Ezekiel 13:9 - Exposition

Mine hand shall be, etc. After Ezekiel's manner, the thought of verse 6 is repeated in an altered form in verses 7, 8. What had been a statement appears as a question to which there could be but one answer. The prophet, as it were, cross examines his rivals. Could they deny the charge? Was not every word of it true? Then, after the statement of the sin of the false prophets, comes the proclamation of the punishment. The hand of Jehovah would be upon them for evil and not for good. In the assembly of my people. The Hebrew word indicates not a large popular gathering, but a secret council of those who deliberate together to carry out their plans ( Psalms 89:7 ; Psalms 111:1 ; Jeremiah 6:11 ). The prophets who had acted together, and been looked up to by the people as forming such a council, should lose that position of authority. The words that follow point to a yet lower degradation. They should be in the strictest sense of the word excommunicated. The city of Jerusalem, perhaps every city of Judah, had its register of citizens. In such a register were inscribed also the names of proselytes of other races ( Psalms 87:6 ), and so men came to think of a like register as kept by the King of kings, containing the names of those who were heirs of the "life" of the true Israel ( Exodus 32:32 ; Isaiah 4:3 ; Daniel 12:1 ). In neither of those registers, the earthly and the heavenly (but stress is probably laid upon the former), shall the false prophets find a place. Ezra 2:62 gives an example of the use made of such registers on the return from the Captivity. One notes the contrast between the " my people" which recognizes Israel as still the heritage of Jehovah, and the " thy people" used in Ezekiel 3:11 of the rebellious house of the Captivity. For the false prophets there should be no return to the land of Israel such as that which the prophet anticipated for the faithful and the penitent ( Ezekiel 37:21 ; comp. Isaiah 57:13 ). Here there is no specific mention of the name being struck out. The prophet contemplates a new register, in which their names will never even have appeared.