Ezekiel 22

Ezekiel 22:1-16

Here are three several messages which God intrusts the prophet to deliver concerning Judah and Jerusalem. 1. A catalogue of their sins is given, which had expired them to shame, and for which God would bring them to ruin, ver. 1—16. 2. They are compared to death, and as such condemned to the fire, ver. 17—22. 3. All necks and degrees of men among them are here found guilty, and as men appeared as intercessors, they may all expect to share in the same punishment, ver. 23—31.

1. Moreover, the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 2. Now thou son of man, ‘wilt thou judge, wilt thou judge’ the bloody city? yes, thou shalt shew her all her abominations. 3. Then say thou, Thos faith the Lord GOD, The city theoboth blood in the midst of it, that her time may come, and maketh idols against herself, to defile herself. 4. Thou art become guilty in thy blood that thou hast shed, and

haft defiled thyself in thine idols which thou hast made, and thou hast caused thy days to draw near, and art come even unto thy years; therefore have I made thee a reproach unto the heathen, and a mocking to all countries. 5. Thys that be near, and thys that be far from thee, shall mock thee, which art infamous, and much vexed. 6. Behold, the princes of Israel, every one were in thee to their § power to shed blood. 7. In thee have they set light by father and mother: in the midst of thee have they dealt by oppression with the stranger: in thee have they ¥ vexed the fatherless and the widow. 8. Thou haft despised mine holy things, and * haft profaned my sabbaths. 9. In thee * are men that carry take to shed blood; and * in thee they eat up, on the mountains: in the midst of thee they commit lewdness. 10. In thee have they discovered their fathers nakedness: in thee have they humbled her that was set apart for pollution. 11. And one hath committed abomination * with his neighbour’s wife, and another * hath lewely defiled his daughter in law, and another in thee hath humbled his * filter, his father’s daughter. 12. In thee * have they taken gifts to shed blood: * thou hast taken usury and increase, and thou haft greedily gained of thy neighbour by extortion, and haft forgotten me, faith the Lord GOD. 13. ¶ Behold therefore, I have * smitten mine hand at thy dishonest gain which thou hast made, and at thy blood which hath been in the midst of thee. 14. Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong in the days that I shall deal with thee? * I the LORD have spoken it, and will do it. 15. And * I will scatter thee among the heathen, and disperse thee in the countries, and * will consume thy filthiness out of thee. 16. And thou shalt § take thine inheritance in thyself in the sight of the heathen, and * thou shalt know that I am the LORD.

Jerusalem, the bloody city, is here brought to the bar to be committed and condemned; and the prophet is constituted of God both her accuser and her judge.

1. Her abominations are many, great, and aggravated; and they are shown her to evince and manifest the justice of God in her destruction.

(1.) Murder: The blood of innocents was shed in the midst of her, from afflictions, tyrannical abuts of power, or perversion of justice; the guilt of which cried aloud, v. 4. The princes and magistrates, who should have exempt such crimes, were themselves the first to perpetrate them to the utmost of their power, ver. 6. Whilst talebearers fought to incense them by malicious reports and infirmations, and were chargeable with all the mischief which ensued, v. 9. and perjured wretches of afflictions, for money, were ready to favour away the life of the innocent, or murder in forest such as, by malice or revenge, were marked for their bloody knits, v. 12.

(2.) Idolatry: The sad effects of which were their pollution, v. 4: and in consequence their destruction, v. 3. And those who ran not to the proffer excelses, indulged themselves in eating on the mountains of the sacrifices, and thereby became partakers with the idolaters.

(3.) Disobedience to parents: They set light by father and mother, despised their authority, disobeyed their commands, or mocked at their infirmities; and this is amongst the most atrocious crimes.

(4.) Oppression and deceit: They took advantage of the ignorance or necessities of the stranger; vexed with exorbitant demands, or litigious suits, the fatherless and widow, who were unable to defend themselves; external usury from their brethren; and with greediness increased their gain to their neighbour’s disadvantage, v. 12.

(5.) The profanation of holy things, v. 8. and particularly of the sabbaths: They despised God’s ordinances; either totally neglected the ceremonial rites and worship of the temples, or performed them in a careless perfunctory manner, and the sabbaths were no more observed than common days, and that generally opens a wide door to all unguiltedness.

(6.) Lawdness of all sorts: the most criminal and odious, open and barefooted, v. 9. even incest, v. 10. Ravishments, even of her that was set apart for pollution, with whom all commerce was particularly forbidden, Lev. xx. 11. Adultery, and the disheartening even a daughter-in-law, and a sister, v. 11. Such horrid and shocking crimes were committed by them, and cried for vengeance.

(7.) At the root of all was forgetfulness of God: They left him far above out of their sight, and then they feared to commit no wickedness.

2. The charge being indisputable, the prophet, as judge, pronounces sentence on the criminal. Her day is come, her measure of iniquity is full, the is ripe for vengeance, v. 4.

