Commentary on Ezekiel Chapters 1-20 John Calvin
JOHN CALVIN
some way included in his word. This is the meaning of the whole verse, I Jehovah will utter a word, and whatever I shall utter that will I do: it shall be no lower delayed, but, as I have often said, it shall return, nay in your days, O rebellious house, I will do what I have spoken by my servants. Here he expresses what might yet appear doubtful. For since a thousand years are with God as one day, the time might be thought near, even if the city had not been taken and destroyed with the temple for thirty years. But now God, after the manner of men, defines the time to be near, because those who were then alive should see the accomplishment of the prophecies which they had despised. It follows ---
Ezekiel 12:26-28
26. Again the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
26. Et fuit sermo Iehovae ad me, dicendo,
27. Son of man, behold, they of the house of Israel say, The vision that he seeth is for many days to come, and he prophesieth of the times that are far off.
27. Fill hominis, ecce domus Israel dicunt, 269 visio quam hic vidit, ad dies multos extenditur, et in tempora longinqua ipse prophetat.
28. Therefore say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; There shall none of my words be prolonged any more, but the word which I have spoken shall be done, saith the Lord GOD.
28. Propterea dices ad cos, Sic dicit Dominator Iehovah, non prorogabitur amplius; omnes sermones quos locutus fuero, sermonem etiam faciam, 270 dicit Dominator
Iehovah.
Here indeed such detestable blasphemy as we lately heard is not condemned in the Jews: but oblique ridicule, the tendency of which was first of all to weaken all confidence in Prophecy, and then to get rid of all heavenly doctrine. Those who are now condemned by the Prophet did not dare to bluster against God with swollen cheeks, but when others concluded the Prophecies to be vain and frivolous, because the time was put off, they said --- it may happen that God will accomplish what he has denounced against us by his servant: meanwhile let us feast securely as we shall be dead before these things can happen. We see, therefore, that there were two classes of men: some who utterly rejected God's Prophets, and wantonly derided their threats: this gross impiety has been already exposed. But others neither openly nor distinctly pronounced God to be a liar, but put far away from them the performance of the prophetic announcement. We see that the former were so abandoned, that they all but openly derided God, so as to turn away all fear from their own feelings since God prorogued the time. For Jeremiah had spent his strength in vain for many years in daily summoning them by a loud trumpet to God's tribunal, and in setting the Chaldeans before their eyes. Since he effected nothing, Ezekiel is chosen, and after he has inveighed against a fouler impudence in despising God, he now attacks the hypocrite who had not yet proceeded so far as to vilify God by the use of words. But as I have just remarked, the gliding down from this security to open contempt of God is easy. Those then who feign themselves quiet and without 269"Saying. — Calvin. 270Or, "I will fulfill." — Calvin.