Ezekiel 13:10

Peace. Compare Jeremiah 6:14; 23:17; Micah 3:5; Zechariah 10:2. The false prophets lulled men into a sense of false security, and so anesthetized their consciences. God’s true messengers, on the other hand, do not flatter the sinner. Theirs is not a message of peace to lull the unsanctified into fatal security. It is theirs to arouse the conscience of the wrongdoer until the soul in anguish exclaims, “What must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30). See on Jeremiah 6:14.

Wall. Hebrew chayis, the meaning of which is not entirely clear. It seems to represent a party wall, or a partition wall; hence, an unsubstantial structure.

Untempered morter. Hebrew taphel, “whitewash.” The idea of untempered has become attached to taphel through a word spelled the same way, but with a different etymology. Examples of this second word are Job 6:6, where taphel denotes something “unsavoury,” and Lamentations 2:14, where taphel is translated “foolish things.” The illustration is as follows: Someone built up a flimsy partition wall. The false prophets whitewashed it, improving its appearance, but adding nothing to its strength. The rulers and people devised various schemes, such as an Egyptian alliance (see Jeremiah 37:5, 7), and the self-appointed prophets gave them weight by their influence and persuasion.

Ezekiel 13:10 (continued)

We note a striking parallel in the religious world today. Many false doctrines, which have no support in the Word of God, have been introduced into the Christian faith. They have their root in tradition, and behind tradition their origin can often be traced to pagan concepts and practices. Instead of abandoning every belief that is not founded on the Sacred Scriptures, men spend an untold amount of energy to “whitewash” these flimsy concepts so as to give them plausibility. A notable example is the effort to supply scriptural evidence for Sunday observance. The majority of Christians observe a day not enjoined in the Bible. They reason that such observance must be right, since the Christian church for centuries has been following this practice. They bypass the plain evidence that points to the seventh day of the week as the true Sabbath, and wrest other scriptures so as to lend support to the first day of the week. The result of all this will be the same as the experience that befell the builders and whitewashes of Ezekiel’s wall (Ezekiel 13:12-16).