Ezekiel 22:14

Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong, in the days that I shall deal with thee? I the LORD have spoken it, and will do it.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

22:1-16 The prophet is to judge the bloody city; the city of bloods. Jerusalem is so called, because of her crimes. The sins which Jerusalem stands charged with, are exceeding sinful. Murder, idolatry, disobedience to parents, oppression and extortion, profanation of the sabbath and holy things, seventh commandment sins, lewdness and adultery. Unmindfulness of God was at the bottom of all this wickedness. Sinners provoke God because they forget him. Jerusalem has filled the measure of her sins. Those who give up themselves to be ruled by their lusts, will justly be given up to be portioned by them. Those who resolve to be their own masters, let them expect no other happiness than their own hands can furnish; and a miserable portion it will prove.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Set apart for pollution - Or, "unclean by reason of impurity" Leviticus 12:2.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

14. (Eze 21:7).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Can thine heart endure? this question is a vehement negation, thou canst by no means endure, withstand and repel the evils that are coming, or bear them when come. Will thy courage hold out, and conquer? Nay, it will be with thee as Ezekiel 21:7, your hearts shall melt.

Can thine hands be strong, to hold the sword, and manage the warlike provisions against Nebuchadnezzar and his army? Your hands shall be exceeding feeble, Ezekiel 21:7, your weapons fall out of your hands, your hearts first melting with fear.

The days; the times of long and multiplied sorrows, and furious indignation.

That I shall deal with thee; the Babylonians are but men, but I the Lord your God, whom you have provoked, am with them; they are my weapons of war and I strike by them, and thou shalt never be able to subsist under it. Flatter not thyself, the Lord will do it as he hath spoken it.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Can thine heart endure,.... Or "stand" (d): surely it must fall within thee; become like water, and melt as wax, be it ever so hard and adamantine:

or can thine hands be strong in the days that I shall deal with thee? surely they must become weak, and drop, and not be able to hold a weapon for defence: and, if this would be the case, when God should deal with the Jews for their sins, by sending the Chaldean army to besiege their city, and take it; how will it be with sinners at the day of judgment, and to all eternity, when the awful sentence shall be pronounced, "go ye cursed"; when the wrath of God shall be poured out upon them; when they shall be cast into hell, where the worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched? this will be intolerable by the most stout hearted sinner; no heart will be strong enough to stand up under it, or hands to keep it off:

I the Lord have spoken it, and will do it; he who is the mighty God, the eternal and unchangeable Jehovah; he has said it, that he will deal with impenitent sinners in a way of wrath, and he will be as good as his word; he will certainly accomplish it; it is in vain for men to flatter themselves to the contrary; or to put away the evil day far from them; it shall surely be. The Targum is,

"I have decreed by my word, and I will establish it.''

(d) "num quid stabit cor tuum?" Paginus, Montanus; "consistet" Munster, Vatablus, Piscator; "perstabit", Junius and Tremellius, Polanus; "constabit", Coeccius, Starckius.

Geneva Study Bible

Can thy heart endure, or can thy hands {g} be strong, in the days that I shall deal with thee? I the LORD have spoken it, and will do it.

(g) That is, able to defend yourself.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

14. Cf. Ezekiel 21:7, “every heart shall melt, and all hands shall be feeble.”

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 14. - Can thine heart endure, etc.? The question implies an answer in the negative. Heart would fail and hands wax feeble in the day of the Lord's judgment. The doom of exile and dispersion must come, with all its horrors; but even here, Judah was not, like Ammon to be forgotten (Ezekiel 21:32). Her punishment was to do its work, and to consume her filthiness out of her. Ezekiel 22:14

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The Lord is enraged at such abominable doings. He will interfere, and put an end to them by scattering Judah among the heathen. - Ezekiel 22:13. And, behold, I smite my hand because of thy gain which thou hast made, and over thy bloodguiltiness which is in the midst of thee. Ezekiel 22:14. Will thy heart indeed stand firm, or will thy hands be strong for the day when I shall deal with thee? I Jehovah have spoken it, and also do it. Ezekiel 22:15. I will scatter thee among the nations, and disperse thee in the lands, and will utterly remove thine uncleanness from thee. Ezekiel 22:16. And thou wilt be desecrated through thyself before the eyes of the nations, and know that I am Jehovah. - Ezekiel 22:13 is closely connected with the preceding verse. This serves to explain the fact that the only sins mentioned as exciting the wrath of God are covetousness and blood-guiltiness. הכּה , as 2 Kings 11:12 clearly shows, is a contracted expression for הכּה כּף אל (Ezekiel 21:19), and the smiting of the hands together is a gesture indicative of wrathful indignation. For the form דּמך, contracted from דּמיך, see the comm. on Ezekiel 16:45. - As Ezekiel 22:13 leads on to the threatening of judgment, so does Ezekiel 22:14 point in anticipation to the terrible nature of the judgment itself. The question, "will thy heart stand firm?" involves a warning against security. עמד is the opposite of נמס (cf. Ezekiel 21:12), as standing forms the antithesis to passing away (cf. Psalm 102:27). עשׂה אותך, as in Ezekiel 16:59 and Ezekiel 7:27. The Lord will scatter them (cf. Ezekiel 12:15; Ezekiel 20:23), and remove the uncleanness of sin, namely, by purifying the people in exile (cf. Isaiah 4:4). התם, from תּמם, to cause to cease, with מן, to take completely away. נחלתּ, Niphal of חלל fo lahpiN ,נחלתּ ., connected with לעיני גּוים, as in Ezekiel 20:9, not from נחל, as many of the commentators who follow the Septuagint and Vulgate suppose. בּך, not in te, in thyself, but through thee, i.e., through thy sinful conduct and its consequences.