For this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘How much worse will it be when I send against Jerusalem My four dire judgments—sword, famine, wild beasts, and plague—in order to cut off from it both man and beast?
He now reasons, as we said in the beginning, from the less to the greater. Hitherto he has said, If I shall have sent forth only one weapon to take vengeance upon men, no one will oppose my following out my decree: then he enumerated four weapons, one after another.
National sins bring national judgments without fail. When vice becomes widespread and heinous, God stretches forth His hand in punishment with grievous plagues suited to the sin. He commands a variety of judgments to show His universal dominion over all human concerns.
AI summary
Commenting on Ezekiel 14:12-23
Yet, behold, therein shall be left a remnant,.... That is, in Jerusalem, on which God's four sore judgments should be sent: though in a sinful land, as before described, where only one judgment was sent, there was no escape, not so much as a son or a daughter were delivered; yet here, where four sore judgments came together, there is a remnant that are saved...