Son of man, what is that proverb which ye have in the land of Israel, saying, The days shall be prolonged, and every vision faileth?
Ezekiel is in exile in Babylon, Jerusalem still stands, and people there say that time drags on and no prophet's warning comes true. Is that delay proof that God's word is empty — or proof of something else?
A "proverb" here is not a wise maxim but a catchphrase — the kind of line that travels because it is short and sticks.
The word most often translated "proverb," and used for the Book of Proverbs, is mashal. It means "comparison, likeness." Proverbs are short sentences made to catch attention and stay in the memory.
This one claimed that prophecy could be ignored. (Older translations read "every vision fails"; the ESV has "every vision comes to nothing.")
There was a godless proverb in Israel: "The days are prolonged, and every vision fails" (Ezek. 12:22). It meant that God's messages were worthless and could be ignored. God now says it will stop being used.
This was not one man's doubt but a line everyone repeated. Why it caught on says more about the hearers than about the prophets.
The chapter closes with messages that rebuke the people's unbelief in the prophetic word — unbelief so common that it had become a proverb. What a testimony to man's dislike of God, that he swallows the enemy's bait so easily — that the time of fulfilment is far off! He does not like God stepping in, and a kingdom where God rules in full is more than he can stand.
False prophets had fed the people a message of peace. When that hope collapsed, the people decided prophecy itself had failed.
Here is another solemn testimony against the empty hopes of people who expected the message of peace the false prophets had given them. They based that hope on all the promises made to their fathers. They were already watching their vision fail — but it was never a true vision. How often people imagine God's word has failed, when the only failure is in the false hopes they built on His word!
That false hope had a cost: it kept them from repenting.
The false prophets had preached a false hope. God had announced a different message: judgment was near. If the people had believed what God said, they would surely have repented and turned to the Lord. Unbelief was responsible for their condition, and lying prophets propped them up in it.
A postponed judgment is not a harmless idea. It changes how people live — in Israel then, and in the Christian world now.
While some desired the day of the Lord, others put it far off; they refused to believe that judgment was coming. It was so in Ezekiel's time, when the people said the days were prolonged and every vision failed. So it is in the Christian world. The evil servant in Matthew 24 says his master is delayed, and as a result he acts outrageously. What were the results in Israel when people pushed the evil day far away? They committed violence; violence increased in the land. They lived in luxury on beds of ivory and ate the best of the flock. They danced and made merry; they drank wine — but no one was troubled about the hurt of Joseph, the spiritual condition of the people.
The same facts — time passing, nothing visibly happening — can be read two ways. The difference is not in the evidence but in the heart reading it.
There is a reason for the delay. The Lord is not slow to keep His promise; He is patient, not wanting anyone to perish, but wanting all to come to repentance. In His grace God gives space for repentance before the judgment falls. In his unbelief man uses the delay to deny that judgment will ever come.
- The saying. A short line, built to stick in the memory: God's messages "were worthless and could be ignored."
- The source. False prophets supplied the hope. The unbelief was the people's own, and lying prophets propped it up.
- The mistake. What had collapsed was never God's word: people "imagine God's word has failed, when what has failed is only the hopes they falsely built on His word."
- The result. Push the day far off, and life loosens: violence, luxury, merriment — and no one troubled about the people's spiritual condition.
- The answer. Delay is space for repentance, not proof that nothing is coming. Unbelief reads it as licence; faith reads it as mercy.
Tell them therefore, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah I will make this proverb to cease, and they shall no more use it as a proverb in Israel; but say unto them, The days are at hand, and the accomplishment of every vision.
Israel had turned Ezekiel's warnings into a joke. People repeated a saying that judgment never arrives, and God's reply is to scrap the saying and set the time: every vision is about to take effect. (The writers quoted below use an older wording, "the days are at hand, and the effect of every vision.")
The saying was not idle humour. It was a verdict on God's messages, and God answers by putting it out of use.
Israel's godless proverb, "The days are prolonged, and every vision fails" (Ezek. 12:22), meant that God's messages were worthless and not worth heeding. God now says it will fall out of use, for the Son of Man was told to say, "The days are at hand, and the effect of every vision" (Ezek. 12:23).
The people were not inventing this hope. Others fed it to them, and it cost them the chance to turn back.
The false prophets had preached a false hope: "The days are prolonged and every vision fails." God had announced another message. If they had believed what God said, that judgment was near, they would surely have repented and turned to the Lord. Unbelief caused their condition, and lying prophets kept them in it… All false visions, divinations and hopes were to cease. His Word is now to be done.
There is a subtler trap here. What looks like God's word failing may be a false hope failing.
How often people imagine a failure of God's word, when the failure is only that of hopes falsely built on His word! But the true word was not of smooth things, but of judgment, which would not linger now. It was at hand.
God answers the mockers inside their own lifetime. That takes away their excuse that the day is far off.
The chapter closes with messages that rebuke the people's disbelief in the prophetic word. That disbelief was so common that it had become a proverb… In that day God would give such a first instalment of all that is coming that people could not, for shame, put it all off to the end of days. "In your days, O rebellious house, I will say the word, and it shall be performed, says the Lord Jehovah." What a testimony to man's dislike of God, that he so readily swallows the enemy's bait that the time of fulfilment is far off!
Prophecy handles time in its own way. And the long wait since then has not been wasted.
"The time is at hand." Prophecy wipes out time, and every circumstance that stands in the way or stands against it. It sets you down on the doorstep of the fulfilment… But our minds are impatient by nature, tired and fretful because of evil. At times it can seem to us as if God had let go of the reins of government and stopped stepping into human affairs. But it is not so. Time, ways, men and their actions are in His hands and under His sole control… "The time is at hand," and "the effect of every vision." God's long delay of nearly 2000 years has proved a rich season of grace for the world.
Ezekiel's mockers were not the last of their kind. The jest came back in different words, and the answer to it has not changed.
There is a remarkable word in Ezekiel 12. God had sent the prophet to the people with a word about coming judgment. It did not happen at once, so the mockers said, "He prophesies of times that are far off," and their jest became a proverb in Israel… We meet the same thing in our own day. Peter's second letter warns us about it. "There shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of His coming?" Our answer is "Yet a little while, and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry" (Heb. 10:37); and the word that He has spoken shall be done.
So the question is which voice gets your ear while you wait.
God give us grace to respond to that voice. May we not turn our ear to those who say, "Speak to us smooth things, prophesy deceits." (Isaiah 30.) For now "the days are at hand, and the effect of every vision." (Ezekiel 12:23.)
- The saying — Israel's proverb dismissed God's messages as worthless. God's reply: the saying itself will fall out of use.
- The source — false prophets fed that unbelief with a false hope. Believing God would have brought the people to repentance.
- The mistake — what people call a failure of God's word is often the failure of false hopes they built on it.
- The proof — God acts inside the mockers' own lifetime, so no one can push it all off to a distant age.
- The echo — the jest returns today as "Where is the promise of His coming?" The delay of nearly 2000 years is a season of grace, not a broken promise.