Ezekielchapter 14
23 verses · Ezekiel · 593 to 571 BC · The Prophets
then even if these three men—Noah, Daniel, and Job—were in it, their righteousness could deliver only themselves, declares the Lord GOD.
Introduction
Ezekiel, The Prophets, Ezekiel Overview.
Ezekiel received this while the leaders of the exile sat in his own house waiting for an answer. They had come to consult God in the ordinary way, as people across the ancient world consulted their oracles before a decision. The chapter turns the consultation back on the ones asking it. It then lays down a principle about the righteous and the guilty in a condemned land, set out like a ruling in a court. Listen for the three famous names it calls as witnesses, and for the unexpected comfort at the close. It asks what a person brings with them when they come to ask God anything.
Context
- Who
- Community leaders who wanted a divine verdict without changing anything about themselves
- What
- A reply to elders who came to inquire of God, followed by a ruling that no righteous person can rescue a condemned city by their righteousness.
- Where
- Ezekiel's house at Tel Abib, with elders of Israel seated before him.
- When
- About 591 BC, in the exile, before Jerusalem's fall.
- Why
- To expose idols kept in the heart and to end the exiles' trust that Jerusalem's good people would save the rest.
Historical context
Coming to a prophet to inquire was a formal act, and everyone in the ancient world had a version of it: you went to the oracle, the diviner or the seer with a question, usually a practical one, and you expected an answer. Kings did it before battles. The elders here are following the normal procedure.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
The phrase God uses is unusually inward: these men have taken their idols into their hearts and put the stumbling block of their guilt before their faces. The problem is not merely a carved object in a shrine; it is what they have already decided to want. God says He will answer such a man according to the multitude of his idols, that is, the answer he gets will be the answer his own heart has already chosen.
The three righteous men named are all outsiders to Israel's covenant story: Noah before the nations divided, Job in the land of Uz, and Daniel. Most read Daniel as the exile taken to Babylon in 605 BC, who was already famous at the imperial court by this date; some scholars instead point to Danel, a righteous king in the Ugaritic Aqhat tablets, mainly because of the spelling. The traditional identification with Daniel of Babylon fits Ezekiel's own generation and is the reading followed here.
The four judgments listed, sword, famine, wild beasts, plague, are a standard set. Ancient treaty curses list the same disasters in the same kind of sequence, and the Law of Moses uses them too. Ezekiel's hearers would have recognized the list the way we recognize a legal formula.
Significance
The elders came for a word about when they would go home. What they got was a ruling that even the presence of the three most famously righteous men in memory could not save a condemned city, they would deliver only themselves.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
That was a demolition of the thing the exiles were leaning on hardest: the idea that Jerusalem's good people, or its temple, or its history, would carry the rest. And yet the chapter ends with survivors arriving in Babylon whose conduct will show the exiles why it happened, so that they will be consoled. Even the proof of judgment is given as a comfort.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
The site's table of synagogue readings ties no weekly portion and no Haftarah to this chapter. Probed for this lane, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts printed parashot 0 and haftarah uses 0 for Ezekiel 14, and no festival reading for the book. The table holds the Haftarah of each weekly portion and the six books read whole on a feast or a fast. Across chapters 1 to 24 of Ezekiel the same probe found a Haftarah only in chapters 20 and 22.
How it is read
Rashi is the main commentator on this chapter in the corpus. He is quoted here from The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY. The translation is modern, so every quotation from it is fifty words or fewer.
The elders come with idols in their hearts, meaning "Their heart is toward their idols to worship [them]" (Rashi on Ezekiel 14:3:1). God answers them in order "to put repentance into their hearts" (Rashi on Ezekiel 14:5:1). The prophet who is enticed is the one who "speaks a word that is not true" (Rashi on Ezekiel 14:9:1).
Rashi reads the equal guilt of the tenth verse as a pairing of learner and teacher. "Like the iniquity of the one who comes to learn and does not learn, so will be the iniquity of the false prophets" (Rashi on Ezekiel 14:10:1).
