Ezekiel 14

The claims of Ezekiel as a prophet are now recognized by his countrymen. Some of the chief exiles come to him as to one who has authority. They look for encouragement and comfort. But Ezekiel with the genuine prophetic spirit sees deep into their hearts, and finds them at variance with devotion to the true God. The idols of self-will and unsubmissiveness are set up therein. The prophet warns them that God will not be inquired of in such a spirit as this. B. C.

1-3. “Then came,” etc. This seems to have been shortly after the prophecy narrated in the previous chapter. This chapter and that are closely connected in thought. That denunciation of the false prophets may have made some impression upon certain of the elders, and they may have been consequently in an attitude to listen to something further on the same and kindred points. The language, “these men,” etc., somewhat strongly implies a reference to the elders then before him. “To set up their idols in their hearts,” is precisely to enthroned them there—to give them a standing, a fixed position in their very heart as in a temple prepared for the purpose. “Stumbling-block” is used here in the sense of temptation to sin, put directly before their own face, so that it shall have its greatest power to ensnare and thus destroy their own souls. While they are in this moral state, God asks, “Shall I be inquired of at all by them?” Of course He will not be.

4,5. If such a man shall go to a prophet to engage him to intercede for himself with God, God will answer him through that prophet according to his sins—that is, will give him no such answer as he desires; but will let him be deceived to his ruin. “That I may take,” etc., means, that I may take hold violently and effectually of their heart—i.e., by spurning them away and visiting them with sore judgments, grasping their heart so that they shall feel it—taking hold, not to restore or to comfort, but to chasten or punish.

6. “Therefore say” this—that there is no evading this manifest and imperative duty of repentance. Seeking God with your abominations still in power in your hearts can be of no avail save to curse you the more fearfully. The effort to reach God through His prophets by seducing them to your aid will only involve those wicked prophets as well as yourself in deception and calamity. “Therefore say to the house of Israel, Repent and turn from all your idols.” H. C.

“Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” To follow the one is to be estranged from and renounce the other. He, therefore, that would repent, must necessarily change his course, and quite turn back again from the broad way, before he can enter into the way of life; he must cast out the idols (of vanity, pleasure, etc.) out of his heart before he can be reconciled to God. For this is a rule in religion which admits of no exception. Repentance is no repentance without a total change, a thorough renovation and real turn of mind. But on these terms a pardon is open to the greatest offender. God is too good and gracious to strike without warning, without a call, without an invitation to repentance; and yet too just and holy to accept a partial conversion, a piece of the heart—He will have the whole or none. Wogan.

Repentance, taken as a translation of the compound Greek word used in the New Testament to express the same thing, points to an internal alteration, or a thinking differently from some former way of thinking. It means a changed mind, an altered ruling purpose, a new way of looking at things. Used as it is here, it means, of course, a new way of looking at the deepest and greatest thing, the central thing, the object of life, or our relation to God. This change of mind affects the whole judgment, intention, spirit of our being. It implies a turning about in the direction, the drift of a man’s innermost life. If he regarded the world, before repentance, as a place merely to get the greatest amount of bodily pleasure in, after repentance he will regard it as the place to get the greatest amount of goodness in; he repents of his sensuality. If he looked upon it before as only a shop for making money, afterward he will look upon it as a mission field for cultivating righteousness; he repents of his sordidness. If he treated his position before as only a dressing-room for ostentation, he will afterward treat it as a vineyard for honest and useful labor; he will repent of his vanity and idleness. If he esteemed men and women before only as beings made to promote his comfort and advance his interests, he will afterward esteem them as beings that he is to comfort and whose interests he is to serve; he will repent of his cupidity and selfishness. And so through the whole circle of virtues and vices. His inmost purpose is changed. Literally, he thinks the other way.

Furthermore, as this change of the mind, or of the inner man, affects one’s views of the past, as well as of the present and future, it must of course be accompanied with a palpable sorrow that the past life has been what it has, and has not been what it so plainly ought to be. In a true repentance, this sorrow will be intense and bitter. A sincere and spiritual man cannot but loathe himself for having done those shameful, vicious, ungrateful things. Paul’s vivid language of self-condemnation becomes actual and natural to us. We are disgusted with our spiritual meanness. Looking up to Christ and His redeeming love, we are smitten with the disgrace that we should so long have been wounding and insulting Him. Looking to the Holy Spirit, so infinitely tender and forbearing, we feel that the first utterance of prayer must be a confession of unworthiness—a cry for pardon and deliverance from a deserved ruin. And if this grief is not a mere dictate of selfish fear or mercenary calculation, but a spiritual penitence because the pure God has been offended and the crucified Christ wronged, then it is that godly sorrow, needing not to be repented of or changed from, which purifies and brings peace and pardon to the heart. This is repentance. F. D. H.

