Commentary on Ezekiel Chapters 1-20 John Calvin
EZEKIEL
when they shall be convicted by the event, and their is shall be proved by clear proof.
Hence, also, we may gather the utility of the doctrine which Paul teaches, that we must stand bravely when God gives the reins to impostors to disturb or disperse the Church. They shall not proceed any further, says he. (2 Timothy 3:9.) He says elsewhere in the same epistle, (2 Timothy 3:13,) They shall wax worse and worse; that is, as far as God pleases to be patient with them. But meanwhile the end is at hand, when the Lord shall shame all the impious false prophets, and detect their ignorance, rashness, and audacity, because they dared to use his name in offering peace to the reprobate. Thou shalt say, therefore, the wall shall fall. He speaks here of doctrine. There shall be an overflowing shower, says he --- a desolating rain. Here the Spirit signifies that there shall be a violent concussion which shall disperse all the artifices of the false prophets, and detect their frauds, when the Lord should bring on the Chaldaeans, and deliver the city to them. Hence the same meaning is intended by the shower, by stones, by the rush of a whirlwind, but it was necessary to express the same thing in many ways, because the Israelites had grown torpid through their fallacies, and willingly seized upon what the false prophets said --- that God would be propitious to them. After he had mentioned the shower, he goes on to hailstones.
The more probable reading is, Ye, O great hailstones, shall fall; unless perhaps it is better to take the verb {,}תפלנהthephelneh, transitively, as I am inclined to do, ye shall make fall. This apostrophe is emphatic, because God addresses the stones themselves, and thereby obliquely reproves the sloth of those who thought to escape in safety through their blandishments. When God, therefore, addresses the stones, he doubtless reproaches the Israelites for hardening themselves so completely. He adds the violence of whirlwinds, or of tempests, in the same sense. The violence of the whirlwinds, then, shall break down or overthrow the wall. In conclusion, Ezekiel teaches that the doctrine of the false prophets had no need of any other refutation, that the arrival of the Chaldaeans, and their boasting, is like a storm and whirlwind to devastate the whole land: and thus he derides those praters who used their tongues so audaciously: he says that those strangers should come to refute these lies, not by words only, but by a violent attack. It follows ---
Ezekiel 13:12
12. Lo, when the wall is fallen, shall it not be said unto you, Where is the daubing wherewith ye have daubed it?
12. Et ecce cadet paries, 286 annon dicetur ad vos, ubi litura 287 quam levistis.
He confirms the last sentence, namely, that the false prophets would be a laughing-stock to all when their prophecies and divinations came to nothing, for the event would show them to be liars. For when the city was taken it sufficiently appeared that they were the devil's ministers of deceit, for they were trained in wickedness and boldness when they put forth the name of God. Now the Prophet teaches that a common proverb would arise when the wall fell; for by saying, shall 286That is, "when the wall shall have fallen:" we must understand the adverb "when." — Calvin.
287Some translate lenimentum or linimentum: grammatically it thought to be litio; but although good Latin authors do not use the word litura here for "daubing," yet we express it ubi litura. — Calvin.