Ezekiel 13:14

So will I break down the wall that ye have daubed with untempered morter, and bring it down to the ground, so that the foundation thereof shall be discovered, and it shall fall, and ye shall be consumed in the midst thereof: and ye shall know that I am the LORD. SO WILL I BREAK DOWN THE WALL THAT YE HAVE DAUBED. The repetition of the same threat is to awaken the people out of their dream of safety by the certainty of the event. SO THAT THE FOUNDATION THEREOF SHALL BE DISCOVERED. As the "wall" represents the security of the nation, so the "foundation" is Jerusalem, on the fortifications of which they rested their confidence. Grotius makes the "foundation" refer to the false principles on which the rested; supports the former view....

This verse ought to be united with the other: God says, _I will throw down the wall_. For the false prophets had acquired so much favor, that their boasting was as much esteemed as an oracle. Hence the people were persuaded that what even these impostors dreamt was uttered by God. Since, therefore, they had so bound men’s minds to themselves, the Prophet was obliged to inveigh vehemently against those impostures, since he would not have succeeded by simple language. This language, indeed, may seem superfluous; but if any one considers how greatly these miserable exiles were deluded by the false prophets, he will easily acknowledge that God does not repeat the same thing so often in vain: as in this place he brings forward nothing new; but he so inculcates what we have already seen as to confirm it. _I will pull down_, therefore, _the wall which you have daubed with untempered mortar, and...

10-16 One false prophet built the wall, set up the notion that Jerusalem should be victorious, and made himself acceptable by it. Others made the matter yet more plausible and promising; they daubed the wall which the first had built; but they would, ere long, be undeceived when their work was beaten down by the storm of God's just wrath; when the Chaldean army desolated the land. Hopes of peace and happiness, not warranted by the word of God, will cheat men; like a wall well daubed, but ill built....

EXPOSITION EZEKIEL 13:1 Another interval follows, and then a fresh and fuller burst of inspiration, manifestly in close connection with Ezekiel 12:21, and to be read in combination with Jeremiah 23:1; which, as Jeremiah was in communication with the exiles (Jeremiah 29:1), Ezekiel may probably have seen. There were false prophets and prophetesses among the exiles as well as in Jerusalem, and an utterance is now found for his long pent up indignation. EZEKIEL 13:2,...

SO WILL I BREAK DOWN THE WALL THAT YE HAVE DAUBED WITH UNTEMPERED [MORTAR],.... Which is repeated and expressed in these words, both for the sake of confirmation and explanation of what is before said: AND BRING IT DOWN TO THE GROUND, SO THAT THE FOUNDATION THEREOF SHALL BE DISCOVERED; meaning the city of Jerusalem, and by these phrases declaring the utter destruction of it; whereby also would be discovered the vain assurances and lying predictions of the false prophets, and which would appear to be entirely groundless: so the Targum, "and I will destroy the city in which ye have prophesied false prophecies; and I will cause it to fall to the ground, and its foundations shall be discovered:'' AND IT SHALL FALL, AND YE SHALL BE CONSUMED IN THE MIDST OF IT; the false prophets perished in the destruction of Jerusalem, and not one of them escaped: AND YE SHALL KNOW THAT I [AM] THE LORD;...

Ezekiel 13:1. And now the Lord speaks through Ezekiel about the false prophets in the midst of His people. They prophesied out of their own hearts; or as it might be rendered, “Who prophesy from their own mind without having seen.” Such they were and such are the false teachers of this present age 2 Peter 2:1. Of such our Lord warned: “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves” Matthew 7:15. Every man who prophesies out of his own heart, who utters his own mind, whose preaching and teaching is not according to the oracles of God, is a false prophet, a blind leader of the blind. Like false prophets in Israel the false teachers in Christendom are the cause of the spiritua

Their doom is therefore sealed. They too will be confounded in the confusion which they have helped to create. They shall be swept off the land of Israel, and their names shall not appear on the registry of the citizens of the restored community, because they said It is well, when it was anything but well. In another picture suggested by the siege, Ezekiel very graphically describes their shallow, criminal methods. Instead of helping to repair the shattered wall of the state, they whitewash it, careless of the fact that the whitewashing of the wall may hide its defects, but will not prevent its destruction (Ex. B, p. 121). But one day he is thinking of the siege and fall of the city the awful storm will come, deluge, and hailstones, and hurl the fair but shoddy wall so violently to the ground that the very foundations will be laid bare. Then when the wall and its silly builders, the stat...

IT. Feminine, referring to _ruach_ (the wind in Ezekiel 13:11), YE SHALL KNOW,&c. See note on Ezekiel 6:7....

_shall be discovered_ i.e. uncovered, laid bare. The prophets shall be destroyed in the ruins of the wall (Amos 9:1). The figure tends in these words to be replaced by the reality, namely, Jerusalem and its downfall....

III. TWO SCATHING ORACLES DELIVERED 13:1-23 In chapter 13 Ezekiel directs his attack against those who spawned the blasphemous proverbs which he has just refuted in Ezekiel 12:21-28. Ezekiel denounces these prophet-types for undermining the stability of the nation at a time when it needed to be built up. He speaks first of the condemnation of the prophets (Ezekiel 13:1-16), and then of the prophetesses (Ezekiel 13:17-23). In order to grasp the magnitude of the problem faced by the faithful pro-claimer of God's word in this period, Jeremiah 29 should be read in connection with these denunciations....