Глава 14

1–11. Unworthy questioning of true prophets. 12–33. Judah will not be spared because of its few righteous people. Ezek.14:1–11. Those who use their services and ask God through them are in close connection with the prophets. Just as there can be false prophets, so there can be false questioners of God. Sometimes they imagine that they can find advice and consolation even from true prophets, while in the depths of their hearts they gravitate towards idolatry, which they avoid only outwardly in the eyes of the prophet. God wants to destroy this last remnant of false prophecy among his people through the extermination in their midst of both such questioners and the prophet who gives them the answer, and thus eradicate the sin of the people at the very roots of its growth in the heart. Only then can God's true relationship with His people be restored. Told as a reason for this speech, the visit of the prophet by the elders to question God could have been repeated (cf. Eze. 20.1-3; Eze. 8.1). Therefore, this revelation by the prophet could not have been received during the period of the prophet’s activity to which the speeches surrounding this relate; and this speech could be placed here due to its homogeneity with the previous ones. Indeed, the speech contains signs of later origin: there are proselytes in the community (v. 7); not a word about the impending catastrophe for Jerusalem, instead of which there is an indication of the messianic times, the onset of which nothing will hinder, since the seducers of the people will be eliminated (v. 11); idolatry turns into syncretism. Parallel to the present department Ch. XX. Ezek.14:1. And several of the elders of Israel came to me and sat before me. The elders who came now must not be identical with Eze. 8.1, because those were with the prophet, and these come to look for him; they could be from another village (cf. Dan 13.5). Nothing is said about the reason for their visit; maybe they wanted to receive some information from the seer prophet about the fate of Jerusalem (cf. 12 et c.); or some public event has occurred. But Ezekiel 33:31 shows that such visits by the prophet were or gradually became frequent and common. “Israelite” - as opposed to Babylonian. Ezek.14:3. son of man! These people have allowed their idols into their hearts and set the temptation of their wickedness before their faces: can I answer them? “They allowed idols... into the heart...”. Not an extreme passion for idolatry. “They set the temptation of wickedness... before the face.” There must be an indication of the external manifestation of idolatry, as in the previous expression of an internal tendency towards it. Since in Heb. i.e. idols in the first expression are called not by their own name, but “abominations”, then LXX completely eliminates the concept of idols from this place and translates both expressions: “having set your thoughts on your hearts and set the torment of your iniquities before your face,” which according to the blessed. Jerome means: they come to me with the same thoughts, despairing of the best and ready for punishment. - “Can I answer them?” A question that amounts to a strong negative. Ezek.14:4. Therefore speak to them and say to them: Thus says the Lord God: If anyone from the house of Israel allows his idols into his heart and puts the temptation of his wickedness before his face, and comes to the prophet, then can I, the Lord, given the multitude of his idols, give him an answer? "If anyone is from the house of Israel". Slav. more precisely: “man is a man from the house of Israel,” that is, every person. The solemn formula used in the law of Moses in generally binding decrees (Lev. 17.3 etc.). Regarding a particular case, God gives a general rule, without further mentioning the particular reason for it; hence further literal repetitions from Art. 3. – “Can I... give him an answer.” Slav. more precisely: “I answer him about these things, in the image of which his thoughts are held,” that is, I will answer him in accordance with his abominations (Blessed Jerome). How will God answer such a questioner, says v. 8: strict punishment. Ezek.14:5. Let the house of Israel understand in their hearts that they have all become strangers to Me through their idols. The purpose of such a strictly jealous attitude of God towards the honor of His name is the same as all other actions of God in relation to Israel: to shake the rest of Israel in its very being and move it towards conversion. Slav. and accepted Greek. t.: “For let the house of Israel turn away from their hearts” gives the wrong thought; you need to add a negation (οπως “as if yes” replace μη, “as if not”) and read according to the Alexandrian Codex and Arabic. translation (made from 17: “lest the house of Israel wander away” - so that the house of Israel does not wander according to its inclinations. Ezek.14:6. Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: Turn yourselves and turn away from your idols, and turn away your face from all your abominations. Having moved from the real questioners of God to all questioners in general, the prophet’s speech, being generalized, is now directed to the whole people. As the threefold concept of conversion shows ("turn away", "turn away", "turn away your face" - the same verb in Hebrew), we are talking about the complete conversion of the people, the possibility of which the prophet, therefore, hopes for, if he so insists on it. “Turn away your face,” which was turned to idols for prayer. LXX doesn’t have the concept of “idol” here either. Ezek.14:7. For if anyone from the house of Israel and from the strangers who live among Israel turns away from Me and allows his idols into his heart, and puts the temptation of his wickedness before his face, and comes to the prophet to ask Me through him, then will I, the Lord, give him an answer from Myself? "And from the strangers who dwell among Israel." The formula is often found in the Pentateuch (Lev. 17.8, 10, etc.), which Ezekiel is the first to use, which may indicate the widespread development of proselytism already in his time. The attention he pays to proselytes is evidenced by Ezek.22.7, 29 and Ezek.47.22, where he expressly recognizes them as equal in rights with the born Israelites. Therefore, he demands from them the same purity of faith and morality as the latter, just like the law of Moses: Exodus 12.19; Lion. 17.10, etc. About the difference in glory. and Russian lane at the beginning Art. see explanation. 