On Noah, Daniel and Job Rashi gives the reason the three are named together: "each of these three saw three worlds" (Rashi on Ezekiel 14:14:1). Noah saw the world built up, destroyed and rebuilt. Daniel was a prince, then cast into the lions' den, then restored to his greatness. Job saw himself "well-established, destroyed, and [again] well-established". So the three stand beside the generation of Jeconiah, which saw the Temple built and destroyed. The "how much more" of the twenty-first verse Rashi reads as an argument from the lesser to the greater, the same throughout Scripture (Rashi on Ezekiel 14:21:1).
The corpus carries 9 notes on this chapter without an English text, marked linked. Radak's notes stand at 14:1:1, 14:11:1, 14:12:1, 14:16:1, 14:18:1, 14:19:1, 14:20:1 and 14:23:1. Rashi's own note stands at 14:2:1. Each stands cited and unquoted, because Sefaria holds no English version of the ref.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries 31 rabbinic locators on the verses of this chapter, 3 filed under the Talmud and 28 under the Midrash. It carries the text of none, so each is cited by ref here and never quoted or paraphrased. The verse numbers are the Hebrew ones the corpus prints.
On verse 1 it holds Sifrei Bamidbar 115:1 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 750:13. On verse 5 it holds Chullin 142a:6, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Chullin 7:8, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Kiddushin 1:27 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Kiddushin 1:30. It also holds Ein Yaakov, Khullin 12:5, Ein Yaakov, Kiddushin 1:40, Ein Yaakov, Kiddushin 1:42, Kiddushin 39b:10, Kiddushin 40a:14 and Midrash Aggadah, Numbers 1:15:3. It also holds Midrash Lekach Tov, Deuteronomy 4:15:1. On verse 7 it holds Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 49:26:5, Sifra, Emor, Section 4 1 and Sifra, Metzora Parashat Zavim, Chapter 9 6.
On verse 8 it holds Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Vayera 14. On verse 9 it holds Midrash Lekach Tov, Deuteronomy 13:3:2, Midrash Lekach Tov, Numbers 13:3:1 and Midrash Sekhel Tov, Shemot 9:12:1. On verse 10 it holds Sifrei Aggadah on Esther, Midrash Panim Acherim, Version II 6:7 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 951:23. On verse 13 it holds Shir HaShirim Rabbah 2:15:3. On verse 14 it holds Aggadat Bereshit 10:2, Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Noah 31 and Midrash Yelamdenu, Selections from Yalkut Talmud Torah 29:1.
On verse 19 it holds Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 25:3. On verse 21 it holds Midrash Lekach Tov, Deuteronomy 29:27:1 and Midrash Tanchuma, Vayera 9:2. On verse 22 it holds Bereshit Rabbah 28:5 and Shir HaShirim Rabbah 1:4:3.
What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Ezekiel 14:3:1 to 14:21:1, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, reported CC-BY; Radak, Radak on Ezekiel 14:1:1 to 14:23:1, cited by ref only: Sefaria holds no English version of the ref; Rashi, Rashi on Ezekiel 14:2:1, cited by ref only: Sefaria holds no English version of the ref; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/ezekiel/14.json, the 31 Talmud and Midrash locators on the verses of this chapter; The site's own files, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed for Ezekiel 14: parashot 0, haftarah uses 0, no festival reading for the book.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Elders with idols set up in their hearts
Ezekiel 14:1-3
some of the elders of Israel: The Lord names their state first: “these men have set up idols in their hearts and put wicked stumbling blocks before their faces.” Then he asks, “Should I consult with them in any way?” The question exposes men who seek a word from God while rivals hold their hearts.
Ezekiel 14:1
“Then came certain, of the elders of Israel unto me,.... The Syriac version adds, "to consult the Lord"; by the prophet.”
