels. Soberly, therefore, and reverently must we judge of God’s works, and especially of his secret counsels. But with the aid of reverence and modesty, it will be easy to reconcile these two things — that God begets, and cherishes, and defends his Church, and confirms the teaching of his prophets, all the while that he permits it to be torn and distracted by intestine broils. Why so? He acts thus that he may punish the wickedness of men as often as he pleases when he sees them abuse his goodness and indulgence. When God lights up the flame of his doctrine, this is the sign of his

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inestimable pity; when he suffers the Church to be disturbed, and men to be in some degree dissipated, this is to be imputed to the wickedness of men. Whatever be the explanation, he pronounces that he deceived the false prophets, because Satan could not utter a single word unless he were permitted, and not only so, but even ordered; while God exercises his wrath against the wicked.

In another sense Jeremiah says that he was deceived (Jeremiah 20:7). I am deceived, but you Jehovah have deceived me: for there he speaks ironically. For when ungodly men boasted that so many of his prophecies were delusive, and derided him as a foolish and misguided man, he says, If I am deceived, you, O Lord, have deceived me. We see, then, that by false irony he reproves the petulance of those who despised his prophecies; and finally, he shows that God was the author of his teaching. But in this place God pronounces without a figure that he deceived the false prophets. If any one now objects, that nothing is more remote from God’s nature than to deceive, the answer is at hand. Although the metaphor is rather rough, yet we know that God transfers to himself by a figure of speech what properly does not belong to him. He is said to laugh at the impious; but we know that it is not agreeable to his nature to ridicule, to laugh, to see, and to sleep. (Psalms 2:4; Psalms 37:13.) And so in this place, I confess, there is an improper form of speaking; but the sense is not doubtful — that all impostures are scattered abroad by God — since Satan, as I have said, can never utter the slightest word unless commanded by God. But the kind of deceit which will solve this difficulty for us is described in the sacred history. For when Ahab had a great crowd of false prophets, Micah alone stood firm, and faithfully discharged his duty to God: when brought before king Ahab, he immediately blows away their boastings — Behold! all my prophets predict victory: he answers — I saw God sitting on his throne; and when all the armies of heaven were collected before him, God inquired, Who shall deceive Ahab? And a spirit offered himself, namely, a devil, and said, I will deceive him, because I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. God answers, Depart, and thus it shall be. (1 Kings 22:0; 2 Chronicles 18:0.) Afterwards it follows, Therefore the Lord put a lie in the mouth of all those prophets. Here he distinctly shows us the manner in which God maddens the false prophets, and deceives them, namely, since he sends forth Satan to fill them with his lies. Since, then, they are impelled by Satan, the father of lies, what can they do but lie and deceive? The whole of this, then, depends on the just judgments of God, as this place teaches. God, therefore, does not deceive, so to speak, without an agency, but uses Satan and impostors as organs of his vengeance. If any one flies to that subtle distinction between ordering and permitting, he is easily refuted by the context. For that cannot be called mere

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permission when God willingly seeks for some one to deceive Ahab, and then he himself orders Satan to go forth and do so. But the last clause which I have quoted takes away all doubt, since God put a lie in the mouth of the prophets, that is, suggested a lie to all the false prophets. If God suggests, we shall see that Satan flies forth not only by his permission to scatter his impostures; but since God wished to use his aid, so he afforded it on this condition and to this end. But we shall leave the rest for the next lecture.

COKE, "Ezekiel 14:9. If the prophet be deceived— The reader will observe, that Ezekiel, or God by Ezekiel, is here speaking of false prophets or anti-prophets, as described in the foregoing chapter; such as had set themselves up in opposition to the true prophets of God. They were prophets that prophesied out of their own hearts: ch. Ezekiel 13:2; Ezekiel 13:17. They were foolish prophets that followed their own spirit, and saw nothing of truth: Ezekiel 14:3. They were such as had seen vanity and lying divination, pretended to be God's prophets, when the Lord had not sent them: Ezekiel 14:6-7. They seduced the people, saying, Peace, when there was no peace: Ezekiel 14:10; Ezekiel 14:16. Of one of the prophets of this wicked stamp Ezekiel is here speaking, as may easily be perceived by what is said in this same verse, that God will stretch out his hand upon the prophet, and will destroy him: (see for remarkable instances, Jeremiah 28:15-17; Jeremiah 29:21; Jeremiah 22:3 l, 32.): and in the next verse it is added; that the punishment of the prophet shall be even as the punishment of him that seeketh unto him; which words carry a plain intimation, that the prophet here spoken of is understood to have been as bad as the idolaters who are here supposed to consult him, and to have been as much a false prophet, as they were false worshippers; alike in temper and principles, and therefore also to be punished alike, for encouraging idol-worship under false pretences to inspiration. Having seen then what kind of a prophet the text speaks of, it will now be the easier to explain the rest. God declares that he will deceive,—will disappoint or infatuate such a prophet first, and next destroy him: he will give him up first to strong delusions, and then to destruction. The text may not improperly be rendered thus, If the prophet be infatuated when he speaketh a thing, I the Lord will infatuate that prophet still more. So the sense of the passage may amount nearly to the same with that of St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 1:20. (or however the verb here may bear the like signification as εμωρανε there); God hath made foolish the wisdom of the world; or to that which Isaiah says, ch. Ezekiel 44:25 that frustrateth the tokens of the liars, or lying prophets, and maketh diviners mad; that turneth wise-men backward, and maketh their knowledge foolish. But it is observable, that Isaiah subjoins in the verse immediately following; that confirmeth the word of his servant

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(Isaiah the true prophet) and performeth the counsel of his messengers. Compare 1 Samuel 3:19-20 whence it may be perceived how God illuminates the understandings and ratifies the predictions of his own true prophets, while he infatuates the counsels and disappoints the lying confidence of evil men and seducers. See Waterland's Scripture Vindicated, part 3: p. 100.

ELLICOTT, " (9) And if the prophet be deceived.—The exact sense of the original is, “If a prophet be persuaded and speak a word, I the LORD have persuaded that prophet.” The thought is thus in close connection with what precedes; in Ezekiel 14:3-4; Ezekiel 14:7, the Lord has refused to allow an answer through the prophet to the hypocritical enquirer; but if the prophet, by giving the desired answer, allows himself to become a partaker of the sin which God abhors, then God will treat him according to that general method of dealing with sin which is here described. He “persuades” the prophet in the same sense in which He hardened Pharaoh’s heart, by making such persuasion the natural consequence of the immutable moral laws which He has ordained. Men are held back from sin only by God’s own Holy Spirit drawing them towards Himself. When they set this aside by transgressing God’s commands, the inevitable tendency—the tendency under the moral laws God has established—is to further sin. Hence the prophet who allowed himself to be persuaded, contrary to God’s command, to answer the hypocritical enquirer at all, would inevitably be persuaded further to answer him according to his desires. God does not force men either to receive the truth or to act righteously. If, notwithstanding His remonstrances, their hearts are set upon wrong, He will even give them up and “send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie” (2 Thessalonians 2:11). We are too often told in Scripture of this method of the Divine dealing to leave any room for us to misunderstand the principle. The result is a terrible one, but it is quite in keeping with all we can observe of the Divine work in nature. The man that refuses the medicine, must sink under the disease. The principle is clearly exemplified in the case of Ahab (1 Kings 22:19-23), where the Lord is represented as sending a lying spirit into the mouths of the prophets, that they might counsel the king to the wrong course he was already determined to take. God is declared to do this because it was the result under His moral laws of the wicked and domineering spirit of the king who had driven away the true prophets and gathered around himself those who were willing to pervert their office and prophesy falsely to gratify his wishes. Of course this is not to suppose that God can ever be the author of sin and deceit; but He has ordained that sin shall punish itself, and when the heart rejects Him, He withdraws His Spirit from it and gives it up to its own delusions. Thus when Saul’s heart became alienated from God, and “the

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Spirit of the Lord departed from” him, the evil spirit, which came instead, is said to be “from the LORD” (1 Samuel 16:14). This kind of judgment is necessarily more common in times of great and general declension from the right. Hence false prophets were especially abundant towards the close of the kingdom of Judah, and form a marked characteristic in the New Testament prophecies of “the last days.” No more terrible judgment can be imagined than that of thus giving up the sinner to the consequences of his own sin.

Will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.—This is not the word which is so often used in the penalties of the law, “will cut him off from my people.” The latter refers only to excommunication, to exclusion from the privileges of the chosen people; but this means that the untrue prophet shall literally be destroyed, like Balaam (Numbers 31:8), among the enemies of God with whom he had cast in his lot.

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 14:9 And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the LORD have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.

Ver. 9. I the Lord have deceived that prophet.] I had not only a permissive, but an active hand in that imposture; not as a sin, but as a punishment of other sins. See 1 Kings 22:20, Job 12:16, Jeremiah 4:10, 2 Thessalonians 2:11.

And I will stretch out mine hand upon him,] i.e., Upon that false prophet, who, although he hath thus acted, not without my providence, yet hath sinned against my law, which is the rule men must walk by, or else suffer for their transgression. Aut faciendum aut patiendum. Now God hath long hands, as we use to say of princes; neither may any think to live out of the reach of his rod.

POOLE, " The prophet, viz. the prophet who makes this his trade and gain, the false prophet, who speaks all serene and quiet, in hope of reward for his kind answer to those that desired to hear what might please them more than what God commanded, promised, or threatened.

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Have deceived; permitted him to err, or. iustly left him in his blindness, that he shall not discern his own self-deceivings; or else when such prophet promiseth good, and thinks concurrence of all second causes tend to it, yet I will disappoint and frustrate, as Isaiah 44:25, if the confederacies to save were in likelihood sufficient, and it were no presumption to hope the best; and if your prophets on this ground promised you success, yet they shall deceive you, for I would defeat and disappoint them and you; so the sense would not carry a moral and culpable deceiving, but a just defeating and disappointing, or disabling, second causes, on which disappointment of hopes will follow. If Egypt’s arms had so weakened the Babylonians, that none but wounded men remained, yet the promise of your escape should fail you, O Israelites, for, Jeremiah 37:10, these should rise up and burn your city.

Stretch out my hand upon him; remarkably punish his falsehood, and in severity destroy him.

WHEDON, " 9. When he hath spoken a thing — Literally, and speaketh a thing.

I the Lord have deceived that prophet — The prophecy was false and did not come from God (Ezekiel 13:4; Ezekiel 13:6); but the prophet who willfully follows a lie will soon lose the power to know the truth. This is God’s punishment for sin: that a man’s own “ways” and “abominations” fall upon him (Ezekiel 7:3; Ezekiel 9:10; Ezekiel 11:21), and is the rod by which he is chastised (Ezekiel 7:11; Ezekiel 7:20; note Ezekiel 14:5). These liars (Ezekiel 13:7-8) at first hope that the prophecy which comes from their own hearts may be true (Ezekiel 13:6); at last by the action of this well-known mental law they are made to believe the lies they tell. It is one of God’s laws that rebellion against the truth blinds a man’s eyes so that he cannot see the truth (Ezekiel 12:1). He who speaks seeing “nothing” (xiii, 3) shall presently see a false vision and be himself deceived; but this will not do away with his guilt. No teaching of Scripture was more emphasized by Jesus than this (Matthew 13:14; John 12:40; see also Acts 28:26; Romans 11:8; 2 Corinthians 3:14). They who call evil good and good evil in order to deceive others will in the end be themselves deceived. The Hebrews, who took no interest in “second causes” and knew nothing of psychological laws, naturally and properly referred to God directly that which is now seen to be the inevitable result of willful falsehood according to the eternal laws

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of mind established by the Creator from the beginning.

The above explanation is given because of the ordinary supposition that the “deception” spoken of refers to the substance of the prophecy; but the connection indicates very clearly that it has reference particularly to the outcome of such prophesying. The Lord has blinded the prophet’s eyes not to his own wickedness, nor even necessarily to the sequence of historical events, but to the results which shall come to him personally through these falsehoods. He expects praise and reward, and does not see his own destruction which shall surely come because of it.

PETT, "Verse 9-10

“And if the prophet is deceived and speaks a word, I Yahweh have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand on him, and will destroy him from among my people Israel. And they will bear their iniquity. The iniquity of the prophet will be on the same level as the iniquity of the one who seeks to him.”

For those who persisted in idolatry God would even provide false prophets, prophets who were deceived. In a sense people receive the teachers that they deserve. If they do not want God’s pure word, then God will allow them teachers who go astray from the word. And both the teachers and they will be destroyed together. Judgment will come on them and they will be rooted out from among God’s people. And from it God’s people will learn their lesson.

‘I Yahweh have deceived that prophet.’ This could be said because God was seen as the ‘first cause’ of everything. We would say ‘He allowed it’. The prophet would be deceived because his mind was closed to God and he was a man-pleaser not a God-pleaser (Isaiah 8:20). That was not God’s doing. The people would have false prophets because they did not want to listen to true prophets. They would choose them for themselves. But God would allow it because they had first chosen their own way and closed their minds to the truth. If they hardened their hearts, God would allow more things that would further harden their hearts. The judgment of God on those who pursued idolatry would be in allowing them to continue in it until it

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destroyed them (compare Leviticus 20:3-6; Deuteronomy 28:36; Hosea 4:17; and see Paul’s vivid description of the process for all nations in Romans 1:18-32). Thus in the end what happened was in the permissive will of God (compare Isaiah 45:7; Amos 3:6).

10 They will bear their guilt—the prophet will be as guilty as the one who consults him.

CLARKE, "The punishment of the prophet - They are both equally guilty; both have left the Lord, and both shall be equally punished.

GILL, "And they shall bear the punishment of their iniquity,.... Both the false prophet, and those that sought unto him, and were deceived by him; and which being laid according to the strictness of divine justice, is intolerable: sad is the case when a man is obliged to bear his own sins, and the punishment of them, and has no surety to undertake for him, and be a mediator between God and him, and make atonement for him: the punishment of the prophet shall be even as the punishment of him that seekest unto him; they being both alike culpable, each pursuing the desires of their own evil hearts; the one seeking for smooth things to be spoken to him; the other speaking them, in order to gratify him, and for the sake of gain; the one being a false prophet, and the other seeking to and inquiring of him, though he was such, slighting and rejecting the true prophets of the Lord; both being deceived, and both blind, and so should fall into the same ditch, being under the same judicial blindness and hardness of heart. The Targum is, "according to the sin of him that comes to learn and learns not; according to the sin of the false prophet shall it be.''

JAMISON, "As they dealt deceitfully with God by seeking answers of peace without repentance, so God would let them be dealt with deceitfully by the prophets whom they

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consulted. God would chastise their sin with a corresponding sin; as they rejected the safe directions of the true light, He would send the pernicious delusions of a false one; prophets would be given them who should re-echo the deceitfulness that already wrought in their own bosom, to their ruin [Fairbairn]. The people had themselves alone to blame, for they were long ago forewarned how to discern and to treat a false prophet (Deu_13:3); the very existence of such deceivers among them was a sign of God’s judicial displeasure (compare in Saul’s case, 1Sa_16:14; 1Sa_28:6, 1Sa_28:7). They and the prophet, being dupes of a common delusion, should be involved in a common ruin.

CALVIN, “Here what Ezekiel had partially touched upon is more clearly taught. For he had said, that at length false prophets should meet with punishment, but he now joins the whole people with them, and at the same time repels the empty pretenses by which men are always willing to conceal their fault. For when he mentions their iniquity by name, it is the same as forbidding them to turn their back any more. In this way, then, God removes all the cavils to which men usually resort, since they never pursue these tortuous paths without being conscious of their iniquity. For when God says that he is a searcher of hearts, he brings openly before us the secret feelings of mankind. As long as hypocrites have to deal with men, they easily delude them: and then they put on various disguises, by which they throw off the blame from themselves. But when God addresses them, his language necessarily penetrates to their hidden thoughts. Now therefore we understand the force of the words which God uses, they shall bear their iniquity

He now adds, the iniquity of the inquirer shall be like that of the prophet. We have said that the sacred name of prophet is improperly transferred to impostors: but God often speaks thus by concession, and in this way a stumbling block occurs by which the weak are disturbed. For when they hear that deceivers, who not only obscure God’s word but pervert it, proudly boast in their title, they are moved, and not without reason. For divine things ought seriously to move us to reverence, since prophets are organs of the Holy Spirit. Hence that man is worthy of such honor that no man ought to despise one who is reckoned a prophet. But because God tries his own people and blinds the reprobate, as we have said, when he sends them false prophets, in order that the faith of the pious should not faint when they hear that sacred name profaned, he says by concession — well, they shall be called prophets — but he does not mean that those shall be truly and really esteemed such who falsely claim to themselves that glory. Now let us come to the next clause, the iniquity of the inquirer shall be like that of the prophet. We have already spoken of the iniquity of those who, being led captive by the lies of Satan, endeavor to pervert both the worship and the pure doctrine of God. Since therefore they propose to

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contend with God, their iniquity is by no means excusable. But another question may arise concerning the people, which, although we have solved it before, yet it may be expedient to repeat it. He says, then, that those who had been deceived by the false prophets would be subject to punishment, that they may sustain the same penalty. This seems hard, as I have said: but the Prophet had previously taught that the people would be justly involved in the same punishment with the impostors, because they erred knowingly and willingly. For if they had cordially devoted themselves to God, and had suffered themselves to be ruled by his Spirit, and by the teaching of the law, they had doubtless been freed from all error. For God takes care of his own people, though he does not defend them from the insults of the ungodly, yet he fortifies them by the foresight and fortitude of his Spirit. Those who are deceived, receive the just reward of either their sloth or pride or ingratitude. For many scarcely deigned to inquire what the will of God was: others looked down as from an eminence on whatever was uttered in God’s name: for through self-confidence they receive with difficulty any instruction but their own. Since then they were so unteachable, they are worthy of the reward which I have mentioned. Others again are ungrateful to God: for they stifle his instructions and the knowledge of heavenly things, and contaminate and pollute what is sacred; so that God justly joins the disciples with their masters when he revenges sacrilege as we see, since all sacred teaching is overthrown.

But Ezekiel expresses more when he says, that the people had inquired. For they had counselors, who thereby gave a direct approbation to their employment. If they had been teachable they would not have betaken themselves so eagerly to the false prophets: hence the greater their diligence in this direction, the more their crime was apparent, since they purposely rejected God and his servants, by transferring themselves to the false prophets. We now understand the meaning of this sentence. It only remains that each of us should apply what is here said to his own profit. The Papists think themselves to be twice or thrice absolved if they have been deceived in any quarter. But, on the other hand, Christ exclaims — If the blind lead the blind, it is not surprising if both fall into the ditch. (Matthew 15:14.) The reason is here expressed, because however those who are deceived show their simplicity, it is by no means doubtful that they flee from the light and desire the darkness by a crooked and perverse craving. Hence it happens that the iniquity of the inquirer is like that of the prophet.

COFFMAN, ""And they shall bear their iniquity: the iniquity of the prophet shall 72

be even as the iniquity of him that seeketh unto him; 11 that the house of Israel may go no more astray from me, neither defile themselves any more with all their transgressions; but that they may be my people, and I may be their God, saith the Lord Jehovah."

