Ezekiel 13

Eze 13:1-23.

DENUNCIATION OF

FALSE

PROPHETS AND

PROPHETESSES;

THEIR

FALSE

TEACHINGS, AND

GOD'S

CONSEQUENT

JUDGMENTS.

1. As the twelfth chapter denounced the false expectations of the

people, so this denounces the false leaders who fed those expectations.

As an independent witness, Ezekiel confirms at the Chebar the testimony

of Jeremiah

(Jer 29:21, 31)

in his letter from Jerusalem to the captive exiles, against the false

prophets; of these some were conscious knaves, others fanatical dupes

of their own frauds; for example, Ahab, Zedekiah, and Shemaiah.

Hananiah must have believed his own lie, else he would not have

specified so circumstantial details

(Jer 28:2-4).

The conscious knaves gave only general assurances of peace

(Jer 5:31; 6:14; 14:13).

The language of Ezekiel has plain references to the similar language of

Jeremiah (for example,

Jer 23:9-38);

the bane of false prophecy, which had its stronghold in Jerusalem,

having in some degree extended to the Chebar; this chapter, therefore,

is primarily intended as a message to those still in the Jewish

metropolis; and, secondarily, for the good of the exiles at the

Chebar.

2. that prophesy--namely, a speedy return to Jerusalem.

out of . . . own hearts--alluding to the words of Jeremiah

(Jer 23:16, 26);

that is, what they prophesied was what they and the people

wished; the wish was father to the thought. The people

wished to be deceived, and so were deceived. They were

inexcusable, for they had among them true prophets (who spoke not

their own thoughts, but as they were moved by the Holy Ghost,

2Pe 1:21),

whom they might have known to be such, but they did not wish to know

(Joh 3:19).

3. foolish--though vaunting as though exclusively possessing "wisdom"

(1Co 1:19-21);

the fear of God being the only beginning of wisdom

(Ps 111:10).

their own spirit--instead of the Spirit of God. A threefold

distinction lay between the false and the true prophets: (1) The source

of their messages respectively; of the false, "their own hearts"; of the

true, an object presented to the spiritual sense (named from the noblest

of the senses, a seeing) by the Spirit of God as from without, not

produced by their own natural powers of reflection. The word, the body

of the thought, presented itself not audibly to the natural sense, but

directly to the spirit of the prophet; and so the perception of it is

properly called a seeing, he perceiving that which thereafter forms

itself in his soul as the cover of the external word

[DELITZSCH]; hence

the peculiar expression, "seeing the word of God"

(Isa 2:1; 13:1;

Am 1:1;

Mic 1:1).

(2) The point aimed at; the false "walking after their own spirit"; the

true, after the Spirit of God. (3) The result; the false saw nothing,

but spake as if they had seen; the true had a vision, not subjective,

but objectively real [FAIRBAIRN]. A refutation of

those who set the inward word above the objective, and

represent the Bible as flowing subjectively from the inner light of its

writers, not from the revelation of the Holy Ghost from without. "They

are impatient to get possession of the kernel without its fostering

shell--they would have Christ without the Bible" [BENGEL].

4. foxes--which cunningly "spoil the vines"

(So 2:15),

Israel being the vineyard

(Ps 80:8-15;

Isa 5:1-7; 27:2;

Jer 2:21);

their duty was to have guarded it from being spoiled, whereas they

themselves spoiled it by corruptions.

in . . . deserts--where there is nothing to eat;

whence the foxes become so ravenous and crafty in their devices to get

food. So the prophets wander in Israel, a moral desert, unrestrained,

greedy of gain which they get by craft.

5. not gone up into . . . gaps--metaphor from breaches made in a

wall, to which the defenders ought to betake themselves in order to

repel the entrance of the foe. The breach is that made in the theocracy

through the nation's sin; and, unless it be made up, the vengeance of

God will break in through it. Those who would advise the people to

repentance are the restorers of the breach

(Eze 22:30;

Ps 106:23, 30).

hedge--the law of God

(Ps 80:12;

Isa 5:2, 5);

God's protection and lay exposed to the foe. The false prophets did not

try to repair the evil by bringing back the people to the law with good

counsels, or by checking the bad with reproofs. These two duties answer

to the double office of defenders in case of a breach made in a wall:

(1) To repair the breach from within; (2) To oppose the foe from

without.

to stand--that is, that the city may "stand."

in . . . day of . . . Lord--In the day of the battle which God wages

against Israel for their sins, ye do not try to stay God's vengeance by

prayers, and by leading the nation to repentance.