2 more voices on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Ezekiel 14:1
“Then came certain of the elders of Israel unto me - These probably came to tempt him, or get him to say something that would embroil him with the government. They were bad men, as we shall see in the third verse.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 14:1
“Note, It is no new thing for bad men to be found employed in the external performances of religion. The account which God gave the prophet privately concerning them. They were strangers to him; he only knew that they were elders of Israel; that was the character they wore, and as such he received them with respect, and, it is likely, was glad to see them so well disposed.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
the word of the LORD came: The answer comes before the elders speak a word. Calvin says Ezekiel might have been moved by pity at men who seemed to seek God, so the LORD warned him in time. Their visit looked like repentance.
stumbling blocks before their faces: Idols in the heart name the inward loyalty, and the stumbling block before the face names the outward sin that trips them. Henry calls such sinners their own tempters. They stumble over what lies in plain sight.
Ezekiel 14:3
“The meaning is: Son of man, these men who sit before you have placed their impurities or thoughts in their hearts; and, according to Symmachus and Theodotion, idols and scandal, that is, the destruction and torment of their wickedness, they have set against their own face and thus they came to seek the word of the Lord.”
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Ezekielpatristic
2 more voices on this verse
Ezekiel 14:3
“Note, Sinners are their own tempters ( every man is tempted when he is drawn aside of his own lust ), and so they are their own destroyers. If thou scornest, thou alone shalt bear it; and thus they put the stumbling-block of their iniquity before their own faces, and stumble upon it though they see it before their eyes.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 14:3
“Ezekiel, indeed, might be touched and softened by pity when he saw them seeking God in this way. For this was a sign of repentance when they turned to the true and faithful servant of God. But since they had no sincerity, the Prophet is warned in time against supposing them to come with cordiality.”
John Calvin · Commentaries (1554)reformed
Ezekiel 14:4-5
I the LORD will answer him according to his great idolatry: The Lord will answer such a man himself, “according to his great idolatry,” a judgment given as an answer rather than a refusal. Verse 5 states, “so that I may take hold of the hearts of the people of Israel,” catching them where the idols were hidden.
Ezekiel 14:4
“God will punish them as he usually punishes idolaters, that is, when they stand in need of his help he will send them to the gods whom they have chosen, Judg. x. Note, The judgment of God will dwell with men according to what they are really (that is, according to what their hearts are), not according to what they are in show and profession.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
take hold of the hearts: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the verse as exposure of the hypocrisy in the heart or as punishment by an answer shaped to that heart. Wesley adds that an idol always stands behind a heart estranged from God. Some creature holds God's place.
Ezekiel 14:5
“That I may take the house of Israel in their own heart,.... By which they are ensnared, and drawn aside to their ruin; being given up to strong delusions, to believe a lie, and worship idols; God threatening to answer them by righteous judgments, and thereby take the wickedness, the hypocrisy, and idolatry, that were in their hearts, and expose and make it manifest unto others; or, by punishing them, to draw out the corruption and sin that were in them, that it might be seen what a wicked people they were.”
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 14:5
“According - According to his desert, I will give answer, but in just judgment. Take - That I may lay open what is in their heart, and discover their hypocrisy, and impiety. Through their idols - It is always through some idol or other, that the hearts of men are estranged from God: some creature has gained that place in the heart, which belongs to none but God.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 14:6-8
“Repent and turn away from your idols; turn your faces away from all your abominations.” The warning covers “any Israelite or any foreigner dwelling in Israel,” one standard for native and resident alike. The man who refuses is made “a sign and a proverb”.
Ezekiel 14:6
“Let this separate between you and them, that they separate between you and God; because they set God's face against you, do you turn away your faces from them, " which denotes, not only forsaking them, but forsaking them with loathing and detestation: "Turn from them as from abominations that you are sick of; and then you will be welcome to enquire of the Lord.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
any foreigner dwelling in Israel: Barnes notes that the law already bound resident foreigners to shun idols, at Leviticus 17:10 and 20:2. The LORD answers such a man Himself, with no prophet between them. The reply is judgment.