7. 8. The meaning of these verses is plain, and has been already brought out. Whether the inquirer be an Israelite or a foreigner, if he sever himself from God and give his heart to idols, and then shall go to a prophet to learn something respecting God, or to gain some favor from God (e.g., like King Saul in his distress), God will answer him in His own way and for His own righteous ends.

9-11. What is said here affords no good reason for impugning the justice or even the goodness of God. All candid minds will see this if they carefully consider and duly appreciate these three points: 1. That the case supposed is that of a wicked man, seducing and bribing a prophet to give him a favorable answer from God, while he yet cleaves to his sins. God declares that He will not be tampered with by a wicked man for so vile a purpose. He will let both the prophet and the sinner who tries to bribe him be deceived and ruined. 2. No other form of Divine agency need be implied here than what is properly permissive. God will let that prophet be deceived. He will leave him to make mistakes—leave him in the darkness of his own perverse heart. God will not reveal truth to his mind; will not help him carry out the wicked purpose and desire of the sinner who has bribed him to try to extort something from God for his own selfish advantage. The usage of all Scripture, and indeed of all human language, sustains this construction. God is said to do what He only suffers or permits to be done. And in this case, who can say that God does not most righteously and justly leave the sinner to be frustrated in his impious purpose? 3. The Divine intent in this proceeding is infinitely wise and good. As declared by Himself in this very connection, it is “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.” H. C.

9. I the Lord have deceived that prophet. That is, permitted him to be deceived and to deceive the people, as a just judgment upon them for their infidelity, with respect to His true prophets. This He threatens at the fifth verse: “I will take the house of Israel,” etc.; because they have chosen to themselves false gods, I will suffer them to be deceived with false prophets; and that this is the meaning appears by the threatening added, “and I will stretch out My hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of My people.” Now God will not punish that whereof He is the Author. Abp. Tillotson.

Evil as well as good is under His direction who 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. This principle of Divine government may be traced elsewhere. In De. 13 it is declared that those who listen to false prophets are responsible, even though the prophets confirm their words by wonders that come to pass. God’s people were tried by the presence among them of false prophets just as they were by the presence of idolaters. So John bids men try the spirits because many false prophets are gone out into the world (1 John 4: 1), and it is of the days of the Messiah that Zechariah predicts, I will cause the (false) prophets and unclean spirit to pass out of the land (Zech. 13: 2). The case of the false prophets who deceived Ahab (1 K. 22) is a striking representation of this principle. The Lord sends forth an evil spirit to persuade him to his ruin.

Toward the close of the kingdom of Judah false prophets were especially rife, the sign and the punishment of corruption. In this way the thoughts of men’s hearts were revealed, the good separated from the bad, and the people (the remnant of them) purged from the sins by which of late years the whole nation had been defiled. So Paul makes the sending of false prophets a leading part of the Divine dispensations in the last days—God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie (2 Thess.

2 : 11). Yet this delusion does not operate by a magic irresistible force—they who listen to the false prophets do so of their own will, and will therefore be justly liable to the wrath of the true God. B. C.

12-23. The scope of these verses is to show : 1. That national sins bring national judgments ; when virtue is ruined and laid waste, everything else will soon be ruined and laid waste too (verse 13) : When the land sins against Me, when vice and wickedness become epidemical, when the land sins by trespassing grievously, when the sinners are become very numerous, and their sins very heinous, when gross impieties and immoralities universally prevail, then will I stretch forth Mine 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. 2. 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. H.

12-21. The points of this case are made entirely plain. It is presented for the most part as a case supposed in a hypothetical way. If any land should become grievously wicked, beyond the Divine endurance, then would I scourge them with My four great and sore judgments—famine, destructive beasts, the sword of war and pestilence—and then, though these three men, pre-eminent for their availing intercession—viz., Noah, Daniel and Job, were in that land, they should save themselves only ; they could not save that land from My judgments. They could not save from any one of these forms of judgment coming singly—how much less from all combined ? Of the godly men named here, the reader will recall in the case of Noah the fact that God forewarned him of the flood one hundred and twenty years before it came, during which time we may suppose that his prayers were unceasing that the Lord would defer this judgment and spare the guilty race. So far “the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah.” The fact was, that the sins of the Jewish people had become such that God could not pardon, but must punish. So He had said of the sins of Manasseh (2 K. 24 : 4). Repeatedly through Jeremiah the Lord had signified that He could not hear prayer in their behalf to turn from His purposed judgments. (See Jer. 7 : 16 ; 11 : 14 ; 14 : 11, 12, and not least, 15 : 1.) “Though Moses and Samuel stood before Me” (i.e., as intercessors),

“yet My mind could not be toward this people ; cast them out of My sight and let them go forth.” Fearful is the doom that awaits either a nation or an individual when the point is reached where prayer avails nothing ! H. C.

