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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadEzekiel, Jonah, and Pastoral Epistles by Patrick Fairbairn - Ezekiel 18:1 - 18:32
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Eze_18:2. Why do ye use this proverb upon the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge?
Eze_18:3. As I live, saith the Lord Jehovah, ye shall no longer use this proverb in Israel.
Eze_18:4. Behold, all the souls are mine; behold, as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine; behold, the soul that sinneth, it shall die.
Eze_18:5. And when there is a man that is righteous, and does judgment and justice:
Eze_18:6. On the mountains has not eaten, nor has lifted up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, and has not polluted the wife of his neighbour, nor drawn near to an unclean woman;
Eze_18:7. And has not oppressed a man, has restored his debt-pledge, has practised no robbery, has given of his bread to the hungry, and the naked has clothed with raiment;
Eze_18:8. Has not given forth on usury, nor has taken increase, has withheld his hand from iniquity, has executed true judgment between man and man;
Eze_18:9. Has walked in my statutes, and kept my judgments to deal truly; righteous is he, he shall surely live, saith the Lord Jehovah.
Eze_18:10. And should he beget a son a robber, a shedder of blood, and a doer of any one of such things,
Eze_18:11. But does none of all those, yea, besides, has eaten upon the mountains, and polluted his neighbour’s wife,
Eze_18:12. Has oppressed the poor and needy, has practised robbery, has not restored a pledge, and to the idols has lifted up his eyes, working abomination,
Eze_18:13. Has given forth on usury, and taken increase; shall he live? he shall not live; he has done all these abominations; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon him.
Eze_18:14. And, lo, shall he beget a son, that sees all the sins of his father which he has done, yea, shall see and not do according to them,
Eze_18:15. Shall not eat upon the mountains, nor lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, nor pollute his neighbour’s wife,
Eze_18:16. And shall not oppress a man, take no pledge, practise no robbery, give his bread to the hungry, and clothe the naked with raiment,
Eze_18:17. From the poor shall not turn back his hand, shall not take usury and increase, execute my judgments, walk in my statutes; he shall not die for the iniquity of his father; he shall surely live.
Eze_18:18. His father, since he did most unjustly, fraudulently spoiled his brother, and did what is not good in the midst of his people, behold, he shall die in his iniquity.
19. And ye say, Wherefore? Does not the son bear the iniquity of the father? Nay, should the son do justice and righteousness, keep all my statutes, and do them, he shall surely live.
Eze_18:20. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, nor the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.
Eze_18:21. And if the wicked shall turn from all his sins which he hath done, and shall keep all my statutes, and do judgment and righteousness, he shall surely live, he shall not die.
Eze_18:22. None of his transgressions which he has done shall be remembered against him; in his righteousness that he has done he shall live.
Eze_18:23. Have I any pleasure at all in the death of the wicked? saith the Lord Jehovah; and not that he turn from his way and live?
Eze_18:24. But when the righteous turns from his righteousness, and commits iniquity, doing according to all the abominations which the wicked does, shall he then live? Nothing of all his righteousness which he has done shall be remembered; in his trespass that he has trespassed, and in his sin that he has sinned, in them shall he die.
Eze_18:25. Yet ye say, The way of the Lord is not equal. Hear now, house of Israel, is not my way equal? are not your ways unequal?
Eze_18:26. When a righteous man turns from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and dies upon them (i.e. on account of his acts of iniquity), for his iniquity that he has done he dies.
Eze_18:27. And when the wicked turns away from his wickedness that he has committed, and does that which is just and right, he shall save his soul alive.
Eze_18:28. And should he see and return from all his transgressions that he has committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die.
Eze_18:29. But the house of Israel say, The way of the Lord is not equal. Are not my ways equal, house of Israel? are not your ways unequal?
Eze_18:30. Therefore every man according to his way will I judge you, house of Israel, saith the Lord Jehovah. Return, and come back from all your transgressions, and iniquity shall not be your ruin.
Eze_18:31. Cast away from you all your transgressions, by which ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit; and why will ye die, house of Israel?
Eze_18:32. For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dies, saith the Lord Jehovah; therefore (The vau here must plainly be taken as an example of the inferential use of the conjunction—so then therefore (Ges. Gr. sec. 152, Id).) return and live ye.
