Ezekiel 22:27, commentary and pictures

Her princes are the rulers of Jerusalem, Judah and Israel, likened to ravening wolves who prey upon the people to shed blood and destroy lives and souls for dishonest gain instead of protecting them. The verse stands in the wider indictment of Ezekiel 22:24-30 against a defiled land, where priests violated the law and profaned holy things and made no difference between holy and profane or clean and unclean and hid their eyes from the Sabbaths, while prophets daubed with untempered mortar by claiming divine authority for what God had not spoken. Though spoken to the Jews, the warning describes the last days and the professed people of God walking in violation of His precepts while crying peace and safety, announcing judgment at the day of the Lord's coming. The gap that leaders fail to repair is the breach torn in God's law by violating the Sabbath commandment and trampling His holy day, a breach made by removing the Lord's Sabbath and sustained by ministers who daub it with untempered mortar by urging reasons for Sundaykeeping without a divine command. Distinguishing the sacred from the profane upholds the divinely ordained seventh-day Sabbath against Sunday observance as a profane human institution and counterfeit Sabbath, and the blame rests on princes together with prophets and priests who violate God's law, prophesy lies, and destroy the souls that believe them for unjust profit.

Meaning and Original Context

Her princes are the rulers of Jerusalem, of Judah and of Israel. They are likened to wolves ravening the prey, predatory rulers who shed blood, destroy lives and souls, and pursue dishonest gain. Their conduct is corrupt exploitation of the people instead of protection, ruining them for unjust profit. Blame for trampling the sign and seal of God's law rests on these princes together with the prophets and priests described with them.

The verse stands within the wider indictment of Ezekiel 22:24-30 against a land not cleansed nor rained upon in the day of indignation. There priests violated the law, profaned holy things, put no difference between holy and profane or unclean and clean, and hid their eyes from the Sabbaths. Prophets covered falsehood with untempered mortar by seeing vanity and divining lies and saying Thus saith the Lord God when the Lord had not spoken. Princes and people joined in this general failure and breakdown, with violent and greedy rulers sharing in the unfaithfulness of hiding the eyes from the Sabbaths. Pagan apostasy had so influenced Israel's leaders and priests that they violated God's law and profaned His Sabbath, failing to distinguish the holy from the profane and profaning what God had set apart.

The passage records the sins, including idolatry and Sabbath desecration, that led to Israel's dispersion and brought the people into captivity. It declares that God sought for a man to make up the hedge and stand in the gap for the land and found none. The word souls shows that people can be destroyed in the sense that their souls are destroyed and die. That destruction of souls is associated with violence and dishonest gain.

Last-Days Sabbath Warning

Though spoken to ancient Jews, the rebuke belongs to the last days as God's description of the present generation at the day of the Lord's coming, a land not cleansed nor rained upon in the day of indignation. It describes the professed people of God in the last days, for Israel means the people of God and remnant means the last part, walking in violation of His precepts while crying peace and safety and announcing coming judgment. The charge stands together with priests violating the law, profaning holy things, making no difference between holy and profane or clean and unclean, hiding their eyes from the Sabbaths, and prophets daubing with untempered mortar by seeing vanity and divining lies and saying Thus saith the Lord God when the Lord has not spoken.

The rulers are likened to predatory wolves shedding blood, destroying lives and pursuing dishonest gain, as part of a prophecy about leaders and teachers who fail to repair the breach and prepare the people to stand in the day of the Lord. That breach is the violation of God's law through breaking the Sabbath commandment, the gap torn in the heart of His holy law by trampling His holy day. He sought for a man to make up the hedge and stand in the gap for the land and found none, and the battle of that day is now on. Thousands refuse to stand in the gap and trample upon the holy day, while the few who turn their feet from trampling the Sabbath heed the call to stand there until the Master comes with reinforcements, for the verse is cited as part of the prophecy of trampling God's authority and the Sabbath.

One power built a slight wall by making a breach in God's law through removing the Lord's Sabbath, and ministers sustain that wall by daubing it with untempered mortar. That daubing is saying Thus saith the Lord God when the Lord has not spoken, consisting of the various reasons urged as doctrine to sustain Sundaykeeping which lack the essential element of a thus saith the Lord. Religious leaders who call the first day the Christian Sabbath stand under the rebuke against priests, prophets and princes who make God's commandment of none effect, resting the day on mere assertions with no warrant. There is no word that God blessed and hallowed the first day as He did the seventh. The passage therefore calls for distinguishing the sacred from the profane, proving the divinely ordained seventh-day Sabbath against Sunday observance as a profane human institution and counterfeit Sabbath. It is the perverted word and unholy tradition by which Babylon tries to withstand God's truth when the Lord's Sabbath comes to the front, a slight wall plastered with untempered mortar that trembles before the mighty blows of the word.

Blame for trampling the sign and seal of God's law under foot rests on the princes as like wolves ravening the prey to shed blood and destroy souls for dishonest gain, together with the prophets and priests described with them. The surrounding prophecy is fulfilled in religious leaders who violate God's law, profane holy things, claim divine authority for what God has not spoken, prophesy lies in His name and make the people trust in a lie. Such teachers may themselves be deceived, yet the lies they tell destroy the souls that believe them.

The deeper reason law and government are brought into contempt is that the professed religious world has ignored the basis of God's government, His holy law. Ministers have called that law Jewish, treated it with contempt, taught that the law Christ lived and died to honor is abolished, changed and subject to human whim, setting aside the very precept revealing the Author of the law and putting a day of pagan origin in its place. By teaching that God's law may be changed at will and disregarded in one vital point, they lead the mass of men to conclude it may be disregarded in all points, so the present quickening of murder, theft and blasphemy is its legitimate fruit. In the same breath they demand human governments enact their amended code into civil law, making God such as themselves and bringing law and religion into disrepute, sowing wind from pulpit, lobby, platform and press to reap whirlwind in wars of anarchy, while commercial greed blinds men to spiritual truth and profanes what is holy. The just walk in the right ways of the Lord while transgressors fall therein, and evil men wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.

Violent and greedy rulers who exploit and ruin people for unjust profit share in the unfaithfulness of those who hide their eyes from the Sabbaths and make no separation between holy and common. Servants of Christ must not follow them by treating the Sabbath as unimportant. Dismissing it repeats the sin of Eve dismissing the warning about the forbidden fruit, Saul dismissing obedience, Naaman dismissing dipping in Jordan, and Nadab and Abihu dismissing the difference in fire, for faith does not question God's commands or Christ's example.