{"commentary":{"id":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","website":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamieson-Fausset-Brown_Bible_Commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"db3d4c8b3c1f32ef9d1430a57392e02bda3a17aac1f9bbe398461de021a3cb13","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":66,"totalNumberOfChapters":1187,"totalNumberOfVerses":17056,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"EZK","commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Ezekiel","commonName":"Ezekiel","introduction":"The name Ezekiel means \"(whom) God will strengthen\" [GESENIUS]; or, \"God will prevail\" [ROSENMULLER]. His father was Buzi (Eze 1:3), a priest, and he probably exercised the priestly office himself at Jerusalem, previous to his captivity, as appears from the matured priestly character to be seen in his prophecies, a circumstance which much increased his influence with his captive fellow countrymen at Babylon. Tradition represents Sarera as the land of his nativity. His call to prophesy was in the fifth year from the date of his being carried away with Jehoiachin (see Kg2 24:11-15) by Nebuchadnezzar, 599 B.C. The best portions of the people seem to have been among the first carried away (Eze 11:16; Jer 24:2-7-8, Jer 24:10). The ungodly were willing to do anything to remain in their native land; whereas the godly believed the prophets and obeyed the first summons to surrender, as the only path of safety. These latter, as adhering to the theocratic principle, were among the earliest to be removed by the Chaldeans, who believed that, if they were out of the way, the nation would fall to pieces of itself. They were despised by their brethren in the Holy Land not yet captives, as having no share in the temple sacrifices. Thus Ezekiel's sphere of labor was one happier and less impeded by his countrymen than that of Jeremiah at home. The vicinity of the river Chebar, which flows into the Euphrates near Circeslum, was the first scene of his prophecies (Eze 1:1). Tel-Abib there (now Thallaba) was his place of residence (Eze 3:15), whither the elders used to come to inquire as to God's messages through him. They were eager to return to Jerusalem, but he taught them that they must first return to their God. He continued to prophesy for at least twenty-two years, that is, to the twenty-seventh year of the captivity (Eze 29:17), and probably remained with the captives by the Chebar the rest of his life. A treatise, falsely attributed to EPIPHANIUS, states a tradition that he was killed at Babylon by a prince of his people whom he had reproved for idolatry.\n\nHe was contemporary with Jeremiah and Daniel. The former had prophesied for thirty-four years before Ezekiel, and continued to do so for six or seven years after him. The call of Ezekiel followed the very next year after the communication of Jeremiah's predictions to Babylon (Jer 51:59), and was divinely intended as a sequel to them. Daniel's predictions are mostly later than Ezekiel's but his piety and wisdom had become proverbial in the early part of Ezekiel's ministry (Eze 14:14, Eze 14:16; Eze 28:3). They much resemble one another, especially in the visions and grotesque images. It is a remarkable proof of genuineness that in Ezekiel no prophecies against Babylon occur among those directed against the enemies of the covenant-people. Probably he desired not to give needless offence to the government under which he lived. The effect of his labors is to be seen in the improved character of the people towards the close of the captivity, and their general cessation from idolatry and a return to the law. It was little more than thirty years after the close of his labors when the decree of the Jews' restoration was issued. His leading characteristic is realizing, determined energy; this admirably adapted him for opposing the \"rebellious house\" \"of stubborn front and hard heart,\" and for maintaining the cause of God's Church among his countrymen in a foreign land, when the external framework had fallen to pieces. His style is plain and simple. His conceptions are definite, and the details even of the symbolical and enigmatical parts are given with lifelike minuteness. The obscurity lies in the substance, not in the form, of his communications. The priestly element predominates in his prophecies, arising from his previous training as a priest. He delights to linger about the temple and to find in its symbolical forms the imagery for conveying his instructions. This was divinely ordered to satisfy the spiritual want felt by the people in the absence of the outward temple and its sacrifices. In his images he is magnificent, though austere and somewhat harsh. He abounds in repetitions, not for ornament, but for force and weight. Poetical parallelism is not found except in a few portions, as in the seventh, twenty-first, twenty-seventh, twenty-eighth, twenty-ninth through thirty-first chapters. His great aim was to stimulate the dormant minds of the Jews. For this end nothing was better suited than the use of mysterious symbols expressed in the plainest words. The superficial, volatile, and wilfully unbelieving would thereby be left to judicial blindness (Isa 6:10; Mat 13:11-13, &c.); whereas the better-disposed would be awakened to a deeper search into the things of God by the very obscurity of the symbols. Inattention to this divine purpose has led the modern Jews so to magnify this obscurity as to ordain that no one shall read this book till he has passed his thirtieth year.