Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Ezekiel 18:29
Yet saith the house of Israel, The way of the Lord is not equal. O house of Israel, are not my ways equal? are not your ways unequal?
Eze 18:29
O house of Israel, are not My ways equal?
Scripture appealing to the reason and conscience of man
This is one among the many instances to be found in Scripture where the rational and moral nature of man is appealed to in justification of the Divine conduct. Christianity must be felt by us to be true before it can be felt by us to be binding on our consciences. And who is to be the judge of its truth or falsehood? Where and what is the tribunal before which its credentials are to be produced, examined, and decided on? What is it, or what can it be, but the reason of man,–Reason in her high seat of purity and power, lifted up above the tainted and corrupting atmosphere of worldly passions and prejudices, and calmly and serenely engaged in the consideration and contemplation of truth. This is one of the first and plainest rules to be adopted for our intellectual guidance. It is regarded as an axiom by all sober thinkers, that every proposition or statement which is found to be self-contradictory or irrational is at once to be regarded as incredible. This, of course, imposes upon man the heavy responsibility of using his reason fairly, of judging not according to the appearance, but of judging righteous judgment. With this condition it will be the surest and safest light to our feet and lamp to our path. There is another and a similar proposition to the one just mentioned, which I shall now proceed to enforce, having respect not so much to our intellectual as to our moral nature. In the Scriptures, appeal is not only made to our reason, our understanding, for the truth of their declarations, but to our moral feelings and convictions, And accordingly I would lay down this principle as akin to the one already touched upon, namely, that any representations of God, and of the character of God, which went to the subversion or destruction of those primary and essential distinctions of truth, justice and goodness, which have been established by the common consent of the wise and good of all ages,–any such representations, assuming what pretensions they may, are to be met with instant and utter rejection. When the Scriptures address our consciences, when they speak of the law written on the heart, when they ask us to judge of ourselves what is right, and when God appeals to us for the justice of His proceedings, saying, Are not My ways equal?–they take for granted that we have that within us which is capable of forming sound moral judgments, and of coming to right moral conclusions. So again, when the Scriptures speak to us of the goodness and the loving kindness and the mercy of God, they do not begin with defining the sense in which they use these terms. They suppose that we have already a general and sufficiently accurate knowledge of them. They take for granted the existence of these qualities among men, as arising out of the very constitution of their moral nature, wherever the faculties of that nature have been suffered in any degree to develop and expand themselves. What is goodness in man is the same that we mean by goodness in God. And so with justice, faithfulness, and mercy. These qualities, which we ascribe to God, we have first gotten a knowledge of by our own feelings and experience as human beings. If the Divine mercy and benignity mean not something like this, if they have no resemblance to kindred qualities existing in our own bosoms, what are we to understand by them? They become mere sounds and nothing else, words to which there attaches no significance, and all our conceptions of the character of God are reduced to the greatest possible vagueness and obscurity. Once overrule and bid defiance to the clearest dictates of the understanding, once set at naught and despise the deepest and most universal of our moral sentiments, and the mind is fitted and prepared for the belief of any opinion, however absurd, for the reception of any sentiment, however cruel and revolting. Demand of me anything but the surrender of my intellectual and moral guides. Require of me to give heed to the evidence you may tender in favour of a proposition, however strange, however remote from my present views and apprehensions, and it may be my duty to attend, to ponder, and at length to believe. But require me to give audience to assertions and statements in behalf of self-evident contradictions and palpable moral incongruities, and I revolt from the rashness of the attempt. I feel it to be an affront to the nature which God has given me. If we have no faith in the fundamental principles of human reason, and in the primary and essential moral feelings of the human heart, the foundations of all rational conviction are destroyed, and we are let loose to be driven about by every wind of doctrine, to be the victims of the wretchedest fanaticism, or of the most deadening and depressing scepticism. I am aware that, in answer to these remarks, we shall be reminded of our profound ignorance of the nature of God, and of the utter inadequacy of the human intellect to take unto itself the measure of the Divine. Most true it is that there is much belonging to the nature of God of which, in this dim twilight of our being, we have scarcely more than a mere glimpse. This is especially the case with what are called the natural attributes of God. We know but little, and can know but little, of what Infinity is, and Omnipotence and Eternity. Our apprehension of them may not come up to the fulness and completeness that distinguish them; but still, as far as it goes, it seems to be clear, definite, and exact. While much obscurity, perhaps, attaches to what we may term our metaphysical notions of God, we have no resting place on which