Ezekiel 13:9, commentary and pictures

God himself sets his hand in judgment against prophets who claim visions and messages he never gave, cutting them off from any place, record, or inheritance among his people. They leave the breach in his law unrepaired, above all the Sabbath, so the people are not made ready to stand in the battle in the day of the Lord. Their teaching is a wall daubed with untempered mortar that seems to hold for a time but has no strength and will fall under storm and hail when judgment comes. Their mark is seducing God's people by crying peace when there is no peace, pleasing the unconverted mind while strengthening the wicked against repentance. This is fulfilled in the widespread apostasy of false teachers in the last days just before Christ comes, whose names are not found in the book of life when it is examined in the judgment.

Words and Imagery

Seeing vanity and divining lies is claiming false visions and divine messages, speaking falsehood and false divination while saying the Lord has spoken when He has not sent and has not spoken. It is inventing visions, falsely claiming divine authority and supposed intercourse with the dead, following one's own spirit and prophesying out of one's own heart after seeing nothing, running unsent and prophesying unspoken to by God. Such prophets make others hope their word will be confirmed, thereby prolonging error. Mine hand shall be upon them means God Himself is against them in judgment, with His hand upon them to oppose and punish them in certain action against them. They say the Lord saith when the Lord has not sent them, and His hand is upon them for seeing vanity and speaking lying divination.

Not going up into the gaps nor making up the hedge for the house of Israel is failing to repair the breach in God's law and to prepare the people to stand in the battle in the day of the Lord. The breach left unrepaired is the Sabbath, whose restoration is refused while false assurances of peace leave the people unprepared. The call is to prepare now to stand in the day of the Lord before the final decree makes condition unchangeable and mediation ends. The wall daubed with untempered mortar pictures religious teaching without God's command that may seem to support a practice for a time but will fail under judgment and bring ruin to those who rely on it. Untempered mortar has no coherence nor strength and cannot make firm and steady the wall to which it is applied, so the weak and tottering wall built by false prophets will fall and hide its weakness no longer. The need is therefore to expose and repair errors taught in the name of the gospel, warning and instructing in truths not known.

The prophets are like foxes in the deserts in craft and evasiveness, trying to ensnare souls and evade truth exposed by faithful, watchful messengers. Their mark is seducing God's people by saying peace when there is no peace, proclaiming peace to the sinner with teachings that lead away from God and His word and please the unconverted mind instead of reproving sin and warning of coming danger. Their message is a vain vision and lying divination falsely claiming the Lord has spoken peace though He has not sent them, and the actual condition will be the opposite of the peace they promise.

Marks of False Prophets

They are foolish hired ministers and shepherds entrusted to speak for God who follow their own spirit, prophesy out of their own heart, have seen nothing, run though unsent and speak though God has not spoken to them. They are like foxes in the deserts in their craft and evasiveness. Their standing as counterfeits proves there are true prophets.

They claim the Lord has spoken when He has not sent them and has not spoken, and they cause others to hope their word will be confirmed and will stand, thereby prolonging error and giving false hope. In one instance this was done by falsely assuring people they would confirm God's word and thereby prolonging the fulfillment of the 2300-day vision. In another it is done by preachers who defend Sunday as the Sabbath and offer shifting, contradictory arguments when challenged about the seventh-day Sabbath, failing to repair the breach and giving false hope like deceitful prophets who claim the Lord has spoken when He has not sent them. So also they promise peace from human means such as peace conferences, resolutions, agreements, laws, treaties and evolution, and predict Christ's kingdom through politics.

They seduce God's people by announcing peace when there is no peace and proclaiming peace to the sinner. With lies they make sad the heart of the righteous and strengthen the hands of the wicked by promising him life so that he does not return from his wicked way. Their deception turns God's people from truth, and their teachings lead away from God and His word because they please the unconverted mind, whereas true prophets reprove sin and warn of coming danger.

They are light and treacherous, headstrong and despising God, profaning the sanctuary and doing violence to God's law, causing His people to err while strengthening the hands of the wicked, even claiming supposed intercourse with the dead. They compromise the word by changing the law and breaking the everlasting covenant while boasting of charity and tolerance, building a wall of incohesive sectarian particles that cannot stand as a permanent solid structure, unlike a true building fitly joined together in Christ where all speak the same thing and are of one mind and judgment. Servants of Christ who hide their eyes from God's Sabbaths and put no difference between holy and common and clean and unclean and between holy and profane belong with these false prophets, repeating the sin of Eve with the forbidden fruit, Saul in disobeying God's order, Naaman despising dipping in Jordan, and Nadab and Abihu offering strange fire, for faith obeys because God has said it and does not question His commands or Christ's example. Professed ministers who ignore the holy law as the basis of God's government bring law and government into contempt, calling the law Jewish and treating it with contempt, abolishing in one breath the law Christ lived and died to honor and magnify while demanding with the next that human governments enact their amended code into civil law and making God like themselves, and instead of upholding civil government by preaching the gospel to individual men and letting politics alone they sow the wind from pulpits, legislative lobbies, platform and press. They are blind guides and wolfish pastors in lamb's garb who lead those beneath their charge down to night with specious pleas that quiet conscience and hush truth, growing fat on the blood of God's defenseless and misguided flock, whose deeds cannot be hidden from His pure eye and whose stains of gore cannot be wiped from their skirts.