6. made others to hope, &c.--rather, "they hoped" to

confirm (that is, 'make good') their word, by the event corresponding

to their prophecy. The Hebrew requires this [HAVERNICK]. Also the parallel clause, "they have

seen vanity," implies that they believed their own lie

(2Th 2:11).

Subjective revelation is false unless it rests on the objective.

8. I am against you--rather understand, "I come against you," to

punish your wicked profanation of My name (compare

Re 2:5, 16).

9. mine hand--My power in vengeance.

not . . . in . . . assembly--rather, the "council"; "They shall not

occupy the honorable office of councillors in the senate of elders

after the return from Babylon"

(Ezr 2:1, 2).

neither . . . written in . . . Israel--They shall not even have a place

in the register kept of all citizens' names; they shall be

erased from it, just as the names of those who died in the year, or had

been deprived of citizenship for their crimes, were at the annual

revisal erased. Compare

Jer 17:13;

Lu 10:20;

Re 3:5,

as to those spiritually Israelites;

Joh 1:47,

and those not so. Literally fulfilled

(Ezr 2:59, 62;

compare

Ne 7:5;

Ps 69:28).

neither . . . enter . . . land--They shall not so much as be allowed

to come back at all to their country.

10. Because, even because--The repetition heightens the emphasis.

Peace--safety to the nation. Ezekiel confirms

Jer 6:14; 8:11.

one--literally, "this one"; said contemptuously, as in

2Ch 28:22.

a wall--rather, "a loose wall." Ezekiel had said that the false

prophets did not "go up into the gaps, or make up the breaches"

(Eze 13:5),

as good architects do; now he adds that they make a bustling show of

anxiety about repairing the wall; but it is without right mortar, and

therefore of no use.

one . . . others--besides individual effort, they

jointly co-operated to delude the people.

daubed . . . with untempered mortar--as sand without lime, mud without

straw [GROTIUS].

FAIRBAIRN translates, "plaster it with whitewash." But

besides the hypocrisy of merely outwardly "daubing" to make the wall

look fair

(Mt 23:27, 29;

Ac 23:3),

there is implied the unsoundness of the wall from the absence of

true uniting cement; the "untempered cement" answering to the

lie of the prophets, who say, in support of their

prophecies, "Thus saith the Lord, when the Lord hath not spoken"

(Eze 22:28).

11. overflowing--inundating; such as will at once wash away the

mere clay mortar. The three most destructive agents shall co-operate

against the wall--wind, rain, and hailstones. These last in the East are

more out of the regular course of nature and are therefore often

particularly specified as the instruments of God's displeasure against

His foes

(Ex 9:18;

Jos 10:11;

Job 38:22;

Ps 18:12, 13;

Isa 28:2; 30:30;

Re 16:21).

The Hebrew here is, literally, "stones of ice." They fall in

Palestine at times an inch thick with a destructive velocity. The

personification heightens the vivid effect, "O ye hail stones." The

Chaldeans will be the violent agency whereby God will unmask and refute

them, overthrowing their edifice of lies.

12. shall it not be said--Your vanity and folly shall be so manifested

that it shall pass into a proverb, "Where is the daubing?"

13. God repeats, in His own name, as the Source of the coming

calamity, what had been expressed generally in

Eze 13:11.

14. The repetition of the same threat

(see on

Eze 13:11)

is to awaken the people out of their dream of safety by the

certainty of the event.

foundation--As the "wall" represents the security of the nation, so

the "foundation" is Jerusalem, on the fortifications of which they

rested their confidence. GROTIUS

makes the "foundation" refer to

the false principles on which they rested;

Eze 13:16

supports the former view.

16. prophesy concerning Jerusalem--With all their "seeing visions of

peace for her," they cannot ensure peace or safety to themselves.

