Ezekiel 13:19 - Exposition

Will ye pollute me , etc.? rather, with the Revised Version, ye have profaned, the interrogative form not being continued in the Hebrew. The prophet dwells with scorn on the miserable pay for which the prophetesses were guilty of so great a sin. Not for rewards of divination, like those of Balsam ( Numbers 22:7 ), but for gifts like those bestowed on the harlot or the beggar (l Samuel 2:36; Hosea 3:2 )— for handfuls of barley and pieces of bread —they plied their wretched trade. For examples of the lower gifts in kind offered to prophets, compare those of Saul ( 1 Samuel 9:8 ), of Jeroboam's wife ( 1 Kings 14:3 ), the false prophets in Micah 3:5 . And they did this in direct opposition to the will of Jehovah. They "slew," i.e. drew on to destruction, the souls that were meant for life. They "saved the souls alive," i.e. "their own, which were worthy of death." That was the outcome of their "lying" divinations.