Ezekiel 14:11 here returns to the grand theme so frequently mentioned in all of the prophets, the glory of God's people, their blessing from God, their righteousness, and their faithfulness in God's work. The great mistake of Israel was their reliance upon such wonderful promises, "as if they were an unalienable possession bestowed upon them unconditionally; nor did they understand that such glorious conditions would be attainable only upon the condition of their loving and obeying God."[12]

The same author noted that, "This verse (Ezekiel 14:11) renews the appeal for repentance given in 5:6, again reminding Israel that the chief purpose of the forthcoming judgments against them was to bring Israel back from her going astray from God, and to cleanse her from the apostasy by which she had become unclean in God's sight and had been cast out of fellowship with Him."[13]

The last section of the chapter refutes the false notion that had developed among the Israelites that God's righteousness would not allow him to destroy Jerusalem completely because of the few righteous people whom they supposed to be living there. Apparently, they had picked up this false idea from Genesis 18:32, where it is recorded that God would have spared Sodom if there could have been found as many as ten righteous people in it.

Of course, Israel was wrong about this on several counts: (1) There were not any righteous people in Jerusalem. (2) Even if there had been, God had made no such promise on behalf of Jerusalem, because Jerusalem was even worse than Sodom and Gomorrah. (3) Even if such eminent heroes of righteousness as Noah, Daniel, and Job were in the Jerusalem of Ezekiel's times, and even if they were interceding for the city, even that could not avert the deserved judgment about to fall upon Jerusalem.

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TRAPP, "Ezekiel 14:10 And they shall bear the punishment of their iniquity: the punishment of the prophet shall be even as the punishment of him that seeketh [unto him];

Ver. 10. And they shall bear the punishment of their iniquity.] Neither shall excuse other; but as they have sinned together, so shall they suffer together, quia volentes et scientes errabant, they wilfully went astray. Quandoquidem hic populus vult decipi, decipiatur; they shall infallibly perish. An evil pilot may easily drown himself, and all that are with him, on the same bottom.

POOLE, "There is so great parity in the folly and impiety of both seducing prophets and the seduced people, that it is hard to say whose sin is greatest. Their punishment shall be by the Lord made as like as they made their sin, and both shall be cut off and destroyed.

11 Then the people of Israel will no longer stray from me, nor will they defile themselves anymore with all their sins. They will be my people, and I will be their God, declares the Sovereign Lord.’”

BARNES, "“God,” it has been said, “punishes sins by means of sins,” but the end is the re-establishment of righteousness.

GILL, "That the house of Israel may go no more astray from me,.... Or from his worship, as the Targum; from the law of God, and obedience to it: sin is a going astray from God, a deviation from his commandments; it leads men out of the way of

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their duty into wrong paths, which issue in ruin, if grace prevent not; and sometimes the means which God makes use of for the restoring of his own people, and bringing them back to himself, are the punishments which he inflicts upon others; and which is his end in so doing, as it was here; that the false prophets, and those that followed them, being made examples of, might be a warning unto others, and caution them against falling into the same sins, that so they might not bear the same punishment; or be a means of reclaiming them from their errors, and for the future beware of going astray again: neither be polluted any more with all their transgressions; for every transgression, as it is an aberration from the law of God, so it is of a defiling nature: it defiles the mind and conscience, yea, the whole man, from which there is no cleansing but by the blood of Christ; it is loathsome in itself, contrary to the pure and holy nature of God, and abominable to a gracious mind, and therefore to be avoided; and which may be learnt from the punishment of it on others: but that they may be my people and I may be their God, saith the Lord God; that is, that they may behave as such, and that it may appear that God is their God, and they are his people.

HENRY, "VII. The good issue of all this as to the house of Israel; therefore the pretending prophets, and the pretending saints, shall perish together by the judgments of God, that, some being made examples, the body of the people may be reformed, that the house of Israel may go no more astray from me, Eze_14:11. Note, The punishments of some are designed for the prevention of sin, that others may hear, and fear, and take warning. When we see what becomes of those that go astray from God we should thereby be engaged to keep close to him. And, if the house of Israel go not astray, they will not be polluted any more. Note, Sin is a polluting thing; it renders the sinner odious in the eyes of the pure and holy God, and in his own eyes too whenever conscience is awakened; and therefore they shall no more be polluted, that they may be my people and I may be their God. Note, Those whom God takes into covenant with himself must first be cleansed from the pollutions of sin; and those who are so cleansed shall not only be saved from ruin, but be entitled to all the privileges of God's people.

JAMISON, "Love was the spring of God’s very judgments on His people, who were incurable by any other process (Eze_11:20; Eze_37:27).

CALVIN, “Here God shows that there was no other remedy, if he would recall to safety those who had almost perished, and at the same time he teaches that it is useful to the Church to chastise those who had so impiously declined from himself. Meanwhile it happens that God thunders, and exercises his judgments even to the extreme of rigor: meanwhile men do not repent but remain obstinate: nay, the punishment which God inflicts upon the reprobate sinks them into deeper destruction. How so? Those who harden themselves against the hand of God heap upon themselves severer punishments, since the reprobate do not submit to the yoke

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when God wishes to correct their hardness and obstinacy. But here God announces that he will not be so severe as not to consult for their safety. But this contradiction might disturb many, since God destined the people as well as the false prophets to destruction, for this seems to render his covenant vain. But he prevents this question, and says, since he should exact such severe penalties from the despisers of his word and from apostates, that rigor would be useful to the Church. Now we understand the meaning of the saying, the house of Israel shall not err any more: since otherwise their obstinacy was incurable: and unless God had seriously roused them up, they had never been brought back into the way of their own accord. Here therefore God obliquely rebukes the hardness of his people, because they could not be instructed except by punishment. For incorrigible indeed are those sons who, while their father cherishes and indulges them, despise him, and become worse by the indulgence. Of this then God now complains, that the children of Israel were so untractable that they could not bear destruction, unless he descended to the utmost rigor. For it was a very sad spectacle, that God’s truth should be corrupted and adulterated by lies, and that the people, with those who imposed upon them, should utterly perish. But we now hear that there was but one remedy since the children of Israel were untameable, unless they were completely broken down. He now adds, from me: a phrase worthy of notice, for we here gather, that as soon as we bend ever so little from following God, we wander after errors: for we shall never hold on in the right way unless we follow God, that is, unless we are intent upon the end which he sets before us: and then unless our eyes are turned in the direction that he points out, lest we bend to either the right hand or the left. Thus we shall be beyond any danger of wandering if we, follow God: on the other hand, if our minds turn to either this side or that, and we are not retained in obedience to God alone, the Prophet teaches that we wander in error, and that this will at length turn out unhappily for us. When he speaks of the house of Israel, he does not embrace without exception those who spring from Jacob; for both the false prophets and those who consulted them were of Jacob’s line, and had a name in that family. But we have already seen what was decreed concerning them, namely, that God would destroy them and blot them out from the midst of his people. We see then that they are not; comprehended under the offspring of Abraham or the house of Israel; but this is restricted to the remnant of the people whom God wished to spare. For we know that there was always some seed left, that the covenant which had been made with Abraham might be firm and sacred. This sentence then properly refers to the elect, who are called by Paul the remnant of grace. (Romans 11:5.) But God says that the example would be useful to the survivors, since the punishment of others would instruct them: and when they should see the false prophets perish, and should acknowledge God’s remarkable judgment in their destruction, then they would profit by it. Now we understand what the Prophet means by the destruction of the

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false prophets and of those hypocrites who despised the true prophets, and prostituted themselves to be deceived by impostors: when God makes them an example of his wrath, the Prophet says that the house of Israel should receive advantage from their perishing, and profit by their utter ruin.

Now he adds, And that they should not be polluted any more in all their wickedness. Here he purposely enlarges on their crime, that he may the more magnify the mercy of God; for if they had been only moderately guilty, his pardoning them had not been so remarkable. But the Prophet here pronounces them abandoned in sin, and does not condemn them for one sin but for many: he says they were polluted and contaminated in their crimes: and when God’s mercy is extended to such as these, we discover with certainty how inestimable it is. Finally, let us learn from this passage, that God not only pardons men who transgress but lightly through want of thought and error, but that he is also merciful to the abandoned who are convicted of many iniquities. He says, that they may be my people and I may be their God. God had already adopted the whole seed of Abraham, and all were circumcised to a man: and thus they bore personally the testimony and covenant of God’s paternal favor. Since, therefore, they were already God’s people, and were considered as members of the Church, what can it mean that they shall be my people? For God seems here to promise them something new. But by this form of speech the Prophet marks their declension and manifests their deserts. For although God had thought them worthy of such honor as to reckon them among his elect people, yet they had cast themselves out by their own depravity. For since all religion among them was corrupt, God’s worship was profaned, his whole law almost buried, and they were separated as far as possible from God, as we shall afterwards see. On the part of God the adoption remained firm: but here Ezekiel regards their condition if they would really look at it themselves, namely, as one of estrangement, since their own wickedness had cut them off: hence he speaks as of a new benefit when he says, they should be for a people when they repented.

The second chapter of Hosea will help us to understand this more clearly, when it is said,

“I will call them my people who are not my people,

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and her beloved who is not beloved.” (Hosea 2:23.)

For the Prophet was commanded to go into an improper house and to take an impure female and to beget sons: he says that a son was born to whom God gave the name לאעמי, lagnemi, it shall not be my people: and then when a daughter was born, she was unworthy of love. There Hosea signifies that the Jews were cut off from the sacred root, and he speaks not of one or two, but of the whole race; for they were neither God’s people nor a beloved daughter. Afterwards when reconciled, they begin again to be God’s people and a beloved daughter. Paul does not accommodate that sentence to the calling of the Gentiles rashly: (Romans 9:25,) namely, that there was no difference between Jews and Gentiles, since the former were rejected. Whatever it is, we see that those who had a place and a name among God’s people, and whom he had chosen for himself, were cast off and had become strangers through their own fault. Thus they begin to be God’s people afresh when they repent and God receives them to favor. The conclusion is, I will restore them afresh, that my covenant may be renewed in some way, that they may be my people as they formerly were; and I may be to them a God, since by their own backsliding they deserved to be treated as entire strangers. Besides, it is well to remember what we said elsewhere, that under these words is contained whatever belongs to solid happiness. For if God acknowledges us as his people, we are certain of our salvation, as when he pronounces that he will be our God while we call upon him as a father. But whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. (Joel 2:32; Acts 2:21; Romans 10:13.) Then we must remember that celebrated sentence of the Prophet Habakkuk, You art our God: we shall not die. (Habakkuk 1:12.) Lastly, we have nothing else to wish for towards the fullness of all good things and confidence in eternal life, than that God should reckon us among his people, so that there may be open to us a free access to him in prayer. It follows —

ELLICOTT, " (11) May go no more astray.—Here is given the object of all the previous severity of judgment—that Israel may be brought to a true repentance and be reunited in communion with God.

The prophet is now directed, in a distinct communication, to meet the thought which was evidently in the minds of the people, that Jerusalem would yet be spared for the sake of the righteous dwelling therein, as had been promised to Abraham even in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:23-32). The course of thought is this:

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If any land should sin as grievously as Israel had done, and God should send a judgment, it would not be spared, though Noah, Daniel and Job were in it. This is repeated in connection with each one of four successively mentioned judgments; and then the climax is reached, that much less can Jerusalem be spared when all these judgments are combined together. In the end, the justice of the Divine dealings shall be acknowledged.

A few years earlier, Jeremiah (Jeremiah 14, 15) had uttered a very similar prophecy in connection with the denunciation of false prophets (Jeremiah 14:13; Jeremiah 14:15) in which not only he himself is forbidden to intercede for the people Jeremiah 14:11), but it is said (Jeremiah 15:1) that the presence of Moses and Samuel would be unavailing.

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 14:11 That the house of Israel may go no more astray from me, neither be polluted any more with all their transgressions; but that they may be my people, and I may be their God, saith the Lord GOD.

Ver. 11. That the house of Israel may go no more astray.] Thus "when God’s judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness." [Isaiah 26:9] Those elect that were bad will become good, and they that were good will he made better. Poena ad paucos, metus ad omnes. When a few are punished, all fear.

POOLE, " Afflictions ever tend to a good and necessary effect or end, for God’s glory, and his people’s good, and so it is here.

The house of Israel; which are the seed of Jacob, and my people.

May go no more astray; they have wandered as sheep, which naturally are apt to go out of the way, and much more when seduced and drawn out of the way, but afflictions tend to reduce them from sheepish wanderings.

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From me, their only God and Saviour.

Neither be polluted: idolatry is a great pollution, and ever attended with other transgressions and immoralities, which defile also; now by their present calamities God will open their eyes to see and abhor them.

That they may be my people; in name and external profession they were God’s people, but they had forgotten their relation, and the duty of it to Godward; now by these present corrections they shall be disposed to own and love, to obey and walk with, him, as he is their God, and they his people. This effect the rod will have on my own people.

BI, "Verse 11

Ezekiel 14:11

That the house of Israel may go no more astray from Me.

Chastisement of God’s people

Manton says, “There is more squaring and hewing and hacking used about a stone that is to be set in a stately palace than that which is placed in an ordinary building; and the vine is pruned when the bramble is not looked after, but let alone to grow to its full length.” This should reconcile believers to their chastisements. Brambles certainly have a fine time of it, and grow after their own pleasure. We have seen their long shoots reaching far and wide, and no knife has threatened them as they luxuriated upon the commons and waste lands. The poor vine is eat down so closely that little remains of it but bare stems. Yet, when clearing time comes, and the brambles are heaped for their burning, who would not rather be the vine? (C. H.

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Spurgeon.)

WHEDON, "11. That the house of Israel may go no more astray — This penalty, which shall fall upon both prophet and people, is not because of God’s vengeance, but because of his mercy. God’s punishments are reformatory, and true prophecy and true religion prosper by the destruction of the false.

PETT, "Verse 11

‘ “That the house of Israel may go astray from me no more, nor defile themselves any more with all their transgressions, but that they may be my people, and I may be their God,” says the Lord Yahweh.’

God’s purpose behind all this, both in what He allowed, and in the judgment He brought on those who continued in sin and idolatry, was in the end for the sake of His true people. He was wooing them and teaching them lessons by His judgments so that they would learn their lesson and once and for all turn their back on idolatry and look to Him. Then He would be their God, and they would truly be His people. This in the end lay behind all the judgments pronounced by Ezekiel. In the end their aim was mercy on those who would respond.

How often men come to God’s people with smooth words that seem so plausible. A small change here, a slightly different interpretation there that is not quite in accordance with God’s word, but pleases men. And they are such good and sincere people. And they deceive many. But they cannot finally deceive God’s true people (1 John 2:20). And God allows it because that is what the people want. If they do not want His word in its fullness, He will let them have another. But it will stand against them in the judgment. In the words of Yahweh through His prophet, ‘if they do not speak according to My word, it is because there is no life in them.’

The Presence Of The Righteous Few Will Not Cause the Many To Be Spared.

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Now came a new argument, that the presence of righteous men among Israel would not defer the judgment of God. The time for that was past. The thought looks back to Abraham’s pleas over Sodom when ten righteous men would have been sufficient to stave off judgment (Genesis 18:32). But there were not such, there was only Lot and his family, and judgment came. However they were not to see hope in this, for even if three of the most righteous men in history had been among them they would not be able to defer this judgment that God had determined. Only the righteous themselves would be spared, as Lot was out of Sodom. And the judgment will be terrible and lasting, composed of famine, sword, dangerous wild beasts and pestilence.

Jerusalem’s Judgment Inescapable

12 The word of the Lord came to me:

BARNES, "Jer. 14; 15 is a remarkable parallel to this prophecy. Here, as elsewhere, Ezekiel is commissioned to deliver to the exiles the same message which Jeremiah conveys to the inhabitants of Judaea. The answer discovers the nature of the questions which had been expressed or implied.

(1) Can God cast out a people who are holy unto Himself?(2) Is it just to punish them with utter desolation?

The prophet answers:(1) That when a people is so corrupt as to call down national judgment, individual piety shall save none but the individuals themselves.(2) The corrupt condition of the people shall be made so manifest, that none will question the justice of God in dealing thus severely with them.

Eze_14:12Or, “When a land” - the case is first put in a general form, and then ism brought with

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increased force home to Jerusalem - “sinneth against me by trespassing grievously,” and I stretch out “mine hand upon it,” and break the staff of bread “thereof,” and send famine “upon it and” cut off “man and beast: though these three men” etc.

GILL, "The word of the Lord came again unto saying. At the same time as before, continuing the prophecy, and a denunciation of judgments; for it does not seem to begin a new prophecy. The Targum renders it, the word of prophecy from the Lord.

HENRY 12-20, "The scope of these verses is to show,I. That national sins bring national judgments. When virtue is ruined and laid waste every thing else will soon be ruined and laid waste too (Eze_14:13): When the land sins against me, when vice and wickedness become epidemical, when the land sins by trespassing grievously, when the sinners have become very numerous and their sins very heinous, when gross impieties and immoralities universally prevail, then will I stretch forth my hand upon it, for the punishment of it. The divine power shall be vigorously and openly exerted; the judgments shall be extended and stretched forth to all the corners of the land, to all the concerns and interests of the nation. Grievous sins bring grievous plagues.II. That God has a variety of sore judgments wherewith to punish sinful nations, and he has them all at command and inflicts which he pleases. He did indeed give David his choice what judgment he would be punished with for his sin in numbering the people; for any of them would serve to answer the end, which was to lessen the numbers he was proud of; but David, in effect, referred it to God again: “Let us fall into the hands of the Lord; let him choose with what rod we shall be beaten.” But he uses a variety of judgments that it may appear he has a universal dominion, and that in all our concerns we may see our dependence on him. Four sore judgments are here specified: - 1. Famine, Eze_14:13. The denying and withholding of common mercies is itself judgment enough, there needs no more to make a people miserable. God needs not bring the staff of oppression, it is but breaking the staff of bread and the work is soon done; he cuts off man and beast by cutting off the provisions which nature makes for both in the annual products of the earth. God breaks the staff of bread when, though we have bread, yet we are not nourished and strengthened by it. Hag_1:6, You eat, but you have not enough. 2. Hurtful beasts, noisome and noxious, either as poisonous or as ravenous. God can make these to pass through the land (Eze_14:15), to increase in all parts of it, and to bereave it, not only of the tame cattle, preying upon their flocks and herds, but of their people, devouring men, women, and children, so that no man may pass through because of the beasts; none dare travel even in the high roads for fear of being pulled in pieces by lions, or other beasts of prey, as the children of Beth-el by two bears. Note, When men revolt from their allegiance to God, and rebel against him, it is just with God that the inferior creatures should rise up in arms against men, Lev_26:22. 3. War. God often chastises sinful nations by bringing a sword upon them, the sword of a foreign enemy, and he gives it its commission and orders what execution it shall do (Eze_14:17): he says, Sword, go through the land. It is bad enough if the sword do but enter into the borders of a land, but much worse when it goes through the bowels of a land. By it God cuts off man and beast, horse and foot. What execution the sword does God does by it; for it is his sword, and it acts as he directs. 4. Pestilence (Eze_14:19), a dreadful disease, which has sometimes depopulated cities; by it God pours out his fury in blood (that is, in

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death); the pestilence kills as effectually as if the blood were shed by the sword, for it is poisoned by the disease, the sickness we call it. See how miserable the case of mankind is that lies thus exposed to deaths in various shapes. See how dangerous the case of sinners is against whom God has so many ways of fighting, so that, though they escape one judgment, God has another waiting for them.

