Matthew Henry on Ezekiel 14:12–end
The scope of these verses is to show,
I. That national sins bring national judgments. When virtue is ruined and laid waste every thing else will soon be ruined and laid waste too (Eze 14:13): When the land sins against me, when vice and wickedness become epidemical, when the land sins by trespassing grievously, when the sinners have become very numerous and their sins very heinous, when gross impieties and immoralities universally prevail, then will I stretch forth my hand upon it, for the punishment of it. The divine power shall be vigorously and openly exerted; the judgments shall be extended and stretched forth to all the corners of the land, to all the concerns and interests of the natio…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Ezekiel 14:19
in blood--not literally. In Hebrew, "blood" expresses every premature kind of death.
Adam Clarke on Ezekiel 14:14
Though - Noah, Daniel, and Job - The intercession even of the holiest of men shall not avert my judgments. Noah, though a righteous man, could not by his intercession preserve the old world from being drowned. Job, though a righteous man, could not preserve his children from being killed by the fall of their house. Daniel, though a righteous man, could not prevent the captivity of his country. Daniel must have been contemporary with Ezekiel. He was taken captive in the third year of Jehoiakim, Dan 1:1. After this Jehoiakim reigned eight years, Kg2 23:36. And this prophecy, as appears from Eze 8:1, was uttered in the sixth year of Jehoiachin's captivity, who succeeded Jehoiakim, and reigned o…
Read the whole note in the consoleJohn Gill on Ezekiel 14:19
Or if I send a pestilence into that land,.... Or the plague, which is the destruction that wastes at noon day; this is from the Lord, and a sore judgment it is:
and pour out my fury upon it in blood; or, "by blood" (y); by corrupting the blood, which is done when a man is seized with the pestilence. The Targum renders it, "with slaughter"; by slaying a great number of persons by that disease, as a token of fury and wrath, because of their transgressions. It may be rendered, "because of blood" (z); and so express the cause and reason of the judgment, the shedding of innocent blood:
to cut off from it man and beast; man by the pestilence, and beast by some contagious distemper or another.
(…
