Ezekiel 14

Eze 14:1-23.

HYPOCRITICAL

INQUIRERS

ARE

ANSWERED

ACCORDING TO

THEIR

HYPOCRISY.

THE

CALAMITIES

COMING ON THE

PEOPLE; BUT A

REMNANT

IS TO

ESCAPE.

1. 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.

3. 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

Pr 3:21, 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"

(Ps 66:18;

Pr 15:29; 28:9).

4. 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

(Pr 1:31; 26:5).

5. 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;

Ro 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."

6. 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, 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.

7. stranger--the proselyte, tolerated in Israel only on condition of

worshipping no God but Jehovah

(Le 17:8, 9).

inquire of him concerning me--that is, concerning My will.

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.

8. And I will set my face against that

man--(See on

Le 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, &c.

(Nu 26:10;

De 28:37).

9. 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

(De 13:3;

1Ki 22:23;

Jer 4:10;

2Th 2:11, 12).

Evil comes not from God, though God overrules it to serve His will

(Job 12:16;

Jas 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 wilful blindness."

10. 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 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

(De 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; 28:6, 7).

They and the prophet, being dupes of a common delusion, should be

involved in a common ruin.

11. Love was the spring of God's very judgments on His people, who

were incurable by any other process

(Eze 11:20; 37:27).

12. 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

Ge 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

(Ps 99:6;

Jer 14:2; 15:1),

which had prevailed formerly

(Ex 32:11-14;

Nu 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"

(Jas 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

13. staff of . . . bread--on which man's existence is supported as

on a staff

(Eze 4:16; 5:16;

Le 26:26;

Ps 104:15;

Isa 3:1).

I will send a famine.

14. 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

(Da 2:17, 18, 48, 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

Da 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

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, 18, 20;

compare

Jer 7:16; 11:14; 14:11).

deliver . . . souls by . . . righteousness--

(Pr 11:4);

not the righteousness of works, but that of grace, a truth less clearly

understood under the law

(Ro 4:3).

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"

(Le 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.

19. in blood--not literally. In Hebrew, "blood" expresses every

premature kind of death.

21. How much more--literally, "Surely shall it be so now, when I send,"

&c. If none could avert the one only judgment incurred,

surely now, when all four are incurred by sin, much more impossible

it will be to deliver the land.

22. 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.

23. 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.