Ezekiel 14:12

Ezekiel 14:12

10 And they shall bear their iniquity; the punishment of the prophet shall be the same as the punishment of the one who inquired,

11 that the house of Israel may ^ano longer stray from Me, nor be profaned anymore with all their transgressions, ^bbut that they may be My people and I may be their God,“ says the Lord God.’ ”

Judgment on Persistent Unfaithfulness

12 The word of the Lord came again to me, saying:

13 “Son of man, when a land sins against Me by persistent unfaithfulness, I will stretch out My hand against it; I will cut off its ^asupply of bread, send famine on it, and cut off man and beast from it.

14 ^aEven if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they would deliver only themselves ^bby their righteousness,” says the Lord God.

15 “If I cause ^awild beasts to pass through the land, and they¹ empty it, and make it so desolate that no man may pass through because of the beasts,

16 even ^athough these three men were in it, as I live,” says the Lord God, “they would deliver neither sons nor daughters; only they would be delivered, and the land would be ^bdesolate.

17 “Or if ^aI bring a sword on that land, and say, ‘Sword, go through the land,’ and I ^bcut off man and beast from it,

18 even ^athough these three men were in it, as I live,” says the Lord God, “they would deliver neither sons nor daughters, but only they themselves would be delivered.

19 “Or if I send ^aa pestilence into that land and ^bpour out My fury on it in blood, and cut off from it man and beast,

Commentaries:

Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown

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The second part of the chapter: the effect which the presence of a few righteous persons was to have on the purposes of God (compare Genesis 18:24-32). God had told Jeremiah that the guilt of Judah was too great to be pardoned even for the intercession of Moses and Samuel (Psalms 99:6; Jeremiah 14:2; Jeremiah 15:1), which had prevailed formerly (Exodus 32:11-14; Numbers 14:13-20; I Samuel 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" (James 5:16). Ezekiel supplements Jeremiah by adding that not only those two once successful intercessors, but not even the three pre-eminently righteous men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, could stay God's judgments by their righteousness.

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