JEHOVAH’S REFUSAL TO ALLOW IDOLATERS TO ENQUIRE OF HIM: THE CERTAINTY OF THE JUDGMENTS DENOUNCED AGAINST THEM (Chap. 14)
EXEGETICAL NOTES.—The visit of the elders of the people to the prophet was the occasion of this word of God. They were alarmed by the threatenings which the prophet uttered, but they yet hoped to obtain from him a more favourable answer. They make an appeal to God’s mercy, but are silent concerning the greatness of their sin or any purpose of repentance. These elders were not the representatives of the majority of the exiles who practised the most open and the boldest forms of idolatry; but rather of those who, though they outwardly feared God, yet inwardly served the world and the spirit of the age. “These men have set up idols in their heart” (Ezekiel 14:3). The prophet’s answer to their inquiry extends to Ezekiel 14:11. The latter part of the chapter declares that the coming judgments on Jerusalem will not be averted even for the sake of the righteous few therein.
THE LORD GIVES NO ANSWER TO THE IDOLATERS (Ezekiel 14:1-11)
Ezekiel 14:1. “The elders of Israel.” “These men were not deputies from the Israelites in Palestine, but elders of the exiles among whom Ezekiel had been labouring” (Keil). Their object in this visit is not distinctly stated, but probably it was that they might know something further concerning the duration of the captivity, or the fate of Jerusalem. Unlike the elders in chap. Ezekiel 20:1, they had not come with the definite purpose of inquiring of the Lord.
Ezekiel 14:2-3. “These men have set up their idols in their heart.” They were not given to the grosser forms of idolatry, but they were strangers to the true worship of God. They had set up some object of their own creation, which they put in the place of God. They allowed their minds to be deluded by phantoms. In heart and spirit they were one with the worst idolaters around them. “And put the stumbling-block of their iniquity before their face.” They even refused to put away idols from their presence. They sought not to flee from temptation by removing what would be an occasion and reminder of sin. “Should I be enquired of at all by them?” This question implies a strong negation.
Ezekiel 14:4. “I the Lord will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols.” The form of the verb to “answer” gives the meaning, “I the Lord will answer him by myself,” instead of by the prophet. The manner in which the Lord will answer the idolatry is set forth in Ezekiel 14:8. They are to be treated as all idols should be treated.
Ezekiel 14:5. “That I may take the house of Israel in their heart.” The Lord will reach the very seat of idolatry, touch their conscience, and bring down their heart by judgments.
Ezekiel 14:6-8. Repetition of the threat already uttered, and also of the summons to repentance. “Repent, and turn yourselves from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations.” “We have here a combination of the Kal and Hiphil conjugations for the sake of emphasis. Return unreservedly from your abominable idolatries. Be NO longer estranged from me, either in heart or practice. They were neither to hanker after in desire, nor look towards the accursed thing” (Henderson). “Every one of the house of Israel, or of the stranger that sojourneth in Israel.” All who hypocritically applied to the prophet, whether proselytes or native Jews, were liable to the same judgments. Strangers were only permitted to dwell in the land of Israel on condition of forsaking all idolatry and all moral abominations, and worshipping Jehovah alone (Leviticus 20:2; Leviticus 18:26; Leviticus 17:10; Exodus 12:19). “And will make him a sign and a proverb.” “The expression is a pregnant one; I make him desolate, so that he becomes a sign and proverb” (Keil). “An exemplary punishment” (Heng.)