JAMISON, "The second part of the chapter: the effect which the presence of a few righteous persons was to have on the purposes of God (compare Gen_18:24-32). God had told Jeremiah that the guilt of Judah was too great to be pardoned even for the intercession of Moses and Samuel (Psa_99:6; Jer_14:2; Jer_15:1), which had prevailed formerly (Exo_32:11-14; Num_14:13-20; 1Sa_7:8-12), implying the extraordinary heinousness of their guilt, since in ordinary cases “the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man (for others) availeth much” (Jam_5:16). Ezekiel supplements Jeremiah by adding that not only those two once successful intercessors, but not even the three pre-eminently righteous men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, could stay God’s judgments by their righteousness.

K&D, "The Righteousness of the Godly will not Avert the JudgmentThe threat contained in the preceding word of God, that if the idolaters did not repent, God would not answer them in any other way than with an exterminating judgment, left the possibility still open, that He would avert the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem for the sake of the righteous therein, as He had promised the patriarch Abraham that He would do in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen_18:23.). This hope, which might be cherished by the people and by the elders who had come to the prophet, is now to be taken from the people by the word of God which follows, containing as it does the announcement, that if any land should sin so grievously against God by its apostasy, He would be driven to inflict upon it the punishments threatened by Moses against apostate Israel (Lev_26:22, Lev_26:25-26, and elsewhere), namely, to destroy both man and beast, and make the land a desert; it would be of no advantage to such a land to have certain righteous men, such as Noah, Daniel, and Job, living therein. For although these righteous men would be saved themselves, their righteousness could not possibly secure salvation for the sinners. The manner in which this thought is carried out in Eze_14:13-20 is, that four exterminating punishments are successively supposed to come upon the land and lay it waste; and in the case of every one, the words are repeated, that even righteous men, such as Noah, Daniel, and Job, would only save their own souls, and not one of the sinners. And thus, according to Eze_14:21-23, will the Lord act when He sends His judgments against Jerusalem; and He will execute them in such a manner that the necessity and righteousness of His acts shall be made manifest therein. - This word of God forms a supplementary side-piece to Jer_15:1 -43, where the Lord replies to the intercession of the prophet, that even the intercession of a Moses and a Samuel on behalf of the people would not avert the judgments which were suspended over them.

Eze_14:12-20Eze_14:12. And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, Eze_14:13. Son of man, if a land sin against me to act treacherously, and I stretch out my hand against it, and

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break in pieces for it the support of bread, and send famine into it, and cut off from it man and beast: Eze_14:14. And there should be these three men therein, Noah, Daniel, and Job, they would through their righteousness deliver their soul, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah. Eze_14:15. If I bring evil beasts into the land, so that they make it childless, and it become a desert, so that no one passeth through it because of the beasts: Eze_14:16. These three men therein, as I live, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah, would not deliver sons and daughters; they only would be delivered, but the land would become a desert. Eze_14:17. Or I bring the sword into that land, and say, Let the sword go through the land; and I cut off from it man and beast: Eze_14:18. These three men therein, as I live, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah, would not deliver sons and daughters, but they only would be delivered. Eze_14:19. Or I send pestilence into that land, and pour out my fury upon it in blood, to cut off from it man and beast: Eze_14:20. Verily, Noah, Daniel, and Job, in the midst of it, as I live, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah, would deliver neither son nor daughter; they would only deliver their own soul through their righteousness. - ֶאֶרץ in Eze_14:13 is intentionally left indefinite, that the thought may be expressed in the most general manner. On the other hand, the sin is very plainly defined as ָמַעל .ִלְמָעל־ַמַעל, literally, to cover, signifies to act in a secret or treacherous manner, especially towards Jehovah, either by apostasy from Him, in other words, by idolatry, or by withholding what is due to Him (see comm. on Lev_5:15). In the passage before us it is the treachery of apostasy from Him by idolatry that is intended. As the epithet used to denote the sin is taken from Lev_26:40 and Deu_32:51, so the four punishments mentioned in the following verses, as well as in Eze_5:17, are also taken from Lev 26, - viz. the breaking up of the staff of bread, from v. 26; the evil beasts, from Eze_14:22; and the sword and pestilence, from v. 25. The three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, are named as examples of true righteousness of life, or ְצָדָקה (Eze_14:14, Eze_14:20); i.e., according to Calvin's correct explanation, quicquid pertinet ad regulam sancte et juste vivendi. Noah is so described in Gen_6:9; and Job, in the Book of Job_1:1; Job_12:4, etc.; and Daniel, in like manner, is mentioned in Dan_1:8., Eze_6:11., as faithfully confessing his faith in his life. The fact that Daniel is named before Job does not warrant the conjecture that some other older Daniel is meant, of whom nothing is said in the history, and whose existence is merely postulated. For the enumeration is not intended to be chronological, but is arranged according to the subject-matter; the order being determined by the nature of the deliverance experienced by these men for their righteousness in the midst of great judgments. Consequently, as Hävernick and Kliefoth have shown, we have a climax here: Noah saved his family along with himself; Daniel was able to save his friends (Dan_2:17-18); but Job, with his righteousness, was not even able to save his children. - The second judgment (Eze_14:15) is introduced with לּו, which, as a rule, supposes a case that is not expected to occur, or even regarded as possible; here, however, לּו is used as perfectly synonymous with ִׁשְּכָלָתה .ִאם has no Mappik, because the tone is drawn back upon the penultima (see comm. on Amo_1:11). In Eze_14:19, the expression “to pour out my wrath in blood” is a pregnant one, for to pour out my wrath in such a manner that it is manifested in the shedding of blood or the destruction of life, for the life is in the blood. In this sense pestilence and blood were also associated in Eze_5:17.

If we look closely at the four cases enumerated, we find the following difference in the statements concerning the deliverance of the righteous: that, in the first instance, it is simply stated that Noah, Daniel, and Job would save their soul, i.e., their life, by their righteousness; whereas, in the three others, it is declared that as truly as the Lord liveth 85

they would not save either sons or daughters, but they alone would be delivered. The difference is not merely a rhetorical climax or progress in the address by means of asseveration and antithesis, but indicates a distinction in the thought. The first case is only intended to teach that in the approaching judgment the righteous would save their lives, i.e., that God would not sweep away the righteous with the ungodly. The three cases which follow are intended, on the other hand, to exemplify the truth that the righteousness of the righteous will be of no avail to the idolaters and apostates; since even such patterns of righteousness as Noah, Daniel, and Job would only save their own lives, and would not be able to save the lives of others also. This tallies with the omission of the asseveration in Eze_14:14. The first declaration, that God would deliver the righteous in the coming judgments, needed no asseveration, inasmuch as this truth was not called in question; but it was required in the case of the declaration that the righteousness of the righteous would bring no deliverance to the sinful nation, since this was the hope which the ungodly cherished, and it was this hope which was to be taken from them. The other differences which we find in the description given of the several cases are merely formal in their nature, and do not in any way affect the sense; e.g., the use of לֹא, in Eze_14:18, instead of the particle ִאם, which is commonly employed in oaths, and which we find in Eze_14:16 and Eze_14:20; the choice of the singular been ֵּבןand ַּבת, in Eze_14:20, in the place of the plural ָּבִנים ת used in Eze_14:16 ,ּוָבנ and Eze_14:18; and the variation in the expressions, ְיַנְּצלּו ַנְפָׁשם (Eze_14:14), ַיִּצילּו ַנְפָׁשם (Eze_14:20), and ֵהָּמה ְלַבָּדם ִיָּנֵצלּו (Eze_14:16 and Eze_14:18), which Hitzig proposes to remove by altering the first two forms into the third, though without the slightest reason. For although the Piel occurs in Exo_12:36 in the sense of taking away or spoiling, and is not met with anywhere else in the sense of delivering, it may just as well be used in this sense, as the Hiphil has both significations.

COFFMAN, ""And the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, Son of man, when a land sinneth against me by committing a trespass, and I stretch out my hand upon it, and break the staff of the bread thereof, and send famine upon it, and cut off from it man and beast; though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord Jehovah."

EVEN A RIGHTEOUS REMNANT COULD NOT SAVE JERUSALEM

"When a land sinneth ... by committing a trespass ..." (Ezekiel 14:13). "`Trespass' is far too mild a word for this strong Hebrew term. The root concerns high treason and the crime of `acting treacherously.'"[14] It was no ordinary trespass, or sin, that

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resulted in the kind of destruction God was bringing upon Jerusalem.

"These three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job ..." (Ezekiel 14:14). Even such citizens as these, though living in Jerusalem and interceding for it, could not have averted the richly deserved punishment of Jerusalem.

WHAT DANIEL WAS THIS?

Every Bible student is made aware of the radical critic's efforts to make this mention of Daniel a reference to some alleged Daniel mentioned in the Ras Shamra tablets and who lived about 1,400 B.C.

Arguments by which critics attempt to support this view are: (1) There are two spellings of Daniel, the one in Daniel's prophecy, and the one here in Ezekiel, namely, `Daniel' and `Dan'el.'" The Ezekiel spelling matches that in the Ras Shamra tablets.[15] (2) Only the ancient Dan'el is properly placed if this list of eminent persons is chronological. If the contemporary Daniel had been meant, he would have been listed last. (3) It is very improbable that Ezekiel would have listed a contemporary.[16]

None of these arguments has any weight. (1) Variations in the spelling of names are common in scriptures; besides that both variations of the name Daniel mean exactly the same thing, "God is my judge."[17] (2) The notion that the list of these three ancient worthies was intended to be chronological is false. Both Keil and Leal declare emphatically that the arrangement of the names is "according to subject matter, and not according to chronology."[18]

"The true source of the order here derives from the fact that Noah was able to save eight persons, Daniel three persons, and Job, not even his sons and daughters."[19] As Keil noted, this inability of Job to save even his sons and daughters tallies with the repeated mention of the phrase, "save neither sons nor daughters" in the

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following verses.

(3) The alleged improbability of Ezekiel's mention of a contemporary is nothing at all except the biased opinion of a scholar who had already made up his mind. Canon Cook, one of the greatest scholars of a century, stated that, "The mention of Daniel here shows that by this time Daniel was a very remarkable man; and the introduction of the contemporary Daniel gives force and life to his illustration."[20]

The positive reasons that support the identification of this Daniel mentioned by Ezekiel with the author of the prophecy of Daniel are: (1) no other Daniel was known either by Ezekiel or the people who heard his prophecies. The foolish allegation that they knew all about the Ras Shamra tablets and some ancient worthy who allegedly lived in 1,400 B.C. is so unreasonable as to appear preposterous. (2) On the other hand, every Jew on earth knew all about the Daniel who was the esteemed favorite of the king of Babylon, who had survived the Lion's Den, and who had already procured countless blessings for the captive Israelites, and who was, in effect, a royal deputy of the most powerful Nebuchadnezzar. If Ezekiel had meant any other Daniel, he most certainly would have said so. (3) There's not a word about that "other Daniel" in the Old Testament, and if he had been all that famous, it is totally inexplicable how his name got left out of the Bible! (4) a number of top rank scholars have pointed out how worthless is the alleged support for the other Daniel.

There is no shadow of evidence for the view of some commentators that an older Daniel is referred to. Had there been such a person eminent enough to be classed with Noah and Job, there would have been some mention of him in the Old Testament."[21]

Also, another current scholar of very great ability gave as his conviction the following.

This reference in Ezekiel is not a reference to an older Daniel, of whom nothing is stated in the Old Testament. Daniel's fame for wisdom and piety was already widespread in Ezekiel's day.[22]

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Of course, such arguments are unanswerable. How ridiculous it would have been, in the light of the fame which Daniel enjoyed, as the deputy governor of the whole world, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, a friend and helper of the Jewish nation, and no doubt as popular as any Hebrew who ever lived -how ridiculous it would have been for Ezekiel to have been referring to any other Daniel except this one! If he had been doing such a thing, would he not have explained it? Certainly.

Of course, it is remembered that in Jeremiah 15:1-4, that prophet stated that not even the intercession of such righteous persons as Moses or Samuel would be able to avert the deserved judgments against Jerusalem. This is a very similar prophecy here.

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 14:12 The word of the LORD came again to me, saying,

Ver. 12. The word of the Lord came again to me.] The utter destruction of this perverse people is once again denounced and declared to be inevitable.

BI, "Verses 12-14

Ezekiel 14:12-14

Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls.

The limit of influence

The solemnity of this assurance is increased by the fact that it forms quite an exception to the general tenor of the Divine government. Again and again God has

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saved the earth because of the righteous men who were in it: He would have spared the cities of the plain if Abraham could have found ten praying souls in the whole of their corrupt population; He blessed the house of Potiphar for Joseph’s sake; He allowed the intercession of Moses to shield Israel from judgment well deserved; for Paul’s sake He, saved the ship in the storm. In the text we come upon a sharp variation of the general method: no longer is Noah or Daniel or Job to count for more than one; the day of prevailing intercession is to close; character is to be individualised, and the diffusion of collateral benefit is to pass away forever. Terrible as it may seem on first reading, yet there is quite a deep well of comfort in all this wilderness of desolation. It will be observed that though the darkness brought down upon the earth by sin is very great, yet through all the gloom the figures of Noah, Daniel, and Job are seen in all their vividness and pathetic suggestiveness, showing that the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and that their memory is precious to Him. It is clear, however, that the text is meant to be a warning rather than a comfort, and it is in this spirit that we must approach its interpretation. It is a warning to individual men. They cannot tell how soon they will be called upon to cease their intercessory ministry. Specially, however, is this a warning to households. How terrible is this tragedy, that a man should no longer be the priest of his own family! The son shall be separated from the father, and the daughter from the mother, and shall realise in an awful individualism of position how true it is that every soul must give an account of itself to God. The Lord will not spare the children when they have gone astray, having broken every holy vow and shattered every commandment issued from heaven. “I will also send wild beasts among you,” etc. This is a threatening which may operate in either of two ways; either because the children have forfeited Divine confidence, or because the parents have abandoned the right way, and can only be brought home again by processes of affliction and desolation. This is a warning also to nations. The nation is saved because of the living Church that is within it. Prophets must not cease to pray for the land in which they live. Amid political tumult and uproar the voice of their prayer may seem to be but a feeble sound, yet they are called upon by the very genius of their faith to keep the way clear between heaven and earth for large and profitable intercourse. Into the mystery of intercession we cannot enter, but we find that it is at the very heart of things, a rule and a law, a judgment and a blessing, an opportunity large in its possibilities, but always hastening to a solemn conclusion. The great principle of mediation is, of course, most vividly and gloriously represented by the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ; but even in His case the priesthood is to cease, the long and loving prayer for others is to come to a perpetual close: “Then cometh the end,” etc. We live in a great intercessory period; the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered; we need not fear because our prayer halts and stumbles as to the mere eloquence of its

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expression; the eloquence of prayer is in its sincerity; to the man who is of a broken and a contrite heart will God look, and on him will He set signs of approval. A wondrous gift is it to have the gift of intercession, the power of putting into heavenly words the wants of other men, and the power of pleading with God on behalf of those who never plead for themselves. Some suppliants can but pray for themselves; others can only pray concerning great events and great subjects; others, more Christ-like, seem to carry the world in their hearts, and to plead for continents and empires in great intercessions. Let us get a clear view of the system of spiritual government under which we live. We are to conclude all our prayers, and indeed begin them and continue them, with the sentiment, “For Christ’s sake.” We cannot understand the mystery of this ground, and yet we feel how solid it is, and how impossible it would be for us to pray without it. It is in Christ that we find God. It is through Christ that we find access to the throne of the heavenly grace. We do not plead Christ as if we were pleading with an arbitrary deity, who would not do anything for us ourselves, but would only do it through the mediation of His Son, or because of His partiality for one whom He calls His Only-Begotten. Though our prayers are to be heard for Christ’s sake, yet Christ Himself was given for our sake! Herein is love, that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us! God sent His Son to seek and to save that which was lost. (J. Parker, D. D.)

A delusion dispelled

I. The righteousness of the most godly cannot avail for the ungodly.

1. We prove this, first, by referring you to our text, and asking you to read it for yourselves. Mark ye how the anger of the Lord kindles, and how the words are launched forth like hot thunderbolts from the lips of the Most High.

2. Next, I ask you to inspect more narrowly the portraits of these men of God, who are presumed to have stood counsel for the defendants, and to have occasioned so much astonishment, because with all their special pleadings they signally lost their case. The Lord declares that if the whole three were put together they should not save son or daughter.

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3. This truth may be further substantiated by observing the course of Providence as regards the things of this life. Could the merits of friends and parents secure the salvation of their relatives or children, we must expect to see “the son or the daughter” of a righteous man screened from the full punishment of his own misdeeds; but we have evidence that such is not the case.

4. Painful though it be, I must carry the assertion a stage further. The righteousness of good men has not availed to save their relatives from the terrors of the world to come. Cain, where are you tonight? Are you sitting here; and do you dream that your brother Abel now with God can by any means bless you? That must not be. Dispel the delusion.

II. The prayers of the greatest intercessors cannot avail if men persist in their unbelief.

1. Remember that all the prayers of godly men cannot alter the nature of sin, and if they cannot alter the nature of sin, then they that continue in it must perish.

2. Moreover, the prayers of good men cannot alter the conditions of the eternal future, so long as the present abides the same. There is no law more immutable than that “to be good is to be happy,” and to be bad is sooner or later to be wretched. It must be so. Trust not, therefore, to the prayers of others, but come to Christ for yourselves, that you may be cleansed from sin and made meet for heaven.

3. Perhaps you say, “Sir, I did not think prayer would suffice to effect a change in my circumstances without a corresponding change in myself; but I thought that somehow by prayer I should be compelled to believe and to repent.” Compelled to believe and to repent? Well, man, what sort of repentance and faith must that be which comes of compulsion? (C. H. Spurgeon.)

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Good men: their power and their weakness

I. God recognises the existence of good men. Many ages had passed away since two of the men mentioned here, Noah and Job, had left the world. Yet they were not forgotten by God. Their histories were fresh to Him. Good men are ever before the mind of God. They are “had in everlasting remembrance.”

2. God appreciates the services of good men. The language implies that Noah, Daniel, and Job could do much for the world. God hath been pleased to endow men with power for great achievements, and when this power is rightly used He grants the smile of His approval.

III. God limits the influence of good men. These men could do much, had done much; but there was much they could not do. When righteous retribution overtakes us, the services of the best men that ever lived will be of no avail.

IV. God secures the salvation of good men. Their righteousness ensures their salvation. A righteous man--a man right in his relation towards God, standing fully acquitted before his Maker, and right in the principles and purposes of his own soul, is safe everywhere--safe amidst the most terrible judgments of heaven. (D. Thomas, D. D.)

