Ezekiel 22:23

Jerusalem had already faced judgment, but it did not lead to change. The city remained polluted (morally and spiritually unclean).

Jerusalem was the holy city where God had placed his name. It was the spiritual center of Judah. The city represented God’s presence among his people.

But Jerusalem had become corrupt and unclean. Instead of honoring God, the city was full of violence and bloodshed. Because of this sin, God’s wrath (his just anger against sin) would come upon the city.

From this verse to the end he shows the general corruption of all ranks.

Here is, I. A general idea given of the land of Israel, how well it deserved the judgments coming to destroy it and how much it needed these judgments to refine it. Let the prophet tell her plainly, "Thou art the land that is not cleansed, not refined as metal is, and therefore needest to be again put into the furnace. Means and methods of reformation have been ineffectual; thou art not rained upon in the day of indignation." This was one of the judgments which God brought upon them in the day of his wrath, he withheld the rain from them, Jer 14:4. Or, "When thou art under the tokens of God's displeasure, even in the day of indignation thou art not rained upon; thou hast not received instruction by the prophets, whose doctrine is said to descend as the rain." Or, "When thou art corrected thou art not cleansed; thy filth is not carried away as that in the streets is by a sweeping rain. Nay, though it be a day of indignation with thee, yet thy filthiness, which should be done away, has become more offensive, as that of a city is in dry weather, when it is not rained upon." Or, "Thou hast nothing to refresh and comfort thyself with in the day of indignation; thou art not rained upon by divine consolations." So the rich man in torment had not a drop of water, or rain, to cool his tongue.
II. A particular charge drawn up against the several orders and degrees of men among them, which shows that they had all helped to fill the measure of the nation's guilt, but none had done any thing towards the emptying of it; they are therefore all alike.
1. They have every one corrupted his way, and those who should have been the brightest examples of virtue were ringleaders in iniquity and patterns of vice.
(1.) The prophets, who pretended to make known the mind of God to them, were not only deceivers, but devourers (Eze 22:25), and hardened them in their wickedness both by their preaching, wherein they promised them impunity and prosperity, and by their conversation, in which they were as profligate as any. There is a conspiracy of her prophets against God and religion, against the true prophets and all good men; they conspired together to be all in one song, as Ahab's prophets were, to assure them of peace in their sinful ways. Note, The unity which is found among pretenders to infallibility, and which they so much boast of, is only the result of a secret conspiracy against the truth. Satan is not divided against himself. The prophets are in conspiracy with the murderers and oppressors, to patronise and protect them in their wickedness, and justify what they did with their false prophecies, provided they may come in sharers with them in the profits of it. They are like a roaring lion ravening the prey; they thunder out threats against those whose ruin is aimed at, terrify them, or make them odious to the people, and so make themselves masters, [1.] Of their lives: They have devoured souls, have been accessory to the shedding of the blood of many an innocent person, and so have made many to become sorrowful widows who were comfortable wives. They have persecuted those to death who witnessed against their pretensions to prophecy and would not be imposed upon by their counterfeit commission. Or, They devoured souls by flattering sinners into a false peace and a vain hope, and seducing them into the paths of sin, which would be their eternal ruin. Note, Those who draw men to wickedness, and encourage them in it, are the devourers and murderers of their souls. [2.] Of their estates. When Naboth is slain they take possession of his vineyard; They have seized the treasure and precious things, as forfeited; some way or other they had of devouring the widows' houses, as the Pharisees, Mat 23:14. Or, They got this treasure, and all these precious things, as fees for false and flattering prophecies; for he that puts not into their mouths, they even prepare war against him, Mic 3:5. It was said with Jerusalem when such men as these passed for prophets.
(2.) The priests, who were teachers by office, and had the custody of the sacred things, and should have called the false prophets to account, were as bad as they, Eze 22:26. [1.] They violated the law of God, which they should have observed and taught others to observe. They made no conscience of the law of the priesthood, but openly broke it, and with contempt, as Hophni and Phinehas. They did what they had a mind, with an express non obstante - notwithstanding to the word of God. And how should those teach the people their duty who lived in contradiction to their own? [2.] They profaned God's holy things, about which they were to minister, and which they ought to have restrained others from the profanation of. They suffered those to eat of the holy things who were unqualified by the law. The table of the Lord was contemptible with them. By dealing in holy things with such unhallowed hands they did themselves profane them. [3.] They did not themselves put a difference, nor did they show the people how to put a difference, between the holy and profane, the clean and the unclean, according to the directions and distinctions of the law. They did not exclude those from God's courts who were excluded by the law, nor teach the people to