Ezekiel 14:9-11. No prophet is to give any other answer. “And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet.” He who delivers any other message, though he may think that he speaks the word of the Lord, is not a true prophet. When God is represented as deceiving such a prophet, we are to understand something more than merely a permissive sense, as if God allowed it and did not interfere to prevent the deception. It was Jehovah who sent the lying spirit into the prophets of Ahab, and for this very purpose, that by predicting success to the king they might secure his fall (1 Kings 22:20, &c.) “This persuading of the prophets to the utterance of self-willed words, which have not been inspired by God, only takes place in persons who admit evil into themselves, and is designed to tempt them and lead them to decide whether they will endeavour to resist and conquer the sinful inclinations of their hearts, or will allow them to shape themselves into outward deeds, in which case they will become ripe for judgment. It is in this sense that God persuades such a prophet, in order that He may then cut him off out of His people” (Keil). “If matters should turn out differently from what the prophet expected and foretold, I have so ordered them in the course of my providence as to issue in such a result. It is the prerogative of Deity to control the sinful operations of created minds, without interfering with free agency” (Henderson). “The punishment of the prophet shall he even as the punishment of him that seeketh unto him.” The false prophets and those who inquire of them are both alike guilty, and come into the same condemnation. Neither in one nor in the other was there any desire to learn the truth, but rather to seek excuse for their sins and errors even by the daring impiety of demanding for them the sanctions of religion. “That the house of Israel may no more go astray from me, neither be polluted any more with all their transgressions.” “It serves to purify the people of God. For the particular sinful generation it flows from the principle of retribution; but for the whole community of God a purpose of mercy lies at the ground of the exercise of this retribution. The prophet here clearly opens up the view to the light which shines behind the darkness.” (Heng.) “It was to this end that, in the last times of the kingdom of Judah, God allowed false prophecy to prevail so mightily,—namely, that it might accelerate the process of distinguishing between the righteous and the wicked; and then, by means of the judgment which destroyed the wicked, purify His nation and lead it on to the great end of its calling” (Keil).
HOMILETICS
HYPOCRITICAL INQUIRERS AFTER GOD
These elders had come as a deputation from among the exiles in order to consult Ezekiel as a prophet of the Lord. They had come from a distance, and are to be distinguished from those mentioned in chap. Ezekiel 8:1 who were already with the prophet. We are not told expressly what their purpose was. They may have sought guidance concerning some question which they felt to be a difficulty. They may have simply waited to hear what seasonable truth the prophet had still to utter. But from Ezekiel 14:3 we learn that they certainly did come in the character of inquirers. And the answer which the Lord gives through theprophet shows that they were not sincere, but hypocritical inquirers. We have here the great features of all such.
I. They closely imitate the conduct of real inquirers. Hypocrites are generally described as those who deceive others by making an outward show of piety. But the sacred writers call those hypocrites not only who deceived others, but deceived even themselves. These closely imitate the religious actions of the pious, but they are ignorant of those deep spiritual principles upon which such conduct is founded. These have no true knowledge of God. They only know Him by tradition and the customs of religious service and worship. These elders had some of the qualities of real inquirers after the mind and will of God.
1. They were already stirred by the message of the prophet. They took alarm at his threatenings. They were afraid at God’s judgments.
2. They tome to the prophet, as an inspired messenger of God, for further counsel. They were the subjects of religious awakening, and professed themselves ready to learn all the will of God. Men may go as far as this without any true and essential knowledge of the realities of religion.
II. They lack the proper characteristics of real inquirers.
1. They apply to religious teachers, not to be instructed in God’s will, but to be confirmed in their own superstitions and errors. They were ready to hear and obey the prophet so long as he prophesied after their own heart. While religion did not interfere with their cherished convictions and prospects they were ready to obey its precepts and ordinances. They did not really believe that the threatened judgments would come to pass, and they desired a prophet who would confirm them in their false hopes. Such men feel a certain satisfaction in heaping to themselves teachers. In some way they feel the necessity of obtaining the sanctions of religion. But they come to the prophet not to learn, but to be confirmed in the purpose of their evil heart. They have not learned what it is to surrender the mind as well as the heart and will to God.
2. They retain sin in their heart, though they avoid the outward manifestation of it. They abstained from the gross forms of idolatry which were practised by their countrymen, but “they set up their idols in their heart” (Ezekiel 14:3). The real root-principle of idolatry was still in them.
3. They take no steps to remove the occasions of sin. “They put the stumbling-block of their iniquity before their face” (Ezekiel 14:3). While these outward temptations and means of sin are suffered to remain, it is of no use to seek first to cleanse the heart. Images must first be destroyed, else there is little prospect of rooting out idolatry from the land. Religious teachers should testify against both outward and inward idolatry. If idols are not removed from the eyes of men the temptation to worship them will remain, however faithful the teaching may be against the sin of it. The outward forms of superstition should first be destroyed, else there is little hope of promoting the pure worship of the heart.