4 tbsp. Ezek.14:8. I will set My face against that man, and will crush him as a sign and a proverb, and will destroy him from among My people, and you will know that I am the Lord. “I will break it into a sign and a parable.” “For a sign”, since this person will reveal what fate befalls idolaters; “into a parable,” since his fate will become a simile for the greatest imaginable disaster. Such a stern course of action in relation to this religious inconsistency is necessary in order for knowledge of the true essence of God to someday be achieved. Ezek.14:9. And if the prophet allows himself to be deceived and speaks the word as I, the Lord, taught this prophet, then I will stretch out My hand against him and destroy him from My people Israel. The “prophet” is not only false (as in Ezek. 13.2), but also true, with whom this can be, as the example of Balaam shows. - “He will speak the word,” that is, he will give an answer in the name of God to the idolater asking God through him. Just as I, the Lord, would have taught this prophet.” LXX and all ancient translations (Vulgate, etc.) are more precise: “The Lord deceived that prophet.” How such deception is possible on the part of God is shown by the vision of Micaiah the son of Iamblaev: 1 Kings 22.20–23 (one must keep in mind James 1.13). God, according to Holy Scripture, sometimes accelerates the development of sin to its full extent in order to put an end to it with judgment (cf. “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart”). In this case, it is assumed that the prophet had previously matured in his wickedness for the judgment of God, and for the latter only this special revelation of his wickedness was needed. - “I will destroy him from among My people.” The prophet is punished, as is the one who inquired of God through him; by the fact that he satisfied the desire of the latter, he revealed a complete misunderstanding of the basic principle on which the relationship between Jehovah and Israel is based, and therefore his presence among the people would be disastrous for the latter and would delay the latter’s conversion to Jehovah. Ezek.14:10. And they will bear the guilt of their iniquity: as is the guilt of the questioner, such will be the guilt of the prophet, The guilt and punishment of the prophet does not, however, diminish both on the part of the questioner. The principle of personal moral responsibility, developed by Ezekiel in Ezekiel 3.18 et c. and Ezek. 18, and to which he returns in the second half of this chapter, requires that everyone suffer for his iniquity. Ezek.14:11. So that the house of Israel will no longer turn away from Me, and no longer defile themselves with all their iniquities, but that they may be My people, and I will be their God, says the Lord God. When the idolaters and false prophets are eliminated, the messianic times can come, and with them the realization of the ideal covenant fellowship between Jehovah and Israel (cf. Eze. 11.20). Thus, all God’s punishments sent to Israel stem from God’s love for him, from the desire to see him tied to Himself. The judgment about the people here is more favorable than in the first speeches upon calling. Prophetic speech v. 12–23, which is also connected with the previous one, since it proves that God, while destroying idolaters, will not be stopped by the presence of several righteous people among them, forms the introduction to subsequent speeches (from Chapter XV), which depict the wickedness of Judah and Jerusalem as the irremovable reason for their fall. Ezek.14:13. son of man! if any land sinned against Me, treacherously departing from Me, and I stretched out My hand against it, and destroyed the grain support in it, and sent famine to it, and began to destroy people and cattle in it; "If only what kind of land". Wanting to present a general view of the truth of God, so that later (from v. 21) he could apply it to the fate of Jerusalem, the prophet had to talk about the wickedness of a hypothetical country. But he immediately describes this wickedness in such a way that Palestine is clearly meant: only a land that was in a covenant relationship with Him, and not a pagan one, could “treacherously depart” from God, although pagan lands can also sin, be better and worse (Nineveh, Jonah 1). – “Bread support”, see explanation. Ezek.4.16. – “Famine” is the first of four punishments (vv. 15, 17, 19 - three other punishments: beasts, sword, plague) of God (Ezek. 4.16-17), the punishment with the slowest effect and therefore most suitable for admonishing the unrepentant. - “And cattle.” “In Soph. 1.3 for the first time and the cattle are destined for destruction for the sins of people on the day of the Lord” (Krechm.). Ezek.14:14. and if these three men had been found in her: Noah, Daniel and Job, then by their righteousness they would have saved only their own souls, says the Lord God. Noah, Daniel and Job are taken as three righteous people who preserved their purity amid the general wickedness of those around them and thanks to this were saved from common destruction. The strange order at first glance (Daniel is not the last) is explained by the fact that Noah, with his righteousness, saved the entire family - 8 people, Daniel only had friends similar to him in