observe the difference the law had made between food clean and unclean, between times and places holy and common; but they lived at large themselves and encouraged the people to do so too. [4.] They hid their eyes from God's sabbaths; they took no care about them; it was all one to them whether God's sabbaths were kept holy or no; they neither gave countenance to those who observed them nor check to those who profaned them, nor did they themselves show any regard to them or veneration for them. They winked at those who did servile works on that day, and looked another way when they should have inspected the behaviour of the people on sabbath days. God's sabbaths have such a beauty and glory put upon them by the divine institution as may command respect; but they hid their eyes from them and would not see that excellency in them. [5.] By all this God himself was profaned among them; his authority was slighted, his goodness made light of, and the highest affront and contempt imaginable were put upon his holiness. Note, The profanation of the honour of the scriptures, of sabbaths and sacred things, is a profanation of the honour of God himself, who is interested in them.
(3.) The princes, who should have interposed with their authority to redress these grievances, were as daring transgressors of the law as any (Eze 22:27): They are like wolves ravening the prey; for such is power without justice and goodness to direct it. All their business was to gratify, [1.] Their own pride and ambition, by making themselves arbitrary and formidable. [2.] Their own malice and revenge, by shedding blood and destroying souls, sacrificing to their cruelty all those that stood in their way or had in any thing disobliged them. [3.] Their own avarice; all they aim at is to get dishonest gain, by crushing and oppressing their subject. Lucri bonus est odor ex re qualibet. Rem, rem, quocunque modo rem - Sweet is the odour of gain, from whatever substance it ascends. Money, money, by fairness or by fraud, get money. But, though they had power sufficient to carry them on in their oppressive courses, yet how could they answer it both to their credit and to their consciences? We are told how (Eze 22:28): The prophets daubed them with untempered mortar, told them in God's name (horrid wickedness!) that there was no harm in what they did, that they might dispose of the lives and estates of their subjects as they pleased, and could do no wrong, nay, that in prosecuting such and such whom they had marked out they did God service; and thus they stopped the mouth of their consciences. They also justified what they did, to the people, nay, and magnified it as if it were all for the public good, and so saved their reputation, and kept their oppressed subjects from murmuring. Note, Daubing prophets are the great supporters of ravening princes, but will prove at last their great deceivers, for they daub with untempered mortar which will not hold, nor will the wall stand long that is built up with it. They pretend to be seers, but they see vanity; they pretend to be diviners, but they divine lies; they pretend a warrant from Heaven for what they say, and that it is all as true as gospel; they say, Thus saith the Lord God, but it is all a sham, for the Lord has not spoken any such thing.
(4.) The people that had any power in their hands learned of their princes to abuse it, Eze 22:29. Those that should have complained of the oppression of the subject, and have put in a claim of rights on behalf of the injured, that should have stood up for liberty and property, were themselves invaders of them: The people of the land have used oppression and exercised robbery. The rich oppress the poor, masters their servants, landlords their tenants, and even parents their own children; nay, the buyers and sellers will find some way to oppress one another. This is such a sin as, when it is national, is indeed a national judgment, and is threatened as such. Isa 3:5, The people shall be oppressed every one by his neighbour. It is an aggravation of the sin that they have vexed the poor and needy, whom they should have relieved, and have oppressed the stranger and deprived him of his right, to whom they ought to have been not only just, but kind. Thus was the apostasy universal and the disease epidemical.
2. There is none that appears as an intercessor for them (v. 30): I sought for a man among them that should stand in the gap, but I found none. Note, (1.) Sin makes a gap in the hedge of protection that is about a people at which good things run out from them and evil things pour in upon them, a gap by which God enters to destroy them. (2.) There is a way of standing in the gap, and making up the breach against the judgments of God, by repentance, and prayer, and reformation. Moses stood in the gap when he made intercession for Israel to turn away the wrath of God, Psa 106:23. (3.) When God is coming forth against a sinful people to destroy them he expects some to intercede for them, and enquires if there be but one that does; so much is it his desire and delight to show mercy. If there be but a man that stands in the gap, as Abraham for Sodom, he will discover him and be well pleased with him. (4.) It bodes ill to a people when judgments are breaking in upon them, and the spirit of prayer is restrained, so that not one is found that will either give them a good word or speak a good word for them. (5.) When it is so, what can be expected but utter ruin? Therefore have I poured out my indignation upon them (Eze 22:31), have given it full scope, that it may come upon them in a full stream; yet, whatever God's wrath inflicts upon a people, it is their own way that is therein recompensed upon their heads, and God deals with them no worse, but even much better, than their iniquity deserves.

