Ezekiel 18

Responsibility is one of the major themes of these four chapters. The Jewish exiles in Babylon were blaming their ancestors for the terrible judgment that had befallen them, so Ezekiel explained that God judges people individually for their own sins and not for somebody else’s sins (chap. 18). He then pointed out that the Jewish leaders were responsible for the foolish decisions they had made (chap. 19), and that the nation itself had a long history of irresponsibility (chap. 20). Finally, the prophet reminded his listeners that the Lord Jehovah also had a responsibility to be faithful to Himself and His covenant with the Jews, and this was why He had chastened them (chap. 21). By dealing with the subject of personal and national responsibility, Ezekiel was able to answer the frequent complaints of the people that the Lord was treating them unfairly.

Responsibility and accountability are needed themes in our own day. Irresponsibility is rampant, and very few people are willing to take the blame for wrongs committed or mistakes made. In his Devil’s Dictionary, the cynical Ambrose Bierce defined responsibility as “a detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, luck, or one’s neighbor.” After our first parents sinned, Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent, but God still held Adam and Eve responsible for their disobedience and punished them accordingly. The Jews in Ezekiel’s day were sure that God would deliver them and spare Jerusalem because Israel was God’s chosen people, but they forgot that privilege always brings responsibility. They had the greatest law ever given to a nation, but they disobeyed it. The Lord gave them a wonderful land for their home, and they defiled it with idolatry. They violated the terms of the divine covenant and then were shocked when the Lord obeyed the covenant and chastened them.

As you read this chapter, you find the prophet answering the erroneous statements the Jewish exiles were making about God and their difficult situation (vv. 2, 19, 25, 29). God knew what His people were saying and so did His prophet. Ignoring the inspired Word of God, the people were building their case on a popular proverb: “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” In other words, “Our fathers have sinned and we, their children, are being punished for it.” Their philosophy was a kind of irresponsible fatalism. “No matter what we do,” they argued, “we still have to suffer because of what the older generation did.” The prophet Jeremiah quoted the same familiar proverb and preached the same truth that Ezekiel preached: God deals with us as individuals and punishes each of us justly for what we do (Jer. 31:29–30). He is a just and righteous God who shows no partiality (Deut. 10:17; 32:4). If He withholds punishment, it’s only because of His grace and merciful longsuffering.

Where did Ezekiel’s listeners get the idea that God punished the children for the sins of their fathers? This philosophy came from two sources: (1) a misinterpretation of what the Lord had said in His law, that He visited the sins of the fathers upon the children (Ex. 20:5; 34:6–7; Num. 14:18; Deut. 7:9–10), and (2) the Jewish idea of the oneness of the nation. According to the law of Moses, innocent animals could suffer and die for guilty sinners, but nowhere was it taught that innocent people should be punished for sins committed by guilty people. In fact, Moses taught just the opposite: “The fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall the children be put to death for their fathers; a person shall be put to death for his own sin” (Deut. 24: nkjv). The warning in Exodus 20: and 34:6–7 implies that the Lord punishes the children if they commit the sins their fathers committed. Furthermore, God also promised to bless those children who followed godly examples and obeyed the Lord (20:6; Deut. 7:9–10), so He gave promises of blessing as well as warnings of chastening.

As for the solidarity of the nation, the Jewish people did consider themselves one people who descended from Abraham. Since each tribe descended from one of the sons of Jacob, Israel claimed both national and tribal solidarity. If only one Israelite disobeyed the Lord, it was as though all Israel had sinned, as in the case of Achan (Josh. 7:1, 11; and see Josh. 22, especially vv. 18–20). Knowing this fact, the Jewish people concluded that the Babylonian invasion and the nation’s exile were the consequences of the sins of the previous generation.

Ezekiel answered the people’s objections and explained the truth about God’s judgment and justice by sharing some hypothetical situations and drawing some conclusions.

You cannot blame your ancestors (vv. 5–18). The prophet refutes the proverb by imagining a situation involving three men in a family, people with whom his listeners certainly could identify. He began with a righteous father (vv. 5–9), a hypothetical Jew who kept God’s law and therefore was just and would not die because of sin (vv. 4, 9). Death is frequently mentioned in this chapter (vv. 4, 13, 17–18, 20–21, 23–24, 26, 28, 32) and refers to physical death and not necessarily eternal punishment, although any Jew who didn’t exercise saving faith in the Lord would not be accepted by Him. Whether people lived under the old covenant or the new covenant, before or since the cross, the way of salvation is the same: faith in the Lord that is evidenced by a new life of obedience (Heb. 11:6; Hab. 2:4; see Rom. 4).

In describing this man, Ezekiel named eight negative offenses along with eight positive virtues. The negative sins this man avoids are attending idol feasts in the “high places” and worshipping idols in his own land, committing adultery, incurring ritual uncleanness (Ezek. 18:6), exploiting people and using violence to rob people (v. 7), lending money with interest and demanding a profit (v. 8). The eight positive virtues are returning a debtor’s pledge, feeding the hungry and clothing the naked (v. 7), living justly and promoting justice (v. 8), living by God’s statutes and obeying His ordinances, and living with integrity (v. 9). These offenses and virtues are mentioned in the law of Moses, but the man acted as he did because he loved God and had “a new heart and a new spirit” within him (v. 31). He put God first in his life, treated people with kindness and mercy, and used his material wealth to honor God and serve others. As evidence of his faith in Jehovah, he obeyed the two great commandments of the law, to love the Lord and to love his neighbor (Matt. 22:34–40)

This righteous father had an unrighteous son (Ezek. 18:10–13), about whom Ezekiel had nothing good to say. He listed ten offenses against God’s law, three of them capital crimes: murder (vv. 12, 14), idolatry (vv. 11–12), and adultery (v. 11). This godless son exploited the poor and took interest from his debtors. He never returned the debtor’s pledge (Ex. 22:26; Deut. 24:12–13) and did all he could to make a profit, even if it meant hurting people and defying God’s laws. The verdict is clear: “he shall surely die.”

