Yahweh’s word came to me, saying, “Son of man, speak to the children of your people, and tell them, ‘When I bring the sword on a land, and the people of the land take a man from among them, and set him for their watchman; if, when he sees the sword come on the land, he blows the trumpet, and warns the people; then whoever hears the sound of the trumpet, and doesn’t heed the warning, if the sword comes, and takes him away, his blood will be on his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet, and didn’t take warning. His blood will be on him; whereas if he had heeded the warning, he would have delivered his soul. But if the watchman sees the sword come, and doesn’t blow the trumpet, and the people aren’t warned, and the sword comes, and takes any person from among them; he is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman’s hand.’
“So you, son of man: I have set you a watchman to the house of Israel. Therefore hear the word from my mouth, and give them warnings from me. When I tell the wicked, ‘O wicked man, you will surely die,’ and you don’t speak to warn the wicked from his way; that wicked man will die in his iniquity, but I will require his blood at your hand. Nevertheless, if you warn the wicked of his way to turn from it, and he doesn’t turn from his way; he will die in his iniquity, but you have delivered your soul.
“You, son of man, tell the house of Israel: ‘You say this, “Our transgressions and our sins are on us, and we pine away in them. How then can we live?” ’ Tell them, ‘ “As I live,” says the Lord Yahweh, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why will you die, house of Israel?” ’
“You, son of man, tell the children of your people, ‘The righteousness of the righteous will not deliver him in the day of his disobedience. And as for the wickedness of the wicked, he will not fall by it in the day that he turns from his wickedness; neither will he who is righteous be able to live by it in the day that he sins. When I tell the righteous that he will surely live; if he trusts in his righteousness, and commits iniquity, none of his righteous deeds will be remembered; but he will die in his iniquity that he has committed. Again, when I say to the wicked, “You will surely die;” if he turns from his sin, and does that which is lawful and right; if the wicked restore the pledge, give again that which he had taken by robbery, walk in the statutes of life, committing no iniquity; he will surely live. He will not die. None of his sins that he has committed will be remembered against him. He has done that which is lawful and right. He will surely live.
“ ‘Yet the children of your people say, “The way of the Lord is not fair;” but as for them, their way is not fair.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv2, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14 Or, of their coasts.
Or, of their coasts.
He showeth that the people ought to have continually governors and teachers which may have a care over them, and to warn them ever of the dangers which are at hand.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–17 Eze 33:1 Again the word of the LORD came…
Eze 33:1 Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Ver. 1. Again the word of the Lord came unto me, saying.] A new commission to preach again to his countrymen, which he had not done since Eze 24:27. {See Trapp on "Eze 24:27"}
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 The prophet, after three years’ silence enjoined him now…
The prophet, after three years’ silence enjoined him now hath his mouth opened by new commission.
To the chidldren of thy people; to the Jews in general, to who he had not spoken since what he spake in the 24th chapter,
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Say unto them; propound a parable unto then
When; if at any time.
The sword; war, or any sore judgment.
Take a man; choose out a man who live on the borders, and knows the avenues and the ways the enemy will most likely come to assault them. Set him for their watchman; appoint him to watch the coasts, that they may not be surprised.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 10 The prophet had been, by express order from God,…
The prophet had been, by express order from God, taken off from prophesying to the Jews, just then when the news came that Jerusalem was invested, and close siege laid to it, Eze 24:27. But now that Jerusalem is taken, two years after, he is appointed again to direct his speech to them; and there his commission is renewed. If God had abandoned them quite, he would not have sent prophets to them; nor, if he had not had mercy in store for them, would he have shown them such things as these. In these verses we have,
I. The office of a watchman laid down, the trust reposed in him, the charge given him, and the conditions adjusted between him and those that employ him, Eze 33:2, Eze 33:6. 1. It is supposed to be a public danger that gives occasion for the appointing of a watchman - when God brings the sword upon a land, Eze 33:2. The sword of war, whenever it comes upon a land, is of God's bringing; it is the sword of the Lord, of his justice, how unjustly soever men draw it. At such a time, when a country is in fear of a foreign invasion, that they may be informed of all the motions of the enemy, may not be surprised with an attack, but may have early notice of it, in order to their being at their arms and in readiness to give the invader a warm reception, they set a man of their coast, some likely person, that lives upon the borders of their country, where the threatened danger is expected, and is therefore well acquainted with all the avenues of it, and make him their watchman. Thus wise are the children of this world in their generation. Note, One man may be of public service to a whole country. Princes and statesmen are the watchmen of a kingdom; they are continually to employ themselves, and, if occasion be, as watchmen, to expose themselves for the public safety. 2. It is supposed to be a public trust that is lodged in the watchman and that he is accountable to the public for the discharge of it. His business is, (1.) To discover the approaches and advances of the enemy; and therefore he must not be blind nor asleep, for then he cannot see the sword coming. (2.) To give notice of them immediately by sound of trumpet, or, as sentinels among us, by the discharge of a gun, as a signal of danger. A special trust and confidence is reposed in him by those that set him to be their watchman that he will faithfully do these two things; and they venture their lives upon his fidelity. Now, [1.] If he do his part, if he be betimes aware of all the dangers that fall within his cognizance, and give warning of them, he has discharged his trust, and has not only delivered his soul, but earned his wages. If the people do not take warning, if they either will not believe the notice he gives them, will not believe the danger to be so great or so near as really it is, or will not regard it, and so are surprised by the enemy in their security, it is their own fault; the blame is not to be laid upon the watchman, but their blood is upon their own head. If any person goes presumptuously into the mouth of danger, though he heard the sound of the trumpet, and was told by it where the danger was, and so the sword comes and takes him away in his folly, he is felo de se - a suicide; foolish man, he has destroyed himself. But, [2.] If the watchman do not do his duty, if he might have seen the danger, and did not, but was asleep, or heedless, or looking another way, or if he did see the danger (for so the case is put here) and shifted only for his own safety, and blew not the trumpet to warn the people, so that some are surprised and cut off in their iniquity (Eze 33:6), cut off suddenly, without having time to cry, Lord, have mercy upon me, time to repent and make their peace with God (which makes the matter much the worse, that the poor creature is taken away in his iniquity), his blood shall be required at the watchman's hand; he shall be found guilty of his death, because he did not give him warning of his danger. But if the watchman do his part, and the people do theirs, all is well; both he that gives warning and he that takes warning have delivered their souls.
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II. The application of this to the prophet, Eze 33:7, Eze 33:9.
1. He is a watchman to the house of Israel. He had occasionally given warning to the nations about, but to the house of Israel he was a watchman by office, for they were the children of the prophets and the covenant They did not set him for a watchman, as the people of the land, Eze 33:2 (for they were not so wise for their souls as to secure the welfare of them, as they would have been for the protection of their temporal interests); but God did it for them; he appointed them a watchman.
2. His business as a watchman is to give warning to sinners of their misery and danger by reason of sin. This is the word he must hear from God's mouth and speak to them. (1.) God has said, The wicked man shall surely die; he shall be miserable. Unless he repent, he shall be cut off from God and all comfort and hope in him, shall be cut off from all good. He shall fall and lie for ever under the wrath of God, which is the death of the soul, as his favour is its life. The righteous God has said it, and will never unsay it, nor can all the world gainsay it, that the wages of sin is death. Sin, when it is finished, brings froth death. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven, not only against wicked nations, speaking ruin to them as nations, but against wicked persons, speaking ruin to them in their personal capacity, their personal interests, which pass into the other world and last to eternity, as national interests do not. (2.) It is the will of God that the wicked man should be warned of this: Warn them from me. This intimates that there is a possibility of preventing it, else it were a jest to give warning of it; nay, and that God is desirous it should be prevented. Sinners are therefore warned of the wrath to come, that they may flee from it, Mat 3:7. (3.) It is the work of ministers to give him warning, to say to the wicked, It shall be ill with thee, Isa 3:11. God ways in general, The soul that sinneth it shall die. The minister's business is to apply this to particular persons, and to say, "O wicked man! thou shalt surely die, whoever thou art; if thou go on still in thy trespasses, they will inevitably be thy ruin. O adulterer! O robber! O drunkard! O swearer! O sabbath-breaker! thou shalt surely die." And he must say this, not in passion, to provoke the sinner, but in compassion, to warn the wicked from hi way, warn him to turn from it, that he may live. This is to be done by the faithful preaching of the word in public, and by personal application to those whose sins are open.
3. If souls perish through his neglect of his duty, he brings guilt upon himself. "If the prophet do not warn the wicked of the ruin that is at the end of his wicked way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; for, though the watchman did not do his part, yet the sinner might have taken warning from the written word, from his own conscience, and from God's judgments upon others, by which his mouth shall be stopped, and God will be justified in his destruction." Note, It will not serve impenitent sinners to plead in the great day that their watchmen did not give them warning, that they were careless and unfaithful; for, though they were so, it will be made to appear that God left not himself without witness. "But he shall not perish alone in his iniquity; the watchman also shall be called to an account: His blood will I require at thy hand. The blind leader shall fall with the blind follower into the ditch." See what a desire God has of the salvation of sinners, in that he resents it so ill if those concerned do not what they can to prevent their destruction. And see what a great deal those ministers have to answer for another day who palliate sin, and flatter sinners in their evil way, and by their wicked lives countenance and harden them in their wickedness, and encourage them to believe that they shall have peace though they go on.
4. If he do his duty, he may take the comfort of it, though he do not see the success of it (Eze 33:9): "If thou warn the wicked of his way, if thou tell him faithfully what will be the end thereof, and call him earnestly to turn from it, and he do not turn, but persist in it, he shall die in his iniquity, and the fair warning given him will be an aggravation of his sin and ruin; but thou hast delivered thy soul." Note, It is a comfort to ministers that they may through grace save themselves, though they cannot be instrumental to save so many as they wish of those that hear them.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–17 Again the word of the Lord came unto me,....…
Again the word of the Lord came unto me,.... After the delivery of various prophecies concerning the ruin of other nations, the Ammonites, Tyrians, and Egyptians, a fresh prophecy comes from the Lord concerning the Jews:
saying; as follows:
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 6, 10 The duty of a spiritual watchman, ver. 1-9. A…
The duty of a spiritual watchman, ver. 1-9. A declaration of the safety of penitents, and the destruction of apostates, ver. 10- 20. A message to those who flattered themselves with hopes of safety, tho' they repented not, ver. 21-29. A reproof of those who approved the word of God, but did not practice it, ver. 30-33.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 10, 11, 13 The prophet, after having addressed several other nations,
CHAPTER XXXIII
The prophet, after having addressed several other nations,
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returns now to his own; previously to which he is told, as on a
former occasion, the duty of a watchman, the salvation or ruin
of whose soul depends on the manner in which he discharges it.
An awful passage indeed; full of important instruction both to
such as speak, and to such as hear, the word of God, 1-9.
The prophet is then directed what answer to make to the cavils
of infidelity and impiety; and to vindicate the equity of the
Divine government by declaring the general terms of acceptance
with God to be (as told before, Ezek 18:3; Ezek 18:4 c.,)
without respect of persons so that the ruin of the finally
impenitent must be entirely owing to themselves, 10-20.
The prophet receives the news of the destruction of Jerusalem
by the Chaldeans, about a year and four months after it
happened, according to the opinion of some, who have been led
to this conjecture by the date given to this prophecy in the
twenty-first verse, as it stands in our common Version: but
some of the manuscripts of this prophet consulted by Dr.
Kennicott have in this place the ELEVENTH year, which is
probably the genuine reading. To check the vain confidence of
those who expected to hold out by possessing themselves of its
other fastnesses, the utter desolation of all Judea is
foretold, 21-29.
Ezekiel is informed that among those that attended his
instructions were a great number of hypocrites, against whom he
delivers a most awful message. When the Lord is destroying
these hypocrites, then shall they know that there hath been a
prophet among them, 30-33.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXXIII
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 7, 10, 13, 15 Eze 33:1-6. Again the word of the Lord came…
Eze 33:1-6. Again the word of the Lord came unto me — “It is plain that Ezekiel uttered what is contained in this chapter to Eze 33:20, before Jerusalem was taken by the Babylonians; but how long before is uncertain.” — Bishop Newcome. Son of man, speak to the children of thy people — To the Jews, to whom he had not spoken since he declared what is contained in chap. 24. The reader will find in chap. 3., from Eze 33:17-22, the substance of what is repeated in the first ten verses of this chapter. The instruction is the same in both passages; but the subject is here more fully and explicitly illustrated. “When the prophet had confirmed his predictions of evil, both to the Jews and heathen, by exemplifications of the like predictions already fulfilled among the latter, he proceeds to apply home the conclusion arising hence by an expostulation and pathetic address to the hearts and consciences of the Jews. But to what Jews is this addressed? To the Jews who were already in captivity. In order, then, that this address might make the stronger impression on them, and produce its wished-for effect, he immediately subjoins an information, which he here presents, as having been just then received, of the actual capture and destruction of the city of Jerusalem, agreeably to his foregoing prophecies against it: the accomplishment of which prediction against the Jews themselves, joined to his historic narrations before, of the accomplishment of many others against the heathen, both completes his arguments in favour of the credit and veracity of his predictions against Egypt, or other nations, and also proves, by a conspicuous example, the truth of that maxim with which he had concluded his late address to the captive Jews, That God will judge every one after his ways, both Jews and heathen.” — Obs. on Books, 2:196.
When I bring the sword upon a land — When an enemy approaches to any land, which never happens without my appointment or permission; if the people of the land take a man of their coast — Or, from among them, to which sense the word מקצה, here used, is translated, Gen 47:2; and set him for their watchman — Such watchmen were placed upon the turrets of their city-walls, or upon high mountains near, to give notice of the enemy’s approach: see the margin. If when he seeth the sword come upon the land — If, when he spies the enemy marching against it, he blow the trumpet, sound the alarm; and warn the people — The sound of the trumpet is a warning, yet it is sometimes necessary to add a warning by word of mouth, and tell the people brought together by the trumpet what he sees. Whosoever heareth, &c., and taketh not warning — Considers not, minds not what he hears, nor will be made sensible of the danger, so as to provide for resisting or fleeing from the sword; if the sword come and take him away — Destroy him; his blood shall be upon his own head — His destruction is owing to himself. He heard the sound of the trumpet — He heard as well as others who escaped, and he might have delivered himself as they did who took warning. His blood shall be upon him — The guilt and blame of his death cannot be charged on any but himself. But he that taketh warning shall save his soul — Shall save his life from the danger that threatens it. In like manner, he that takes warning by the prophet’s admonition shall preserve himself from the judgments threatened against sinners. But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet — If he neglect his charge, which is to give the alarm; and the people be not warned — But are surprised by the enemy; if the sword take any person from among them — Cut any one off unexpectedly; he is taken away in his iniquity — Punished and cut off by the Lord for his sins formerly committed, and in consequence of the present fault of not watching, a great fault in every one that is guilty of it in time of war. But his blood will I require at the watchman’s hands — The guilt of that blood will I charge upon the watchman, and punish him for it, for he sinned in not giving the necessary warning.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On v1 Again - And. For Ezek. 33:1-20, compare Ezek. 18…
Again - And. For Ezek. 33:1-20, compare Ezek. 18 notes.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv2, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 17 Take. Before (chap. iii. 17.) God made the choice,…
Take. Before (chap. iii. 17.) God made the choice, (Calmet) as he does here, ver. 7. He confirms the authority of those who are appointed to govern. --- Meanest. Literally, "last," (Haydock) which seems to denote such as are chosen without regard to their dignity or obscurity in life, Genesis xlvii. 2., and 3 Kings xii. 31. (Calmet) --- Pastors are not excused from admonishing the people for fear of danger or despair of reclaiming them, as each one is bound to do his duty. (St. Jerome) (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 B. SECOND PRINCIPAL PART.—Ezekiel 33-48
B. SECOND PRINCIPAL PART.—Ezekiel 33-48
THE PROPHECY OF GOD’S MERCIES TOWARD HIS PEOPLE IN THE WORLD
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I. THE RENEWAL OF EZEKIEL’S DIVINE MISSION.—Ch 33.
1And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 2Son of man, speak to the sons of thy people, and say to them, When I bring a sword upon a land, and the people of the land take a man from their borders, and set him for3their watchman; And he sees the sword coming upon the land, and blows4the trumpet, and warns the people; And any one hears the sound of the trumpet, and does not take warning, and the sword comes and takes himaway, his blood shall be upon his own head. 5He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took not warning; his blood shall be upon him, since, letting6himself be warned, he would make his soul [his life] escape [would deliver it]. And the watchman, when he sees the sword coming, and does not blow the trumpet, and the people are not warned, and the sword shall come and take away a soul [a man] from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood7will I require at the watchman’s hand. And thou, son of man, [as a] watch man have I given thee to the house of Israel, and [so] thou hearest the word8out of My mouth, and thou warnest them from Me. If I say to the wicked, Wicked man, thou shalt surely die, and thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, he, the wicked man, in [on account of] his iniquity shall9die, but his blood will I require at thy hand. But if thou dost warn a wicked man of his way, that he turn from it, and he does not turn from his way, he shall die in [on account of] his iniquity, but thou hast delivered thy soul.10And thou, son of man, say to the house of Israel: Thus ye say, saying, If our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we pine in [on account of] them,11how shall [can] we then live? Say to them, As I live, saith [sentence of] the Lord Jehovah, if I should have pleasure in the death of the wicked! but in the turning of a wicked man from his way, that he may live. Turn ye, turn ye12from your evil ways; and why will ye die, O house of Israel? And thou, son of man, say to the sons of thy people, The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression, and through [in the] wickedness of the wicked shall he [the wicked] not stumble [fall] in the day of his turning from his wickedness; and a righteous man shall not be able to13live thereby [namely, because he is a righteous man] in the day of his sin. When I say of the [to the] righteous, He shall surely live, and he trusts in his righteousness and commits iniquity, all his righteousnesses shall not be remembered, and in14his iniquity which he does, in it shall he die. And when I say to the wicked, Thou shalt surely die, and he turns from his sin, and does judgment andrighteousness: 15If the wicked shall restore a pledge, shall repay what he had robbed, if he walks in the statutes of life, that he do no iniquity—he shall16surely live, he shall not die! All his sins which he sinned, they shall not be remembered to him; he does judgment and righteousness; he shall surely17live! And the sons of thy people are saying, The way of the Lord is not18right—but they, their way is not right! When a righteous man turns from his19righteousness and commits iniquity, then he shall die thereby: And when a wicked man turns from his wickedness, and does judgment and righteousness,20thereby shall he live. And ye say: The way of the Lord is not right? Everyone as his ways [are] will I judge you, O house of Israel.—21And it came to pass, in the twelfth year, in the tenth [month], on the fifth of the month of our captivity,22the escaped from Jerusalem came to me, saying, The city is taken. And the hand of Jehovah was upon me [came upon me] in the evening before the coming of the escaped, and He opened my mouth, until he came to me in23the morning; and my mouth was opened, and I was no longer dumb. Andthe word of Jehovah came to me, saying, 24Son of man, the inhabitants of those ruins on the ground of Israel are saying, Abraham was one, and he got the land for a possession, and we [are] many, and the land is given us for a possession25Therefore say to them, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Ye eat upon [with] the blood, and ye lift your eyes [continually] to your abominable idols, and shedblood, and shall ye possess the land? 26Ye stand upon your sword, ye do abomination, and pollute every one his neighbour’s wife, and shall ye possess27the land? Say thus unto them, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, As I live, if they who are in the ruins shall not fall by the sword! And him that is in the field will I give to the beasts to be eaten, and they that are in the forts28and in the caves shall die of the pestilence. And I give the land to waste and desolation, and the pride of its strength ceases; and the mountains of29Israel are waste, that no one passes over them. And they know that I [am] Jehovah, when I give the land to waste and desolation, because of all their30abominations which they have done.—And thou, son of man, the sons of thy people talk of thee beside the walls and in the doors of the houses, and speak one with another, each with his brother, saying, Come now, and hear 31what the word is which proceedeth from Jehovah! And they will come to thee as a people comes, and will be before thee [as] My people, and they hear thy words, and they will not do them; for [but] in their mouth they are prating loves [ever making love-songs, have wanton pieces in their mouth]; their heart goes after32their gain. And lo! thou art to them as a wanton song, beautiful of sound [voice], and one striking the chords well; and they hear thy words, and do33them not. And when it comes—lo! it comes, then they know that a prophet was in the midst of them.
Eze_33:2. Vulg.: de novissimis suis—(licet ex infimis suis, Rosenm, vel de excellentioribus, Lyra).
Eze_33:3. Sept.: ... καὶ σημανη τ.λαῶ,
Eze_33:4. ... και μη φυλαξητχι—et non se observaverit—
Eze_33:12. Sept. ... ἀνομια ἀνομου οὐ μη κακωση αὐτον … δυνησεται σωθηναι—
Eze_33:16. ... ἐν αὐτοις ζησεται
Eze_33:21. Sept. ... ἐν τ. δωδεκατω μηνι—Vulg.: vastata est civitas! (Another read.: בעשתי עשרח, Syr.)
Eze_33:22. ... κ. συνεκλεισθη ἐτι.
Eze_33:25. Another read.: רעיניכם, fully.
Eze_33:26. ... και ἀνηζ τον πλησιον αὐτου ἐμιανατε—(Another read.: עשיתם.)
Eze_33:28. Sept.: ... δια το μη εἰναι διαποζευομενον.
Eze_33:31. ... ὁτι Ψευδος ἐν τ.στοματι αὐτων κ. ὀπισω τ. μιασματων αὐτων—Vulg.: quia in canticum oris sui vertunt illos et avaritiam suam—
Eze_33:32. Και γινμ αυψοις ὡς φωνη Ψαλτηςιου ἡδυφωνου εὐαςμοστου—Vulg.: quasi carmen musicum, quod suavi dulcique sono canitur;—
Eze_33:33. ... ἐςουσιν ’Ιδου ἡκει—
EXEGETICAL REMARKS
It is a question whether the last division of our book opens with this chapter. Kliefoth denies it from the contents, which point back to what precedes, Eze_3:17 sq., Eze_18:20 sq. The third part must begin with Eze_33:21. In contrast to the foreign nations, Eze_33:2 associates this word of threatening against Israel with the words of threatening against foreign nations previously given, as is done also in Isaiah and Jeremiah. Eze_25:1 to Eze_32:32 numbers thirteen words of God; thereto belongs Eze_33:1-20 as a fourteenth, in order to make out the number 2 × 7. The contents, threatenings and warnings, are not suited as an introduction to the promises of the third part; while, on the contrary, they are quite proper as a conclusion to the preceding portions. Hengstenberg also regards Eze_33:1-20 as the author’s conclusion, but to the whole of what precedes, namely, Ezekiel 1-32. The text does not show the impossibility of Ezekiel having delivered a prophecy to his people before the arrival of the escaped; but the admitted résumé out of the preceding is no argument against the supposition of an introduction to the following, as we shall see, just as little as the want of a specification of time. For with reference to the latter point, Hitzig justly points to the historical notice standing in the middle, Eze_33:21-22. Its importance for the present chapter, in fact, makes any farther indication of time superfluous; as was remarked by Häv., who in this only goes too far, that he makes the revelations on to Ezekiel 39 to have been imparted to the prophet in one night—the portion Eze_33:1-20 forming the somewhat earlier introduction revealed to him, and Eze_33:21-33 attaching itself to the other very closely as a new introduction.
