Augustine of Hippo — Commentary on Scripture

Ezekiel 14:9 · 2 passages

And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the LORD have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.

It is quite clear that God works in people's hearts to incline their wills to whatsoever way he wills: either to good in accordance with his mercy or to evil in accordance with their evil merits, and this, indeed, by his own judgments, sometimes manifest, sometimes hidden, but always just. You must keep this conviction firm and unshaken in your heart that in God there is no injustice. Accordingly, when you read the truth of the Scriptures and find that people are led astray by God or that their hearts are dulled and hardened by him, have no doubt that it was their previous evil merits that made them suffer their just penalties.

Which of the two, patience or power, do you find in the words of Scripture? Whichever you choose, even if you admit both, you must surely see that the false speech of this prophet is both sin and punishment for sin. Will you also say that the words, "I, the Lord, have deceived that prophet," should be interpreted as though God deserted him that he might be deceived in return for past misdeeds and thus err? Say what you will, he was punished for sin in such a way that he sinned prophesying something false.

Ezekiel 14:14 · 2 passages

Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord GOD.

Daniel is unique in being included among the three just men whom God says he will deliver, doubtless showing three special types of just people, when he says he will so deliver them as not to deliver their children with them, but they only shall be delivered: namely, Noah, Daniel and Job.

Now I suppose it is not easy to find in God’s Scripture so weighty a testimony of holiness given of any one as what is written of his three servants, Noah, Daniel and Job, whom the prophet Ezekiel describes as the only men able to be delivered from God’s impending wrath. In these three men he no doubt prefigures three kinds of people to be delivered: in Noah, I suppose, are represented righteous leaders of nations, by reason of his government of the ark as a type of the church; in Daniel, people who are righteous in continence; in Job, those who are righteous in wedlock—to say nothing of any other view of the passage, which it is unnecessary now to consider. It is, at any rate, clear from this testimony of the prophet, and from other inspired statements, how eminent were these worthies in righteousness.

Ezekiel 16:20 · 2 passages

Moreover thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters, whom thou hast borne unto me, and these hast thou sacrificed unto them to be devoured. Is this of thy whoredoms a small matter,

When the soul disregards the higher law by which it is governed and prostitutes itself as though for a price, then it corrupts itself.

By the name of such adulterers we are to understand every kind of carnal and lustful concupiscence. Indeed, since the Scriptures so constantly give to idolatry the name of fornication, and since the apostle Paul calls avarice idolatry, who can doubt that every evil concupiscence may be rightly called fornication?

Ezekiel 16:52

Thou also, which hast judged thy sisters, bear thine own shame for thy sins that thou hast committed more abominable than they: they are more righteous than thou: yea, be thou confounded also, and bear thy shame, in that thou hast justified thy sisters.

It is one thing to have an action set forth as praiseworthy in itself and another to have it extolled in comparison with something worse than itself. We rejoice in one way when a sick person is cured and in another when he improves a little. Even in the sacred Scriptures, Sodom is spoken of as justified in comparison with the crimes of the people of Israel.

Ezekiel 18:2 · 2 passages

What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge?

It was this new covenant that was prophesied about when it was said by Ezekiel that the children should not bear the iniquity of the parents, and that it should no longer be a proverb in Israel, "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge." Here lies the necessity that each person should be born again, that he might be freed from the sin in which he was born. For the sins committed afterwards can be cured by penitence, as we see is the case after baptism.

For the last and supposedly strongest argument for your case, you refer to the prophetic testimony of Ezekiel, where we read that there will no longer be a proverb in which they say the parents have eaten sour grapes and the teeth of the children are on edge; the child will not die in the sin of his parent or the parent in the sin of his child, but the soul that sins shall die. You do not understand that this is the promise of the New Testament and of the other world. For the grace of the Redeemer ensured that he cancelled the paternal decree, so that each person should account for himself.

Ezekiel 18:4 · 2 passages

Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.

This whole passage is so constructed as to show that bad children are not given relief because of good parents or good children oppressed because of bad parents. So having first established this absolutely true and rock-firm principle on our own account, we go on now to examine what our obligations are in our relations with others; and here we must be very careful to distinguish between the effect of salvation, which we must seek for ourselves, and the consideration that we must show to our neighbors. If you are good, you are good with your own goodness, not with someone else’s. And yet through that goodness of yours with which you are good you also rejoice over another’s goodness together with him, not by exchanging goodnesses but by exchanging love.

The spiritual penalty always pertained only to the sinner.

Ezekiel 18:21 · 2 passages

But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die.

