Ezekiel 22:25
There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof, like a roaring lion ravening the prey; they have devoured souls; they have taken the treasure and precious things; they have made her many widows in the midst thereof. There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof, like a roaring lion ravening the prey; they have devoured souls; they have taken the treasure and precious things; they have made her many widows in the midst thereof.
The verse pictures conspiring prophets as ravening lions who prey upon the people, devouring souls and lives, seizing treasure and precious wealth, and making many widows through greedy and corrupt leadership. With them stand the priests who violate God's law and profane His holy things, putting no difference between holy and profane or clean and unclean, and hiding their eyes from His Sabbaths so that He is profaned among them. Their conspiracy works by daubing with untempered mortar, seeing vanity and divining lies in the Lord's name, offering a perverted word and unholy tradition that leads souls to trust a lie and destroys all who believe it. It belongs to the day of indignation and the coming of the Lord, when professed teachers cry peace and safety while violating God's precepts, and by neglecting and covering the breach in the Sabbath commandment they leave the people unprepared to stand. That conspiracy is seen when religious leaders otherwise at enmity lay aside differences and join hand in hand to oppose those who uphold God's holy law, and the call is to repair the breach and stand in the gap by restoring obedience.
Ancient Words and Setting
The prophets are pictured as predators, like a roaring lion ravening its prey, formed into a conspiracy in the midst of the land. They devour souls and people and destroy lives, seizing treasure and wealth and precious things for themselves and making many widows, the work of greedy and corrupt leaders who harm those they should serve. Their conspiracy is daubing with untempered mortar, which is seeing vanity and divining lies and saying the Lord has spoken when he has not spoken. That daubing is a slight wall built of a perverted word and unholy tradition, by which apostasy tries to withstand truth, and such false teaching makes people trust a lie and destroys the souls that believe it, with power to destroy that remains even when the teachers themselves are deceived.
Joined with the prophets is the work of the priests in violating the law and profaning holy things. They put no difference between holy and profane and show no difference between unclean and clean, and they hide their eyes from the Sabbaths, so that he is profaned among them. The passage belongs to the account of the sins that brought ruin and trouble and dispersion and captivity upon the land, with prophets and leaders conspiring in wrongdoing and preying on the people. That ruin came through idolatry mingled with Sabbath desecration.
The conspiracy was joining spiritual adultery with Babylon and Assyria and refusing warning, so that Israel became part of Babylon in truth. Her life and practices became one with those under Satan's authority, in that she accepted Babylonia's laws and religious statutes. For that unfaithfulness God departed from her and judged her as a woman who breaks wedlock and sheds blood, giving his beloved to dwell with the daughter of Babylon and tossing Zion into the hand of the Assyrians to experience the iron yoke of oppression for seventy years. The visible overthrow and Babylonian captivity sealed the spiritual overthrow already accomplished. The corrupt prophets devour souls and make many widows because continual eating and drinking to satiety makes the mind gross so it cannot keenly discern God's great spiritual truths. In that dulled state they put no difference between clean and unclean and holy and common, as Nadab and Abihu did of old.
Prophecy for the Last Days
Ezekiel 22:25 belongs to God's description of the present generation in the day of indignation, which is the day of the Lord's coming, when the land is not cleansed nor rained upon. It speaks of the same time and people as Isaiah 30:8-11, Ezekiel 13, and Jeremiah 6:9-19, the remnant of Israel as the last part of God's professed people. Ezekiel's prophecies are written for the instruction and warning of people living in the present, not only for ancient Israel. This condition of conspiring, preying teachers was predicted by God and is now fulfilled as the counterpart in present religious leaders who fail their trust, showing their guilt and responsibility in the time of indignation and the last days.
The false message is a cry of peace, safety and assurance in a time of danger. Professed Christians walking in violation of God's precepts and law are lulled by it and refuse to hearken to warning. The prophets are false teachers who fail to build up the breach in God's law, and the breach is the breaking of the Sabbath commandment. Their refusal to restore the Sabbath leaves the people unprepared to stand in the day of the Lord, for the second advent and the judgments that precede it. The surrounding call to make up the hedge and stand in the gap means repairing that breach in God's law and preparing people for the day of the Lord.
The verse shows the conspiracy of Babylon's prophets in apostasy, daubing a slight wall with untempered mortar by the perverted word and unholy tradition by which the fallen church tries to withstand God's truth. When the true gospel of life through Christ is preached and the Sunday sabbath is exposed as a counterfeit coin and the Sabbath of the Lord comes to the front, Babylon has nothing but that corrupted defense, and it trembles before the mighty blows of the word. This struggle is connected with the apparent triumph of sun worship and the trampling of the Sabbath, Jehovah's sign of authority. The conspiracy means religious leaders who are otherwise hostile to each other lay aside their differences and join hand in hand together for selfish purposes to oppose those who uphold God's holy, just and good law. That fulfillment is seen in hundreds of communities and describes the state of the church in the time of the Sunday question.
Sabbath Breach and Warning
The breach the prophets fail to build up is the breaking of the Sabbath commandment, and by neglecting the Sabbath and speaking falsely in God's name they cover over the breach instead of repairing it. They are to blame for trampling the sign and seal of God's law under foot, after being carried away by pagan apostasy into violating God's law and profaning His Sabbath. Their message of peace is false, and their refusal to restore the Sabbath leaves the people unprepared to stand in the day of the Lord, for the second advent and the judgments that precede it.
The charge belongs to apostate religious teachers who made a gap in the Sabbath precept and defended the replacement with false teaching. In the surrounding indictment their corruption belongs to a wider pattern of religious leaders violating God's law, profaning holy things, teaching falsely, and hiding their eyes from His Sabbaths. The warning is to distinguish the sacred from the profane and to reject human commandments in favor of obedience to God's precepts, refusing to set tradition above God's law. God's service demands the whole heart in willing obedience to His holy law, and rebukes being strict about human traditions while counting God's holy things as common, as when God's holy day is treated as common and churches set apart for God's service are desecrated by fairs and festivals.
Contempt for God's holy law by such prophets brings law, government and religion into contempt. Professed ministers call the law Jewish, treat it with contempt, ignore its plainest statements, and teach that the law Christ kept is abolished, changed and subject to man's whim, abolishing with one breath what Christ lived and died to honor while with the next demanding that human governments enact their amended code into civil law. By setting aside the precept that reveals who the Author of the law is and putting a day of pagan origin in place of God's day, and by teaching the law may be changed and disregarded in one vital point, they lead men to conclude it may be disregarded in all points, so murder, theft and blasphemy and the increase of crime are the legitimate fruits. They fail to be pillars of civil government by letting politics alone and preaching Christ's gospel to individuals, and sowing the wind from pulpit, lobby, platform and press they reap the whirlwind in oncoming wars of anarchy.
God seeks someone to repair the breach and stand before Him for the land but finds no one. The warning that leaders corrupt their calling by profaning holy things, failing to distinguish the holy from the common and the clean from the unclean, and disregarding God's Sabbaths applies to professed teachers and priests in the present day. The call is to restore the breach in God's law and stand with Him rather than be identified with sin.