I will gather you - Jerusalem is represented here as the fining pot; all the people are to be gathered together in it, and the Chaldean fire is to knelt the whole. And God will increase thy sufferings: as the refiner blows the fire with his bellows, so God will blow upon you with the fire of his wrath, Eze 22:21.

And the word of the Lord came unto me,.... The word of prophecy from the Lord, as the Targum:

saying; as follows:

The corrupt state of all classes in the kingdom is the immediate cause of its destruction. - Eze 22:23. And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, Eze 22:24. Son of man, say to it, Thou art a land which is not shined upon, nor rained upon in the day of anger. Eze 22:25. Conspiracy of its prophets is within it; like a roaring lion, which rends in pieces the prey, they devour souls, take possessions and money; they multiply its widows within it. Eze 22:26. Its priests violate my law and profane my holy things; they make no distinction between holy and unholy, and do not teach the difference between clean and unclean, and they hide their eyes from my Sabbaths, and I am profaned among them. Eze 22:27. Its princes in the midst of it are like wolves, which rend prey in pieces, that they may shed blood, destroy souls, to acquire gain. Eze 22:28. And its prophets plaster it with cement, seeing what is worthless, and diving lies for them, saying, "Thus saith the Lord Jehovah," when Jehovah hath not spoken. Eze 22:29. The common people offer violence and commit theft; they crush the wretched and the poor, and oppress the foreigner against right. Eze 22:30. I seek among them for a man who might build a wall and step into the breach before me on behalf of the land, that I might not destroy it, but I find none. Eze 22:31. Therefore I pour out my anger upon them; I destroy them in the fire of my wrath, I give their way upon their head, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah. - To show the necessity for the predicted judgment still more clearly, in the third word of God contained in this chapter a description is given of the spread of deep corruption among all classes of the people, and the impossibility of saving the kingdom is plainly shown. The words אמר־להּ, "say unto her," are taken by most of the commentators as referring to Jerusalem, the abominations of which the prophet is commanded to declare. But although the clause, "thou art a land," etc. (Eze 22:24), could unquestionably be made to harmonize with this, yet the words of Eze 22:30, "I sought for a man who might stand in the gap before Jehovah for the land," indicate most unquestionably that this word of God is directed against the land of Judah, and consequently להּ must be taken as referring to ארץ which follows, the pronoun is this case being placed before the noun to which it refers, as in Num 24:17. Any allusion to the city of Jerusalem would therefore be somewhat out of place, inasmuch as in the preceding word of God the object referred to was not the city, but the house of Israel, or the nation generally, from which a transition is here made to the land, or the kingdom of Judah. The meaning of Eze 22:24 is a disputed question. לא מטהרה היא, which is rendered ἡ οὐ βρεχομένηin the Sept., is taken by most of the expositors to mean, "it is not cleansed," the form מטהרה being correctly rendered as a participle Pual of טהר. But this rendering does not furnish any appropriate sense, unless the following words לא גּשׁמהּ are taken as a threat: there shall not be rain, or it shall not be rained upon in the day of wrath. But this view is hardly reconcilable with the form of the word. גּשׁמהּ, according to the Masoretic pointing with Mappik in the ה, is evidently meant to be taken as a noun גּשׁם = גּשׁם. In that case, if the words were intended to contain a threat, יהיה ought not to be omitted. But without a verb the words contain a statement in harmony with what precedes. We regard the Chetib גשׁמה as the perfect Pual גּשׁמהּ. And let it not be objected to this that the Pual of this