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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Ezekiel 14:1 - 14:1
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The Lord Gives No Answer to the Idolaters
Eze 14:1 narrates the occasion for this and the following words of God: There came to me men of the elders of Israel, and sat down before me. These men were not deputies from the Israelites in Palestine, as Grotius and others suppose, but elders of the exiles among whom Ezekiel had been labouring. They came to visit the prophet (v. 3), evidently with the intention of obtaining, through him, a word of God concerning the future of Jerusalem, or the fate of the kingdom of Judah. But Hävernick is wrong in supposing that we may infer, from either the first or second word of God in this chapter, that they had addressed to the prophet a distinct inquiry of this nature, to which the answer is given in vv. 12-23. For although their coming to the prophet showed that his prophecies had made an impression upon them, it is not stated in v. 1 that they had come to inquire of God, like the elders in Eze 20:1, and there is no allusion to any definite questions in the words of God themselves. The first (Eze 14:2-11) simply assumes that they have come with the intention of asking, and discloses the state of heart which keeps them from coming to inquire; and the second (Eze 14:12-23) points out the worthlessness of their false confidence in the righteousness of certain godly men.
Eze 14:2-5
And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, Eze 14:3. Son of man, these men have let their idols rise up in their heart, and have set the stumbling-block to guilt before their face: shall I allow myself to be inquired of by them? Eze 14:4. Therefore speak to them, and say to them, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Every man of the house of Israel who lifteth up his idols in his heart, and setteth the stumbling-block to his sin before his face, and cometh to the prophet, to him do I, Jehovah, show myself, answering according thereto, according to the multitude of his idols; Eze 14:5. To grasp the house of Israel by their heart, because they have turned away from me, all of them through their idols. - We have not to picture these elders to ourselves as given up to gross idolatry. הֶעֱלָה עַל לֵב means, to allow anything to come into the mind, to permit it to rise up in the heart, to be mentally busy therewith. “To set before one's face” is also to be understood, in a spiritual sense, as relating to a thing which a man will not put out of his mind. מִכְשֹׁול , stumbling-block to sin and guilt (cf. Eze 7:19), i.e., the idols. Thus the two phrases simply denote the leaning of the heart and spirit towards false gods. God does not suffer those whose heart is attached to idols to seek and find Him. The interrogative clause 'הַאִדָּרֹשׁ וגו contains a strong negation. The emphasis lies in the infinitive absolute אִדָּרֹשׁ et placed before the verb, in which the ה is softened into א, to avoid writing ה twice. נִדְרַשׁ, to allow oneself to be sought, involves the finding of God; hence in Isa 65:1 we have נִדְרַשׁ as parallel to נִמְצָא. In Eze 14:4, Eze 14:5, there follows a positive declaration of the attitude of God towards those who are devoted to idolatry in their heart. Every such Israelite will be answered by God according to the measure of the multitude of his idols. The Niphal נַעֲנֶה has not the signification of the Kal, and does not mean “to be answerable,” as Ewald supposes, or to converse; but is generally used in a passive sense, “to be answered,” i.e., to find or obtain a hearing (Job 11:2; Job 19:7). It is employed here in a reflective sense, to hold or show oneself answering. בה, according to the Chetib בָהּ, for which the Keri suggests the softer gloss בא, refers to 'בְּרֹב גל which follows; the nominative being anticipated, according to an idiom very common in Aramaean, by a previous pronoun. It is written here for the sake of emphasis, to bring the following object into more striking prominence. ב is used here in the sense of secundum, according to, not because, since this meaning is quite unsuitable for the ב in Eze 14:7, where it occurs in the same connection (בִּי). The manner in which God will show Himself answering the idolatry according to their idols, is reserved till Eze 14:8. Here, in Eze 14:5, the design of this procedure on the part of God is given: viz., to grasp Israel by the heart; i.e., not merely to touch and to improve them, but to bring down their heart by judgments (cf. Lev 26:41), and thus move them to give up idolatry and return to the living God. נָֹזרוּ, as in Isa 1:4, to recede, to draw away from God. כֻּלָּם is an emphatic repetition of the subject belonging to נָֹזרוּ.