This chapter has first of all its relation to the transition portion, Ezekiel 25-32. In this respect it likewise has a transition character, which on one side gives indication of itself in this, that it, as also Ezekiel 25-27, points back to the earlier part. For as the predictions of judgment upon those without are in some sense an appendage to the repeated, always increasingly definite prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem, so Eze_33:2 sq., in what it says of the watchman-agency of Ezekiel, attaches an admonition for Israel to try themselves, in presence of this activity of the prophet, whether Ezekiel had not dealt faithfully with his obligation, or Israel with his warning; but especially as regards the exiled, the verses 10 sq. render conspicuous, in contrast with the despair of these, God’s will and procedure, and verses 17 sq. set forth these as being the right way. If people will not renounce every kind of a connection, for which there is no foundation, they will find—where now what was announced in Ezekiel 24-26 sq. begins to enter—the supposition of a close to the past prophetic activity of Ezekiel, the prophecy of judgment, quite deserving of acceptation. It was a close proceeding out of as well as with that which had preceded. But by reason of the relation of this chapter, as now indicated, primarily to Ezekiel 25-32., is farther expressed its relation to the first main division, Eze_1:-24. On the other side, however, the transition character of the section Ezekiel 25-32. (pp. 11, 12) is proved by that which is contained in these chapters of a preparatory, introductory nature to the second main division of the book. This is the case also with our present chapter. It might already be regarded as a preparation for something new, that at the close with what precedes the call of Ezekiel is formulated out of it, and Israel is challenged to self-examination, as also to an acquittal of the prophet and a justification of God. The in part verbal reference of this chapter to Ezekiel 3, 18, in Eze_33:2-20, certainly does not (as Keil supposes) set forth the call of Ezekiel for the future, but it contains a renewal of his divine mission. The connecting together of the two halves of the chapter is on no account to be regarded as “merely accidental.” “The two verses 25 and 26, just as Eze_33:15, alike point back to Ezekiel 18; and on the other hand, that Eze_33:10 b is in accord with Eze_24:23, cannot be overlooked” (Hitz.). The full-toned charge in Eze_33:2 : “Speak to the sons of Israel, and say to them,” suits well as a commencement, while Eze_33:24 looks only like a continuation. What Ezekiel must say to the sons of his people (Eze_33:2) prepares for the opening of his mouth (Eze_33:22), and so introduces what is to be said in Eze_33:25. There can be no doubt that what is stated in Eze_33:21-22 is the fulfilment of Eze_24:26-27; so that the new, to which the verses 2–20 form the preparation and introduction,—the prophecy of God’s mercies toward His people in the world,—is the second main division of the book. The passage, also, Eze_33:10 sq. explicitly directs the despairing to grace, while in the parallel passage, Eze_33:24 sq., the stout-hearted are, on the contrary, pointed to the judgment; so that the section Eze_33:23 sq. speaks just as much of threatening as of the opposite.
Eze_33:1-20. What kind of a sending of Ezekiel that was which is now renewed.
Eze_33:1. On what occurred in the twelfth year, after the taking of Jerusalem, on the evening or during the night before the escaped made his appearance, comp. at Eze_33:22. The address being to the sons of thy people (Eze_33:2), shows that he was now to turn from foreign nations to Israel again—although עַמְּךָ is still used, not עַמִּי, as at Eze_33:31 for the first time. There is already a preparation made for the great turn which divides the book.—If an application to the fellow-exiles of the prophet is primarily to be understood, there is still a more general one indicated in what follows,—that to the Israel of the captivity the Israel at home were to be added, that Israel generally were to be contemplated. For with this also agrees “the house of Israel” in the application of the similitude (Eze_33:7), according to which the children of the people of the prophet were thought of in common, as those who were entering into one and the same condition(בּוֹא), just as in the similitude itself “land” is spoken of, and אֶרֶץ placed quite absolutely (comp. Eze_14:13).—The idea is first expressed figuratively, Eze_33:2-6, before Israel is put into the frame and hung on the wall (Eze_33:7-9).—אֶרֶץ כִּי־אָבִיא, spoken generally, but not altogether hypothetically; so, however, that the hearers should think of a case before them which had either actually occurred or was in the act of doing so. The enemy was on the way (Hitz., Grot.), was standing at the cross-way (Eze_21:26 [21], Eze_24:2). The turning of the matter into a similitude is peculiar to our passage, as distinguished from Eze_3:16-21. Peculiar, also, is the trait in a manner necessitating a certain experience on the part of the hearers, that the people of the land in question, the men, were themselves to appoint the watchmen, whence, in case they did not give heed to him, they withstood and strove against themselves, and so should be the more convicted of their guilt and folly.—מִקְצֵיהֶם, singular, but in a plural sense: from the end on all sides, the entire territory of the land; according to the suffix, to be understood of the whole community, with reference to לָקְתוּ and נָתְנוּ׳ לָהֶם(Gen_19:4; 1Ki_12:31). Häv., Tuch decide for an ellipsis וְעַד קָצֶה.—On צֹפֶה, comp. on Eze_3:17.
Eze_33:3. Corresponding to the fundamental idea ofוְרָאָה, צֹפֶה.—שׁוֹפָר of the clear resounding tone. That we are to think of a horny sort of instrument, if not one simply of horn, is evident from its being exchanged with קֶרֶץ, in Joshua 6. for example. תָּקַע שׁוֹפָר is distinguished as a signal for the calling together of the people, in Num_10:6-7, from the sounding of an alarm at a breaking up. Here it is manifestly applied to the announcement of the enemy, for a warning or advertisement to the people (comp. Eze_3:17, and pp. 72, 73).
Eze_33:4. וְשָׁמַע הַשֹּׁמֵעַ, who hath ears to hear (Rev_2:7; Rev_2:11, etc.).—בִזְחָר for נִזְחַר.—And the sword comes, when the sword is a-coming, and what is to be feared cannot be a matter of doubt. Ewald: “so that the sword came and carried him away, then his blood,” etc. According to Hengst.: because people are wont to carry on their heads; according to others, the image is derived from sacrifice, in which the offerer transferred his guilt to his victim by the laying on of his hand (Lev_1:4; Lev_24:14; Mat_27:25).
Eze_33:5. The alone self-guiltiness of the individual is here made still more manifest. An explication without any need of the בִּי, for.—בּוֹ, as much as בְּרֹאשׁוֹ, Eze_33:4.—Hitzig: “Because he let himself be warned, he has delivered his soul.” נִזְחָר is here the participle.
Eze_33:6. The similitude has hitherto proceeded on the supposition that the watchman does his duty, because this is really the case in hand. But now the other supposition is made, that he has neglected what belonged to his calling.—הוּא, masculine, referring to נֶפֶשׁ.—Since only the soul which continues in sin is liable to death (Eze_18:4, etc.), a wicked person is presupposed (as at Eze_3:18) as the one that should be carried away; it should be through his guilt, on account of it and in it. But while previously the guilt of his blood was simply his own, the blood-guilt of his disobedience in respect to the intended warning is now, without regard to his guilt otherwise and generally, sought at the hand of the watchman. It is to be observed that for this דָּרַשׁ is used here, while we have בָּקַשׁ at Eze_3:18; Eze_3:20.—That the case supposed is only a possible, by no means a real one, appears from the application made of it at Eze_33:7 to Ezekiel—for the προτασις the ἀποδοσις(comp. Heb_13:17). At the same time is his installation as watchman to the house of Israel taken out of human hands,—in that case, when men appoint for themselves a watchman, the last-named possibility (Eze_33:6) might all the more readily take place,—and Jehovah carries back the watchman-office of Ezekiel expressly to Himself (I have given thee).—וְשָׁמַעְתָּ׳, such literally was the expression used of the call given in Eze_3:17, so that we must think of supplying to the words marks of quotation; therefore not importing that the prophet must thereby be instructed with respect to the future.
Eze_33:8. The same as before, only with a still more emphatic address than at Eze_3:18.
Eze_33:9. So here again; comp. at Eze_3:19 (Act_20:25-26).
Eze_33:10. Since nothing of the neglect of duty which had taken place is charged upon the prophet, only the original direction given him is again literally repeated: the guilt must be sought among the people, as was really the case, and indeed is clear from their own lips, as stated here.—לֵאמֹר, their saying is set over against that which had been said to the prophet in divine direction, according to which he must speak; their doing also in regard to the Lord, as they had known it from the prophet’s behaviour toward them, set over against his doing and acting.—Of what nature the divine mission of Ezekiel was from the first has been repeated (Eze_33:2-9) in the similitude and its explanation, and now (hence אְֶמֹר׳ repeated in Eze_33:11) there follows in what manner this mission of his is renewed to the prophet. A reference is made back to Ezekiel 18, but the difference between what is said there and here must not be overlooked. While there no consciousness of guilt, no confession of sin, appears (Eze_18:2), the predominantly recriminative work of Ezekiel has still produced so much effect that they now say: Our transgressions and our sins are upon us. But this consciousness and this confession tinges in the darkest manner the feeling of despair in regard to life. It is by no means for the purpose of excusing themselves that the people appeal to the passage Lev_26:39. Consequently, the upon us is not to be understood as meaning: “testify against us” (Rosenm.), but as of a burden under which they are sinking (וּבָם׳ נְנַקִּים, comp. on Eze_24:23; Eze_4:17). Those who represented themselves in Ezekiel 18 as expiatory sufferers for their ancestors, here are pining away under their own burden, and that with reference to the prospect of life, likewise repeatedly opened up in Ezekiel 18. (Eze_33:23; Eze_33:32). We must, therefore, take into account the pressure, were it only of the evil forebodings, the foreshadows of the event mentioned in Eze_33:21, if not the actual knowledge of the taking of Jerusalem; so that in this also may be seen preparation, an introduction to what was to follow.
Eze_33:11. What for this despair in respect to life (i.e. deliverance, salvation, favour) was the declared mind and will of Jehovah in Eze_18:23; Eze_18:32, the same is here emphasized in the peculiar protestation: As I live, while there it is only: “Have I any pleasure?” or: “for I have no pleasure”—see there also Eze_18:30-31.
Eze_33:12. We learn, however, that the question is about conversion: “He combats despair only in so far as it is a hindrance to repentance. To afford mere tranquillity is not the aim of the prophet” (Hengst.). Comp. on Eze_18:20, where in like manner with reference to conversion we have this antithesis: “righteousness of the righteous,” and: “wickedness of the wicked.” Through this antithesis to לֹא תַּצִּילֶנּוּ, the expression לֹא יִכָּשֶׁל becomes clear (Niphal); Gesen.: “he shall not be unfortunate.” His own righteousness no means of deliverance, so soon as he falls into transgression; and wickedness, again, no necessary destruction, so soon as a change to the better comes. (פִּשׁעוֹ is likewise infinitive.) Because presently the case of the righteous was to be spoken of, it is said by way of introduction thereto: And a righteous man, etc. בָּהּ, in, through, on account of his righteousness.
Eze_33:13. To the righteous man who continues such, assurance of life is promised. Confidence in one’s own righteousness (singular, as an actual quality), when one does unrighteousness (Eze_3:20), may be on the one side, but on the other side there will be no remembrance of the earlier righteousnesses. Comp. Eze_18:24; Eze_18:26.
Eze_33:14. The contrast with the wicked. Here an address to such, because this is what is wished for; comp. Eze_18:21.
Eze_33:15. A lively form of speech, hence without the copula, an exemplification. Comp. in reference to it, Eze_18:7; Eze_18:12; Eze_18:16; Eze_18:21; Eze_18:28; Eze_20:11.
Eze_33:16. Comp. Eze_18:22.
Eze_33:17. Comp. on Eze_18:24 sq. The immediate occasion for blame is formed here by such a representation of the wicked (Eze_33:14 sq.) who repented, over the righteous who does unrighteousness. The fact alone that “a righteous man” could be spoken of before them in such a manner, more especially that turning, turning, is what they are called to, while they had placed their confidence upon “the righteousness of the righteous” (Eze_33:12)—if not their own, yet that which belonged to them, descended to them as the people of God from their pious forefathers—that is the stone in the way of the Lord which the divine address takes away, in order to throw it to the quarter to which it belongs, namely, to the false way of Israel, which they had chosen for themselves with their outward carnal self-righteousness in such and such religious observances. Eze_33:18-19, however, do not simply repeat Eze_33:13-14, but the two cases of the righteous and the wicked return again in the form which is the most appropriate for setting forth clearly and distinctly the way of the Lord, and in which it strikes at first sight, and at the same time with reference to the command given: “Return, return.” Hence not וְהוּא־בָטַח עַל־צִד׳, as at Eze_33:13, but בְשׁוּב־צַדּיק מִצִּדְ׳ (Eze_3:20), and with nothing farther וּמֵת בָּהֶם, namely, by these two parts: turning from his righteousness, which is left unnoticed, and doing unrighteousness. (Rosenm.: עָוֶל, collective.) Comp. Eze_18:24; Eze_18:26. The wicked throws light on this caricature of turning—a turning it also is, indeed, only to what is evil—by his, on the contrary, turning from his wickedness (in Eze_33:14 it is from “his sin”).
Eze_33:20, as also Eze_18:29, repeats the charge for the purpose of making a suitable close. Comp. Eze_18:30 (Eze_7:27).
Eze_33:21-22. The fresh turn.
The fact is now an accomplished one—Jerusalem is taken (Eze_24:25); and therewith we have, as had been foretold at the close of Ezekiel 24, not only the arrival of the escaped, but as the main thing the opening of Ezekiel’s mouth, that he might no more be dumb. This historical notice in the middle of the chapter is therefore the kernel of the whole: the renewal of the divine mission of the prophet, over against the completed acts of judgment, now gives to his prophecy the expression of God’s compassions toward His people in the world, with which the second main division of the book is occupied.
The indication of time which was to mark the turning-point for the prophet (for Jerusalem was overcome on the 9th of the 4th month of the 11th year) teaches us to understand the expressions: “in the day,” inch. Eze_24:25, or: “in that day,” Eze_33:26-27, of what was to take place more than sixteen months afterwards. Hitzig regards it as “very improbable that Ezekiel should first have received in January 586 the report of what had happened to Jerusalem in July 588;” and in place of considering that the text could not mean to speak of the report, he makes the prophet over and above “contradict himself,” inasmuch as, according to Eze_26:1-2, he had already in the eleventh year heard the report of the matter—which, however, is not necessarily rendered clear by Ezekiel 26.—and then at the close he changes the twelfth year into the eleventh, which is supported by the Syrian translation alone. Hengst. justly remarks that the notice does not refer to the first report concerning the taking of Jerusalem, and then proceeds: “The news of such events spread with amazing rapidity. The intelligence, doubtless, arrived in eight, or at the most fourteen days at the abode of Ezekiel; so that the difficulty is not removed by assuming most arbitrarily an error in the text, and putting the eleventh in place of the twelfth year.” The meaning of what was announced beforehand in Ezekiel 24, and according to our verse had now actually occurred, is that in place of all reports—so fitted to awaken hope, yet traversing the way of the Lord with His people, always again paralysing their necessary conversion—which up to the last had arrived, a certain fugitive shall now speak, and, as an eye-witness, place beyond all dispute what had actually happened. The matter-of-fact voucher given into the hand of the exiled with this escaped one must have removed out of the path of safety what at least the strong walls of Jerusalem threw in the way of their turning to the Lord. For the meaning ascribed to חַפָּלִיט, to make one’s escape, get off through flight (Gen_14:13), it is not necessary, with Hengstenberg, to suppose an ideal person, a collective, that is, “a band of exiles,” as Ezekiel had already intimated, Eze_14:22-23, that a whole host of such fugitives would come to the exiles, “so that these by their miserable plight should be a living proclamation of the frightful catastrophe through which they had passed.” Hitzig thinks that “the fugitive may have escaped immediately after the bloodshed at Mizpah from the band of Ishmael (Jer_41:10); if not, which is improbable, only after the flight which ensued into Egypt.” J. D. Michaelis explains out of the remoteness of Ezekiel’s place of residence the so late arrival of the fugitive, especially considering the frightful disorder that took place.
Eze_33:22. And the hand of Jehovah, etc.; comp. Eze_37:1; Eze_1:3. The effect of it was the opening of the mouth. But this latter can be virtually and actually distinguished. In that respect the opening of the mouth of Ezekiel took place when it was commanded him that he should speak to the sons of his people, in respect to whom he had been dumb from the time indicated in Ezekiel 24. He began to do so at Eze_33:1 of this chapter, to which, therefore, the expression concerning “the hand of Jehovah” brings us back—namely, that this hand had now removed from him his previous dumbness, so that he might henceforth again speak to Israel, and should do so. J. D. Michaelis remarks quite correctly: “the prophet fell into ecstasy,” and the word contained in Eze_33:2-20 was imparted to him. In regard to the time, it is more precisely stated that the divine cause comes into operation on the evening before the coming of the escaped; and parallel therewith was the effect, the opening of the prophet’s mouth, עַד־בֹּא אֵלַי׳, therefore in the interval between the evening and the morning. It was hence independently of the escaped that the prophet got a renewal of his commission, and, indeed, while there was combined with the removal of his previously enforced silence a direct positive revelation and communication. Through a divine movement and working, everything was thus prepared and introduced for that which was going to take place on the fugitive’s arrival. For the circumstance that on his actual arrival Ezekiel’s mouth was opened (וַיִּפָּתַח פִּי is not to be regarded as an emphatic repetition for the purpose of connection with what follows, but in contradistinction to וַיִּפְתַּח אֶת־פִּי), adds to what was done potentia, as it now also took place actu, so that the divine word, Eze_33:2-20, given with this aim, for this particular moment destined, was now also spoken to the people by the prophet; and in proof that he was no more dumb, he immediately proceeded to give the continuation of it (Eze_33:23 sq.). In Eze_24:27 it was said Ezekiel’s mouth should be opened “with” the escaped. In the wider sense, namely, at the same time, about the time, when the escaped should come, it took place in the evening; literally, it took place with him in the morning, and the renewed prophetical mission of Ezekiel began then in fact. [“One may designate the following prophecies as the prophetically represented victorious history of Israel, of the kingdom of God among men. The wonderful, truly great, and divine is set forth here as a contrast to the present. In the presence of death only resurrection and life! The deepest humiliation of the covenant-people, their apparent annihilation is the path to their true greatness, nay, to their eternal glory.”—Häv.] Hengst. remarks: “On the night before the arrival of the exile-band, which was doubtless announced the day before, took place the opening of the prophet’s mouth, the removal of the seal as it were from it. The impulse to speak to the people again asserted itself. The prophetic activity itself first commenced after the exile-band appeared, the arrival of which was to form the ground for the receiving of the new disclosures. Only after the complete death exhibited before their eyes, the annihilation of all earthly hopes, could the announcement of the joyful resurrection be made.” Comp. besides on Eze_3:26-27; Eze_29:21.
Eze_33:23-33. The Renewed Mission of Ezekiel in view of the State of Heart of those in Canaan (Eze_33:23-29), and then of those in the Captivity (Eze_33:30-33).
What sort of a mission that of Ezekiel’s was which was renewed to him, namely, to do the part of a watchman, to warn the people, we have already seen in Eze_33:2-9. Hence in the connection of the following section with Eze_33:1-20 things stand in their proper order, and it entirely corresponds with a continuation of the divine discourse, that such a position of the prophet at the renewal of his divine mission first of all comes to an explanation with those who are still to be warned, to be threatened. The beginning of the divine word made known to Ezekiel corresponds very closely with that contained in Eze_33:8-9. It is a complete misunderstanding on the part of Kliefoth, when he would not find “the inhabitants of these waste places,” as he renders, in the desolated Jerusalem, or in the desolated cities of Judah, or in the desolated land of Canaan, i.e. in the remnants of the people who still remained there, but drags into the text the exiles in “the certainly not too well cultivated regions on the Chaboras.” חְרָבוֹת with the article implies demolition, ruins of cities and houses. Hitzig: “these wastes,” less Jerusalem itself than the other cities which had been stript of their inhabitants (Jer_33:13; Jer_33:10), in which those who were without possessions (Jer_39:10) shared with the returned fugitives (Jer_40:12), having all at once come to great wealth of land, and were puffed up. Things were lying in a comfortless state; how do the hearts adjust themselves to the comfortless position of things? “That there were people who still, ever giving themselves up to illusions, thought that the judgment would not inexorably run its course, was proved by the revolt in which Gedaliah, the Chaldean governor, was slain” (Hengst.). Comp. also the representation in Nehemiah 1. of the desolate condition of things, though an interval of upwards of a century had meanwhile elapsed!—As even in the time of Jesus they were always throwing themselves back on Abraham (for example, John 8, Mat_3:9), so was it the case here. An argumentum a minori. Since to Abraham, an individual man, in his posterity the land was given for a heritage, the less they conceive could it possibly fail to them—namely, to keep the land; not so properly with Hengst. to receive it again, for they do not give it up as lost—when in point of number they were many, and still more in the feeling of their souls they were without the knowledge of sin and the sense of guilt. In the words of Hengst: “they held themselves to be the true continuation of Abraham’s being, the bearers of the promise given to him” (Gen_15:7)—the posterity in whom Abraham inherited it, to whom therefore it “was given.” “They overlooked the wide gulf that stood between them and him; if they were Abraham’s children, they would have done his works.” (Comp. at Eze_11:15.)
Eze_33:25. To eat upon the blood is explained by Keil as eating of flesh which has not been cleansed of the blood; comp. Lev_19:26. “A fundamental law of the theocracy” (Häv.). The prohibition was given so early as at Gen_9:4. There with respect to the shedding of blood, as the infliction of death, murder; so that it was aimed against the spirit of murder (Hengst.). Targum: “You eat upon innocent blood.” From the blood a transition is made to the eating. In Leviticus 19. it appears in connection with the service of idolatry, as also here.—Lev_18:6; Lev_18:15, Lev_22:3; Lev_4:27.—The question is repeated in Eze_33:26. To stand or place one’s self is=to support one’s self, therefore to place his confidence thereon, which carries farther the shedding of blood.—עֲשִׁיתֶן תּוֹעֵבָה feminine; hence it has been understood of the women, with reference to immodest idolatrous worship. Hengst. points to Eze_13:17 sq. (“The feminine character of the sinner is already indicated in Gen_4:7, where it appears unmanly to let sin conquer, instead of ruling over it,”) Hitzig: ןstands for ם on account of the ת following. Eze_18:12; Eze_16:50; Eze_5:11. The abomination must, according to Hengst., be adultery; Eze_18:6; Eze_18:11.—In Eze_33:27, three punishments are placed over against 2 × 3 sins. The parallel to Eze_33:10—here referring to presumption, there to despair—is confirmed by: “As I live” (Eze_33:11).—בֶּחְרָבוֹת (Eze_33:24)בַּחֶרֶב, a play of words.—Ch. 5.17, Eze_14:15; Eze_14:21; 2Ki_17:25.—מְצָדוֹת, the mountain-tops, difficult of access; hence asylums, mountain-fastnesses, to which (as deeps to heights) the caves correspond on the other side, and which come into consideration as refuges from the sword and ravenous wild beasts, but not from the pestilence. (1Sa_13:6; Jos. Bell. Jud. 1:16. 4) Eze_5:17; Eze_14:21.
Eze_33:28. Eze_6:14.—(Niph.) Eze_30:18; Eze_7:24.—מֵאֵין עוֹבֵר, Eze_14:15. Cleared of men, even of passing travellers.
Eze_33:29. Eze_32:15.