III. They are exposed to terrible judgments. Even though they inquire of a true prophet and cannot be charged with open transgression.
1. They cannot hope to deceive God, who sees and knows the heart. God can see into the depths of the heart, which is the real man. It is the sinful heart within which makes the outward temptations of the world dangerous.
2. They are left to the action of the law of retribution. Retribution in kind, “according to the multitude of his idols (Ezekiel 14:4). They trusted in idols; let them have them now. Let them see what their own refuges can do for them. God refuses to be inquired of them. “He heareth not sinners” (John 9:31). The Word of God is taken away from the despisers of the truth (Acts 13:46). There is a time when God gives an answer, but not as men desire, and there is also a time when He refuses to answer. In both these modes of treatment He shows His righteous indignation, Sinners are left without answer or help in order that they might come to the true knowledge of their sin.
IV. Their only hope for escape is by a thorough repentance.
1. The heart must be turned to God. “Repent and turn yourselves from your idols” (Ezekiel 14:6) The Lord will not share His glory with another. The heart must be entirely given up to the service and worship of the only God.
2. The outward occasion of sin must be removed. “Turn your faces from all your abominations” (Ezekiel 14:6) They must avoid the outward forms of idolatry lest they should become again a temptation and a snare. Their repentance must be a complete reformation both of the outer and of the inner life.
IDOLATRY IN THE HEART (Ezekiel 14:3)
Idolatry is an old sin. The worship of the true God is older; but it was soon corrupted, for men “did not like to retain God in their knowledge” (Romans 1:28). There may be idolatry in the heart even when idols are abolished from external worship. God’s commandment is “exceeding broad.” Idols have long been banished from our land, and therefore the second commandment has in one sense become obsolete. But all that is essential to the sin of worshipping them may still be found even in Christian lands. Everything that stands between a man’s soul and heaven is an idol,—it is that which he trusts in with his whole heart. For the root-principle of idolatry is the tendency to put something in the place of God, to allow the mind to be deluded by phantoms. Idols of all kinds are mere phantoms, they are (as St. Paul tells us) nothing in the world; there is no reality in them. When God is not truly known to the soul within, the man of necessity becomes an idolater. Whatever hinders the true knowledge of God is idolatry. Bacon, the father of modern science, has distinguished certain idols or phantoms which interfere with human knowledge. These idols he represents as certain false notions which possess the mind, and which must be dislodged if men would attain to the truth concerning the knowledge of man and nature. There are “idols of the tribe,” “of the cave,” “of the market-place,” “of the theatre.” It will be found that idolatries in religion spring from similar sources.
I. Idols of the tribe. By which Bacon means, those errors and false conceptions which have their origin in human nature itself. He says that “the human mind is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolours the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it.” Does not this speak to us of our natural ignorance of God, which distorts all the indications He has given us of His character and will? It may assume the form of gross idolatry, of atheism, of indifference, or of the various forms of superstition where ignorant fear is substituted for the worship of Him who alone is to be feared.
II. Idols of the cave. Bacon describes these as the sources of error which belong to individual men. These may arise from the peculiar constitution of our mind, from our early habits and education, from all those influences which form our individual characters. “Each man,” says Bacon, “has a den or cave of his own.” Sometimes it is dark and comfortless, shutting out the light of heaven, full of doleful things and gloomy fears. Each man has some infirmity of mind or temper which leads him to judge wrongly of God and of duty. Each man has his besetting sin, and must bear his own burden, fight against his own enemies, and seek peace for his own soul.
III. Idols of the market-place. These are described as false notions or conceptions, which arise from the intercourse of men with each other. It may be that each man in his own cave—in himself as an individual—is ashamed of the customs and notions of which men as communities approve. But these are often deemed respectable and right if only they are adopted by good society, or by common usage, or by the laws and customs of that particular business or profession to which the man belongs.