Eze 14:6-8
In these verses the divine threat, and the summons to repent, are repeated, expanded, and uttered in the clearest words. - Eze 14:6. Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Repent, and turn away from your idols; and turn away your face from all your abominations. V.7. For every one of the house of Israel, and of the foreigners who sojourn in Israel, if he estrange himself from me, and let his idols rise up in his heart, and set the stumbling-block to his sin before his face, and come to the prophet to seek me for himself; I will show myself to him, answering in my own way. Eze 14:8. I will direct my face against that man, and will destroy him, for a sign and for proverbs, and will cut him off out of my people; and ye shall learn that I am Jehovah. - לָכֵן in Eze 14:6 is co-ordinate with the לָכֵן in Eze 14:4, so far as the thought is concerned, but it is directly attached to Eze 14:5: because they have estranged themselves from God, therefore God requires them to repent and turn. For God will answer with severe judgments every one who would seek God with idols in his heart, whether he be an Israelite, or a foreigner living in the midst of Israel. שׁוּבוּ, turn, be converted, is rendered still more emphatic by the addition of פְנֵיכֶם... הָשִׁיבוּ. This double call to repentance corresponds to the double reproof of their idolatry in Eze 14:3, viz., שׁוּבוּ, to עַל לֵב 'הֶעֱלָה גל; and הָשִׁיבוּ פְנֵיכֶם, to their setting the idols נֹכַח פְּנֵיהֶם. הָשִׁיבוּ is not used intransitively, as it apparently is in Eze 18:30, but is to be taken in connection with the object פְנֵיכֶם, which follows at the end of the verse; and it is simply repeated before פניכם for the sake of clearness and emphasis. The reason for the summons to repent and give up idolatry is explained in Eze 14:7, in the threat that God will destroy every Israelite, and every foreigner in Israel, who draws away from God and attaches himself to idols. The phraseology of Eze 14:7 is adopted almost verbatim from Lev 17:8, Lev 17:10,Lev 17:13. On the obligation of foreigners to avoid idolatry and all moral abominations, vid., Lev 20:2; Lev 18:26; Lev 17:10; Exo 12:19, etc. The ו before יִנָּזֵר and יַעַל does not stand for the Vav relat., but simply supposes a case: “should he separate himself from my followers, and let his idols rise up, etc.” לִדְרָשׁ־לֹו בִּי does not mean, “to seek counsel of him (the prophet) from me,” for לֹו cannot be taken as referring to the prophet, although דָּרַשׁ with לְ does sometimes mean to seek any one, and לְ may therefore indicate the person to whom one goes to make inquiry (cf. 2Ch 15:13; 2Ch 17:4; 2Ch 31:21), because it is Jehovah who is sought in this case; and Hävernick's remark, that “דָּרַשׁ with לְ merely indicates the external object sought by a man, and therefore in this instance the medium or organ through whom God speaks,” is proved to be erroneous by the passages just cited. לֹו is reflective, or to be taken as a dat. commodi, denoting the inquirer or seeker. The person approached for the purpose of inquiring or seeking, i.e., God, is indicated by the preposition בְּ, as in 1Ch 10:14 (דָּרַשׁ ); and also frequently, in the case of idols, when either an oracle or help is sought from them (1Sa 28:7; 2Ki 1:2.). It is only in this way that לֹו and בִּי can be made to correspond to the same words in the apodosis: Whosoever seeks counsel of God, to him will God show Himself answering בִּי, in Him, i.e., in accordance with His nature, in His own way, - namely, in the manner described in Eze 14:8. The threat is composed of passages in the law: 'נָתַתִּי and 'הִכְרַתִּי וגו, after Lev 20:3, Lev 20:5-6; and 'וַחֲשִׁמֹותִיהוּ וגו, though somewhat freely, after Deu 28:37 ('הָיָה לְשַׁמָּה לְמָשָׁל). There is no doubt, therefore, that הֲשִׁמֹותי is to be derived from שָׁמֵם, and stands for הֲשִׁמֹּותי, in accordance with the custom in later writings of resolving the Dagesh forte into a long vowel. The allusion to Deu 28:37, compared with הָיָה in v. 46 of the same chapter, is sufficient to set aside the assumption that השׁמותי is to be derived from שִׂים, and pointed accordingly; although the lxx, Targ., Syr., and Vulg. have all renderings of שִׂים (cf. Psa 44:16). Moreover, שִׂים in the perfect never takes the Hiphil form; and in Eze 20:26 we have אֲשִׁמֵּם in a similar connection. The expression is a pregnant one: I make him desolate, so that he becomes a sign and proverbs.