the mind can repose, but the moral conceptions of God. That resting place, therefore, let us never abandon. Rather let us cleave to it, and guard and protect it as the home of our affections and the sanctuary of our consolations. But it may be asked, Do you mean, then, to exalt reason and conscience above the Word of God? Do you mean that that Word should submit itself to our erring human judgments? What we contend for is simply this, that no doctrine deduced from Scripture by human interpretation, which is at war with the intellectual and moral nature of man, which is at variance with the first and plainest directions of the understanding and the conscience, can be the Word of God, and entitled to the authority thence arising. We have no ideas of God clearer than those belonging to our moral conceptions of Him. When we say, Lo, God is good, we have a distinct understanding of what we mean by it. And so we have when we say that He is just and kind and merciful. These are properties with which reason and Scripture agree to invest Him. Fortified by these authorities, we take into our minds, and cherish as our greatest treasure, corresponding moral views of the Divine character. There they are lodged firmly and abidingly. From them our thoughts and hopes should never be separated. If, therefore, I perceive anything in the Scriptures which at first sight appears to be discordant with these views of the character of God I endeavour, by wider inquiry and deeper search, to find out a more consistent sense; but if that cannot be found, I say not that God is not the benignant and merciful Being that I took Him to be, but that from some cause or other I understand not the passage before me. In this way it is that I would meet and object to the doctrines of Calvinism. They begin with setting aside the clearest deductions of reason, and then with sweeping away every notion of justice and goodness that had fixed its habitation in my soul. Why are the most impressive appeals made to us in the Scriptures in behalf of the loving kindness and tender mercy of our God, if neither the reason nor the conscience of man can understand and feel what, as respects the Divine Being, goodness and mercy are? In that case goodness and mercy may mean anything or nothing; and to draw from them any reasons for consolation and trust must be vain and useless. Our belief will be a belief in a God unknown, and our worship will be the worship of we know not what. Fear not, then, to use your reason, your understandings, on the subject of religion; but beware of using them for purposes of display, for the gratification of your vanity, and the exercise of your skill. Consider them as talents, for the faithful employment of which you will have to render an account at the bar of Almighty Justice. Feed the immortal lamp within you by meditation and prayer, and elevate your souls to heaven; and then reason, in union with the Word of God, will guide you into the ways of wisdom, and her ways are the ways of pleasantness, and her paths are the paths of peace. (T. Madge.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
This is the third or fourth appeal to the very consciences of Israel, on whose side the injustice lieth: the words are already unfolded Eze 18:25, and the justice of God and the wickedness of such quarrellers declared.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
29. Though God’s justice is soplainly manifested, sinners still object to it because they do notwish to see it (Mic 2:7; Mat 11:18;Mat 11:19).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Yet saith the house of Israel, the way of the Lord is not equal,…. Though the case was put so many ways, and the thing was made so clear and plain, by the instances given; as, if a man was a just man, let his father be what he would, he should live; but, if his son was a wicked man, he should die; yet, if his son should do well, he should not die for his father’s sins, his father only should suffer for his iniquity; and then again, on the one hand, if a seemingly righteous man become an apostate, he should be treated as such; but, on the other hand, if a wicked man repented and reformed, things would go well with him; by all which it most clearly appeared that God did not, and would not, punish children for the sins of their fathers, unless they themselves were guilty of the same; and that the methods of Providence in dealing with men in this world, as they were good or bad, were equal and right, and to be justified:
O house of Israel, are not my ways equal? are not your ways unequal? This is an appeal to their own consciences, upon the evidence before given.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Here God briefly shows how furious those are who dare to rebel against him even when his justice is manifest: for what can be desired more justly than that God should punish all the transgressors of his law? and also, if sinners repent, that he should be prepared to pardon them? But if it seems hard that punishment should overtake the just if they fall away, common sense dictates that no virtue can be approved without perseverance. Since, therefore, it is very clear throughout this course of action, that God is just and without blame, what madness it is to vomit forth blasphemies against him, as if his ways were unjust! But God shows in one word, as I have mentioned, that the Israelites had no excuse for such dishonesty and impudence; and he repeats what he had formerly said, that men would always be guilty of rashness in insolently cursing God when their own ways are found oblique and perverse: but God will sufficiently vindicate his own ways. But we must add what follows —
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
“Yet the house of Israel says, ‘The way of the Lord is not equal.’ Oh house of Israel, are my ways not equal? Are your ways not unequal?”