Ezekiel 22:17-22

They who have made themselves refute and vile, must expect to be treated accordingly. 1. The whole house of Israel is become drofs; once they were silver, but now wretchedly degenerated, despicable and useless as the scum of the furnace. Nothing precious remained in them, but like the baser merals they were as brafs in impudence, as iron for hardness of heart, as tin for hypocrisy, and as lead for fluidity under all their warnings. 2. God threatens to gather them, as metals into the furnace, into Jerusalem, whether they would flee on the approach of the Chaldeans, silver, brafs, iron, lead, and tin together; some gracious fouls, represented by silver, being found among the rest who would be purified by that fire of affliction, which would conform the ungodly as drofs. There God will blow upon them as a refiner, in wrath and anger melt them with his judgments, and leave them there under the dire tokens of his displacefore, devoted to famine, pestilence, and the sword during the fings, and made to acknowledge, in the judgments they felt, the heavy head of God which was laid upon them. Note, In the day of judgment, the sinners of every character will be enfleshed, and cast into the furnace of fire; and they who are once shut up there, will remain there to eternity. 23. ¶ And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 24. Son of man, say unto her, Thou art the land that is not cleansed, nor rained upon in the day of indignation. 25. There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof, like a roaring lion ravening the prey: they have ‘devoured fouls’: they have taken the treasure and precious things: they have made her many widows in the midst thereof. 26. Her priests have violated my law, and have profaned mine holy things: they have ‘put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they shewed difference between the unclean and the clean, and have had their eyes from my sabbaths, and I am profaned among them. 27. Her ‘princes in the midst thereof are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, and to destroy fouls, to get dishonest gain. 28. And ‘her prophets have daubed them with untempered merter, seeing vanity, and divining lies unto them, saying, Thus saith the Lord GOD, when the LORD hath not spoken. 29. The people of the land have used oppression, and exercised robbery, and have vexed the poor and newly: yea, they have oppressed the stranger wrongfully. 30. And I sought for a man amongst them that should ‘make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none. 31. Therefore have I poured out mine indignation upon them, I have confounded them with the fire of my wrath: ’their own way have I recompened upon their heads, saith the Lord GOD.

Ezekiel 22:23-31

The various methods of divine penitence and grace made no impression on the people of Israel. They were neither cleansed from their filthiness by the judgments they suffered, nor reformed by the warnings they received, like the parched ground not rained upon, so were their hearts hard and impenetrable; and whilst God withheld from them the dew of heaven to warn the earth, in his indignation he felt a heavice judgment, withholding the dew of his heavenly influences.

Ezekiel 22:24

All ranks and orders of men among them were advanced to the summit of wickedness. 1. The safe prophets who should, by the office they pretended to assume, have stood in the gap, and by their prayers and labours fought to avert the impending judgments, instead of that, formed a conspiracy to persecute the true prophets, and flatter the people to their ruin. Like ravening lions they devoured fouls, taking away the lives of the innocent, or by their false doulous murdered immortal fouls. They have taken the treasure and precious things of the innocent, destroyed by them; or of the deluded, who paid them with for their lying donations of peace. They have made her many widows in the midst thereof, by the murders they have committed, or by their encouraging that rebellion in which so many perched. Note, Lying prophets who deceived sinners to their ruin, shall receive the heaviest strokes of vengeance. 2. The priests cordially joined with the safe prophets in their wickedness. They wished God’s law, preventing it in their explications, and contradicting it in their practice, so that instead of teaching others, their examples were the greatest encouragement to the wicked. They made no difference between help and profane, paid no regard to the prescription of God, but lived at large, observing neither distinction of means nor days; the sabbath to them was but as a common day; they admitted, indiscriminately, any into the courts of the temple, and out of it kept company with the ceremonially unclean, or the abandoned, without a word of rebuke. Thus God was profaned aning them, his word abused, his ordinances slighted, his authority despised. 3. The princes, who as ministers of justice should have vindicated the oppressed, and excreed their power in the protection of injured innocence, were themselves like tuches roaming the prey; infidious, arbetsus, lawfully, cruel; nor only plundering the weak with impunity, and with dishonest gain grinding the faces of the poor, but even imbuing their hands in blood, as their rage, revenge, or covetousness had them; destroying the lives of those who had offended them, or on whose spoils they had fixed their greedy eye. And, shocking to relax: the infamous prophets, to curry favour with these wealthy patrons, flattered them in their wickedness, and desired them with untempered merter; probably persuading them they did God service in persecuting the troublesome prophets, and the faithful who remonstrated against their sins, and vindicating their cruel deeds to others as wholesome feverites. Note, (1.) The height of fission aggravates the enormity of the offence. (2.) The daubing prophets at the elbows of the great, who proliferate the facred office they pretend to bear, by mean compliances and infamous countenance given to their sins, shall shortly meet an avenging God. 4. The people naturally followed examples so pernicious; the system of corruption descended; and as each in an inferior fation had power, he used it to oppression; and exercised robbery, vexing the poor by extortion, and roaming the stranger wrongfully, whose ignorance laid him the more easily open to deceit and imposition. 5. So general and universal was the spoofing, that not a man was found among all these prophets, priests, princes, or people, who endeavoured to interpose to make up the fudge, or stand in the gap to avert by his prayers, his admonitions, or his labours, the impending wrath, and endeavour the reformation of the land. God fought for such, and fought in vain. Note, (1.) Sin makes the breach at which ruin enters. (2.) When none are found to pray or plead with God for the land, the eats is desperate. 6. Because of these things, God’s indignation is poured out; the fire kindles, the sinners are enslaved together, and their own ways recompened on their heads. Note, However terrible the end of the ungodly may be, their sufferings shall be no more than their deserts. CHAP. Before Chief Dio