Ezekiel 12:21

_AND THE WORD OF THE LORD CAME UNTO ME, SAYING,_ No JFB commentary on this verse....

Here God inveighs against that gross ridicule which prevailed everywhere among the Jews. For when the Prophets had been threatening them so long, this their earnestness was so far from leading them to repentance, that they became more obstinate and callous. Since they persisted in this obstinacy, and boasted in their _escape, and _through _confidence _in their freedom from punishment, re-belied more and more against God, the Prophet is ordered to repress this their boasting. It was monstrous indeed for a people who had imbibed from childhood the teaching of the law and the Prophets, thus to break forth against God as if he had spoken falsely by his Prophets. For this was their boasting: _Oh! the days are prolonged: therefore every vision has passed away and failed _From this delay they argued that they had no cause for fear, since whatever Jeremiah and the rest had predicted had passed a...

21-28 From that forbearance of God, which should have led them to repent, the Jews hardened themselves in sin. It will not serve for an excuse in speaking evil, to plead that it is a common saying. There is but a step between us and an awful eternity; therefore it concerns us to get ready for a future state. No one will be able to put from himself the evil day, unless by seeking peace with the Lord....

As in Ezekiel 7, the nearness of the judgment is foretold. Ezekiel 12:22 THE LAND OF ISRAEL - is put generally for the land where the children of Israel dwelt, whether at home, or in exile. There was prevalent a disregard for the true prophets, which is ever followed by a recognition of the false. First, the true prophet is rejected because it is thought that his prophecies fail. Then men persuade themselves that if the prophecy be true it respects some distant time, and that the men of the present generation need not disturb themselves about it. Compare Jeremiah 1:11; Amos 6:3;...

EXPOSITION EZEKIEL 12:1 THE WORD OF THE LORD, etc. This formula, so familiar in Isaiah and Jeremiah, appears for the first time in Ezekiel, but occurs repeatedly afterwards, especially in this chapter (verses 8, 17, 21, 26. and again Ezekiel 13:1; Ezekiel 14:2, _et al._)_. _The teaching by "the visions of God" ceases, and that of direct message or symbolic acts is resumed. In each case the point aimed at was the same. The people who heard the one or saw the other were to be taught how utterly groundless was the hope that Jerusalem could hold out against its enemies. The interval between the two was probably a short one, and the new teaching, we may conjectu

AND THE WORD OF THE LORD CAME UNTO ME, SAYING. After he had been a sign unto the people, in the two instances above mentioned; and they had hardened themselves against the belief of the things signified by them, because the time of their accomplishment was not yet....

CHAPTER S 12-19 Signs, Messages, and Parables _ 1. Signs given through the prophet (Ezekiel 12:1) _ 2. The message of speedy judgment (Ezekiel 12:21) 3. The message against false prophets and prophetesses. (Ezekiel 13:1) 4. The message against the elders (Ezekiel 14:1) 5. The parable of the vine given to the fire (Ezekiel 15:1) 6. The parable of the abandoned child and Israel's whoredom (Ezekiel 16:1)

DISREGARD OF THE TRUE PROPHETS. One reason for ignoring the stern message of Ezekiel is suggested by the popular saying that the days keep stretching out but the doom is never fulfilled, so that there is nothing in prophecy after all (Ezekiel 12:21). Another group of people appears to have believed in prophecy, but regarded the doom at which it pointed to be so far away as to be negligible (Ezekiel 12:26). To both Ezekiel reiterates his message with the assurance that the doom is coming speedily....

Warning against despising of prophecy The prophet felt that such threats as those just uttered (Ezekiel 12:1) were neglected and little thought of. People disposed of such prophecies by saying that they did not come true; or, if they did not go so far, by saying that they referred to the distant future. Ezekiel warns them that Jehovah's threatenings bear upon the present time, and that they shall be fulfilled....

AND THE WORD, &C.— The latter part of the 22nd verse is spoken in the person of infidels, who turn the grace of God into wantonness, taking encouragement from his patience and long-suffering to despise his threatenings, as if they never would be fulfilled; and to deride his prophets, as if they had prophesied in vain. Both parts of this objection are obviated in the 23rd and 24th verses. See Waterland's Script. Vind. p. 98. Houbigant reads the clause in the 22nd verse in the future. REFLECTIONS.—1st, Though many among the captives in Babylon profited under the visitation, yet multitudes were still hardened; flattered by their false prophets with hopes of a speedy return to Jerusalem; and deaf to the admonitions of God's messengers, warning them to repent of their sins, and patiently submit to his will in bearing their appointed seventy years' captivity. They were a rebellious house, and...