THE prophet passes from the purposes of God respecting the future establishment of his kingdom and glory in the world—as disclosed in the preceding chapter to an expostulation with the people on account of sin, and an earnest pleading on behalf of righteousness. He wished them to understand that, however gracious the intentions of Heaven might be, and however certainly they would reach their destined accomplishment, they were not to move as in an orbit of their own, independently of the condition of the people; nor might the people expect any benefit from them, if wedded to the love and practice of sin. While, on the one hand, God might confidently be expected to do what he had promised, they, on the other, should not be entitled to look for any blessing, unless they applied themselves in earnest to do what he required at their hands.
The chapter preserves throughout the form of a controversial pleading; because the people are contemplated by the prophet as in a self-righteous condition, disposed to shift off themselves the blame of what was evil in their lot, and lay it partly on their fathers, partly on God himself. We suffer, it is true, they were complacently saying among themselves, under the rod of chastisement, but that we do so is our misfortune, rather than our sin; it is not we, but our fathers, who ate the sour grapes, and now, inheriting what was justly due to their transgression, our teeth are set on edge. What was it but in effect to say, God can have no proper quarrel with us? We are dealing faithfully by the commandments of his law, and we can no otherwise account for his subjecting us to punishment than on the principle of our being made to bear the iniquities of those who have gone before us.
The mere fact of their taking up such a view of their case, and putting it forth in vindication of themselves, was obviously a proof of some sort of reformation having been accomplished. The feeling could not have sprung up, and taken shape in their minds as a ground of defence, without at least an ostensible justification in the present, as compared with the past. To what extent this might actually be the case, either with the remnant at Jerusalem, or with the captives on the Chebar, we have no very specific data for ascertaining. Reckoning from the period of Manasseh’s reign, when the practice of all manner of corruption seemed to have reached its climax, we can have no reasonable doubt that in both divisions of the Jewish people a visible reform had taken place—more particularly with the captives, as their actual experience of God’s judgments would naturally have forced on them a more serious and thoughtful examination of their ways. But ample grounds exist, both in this prophet and Jeremiah, for holding that in each division alike there still was no thorough and general renunciation of iniquity. The partial improvements that had been made were chiefly of a superficial nature, and seem to have had no other effect than in fostering the self-righteous spirit, which induced them to seek elsewhere than in themselves the cause of their troubles and calamities. Therefore, in a word of severe expostulation and rebuke, which, if called forth by what then existed, has been no less applicable to succeeding generations of the Jewish people, the prophet exposes the vanity of their imaginations, and declares them to be still at war with the principles of God’s righteous administration. (How little the Jews of modern times have learned from what was spoken to their ancestors, may be gathered from the defence Orobius makes, as noticed by Warburton in his Dedication to the Jews, for the evils of their long dispersion: “They suffer,” says he, “not for their own sins, but for the sins of their forefathers.”)
In doing this, Ezekiel first announces the general principle of God’s righteousness as a principle of fair and impartial dealing with each individual according to his actions; then he explains and illustrates the operation of this principle in a series of supposed cases; and finally calls the people to repentance and amendment of life, as being still far from righteousness, and in danger of perdition.
1. There is, first, a general announcement made of the principle of God’s righteousness; which is declared to be a principle of fair and impartial dealing with each individual, according to his actions:” As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall no longer use this proverb in Israel. Behold, all the souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine; the soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Eze_18:3-4);—it alone shall die, as having, through sin, incurred the law’s penalty; others, who have lived righteously, shall be treated according to their desert, not as persons appointed to die, but rather as entitled to the blessings of life. And this on the broad and comprehensive ground that God is alike the maker of all, and can have no reason for adjudging some to a punishment from which he exempts others, except the different manner in which they conduct themselves toward him.