\n\nRABBI HANANIAS is said to have satisfactorily solved the difficulties (Mischna) which were alleged against its canonicity. Ecclesiasticus 49:8 refers to it, and JOSEPHUS [Antiquities, 10.5.1]. It is mentioned as part of the canon in MELITO'S catalogue [EUSEBIUS, Ecclesiastical History, 4.26]; also in ORIGEN, JEROME, and the Talmud. The oneness of tone throughout and the repetition of favorite expressions exclude the suspicion that separate portions are not genuine. The earlier portion, the first through the thirty-second chapters, which mainly treats of sin and judgment, is a key to interpret the latter portion, which is more hopeful and joyous, but remote in date. Thus a unity and an orderly progressive character are imparted to the whole. The destruction of Jerusalem is the central point. Previous to this he calls to repentance and warns against blind confidence in Egypt (Eze 17:15-17; compare Jer 37:7) or other human stay. After it he consoles the captives by promising them future deliverance and restoration. His prophecies against foreign nations stand between these two great divisions, and were uttered in the interval between the intimation that Nebuchadnezzar was besieging Jerusalem and the arrival of the news that he had taken it (Eze 33:21). HAVERNICK marks out nine sections:--(1) Ezekiel's call to prophesy (Eze. 1:1-3:15). (2) Symbolical predictions of the destruction of Jerusalem (Eze. 3:16-7:27). (3) A year and two months later a vision of the temple polluted by Tammuz or Adonis worship; God's consequent scattering of fire over the city and forsaking of the temple to reveal Himself to an inquiring people in exile; happier and purer times to follow (Eze. 8:1-11:25). (4) Exposure of the particular sins prevalent in the several classes--priests, prophets, and princes (Eze. 12:1-19:14). (5) A year later the warning of judgment for national guilt repeated with greater distinctness as the time drew nearer (Eze. 20:1-23:49). (6) Two years and five months later--the very day on which Ezekiel speaks--is announced as the day of the beginning of the siege; Jerusalem shall be overthrown (Eze. 24:1-27). (7) Predictions against foreign nations during the interval of his silence towards his own people; if judgment begins at the house of God, much more will it visit the ungodly world (Eze. 25:1-32:32). Some of these were uttered much later than others, but they all began to be given after the fall of Jerusalem. (8) In the twelfth year of the captivity, when the fugitives from Jerusalem (Eze 33:21) had appeared in Chaldea, he foretells better times and the re-establishment of Israel and the triumph of God's kingdom on earth over its enemies, Seir, the heathen, and Gog (Eze. 33:1-39:29). (9) After an interval of thirteen years the closing vision of the order and beauty of the restored kingdom (Eze. 40:1-48:35). The particularity of details as to the temple and its offerings rather discountenances the view of this vision being only symbolical, and not at all literal. The event alone can clear it up. At all events it has not yet been fulfilled; it must be future. Ezekiel was the only prophet (in the strict sense) among the Jews at Babylon. Daniel was rather a seer than a prophet, for the spirit of prophecy was given him to qualify him, not for a spiritual office, but for disclosing future events. His position in a heathen king's palace fitted him for revelations of the outward relations of God's kingdom to the kingdoms of the world, so that his book is ranked by the Jews among the Hagiographa or \"Sacred Writings,\" not among the prophetical Scriptures. On the other hand, Ezekiel was distinctively a prophet, and one who had to do with the inward concerns of the divine kingdom. As a priest, when sent into exile, his service was but transferred from the visible temple at Jerusalem to the spiritual temple in Chaldea. \n\n\n\nNext: Ezekiel Chapter 1\n\n","order":26,"numberOfChapters":48,"sha256":"77a36f7a59a5d4db239b980af31f7a75c9b226da690c4d0154330b6770f5cfc5","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/EZK/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"EZK","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":48,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/EZK/48.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"EZK","chapter":48},"totalNumberOfVerses":932},"chapter":{"number":14,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["heart . . . face--The heart is first corrupted, and then the outward manifestation of idol-worship follows; they set their idols before their eyes. With all their pretense of consulting God now, they have not even put away their idols outwardly; implying gross contempt of God. \"Set up,\" literally, \"aloft\"; implying that their idols had gained the supreme ascendancy over them. \n\nstumbling-block of . . . iniquity--See Pro 3:21, Pro 3:23, \"Let not them (God's laws) depart from thine eyes, then . . . thy foot shall not stumble.\" Instead of God's law, which (by being kept before their eyes) would have saved them from stumbling, they set up their idols before their eyes, which proved a stumbling-block, causing them to stumble (Eze 7:19). \n\ninquired of at all--literally, \"should I with inquiry be inquired of\" by such hypocrites as they are? (Psa 66:18; Pro 15:29; Pro 28:9).