Ezekielchapter 18
32 verses · Ezekiel · 593 to 571 BC · The Prophets
The soul who sins is the one who will die. A son will not bear the iniquity of his father, and a father will not bear the iniquity of his son. The righteousness of the righteous man will fall upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked man will fall upon him.
Introduction
Ezekiel, The Prophets, Ezekiel Overview.
Ezekiel spoke this to a generation of exiles who felt they were paying for sins committed before they were born. They had a proverb for the feeling and repeated it to one another. The chapter answers that proverb with a set of cases laid out like rulings in a court, each turning on how one person lived. It moves from a man to his son and to his grandson. Listen for the list of deeds that marks the righteous, and for the argument the hearers raise against God. Listen above all for what God says He desires. It asks every hearer to stop blaming the past.
Context
- Who
- A second generation in exile who felt they were paying for their grandfathers' sins
- What
- An answer to the proverb of sour grapes, setting out that each person is judged for their own way and that the wicked who turn will live.
- Where
- Tel Abib in Babylonia, among exiles who repeated the proverb to one another.
- When
- About 591 to 589 BC, before Jerusalem's fall.
- Why
- To take away the exiles' excuse that they suffered only for their fathers' sins, and to call them to repent and live.
Historical context
The proverb is a farming joke with a bitter edge: the fathers eat sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge. Unripe grapes make your mouth pucker. The saying means we are the ones tasting what somebody else ate.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
The complaint was not baseless. Ancient societies really did work as households rather than individuals, a family stood or fell together, inherited together, and could be punished together. Judah's collapse had come after Manasseh's long and violent reign, and the book of Kings itself links the two. What Ezekiel denies is not that generations affect each other, but that a man can hide behind his father's record or be trapped by it.
The three test cases in the chapter, a righteous man, his violent son, his righteous grandson, are built out of a recognizable list. It reads like the entrance questions asked at a sanctuary gate: no idolatry, no adultery, no approaching a woman during her monthly uncleanness, no oppression, restore the pledge, commit no robbery, give bread to the hungry, cover the naked, lend no money at interest, judge honestly between man and man.
Two of those items have hard economics behind them. Israelite law forbade charging a fellow Israelite interest, while ordinary Babylonian loan contracts ran around twenty per cent on silver and a third on grain. And a poor man's cloak taken as a pledge had to be handed back by nightfall, because it was also his blanket. These were not abstractions; they were the difference between a neighbour surviving the winter and not.
Significance
The exiles were using the proverb as an alibi. If the whole thing was inherited, then repentance was pointless and there was nothing to do but wait it out and complain.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
This chapter takes the alibi away and hands them something better in its place: the soul that sins shall die, and the wicked man who turns from all his sins shall surely live. God says plainly that He takes no pleasure in the death of anyone. The demand at the end, make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit, is the same thing He has already promised to do for them, which is exactly how repentance and grace sit together in this book.
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 18, 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 proverb of the sour grapes is answered from the fourth verse. "So why should the son who did not sin against Me suffer? Is he not Mine?" (Rashi on Ezekiel 18:4:1). The son who sees his father's sins and does not do them "sees with his heart that it is not good to do so" (Rashi on Ezekiel 18:14:1).
The list of the righteous man's deeds Rashi reads with the Targum. Eating on the mountains is worship of foreign gods, by eating "sacrifices of the dead" (Rashi on Ezekiel 18:6:1). The oppression of the seventh verse is wronging a man (Rashi on Ezekiel 18:7:1). The wicked son "does not do all these", "All these good deeds that his father did" (Rashi on Ezekiel 18:11:1).
At the twenty-fourth verse Rashi limits the rule that a righteous man's deeds are forgotten when he turns. "Our Sages qualified this as referring to one who regrets them" (Rashi on Ezekiel 18:24:1). His good deeds are lost only when he repents of having done them.