Here, of course, the question naturally arises, whether such has always been the principle of God’s dealing? or, whether the announcement made by the prophet marked a change in the Divine administration? There can be no doubt that the law did sanction the principle of a certain visitation of the sins of the fathers upon the children: “I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.” But then this principle, it would seem, remained still in active operation, neither suspended, nor in any way materally affected, by what is written here. For the prophet Jeremiah expressly connects the judgments which were shortly afterwards to alight upon Judah and Jerusalem with the sins of Manasseh’s time in the preceding generation (Jer_15:4); and again in Lam_5:7, after the judgments had actually been inflicted, “our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities.” Even in gospel times we find our Lord speaking of the principle as still in force, nay, as ready to be acted on with such fearful severity in the case of that generation, that upon them was to be charged and visited the righteous blood shed in all preceding ages of the Church’s history (Mat_23:34-36).
Yet neither our Lord in later, nor the prophets in earlier, times, seem to have had the least suspicion of any contrariety existing between the principle which thus connected the child with the parent in visitations of evil, and the direct and proper responsibility of each person for the actions merely of his own life. How thoroughly the gospel is pervaded by this latter principle requires no particular proof; there every one is made to feel that his condition and destiny depend upon the course he himself takes in respect to the will of God. And the prophet Jeremiah, when addressing God as “recompensing the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of the children after them,” in the very next breath celebrates his impartial administration of justice to all according to their doings: “Great in counsel and mighty in work; for thine eyes are upon all the ways of the sons of men, to give every one according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings” (Jer_32:18-19). In the law itself, indeed, there is as strong an assertion of this principle of individual responsibility as anywhere in Scripture, in the charge that is given to the judges: “The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers; every man shall be put to death for his own sin” (Deu_24:16); a charge which never would have been given to God’s representatives on earth, unless it were in full accordance with the character of his own administration. It is clear, therefore, from these distinct and unambiguous testimonies, that the two principles in question must have been perfectly consistent with each other, and that only the perverseness or misapprehensions of the people could have led to their being viewed as in any sort of antagonism. Nor is the ground of the reconciliation far to seek. The principle of a descending curse to families on account of sin proceeds on the assumption of a descending guilt as the reason of the appointment. The iniquity was to be visited from father to son, because the iniquity itself was viewed as passing with cumulative force from the one to the other. Hence the line of descent is characterized as “the generations of them that hate God,” while the superabundant flow of mercy on the other side is declared to be “to thousands of them that love him.” In truth, the principle which has its connection with the jealousy of God, as most intently watching the movements of sin, is just the manifestation of God’s righteousness in respect to the tendency of sin to spread and perpetuate itself in the world, and especially to go downward from parent to child as a growing and swelling tide of corruption. So that, if successive generations, yielding to this tendency, should become known as a hereditary band of evil-doers, God must in turn unite them in a bond of chastisement, and proportion his visitations of wrath to the degree of perverseness and obstinacy shown in pursuing the course of iniquity. But respect was ever had, at the same time, to the personal responsibility and behaviour of each; and only because the son was regarded as consenting to his father’s iniquity, and deliberately choosing it as his own inheritance, did the Lord visit him for both together. (It is a striking proof of the loose and arbitrary manner in which subjects of this kind were handled half a century ago in this country, that such a man as Paley could deliberately, and with apparent satisfaction, state, “that the only way of reconciling them (the principle set forth in the second commandment, and that in this passage of Ezekiel) together, is by supposing that the second commandment related solely to temporal, or rather family adversity and prosperity, and Ezekiel’s chapter to the rewards and punishments of a future life” (Serm. xiii). As if the very point under debate in this chapter were not why the covenant-people were subjected to their present temporal troubles and misfortunes. Drop this, and there is no question agitated between them and the prophet. As for the view of Warburton, that the principle of the second commandment was introduced to supply the want of a future state, and that the word by Ezekiel amounted to a virtual abrogation of it, now that the hope of immortality was going to be brought in, it can only be characterised as an utterly groundless assertion, proceeding on a mistaken view of the Divine dispensations. The idea of an innocent posterity suffering for a guilty parentage is justly designated by Hävernick as a heathenish one. “When men lost the faith of a living God, they were impelled to the worship of a blind Nemesis—a fate pregnant with mischief. The sentiments uttered by the people here are precisely what we find in those words of Solon with Stobæus (Ecl. ix. p. 100), Á ̓ ëë ʼ ï ̔ ìå ̀ í áõ ̓ ôé÷ å ̓́ ôéóåí , etc., and in the well-known passage of Horace’s Delicta majorum immeritus lues, Romane (Od. iii. 6. 1, comp. iii. 2. 30). See also Homer, Il. iv. 161 ss.” )
When the Lord, then, declares in this passage that the people should no longer have occasion to use the proverb of the fathers having eaten the sour grapes, and the children’s teeth being set on edge, allusion is not made to any projected change in the government of God, but merely to the sharp, personal dealing he was going to hold with each, which would not permit them any more to throw upon others the blame that was properly their own. “It was just as if he had said,” to use the excellent words of Calvin, “I will drive out of you this boasting, by laying bare your iniquity, in such a manner that the whole world shall perceive you to suffer the punishment you yourselves deserve, and you shall not be able, as you have been hitherto endeavouring, to cast the burden on your fathers.” It was to be made fully manifest that their punishment only corresponded to their own guilt. And the circumstance of the Lord prefacing this declaration with his oath, “As I live, it shall be done,” was like a solemn and earnest protest against the injurious and blasphemous character of the thought, which led them to impute to him a partial and arbitrary principle of dealing with his people.
