Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Ezekiel 7:26
Mischief shall come upon mischief, and rumor shall be upon rumor; then shall they seek a vision of the prophet; but the law shall perish from the priest, and counsel from the ancients.
26. Mischief upon mischief ] i.e. calamity upon calamity; and “rumour” of misfortune upon rumour. Jer 4:20; Isa 28:19.
but the law ] and the law. It is implied in seeking a vision from the prophet that no vision is granted; and the law, i.e. decision or judgment, sought from the priest, ceases; neither can the elders give any counsel. The same three classes of advisers, viz. prophets, priests, and elders or wise men are spoken of Jer 18:18. All sources of revelation are dumb. Cf. Lam 2:9, The law is no more, her prophets also find no vision from the Lord. Psa 74:9; Mic 3:6.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Eze 7:26
Mischief shall come upon mischief.
A succession of evils
1. When a people is under Divine displeasure there is a succession of evils for them, mischief after mischief; they may not expect a few, but many.
2. God proceeds by degrees and steps to severity of judgments. God pours not out all His wrath at once. First, some drops of a vial, then some little streams, after that the strength.
3. Wicked men in great straits will sue to them for help whom before they hated. They could seek for a vision from the prophet now they were in extremities, and they run from prophet to prophet to get some counsel and comfort.
4. They that will not hear Gods servants when they are at ease, shall not have help from them in time of their distress.
5. It is a dreadful evil when God takes away the signs of His presence.
6. Truths are not confined to any sort of men, not to prophets, priests, or ministers, in these or any days; the prophets should be without vision, the law should perish from the priests, and counsel from the elders.
7. God gives vision, law, counsel, and takes them away at His pleasure; He creates light and darkness. They shall seek vision of the prophets, and there shall be none.
8. Those who will not do what they know, shall not know what to do. (W. Greenhill, M. A.)
.
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 26. Then shall they seek a vision] Vision shall perish from the prophet, the law from the priest, and counsel from the ancients. Previously to great national judgments, God restrains the influences of his Spirit. His word is not accompanied with the usual unction; and the wise men of the land, the senators and celebrated statesmen, devise foolish schemes; and thus, in endeavouring to avert it, they hasten on the national ruin. How true is the saying, Quem Deus vult perdere, prius dementat. “Those whom God designs to destroy, he first infatuates.”
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Mischief upon mischief; loss upon loss, one sorrow on the neck of another.
Rumour upon rumour; dreadful news one post after another of the enemies threats, preparations, marches, successes, and cruelties, wounding the heart of the stoutest. In this multiplied perplexity they will inquire, it is likely, of their false prophets, hating the true, whom if they consult, they will not like their answer. Or rather, there shall be no prophet, as Psa 74:9; no revelation from heaven for them.
But the law shall perish; Heb.
and, rather than
but. When they consult the priest, their ordinary director by the law, alas! if any remain, they are ignorant of the law, nor have they sacrifices to bring to them to offer unto God. Religious men can afford them no comfort, nor shall their senators know what to advise.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
26. Mischief . . . upon . . .mischief (Deu 32:23;Jer 4:20). This is said becausethe Jews were apt to fancy, at every abatement of suffering, thattheir calamities were about to cease; but God will accumulate woe onwoe.
rumourof the advanceof the foe, and of his cruelty (Mt24:6).
seek a visionto findsome way of escape from their difficulties (Isa26:9). So Zedekiah consulted Jeremiah (Jer 37:17;Jer 38:14).
law shall perishfulfilled(Eze 20:1; Eze 20:3;Psa 74:9; Lam 2:9;compare Am 8:11); God will thusset aside the idle boast, “The law shall not perish from thepriest” (Jer 18:18).
ancientstheecclesiastical rulers of the people.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Mischief shall come upon mischief,…. One misfortune or calamity after another; first one unhappy event, and then another, as was Job’s case. The Targum is,
“breach upon breach shall come o:”
and rumour shall be upon rumour; that the Chaldean army is in such a place; and then that it is in another place still nearer; and then that it is but a few miles off, and, will be here immediately: rumours of wars, as well as wars, themselves, are very distressing; see Mt 24:6;
then shall they seek a vision of the prophet; apply to him for a prophecy, to know the event of things, whether and when they might expect a deliverance:
but the law shall perish from the priest; whose lips should keep knowledge, and from whose mouth the law, the doctrine and interpretation of it, might be expected; but now either there would be no priests at all; or such as were would be ignorant and unlearned, and incapable of instructing the people:
and counsel from the ancients; with whom it usually is; and which is of great service in a time of distress: this therefore adds greatly to the calamity, that there would be no prophet to tell them what should come to pass; no priest to instruct them; nor senator or wise man to give them counsel.
