Ezekiel 14:15-21 - Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Bible Comments

If I cause noisome beasts to pass through the land, and they spoil it, so that it be desolate, that no man may pass through because of the beasts:

The argument is cumulative. He first puts the case of the land sinning, so as to fall under the judgment of a "famine" (Ezekiel 14:13); then (Ezekiel 14:15) "noisome beasts" (Leviticus 26:22); then "the sword" (Ezekiel 14:17); then, worst of all, "pestilence" (Ezekiel 14:19): the three most righteous of men should deliver only themselves in these several four cases. In Ezekiel 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!

Verse 19. If I send a pestilence ... and pour out my fury upon it in blood - not literally. In the Hebrew "blood" expresses every premature kind of death.

Verse 21. How much more - literally, 'Surely shall it be so now, when I send,' etc. 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.

Ezekiel 14:15-21

15 If I cause noisome beasts to pass through the land, and they spoila it, so that it be desolate, that no man may pass through because of the beasts:

16 Though these three men were in it,b as I live, saith the Lord GOD, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters; they only shall be delivered, but the land shall be desolate.

17 Or if I bring a sword upon that land, and say, Sword, go through the land; so that I cut off man and beast from it:

18 Though these three men were in it, as I live, saith the Lord GOD, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters, but they only shall be delivered themselves.

19 Or if I send a pestilence into that land, and pour out my fury upon it in blood, to cut off from it man and beast:

20 Though Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, as I live, saith the Lord GOD, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness.

21 For thus saith the Lord GOD; How much more when I send my four sore judgments upon Jerusalem, the sword, and the famine, and the noisome beast, and the pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast?