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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Ezekiel 13:20 - 13:20
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Punishment of the False Prophetesses
Eze 13:20. Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I will deal with your coverings with which ye catch, I will let the souls fly; and I will tear them away from your arms, and set the souls free, which ye catch, the souls to fly. Eze 13:21. And I will tear your caps in pieces, and deliver my people out of your hand, and they shall no more become a prey in your hands; and ye shall learn that I am Jehovah. Eze 13:22. Because ye grieve the heart of the righteous with lying, when I have not pained him; and strengthen the hands of the wicked, so that he does not turn from his evil way, to preserve his life. Eze 13:23. Therefore ye shall no more see vanity, and no longer practise soothsaying: and I will deliver my people out of your hand; and ye shall learn that I am Jehovah. - The threat of judgment is closely connected with the reproof of their sins. Eze 13:20 and Eze 13:21 correspond to the reproof in Eze 13:18, and Eze 13:22 and Eze 13:23 to that in Eze 13:19. In the first place, the Lord will tear in pieces the coverings and caps, i.e., the tissue of lies woven by the false prophetesses, and rescue the people from their snares (Eze 13:20 and Eze 13:21); and, secondly, He will entirely put an end to the pernicious conduct of the persons addressed (Eze 13:22 and Eze 13:23). The words from אֲשֶׁר אַתֵּנָּה to לְפֹרְחֹות (Eze 13:20), when taken as one clause, as they generally are, offer insuperable difficulties, since it is impossible to get any satisfactory meaning from שָׁם, and לְפֹרְחֹות will not fit in. Whether we understand by kesâthōth coverings or cushions, the connection of שָׁם with אֲשֶׁר (where ye catch the souls), which the majority of commentators prefer, is untenable; for coverings and cushions were not the places where the souls were caught, but could only be the means employed for catching them. Instead of שָׁם we should expect בָּם or בָּהֶם; and Hitzig proposes to amend it in this way. Still less admissible is the proposal to take שָׁם as referring to Jerusalem (“wherewith ye catch souls there”); as שָׁם would not only contain a perfectly superfluous definition of locality, but would introduce a limitation altogether at variance with the context. It is not affirmed either of the prophets or of the prophetesses that they lived and prophesied in Jerusalem alone. In Eze 13:2 and Eze 13:17 reference is made in the most general terms to the prophets of Israel and the daughters of thy people; and in Eze 13:16 it is simply stated that the false prophets prophesied peace to Jerusalem when there was no peace at all. Consequently we must regard the attempt to find in שָׁם an allusion to Jerusalem (cf. Eze 13:16) as a mere loophole, which betrays an utter inability to get any satisfactory sense for the word. Moreover, if we construe the words in this manner, לְפֹרְחֹות is also incomprehensible. Commentators have for the most part admitted that פָּרַח taht is used here in the Aramaean sense of volare, to fly. In the second half of the verse there is no doubt about its having this meaning. For שִׁלֵּחַ is used in Deu 22:7 for liberating a bird, or letting it fly; and the combination שִׁלֵּחַ is supported by the expression שִׁלֵּחַ לְחָפְשִׁי in Exo 21:26, while the comparison of souls to birds is sustained by Psa 11:1 and Psa 124:7. Hence the true meaning of the whole passage לְפֹרְחֹות... שִׁלַּחְתִּי אֶת־הַנְּפָשֹׁות is, I send away (set free) the souls, which ye have caught, as flying ones, i.e., so that they shall be able to fly away at liberty. And in the first half also we must not adopt a different rendering for לְפֹרְחֹות, since אֶת־הַנְּפָשֹׁות is also connected with it there.