When a nation is loyal to its God, by putting away sin and nurturing righteousness it will insure the Divine blessing and its own permanence (verse 9). God reserves the entry through the gates of honor to “the righteous nation which keepeth the truth.” The elevation ensured and given to nations which promote righteousness is the one which, if we see as God sees, we shall value most. Godless men may covet an ascendancy backed by guns and swords, armies and fleets. The believer in God covets only an uplifting that comes of the Divine blessing on “a wise and understanding people.” If loyalty to God and truth is wanting, a nation ensures its own downfall (verse 10 ; see Ezek. 17 ; 27 : 3 ; 28 : 2-10 ; Amos 2 : 9 ; Obad. 3, 4). Christians are the “salt” of the earth. Their value is in their “savor,” not in their name. And if they let the “savor” die out, no name of discipleship will be of any use to them. Christians may not separate their Christianity from their citizenship. They are to be Christian citizens ; and do we not learn by abundant teachings in the Old and New Testament that God spares many a guilty city for the sake of the righteous that are therein ? And can we forget the teaching of the prophet Ezekiel, that nations may become so corrupt that even the righteous element therein avails not to stay the ruin (Ezek. 14 : 12-21) ? C. C.

14. Though these three men, Noah, Daniel and Job, were in it. Daniel was then in captivity ; he was taken in the third year of Jehoiakim ; after this Jehoiakim reigned eight years ; and this prophecy, as appears from chap. 8 : 1, was uttered in the sixth year of Jehoiachin’s captivity, who succeeded Jehoiakim, and reigned only three months ; therefore at this time Daniel had been fourteen years in captivity, and was little more than thirty years of age. It is observable how early the fame of his piety had spread over Chaldea. Abp. Newcome.

All these persons 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 an inundation of water. Daniel interceded with the Almighty for the whole nation of the Jews, and obtained a promise of their restoration (Dan. 9). And Job was appointed by God Himself to make intercession for his three friends. But when the Almighty’s irreversible decree is gone out against a nation, even the prayers of such favorites of Heaven would be ineffectual to procure their deliverance. The prophet, in this allusion to Abraham’s intercession for Sodom, declares from God that when His judgments come out against the land of Judea, the righteous found in it should only save themselves; which plainly shows a providence extending to particulars. Bp. Warburton.

What makes that testimony more striking is that it was borne when Daniel was still in early manhood. When he was about twenty-nine years of age Ezekiel uttered in the course of a prophecy these words: “The word of the Lord came again to me, saying, 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: 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.” Four times are these saints introduced to give point and terror to Divine threatening. A few years later, when Daniel was about thirty-five years of age, his name was introduced into a rebuke, ironical in form, of the then king of Tyre. The king had all but deified himself, and placed his human, heathen wisdom in antagonism with that of God. He had forgotten his dependence upon God; and so the prophet, with biting irony, thus addresses him: “Behold! thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they cannot hide from thee.” These references to the then living statesman and prophet are very remarkable. Pusey.

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.

21. 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 beasts, the multiplication of wild beasts in consequence of the general destruction of the inhabitants. A. C.

22,23. He says to these elders now before him: “When ye see this last company of captives, and learn from personal observation the horrible corruption of their hearts and lives, ye will be comforted concerning the evil which God has brought on Jerusalem, for ye will see that it must have been richly deserved, and that God did not scourge that city to its utter destruction without good cause.” If they had felt any misgiving in view of a judgment so terrible, they would surely see in the character of the captives that God had amply justifying cause for the severity of those judgments. It is a comfort to the people of God to see that His most terrible judgments are not excessive or in any wise unduly severe. The Lord is careful to show His confiding people that whatever else He may do, He never can punish too severely. He may punish less than man’s iniquities deserve; but never more. H. C.

23. Ye shall know that I have not done without cause. There is no part of the conduct of God toward 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. A. C.