The days are prolonged, and every vision faileth? (continued)
EZEKIEL
terwards adds what we have noticed previously, ye shall know that I am Jehovah
They had heard this instruction from the Prophets, they ought to have been imbued with it from their earliest childhood, for God had borne witness by many proofs that he was the true God. For his power had become sufficiently known and understood by the frequent succors by which that wretched people had been snatched from even immediate death. But as their impiety had stupified them, so that they carelessly despised not only the Prophet's teaching, but the very judgments of God, when he openly punished them, this knowledge is not mentioned without reason. When therefore God puts forth his hand for the last time to chastise them, he says that his power should be so manifest among them, that it should no longer escape them; but yet they were so hardened in their depravity that they almost entirely forgot God.
For a contrast is always to be observed between that knowledge which springs from performance and that arising from utterance; for those who had closed their ears when God invites them to himself as servants, must be compelled to feel him to be God when he is silent and is executing his vengeance upon them. It follows ---
Ezekiel 12:21-23
21. And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
21. Et fuit sermo Iehovae ad me dicendo,
22. Son of man, what is that proverb that ye have in the land of Israel, saying, The days are prolonged, and every vision faileth?
22. Fill hominis, quodnam proverbium hoc vobis in terra Israel dicendo, prorogati sunt dies, 263 et evanuit omnis prophetia?
23. Tell them therefore, Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will make this proverb to cease, and they shall no more use it as a proverb in Israel; but say unto them, The days are at hand, and the effect of every vision.
23. Propterea dices illis, sic dicit Dominator Iehovah, Quiescere 264 faciam proverbium hoc, et non pro-verbiabunt amplius in Israel: quin potius loquere ad eos, Appropinquarunt dies, et sermo omnis visionis.
Here God inveighs against that gross ridicule which prevailed everywhere among the Jews. For when the Prophets had been threatening them so long, this their earnestness was so far from leading them to repentance, that they became more obstinate and callous. Since they persisted in this obstinacy, and boasted in their escape, and through confidence in their freedom from punishment, re-belied more and more against God, the Prophet is ordered to repress this their boasting. It was monstrous indeed for a people who had imbibed from childhood the teaching of the law and the Prophets, thus to break forth against God as if he had spoken falsely by his Prophets. For this was their boasting: Oh! the days are prolonged: therefore every vision has passed away and failed From this delay they argued that they had no cause for fear, since whatever Jeremiah and the rest had predicted had passed away. We perceive then how unbelievers turn the patience of God into material for obduracy and stupidity. God spares them, gives them leisure, and invites them to repentance; but what do they do? They count the days and years, and when they
263Or, "protracted." — Calvin. 264Or, "cease." — Calvin.