Ezekiel 14:15

The argument is cumulative. He first puts the case of the land sinning so as to fall under the judgment of a famine (Eze 14:13); then (Eze 14:15) "noisome beasts" (Lev 26:22); then "the sword"; then, worst of all, "pestilence." The three most righteous of men should deliver only themselves in these several four cases. In Eze 14:21 he concentrates the whole in one mass of condemnation. If Noah, Daniel, Job, could not deliver the land, when deserving only one judgment, "how much more" when all four judgments combined are justly to visit the land for sin, shall these three righteous men not deliver it.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Eze 14:15 If I cause noisome beasts to pass through the land, and they spoil it, so that it be desolate, that no man may pass through because of the beasts:

Ver. 15. If I cause noisome beasts.] As lions, wolves, bears, serpents, &c. Great hurt hath been done not only by such, as Num 21:6 2Ki 2:24; 2Ki 17:25-26 Jos 24:12; but also by tamer creatures when set on by God. Rebellis facta est, quia homo numini, creatura homini. {a} Rats, conies, frogs, wasps, moths, have done much mischief.

{a} Augustine.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Eze 14:15-21. If I cause noisome beasts to pass through the land — We find it was one punishment of the inhabitants of Judea, to be infested by lions and other wild beasts. To this their neighbourhood to the deserts of Arabia exposed them; and God, at certain times, to punish them for their sins, either by causing a scarcity of food in the deserts, or by some other means, influenced these wild beasts to make incursions into Judea, in great numbers, which they otherwise were not wont to do. Or if I bring a sword upon that land, &c. — “If I deliver a land into the hand of a cruel enemy. The conquerors’ sword is often called the sword of the Lord, in the prophets, because they are the executioners of God’s judgments.” So that I cut off man and beast from it — “Men are destroyed by the sword, and the cattle are driven away by the enemy; or else consumed by pestilence, arising from the air’s being corrupted through the stench of dead bodies.” Or I send pestilence, and pour out my fury in blood — With great destruction of men’s lives, Eze 38:22; for every kind of sudden and immature death is called blood in the Hebrew. How much more — Shall there be an utter destruction; when I send my four sore judgments upon Jerusalem — “If it is just, with respect to other countries, that the good alone should escape punishment, how much more with respect to Jerusalem, after such repeated instructions and admonitions?” And if the intercessions of such holy men as those above mentioned could not prevent the execution of one of these four judgments upon those that had filled up the measure of their iniquities, how much less would they be able to keep off all the four, when I commission them all to come at once?

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Now he mentions the second kind of punishment. For we said that God’s four scourges were here brought before us, which are more familiarly known to men through frequent use. They are hunger and wild beasts, war and pestilence. The Prophet has spoken of famine; he now comes down to wild beasts. This kind of scourge is rarely used in Scripture; for God more frequently mentions the sword, pestilence, and famine; but when he distinctly treats, of his scourges, he adds also savage beasts. Now therefore he says, if he had sent wild beasts to lay waste the land, and Noah, Job, and Daniel, had been in that land, they would be free from the common slaughter, but that their righteousness would not profit others. He expresses a little more clearly what he had spoken briefly and obscurely when he treated of the famine. If, says he, I shall cause an evil beast to pass through and injure the land, so as to lay it waste, that no one may pass through on account of the wild beasts, as I live, says he, if these three men shall free their sons and their daughters. This passage teaches what I lately touched upon about the famine, namely, that the beasts did not break in by chance to attack and rage against men, but that they are sent by God. Thus God follows out his judgments no less by means of lions, and bears, and tigers, than by rain and drought, the sword and the pestilence: and surely this may be understood, if we reflect upon the great savageness of these beasts; first, when hunger arouses them they are carried along by a ravenous impulse; and then, without the compulsion of necessity, they are hostile to the human race, and without doubt they would urge themselves on to tear to pieces all whom they met with, unless restrained by God’s secret instinct. If, therefore, God restrains the wild beasts, thus also he sends them forth as often as it pleases him, to exercise their ferocity against mankind, and in this way to become his scourges. But here an oath is interposed that God may inspire confidence in his sentence, so God swears by his own life. This is the meaning of the phrase as I live; that is, I swear by my life. This is indeed spoken improperly, but elsewhere we have seen that God swears by his life; that is, just as if he swore by himself, because he has no greater by whom he can swear, as the Apostle says (Hebrews 6:13); and as often as we swear by the name of God we attribute the supreme power to him, and thus we profess our life to be in his hand, and he to be our only Judge. When, therefore, he swears by himself, he admonishes us at the same time that his name is profaned if we swear by any others: then he shows how much religion is to be exhibited in oaths. Let us follow, therefore, God’s example, when our speech needs confirmation, by calling in a witness and judge: next, that we should not use his name rashly and falsely, but that our oath should be truly a testimony to our piety. But here in truth a question arises, — How God can say that the land should perish which has been once subjected to wild beasts? For sometimes wild beasts have infected many regions, and God has immediately restrained them, and so their cruelty has passed away like a storm.