The corpus carries 13 notes on this chapter without an English text, marked linked. Radak's notes stand at 18:1:1, 18:5:1, 18:8:1, 18:9:1, 18:13:1, 18:15:1, 18:16:1, 18:18:1, 18:19:1, 18:20:1, 18:21:1, 18:22:1 and 18:23:1. Each stands cited and unquoted, because Sefaria holds no English version of the ref.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries 40 rabbinic locators on the verses of this chapter, 9 filed under the Talmud and 31 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 2 it holds Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sanhedrin 4:17, Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 13:7 and Sanhedrin 39a:1. On verse 4 it holds Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Makkot 3:8, Ein Yaakov, Makkot 3:11 and Ein Yaakov, Shabbat 5:8. On verse 6 it holds Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sanhedrin 9:3, Ein Yaakov, Sanhedrin 9:5 and Midrash Tehillim 15:4. On verse 8 it holds Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 33:17. On verse 10 it holds Bava Metzia 105a:13, Ein Yaakov, Bava Metzia 9:1 and Sanhedrin 81a:5.
On verse 13 it holds Bava Metzia 61b:17, Bava Metzia 61b:18 and Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 22:24. On verse 15 it holds Sifrei Devarim 286:17. On verse 18 it holds Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Shevuot 4:4, Ein Yaakov, Shevuot 4:7 and Shevuot 31a:13. On verse 19 it holds Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 20:5 and Sanhedrin 81a:10. On verse 20 it holds Aggadat Bereshit 10:2, Aggadat Bereshit 35:1 and Aggadat Bereshit 3:1.
On verse 21 it holds Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Vayetzei 22:5. On verse 22 it holds Midrash Lekach Tov on Lamentations 3:33:1, Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Vayera 16:1 and Tanna DeBei Eliyahu Zuta, Additions to Seder Eliyahu Zuta, Mavo 28. On verse 23 it holds Tanna DeBei Eliyahu Zuta 9:1. On verse 24 it holds Berakhot 29a:5, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Berakhot 4:7 and Ein Yaakov, Berakhot 4:10. On verse 27 it holds Otzar Midrashim, Midrashim of Rabbi Akiba, Aleph Bet of Rabbi Akiba (Version 1) 30.
It also holds Otzar Midrashim, Midrashim of Rabbi Akiba, Aleph Bet of Rabbi Akiba (Version 2) 25 and Otzar Midrashim, Pesikta, Pesikta Chadata 49. On verse 28 it holds Ein Yaakov, Yoma 8:27. On verse 32 it holds Ein Yaakov, Niddah 10:2, Jerusalem Talmud Berakhot 2:3:15 and Kohelet Rabbah 9:5:1.
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 18:4:1 to 18:24:1, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, reported CC-BY; Radak, Radak on Ezekiel 18:1:1 to 18:23:1, cited by ref only: Sefaria holds no English version of the ref; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/ezekiel/18.json, the 40 Talmud and Midrash locators on the verses of this chapter; The site's own files, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed for Ezekiel 18: 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.
The sour grapes proverb ends: all souls are mine
Ezekiel 18:1-4
The chapter names a proverb, the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge. Ezekiel is sent to retire it by name. Gill reads the thesis that follows, the soul that sinneth, it shall die, as the whole chapter's argument compressed into one line.
Ezekiel 18:1
“And the word of the Lord came unto me again, saying. The word of prophecy from the Lord, as the Targum; and its being mentioned is coming from the Lord is to give it weight and authority. This is a distinct sermon or prophecy from the former, and was sent and delivered out at another time.”
2 more voices on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Ezekiel 18:1
“Heretics, who do not accept the Old Testament, often say in this place against the Creator: How good and just is the God of the Law and the Prophets, who, by remaining quiet and silent about the sins of the fathers, renders punishment to those who have not sinned; rather, what cruelty is in Him that He extends His anger even to the third and fourth generation! To whom shall we respond, and in this the clemency of God the Creator is demonstrated.”
