The Inevitable Penalty of Idolatry (Chs. 14-16). 

        These chapters are introduced by certain of the leaders of the exiles coming to Ezekiel for prophetic guidance (14:Iff). God refuses them an answer, because they are idolaters, except, the answer of destruction (14:4-8). Should any other answer come, it is because the prophet has allowed himself to be enticed by the idolaters, and he will suffer the same fate (14:9ff). So terrible is idolatry that the presence of righteous men means only that they themselves will be saved (14:12-23). For Daniel see p. 142; note that the spelling of the name in Hebrew here and in 28:3 is not the same as in the book of Daniel.

        The warning is reinforced by the example of the vine (ch. 15) which has value only as it produces grapes. From the time of Isaiah (Isa. 5:1-7), if not before, the vine had been used as a symbol for Israel. The only fruit it had produced was wild grapes, and now both ends had been burnt and the middle had been charred (this is the force of “burned,” ver. 4), so there was no future for it but to be burnt up.

        Ezekiel then gives the spiritual history of Israel in a power­ful allegory of the foundling child who becomes the faithless wife of her benefactor (ch. 16). Lack of space makes any effort to expound the superabundant symbolism impossible. Of outstanding importance, however, are the closing thoughts of the chapter (vers. 46-63). Jerusalem’s sins are much greater than those of Sodom and Samaria (cf. Jer. 3:6-13). Since there is to be a restoration of Jerusalem, how much more of rebellious Samaria, and heathen Sodom, symbolizing prob­ably the small heathen nations round Israel.

        It should be noted that there are really two allegories; the foundling child (16:1-43), and the two sisters (16:44-52). We then have the restoration of the sisters (16:53-59) and final reconciliations (16:60-63).