Ezekiel 13:5

Ye have not gone up into the gaps, neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the LORD.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(5) Ye have not gone up into the gaps.—The change of person is frequent enough in prophecy, and especially common in Ezekiel. It is changed back in Ezekiel 13:6, and changed again in Ezekiel 13:7. The gaps refer to the breaches in the wall made by the enemy, which became the rallying point of every brave leader (see Ezekiel 22:30), and the following words express essentially the same thought. The word “hedge” should rather be translated wall—“neither have ye built up the wall.” The false prophets, like the hireling shepherds of John 10:12, were only selfish, and had no care for the flock. The whole language is figurative, the breaches in the material walls representing the moral decay of the people.

Benson Commentary

Ezekiel 13:5. Ye have not gone up into the gaps — Or stood in the gap, or breach, as it is expressed Ezekiel 22:30; Psalm 106:23. Ye have not exercised your prophetical office, and framed your own conduct, so as to stop the wrath of Jehovah, by admonitions and exhortations to the people, and by personal piety and prayer to God. The place alludes to the intercession which Moses made for the Israelites, whereby he withheld God’s hand, as it were, when it was just stretched out to take vengeance upon the people for their heinous sin in making the golden calf, Exodus 32:10-11. The phrase is taken from those who put a stop to the enemy, when he is just entering in at a breach. In like manner it was the office and duty of those prophets, if they had truly been what they pretended to be, by their endeavours to reform the people, and their intercessions with God, to avert his displeasure, and prevent the vengeance which was just ready to be poured out on a sinful people. Neither made up the hedge — The Vulgate renders it, neque opposuistis murum pro domo Israel, nor made up a wall for the house of Israel; another expression taken from people besieged in a city, who, if a breach be made in the wall, presently make it up, or build up a new one within it, to prevent the enemy from entering and becoming masters of the place. To stand in the battle in the day of the Lord — When God shall come, like a general at the head of his army, to execute his judgment upon his enemies.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

13:1-9 Where God gives a warrant to do any thing, he gives wisdom. What they delivered was not what they had seen or heard, as that is which the ministers of Christ deliver. They were not praying prophets, had no intercourse with Heaven; they contrived how to please people, not how to do them good; they stood not against sin. They flattered people into vain hopes. Such widen the breach, by causing men to think themselves deserving of eternal life, when the wrath of God abides upon them.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

For - Or, before. In a time of siege when there are gaps or breaches in the walls, it is the part of the leaders to go up to defend them, and to throw up works to stop the in-road of the enemy. Yahweh is now assailing His people as an enemy (compare Isaiah 63:10; Job 16:11-13), and where are those who claim to be prophets, leaders of the people?

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

5. not gone up into … gaps—metaphor from breaches made in a wall, to which the defenders ought to betake themselves in order to repel the entrance of the foe. The breach is that made in the theocracy through the nation's sin; and, unless it be made up, the vengeance of God will break in through it. Those who would advise the people to repentance are the restorers of the breach (Eze 22:30; Ps 106:23, 30).

hedge—the law of God (Ps 80:12; Isa 5:2, 5); by violating it, the people stripped themselves of the fence of God's protection and lay exposed to the foe. The false prophets did not try to repair the evil by bringing back the people to the law with good counsels, or by checking the bad with reproofs. These two duties answer to the double office of defenders in case of a breach made in a wall: (1) To repair the breach from within; (2) To oppose the foe from without.

to stand—that is, that the city may "stand."

in … day of … Lord—In the day of the battle which God wages against Israel for their sins, ye do not try to stay God's vengeance by prayers, and by leading the nation to repentance.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Ye, vulpine prophets. As in a besieged city whose wall is broken down and the enemy ready to enter, a valiant, faithful, and vigilant soldier would run up into the breach to repel the enemy; so true prophets do partly by prayer, and partly by doctrine, and partly by personal reformation, labour to preserve God’s people. But, fox-like, they have shifted out of harm’s way.

Neither made up the hedge: the house of Israel is the Lord’s vineyard, through the hedge whereof many breaches are made, through which wild and wasting beasts come in and devour the grapes, and spoil the vines; but you have not stopped those breaches, but, fox-like, come in and pulled off the tender grapes, and done the most mischief; you have increased sin and danger thereby. And when the Lord’s wrath shall give up the city, you will not stand to oppose the enemy breaking in; so useless will these be at last.

To stand; not with arms, but with fasting, prayers, repentance, laying hold on the arm of the Lord, and interceding for his people.

In the battle, which God will by the Chaldeans fight against the house of Israel. In that day of the Lord the weapons of war will not prevail against the Chaldeans, unless prayers, tears, and amendment prevail with the Lord to withdraw the battle, and be at peace with Israel.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Ye have not gone up into the gaps,.... Or "breaches" (d); so the Targum. The allusion is to breaches made in the walls of a city when besieged; at which time those within gather together in great numbers to meet the enemy, and prevent his entrance by the breaches. These words are either spoken to the princes of Israel, the civil magistrates; or to the prophets, who seeing the sins of the people, like a mighty torrent, opening a breach for the wrath and judgments of God to pour in upon them, should have called them, and importunately pressed them to repentance and reformation, and to have put up their prayers, and made intercession to God for them; neither of which they did, and therefore are here blamed; see Ezekiel 22:30;

neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel; or a "fence", a fortification. The Vulgate Latin renders it, "a wall"; a new wall, which is generally made by the besieged within, when a breach is made upon them: it signifies the same as before. Jarchi and Kimchi interpret it of repentance and good works; and so the Targum, which paraphrases the words thus,

"neither have ye done for yourselves good works, to deprecate for the house of Israel, to stand to pray for them:''

to stand in the battle in the day of the Lord: when he came forth in battle array against them, with great wrath and indignation, in the way of his righteous judgments. The Targum is,

"when warriors come up against them in the day of the wrath of the Lord;''

when the Chaldeans came against them by the will of God, he being angry with them.