Behold how God advises and arouses you so that you may be converted from your sins and be saved, though late. Behold how he urges one liable to death to live; how gently, how kindly he calls, not refusing his fatherly devotion even to sinners. He continues to call children those who have lost God their Father by their sins.

There are people who, as soon as they begin to think about the evil things they have done, assume that they can not be pardoned; and on the assumption that they can not be pardoned, they give their souls over to destruction from that moment.… They perish from despair, whether before they come to believe at all or whether they are already Christians and have fallen by evil living into various sins and vicious forms of behavior.

Ezekiel 18:23 · 2 passages

Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord GOD: and not that he should return from his ways, and live?

Dearly beloved, if you are good, you must put up with the bad; if you are bad, you must imitate the good. The fact is, on this threshing floor grains can degenerate into chaff, and again grains can be resurrected from chaff. This sort of thing happens every day, my dear brothers and sisters; this life is full of both painful and pleasant surprises. Every day people who seemed to be good fall away and perish; and again, ones who seemed to be bad are converted and live. “God,” you see, “does not desire the death of the wicked but only that they may turn back and live.”

You have wished to die by sinning; he wishes you to live by being converted. O foolish, irreverent and ungrateful sinner, you do not yield in this respect to God, who wishes to have mercy on you, who prefers to save you because of his own goodness than to destroy you because of your sins.

Ezekiel 20:12

Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD that sanctify them.

It is this truth that we shall realize perfectly when we shall be perfectly at rest and perfectly see that it is he who is God.

Ezekiel 20:25

Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live;

But, why should I not say that the requirements of ancient ceremonies are not good because people are not justified by them; they are figures that foreshadow the grace, by which we are justified.… They are not bad, because they were precepts of divine origin, adapted to times and people, although in this estimate I am supported by the prophetic statement in which God said that he had given to that people “statutes that were not good.” It happens that he did not say that they were bad but only that they were not good: that is, such that with them, people become good; without them, they do not. I would like your kind sincerity to inform me whether any oriental saint who comes to Rome and fasts on Saturday—except the eve of Easter—is acting deceitfully. If we say that is wrong, we shall condemn the Roman church and also many places near it and others somewhat further away, where the same custom continues to be observed.

Ezekiel 28:3 · 3 passages

Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee:

Can anyone claim to be without sin, when Daniel confesses his own sins? I mean, some proud person or other was asked through the prophet Ezekiel, “Are you wiser than Daniel?” Again, the prophet also placed this Daniel among the three holy men in whom God signifies the three sorts of human beings he is going to deliver when the great tribulation comes on the human race.

Could we be better than Daniel himself, concerning whom the Lord said to the prince of Tyre by the prophet Ezekiel: “Are you wiser than Daniel?” He is unique in being included among the three just men whom God says he will deliver, doubtless showing three special types of just people, when he says he will so deliver them as not to deliver their sons with them, but they only shall be delivered: namely, Noah, Daniel and Job.

This is the reason, if I am not mistaken, why in the prophet Ezekiel a certain most haughty person is asked, “Are you then wiser than Daniel?” Nor on this point can that be possibly said that some contend for in opposition to the Lord’s Prayer: “For although,” they say, “that prayer was offered by the apostles, after they became holy and perfect and had no sin whatever, it was not on behalf of their own selves but for imperfect and still sinful people that they said, ‘Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.’ They used the word our, they say, “in order to show that in one body are contained both those who still have sins and themselves, who were already altogether free from sin.” Now this certainly cannot be said in the case of Daniel, who (as I suppose) foresaw as a prophet this presumptuous opinion when he said so often in his prayer, “We have sinned” … he expresses himself in language so distinct and precise … and wanted above all things to commend it to our notice: “My sins,” says he, “and the sins of my people.” Who can contradict such evidence as this, but one who…

This is the reason, if I am not mistaken, why in the prophet Ezekiel a certain most haughty person is asked, “Are you then wiser than Daniel?” Nor on this point can that be possibly said that some contend for in opposition to the Lord’s Prayer: “For although,” they say, “that prayer was offered by the apostles, after they became holy and perfect and had no sin whatever, it was not on behalf of their own selves but for imperfect and still sinful people that they said, ‘Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.’ They used the word our, they say, “in order to show that in one body are contained both those who still have sins and themselves, who were already altogether free from sin.” Now this certainly cannot be said in the case of Daniel, who (as I suppose) foresaw as a prophet this presumptuous opinion when he said so often in his prayer, “We have sinned” … he expresses himself in language so distinct and precise … and wanted above all things to commend it to our notice: “My sins,” says he, “and the sins of my people.” Who can contradict such evidence as this, but one who is more pleased to defend what he thinks than to find out what he ought to think?