God challenges Israel to recognise that in fact it is they whose ways are unequal and unfair. They would condemn a man for what he could do nothing about, being a ‘victim’ of the behaviour of his group. God will only condemn a man for what he himself is responsible for. Of course that would include blaming him for condoning the sins of others. That was the sin of the relatives of Achan (Jos 7:24-25). But where he had stood firm for God and His covenant, he would be guiltless.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Eze 18:29 Yet saith the house of Israel, The way of the Lord is not equal. O house of Israel, are not my ways equal? are not your ways unequal?
Ver. 29. Yet saith the house of Israel. ] Yet; for all that I can say to the contrary. They will still hold their own; they will be dicti sui domini, &c., such was their impudence and petulance. God therefore gives over the confutation, and comes to the conclusion of this contestation.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Eze 18:29-32
Eze 18:29-32
“Yet saith the house of Israel, The way of the Lord is not equal. O house of Israel, are not my ways equal? are not your ways unequal? Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, saith the Lord Jehovah. Return ye, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions, wherein ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord Jehovah: wherefore turn yourselves and live.”
“The way of the Lord is not equal …” (Eze 18:29). This was an unqualified slander on the part of apostate Israel. We cannot agree with Howie who said, “This kind of an outcry against the Lord is understandable when we remember how great was the suffering of the people.” The people were well aware of their consummate wickedness, but the national pride and arrogant conceit of ancient Israel knew no restrictions nor boundaries. They thought that God owed them the world with a ribbon on it, no matter how morally corrupt they became. They were not only totally wrong in this slander, God’s response to it was prompt and positive. “Therefore, I will judge you!” (Eze 18:30).
“Make you a new heart and a new spirit …” (Eze 18:31). O no, a man cannot create in himself a new heart; but he can so order his behavior that God will indeed create in him a new heart. God commands men to “Save yourselves from this wicked generation” (Act 2:40); but men cannot “save themselves,” except in the sense that they can comply with the conditions that will enable God to save them! Men cannot “create” a new heart in themselves, but they can repent of their wickedness and turn to God who will then “give them” a new heart. As Leal put it:
“Man cannot indeed create either a new heart or a new spirit; God only can give them to anyone. But a man can and should come to God to receive them; he can repent and turn to God and thus allow both heart and spirit to be renewed by the Spirit of God.
The Soul Who Sins Will Die – Eze 18:1-32
Open It
1. Why do we like to have a ready excuse for our failings should they come to light?
2. What examples do you know of parents of poor character who have had children of excellent character?
Explore It
3. What parable was current in Israel that God wanted to correct? (Eze 18:1-3)
4. Whose sin did God say has the power to condemn a person to death? (Eze 18:4)
5. From what sinful activities does Gods “righteous man” abstain? (Eze 18:5-8)
6. What positive activities are part of the righteous persons life? (Eze 18:5-9)
7. What will happen to the “violent son” of a righteous person who commits the sins his or her father avoided? (Eze 18:10-13)
8. In Ezekiels story, how does the violent sons son respond to what he sees in his father? (Eze 18:14-17)
9. How would God judge the son who did not follow the evil practices of his father? (Eze 18:17)
10. Whose actions are the final determiner of every souls fate? (Eze 18:19-20)
11. How does God feel about a wicked person who repents? (Eze 18:21-23)
12. What happens to a righteous persons good deeds if he or she later turns to sin? (Eze 18:24)
13. By what logic does God explain His justice through Ezekiel? (Eze 18:25-29)
14. What does God call each person to do in light of His coming judgment? (Eze 18:30)
15. What new things does a repentant person possess? (Eze 18:31)
16. What does God desire for each soul He has created? (Eze 18:32)
Get It
17. What can we infer about why the Jews of Ezekiels day felt they were suffering?
18. How would it affect our motivation to live a righteous life if we could indeed be punished for our parents misdeeds?
19. What excuse is eliminated if we know that God does not punish us for our parents sins?
20. What is the difference between suffering because of the mistakes of our forebears and paying for them?
21. Why is God more concerned with the way we live today than with our previous mistakes or accomplishments?
22. Based on Gods attitudes, how should we feel about the misfortunes of nonbelievers?
Apply It
23. What fruits of righteousness can you cultivate this coming week?
24. How can you help young people to take responsibility for their own soul, regardless of where their parents stand with God?
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Eze 18:2, Eze 18:25, Pro 19:3
Reciprocal: Psa 17:2 – things Isa 55:8 – General Eze 33:17 – General Eze 33:20 – Yet Rom 2:2 – judgment
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Eze 18:29. In spite of the fairness of this principle in Cods dealings, his people charged him with unequal or partial treatment of them.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Nevertheless the Israelites were claiming that God’s ways were not right. It was really their ways that were not right (cf. Eze 18:25).