Ezekiel 14:20 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Ezekiel 14:20
Though Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, as I live, saith the Lord GOD, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness.
a bisection · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person feminine singular
live
חַיchai-
H2416
alive · adjective, masculine singular absolute
saith
נְאֻם֙ne.'Um
H5002
an oracle · noun, common masculine singular construct
Lord
אֲדֹנָ֣י'a.do.Nai
H136
the Lord (used as a proper name of God only) · proper noun, a title
GOD
יְהוִ֔הYah.weh
H3069
YHWH · proper noun, a title
deliver
יַצִּ֑ילוּya.Tzi.lu
H5337
to snatch away · verb, hiphil imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
son
בֵּ֥ןben
H1121
a son (as a builder of the family name) · noun, common masculine singular absolute
nor
אִם'im-
H518
used very widely as demonstrative · particle
daughter
בַּ֖תbat
H1323
a daughter (used in the same wide sense as other terms… · noun, common feminine singular absolute
deliver
יַצִּ֥ילוּya.Tzi.lu
H5337
to snatch away · verb, hiphil imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
souls
נַפְשָֽׁםnaf.Sham
H5315
properly · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
righteousness
בְצִדְקָתָ֖םve.tzid.ka.Tam
H6666
rightness (abstractly) · preposition + noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Ezekiel 14:14 Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord GO…
1 John 3:10 In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that lo…
Job 5:19-24 He shall deliver thee in six troubles: yea, in seven there shall no evil touch thee.
Psalms 33:18-19 Behold, the eye of the LORD is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy;
Isaiah 3:10 Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him: for they shall eat the fruit of their doings.
Ezekiel 14:16 Though these three men were in it, as I live, saith the Lord GOD, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters; they only shall be delivere…
Ezekiel 18:22 All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him: in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live.
Hosea 10:12 Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the LORD, till he come and rain right…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
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…
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…
Though Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it,.... Who are again mentioned by name, as in Ezekiel 14:14; and are the three men referred to in Ezekiel 14:16;
as I live, saith the Lord God, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; not so much as an only son, or an only daughter, no, not even a single child: the plural number is used before, as in Ezekiel 14:16; here the singular, to show how resolutely determined the Lord was upon the destruction of the land; that even the prayers of the best of men among them should not prevail with him to save a single person, no, not a single infant: they
shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness; See Gill on Ezekiel 14:14.
The Church Fathers
And besides, they beguile themselves and you, supposing that the everlasting kingdom will be assuredly given to those of the dispersion who are of Abraham after the flesh, although they be sinners, and faithless, and disobedient towards God, which the Scriptures have proved is not the case. For if so, Isaiah would never have said this: 'And unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we would have been like Sodom and Gomorrah.' And Ezekiel: 'Even if Noah, and Jacob, and Daniel were to pray for sons or daughters, their request should not be granted.' But neither shall the father perish for the son, nor the son for the father; but every one for his own sin, and each shall be saved for his own righteousness.
There will be no one then, the text is saying, able to rescue from there a victim of his own indifference, whether brother or father or mother. Why do I say brother or father or mother? Not even the just themselves, who have good grounds for confidence, will be of any assistance to us then if we have now been guilty of indifference.… See the magnitude of the threat and the kind of just people he brought forward as examples. These men, you see, at a critical time proved a source of salvation even to others: Noah saved his wife and sons when that terrible deluge overwhelmed the world; Job likewise proved a source of salvation even to others; and Daniel rescued many from death when that awful barbarian in his quest for things beyond human nature wanted to do away with the Chaldeans, the magi and Gazarenes.… Rather, we should make this alone the object of attention: if we have virtuous forebears, to imitate their virtue; if the contrary is true and we come from disreputable forebears, not to think any handicap results from this but to fall to the labors virtue involves, no harm ensuing from this, to be sure.