Noah, Daniel, and Job

If we look at the history of the three holy men mentioned in the text we shall find that they did save their souls or their lives by their righteousness. And it is manifestly in accordance with our own deepest sense of right and justice that this should be so; the notion that good deeds will bring a reward, and that evil deeds will bring punishment, is too deep to be rooted out. You perceive how thoroughly it was assumed as a principle by Abraham (Genesis 18:25), as it must be by anyone who has a sense of the goodness of God, and who believes that the feelings of right and justice which he finds in his own soul are but the reflexion of God’s image there,--

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assumed as a principle, I say, that God would make a difference between the evil and the good, and would allow a righteous man to live by his righteousness. Precisely the same kind of doctrine may be found in the New Testament. For let us turn to that solemn description which our blessed Lord has Himself left to us of the final judgment; I mean the description which is contained in St. Matthew 25:1-46. Who shall say, with this description of the judgment before him, that the last judgment will not be a judgment according to works, that righteousness will not save souls alive? The description is only a sketch, it is not intended to be complete; but this feature is there, you cannot get rid of it, it is that which gives to the whole judgment its tone and its complexion. And why should we desire to get rid of it, when the principle upon which it is based is so thoroughly in accordance with all our sense of right, and in accordance too with those other words of Christ in which He declares that those who have done good shall rise to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation? And why also, with such words of our Lord before us, should we hesitate to give to the words of St. James their full and undiminished force when He says, “Ye see, then, how by works a man is justified and not by faith only”? (Bishop Harvey Goodwin.)

PETT, "Verse 12

‘And the word of Yahweh came to me saying, “Son of man, when a land sins against me by acting treacherously, and I stretch out my hand on it, and break the staff of its bread and send famine on it, and cut off from it both man and beast, though these three men, Noah, Daniel and Job, were in it, they would deliver but their own lives by their righteousness, says the Lord Yahweh.” ’

Note that the application is general. It is a general principle. It applies to any land against which God might intend to bring judgment for acting treacherously, but it is quite clear that Jerusalem is in mind in the context.

The principle is that once God has finally determined judgment, even the presence of godly men will not prevent it. The godly themselves will be delivered but Yahweh’s judgment will not be prevented. Thus they need not look to the presence of men in Israel like Jeremiah and Ezekiel as evidence that they were safe. Why,

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even the presence of those great and good men Noah, Daniel and Job, would not forestall the judgment God intended to bring on Jerusalem. Noah was ‘a righteous man, blameless in his generation’ (Genesis 6:9), Job was ‘blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil’ (Job 1:1). Neither were strictly Israelites, and both were thus a good example to use as a general principle.

Noah was a particularly good contrast, for his presence in the world had delayed the flood for many years, but in the end it came, even though it had been delayed to give them opportunity to repent. So would it come on Jerusalem. The mention of Job demonstrates that his story was at this time well known in Israel, and that he was admired and respected as a righteous and holy man. His righteousness too did not prevent great suffering.

The mention of Daniel presents us with a slight problem. The name is different from that used in the book of Daniel, (Dani’el here, Daniyye’l in Daniel), but it is a variation which occurs in other names referring to the same person (Do’eg (1 Samuel 21:7; 1 Samuel 22:9) spelled Doyeg in 1 Samuel 22:18; 1 Samuel 22:22), so that is not a great difficulty. More difficult is as to whether the contemporary of Jeremiah and Ezekiel could have achieved such fame by the time Ezekiel was speaking. But he had been taken captive from Jerusalem years earlier, and in the second year of Nebuchadnezzar had interpreted his dream and been raised to honour (Daniel 2). Word may well therefore have got back to Jerusalem about this, and at a time when people were seeking comfort and hope he may well have become a folk-hero. The mention of a contemporary who had clearly been ‘delivered’ from the coming judgment on Jerusalem would add considerable weight to Ezekiel’s argument.

An alternative Daniel is found by some in stories surrounding the Dan’el known from Ugaritic literature, who had a reputation for wisdom and righteous judgment. But it seems unlikely that Ezekiel would choose such a figure when he had many heroes from Hebrew tradition such as Abraham that he could have called on, especially as Dan’el was connected with the very idolatry that was being condemned. However the Ugaritic myths may have been based on earlier stories of a famous king Dan’el, well known in Israel, which exalted his goodness and did not connect with idolatry and with Baal. Certainly, like Noah and Job, as he was not an Israelite he would fit the pattern. It does not, however, really matter which we

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choose, for it does not affect the poignancy of the illustration.

‘Acting treacherously.’ The word is strong. It indicates those who have sinned to the full.

‘Break the staff of its bread and send famine on it, and cut off from it both man and beast.’ For the ‘staff of bread’ see Ezekiel 4:16; Ezekiel 5:16 and compare Leviticus 26:26; Psalms 105:16; Isaiah 3:1. Bread was the basic food on which they leant and depended for survival. Thus to break the staff meant to remove their bread, which would be the result of famine. That both man and beast would be cut off indicates the severity of the judgment.

13 “Son of man, if a country sins against me by being unfaithful and I stretch out my hand against it to cut off its food supply and send famine upon it and kill its people and their animals,

CLARKE, "By trespassing grievously - Having been frequently warned, and having refused to leave their sin, and so filled up the measure of their iniquity.

GILL, "Son of man, when the land sinneth against me by trespassing grievously,.... That is, the inhabitants of the land, when they are in general become sinners against God and his law; and not merely sinners, as all men are, but grievous ones, notorious sinners, guilty of very gross enormities, of great prevarication, perfidy, and treachery; for God is a God longsuffering, and has great patience with a people; and does not usually come forth in his judgments against nation, until sin has universally

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prevailed among them, and they are guilty of grievous abominations, and those continued in: but when this is the case, then will I stretch out mine hand upon it; his hand of vindictive wrath and justice, and cause it to fall heavily, and men to feel it: and will break the staff of the bread thereof; take away bread corn from the nation, the support of human life; which is that unto it, and the stay of it, as a staff is to a decrepit old man, that cannot walk without one; or take away the virtue of it, so as though it might be had and eaten, yet not be nourishing; see Eze_4:16; and will send famine upon it; by causing a drought, restraining rain, sending mildew, locusts, caterpillars, &c. to eat up the fruits of the earth: and will cut off man and beast from it; the latter for the sake of the former, and both through want of food.

JAMISON, "staff of ... bread — on which man’s existence is supported as on a staff (Eze_4:16; Eze_5:16; Lev_26:26; Psa_104:15; Isa_3:1). I will send a famine.

CALVIN, “The next verse thought to be joined: for some interpreters altogether pervert the Prophet’s sense by finishing the sentence there, as if he had said, I will extend my hand over it, &e. But the sentence is dependent, as we shall see —

COKE, "Verse 13-14

Ezekiel 14:13-14. When the land sinneth against me— The design of this and the following verses is, to shew that when the inhabitants of a land have filled up the measure of their iniquities, and God ariseth to execute judgment upon them, the few righteous among them shall not be able to deliver the nation from the judgments determined against it. They shall deliver but their own souls, as we see in the case of Sodom, where there were none righteous except Lot and his family; those just persons were saved, but no intercession could prevail with the Almighty to spare the city. Noah, Daniel, and Job, were eminent for their piety; Noah and his family were saved from the universal deluge, and obtained a promise from the Most High, that he would never again destroy the world by water. Daniel interceded with the Almighty for the whole nation of the Jews, and obtained a promise of their restoration. See Daniel 9. And Job was appointed by God himself to make intercession for his three friends: but when the Almighty is finally determined to punish a rebellious nation, even the prayers of such favourites of heaven would be

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ineffectual to procure its deliverance. The prophet, in this allusion to Abraham's intercession for Sodom, declares from God, that when his judgments come up against the land of Judea, the righteous found in it should only deliver their own souls; which plainly shews a Providence extending to all, but more particularly to the truly pious. See Div. Leg. vol. 4: Lowth, and Calmet. The reader will find in Peters's Dissertation on Job, p. 146 a strong proof of the antiquity of the Book of Job, deduced from this passage. Instead of, when the land, we should read, when a land.

Daniel— He was taken captive in the third year of Jehoiakim, Daniel 1:1. After this, Jehoiakim reigned eight years, 2 Kings 23:36. And this prophesy, as appears from ch. Ezekiel 8:1 was uttered in the sixth year of Jehoiachin's captivity, who succeeded Jehoiakim, and reigned only three months. 2 Kings 6:8. Therefore at this time Daniel had been fourteen years in captivity.

ELLICOTT, "(13) When the land sinneth.—The definite article is not in the Hebrew, and should be omitted, as the proposition is a general one. Also the future tenses throughout the verse should be rendered as present, in accordance with this character of a general statement: “When a land sinneth . . . and I stretch out . . . and break the staff . . . and send famine . . . and cut off.” The particular judgment of famine was threatened in the warnings of the law (Leviticus 26:26; Deuteronomy 28:38-40), and also, in immediate connection with it, all the other woes here mentioned.

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 14:13 Son of man, when the land sinneth against me by trespassing grievously, then will I stretch out mine hand upon it, and will break the staff of the bread thereof, and will send famine upon it, and will cut off man and beast from it:

Ver. 13. Son of man.] See on Ezekiel 2:1.

When the land sinneth against me,] i.e., The inhabitants of the land; not as if the land itself were alive and indued with reason, as Origen (a) doated, and as Plato

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held that the Spirit of God was the soul of the world.

By trespassing grievously.] Praevaricando perfide; by doing evil as men could.

Then will I stretch out my hand.] See Ezekiel 14:9.

And will break the staff.] See Ezekiel 4:16; Ezekiel 5:16.

And I will send famine.] Extreme famine, a heavy judgment, as hath eleswhere been shown out of sacred and profane history.

POOLE, " When; at what time soever.

The land, put for the men that dwell in the land.

By trespassing grievously; as a hypocritical, backsliding people, that give fair promises, but perform them not, rather act contrary to their professions, as the Hebrew intimateth.

Upon it; against it. Break the staff of the bread: scarcity and famine are effects of the power of God, which makes that barren for the sins of a people which otherwise would be fruitful.

Will cut off man and beast from it; make the land utterly desolate by famishing the cattle as well as their owners.

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14 even if these three men—Noah, Daniel[a] and Job—were in it, they could save only themselves by their righteousness, declares the Sovereign Lord.

BARNES, "Eze_14:14Noah, Daniel, and Job - Three striking instances of men who, for their integrity, were delivered from the ruin which fell upon others. Some have thought it strange that Daniel, a contemporary, and still young, should have been classed with the two ancient worthies. But the account of him Dan. 2 shows, that by this time Daniel was a very remarkable man (compare Eze_28:3), and the introduction of the name of a contemporary gives force and life to the illustration. There is in the order in which the names occur a kind of climax. Noah did not rescue the guilty world, but did carry forth with him his wife, sons, and sons’ wives. Daniel raised only a few, but he did raise three of his countrymen with him to honor. To Job was spared neither son nor daughter.

CLARKE, "Though - Noah, Daniel, and Job - The intercession even of the holiest of men shall not avert my judgments. Noah, though a righteous man, could not by his intercession preserve the old world from being drowned. Job, though a righteous man, could not preserve his children from being killed by the fall of their house. Daniel, though a righteous man, could not prevent the captivity of his country. Daniel must have been contemporary with Ezekiel. He was taken captive in the third year of Jehoiakim, Dan_1:1. After this Jehoiakim reigned eight years, 2Ki_23:36. And this prophecy, as appears from Eze_8:1, was uttered in the sixth year of Jehoiachin’s captivity, who succeeded Jehoiakim, and reigned only three months, 2Ki_24:6, 2Ki_24:8. Therefore at this time Daniel had been Fourteen years in captivity. See Newcome. Even at this time he had gained much public celebrity. From this account we may infer that Job was as real a person as Noah or Daniel; and of their identity no man has pretended to doubt. When God, as above, has determined to punish a nation, no intercession shall avail. Personal holiness alone can prevent these evils; but the holiness of any man can only avail for himself.

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GILL, "Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it,.... In the sinning land, and made intercession for it, that the famine might be removed, and the inhabitants of it be saved alive, this would not be granted; though they were men that found favour in the sight of God, and were eminent for prayer, and successful in it, and the means of saving many; as Noah his family, by preparing an ark according to the will of God; and Daniel was an instrument of saving the lives of his companions, and of the wise men of Chaldea; and Job, by his prayer for his friends, prevented the wrath of God, that was kindled against them, coming upon them; and yet, if they had been upon the spot at this time, their intercession for this people would have been of no avail; the decree was gone forth, and was not to be called in; it was unalterable, and God was inexorable: nor could it have been depended upon, if this declaration had not been made, that their prayers would have been effectual, had they been upon the spot, and put them up for this nation; since it might be observed, that the old world was not saved from a deluge in Noah's time, only he and his family; nor were the people of the Jews preserved from captivity in Daniel's time, nor even he himself; nor were Job's children saved, though he was greatly concerned for them: it may be observed from hence, that there was such a man as Job, as well as Noah and Daniel; and that the latter, though a young man, not above thirty years of age, at this time, yet was become very famous, not only for his dignity and grandeur in Babylon, but for his religion and piety; and is placed between those two great men, Noah and Job; and being a person now living, precludes any argument being formed by the Papists, in favour of the intercession of departed saints; and which would not be conclusive from such a supposition as here made, had they been all such as had departed this life; see Jer_15:1; the design of the whole is only to show that the prayers of the best of men would not have prevailed with the Lord to avert his judgments from a people that had so grievously sinned against him: they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord; as Noah was saved at the time of the flood; Daniel in the captivity; and Job midst his great afflictions: this is to be understood not of the eternal salvation of the souls of these men, which is not, nor can it be, by works of righteousness done by the best of men; by these men cannot be justified in the sight of God, and so not saved; but of temporal salvation, of the salvation of their souls or lives from temporal calamities. Besides, these men had knowledge of another and better righteousness than their own, and believed in it, and trusted to it, even the righteousness of faith, the righteousness of Christ received by faith Noah was both an heir and a preacher of the righteousness which is by faith; and Daniel knew that it was one branch of the Messiah's work to bring in everlasting righteousness; and Job was fully persuaded that his Redeemer lived, by whom he should be justified, Heb_11:7.

JAMISON, "Noah, Daniel ... Job — specified in particular as having been saved from overwhelming calamities for their personal righteousness. Noah had the members of his family alone given to him, amidst the general wreck. Daniel saved from the fury of the king of Babylon the three youths (Dan_2:17, Dan_2:18, Dan_2:48, Dan_2:49). Though his prophecies mostly were later than those of Ezekiel, his fame for piety and wisdom was already established, and the events recorded in Daniel 1:1-2:49 had transpired. The Jews would naturally, in their fallen condition, pride themselves on one who reflected such glory on his nation at the heathen capital, and would build vain hopes (here set aside) on his influence in averting ruin from them. Thus the objection to the

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authenticity of Daniel from this passage vanishes. “Job” forms the climax (and is therefore put out of chronological order), having not even been left a son or a daughter, and having had himself to pass through an ordeal of suffering before his final deliverance, and therefore forming the most simple instance of the righteousness of God, which would save the righteous themselves alone in the nation, and that after an ordeal of suffering, but not spare even a son or daughter for their sake (Eze_14:16, Eze_14:18, Eze_14:20; compare Jer_7:16; Jer_11:14; Jer_14:11).deliver ... souls by ... righteousness — (Pro_11:4); not the righteousness of works, but that of grace, a truth less clearly understood under the law (Rom_4:3).

CALVIN, “Here again God threatens the people of Israel with final destruction: but the words seem opposed, that God would be merciful and propitious to his people, and yet that no hope of pardon would be left. But we must remember the principle, that the prophets sometimes directed their discourse to the body of the people which was utterly devoted to destruction, since its wickedness was desperate; yet afterwards they moderated that rigor, when they turned to the remainder, which is the seed of the Church in the world, that God’s covenant should not be extinguished, as we have already said. Hence, when we meet with this kind of contradiction, we know that God affords no hope to the reprobate, since he has decreed their destruction: so that language ought to be transferred to the body of the people which was already alienated, and like a putrid carcass. But when God mingles and intersperses any testimony of his favor, we may know that the Church is intended, and that he wishes a seed to remain, lest the whole Church should perish, and his covenant be abolished at the same time. The Prophet, therefore, as before, so also now, sets before himself the people desperate in wickedness, and says that they had no right to hope that God would act mercifully as usual, since necessity compelled him to put his hand for the last time to the destruction of the impious. This is the full meaning. We had a similar passage in Jeremiah (Jeremiah 15:1), where he said, If Moses and Samuel had stood before me, my mind is not towards this people; that is, it never could be that I should return to favor them, even if Moses and Samuel should intercede for them, and endeavor to obtain pardon by their own intercession. The papists foolishly distort this passage to prove that the dead intercede for us, for Moses and Samuel had been dead some time; but God says, Even if they should pray for the people, their prayers would be in vain. But this passage refutes that gross ignorance: for God is not here making a difference between the living and the dead; but it is a kind of personification, and of bringing back Moses and Samuel from the grave; as if he had said, Were they living at this time, and entreating for these wicked ones, I would never listen to them: for Ezekiel here mentions three, Noah, Job, and Daniel. But Daniel was then alive: he had been dragged into exile, and lived to a mature old age, as is well known. Then he

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expresses his meaning more clearly, by saying, if they had been in the midst of the city they had escaped in safety themselves, but they would not have prevailed for others. The whole meaning is, that God cuts off all hope of mercy from the abandoned people.

We must remark the form of speech which is used: he relates four kinds of punishments by which men’s crimes are usually avenged, and enumerates them distinctly. If I shall break the staff of bread, says he, because the land has revolted from me, and I shall send famine upon it, Daniel, Job, and Noah, shall preserve their own souls, but shall not profit others by their holiness: then he adds,if I shall send a sword, that is, if I shall follow up the impious by wars, even Daniel, and Job, and Noah, shall save their own souls, but they shall not intercede for others. He pronounces the same of pestilence and wild beasts. At length He reasons from less to greater. When I shall have punished any nation, says He, with famine, pestilence, and the sword, and wild beasts, how much less shall Daniel, Job, and Noah, prevail with me by their intercession? But God had condemned the house of Israel to all punishments, just as if he had poured all his curses like a deluge to destroy them. Hence He concludes that there is no reason for cherishing any hope of escape from these imminent dangers. Now then we comprehend the Prophet’s meaning.

Now let us come to the first kind of punishment. If the land, says he, acts wickedly against me, or conducts itself wickedly, חטא, cheta, to act wickedly, but by prevaricating with prevarication. By these words the crime of perfidy is distinguished from error, because men often fall away and depart far from God through ignorance of the way which they thought to pursue. But here the Prophet condemns the people’s defection through perfidy, as if he had said that they purposely, and by deliberate malice, were estranged from God, since they had been correctly taught how God ought to be worshipped. Although the Prophet speaks generally, yet he wished to show God’s wrath to be of no ordinary kind: for God will often chastise men’s sins by either pestilence, or sword, or famine, and yet will not be implacable. But he here speaks of a desperate people, and one already addicted to eternal destruction. He says, therefore, by prevaricating with prevarication; that is, by deceiving my confidence by open and gross perfidy.