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Ezekielpatristic
Ezekiel 18:1
“The last verse of Ezek. 17 gives occasion for a declaration of the principle upon which God’s providential dispensations proceed, namely, that every individual shall be equitably dealt with - a principle that precludes the children from either presuming on the father’s merits or despairing on account of the father’s guilt. This chapter is an enlargement of Jer 31:29, and sets forth fully the doctrine of individual responsibility.”
quoting this proverb: The proverb made the exile a debt left by the fathers. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown set it beside Lamentations 5:7, where the survivors say their fathers sinned and they bear the punishment. The children in the saying taste the sourness of grapes they never ate.
Ezekiel 18:2
“The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge? - We have seen this proverb already, Jer 31:29, etc., and have considered its general meaning. But the subject is here proposed in greater detail, with a variety of circumstances, to adapt it to all those cases to which it should apply. It refers simply to these questions: How far can the moral evil of the parent be extended to his offspring? And, Are the faults and evil propensities of the parents, not only transferred to the children, but punished in them?”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 18:2
“The sin of Adam in eating the forbidden fruit, visited on his posterity, seems to have suggested the peculiar form; noticed also by Jeremiah (Jer 31:29); and explained in La 5:7, "Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities." They mean by "the children" themselves, as though they were innocent, whereas they were far from being so.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
you will no longer quote this proverb: Henry compares Jeremiah 31:29, where the end of this proverb is a promise of mercy. Here it is a threat. The LORD would deal with each of the exiles for his own sins, and the proverb would have nothing left to explain in Israel.
Ezekiel 18:3
“The taking away of this parable is made the matter of a promise, Jer. xxxi. Here it is made the matter of a threatening. There it intimates that God will return to them in ways of mercy; here it intimates that God would proceed against them in ways of judgment.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
every soul belongs to Me: The claim of ownership comes first, and the sentence on the soul who sins rests on it. Father and son are two souls, each His. Ambrose counted this death, the death due to sin, as the first of three kinds of death.
Ezekiel 18:4
"The soul that sinneth it shall die." The curse descending from father to son assumes guilt shared in by the son; there is a natural tendency in the child to follow the sin of his father, and so he shares in the father's punishment: hence the principles of God's government, involved in Ex 20:5 and Jer 15:4, are justified.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 more voices on this verse
Ezekiel 18:4
“There are three kinds of death. One is the death due to sin, concerning which it was written, the soul that sins shall itself die." Another death is the mystical, when someone dies to sin and lives to God; concerning this the apostle likewise says, or we were buried with him by means of baptism into death. The third is the death by which we complete our lifespan with its functions—I mean the separation of the soul and body.”
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · Death as a Good 2:3patristic
Ezekiel 18:4
“Sin is the act of the soul, the body being only the instrument of unrighteousness; it is called the sin of the soul, Mic. vi. And therefore the punishment of sin is the tribulation and the anguish of the soul, Rom. ii. Secondly, The righteous man that perseveres in his righteousness shall certainly live.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The just man, his violent son, and the grandson who turns
Ezekiel 18:5-9
The just man is described by a list of concrete acts, and the verdict follows, he shall surely live. Henry notes the list draws on the law's social ethics, so righteousness here reaches into ordinary dealings between neighbors. Wesley reads the specificity as deliberate, giving the exiles a concrete standard.
Ezekiel 18:5
“The first case is given in Eze 18:5-9, the just man. The excellencies are selected in reference to the prevailing sins of the age, from which such a one stood aloof; hence arises the omission of some features of righteousness, which, under different circumstances, would have been desirable to be enumerated.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
eat at the mountain: To eat at the mountain was to eat from a sacrifice offered on a high place. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown count a double sin, worship away from the place God chose in Deuteronomy 12:13 and 14, and worship given to idols. Clarke reads the meal as communion with the idol.
Ezekiel 18:6
“A double sin: sacrificing elsewhere than at the temple, where only God sanctioned sacrifice (De 12:13, 14); and this to idols instead of to Jehovah. "Eaten" refers to the feasts which were connected with the sacrifices (see Ex 32:6; 10:7). lifted . . . eyes to--namely, in adoration (Ps 121:1).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 18:6
“He has taken off his hand from the poor; where he found his father had put hardships upon poor servants, tenants, neighbours, he eased their burden. He did not say, "What my father has done I will abide by, and if it was a fault it was his and not mine;" as Rehoboam, who contemned the taxes his father had imposed.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
restores the pledge to the debtor: Exodus 22:26 required a cloak taken in pledge to be given back to the debtor by sunset. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that the righteous man's list moves here from justice to kindness. Jerome adds that bread belongs to the hungry.