o So R. Sol. Urhin. Ohel Moed, fol. 96. 1.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The Prophet here explains more at length the nature of that slaughter of which he was a herald. And again he deprives the Jews of all ground for hope, and shows that they should look around on all sides in vain, because God would deprive them of all help. This is the meaning of the passage. Hence he says, calamities shall come, and that some shall follow one portion, and others another. In this way he advises the Jews that they should catch at security in vain, as if, at the passing away of one evil, they were already free. For the wicked as soon as God with-draws his hand, think themselves escaped from all trouble, and so despise God more carelessly: for they fancy that God has done with them just like a debtor who has paid a small sum to his creditor, and thus has obtained a relaxation, is careless; so the reprobate harden themselves when God grants them some respite: for they think that they have an agreement with him that he should not trouble them more. But the Prophet denounces that there would be such a heap of evils that one calamity should have many companions, because God would not cease to add evils to evils. He adds, rumor upon rumor This is referred to the object of fear, because rumors of wars and of the cruelty of enemies would be spread abroad. Since, therefore, the Jews are deaf and stupid, the Prophet announces that God would continue exercising his vengeance, so that one calamity should be only the forerunner of another, until they should perish a hundred times rather than that God would suffer them to escape with impunity.
Afterwards he adds, they shall seek a vision Here the Prophet again shows that the Jews should be stripped bare of every help. For although they boldly despised God, yet we know that they wickedly abused his name. For they so threw aside all modesty that. they did not hesitate to ridicule God and all his gifts. Hence their last refuge in their calamities was to seek a vision, that is, to enquire what God was about to do. Hence he says, they shall seek a vision from the Prophet. It seems to me that the expression is too abrupt, that they shall seek a vision from a Prophet, because nothing is added except concerning the priest and elders. מ is sometimes taken negatively when words are united: I know not whether the language will properly bear our saying, they shall seek a vision, but there shall be no Prophet And yet the sense would flow better, if Ezekiel denied there should be any Prophets: for this is a sign of desertion, when no consolation occurs which assists us in our wars. Thus the Church complains in the Psalms, (Psa 76:9,) that it was reduced to the greatest straits, and that no Prophet appeared: we do not see our signs, nor is there a Prophet among us. And, in truth, Ezekiel meant that the Jews would seek a Prophet in vain, because God would take away that gift from them. As far then as the sense is concerned there is no ambiguity, though the diction is, as I have said, rather obscure. The meaning is, when they think God so bound to them that he will never deprive them of visions which are prepared for their comfort, yet they are already deprived of this good, and since they are destitute nothing remains except that utter destruction which he has mentioned. We must leave the rest for to-morrow.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(26) Then shall they seek a vision.Comp. Eze. 20:1-3. The three chief sources of counsel, the prophets, the priests, and the elders, are all represented as applied to in vain. God had forsaken the people who had rejected Him. (Comp. Pro. 1:28, and the story of Sauls despair at his abandonment by God, 1Sa. 28:15.) In the following verse the trouble is described as affecting all classes alike, the king, the prince, and the people of the land, and, further, as being the fitting consequence and retribution of their own chosen way.
Here closes the first series of Ezekiels prophecies, extending from the beginning of the fourth to the end of the seventh chapter. They were all uttered within the period of a year and two months. Like the following series (Ezekiel 8-19), they begin with a remarkable series of symbolic acts, or rather of descriptions of such acts, and are continued by plain prophecies. Ezekiel and his fellow-captives had now been between five and six years in exile, and they still looked to Jerusalem and the Temple as their pride and the strength of their nation, and doubtless many of them hoped to be able to return there to lead again their former lives. There could be no hope of affecting a thorough and lasting reformation among the people except by utterly dashing these hopes to the ground, and showing that the people must be led to repentance through a thorough humiliation and heavy punishment. Such is the purpose of these prophecies, and it is carried out with extraordinary vigour and power of language.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
26. But the law shall perish Literally, and instruction shall perish. Calamity follows calamity until at last even this idol-worshiping people are driven to seek a vision from Jehovah’s prophet, and when no vision comes they seek instruction from the priests and advice from the elders but it is too late! Prophet, priest, and elder are all alike powerless to help (Jer 18:18; Lam 2:9; Psa 74:9; Mic 3:6).