Eze_33:30-33. The reference in the preceding verses to the accomplished fact of Jerusalem’s overthrow is followed in Eze_33:30 by a glance into the immediate surroundings of the prophet, as they stood related to his fresh mission. The position of matters was here full of consolation; the consolatory work of Ezekiel must begin, the announcement of salvation is going to proceed. How do the hearts of the exiles feel in regard to this? The prophet cannot speak comfort by means of Abraham, after the manner in which they comforted themselves in Canaan (Eze_33:24). He is “no servant of sin, but of the living God” (Häv.). A putting of the prophet right, therefore, with respect to the men, such as that which fell to his lot at the outset of his mission, is entirely suitable also here for the new beginning and for the continuation even to the end.—And thou corresponds to the application, Eze_33:7.—הַנִּדְבָּרִים (“who talk among themselves;” they are presented to the prophet, as it were, with a: See there!—Hengst.). Hitzig makes the matter too pointed when he expounds: “Not who confer together upon thee, but who converse about thee as about a matter that is of no great interest to them.” On the contrary,בְּךָ indicates a continuation of the discourse and a sense of interest, which Häv. thinks cannot be understood otherwise than with a hostile feeling. Still less, however, accords with such an interpretation the regular assembling of the people about the prophet, and above all, the impression which the fulfilment of his predictions will probably have made upon them. He hence forms the beloved standing object of their plaudits—must have done so, we may rather say. אֵצֶל׳, sitting down by the walls(“upon the divan,” Hengst.)—as much as: in secret, or within their houses. (Scarcely, as Häv.: “the sons, etc., who speak against thee in the house, are thy opponents secretly, and in the doors of the houses, in public, there every one acknowledges thee.”) בְּפִתְחֵי, without, namely, standing under the gates or doors of the house. And speak; this continues the action of the previous clause. The full form of expression likewise imports more than Hitzig will concede to them.—The words: Come now, etc., appear also to intimate that they must now expect something new, different from what they had been hitherto always hearing. But is it as at Hos_6:1? Would they only hear, as they say, and not also obey? not return to the Lord?—The prophet must not deceive himself on this account, that his person is their daily theme within and without, nay, that they come in a manner to the word of the Eternal, as is described in Eze_33:31, namely, “as the coining of people,” that is, like streaming multitudes, in vast crowds (“as on great solemnities,” Häv.)—to which is parallel עַמִּי, in an emphatic manner designating either: “My people” ironically, those who should be Mine—hear, but do not; or: “as My people,” that is, as if they would be My people, and still are not. Ewald: “as if they were the true community.” Or may it not be as Hengst.: “so respectful, attentive, and apparently earnest and willing”? What they will not do is clear from Eze_33:11; the words of the prophet aim at the heart’s conversion.—כִּי־עֲנָבִים, Hitzig: “for the lovely is according to their taste;” but הֵמָּה עשִֹׁים? and עשִֹׁים is certainly suggested by לֹא יַעֲשֹׁוּ. “Lovely things” were such as they liked, desired, longed for; hence they are only about the doing of that which is pleasant in their mouth, smacks agreeably to them. Gesenius, however, puts it: “For with the mouth they do what is well-pleasing (to God), but their heart goes after their unrighteous gain.” Hengst. declares the meanings of “loveliness” and “well-pleasing” to be without foundation, and renders: “they deal tenderly with their mouth,” properly: “they show ardour, affect in words an ardent love to God and His word, while the real inclination of their heart goes quite another way, is turned to mammon, the god of the Jewish old man.” Häv.: “for lewdness they follow with their mouth.” עָנַב with Ezekiel (comp. at ch.23.) and Jeremiah unquestionably denotes impure love, passionate desire, especially unchaste fleshly desire, whether as akin to ἀγαπάω, or to “gaping after” (gaffen), looking after, or to “snatching at” (Germ. happen), hoping for, earnestly expecting. So much is clear as to the meaning of the word; all besides is imported, or arbitrarily connected with it. עֲנָבִים (only in the plural), however, occurs not merely in Eze_33:31, but also in Eze_33:32 connected with שִׁיר, song. What else, then, can it signify but “love-songs” (songs of impure love)? To the fact that they do not the words of the prophet, which according to their own confession proceed from Jehovah (Eze_33:30), the עֲגָבִים בְּפִיהֶם הֵמָּה עשִֹׁים form a restriction: certainly they also do, they are at the doing in their mouth: as much as, with words, with the tongue. What is received by the ear, this in the mouth becomes love-songs; the “doing” of that they make out of the words of God spoken by the prophet. Hence, after that in Eze_33:31 the expression עֲנָבִים has been explained, or more exactly defined, the statement: “and they hear thy words,” etc., is again resumed. So that their doing remains in the mouth; the heart does not participate in it, as is presently indicated when it is said that their heart goes after its covetous, fraudulent gain (בֶּצַע from בָּצַע, to make a cut; Eze_22:27; Eze_22:12). Nay, they take such advantage of the words of God, which Ezekiel announces to them, that they turn them to their own account; whence it is not so much their warm regard for Jehovah, as Jehovah’s for them, which here comes into consideration. In some such way they treat the divine promises as loving declarations of a hot paramour. We are not, however, on this account obliged to interpret עֲגָבִים by: “frivolous jokes,” “words of mockery” (with the Targum), or: “falsehood,” “deceit,” with the older translations. Not that they would “only amuse themselves,” but more, they turn grace into wantonness (Judges 4). With them also, therefore, the matter concerns the substance of things, not so much “the lovely form;” and they were perverting it to excess according to their heart’s lust.
Eze_33:32. According to Hitzig, שִׁיר must signify not song, but “lovely singer.” יְפֵה קוֹל does not necessitate that, for it may be referred to the fine tones of the song. But if it applies to the fine voice of the prophet, then it is to be understood that, after he has in שִׁיר been coupled with his prophecy (to which, however, the reference according to the connection must chiefly be made), he is thought of apart, and מֵטִב נַנֵּן continues the reference to the prophet, without therefore constraining us by this personal reference to understand שִׁיר also directly and simply of him. הֵיטִיב (Hiph. of יָטַב), with נַנֵּן, signifies either to play well, beautifully, or to do so vigorously, bravely. Junius refers what is said to the prophecies of doom upon those who are without (Ezekiel 25-32). Hengst., in a manifestly modern fashion: “they rejoice amid the national impoverishment at the admirable rhetorical gifts of the new classic” (!).
Eze_33:33. This verse joins to the repetition of their not doing the prediction of their unfailing and so different knowledge of the prophet.—And when it comes, in a general sense, what he speaks; not the more special utterance in Eze_33:27-29, which at least does not sound like a song of loves, rather the prophecies which were now going to follow. Thus the tone with which this second main division of the book commences is different; not: they shall know that I am Jehovah, but as at Eze_2:5, where the language employed was still of a general kind. (See there.)—The: behold it comes, points back to the circumstance that the judgment on the people has actually come; and as such a thing has come, so certain also shall the following discourses be seen to be as to their fulfilment. (Hitz.: the matter shall certainly come to pass which is the object of thine address. Häv.: “And lo! it is already fulfilled; this must signify, Jerusalem is fallen, and the truth of the predictions perfectly established.”) The experience is, however, a painful one, because the people’s impenitence will exclude them from the future salvation. What far-reaching and, at the same time, true prospective vision, even to the days of the Son of man! It had already been declared to them through the prophets in the midst of them; so much the more, when He Himself actually came and spoke to them, did every pretext for their sin fall away, Joh_15:22.
DOCTRINAL REFLECTIONS
Compare the Reflections at pp. 72, 73, and on ch 18
1. “Woe is me,” exclaimed the apostle, “if I preach not the gospel!” (1Co_9:16.) This is a lesson which belongs to all those who have had the care or oversight of others committed to them. With that is not to be confounded the circumstance, that each individual has his particular gift from God, by means of which he can be profitable to his neighbour. The general love demands that we should seek the salvation of each other, Jude 21–23 (Cocceius).
2. In the office, calling, service which belongs to preachers, two things unite,—namely, the appointment through men, that is, in the present case, through the Church, as is implied in the similitude Eze_33:2 sq.; and that the Lord gives preachers to Jerusalem, as is said at Eze_33:7. Where this latter is not regarded, there the other also cannot be considered. If the civil magistrate, hence the State, or private individuals to whom the patronage belongs, will assert for themselves the vocatio ministrorum, they thereby ignore the Christian rights of the Church, just because they do not acknowledge the supreme right of God over His people. For it belongs to the Church to choose and ordain her servants, according to the order of Christ and His apostles; and a particular community, although it may be locally formed, does not at all stand related to the whole Church after the manner that a single commune, as a section of the civic commonwealth, stands related to the State; but it is in respect to constitution the Church itself, which has its representation in the community as regards its full possession of life. Not otherwise appear to us the communities of the Acts of the Apostles and of the apostolic epistles. Hereditary relations might well enough beget a temporary legal right of a historical kind, but really destitute of foundation, in so far as it is at variance with the fundamental rights of the Church, and can be proved to be the remnant of an antagonistic claim of rights, an unjust usurpation. We are not to speak with the Remonstrants of rights conferred upon the Church by the State in the matter of the vocatio ministrorum, since the State has no right to confer, because possessing none. And so the Reformation, if it found itself very much in the position, could not have the right, to erect a throne for the Cæsareo-papal government of the Church, since the Church, having the right to govern itself, renounces itself when it gives up to the State, or to the persons in whom the civil power concentrates itself, rights which are absolutely the Church’s own, which therefore the civil power cannot possess, unless these rights are to be turned to foolishness. In every tyranny exercised on the conscience, foolishness plays its part. But the claim of right, which, since the Reformation, has crept in for the conferring of rights which are against right, is of a piece with that of summus episcopus—whence the Papistical leaven of this title clearly appears. For it is Papistical doctrine in the general to ascribe the right of vocation to the bishops, if the Roman chair should not have granted special exceptions in regard to the election of pastors. When the limits of State-power have been formulated in this way, that it has to do with things circa sacra, but not in sacris, it certainly does look odd enough that “a supreme bishop” should indeed inspect the walls of the sanctuary, but must not tread upon them. The experience of upwards of 300 years, however, has shown much else than the absurdity of the formula in question—has proved the neglected, though oft-repeated and powerfully expressed, warnings of Luther and of the symbolical books, against the intermingling of the spiritual and civil jurisdictions, to have been only too well grounded. And when the Reformed theologian Heidegger, in his Medulla Theologiœ, with the view of smoothing over the folly of that formula, would not have the oversight and power of the State limited to the circa religionem et ecclesiam, but apostrophises the magistrate as ὁμοπιττος et ecclesiœ membrum excellens, thereby giving him to participate in the power which belongs to the Church, and then ascribing to him the obligation of serving Christ and His kingdom, and of advancing this kingdom with the authority lent him by God;—or when Burmann, also a Reformed theologian, enumerates the offices of the magistrate circa sacra, and among these reckons not merely the appointment and ordering of the acts of public worship, so as to secure that all be done according to the word of God, and the providing a safeguard against ecclesiastical arbitrariness, and the interposition on behalf of oppressed fellow-believers, and so forth, but also the suppression of errors, of heretics and heterodox, the reformation of the Church when it has become corrupt, etc.;—in all this we have a glance afforded us into a state of things which has actually existed, but which, and along therewith the alleged ground for such civil interferences, in spite of the so-called “Christian State,” has long since passed away. But what is to be matter of controversy with the State will, above all, have reference to the so-called church patrons, for patronage is really of Romish heathenish origin, and has never at all, in conformity with its proper sense, been Christianized as a juridical advocateship; at least a good part of the Germanic feudal lordship has infused itself into this assumption of a right of private domination. Now if, in opposition to all of this nature that is at variance with the self-government of the Church by means of the organization peculiar to her, a stand is to be made, and, in particular, the choice and calling of pastors are effected in this way through men, there still is, as the other factor, the Lord, whose body the Church of God is, and the right of the Church in its last source is the constitution granted by her sole Head, Christ. In consequence of this regimen principale, all are brethren who serve one another, the Lord alone has the supreme authority (theocracy or Christocracy); so that the Church, in respect to its inner spiritual form, is no democracy, neither is it an aristocracy any more than a hierarchy, but a monarchy in the highest sense of the word. Through the Holy Spirit, and by dint of such supreme invisible sovereignty, was Ezekiel sent to Israel, just as in ordinary circumstances the humblest village pastor is sent from the same quarter, whether it may be for grace or for judgment. For it is God’s good pleasure that through such service on the part of men the divine will in respect to men should be accomplished (Eph_4:11 sq.); and the calling of a minister in any particular case will be perfect, where the internal through the Spirit corresponds with the external through the Church or its organs.
3. Ewald maintains that “the ultimate ground of all possibility of a true conversion stands in this, that in connection with the divine grace, which is ever working for good, a genuine prophet never fails, who, in perilous times announcing the pure truth, informs and warns all with dauntless, clear words.” Against enthusiasts and Schwenkfeldians it has not, indeed, been denied by the teachers of the Church, that God, if such had been His will, could also immediately as from Himself have converted and saved men; yet still the Church has always held fast the conviction, that the public ministry and vocation to it in the Church is requisite by a hypothetical necessity, namely, with reference to the good pleasure and purpose of God.
4. The prophets are to be reckoned among the “extraordinary ministers.” In the old Reformed theology, the extraordinary vocation was represented as threefold:—(1) When God effect it directly through His voice, as in the case of Abraham, Moses, the prophets under the Law, John the Baptist, and the apostles; (2) when it takes place by announcement through a human instrumentality, as in the case of Aaron and the tribe of Levi, by means of Moses as the mediating agency; (3) when the internal impulse of the Spirit drives in one direction or another, as was the case, for example, with the deacon Philip.
5. Death is the wages of sin, and sin is the destruction of people; and so, by reason of the universal sinfulness, quite apart from particular charges of guilt, an absolutely sinless extinction of life is not to be thought of; only relatively heavier or lighter will the guilt weigh in particular cases. But beside one’s own guilt, that of each individual man, there stands upon the tablet of the Judge, as fellow-partakers thereof, human society in the general (through education, instruction, customs, etc.), and in particular its chiefs, as governors, princes, lords, teachers, etc., who should serve not merely as possessors of the dignity and of office, but also as examples to be looked up to in whatever place they may be.
6. “This is, however, the brightest and most glorious distinction of the prophetic calling, to proclaim the joy of the Creator in connection with the life of the converted sinner” (Umbreit).
7. We have not on this account to despair of life, because knowing that we are in the midst of death. For this knowledge of death excludes only the thought of life, as that which might still be in ourselves, and could proceed out of us; but such knowledge by no means takes from us, it rather brings nearer, the prospect of life out of ourselves, namely, in the living God. The conversion version from sin to God, as also from all dead works of a simply legal nature, or of self-righteousness, is hence a burying in regard to the life which is merely man’s, while in reality it is the way of that life which God gives, and which He Himself is.
8. “Conversion, internally considered, is the change of a man’s state of mind into conformity with the will of God—a change, therefore, in which his internal feeling cannot be alone operative, but in which that effects his transformation in the power of God, which is the moving impulse from a higher power in respect to what he is going to be. But outwardly it appears as the complete reformation of his behaviour, since he turns from a direction toward the world into a direction toward God. The change which takes place in his state of mind in all the elements conditioning it becomes manifest in the transformation of his life. This change of mind is as to its nature a single decisive and deeply conscious act—the act of the whole inner life; but precisely on this account not the isolated occurrence of a single hour, of a particular frame or deed, though it frequently also comes to its highest manifestation in a particular hour, frame, or deed. It is not an abstract single change, but a revolution resting on a concrete single change, on a definite turning-point, an always renewed and always more deeply penetrating and pervading revolution, which is quite fitly designated by the term conversion. It is the everlasting deed of the man in the power of his God with reference to the old life” (Lange, Pos. Dogmatik).
9. “Evil ways are not only the bad ways of wicked works, but also the false ways of righteousness. Nay, it is above all important, that whoever will live should turn from his own wisdom and fancied power, as if he could sanctify himself to God, and give Him the glory, and receive from Him justification by grace” (Cocc.).
10. Because conversion of heart, sincere conversion, can at any moment savingly interrupt the course of development of sin, which would otherwise run on to its consummation in the judgment of death, so the disobedience of unbelief toward the alluring word of grace must be regarded as the sin unto death.
11. “When it is said that God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, it must be understood after this manner, as if He were not inclined to give pardon to the penitent. God does not delight in judgment in such a way as not to delight in the justification of him who repents; as if repentance in faith on the word which promises grace to the sinner were of no account with God, or as if there were no righteousness of God available through which the penitent might obtain salvation. This word very clearly shows that there was no necessity for Israel pining away in their own sins, or in those of others, if they were but themselves in the right way. For whenever they turned from their evil way, life was thenceforth prepared for them. Whence it follows, that for that life neither a temple nor a state was requisite, so that those only should pine away of worldly sorrow who have their glory in these carnal and earthly things; whereas for such as would bend their hearts to believe in God, there should be no wasting away in their own or their fathers’ sins, or in those of the people, but they should have life in hope, and should not feel the want of state-support or temple or priesthood, and carnal things of that sort, but should find all laid up for them in God, who would be mindful of His covenant with Abraham, and provide the Seed in which the Gentiles were to be blessed” (Cocc.).
12. “The greatest danger that can arise out of suffering is that a man should misunderstand his Maker; one of the hardest problems for the servants of God is to bring reason into the suffering” (Hengst.).
13. The law in the Old Covenant directed its chief attention upon sin. The knowledge of sin must be for men the result that came out of all those imperatives, “Thou shalt not,” and “Thou shalt.” Hence the prophets in their relation to the law could, in the first instance, pursue no other aim than to set forth men as sinners. Sin remains as the mark of interrogation behind the righteousness of the righteous. As the conflict between the law and the carnality of man is not closed by the law, the doing of what is right according to the law may acquire for any one the predicate of a righteous person, but it will always only in particular cases be done aright according to the law; the righteousness out of the law must be “righteousnesses,” specific ἔργα νόμου—such as, for example, are mentioned in Eze_33:14 sq. (and in contrast therewith Eze_33:25 sq.). So that there is a righteousness of the righteous, Eze_33:12-13; Eze_33:18, while still man does not see himself placed through the law in the position of a perfectly happy relation to God, freed from guilt and the curse of the law. It is not, however, knowledge alone of his sins and knowledge of himself as a sinner which the law gives to man, but along therewith the knowledge that the righteousness, the reality of which corresponds to God, which is the righteousness of God, must come as a revelation outside the law from God Himself through grace.
14. That with the completed fact of the overthrow of Jerusalem the silence of Ezekiel should be brought to an end, and he should be no more dumb—this circumstance lent to the fact in question a special character, caused it to appear so much the more in a peculiar light, as a parallel must be provided for it. Accordingly, it not merely seems as if Jerusalem must have fallen, so that salvation might with open mouth be prophesied, as the starry orbs of night disappear before the rising sun, but it was in reality so; and parallel with this first destruction, the last destruction of the Holy City, and the total dispersion of the people throughout the Roman world, on the one hand, made room for the fulness of the Gentiles at the table of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and on the other, caused the gospel salvation to be preached to every creature. Jerusalem became then thoroughly desolate; but John saw a new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven. The Jews have been scattered abroad everywhere, but the Israel of God are being gathered meanwhile from all the ends of the earth, on the ground of the prophetic word, rendered more certain through the fulfilment certified by the apostles.
15. “Neither danger, or, more correctly, the anxious concern and dread about danger, such as we can well imagine to ourselves, nor any other hindrance, must be permitted to throw itself like an insuperable wall in the way of a servant of God. This is no apology worthy of a prophet, ‘I labour in vain; I preach to deaf ears;’ but in season and out of season is the work to be carried on, and sinners to be admonished. No one must bury his talent (Matthew 25.). And this holds equally with respect to magistrates and heads of families” (Lavater).
HOMILETIC HINTS
Eze_33:1. “We men are daily and always anew to be reminded of our obligations, for individually and collectively we are slothful and negligent men” (Stck.).
Eze_33:2-3. “How profitable in dangerous times is the guardian care of watchmen! They must not, however, betray the confidence of the community, and must have open eyes, in order that the people of the Lord may not be taken by surprise. But when the Lord does not keep the city, the watchman waketh in vain, even though he does not fall into sleep” (Luther).—“The sword is the judgment, but the trumpet the holy gospel; the man who spies and watches is the bishop, whose part it is to preach and testify of the future judgment” (Clement).—Sollicitudo officium prœlati est, non celsitudo (Bernard).—“The calling to the office of preacher is twofold—one immediate, the other mediate; the former is from God, the latter from man, Act_26:15-16; Act_6:5” (Cr.).—“Who would choose a blind man to be the watchman of a city? How could he see the danger and give warning of it? How unreasonable is it, therefore, to appoint a spiritually blind or unconverted man to be a teacher ! He does not at all see the danger, and how can he give warning? Isa_56:10-11; Mat_15:14” (Starke).—The office and work, the service and fidelity of a right bishop or overseer of the community.—The profitableness and blessing of fidelity; on the other hand, the injury and curse of unfaithfulness.—“The importance and responsibility of the prophetic calling” (Umbr.).—“Although in the present day ministers are chosen and ordained to church employment by men, yet may such human choice, when it is rightly gone about, be also termed divine. But since it is God who assigns ministers their place, He ought to be entreated to send true and good ministers to His people” (Luther).—“What sort of a watchman would he be who should keep silence about the breaking out of a fire, because he would not rouse people out of their sleep? And so, what sort of teacher would he be who should remain silent at the sins of the ungodly, that they might not be disturbed in their sleep of security?” (St.)—“No blind man, nor dreamer, nor drowsy sleeper, is fit for an office which takes its name from wakefulness” (Berl. Bib.).
Eze_33:4-6. To let one’s self be warned, what a profitable, serious, and yet very much neglected prescription!—“Ask those who have gone to hell; they will in a body give thee for answer, We would not take warning” (Stck.).—The disregarded or despised warnings from youth up.—Men can but warn, they cannot deliver.—The power and the weakness of our love.—“I hear the message well enough, but I want faith.”
Eze_33:6. Of the watching which is enjoined upon ourselves: “Watch, for ye know not,” etc., we are not relieved by the obligation which lies upon the watchman. Hence he who is overtaken unwarned still does not fall guiltless, for his security, carelessness, etc., were the occasion of his fall.—Contempt of danger is therefore no true courage.—Every one must carry his soul as in his hand.—“What a mournful condition is it, when the Church does not watch, the State does not protect, the house does not admonish!” (Stck.)
Eze_33:7-9. “Natural life and soundness of health are indispensably necessary to an ordinary watchman, and not less necessary are life and strength in the inner man to a spiritual watchman, Lam_2:14” (Lange). “With a spiritual watchman there must be found a spiritual life, a spiritual light, a spiritual wakefulness, and dutiful fidelity in all parts of his office” (St.).—As the prophet on the mouth of God, so the preacher is dependent on the word of God. He has by this to prove every word of man; on this last his office has no dependence.—The apostle pleads in the stead of Christ, 2Co_5:20.—“Mark, Christian hearer! For God’s sake, and because God wishes it, thy teacher must warn thee. Therefore be not wroth with him; if thou shouldst be so, then be assured that it is not with him, but with God, that thou art enraged, Gal_1:6; Gal_1:10; Deu_18:19” (St.).—Sympathy may be cruelty; everything at the right place and at the right time.—Love can cover the sins which are committed against us, but never can call evil good.—Whosoever despises him that is sent, fails in respect also to Him that sent him.—But they are no servants of God who flatter the ungodly.—(Comp. Homiletic Hints on Eze_3:17 sq.) “The warnings which teachers have failed to give afford no justification to the wicked before God, for God warns them Himself in His word, Luk_12:48” (St.).—“A more intolerable judgment comes upon Chorazin and Bethsaida than upon Tyre and Sidon” (Heim-Hoff.).—“The position of the servants of God is certainly not a comfortable one, since they have to dwell among those who are called briers and scorpions, and are likened even to lions; whence they do not get off without pricks and wounds” (Stck.).—“But the preaching is not enough which consists simply in the word. An evangelical watchman must teach conscientiously and live holily” (H. H.).—Even when the preacher’s conscience is free from guilt in regard to the ungodly who perish in their sins, what a sorrow does it occasion in the life of the preacher when he has to see the impenitent die in their sins!—The pain connected with the preacher’s office, which the world understands not.—“I would not willingly be saved without you” (Augustine).
Eze_33:10. All in the end feel sin, but they hate it not.—“The way of the unconverted in this respect is to look rather to the temporal than to the eternal life” (St.).—To despair, instead of turning to God, is but another form of the pride that is in the human heart.—Despair is another kind of impenitence.—How contrasts touch one another! The godly also are sometimes on the brink of despair—David, Psalms 38, and Cain, Genesis 4—“That punishment should always be heavier to us than sin!” (Stck.)—He who would justify himself would perhaps throw the blame even upon God.—God always deals unfairly with the wicked, as they think.—“When God’s judgments break forth, then men readily remember their sins” (Stck.).—“One must hate sin before one can live” (B. B.).—He whose sin keeps him away from God, loves his sin more than his life. Why will ye die? God, therefore, always asks again.—“We must not despair of God’s compassion, but turn ourselves toward it” (Stck.).—When the Holy One swears, He lets Himself down to the lies, the faithlessness, and fickleness which prevail on the earth. He comes before the judgment-seat of men, and bears His testimony against sinners who would die.—Unbelief must be ashamed and dumb, or be compelled to pass sentence on itself.—“He does not swear by His love, of which the smaller number only have some feeling; but that He lives all know” (B. B.).—Indubitable as the love of God is, yet not the less necessary is conversion for men.—Seek no back-doors, no bribery of the saints, no hushing up of the conscience with pious forms of speech; but go straight into the heavenly kingdom, as the prodigal son made for his father.—“We can think nothing good of ourselves; our whole salvation is hence a divine work” (H. H.).—The living God wills life, and also gives it to those who will; but unless men also wish it, He certainly does not give. To work this will, to lay the will of the flesh to sleep under God’s word—this is the aim of the universal grace, i.e. the grace which God offers to all men through His word. But where the will has been wrought, there will also the performance be made good, according to the good pleasure of God; so that our conversion is not only His requirement, but also His working, although the deed is man’s.