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["and cometh--and yet cometh, reigning himself to be a true worshipper of Jehovah. \n\nhim that cometh--so the Hebrew Margin reads. But the Hebrew text reading is, \"according to it, according to the multitude of his idols\"; the anticipative clause with the pronoun not being pleonastic, but increasing the emphasis of the following clause with the noun. \"I will answer,\" literally, reflexively, \"I will Myself (or for Myself) answer him.\" \n\naccording to . . . idols--thus, \"answering a fool according to his folly\"; making the sinner's sin his punishment; retributive justice (Pro 1:31; Pro 26:5).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["That I may take--that is, unveil and overtake with punishment the dissimulation and impiety of Israel hid in their own heart. Or, rather, \"That I may punish them by answering them after their own hearts\"; corresponding to \"according to the multitude of his idols\" (see on Eze 14:4); an instance is given in Eze 14:9; Rom 1:28; Th2 2:11, God giving them up in wrath to their own lie. \n\nidols--though pretending to \"inquire\" of Me, \"in their hearts\" they are \"estranged from Me,\" and love \"idols.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["Though God so threatened the people for their idolatry (Eze 14:5), yet He would rather they should avert the calamity by \"repentance.\" \n\nturn yourselves--CALVIN translates, \"turn others\" (namely, the stranger proselytes in the land). As ye have been the advisers of others (see Eze 14:7, \"the stranger that sojourneth in Israel\") to idolatry, so bestow at least as much pains in turning them to the truth; the surest proof of repentance. But the parallelism to Eze 14:3-4 favors English Version. Their sin was twofold: (1) \"In their heart\" or inner man; (2) \"Put before their face,\" that is, exhibited outwardly. So their repentance is generally expressed by \"repent,\" and is then divided into: (1) \"Turn yourselves (inwardly) from your idols\"; (2) \"Turn away your faces (outwardly) from all your abominations.\" It is not likely that an exhortation to convert others should come between the two affecting themselves.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["stranger--the proselyte, tolerated in Israel only on condition of worshipping no God but Jehovah (Lev 17:8-9). \n\ninquire of him concerning me--that is, concerning My will. \n\nby myself--not by word, but by deed, that is, by judgments, marking My hand and direct agency; instead of answering him through the prophet he consults. FAIRBAIRN translates, as it is the same Hebrew as in the previous clause, \"concerning Me,\" it is natural that God should use the same expression in His reply as was used in the consultation of Him. But the sense, I think, is the same. The hypocrite inquires of the prophet concerning God; and God, instead of replying through the prophet, replies for Himself concerning Himself.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["And I will set my face against that man--(See on Lev 17:10). \n\nand will make him a sign--literally, \"I will destroy him so as to become a sign\"; it will be no ordinary destruction, but such as will make him be an object pointed at with wonder by all, as Korah, &c. (Num 26:10; Deu 28:37).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["I the Lord have deceived that prophet--not directly, but through Satan and his ministers; not merely permissively, but by overruling their evil to serve the purposes of His righteous judgment, to be a touchstone to separate the precious from the vile, and to \"prove\" His people (Deu 13:3; Kg1 22:23; Jer 4:10; Th2 2:11-12). Evil comes not from God, though God overrules it to serve His will (Job 12:16; Jam 1:3). This declaration of God is intended to answer their objection, \"Jeremiah and Ezekiel are but two opposed to the many prophets who announce 'peace to us.\" \"Nay, deceive not yourselves, those prophets of yours are deluding you, and I permit them to do so as a righteous judgment on your wilful blindness.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":10,"content":["As they dealt deceitfully with God by seeking answers of peace without repentance, so God would let them be dealt with deceitfully by the prophets whom they consulted. God would chastise their sin with a corresponding sin; as they rejected the safe directions of the true light, He would send the pernicious delusions of a false one; prophets would be given them who should re-echo the deceitfulness that already wrought in their own bosom, to their ruin [FAIRBAIRN]. The people had themselves alone to blame, for they were long ago forewarned how to discern and to treat a false prophet (Deu 13:3); the very existence of such deceivers among them was a sign of God's judicial displeasure (compare in Saul's case, Sa1 16:14; Sa1 28:6-7). They and the prophet, being dupes of a common delusion, should be involved in a common ruin.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":11,"content":["Love was the spring of God's very judgments on His people, who were incurable by any other process (Eze 11:20; Eze 37:27).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["The second part of the chapter: the effect which the presence of a few righteous persons was to have on the purposes of God (compare Gen 18:24-32). God had told Jeremiah that the guilt of Judah was too great to be pardoned even for the intercession of Moses and Samuel (Psa 99:6; Jer 14:2; Jer 15:1), which had prevailed formerly (Exo 32:11-14; Num 14:13-20; Sa1 7:8-12), implying the extraordinary heinousness of their guilt, since in ordinary cases \"the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man (for others) availeth much\" (Jam 5:16). Ezekiel supplements Jeremiah by adding that not only those two once successful intercessors, but not even the three pre-eminently righteous men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, could stay God's judgments by their righteousness.