This very protest, however, against the wrong principle of dealing falsely imputed to God, carried along with it a strong assertion of the necessity of the opposite principle—that of holding those liable to punishment who were guilty of sin. If it is abhorrent to the mind of God to render the just desert of sin in the wrong quarter, because contrary to the essential principles of justice, it must be equally abhorrent, and for the same reason, to withhold punishment from the quarter where it is due. For to protect and countenance the sinner is all one with discouraging and depressing the righteous. Therefore, the soul that sinneth must die; and the less God can punish the innocent for the guilty, the less also can he refrain from dealing with the guilty according to their transgressions. Thus, the severe impartiality of God, while it is a wall of security and defence for the good, becomes of necessity like a consuming fire to the wicked; and if death is not yet actually their portion, it can only be because the long-suffering of God is still waiting for their repentance.
2. So much for the principle itself of fair and impartial dealing, which the prophet here asserts for God in his government toward men. Let us now glance for a moment at the series of supposed cases, by which the prophet explains and illustrates the operation of the principle. There are altogether four distinct cases specified, which are also followed up toward the close by a renewed vindication of the Lord’s method of dealing in respect to them.
(1.) The first case supposed is that of a righteous man, who applies with sincere and honest purpose of heart to keep the ways of the Lord (Eze_18:5-9). And because very lax and imperfect notions prevailed concerning God’s ways, the prophet enters into some particulars, with the view of exhibiting clearly the nature of the requirements which the Divine law made at the hands of men, and thereby administering a reproof for prevailing evils. His enumeration of excellences was, doubtless, chosen with a respect to existing circumstances, that the mass of his countrymen might perceive how far they were deviating in their conduct from the character they ought to have maintained. And if, in one or two features of the representation, undue prominence seems to be given to points which in themselves were less important than others that might have been mentioned, a ready explanation is to be found in the prevailing character of the times. The prophet must adapt his description to the persons whom he sought more especially to benefit by it. And when he has thus delineated one who stood aloof from the reigning corruptions, and gave ample proof of having the law of God within his heart, the prophet draws the conclusion in his favour, that he shall live: “He is just; he shall surely live, saith the Lord God.”