Ezekiel 18:7
“The tenth is: He gives his bread to the hungry. From this we are taught that alms should not be given to the satiated, but to the hungry; and not to those who belch from fullness, but to those who suffer from emptiness. For in bread is contained all food. And it is significantly said, his: so that we do not turn bread acquired from rapine, usury, and ill-gotten gain into mercy; for the redemption of a man's soul (Prov. XIII, 7) is his own riches.”
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Ezekielpatristic
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 18:7
“After duties of justice come those of benevolence. It is not enough to refrain from doing a wrong to our neighbor, we must also do him good. The bread owned by a man, though "his," is given to him, not to keep to himself, but to impart to the needy.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
excess interest: Clarke gives the Hebrew word for usury as neshek, from nashak, to bite, for interest that eats into what was lent. Leviticus 25:36 and 37 barred interest on a loan to a poor Israelite. True justice between men closes the list.
surely he will live: Barnes traces a growth in the meaning of life and death in Ezekiel. In the books of Moses the promise of life for obedience was read as temporal and national. The exile made men look deeper into the words of God.
Ezekiel 18:10-13
The just man's son may turn violent and idolatrous, and the verdict shifts. Clarke reads the case as answering the sour-grape proverb, a righteous father's merit does not carry a wicked son past his own guilt. The phrase his blood shall be upon him fixes responsibility on the man himself.
Ezekiel 18:10
“His pious parentage, so far from excusing, aggravates his guilt. robber--or literally, "a breaker," namely, through all constraints of right. doeth the like to any one--The Hebrew and the parallel (Eze 18:18) require us to translate rather, "doeth to his brother any of these things," namely, the things which follow in Eze 18:11, &c. [MAURER].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
the father has done none of them: Henry tells good parents with wicked children that their case is written here. Grace does not run in the blood. The son of verse 10 has his father's example before him and takes up the very sins his father refused.
Ezekiel 18:11
“And that doeth not any of those duties,.... Before mentioned, which his father did, but the reverse of them; and so the Septuagint and Arabic versions render it, "and in the way of his righteous father does not walk"; does not tread in his steps, and work righteousness as he did: but even hath eaten upon the mountains, and defiled his neighbour's wife; has been guilty of idolatry and adultery; See Gill on Eze 18:6.”
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 18:11
“Let those good parents that have wicked children not look upon their case as singular; it is a case put here; and by it we see that grace does not run in the blood, nor always attend the means of grace.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
He oppresses the poor and needy: The son's list reverses his father's point for point, the pledge kept back, the eyes lifted to idols, the poor oppressed. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown find his guilt made heavier by the father he had. He knew the better way.
Ezekiel 18:12
“Hath oppressed the poor and needy,.... Who are weak, and have none to help them, and stand by them, and so are oppressed by such a man.”
his blood will be on his own head: Wesley notes that the Hebrew word for blood is plural here. It covers the blood of the innocent the son killed and his own life, forfeited by the killing. Clarke asks whether a father's holiness could be credited to such a son, and answers no.
Ezekiel 18:13
“Shall he then live? - Because his father was a righteous man, shall the father’s holiness be imputed to him? No! He shad surely die; his blood shall be upon him - He shall suffer for his own crimes.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 18:13
“'Tis plural, bloods; both the blood of the innocent which he murdered, and his own blood which thereby he forfeited; the blood of his own soul and life: that is the whole blame of his misery in time and eternity, shall lie upon himself.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 18:14-18
A third generation appears, a son who watches his violent father's sins and chooses differently. The father dies in his own iniquity, the case built symmetrically to close off inheritance in either direction. Keil reads the three-generation sequence as the chapter's argument by example before it is stated as principle.
