30 And thou, son of man, the sons of thy people who are speaking about thee, By the walls, and in openings of the houses, Have spoken one with another, each with his brother, Saying: Come in, I pray you, And hear what `is' the word that cometh out from Jehovah.
And, O Jehovah, cause me to know, and I know, Then Thou hast showed me their doings. And I `am' as a trained lamb brought to slaughter, And I have not known That against me they have devised devices: We destroy the tree with its food, and cut him off From the land of the living, And his name is not remembered again.
And they come nigh -- all the heads of the forces, and Johanan son of Kareah, and Jezaniah son of Hoshaiah, and all the people from the least even unto the greatest -- and they say unto Jeremiah the prophet, `Let, we pray thee, our supplication fall before thee, and pray for us unto Jehovah thy God, for all this remnant; for we have been left a few out of many, as thine eyes do see us; and Jehovah thy God doth declare to us the way in which we walk, and the thing that we do.' And Jeremiah the prophet saith unto them, `I have heard: lo, I am praying unto Jehovah your God according to your words, and it hath come to pass, the whole word that Jehovah answereth you, I declare to you -- I do not withhold from you a word.' And they have said to Jeremiah, `Jehovah is against us for a witness true and faithful, if -- according to all the word with which Jehovah thy God doth send thee unto us -- we do not so. Whether good or evil, to the voice of Jehovah our God, to whom we are sending thee, we do hearken; because it is good for us when we hearken to the voice of Jehovah our God.'
and they send to him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, `Teacher, we have known that thou art true, and the way of God in truth thou dost teach, and thou art not caring for any one, for thou dost not look to the face of men; tell us, therefore, what dost thou think? is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not?'
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Ezekiel 33
Commentary on Ezekiel 33 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 33
The prophet has now come off his circuit, which he went as judge, in God's name, to try and pass sentence upon the neighbouring nations, and, having finished with them, and read them all their doom, in the eight chapters foregoing, he now returns to the children of his people, and receives further instructions what to say to them.
Eze 33:1-9
The prophet had been, by express order from God, taken off from prophesying to the Jews, just then when the news came that Jerusalem was invested, and close siege laid to it, ch. 24:27. But now that Jerusalem is taken, two years after, he is appointed again to direct his speech to them; and there his commission is renewed. If God had abandoned them quite, he would not have sent prophets to them; nor, if he had not had mercy in store for them, would he have shown them such things as these. In these verses we have,
Eze 33:10-20
These verses are the substance of what we had before (ch. 18:20, etc.) and they are so full and express a declaration of the terms on which people stand with God (as the former were of the terms on which ministers stand) that it is no wonder that they are here repeated, as those were, though we had the substance of them before. Observe here,
Now lay all this together, and then judge whether the way of the Lord be not equal, whether this will not justify God in the destruction of sinners and glorify him in the salvation of penitents. The conclusion of the whole matter is (v. 20): "O you house of Israel, though you are all involved now in the common calamity, yet there shall be a distinction of persons made in the spiritual and eternal state, and I will judge you every one after his ways.' Though they were sent into captivity by the lump, good fish and bad enclosed in the same net, yet there he will separate between the precious and the vile and will render to every man according to his works. Therefore God's way is equal and unexceptionable; but, as for the children of thy people, God turns them over to the prophet, as he did to Moses (Ex. 32:7): "They are thy people; I can scarcely own them for mine.' As for them, their way is unequal; this way which they have got of quarrelling with God and his prophets is absurd and unreasonable. In all disputes between God and his creatures it will certainly be found that he is in the right and they are in the wrong.
Eze 33:21-29
Here we have,
Eze 33:30-33
The foregoing verses spoke conviction to the Jews who remained in the land of Israel, who were monuments of sparing mercy and yet returned not to the Lord; in these verses those are reproved who were now in captivity in Babylon, under divine rebukes, and yet were not reformed by them. They are not indeed charged with the same gross enormities that the others are charged with. They made some show of religion and devotion; but their hearts were not right with God. The thing they are here accused of is mocking the messengers of the lord, one of their measure-filling sins, which brought this ruin upon them, and yet they were not cured of it. Two ways they mocked the prophet Ezekiel:-