Perhaps what will strike most readers in the present day as chiefly peculiar in the description given of the righteous man, is the stress laid upon his abstaining from usury: “He hath not given forth upon usury, neither hath taken any increase.” We find the same prominence, however, given to this feature in the still briefer description of the righteous by the Psalmist in the 15th Psalm: “Putteth not out his money to usury.” It arose in both cases from the strict prohibition in the law against lending money for interest to an Israelite (Exo_22:25; Lev_25:35; Lev_25:37; Deu_23:19-20). In several of the passages it is clearly implied that the money to be lent was to the poor, which consequently ought to have been done in a spirit of brotherly love, and not for the purpose of taking advantage of their necessities, and turning the loan into an occasion of trouble and oppression. The word denoting usury, ðֶùֶּׁê (from the verb to bite or eat), has respect to this vexatious and selfish mode of dealing with a brother’s poverty—making gain out of the distress of the borrower. But as the law permitted the lending of money on usury to strangers, it of course indicated that the practice was not in all circumstances improper. The law had respect to a very simple state of society, and a polity which was designed to form a check on speculation in trade and commerce, and diffuse a general well-being and comfort; hence it was important to encourage liberality to the poorer members of the commonwealth, and, on the part of the richer, repress the tendency to undue exactions; though, in corrupt times, the spirit of selfishness was always breaking through the restrictions. In the artificial and complicated affairs of modern times, the prohibitions of the law against usury cannot fairly be stretched farther than to regard them as involving the imperative obligation of dealing in a kind and liberal spirit toward our poorer brethren, lending to them when they have need, without expecting anything again, and to discourage the spirit of rash and ambitious speculation. (The general feelings of remote antiquity perfectly harmonized with those expressed in the Jewish law. Usury was unknown among the ancient Germans (Tacit. Ger. 26). Even in Greece, Aristotle and other superior men pronounced it unworthy of an honourable citizen to lend money on interest; and at Rome, Cato went so far as to denounce the practice as a heinous crime. They regarded it as among the discreditable tricks of trade, and left it to the lower class of citizens. See Grote’s Greece, iii. pp. 145-7.)
We notice, in regard to another part of the description, “the not eating upon the mountains,” in Eze_18:6, that it has respect to the tendency, which so naturally and so frequently also manifested itself in the history of the Israelites, of holding their sacrificial feasts upon the neighbouring mountains, instead of repairing to the place God had chosen. Even when these feasts were held in honour of Jehovah, they were contrary to the express enactments of the law (Deu_12:13, etc.), but of course they became much more so when they were coupled, as they too commonly were, with the worship of false gods. The righteous man is described as not so much as “lifting up his eyes to these false gods,” that is, not cherishing any wistful desire toward them in his heart. And with this shrinking abhorrence of idolatry, or abstinence from whatever is idolatrous and sensual in the services of religion, he is further described as carefully shunning any manifestation of such a spirit in his earthly relations; he is sober, chaste, and faithful. (Upon the last clause in Eze_18:6 Cocceius well: “notatur castitas observanda in matrimonio; nam etiam propria conjuga potest quis abuti.”)
(2.) The next case supposed is precisely the reverse of the preceding one; it is that of a son refusing to follow the example of a righteous parent, and turning aside to the ways of vanity and corruption. Here, again, to make the charge pointed and specific, the prophet descends to an enumeration of the particular deeds in which he held the unrighteousness to consist. But it differs in nothing material from that already given—the son being simply represented as doing the bad things, which were shunned by the father, and leaving undone the good which he did. Therefore, being guilty of such flagrant offences against the Divine law, this ungodly son must bear his own doom; his pious parentage, which only aggravated his guilt, cannot be allowed to screen him from judgment; “he has done all these abominations; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon him.”
(3.) The third supposition, again, presents a reverse picture; it is the case of a son of such an unrighteous person as the one just described, seeing the evil of his father’s doings, and turning from them to do the will of God. Having more respect to the authority of God than to the pernicious example of a degenerate parent, he obtains an exemption from the heritage of evil; though “the father dies in his iniquity,” yet “the son shall not die for the iniquity of the father; he shall surely live.”
Here the people are introduced objecting to the word of the prophet, and in their objection apparently seeking for a continuance of that which they had originally preferred as a complaint. It seemed to be their burden that the son was made to bear” the iniquity of the father,” as to that principle in the Divine government they ascribed their present suffering condition (Eze_18:2). But now when they have heard the prophet, in the Lord’s name, repudiating this alleged principle, and asserting the Divine impartiality in dealing with each according to his ways, they interpose and say: “Wherefore? Doth not the son bear the iniquity of the father?” or as we might read, “Where fore doth not the son bear the iniquity of the father?” Is not such actually the case? We had thought this was an undoubted principle of the Divine government, and on it alone could account for what otherwise was quite inexplicable to us. It seems now as if it would be a consolation for them to think that the son might suffer for the father’s misdeeds, or, in the language of the proverb, that, while the fathers ate the sour grapes, the children’s teeth should be set on edge. And the reason, no doubt, was that they found it more agreeable to their carnality, and more soothing to their pride, to regard themselves as innocent sufferers for sins they had not personally committed, than to ascribe their troubles to their own departures from the law of righteousness. For in the one case they were furnished with an excuse for continuing to live on still as they had been doing in the past; while in the other, as the evil came to be traced up to their own misdeeds, the necessity forced itself upon them of striving, if they really wished to get rid of it, to realize the high pattern of righteousness set before them in the descriptions of the prophet. This, however, they were by no means inclined to do; and hence it came upon them rather as a disappointment, to have the querulous complaint taken out of their mouths, that the innocent children were suffering for the sins of their guilty parents. But the prophet will not allow them to enjoy this miserable solace, or to rest in a confidence so utterly groundless. He must convince them of their own sinfulness, and lead them to repentance and amendment of life, as the one way of escape from their depressed and abject condition. Therefore, in reply to their query, he again reiterates the great truth of each man’s treatment being according to his personal condition and character before God: “When the son hath done that which is lawful and right, hath kept all my statutes and hath done them, he shall surely live. The soul that sinneth shall die; the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.”