righteousness - 3 people, and Job could not save the children. The righteous were probably deliberately taken from different, distant eras. It is remarkable that only one of them is a Jew; this further responds to the prophet’s developed thoughts about the eternal and general depravity of Israel (chap. XV, XVI, XXIII); Jeremiah names Moses and Samuel in similar places (Jeremiah 15.1, etc.). The mention, and such an unfounded one, of these righteous people shows how well they were known to the masses, although the book of Job might not yet exist. There is no need, with some of the newest interpreters, to see in the Daniel mentioned here another person, older than the known prophet, on the basis of the place he occupied in this calculation, and the fact that he was a younger contemporary of Ezekiel; resettled to Babylon under Joachim (Ezekiel under Jehoiachin), Daniel at the time of Ezekiel’s present speech had lived in captivity for 14 years and had already become famous everywhere for his dream interpretation and wisdom, which Ezekiel in Ezekiel 28.3 assumes to be known to everyone (and in Tire). The teaching of the prophet Ezekiel about the powerlessness of the righteous to save those around him with his holiness does not contradict God’s promise to save Sodom even for 10 righteous people: after all, Sodom perished despite the presence in it of one, and perhaps several righteous people: much less could 3 righteous people save the whole country. – Here are the makings of Ezekiel’s teaching on personal moral sanity, which was new for that time and was subsequently developed in detail by the prophet in Chapters XVIII and XXXIII. Ezek.14:15. Or, if I sent fierce beasts to this land that would orphan it, and because of the beasts it would become empty and impassable: "Fierce Beasts" cf. 2 Kings 17.25; Lion. 26.22. – “Impenetrable” – glory. more precisely: “there will be no one passing through”; not only will it lose its population (“orphaned”) and property (“empty”), but foreigners will also be bypassed. Ezek.14:16. then these three men among her, as I live, says the Lord God, would not have saved either sons or daughters, but they, only they would have been saved, and the land would have become desolate. "I live". The oath confirmation may have been required due to the apparent contradiction of the doctrine set forth here about the moral personal sanity of a person with the Mosaic doctrine of tribal moral responsibility, with which the popular idea has long been akin to and has taken it to the extreme (Ezek. 18.2). - “Neither sons nor daughters would have been saved.” Perhaps they mean the children of Job or Ham. - “We would have been saved.” Probably, of course, more than the preservation of life, the continued use of divine mercy, in what sense it could not be said about the sons of Noah that they were saved. Ezek.14:17. Or, if I pointed a sword at that land and said: “sword, go through the land!”, and began to destroy people and cattle in it, “Sword” – war, invasion of the enemy’s country. Ezek.14:19. Or, if I sent a pestilence to that land and poured out My wrath on it in bloodshed to destroy people and animals in it: “I poured out my wrath on her.” The last punishment is sent with the special wrath of God in view of the failure of the three previous ones. – “In bloodshed”, see explanation. Ezek.5.17. Ezek.14:20. then Noah, Daniel and Job in the midst of it, as I live, says the Lord God, would not have saved either sons or daughters; by their righteousness they would save only their own souls. In conclusion, the 3 righteous are again named in full, instead of their abbreviated designation at the 2nd and 3rd punishment: “these are three men.” That’s why “they would have saved their souls” instead of the simple “saved” v. 16 and 18. Ezek.14:21. For thus says the Lord God: If I send My four grievous plagues: sword, and famine, and fierce beasts, and pestilence, to destroy people and cattle in it, "For". The Hebrew conjunction “af - ki” can also have the meaning “although”, “nevertheless”, “but”, more suitable here: further we talk about exceptions to the above rule. Slav. without a conjunction: “this says...” - “If there are four...” God brings not one or the other of the listed plagues on Jerusalem, but all of them at once. For the fourfold number of executions, see explanation. Ezek.5.2. The sword is named here first (and not famine, as in v. 13), because this is what happened to Jerusalem: its disasters began with a siege. Ezek.14:22. and then there will remain in it a remnant, sons and daughters, who will be brought out from there; behold, they will come out to you, and you will see their behavior and their deeds, and you will be comforted by the disaster that I brought on Jerusalem, by all that I brought on it. If not a single wicked person can be saved from one of the listed 4 plagues of God, then one would expect that the totality of all of them, which was about to befall Jerusalem (of course, during the Chaldean invasion), would destroy its entire wicked population; meanwhile, on the contrary, part of this population, even entire families in it (“sons and daughters”) will survive (it is not said: “will be saved,” therefore, salvation in the previous verses means more than the preservation of life). The purpose of preserving this remnant of Jerusalem sufficiently shows how terrible the moral condition of the city was and how long-suffering God is. The word “be comforted” sounds with bitter irony, showing at the same time how difficult it was for the captives to endure the fall of Jerusalem, despite the enmity between the city and them (Ezek. 11.15). It is also characteristic that the prophet Ezekiel believes that consolation in the fall of Jerusalem is in a more perfect, thanks to this fall, knowledge of the truth of God. So dear to the prophet was the success of divine knowledge! You might be interested in: