The Whitewash of Wickedness Text: Ezekiel 13:1-16
Introduction: The Prophetic Malpractice
We live in an age that is drowning in words and starving for truth. The pulpits of our land, many of them, are filled with men who are masters of spiritual malpractice. They are soothing speakers, inspirational motivators, and religious entertainers. They offer a god without wrath, a christ without a cross, and a salvation without repentance. They speak, but they have seen nothing. They declare, but Yahweh has not sent them. And the people, by and large, love to have it so. They want their ears tickled, their sins affirmed, and their consciences sedated. They want prophets who will tell them 'Peace!' even as the enemy is scaling the walls.
Ezekiel's ministry was conducted in exile, among a people who had already been carted off to Babylon because of their rank idolatry. But the delusion that got them into exile was still running rampant within the exile community. They were a people under the fierce judgment of God, and yet they were surrounded by court prophets and positive thinkers who kept promising them that everything was fine, that judgment was not really coming, and that a swift return to the land was just around the corner. They were peddling a false hope, a cheap grace, a flimsy optimism that was entirely disconnected from the character of God and the reality of their sin.
God does not take this lightly. When men presume to speak in His name, attaching a 'Thus says Yahweh' to the imaginations of their own deceitful hearts, they are committing a crime of the highest order. They are not merely misleading the people; they are blaspheming the character of God. They are presenting the Holy One of Israel as a doddering, indulgent grandfather who is unconcerned with righteousness and justice. This is why the language God uses here through Ezekiel is so severe. He is against them. His hand is against them. And the structure they are building, this flimsy wall of false assurance, is going to be utterly demolished by the storm of His wrath.
This chapter is a divine diagnosis of a sick nation and a corrupt church. It shows us the nature of false prophecy, the character of the false prophets, the consequences of their lies, and the coming judgment that will vindicate the true Word of God. We must pay close attention, because the same spiritual diseases are endemic in our own day. The names have changed, but the game is the same. Men are still prophesying from their own hearts, plastering over deep, structural rot with a thin coat of whitewash, and crying 'Peace!' when there is no peace.
The Text
Then the word of Yahweh came to me saying, "Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel who prophesy, and say to those who prophesy from their own heart, ‘Hear the word of Yahweh! Thus says Lord Yahweh, “Woe to the wickedly foolish prophets who are walking after their own spirit and have seen nothing. O Israel, your prophets have been like foxes among waste places. You have not gone up into the breaches, nor did you build the wall around the house of Israel to stand in the battle on the day of Yahweh. They behold worthlessness and lying divination who are saying, ‘Yahweh declares,’ when Yahweh has not sent them; yet they wait for the establishing of their word. Did you not see a worthless vision and speak a lying divination when you said, ‘Yahweh declares,’ but it is not I who have spoken?” ’ ”
Therefore, thus says Lord Yahweh, “Because you have spoken worthlessness and beheld a lie, therefore behold, I am against you,” declares Lord Yahweh. “So My hand will be against the prophets who see worthless visions and utter lying divinations. They will not be in the council of My people, nor will they be written down in the register of the house of Israel, nor will they enter the land of Israel, that you may know that I am Lord Yahweh. It is definitely because they have misled My people by saying, ‘Peace!’ when there is no peace. And when anyone builds a wall, behold, they plaster it over with whitewash; so tell those who plaster it over with whitewash that it will fall. A flooding rain will come, and you, O hailstones, will fall; and a stormy wind will break out. Now behold, the wall will fall. Will it then not be said to you, ‘Where is the plaster with which you plastered it?’ ” Therefore, thus says Lord Yahweh, “I will make a stormy wind break out in My wrath. There will also be in My anger a flooding rain and hailstones to consume it in wrath. So I will pull down the wall which you plastered over with whitewash and bring it down to the ground, so that its foundation is laid bare; and it will fall, and you will be consumed in its midst. And you will know that I am Yahweh. Thus I will spend My wrath on the wall and on those who have plastered it over with whitewash; and I will say to you, ‘The wall is gone, and its plasterers are gone, the prophets of Israel who prophesy to Jerusalem and who see visions of peace for her when there is no peace,’ declares Lord Yahweh.
(Ezekiel 13:1-16 LSB)
The Indictment: Self-Sent and Useless (vv. 1-7)
The indictment begins with the source of the false prophecy. It is not from Yahweh, but from their own hearts.
"Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel who prophesy, and say to those who prophesy from their own heart... Woe to the wickedly foolish prophets who are walking after their own spirit and have seen nothing." (Ezekiel 13:2-3)
The central issue is authority. A true prophet is a man under authority. He speaks what he is given to speak, whether it is popular or not. Jeremiah described it as a fire in his bones; he was constrained by the Word of the Lord. These men, however, are spiritual freelancers. They follow their own spirit. Their prophecies are not revelations from God, but rather projections of their own desires, their own fears, their own politics, and their own wishful thinking. They are foolish because they have seen nothing. They have no access to the divine council. They are spiritual cartographers drawing maps of places they have never been. They are claiming to deliver a message from a King they have never met.
God then gives two sharp, visceral images to describe their character and their failure. First, they are like foxes.
"O Israel, your prophets have been like foxes among waste places." (Ezekiel 13:4)
What do foxes do among ruins? They are scavengers. They are opportunistic and destructive. They do not build anything. They burrow into already crumbling walls, making them weaker. They are sly and self-serving. They are not noble lions roaring with the authority of the king; they are cunning little creatures looking for their own advantage amidst the rubble of the nation. They thrive on the decay. Instead of repairing the ruins, they exploit them for their own gain.
This leads to the second image, which describes their dereliction of duty.
"You have not gone up into the breaches, nor did you build the wall around the house of Israel to stand in the battle on the day of Yahweh." (Ezekiel 13:5)
A true prophet is a watchman on the wall. His job is to spot the danger and sound the alarm. When the wall of a city is breached, a true leader, a true man of God, stands in the gap. He puts himself in the place of danger to defend the people. Moses did this when he interceded for Israel (Ex. 32). But these false prophets do the opposite. They see the gaping holes in the nation's spiritual defenses, the breaches caused by idolatry and injustice, and they do nothing. They do not call for repentance, which is the necessary work of rebuilding the wall. They do not stand in the breach through prayer and intercession. They are cowards and hirelings who abandon their post at the first sign of real spiritual warfare. Their goal is not to prepare the people for the battle on the day of Yahweh, but to keep them comfortable and complacent right up to the moment of their destruction.
They do this by speaking lies and attaching God's name to them. "They behold worthlessness and lying divination...saying, 'Yahweh declares,' when Yahweh has not sent them" (v. 6). This is the height of arrogance. And yet, there is a pathetic delusion to it: "yet they wait for the establishing of their word." They speak their own nonsense and then cross their fingers, hoping God will somehow honor their presumption and make it come true. This is not faith; it is magical thinking. God concludes the indictment with a sharp, rhetorical question: "Did you not see a worthless vision and speak a lying divination when you said, 'Yahweh declares,' but it is not I who have spoken?" (v. 7). He exposes them completely. Their vision is empty, their words are a lie, and their authority is a sham.
The Sentence: Banishment and Exile (vv. 8-9)
Because their words were worthless, God's Word against them will be substantial and heavy. The sentence is pronounced directly.
"Therefore, thus says Lord Yahweh, 'Because you have spoken worthlessness and beheld a lie, therefore behold, I am against you,' declares Lord Yahweh. 'So My hand will be against the prophets who see worthless visions and utter lying divinations.'" (Ezekiel 13:8-9a)
There can be no more terrifying words in all of Scripture than "I am against you." For the creature to be set against the Creator is to be set against the very fabric of reality. This is not a passive disapproval; it is active, divine opposition. God's hand, the instrument of His power in creation and deliverance, will now be turned against these men.
The sentence has three specific parts, a threefold excommunication from the covenant people.
"They will not be in the council of My people, nor will they be written down in the register of the house of Israel, nor will they enter the land of Israel..." (Ezekiel 13:9b)
First, they will be excluded from the "council of My people." This means they will have no say in the leadership or the decisions of the community. Their influence will be stripped away. Second, they will not be "written down in the register of the house of Israel." This is a formal removal of their citizenship. In the ancient world, to have your name blotted out of the city register was to become a non-person, an outcast. It is the Old Testament equivalent of being blotted out of the Lamb's book of life. Third, they will "not enter the land of Israel." They had promised the people a swift return to the land, but they themselves would never see it again. Their punishment would be a permanent exile, a fitting judgment for those who led others astray in exile. The purpose of this severe judgment is theological: "that you may know that I am Lord Yahweh." God's judgments are revelatory. They teach the world, and especially His people, who He is. He is not a tame God who can be manipulated by positive confessions. He is the sovereign Lord of history whose Word alone stands.
The Metaphor: The Whitewashed Wall (vv. 10-16)
God now moves to the central metaphor of the passage, which brilliantly captures the essence of their false ministry.
"It is definitely because they have misled My people by saying, ‘Peace!’ when there is no peace. And when anyone builds a wall, behold, they plaster it over with whitewash..." (Ezekiel 13:10)
The core of their deception is crying "Peace!" when there is no peace. This is not just a mistake; it is a fundamental misrepresentation of God's relationship with a sinful people. Peace with God is a covenantal reality, conditioned on faith and obedience. When the people are in open rebellion, there can be no peace. To say otherwise is to heal the wound of God's people lightly, as Jeremiah said (Jer. 6:14). It is to put a Band-Aid on a cancerous tumor.
