Ezekiel 18:25

Yet ye say, The way of the Lord is not equal. Hear now, O house of Israel; Is not my way equal? are not your ways unequal?

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(25) The way of the Lord is not equal.—The word means literally, weighed out, balanced. The accusation of the Israelites was still (here and in Ezekiel 18:29) that the Lord was arbitrary and unjust. His statement in reply is that He rewards and punishes according to eternal and immutable principles of right. Every man must reap that which he has sown. (Comp. Romans 2:5-10.)

Benson Commentary

Ezekiel 18:25-29. Yet ye say, The way of the Lord is not equal, &c. — Yet ye allege that I do not act according to the strict rules of justice and equity: but “the declarations I have so often repeated concerning the eternal rewards and punishments allotted to the righteous and the wicked, are sufficient to vindicate the justice of my proceedings against all your objections.” When a righteous man turneth away from his righteousness, &c. — “It is an opinion that prevails among the Jews, even till this day, that at the day of judgment a considerable number of good actions shall overbalance men’s evil ones. See Ezekiel 33:13. So they thought it a hard case for a man who had been righteous the far greater part of his life, if he did at last commit iniquity, that his former righteousness should avail him nothing. In opposition to this doctrine, God here declares that a righteous man sinning and not repenting, should die in his sins; and that a wicked man, upon his repentance, should save his soul alive.” — Lowth. Again, when the wicked man, &c. — These verses are, as it were, a repetition of what had been said before; or rather, the conclusion of the matter, or the whole of the chapter summed up and brought to a point; namely, that men suffer the divine punishments only on account of their sins; that they cannot enjoy the divine favour while they continue in sin; and that, in order to obtain it, it is indispensably necessary that they should turn from all their transgressions and become new creatures, and that even former righteousness cannot obtain for them, or preserve to them, the favour of God, while they relapse into and continue in subsequent iniquity. In a word, that sin and wickedness are the sole objects of God’s aversion and indignation, and holiness and righteousness of his favour and approbation.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

18:21-29 The wicked man would be saved, if he turned from his evil ways. The true penitent is a true believer. None of his former transgressions shall be mentioned unto him, but in the righteousness which he has done, as the fruit of faith and the effect of conversion, he shall surely live. The question is not whether the truly righteous ever become apostates. It is certain that many who for a time were thought to be righteous, do so, while ver. 26,27 speaks the fulness of pardoning mercy: when sin is forgiven, it is blotted out, it is remembered no more. In their righteousness they shall live; not for their righteousness, as if that were an atonement for their sins, but in their righteousness, which is one of the blessings purchased by the Mediator. What encouragement a repenting, returning sinner has to hope for pardon and life according to this promise! In verse 28 is the beginning and progress of repentance. True believers watch and pray, and continue to the end, and they are saved. In all our disputes with God, he is in the right, and we are in the wrong.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Equal - literally, "weighed out, balanced." Man's ways are arbitrary, God's ways are governed by a self-imposed law, which makes all consistent and harmonious.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

25. Their plea for saying, "The way of the Lord is not equal," was that God treated different classes in a different way. But it was really their way that was unequal, since living in sin they expected to be dealt with as if they were righteous. God's way was invariably to deal with different men according to their deserts.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Yet ye say; you persist in your hard, unjust, and ungodly sentiments of an inequality in my ways, and are not afraid to speak as much.

The way: it were too much for sinners to charge God with inequality in a single act, but here are some dare censure the way, the whole management of affairs.

Of the Lord: strange frowardness! own him for Lord, yet condemn his government; grant his sovereign authority, and yet arraign the exercise of it!

Is not equal; not right, steady, or consistent with his own declaration and law; so the Hebrew. This prodigiously wicked assertion they build upon a most gross ignorance, and intolerably proud conceit of their own righteousness: We, say they, are righteous, not wicked, yet punished. Unheard-of pride, to condemn God, with whom is no iniquity, and acquit themselves, in whom is all iniquity!

Hear now; consider what I have proposed to clear my justice, hear me and my defence ere you condemn me, weigh well my defence. O house of Israel; both you that are in Jerusalem, and you also that are in Babylon at Telabib.

Is not my way equal? Do you speak what you think, does your judgment thus conclude, when you know, or might know, that this is the general rule I proceed by, The righteousness of the righteous is upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked is upon him? Can there be inequality here? Your ways which you choose, keep, plead for, and obstinately hold to, these are the crooked, unsteady, and unjust ways: for the question is to be resolved into a vehement asseveration.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Yet ye say,.... Notwithstanding these plain instances, which show the equity of God in his proceedings, and vindicate his justice in the dispensations of his providence; yet such was the blindness and stupidity of these people, or rather their stubbornness, obstinacy, and impudence, that they still insisted upon it that

the way of the Lord is not equal; just and right; is not even, according to the rules of justice and equity; or is not ordered aright, is not steady, and firm, and consistent with himself, and the declaration of his will; a very bold and blasphemous charge, and yet the Lord condescends to reason with them about it:

hear now, O house of Israel; the ten tribes that were now in captivity; or the Jews that were carried captive with Jeconiah, with those that were still in Jerusalem and Judea; these are called upon to hear the Lord, what he had to say in vindication of himself from this charge, as it was but just and reasonable they should:

is not my way equal? plain and even, constant and uniform, according to the obvious rules of justice and truth? can any instance be given to the contrary? what is to be said to support the charge against me? bring forth your strong reasons if you cart, and prove what is asserted:

are not your ways unequal? it is plain they are; your actions, your course of life, are manifest deviations from my law, and from all the rules of righteousness and goodness; it is you that are in the wrong, and I in the right.