Eze_33:12-13. (See Homiletic Hints on Eze_18:24; Eze_18:21 sq., 26, 27 sq.)—Righteousness from works does not preserve and save men.—It is not the righteousness of the righteous that is the question, but the righteousness of God, which is manifested indeed in the law, but does not come out of the law.—The righteous who are such by faith will live, and will live in their faith.—One must begin, but one must also continue to the end.—Unfaithfulness smites its own Lord.—The truly righteous also know of failings, but not of falling away.—Not that we are evil by nature is what finally condemns us, but that we remain evil in spite of the goodness of God, which seeks our conversion.—“No true penitent needs despair on account of his old sins, nor faint because of them, Psa_25:3; Mat_9:2” (Cr.).—“In true conversion it is not enough that there be a breaking off of some sins, but of all, Isa_1:16; Jam_2:10” (Starke).—“But this is the true life, if one can say with Paul: I live not, but Christ liveth in me, Gal_2:20” (Stck.).—Trust upon one’s own righteousness is not faith, but trust upon the righteousness of God in Christ. Not assuredly the letter of our righteousness, but the spirit of that imputed to us, brings the assurance that we are children of God, and shall also remain such.
Eze_33:14 sq. The voucher for the reckoning here furnished by means of the thief on the cross.—Conversion of heart, of conduct, of life.—The separation from sin is effected not only by the forgiveness of all our sins and of our sinful state, but also by a walk in all goodness after the Spirit, who now begins His ascendency.—“Man becomes free when in his conscious want of freedom he gives himself up to the free-making God” (Lange).—The improvement of the life shows that things have become better with a man, that God has taken an interest in his soul, in order that it might not perish.
Eze_33:17 sq. (Homiletic Hints on Eze_18:25-29.) “More than five years intervened [viz. between this and the similar utterance in Ezekiel 18.], and the people had still not got a step farther. Thus God Himself, by His example, teaches all parents, guardians, etc., patience. And we should much more exercise patience when we think of our own sins and of God’s patience with us, but should also not be weary of watching and warning” (Schmieder).—“An honest man has still much more faith in the world than God Himself, Gen_19:14” (St.).—God’s way is right even when He, nay, just because He does not allow the righteous to be righteous, and does not leave the sinner to perish.—Let him who thinks that he stands take heed that he do not fall!—Do this, it is ever again said, and thou shalt live.—Good works are productions of God, in consequence of the will having been set free by Him from the doing of evil to the doing of good.—The last day will make it clear that God’s way has been right.
Eze_33:21-22. “The opened mouth of a servant of God is his frankness, the contrary is trimming and flattering; and it is also distinguished from sarcastic witticisms, evil speaking, and insult. The servants of God should be frank in speech; yet not like insolent fellows, who believe they may say everything because no one can contradict them, at least when in the pulpit” (Luther).—God’s word will take effect at last; woe to him who then finds that he is a stricken man, who should have long ago recognised himself to be in that case !—“At last it comes, what men would not believe” (Berl. Bib.).—Our silence and our speaking are both of God.—“In the time of God’s long-suffering which sinners abuse, the righteous must often be silent till the judgments actually take place” (B. B.).
Eze_33:24 sq. The deceitful conclusions of self-love.—The hereditary nobility in its foolish pretensions.—“Of” Abraham matters nothing, but to be like Abraham is what is needed.—Noblesse oblige.—Walls, cities, go to ruin, but a fool will still plant himself on the ruins, Pro_27:22.—“What is promised to faith, unbelievers will often be found appropriating to themselves” (Stck.).—The hope of the ungodly must come to shame.—When the mask falls from the hypocrites, then will the beast of prey which lay behind become manifest; and we shall all be made manifest before the judgment-seat of Christ; then the masquerade will be out.—There have not only been persons bearing merely the name of Jew, but there still are, and always have been, plenty of nominal Christians.—Our life must not belie our profession, else in our claim to the inheritance of the saints we shall reckon without our host.—Holy ruins are relics on which there is no inheritance.
Eze_33:26. The natural man stands upon nothing else than his sword.—“In relation to sin men ought not to be womanish, but women to be manly” (Hengst.).
Eze_33:27. The divine vengeance does not need to rush upon its victim from behind in order to lay hold of him, nor does it require to make a long and laborious search after him; but where he has fled to and fancies himself hidden, whether it be in the heights or in the depths, there the vengeance of God lies in readiness, and has been expecting him to come to it.—In the end we all come to God—alas! that so few should fall into His arms, while so many fall upon His sword!—If the wild beasts of passion do not tear a man, the pestilence of his natural corruption will gradually consume him.
Eze_33:28 sq. Desolate shall it be at last about every ungodly man; for as the heart is, so is the life. First of all sin desolates; then come desolations through death; finally, we pass into the desolation of an eternity without God.—The knowledge of the Eternal many times the most terrible humiliation in what is temporal.
Eze_33:30 sq. “It is suspicious when people praise the fineness of a preacher’s voice, address,” etc. (Right.).—Ezekiel shows that this is what may happen even with earnest and godly preachers, for what is there from which man cannot suck sugar?—“Externally to hear God’s word, men will often encourage themselves, but not through God’s grace to reduce it to practice, Jer_42:1-2” (St.).—Merely to hear, without doing, makes all preaching unprofitable.—How many unwashed mouths wipe themselves clean on the servants of God!—Strange that sermons of rebuke should be more attractive than grace-sermons! It shows that the gospel requires a much greater earnestness of spirit than the law. But men would still always rather be smitten than caressed; they think, perhaps, that in the love there is too much of design. If one has been struck by the cudgel, it is still possible to preserve one’s heart and head; but love leaves nothing to one’s self, it demands all—the whole man, and the whole life.—“Shun the society of mockers, for nothing that is good can come of these” (Stck.).—“They only praise the eloquence, they do not trouble themselves about the matter, unless it be that it does not directly concern them, but the heathen, Ezekiel 25 sq.” (B. B.—A measure for judging of the flocking to mission festivals.—“There will always be hypocrites, who hear, indeed, but do not—yea, do quite differently from what their hearing should lead them to do. But God knows the thoughts of the heart, and looks upon all the ways of all men, and in His own time will avenge the despite done to His servants upon their despisers. Finally, we should not suffer ourselves to be entertained with God’s word as with music. God does not play in His word that we may dance” (Luther).—To hear, but also to obey, that is the main thing.—Mere habit as regards the hearing of sermons makes people indifferent, and at last stupid.—The Lord preserve us from empty pews, but still more from stupid hearers, who only wish to show their Sunday clothes, and to have been in church!—How readily may a preacher deceive himself regarding his hearers!—God read here to Ezekiel a lecture on homiletics.—Pious sentimentalism, also, is spiritual adultery.—So must God to-day still be Love, since thus only can the world quietly remain the world, which He has loved so much.—The “dear God” (liebe Gott) the love-song of people of the world.—Satan goes with us into church.—Edification and the capacity for it are two different things.—A true prophet will always leave behind him the impression of a true prophet.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 17 the sword--invaders. An appropriate illustration at the time of…
the sword--invaders. An appropriate illustration at the time of the invasion of Judea by Nebuchadnezzar.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 10 1-6. This command came the evening before the messenger…
1-6. This command came the evening before the messenger arrived announcing the fall of Jerusalem (Eze_33:21-22). For two years Ezekiel had been unable to speak to the people, and had spent his time in writing prophecies against foreign nations, but now he is commanded to speak, which must have been certain proof to him that information of the city’s fall was about to arrive. (See Eze_24:26.) He seeks now to prepare the people for this awful news. He points out that it was not lack of patriotism and sympathy, but a grave and urgent sense of duty, which had led him to blow the trumpet of warning. (Compare Hos_8:1; Hab_2:1; Jer_6:6; Jer_4:5.) The spirit of the people (Eze_33:10, compare Eze_24:23) indicates that the rumor of this awful disaster had reached them even before the direct messenger to Ezekiel arrived. 7-9. Compare Eze_3:17-21. The out-ward imagery vanishes in Eze_33:7. It is of no Chaldean invader that the prophet had to give warning, but of each man’s own special sin, which was bringing ruin upon himself and on his country (Plumptre).
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 1–6. The illustration—duty of the watchman in war.
1–6. The illustration—duty of the watchman in war.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv2, 10, 11 (2) Set him for their watchman.—The same figure as…
(2) Set him for their watchman.—The same figure as in Eze_3:17. Eze_33:2-9 form the introduction to this renewed commission, and closely correspond to Eze_3:17-21. Yet these verses have also a distinct retrospective object, and explain to the people why he had hitherto spoken to them so much of judgments and in such warning tones; this had been his duty, both in obedience to God’s commands and in regard for their welfare, and it would still be his duty in the future. The passage is too clear to need comment.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17 If we may think of Ezekiel as compiling and…
If we may think of Ezekiel as compiling and arranging his own prophecies, we may think of him as returning, with something like a sense of relief, to his own special work as the watchman of the house of Israel. For upwards of two years the messages which it had been given him to write (how far they were in any sense published we have no means of knowing) in Ezekiel 25-32, had dealt exclusively with foreign nations. Now his own people are again the object of his care. He resumes his pastoral office at once for warning and consolation. From this point onwards, with the exception of the strange Meshech-Tubal episode in Eze 38 Eze 39, all is leading onwards to the final vision of the rebuilt temple, and the redistributed land of Israel, and through them to the times of the Messianic restoration. No date is given here for the word of the Lord which now came to him, but it may, perhaps be inferred, from Vers. 21, 22, that it was immediately before the arrival of the messenger who brought the tidings that Jerusalem was taken. In the ecstatic state indicated by "the hand of the Lord" he knew that some great change was coming, that he had a new message to deliver, a new part to play.
Vers. 1-9. The watchman.
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Ezekiel here returns to an idea which he has expressed earlier. (Eze_3:17) He stands as a watchman for his people. Every Christian preacher and teacher is in a similar position. The same may be said of every Christian man and woman who knows the peril of sin and has an opportunity of warning the ignorant and. careless.
I THE DUTIES OF THE WATCHMAN.
1. To watch. In order to serve his people he must first of all see for himself. We can only teach men what we have first learnt. The prophet must be a seer, the apostle a disciple, the missionary a Christian. To watch means
(1) to be awake while others sleep;
(2) to fix attention while others are listless;
(3) to look abroad while others are satisfied with what they can see at home.
The Christian watchman must be spiritually alert; he must not be satisfied with his own notions; he must sweep the horizon of truth; he must consider the distant and the future, but chiefly that which is approaching and of practical moment. He must look especially in two directions:
(1) into the revealed truths of Christianity, to see indications of the principles of life and death;
(2) into the actual world, to note its condition. Knowledge of men must go with knowledge of Scripture. The Christian teacher must not be a mere bookworm or cloistered student; he must know the world men and affairs.
2. To warn. Having seen danger, the watchman must at once inform the city of the fact. He must wake the slumbering guard, blow the trumpet, or run to the belfry and sound the alarm. The Christian teacher is to warn as well as to comfort and exhort. (1Th_5:14)
II THE LIMIT OF HIS RESPONSIBILITY. The watchman has but to watch and warn. When he has been quick to detect approaching danger, perhaps at first but as a faint cloud of dust on the horizon, and vigorous in blowing his trumpet to rouse the city, his part is done. He cannot meet the foe in the plain and prevent them from approaching the city. He cannot man the walls and guard the citadel. He can but blow his trumpet. Further, if the people will not heed or believe him, he cannot compel them to prepare for the conflict. If they still prefer their couches to their swords, the watchman cannot force them to arm. He is not the commander of the city. The greatest Christian teacher is but a watchman. No servant of Christ can compel men to turn from their carelessness and face the stern facts of life. If they will not hearken to faithful expostulation, the preacher can do no more for them. They are free, and they must choose fur themselves.
1. This is a warning to the careless. They may refuse to attend. They can fall asleep again, vexed at the rousing trumpet-blast. But if they do this it is at their peril.
(1) The danger is not the less because it is neglected.
(2) The folly and sin of negligence aggravate the faults of those who give no heed to warning. Now they are without excuse. They can blame no one but themselves.
2. This is a consolation for the faithful watchman. If he is a true man, he must grieve over his negligent hearers. Still, his Master will recognize his fidelity.
III THE GUILT OF HIS NEGLIGENCE.
1. It is failure in a trust. The citizens sleep in time of peril, and no one expects them to be on guard. But the watchman"s special duty is to be awake and give warning. He who is entrusted with responsibility is expected to be true to his charge.
2. It is sin against light. The watchman sees the danger which the sleeping citizens do not perceive. His knowledge adds to his responsibility. His sin is but negative, he gives no false news, he does not play the traitor by opening the gates to the enemy. Yet he is unfaithful.
3. It is negligence that hurts others. It risks a whole city. We risk the welfare of all whom we might help to save, if we fail to warn them. Fear of disturbing their peace is no excuse. The watchman must have courage to
sound the alarm. There are times when the harp must be exchanged for the trumpet. The preacher must have courage to say unpleasant things.
HOMILIES BY J.D. DAVIES Vers. 1-9. The watchman"s office.
All the resources of God"s ingenuity are employed to find argument and appeal for man"s slumbering conscience. The incidents of ordinary life are carved into channels for the conveyance of Divine messages. No man shall say that the message was above his comprehension. For even a child can understand if it is willing. Lessons concerning the heavenly life meet the eye of the observer all the day long. As prudent men act to conserve their bodily life, so God acts in our spiritual concernments.
I A HOSTILE INVASION SUPPOSED. In the earlier days of human history raids from neighboring tribes were frequent. International rights and usages were things unknown. Such an act as a public declaration of war was never considered a public duty. The more secretly and suddenly a hostile army could make its attack, the more to its credit. Hence a border population was kept in continual suspense. It had to bear the brunt of a thousand alarms and a thousand perils. Such invasions were often the act of God. Even idolatrous and wicked men are sometimes God"s instruments, God"s hand. As often as the invaders marched on territory to vindicate a right or to punish an offence, they marched at God"s command. If the motive for war was mere desire for plunder, or greed of laud, or sheer military ambition, God was not in it. For God cannot sanction any form of iniquity, whether it be public or private. But war is often the scourge which God uses to vindicate his claims or to punish men; and though in outward appearance the invasion may seem only a piece of human real ice, it is, in truth, an act of God"s retribution. As God has his methods for chastising individual men, so has he his methods for chastising nations. His forms of penalty are myriad fold.
II A SENTINEL APPOINTED. In such a time of peril as that of invasion the people knit themselves together for mutual defense. It was wise economy to choose one who should be drafted off from other occupation to fill the watchman"s post. One was selected for the office specially suitable. All were not equally apt for this work. Such a man was chosen as had long resided on the border territory, one who knew the distant signs and prognostications of war, one who knew the contour of the country, and could occupy the best points of observation. An expert with eagle eye and cool nerve was selected. This was practical wisdom. By such a precaution war was sometimes averted. If the foe lost the advantage of secrecy, his plans were foiled. Or a resisting force could be gathered. Or possibly the removal of their cattle, or their own flight for a time, would avert the catastrophe. The season or other natural circumstance would come to their aid, and the deadly clash of arms be avoided. Immense gain might be attained by well posting a sentinel.
III IT WAS A POST INVOLVING TREMENDOUS RESPONSIBILITY, The interests and fortunes and lives of the entire nation were placed in the keeping of one man. He was responsible to ten thousand persons of every rank and station. The safety of the empire hung on him. It was a distinctive honor to be selected for the post, a proof that he possessed remarkable qualities of soul; and this responsible occupation did the man good it tended to develop all that was gracious and excellent in him. Responsible service is an ennobling and a joyous thing. It nourishes large and generous sympathy.
IV FAITHFULNESS DEMANDED. The characteristic quality of a watchman is faithfulness. He might be deficient in many bodily and mental qualities, and yet be a good sentinel; but fidelity to duty fidelity to the momentous trust there must be, or he had better not be a watchman.
Better, far better, appoint no watchman than have a man who is unfaithful. The blood of tea thousand innocent man justice might require at his unfaithful hands. Equally true is this of God"s watchman, the prophet. The first and most central requisite is faithfulness. He may be deficient in bodily stature and strength, he may be deficient in learning and culture, he may be deficient in high birth and in social standing, but he must be gifted with trustworthiness. This is an essential. If he be unfaithful, he is of all men most unsuitable. If he accepts the office, and neglects its high duties, his guilt is immeasurable. Better for his own sake, better for others" sake, that he had never been God"s messenger to men, than to lack fidelity in his tremendous trust. An unfaithful preacher must be held up to the world"s execration.
V POSSIBLE FAILURE. Yet even faithfulness will not ensure success. The people may not credit his warnings. They may deride his anxieties. They may persuade themselves that the peril is not so near as he avers. It is a matter that can wait. They may put down to official propriety, or to sensitive regard for his own credit, what ought to have been put down to wise solicitude and to approaching disaster. In a thousand cases men persist in deceiving themselves as to the nearness of the peril. Tea thousand men have fallen over the precipice of ruin through self-infatuation, and ten thousand more will follow. They will not learn practical wisdom from the folly and the ruin of others. And it becomes every one of us to lay the lesson upon our own hearts: "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." Oh for a prophet"s vision to interpret the signs of the times! D.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON Vers. 1-9. Ministerial and individual responsibility.
The supposition in the text is that it is a time of war and consequently of danger; that therefore the people choose one that lives near the boundary of the kingdom or the province, and appoint him as a watchman, to give the signal at the first approach of the enemy. It is not pressing the figurative very far to say that all the life of man below is a time of spiritual conflict; we are all engaged in a long, a lifelong campaign. The enemy whom we have to fight is strong, subtle, dangerous; (see Eph_6:12) and it may well be that one here and another there should be chosen as a spiritual "watchman "to observe and to forewarn.
I THE MINISTERIAL FUNCTION. Those who have accepted the post of the Christian minister today are in a very similar position to the Hebrew prophet. It is their province:
1. To keep well in view the movements of their time; to observe with great care the advances which are made on the one band, and the withdrawals and retreats upon the other hand; to note with constant and sleepless vigilance the temper and spirit, the tendency and current, of the time.
2. To understand and to interpret all that is passing, in the light of revealed truth; to distinguish between a change of form and a decadence of life or a departure from Divine truth; to know what attitude should be taken up toward that which is new, and which approaches the people of God with professions of good will, whether of welcome or resistance.
3. To utter the voice of truth, which is (or should be) the voice of Christ, with all promptitude, decision, earnestness, unflinching fidelity.
II THE DUTY OF THE INDIVIDUAL CITIZENS. This is very clear; it is to heed and to act.
1. To give earliest heed to the warning that is uttered, to consider well whether it is not true, to have a mind prepared to receive the message. For as the watchman has been "taken" and been "set" by them (ver. 2), and is their chosen guardian, he is entitled to their respect, while to his solemn monition a serious regard is due.
2. To act immediately on conviction; to place a distinct distance between themselves and the threatened evil; to keep the insidious theory, the subtle falsehood, the dangerous half-truth well out of their mind; to refuse any entrance to the perilous habit or the tainted practice; or, on the other hand, to welcome the old truth in its new form, render the old service in the new method, as the more suitable and the more excellent way.
III THE LARGE ELEMENT OF MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY. The watchman who sleeps at his post or who fails to arouse his fellow-citizens when the enemy is in sight, is severely condemned (see vers. 6, 8). The spokesman for God who does not "watch for souls as one that must give account," who has no deep feeling of the seriousness of his position, and no abiding sense of the urgency and imperativeness of his duty, is gravely at fault; so also is that watchman (minister) who perceives but who does not speak, or who does not speak quickly, plainly, forcibly in the ears of the people, he will have an account to give, and a judgment to bear, from which he may well shrink. But there is also
IV A LARGE REMAINDER OF INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY. "Every man must bear his own burden" here. No man can devolve it upon his religious teacher. He is only responsible for speaking the truth faithfully; that done, his soul is delivered (see vers. 5, 9). Whether we, as individual men and women, are assimilating Divine truth or are appropriating deadly error; whether we are forming healthy and lifepreserving habits, or poisonous and pernicious ones; whether we are moving up the incline of heavenly wisdom and Christian purity, or descending the decline of folly and of wrong; whether we are exerting an elevating and redeeming influence, or a depressing and degrading one, upon our contemporaries and upon those who will succeed us this must depend very largely indeed on whom we hear, and how we hear. Therefore let the Master say to us, "Take heed how ye hear: for whosoever hath, to him shall be given; and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that which he seemeth to have thinketh that he hath". C. (Luk_8:18)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv4, 7, 11 Whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet.
Eze_33:4-5
Whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet.
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The trumpet call
I. The analogy between the watchman on the walls of Zion and the preacher of the Gospel of the grace of God.
1. The qualifications needed in a watchman: vigour, courage, intelligence, loyalty, fidelity.
2. The duties: vigilance, to watch; obedience, to warn.
3. The responsibilities: account of the service must be rendered to those who appointed him; safety of the city depended largely upon the faithful discharge of the watchmans duties.
II. The analogy between the sound of the watchmans trumpet and the message of the Gospel preacher. Here we are reminded of the trumpet call of alarm on the approach of danger in time of peril. The call was to be definite, distinct, emphatic, rousing. Warning every man. The Gospel trumpet is to arrest the attention of men, call them to repent, to surrender, lay down their weapons of rebellion; and then, armed with the whole armour of God, go forth manfully to fight His battles. The Gospel message is a trumpet call to advance, and no surrender; it is never the call to retreat, or the proclaimer of defeat. There must be no uncertain sound, for all truth is dogmatic, and ought to be definitely proclaimed.
III. The analogy between the responsibility of those who heard the watchmans trumpet and those who hear the sound of the Gospel. The watchman on the walls of Zion simply sounded the alarm; it was for the people to believe and obey. So the Gospel hearers of today are responsible for the effects produced upon their hearts and minds by the Gospel message. (Homilist.)
He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took not warning; his blood shall be upon him.
The warning neglected
In all worldly things men are always enough awake to understand their own interests There is scarce a merchant who reads the paper who does not read it some way or other with a view to his own personal concerns. In politics, in everything, in fact, that concerns temporal affairs, personal interest usually leads the van. Men will always be looking out for themselves and personal home interests will generally engross the major part of their thoughts. But in religion it is otherwise. In religion men love far rather to believe abstract doctrines, and to talk of general truths, than the searching inquiries which examine their own personal interest in it.
I. The warning was all that could be desired. When in time of war an army is attacked in the night, and cut off and destroyed whilst asleep, if it were possible for them to be aware of the attack, and if they had used all diligence in placing their sentinels, but nevertheless the foe were so wary as to destroy them, we should weep; we should attach no blame to anyone, but should deeply regret, and should give to that host our fullest pity. But if, on the other hand, they had posted their sentinels, and the sentinels were wide awake, and gave to the sleepy soldiers every warning that could be desired, but nevertheless the army were cut off, although we might from common humanity regret the loss thereof, yet at the same time we should be obliged to say, if they were foolish enough to sleep when the sentinels had warned them; if they folded their arms in presumptuous sloth, after they had had sufficient and timely notice of the progress of their bloodthirsty enemy, then in their dying we cannot pity them: their blood must rest upon their own heads. So it is with you.
1. The warnings of the ministry have been to most of you warnings that have been heard--He heard the sound of the trumpet. In far off lands the trumpet sound of warning is not heard.
2. The trumpet was not only heard, but more than that, its warning was understood. If ye be damned, I am innocent of your damnation; for I have told you plainly, that except ye repent ye must perish, and that except ye put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ there is for you no hope of salvation.
3. Again, this sound was startling. Then, sirs, if ye have heard the cry of fire, if ye are burned in your beds, your charred ashes shall not accuse me.
4. In many of your eases the warning has been very frequent. A hundred times every year you have gone up to the house of God, and far oftener than that, and you have just added a hundred billets to the eternal pile.
5. This warning that you have had so often has come to you in time. You are not warned on a sick bed at the eleventh hour, when there is but a bare possibility of salvation, but you are warned in time, you are warned today, you have been warned for these many years that are now past.
II. Men make excuses why they do not attend to the Gospel warning, but these excuses are all frivolous and wicked.
1. Some say, Well, I did not attend to the warning, because I did not believe there was any necessity for it. There was enough in reason to have taught you that there was an hereafter; the Book of Gods revelation was plain enough to have taught it to you, and if you have rejected Gods Book, and rejected the voice of reason and of conscience, your blood is on your own head.