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“Mischief will come upon mischief, and rumour will be upon rumour, and they shall seek a vision of the prophet, and the law will perish from the priest, and counsel from the elders. The king will mourn and the prince will be clothed with desolation, and the hands of the people of the land will be troubled.”
‘Mischief upon mischief.’ An endless chain of problems and suffering and misery and heartache. And to top it all constant rumours of worse to come, and of what was to happen to them. But they would have nowhere to turn. There would be no message from their religious or civic leaders, no vision from the prophet, no guidance from the priest, no counsel from the elders (see Amo 3:5-7 and contrast Jer 18:18). This would be because these have nothing worth while to offer. They would have no solution (in contrast with Jeremiah and Ezekiel). They themselves would be equally totally bewildered and without explanation, and have no message from God. They had been too involved in the abomination of idolatry, in polluting the house of Yahweh (2Ch 36:14).
Thus the king will be in mourning, for he sees the trouble descending on them, but receives no prophetic word from God. The prince will be ‘clothed with desolation’, overwhelmed by it, because he is aware of the desolation that is coming, and does not receive guidance from the priest. And the hands of the people of the land will be troubled. They will be in great distress and yet there will be no counsel from the elders.
Not the careful parallelism. Prophet and priest are in the singular, as are the king and the prince. The elders are in the plural as are ‘the hands of the people of the land’. This suggests the particular application as above. But behind it all is the fact that the guidance of prophet by prophetic vision, priest through the teaching of the Law and elders through general wisdom, based on experience, which should be for all, king, prince (tribal leader) and people, would be noticeably absent. Thus all would be left with no one to help them, without guidance in the face of the worst thing that had ever happened to them.
It is interesting that ‘the king’ receives little mention in Ezekiel elsewhere. This may partly be due to the fact that Jehoiachin was still alive in exile and looked on by the people as the true king, so that he wanted to avoid too much reference to Zedekiah as king. But it was probably mainly because he did not want to divert the blame and guilt from the people. All were involved. Everyone would suffer for his own sin. However Eze 17:12; Eze 17:16 do refer to ‘the king and princes’, so the two were clearly distinguished, and he speaks there of the king as being made king by Nebuchadnezzar.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Eze 7:26 Mischief shall come upon mischief, and rumour shall be upon rumour; then shall they seek a vision of the prophet; but the law shall perish from the priest, and counsel from the ancients.
Ver. 26. Mischief shall come upon mischief. ] Aliud ex alio malum; I will heap mischiefs upon them. Deu 32:23 War is called “evil” or “mischief” by a specialty. Isa 45:7
And rumour shall be upon rumour,
Then shall they seek a vision of the prophet.
But the law shall perish from the priest.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Mischiefs = Calamity. Hebrew. chavah.
shall come. Reference to Pentateuch (Deu 32:23).
rumour = hearing. Put by Figure of speech Metonymy (of Adjunct), App-6, for what is heard.
upon = after; but a special reading called Sevir (App-34), reads “upon”. This is followed by Authorized Version and Revised Version.
they seek. But in vain. See Eze 7:25.
the law. This was the special province of the priest (Deu 17:8-13; Deu 33:10), as the vision was that of the prophet, and counsel that of elders. Compare Jer 18:18.
ancients = elders.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Mischief shall: Lev 26:18, Lev 26:21, Lev 26:24, Lev 26:28, Deu 32:23, Jer 4:20
then: Eze 14:1, Eze 20:1-3, Eze 33:31, Jer 21:2, Jer 37:17, Jer 38:14-28
but: Psa 74:9, Lam 2:9, Amo 8:11, Amo 8:12, Mic 3:6
ancients: Eze 8:1, Eze 14:1, Eze 20:1, Jer 18:18
Reciprocal: Psa 42:7 – Deep calleth Isa 19:11 – the princes Jer 8:9 – The wise men are Jer 49:14 – heard Eze 21:7 – For the
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Eze 7:26, In their time of trouble the people would gladly have received some Instruction and consolation from the teachers. It will be too late then, for even the priests and prophets had been corrupt, and God will not honor them with any vision.