17. set thy face--put on a bold countenance, fearlessly to denounce

them

(Eze 3:8, 9;

Isa 50:7).

daughters--the false prophetesses; alluded to only here; elsewhere

the guilt specified in the women is the active share they took in

maintaining idolatry

(Eze 8:14).

It was only in extraordinary emergencies that God bestowed prophecy on

women, for example on Miriam, Deborah, Huldah

(Ex 15:20;

Jud 4:4;

2Ki 22:14);

so in the last days to come

(Joe 2:28).

The rareness of such instances enhanced their guilt in pretending

inspiration.

18. sew pillows to . . . armholes--rather, elbows and wrists, for

which the false prophetesses made cushions to lean on, as a symbolical

act, typifying the perfect tranquility which they foretold to those

consulting them. Perhaps they made their dupes rest on these cushions in

a fancied state of ecstasy after they had made them at first

stand (whence the expression, "every stature," is used

for "men of every age"). As the men are said to have built a

wall

(Eze 13:10),

so the women are said to sew pillows, &c., both alike typifying the

"peace" they promised the impenitent.

make kerchiefs--magical veils, which they put over the heads of

those consulting them, as if to fit them for receiving a response, that

they might be rapt in spiritual trance above the world.

head of every stature--"men of every age," old and young, great and

small, if only these had pay to offer them.

hunt souls--eagerly trying to allure them to the love of yourselves

(Pr 6:26;

2Pe 2:14),

so as unwarily to become your prey.

will ye save . . . souls . . . that come unto you--Will ye haul after

souls, and when they are yours ("come unto you"), will ye

promise them life? "Save" is explained

(Eze 13:22),

"promising life" [GROTIUS]. CALVIN explains, "Will ye hunt My people's souls and yet

will ye save your own souls"; I, the Lord God, will not allow

it. But "save" is used

(Eze 13:19)

of the false prophetesses promising life to the impenitent, so

that English Version and GROTIUS explain it

best.

19. handfuls--expressing the paltry gain for which they bartered

immortal souls (compare

Mic 3:5, 11;

Heb 12:16).

They "polluted" God by making His name the cloak under which they

uttered falsehoods.

among my people--an aggravation of their sin, that they committed it

"among the people" whom God had chosen as peculiarly His own, and

among whom He had His temple. It would have been a sin to have done so

even among the Gentiles, who knew not God; much more so among the people

of God (compare

Pr 28:21).

slay . . . souls that should not die, &c.--to

predict the slaying or perdition of the godly whom I will save.

As true ministers are said to save and slay their hearers, according to

the spirit respectively in which these receive their message

(2Co 2:15, 16),

so false ministers imitate them; but they promise safety to those on

the broad way to ruin and predict ruin to those on the narrow way of

God.

my people that hear your lies--who are therefore wilfully deceived,

so that their guilt lies at their own door

(Joh 3:19).

20. I am against your pillows--that is, against your lying ceremonial

tricks by which ye cheat the people.

to make them fly--namely, into their snares, as fowlers disturb birds

so as to be suddenly caught in the net spread for them. "Fly" is

peculiarly appropriate as to those lofty spiritual flights to which

they pretended to raise their dupes when they veiled their heads with

kerchiefs and made them rest on luxurious arm-cushions

(Eze 13:18).

let . . . souls go--"Ye make them fly" in order to destroy them; "I

will let them go" in order to save them

(Ps 91:3;

Pr 6:5;

Ho 9:8).

21. in your hand--in your power. "My people" are the elect remnant of

Israel to be saved.

ye shall know--by the judgments which ye shall suffer.

22. ye have made . . . the righteous sad--by lying predictions of

calamities impending ever the godly.

strengthened . . . wicked--

(Jer 23:14).

heart of . . . righteous . . . hands of . . . wicked--Heart is

applied to the righteous because the terrors foretold penetrated to

their inmost feelings; hands, to the wicked because they were so

hardened as not only to despise God in their minds, but also to manifest

it in their whole acts, as if avowedly waging war with Him.

23. ye shall see no more vanity--The event shall confute your lies,

involving yourselves in destruction

(Eze 13:9;

Eze 14:8; 15:7;

Mic 3:6).