Ezekiel 18:14
“Hezekiah, of Ahaz (2Ki 16:1-20; 21:1-22:20). seeth . . . and considereth--The same Hebrew stands for both verbs, "seeth . . . yea, seeth." The repetition implies the attentive observation needed, in order that the son may not be led astray by his father's bad example; as sons generally are blind to parents sins, and even imitate them as if they were virtues.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 18:14
“Wicked Ahaz begets a good Hezekiah, who sees all his father's sins which he has done, and though he will not, like Ham, proclaim his father's shame, or make the worst of it, yet he loathes it, and blushes at it, and thinks the worse of sin because it was the reproach and ruin of his own father.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
look to the idols of the house of Israel: Gill notes that the grandson's list repeats the one given for his grandfather at verse 6, in the same words. The righteous life skips a generation and returns. Each man in the case chooses his own way before God.
Ezekiel 18:15
“That hath not eaten upon the mountains, neither hath lifted up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, hath not defiled his neighbour's wife. See Gill on Eze 18:6; where the same things are mentioned as here, and in the same order; only that clause, "neither hath come near to a menstruous woman", is here omitted.”
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 18:15
“Thus he has executed God's judgments and walked in his statutes, not only done his duty for once, but one on in a course and way of obedience. (2.) We are assured that the graceless father alone shall die in his iniquity, but his gracious son shall fare never the worse for it.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
retain a pledge: Gill follows the Targum in reading the Hebrew as a man who took no pledge at all from the poor. Where he did take one, he returned it in the time the law directs. He lends to the poor on trust.
Ezekiel 18:16
“Neither hath oppressed any,.... See Gill on Eze 18:7. hath not withholden the pledge; or, hath not pledged the pledge (h). The meaning is, not that he had not given one, but had not taken one. So the Targum, "the pledge he hath not taken;'' or, if he did, he did not keep it beyond the time the law directs, but restored it to him whose it was; neither hath spoiled by violence, but hath given his bread to the hungry, and hath covered the naked with a garment.”
withholds his hand from harming the poor: Clarke sets the two cases side by side. The son bears nothing of his father's iniquity, and the father gained nothing from the righteousness of the grandfather. Henry reads keeping the ordinances and following the statutes as a settled course of obedience.
Ezekiel 18:17
“He shall not die for the iniquity of his father - He shall no more be affected by his father’s crimes, than his father was benefited by his grandfather’s righteousness.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
robbed his brother: To rob a brother was to defraud a fellow Israelite. Henry and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown both name Ahaz and his son Hezekiah as the case lived out in Judah. Each answered for his own ways.
Righteousness cannot be inherited or banked
Ezekiel 18:19-20
Ezekiel answers with the chapter's flattest statement of the principle, the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father. Barnes reads the verse as correcting a misapplication of Exodus 20:5's visiting of iniquity upon children, which describes a general pattern of consequence across generations.
Ezekiel 18:19
“But GROTIUS supports English Version, wherein the Jews contradict the prophet, "Why (sayest thou so) doth not the son (often, as in our case, though innocent) bear (that is, suffer for) the iniquity of their father?" Ezekiel replies, It is not as you say, but as I in the name of God say: "When the son hath done," &c. English Version is simpler than that of FAIRBAIRN.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
The soul who sins is the one who will die: Deuteronomy 24:16 had already set this rule for Israel's courts, and Amaziah kept it at 2 Kings 14:6. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the righteousness of the righteous man as a righteousness counted to him for Christ's sake. Clarke turns next to two harder cases.
Ezekiel 18:20
"Righteousness" is not used as if any were absolutely righteous; but, of such as have it imputed to them for Christ's sake, though not under the Old Testament themselves understanding the ground on which they were regarded as righteous, but sincerely seeking after it in the way of God's appointment, so far as they then understood this way.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 18:21-23
A wicked man who turns and keeps God's statutes shall surely live, his past transgressions not mentioned against him. The chapter's own question follows, have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? Henry reads verse 23 as the emotional center, judgment never presented as something God wants.