Ezekiel 14:7
“The stranger - They who sojourned among Israel, though they were not of Israel, were bound to abstain from idol-worship Lev 17:10; Lev 20:2. By myself - Or, as in Eze 14:4, “according to” Myself. He who comes to inquire with a heart full of idolatry shall have his answer, (1) “according to the multitude of his idols” - in delusion, (2) “according to the holiness of God” - in punishment.”
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 14:7
“FAIRBAIRN translates, as it is the same Hebrew as in the previous clause, "concerning Me," it is natural that God should use the same expression in His reply as was used in the consultation of Him.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
a sign and a proverb: is a man whose ruin becomes a byword, told to warn others. Deuteronomy 28:37 threatened Israel with the same fate among the nations. Gill reads the set face as God's wrath.
Ezekiel 14:9-11
if the prophet is enticed to speak a message: The hardest verse says, “if the prophet is enticed to speak a message, then it was I the LORD who enticed him.” Henry and Wesley set it beside the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. The purpose is corrective: “that the house of Israel may no longer stray from Me.”
Ezekiel 14:9
“I the Lord hare deceived that prophet - A deep truth lies beneath these words, namely, that evil as well as good is under God’s direction. He turns it as He will, employing it to test the sincerity of men, and thus making it ultimately contribute to the purification of His people, to the confirmation of the righteous, to the increase of their glory and felicity. The case of the false prophets who deceived Ahab 1 Kings 22 is a striking representation of this principle. The Lord sends forth an evil spirit to persuade Ahab to his ruin.”
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 14:9
This declaration of God is intended to answer their objection, "Jeremiah and Ezekiel are but two opposed to the many prophets who announce 'peace' to us." "Nay, deceive not yourselves, those prophets of yours are deluding you, and I permit them to do so as a righteous judgment on your wilful blindness."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
The inquirer and the prophet share one guilt and bear one punishment. God answered the idols of the heart with a prophet who spoke what the heart wanted, as Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read it. Deceived men sought deceivers.
Ezekiel 14:10
“God would chastise their sin with a corresponding sin; as they rejected the safe directions of the true light, He would send the pernicious delusions of a false one; prophets would be given them who should re-echo the deceitfulness that already wrought in their own bosom, to their ruin [FAIRBAIRN].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
may no longer stray from Me: The words My people and their God form the covenant formula of Leviticus 26:12 and Jeremiah 31:33. Judgment on the false prophet serves that covenant. Henry says those God takes into covenant must first be cleansed of sin.
Ezekiel 14:11
“It is fitting that the person who has been estranged from me, and has placed his thoughts in his heart, and the torment or punishment of his wickedness before his face, should receive witness that it is written in Isaiah: Walk in the light of your fire, and in the flame that you have kindled (Isaiah 50:11). For each person kindles the ardor of flames for himself, and prepares punishments, while he does not want to correct the errors of his mistaken heart with repentance, but remains in errors, deserving the burning of flames.”
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Ezekielpatristic
Noah, Daniel, and Job could save only themselves
Ezekiel 14:12-14
the word of the LORD came to me: A new oracle states a case: “even if these three men” were in it, Noah, Daniel and Job, “their righteousness could deliver only themselves.” Gill takes Daniel as Ezekiel’s contemporary in Babylon, named again at 14:20 and 28:3. Not even proven righteousness averts a judgment on a whole land.
Ezekiel 14:12
“The word of the Lord came again unto saying. At the same time as before, continuing the prophecy, and a denunciation of judgments; for it does not seem to begin a new prophecy. The Targum renders it, the word of prophecy from the Lord.”