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["staff of . . . bread--on which man's existence is supported as on a staff (Eze 4:16; Eze 5:16; Lev 26:26; Psa 104:15; Isa 3:1). I will send a famine.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["Noah, Daniel . . . Job--specified in particular as having been saved from overwhelming calamities for their personal righteousness. Noah had the members of his family alone given to him, amidst the general wreck. Daniel saved from the fury of the king of Babylon the three youths (Dan 2:17-18, Dan 2:48-49). Though his prophecies mostly were later than those of Ezekiel, his fame for piety and wisdom was already established, and the events recorded in Dan. 1:1-2:49 had transpired. The Jews would naturally, in their fallen condition, pride themselves on one who reflected such glory on his nation at the heathen capital, and would build vain hopes (here set aside) on his influence in averting ruin from them. Thus the objection to the authenticity of Daniel from this passage vanishes. \"Job\" forms the climax (and is therefore put out of chronological order), having not even been left a son or a daughter, and having had himself to pass through an ordeal of suffering before his final deliverance, and therefore forming the most simple instance of the righteousness of God, which would save the righteous themselves alone in the nation, and that after an ordeal of suffering, but not spare even a son or daughter for their sake (Eze 14:16, Eze 14:18, Eze 14:20; compare Jer 7:16; Jer 11:14; Jer 14:11). \n\ndeliver . . . souls by . . . righteousness-- (Pro 11:4); not the righteousness of works, but that of grace, a truth less clearly understood under the law (Rom 4:3).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["The argument is cumulative. He first puts the case of the land sinning so as to fall under the judgment of a famine (Eze 14:13); then (Eze 14:15) \"noisome beasts\" (Lev 26:22); then \"the sword\"; then, worst of all, \"pestilence.\" The three most righteous of men should deliver only themselves in these several four cases. In Eze 14:21 he concentrates the whole in one mass of condemnation. If Noah, Daniel, Job, could not deliver the land, when deserving only one judgment, \"how much more\" when all four judgments combined are justly to visit the land for sin, shall these three righteous men not deliver it.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":19,"content":["in blood--not literally. In Hebrew, \"blood\" expresses every premature kind of death.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["How much more--literally, \"Surely shall it be so now, when I send,\" &c. If none could avert the one only judgment incurred, surely now, when all four are incurred by sin, much more impossible it will be to deliver the land.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["Yet . . . a remnant--not of righteous persons, but some of the guilty who should \"come forth\" from the destruction of Jerusalem to Babylon, to lead a life of hopeless exile there. The reference here is to judgment, not mercy, as Eze 14:23 shows. \n\nye shall see their . . . doings; and . . . be comforted--Ye, the exiles at the Chebar, who now murmur at God's judgment about to be inflicted on Jerusalem as harsh, when ye shall see the wicked \"ways\" and character of the escaped remnant, shall acknowledge that both Jerusalem and its inhabitants deserved their fate; his recognition of the righteousness of the judgment will reconcile you to it, and so ye shall be \"comforted\" under it [CALVIN]. Then would follow mercy to the elect remnant, though that is not referred to here, but in Eze 20:43.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":23,"content":["they shall comfort you--not in words, but by your recognizing in their manifest guilt, that God had not been unjustly severe to them and the city.\n\nThis chapter represents, in the way of a brief introduction, what the sixteenth chapter details minutely.\n\n\n\n\nNext: Ezekiel Chapter 15\n\n"]}],"introduction":"HYPOCRITICAL INQUIRERS ARE ANSWERED ACCORDING TO THEIR HYPOCRISY. THE CALAMITIES COMING ON THE PEOPLE; BUT A REMNANT IS TO ESCAPE. (Eze. 14:1-23)\n\nelders--persons holding that dignity among the exiles at the Chebar. GROTIUS refers this to Seraiah and those sent with him from Judea (Jer 51:59). The prophet's reply, first, reflecting on the character of the inquirers, and, secondly, foretelling the calamities coming on Judea, may furnish an idea of the subject of their inquiry. \n\nsat before me--not at once able to find a beginning of their speech; indicative of anxiety and despondency.\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/EZK/14.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"EZK","chapter":14},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/EZK/15.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"EZK","chapter":15},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/EZK/13.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"EZK","chapter":13},"numberOfVerses":17}