Matthew Henry on Ezekiel 20:45–end
We have here a prophecy of wrath against Judah and Jerusalem, which would more fitly have begun the next chapter than conclude this; for it has no dependence on what goes before, but that which follows in the beginning of the next chapter is the explication of it, when the people complained that this was a parable which they understood not. In this parable, 1. It is a forest that is prophesied against, the forest of the south field, Judah and Jerusalem. These lay south from Babylon, where Ezekiel now was, and therefore he is directed to set his face towards the south (Eze 20:46), to intimate to them that God had set his face against them, was displeased with them, and determined to destroy t…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Ezekiel 20:47
fire--every kind of judgment (Eze 19:12; Eze 21:3, "my sword"; Jer 21:14).
green tree . . . dry--fit and unfit materials for fuel alike; "the righteous and the wicked," as explained in Eze 21:3-4; Luk 23:31. Unsparing universality of the judgment!
flaming flame--one continued and unextinguished flame. "The glowing flame" [FAIRBAIRN].
faces--persons; here the metaphor is merged in the reality.
Adam Clarke on Ezekiel 20:48
All flesh - All the people shall see that this war is a judgment of the Lord.
It shall not be quenched - Till the whole land shall be utterly ruined.
John Gill on Ezekiel 20:48
And all flesh shall see that I the Lord have kindled it,.... Not only the inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judea should see the hand of the Lord in their destruction; but even all the neighbouring nations, the case was so clear and plain, the matter so visible:
it shall not be quenched; no stop put to it by all the art and power of man; so that it was a clear point that it was the Lord's doing.
John Calvin on Ezekiel 20:44–end
Ezekiel 20:44
44. And ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I have wrought with you for my name's sake, not according to your wicked ways, nor according to your corrupt doings, O ye house of Israel, saith the Lord GOD.
44. Et cognoscetis quod ego Iehovah, cum fecero vobiscum propter nomen meum, non secundum vias vestras malas, et secundum opera vestra corrupta, domus Israel, dicit Dominator Iehovah.
Here at length God pronounces that his glory would be chiefly conspicuous in the pity which he bestowed upon those who were desperate and abandoned, gratuitously and solely with respect to his own name. Hence Paul so specially celebrates; the grace of God in the first chapter of the epistle t…
