Psalms 119:10

119:10 With all my heart I seek you.

Do not allow me to stray from your commands!

Psalms 119:36

119:36 Give me a desire for your rules, ¹ 

rather than for wealth gained unjustly. ² 

Psalms 141:4

141:4 Do not let me have evil desires, ³ 

or participate in sinful activities

with men who behave wickedly. ⁴ 

I will not eat their delicacies. ⁵ 

Ezekiel 14:7-9

14:7 For when anyone from the house of Israel, or the foreigner who lives in Israel, separates himself from me and erects his idols in his heart and sets the obstacle leading to his iniquity before his face, and then consults a prophet to seek something from me, I the Lord am determined to answer him personally. 14:8 I will set my face against that person and will make him an object lesson and a byword ⁶  and will cut him off from among my people. Then you will know that I am the Lord.

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 ⁷  that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand against him and destroy him from among my people Israel.

Ezekiel 14:2

14:2 The word of the Lord came to me:

Ezekiel 2:1

Ezekiel’s Commission

2:1 He said to me, “Son of man, ⁸  stand on your feet and I will speak with you.”

Ezekiel 2:1

Ezekiel’s Commission

2:1 He said to me, “Son of man, ⁹  stand on your feet and I will speak with you.”

[119:36]  ¹ tn Heb “turn my heart to your rules.”

[119:36]  ² tn Heb “and not unjust gain.”

[141:4]  ³ tn Heb “do not turn my heart toward an evil thing.”

[141:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “to act sinfully in practices in wickedness with men, doers of evil.”

[141:4]  ⁵ sn Their delicacies. This probably refers to the enjoyment that a sinful lifestyle appears to offer.

[14:8]  ⁶ tn Heb “proverbs.”

[14:9]  ⁷ 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.

[2:1]  ⁸ sn The phrase son of man occurs ninety-three times in the book of Ezekiel. It simply means “human one,” and distinguishes the prophet from the nonhuman beings that are present in the world of his vision.

[2:1]  ⁹ sn The phrase son of man occurs ninety-three times in the book of Ezekiel. It simply means “human one,” and distinguishes the prophet from the nonhuman beings that are present in the world of his vision.