Ezekiel 14:9

14:1-11 No outward form or reformation can be acceptable to God, so long as any idol possesses the heart; yet how many prefer their own devices and their own righteousness, to the way of salvation! Men's corruptions are idols in their hearts, and are of their own setting up; God will let them take their course. Sin renders the sinner odious in the eyes of the pure and holy God; and in his own eyes also, whenever conscience is awakened. Let us seek to be cleansed from the guilt and pollution of sins, in that fountain which the Lord has opened.

Ezekiel 14:9-12 . And if the prophet be deceived — Or, seduced. This is to be understood of the false prophets, whose practices are reproved throughout the whole foregoing chapter. I the Lord have deceived that prophet — I Jehovah have suffered him to be deceived; I have given him up to strong delusions, as a just judgment upon him for going after idols, and setting up false pretences to inspiration, 2 Thessalonians 2:11-12 . Or the words may signify, I will disappoint the expectations of those prophets who seduce my people, by speaking peace to them. For I will bring upon them those evils which they, with great assurance, have declared shall never come to pass. Thus Bishop Newcome, “When any false prophet is deceived, the probable event proving contrary to his prophecy, I Jehovah have so superintended the course of things as to deceive that prophet.” And I will, &c. — Or, Yea, I will stretch out my hand upon him — Remarkably punish his falsehood, and in severity destroy him. And they — Both the deceiver and the deceived; shall bear the punishment of their iniquity — There is so great a parity in the folly and impiety of both the seducing prophets and the seduced people, that it is hard to say, whose sin is greatest. The punishment of the prophet shall be, &c. — Their punishments shall be as similar as they made their sins: both shall be cut off and destroyed.

That the house of Israel may go no more astray from me — The judgments I will inflict upon the false prophets, and those that consult them, shall be an instruction to my people to continue steady to me and my worship, and not hanker after the idolatrous practices of the neighbouring nations.

(9) And if the prophet be deceived. —The exact sense of the original is, “If a prophet be persuaded and speak a word, I the LORD have persuaded that prophet.” The thought is thus in close connection with what precedes; in Ezekiel 14:3-4 ; Ezekiel 14:7 , the Lord has refused to allow an answer through the prophet to the hypocritical enquirer; but if the prophet, by giving the desired answer, allows himself to become a partaker of the sin which God abhors, then God will treat him according to that general method of dealing with sin which is here described. He “persuades” the prophet in the same sense in which He hardened Pharaoh’s heart, by making such persuasion the natural consequence of the immutable moral laws which He has ordained. Men are held back from sin only by God’s own Holy Spirit drawing them towards Himself. When they set this aside by transgressing God’s commands, the inevitable tendency—the tendency under the moral laws God has established—is to further sin. Hence the prophet who allowed himself to be persuaded, contrary to God’s command, to answer the hypocritical enquirer at all, would inevitably be persuaded further to answer him according to his desires. God does not force men either to receive the truth or to act righteously. If, notwithstanding His remonstrances, their hearts are set upon wrong, He will even give them up and “send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie” ( 2Thessalonians 2:11 ).

We are too often told in Scripture of this method of the Divine dealing to leave any room for us to misunderstand the principle. The result is a terrible one, but it is quite in keeping with all we can observe of the Divine work in nature. The man that refuses the medicine, must sink under the disease. The principle is clearly exemplified in the case of Ahab ( 1Kings 22:19-23 ), where the Lord is represented as sending a lying spirit into the mouths of the prophets, that they might counsel the king to the wrong course he was already determined to take. God is declared to do this because it was the result under His moral laws of the wicked and domineering spirit of the king who had driven away the true prophets and gathered around himself those who were willing to pervert their office and prophesy falsely to gratify his wishes. Of course this is not to suppose that God can ever be the author of sin and deceit; but He has ordained that sin shall punish itself, and when the heart rejects Him, He withdraws His Spirit from it and gives it up to its own delusions. Thus when Saul’s heart became alienated from God, and “the Spirit of the Lord departed from” him, the evil spirit, which came instead, is said to be “from the LORD” ( 1Samuel 16:14 ). This kind of judgment is necessarily more common in times of great and general declension from the right.

