Ezekiel 22:28

22:23-31 All orders and degrees of men had helped to fill the measure of the nation's guilt. The people that had any power abused it, and even the buyers and sellers find some way to oppress one another. It bodes ill to a people when judgments are breaking in upon them, and the spirit of prayer is restrained. Let all who fear God, unite to promote his truth and righteousness; as wicked men of every rank and profession plot together to run them down.

And her prophets have daubed them with untempered mortar,.... Palliated their sins, declared it to be right to shed the blood they did; and seize on the estates of men; but this, though it might for a while satisfy the consciences of these princes, and stop the clamours of the people against them; yet would not last long, but be like the building of a wall with bad stuff, which will not stand; and daubing it with mortar, which will soon wash off. So the Targum, "and the false prophets which are in the midst of her are like to those that build a wall, and daub it with mere clay, without straw;'' See Gill on Ezekiel 13:10. Seeing vanity, and divining lies unto them; pretending visions from God, when what they see, or pretend to see, is nothing but vanity and emptiness, mere delusions; and prophesying good things, peace and prosperity, when they are all lies; giving out they have messages from God, and are ordered to foretell that happy times will be, when it is all falsehood: saying, thus saith the Lord God, when the Lord hath not spoken; herein mimicking the true prophets, who came in the name of the Lord, and usually prefaced their prophecies with a thus saith the Lord; and so did these false prophets, when the Lord said nothing to them, and gave them no commission to speak in his name, or say the things they did.

(28) With untempered morter. —See Note on Ezekiel 13:10 . The prophets are here again spoken of in reference to their powerful influence upon the princes in leading them astray by falsehoods. “Seeing vanity” is an expression for pretended and false visions. (Comp. Ezekiel 13:7 ; Ezekiel 13:9-10 .)

And her {p} prophets have daubed them with untempered mortar, seeing vanity, and divining lies to them, saying, Thus saith the Lord GOD, when the LORD hath not spoken. (p) They who would have reproved them, flattered them in their vices and covered their doings with lies. See Geneva Eze 13:10

Prophets; false prophets. Have daubed them; flattered their oppressing bloody princes in their ways of sin and violence. With untempered mortar; with promises and encouragements that, like ill tempered mortar, will deceive them, though all seems for the present smooth and safe. Divining lies; pretending they had by vision from God all the good they promised, whereas it was all a notorious lie and falsehood. God never spake to those prophets, and what by his own prophets he spake was of quite another tenure, it was evil, not good.

The corrupt state of all classes in the kingdom is the immediate cause of its destruction. - Ezekiel 22:23 . And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, Ezekiel 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. Ezekiel 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. Ezekiel 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. Ezekiel 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. Ezekiel 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. Ezekiel 22:29 . The common people offer violence and commit theft; they crush the wretched and the poor, and oppress the foreigner against right. Ezekiel 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. Ezekiel 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. ( Ezekiel 22:24 ), could unquestionably be made to harmonize with this, yet the words of Ezekiel 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 Numbers 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.