verb is not met with elsewhere, for the form of the noun גּשׁם with the u sound does not occur anywhere else. As a perfect Pual, לא גּשׁמהּ is a simple continuation of the participial clause לא מטהרה היא, containing like this an affirmation, and cannot possibly be taken as a threat or prediction. But "not cleansed" and "not rained upon" do not agree together, as rain is not a means of purification according to the Hebrew idea. It is true that in the law the withdrawal or suspension of rain is threatened as a punishment from God, and the pouring out of rain is promised as a theocratical blessing. But even if the words are taken in a tropical sense, as denoting a withdrawal of the blessings of divine grace, they will not harmonize with the other clause, "not cleansed." We therefore take מטהרה in the sense of "shined upon by the light," or provided with brightness; a meaning which is sustained by Exo 24:10, where tohar occurs in the sense of splendour, and by the kindred word tzohar, light. In this way we obtain the suitable thought, land which has neither sunlight nor rain in the day of wrath, i.e., does not enjoy a single trace of the divine blessing, but is given up to the curse of barrenness.
The reason for this threat is given in Eze 22:25., where a picture is drawn of the moral corruption of all ranks; viz., of the prophets (Eze 22:25), the priests (Eze 22:26), the princes (Eze 22:27), and the common people (Eze 22:29). There is something very striking in the allusion to the prophets in Eze 22:25, not so much because they are mentioned again in Eze 22:28, - for this may be accounted for on the ground that in the latter passage they are simply introduced as false advisers of the princes, - as on account of the statement made concerning them in Eze 22:25, namely, that, like lions tearing their prey, they devour souls, etc.; a description which is not given either in Ezekiel 13 or elsewhere. Hitzig therefore proposes to alter נביאיה into נשׂיאיה, after the rendering ἀφηγούμενοι given by the lxx. This alteration of the text, which confines itself to a single letter, is rendered very plausible by the fact that almost the same is affirmed of the persons mentioned in Eze 22:25 as of the princes in Eze 22:27, and that in the passage in Zephaniah (Zep 3:3-4), which is so similar to the one before us, that Ezekiel appears to have had it in his mind, the princes (שׂריה) and the judges (שׁפטיה) are called the prophets and the priests. The נשׂיאים here would correspond to the שׂרים of Zephaniah, and the שׂרים to the שׁפטים. According to Eze 22:6, the נשׂיאים would indicate primarily the members of the royal family, possibly including the chief officers of the crown; and the שׂרים eht dna ;n (Eze 22:27) would be the heads of tribes, of families, and of fathers' houses, in whose hands the national administration of justice principally lay (cf. Exo 18:19.; Deu 1:13-18; and my Bibl. Archol. ii. 149). I therefore prefer this conjecture, or correction, to the Masoretic reading, although the latter is supported by ancient witnesses, such as the Chaldee with its rendering ספרהא, scribes, and the version of Jerome. For the statement which the verse contains is not applicable to prophets, and the best explanation given of the Masoretic text - namely, that by Michaelis, "they have made a compact with one another as to what kind of teaching they would or would not give; and in order that their authority may continue undisturbed, they persecute even to blood those who do not act with them, or obey them, but rather contradict" - does not do justice to the words, but weakens their sense. קשׁר is not a predicate to 'נב, "they are (i.e., form) a conspiracy;" but 'נב is a genitive. At the same time, there is no necessity to take קשׁר in the sense of "company," a rendering which cannot be sustained. The fact that in what follows, where the comparison to lions is introduced, the נביאים (נשׂיאים) are the subject, simply proves that in the first clause also these men actually form the prominent idea. There is no