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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Ezekiel 33:10 - 33:10
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As watchman over Israel, Ezekiel is to announce to those who are despairing of the mercy of God, that the Lord will preserve from destruction those who turn from their sin, and lead them into life. - Eze 33:10. Thou then, son of man, say to the house of Israel, Ye rightly say, Our transgressions and our sins lie upon us, and in them we vanish away; how, then, can we live? Eze 33:11. Say to them, As truly as I live, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah, I have no pleasure in the death of the sinner; but when the sinner turneth from his way, he shall live. Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways! for why will ye die, O house of Israel? Eze 33:12. And thou, son of man, say to the sons of thy people, The righteousness of the righteous man will not deliver him in the day of his transgression, and the sinner will not fall through his sin in the day that he turneth from his sin, and the righteous man will not be able to live thereby in the day that he sinneth. Eze 33:13. If I say to the righteous man that he shall live, and he relies upon his righteousness and does wrong, all his righteousnesses will not be remembered; and for his wrong that he has done, he will die. Eze 33:14. If I say to the sinner, Thou shalt die, and he turns from his sin, and does justice and righteousness, Eze 33:15. So that the wicked returns the pledge, restores what has been robbed, walks in the statutes of life without doing wrong, he will live, not die. Eze 33:16. All his sins which he has committed shall not be remembered against him; he has done justice and righteousness, he will live. Eze 33:17. And the sons of thy people say, The way of the Lord is not right; but they - their way is not right. Eze 33:18. If the righteous man turneth from his righteousness and doeth wrong, he shall die thereby; Eze 33:19. But if the wicked man turneth from his wickedness and doeth right and righteousness, he will live thereby. Eze 33:20. And yet ye say, The way of the Lord is not right. I will judge you every one according to his ways, O house of Israel. - In Eze 33:10 and Eze 33:11 the prophet's calling for the future is set before him, inasmuch as God instructs him to announce to those who are in despair on account of their sins the gracious will of the Lord. The threat contained in the law (Lev 26:39), יִמַּקּוּ בַּעֲֹונָם, of which Ezekiel had repeatedly reminded the people with warning, and, last of all, when predicting the conquest and destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans (compare Eze 4:17 and Eze 24:23), had pressed heavily upon their heart, when the threatened judgment took place, so that they quote the words, not “in self-defence,” as Hävernick erroneously supposes, but in despair of any deliverance. Ezekiel is to meet this despair of little faith by the announcement that the Lord has no pleasure in the death of the sinner, but desires his conversion and his life. Ezekiel had already set this word of grave before the people in Eze 18:23, Eze 18:32, accompanied with the summons to salvation for them to lay to heart: there, it was done to overthrow the delusion that the present generation had to atone for the sins of the fathers; but here, to lift up the hearts of those who were despairing of salvation; and for this reason it is accompanied with the asseveration (wanting in Eze 18:23 and Eze 18:32): “as truly as I live, saith the Lord,” and with the urgent appeal to repent and turn. But in order to preclude the abuse of this word of consolation by making it a ground of false confidence in their own righteousness, Ezekiel repeats in Eze 33:12-20 the principal thoughts contained in that announcement (Eze 18:20-32) - namely, first of all, in Eze 33:12-16, the thought that the righteousness of the righteous is of no avail to him if he gives himself up to the unrighteousness, and that the sinner will not perish on account of his sin if he turns from his wickedness and strives after righteousness (יִכָּשֵׁל , Eze 33:12, as in Hos 5:5; Jer 6:15; compare Eze 18:24-25, and Eze 18:21, Eze 18:22; and for Eze 33:14 and Eze 33:15, more especially Eze 18:5 and Eze 18:7); and then, secondly, in Eze 33:17-20, the reproof of those who find fault with the way of the Lord (compare Eze 18:25, Eze 18:27, Eze 18:29-30).