EZEKIEL 14
A
Bible Study - Commentary by Jim Melough
Copyright
2003 James Melough
14:1. “Then came certain of the elders of Israel
unto me, and sat before me.”
14:2. “And the word of the Lord came unto me,
saying,”
14:3. “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?”
These elders, having obviously consulted their idols and the false prophets,
had the brazen effrontery to come to God’s prophet to have him inquire whether
He had any different message for them.
“... the stumbling block of their iniquity before their face” was the idols
before which they bowed, thus committing great iniquity, and causing God to
ask indignantly whether they really were so foolish as to expect Him to give
them any revelation.
Their audacity is duplicated by today’s hypocritical apostate Christendom
which defies Him to His face, e.g., it has forbidden prayer and the public
reading of the Bible in its schools; it refuses to call Him God, and denies
His power by attributing all natural phenomena to Mother Nature; it attempts
to dignify sodomy - which God has declared a capital offence - by calling it
“sexual preference.” Infanticide has been legalized by the euphemism “legal
abortion,” - the list is endless. And yet in every disaster the people go
through the charade of “praying” to Him!
14:4. “Therefore speak unto them, and say unto
the, 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, and cometh to the prophet; I the Lord will answer him that cometh
according to the multitude of his idols;”
God denounced their temerity by declaring that His answer to their inquiry
would be to assure them of His judgment upon their rampant idolatry and all
their other wickedness.
That same assurance is God’s reply to the hypocrisy of today’s apostate
Christendom, His judgments coming in the fast approaching Great Tribulation.
14:5. “That I may take the house of Israel in
their own heart, because they are all estranged from me through their idols.”
The first part of this verse is also translated, that I may lay hold of the
hearts: in this way I hope to touch the heart: thus would I bring back to
their senses: My answer will grip the hearts of: I will ruin Israel with their
hearts’ desire: I will catch Israel in their own devices. Since that
generation was doomed because of their failure to repent in God’s time, His
only answer was the assurance of destruction because of their idolatry.
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 (filthy practices).”
This has to be understood in the context of God’s immutable sentence of
destruction upon that generation of Israel. The call here is to the very few
individuals within the apostate mass of the guilty nation who would heed the
warning and repent, thereby saving their souls, though not necessarily their
lives, nor assuring any believing survivors of immunity from Babylonian
captivity.
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 stumbling block of his
iniquity before his face, and cometh to a prophet to inquire of him concerning
me: I the Lord will answer him by myself:”
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.”
Idolatrous Israelite or foreigner dwelling in the land, and coming to a
prophet to inquire of Jehovah, was hereby assured that God Himself would reply
by slaying that man and making him an example and a byword.
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.”
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;”
These verses are usually taken to mean that if a prophet did respond to the
inquiry of idolaters it would mean that he was a false prophet, and the Lord
would deceive him further, not only by giving him a false message, but by then
slaying both him and the inquirers.
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.”
God’s severe punishment was exactly suited to the enormity of their guilt, and
had for its ultimate purpose the production of a people repentant and
converted, an end that will be achieved only by the now imminent Great
Tribulation judgments.
14:12. “The word of the Lord came again to me,
saying,”
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 bread thereof, and will send famine upon it,
and will cut off man and beast from it:”
Virtually every other translation renders “the land” as “a
land,” so that the warning isn’t limited to Israel. The whole world is
responsible before God, and the agent of punishment will be famine. The
complacent western world with its abundance of everything would be well
advised to consider the many other countries being ravaged today by famine,
and would be equally well advised to consider that God could inflict the same
condition upon them by simply withholding the rain. Or would the culprit be
“Mother Nature” who seems to have replaced God these days?
It is instructive to note that famine will be one of the agents of deadly
judgment in the Great Tribulation.
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.”
When Abraham pleaded with God to spare Sodom he began by asking that it might
be spared if fifty righteous were found in it, and finally when he had reduced
the number to ten he ceased pleading, see Gen 18. But the extent of God’s
wrath in the present instance is so great that even if the three righteous men
mentioned above were in the land that had fitted itself for destruction, He
would permit only those three to escape before pouring out His terrible
judgments, as He will in the coming Great Tribulation.
The righteousness mentioned here is not to be confused with good deeds: it is
the divinely bestowed righteousness of Christ which clothes every genuine
believer.
14:15. “If I cause noisome (wild) 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:”
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.”
This continues to point to the Great Tribulation, for under the fourth seal,
Rev 6:8, wild beasts are listed as one of the agents of death, and in this
connection it is instructive to remember that in that dreadful era in which
multitudes will die of hunger, there will be little or nothing to feed the
millions of abandoned pet cats, and dogs that will be turned loose, and
maddened by hunger, will prowl city streets in deadly scavaging packs.
The reference to Noah, Daniel, and Job,- three outstandingly righteous men -
is the reminder that only the righteous will emerge alive from the Great
Tribulation judgments to inherit millennial blessing.
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:”
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.”
War, symbolized here by the sword, is another judgment that will devastate the
Tribulation-age earth; and the three righteous men mentioned have the same
significance here as in verse 16.
14:19. “Or if I send a pestilence (disease) in
that land, and pour out my fury upon it in blood, to cut off from it man and
beast:”
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.”
Pestilence or plague is another judgment that will decimate the Tribulation
age earth.
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 (wild) beast, and the pestilence, to cut off from it
man and beast?”
Having discussed details relative to each one of these same four judgments,
God here asks the people to consider what it will be like when He sends all of
them concurrently, as He will in the Great Tribulation.
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.”
The first part of the verse declares that even in the destruction of Jerusalem
by the Babylonians, He would preserve a remnant who would emerge from that
catastrophe with their children.
“... ye shall see their way and their doings,” means simply that those already
in captivity in Babylon would see in the evil conduct of that preserved
remnant brought also captive to Babylon, the justification for God’s judgment
upon Jerusalem.
But even in judgment God remembers mercy, for when His judgment had
accomplished His purposes in bringing them back to an obedient walk, they
would then enjoy His blessing.
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.”
His preservation of that wicked remnant, and His bringing them as captives to
Babylon, would show those already there, by the ungodly lifestyles of the new
arrivals, that He had had good reason for sending the judgment upon them.
We are, however, seeing only half the picture if we fail to see in what
happened to guilty Israel at the hand of Babylon, a foreshadowing of what is
to come upon this guilty world in the now imminent Great Tribulation. A
remnant will be preserved also through that terrible time, but it will be a
godly remnant, and following Christ’s judgment of the nations, it will be
brought out of the Tribulation into the enjoyment of millennial blessing.
[Ezekiel
15]