Geneva Study Bible

Yet ye say, The way of the Lord is not {h} equal. Hear now, O house of Israel; Is not my way equal? are not your ways unequal?

(h) In punishing the father with the children.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

25. Yet ye say, The way … equal] And ye say. The “way” of the Lord is the principle on which he acts, or his action on it, Isaiah 55:8, cf. ch. Ezekiel 33:17; Ezekiel 33:20. The objection of the people may really have been expressed (cf. Ezekiel 18:19). The prophet’s principle of the freedom of the individual and his independence was a novelty running counter to cherished notions of that age, notions corroborated by much that is seen in history and life. The instance of Korah, whose children perished with him for his sin, the case of Achan, whose transgression was imputed to the whole camp, the history of Jonathan, and no doubt multitudes of instances were familiar to the people where men were treated as bodies and the individuals shared the fate of the mass though personally innocent. To us now the prophet’s principle is self-evident. Still even to us it is only a theoretical principle, and can be maintained against facts only by drawing a distinction, which the people in Israel had not yet learned to draw, between the spiritual relation of the mind to God and the external history of the individual. See end of chapter.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 25. - Are not my ways equal? The. primary meaning of the Hebrew adjective is that of something ordered, symmetrically arranged. Men would find in the ways of God precisely that in which their own ways were wanting, and which they denied to him - the workings of a considerate equity, adjusting all things according to their true weight and measure. Ezekiel 18:25

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Turning to good leads to life; turning to evil is followed by death. - Ezekiel 18:21. But if the wicked man turneth from all his sins which he hath committed, and keepeth all my statutes, and doeth right and righteousness, he shall live, and not die. Ezekiel 18:22. All his transgressions which he hath committed, shall not be remembered to him: for the sake of the righteousness which he hath done he will live. Ezekiel 18:23. Have I then pleasure in the death of the wicked? is the saying of Jehovah: and not rather that he turn from his ways, and live? Ezekiel 18:24. But if the righteous man turn from his righteousness, and doeth wickedness, and acteth according to all the abominations which the ungodly man hath done, should he live? All the righteousness that he hath done shall not be remembered: for his unfaithfulness that he hath committed, and for his sin that he hath sinned, for these he shall die. Ezekiel 18:25. And ye say, "The way of the Lord is not right." Hear now, O house of Israel: Is my way not right? Is it not your ways that are not right? Ezekiel 18:26. If a righteous man turneth from his righteousness, and doeth wickedness, and dieth in consequence, he dieth for his wickedness that he hath done. - The proof that every one must bear his sin did not contain an exhaustive reply to the question, in what relation the righteousness of God stood to the sin of men? For the cases supposed in vv. 5-20 took for granted that there was a constant persistence in the course once taken, and overlooked the instances, which are by no means rare, when a man's course of life is entirely changed. It still remained, therefore, to take notice of such cases as these, and they are handled in Ezekiel 18:21-26. The ungodly man, who repents and turns, shall live; and the righteous man, who turns to the way of sin, shall die. "As the righteous man, who was formerly a sinner, is not crushed down by his past sins; so the sinner, who was once a righteous man, is not supported by his early righteousness. Every one will be judged in that state in which he is found" (Jerome). The motive for the pardon of the repenting sinner is given in Ezekiel 18:23, in the declaration that God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked man, but desires his conversion, that he may live. God is therefore not only just, but merciful and gracious, and punishes none with death but those who either will not desist from evil, or will not persevere in the way of His commandments. Consequently the complaint, that the way of the Lord, i.e., His conduct toward men, is not weighed (יתּכן, see comm. on 1 Samuel 2:3), i.e., not just and right, is altogether unfounded, and recoils upon those who make it. It it not God's ways, but the sinner's, that are wrong (Ezekiel 18:25). The proof of this, which Hitzig overlooks, is contained in the declarations made in Ezekiel 18:23 and Ezekiel 18:26, - viz. in the fact that God does not desire the death of the sinner, and in His mercy forgives the penitent all his former sins, and does not lay them to his charge; and also in the fact that He punishes the man who turns from the way of righteousness and gives himself up to wickedness, on account of the sin which he commits; so that He simply judges him according to his deeds. - In Ezekiel 18:24, ועשׂה is the continuation of the infinitive שׁוּב, and וחי is interrogatory, as in Ezekiel 18:13.