False prophets foretell future events by the agency of wicked spirits and the power of Satan, in contrast to true prophets who are instructed by good angels and the Holy Spirit, and the present period abounds with them, including a host of spirit mediums. Those who cry Lord, Lord while disregarding the commandments unite profession of faith and claim of the gifts of the Spirit with law-breaking, for iniquity is lawlessness, violation and transgression of the law of God. No matter how loud their profession or how many wonderful works they do in the name of Jesus, they are self-deceived, they have no vision from God, their religion is vain, and God does not bestow the precious gifts of His Spirit upon them, because antinomianism and the Spirit cannot go together, and they will perish when Jesus says to them, Depart from me.

Judgment God Declares

God himself stands opposed to these prophets, and his hand rests upon them in judgment to bring certain and awful destruction by cutting them off from his people. They invented visions and falsely claimed divine authority, assuring others their word would be confirmed and thereby prolonging error, and for misleading his people by promising safety from judgment he acts against them. They spoke falsehood and lying divination as unsent men who had seen nothing, claiming he had spoken when he had not spoken, and left the people unprepared for the battle in the day of the Lord.

They shall have no place in the assembly of his people, no entry in the writing and register of the house of Israel, and no entrance or inheritance in the land of Israel. That threefold exclusion bars them from belonging, from being recorded, and from sharing in the inheritance, applying in the last days to teachers who distort the law and fail to prepare the people to stand. By this exclusion and fall it shall be known that he is the Lord God, making his sovereignty and authority known to them. Their seduction by promising peace when there is none ends in this exposure, so that the judgment itself declares who he is.

The wall they build with false assurances will fall, bringing ruin to the wall itself, to those who daubed it, and to those who trust it. It falls under overflowing shower and stormy wind and great hailstones, because human peace schemes cannot stand while war remains in the natural heart, which only the Creator through Christ made new can change. That hail is the certain and awful destruction warned of against false teaching about a breach in the ten commandments, and it falls on law-breakers, not on those who keep the law. The chapter is thus linked with the hailstorm of divine judgment in the final plague, when the refuge of lies is swept away and judgment falls on the whole earth.

Their proclamation of peace cannot prevent judgment, for there is no peace for the wicked. By speaking empty things and telling sinners there is peace when there is none, their deception seduces and leads astray and turns people from truth. For that misleading they are excluded from the assembly and record of Israel and from the land, and by that judgment he is made known as the Lord.

Breach in the Law

The law of God is like a great protecting wall about a city and a hedge about obedient people, and the breach left unrepaired by the false prophets is the breach in that law, especially the Sabbath commandment. That commandment is a recurring weekly memorial of the worship of the true God, and to make a breach in it and cover it with false teaching is to refuse to restore the Sabbath and to leave the people unprepared to stand in the battle in the day of the Lord. Those who distort the law in this way by removing the seventh-day Sabbath and promoting a human substitute profane God among the people and break down His protective hedge.

The breach condemned is taught when it is said that the ten commandments were abolished at Christ's crucifixion and only nine were afterward re-enacted, so that breaking even one commandment is treated as of no consequence. It is taught when the first day is called holy without scriptural authority while the holiness of the seventh day is denied. It is taught when it is claimed that God gave only one seventh portion of time for rest while refusing to keep the seventh day commanded as the Sabbath of the Lord, and when Sunday is said to have received the Sabbath's sanctity and commands transferred to it.

Every argument used to bolster up the idea of a change of the Sabbath is untempered mortar daubed upon a weak and tottering wall built up by denomination. Such mortar has no coherence nor strength and cannot make firm and steady the wall to which it is applied, shifting into contradictory positions when challenged about the seventh-day Sabbath. Sunday so supported is a human institution unsupported by God's word and destined to be exposed and swept away. The aptness of the illustration stands though Sunday advocates denounce the reasoning as fanciful, for the description fits naturally and applies well to the present attempt to change the Sabbath in the religious world. It fitly describes that work even if not specifically intended to predict it, as when prophecies are used with the words to this agree the words of the prophet, a use whose propriety should be well considered before it is made.