Verse 9. - I the Lord have deceived that prophet, etc. The teaching of modern thought is to soften language like this into "I have permitted him to be deceived." The distinction was seldom, if ever, present to the mind of the Old Testament, or indeed of the New Testament, writers. It is Jehovah who sends the "lying spirit" in 1 Kings 22:20 -23 . It is he who in the latter days shall send men "strong delusions" that they shall believe a lie ( 2 Thessalonians 2:11 ). In both cases it is implied that the delusion is a righteous punishment, is indeed the natural, because the divinely appointed, punishment of the sin. Populus vult decipi et decipiatur , but the very deception is a means for undeceiving them. At last their eyes shall be opened. The punishment of the false prophet and of those who trust him is at once retributive, and a discipline, and, if the discipline fails for them, at least a warning for others. Ezekiel 14:9

9–11 . Fate of the prophet who gives an answer to idolatrous inquirers: he and they shall perish together 9 . be deceived when he hath spoken ] Rather, be deceived (or, enticed) and speak a word , i.e. a prophetic word, ch. Ezekiel 12:25 seq . The meaning appears to be: if the prophet, entering into the “heart” of the idolaters, the circle and direction of their thoughts, and the general spirit which animates them, gives them a prophetic oracle which coincides with the line of their thoughts, and thus helps to foster their delusions, that prophet himself has been seduced or enticed; and it is the Lord who has enticed him. The passage has a resemblance to 1 Kings 22:20 . There a lying spirit came forth from the Lord and entered into the prophets of Ahab and deceived them, so that they entered into the designs of the wicked king and gave an answer favourable to him. Here it is the Lord himself who entices the prophet. In both cases this enticement or deception was in punishment for previous sin. Ezekiel does not appear to reflect upon the point whether the prophet before being deceived was true or false. The “prophet” became false when deceived, when he entered into the spirit and purposes of the idolaters, and spoke a word to them in the line of their sinful conduct and hopes. And this word merely hardened them in their mind and was a step towards taking them in their own heart ( Ezekiel 14:5 ).

And if the prophet be {f} deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the LORD have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel. (f) The prophet declares that God for man's ingratitude raises up false prophets to seduce them that delight in lies rather than in the truth of God, and thus he punishes sin with sin, 1Ki 22:20,22 and destroys those prophets as well as the people.

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. Toward the close of the kingdom of Judah false prophets were especially rife. The thoughts of men's hearts were revealed, the good separated from the bad, and the remnant of the people purged from the sins by which of late years the whole nation had been defiled.

The prophet, viz. the prophet who makes this his trade and gain, the false prophet, who speaks all serene and quiet, in hope of reward for his kind answer to those that desired to hear what might please them more than what God commanded, promised, or threatened. Have deceived; permitted him to err, or. iustly left him in his blindness, that he shall not discern his own self-deceivings; or else when such prophet promiseth good, and thinks concurrence of all second causes tend to it, yet I will disappoint and frustrate, as Isaiah 44:25 , if the confederacies to save were in likelihood sufficient, and it were no presumption to hope the best; and if your prophets on this ground promised you success, yet they shall deceive you, for I would defeat and disappoint them and you; so the sense would not carry a moral and culpable deceiving, but a just defeating and disappointing, or disabling, second causes, on which disappointment of hopes will follow. If Egypt’s arms had so weakened the Babylonians, that none but wounded men remained, yet the promise of your escape should fail you, O Israelites, for, Jeremiah 37:10 , these should rise up and burn your city. Stretch out my hand upon him; remarkably punish his falsehood, and in severity destroy him.

9. I the Lord have deceived that prophet—not directly, but through Satan and his ministers; not merely permissively, but by overruling their evil to serve the purposes of His righteous judgment, to be a touchstone to separate the precious from the vile, and to "prove" His people (De 13:3; 1Ki 22:23; Jer 4:10; 2Th 2:11, 12). Evil comes not from God, though God overrules it to serve His will (Job 12:16; Jas 1:3). 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."