Ezekiel 14:9

And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing,.... That is pleasing to men, and is not true, in hope of reward and applause, but it never comes to pass, and his expectations are not

And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the LORD have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.

The prophet, viz. the prophet who makes this his trade and gain, the false prophet, who speaks all serene and quiet, in hope of reward for his kind answer to those that desired to hear what might please them more than what God commanded, promised, or threatened. Have deceived; permitted him to err, or. iustly left him in his blindness, that he shall not discern his own self-deceivings; or else when such prophet promiseth good, and thinks concurrence of all second causes tend to it, yet I will disappoint and frustrate, as , if the confederacies to save were in likelihood sufficient, and it were no presumption to hope the best; and if your prophets on this ground promised you success, yet they shall deceive you, for I would defeat and disappoint them and you; so the sense would not carry a moral and culpable deceiving, but a just defeating and disappointing, or disabling, second causes, on which disappointment of hopes will follow. If Egypt’ s arms had so weakened the Babylonians, that none but wounded men remained, yet the promise of your escape should fail you, O Israelites, for, , these should rise up and burn your city. Stretch out my hand upon him; remarkably punish his falsehood, and in severity destroy him.

Ezekiel 14:9 And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the LORD have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.Ver. 9. I the Lord have deceived that prophet.] I had not only a permissive, but an active hand in that imposture; not as a sin, but as a punishment of other sins. See 1 Kings 22:20 Job 12:16 Jeremiah 4:10 2 Thessalonians 2:11. And I will stretch out mine hand upon him,] i.e., Upon that false prophet, who, although he hath thus acted, not without my providence, yet hath sinned against my law, which is the rule men must walk by, or else suffer for their transgression. Aut faciendum aut patiendum. Now God hath long hands, as we use to say of princes; neither may any think to live out of the reach of his rod.

(9) And if the prophet be deceived.—The exact sense of the original is, “If a prophet be persuaded and speak a word, I the LORD have persuaded that prophet.” The thought is thus in close connection with what precedes; in Ezekiel 14:3-4; Ezekiel 14:7, the Lord has refused to allow an answer through the prophet to the hypocritical enquirer; but if the prophet, by giving the desired answer, allows himself to become a partaker of the sin which God abhors, then God will treat him according to that general method of dealing with sin which is here described. He “persuades” the prophet in the same sense in which He hardened Pharaoh’s heart, by making such persuasion the natural consequence of the immutable moral laws which He has ordained. Men are held back from sin only by God’s own Holy Spirit drawing them towards Himself. When they set this aside by transgressing God’s commands, the inevitable tendency—the tendency under the moral laws God has established—is to further sin. Hence the prophet who allowed himself to be persuaded, contrary to God’s command, to answer the hypocritical enquirer at all, would inevitably be persuaded further to answer him according to his desires. God does not force men either to receive the truth or to act righteously. If, notwithstanding His remonstrances, their hearts are set upon wrong, He will even give them up and “send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie” (2 Thessalonians 2:11). We are too often told in Scripture of this method of the Divine dealing to leave any room for us to misunderstand the principle. The result is a terrible one, but it is quite in keeping with all we can observe of the Divine work in nature. The man that refuses the medicine, must sink under the disease. The principle is clearly exemplified in the case of Ahab (1 Kings 22:19-23), where the Lord is represented as sending a lying spirit into the mouths of the prophets, that they might counsel the king to the wrong course he was already determined to take. God is declared to do this because it was the result under His moral laws of the wicked and domineering spirit of the king who had driven away the true prophets and gathered around himself those who were willing to pervert their office and prophesy falsely to gratify his wishes. Of course this is not to suppose that God can ever be the author of sin and deceit; but He has ordained that sin shall punish itself, and when the heart rejects Him, He withdraws His Spirit from it and gives it up to its own delusions. Thus when Saul’s heart became alienated from God, and “the Spirit of the Lord departed from” him, the evil spirit, which came instead, is said to be “from the LORD” (1 Samuel 16:14). This kind of judgment is necessarily more common in times of great and general declension from the right.

Verse 9. I the Lord have deceived that prophet] That is, he ran before he was sent; he willingly became the servant of Satan's illusions; and I suffered this to take place, because he and his followers refused to consult and serve me. I have often had occasion to remark that it is common in the Hebrew language to state a thing as done by the Lord which he only suffers or permits to be done; for so absolute and universal is the government of God, that the smallest occurrence cannot take place without his will or permission.

9–11. Fate of the prophet who gives an answer to idolatrous inquirers: he and they shall perish together 9. be deceived when he hath spoken] Rather, be deceived (or, enticed) and speak a word, i.e. a prophetic word, ch. Ezekiel 12:25 seq. The meaning appears to be: if the prophet, entering into the “heart” of the idolaters, the circle and direction of their thoughts, and the general spirit which animates them, gives them a prophetic oracle which coincides with the line of their thoughts, and thus helps to foster their delusions, that prophet himself has been seduced or enticed; and it is the Lord who has enticed him. The passage has a resemblance to 1 Kings 22:20. There a lying spirit came forth from the Lord and entered into the prophets of Ahab and deceived them, so that they entered into the designs of the wicked king and gave an answer favourable to him. Here it is the Lord himself who entices the prophet. In both cases this enticement or deception was in punishment for previous sin. Ezekiel does not appear to reflect upon the point whether the prophet before being deceived was true or false. The “prophet” became false when deceived, when he entered into the spirit and purposes of the idolaters, and spoke a word to them in the line of their sinful conduct and hopes. And this word merely hardened them in their mind and was a step towards taking them in their own heart (Ezekiel 14:5).

I the Lord hare deceived that prophet - A deep truth lies beneath these words, namely, that evil as well as good is under God’s direction.

9. When he hath spoken a thing — Literally, and speaketh a thing.