Servants of Christ who hide their eyes from God's Sabbaths and put no difference between holy and common and between clean and unclean belong with these false prophets who see vanity and divine lies. They violate the law and profane God among the people, supporting false teaching and oppression while the people trample God's law and profane the Sabbath. Faith does not question God's commands or Christ's example but obeys because God has said it, and to treat His command as unimportant repeats the sin of Eve with the forbidden fruit, of Saul in disobeying God's order, of Naaman despising dipping in Jordan, and of Nadab and Abihu offering strange fire. Their course calls the law Jewish and treats it with contempt, abolishing in one breath the law Christ lived and died to honor and magnify while demanding with the next breath that human governments enact an amended code into civil law, making God like themselves. Instead of upholding civil government by preaching the gospel of Christ to individual men and letting politics alone, they sow the wind from pulpits, legislative lobbies, platform and press and reap the whirlwind in disorder, anarchy, destruction and oncoming wars, producing abounding lawlessness, cold love, and a form of godliness denying its power.

Because they distort the law and give false hope while failing to repair the breach made by replacing the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, they leave the people unprepared by false teaching and by false assurances of peace. They will therefore have no place among God's people who stand in the final conflict and in the battle of the great day of the Lord, being cut off from the assembly of His people, from being recorded in the writing of the house of Israel, and from entering the land of Israel just before and during that day.

Prophecy Doctrine and Warning

The verse applies to a widespread apostasy at the time of the end just before the coming of Christ, now fulfilled in the last days in false teachers and false doctrines with false predictions. The law of God is like a great protecting wall about obedient people, and the prophets are a great company of hired ministers and false shepherds who are supposed to speak for God but are foolish, follow their own spirit, have seen nothing, speak falsehood and false divination, and claim the Lord has spoken when He has not sent them and has not spoken, causing others to hope their word will be confirmed. Because they have not gone up into the gaps nor made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the Lord, and refuse to repair the breach by restoring the Sabbath, the people are left unprepared by false teaching and false assurances of peace. They are like foxes in the deserts, and with lies they make sad the heart of the righteous and strengthen the hands of the wicked by promising him life so he does not return from his wicked way, violating the law, putting no difference between holy and common and clean and unclean, hiding their eyes from the Sabbaths and profaning God among the people, producing abounding lawlessness, cold love, a form of godliness denying its power, and a sowing of wind that reaps disorder, anarchy and destruction, laying responsibility for these conditions on religious teachers. Therefore God is against these prophets, His hand is upon them in judgment, they are cut off from the assembly of His people, from being recorded in the writing of the house of Israel, and from entering the land of Israel, and by this it will be known that He is the Lord God.

It was fulfilled by those who falsely assured people that they would confirm God's word and thereby prolonged the fulfillment of the 2300-day vision. It is numbered among prophecies describing the destruction of the wicked at Christ's second coming, in the same period as the battle of the great day and God's judgments upon the nations, with the chapter also linked with the hailstorm of divine judgment associated with the final plague. Rebels and the wicked will not enter the land made new and cannot be raised up out of the new earth to inherit it. They are raised to see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God, and then the fire that purifies the earth burns them up and leaves them neither root nor branch, while the righteous inherit the land and dwell therein forever.

Not being written in the writing of the house of Israel is the book of life. That book is examined in the judgment before the resurrection of the just and before the deliverance of the saints, and it becomes the final means of determining the cases of the righteous, with all found written in it at that time delivered to immortal life after the prior examination of the books of God's remembrance blots out the sins of overcomers and strikes out the names of those who fail to overcome.

The verse condemns false prophets who promise peace from human means such as peace conferences, resolutions, agreements, laws, treaties and evolution, and predictions that Christ's kingdom will come through politics and through the gateway of politics with a coming good time. They are prophets of evil who prophesy out of their own heart, see vanity and lying divination, claim the Lord speaks and saith when He has not sent them and has not spoken, cause others to hope their word will stand, and seduce God's people by announcing peace when there is no peace, building a wall and covering it with untempered mortar. Those who claim to be prophets to the government fall under this condemnation, and their prediction will not come to pass. Their work shall fall under overflowing shower, great hailstones, and stormy wind, because the actual condition will be the opposite of the peace they promise, with nations preparing for war. War is inherent in the natural heart of man, and only Jehovah the Creator through Jesus Christ creating every submitted heart anew brings true peace.

The verse warns that deceptive religious teaching endangers the professed people of God, and its picture of a breach in a wall insecurely covered with untempered mortar shows the need to expose and repair errors taught in the name of the gospel, with warning and instruction in truths the church does not know. False prophets who proclaim peace lull the church into complacency while it remains in sin, and God will act against such prophets and exclude them from His people, their record, and their inheritance and land. It is a call to prepare now to stand in the day of the Lord, before the final decree makes a person's condition unchangeable and Jesus' mediation ends. Those who put their trust in such falsehoods are not excused for failing to find out what is true, and will be ashamed when God reveals them as transgressors. The warning applies to teachers who spread false religious claims and make people trust in lies even when they are themselves deceived, because their lies can destroy those who believe them and bring judgment with no place among God's people.