Ezekiel 18:21
“In a way only, saith he, the sins of the fathers are not transmitted to the children, neither doth the wicked son any longer burden the righteous father; nor are others punished for the sins of others, so that he, who before was wicked and a sinner, if he afterwards do penance, and turn to better things, and blot out his former sins, be not judged by the old sins: but let him be received into my flock, by the renewal of virtue.”
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Ezekielpatristic
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 18:21
“But if the wicked will turn from all his sins - And afterwards walk according to the character of the righteous already specified shall he find mercy, and be for ever saved? Yes.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
will be held against him: Clarke reads the forgiveness as complete, so that the transgressions the man committed are never mentioned to him again. Isaiah 43:25 has the LORD blotting out transgressions and remembering sins no more. Mercy clears the record.
Do I take any pleasure: Gill calls judgment the LORD's strange work, from Isaiah 28:21, and mercy His delight. Henry sets the verse beside Hosea 11:8, where God asks how He can give Ephraim up. Peter says the same at 2 Peter 3:9.
Ezekiel 18:23
“Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God,.... Perish by sword, famine, or pestilence, or go into captivity; this, though the Lord's will and work, yet is his strange work; mercy is his delight.”
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 18:23
“If men perish, it is because they will not come to the Lord for salvation; not that the Lord is not willing to save them (Joh 5:40). They trample on not merely justice, but mercy; what farther hope can there be for them, when even mercy is against them?”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
A righteous man who turns to iniquity forfeits the record of his righteousness, and dies in the sin he commits. Wesley reads the symmetry as the chapter's point, standing before God is never a stored balance but a present condition. The verse has occasioned disagreement among theologians over final perseverance.
Ezekiel 18:24
“When the righteous turneth away from his righteousness - Here is the second case. Can a man who was once holy and pure fall away so as to perish everlastingly? Yes. For God says, “If he turn away from his righteousness;” not his self-righteousness, the gloss of theologians: for God never speaks of turning away from that, for, in his eyes, that is a nonentity.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Turn and live: I take no pleasure in death
Ezekiel 18:25-29
The exiles complain that God's way is unequal, and the answer, repeated twice, turns the charge back on the objectors, are not your ways unequal? Fairbairn reads the doubled exchange as evidence the complaint was a live grievance among the exiles, worth answering fully rather than dismissing in one line.
Ezekiel 18:25
“Their plea for saying, "The way of the Lord is not equal," was that God treated different classes in a different way. But it was really their way that was unequal, since living in sin they expected to be dealt with as if they were righteous.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 18:25
“Equal - literally, “weighed out, balanced.” Man’s ways are arbitrary, God’s ways are governed by a self-imposed law, which makes all consistent and harmonious.”
he will die for this: The righteous man of verse 24 returns as the answer to the complaint that the way of the Lord is unjust. Henry reads his righteousness as never sincere, citing 1 John 2:19, and Clarke reads a real fall from holiness. The iniquity he committed is his own.
Ezekiel 18:26
“When a righteous man turneth away from his righteousness,.... This is repeated for the further confirmation of it, and to raise their attention to it; to make it more plain and manifest to them, and to fix it upon their minds: and committeth iniquity, and dieth in them: or, "he shall die for them" (m); both for his turning away from his righteousness, and for his committing iniquity: for his iniquity that he hath done shall he die; in both respects.”
2 more voices on this verse
Ezekiel 18:26
“The two last instances repeated in inverse order. God's emphatic statement of His principle of government needs no further proof than the simple statement of it. in them--in the actual sins, which are the manifestations of the principle of "iniquity," mentioned just before.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 18:26
“No: All his righteousness that he has done, though ever so much applauded by men, shall not be mentioned so as to be either a credit or a comfort to him; the righteousness of an apostate is forgotten, as the wickedness of a penitent is. Under the law, if a Nazarite was polluted he lost all the foregoing days of his separation ( Num. vi.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
he will save his life: Jerome renders the close of the verse that the man shall keep himself alive. The wicked man of verse 21 returns here as part of the answer to the charge that the way of the Lord is unjust. His turning saves him.
