Ezekiel 14:9 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Ezekiel 14:9
And if the prophet be 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.
to open · verb, piel perfect, 1st person common singular
prophet
הַנָּבִ֣יאha.na.Vi'
H5030
a prophet or (generally) inspired man · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
out
וְנָטִ֤יתִיve.na.Ti.ti
H5186
to stretch or spread out · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 1st person common singular
hand
יָדִי֙ya.Di
H3027
a hand (the open one (indicating power · noun, common both genders singular construct + pronominal suffix
destroy
וְהִ֨שְׁמַדְתִּ֔יוve.Hish.mad.Tiv
H8045
to desolate · conjunction + verb, hiphil sequential perfect, 1st person common singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
midst
מִתּ֖וֹךְmi.Tokh
H8432
a bisection · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
people
עַמִּ֥י'a.Mi
H5971
a people (as a congregated unit) · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix
Israel
יִשְׂרָאֵֽלYis.ra.'El
H3478
Jisrael · proper noun, a place name
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
Jeremiah 4:10 Then said I, Ah, Lord GOD! surely thou hast greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, Ye shall have peace; whereas the sword reach…
Ezekiel 20:25 Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live;
2 Samuel 12:11-12 Thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give…
1 Kings 22:20-23 And the LORD said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead? And one said on this manner, and another said on th…
Job 12:16 With him is strength and wisdom: the deceived and the deceiver are his.
Psalms 81:11-12 But my people would not hearken to my voice; and Israel would none of me.
Isaiah 5:25 Therefore is the anger of the LORD kindled against his people, and he hath stretched forth his hand against them, and hath smitten them: and…
Isaiah 9:12 The Syrians before, and the Philistines behind; and they shall devour Israel with open mouth. For all this his anger is not turned away, but…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Ezekiel 14:1-11
Here is, I. The address which some of the elders of Israel made to the prophet, as an oracle, to enquire of the Lord by him. They came, and sat before him, Eze 14:1. It is probable that they were not of those who were now his fellow-captives, and constantly attended his ministry (such as those we read of Eze 8:1), but some occasional hearers, some of the grandees of Jerusalem who had come upon business to Babylon, perhaps public business, on an embassy from the king, and in their way called on the prophet, having heard much of him and being desirous to know if he had any message from God, which might be some guide to them in their negotiation. By the severe answer given them one would suspec…
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 (Deu 13:3; Kg1 22:23; Jer 4:10; Th2 2:11-12). Evil comes not from God, though God overrules it to serve His will (Job 12:16; Jam 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 wi…
I the Lord have deceived that prophet - That is, he ran before he was sent; he willingly became the servant of Satan's illusions; and I suffered this to take place, because he and his followers refused to consult and serve me. I have often had occasion to remark that it is common in the Hebrew language to state a thing as done by the Lord which he only suffers or permits to be done; for so absolute and universal is the government of God, that the smallest occurrence cannot take place without his will or permission.
The Church Fathers
You must believe that there were evil merits in that person whom God permits to go astray and to become hardened. But for the person on whom he has mercy, you must acknowledge with an unswerving faith that this is a case of the grace of God who is not rendering evil for evil but good for evil.
Which of the two, patience or power, do you find in the words of Scripture? Whichever you choose, even if you admit both, you must surely see that the false speech of this prophet is both sin and punishment for sin. Will you also say that the words, "I, the Lord, have deceived that prophet," should be interpreted as though God deserted him that he might be deceived in return for past misdeeds and thus err? Say what you will, he was punished for sin in such a way that he sinned prophesying something false.
It is quite clear that God works in people's hearts to incline their wills to whatsoever way he wills: either to good in accordance with his mercy or to evil in accordance with their evil merits, and this, indeed, by his own judgments, sometimes manifest, sometimes hidden, but always just. You must keep this conviction firm and unshaken in your heart that in God there is no injustice. Accordingly, when you read the truth of the Scriptures and find that people are led astray by God or that their hearts are dulled and hardened by him, have no doubt that it was their previous evil merits that made them suffer their just penalties.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Baal — Lord. (1.) The name appropriated to the principal male god of the Phoenicians. It is found in several places in the plural BAALIM (Judg. 2:11; 10:10; 1 Kings 18:18; Jer. 2:23; Hos. 2:17). Baal is…
Prophets, False · Often deceived by God as a judgment — Often deceived by God as a judgment
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 Gill on Ezekiel 14:9
And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing,.... That is pleasing to men, and is not true, in hope of reward and applause, but it never comes to pass, and his expectations are not answered:
I the Lord have deceived that prophet; by sending a lying spirit to him, as to Ahab's prophets, 1 Kings 22:22; by giving him up to strong delusions, to believe a lie, and publish it, 2 Thessalonians 2:11; and to his own heart's lusts; being willing, for the sake of gain, to prophesy smooth things, though false to the people, promising them peace when there was none; and then by frustrating his predictions, and disappointing him of his ends and views. R. Saadiah interprets this, as Kimchi o…
Ezekiel 14:9
9. And if the prophet be 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.
9. Et Propheta cum deceptus fuerit, et locutus fuerit sermonem: ego Iehovah decepi prophetam eum: et extendam manum meam super ipsum, et delebo illum e medio populi mei Israel.
Here God meets that foolish thought in which many minds are rapt up. When they had their own impostors at hand, they thought that all God's threats could be repelled as it were by a shield. Jeremiah and Ezekiel threaten us, say they, but we have others to cheer us with good hope: they promise that all thin…
The Lord Gives No Answer to the Idolaters
Eze 14:1 narrates the occasion for this and the following words of God: There came to me men of the elders of Israel, and sat down before me. These men were not deputies from the Israelites in Palestine, as Grotius and others suppose, but elders of the exiles among whom Ezekiel had been labouring. They came to visit the prophet (v. 3), evidently with the intention of obtaining, through him, a word of God concerning the future of Jerusalem, or the fate of the kingdom of Judah. But Hvernick is wrong in supposing that we may infer, from either the first or second word of God in this chapter, that they had addressed to the prophet a distinct inquiry of t…
False prophets, who sought to counteract God’s will by prophesying what God had not spoken, would do God’s will unwittingly—they and other rebels would be deceived and confirmed in their rebellion. False prophets and rebellious people alike were thus punished for their sins (see also Deut 13; 1 Kgs 22:6-23).
Rashi on Ezekiel 14:9
But the prophet who is enticed and speaks a word that is not true.
have enticed I opened a doorway for him to [do] whatever he wishes. And from here we can learn that if one wishes to defile himself, they open [a door] for him.
