Ezekiel 14:21

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" (); then () "noisome beasts" (); then "the sword" (); then, worst of all, "pestilence" (): the three most righteous of men should deliver only themselves in these several four cases. In he concentrates the whole in one mass of condemnation. If Noa...

He now reasons, as we said in the beginning, from the less to the greater. Hitherto he has said, If I shall have sent forth only one weapon to take vengeance upon men, no one will oppose my following out my decree: then he enumerated four weapons, one after another. Now he adds, What then, when I shall have heaped together all punishments, and not only shall have sent pestilence or sword or famine, but as it were when I have four armies prepared and drawn up, and shall command them to attack and destroy mankind, how shall even one person escape? If Job, Daniel, and Noah, cannot snatch away even their sons and daughters from a single scourge, how shall they snatch them from four at once! We see, then, that God here cuts away the false and specious hopes by which the false prophets deluded the miserable exiles when they promised them a return to their country, and daily proclaimed how impo...

12-23 National sins bring national judgments. Though sinners escape one judgment, another is waiting for them. When God's professing people rebel against him, they may justly expect all his judgments. The faith, obedience, and prayers of Noah prevailed to the saving of his house, but not of the old world. Job's sacrifice and prayer in behalf of his friends were accepted, and Daniel had prevailed for the saving his companions and the wise men of Babylon. But a people that had filled the measure of their sins, was not to expect to escape for the sake of any righteous men living among them; not even of the most eminent saints, who could be accepted in their own case only through the sufferings and righteousness of Christ. Yet even when God makes the greatest desolations by his judgments, he saves some to be monuments of his mercy. In firm belief that we shall approve the whole of God's dea...

Verse Ezekiel 14:21. _MY FOUR SORE JUDGMENTS_] SWORD, _war_. FAMINE, occasioned by _drought_. PESTILENCE, epidemic diseases which sweep off a great part of the inhabitants of a land. The NOISOME BEAST, the multiplication of _wild beasts_ in consequence of the general destruction of the inhabitants....

Jeremiah 14; Jeremiah 15 is a remarkable parallel to this prophecy. Here, as elsewhere, Ezekiel is commissioned to deliver to the exiles the same message which Jeremiah conveys to the inhabitants of Judaea. The answer discovers the nature of the questions which had been expressed or implied. (1) Can God cast out a people who are holy unto Himself? (2) Is it just to punish them with utter desolation? The prophet answers: (1) That when a people is so corrupt as to call down national judgment, individual piety shall save none but the individuals themselves....

EXPOSITION EZEKIEL 14:1 As the result, probably, of the previous utterances, certain ELDERS OF ISRAEL, _i_._e_. of the exiles in Tel-Abib, came to consult Ezekiel, wishing to know what counsels or what predictions he had for them. In Ezekiel 8:1 we have "the elders of Judah," and it is possible that there were two groups in the Population of the town, and that these represented Israel as distinct from Judah—a deputation, as it were, from the earlier exiles. The term appears again in Ezekiel 20:1. More probably, however, the terms are used interchangeably. Ezekiel 14:

FOR THUS SAITH THE LORD GOD, HOW MUCH MORE,.... If the Lord would not be entreated by such good men as those mentioned, for a land that had sinned against him, to whom he only sends some one of the above judgments, either famine, or noisome beasts, or the sword, or the pestilence, how much more inexorable and deaf to all entreaties must he be; or if anyone of those judgments makes so great a desolation in the land, then how much greater must that detraction be, WHEN I SEND MY FOUR SORE JUDGMENTS ON JERUSALEM: or "evil" a ones; as they are to men, though righteously inflicted by the Lord; when all these four are sent together, what a devastation must they make! namely, THE SWORD, AND THE FAMINE, AND THE, NOISOME BEAST, AND THE PESTILENCE, TO CUT OFF FROM IT MAN AND BEAST; three of them, it is evident, were sent upon Jerusalem at the time of its siege by Nebuchadnezzar, the sword, famin...

Ezekiel 14:1. These inquiring elders, with wickedness in their hearts, give another illustration of the depth of degradation in which the people had sunk. He who searches the hearts knew what was in them. They came with pious, religious pretensions. It sounded well to inquire of the Lord and seek the prophet-priest for that purpose. Their hearts were full of evil. While their lips spoke of asking the Lord, their hearts were full of idolatry. They liked idolatry. Their hearts were in it and this stumbling-block of their iniquity they had put before their faces, which means they openly defied the Lord God of Israel by their doings. “Should I be inquired of at all by them?” To seek the Lord and inquire of Him in such a condition reveals a brazen spirit and the deepest depravity. Yet this also belongs to the conditions in which the professing people of God are when judgment overtakes them....

THE RIGHTEOUS CANNOT SAVE THE CITY, BUT ONLY THEMSELVES. In spite of all Ezekiel's visions and warnings, the people still cherish the illusion that Jerusalem will be spared if for no other reason, at least for the sake of the righteous to be found in it, on the principle of solidarity. Why might it not, like Sodom (Genesis 18:32), be spared for ten's sake? In this very interesting and rhetorical passage, where Ezekiel develops the broad doctrine of individual responsibility, at which he has just hinted (Ezekiel 14:10) and which he had touched upon before (Ezekiel 3:16), he strikes away this illusion. When the judgment comes, he tells them be it in the form of famine, wild beasts, or pestilence the most godly men, for

HOW MUCH MORE, &c. National judgments are thus sent for national sins. Compare Ezekiel 14:13....