Yehvah [יְהוָה] Is The Cause of Deception

And the prophet who is deceived and speaks a word, I the Lord [Yehvâh] deceived that prophet and will stretch out my hand against him and will cause him to be destroyed from the midst of my people Israel. (Ezekiel 14:9)¹

Then I said, "Ah, Lord GOD! Surely You have greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying,'You shall have peace,' Whereas the sword reaches to the heart." (Jeremiah 4:10)

O LORD, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived: thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed: I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me. (Jeremiah 20:7 KJV)

Since all things are "of Him and through Him and to Him" (Romans 11:36), and "in Him all things consist" (Colossians 1:17), and He upholds "all things by the word of His power" (Hebrews 1:3), it should be no surprise He is the reason for this season of deceit. The Psalmist notes this (Psalm 118:22-24), and Jesus quotes it, when He says,

The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This was the Lord's doing, . . . . (Matthew 21:42)

It was indeed the Lord's doing. The builders are the religious leaders and the stone is Christ (Acts 4:8-12), the Truth (John 14:6). Their rejection of the truth "was the Lord's doing." And,

This is the day the Lord has made. (Psalm 118:24).

This age of deception God has indeed made, just as predicted (2 Timothy 3:1-5).²

So, in Ezekiel 14:9 the Almighty God, the Lord, "Yehvah is His name" (Jeremiah 33:2), reveals further He is the cause of deception, as He Himself says, "the prophet who is deceived and speaks a word, I the Lord [יְהוָה] deceived that prophet."

I. Via Satan

How can the God "who cannot lie" (Titus 1:2) deceive anyone? By sending delusion. Satan indeed "deceives the whole world" (Revelation 12:9), but who causes him to do so? Yehvah (Lamentations 3:37-38; Romans 11:36). This is well illustrated in the prophecy of the soon coming "strong delusion."

For this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, . . . (2 Thessalonians 2:11).

In the future, consistent with His righteous and holy ways, the Lord will send "the man of sin" (2 Thessalonians 2:3) whose coming "is according to the working of Satan" (2 Thessalonians 2:9) so that people will "believe the lie."

As God sent a messenger of Satan upon Paul's flesh (2 Corinthians 12:7), so Yehvah will send the Antichrist (1 John 2:18) and his false prophet "who deceives those who dwell on the earth" (Revelation 13:14). And why? "Because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved" (2 Thessalonians 2:10). So will be the soon coming Day of the Lord (1 Thessalonians 4:15-5:3; Revelation 6f).

Another example of God sending delusion via an evil spirit is found in 1 Kings 22 and 2 Chronicles 18. The prophet Micaiah declared,

hear the word of the Lord, "I saw the Lord [Yehvah] sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing by, on His right hand and on His left. And the Lord said, 'Who will persuade Ahab to go up, that he may fall at Ramoth Gilead?' So one spoke in this manner, and another spoke in that manner. Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, and said, 'I will persuade him.' The Lord said to him, 'In what way?' So he said, 'I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.' And the Lord said, 'You shall persuade him, and also prevail. Go out and do so.' Therefore look! The Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these prophets of yours, and the Lord has declared disaster against you." (1 Kings 22:19-23; see also 2 Chronicles 18:18-22)

As the Lord sent an evil spirit upon Saul (1 Samuel 16:14 KJV), "mingled a perverse spirit" in Egypt which "caused Egypt to err" (Isaiah 19:14), and poured out "the spirit of deep sleep" on the prophets (Isaiah 29:10), so here in 1 Kings we see God put a lying spirit in the mouth of these prophets to deceive Ahab. The purpose? Ahab would be deceived into thinking he would prevail in war, but the truth was, he would die. As when Eli rebuked his sons, but they did not heed, "because the Lord desired to kill them" (1 Samuel 2:25), so it was here. God wanted Ahab to believe this lie, so that he would perish.

This is not unlike God's dealing with the world in the future. Yehvah wants the world to believe the lie that the beast of Revelation 13 is God (2 Thessalonians 2:4; Revelation 13:8), "that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness" (2 Thessalonians 2:12). The deception is sent that the people might be condemned and perish forever in hell.

Although it is true that the Lord has "no pleasure in the death" of the wicked (Ezekiel 18:23, 32), He nonetheless brings disaster upon them "in His living and burning wrath" (Psalm 58:9). He also "will laugh" and "will mock" (Proverbs 1:26) and "will rejoice" (Deuteronomy 28:63). Truly, "God is not mocked" (Galatians 6:7), but those who heed not His word are disgraced forever (Daniel 12:2; Proverbs 13:13).

II. Via The Mind

Scripture declares the gospel is "veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded" (2 Corinthians 4:3-4).³ Yehvah uses the devil to blind minds, "lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ . . . should shine on them" (2 Corinthians 4:4). This is why Jesus spoke in parables. As He said to His disciples,

To you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to those who are outside, all things come in parables, so that seeing they may see and not perceive, and hearing they may hear and not understand; lest they should turn, and their sins be forgiven them. (Mark 4:11-12)

Jesus spoke in parables so that Satan would continue to prevail in the veiling of the minds of the masses. Via parables, Christ kept them deceived and from understanding what He was talking about. And why? "Lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ . . . should shine on them". Or in other words, "lest they should turn, and their sins be forgiven them."

It is Yehvah who gives understanding (Job 38:36; Proverbs 2:6), and it is Yehvah who takes it away; and He chooses to give understanding to a few (Matthew 7:13-14) and He deceives the rest (Romans 9:18). As it is written,

He takes away the understanding of the chiefs of the earth. (Job 12:24)⁴

The leaders of the people are deceived and without understanding (2 Timothy 3:13), so He writes,

If you see the oppression of the poor, and the violent perversion of justice and righteousness in a province, do not marvel at the matter; for high official watches over high official, and higher officials are over them. (Ecclesiastes 5:8)

And God has deceived them all (Romans 11:36). So, it is no wonder they act without discretion.

In 1 Corinthians 1:19 the Lord declares He brings "to nothing the understanding of the prudent." When the understanding is brought to nothing and the mind debased by God (Romans 1:28), deception reigns within the heart (Jeremiah 17:9), and it is all His doing (Isaiah 46:9-10).

Speaking of Israel in Deuteronomy the Lord said,

For they are a nation void of counsel, nor is there any understanding in them. Oh, that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end! (Deuteronomy 32:28-29)

Why were they "void of counsel" and without understanding? Because, Moses declared,

The Lord has not given you a heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear, to this very day. (Deuteronomy 29:4)

God kept them deceived, lost in their sin. He kept them in the lies of the most deceptive thing He ever created, the human heart (Jeremiah 17:9), which is "full of evil; madness is in their hearts" (Ecclesiastes 9:3).

I am the Lord [Yehvah], who makes all things, who stretches out the heavens all alone, who spreads abroad the earth by Myself; who frustrates the signs of the babblers, and drives diviners mad; who turns wise men backward, and makes their knowledge foolishness (Isaiah 44:24-25).

Scripture declares that "God has committed them all to disobedience" (Romans 11:32). He "has confined all under sin" (Galatians 3:22)⁵ which means this "raving madness" (Ecclesiastes 10:13) escapes no one. "There is none who understands" (Romans 3:11). Deception runs rampant within the human heart and mind, and it is all because God is doing it (Hebrews 1:3).

When the Lord warned the Israelites not to forsake His covenant but to keep His Word, He warned them that He would deceive them if they did not take heed. Among His promised curses were:

the sound of a shaken leaf shall cause them to flee; they shall flee as though fleeing from a sword, and they shall fall when no one pursues. They shall stumble over one another, as it were before a sword, when no one pursues (Leviticus 26:36-37; see also Deuteronomy 28:28).

Why? Because Yehvah is making them think someone is pursuing, but the truth is, no one is. It is all simply in the God sent deception of their own mind!

God dealt with Israel's enemies in this same way, using deceit, more than once. See, for example, Judges 7:20-22; 2 Kings 3:16-24 & 7:3-7. It is not wise to be against God. Truly, "The deceived and the deceiver are His" (Job 12:16).

Footnotes:

1. This is Darwin's translation of the Hebrew text of Ezekiel 14:9. For similar translations of Ezekiel 14:9 see the King James Version, American King James Version, New Living Translation, English Standard Version, American Standard Version, Bible in Basic English, Douay-Rheims Bible, English Revised Version, Webster's Bible Translation, and World English Bible.

The Hebrew words translated "deceived" in Ezekiel 14:9 come from the Hebrew word פָּתָה (pâtâh) which is found also only in Exodus 22:16 (in Hebrew vs. 15, "entices" NKJV); Deuteronomy 11:16 ("deceived"); Judges 14:15 ("entice"); 16:5 ("entice"); 2 Samuel 3:25 ("deceive"); 1 Kings 22:20-22 ("persuade" note context); 2 Chronicles 18:19-21 ("persuade" note context); Job 5:2 ("simple one"); 31:9, 27 ("enticed"); Psalm 78:36 ("flattered" paralleled with "lied"); Proverbs 1:10 ("entice"); 16:29 ("entices"); 20:19 ("flatters"); 24:28 ("deceive"); 25:15 ("persuaded"); Jeremiah 20:7 (2x, "induced," "persuaded"), 10 ("induced"); Hosea 2:14 (in Hebrew vs. 16, "allure"); 7:11 ("silly").

2. In another place He admits to being the Creator of evil (Isaiah 45:7 KJV), and lies and deception are certainly evil.

3. 1611 KJV has, "the God of this world" giving a capital "G" for "God." Should it be "God" or "god"? The Greek for this phrase reads, ὁ θεὸς τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου (ho theos tou aiônos toutou), more literally, "the god of this age" (NKJV). When Scripture speaks of "this age" (του αιωνος τουτου [tou aiônos toutou]) it is speaking of this present time (e.g. Matthew 12:32; 13:40; Luke 20:34; Ephesians 1:21) in which "the days are evil" (Ephesians 5:16). Ephesians 6:12 speaks of "the darkness of this age," and Paul speaks of "the disputer of this age" (1 Corinthians 1:20), "the wisdom of this age" (1 Corinthians 2:6), "the rulers of this age" (1 Corinthians 2:6, 8), and the "wise in this age" (1 Corinthians 3:18) which are all evil.

Moreover, Satan is called "the ruler of this world" (ο αρχων του κοσμου τουτου [ho archôn tou kosmou toutou], John 16:11; see also John 12:31; 14:30), and "the whole world lies in the evil one" (a more literal translation of 1 John 5:19, ο κοσμος ολος εν τω πονηρω κειται [ho kosmos holos en tô ponêrô keitai]). All of this indicates "the god of this age" (2 Corinthians 4:4) is the Devil.

4. Job 12:24 more literally reads, "He causes to turn aside the heart of the heads of the people of the earth."

5. The Greek word translated "confined" in Galatians 3:22 and "committed" in Romans 11:32 are both from the Greek word συvκλειω (suvkleiô) which is found also only in Luke 5:6 ("caught") & Galatians 3:23 ("kept" w/ft "Lit. confined" NKJV).

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