Again, we knew that the prayer of the saints are not superfluous when they pray for others; but God seems here to deny what is clearly manifest. But the solution is easy. For since he does not inflict his judgments equably but variably, and at one time hastens punishments and at another suspends them: at one time punishes men’s sins and at another delays doing so, he fixes for himself no sure law by which he is always bound, but he speaks of the land which he has destined to destruction. God therefore will strike one region with famine, another with war, a third with pestilence, a fourth with wild beasts, and yet he can mitigate his own rigor, and when men begin to be terrified, he can withdraw his hand. But if it has been once decreed that any land must perish, all the saints would run together in vain, because no one would be a fit intercessor to abolish that inviolable decree. We now understand the Prophet’s intention, for he does not speak generally of any lands whatever, but he points out the very land which was devoted to final destruction. It follows —

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(15-20) In these verses the same declaration is repeated, for the sake of emphasis, with each one of three other instruments of punishment, with only such variations of phraseology as are required for rhetorical reasons. The phrase “their own souls” is here also simply equivalent to “themselves.” The judgments mentioned are all taken from the warnings in Leviticus 26, the famine from Lev_26:26, the wild beasts from Lev_26:22, the sword and also the pestilence from Lev_26:25.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Though these three men were in it,.... Above named, Noah, Daniel, and Job; as they were not, two of them not being in the land of the living, and the other in Babylon; but if all three had been in a land so threatened, and used all the interest they had with God, by fervent prayer and supplication, to have called in the wild beasts, and chained them up, and to preserve the people from being destroyed by them, it would have been all in vain; the Lord was determined upon the destruction of them, and by means of these, as one of his sore judgments:

as I live, saith the Lord God; or by my life; for it is an oath with which God swears by himself, who has life in himself, and is the author and giver of life to others, and can take it away when, and in what manner, he pleases; and this oath is used, to show the unalterableness of the judgment threatened, it being decreed and sworn to: God's word or decree, and his oath, are two immutable things, in which he cannot lie, and from which he never departs:

they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters; meaning not adult persons, but little ones, infant sons and daughters; such as had not been guilty of the actual sins and transgressions their parents were charged with; even these they should not deliver by their prayers and supplications from being destroyed by noisome beasts, God punishing the iniquities of the fathers upon the children; and much less should they deliver those that were adult, and had committed the same idolatries and other sins their parents had; no, not even their own sons and daughters; for no exception is made but of themselves, as follows:

they only shall be delivered: as Noah with his family was in the ark, when amidst wild beasts; and Daniel in the lions den; and Job, with whom the beasts of the field were at peace, Job 5:23;

but the land shall be desolate; see Eze 12:20.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Noisome beasts are one of the great plagues or armies that God hath always at his command.

To pass through the land; to range over the land, and spoil their cattle, devour their servants and children, and destroy travellers, and make it as a wilderness.

No man may pass through without much danger, and great guards that may repel the wild ravening beasts.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

15. Noisome beasts — Remembering that serpents, according to Scripture language, were included among these “hurtful beasts” (Gen_3:14), it is a suggestive circumstance that over twenty thousand people die in India every year of snake bite, notwithstanding the excessive population and the carefulness of British officials, and notwithstanding the fact that the government kills five hundred thousand of these reptiles every year (Victoria Institute, 26:89, 111). In Syria, where the serpent was reverenced as possessing superhuman powers, its ability to “bereave” the land would be great.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Noisome beasts. (see note on Eze_5:17)

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

these same three men

Noah, Daniel, and Job

as I live

"as surely as I am alive." Yahweh uses this expression to show that what he says next is certainly true. This is a way of making a solemn promise. See how you translated this in Ezekiel 5:11. AT: "I solemnly swear" (See: Idiom)

only their own lives would be rescued

This can be stated in active form. AT: "they could only rescue their own lives" (See: Active or Passive)

translationWords

evil

barren

waste

life

declare

Lord Yahweh

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

If...wild beasts Heb. לוּ. If wild beasts.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.