The third character in this drama was a righteous grandson (Ezek. 18:14–18). How strange that the godly man of verses 5–9 should raise an ungodly son who himself had a godly son! The grandson followed the righteous example of his grandfather and not the evil example of his father. King Hezekiah was a godly father whose son Manasseh was evil, although late in life he did repent. Manasseh’s son Amon was evil, but he fathered godly King Josiah! (See Matt. 1:10–11.) The ways of the Lord are sometimes strange, and “where sin abounded, grace abounded much more” (Rom. 5: niv).

Twelve godly character traits are mentioned about this third man. The four that are lacking are ritual cleanness (Ezek. 18:6), living justly and promoting justice (vv. 12–13), and acting with integrity (v. 9). This doesn’t mean that the man was actually guilty of these sins, because the first list doesn’t mention every possible law in the Mosaic code. The point is that the third man, the grandson, resisted the bad influence in the home and obeyed the Lord in spite of his father’s bad example. The Lord didn’t kill the grandson because of his father’s sins or even spare him because of his grandfather’s righteousness, but dealt with the man on the basis his own faith and righteousness.

You can blame yourselves (vv. 19–24). In this part of his message, Ezekiel responded to the questions of his hearers given in verse 19, just as he had responded to their question in verse 2. He described a wicked man who repented, turned from his sins, and lived (vv. 19–23), and then described a righteous man who returned to his sins and died (v. 24). The lesson from these two examples is obvious and answered their questions: people determine their own character and destiny by the decisions that they make. Neither the exiles in Babylon nor the citizens in Jerusalem were the prisoners and victims of some cosmic determinism that forced them to act as they did. Their own unbelief (they rejected Jeremiah’s message) and disobedience (they worshipped heathen idols and defiled the temple) brought the Babylonian army to their gates; and Zedekiah’s breaking of the covenant with Nebuchadnezzar brought the army back to destroy Jerusalem.

Ezekiel was giving the Jewish nation a message of hope! If they would truly repent and turn to the Lord, He would work on their behalf as He promised (1 Kings 8:46–53; Jer. 29:10–14). However, if they persisted in sinning, the Lord would continue to deal with them as rebellious children. God has no delight in the death of the wicked (Ezek. 18:23, 32; see 1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9), but He isn’t obligated to invade their minds and hearts and force them to obey Him.

In Ezekiel 18:24, Ezekiel isn’t dealing with what theologians call “the security of the believer,” because the issue is physical life or death, as stated in God’s covenant (Deut. 30:15–20; Jer. 21:8). The righteous man who adopted a sinful lifestyle in defiance of God’s law would suffer for that decision. It wasn’t possible for the Jews to “accumulate points” with God and then lose a few of them when they sinned. People have the idea that God measures our good works against our bad works, and deals with us according to whichever is the greater. But from Adam to the end of time, people are saved only by faith in what God revealed to them, and their faith is demonstrated in a consistently godly life.

You cannot blame the Lord (vv. 25–32). For the third time, Ezekiel quoted the words of the complaining exiles: “The way of the Lord is not equal” (v. 25, see vv. 2, 19). The word equal means “fair.” They were saying that God wasn’t “playing fair” with His people. But Ezekiel pointed out that it was the people who weren’t being fair with God! When they obeyed the Lord, they wanted Him to keep the terms of the covenant that promised blessing, but when they disobeyed, they didn’t want Him to keep the terms of the covenant that brought chastening. They wanted God to act contrary to His own Word and His own holy nature.

“God is light” (1 John 1:5), which means He is holy and just, and “God is love” (4:8, 16), and His love is a holy love. Nowhere does Scripture say that we’re saved from our sins by God’s love, because salvation is by the grace of God (Eph. 2:8–10); and grace is love that pays a price. In His great love, God gave a gracious covenant to Israel, requiring only that they worship and serve Him alone with all their hearts. When sinners repented and sought the Lord, in His grace the Lord would forgive them; but when people deliberately rebelled against Him, in His holiness, God would punish them after bearing with them in His longsuffering. What could be fairer than that! For that matter, if God did what was fair, He would consign the whole world into hell!

The conclusion of this message was an invitation from the Lord for the people to repent (change their minds), turn from their sins, cast away their transgressions like filthy garments, and seek a new heart and a new spirit. God promised them a new heart if only they would seek Him by faith (Ezek. 11:19; see 36:26). This was one of the key themes in the letter Jeremiah had sent to the captives in Babylon (Jer. 29:10–14), but the people hadn’t taken it to heart. God made it clear that He found no delight in the death of the wicked (Ezek. 18:23, 32), but if the wicked found delight in their sinful ways and would not repent, there was nothing the Lord could do but obey His own covenant and punish them. Ezekiel will develop this theme further in chapter 21.