Again, and I will stretch forth, my hand upon it, and will break the staff of bread, and will send famine upon it, and will cut off from it man and beast. Here, as I have

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mentioned, he touches upon only one kind of punishment; for God is accustomed to take vengeance on men in four ways; and the prophets, as you have often heard, usually adopt the form of speech used by Moses. These four curses of God are everywhere related in the law, — war, famine, pestilence, and the assault and savageness of wild beasts. Now the Prophet begins with hunger; but he points out the kind of hunger — if God has broken the staff of bread. For sometimes, when he does not reduce men to poverty, yet he puffs up the bread, so that those who think to use it as nourishment do not gather any rigor from it. But the Prophet properly means it in this second sense, as we see in Ezekiel 4:0 and Ezekiel 5:0. The metaphor is in accordance with the word staff: for as the lame cannot walk unless they lean on a staff — and tremulous old men need a similar support — so by degrees men’s strength vanish, unless new rigor is replaced by meat and drink. Bread is, therefore, like a staff which restores our strength when want has weakened it. We now come to the word breaking. How does God break the staff of bread? By withdrawing the nourishment which he had infused into it; for the virtue which we perceive in bread is not intrinsic: I mean this — that bread is not naturally endued with the virtue of continuing and inspiring life within men; and why? Bread has no life in it: how then can any one derive life from it? But the teaching of the law has been marked: that man lives not by bread only, but by every word proceeding from God’s mouth. (Deuteronomy 8:3.) Here Moses intends, that even if God has inserted the virtue of nourishment in bread, yet this is not to be so attributed to it as if it were inherent in it. What follows then? That as God breathes a secret virtue into the bread, it sustains and refreshes us, and becomes our aliment. On the other hand, God says that he breaks the virtue of the bread when he withdraws from it that virtue: because, as I have already said, when we taste bread, our minds ought to rise immediately to God, since men, if they cram themselves a thousand times, yet will not feel their life to be deposited in the bread. Therefore, unless God breathes into bread the virtue of nourishment, the bread is useless; it may fill us up, but without any profit. Now, then, we understand the meaning of this sentence, about which we shall have something more to say.

ELLICOTT, "(14) Noah, Daniel, and Job.—These three are selected, doubtless, not only as examples of eminent holiness themselves, but as men who had been allowed to be the means of saving others. For Noah’s sake his whole family had been spared (Genesis 6:18); Daniel was the means of saving his companions (Daniel 2:17-18); and Job’s friends had been spared in consequence of his intercession (Job 42:7-8). Moses and Samuel might seem still more remarkable instances of the value of intercessory prayer; but these had already been cited by Jeremiah (Jeremiah 15:1). The mention

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of Daniel, a contemporary of Ezekiel, with the ancient patriarchs, Noah and Job, need occasion no surprise. The distance in time between Noah and Job was greater than between Job and Daniel, and it has been well said that there was need of the mention of a contemporary to bring out the thought—were there in Jerusalem the most holy men of either past or present times it would avail nothing. It is also to be remembered that Daniel was separated from Ezekiel by circumstances which created a distance between them corresponding to that which separated him in time from the patriarchs. Ezekiel was a captive among the captives; Daniel had now been for about twelve years in important office at the royal court, and possessed of the very highest rank. There is, therefore, no occasion for the strange supposition that the reference is to some older Daniel, of such eminence as to be spoken of in the way he is here and in Ezekiel 28:3, and yet whose name has otherwise completely faded out from history. But besides all this, there was an especial propriety, and even necessity for the purpose in hand, that Daniel should be mentioned. He was not only in high office, but was the trusted counsellor of Nebuchadnezzar by whom Jerusalem was to be destroyed. He was also a very holy man, and a most patriotic Israelite. The Jews, therefore, might well have thought that his influence would avail to avert the threatened calamity, and by placing his name in the list. their last hope was to be dashed as it could be by nothing else.

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 14:14 Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver [but] their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord GOD.

Ver. 14. Though these three men.] See on Jeremiah 15:1.

Noah, Daniel, and Job.] What could not these three, so mighty with God, have done if the matter had been feasible? Daniel was now alive and in his prime; Ezekiel, his contemporary and fellow prophet, envieth him not, but celebrateth him; as also Peter doth Paul. [2 Peter 3:15-16]

They should deliver but their own souls.] Because the decree was past, an end was come. [Ezekiel 7:2; Ezekiel 7:4-6; Ezekiel 7:10]

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POOLE, " These three men; most eminent for holy and upright walking with God, very dear to God, exceedingly desirous of the welfare of others, powerful in prayer.

Noah, who it is probable prevailed with God to spare the world for some years, and saved his near relations when the flood came;

Daniel, who prevailed for the life of the wise men of Chaldea; and

Job, who daily offered sacrifice for his children, and at last reconciled God to those that had offended. These should not prevail for any one of this wicked generation; it should suffice them that their righteousness sayeth themselves, this contumacious generation of sinners I would not be entreated for.

WHEDON, " 14. Daniel — The criticism which always finds a blunder in Scripture whenever it is possible to force one in, suggests that Ezekiel could not have mentioned Daniel here — as there was no such man known to the Jews at this time — but that he was probably referring to Zoroaster (Zurathustra), of whom he had somewhere heard, and made a mistake in his attempt to Hebraize the name. Not knowing just when he lived, he made another mistake in locating him between Noah and Job (Cheyne, Bampton Lectures, 1889, p. 107). Is this criticism? Halevy and others would correct the text, reading Enoch instead of Daniel. This is not necessary, and is not favored by existing texts. It is not far from the banks of the Chebar to Babylon, and at the date when Ezekiel wrote, if the biblical narrative can be trusted, Daniel was a man in middle life, already famous as a statesman and an interpreter of secrets. (Compare Ezekiel 28:3.) Delitzsch thinks the prophet here intends to mention together a pious Hebrew of the ancient times (Noah), another of modern times (Daniel), and the ideal righteous man outside of the Hebrew people (Job). Job was ever regarded by the Hebrew people as marking the apex of faith (Hebrews 10:32; Hebrews 10:36; James 5:11). When he lived is not known. He also may have been a contemporary.

Though… Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it — The most righteous men that ever 106

lived, either in past or present times, could not save this apostate land. Noah saved seven relatives by his righteousness (Genesis 7:13); Job saved his false friends from punishment (Job 42:8; compare Ezekiel 1:5); Daniel even saved the Chaldean Magi by his intercession (Daniel 2:18). “There is no shadow of evidence for the view of some commentators that an older Daniel is referred to. Had there been such a person, eminent enough to be grouped with Noah and Job, there would surely have been some mention of him in the Old Testament.” — Plumptre. “The references to the hero of the book of Daniel are by no means impossible, as, according to Daniel 1, at the time when this was written he was already celebrated.” — Orelli.

15 “Or if I send wild beasts through that country and they leave it childless and it becomes desolate so that no one can pass through it because of the beasts,

GILL, "If I cause noisome beasts to pass through the land,.... Evil and hurtful ones; not so much those that are poisonous as pernicious; such, as lions, tigers, foxes, wolves, and bears, that are very ravenous and devouring, and especially in a time of famine before threatened; though sometimes God makes use of lesser creatures to do damage to a land, and the fruits of it, as locusts, caterpillars, &c. but the former seem to be intended here, which sometimes God threatens and sends to a people disobedient and rebellious; see Lev_26:22; and they spoil it; or, "make it childless" (x); they or I bereave the inhabitants of it of their children; or bereave it of other cattle that are tame, as sheep and oxen, as well as of men and women also, and even destroy the fruits of the earth: so that it be desolate; having neither men nor cattle, corn or tillage, or any other fruit; all being destroyed by the evil beats, who have commission to pass through it, and lay it waste wherever they come, without control: that no man may pass through because of the beasts; for fear of them: not only

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the inhabitants of the land should be destroyed by them, but even travellers, such as come from other countries, would not choose to pass through it because of the beasts; so that it would on this account be destitute both of inhabitants and of travellers; and must be a most desolate place, where only wild beasts were to be seen, ranging about at pleasure. JAMISON 15-21, "The argument is cumulative. He first puts the case of the land

sinning so as to fall under the judgment of a famine (Eze_14:13); then (Eze_14:15) “noisome beasts” (Lev_26:22); then “the sword”; then, worst of all, “pestilence.” The three most righteous of men should deliver only themselves in these several four cases. In Eze_14:21 he concentrates the whole in one mass of condemnation. If Noah, Daniel, Job, could not deliver the land, when deserving only one judgment, “how much more” when all four judgments combined are justly to visit the land for sin, shall these three righteous men not deliver it.

CALVIN, “Now he mentions the second kind of punishment. For we said that God’s four scourges were here brought before us, which are more familiarly known to men through frequent use. They are hunger and wild beasts, war and pestilence. The Prophet has spoken of famine; he now comes down to wild beasts. This kind of scourge is rarely used in Scripture; for God more frequently mentions the sword, pestilence, and famine; but when he distinctly treats, of his scourges, he adds also savage beasts. Now therefore he says, if he had sent wild beasts to lay waste the land, and Noah, Job, and Daniel, had been in that land, they would be free from the common slaughter, but that their righteousness would not profit others. He expresses a little more clearly what he had spoken briefly and obscurely when he treated of the famine. If, says he, I shall cause an evil beast to pass through and injure the land, so as to lay it waste, that no one may pass through on account of the wild beasts, as I live, says he, if these three men shall free their sons and their daughters. This passage teaches what I lately touched upon about the famine, namely, that the beasts did not break in by chance to attack and rage against men, but that they are sent by God. Thus God follows out his judgments no less by means of lions, and bears, and tigers, than by rain and drought, the sword and the pestilence: and surely this may be understood, if we reflect upon the great savageness of these beasts; first, when hunger arouses them they are carried along by a ravenous impulse; and then, without the compulsion of necessity, they are hostile to the human race, and without doubt they would urge themselves on to tear to pieces all whom they met with, unless restrained by God’s secret instinct. If, therefore, God restrains the wild beasts, thus also he sends them forth as often as it pleases him, to exercise their ferocity against mankind, and in this way to become his scourges. But here an oath is interposed that God may inspire confidence in his sentence, so God swears by his own life. This is the meaning of the phrase as I live;

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that is, I swear by my life. This is indeed spoken improperly, but elsewhere we have seen that God swears by his life; that is, just as if he swore by himself, because he has no greater by whom he can swear, as the Apostle says (Hebrews 6:13); and as often as we swear by the name of God we attribute the supreme power to him, and thus we profess our life to be in his hand, and he to be our only Judge. When, therefore, he swears by himself, he admonishes us at the same time that his name is profaned if we swear by any others: then he shows how much religion is to be exhibited in oaths. Let us follow, therefore, God’s example, when our speech needs confirmation, by calling in a witness and judge: next, that we should not use his name rashly and falsely, but that our oath should be truly a testimony to our piety. But here in truth a question arises, — How God can say that the land should perish which has been once subjected to wild beasts? For sometimes wild beasts have infected many regions, and God has immediately restrained them, and so their cruelty has passed away like a storm.

Again, we knew that the prayer of the saints are not superfluous when they pray for others; but God seems here to deny what is clearly manifest. But the solution is easy. For since he does not inflict his judgments equably but variably, and at one time hastens punishments and at another suspends them: at one time punishes men’s sins and at another delays doing so, he fixes for himself no sure law by which he is always bound, but he speaks of the land which he has destined to destruction. God therefore will strike one region with famine, another with war, a third with pestilence, a fourth with wild beasts, and yet he can mitigate his own rigor, and when men begin to be terrified, he can withdraw his hand. But if it has been once decreed that any land must perish, all the saints would run together in vain, because no one would be a fit intercessor to abolish that inviolable decree. We now understand the Prophet’s intention, for he does not speak generally of any lands whatever, but he points out the very land which was devoted to final destruction. It follows —

COFFMAN, ""If I cause evil beasts to pass through a land, and they ravage it, and make it desolate, so that no man pass through because of the beasts; though these three men were in it, as I live, saith the Lord Jehovah, they should deliver neither sons nor daughters; they only should be delivered, but the land should be desolate. Or if I bring a sword upon that land, and say, Sword, go through the land; so that I cut off from it man and beast; though these three men were in it, as I live, saith the Lord Jehovah, they should deliver neither sons nor daughters, but they only should

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be delivered themselves. Or if I send a pestilence into that land, and pour out my wrath upon it in blood, to cut off from it man and beast; though Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, as I live, saith the Lord Jehovah, they should deliver neither son nor daughter; they should but deliver their own souls by their righteousness."

In this paragraph, it is clear enough why Ezekiel used Job as the climax of his list of three; it was not due to chronology, but to the fact that Job alone fit the oft repeated expression, "delivered neither sons nor daughters" (Ezekiel 14:16,18,20). Daniel could not qualify, for as a eunuch, he had no posterity. Noah could not qualify, for he saved his sons; but Job was able to save neither sons nor daughters! Therefore, the holy prophet made him the climax of this list. Also, see the comment under Ezekiel 16:46.

Notice the fourfold judgments against Jerusalem that are mentioned in this chapter: famine, wild beasts, sword, and pestilence (Ezekiel 14:13,15,17,19). Jeremiah is apparently the first prophet to assemble this quadruple list (Jeremiah 15:2f). We believe there are overtones in this that reflect the teaching of Amos (Amos 1-2) that, "For three transgressions of Damascus (repeated for a list of eight nations), yea for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof, etc." Right here is given the fulfillment of Amos 2:4-8.

"Thus saith Jehovah, For three transgressions of Judah, yea for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have rejected the law of Jehovah, and have not kept his statutes, and their lies have caused them to err, after which their fathers did walk. But I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem.

"Thus saith Jehovah, For three transgressions of Israel, yea, for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have sold the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes - they that pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek; and a man and his father go in unto the same maiden to profane my holy name: and they lay themselves down by every altar upon clothes taken in pledge; and in the house of their God they drink the wine of such as have been fined" (Amos 2:4-8).SIZE>

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Bunn also noted the strong resemblance to this business of "three transgressions, yea for four" as used by Amos, adding that its use, "indicated completeness."[23] The prophecy of Amos stressed the fourfold transgressions of God's people; and Ezekiel here stressed the appropriate fourfold judgments which their transgressions merited.

ELLICOTT, "Verses 15-20(15-20) In these verses the same declaration is repeated, for the sake of emphasis, with each one of three other instruments of punishment, with only such variations of phraseology as are required for rhetorical reasons. The phrase “their own souls” is here also simply equivalent to “themselves.” The judgments mentioned are all taken from the warnings in Leviticus 26, the famine from Leviticus 26:26, the wild beasts from Leviticus 26:22, the sword and also the pestilence from Leviticus 26:25.

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 14:15 If I cause noisome beasts to pass through the land, and they spoil it, so that it be desolate, that no man may pass through because of the beasts:

Ver. 15. If I cause noisome beasts.] As lions, wolves, bears, serpents, &c. Great hurt hath been done not only by such, as Numbers 21:6, 2 Kings 2:24; 2 Kings 17:25-26, Joshua 24:12; but also by tamer creatures when set on by God. Rebellis facta est, quia homo numini, creatura homini. (a) Rats, conies, frogs, wasps, moths, have done much mischief.

POOLE, " Noisome beasts are one of the great plagues or armies that God hath always at his command.

To pass through the land; to range over the land, and spoil their cattle, devour their servants and children, and destroy travellers, and make it as a wilderness.

No man may pass through without much danger, and great guards that may repel 111

the wild ravening beasts.

WHEDON, "15. Noisome beasts — Remembering that serpents, according to Scripture language, were included among these “hurtful beasts” (Genesis 3:14), it is a suggestive circumstance that over twenty thousand people die in India every year of snake bite, notwithstanding the excessive population and the carefulness of British officials, and notwithstanding the fact that the government kills five hundred thousand of these reptiles every year (Victoria Institute, 26:89, 111). In Syria, where the serpent was reverenced as possessing superhuman powers, its ability to “bereave” the land would be great.

PETT, "Verse 15-16

“If I cause dangerous wild beasts to pass through the land, and they despoil it so that it be desolate, that no man may pass through because of the beasts, though these three men were in it, as I live says the Lord Yahweh, they will deliver neither sons nor daughters. They only will be delivered, but the land will be desolate.”

The presence of such wild beasts indicates a land deserted by man, and thus one already under judgment, to be taken over by the wild beasts who would despoil what was left. The mention of sons and daughters probably has both Noah’s and Lot’s stories in mind, when their children were delivered. This judgment is to be worse in its effect than that of Sodom, with none deliberately spared except the exceptionally righteous.

16 as surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, even if these three men were in it, they could not save their own sons or daughters. They alone

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would be saved, but the land would be desolate.

GILL, "Though these three men were in it,.... Above named, Noah, Daniel, and Job; as they were not, two of them not being in the land of the living, and the other in Babylon; but if all three had been in a land so threatened, and used all the interest they had with God, by fervent prayer and supplication, to have called in the wild beasts, and chained them up, and to preserve the people from being destroyed by them, it would have been all in vain; the Lord was determined upon the destruction of them, and by means of these, as one of his sore judgments: as I live, saith the Lord God; or by my life; for it is an oath with which God swears by himself, who has life in himself, and is the author and giver of life to others, and can take it away when, and in what manner, he pleases; and this oath is used, to show the unalterableness of the judgment threatened, it being decreed and sworn to: God's word or decree, and his oath, are two immutable things, in which he cannot lie, and from which he never departs: they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters; meaning not adult persons, but little ones, infant sons and daughters; such as had not been guilty of the actual sins and transgressions their parents were charged with; even these they should not deliver by their prayers and supplications from being destroyed by noisome beasts, God punishing the iniquities of the fathers upon the children; and much less should they deliver those that were adult, and had committed the same idolatries and other sins their parents had; no, not even their own sons and daughters; for no exception is made but of themselves, as follows: they only shall be delivered: as Noah with his family was in the ark, when amidst wild beasts; and Daniel in the lions den; and Job, with whom the beasts of the field were at peace, Job_5:23; but the land shall be desolate; see Eze_12:20.

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 14:16 [Though] these three men [were] in it, [as] I live, saith the Lord GOD, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters; they only shall be delivered, but the land shall be desolate.

Ver. 16. Though these three men were in it.] All alive, and lustily tugging; yet it would not do. In common calamities heathens had their supplications and sacrifices.

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Papists have their litanies and processions, though to small purpose. Let us, in the like ease, up and be doing, that the Lord may be with us.

They shall deliver neither sons.] Heb., If they deliver sons, &c.; q.d., then never trust me more. Formula iurandi elliptica.

POOLE, " As I live; a form of speech in which God by oath confirms what he speaketh, and it is such an oath as becomes him only, who is life, and cannot die.

Neither sons nor daughters; neither sons that should perpetuate their families, and are the support of houses, nor daughters, the tenderness of whose sex and age does make and keep parents’ affections fervent towards them. No near relation should escape on their account.

Desolate, i.e. most desolate, as the Hebrew use by an abstract to express the superlative degree, Isaiah 1:7 64:10. HEDON, "16. Neither sons nor daughters — Noah was granted this answer to prayer, and Daniel saved his fellow-exiles, and Job his three friends (compare James 5:16; Matthew 18:20); but the wickedness of the holy land is so great, because of God’s special favors, that even the united prayer of all three would not be granted in behalf of these hardened impenitents.

17 “Or if I bring a sword against that country and say, ‘Let the sword pass throughout the land,’ and I kill its people and their animals,

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GILL, "Or if I bring a sword upon that land,.... The land which had grievously sinned; the same land into which a famine should come, and through which evil beasts should pass; to which, if the Lord should add, as he would, a third judgment, the sword; suffer a foreign enemy to come in among them, and destroy them. So the Targum, "or if those that slay with the sword I should bring upon that land;'' the Chaldean army, as he did; the sword has its commission from God; war is not by chance; the invasion of a foreign enemy is from the Lord; and all the mischiefs and ravages of a tumultuous army are all by divine order: and say, sword, go through the land; not only enter the borders of it, or proceed far in it, but even go through it; which is terrible indeed! but if the Lord bids it go, it must go, and does; it is a servant of his, and punctually obeys his commands; that is, such are those that use it, however profane and wicked they may be in themselves, as generally armies consist of dissolute persons; yet these are under a divine direction, and are obedient to the will of God, though they may know it not. So the Targum, "and I say that they that kill with the sword pass through the land:'' so that I cut off man and beast from it; by the sword; the one being destroyed as an enemy, the other for food.