(4.) And now, having repudiated the false imagination of the people, as to the innocent suffering for the guilty, and asserted anew the great principle of God’s impartiality in dealing with each according to his desert, the prophet comes to his last hypothetical case—the case, namely, of a supposed change, not, as hitherto, in the character of one generation as compared with another, but in the character of one and the same individual, from bad to good and from good to bad. This was more especially the practical case for the persons here addressed by the prophet, and therefore he reserved it to the last; as it enabled him to shut them up to the alternative of either abandoning at once their sinful ways, or of charging upon their own hardened impenitence all that they might still experience of the troubles and afflictions that pressed upon them. For the message here is, that so far from laying to men’s charge the burden of iniquities that had been committed by others, the Lord would not even visit them for their own, if they sincerely repented and turned to the way of righteousness; while on the other hand, if they should begin to fall away into transgression, they must not expect their earlier goodness to screen them from judgment,—because in that case, having taken up with a new condition, it was just and proper that a corresponding change should be introduced into the Divine procedure toward them: “If the wicked will turn from all his sins that he has committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. None of his transgressions that he has committed shall be remembered against him: in his righteousness that he has done he shall live. Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord Jehovah, and not that he turn from his way and live? But when the righteous turns away from his righteousness, and commits iniquity, and does according to all the abominations that the wicked does, shall he live? Nothing of all his righteousness that he has done shall be remembered: in his trespass that he has trespassed, and in his sin that he has sinned, in them shall he die.”
What a beautiful simplicity and directness in the statement! It is like the lawgiver anew setting before the people the way of life and the way of death, and calling upon them to determine which of the two they were inclined to choose. Then, what a moving tenderness in the appeal, “Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked? saith the Lord God.” You think of me as if I were a heartless being, indifferent to the calamities that befall my children, and even delighting to inflict chastisement on them for sins they have not committed. So far from this, I have no pleasure in the destruction of those who by their own transgressions have deserved it, but would rather that they turn from their ways and live. Thus he presents himself as a God of holy love,—love yearning over the lost condition of his wayward children, and earnestly desiring their return to peace and safety,—yet still exercising itself in strict accordance with the principles of righteousness, and only, in so far as these might admit, seeking the good of men. For however desirous to secure their salvation, he neither can nor will save them, except in the way of righteousness.
The people, however, being still wedded to their own sinfulness, continued as before to find fault; and, looking superficially to the outward diversity that appeared in God’s dealings with men, they raised the objection, “The way of the Lord is not equal.” An outward inequality the prophet, indeed, had admitted; it was the very design of his expostulation to prove that such must have place according to the varying conditions of those with whom he had to do; but only so as to establish a real equality in a moral point of view. Therefore the prophet turns the accusation against the people themselves: “Hear, now, O house of Israel! is not my way equal? Are not your ways unequal?” My way is equal, he virtually affirms, because I deal with the guilty backslider and the penitent transgressor, each according to his behavior—the one as deserving of death, the other as a proper subject of life and blessing. But your ways are unequal, since, living in idolatry and corruption, you expect to be dealt with as if you were following the paths of uprightness.
