Ezekiel 14:9

14:9 “‘As for the prophet, if he is made a fool by being deceived into speaking a prophetic word – I, the Lord, have made a fool of ¹  that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand against him and destroy him from among my people Israel.

Isaiah 5:25

5:25 So the Lord is furious ²  with his people;

he lifts ³  his hand and strikes them.

The mountains shake,

and corpses lie like manure ⁴  in the middle of the streets.

Despite all this, his anger does not subside,

and his hand is ready to strike again. ⁵ 

Isaiah 9:12

9:12 Syria from the east,

and the Philistines from the west,

they gobbled up Israelite territory. ⁶ 

Despite all this, his anger does not subside,

and his hand is ready to strike again. ⁷ 

Isaiah 9:17

9:17 So the sovereign master was not pleased ⁸  with their young men,

he took no pity ⁹  on their orphans and widows;

for the whole nation was godless ¹⁰  and did wicked things, ¹¹ 

every mouth was speaking disgraceful words. ¹² 

Despite all this, his anger does not subside,

and his hand is ready to strike again. ¹³ 

[14:9]  ¹ tn The translation is uncertain due to difficulty both in determining the meaning of the verb’s stem and its conjugation in this context. In the Qal stem the basic meaning of the verbal root פָּתַה (patah) is “to be gullible, foolish.” The doubling stems (the Pual and Piel used in this verse) typically give such stative verbs a factitive sense, hence either “make gullible” (i.e., “entice”) or “make into a fool” (i.e., “to show to be a fool”). The latter represents the probable meaning of the term in Jer 20:7, 10 and is followed here (see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel [WBC], 1:193; R. Mosis “Ez 14, 1-11 - ein Ruf zur Umkehr,” BZ 19 [1975]: 166-69 and ThWAT 4:829-31). In this view, if a prophet speaks when not prompted by God, he will be shown to be a fool, but this does not reflect negatively on the Lord because it is God who shows him to be a fool. Secondly, the verb is in the perfect conjugation and may be translated “I have made a fool of him” or “I have enticed him,” or to show determination (see IBHS 439-41 §27.2f and g), or in certain syntactical constructions as future. Any of these may be plausible if the doubling stems used are understood in the sense of “making a fool of.” But if understood as “to make gullible,” more factors come into play. As the Hebrew verbal form is a perfect, it is often translated as present perfect: “I have enticed.” In this case the Lord states that he himself enticed the prophet to cooperate with the idolaters. Such enticement to sin would seem to be a violation of God’s moral character, but sometimes he does use such deception and enticement to sin as a form of punishment against those who have blatantly violated his moral will (see, e.g., 2 Sam 24). If one follows this line of interpretation in Ezek 14:9, one would have to assume that the prophet had already turned from God in his heart. However, the context gives no indication of this. Therefore, it is better to take the perfect as indicating certitude and to translate it with the future tense: “I will entice.” In this case the Lord announces that he will judge the prophet appropriately. If a prophet allows himself to be influenced by idolaters, then the Lord will use deception as a form of punishment against that deceived prophet. A comparison with the preceding oracles also favors this view. In 14:4 the perfect of certitude is used for emphasis (see “I will answer”), though in v. 7 a participle is employed. For a fuller discussion of this text, see R. B. Chisholm, Jr., “Does God Deceive?” BSac 155 (1998): 23-25.

[5:25]  ² tn Heb “the anger of the Lord rages.”

[5:25]  ³ tn Or “extends”; KJV, ASV “he hath stretched forth.”

[5:25]  ⁴ tn Or “garbage” (NCV, CEV, NLT); NAB, NASB, NIV “refuse.”

[5:25]  ⁵ tn Heb “in all this his anger is not turned, and still his hand is outstretched.”

[9:12]  ⁶ tn Heb “and they devoured Israel with all the mouth”; NIV “with open mouth”; NLT “With bared fangs.”

[9:12]  ⁷ tn Heb “in all this his anger is not turned, and still his hand is outstretched.” One could translate in the past tense here (and in 9:17b and 21b), but the appearance of the refrain in 10:4b, where it follows a woe oracle prophesying a future judgment, suggests it is a dramatic portrait of the judge which did not change throughout this period of past judgment and will remain unchanged in the future. The English present tense is chosen to best reflect this dramatic mood. (See also 5:25b, where the refrain appears following a dramatic description of coming judgment.)

[9:17]  ⁸ tn The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a has לא יחמול (“he did not spare”) which is an obvious attempt to tighten the parallelism (note “he took no pity” in the next line). Instead of taking שָׂמַח (samakh) in one of its well attested senses (“rejoice over, be pleased with”), some propose, with support from Arabic, a rare homonymic root meaning “be merciful.”

[9:17]  ⁹ tn The translation understands the prefixed verbs יִשְׂמַח (yismakh) and יְרַחֵם (yÿrakhem) as preterites without vav (ו) consecutive. (See v. 11 and the note on “he stirred up.”)

[9:17]  ¹⁰ tn Or “defiled”; cf. ASV “profane”; NAB “profaned”; NIV “ungodly.”

[9:17]  ¹¹ tn מֵרַע (mera’) is a Hiphil participle from רָעַע (ra’a’, “be evil”). The intransitive Hiphil has an exhibitive force here, indicating that they exhibited outwardly the evidence of an inward condition by committing evil deeds.

[9:17]  ¹² tn Or “foolishness” (NASB), here in a moral-ethical sense.

[9:17]  ¹³ tn Heb “in all this his anger is not turned, and still his hand is outstretched.”