The people, in their sin, are building a flimsy, poorly constructed wall. This represents their attempts at self-justification, their external religious activities, their political alliances, anything they are trusting in other than God. The wall is structurally unsound. It is built with untempered mortar. And what do the false prophets do? They come along and apply a coat of whitewash. Whitewash is a thin layer of plaster that makes a shoddy wall look smooth, strong, and stable. It is a cosmetic fix. It covers up the cracks. It creates the illusion of security. This is a perfect picture of a feel-good ministry. It doesn't deal with the foundational sin; it just makes the sinful situation look more respectable. It is the ministry of image management, of public relations, of making unrepentant sinners feel good about themselves.
But God will not be fooled by a paint job. He promises to send a storm that will test the integrity of the wall.
"...tell those who plaster it over with whitewash that it will fall. A flooding rain will come, and you, O hailstones, will fall; and a stormy wind will break out." (Ezekiel 13:11)
This is the storm of God's judgment, which was about to break upon Jerusalem in the final Babylonian invasion. God's wrath is not a gentle shower; it is a deluge, a tempest, with driving rain, battering hailstones, and a furious wind. This is the reality that the prophets of "Peace!" were ignoring. And when that storm hits, the whitewash will be useless. The wall will collapse, and its shoddy construction will be exposed for all to see. The people's false hopes will be crushed, and they will turn on the prophets who deceived them: "Where is the plaster with which you plastered it?" (v. 12). The cosmetic solutions will be revealed as utterly worthless in the day of trouble.
God makes it explicit that this storm is an expression of His personal wrath against their sin and deception.
"So I will pull down the wall which you plastered over with whitewash and bring it down to the ground, so that its foundation is laid bare; and it will fall, and you will be consumed in its midst. And you will know that I am Yahweh." (Ezekiel 13:14)
The judgment will be total. The wall will not just be damaged; it will be demolished down to its foundation. The false hopes will be utterly exposed. And the plasterers will be consumed right along with the wall they decorated. The false prophets will perish in the very judgment they said would never come. Their destruction will be a final, undeniable testimony to the truth they rejected. "And you will know that I am Yahweh."
God concludes with a final, stark declaration of finality. "The wall is gone, and its plasterers are gone" (v. 15). The entire system of self-deceit, the whole enterprise of cheap grace and false peace, will be wiped from the face of the earth. The prophets who saw visions of peace for a city ripe for judgment will be consumed by the lack of peace they refused to see.
Conclusion: The Only Sure Foundation
The warning of Ezekiel reverberates down to our own time. We are surrounded by whitewashed walls. The therapeutic gospel that preaches self-esteem instead of salvation is a coat of whitewash. The prosperity gospel that promises health and wealth as a birthright, ignoring the call to take up a cross, is a coat of whitewash. The progressive gospel that redefines sin and exchanges the Word of God for the shifting opinions of the culture is a coat of whitewash. The political gospel that seeks to build the kingdom with the tools of Caesar instead of the foolishness of the cross is a coat of whitewash.
These ministries are popular because they tell people what they want to hear. They offer peace without the Prince of Peace. They offer security without submission to the King of kings. They build walls, but they are not founded on the Rock.
And the Lord Jesus warned us about this very thing. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, He spoke of two builders. The foolish man built his house on the sand. It looked fine, I'm sure, until the storm came. "And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it" (Matt. 7:27). This is Ezekiel's storm. It is the storm of God's final judgment.
But there is another way. The wise man hears the words of Christ and does them. He builds his house upon the Rock. That Rock is Christ Himself, and the unadulterated truth of His Word. When we build our lives, our families, and our churches on the foundation of apostolic doctrine, on the reality of sin, the necessity of repentance, the exclusivity of Christ, the power of His blood, and the authority of His law, we are building on solid rock. The storms will still come. The rains of persecution, the floods of cultural opposition, and the winds of false doctrine will beat against that house. But it will not fall, because it is founded on the Rock.
The true prophet, the true minister of the gospel, is not a plasterer. He is a stonemason. He works with the hard, unyielding truths of Scripture. He doesn't cover up the cracks; he calls for the foundation to be torn up and relaid on Christ. His message is not always "Peace!" Sometimes, to a rebellious people, it must be "Repent!" so that true peace, a peace that can withstand the storm, may be found. Let us therefore reject all the flimsy, whitewashed walls of our age, and take refuge in the only structure that will stand on the day of Yahweh: the house that is built on the Rock of our salvation, who is Jesus Christ the Lord.