And you deceive yourselves while you fancy that, because you are the seed of Abraham after the flesh, therefore you shall fully inherit the good things announced to be bestowed by God through Christ. For no one, not even of them, has anything to look for, but only those who in mind are assimilated to the faith of Abraham, and who have recognised all the mysteries: for I say, that some injunctions were laid on you in reference to the worship of God and practice of righteousness; but some injunctions and acts were likewise mentioned in reference to the mystery of Christ, on account of the hardness of your people's hearts. And that this is so, God makes known in Ezekiel, [when] He said concerning it: 'If Noah and Jacob and Daniel should beg either sons or daughters, the request would not be granted them.' And in Isaiah, of the very same matter He spake thus: 'The Lord God said, they shall both go forth and look on the members [of the bodies] of the men that have transgressed. For their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be a gazing-stock to all flesh.' So that it becomes you to eradicate this hope from your souls, and hasten to know in what way forgiveness of sins, and a hope of inheriting the promised good things, shall be yours. But there is no other [way] than this,-to become acquainted with this Christ, to be washed in the fountain spoken of by Isaiah for the remission of sins; and for the rest, to live sinless lives.
Dictionary and topics
Daniel — God is my judge, or judge of God. (1.) David’s second son, “born unto him in Hebron, of Abigail the Carmelitess” (1 Chr. 3:1). He is called also Chileab (2 Sam. 3:3). (2.) One of the four great…
Job — Persecuted, an Arabian patriarch who resided in the land of Uz (q.v.). While living in the midst of great prosperity, he was suddenly overwhelmed by a series of sore trials that fell upon him. Amid…
Noah — Rest, (Heb. Noah) the grandson of Methuselah (Gen. 5:25-29), who was for two hundred and fifty years contemporary with Adam, and the son of Lamech, who was about fifty years old at the time of Adam’s…
Animals · Suffer un — Suffer un
Job · .Righteousness of — .Righteousness of
Sickness · One of God’s four sore judgments on a guilty land — One of God’s four sore judgments on a guilty land
Works · UNCLASSIFIED SCRIPTURES RELATING TO — UNCLASSIFIED SCRIPTURES RELATING TO
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
John Calvin on Ezekiel 14:19-20
Ezekiel 14:19-20
19. Or if I send a pestilence into that land, and pour out my fury upon it in blood, to cut off from it man and beast:
19. Vel pestem immisero in terram illam, et effudero iracundiam meam super ipsam in sanguine ad perdendum [49] ex ea hominem et jumentum.
20. Though Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, as I live, saith the Lord GOD, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness.
20. Et Noe, Daniel, et Job in medio ejus, vivo ego, dicit Dominator Iehovah, si filium et filium liberaverint: ipsi in justitia sua liberabunt animam suam.
He now affirms of the fourth kind of punishment, what he has hitherto pronounced…
The Righteousness of the Godly will not Avert the Judgment
The threat contained in the preceding word of God, that if the idolaters did not repent, God would not answer them in any other way than with an exterminating judgment, left the possibility still open, that He would avert the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem for the sake of the righteous therein, as He had promised the patriarch Abraham that He would do in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 18:23.). This hope, which might be cherished by the people and by the elders who had come to the prophet, is now to be taken from the people by the word of God which follows, containing as it does the announcement, that if any land should sin s…
Noah, Daniel, and Job: Each of these men was famous for standing firm in the midst of a wicked generation. If anyone could merit a stay of judgment from God, they could. However, even if a land contained these three outstanding men of God, their righteousness would not suffice to save even their closest relatives from the coming disaster (14:20). How much less would it save a rebellious country! • Since the Hebrew spelling of the name Daniel (Hebrew Dani’el; also in 28:3) is slightly different from that of the biblical prophet Daniel (Hebrew Daniyye’l), who was Ezekiel’s younger contemporary in Babylon, some have proposed that Ezekiel was referring to a legendary pagan hero named Danel. Howe…