ground for supplying המּה to 'כּארי (they are like, etc.); but the simile is to be linked on to the following clause. נפשׁ אכלוּ is to be explained from the comparison to a lion, which devours the prey that it has captured in its blood, in which is the soul, or nephesh (Gen 9:4; Lev 17:11.). The thought is this: in their insatiable greed for riches they sacrifice men and put them to death, and thereby multiply the number of victims (for the fact, see Eze 19:5, Eze 19:7). What is stated in Eze 22:26 concerning the priests is simply a further expansion of Zep 3:4, where the first two clauses occur word for word; for קדשׁ in Zephaniah is really equivalent to קדשׁי, holy things and deeds. The desecration of the holy things consisted in the fact that they made no distinction between sacred and profane, clean and unclean. For the fact, compare Lev 10:10-11. Their covering their eyes from the Sabbaths showed itself in their permitting the Sabbaths to be desecrated by the people, without offering any opposition (cf. Jer 17:27).
The comparison of the rulers (sārim) to ravening wolves is taken from Zep 3:3. Destroying souls to acquire gain is perfectly applicable to unjust judges, inasmuch as, according to Exo 18:21, the judges were to hate בּצע. All that is affirmed in Eze 22:28 of the conduct of the false prophets is repeated for the most part verbatim from Eze 13:10,Eze 13:9, and Eze 13:7. By להם, which points back to the three classes of men already mentioned, and not merely to the sārim, the prophets are represented as helpers of those who support the ungodly in their wicked ways, by oracles which assured them of prosperity. עם (Eze 22:29), as distinguished from the spiritual and secular rulers of the nation, signifies the common people. With reference to their sins and wickednesses, see Eze 18:7, Eze 18:12, Eze 18:18; and for the command against oppressing the poor and foreigners, compare Exo 22:20-21; Deu 24:17. - The corruption is so universal, that not a man is to be found who could enter into the gap as a righteous man, or avert the judgment of destruction by his intercession. מהם refers not merely to the prophets, who did not enter into the gap according to Eze 13:5, but to all the classes previously mentioned. At the same time, it does not follow from this, that entering into the gap by means of intercession cannot be the thing intended, as Hitzig supposes. The expression לפני בּעד הארץ clearly refers to intercession. This is apparent from the simple fact that, as Hitzig himself observes, the intercession of Abraham for Sodom (Gen 18:13.) was floating before the mind of Ezekiel, since the concluding words of the verse contain an obvious allusion to Gen 18:28. Because the Lord does not find a single righteous man, who might intercede for the land, He pours out His anger upon it, to destroy the inhabitants thereof. With reference to the fact and the separate words employed, compare Ezekiel 21:36; Eze 7:4; Eze 9:10; Eze 11:21, and Eze 16:43. It does not follow from the word ואשׁפּך, that Ezekiel "is speaking after the catastrophe" (Hitzig). For although ואשׁפּך expresses the consequence of Jehovah's seeking a righteous man and not finding one, it by no means follows from the occurrence of the preterite ולא מצאתי that ואשׁפּך is also a preterite. ואשׁפּך is simply connected with ואבקּשׁ as a consequence; and in both verbs the Vav consec. expresses the sequence of thought, and not of time. The seeking, therefore, with the result of not having found, cannot be understood in a chronological sense, i.e., as an event belonging to the past, for the simple reason that the preceding words do not record the chronological order of events. It merely depicts the existing moral condition of the people, and Eze 22:30 sums up the result of the description in the thought that there was no one to be found who could enter in the gap before God. Consequently we cannot determine from the imperfect with Vav consec. either the time of the seeking and not finding, or that of the pouring out of the wrath.