CALVIN, “The Prophet now descends to the third kind of punishment. Hence God says, if he send a sword upon a land, he cannot be entreated so as not to consume it utterly, neither will he admit any man’s intercession, although the most holy dwell there, namely, Job, Noah, and Daniel. But the phrase used must be marked: if I shall say to the sword, pass through to exterminate and blot out the whole land, or cut off from it, both man and beast, because we here gather the great power of God’s secret government. For we think that wars are stirred up at random: and as men are in agitation, so also we imagine war to be nothing but confusion and turbulence. But God governs even wars by his inestimable wisdom, and also men and their swords: men are enraged, their swords fly about in their hands, and they seem to go hither and thither at random by blind impulse. But God here announces that he permits swords to pass through a land, and to destroy both men and cattle. If he had said, after the language used in many places, that he would arm men, it would not have been very wonderful: for everywhere throughout the Prophets he calls the Chaldaeans and Assyrians executors of his judgment. Hence that sentence of Jeremiah, Cursed is he who has done God’s work negligently. (Jeremiah 48:10.) But that work of God was the slaughter at Jerusalem. So also Nebuchadnezzar is called God’s servant and minister when he laid waste Egypt, and God promises him the reward of his labor. (Ezekiel 29:20.) So here Ezekiel proceeds further, not only that the hands of men are directed as God wishes, but also that their swords listen to

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his secret command, so that they neither pass by nor strike any man or animal except as far as God pleases. But if God so commands the swords, let us know that whenever men rise up against us, that our patience is exercised and our sins chastised in this way: and that the impious are God’s agents: and let us determine that we shall never profit by noise and resistance, since there is but one remedy, to humble ourselves under God’s strong hand. Now the fourth kind of punishment follows —

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 14:17 Or [if] I bring a sword upon that land, and say, Sword, go through the land; so that I cut off man and beast from it:

Ver. 17. Or if I bring a sword.] The sword, whensoever it comes is bathed in heaven. [Isaiah 34:5]

Sword, go through the land.] When the sword rideth circuit, as a judge, it is in commission. See Jeremiah 47:6-7.

POOLE, " He is Lord of hosts, and hath the militia of all the world in his hand, the sword is the right of the King of kings.

Bring a sword; raise war, and send enemies to invade it. That land; what land soever it be.

Go through the land: though inanimate things have not ears to hear, yet God speaks of them sometimes as if they had ears to hear, and understanding to discern; hereby intimating to us his overruling power, wisdom, justice, and sovereignty.

So that I cut off man: men cut off men in war, yet here God takes it to himself, he doth it by men.

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And beast: though wars chiefly destroy men, yet the beasts of the field go to wreck too, the beasts that are serviceable in wars are waste, as horses and beasts of burden. The Eastern nations have brought store of camels and many elephants into the wars; beside the slaughter of these in fight, the spoiler wasting his enemy doth often destroy whole herds and flocks.

PETT, "Verse 17-18

“Or if I bring a sword on that land and say, ‘Sword, go through the land,’ so that I cut off from it man and beast, though these three men were in it, as I live says the Lord Yahweh, they will deliver neither sons nor daughters, but they only will be delivered themselves.”

Again the idea is in mind of devastating judgment. This is no local raid but a raid by a huge army which totally devastates the land destroying man and beast. If it is the Lord’s doing then there is no deliverance from it except for the truly righteous.

18 as surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, even if these three men were in it, they could not save their own sons or daughters. They alone would be saved.

GILL, "Though these three men were in it,.... Before mentioned:

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as I live, saith the Lord God, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters: believe me no more, or be it so and so, if they do; it is in the form of an oath, and in the same manner it is expressed in Eze_14:16; but they only shall be delivered themselves; their own souls or lives, and by their righteousness, as in Eze_14:14.

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 14:18 Though these three men [were] in it, [as] I live, saith the Lord GOD, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters, but they only shall be delivered themselves.

Ver. 18. Neither sons nor daughtens,] (a) Though never so dear to them: τα φιλτατα, the Greeks call them.

19 “Or if I send a plague into that land and pour out my wrath on it through bloodshed, killing its people and their animals,

GILL, "Or if I send a pestilence into that land,.... Or the plague, which is the destruction that wastes at noon day; this is from the Lord, and a sore judgment it is: and pour out my fury upon it in blood; or, "by blood" (y); by corrupting the blood, which is done when a man is seized with the pestilence. The Targum renders it, "with slaughter"; by slaying a great number of persons by that disease, as a token of fury and wrath, because of their transgressions. It may be rendered, "because of blood" (z); and so express the cause and reason of the judgment, the shedding of innocent blood: to cut off from it man and beast; man by the pestilence, and beast by some contagious distemper or another.

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JAMISON, "in blood — not literally. In Hebrew, “blood” expresses every premature kind of death.

CALVIN, “He now affirms of the fourth kind of punishment, what he has hitherto pronounced of the rest. He says, then, If I shall have sent a pestilence, and have devoted a land to devastation, that Job, Daniel, and Noah, should be safe if they dwelt there: but that their righteousness should not profit even their sons and their daughters. Nay, he seems to speak with greater restriction, since he has substituted the singular number for the plural: for he had just said, they shall not free either sons or daughters. He now says, not even a son or a daughter, that is, they shall not prevail with me by their intercession so much as to save from death even a single son or daughter. We must also remember what I have said, that God does not always act in the way related here: for he has manifold and various methods of carrying out his judgments. Hence it would not be just to impose a law not to liberate any one, and according to his own will either to hear or reject their prayers. But here he only means, that when he has determined to destroy a land, there is no hope of pardon, since even the most holy will not persuade him to desist from his wrath and vengeance. But now the conclusion follows —

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 14:19 Or [if] I send a pestilence into that land, and pour out my fury upon it in blood, to cut off from it man and beast:

Ver. 19. Or if I send a pestilence.] Which Hippocartes calleth το Yειον, because God hath a special hand in it. Physicians can give no good reason for it.

In blood,] i.e., In great slaughter, laying heaps upon heaps.

POOLE, " Diseases are sent whenever they come, especially wasting diseases, which empty nations and cities apace.

Pestilence; God’s arrow that flies from God’s bow.

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Pour out; not drop or distil on a people in small measures, and by leisure, but in great measures, and hastily, as waters are poured out of a vessel all at once almost.

In blood: sometimes blood does denote war, but here, and in many other places, it denotes death and destruction of men, though not by the sword.

Man and beast; not that beasts die of the same pestilential disease which kills man, but either death of men by pestilence emptieth the nation, that there are not men to take care and provide for the beasts; or rather, because when pestilence wasteth men, murrains and plague of cattle, from the same infected air, and from the hand of God, waste the beasts also.

BI, "Verse 19-20

Ezekiel 14:19-20

Or if I send a pestilence.

Public calamity a call to private humiliation

Depend upon it, we have need, and as the years roll away we shall have more and more need, to remind ourselves of the unseen Hand which sends us our blessings or withdraws them from us. New appliances of mechanical skill have a tendency to keep God out of our sight. The simple machinery which depended on the wind or the stream for motion did not suffer men so easily to forget their immediate dependence on God. His agency is half obscured when they become independent of the breath of heaven, and of the moisture which cometh down from above. And so there is a constant danger of our lapsing into practical atheism, if we allow ourselves, in the mere contemplation of a natural law apart from its Divine Author;

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or attend to its results, without adverting to the revealed cause of its operation. It is no disparagement to natural science to declare that, pursued in any but a godly spirit, it sometimes has a tendency to obscure the vision of God: to interpose hard names and technical phrases between Him and ourselves; and practically to keep Him out of our sight. Nay, the very progress of civilisation, the increase of wealth and refinement and luxury--all have the same tendency. The table daily spread without our care helps to keep God out of sight. And the special value of Scripture is seen in the unconditional and most unceremonious way in which it brushes aside this web of words; puts God, the Giver, prominently forward; and vindicates His absolute Sovereignty in creation. When Christ says, “He maketh His sun to rise,”--His language is altogether unscientific, to be sure; but He declares a truth which to the devout soul is of paramount importance; namely, that the heavenly bodies are all His creatures; and that, in reality, the phenomena which attend them are but the visible expression of His will. While thoughtful men are investigating the natural history of a calamity which, unless it be stayed, will inevitably press with terrible severity on the poor;--which, if it spreads, may bring contagion to all our doors,--occasion death within our homes and darken every domestic hearth;--“a more excellent way” is revealed to us in Holy Scripture; a method which is within the reach of us all. I allude, of course, to individual acts of repentance,--personal efforts after holiness,--the heartfelt use of private prayer. The special mention of three of God’s chiefest saints “Noah, Daniel, and Job,” reminds us that we must as individuals seek to turn away God’s anger from this Church and nation. What, above all, shall be said of our unconcern for the spiritual wants of the benighted heathen,--of our own countrymen in foreign parts, of our fellow citizens here at home? (Dean Burgon.)

PETT, "Verse 19-20

“Or if I send a pestilence into that land, and pour out my fury on it in blood, to cut off from it man and beast, though Noah, Daniel and Job were in it, as I live says the Lord Yahweh, they will deliver neither son nor daughter. They will deliver but their own lives by their righteousness.”

The same principle applies when God determines to bring pestilence on a land in His anger against sin and idolatry, the presence of the truly righteous would not save the land, nor even their own families. Only the righteous themselves would be

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delivered.

BI 19-20, "Or if I send a pestilence.Public calamity a call to private humiliationDepend upon it, we have need, and as the years roll away we shall have more and more need, to remind ourselves of the unseen Hand which sends us our blessings or withdraws them from us. New appliances of mechanical skill have a tendency to keep God out of our sight. The simple machinery which depended on the wind or the stream for motion did not suffer men so easily to forget their immediate dependence on God. His agency is half obscured when they become independent of the breath of heaven, and of the moisture which cometh down from above. And so there is a constant danger of our lapsing into practical atheism, if we allow ourselves, in the mere contemplation of a natural law apart from its Divine Author; or attend to its results, without adverting to the revealed cause of its operation. It is no disparagement to natural science to declare that, pursued in any but a godly spirit, it sometimes has a tendency to obscure the vision of God: to interpose hard names and technical phrases between Him and ourselves; and practically to keep Him out of our sight. Nay, the very progress of civilisation, the increase of wealth and refinement and luxury—all have the same tendency. The table daily spread without our care helps to keep God out of sight. And the special value of Scripture is seen in the unconditional and most unceremonious way in which it brushes aside this web of words; puts God, the Giver, prominently forward; and vindicates His absolute Sovereignty in creation. When Christ says, “He maketh His sun to rise,”—His language is altogether unscientific, to be sure; but He declares a truth which to the devout soul is of paramount importance; namely, that the heavenly bodies are all His creatures; and that, in reality, the phenomena which attend them are but the visible expression of His will. While thoughtful men are investigating the natural history of a calamity which, unless it be stayed, will inevitably press with terrible severity on the poor;—which, if it spreads, may bring contagion to all our doors,—occasion death within our homes and darken every domestic hearth;—“a more excellent way” is revealed to us in Holy Scripture; a method which is within the reach of us all. I allude, of course, to individual acts of repentance,—personal efforts after holiness,—the heartfelt use of private prayer. The special mention of three of God’s chiefest saints “Noah, Daniel, and Job,” reminds us that we must as individuals seek to turn away God’s anger from this Church and nation. What, above all, shall be said of our unconcern for the spiritual wants of the benighted heathen,—of our own countrymen in foreign parts, of our fellow citizens here at home? (Dean Burgon.)

20 as surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, even if Noah, Daniel and Job were in it, they could

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save neither son nor daughter. They would save only themselves by their righteousness.

GILL, "Though Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it,.... Who are again mentioned by name, as in Eze_14:14; and are the three men referred to in Eze_14:16; as I live, saith the Lord God, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; not so much as an only son, or an only daughter, no, not even a single child: the plural number is used before, as in Eze_14:16; here the singular, to show how resolutely determined the Lord was upon the destruction of the land; that even the prayers of the best of men among them should not prevail with him to save a single person, no, not a single infant: they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness; See Gill on Eze_14:14.

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 14:20 Though Noah, Daniel, and Job, [were] in it, [as] I live, saith the Lord GOD, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; they shall [but] deliver their own souls by their righteousness.

Ver. 20. Neither son nor daughter.] Though it were an only one, and so more dear to them.

They shall but deliver.] Howbeit a good man also may die of the plague, as did Oecolampadius, Greenham, &c.

POOLE, " Their own souls; their person, their life.

By their righteousness; not meriting the deliverance, but yet the justice and mercy of God shall surely keep them from falling in the punishment who were kept from the sin.

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21 “For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: How much worse will it be when I send against Jerusalem my four dreadful judgments—sword and famine and wild beasts and plague—to kill its men and their animals!

CLARKE, "My four sore judgments - Sword, war. Famine, occasioned by drought. Pestilence, epidemic diseases which sweep off a great part of the inhabitants of a land. The Noisome Beast, the multiplication of wild beasts in consequence of the general destruction of the inhabitants.

GILL, "For thus saith the Lord God, how much more,.... If the Lord would not be entreated by such good men as those mentioned, for a land that had sinned against him, to whom he only sends some one of the above judgments, either famine, or noisome beasts, or the sword, or the pestilence, how much more inexorable and deaf to all entreaties must he be; or if anyone of those judgments makes so great a desolation in the land, then how much greater must that detraction be, when I send my four sore judgments on Jerusalem: or "evil" (a) ones; as they are to men, though righteously inflicted by the Lord; when all these four are sent together, what a devastation must they make! namely, the sword, and the famine, and the, noisome beast, and the pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast; three of them, it is evident, were sent upon Jerusalem at the time of its siege by Nebuchadnezzar, the sword, famine, and pestilence; and no doubt the other, even the noisome beasts; and if not literally, yet figuratively, for Nebuchadnezzar himself is compared to a lion, Jer_4:7.

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HENRY 21, "That when God's professing people revolt from him, and rebel against him, they may justly expect a complication of judgments to fall upon them. God has various ways of contending with a sinful nation; but if Jerusalem, the holy city, become a harlot, God will send upon her all his four sore judgments (Eze_14:21); for the nearer any are to God in name and profession the more severely will he reckon with them if they reproach that worthy name by which they are called and give the lie to that profession. They shall be punished seven times more.

IV. That there may be, and commonly are, some few very good men, even in those places that by sin are ripened for ruin. It is no foreign supposition that, even in a land that has trespassed grievously, there may be three such men as Noah, Daniel, and Job.Daniel was now living, and at this time had scarcely arrived at the prime of his eminency, but he was already famous (at least this word of God concerning him would without fail make him so); yet he was carried away into captivity with the first of all, Dan_1:6. Some of the better sort of people in Jerusalem might perhaps think that, if Daniel (of whose fame in the king of Babylon's court they had heard much) had but continued in Jerusalem, it would have been spared for his sake, as the magicians in Babylon were. “No,” says God, “though you had him, who was as eminently good in bad times and places as Noah in the old world and Job in the land of Uz, yet a reprieve should not be obtained.” In the places that are most corrupt, and in the ages that are most degenerate, there is a remnant which God reserves to himself, and which still hold fast their integrity and stand fair for the honour of delivering the land, as the innocent are said to do, Job_22:30.V. That God often spares very wicked places for the sake of a few godly people in them. This is implied here as the expectation of Jerusalem's friends in the day of its distress: “Surely God will stay his controversy with us; for are there not some among us that are emptying the measure of national guilt by their prayers, as others are filling it by their sins? And, rather than God will destroy the righteous with the wicked, he will preserve the wicked with the righteous. If Sodom might have been spared for the sake of ten good men, surely Jerusalem may.”VI. That such men as Noah, Daniel, and Job, will prevail, if any can, to turn away the wrath of God from a sinful people. Noah was a perfect man, and kept his integrity when all flesh had corrupted their way; and, for his sake, his family, though one of them was wicked (Ham), was saved in the ark. Job was a great example of piety, and mighty in prayer for his children, for his friends; and God turned his captivity when he prayed. Those were very ancient examples, before Moses, that great intercessor; and therefore God mentions them, to intimate that he had some very peculiar favourites long before the Jewish nation was formed or founded, and would have such when it was ruined, for which reason, it should seem, those names were made use of, rather than Moses, Aaron, or Samuel; and yet, lest any should think that God was partial in his respects to the ancient days, here is a modern instance, a living one, placed between those two that were the glories of antiquity, and he now a captive, and that is Daniel, to teach us not to lessen the useful good men of our own day by over-magnifying the ancients. Let the children of the captivity know that Daniel, their neighbour, and companion in tribulation, being a man of great humility, piety, and zeal for God, and instant and constant in prayer, had as good an interest in heaven as Noah or Job had. Why may not God raise up as great and

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good men now as he did formerly, and do as much for them?VII. That when the sin of a people has come to its height, and the decree has gone forth for their ruin, the piety and prayers of the best men shall not prevail to finish the controversy. This is here asserted again and again, that, though these three men were inJerusalem at this time, yet they should deliver neither son nor daughter; not so much as the little ones should be spared for their sakes, as the little ones of Israel were upon the prayer of Moses, Num_14:31. No; the land shall be desolate, and God would not hear their prayers for it, though Moses and Samuel stood before him, Jer_15:1. Note, Abused patience will turn at last into inexorable wrath; and it should seem as if God would be more inexorable in Jerusalem's case than in another (Eze_14:6), because, besides the divine patience, they had enjoyed greater privileges than any other people, which were the aggravations of their sin.VIII. That, though pious praying men may not prevail to deliver others, yet they shall deliver their own souls by their righteousness, so that, though they may suffer in the common calamity, yet to them the property of it is altered; it is not to them what it is to the wicked; it is unstrung, and does them no hurt; it is sanctified, and does them good. Sometimes their souls (their lives) are remarkably delivered, and given them for a prey;at least their souls (their spiritual interests) are secured. If their bodies be not delivered,yet their souls are. Riches indeed profit not in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death, from so great a death, so many deaths as are here threatened. This should encourage us to keep our integrity in times of common apostasy, that, if we do so, we shall be hidden in the day of the Lord's anger.

