NOTES for Eze 14:1-23
Once again several of the elders of Israel came to the prophet Ezekiel and probably asked him to give them a word from the Lord, so that they might understand what was happening, see the meaning of the catastrophe that had overtaken them and find a way to go on living. As far as we can tell, the prophet inquired of the Lord, and the Lord gave him a word, but not the one they expected from Him.
In the preceding chapters God had just spoken to the prophet about precisely this, so why does He refuse to answer now? That was a word to the whole people; here, for the first time, God speaks with an almost New Testament clarity about each person’s individual relationship with Him. I will not answer them, the Lord says, because they have defiled their hearts with idolatry: through idols they have become strangers to Me. Not Israel in general, but these particular people. And the whole people needs to understand this.
The time of education, when Israel stood before God as a people, as a whole, is over. From now on God sets this aside and chooses to speak to each person individually. This is a turning point not only in biblical history but in the entire spiritual history of humanity, since collective, tribal religious practices predominate among pagans as well. We cannot say this happened unexpectedly: already the Mosaic ordinances concerning individual sacrifices were preparing the Israelites for such personal relationships. But it is precisely Ezekiel who is called to proclaim this clearly. Collective responsibility and tribal relationships with God are convenient for people, because they offer somewhere to hide. Someone else will be righteous, and I will receive God’s mercies on their account. No, says the Lord: by their righteousness each person can save only their own soul; each reaps the fruits of their own deeds alone and answers only for themselves. On the one hand, this frees people from responsibility for others’ sins; on the other, personal responsibility must be borne—there is no escaping it.
The Lord then speaks of an obvious consequence of this fact of personal relationships and personal responsibility: children will no longer perish for their parents’ sins. The last verses of chapter 14 are a necessary complement to the words of the Ten Commandments about God punishing the descendants of sinners to the third generation and showing mercy to those who love Him to a thousand generations. In the light of what God tells us through the prophet Ezekiel, the Decalogue here employs a particular literary device solely to show the incomparable scale of the consequences of sin and of righteousness. In any event, from the time of the prophet Ezekiel onward, people are already able to answer each for themselves, and this freedom is granted to us.
But there is another aspect implicit behind this chapter. If no human being, even the most righteous, can save anyone but themselves by their righteousness, who can save us? Who will save those who cannot break free from slavery to sin? Who will deliver us from this body of death, as the apostle Paul puts it? At the Last Supper, the Lord Jesus Christ tells the disciples that His Most Pure Blood is poured out for them and for many. He is precisely the One who, by His Blood and His righteousness, saves not Himself alone but many. When we hear these words, we usually think: many, but not all. Yet the Lord Jesus is speaking within the logic of Ezekiel 14: not one, but many, because He is not merely a human being, but the God-man. Thus the second half of the chapter proves to be a distinctive prophecy of Christ’s divine humanity, parallel to the astonishing words of other prophets.