Ezekiel 14

11. Love was the spring of God's very judgments on His people, who were incurable by any other process ( Ezekiel 11:20 , 37:27 ).

12. The second part of the chapter: the effect which the presence of a few righteous persons was to have on the purposes of God (compare Genesis 18:24-32 ). God had told Jeremiah that the guilt of Judah was too great to be pardoned even for the intercession of Moses and Samuel ( Psalms 99:6 , Jeremiah 14:2 , 15:1 ), which had prevailed formerly ( Exodus 32:11-14 , Numbers 14:13-20 , 1 Samuel 7:8-12 ), implying the extraordinary heinousness of their guilt, since in ordinary cases "the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man (for others) availeth much" ( James 5:16 ). Ezekiel supplements Jeremiah by adding that not only those two once successful intercessors, but not even the three pre-eminently righteous men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, could stay God's judgments by their righteousness.

13. staff of . . . bread--on which man's existence is supported as on a staff ( Ezekiel 4:16 , 5:16 , Leviticus 26:26 , Psalms 104:15 , Isaiah 3:1 ). I will send a famine.

14. Noah, Daniel . . . Job--specified in particular as having been saved from overwhelming calamities for their personal righteousness. Noah had the members of his family alone given to him, amidst the general wreck. Daniel saved from the fury of the king of Babylon the three youths ( Daniel 2:17 Daniel 2:18 Daniel 2:48 Daniel 2:49 ). Though his prophecies mostly were later than those of Ezekiel, his fame for piety and wisdom was already established, and the events recorded in Daniel 1:1-2:49' had transpired. The Jews would naturally, in their fallen condition, pride themselves on one who reflected such glory on his nation at the heathen capital, and would build vain hopes (here set aside) on his influence in averting ruin from them. Thus the objection to the authenticity of Daniel from this passage vanishes. "Job" forms the climax (and is therefore put out of chronological order), having not even been left a son or a daughter, and having had himself to pass through an ordeal of suffering before his final deliverance, and therefore forming the most simple instance of the righteousness of God, which would save the righteous themselves alone in the nation, and that after an ordeal of suffering, but not spare even a son or daughter for their sake ( Ezekiel 14:16 Ezekiel 14:18 Ezekiel 14:20 ; compare Jeremiah 7:16 , 11:14 , 14:11 ).
deliver . . . souls by . . . righteousness--( Proverbs 11:4 ); not the righteousness of works, but that of grace, a truth less clearly understood under the law ( Romans 4:3 ).

15-21. The argument is cumulative. He first puts the case of the land sinning so as to fall under the judgment of a famine ( Ezekiel 14:13 ); then ( Ezekiel 14:15 ) "noisome beasts" ( Leviticus 26:22 ); then "the sword"; then, worst of all, "pestilence." The three most righteous of men should deliver only themselves in these several four cases. In Ezekiel 14:21 he concentrates the whole in one mass of condemnation. If Noah, Daniel, Job, could not deliver the land, when deserving only one judgment, "how much more" when all four judgments combined are justly to visit the land for sin, shall these three righteous men not deliver it.

19. in blood--not literally. In Hebrew, "blood" expresses every premature kind of death.

21. How much more--literally, "Surely shall it be so now, when I send," &c. If none could avert the one only judgment incurred, surely now, when all four are incurred by sin, much more impossible it will be to deliver the land.

22. Yet . . . a remnant--not of righteous persons, but some of the guilty who should "come forth" from the destruction of Jerusalem to Babylon, to lead a,. life of hopeless exile there. The reference here is to judgment, not mercy, as Ezekiel 14:23 shows.
ye shall see their . . . doings; and . . . be comforted--Ye, the exiles at the Chebar, who now murmur at God's judgment about to be inflicted on Jerusalem as harsh, when ye shall see the wicked "ways" and character of the escaped remnant, shall acknowledge that both Jerusalem and its inhabitants deserved their fate; his recognition of the righteousness of the judgment will reconcile you to it, and so ye shall be "comforted" under it [CALVIN]. Then would follow mercy to the elect remnant, though that is not referred to here, but in Ezekiel 20:43 .

23. they shall comfort you--not in words, but by your recognizing in their manifest guilt, that God had not been unjustly severe to them and the city.