IV. Idols of the theatre. By which are meant those hindrances to the knowledge of the truth which have been imported into men’s minds from the various dogmas of human philosophies: It is certainly a hindrance in all intellectual pursuits that many ingenious men have gone wrong before us. Hence knowledge is retarded. Mental power is wasted, for some wiser man must arise to clear away those errors to which great men of former times have given currency. We have such idols of the theatre in religion,—each successive system of infidel philosophy, rationalism, every device for setting aside the revelation which God has given of Himself to man in Jesus Christ, every attempt to get rid of the supernatural and divine element in the Scriptures of God. All these have hidden God from many human souls. They are the peculiar temptations of intellectual men, of speculative minds. Such are often free from vulgar temptations, and it would seem as if in this way their proper measure of the difficulties of probation is filled up to them. And all idols, whether they spring from that nature which is common to mankind, or from each man’s peculiarities of temper and disposition, or from the customs of human business and conventional moralities, or from those ingenious speculations which we find in books,—all these are only to be overcome by the recognition of God in Christ. They are all mere phantoms, they hide God from the soul, they lead us astray, they have no power to teach us, they cannot bring us nearer heaven. But God has not left us to wander in uncertainty. He has given us the true Light. Our blessed Lord said, “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father,” “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” He gives the invitation, “Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” He will give us rest from the pursuit of vanities of all kinds, from empty speculations which weary the soul for no profit. If we have found the true we cannot worship the false. If we are true worshippers of Christ we must put away all our idols, for He will not share His love and worship with another. Christ gives us the true idea of God. The sin of idolatry is not now impossible though idols are removed from the eyes of men. The Second Commandment may be dead as concerns the letter of it, but the spirit of it is as potent as ever to convince men of sin. How many professed worshippers in the Christian Church set up their idols in their heart and then come to inquire of God! There is a tendency to worship something which is not God, to deny Him the full devotion of our hearts. Even when men will scarcely dare entirely to leave His service, they still strive to serve two masters. All who love pleasure, earthly honours and distinctions, more than they love God, are idolaters. In short, all are involved in this sin who seek the world first before the kingdom of God and His righteousness.
THE INQUIRERS OF FALSE PROPHETS (Ezekiel 14:9-11)
I. They hope to obtain a more favourable answer. The true prophets do not speak that which they would like to hear, so they seek teachers after their own minds. They will undertake to decide for themselves what prophets are true or false by the correspondence of the message with their own corrupt wishes. They are willingly deceived.
II. They do not thereby escape God’s judgments.
1. Even false prophets are by the will of God. “I the Lord have deceived that prophet” (Ezekiel 14:9). God permits such men to preach error, as He permits all other evils to prevail in the world. He does not suppress them by an act of power. He allows the tares and the wheat to grow together until the appointed time of judgment. And we must learn from God’s dealings with mankind the lesson of toleration. If we attempt to pluck up the tares we run the risk of rooting out the wheat also. No man has knowledge or skill enough which will serve him to anticipate God’s final judgment. He who attempts this may, indeed, do some good, but he will certainly do much harm.
2. God uses and controls evil for the working out of His purposes. It is true that “God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man” (James 1:13). But God makes use of the sins of men in working out His great designs. Thus He allows men to fall into one sin as a punishment for another. These exiles loved to be deceived, and they were deceived. They loved darkness, and they were allowed to wander into greater darkness. A man must either repent, or he must continue in the sinful path towards his punishment. It is by God’s law that even the germs of sin are permitted to be planted, to be fostered, and to grow, so that sin shall attain to its full maturity and bring on its own punishment. God’s Providence so orders the course of events that men who will not have the truth shall be brought to ruin by a lie.
III. These judgments are intended for the benefit of God’s people.
1. To preserve them from transgression (Ezekiel 14:11).
2. To test their faith. By the flourishing of false prophets their own fidelity and steadfastness would be tried. The prevalence of error makes manifest the tried and approved children of truth (1 Corinthians 11:19).
3. To confirm their faith. By witnessing the judgments of God fulfilled upon others.
4. To teach them to realise their relationship to God. “That they may be my people, and I may be their God” (Ezekiel 14:11). We can have no true peace until we know that the Lord is our God. The essence of religion consists in the appropriation of God by the soul.
