Ezekiel 13:10-12 Because, even because they have seduced my people, saying, Peace; and there was no peace; and one built up a wall, and… The false prophets are much in evidence up to the point of the fall of Jerusalem. Ezekiel accuses them of the crime of the hireling shepherd: they used the flock to make wages, and so became the type for all time of those who make "The symbols of atoning grace An office key."The false prophet gained favour with the military party in the nation, by his telling advocacy of a vast and well-prepared army and of brilliant foreign alliances, he won favour with the clerical party by not demanding too much virtue, either from the individual or from the State. As a class they had a ready apology for every shifting policy. True, the apology, although always ready, was only an apology — or, to use the prophet's own figure, it was only a daubing of the ill-built wall with untempered mortar (Ezekiel 13:8-16) — "that is to say, when any project or scheme of policy is being promoted, they stand by glozing it over with fine words, flattering its promoters, and uttering profuse assurances of its success." The daub, in hiding the infamy, hurries the disaster. "Ye, O great hailstones, shall fall; and a stormy wind shall rend it." When the scheme has failed, when God has suddenly intercepted a people's mad pride, the false prophet may be — may be — called to account: "Lo, when the wall is fallen, shall it not be said unto you, Where is the daubing wherewith ye have daubed it?" But it may happen, in a nation's downfall and the daze of its calamity, that the moral collapse is so complete that the man who daubed the wall escapes unblamed — but not the man who was honest enough to say plainly from the first that it was a mere daub! But, blamed or not of the men he has misled, the false prophet shall not go unpunished. "I the Lord will answer him by Myself." Above all things, may God's mercy save us from having, under such conditions, to bear God's answer, by Himself! (H. E. Lewis.) Parallel Verses KJV: Because, even because they have seduced my people, saying, Peace; and there was no peace; and one built up a wall, and, lo, others daubed it with untempered morter: |
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