2. But, cries another, I did not like the trumpet. I did not like the Gospel that was preached. Well, but God made the trumpet, God made the Gospel; and inasmuch as ye did not like what God made, it is an idle excuse. What was that to you what the trumpet was, so long as it warned you?
3. But another says, I did not like the man himself; I did not like the minister; I did not like the man that blew the trumpet; I could hear him preach very well, but I had a personal dislike to him, and so I did not take any notice of what the trumpet said. Verily, God will say to thee at last, Thou fool, what hadst thou to do with that man? to his own master he stands or falls; thy business was with thyself.
4. There are many other people who say, Ah, well, I did none of those things, but I had a notion that the trumpet sound ought to be blown to everybody else, but not to me. Ah! that is a very common notion. All men think all men mortal but themselves, said a good poet; and all men think all men need the Gospel, but not themselves.
5. Well, says another, But I was so busy; I had so much to do that I could not possibly attend to my souls concerns. What will you say of the man who had so much to do that he could not get out of the burning house, but was burnt to ashes.
6. Well, says another, but I thought I had time enough; you do not want me, sir, to be religious in my youth, do you? I am a lad; and may I not have a little frolic, and sow my wild oats as well as anybody else? Well--yes, yes; but at the same time the best place for frolic that I know of is where a Christian lives; the finest happiness in all the world is the happiness of a child of God.
III. Then the last thought is, His blood shall be on his own head. Briefly thus--he shall perish; he shall perish certainly; he shall perish inexcusably.
1. He shall perish. And what does that mean? There is no human mind however capacious, that can ever guess the thought of a soul eternally cast away from God.
2. But again, he that turneth not at the rebuke of the minister shall die, and he shall die certainly. This is not a matter of perhaps or chance.
3. Now, the last thing is, the sinner will perish--he will perish certainly, but last of all, he will perish without excuse,--his blood shall be on his own head. When a man is bankrupt, if he can say, It is not through reckless trading--it has been entirely through the dishonesty of one I trusted that I am what I am; he takes some consolation, and he says, I cannot help it. But oh, if you make bankrupts of your own souls, after you have been warned, then your own eternal bankruptcy shall lie at your own door. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Ezekiel 33
THE PROPHET A WATCHMAN
Ezekiel 33
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ONE day in January of the year 586 the tidings circulated through the Jewish colony at Tel-abib that "the city was smitten." The rapidity with which in the East intelligence is transmitted through secret channels has often excited the surprise of European observers. In this case there is no extraordinary rapidity to note, for the fate of Jerusalem had been decided nearly six months before it was known in Babylon. But it is remarkable that the first intimation of the issue of the siege was brought to the exiles by one of their own countrymen, who had escaped at the capture of the city. It is probable that the messenger did not set out at once, but waited until he could bring some information as to how matters were settling down after the war. Or he may have been a captive who had trudged the weary road to Babylon in chains under the escort of Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, {Jer_39:9} and afterwards succeeded in making his escape to the older settlement where Ezekiel lived. All we know is that his message was not delivered with the despatch which would have been possible if his journey had been unimpeded, and that in the meantime the official intelligence which must have already reached Babylon had not transpired among the exiles who were waiting so anxiously for tidings of the fate of Jerusalem.
The immediate effect of the announcement on the mind of the exiles is not recorded. It was doubtless received with all the signs of public mourning which Ezekiel had anticipated and foretold. {Eze_24:21-24} They would require some time to adjust themselves to a situation for which, in spite of all the warnings that had been sent them, they were utterly unprepared; and it must have been uncertain at first what direction their thoughts would take. Would they carry out their half-formed intention of abandoning their national faith and assimilating themselves to the surrounding heathenism? Would they sink into the lethargy of despair, and pine away under a confused consciousness of guilt? Or would they repent of their unbelief, and turn to embrace the hope which Gods mercy held out to them in the teaching of the prophet whom they had despised? All this was for the moment uncertain; but one thing was certain-they could no more return to the attitude of complacent indifference and incredulity in which they had hitherto resisted the word of Jehovah. The day on which the tidings of the citys destruction fell like a thunderbolt in the community of Tel-abib was the turning-point of Ezekiels ministry. In the arrival of the "fugitive" he recognises the sign which was to break the spell of silence which had lain so long upon him, and set him free for the ministry of consolation and upbuilding which was henceforth to be his chief vocation. A presentiment of what was coming had visited him the evening before his interview with the messenger, and from that time "his mouth was opened, and he was no more dumb" (Eze_33:22). Hitherto he had preached to deaf ears, and the echo of his ineffectual appeals had come back in a deadening sense of failure which had paralysed his activity. But now in one moment the veil of prejudice and vain self-confidence is torn from the heart of his hearers, and gradually but surely the whole burden of his message must disclose itself to their intelligence. The time has come to work for the formation of a new Israel, and a new spirit of hopefulness stimulates the prophet to throw himself eagerly into the career which is thus opened up before him.
It may be well at this point to try to realise the state of mind which emerged amongst Ezekiels hearers after the first shock of consternation had passed away. The seven chapters (33-39) with which we are to be occupied in this section all belong to the second period of the prophets work, and in all probability to the earlier part of that period. It is obvious, however, that they were not written under the first impulse of the tidings of the fall of Jerusalem. They contain allusions to certain changes which must have occupied some time; and simultaneously a change took place in the temper of the people resulting ultimately in a definite spiritual situation to which the prophet had to address himself. It is this situation which we have to try to understand. It supplies the external conditions of Ezekiels ministry, and unless we can in some measure interpret it we shall lose the full meaning of his teaching in this important period of his ministry.
At the outset we may glance at the state of those who were left in the land of Israel, who in a sense formed part of Ezekiels audience. The very first oracle uttered by him after he had received his emancipation was a threat of judgment against these survivors of the nations calamity (Eze_33:23-29). The fact that this is recorded in connection with the interview with the "fugitive" may mean that the information on which it is based was obtained from that somewhat shadowy personage. Whether in this way or through some later channel, Ezekiel had apparently some knowledge of the disastrous feuds which had followed the destruction of Jerusalem. These events are minutely described in the end of the book of Jeremiah (chapters 40-44). With a clemency which in the circumstances is surprising the king of Babylon had allowed a small remnant of the people to settle in the land, and had appointed over them a native governor, Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, who fixed his residence at Mizpah. The prophet Jeremiah elected to throw in his lot with this remnant, and for a time it seemed as if through peaceful submission to the Chaldaean supremacy all might go well with the survivors. The chiefs who had conducted the guerilla warfare in the open against the Babylonian army came in and placed themselves under the protection of Gedaliah, and there was every prospect that by refraining from projects of rebellion they might be left to enjoy the fruits of the land without disturbance. But this was not to be. Certain turbulent spirits under Ishmael, a member of the royal family, entered into a conspiracy with the king of Ammon to destroy this last refuge of peace-loving Israelites. Gedaliah was treacherously murdered; and although the murder was partially avenged, Ishmael succeeded in making his escape to the Ammonites, while the remains of the party of order, dreading the vengeance of Nebuchadnezzar, took their departure for Egypt and carried Jeremiah forcibly with them. What happened after this we do not know; but it is not improbable that Ishmael and his followers may have held possession of the land by force for some years. We read of a fresh deportation of Judaean captives to Babylon five years after the capture of Jerusalem; {Jer_52:30} and this may have been the result of an expedition to suppress the depredations of the robber band that Ishmael had gathered round him. How much of this story had reached the ears of Ezekiel we do not know; but there is one allusion in his oracle which makes it probable that he had at least heard of the assassination of Gedaliah. Those he addresses are men who "stand upon their sword"-that is to say, they hold that might is right, and glory in deeds of blood and violence that gratify their passionate desire for revenge. Such language could hardly be used of any section of the remaining, population of Judaea except the lawless banditti that enrolled themselves under the banner of Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah.
What Ezekiel is mainly concerned with, however, is the moral and religious condition of those to whom he speaks. Strange to say, they were animated by a species of religious fanaticism, which led them to regard themselves as the legitimate heirs to whom the reversion of the land of Israel belonged. "Abraham was one," so reasoned these desperadoes, "and yet he inherited the land: but we are many; to us the land is given for a possession" (Eze_33:24). Their meaning is that the smallness of their number is no argument against the validity of their claim to the heritage of the land. They are still many in comparison with the solitary patriarch to whom it was first promised; and if he was multiplied so as to take possession of it, why should they hesitate to claim the mastery of it? This thought of the wonderful multiplication of Abrahams seed after he had received the promise seems to have laid fast hold of the men of that generation. It is applied by the great teacher who stands next to Ezekiel in the prophetic succession to comfort the little flock who followed after righteousness and could hardly believe that it was Gods good pleasure to give them the kingdom. "Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him." {Isa_51:2} The words of the infatuated men who exulted in the havoc they were making on the mountains of Judaea may sound to us like a blasphemous travesty of this argument; but they were no doubt seriously meant. They afford one more instance of the boundless capacity of the Jewish race for religious self-delusion, and their no less remarkable insensibility to that in which the essence of religion lay. The men who uttered this proud boast were the precursors of those who in the days of the Baptist thought to say within themselves, "We have Abraham to our father," not understanding that God was able "of these stones to raise up children to Abraham." {Mat_3:9} All the while they were perpetuating the evils for which the judgment of God had descended on the city and the Hebrew state. Idolatry, ceremonial impurity, bloodshed, and adultery were rife amongst them (Eze_33:25-26); and no misgiving seems to have entered their minds that because of these things the wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience. And therefore the prophet repudiates their pretensions with indignation. "Shall ye possess the land?" Their conduct simply showed that judgment had not had its perfect work, and that Jehovahs purpose would not be accomplished until "the land was laid waste and desolate, and the pomp of her strength should cease, and the mountains of Israel be desolate, so that none passed through" (Eze_33:28). We have seen that in all likelihood this prediction was fulfilled by a punitive expedition from Babylonia in the twenty-third year of Nebuchadnezzar.
But we knew before that Ezekiel expected no good thing to come of the survivors of the judgment in Judaea. His hope was in those who had passed through the fires of banishment, the men amongst whom his own work lay, and amongst whom he looked for the first signs of the outpouring of the divine Spirit. We must now return to the inner circle of Ezekiels immediate hearers, and consider the change which the calamity had produced on them. The chapter now before us yields two glimpses into the inner life of the people which help us to realise the kind of men with whom the prophet had to do.
In the first place it is interesting to learn that in his more frequent public appearances the prophet rapidly acquired a considerable reputation as a popular preacher (Eze_33:30-33). It is true that the interest which he excited was not of the most wholesome kind. It became a favourite amusement of the people hanging about the walls and doors to come and listen to the fervid oratory of their one remaining prophet as he declared to them "the word that came forth from Jehovah." It is to be feared that the substance of his message counted for little in their appreciative and critical listening. He was to them "as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument": "they heard his words, but did them not." It was pleasant to subject oneself now and then to the influence of this powerful and heart-searching preacher; but somehow the heart was never searched, the conscience was never stirred, and the hearing never ripened into serious conviction and settled purpose of amendment. Tile people were thoroughly respectful in their demeanour and apparently devout, coming in crowds and sitting before him as Gods people should. But they were preoccupied: "their heart went after their gain" (Eze_33:31) or their advantage. Self-interest prevented them from receiving the word of God in honest and good hearts; and no change was visible in their conduct. Hence the prophet is not disposed to regard the evidences of his newly acquired popularity with much satisfaction. It presents itself to his mind as a danger against which he has to be on his guard. He has been tried by opposition and apparent failure; now he is exposed to the more insidious temptation of a flattering reception and superficial success. It is a tribute to his power, and an opportunity such as he had never before enjoyed. Whatever may have been the case heretofore, he is now sure of an audience, and his position has suddenly become one of great influence in the community. But the same resolute confidence in the truth of his message which sustained Ezekiel amidst the discouragements of his earlier career saves him now from the fatal attractions of popularity to which many men in similar circumstances have yielded. He is not deceived by the favourable disposition of the people towards himself, nor is he tempted to cultivate his oratorical gifts with a view to sustaining their admiration. His one concern is to utter the word that shall come to pass, and so to declare the counsel of God that men shall be compelled in the end to acknowledge that he has been "a prophet among them" (Eze_33:33). We may be thankful to the prophet for this little glimpse from a vanished past-one of those touches of nature that make the whole world kin. But we ought not to miss its obvious moral. Ezekiel is the prototype of all popular preachers, and he knew their peculiar trials. He was perhaps the first man who ministered regularly to an attached congregation, who came to hear him because they liked it and because they had nothing better to do. If he passed unscathed through the dangers of the position, it was through his overpowering sense of the reality of divine things and the importance of mens spiritual destiny; and also we may add through his fidelity in a department of ministerial duty which popular preachers are sometimes apt to neglect-the duty of close personal dealing with individual men about their sins and their state before God. To this subject we shall revert by-and-by.
This passage reveals to us the people in their lighter moods, when they are able to cast off the awful burden of life and destiny and take advantage of such sources of enjoyment as their circumstances afforded. Mental dejection in a community, from whatever cause it originates, is rarely continuous. The natural elasticity of the mind asserts itself in the most depressing circumstances; and the tension of almost unendurable sorrow is relieved by outbursts of unnatural gaiety. Hence we need not be surprised to find that beneath the surface levity of these exiles there lurked the feeling of despair expressed in the words of Eze_33:10 and more fully in those Eze_37:11 : "Our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we waste away in them: how should we then live? Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off." These accents of despondency reflect the new mood into which the more serious-minded portion of the community had been plunged by the calamities that had befallen them. The bitterness of unavailing remorse, the consciousness of national death, had laid fast hold of their spirits and deprived them of the power of hope. In sober truth the nation was dead beyond apparent hope of revival; and to an Israelite, whose spiritual interests were all identified with those of his nation, religion had no power of consolation apart from a national future. The people therefore abandoned themselves to despair, and hardened themselves against the appeals which the prophet addressed to them in the name of Jehovah. They looked on themselves as the victims of an inexorable fate, and were disposed perhaps to resent the call to repentance as a trifling with the misery of the unfortunate.
And yet, although this state of mind was as far removed as possible from the godly sorrow that worketh repentance, it was a step towards the accomplishment of the promise of redemption. For the present, indeed, it rendered the people more impenetrable than ever to the word of God. But it meant that they had accepted in principle the prophetic interpretation of their history. It was no longer possible to deny that Jehovah the God of Israel had revealed His secret to His servants the prophets. He was not such a Being as the popular imagination had figured. Israel had not known Him; only the prophets had spoken of Him the thing that was right. Thus for the first time a general conviction of sin, a sense of being in the wrong, was produced in Israel. That this conviction should at first lead to the verge of despair was perhaps inevitable. The people were not familiar with the idea of the divine righteousness, and could not at once perceive that anger against sin was consistent in God with pity for the sinner and mercy towards the contrite. The chief task that now lay before the prophet was to transform their attitude of sullen impenitence into one of submission and hope by teaching them the efficacy of repentance. They have learned the meaning of judgment; they have now to learn the possibility and the conditions of forgiveness. And this can only be taught to them through a revelation of the free and infinite grace of God. who has "no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked should turn from his way and live" (Eze_33:11). Only thus can the hard and stony heart be taken away from their flesh and a heart of flesh given to them.
We can now understand the significance of the striking passage which stands as the introduction to this whole section of the book. {Eze_33:1-20} At this juncture of his ministry Ezekiels thoughts went back on an aspect of his prophetic vocation which had hitherto been in abeyance. From the first he had been conscious of a certain responsibility for the fate of each individual within reach of his words. {Eze_3:16-21} This truth had been one of the keynotes of his ministry; but the practical developments which it suggested had been hindered by the solidarity of the opposition which he had encountered. As long as Jerusalem stood the exiles had been swayed by one common current of feeling-their thoughts were wholly occupied by the expectation of an issue that would annul the gloomy predictions of Ezekiel; and no man dared to break away from the general sentiment and range himself on the side of Gods prophet. In these circumstances anything of the nature of pastoral activity was obviously out of the question. But now that this great obstacle to faith was removed there was a prospect that the solidity of popular opinion would be broken up, so that the word of God might find an entrance here and there into susceptible hearts. The time was come to call for personal decisions, to appeal to each man to embrace for himself the offer of pardon and salvation. Its watchword might have been found in words uttered in another great crisis of religious destiny: "The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force." Out of such "violent men," who act for themselves and have the courage of their convictions, the new people of God must be formed; and the mission of the prophet is to gather round him all those who are warned by his words to "flee from the wrath to come."
Let us look a little more closely at the teaching of these verses. We find that Ezekiel restates in the most emphatic manner the theological principles which underlie this new development of his prophetic duties (Eze_33:10-20).
These principles have been considered already in the exposition of chapter 18; and it is not necessary to do more than refer to them here. They are such as these: the exact and absolute righteousness of God in His dealings with individuals; His unwillingness that any should perish, and His desire that all should be saved and live; the necessity of personal repentance; the freedom and independence of the individual soul through its immediate relation to God. On this closely connected body of evangelical doctrine Ezekiel bases the appeal which he now makes to his hearers. What we are specially concerned with here, however, is the direction which they imparted to his activity. We may study in the light of Ezekiels example the manner in which these fundamental truths of personal religion are to be made effective in the ministry of the gospel for the building up of the Church of Christ.
The general conception is clearly set forth in the figure of the watchman, with which the chapter opens (Eze_33:1-9). The duties of the watchman are simple, but responsible. He is set apart in a time of public danger to warn the city of the approach of an enemy. The citizens trust him and go about their ordinary occupations in security so long as the trumpet is not sounded. Should he sleep at his post or neglect to give the signal, men are caught unprepared and lives are lost through his fault. Their blood is required at the watchmans hand. If, on the other hand, he gives the alarm as soon as he sees the sword coming, and any man disregards the warning and is cut down in his iniquity, his blood is upon his own head. Nothing could be clearer than this. Office always involves responsibility, and no responsibility could be greater than that of a watchman in time of invasion. Those who suffer are in either case the citizens whom the sword cuts off; but it makes all the difference in the world whether the blame of their death rests on themselves for their foolhardiness or on the watchman for his unfaithfulness. Such, then, as Ezekiel goes on to explain, is his own position as a prophet. The prophet is one who sees further into the spiritual issues of things than other men, and discovers the coming calamity which is to them invisible. We must notice that a background of danger is presupposed. In what form it was to come is not indicated; but Ezekiel knows that judgment follows hard at the heels of sin, and seeing sin in his fellow-men he knows that their state is one of spiritual peril. The prophets course therefore is clear. His business is to announce as in trumpet tones the doom that hangs over every man who persists in his wickedness, to re-echo the divine sentence which he alone may have heard, "O wicked man, thou shalt surely die." And again the main question is one of responsibility. The watchman cannot ensure the safety of every citizen, because any man may refuse to take the warning he gives. No more can the prophet ensure the salvation of all his hearers, for each one is free to accept or despise the message. But whether men hear or whether they forbear, it is of the utmost moment for himself that that warning be faithfully proclaimed and that he should thus "deliver his soul." Ezekiel seems to feel that it is only by frankly accepting the responsibility which thus devolves on himself that he can hope to impress on his hearers the responsibility that rests on them for the use they make of his message.
These thoughts appear to have occupied the mind of Ezekiel on the eve of his emancipation, and must have influenced his subsequent action to an extent which we can but vaguely estimate. It is generally considered that this description of the prophets functions covers a whole department of work of which no express account is given. Ezekiel writers no "Pastors Sketches," and records no instances of individual conversion through his ministry. The unwritten history of the Babylonian captivity must have been rich in such instances of spiritual experience, and nothing could have been more instructive to us than the study of a few typical cases had it been possible. One of the most interesting features of the early history of Mohammedanism is found in the narratives of personal adhesion to the new religion; and the formation of the new Israel in the age of the Exile is a process of infinitely greater importance for humanity at large than the genesis of Islam. But neither in this book nor elsewhere are we permitted to follow that process in its details. Ezekiel may have witnessed the beginnings of it, but he was not called upon to be its historian. Still, the inference is probably correct that a conception of the prophets office which holds him accountable to God for the fate of individuals led to something more than mere general exhortations to repentance. The preacher must have taken a personal interest in his hearers; he must have watched for the first signs of a response to his message, and been ready to advise and encourage those who turned to him for guidance in their perplexities. And since the sphere of his influence and responsibility included the whole Hebrew community in which he lived, he must have been eager to seize every opportunity to warn individual sinners of the error of their ways, lest their blood should be required at his hand. To this extent we may say that Ezekiel held a position amongst the exiles somewhat analogous to that of a spiritual director in the Catholic Church or the pastor of a Protestant congregation. But the analogy must not be pressed too far. The nurture of the spiritual life of individuals could not have presented itself to him as the chief end of his ministrations. His business was first to lay down the conditions of entrance into the new kingdom of God, and then out of the ruins of the old Israel to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. Perhaps the nearest parallel to this department of his work which history affords is the mission of the Baptist. The keynote of Ezekiels preaching was the same as that of John: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Both prophets were alike animated by a sense of crisis and urgency, based on the conviction that the impending Messianic age would be ushered in by a searching judgment in which the chaff would be separated from the wheat. Both laboured for the same end-the formation of a new circle of religious fellowship, in anticipation of the advent of the Messianic kingdom. And as John, by an inevitable spiritual selection, gathered round him a band of disciples, amongst whom our Lord found some of His most devoted followers, so we may believe that Ezekiel, by a similar process, became the acknowledged leader of those whom he taught to wait for the hope of Israels restoration.
There is nothing in Ezekiels ministry that appeals more directly to the Christian conscience than the serious and profound sense of pastoral responsibility to which this passage bears witness. It is a feeling which would seem to be inseparable from the right discharge of the ministerial office. In this, as in many other respects, Ezekiels experience is repeated, on a higher level, in that of the apostle of the Gentiles, who could take his hearers to record that he was "pure from the blood of all men," inasmuch as he had "taught them publicly and from house to house," and "ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears". {Act_20:17-35} That does not mean, of course, that a preacher is to occupy himself with nothing else than the personal salvation of his hearers. St. Paul would have been the last to agree to such a limitation of the range of his teaching. But it does mean that the salvation of men and women is the supreme end which the minister of Christ is to set before him, and that to which all other instruction is subordinated. And unless a man realises that the truth he utters is of tremendous importance on the destiny of those to whom he speaks, he can hardly hope to approve himself as an ambassador for Christ. There are doubtless temptations, not in themselves ignoble, to use the pulpit for other purposes than this. The desire for public influence may be one of them, or the desire to utter ones mind on burning questions of the day. To say that these are temptations is not to say that matters of public interest are to be rigorously excluded from treatment in the pulpit. There are many questions of this kind on which the will of God is as clear and imperative as it can possibly be on any point of private conduct; and even in matters as to which there is legitimate difference of opinion amongst Christian men there are underlying principles of righteousness which may need to be fearlessly enunciated at the risk of obloquy and misunderstanding. Nevertheless it remains true that the great end of the gospel ministry is to reconcile men to God and to cultivate in individual lives the fruits of the Spirit, so as at the last to present every man perfect in Christ. And the preacher who may be most safely entrusted with the handling of all other questions is he who is most intent on the formation of Christian character and most deeply conscious of his responsibility for the effect of his teaching on the eternal destiny of those to whom he ministers. What is called preaching to the age may certainly become a very poor and empty thing if it is forgotten that the age is made up of individuals each of whom has a soul to save or lose. What shall it profit a man if the preacher teaches him how to win the whole world and lose his own life? It is fashionable to hold up the prophets of Israel as models of all that a Christian minister ought to be. If that is true, prophecy must at least be allowed to speak its whole lesson; and amongst other elements Ezekiels consciousness of responsibility for the individual life must receive due recognition.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 EZEKIEL’S COMMISSION RENEWED (Chap. 33)
EZEKIEL’S COMMISSION RENEWED (Chap. 33)
EXEGETICAL NOTES.—Eze_33:2. “Speak to the children of thy people.” “The prophet turns from foreign nations to Israel again. The early portion of the chapter (Eze_33:2-20) seems to have been imparted to Ezekiel on the evening previous to the arrival of the news of the downfall of Jerusalem (Eze_33:22), and was a preparation for the latter part (Eze_33:23-33) imparted after the messenger had come. This accounts for the former part standing without date, which was properly reserved for the latter part. ‘If the people of the land take a man of their coasts and set him for their watchman.’ The men were themselves to appoint the watchman, whence, in case they did not give heed to him, they withstood and strove against themselves, and so should be more convicted of their guilt and folly.”—Lange.
