Ezekiel 4:14 - Exposition

Then said I, Ah, Lord God! etc. The formula is, curiously enough, equally characteristic of Ezekiel ( Ezekiel 9:8 ; Ezekiel 11:13 ; Ezekiel 20:49 ) and of his teacher and contemporary ( Jeremiah 1:6 ; Jeremiah 4:10 ; Jeremiah 14:13 ; Jeremiah 32:17 ). The Vulgate represents it by A, a, a . His plea, which reminds us at once of Daniel 1:8 and Acts 10:14 , is that he has kept himself free from all ceremonial pollution connected with food. And is he, a priest too, to do this? That be far from him! Anything but that! The kinds of defilement of which he speaks are noted in Exodus 22:31 ; Le Exodus 7:24 ; Exodus 11:1-10 :39, 40; Exodus 17:15 . The "abominable things" may refer either to the unclean meats catalogued in Deuteronomy 14:3-21 (as e.g. in Isaiah 65:4 ), or as in the controversy of the apostolic age ( Acts 15:1-41 .; 1 Corinthians 8:1 ; Revelation 2:20 ), to eating any flesh that had been offered in sacrifice to idols. The prophet's passionate appeal is characteristic of the extent to which his character had been influenced by the newly discovered Law of the Lord ( 2 Kings 22:1-20 .; 2 Chronicles 34:1-33 .), i.e. probably by the Book of Deuteronomy.