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 14:12
“God had told Jeremiah that the guilt of Judah was too great to be pardoned even for the intercession of Moses and Samuel (Ps 99:6; 15:1), which had prevailed formerly (Ex 32:11-14; 1Sa 7:8-12), implying the extraordinary heinousness of their guilt, since in ordinary cases "the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man (for others) availeth much" (Jas 5:16).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
cut off its supply of food: The Hebrew speaks of breaking the staff of bread, a curse from Leviticus 26:26 that Ezekiel used against Jerusalem at 4:16. Famine cuts off both man and beast. Henry notes that the LORD needs no sword to do it.
Ezekiel 14:13
“It is not easy for God to pardon idolaters.… Ezekiel also denounces this wrath of God on those who sin against God. He says, "And the word of the Lord came to me saying, 'son of man, when a land shall sin against me so as to transgress grievously, I will stretch forth my hand on it, and I will break the staff of the bread thereof; and I will send famine on it and destroy man and beast out of it.”
Cyprian · written before 258 · Treatise XI. Exhortation to Martyrdom 5:4patristic
2 more voices on this verse
Ezekiel 14:13
“The denying and withholding of common mercies is itself judgment enough, there needs no more to make a people miserable. God needs not bring the staff of oppression, it is but breaking the staff of bread and the work is soon done; he cuts off man and beast by cutting off the provisions which nature makes for both in the annual products of the earth.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 14:13
“By trespassing grievously - Having been frequently warned, and having refused to leave their sin, and so filled up the measure of their iniquity.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Each of the three once saved others. Noah brought his family through the flood, Daniel spared the wise men of Babylon at Daniel 2:24, and Job prayed for his friends at 42:8. Jeremiah 15:1 denies the same power even to Moses and Samuel.
Ezekiel 14:14
“Noah, because of the impending flood that would cleanse the earth, could not prevent or delay it as the whole earth had corrupted the ways of the Lord (Genesis 6:7). However, he had preserved his sons who might have possessed the same virtue, as a seed for the human race. Daniel also mitigated the imminent captivity of the people of Judah with no tears (Dan. 1). But Job, not because of sins, but because of testing, did not save neither his house nor his children (Job 1).”
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Ezekielpatristic
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 14:14
“That, though pious praying men may not prevail to deliver others, yet they shall deliver their own souls by their righteousness, so that, though they may suffer in the common calamity, yet to them the property of it is altered; it is not to them what it is to the wicked; it is unstrung, and does them no hurt; it is sanctified, and does them good.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 14:15-16
if I send wild beasts through the land: The refrain returns with an exact change, for the three men “could not deliver their own sons or daughters. They alone would be delivered.” Righteousness is personal and cannot be transferred, and the Lord’s oath, “as surely as I live,” stands behind the sentence.
Ezekiel 14:15
“In Eze 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.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
as surely as I live: Each of the three men could deliver only himself, and the oath of the LORD stands behind the rule. Ezekiel 18 builds a whole chapter on it. Jerome cites Deuteronomy 24:16, where each man dies for his own sin.
Ezekiel 14:17-18
if I bring a sword against that land: The third judgment is the sword, “Let a sword pass through it,” and the same refrain follows: “They alone would be delivered.” Four disasters meet one unchanging verdict on borrowed righteousness. Clarke points to verse 21, where the sword is one of the four judgments sent against Jerusalem.
Ezekiel 14:17
“It is bad enough if the sword do but enter into the borders of a land, but much worse when it goes through the bowels of a land. By it God cuts off man and beast, horse and foot. What execution the sword does God does by it; for it is his sword, and it acts as he directs.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
They alone would be delivered: Verse 16 ended with a desolate land, and this verse leaves that clause out. Gill reads as I live as the form of an oath. The LORD swears the same sentence at verses 16, 18 and 20.
Ezekiel 14:18
“Though these three men were in it,.... Before mentioned: as I live, saith the Lord God, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters: believe me no more, or be it so and so, if they do; it is in the form of an oath, and in the same manner it is expressed in Eze 14:16; but they only shall be delivered themselves; their own souls or lives, and by their righteousness, as in Eze 14:14.”