Because he considered: The man considers first, then turns. Henry reads considering as a change in the heart and turning from all transgression as a change in the life. Theodoret has God asking how the people dare call such a sentence unjust.
Ezekiel 18:28
“When he considers he must turn away from his wickedness, which denotes a change in the disposition of the heart; he must turn from his sins and his transgression, which denotes a change in the life; he must break off from all his evil courses, and, wherein he has done iniquity, must resolve to do so no more, and this from a principle of hatred to sin.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 18:28
“You see my just sentence and you dare to accuse me of injustice? You yourselves needed to be accused; you actually prefer injustice in the face of such an obvious example of justice by your own judge.”
Theodoret of Cyrus · written before 458 · Commentary on Ezekiel 6:18patristic
Are My ways unjust: Barnes gives the Hebrew word behind just as weighed out or balanced. Israel charged the LORD with a false balance. The question sets their own ways on the scale instead.
Ezekiel 18:30-32
The chapter closes on command, make you a new heart, an appeal that anticipates the new heart the Lord himself promises to give at 36:26. Keil reads the juxtaposition as deliberate, the same chapter that has argued individual responsibility ends by admitting the new heart is finally God's own gift.
Ezekiel 18:30
Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions - There is still life; still a God that has no pleasure in the death of a sinner. one who is ever ready to give his Holy Spirit to all them that ask him; therefore “repent and turn, so iniquity shall not be your ruin.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
3 more voices on this verse
Ezekiel 18:30
“This message is specifically directed towards the Israelites, urging them to repent and abandon their iniquities or transgressions against God. However, it can also be understood as applicable to both the Israelites and the crowd of Gentiles, encouraging them to forsake their vices and turn to the one who can heal their brokenness.”
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Ezekielpatristic
Ezekiel 18:30
“Thus far that is right which is implied in this proverbial saying, That those who are guilty of wilful sin eat sour grapes; they do that which they will feel from, sooner or later. The grapes may look well enough in the temptation, but they will be bitter as bitterness itself in the reflection. They will set the sinner's teeth on edge.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 18:30
“As God is to judge them "according to their ways" (Pr 1:31), their only hope is to "repent"; and this is a sure hope, for God takes no delight in judging them in wrath, but graciously desires their salvation on repentance.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
a new heart and a new spirit: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the command as one no man can keep by himself, given to drive him to seek the Holy Spirit. The LORD pleads with the house of Israel. The door stands open.
Ezekiel 18:31
“But God is not content with that partition, since he is deprived of half his right: for he does not say that he would assist men to renew themselves and to repent; but he attributes the work to himself entirely: I will give you a new heart and a new spirit.”
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 18:31
“The command to do what men cannot themselves do is designed to drive them (instead of laying the blame, as the Jews did, elsewhere rather than on themselves) to feel their own helplessness, and to seek God's Holy Spirit (Ps 51:11, 12). Thus the outward exhortation is, as it were, the organ or instrument which God uses for conferring grace.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
So repent and live!: Henry calls it absurd to choose death over life when life is offered. Gill reads the pleasure of the Lord GOD with a limit, for He still delights in judgment on the wicked who refuse to turn. The chapter ends on two commands, repent and live.
Ezekiel 18:32
“For I have no pleasure - God repeats what he had so solemnly declared before. Can ye doubt his sincerity? his ability? his willingness? the efficacy of the blood of his covenant? Wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye - Reader, now give God thy heart. Though every man comes into the world with a fallen nature - a soul infected with sin, yet no man is damned on that account.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 18:32
“What an absurd thing it is for you to choose death and damnation rather than life and salvation. Note, The reason why sinners die is because they will die; they will go down the way that leads to death, and not come up to the terms on which life is offered. Herein sinners, especially sinners of the house of Israel, are most unreasonable and act most unaccountably.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Keep studying
Studies5
Words12
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; Ambrose of Milan, DEATH AS A GOOD 2:3; 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 Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible; Patrick Fairbairn, An Exposition of Ezekiel and Theodoret of Cyrus, COMMENTARY ON EZEKIEL 6:18.