Eze 14:9-11
No prophet is to give any other answer. - Eze 14:9. But if a prophet allow himself to be persuaded, and give a word, I have persuaded this prophet, and will stretch out my hand against him, and cut him off out of my people Israel. Eze 14:10. They shall bear their guilt: as the guilt of the inquirer, so shall the guilt of the prophet be; Eze 14:11. In order that the house of Israel may no more stray from me, and may no more defile itself with all its transgressions; but they may be my people, and I their God is the saying of the Lord Jehovah. - The prophet who allows himself to be persuaded is not a prophet מִלִּבֹּו (Eze 13:2), but one who really thinks that he has a word of God. פִּתָּה, to persuade, to entice by friendly words (in a good sense, Hos 2:16); but generally sensu malo, to lead astray, or seduce to that which is unallowable or evil. “If he allow himself to be persuaded:” not necessarily “with the hope of payment from the hypocrites who consult him” (Michaelis). This weakens the thought. It might sometimes be done from unselfish good-nature. And “the word” itself need not have been a divine oracle of his own invention, or a false prophecy. The allusion is simply to a word of a different character from that contained in Eze 14:6-8, which either demands repentance or denounces judgment upon the impenitent: every word, therefore, which could by any possibility confirm the sinner in his security. - By אֲנִי יְהֹוָה (Eze 14:9) the apodosis is introduced in an emphatic manner, as in Eze 14:4 and Eze 14:7; but פִּתֵּיתִי cannot be taken in a future sense (“I will persuade”). It must be a perfect; since the persuading of the prophet would necessarily precede his allowing himself to be persuaded. The Fathers and earlier Lutheran theologians are wrong in their interpretation of פִּתֵּיתִי, which they understand in a permissive sense, meaning simply that God allowed it, and did not prevent their being seduced. Still more wrong are Storr and Schmieder, the former of whom regards it as simply declaratory, “I will declare him to have gone astray from the worship of Jehovah;” the latter, “I will show him to be a fool, by punishing him for his disobedience.” The words are rather to be understood in accordance with 1Ki 22:20., where the persuading (pittâh) is done by a lying spirit, which inspires the prophets of Ahab to predict success to the king, in order that he may fall. As Jehovah sent the spirit in that case, and put it into the mouth of the prophets, so is the persuasion in this instance also effected by God: not merely divine permission, but divine ordination and arrangement; though this does not destroy human freedom, but, like all “persuading,” presupposes the possibility of not allowing himself to be persuaded. See the discussion of this question in the commentary on 1Ki 22:20. The remark of Calvin on the verse before us is correct: “it teaches that neither impostures nor frauds take place apart from the will of God” (nisi Deo volente). But this willing on the part of God, or the persuading of the prophets to the utterance of self-willed words, which have not been inspired by God, only takes place in persons who admit evil into themselves, and is designed to tempt them and lead them to decide whether they will endeavour to resist and conquer the sinful inclinations of their hearts, or will allow them to shape themselves into outward deeds, in which case they will become ripe for judgment. It is in this sense that God persuades such a prophet, in order that He may then cut him off out of His people. But this punishment will not fall upon the prophet only. It will reach the seeker or inquirer also, in order if possible to bring Israel back from its wandering astray, and make it into a people of God purified from sin (Eze 14:10 and Eze 14:11). It was to this end that, in the last times of the kingdom of Judah, God allowed false prophecy to prevail so mightily, - namely, that it might accelerate the process of distinguishing between the righteous and the wicked; and then, by means of the judgment which destroyed the wicked, purify His nation and lead it on to the great end of its calling.