But if the words in question are combined into one clause in the first hemistich, they will give us a sense which is obviously wrong, viz., “wherewith ye catch the souls to let them fly.” As the impossibility of adopting this rendering has been clearly seen, the attempt has been made to cloak over the difficulty by means of paraphrases. Ewald, for example, renders לְפֹרְחֹות in both cases “as if they were birds of passage;” but in the first instance he applies it to birds of passage, for which nets are spread for the purpose of catching them; and in the second, to birds of passage which are set at liberty. Thus, strictly speaking, he understands the first לְפֹרְחֹות as signifying the catching of birds; and the second, letting them fly: an explanation which refutes itself, as pârach, to fly, cannot mean “to catch” as well. The rendering adopted by Kimchi, Rosenmüller, and others, who translate לְפֹרְחֹות ut advolent ad vos in the first hemistich, and ut avolent in the second, is no better. And the difficulty is not removed by resorting to the dialects, as Hävernick, for the purpose of forcing upon פֹּרְחֹות the meaning dissoluteness of licentiousness, for which there is no authority in the Hebrew language itself. If, therefore, it is impossible to obtain any satisfactory meaning from the existing text, it cannot be correct; and no other course is open to us than to alter the unsuitable שָׁם into שָׂם, and divide the words from אֲשֶׁר אַתֶּנָּה to לְפֹרְחֹות into two clauses, as we have done in our translation above. There is no necessity to supply anything to the relative אֲשֶׁר, as צוּד is construed with a double accusative (e.g., Mic 7:2, צוּד חֶרֶם, to catch with a net), and the object to מְצֹדְדֹות, viz., the souls, can easily be supplied from the next clause. שָׂם, as a participle, can either be connected with הִנְנִי, “behold, I make,” or taken as introducing an explanatory clause: “making the souls into flying ones,” i.e., so that they are able to fly (שׁוּם לְ, Gen 12:2, etc.). The two clauses of the first hemistich would then exactly correspond to the two clauses of the second half of the verse. וְקָרַעְתִּי אֹתָם is explanatory of הִנְנִי אֶל כסת, I will tear off the coverings from their arms. These words do not require the assumption that the prophetesses wore the לסתות on their arms, but may be fully explained from the supposition that the persons in question prepared them with their own hands. 'וְשִׁלַּחְתִּי וגו corresponds to 'שָׂם אֶת־הַנְּפָשֹׁות וגו; and לְפֹרְחֹות is governed by שִׁלַּחְתִּי. The insertion of אֶת־הַנְּפָשִׁים is to be accounted for from the copious nature of Ezekiel's style; at the same time, it is not merely a repetition of אֶת־הַנְּפָשֹׁות, which is separated from לִפֹרְחֹות by the relative clause 'אֲשֶׁר אַתֶּם מח, but as the unusual plural form נְפָשִׁים shows, is intended as a practical explanation of the fact, that the souls, while compared to birds, are regarded as living beings, which is the meaning borne by נֶפֶשׁ in other passages. The omission of the article after אֶת may be explained, however, from the fact that the souls had been more precisely defined just before; just as, for example, in 1Sa 24:6; 2Sa 18:18, where the more precise definition follows immediately afterwards (cf. Ewald, §277a, p. 683). - The same thing is said in Eze 13:21, with regard to the caps, as has already been said of the coverings in Eze 13:20. God will tear these in pieces also, to deliver His people from the power of the lying prophetesses. In what way God will do this is explained in Eze 13:22 and Eze 13:23, namely, not only by putting their lying prophecies to shame through His judgment, but by putting an end to soothsaying altogether, and exterminating the false prophetesses by making them an object of ridicule and shame. The reason for this threat is given in Eze 13:22, where a further description is given of the disgraceful conduct of these persons; and here the disgracefulness of their conduct is exhibited in literal terms and without any figure. They do harm to the righteous and good, and strengthen the hands of the wicked. הַכְאֹות, Hiphil of כָּאָה, in Syriac, to use harshly or depress; so here in the Hiphil, connected with לֵב, to afflict the heart. שֶׁקֶר is used adverbially: with lying, or in a lying manner; namely, by predicting misfortune and divine punishments, with which they threatened the godly, who would not acquiesce in their conduct; whereas, on the contrary, they predicted prosperity and peace to the ungodly, who were willing to be ensnared by them, and thus strengthened them in their evil ways. For this God would put them to shame through His judgments, which would make their deceptions manifest, and their soothsaying loathsome.