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Eze_33:3. “If when he seeth the sword come”—invaders. An appropriate illustration at the time of the invasion of Judea by Nebuchadnezzar.—“He blow the trumpet”—a horn, with clear resounding tone (Joshua 6).
Eze_33:4. “His blood shall be upon his own head.” “He will be to blame for his own fall. The head is named from the custom of carrying on the head. Blood often stands for blood-guilt.”—Hengstenberg. According to others, the image is derived from sacrifice, in which the offerer transferred his guilt to his victim by laying his hand on the victim’s head (Lev_1:4; Lev_24:14; Mat_27:25).
Eze_33:5. “But he that taketh warning shall deliver his soul.” The alone self-guiltiness of the individual is here made still more manifest.
Eze_33:6. “He is taken away in his iniquity.” “Mishap befalls no one undeserved, even if under the circumstances he might have been delivered. But the unfaithful watchman is punished for his neglect.”—Hengstenberg.
Eze_33:7. “I have set thee a watchman.” The “I” is emphatic. Ezekiel’s appointment to be a watchman spiritually is far more solemn, as it is derived from God, not from the people. The lesson is, that the relation between the prophet (and in general the servant of God in His kingdom) and the people is one full of responsibility. “Thou shalt hear the word at My mouth and warn them from Me.” “Safety therefore demanded that the prophet have free speech. That God should have given them a true seer in their midst was a sure proof of His favour, which might well keep off despair. Jehovah would fain save the wicked, and threatens wrath through His prophet only that every one may take heed and reform.”—Geikie.
Eze_33:11. “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked.” To meet the Jews’ cry of despair in Eze_33:10 Ezekiel here cheers them by the assurance that God has no pleasure in their death, but that they should repentand live (2Pe_3:9). “A yearning tenderness manifests itself here, notwithstanding all their past sins; yet with it a holiness that abates nothing of its demands for the honour of God’s authority.”—Fausset.
Eze_33:12. “The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression.” “Self-righteousness, ever disposed to justify itself, had adopted among the exiles a comfortable theory that they were punished for the sins of their forefathers rather than for their own. Ezekiel again exposes this deception, as he had done before (chap. Eze_3:20; Eze_18:24; Eze_18:26-27).”—Geikie. “The heart that in distress misunderstands its God will not tread the path of repentance, which determines the return of salvation; and man is quite prone to mitigate his guilt and to think that God has dealt too hardly with him.”—Hengstenberg.
Eze_33:21. “In the twelfth year of our captivity, in the tenth month”—a year and a half after the capture of the city (Jer_39:2; Jer_51:5-6), which took place in the eleventh year and fourth month. “The one who escaped may have been so long on the road through fear of entering the enemy’s country” (Henderson); or, the singular is used for the plural in a collective sense. “Naturally the reopening of the prophet’s month for consolation would be deferred till the number of the escaped remnant was complete: the removal of such a large number would easily have occupied seventeen or eighteen months.”—Fausset.
Eze_33:22. “The hand of the Lord was upon me in the evening.” Thus the capture of Jerusalem was known to Ezekiel by revelation, before the messenger came. “My mouth was opened and I was no more dumb.” He spake the message from God to the people contained in Eze_33:2-20 in the evening before the tidings came.
Eze_33:24. “Those wastes of the land of Israel.” “Less Jerusalem itself than the other cities which had been stripped of their inhabitants (Jer_33:10; Jer_33:13), in which those who were without possessions (Jer_39:10) shared with the returned fugitives (Jer_40:12), having all at once come to great wealth of land and were puffed up.”—Hitzig. “That there were such people is proved by the revolt in which Gedaliah, the Chaldean governor, was slain.”—Hengstenberg. Compare also the representation in Nehemiah 1 of the desolate condition of things, though an interval of upwards of a century had elapsed. “Abraham was one, and he inherited the land, but we are many.” “Some of the bands of fighting-men which had escaped the Chaldeans, not improbably stood aloof, keeping the country disturbed by harassing forays. But, like true Jews, even their robber life was dignified by a religious colouring. Few though they were, they fancied there was no reason to despair, since the land had been given to Abraham when he was alone in the midst of the whole population, a much more hopeless position than theirs. Ezekiel, however, predicted a terrible end to these visionaries.”—Geikie.
Eze_33:25. “Ye eat with the blood.” “The eating of the blood was forbidden in Gen_9:4 as the first step to the prohibition of murder. In the blood of animals was to be seen a type of the blood of men. The prescription had a didactic end. It was to call forth an abhorrence of shedding human blood. Whosoever disregarded this prohibition showed, under the Old Testament, after the law had made the horror of animal blood national, that the germ of the murderous spirit was in him.”—Hengstenberg.
Eze_33:26. “Ye work abomination.” The abomination is adultery. The feminine form of the verb is surprising.
Eze_33:28. “That none shall pass through.” Cleared of men, even of passing travellers. The ravage of robbers and wild beasts rendered the ordinary roads unsafe.
Eze_33:30. “The children of thy people still are talking against thee.” Though going to the prophet to hear the word of the Lord, they criticised, in an unfriendly spirit, his peculiarities of manner and enigmatical style (chap. Eze_20:49), making these the excuse for their impenitence. “By the walls and in the doors of the houses.” In the public haunts and privately.
Eze_33:31. “As My people.” “So respectful, attentive, and apparently earnest and willing.”—Hengstenberg. Ironically, those who should be mine; or, as if they would be My people and still are not. “With their mouth they show much love.” “They deal tenderly with their mouth—they show ardour; affect in words an ardent love to God and His words, while the real inclination of their heart goes quite another way—is turned to Mammon, the god of the Jewish old man.”—Hengstenberg.
Eze_33:32. “Thou art unto them as a very lovely song”—a song of love, a lover’s song. “They praise thy eloquence, but care not for the subject of it as a real and personal thing, just as many do in the modern Church.”—Jerome. “One that hath a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument.” “Amidst the national impoverishment they amuse themselves with the surpassing rhetorical gifts of the new classic.”—Hengstenberg.
Eze_33:33. “That a prophet hath been among them.” “No mere orator. The difference they discover in painful experience when it is too late. The threatened punishment has already overtaken them. They are already excluded from the promised salvation which can be gained only by true repentance.”—Hengstenberg.
HOMILETICS
THE OFFICES OF THE CIVIL AND SPIRITUAL WATCHMAN COMPARED AND CONTRASTED
(Eze_33:1-9.)
Having sung in strains of unequalled sublimity the dirge of the great monarchies, Ezekiel returns with redoubled intensity to the duty of teaching. The enthusiastic disciple of Jeremiah, he carries out to their most startling consequences the principles but dimly sketched in the creed of his loved master. In this chapter he develops in increased sharpness of definition and fulness of detail the doctrine which is the prominent feature of his prophetic mission—that of the responsibility of the individual soul separate from the collective nation, separate from the good or ill deserts of ancestry. “Other prophets,” says Stanley, “have more of poetical beauty, a deeper sense of Divine things, a tenderer feeling of the mercies of God for His people. None teach so simply, and with a simplicity the more remarkable from the elaborate imagery out of which it emerges, this great moral lesson, to us the first of all lessons. On this narrow but solid plank of the doctrine of human responsibility Ezekiel crosses the chasm which divided the two parts of his eventful life. It is almost the last doctrine which we hear announced before his country fell. It is the first that meets us as he recovers from the shock after all is over.” This truth we shall find strikingly illustrated in the teaching of the present and succeeding paragraphs of this chapter. In these verses we have the offices of the civil and spiritual watchman compared and contrasted—
I. In the manner of their appointment.
1. The civil watchman is appointed by the careful discrimination of his fellow-countrymen. “The people of the land take a man of their coasts and set him for their watchman” (Eze_33:2). It is a mutual arrangement. The rulers of the state see the need of guarding its interests, and after due inquiry select the man who in their judgment is best qualified to discharge the duties required, and the man willingly accepts the post. It is a human appointment, and the fount of authority is human, though sanctioned by the aggregate wisdom of the governing body. The government may be mistaken in the character of the man selected. They can only do their best in providing for the immediate exigencies of the state; or they may err in their conception of the trust with which they invest their officer. Human wisdom is at the best imperfect.
2. The spiritual watchman is Divinely appointed. “I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel” (Eze_33:7). Here the authority is supreme and infallible. The Divine discernment is unerring. God never calls and commissions the wrong man, and never appoints His servant to a work that He does not at the same time give him power to do, however unwilling he may be to accept the responsibility. The authority thus delegated is indisputable, because backed by supreme power, and from which there is no appeal. The office of the spiritual watchman is superior to all earthly governments, and has often to be exercised above and in opposition to their worldly policy.
II. In the duties assigned to each. 1. To exercise constant vigilance. “When he seeth the sword come upon the land” (Eze_33:3). “Thou shalt hear the word at My mouth” (Eze_33:7). It is the duty of each to be ever in a wakeful, listening attitude. The look-out on board the ocean-steamer and the advanced night-picket of a slumbering army has each a responsible post. The safety of both vessel and army depends upon their keenness of vision and delicacy of hearing. It is their duty to detect the first indications of danger. The duties of the civil and spiritual watchman are alike in demanding a highly sensitive alertness and heroic fidelity. The excavations at Herculaneum, buried by an eruption of Vesuvius more than eighteen hundred years ago, revealed the figure of a sentinel who remained immovable at the post of duty till swathed and suffocated with the molten lava.
2. To give distinct and timely warning. “Blow the trumpet and warn the people” (Eze_33:3). “Warn them from Me” (Eze_33:7). It is not enough to keep a sharp look-out. Every threatened movement of the enemy must be faithfully reported, and a loud, clear, earnest warning sounded when the slightest advance is made by the attacking force. The watchman should be every moment braced up to duty, and no indulgence permitted that will impair his faculties. The greater the peril, the more urgent and unmistakable should be the alarm.
III. In the reality and limitation of the responsibility of each. If the watchman, seeing the threatened evil, neglects to warn the people, he is responsible for the calamities they may suffer; if he warns the people and they suffer by not giving heed to the warning, he himself is clear of blame (Eze_33:4-6; Eze_33:8-9). Ezekiel, while explicit in teaching what in his day was the novel doctrine of personal responsibility, is careful to define its limits. Unlimited responsibility would be intolerable; it would tend to paralyse rather than evoke effort. Personal responsibility is ever limited by ability, opportunity, and the nature and scope of the trust with which we are invested. There is no discharge from responsibility but by obedience to obvious duty. The burden is then transferred to those towards whom duty has been faithfully fulfilled.
LESSONS.—
1. The true watchman is placed in a position of great honour and responsibility.
2. Should preserve all his faculties in the highest possible state of healthy development and exercise.
3. Is faithful in the degree in which he retains the consciousness of his Divine call.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Eze_33:1-9. Individual Responsibility—
1. Recognised by the directness of the Divine revelation. “The word of the Lord came unto me” (Eze_33:1).
2. Augmented by the importance of the office in which he is installed. “The people of the land take a man and set him for their watchman. I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel” (Eze_33:2; Eze_33:7).
3. Is limited to the faithful discharge of specific duties. To be on the alert, to raise the alarm, to warn of approaching disaster (Eze_33:3-5; Eze_33:9).
4. Involves serious blame when obvious duty is neglected. “His blood will I require at thine hand” (Eze_33:6; Eze_33:8).
—“The duty of the spiritual watchman is to warn faithfully the impenitent of their imminent danger, and of the willingness of God to receive them graciously and save them freely if they will repent. Whosoever hears the watchman’s warning and yet takes no heed to it shall perish, and his blood shall be upon his own head. But the minister who knows the danger that is before sinners, and yet neglects to sound the faithful note of warning, shall not only be in part the cause of their ruin, but shall also bring upon his own head an awful condemnation. They no doubt justly perish on account of their neglect to watch and pray continually; but he incurs at once the guilt of his own and that of their disobedience to God. What a heavy account they shall have to render who make excuses for sin, flatter sinners, and promise them pardon and peace without penitence and faith!”—Fausset.
Eze_33:2. “Take a man of their coasts, and set him for their watchman.” A National Guardian.
1. An important officer in time of public danger.
2. Is selected for some special qualifications he possesses above other of his countrymen.
3. The safety of the country is entrusted to his care.
4. Should be vigilant and faithful in the discharge of duty.
5. Is accountable for his conduct to those who appoint him.
—“One man may be of public service to a whole country. Princes and statesmen are the watchmen of a kingdom, that are continually to employ and, if occasion be, expose themselves for the public safety.”—M. Henry.
—“The calling to the office of preacher is twofold—one immediate, the other mediate; the former is from God, the latter from man (Act_26:15-16; Act_6:5). No blind man, nor dreamer, nor drowsy sleeper is fit for an office that takes its name from wakefulness.”—Lange.
Eze_33:4-5. Faithful Warning—
1. Should be clearly and earnestly uttered.
2. Secures the safety of those who give heed to it.
3. Is uttered in vain to those who neglect it.
4. Deprives the heedless of any ground of complaint for the suffering he refused to avoid.
Eze_33:6. Neglect of Duty—
1. Inexcusable where the duty is clearly defined and publicly proclaimed.
2. An unmistakable evidence of moral deterioration.
3. Always involves calamity and suffering to somebody.
—“Of the watching which is enjoined upon ourselves we are not relieved by the obligation which lies upon the watchman. Hence he who is overtaken unwarned does not fall guiltless, for his security and carelessness were the occasion of his fall. Contempt of danger is no true courage. Every one must carry his soul as in his hand. What a mournful condition is it when the Church does not watch, the State does not protect, the house does not admonish!”—Lange.
Eze_33:7-9. The Ministerial Calling—
1. Divine in its institution. “I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel.”
2. Is to interpret the meaning of the Divine Message. “Thou shalt hear the word at My mouth.”
3. Should be faithful in warning as well as in instruction. “And warn them from Me—speak to warn the wicked from his way.”
4. Involves grave responsibility. “That wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.”
5. Retains the Divine approval only so far as it is strictly faithful. “But thou hast delivered thy soul.”
—“With a spiritual watchman there must be found a spiritual life, a spiritual light, a spiritual wakefulness, and dutiful fidelity in all parts of his office.”—Starke.
—Even when the preacher’s conscience is free from guilt in regard to the ungodly who perish in their sins, what a sorrow does it occasion in the life of the preacher when he has to see the impenitent die in their sins! “I would not willingly be saved,” said Augustine, “without you.”
HOMILETICS
THE UNSWERVING EQUITY OF THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT
(Eze_33:10-20.)
I. Is joined with the most tender solicitations for the best welfare of men.
1. Jehovah has no satisfaction in the ruin of the sinner (Eze_33:10-11). It is a false conception of God to regard Him as implacable and difficult to propitiate. Such a view is possible only to the mind debased by sinful indulgence and hardened by unbelief. Without man’s solicitation, and without his daring to hope for such favour, God offers him life and salvation, and reveals His love in the wondrous plan which His spontaneous mercy has provided for the redemption of the sinning race. So slow is man to comprehend, and so little reason had he to expect the possibility of such kindness being shown to him, that Jehovah solemnly pledges the integrity of His Divine character in assuring him of the fact—“As I live, saith the Lord.” He has more pleasure in pardoning than punishing.
2. Jehovah condescends to plead with the sinner to turn from his iniquities and accept life. “Turn ye, turn ye, from your evil ways; for why will ye die?” (Eze_33:11). Amazing spectacle! Incredulous condescension! God pleading with man—the highest reason expostulating with human folly and unreason! The monarch imploring rebels to return to their allegiance and the parent entreating the prodigal to reform may seem the despair of baffled helplessness. But not so with our Heavenly King and Father. His condescension is all the more conspicuous and significant because He is so strong, so righteous, and so unselfish in His aim to rescue man from his self-delusion and ruin. A greater marvel still is, that in the presence of this Divine solicitude man remains obdurate and indifferent. How deceitful and deadly an enemy is fondly-cherished sin!
II. Recognises the responsibility of the individual soul. “I will judge you every man after his ways” (Eze_33:20). Life or death depends on individual action. Israel is to be treated no longer as a collective nation, in the mass, but as individuals, each one by himself. This doctrine was so novel and startling to the Jew, and so opposed to his notion of special privileges to be enjoyed by the aggregate nation, irrespective of the moral condition of individuals, that the masters of the Synagogue hesitated to receive the Book of Ezekiel into the sacred canon, and when it was adopted, decreed that it should not be read by any Jew who was not above thirty years of age. And yet throughout the Bible there is no truth more clearly taught than this. It is this responsibility that gives a moral character to each man’s actions, and is the basis on which he must be ultimately judged.
III. Distributes with exact impartiality reward and punishment according to individual conduct (Eze_33:12-16; Eze_33:18-19). The seeming righteous will not escape punishment if they sin (Eze_33:12-13; Eze_33:18). The wicked will not be denied reward if they reform (Eze_33:12; Eze_33:14-16; Eze_33:19). No man can shelter himself under the shadow of ancestral piety, or under the reputation of a blameless life. Personal virtue can make no atonement for a single sin. On the other hand, the most abandoned need not despair. The Lord “pardoneth and absolveth all those who truly repent and unfeignedly believe His holy gospel.” The final decisions of the Divine government cannot be charged with the least injustice, but will compel universal adoration.
IV. Is the subject of querulous complaint by the wrong-doer. “Yet the people say, The way of the Lord is not equal; but, as for them, their way is not equal” (Eze_33:17; Eze_33:20). Wrong-doing blinds the mental vision, dulls and vitiates the moral sense, and incapacitates the soul from exercising righteous judgment. Ignorance is always obstinately one-sided. Reminds one of the Irish juryman who had never met eleven such obstinate men as his fellow-jurors; and of the recruit who maintained he was the only man of his company who was keeping step. The sinner is ready to blame any one but himself, and even dares to impugn the equity of the great Judge of all the earth. The reckless audacity of such a charge reveals his own condemnation.
LESSONS.—
1. Divine justice and mercy are inseparable.
2. If we embrace the principles of the Divine government it becomes easy to do right and difficult to do wrong.
3. The destiny of every man is, under God, in his own hands.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Eze_33:10-11. A yearning tenderness here manifests itself, still seeking, notwithstanding all that has taken place, the return of those who survived to the way of peace. But with that tenderness what a stern and unflinching holiness! There can be no relaxation or abatement mentioned in respect to this, not even amid the moanings of pain and cries of distress which arose from the people; no return to life possible but through a return to righteousness.
Eze_33:10. Unrepented Sin—
1. Produces a sullen disposition.
2. Fosters the mistaken notion that we are punished for the sins of others rather than for our own.
3. Reflects upon the sincerity of the Divine promises.
4. Fills the soul with despair.
—“Thus ye speak.” “But not well, whilst ye have hard thoughts of God and heavy thoughts of yourselves, as if your sins were unpardonable, and that ye were already ruined beyond relief; whereas true repentance is a ready remedy, a plank after shipwreck that would set you safe and render you right again. This they had been told before (chap. 18), but to little purpose. The word was not mingled with faith in their hearts, and did therefore run through them (Heb_2:1) as water runs through a riven vessel.”—Trapp.
—“It is common with those that have been hardened with presumption, when they were warned against sin, to sink into despair when they are called to repent, and to conclude there is no hope of life for them.”—M. Henry.
—“All in the end feel sin, but they hate it not.—The way of the unconverted in this respect is to look rather to the temporal than to the eternal life.—To despair, instead of turning to God, is but another form of the pride that is in the human heart.—Despair is another kind of impenitence.—How contrasts touch one another!—The godly also are sometimes on the brink of despair—David, Psalms 38, and Cain, Genesis 4. That punishment should always be heavier to us than sin!—He who would justify himself would perhaps throw the blame even upon God.—God always deals unfairly with the wicked, as they think.”—Lange.
Eze_33:11. The Pitifulness of the Divine Mercy—
1. Finds no delight in punishing. “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked.”
2. Yearns for the recovery of those who have abandoned the way of obedience. “But that the wicked turn from his way and live.”
3. Breaks forth in tenderest persuasiveness. “Turn ye, turn ye; for why will ye die?”
4. Is declared with the most solemn asseveration. “As I live, saith the Lord.”
—“This is one of those precious places, those mellifluous honeycombs which we should go on sucking towards heaven, as Samson once did towards his parents (Jdg_14:9). Here, if anywhere, we may find strong consolation. God when He swears desires certainly to be credited. O happy we for whose sakes God vouchsafeth to swear! and O wretched we if we believe not God, no, though He swear to us!”—Trapp.
—“The living God wills life, and also gives it to those who will; but unless men also wish it, He certainly does not give.”—Lange.
—“Why will ye die?”—“I have been to you a nursing Father. Will ye not love Me? I have opened a bleeding altar, even Calvary, that the foulest of sinners may approach. Why will ye stay at a distance in shame and sin? I have borne and had patience. I have stretched out My hands all the day long to a gainsaying people. My prophets have laboured and wept; they aver, being filled with My Spirit, that their hearts’ desire and prayer is, that Israel might be saved. Why will you resist the ministry of grace? I have aided the ministry with slow and gentle corrections. Why will you fight against Me? You are beloved for your fathers’ sake; you have been to Me a pleasant vineyard. I have planted you with the choice vine of Sorek; and what could I have done for My vineyard that I have not done? Why then will ye prefer idols to Me? Why will you prefer shame to glory, death to eternal life?”—Sutcliffe.
Eze_33:13. “It was a widespread delusion among the Jews that they possessed a hereditary righteousness; that whatever they themselves might be, yet the righteousness of their pious fathers, from Abraham down, would avail them; and if they experienced the contrary in their misfortunes they held themselves justified in murmuring against God. The prophet teaches, on the contrary, that the fate of every generation is determined by its own relation to God.”—Hengstenberg.
—“Many eminent professors have been ruined by a proud conceitedness of themselves and confidence in themselves. He trusts to the merit of his own righteousness, and thinks he has already made God so much his debtor that now he may venture to commit iniquity, for he has righteousness enough in stock to make amends for it; he fancies that, whatever evil deeds he may do hereafter, he can be in no danger from them, having so many good deeds beforehand to balance them. He thinks himself so well established in a course of virtue that he may thrust himself into any temptation and it cannot overcome him, and so by presuming on his own sufficiency he is brought to commit iniquity.”—M. Henry.
—“Not that we are evil by nature is what finally condemns us, but that we remain evil in spite of the goodness of God which seeks our conversion.”—Lange.
Eze_33:14-15. Genuine Repentance—
1. Is not only sorrow for sin, but a turning from it.
2. A striving to do the right.
3. Shown in the restitution of all wrongfully acquired goods.
4. A permanent blessing only by walking in harmony with the living Word.
—Conversion—“
1. Of heart.
2. Of conduct.
3. Of life.”—Lange.
—“Penitency is almost as good as innocency.”—Trapp.
Eze_33:15. “Robbery and violence would be too gainful a trade if a man might quit all scores by repentance and detain all he had gotten; or if the father’s repentance might serve the turn, and the benefit of the transgression be transmitted as an inheritance to the son. If the pledge remained it must be restored. The retaining it is committing a new iniquity, and forfeits any benefit of the promise. If he hath it not, nor is able to procure it, his hearty repentance is enough, with reparation; but to enjoy the spoil and yet to profess repentance is an affront to Almighty God, and a greater sin than the first act of violence, when he did not pretend to think of God, and so did not think of displeasing Him. Whereas now he pretends to reconcile himself to God and mocks Him with repentance, while he retains the fruit of his wickedness. He who is truly penitent restores what he hath left to the person who was deprived of it, and pays the rest in devout sorrow for his trespass.”—Lord Clarendon.
Eze_33:17; Eze_33:20. False Estimates—
1. Inevitable when Divine things are measured by a human standard.
2. The product of a mind warped with error and sin.
3. Recoil in punishment upon those who are blind to their own falseness and injustice.
Eze_33:17. “When men find fault with the ways of God as not equal, it is because their own ways are not equal. On the other hand, God says, ‘Do not My words do good to him that walketh uprightly?’ (Mic_2:7). God ‘meeteth him that worketh righteousness; those that remember God in His ways’ (Isa_64:5). The cause of sceptical cavils at the ways of Divine providence and grace lies in the unbeliever’s faulty state of heart which corrupts the understanding.”—Fausset.
