THE elders of Israel, the old men of the nation, by reason of their years, should have been faithful men, examples of righteousness and godliness, but those who came to Ezekiel, evidently to get him to inquire of God for them, were not a whit better than the other leaders of the people spoken of in earlier chapters.
The heart-knowing God (Acts 1:24; 15:8) from whom nothing is hidden, told His servant what sort of persons his callers were: they had set up their idols in their heart, and put the stumbling-block of their iniquity before their face. Thoroughly joined to idolatry, their minds were closed to any call to repentance; with seared conscience they approached God as though He were like themselves, or that He was indifferent to His dishonor. There was no fear of Him before their eyes (Romans 3:18).
The answer God gave Ezekiel to return for Him to the elders was a direct rebuke, a revelation to them that He discerned them through and through, and a promise of certain judgment except they repented (verses 4 to 8). Marvelous, indeed, is the grace of our God, who speaks of mercy when any but Himself would have long since ceased to consider it. Yet will He never compromise with sin, and if a prophet were to join hands with the sinners of that day, linking God’s name with. His dishonor, both the prophet and the man who sought him, should be punished for their iniquity (verses 9 and 10).
Verse 11: Here again, as previously noted in connection with the book of Ezekiel, is a promise of God’s unchangeable purpose to bless Israel, without mention of the centuries of Gentile dominion which were to elapse before that, yet future, but now no longer distant, day shall dawn.
Verses 12 to 21, while in principle applicable to any land where God has been known, refers, primarily, to Israel, for they alone, among the nations, have occupied a place of special relationship to God.
“When a land sinneth against Me by working unfaithfulness, and I stretch out My hand upon it, etc.” (verse 13, N.T.) describes the position of guilt in which the whole people stood before Him, and the wrath which was poured out upon them.
Righteous persons (and there were such, even in that dark hour in Israel’s history) would not avail to stay the execution of divine judgment upon the land. Abraham’s intervention in behalf of Sodom (Genesis 18:23-33) and Jeremiah 15, where Moses and Samuel are named, recalling times of special intercession for Israel, (Exodus 32:80-35; 1 Samuel 7:3-12) throw light upon this portion of chapter 14, but here it is clear that Israel’s sins were now such in God’s sight that no intercession would avail them.
Noah, Daniel and Job are therefore singled out for mention as righteous persons in God’s reckoning.
Noah (Genesis 6:8, 9; 7:1) a righteous man and a preacher of righteousness (2 Peter 2:5) with his family of seven persons passed through the judgment flood that swept away the early world.
Job, who evidently lived about the time of the patriarch Jacob, was another man righteous in his generation (Job 1:1), and there was none like him in the earth (verse 8); he prayed for his three friends and was heard (chapter 42:7-10). When these two, Noah and Job, lived and died; the nation of Israel was as yet unborn.
With whom, in Israel’s long history, shall these honored names be linked? The Spirit of God chooses: it is the young man Daniel, at the court of, or at least in authority under, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon at this time (Daniel 2:18, 49). After this, when Daniel was old, we have God’s testimony concerning him, that he was “greatly beloved” (Daniel 9:23; 10:11, 19), but the divine record of his life shows him to have been from his youth one who feared and honored God (Daniel 1:8; 2:17 etc.; 5:11-23; 6:3-22).
Though these three men were in the land, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness in the day when God’s four sore judgments were sent. Yet in affecting grace, God’s prose is given (verses 22 and 23) that there shall be a remnant delivered out of the all-including judgment. Of this Isaiah and Jeremiah have testified.
ML-09/15/1935