3. Therefore, finally, having driven the people from all their false imaginations and captious objections—having shut them up to the conclusion, that as they were in a depressed and suffering, they must also be in a sinful condition, the prophet closes his expostulation by urging them to repent and turn from all their unrighteous ways, that so they might not perish in their sins: “Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, saith the Lord God. Return, and come back from all your transgressions, and iniquity shall not be your ruin (more properly: and iniquity shall not be for a snare to you, the occasion of restraining you from good, and entangling you in ruin). Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit; and why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord Jehovah; but turn ye, and live.”
The charge is given to the whole house of Israel; for the people, as a whole, are regarded by the prophet as in a state of apostasy and alienation from God. And it was no slight or partial reformation that was needed to restore them to the favour and blessing of God, but an entire and radical change. Therefore they are called upon not only to repent and cast away their transgressions, but also to get possession of a new heart and a new spirit, nay, even to make such to themselves, as if it were a matter that lay within the compass of their own responsible agency. This has an appearance of strangeness, as already, in Ezekiel 11, and again in Ezekiel 36, the imparting of such a new heart and spirit is represented as the great boon which at some future period they were to receive from the grace and mercy of God. Nor, indeed, is there anything more clearly announced, or more frequently stated in the word of God, than that a regenerated condition can only be reached through the quickening power of his grace; he must himself be the author of this new creation, wherever it is brought into being, as he was at first of the old. But why then should God call upon men to make to themselves a new heart, seeing he alone is able to produce it? Does not such a call but seem to mock men’s impotence, or to beget in them false expectations? By no means. It was rather intended to set before them what was necessary to rectify their state in so strong and startling a manner, that from the very height of the requirement they would despair of themselves, and betake to the promised grace of God. For, as Calvin justly remarks, “it must always be considered for what end God speaks in such a manner, viz. that being convinced of their sinfulness, men may cease to lay the blame elsewhere, as they constantly endeavour to do, there being nothing to which we are more prone than shifting the ground of our condemnation away to some other quarter, that we ourselves may seem to be just, and God unjust. Therefore, because this perversity is prevalent among men, the Holy Spirit demands of us what no man can deny he ought to do, And so far as regards God’s elect people, when he shows what they ought to do, and what they are conscious they can never of themselves perform, they then have recourse to the promised aid of the Spirit; so that the outward command becomes the occasion or instrument which God employs for conferring the grace of his Spirit. ... As often, therefore, as such passages meet us, let the well-known saying of Augustine come to our mind, ‘Da quod jubes, et jube quod velis’ (give what thou requirest, and re quire what thou pleasest). For otherwise, if God should lay upon us the least tittle of commanded duty, we shall not be able to bear it; while, on the other hand, our strength shall suffice for whatever he may exact of us, if only he himself shall give the supply, and we shall not be so foolish as to suppose that nothing more is demanded in his precepts than what we have power in ourselves to do.”
Such, then, is the case which the prophet presses on the covenant-people as the result of this long and earnest expostulation with their sinfulness. The Lord demands of them a renovated condition—a heart that should dispose them to yield a sincere and ready obedience to his commandments. Never till such a spiritual change was effected could they expect his judgments to be turned into blessings. Never could they hope to see and reap the accomplishment of that promise of renewed prosperity at the close of the preceding chapter, according to which the little twig of the Lord’s planting was to become a mighty tree, with fowl of every wing lodging in its branches. And never can the Church of God in any age justly expect to be safe and prosperous in her condition, and to be a fit instrument in the hand of the Lord for executing his righteous purposes, till she becomes possessed through all her members of such a spirit of obedience as shall prompt her to embrace heartily his Divine will, and keep the way of his commandments. Oh! need we wonder, when we see how little this is really possessed, that the flow of the Divine goodness should be arrested, and that we should seem so often to be dwelling among the tombs, instead of basking, as we should be, in the sunshine of life and blessing? In how many forms is the controversy still maintained with the righteousness of God? and with all her privileges of grace, how far is the Church of Christ, either individually or collectively, from the measure of perfection that ought to be reached? How much cause still for the prayer, Turn us again, Lord God of hosts, and cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved! Rekindle in the bosoms of thy people the love of holiness, which so sadly languishes and droops; and let not iniquity and death prevail, where only righteousness and blessing should be found!