HOMILETICS
THE INFATUATION OF UNBELIEF
(Eze_33:21-33.)
I. Blinds the soul to the significance of passing events.
1. The greatest calamity is not understood. “The city is smitten” (Eze_33:21). No greater disaster could happen to the Jew. The impregnable, the invincible Jerusalem in ruins, the sacred Temple violated and destroyed—impossible! Yet the impossible had happened; and the people, stupefied by the greatness of the calamity, or by the inveteracy of their wickedness, failed to grasp the meaning. In their unbelieving infatuation they could not see that the Divine guardianship that encompassed the city with a shield that no mortal enemy could pierce had been withdrawn, because of their sins.
2. The plainest evidences of faithful warning were ignored. Ezekiel predicted that he would be silent for some time on matters affecting Israel until news of the downfall of Jerusalem came. The prediction was exactly fulfilled, and he once more opens his mouth concerning Israel (comp. chap. Eze_24:27 with Eze_33:22)—another proof of the Divine sanction to the warnings of His servant; yet this, like many other similar evidences, was unheeded. We are infatuated indeed when passing events cease to interest us and suggest no lessons of either warning or counsel.
II. Intensifies the practice of the grossest sins (Eze_33:24-26).
1. Covelousness (Eze_33:24). They cling in a spirit of desperate covetousness to the land already lost, and which now belonged to their conquerors. The savage greed with which the scattered few held by the land of their forefathers might excite compassion did we not know how hopeless was their task and how utterly selfish their aim. They wished to keep the land not to reform but to indulge abuses.
2. Idolatry (Eze_33:25). The sin which had been the occasion of all the distresses that now afflicted the land, instead of being put away, was carried on with aggravated enormities.
3. Tyranny. “Ye stand upon your sword” (Eze_33:26). They do not seek to rule on principles of right and equity, but by the tyranny of force and arms. It was the wild anarchy of reckless desperadoes. The tyranny was all the more cruel because of the unprotected and helpless condition of the few that still remained in the land.
4. The worst form of immorality (Eze_33:26). Adultery. How deep was the degradation of the chosen people of God when they descended to the worst practices of the heathen, and veiled them under the sacred name of religion! Unbelief is immorality, and abandons man to the tyranny of all kinds of abominations.
III. Invokes a more terrible punishment (Eze_33:27-29). Ruin shall be piled on ruin; the wastes shall be reduced to more hopeless wastes; desolation shall reign supreme. By an inevitable retribution, the sword on which they placed their chief dependence and with which they had oppressed the weak shall be the instrument of their own destruction, and the pestilence shall finish the work left undone by the sword. The desolating ruin shall be so complete that the fields and vineyards, once so peacefully cultivated and so abundantly productive, shall be the haunts of wild beasts and the terrified inhabitants become their prey. Travellers will be careful to avoid the infested region: “None shall pass through” (Eze_33:28). Terrible indeed will be the punishment that shall overtake the obstinately unbelieving.
IV. Makes mockery of the most earnest utterances of the Divine message (Eze_33:30-32).
1. There is the show of charmed interest in the messenger. “They come unto thee as the people cometh; they sit before thee as My people. With their mouth they show much love. Thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument” (Eze_33:31-32). Their interest in the preacher is superficial, like that of many present-day hearers. They are pleased with a rich, musical voice, with oratorical eloquence, with dramatic posturings, with ritualistic display and full choral effects; and that is all. It is the same kind of pleasure they have in listening to a well-rendered song, or a solo on the violin by an accomplished performer. The serious meaning of the message and its application to their practical life they have no desire to understand.
2. They make sport of both messenger and message in public and private. “The children of thy people still are talking against thee by the walls and in the doors of the houses, and speak one to another, every one to his brother, saying—(with a chuckling contemptuousness that reveals the hollowness and baseness of their hypocritical concern)—Come, I pray you, and hear what is the word that cometh forth from the Lord” (Eze_33:30). An invitation, not to ponder the Divine message, but to listen to their garbled version of it, as they reproduce it with flippant sportiveness and grotesque caricature. It is a sad evidence how completely unbelief has degraded and infatuated the soul when the message that deals with its eternal interests is made the subject of fun and ridicule.
3. They are too far steeped in infamy to attempt to practise what they hear. “They hear thy words, but they will not do them; their heart goeth after their covetousness” (Eze_33:31-32). They love sin more than godliness. To give heed to the Divine message would break in unpleasantly on the round of self-indulgence with which they are encircled as with an iron band. They have resisted so many appeals that the heart has become as hard as adamant. “How dangerous it is,” wrote John Foster, the celebrated essayist, “to defer those momentous reformations which conscience is solemnly preaching to the heart! If they are neglected, the difficulty and indisposition are increasing every month. The mind is receding degree after degree from the warm and hopeful zone, till at last it will enter the arctic circle, and become fixed in relentless and eternal ice.”
V. Will one day receive a rude and painful awakening. “When this cometh to pass (lo, it will come), then shall they know that a prophet hath been among them” (Eze_33:33). The threatened judgment fell on Israel, and, when it was too late, they saw the value of the opportunities they had despised. Those who do not know the preciousness of their privileges by using them aright shall here after be made to know by being deprived of those privileges for ever. It is the wail of many that they did not know the value of their blessings until they were lost.
LESSONS.—
1. The lowest depth of unbelief is not reached without many faithful warnings.
2. Unbelief is subtle and deadly in its progress.
3. The cure of unbelief is a merciful act of God.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Eze_33:21. Bad News—
1. Always travels fast.
2. Its lesson should be seriously pondered.
3. Is disregarded only by the infatuated.
Eze_33:22. “The opened mouth of a servant of God is his frankness; the contrary is trimming and flattery; and it is also distinguished from sarcastic witticisms, evil speaking, and insult. The servants of God should be frank in speech, yet not like insolent fellows who believe they may say everything because no one can contradict them, at least when in the pulpit.”—Luther.
Eze_33:23-29. “The new discourse here first takes up again the former threatening and meets those who, still giving themselves up to illusions, thought that the judgment would not inexorably run its course. But before the seed of Divine hope could be sown, the last thorns and thistles of false human hopes, and of the efforts that grew out of them, had to be destroyed, which even now, although against all appearances, were convulsively grasped by those who avoided the passage through the strait gate of repentance which is the condition of participating in the Divine hope, and did not wish to put off the spotted garment of the flesh.”—Hengstenberg.
Eze_33:24-29. The Inheritance of the Wicked—
1. A desolate waste. “They inhabit those wastes of the land of Israel” (Eze_33:24).
2. Yet held with a dogged pertinacity. “We are many: the land is given us for inheritance” (Eze_33:24).
3. The scene of unrestrained riot and wickedness. “Ye shed blood: ye work abomination” (Eze_33:25-26).
4. Defies the most desperate efforts to retain it. “The sword, devouring beasts, the pestilence,” are beyond their power to vanquish (Eze_33:27).
5. Is finally swept by the desolating vengeance of outraged justice. “I will lay the land most desolate—because of their abominations” (Eze_33:28-29).
—“Such was the infatuation of the escaped remnant in the now wasted lands of Judea that they were even still full of self-sufficient confidence. Had this confidence been resting on the restoration of God’s favour through their repentance, it would have been a reasonable confidence; but it rested on utterly false reasonings as to the relation in which they stood to Abraham. Abraham, they reasoned, obtained from God the inheritance of Canaan, and we are his children, and therefore are entitled to succeed to his inheritance. Abraham was but one when he obtained the grant of the land; much more shall we retain it as our own who are many. But they utterly shut their eyes to the fact that Abraham pleased God in all his ways, and was therefore called the friend of God; they, on the contrary, displeased God in all their ways by ‘working abominations’ and ‘standing upon their sword,’ as if might made right.”—Fausset.
Eze_33:24. “Strange infatuation! That when the sign of God’s displeasure had been so strikingly displayed against them for their sins, scattering all their vain confidence to the wind, they should still, without abandoning those sins, hope for the peculiar tokens of the Divine favour! Yet in a more subtle and refined form we find the same flagrant inconsistence practised by the Jews of our Lord’s time who, in like manner, reckoned with confidence on being children of Abraham, as if that alone were enough to secure them in all covenant blessings, while He charged them with being in spirit children of the devil, and consequently entitled only to look for the portion of the lost (Joh_8:33-44).”—Fair bairn.
—“Walls, cities, go to ruin, but a fool will still plant himself on the ruins (Pro_27:22). When the mask falls from the hypocrite, then will the beast of prey which lay behind become manifest; and we shall all be made manifest before the judgment-seat of Christ: then the masquerade will be out.”—Lange.
Eze_33:27. “The Divine vengeance does not need to rush upon its victim from behind in order to lay hold of him, nor does it require to make a long and laborious search after him; but where he has fled to and fancies himself hidden, whether it be in the heights or in the depths, there the vengeance of God lies in readiness, and has been expecting him to come to it. In the end we all come to God. Alas that so few should fall into His arms, while so many fall upon His sword! If the wild beasts of passion do not tear a man, the pestilence of his natural corruption will gradually consume him.”—Ibid.
Eze_33:27-29.“The small remnant in Judea being so far from righteousness, the prophet could only speak to them as a minister of condemnation. What they had to expect was only judgment still more severe and exterminating than what had yet been appointed. For them the desolations of the land must become still more desolate, and new horrors be inflicted by the sword, the pestilence, and the wild beast. All must be reduced to a howling wilderness, as it really was, that the new hope for Israel might spring from another and better root, and that the people might know how impossible it was to attain to blessing from God without first separating from sin.”—Fairbairn.
Eze_33:28. “Desolate shall it be at last about every ungodly man; for as the heart so is the life. First of all sin desolates, then come desolations through death; finally, we pass into the desolation of an eternity without God.”—Lange.
Eze_33:29. See chap Eze_30:19.
—Those are intractable and un-teachable indeed that are not made to know their dependence upon God when all their creature-comforts fail them and they are made desolate.
Eze_33:30-33. The Preacher’s Critics—
1. Use every opportunity in public and private to hold him up to ridicule. “Thy people still are talking against thee by the walls, and in the doors of the houses” (Eze_33:30).
2. Are eager to give their own garbled version of his message. “Come, I pray you, and hear what is the word that cometh forth from the Lord” (Eze_33:30).
3. Observe the outward decorum of worship. “They sit before thee as My people, and hear thy words” (Eze_33:31).
4. Show a fondness for the word which the state of their hearts contradicts. “With their mouth they show much love; but their heart goeth alter their covetousness” (Eze_33:31).
5. Are charmed with the music of eloquence. “Thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument” (Eze_33:32).
6. Listen not for profit, but to pick up material for scornful gossip. “They hear thy words, but they do them not” (Eze_33:32).
7. Only when calamity comes do they learn the value of what they despised. “When this cometh to pass shall they know that a prophet hath been among them” (Eze_33:33).
—“In making use of human agents to reveal His will to men, the Lord teaches us to look for no external perfection. There may be found all the diversities of manner and nearly all the imperfections which distinguish ordinary speakers, for the Spirit, even in His highest operations, must still leave free-play to native peculiarities of thought and utterance. But in regard to its substance God’s Word is perfect, and stands nobly apart from all that is of man. Let it ever be ours, therefore, to hear it with reverence and bow to its requirements with child-like submission. It is we who must fall in with its terms, not it that must accommodate itself to ours.”—Fairbairn.
—“The Word of God is a very serious matter. Let every one take heed how he hears, that he be not a hearer only, but a doer. What the prophet announces comes to pass, and if the fulfilment takes place the mere hearer will be the loser; he is overtaken by the threatened punishments and excluded from the promised blessings. He has not to deal with an excellent orator; but behind the Son of man stands the Lord, mighty to punish and to save.”—Hengstenberg.
Eze_33:30. “Public persons are a common subject of discourse. Every one takes liberty to censure them at pleasure, and faithful ministers know not how much ill is said of them every day. But God takes notice, not only of what is decreed against them, or sworn against them, or written against them, or spoken with solemnity and deliberation, but of what is said against them in common talk, and He will reckon for it. His prophets shall not always be made the song of the drunkards.”—M. Henry.
Eze_33:31. “Merely to hear without doing makes all preaching unprofitable. Strange that sermons of rebuke should be more attractive than grace-sermons. Men would rather be smitten than caressed. They think, perhaps, that in the love there is too much of design. If one has been struck by the cudgel, it is still possible to preserve one’s heart and head; but love leaves nothing to one’s self, it demands all—the whole man and the whole life.”—Lange.
—“Their heart is on their halfpenny, we say; neither can the loadstone of God’s Word hale them one jot from the earth. As serpents have their bodies in the water, their heads out of the water, so here: as those Gergesites, they mind a swine-sty more than a sanctuary.”—Trapp.
—“With all their loud mouth-professions of love to God and His ordinances, the love which reigns in their heart is love of self, of fame, pleasure, and gain. Covetousness is a grand rival to the love of God, so that where the love of Mammon is, there the love of God is not.”—Fausset.
Eze_33:32. “Mere habit as regards the hearing of sermons makes people indifferent, and at last stupid. Pious sentimentalism is spiritual adultery. Satan goes with us into church. Edification and the capacity for it are two different things.”—Lange.
Eze_33:33. “A true prophet will always leave beind him the impression of a true prophet.”
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 These words of the text ought to touch us,…
Eze 33:11
These words of the text ought to touch us, first in the way of warning and then of encouragement.
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I. As to the warning contained in this high doctrine it seems obviously and inevitably to result from it: (1) that our spiritual and everlasting condition is in some mysterious manner placed within our own power—that if we die, spiritually and eternally, it will be our own doing, the consequence of our own wilful presumption and miserable folly. Vain and worse than vain, is the notion which we all so readily cherish, that our spiritual condition is not within our own power and that the Almighty will do with us as He pleases without regard to our own exertions. Certainly He will do with us as He pleases, or, as the Apostle says emphatically, "according to the counsel of His own will." But then it is His irrevocable will and counsel, that, without holiness, no man shall be admitted to His beatific presence. He has no pleasure in the death of Him that dieth, yet if men turn not from their evil ways they must and will die; it is not God’s choice but their own—for themselves. (2) Another great warning in the doctrine of the text is that we have before us no alternative but either to turn or perish. Hence the necessity of our examining ourselves so strictly, and turning so resolutely from all that we find amiss in us. "Lust when it hath conceived, bringeth forth sin: sin when it is finished bringeth forth death.
II. Consider again what encouragement and consolation to all humble and contrite hearts is contained in these divine words. Here we see (1) that, sinful and undeserving as we are, our Heavenly Father watches over us with the utmost possible tenderness and anxiety; and not merely this, but He has taken great pains to impress on our hearts the conviction that He does so watch over us; (2) that whoever turns from any evil way, any wrong course, either of sin committed or of duty neglected, has unquestionably God’s blessing on him; has the best possible pledge and test that he is so far in the right way—a pledge and test doubtless more to be depended on than any external flattery or internal feeling.
Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times," vol. iv., p. 233.
References: Eze 33:11.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxx., No. 1795; J. Oswald Dykes, Old Testament Outlines, p. 253; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 159. Eze 33:22.—Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 6.
Eze 33:30-32
The experience which the young priest Ezekiel had to bear among the captives in Babylon is the same in some degree that every serious preacher of God’s word has had to expect. The methods of rejection may be various, but the act is the same; it is rejection by men. The number who may be induced to hear his preaching and knocking is much larger than the number of those who really intend to yield the obedience of faith.
I. Consider this melancholy fact. Many hear the word of the Lord, and hear it with interest, who will obey it not. It is quite wonderful how men hear what is well spoken with pleasure, and yet remain quite unaffected by it in their characters and lives. An unconverted man, a disobedient hearer, sometimes is quicker to appreciate the force of a discourse than a converted and an obedient hearer is. The heart of man easily coins self-flattering hopes out of these passing emotions which religious discourses and appeals may excite. "But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves."
II. That is the character. Now what is the reason of it? Their heart goes after their gain. Every man who is to follow Christ is to forsake all that he has and become Christ’s disciple. So long as their hearts are going after their gains they are deaf, they are blind, to the true meaning of the Gospel. They are absolutely insensible to the whole drift of Christ and His Apostles. They are seeking their own things, and therefore the word has no effect upon them. So long as the heart hankers after the treasures or the pleasures of this world, all the church-going, all the appreciation of this preacher or that, goes for nothing, accomplishes nothing, that has fruit in everlasting life.
D. Fraser, Contemporary Pulpit, vol. vii., p. 168.
References: Eze 33:30-33.—W. M. Punshon, Old Testament Outlines, p. 259. Eze 33:32.—G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 264.
Eze 33:32-33
These are the words of the Lord God to the prophet Ezekiel, words in which He describes the effect of the prophet’s preaching upon the children of his people. Ezekiel had by this time become a successful preacher. He was the great sensation of the day; men thought it must be the proper thing to go and hear him, to sit lowly before him, to listen with rapt attention to the impetuous torrent of his words, and when they went away to discuss his message in the gates or on the housetops. But their heart was not touched, nor was their life affected; it was their imagination that was fascinated, and their understanding that was pleased.
I. This state of things is exactly reproduced in the case of every popular preacher. Men whose lives are cruel or impure,—whose hearts are covetous, whose thoughts are bitter,—crowd to hear the preacher of the day, because his words are sweet, because his eloquence is full of melody, because they feel themselves for the moment fascinated, captivated—carried out of, lifted above, themselves.
II. Ezekiel in his popularity is a type, not only of all lesser preachers, but emphatically of Him who is the great Prophet and Preacher of the world, the Master of all ages, the Incarnate Word of God. A very lovely song it is which the Saviour sings; no poet, no prophet, no bard, ever sung or ever dreamed, or ever even strove (and striving failed) to express anything half so sweet, so full, so soul-subduing as the Gospel of the grace of God. And He that sings it hath a very pleasant voice, for sweeter is the voice of Christ than the voice of any angel or archangel, and of any of the heavenly choirs—grander in itself and sweeter far is it to us, because it is a Brother’s voice, and we can feel the sympathy, we can understand the finest, softest shades of meaning which are woven through the melody. Therefore does the world love to listen to His message of salvation, to sit at the feet of Christ, to call Him Great Master, to listen to His words with pleased attention. They hear His words, but do them not. Never shall His voice sound so pleasant, never His song so lovely, as when He shall lead His own to the eternal bowers, and those who are not His shall be shut out for ever. Yet this last unspeakable woe must be our portion, if the Gospel be to us but as a very lovely song—if our attitude towards Christ be one of admiration, not of imitation—if we hear His words but do them not.
R. Winterbotham, Sermons and Expositions, p. 87.
References: Eze 33:33.—E. Paxton Hood, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xix., p. 129. Eze 34:4.—A. G. Maitland, Ibid., vol. xi., p. 392. Eze 34:10.—S. Cox, Expositions, 3rd series, p. 16. Eze 34:12.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vi., p. 204. Eze 34:26.—J. Keble, Sermons from Ascension Day to Trinity, p. 27; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. i., No. 26; Ibid., Morning by Morning, p. 55; F. W. Brown, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xx., p. 75. Eze 34:27.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxv., No. 1462. Eze 34:29.—G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 160; J. Budgen, Parochial Sermons, vol. i., p. 108.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v1 Section 1 (Eze 33:1-33; Eze 34:1-31.)
Section 1 (Eze 33:1-33; Eze 34:1-31.)
The opening of the prophet’s mouth.
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The prophet’s mouth then is re-opened, because there is grace to be announced. Yet the affirmation of God’s righteous ways unchanged is the fitting introduction to this. The fall of the city shows the people now fully under judgment. Their false confidences are exposed. The law has spoken, and the people, by its verdict are Lo-ammi, without the blood of atonement for their sins, without the place in which alone it could be sprinkled before God, God Himself entirely withdrawn. Moreover, there are no true shepherds among the people only such as are not only inadequate, but false. God must raise up the only Shepherd who can truly represent Him in His care for the feeble and scattered remnant who shall still remain an election, wholly of grace, and who are cast entirely upon Him -themselves also undone, apart from absolute grace. The true Shepherd is found in David (" the beloved "), the real fulfiller of that name and of the unrepenting promises of God to which "the sure mercies of David" are attached.
1. (1) The prophecy here does not begin with the date, as we might expect, that being found, however, in verse 17. God first prepares the message which the re-opened lips of the prophet are to utter. The message given is a repetition almost wholly of Eze 3:1-27; Eze 13:1-23, a repetition which, for the purpose, is more effective than a wholly new statement. It is emphasized, however, in the first place that while men might naturally, and ordinarily would appoint themselves a watchman, the prophet is not appointed of the people, but of God in their behalf. Were there no word from Him, the accountability of the people would still remain, but God had provided a watchman for those too heedless and indifferent to care for their own interests, even the most weighty. How this, nevertheless, would increase the culpability of those who still refused the Voice that spoke to them! How often had He spoken of the sword which He was bringing upon the land! Yet they had taken no heed. Instead of looking for every sign of approaching judgment, they hardened their hearts against all that was given them in this way -nay, pressed upon them by one event after another, and by one messenger after another. What then could there be at last but that which had now come? -the awful signs no more to be refused by their desolate city, and the triumph of the heathen enemy over those who, as the people of God, would have been sheltered from every possibility of successful assault.
The second part of the address here begins at the 10th verse, in which the lesson of the 18th chapter is once more enforced. They would now be ready to plead, and indeed were pleading, that before the unbending righteousness of God it was impossible that men should live. But the Lord replies as He had declared abundantly already, that He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that they turn from their wickedness and live. For one who truly turned to Him, none of his past wickedness should be remembered against him. Could God go on with them in evil ways? Surely it would be impossible even for themselves to think so. There was then but one alternative, and God still pleaded as He had been pleading, that they turn from their evil ways that they might live. Why would they die? Their death was of their own will and not His. If, then, even one who had been righteous, trusting in this past righteousness of his, gave himself up to wickedness, none of his righteous deeds could be remembered: in his iniquity that he had committed, he would surely die. But what is rather emphasized is the mercy that awaits even the worst and vilest who should turn to God. Yet the people would rest the blame of all upon the Lord’s ways as if they were not equal, whereas it was their own ways that are unequal, as their conscience must surely witness against them. Much as men may seek to stifle the voice that speaks for God within them, yet it will one day have full utterance when they will be compelled to hear it.
(2)We have now the confirmation of the judgment foretold in the destruction of the city: "And it came to pass in the twelfth year of our captivity, in the tenth month, on the fifth of the month, that one who had escaped out of Jerusalem came unto me, saying, The city is smitten. Now the hand of the Lord had been upon me in the evening before he that escaped came, and He had opened my mouth before he came to me in the morning, and my mouth was opened, and I writs no more dumb." The date here is a significant one, "the twelfth year of our captivity" is, according to the numerical stamp upon it, the time of complete manifestation of the government of God with which the tenth month and the fifth day of the month combine to speak of the responsibility of man before God, of man who can never escape from the presence of Him whose eye is in every place, beholding the evil and the good. It is strange, however, to realize that the date here of the arrival of the man escaped from the city is more than sixteen months after it was taken. It has been naturally thought, therefore, that there must be a mistake in the text which, in common manuscripts of the Septuagint, seems to have been altered to suit. The well-known Alexandrian manuscript, however, agrees with the Hebrew which, as has been already seen, has its own internal evidence of being the correct one. No doubt the report of the capture had long preceded the actual coming of the refugee, delayed as he doubtless was by the conditions through which he had to make his way, and which there is no need to suppose to have been a direct one. It was probably after much wandering that the refugee had found a place at last where he could rest in safety. Until this time, then, the message waited: God dealing with the people in a way suited to the persistency with which they clung to their false hopes, and hardened themselves in obstinate pride of heart that would not listen to the plainest announcements. Now, with the living witness in their midst, they could at least doubt no more that the blow had actually fallen.