5. To separate between the righteous and the ungodly. God may use even sin and error to contribute to this final purpose of His judgment (2 Thessalonians 2:10-11).
(Ezekiel 14:9.)
False prophets were both in Judea and in Babylon, and the people had often recourse unto them. They spake pleasing things. They told them who were in Judea that Nebuchadnezzar should never subdue and carry them captives; yea, they told them that those in Babylon should shortly return. These were vain, false, and deceitful prophecies, and Divine Providence ordered it so. We have here—
I. A supposition. “If the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing.” The false prophets were deceived in what they spake to the people. Zedekiah and the rest of the prophets which bade Ahab to go up to Ramoth-Gilead and prosper, were deceived (1 Kings 22). Hananiah and Shelemiah made that people trust in a lie (Jeremiah 28:15; Jeremiah 32:31). They were deceived in their prophets, and deceive others.
II. An assertion. “I the Lord have deceived that prophet.” These words sound very harsh, and no man durst have attributed them unto the Lord, had not He Himself said so. The words, “I have deceived” are to be taken as a judicial act of God, who, dealing with them as delinquents, punisheth them with this special judgment of seduction; they were idolatrous and hypocritical, and God punished those sins with others, and so accidentally was the efficient cause of their deception. God finding those men false and forward to deceive, hearkening to their own hearts, and following their own spirits (Ezekiel 13:2-3), He gave them up and over to vain visions and lying divinations, which was one punishment, and to perdition, which was another punishment following thereupon. Have you a mind to be prophets, to prophesy lies? Ye shall be so. In Isaiah 63:17, we read, “O Lord, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear?” God did this in judgment to the people who affected false prophets, and chose their own ways (Isaiah 66:3), and delighted in their abominations. He in judgment gave them up to their own ways, and to hardness of heart (Psalms 71:11-12).
III. A threatening. “I will stretch out my hand upon him.” God would put forth His power to punish such a prophet. But if God deceived him, how can He in justice punish or destroy that prophet? We answer,
1. The false prophet did whatever he did freely. He was not forced by any power or act of God. His seduction was principally from himself; and it was his own fault that he was deceived, that he deceived others.
2. A man may serve Providence, and yet sin against the law of God. The secret Providence had ordered it that this people should be seduced by false prophets, yet God in His word had forbidden such (Deuteronomy 13). And because men are to look at what is written, not what is secret and hidden, therefore if they violate the law, God may justly punish thereupon (Acts 4:27-28). Herod, Pilate, Judas, and the Jews, they did to Christ whatsoever God had determined to be done, yet they were not without sin, nor without punishment, because they transgressed the rule given them. We make two observations,—
(1.) The Lord, in His infinite wisdom and justice, doth make a punishment of sin, and punish one sin with another. Besides corporal judgments He hath spiritual; if the prophet be deceived, “I the Lord have deceived him,” I have laid this judgment upon him, that he should be deceived, led into errors, and deceive others; this he hath deserved at my hands, and this punishment in just judgment I inflict upon him. The Scriptures hold out frequently this way of God’s proceedings with sinners, His punishment of one sin with another; (2 Chronicles 25:17-20; Jeremiah 4:10; Romans 1:25-26; 2 Thessalonians 2:10-11).
(2.) God will deal severely with false prophets. “I will stretch out my hand upon him.” He would be made an example to all, as were Hananiah and Shemaiah (Jeremiah 28:15-16; Jeremiah 29:31-32.—Greenhill).
“The great sophister and prince of darkness (God permitting him) can strangely blindfold our reason and muffle our understanding; and, no doubt, the chiefest cause that most of the obstinate, besotted sinners of the world are not sensible that the devil blinds and abuses them is, that he has indeed actually done so already. For how dreadfully did God consign over the heathen world to a perpetual slavery to Satan’s deceits? They worshipped him, they consulted with him, and so absolutely were they sealed up under the ruling cheat, that they took all his tricks and impostures for Oracle and Instruction. And the truth is, when men under the powerful preaching of the Gospel will grow heathens in the viciousness of their practices, it is but just with God to suffer them (by a very natural transition) to grow heathens, too, in the grossness of their delusions.”—South.