K&D 21-23, "Eze_14:21-23The rule expounded in Eze_14:13-20 is here applied to Jerusalem. - Eze_14:21. For thus saith the Lord Jehovah, How much more when I send my four evil judgments, sword, and famine, and evil beasts, and pestilence, against Jerusalem, to cut off from it man and beast? Eze_14:22. And, behold, there remain escaped ones in her who will be brought out, sons and daughters; behold, they will go out to you, that ye may see their walk and their works; and console yourselves concerning the evil which I have brought upon Jerusalem. Eze_14:23. And they will console you, when ye see their walk and their works: and ye will see that I have not done without cause all that I have done to

her, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah. - By ִּכי in Eze_14:21 the application of the general rule to Jerusalem is made in the form of a reason. The meaning, however, is not, that the reason why Jehovah was obliged to act in this unsparing manner was to be found in the corrupt condition of the nation, as Hävernick supposes, - a thought quite foreign to the context; but ִּכי indicates that the judgments upon Jerusalem will furnish a practical proof of the general truth expressed in Eze_14:13-20, and so confirm it. This ִּכיis no more an emphatic yea than the following “ַאף is a forcible introduction to the antithesis formed by the coming fact, to the merely imaginary cases mentioned above” (Hitzig). ַאף has undoubtedly the force of a climax, but not of an asseveration, “verily” (Häv.); a meaning which this particle never has. It is used here, as in Job_4:19, in the sense of ַאף ִּכי and the ;ִּכי which follows ַאף swollof hcihw in this case is a conditional particle of time, “when.” Consequently כי ought properly to be written twice; but it is only used once, as in Eze_15:5; Job_9:14, etc. The thought is this: how much more will

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this be the case, namely, that even a Noah, Daniel, and Job will not deliver either sons or daughters when I send my judgments upon Jerusalem. The perfect ִׁשַּלְחִּתי is used, and not the imperfect, as in Eze_14:13, because God has actually resolved upon sending it, and does not merely mention it as a possible case. The number four is significant, symbolizing the universality of the judgment, or the thought that it will fall on all sides, or upon the whole of Jerusalem; whereby it must also be borne in mind that Jerusalem as the capital represents the kingdom of Judah, or the whole of Israel, so far as it was still in Canaan. At the same time, by the fact that the Lord allows sons and daughters to escape death, and to be led away to Babylon, He forces the acknowledgment of the necessity and righteousness of His judgments among those who are in exile. This is in general terms the thought contained in Eze_14:22 and Eze_14:23, to which very different meanings have been assigned by the latest expositors. Hävernick, for example, imagines that, in addition to the four ordinary judgments laid down in the law, Eze_14:22 announces a new and extraordinary one; whereas Hitzig and Kliefoth have found in these two verses the consolatory assurance, that in the time of the judgments a few of the younger generation will be rescued and taken to those already in exile in Babylon, there to excite pity as well as to express it, and to give a visible proof of the magnitude of the judgment which has fallen upon Israel. They differ so far from each other, however, that Hitzig regards those of the younger generation who are saved as ַצִּדיִקים, who have saved themselves through their innocence, but not their guilty parents, and who will excite the commiseration of those already in exile through their blameless conduct; whilst Kliefoth imagines that those who are rescued are simply less criminal than the rest, and when they come to Babylon will be pitied by those who have been longer in exile, and will pity them in return.

Neither of these views does justice to the words themselves or to the context. The meaning of. Eze_14:22 is clear enough; and in the main there has been no difference of opinion concerning it. When man and beast are cut off out of Jerusalem by the four judgments, all will not perish; but ְּפֵליָטה, i.e., persons who have escaped destruction, will be left, and will be led out of the city. These are called sons and daughters, with an allusion to Eze_14:16, Eze_14:18, and Eze_14:20; and consequently we must not take these words as referring to the younger generation in contrast to the older. They will be led out of Jerusalem, not to remain in the land, but to come to “you,” i.e., those already in exile, that is to say, to go into exile to Babylon. This does not imply either a modification or a sharpening of the punishment; for the cutting off of man and beast from a town may be effected not only by slaying, but by leading away. The design of God in leaving some to escape, and carrying them to Babylon, is explained in the clauses which follow from ּוְרִאיֶתם onwards, the meaning of which depends partly upon the more precise definition of ָּדְרָּכם and ָתם and partly upon the explanation to be given of ,ֲעִלילִנַחְמֶּתם and ְוִנֲחמּו The ways and works are not to be taken without reserve as good .ֶאְתֶכםand righteous works, as Kliefoth has correctly shown in his reply to Hitzig. Still less can ways and works denote their experience or fate, which is the explanation given by Kliefoth of the words, when expounding the meaning and connection of Eze_14:21-23. The context certainly points to wicked ways and evil works. And it is only the sight of such works that could lead to the conviction that it was not ִחָּנם, in vain, i.e., without cause, that God had inflicted such severe judgments upon Jerusalem. And in addition to this effect, which is mentioned in Eze_14:23 as produced upon those who were already in exile, by the sight of the conduct of the ְּפֵליָטה that came to Babylon, the immediate

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design of God is described in Eze_14:22 as 'ְוִנַחְמֶּתם ַעל־ָהָרָעה ִנַחם The verb .וגו with עלcannot be used here in the sense of to repent of, or be sorry for, a judgment which God has inflicted upon him, but only of evil which he himself has done; and ִנַחם does not mean to pity a person, either when construed in the Piel with an accusative of the person, or in the Niphal c. על, rei. ִנַחְמֶּתם is Niphal, and signifies here to console oneself, as in Gen_38:12 with ַעל, concerning anything, as in 2Sa_13:39; Jer_31:15, etc.; and ִנֲחמּו (Eze_14:23), with the accusative of the person, to comfort any one, as in Gen. 51:21; Job_2:11, etc. But the works and doings of those who came to Babylon could only produce this effect upon those who were already there, from the fact that they were of such a character as to demonstrate the necessity for the judgments which had fallen upon Jerusalem. A conviction of the necessity for the divine judgments would cause them to comfort themselves with regard to the evil inflicted by God; inasmuch as they would see, not only that the punishment endured was a chastisement well deserved, but that God in His righteousness would stay the punishment when it had fulfilled His purpose, and restore the penitent sinner to favour once more. But the consolation which those who were in exile would derive from a sight of the works of the sons and daughters who had escaped from death and come to Babylon, is attributed in Eze_14:23 ִנֲחמּו) to the persons themselves. It is in this sense that it is stated that “they will (ֶאְתֶכםcomfort you;” not by expressions of pity, but by the sight of their conduct. This is directly affirmed in the words, “when ye shall see their conduct and their works.” Consequently Eze_14:23 does not contain a new thought, but simply the thought already expressed in Eze_14:22, which is repeated in a new form to make it the more emphatic. And the expression ֵאת ָּכל־ֶאֶׁשר , in Eze_14:22, serves to increase the force; whilst ֵאת, in the sense of quoad, serves to place the thought to be repeated in subordination to the whole clause (cf. Ewald, §277a, p. 683).

CALVIN, “He now reasons, as we said in the beginning, from the less to the greater. Hitherto he has said, If I shall have sent forth only one weapon to take vengeance upon men, no one will oppose my following out my decree: then he enumerated four weapons, one after another. Now he adds, What then, when I shall have heaped together all punishments, and not only shall have sent pestilence or sword or famine, but as it were when I have four armies prepared and drawn up, and shall command them to attack and destroy mankind, how shall even one person escape? If Job, Daniel, and Noah, cannot snatch away even their sons and daughters from a single scourge, how shall they snatch them from four at once! We see, then, that God here cuts away the false and specious hopes by which the false prophets deluded the miserable exiles when they promised them a return to their country, and daily proclaimed how impossible it was that the sacred city, the earthly dwelling-place of God, could be taken by the enemy, and the religion which God had promised should be eternal could perish. Since, therefore, the false prophets so deceived these miserable exiles, here God shows how greatly they erred while they cherished any

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hope in their minds; because he had not only held one kind of scourge over Jerusalem, but approached it with a whole heap of them to destroy and cut off both man and beast. This then is the full meaning.

Now he says, If I shall have sent my four evil judgments. Here God calls his judgments evils, in the sense in which he says in Isaiah, that he creates good and evil, (Isaiah 45:7,) since immediately afterwards he expresses his meaning by saying life and death. Hence what is against us is here called evil, and so this epithet ought to be referred to our perceptions. For our natural common sense dictates that whatever is desirable and useful to us is good: food and life and peace are good, and whatever is conducive to life, and what we naturally wish for, we call good. So also, on the other hand, death and famine are evils: so are nakedness, want, and shame: why so? since we dread whatever is not useful to us; and because we fly from evils as soon as reason dawns. In fine, evil here is not opposed to justice and right, but, as I have said, to men’s opinion and our natural senses. He now confirms what we before said, namely, that these are God’s judgments when enemies rage against us, pestilence attacks us: poverty assails us, and wild beasts break in upon us. When therefore we suffer under these afflictions, let us learn immediately to descend into ourselves and to discover the cause why God is so angry with us. For if we turn our attention towards the sword, and pestilence, and famine, we are like dogs which gnaw and bite what is thrown at them, and do not regard the hand which threw it, but only vent their rage upon the stone. For such is our stupidity when we complain of famine being injurious to us, wild beasts troublesome, and war horrible. Hence this passage should always be borne in mind that, these areGod’s evil judgments, that is, scourges by which he chastises our sins, and thus shows himself hostile and opposed to us.

COFFMAN, "Verse 21

"For thus saith the Lord Jehovah: How much more when I send my four sore judgments upon Jerusalem, the sword, and the famine, and the evil beasts, and the pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast! But, behold, there shall be left therein a remnant that shall be carried forth, both sons and daughters: behold, they shall come forth unto you, and ye shall see their way and their doings; and ye shall be comforted concerning the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem, even concerning all that I have brought upon it. And they shall comfort you, when ye see their way

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and their doings; and ye shall know that I have not done with, out cause all that I have done in it, saith the Lord Jehovah."

"There shall be left therein a remnant ..." (Ezekiel 14:22). This is not the "righteous remnant" remnant" so often mentioned in Isaiah; because this remnant was wicked. These "sons and daughters" were in no sense saved; but God preserved them as specimens and witnesses of the corrupt Israel that had required God's terminal punishment. Ezekiel pointed out that they would be a source of comfort to those of right mind among the captives, because their ways and their doings (always mentioned by Ezekiel in the sense of wickedness) would enable the captives to see the righteousness of all that God would bring to pass in Jerusalem.

ELLICOTT, "(21) My four sore judgments.—The teaching of the preceding eight verses is here gathered up into its climax. In the case of any one of the four punishments mentioned in succession, the presence of the holiest of men should be of no avail to avert it; how much more then, when all these are combined in the judgment upon Jerusalem, will it be impossible to stay its doom.

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 14:21 For thus saith the Lord GOD How much more when I send my four sore judgments upon Jerusalem, the sword, and the famine, and the noisome beast, and the pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast?

Ver. 21. My four sore judgments.] Every one of the four (Cardan reckons three more of like nature, viz., earthquakes, inundations, and great winds) are sore judgments indeed. Each of them is pessimum, most wicked, i.e., perniciosum. Cavete. Dangerous. Beware.

POOLE, "Those three men, with their best interest, should not be able to keep off one of the four, much less able to keep off all four when I commission them all to go at once, as I will, nay, have done, against Jerusalem, to cut off the obstinate, incorrigible ones amidst it.

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WHEDON, "21. How much more — If a transgression which has brought upon itself one of these penalties cannot be forgiven, even upon the petition of these great saints, how much more is this impossible when the wickedness has been so outbreaking that God has sent all four of his severest judgments upon the land (Ezekiel 5:17; Ezekiel 33:27). Remembering that Ezekiel wrote in Babylon it is a curious fact that wild beasts, famine, and pestilence were united as a trinity of death in Chaldean legend. For example, in the story of Dibbara (Hebrews, Debar, “Plague”), Kutha, the Babylonian necropolis, was the seat of the worship of Laz, the goddess of famine, while Nergal, the god of war, was also the god of death. (See Babylonian and Oriental Record, Ezekiel 1:1-16, and Jastrow, Religion of the Babylonians, p. 505.)

PETT, "Verse 21

‘For thus says the Lord Yahweh, “How much more when I send my four sore judgments on Jerusalem, the sword, and the famine, and the dangerous wild beasts, and the pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast?” ’

The general principle having been stated it was now applied to Jerusalem. If other lands could be so judged, how much more sinful Jerusalem. The judgments previously described are now seen as ‘the four sore judgments of Yahweh’. ‘Four’ regularly indicates the whole known world. It is the number of those outside the covenant. Thus Jerusalem is numbered among them as an outcast.

All these judgments were a regular part of an invasion. The sword to slay, the famine resulting from the burning of the crops or from siege, the wild beasts taking over because of the desolating of the land and the removal of the inhabitants, and the pestilence following from the conditions under which men had to survive. Note the continual stress on the depth of the judgments, cutting off from it man and beast.

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22 Yet there will be some survivors—sons and daughters who will be brought out of it. They will come to you, and when you see their conduct and their actions, you will be consoled regarding the disaster I have brought on Jerusalem—every disaster I have brought on it.

BARNES, "Eze_14:22, Eze_14:23Ye shall be comforted ... - By a truer estimate of the dispensations of the Almighty. This visitation will be recognized as inevitable and just.

CLARKE, "Behold, they shall come forth unto you - Though there shall be great desolations in the land of Judea, yet a remnant shall be left that shall come here also as captives; and their account of the abominations of the people shall prove to you with what propriety I have acted in abandoning them to such general destruction. This speech is addressed to those who were already in captivity; i.e., those who had been led to Babylon with their king Jeconiah.

GILL, "Yet, behold, therein shall be left a remnant,.... That is, in Jerusalem, on which God's four sore judgments should be sent: though in a sinful land, as before described, where only one judgment was sent, there was no escape, not so much as a son or a daughter were delivered; yet here, where four sore judgments came together, there is a remnant that are saved; and which being wonderful, and beyond all expectation, is introduced with a "behold", not only as a note of attention, but of admiration: that shall be brought forth, both sons and daughters; that is, which should be brought forth out of Jerusalem when taken, and should not be destroyed either by famine, or by noisome beasts, or by the sword, or by the pestilence; and these, many of them, both sons and daughters; some of each sex, that should be the means of

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propagating a posterity, that should return again, and repeople the land, and continue for many ages, as they have done: this is said with respect to Eze_14:16; behold, they shall come forth unto you; come out of Jerusalem, and their own land, into Babylon, to the captives already there; with whom Ezekiel now was, and to whom he is speaking: and ye shall see their way and their doings; their wicked course of life and evil actions; which now being convinced of, and humbled for, they shall ingenuously acknowledge and confess to their brethren in captivity: though some think this is to be understood of wicked and reprobate men, that should be not at all reformed by the judgments of God, but continue in their wicked course; which the godly captives seeing, would conclude from thence their manner of life before, and so the righteous judgment of God upon them; and their being a remnant preserved is thought not to be in a way of mercy, but judgment; who though they escaped each of the four sore judgments, yet had a worse inflicted on them, even captivity: and ye shall be comforted concerning the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem, even concerning all that I have brought upon it; that is, they should be satisfied with the justice of God, and be reconciled to the providence of God, in bringing destruction upon Jerusalem; which perhaps before they murmured at, or had hard thoughts of God concerning it; but now hearing the confessions of those that were brought from thence to them, or seeing their wicked lives and conversations, they would now be fully satisfied that God was righteous in all that he had done; and that, instead of being rigorous and severe, he had been kind and merciful.

HENRY22-23, "IX. That, even when God makes the greatest desolations by his judgments, he reserves some to be the monuments of his mercy, Eze_14:22, Eze_14:23. In Jerusalem itself, though marked for utter ruin, yet there shall be left a remnant, who shall not be cut off by any of those sore judgments before mentioned, but shall be carried into captivity, both sons and daughters, who shall be the seed of a new generation. The young ones, who had not grown up to such an obstinacy in sin as their fathers had who were therefore cut off as incurable, these shall be brought forth out of the ruins of Jerusalem by the victorious enemy, and behold they shall come forth to you that are in captivity, they shall make a virtue of a necessity, and shall come the more willingly to Babylon because so many of their friends have gone thither before them and are there ready to receive them; and, when they come, you shall see their ways and their doing;you shall hear them make a free and ingenuous confession of the sins they had formerly been guilty of, and a humble profession of repentance for them, with promises of reformation; and you shall see instances of their reformation, shall see what good their affliction has done them, and how prudently and patiently they conduct themselves under it. Their narrow escape shall have a good effect upon them; it shall change their temper and conversation, and make them new men. And this will redound, 1. To the satisfaction of their brethren: They shall comfort you when you see their ways. Note, It is a very comfortable sight to see people, when they are under the rod, repenting and humbling themselves, justifying God and accepting the punishment of their iniquity. When we sorrow (as we ought to do) for the afflictions of others, it is a great comfort to us in our sorrow to see them improving their afflictions and making a good use of them.

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When those captives told their friends how bad they had been, and how righteous God was in bringing these judgments upon them, it made them very easy, and helped to reconcile them to the calamities of Jerusalem, to the justice of God in punishing his own people so, and to the goodness of God, which now appeared to have had kind intentions in all; and thus “You shall be comforted concerning all the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem, and, when you better understand the thing, shall not have such direful apprehensions concerning it as you have had.” Note, It is a debt we owe to our brethren, if we have got good by our afflictions, to comfort them by letting them know it. 2. It will redound to the honour of God: “You shall know that I have not done without cause, not without a just provocation, and yet not without a gracious design, all that I have done in it.” Note, When afflictions have done their work, and have accomplished that for which they were sent, then will appear the wisdom and goodness of God in sending them, and God will be not only justified, but glorified in them.

JAMISON, "Yet ... a remnant — not of righteous persons, but some of the guilty who should “come forth” from the destruction of Jerusalem to Babylon, to lead a life of hopeless exile there. The reference here is to judgment, not mercy, as Eze_14:23 shows.

ye shall see their ... doings; and ... be comforted — Ye, the exiles at the Chebar, who now murmur at God’s judgment about to be inflicted on Jerusalem as harsh, when ye shall see the wicked “ways” and character of the escaped remnant, shall acknowledge that both Jerusalem and its inhabitants deserved their fate; his recognition of the righteousness of the judgment will reconcile you to it, and so ye shall be “comforted” under it [Calvin]. Then would follow mercy to the elect remnant, though that is not referred to here, but in Eze_20:43.

CALVIN, “He now adds, there shall be a remnant in that escape. They explain this verse parenthetically, as if God by way of correction engaged to act more mercifully towards that city, than if he struck any land with only one scourge. They explain it thus: although these four scourges should meet together, yet I will mitigate the rigor of my vengeance, since some shall go out safely, and reach even to you. Almost all agree in this sense; but when I weigh the Prophet’s intention more accurately, I cannot subscribe to it: because God seems to me to confirm what he had said before, that he would be a just avenger of wickedness while he treats the Jews so harshly. To discover the most suitable sense, we must consider the condition of the exiles: it was surely worse than if they had been destroyed by a single death for they were dying daily; and at length, when cast out of the sacred land, they were like the dead. Hence that exile was more sorrowful than death, since it was better to be buried in the holy land than among the profane. Since, then, they had been mixed with dog’s, it was no life to them to protract a wretched existence amidst constant languor; and if the hope of restoration had been taken away, concerning which we are not now treating, and to which not a single syllable applies, exile was by itself like death.

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Since, then, the Prophet here says, that some should be left, to escape, he does not mean that they should be safe: hence this is not a mitigation of their punishment. For as we saw before, and especially in Jeremiah, those who died quickly were less to be deplored. (Jeremiah 22:10.) Finally, when the Prophet here says that some should come to Babylon, he does not promise them pardon, as if God was propitious to them, or noticed them favorably; no such thing: for he speaks of the reprobate, and of those who bore on their forehead the manifest sign of their impiety, and show by their whole life that they are abandoned, and most worthy of final destruction.