Ezekiel 14:19-20
if I send a plague into that land: The refrain names the three men: “even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, they could not deliver their own sons or daughters. Their righteousness could deliver only themselves.” Four cases stand as four witnesses to one principle, which the single case of verse 13 could not carry alone.
Ezekiel 14:19
“Or if I send a pestilence into that land,.... Or the plague, which is the destruction that wastes at noon day; this is from the Lord, and a sore judgment it is: and pour out my fury upon it in blood; or, "by blood" (y); by corrupting the blood, which is done when a man is seized with the pestilence. The Targum renders it, "with slaughter"; by slaying a great number of persons by that disease, as a token of fury and wrath, because of their transgressions.”
Their righteousness could deliver only themselves: Justin Martyr cited this verse against the belief that descent from Abraham would secure the kingdom for sinners. The fourth case names all three men again. Righteousness here belongs to each person alone.
Ezekiel 14:20
“And besides, they beguile themselves and you, supposing that the everlasting kingdom will be assuredly given to those of the dispersion who are of Abraham after the flesh, although they be sinners, and faithless, and disobedient towards God, which the Scriptures have proved is not the case. For if so, Isaiah would never have said this: 'And unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we would have been like Sodom and Gomorrah.' And Ezekiel: 'Even if Noah, and Jacob, and Daniel were to pray for sons or daughters, their request should not be granted.'”
Justin Martyr · written before 165 · Dialogue with Trypho, Chapter CXLpatristic
A remnant brought out to comfort you
Ezekiel 14:21-23
The principle lands on Jerusalem, struck by “My four dire judgments” at once. Yet “some survivors will be left in it,” sons and daughters who come to the exiles. Their conduct will show the exiles “that it was not without cause that I have done all these things.”
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.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Ezekiel 14:21
“Concerning all these, neither the teaching of spiritual parents, whom we understand as masters, nor the rulers will be able to free them, unless there is agreement of the sons, and their petitions have aided their efforts. For the justice of the just person will be upon him, and the iniquity of the wicked person will dwell in him: Each person will die for their own sin, and their righteousness will save them (Deut. XXIV, 16).”
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Ezekielpatristic
Ezekiel 14:21
“How much more--literally, "Surely shall it be so now, when I send," &c. 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.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
some survivors will be left: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read these survivors as guilty people brought out to Babylon. Clarke says their conduct would show the exiles why Jerusalem fell. The comfort comes from seeing the justice of the sentence.
Ezekiel 14:22
“Behold, they shall come forth unto you - Though there shall be great desolations in the land of Judea, yet a remnant shall be left that shall come here also as captives; and their account of the abominations of the people shall prove to you with what propriety I have acted in abandoning them to such general destruction. This speech is addressed to those who were already in captivity; i.e., those who had been led to Babylon with their king Jeconiah.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 14:22
“Note, It is a very comfortable sight to see people, when they are under the rod, repenting and humbling themselves, justifying God and accepting the punishment of their iniquity. When we sorrow (as we ought to do) for the afflictions of others, it is a great comfort to us in our sorrow to see them improving their afflictions and making a good use of them.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
not without cause: The survivors from Jerusalem bring consolation, because their conduct and actions show the exiles why the LORD did all these things. Wesley reads the comfort as seeing God's righteousness. The ruin had its cause.
Ezekiel 14:23
“Ye shall know that I have not done without cause - There is no part of the conduct of God towards man that is not dictated by the purest principles of justice, equity, and truth. He does nothing but what is right; and whatever is right to be done, that ought to be done. In God’s justice there is no severity; in God’s mercy there is no caprice. He alone doth all things well; for he is the Fountain of justice and mercy.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 14:23
“Comfort you - That is, you will be comforted, when you compare their case with your own: when they tell you how righteous God was, in bringing these judgments upon them.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments; Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Ezekiel; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome, Commentary on Ezekiel; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, Chapter CXL; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Patrick Fairbairn, An Exposition of Ezekiel.