The first utterance of the prophet after this, which is addressed to those yet remaining in the desolate land, shows how readily still these hopes would rally; "Son of man," says the Lord to him, "they that inhabit those waste places in the land of Israel speak, saying, Abraham was one, and he inherited the land, and we are many; the land is given us for a possession." Had this been the boldness of faith, it might indeed still have been admirable; for the inheritance, as we know, however much the people might even for long years lose possession of it, could never be finally alienated from the children of him to whom God had promised it. But this was another thing, as the character of those who made these utterances showed, mere desperadoes as they were, whose works declared them to be anything but Abraham’s children. Their very conduct is held up before them, therefore. It was not for such to possess the land, surely, and they are warned by the Voice that speaks to them through the prophet: "Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: As I live, surely they that are in the waste places shall fall by the sword, and him that is in the open field will I give to the beasts to be devoured, and they that are in the strongholds and in the caves shall die of the pestilence; and I will make the land a desolation and an astonishment, and the pride of her strength shall cease. And the mountains of Israel shall be desolate that none shall pass through them. And they shall know that I am Jehovah (how differently should they have learned this!) when I have made the land a desolation and an astonishment because of all their abominations which they have committed."
Among the exiles, however, a transient effect might seem to have been produced by the fulfilment of the prophet’s words. They were now coming to hear the message that he had for them, sitting before God as if His people, and hearing words which, however, they never followed. "Behold," says the Lord to him, "thou art unto them as a lovely song, a pleasant voice, and one that playeth well upon an instrument; and they hear thy words, but they do them not" -there was no true faith with them. They would know that the prophet had spoken to them only by the voice of the judgment which would overtake them, as it had in fact already overtaken them. They would believe when it was too late, when the prediction was fulfilled, but that would be only to make it vain as to the whole meaning of it. It was no true faith that did not anticipate the fulfilment. Thus everywhere, as one sees, the ruin of man is complete. There could be no proper hope, no expectation any longer, and here the first utterance closes.
2. (1) In the chapter following, we have again no date given as to the time of the message, nor is there another until we come to the closing vision of the temple in the restored land, which is the only other in the book. That which follows here seems now to pour forth without any pause; and while we have once more judgment, in the opening, it is now manifestly connected with blessing, as the way to it. If the people are to be according to God, it must be as Isaiah has said (Isa 4:4), "By the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning," or as Ezekiel himself has said elsewhere (Eze 20:38) by purging out from them the rebels and those that transgress against God.
Thus we find that the judgment now before us is upon the false shepherds, those who only feed themselves, and make a prey of the sheep. "And the word of Jehovah came unto me saying, Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say unto them, even unto the shepherds, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Woe to the shepherds of Israel that feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flock? Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill those that are fattened; but ye feed not the sheep. The weak have ye not strengthened, nor have ye healed the sick, nor have ye bound up that which was broken, nor have ye brought again that which was driven away, nor have ye sought that which was lost; but with oppression and rigor ye have ruled over them." How thoroughly this gives the character of those whom the Lord charged in His day with similar conduct. The rule of the rabbins was an oppressive one, and while they assumed to stand for God and for His word, self-seeking characterized them throughout, and thus of necessity the sheep were scattered: "They were scattered because there was no shepherd: and they became food to all the beasts of the field and were scattered. My sheep wandered through all the mountains and upon every high hill; yea, my sheep have been scattered upon all the face of the earth, and there was none that searched or sought after them." Nothing stirs the heart of the true shepherd like the wanton abuse or neglect of the sheep, and here is One whose heart never needed to be stirred, but abides continually with His people, however long He may have patience, and however much circumstances may seem to argue that He has forgotten them. Therefore, as we shall see, it is Jehovah Himself who is manifested as the Shepherd of Israel, and that in the One raised up to them in tender grace; One who is Himself Man, and a stranger to nothing in man, except man’s inherent evil.
(2) The doom of the shepherds is therefore now announced. It is the judgment of love which smites for deliverance. There must be an end of this false assumption of the shepherd’s place without the shepherd’s heart -an assumption so peculiarly offensive to Him whose heart is with the sheep, who is afflicted in all the afflictions of His people, and who, when He arises for their help, will make a thorough work of it.
(3) Thus the Lord declares that He will come in and search for His sheep and examine their condition. The language is human language, and we see here, according to what Ezekiel has shown us elsewhere, the likeness of a Man upon the throne. God speaks as if He were ignorant; therefore to examine into everything were a first necessity; and in truth there is what answers to this. God is careful to expose fully the evil with which He is dealing, that in His government He may be justified by all His creatures. This is the meaning of all those solemn assurances of a day of judgment to come, when the books are opened, and all the history of those brought before the judgment-seat is thoroughly entered into. There are crises of judgment which anticipate this, in which God allows the character of things fully to come out, allowing to come to a head the evil upon which He is going to smite, and bringing out the secret thoughts of men’s hearts into open day. Thus as to His flock, Jehovah will examine their whole condition and all that has led to it. Their scatterings shall cease when the Voice is heard which. His people know -which does not scatter, but brings together; and this, therefore, by removing every cause of scattering. Yet scattering may be at times the very thing that is of God, which He permits to avoid worse evil: nevertheless it is only permission for a brief time. What is in His heart is gathering, not scattering. And so He declares that He will deliver His flock out of all the places whither they were scattered in the cloudy and dark day. He has realized the darkness of it, and He will bring them out from the peoples, and gather them from the countries, and bring them into their own land. It has been their own land in His mind all the way through; and if for a time it has refused to own them as its inhabitants, there is no setting aside of the purposes which, with God, can never be repented of. The mountains of Israel sball welcome them again, and all the springs shall be set running for their benefit, and all the habitable places of the country shall be filled with them. The mountains, which so peculiarly characterize the land of Israel, shall provide good pasture for them, lifted up and kissed as it were by the light of heaven. That is where God would ever have His people feed, and there are the fat pastures to be provided now. He will feed them and make them to lie down. How thoroughly these things go together in His mind -provision and rest, in which all the evils that have afflicted them in the long past shall be put away, the lost restored, the wounded bound up, the weak strengthened; but, on the other hand, the fat and the strong destroyed! We know what this means: God is thinking of those who have been feeding themselves at the cost of the sheep, and have become fat through the spoiling of others. They of necessity will be the objects of swift, sure judgment: "I will feed the flock with judgment," says the Lord.
(4) The searching which the Lord institutes is to go down deeper than merely with certain heads of the people: "Behold," says the Lord, "I judge between sheep and sheep," not merely between sheep and shepherds. "The rams and the he-goats" seem to speak not alike of objects of His judgment. The rams belong to the flock themselves, but the he-goats are alien to it. They are, as we know, in the Lord’s own picture of judgment, representatives of those whom the Son of Man puts upon His left hand, as He puts the sheep upon His right. Among the sheep there are those who have from God a certain natural place as leaders, and when God is working among His people, as in the days to come, these must of necessity come to the front. Leaders among the people of God are always recognized. It is the character of the leading which determines as to what it is before God. The true leader is he who leads by the Word itself, and to faith in it, and not in the leader, therefore. And he who says, "Follow me as I follow Christ" puts Christ before the eyes of His people as the measure by which he himself and all his leading is to be measured. How good to have those who, if they have found a bit of good pasture, must run. to tell others of it! And this is a kind of leading open to all that have hearts for it. How different the conduct of those of whom the Lord speaks here, who not only have eaten up all the good pasture for themselves, but must tread down and spoil what is left of it: not satisfied with drinking of the clear waters, they must foul the residue with their feet. I low this applies to such as rose up in Israel after this, when the rule of the priest was changed for the rule of the rabbi, is obvious to all; who, as our Lord said, were "teaching for doctrine the commandments of men," and putting their own word before the word of God. They made the flock eat what they had trodden with their feet, and drink what they had fouled with them. And it is not in Israel only that these things have taken place. Alas, how Christendom has copied them in fullest detail! But God is going to judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. The lean sheep are His objects now -the people who have suffered from these things, and whom He sees suffering. Thus He will save His flock that they may no more be a prey, and will judge between sheep and sheep.
(5) Now we come to what is God’s complete thought for them. He has one true Shepherd that is to be set over them; in that sense, only one; there is not another, and "He shall feed them, even my servant David." "The introduction of David without anything further or particular," says Schroeder, "confirms what is stated by Hengstenberg, that the Messiah, the glorious offspring of David, had in the time of the prophet been for long a lesson of the catechism." That is true, and it is sweet to think how God necessarily supposes that they will know who is spoken of here, the true David, of whom the one in history was only a type. He is to take up David’s place and office in a more glorious fashion: David’s Son is also David’s Lord, "the Beloved," as His name means; and our hearts recognize Him in this way: "He shall feed them, and He shall be their Shepherd." And thus alone it can be that Jehovah will be their God. Thus alone will "the covenant of peace" be theirs -the peace by a covenant never to be broken, and as a consequence, all nature at peace with them, evil beasts gone: "They shall dwell in safety in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods." Eden, but a better Eden, has come for them; and from the hill of God, His dwelling-place among them, the object for every eye and every heart, blessing shall flow out to all the places round about. Heaven yields its seasonable showers: "There shall be showers of blessing." Thus the curse is removed, and the land yields its increase. The tree of the field comes to its fruit, not casts it, and in all this they shall know that it is Jehovah who has brought them into this blessing; it is Jehovah who has burst the bands of their yoke and delivered them; it is Jehovah who has come in with the deliverance which is now eternal. They shall be no more a prey, nor shall they fear it. There shall be no danger nor thought of danger. How blessed to think of such a time at hand, and for a world trodden by the feet of oppressors, as the world has been.
But the attention is turned once more to God’s central figure for them: "I will raise up for them," says He, "a plant of renown." Neither shame nor hunger can be their portion when God has done this. "A plant for a name" is the literal rendering, which reminds us at once of the Name in which is all the revelation of God for man, which has been in His thought from the beginning -revelation come to its completion, and all things taking shape according to this. For this Immanuel (Jehovah, revealed in Christ) is among them; the bond of His humanity is never to be broken, and Israel as His people are compassed with those blessed arms which are yet to be seen about the whole creation of God, linking it forever with God. They need not fear, then, to recognize the weakness which as creatures necessarily belongs to them. It is the wholesome lesson which they have taken so long to learn, and which we are all so slow to learn, though a very simple one: "Ye my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, are men, and I am your God, saith the Lord Jehovah."
What does this mean? -that we are men. The word is "adam": God "called their name Adam, in the day that He created them" -a name which comes from adamah, "the ground." Yes, just to learn that we are men! Have we learnt it? Do we act and speak as if we had truly learnt it? That they were formed out of the clay is not the whole matter, of course, and it is not what made them the offspring of God, or in His likeness, but it is the suited word to keep us humble; yet, even so, it is a word of triumph too, of God’s triumph, for in them the dust of the ground is made to shine with a new glory. He has taken up this very dust, not putting it away as if the material thing were unsuited for Him, but developing all the capacities which are latent in it, which are not capacities of the spirit but for the spirit, in which matter itself becomes a fitted servant of the spirit, and God as the Creator is revealed all through in the goodness of His work. The dust of the ground is become man, and God Himself has met us in Christ, claiming man, even man’s flesh as His, of which He is not, and never will be, ashamed. Is it not the display of His glory, is it not His triumph, this wonder of divine condescension, this stooping of divine love?! Yes, men are thus the sheep of His pasture, and they have no cause to forget, but ever to remember and thank and bless Him ever that they are men.
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The New Israel (Ezekiel 33-48)
The New Israel (Ezekiel 33-48)
So long as the Jewish kingdom remained in existence Ezekiel's prophecies (those in Ezekiel 1-24) dealt almost exclusively with the nation's sin, and with the certainty of its overthrow. But when these prophecies were fulfilled by the fall of Jerusalem his message assumed a new and hopeful character. God's punishment of Israel's sin was not the end of His dealings with His people. The destruction of the old sinful Israel would be followed by the establishment of a perfect kingdom of God. The humiliation of the foreign nations (described in Ezekiel 25-32) would prepare the way for this, and would be succeeded by the restoration of the exiles. The new kingdom would be set up under new conditions of worship and fellowship with God. This concluding part of the book falls into two sections, the first dealing with the restoration from captivity (Ezekiel 33-39), and the second with the new arrangements and laws of the future kingdom (Ezekiel 40-48).
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§ 1. The Restoration (Ezekiel 33-39)
After an introductory passage (Eze_33:1-20), and two short prophecies against the wicked survivors of Jerusalem and the careless exiles (Eze_33:21-33), this section describes the restoration in connexion with the Ruler, the Land and the People successively. As to the Ruler, God is pictured as the Shepherd of Israel (Ezekiel 34). As to the Land, a prophecy against Edom (Ezekiel 35) introduces a new address to the mountain land of Israel (Ezekiel 36). As to the People, the revival of the dead nation, and the reunion of the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah are allegorically set forth (Ezekiel 37). Finally, we have a description of the invasion and overthrow of Gog, the last enemy of God's people (Ezekiel 38, 39). The beginning of the section is dated in December-January, 585-4 (or 586-5) b.c. See on Eze_33:21.
The Prophet and the Individual
This passage combines an expanded repetition of Eze_3:17-21 with a condensed repetition of Eze_18:5-29. The prophet is a watchman, responsible for warning his people of the consequences of sin. God deals with individual souls in strict justice, and desires that all should turn from their evil ways and live. These principles, already announced, became of special importance, and found their real application, after the fall of Jerusalem. As Ezekiel had foretold (Eze_24:23), that disaster stunned the exiles by its shock. They were overwhelmed by the judgment that had overtaken the nation for its sin. They pined away under it and felt that recovery was hopeless (Eze_33:10). The nation being thus destroyed there was only a company of individuals left, and the religion of the individual came to have a new significance which has never passed away.
2. Thesword] usually a symbol of impending calamity (see Eze_14:17, Ezekiel 21), but here it is simply a detail in the figure of the watchman. The destruction of Jerusalem was past, and no further judgment was specially in view. Of their coasts] RV 'from among them.' The prophet's position is represented as due to the people's choice as well as to the call of God. This indicates that Ezekiel had now more recognition from the exiles than before.
5. But.. deliver] RV 'whereas if he had taken warning he should have delivered.'
10. If our transgressions.. be] RV 'our transgressions.. are.'
13. For] RV 'in.' For it] RV 'therein.'
16. Mentioned unto] RV 'remembered against.'
18. Thereby] RV 'therein.'
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v7 So thou
So thou
The nation having failed in corporate responsibility, the appeal is now to individual loyalty. Cf. 2Ti 2:1-26.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 A. The Watchman, the False Shepherds, and the True…
II. PREDICTIONS AFTER THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM (33-48)
CHAPTERS 33-34
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A. The Watchman, the False Shepherds, and the True Shepherd
1. The renewed call of Ezekiel as watchman (Eze 33:1-20)
2. Ezekiel’s mouth opened after Jerusalem’s fall is announced (Eze 33:21-33)
3. Message against the shepherds of Israel (Eze 34:1-19)
4. The True Shepherd and restoration promised (Eze 34:20-26)
Eze 33:1-20. The commission of Ezekiel as watchman corresponds to the same call in Eze 3:16-21. In Eze 33:10-20 the prophet announces certain principles of divine justice.
The exiles knew that the just wrath of God rested upon them as a nation and that their sins were unforgiven. Therefore they asked, “If our transgressions and sins be upon us, and we pine away in them, how should we then live?” They also accused the Lord of inconsistency by saying, “the way of the Lord is not equal” (Eze 34:20; see also Eze 18:25; Eze 18:29). The answer Jehovah sends them makes known the principles on which He will deal with them individually as a just God. “O ye house of Israel, I will judge you every one after his ways.” Judgment rested upon them as a nation, but the individual still could turn to the Lord in repentance. What a wonderful declaration it is which is recorded in Eze 34:11! “Say unto them, as I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” What compassion and mercy! As it was a day of judgment which had come upon them, true repentance was the needed thing. A past righteousness could not shield them from the judgment if sin had been committed. “As for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall thereby in the day that he turneth from his wickedness.” The wicked confessing and forsaking his sin would find mercy and forgiveness, while those who were impenitent would surely die and not live. “None of his sins that he hath committed shall be mentioned unto him; he hath done that which is lawful and right; he shall surely live.” And this gracious promise was given in anticipation of the work of the cross, the redemption by the blood of Christ, by which God’s righteousness is declared in passing thus over sins of Old Testament believers who turned to God Rom 3:25. The principles of divine justice are summed up in Eze 33:18 and Eze 33:19: “When the righteous turneth from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, he shall even die thereby. But if the wicked turn from his wickedness, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall live thereby.” Needless to say, all this must be viewed as under the law-covenant. But their complaint that the way of the Lord is not equal was wrong, it was their way which was not equal. They were to be judged each according to what he had done.
Eze 33:21-33. In Eze 24:27, the promise had been given to Ezekiel that when the one who escaped from Jerusalem when it fell, arrived, the prophet should no longer be dumb. This dumbness evidently does not mean that he was continually silent, without uttering a word, for he prophesied what is written in chapters 25-32. He was to be dumb concerning Israel; the intervening chapters, before the messenger came, concern other nations. And now that promised messenger arrived and his mouth was opened again to prophesy about Israel. The first message is one of rebuke, describing their condition.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 The Prophet as a Watchman
The Prophet as a Watchman
v. 1. Again the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, in a message which was directly and verbally inspired,
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v. 2. Son of man, speak to the children of thy people, once more turning to the members of his own nation, after having addressed various foreign nations in announcing to them the judgments of the Lord, and say unto them, When I bring the sword upon a land, in the punishment of war, if the people of the land take a man of their coasts, from their borders, a member of their own nation, and set him for their watchman;
v. 3. if, when he seeth the sword come upon the land, as the invaders advanced to the attack, he blow the trumpet, in giving the alarm of their approach, and warn the people, for the signal did not merely serve for an announcement, but called upon the people and urged them to save themselves and their property,
v. 4. then, whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, being aware of the signal and its meaning, and taketh not warning, refusing and neglecting to heed its admonition, if the sword come and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head, the guilt would rest upon him alone, lie would have no one but himself to blame.
v. 5. He heard the sound of the trumpet and took not warning; his blood shall be upon him. The picture is taken from the sacrificial rites of the Jews, who transferred their own guilt to the head of animals used in sacrificing, by the laying on of hands with prayer. But he that taketh warning shall deliver his soul, or, "since, by taking warning, he would cause his life to escape. "
v. 6. But if the watchman see the sword come, as the host of invaders approaches, and blow not the trumpet, deliberately neglecting this solemn duty, and the people be not warned, since they relied upon his giving the signal: if the sword come and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity, being guilty of negligence in not maintaining constant watchfulness, as those surrounded by enemies ought to do, but his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand, he would be held responsible for his neglect in warning the people who relied upon him. Note that the meaning of the picture is here already intimated.
v. 7. So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel, the Lord here applying the picture with the one change that the installation of the watchman is taken out of human hands; therefore thou shalt hear the word at My mouth, so that it is entirely and in every way a divine warning. not the prophet’s own idea, and warn them from Me, for so the admonition must be understood.
v. 8. When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surelydie, namely, in the absence of a true repentance, becoming subject to a certain death, the earnest of everlasting death; if thou, namely, the prophet, dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, causing him to forsake his path of iniquity by announcing to him the Lord’s warning, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, for the failure to receive the warning would not take away his guilt, but his blood will I require at thine hand, thus making the prophet directly responsible, on account of his neglect, for the soul of the wicked.
v. 9. Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it, not to persist in his iniquity; if he do not turn from his way, refusing to give heed to admonition and warning, he shall die in his iniquity, but thou hast delivered thy soul, so that no blame could attach to him for the calamity which had befallen the wicked person. Cf.Ezekiel 3:17-19.
v. 10. Therefore, O thou son of man, in agreement with the principles thus set forth, speak unto the house of Israel, Thus ye speak, in trying to find some excuse for the position in which they found themselves, saying, If our transgressions and our sins be upon us and we pine away in them, on account of the load which they represented, how should we then live? The penalty of their guilt stared them in the face on every hand, and so they saw only despair or a deliberate continuance in sin before their eyes.
v. 11. Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, than which there is no more solemn oath, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, much less is it His intention to have the wicked punished in this manner, but that the wicked turn from his way and live, that alone being His gracious purpose. Turn ye, turn ye, from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel? Surely there can be no more emphatic way of declaring that God wants all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
v. 12. Therefore, thou son of man, say unto the children of thy people, the Lord thus, in a way, disclaiming any relation with them as His own people in the very peculiar sense in which He had originally acknowledged them, The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression, that is, if he leaves his righteousness for a life of wickedness, his former good life will avail him nothing; as for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall, if he duly repents of his sins and lives a life in accordance with God’s will, not fall thereby in the day that he turneth from his wickedness, since the Lord’s forgiveness is of such a nature as to set aside all former guilt, so that it is no more remembered forever; neither shall the righteous be able to live for his righteousness, by virtue of the fact that he once was a righteous man, in the day that he sinneth. Every one who forsakes the path of righteousness and deliberately chooses the way of sin can no longer expect any consideration when he leaves the path of virtue.
v. 13. When I shall say to the righteous that he shall surely live, as a reward of mercy in acknowledgment of a life of faith; if he trust to his own righteousness, in a false reliance upon his own sanctity of life, and commit iniquity, freely risking a transgression with the idea that it would not be charged to him, all his righteousnesses shall not be remembered, no longer being counted in his favor; but for his iniquity that he hath committed, he shall die for it. Cf.Ezekiel 18:24-28.
v. 14. Again, when I say unto the wicked, in pronouncing the sentence of punishment upon him, Thou shalt surely die, temporal death being, in his case, the wages of sin and the earnest of eternal damnation; if he turn from his sin and do that which is lawful and right, thereby showing the sincerity of his repentance;
v. 15. if the wicked restore the pledge, the reference being to a form of oppression by which the garment of the poor man was taken as a pledge, Exo 22:26, give again that he hath robbed, Exo 22:1-4, walk in the statutes of life, without committing iniquity, that is, follow strictly the commandments, the keeping of which had the promise of life, Lev 18:5: be shall surely live, he shall not die, for his works gave evidence of the sincerity of his repentance and of the reality of his faith.
v. 16. None of his sins that he hath committed shall be mentioned unto him, for such is the nature of God’s forgiveness; he hath done that which is lawful and right; he shall surely live. Cf.Ezekiel 18:22.
v. 17. Yet the children of thy people say, as the Lord had complained once before, 18:25-29, The way of the Lord is not equal, that is, not according to equity, they accused Hun of not being fair in His dealings with them; but as for them, their way is not equal, it was He who had the right to bring this accusation. Therefore He repeats His guiding principle which He follows in dealing with them.
v. 18. When the righteous turneth from his righteousness and committeth iniquity, he shall even die thereby, as a result of his deliberate wickedness.
v. 19. But if the wicked turn from his wickedness, having been brought to the realization of the heinousness of his sins, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall live thereby, in possession of the forgiveness of the Lord and of His merciful gift of life.
v. 20. Yet ye say, The way of the Lord is not equal, thereby heaping blasphemy upon the holiness and righteousness of the Lord. O ye house of Israel, I will judge you every one after his ways, thereby giving definite proof of the justice of all His dealings, also in His punishment upon blasphemers. It is the same method which the Lord follows in our days, as many a godless person has found out to his great sorrow.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 5, 7, 10, 12, 14, 17 the word of Yahweh came
the word of Yahweh came
This is an idiom that is used to introduce something that God told his prophets or his people. See how you translated this in Ezekiel 3:16. AT: "Yahweh spoke this message" or "Yahweh spoke these words" (See: Idiom)
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Son of man
"Son of a human being" or "Son of humanity." God calls Ezekiel this to emphasize that Ezekiel is only a human being. God is eternal and powerful, but humans are not. See how you translated this in Ezekiel 2:1. AT: "Mortal person" or "Human"
a sword against any land
The word "sword" refers to an enemy army that attacks. Also, "land" refers to the people who live there. AT: "an army to attack the people of any land" (See: Metonymy)
make him a watchman
"appoint him as a guard" or "make him guard"
He looks for the sword
Here "sword" represents an enemy army. AT: "He looks for an enemy army" (See: Metonymy)
do not pay attention
"ignore the warning"
each one's blood is on his own head
Here "blood" represents death. The phrase "on his own head" is an idiom that means the person will be held responsible. AT: "it is their own fault if they die" (See: Metonymy and Idiom)
translationWords
word of God
Son of Man
declare
people group
sword
watch
trumpet
blood
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 5, 10, 12, 17 33:1–48:35 After the oracles of judgment in chs 1–24…
33:1–48:35 After the oracles of judgment in chs 1–24 and the oracles against the nations in chs 25–32, Ezekiel here describes the future renewal of the land, the covenant, the people, and the unity of Israel and Judah under new leadership.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.