For he says, a departure of those who go forth shall come: sons as well as daughters shall come to you, says he, and you shall see their ways and their work: that is, you shall see that the men are so wicked, that their ungodliness shall compel you to confess the city to be worthy of perishing, and the people deserving destruction. For the word consoling, which the Prophet uses immediately afterwards, refers here to the acknowledgment of their wickedness appeasing the minds of those who formerly roared and murmured against God. Neither does he mean that consolation which, according to the common proverb, has many friends; but only the calm acknowledgment of God’s just vengeance, in which the ten tribes acquiesced. For before they saw the state in which the inhabitants of Jerusalem were, they thought that God was too severe, and hence their outcry and complaint against God. The Prophet, therefore, now says, that the sight of your wickedness will bring you consolation; for you shall see that it could not be otherwise, and that you deserved such punishment: hence, when you have acknowledged your abandoned wickedness, you will regard my justice with peaceful and tranquil minds; and you will so finish and cease your complaints which now agitate your minds in different directions. The rest, to-morrow.

COKE, "Ezekiel 14:22. Ye shall see their way, &c.— "Their afflictions shall bring them to a due sense of their former iniquities; and, escaping from these sore judgments, they shall humbly confess their own sins, and the sins of those who were consumed in the destruction of their city: whence it will appear, that I have not punished them beyond what their sins deserved." See Lowth and Calmet.

REFLECTIONS.—1st, We have here,

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1. Certain of the elders of Israel waiting on the prophet with apparent concern about their souls, and solicitude to hear and receive his admonitions. Whether they were of the captivity, or some who had come on business from Jerusalem to Babylon, is uncertain. Note; The face of devotion and seriousness is often put on by those who are utterly destitute of the power of godliness.

2. God let the prophet know what manner of men these were, whose hearts so ill corresponded with their exterior appearance. They have set up their idols in their heart, or caused them to ascend upon their heart; their affections were placed upon them, their hearts the throne of idolatry; and, though at a distance from their images, still slaves to these vanities; such an ascendant had they over them. They put the stumbling-block of their iniquity before their face, and fall down to the stock and stone: and should such dare inquire of God? what impious effrontery! what answer can be expected, but wrath to the uttermost? Note; (1.) Heart-idols are equally abominable with those that are the work of men's hands; and covetousness, self-love, &c. &c. as much idolatry as the bowing down to gods of gold or silver. (2.) They who put the stumbling-block of their iniquity before them, can expect nothing but to fall into the pit of destruction.

3. The Lord gives him an answer for them. With God there is no respect of persons; whoever draws near to him in hypocrisy, shall bear his burden, and receive an answer according to the multitude of his idols; he will give them up to the delusions which they have chosen, and punish them according to their crimes: That I may take the house of Israel in their own heart, exposing their sin and folly, and bringing them to deserved shame and punishment; because they are all estranged from me through their idols, alienated from the service and worship of God by their attachment to these abominations. Note; Our own hearts are naturally our great plague and snare; they seduce us from God to indulge some favourite lust, the idol within, and in spite of the remonstrances of God's word, and our own consciences, hurry us on to our ruin.

4. A solemn warning is given them to repent, on pain of eternal perdition: be they native Israelites, or sojourners among them, they have the same call; they must turn from their idols, and from all their abominations; else, if they continue to separate

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themselves from God in this hated service, and walk in these iniquities,

God will speak to them in terrible wrath, confound that daring impiety and hypocrisy which leads them to the prophet, pretending to consult him; will make them spectacles of horror, cut them off by sudden death, and by these monuments of vengeance teach others to tremble, and fear to offend that God who is a consuming fire. Note; (1.) The hypocrite shall be detected and confounded, often in this world, at farthest in a judgment-day. (2.) Of all sinners the hypocrite's doom will be most terrible, Matthew 24:51.

5. The doom of the false prophets is read. The deceiver and the deceived shall perish together. Since the people choose their own delusions, God will give up the prophets whom they consulted to a lying spirit, 1 Kings 22:22-23 and in just judgment suffer them to be deceived by the devil. He will stretch out his avenging arm, and utterly destroy them from the midst of the people; and both the false prophet, and they who seek to him, shall bear the punishment of their iniquity, dreadful as their aggravated provocations. Mysterious are the ways of God; and, though we are often lost in our inquiries why he permits the evil that we see, the day will come when all his dispensations will be proved, beyond contradiction, to be altogether righteous and true.

6. The judgments executed on the wicked will be a warning to many of the house of Israel, that they go no more astray, beholding the dire effects which arise from such departures from God, and made wise by the sufferings of others: neither be polluted any more with all their transgressions, which would necessarily involve them in the same ruin; but on the contrary learn to love and serve the blessed God, that they may be my people, approving their fidelity to the end, and I may be their God, saith the Lord God, blessing them with all good things here, and their portion and exceeding great reward hereafter. Note; (1.) The punishments of others should deter us from their iniquities. (2.) Sin defiles the soul, and renders it odious in the eyes of a holy God. (3.) They who are, and continue to approve themselves to God, as his faithful people, shall find the present and eternal advantages of his love and favour.

2nd, We have,

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1. The heavy judgments threatened on a guilty land. When the measure of their sins is full, wrath to the uttermost will overtake them. Four sore plagues are mentioned; Famine, when the staff of bread is broken, and man and beast perish with hunger. Noisome beasts, so numerous and ravenous, that all travelling must be unsafe, and the land deserted and desolate. The sword, commissioned of God to go through the land, and consume what the famine had left: and pestilence, which depopulates the country, and puts a taint in the blood incurably fatal. These are the arrows bent against wicked nations.

2. All intercession is vain when the decree is gone forth. Though Noah, Job, and Daniel joined as advocates, their piety and prayers could be of no avail. They could not deliver a son or daughter; their own souls only should be given them for a prey. The mention of Job, with Noah and Daniel, clearly proves, that he really lived, and answered the character given him in the book which bears his name; eminent for patience as Noah for his integrity, when all flesh had corrupted their ways; and as Daniel, who, though a young man, had already appeared distinguished by his wisdom, humility, piety, zeal, and prayer. Perhaps some few remained who resembled these holy men, and for their sake a hope might be entertained that Jerusalem would yet be spared, as Sodom might have been if but ten righteous had been found in it. Indeed, if any thing could have averted the threatened wrath, these advocates had prevailed; but her time is come, the measure of her guilt is full, her ruin determined, and the wrath denounced inevitable. Note; (1.) In the worst of times, some few eminent saints are found. (2.) Though they may not prevail to avert the ruin of their land, themselves shall be saved amid the general desolations, sometimes exempted from the common calamity, and wonderfully preserved: at least, if they suffer with others, they shall enjoy divine consolations; and whatever becomes of their bodies, their souls, faithfully resting on Jesus, shall be ever with their Lord.

3. A remnant is reserved from the general ruin, brought forth out of Jerusalem to join their brethren in captivity; and ye shall see their way and their doings; either behold their penitent return to God, humbled and converted by the judgments that they have suffered; or their hardened wickedness, which would convince the captives of the righteous judgment of God upon them; and ye shall be comforted concerning the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem; pleased to see the blessed

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effects wrought thereby, if it led the sufferers to repentance; or satisfied of the justice of God in his severity upon such transgressors: and they shall comfort you, when ye see their way and their doings; either it would delight them to see the gracious symptoms of their conversion; or, if they persisted in their abominations, they would no longer grieve for their sufferings, but justify God in them; and ye shall know that I have not done without cause, all that I have done in it, saith the Lord God; but that the Lord in all his dispensations is righteous, just, and good. Note; (1.) Nothing will hereafter be matter of greater thankfulness to God's people, than those bitterest afflictions here which have contributed to the good of their souls. (2.) God will be glorified in all his works, and his saints will adore him and delight in them: even the punishment of the wicked shall redound to his honour, and minister matter for their praises.

ELLICOTT, "(22) Ye shall be comforted concerning the evil.—In this and the following verse it is promised that a remnant shall be brought from Jerusalem; and it is clearly implied that they shall come to Babylonia. There the present exiles shall see them, and thus be comforted. But in what sense comforted? The connection absolutely decides this: “when ye see their ways and their doings, ye shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it.” That is, when you see the wickedness, of this remnant, you will cease to mourn over the judgment, for you cannot but perceive that it was a righteous act of God. The expression “sons and daughters” is used in Ezekiel 14:22 with reference to the same phrase in Ezekiel 14:16; Ezekiel 14:18; Ezekiel 14:20; and the form “they shall comfort you” in Ezekiel 14:23 is explained by what is said in Ezekiel 14:22, not as meaning “they shall administer comfort,” but “they shall be a cause of comfort” by showing you their exceeding wickedness.

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 14:22 Yet, behold, therein shall be left a remnant that shall be brought forth, [both] sons and daughters: behold, they shall come forth unto you, and ye shall see their way and their doings: and ye shall be comforted concerning the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem, [even] concerning all that I have brought upon it.

Ver. 22. Yet, behold.] See a thing sudden and serious.

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They shall come.] Be captives here, as you are.

And ye shall see their way.] How wicked it was, and worthy of punishment.

POOLE, " Therein; in Jerusalem itself, and in the land.

A remnant; some that escape, for though none could prevail with God to prevent the emptying the city and the land, and cutting off the most, yet this was not to extend to the utter cutting off and destruction of all.

Brought forth; by the proud, cruel, and barbarous conqueror bringing them in nakedness, chains, and in contempt more grievous than death itself.

Unto you; those naked, hunger-starved, derided captives, through heats and colds, through sands and tedious travels, shall come, though with great regret to you, to Babylon, whose condition they will either envy, or wish it their own.

Ye shall see; see them, and consider and know their way; what it hath brought them, how sinfully evil it was against God in their own land, and how miserably evil it is and must be with them in the enemies’ land.

Ye shall be comforted; not rejoice in your brethren’s misery, but comforted in remembrance of the good hour you resolved to obey God, in yielding up to the Chaldeans; comforted in the sense of your state much better then theirs, and in the vindication of you from the black aspersions the false prophets and their followers cast on you; and finally, comforted, in that your return, at set time promised, shall in its time be as surely made good as you see the threats are made good. God will be as true in his mercies as he hath been in his judgments; this is matter of great

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affliction and grief, that of comfort and hope.

WHEDON, " THE JUSTICE AND BENEFICENCE OF THE PUNISHMENT PROVED BY ITS EFFECTS, Ezekiel 14:22-23.

22. Yet behold, therein shall be left a remnant — The “remnant” of righteous persons who remain will be worth more than the vast mixed multitude that called themselves Israelites. (See Isaiah 10:20-22.) They shall “bring forth sons and daughters” whose purity of life shall prove to all observers that the judgments were wise that had cut off the offending multitudes and left only a pure and zealous remainder. Dr. Davidson and others believe that the “remnant” referred to here is a remnant of the wicked which in after years, by their extreme wickedness, shall prove the justice of the punishments which fell upon their fathers; but the reference to the saved remnant in other places in Ezekiel (see Ezekiel 14:11, etc.), as also in Isaiah and Jeremiah, taken in connection with the actual historic results of the punishment of Israel, discountenances this interpretation. (See notes Ezekiel 6:8-10.)

PETT, "Verse 22-23

“Yet behold in it will be left those who escape, who will be carried forth, both sons and daughters. Behold they will come forth to you, and you will see their way and their doings, and you will be comforted concerning the evil that I have brought on Jerusalem, even concerning all that I have brought on it, and they will comfort you when you see their way and their doings, and you will know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it, says the Lord Yahweh.”

But in the case of the judgment on Jerusalem some would be allowed to escape. The point here is that it is only because Yahweh determines it. These are not the righteous previously mentioned (it will include sons and daughters) but some chosen out to be an illustration to the exiles of why God’s sore judgments have come on Jerusalem. As their way and doings are observed it will be clear why God has acted in judgment. Then the exiles will realise that His judgment was not without good reason. ‘Doings’ always has a bad sense in Ezekiel (Ezekiel 20:43-44; Ezekiel 21:24;

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Ezekiel 24:14; Ezekiel 36:17; Ezekiel 36:19; Ezekiel 36:31).

‘You will be comforted.’ Or rather ‘you will gain some kind of ease of heart from recognising that their judgment was just’. The word means ‘to breathe a deep breath’. Thus the idea is that they can again breathe freely because they recognise the justice of what has happened.

‘All that I have done in it, says the Lord Yahweh.’ The prophet is quite clear on the fact that all that will happen will be the Lord’s doing.

23 You will be consoled when you see their conduct and their actions, for you will know that I have done nothing in it without cause, declares the Sovereign Lord.”

CLARKE, "Ye shall know that I have not done without cause - There is no part of the conduct of God towards man that is not dictated by the purest principles of justice, equity, and truth. He does nothing but what is right; and whatever is right to be done, that ought to be done. In God’s justice there is no severity; in God’s mercy there is no caprice. He alone doth all things well; for he is the Fountain of justice and mercy.

GILL, "And they shall comfort you, when ye see their ways and their doings,.... Not that their sinful ways and doings would be comfortable to them, but either their acknowledgments of them, and repentance for them; or, seeing their dissolute manner of life, it would be a means of composing their minds, and making them easy under the providence; being now satisfied that God was just in bringing upon them all the evils he had, and that they were punished according to their deserts, and

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less than their sins deserved: and ye shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it, saith the Lord God; that there was just reason for it; that he was sufficiently provoked to do it; and that it was necessary it should be done, for his own honour, and the good of others.

JAMISON, "they shall comfort you — not in words, but by your recognizing in their manifest guilt, that God had not been unjustly severe to them and the city.BI, "Ye shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it, saith the Lord God.Waiting for God’s vindicationI. The truths doubted. In all ages, as in our own, men have doubted the goodness and justice of God, and have murmured at His acts. They reject consolation, and charge Jehovah with cruelty. Speak of the sufferings of Jesus for us, and the agnostic declares that is simply another example of injustice.II. Causes of scepticism. Ask for a reason of doubt, and the rationalist asserts that pain contradicts either the goodness or the power of the Divine Being. But reasons given are not always causes. Grief is selfish, and tears blind us. Most people in trouble are like a ship directed by a careless captain, and left with full canvas when the tempest bursts upon it. We sink because we are not prepared for gales. Men indulge false hopes, refuse all warnings, expect all things but death, and when the end comes they cry out that they have been wronged. Custom makes them regard a loan as a possession, and they call restoration robbery.III. The futility of doubt. Of what use is doubt of the fundamental truths of Christianity? How does it work? A sinner suffering penalty is hardened by doubt of God’s justice, and discouraged from repentance by question of His mercy. A saint in agony and near to death is plunged in deeper darkness by doubt of all that remains to her. Doubt confirms a transgressor, and robs the holy of consolation. To whom, then, is it good?IV. Comfort in God’s truth. If we could look at sin in its hideous deformity, its deep guilt, its inhuman effects, with sound vision, we mould be slow to complain. If God did not punish moral evil we could not respect Him, and if He permitted wrong to go uncorrected the holy could not hope. Haste and impatience hide truth from us. If we could see the results of suffering in character we might be consoled. History is an account of the martyrdom of man. But martyrs have not complained. They have preferred truth, beauty, goodness to the alternatives, and have not regretted the price. Can we confide in God and wait? And while you wait, be not idle. There are works meet for repentance. God’s winds are hard to face as “head winds,” but wondrously helpful to those who will sail with them. The Divine purpose works toward correction of evil and edification of good. Build with God, and you will have naught to tear down. (C. R. Henderson, D. D.).

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CALVIN, “He now puts the verb for comforting in the third person, but in the same sense, because after the Jews shall have been led captive, they will bear sure and special marks of God’s justice against their sins. This, then, is the consolation, as I explained it yesterday, while the exiles acknowledge that cruelty cannot be ascribed to God, as if he had exceeded moderation in exacting punishment; for the desperate wickedness of the people demanded it. But this passage contains a useful doctrine, since we collect from it that we are never tranquil in our minds unless when the greatest equity and justice appears in God’s judgments, and become present to our minds. As long, therefore, as we do not acknowledge God to be severe in just cases, our minds must necessarily be disturbed and disarranged: hence the word “consolation” is opposed to those turbulent thoughts. But since nothing is more miserable than to be distracted and drawn hither and thither, and to be anxiously disturbed, let us learn that those profit most who acquiesce in God’s judgments, although they do not perceive the reason of them, yet modestly adore them. But when God shows why he treats either us or others so severely, this is a special favor, since he offers us material for joy and tranquillity. Let us proceed.

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 14:23 And they shall comfort you, when ye see their ways and their doings: and ye shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it, saith the Lord GOD.

Ver. 23. And they shall comfort,] i.e., Quiet and qualify your spirits.

POOLE, " They that survive the siege, famine, and ruin of Jerusalem, and are brought to Babylon,

shall comfort you; either confessing their faults in not doing as you had done, justifying the wise course they took who yielded, condemning the folly of hardening themselves against God, his judgments, and his prophets; or be matter of comfort, affording to you just ground of comforting yourselves.

When ye see their ways: understand it in the effects of it upon the ruined Jews; or, 144

in the relation which they will make both of their sins and sufferings in the land of Canaan.

Ye, you of the first captivity, you that obeyed my voice, and submitted to the Babylonian yoke,

shall know, be fully satisfied, that I have had but too much cause, and most just reason, for all that I have done against Jerusalem and its land, and inhabitants of both; you shall know my hand, and as you feel the weight, so you shall see the justice of it too against them, and the mercy of it towards you.

BI, "Verse 23

Ezekiel 14:23

Ye shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it, saith the Lord God.

Waiting for God’s vindication

I. The truths doubted. In all ages, as in our own, men have doubted the goodness and justice of God, and have murmured at His acts. They reject consolation, and charge Jehovah with cruelty. Speak of the sufferings of Jesus for us, and the agnostic declares that is simply another example of injustice.

II. Causes of scepticism. Ask for a reason of doubt, and the rationalist asserts that pain contradicts either the goodness or the power of the Divine Being. But reasons given are not always causes. Grief is selfish, and tears blind us. Most people in trouble are like a ship directed by a careless captain, and left with full canvas when

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the tempest bursts upon it. We sink because we are not prepared for gales. Men indulge false hopes, refuse all warnings, expect all things but death, and when the end comes they cry out that they have been wronged. Custom makes them regard a loan as a possession, and they call restoration robbery.

III. The futility of doubt. Of what use is doubt of the fundamental truths of Christianity? How does it work? A sinner suffering penalty is hardened by doubt of God’s justice, and discouraged from repentance by question of His mercy. A saint in agony and near to death is plunged in deeper darkness by doubt of all that remains to her. Doubt confirms a transgressor, and robs the holy of consolation. To whom, then, is it good?

IV. Comfort in God’s truth. If we could look at sin in its hideous deformity, its deep guilt, its inhuman effects, with sound vision, we mould be slow to complain. If God did not punish moral evil we could not respect Him, and if He permitted wrong to go uncorrected the holy could not hope. Haste and impatience hide truth from us. If we could see the results of suffering in character we might be consoled. History is an account of the martyrdom of man. But martyrs have not complained. They have preferred truth, beauty, goodness to the alternatives, and have not regretted the price. Can we confide in God and wait? And while you wait, be not idle. There are works meet for repentance. God’s winds are hard to face as “head winds,” but wondrously helpful to those who will sail with them. The Divine purpose works toward correction of evil and edification of good. Build with God, and you will have naught to tear down. (C. R. Henderson, D. D.)

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