(d) "in fracturas", Pagninus, Montanus, Tigurine version; "rupturas", Calvin, Piscator, Starckius.

Geneva Study Bible

{c} Ye have not gone up into the gaps, neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the LORD.

(c) He speaks to the governor and true ministers that would have resisted them.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

5. gone up into the gaps] Or, breaches. Ezekiel turning to the prophets themselves uses “ye”—a frequent change of person in animated speech.

made up the hedge] Or, fence, R.V. If they had been true prophets they would have done two things: stood in the breach, and made a wall of defence for Israel. Without figure: these prophets knew neither what measures to adopt to stop the way of the invading dangers, nor what protective methods to recommend that the state might be successfully defended. They are hardly charged with want of personal courage when it is said they go not up into the breach; rather they wanted wisdom and insight, they had no measures to suggest which would repair or protect the fortunes of the people. Another prophet with more pathos describes the incompetence of Israel’s leaders in the day of her distress: “there was none to guide her among all the sons which she had brought forth; neither was there any to take her by the hand of all the sons that she had brought up” (Isaiah 51:18). No doubt the one measure to adopt was repentance and trust in the Lord; Amos 5:14, “Seek good, and not evil … and so the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye say.”

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 5. - The verse contains two distinct images. There were breaches in the walls of Jerusalem, literally and spiritually, and the false prophets had not been as "repairers of the breach" (Isaiah 58:12; Psalm 106:23). The hedge of the vineyard of Israel had been broken through (Isaiah 5:5), and they had done nothing to restore it (Ezekiel 22:30). The day of battle, the day of the Lord, had come, and they were betraying the people instead of helping. Ezekiel 13:5

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Against the False Prophets

Their conduct. - Ezekiel 13:1. And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, Ezekiel 13:2. Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel who prophesy, and say to the prophets out of their heart, Hear ye the word of Jehovah. Ezekiel 13:3. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Woe upon the foolish prophets, who go after their spirit, and that which they have not seen! Ezekiel 13:4. Like foxes in ruins have thy prophets become, O Israel. Ezekiel 13:5. Ye do not stand before the breaches, nor wall up the wall around the house of Israel to stand firm in the battle on the day of Jehovah. Ezekiel 13:6. They see vanity and lying soothsaying, who say, "Oracle of Jehovah;" and Jehovah hath not sent them; so that they might hope for the fulfilment of the word. Ezekiel 13:7. Do ye not see vain visions, and speak lying soothsaying, and say, Oracle of Jehovah; and I have not spoken? - The addition הנּבּאים, "who prophesy," is not superfluous. Ezekiel is not to direct his words against the prophets as a body, but against those who follow the vocation of prophet in Israel without being called to it by God on receiving a divine revelation, but simply prophesying out of their own heart, or according to their own subjective imagination. In the name of the Lord he is to threaten them with woes, as fools who follow their own spirit; in connection with which we must bear in mind that folly, according to the Hebrew idea, was not merely a moral failing, but actual godlessness (cf. Psalm 14:1). The phrase "going after their spirit" is interpreted and rendered more emphatic by לבלתּי, which is to be taken as a relative clause, "that which they have not seen," i.e., whose prophesying does not rest upon intuition inspired by God. Consequently they cannot promote the welfare of the nation, but (Ezekiel 13:4) are like foxes in ruins or desolate places. The point of comparison is to be found in the undermining of the ground by foxes, qui per cuniculos subjectam terram excavant et suffodiunt (Bochart). For the thought it not exhausted by the circumstance that they withdraw to their holes instead of standing in front of the breach (Hitzig); and there is no force in the objection that, with this explanation, בּחרבות is passed over and becomes in fact tautological (Hvernick). The expression "in ruins" points to the fall of the theocracy, which the false prophets cannot prevent, but, on the contrary, accelerate by undermining the moral foundations of the state. For (Ezekiel 13:5) they do not stand in the breaches, and do not build up the wall around the house of Israel (לא belongs to both clauses). He who desires to keep off the enemy, and prevent his entering the fortress, will stand in the breach. For the same purpose are gaps and breaches in the fortifications carefully built up. The sins of the people had made gaps and breaches in the walls of Jerusalem; in other words, had caused the moral decay of the city. But they had not stood in the way of this decay and its causes, as the calling and duty of prophets demanded, by reproving the sins of the people, that they might rescue the people and kingdom from destruction by restoring its moral and religious life. לעמד בּמּלחמה, to stand, or keep ground, i.e., so that ye might have kept your ground in the war. The subject is the false prophets, not Israel, as Hvernick supposes. "In the day of Jehovah," i.e., in the judgment which Jehovah has decreed. Not to stand, does not mean merely to avert the threatening judgment, but not to survive the judgment itself, to be overthrown by it. This arises from the fact that their prophesying is a life; because Jehovah, whose name they have in their mouths, has not sent them (Ezekiel 13:6). ויחלוּ is dependent upon שׁלחם: God has not sent them, so that they could hope for the fulfilment of the word which they speak.The rendering adopted by others, "and they cause to hope," is untenable; for יחל with ל does not mean "to cause to hope," or give hope, but simply to hope for anything. This was really the case; and it is affirmed in the declaration, which is repeated in the form of a direct appeal in Ezekiel 13:7, to the effect that their visions were vain and lying soothsaying. For this they are threatened with the judgment described in the verses which follow.