Verse 19. - Pestilence is joined with blood, as in Ezekiel 5:17; Ezekiel 38:22, as indicating its death-bearing character.

14:12-23 National sins bring national judgments. Though sinners escape one judgment, another is waiting for them. When God's professing people rebel against him, they may justly expect all his judgments. The faith, obedience, and prayers of Noah prevailed to the saving of his house, but not of the old world. Job's sacrifice and prayer in behalf of his friends were accepted, and Daniel had prevailed for the saving his companions and the wise men of Babylon. But a people that had filled the measure of their sins, was not to expect to escape for the sake of any righteous men living among them; not even of the most eminent saints, who could be accepted in their own case only through the sufferings and righteousness of Christ. Yet even when God makes the greatest desolations by his judgments, he saves some to be monuments of his mercy. In firm belief that we shall approve the whole of God's dealings with ourselves, and with all mankind, let us silence all rebellious murmurs and objections.Or if I send a pestilence into that land,.... Or the plague, which is the destruction that wastes at noon day; this is from the Lord, and a sore judgment it is:

and pour out my fury upon it in blood; or, "by blood" (y); by corrupting the blood, which is done when a man is seized with the pestilence. The Targum renders it, "with slaughter"; by slaying a great number of persons by that disease, as a token of fury and wrath, because of their transgressions. It may be rendered, "because of blood" (z); and so express the cause and reason of the judgment, the shedding of innocent blood:

to cut off from it man and beast; man by the pestilence, and beast by some contagious distemper or another.

(y) "per sanguinem", Piscator. (z) "Propter sanguinem", Vatablus.