Ezekiel 18:21–23

Ezekiel 18:21 — "But if the wicked turns from all his sins…he shall surely live."

The operative Hebrew verb here is šûb (שׁוּב), "to turn" or "to return" — the standard Old Testament word for repentance. Its force is holistic and active: not merely feeling remorse, but executing a complete reversal of direction. The phrase "all his sins" is significant and deliberate. In context, Ezekiel is countering a fatalistic theology circulating in exile: that the children bear the guilt of their fathers and are already condemned (cf. 18:2, the proverb of the sour grapes). Against this despair, God insists the wicked man who turns is not trapped by his past. The promise is unconditional upon the act of return: "he shall surely live." The Hebrew is emphatic — ḥāyôh yiḥyeh, a doubled infinitive absolute construction meaning "he shall absolutely, certainly live." The verb "live" (ḥāyāh) in Ezekiel carries both temporal flourishing and covenantal life — the fullness of existence in right relationship with God. Crucially, the conditions of return — keeping God's statutes and doing "what is lawful and right" — are not the cause of God's mercy but its fruit; they are the embodied form that genuine repentance takes.

Ezekiel 18:22 — "None of his transgressions…will be remembered against him."

This verse is among the most radical declarations in the Hebrew Bible. It is not merely that God overlooks past sins or reduces the sentence — they are not remembered. The language of divine "remembering" in the Old Testament is covenantal and active (God "remembers" Noah, Abraham, his covenant), so when God declares he will not remember, it means the sins are rendered covenantally inert — they carry no further consequence in the divine-human relationship. The repentant sinner lives "in his righteousness that he has done": the new identity is the operative one. This is not moral accounting in which good deeds outweigh bad; it is a statement about how God reconstitutes the person's standing before him entirely on the basis of their present orientation. The Septuagint renders this with ou mnesthesetai, meaning the sins are not brought to mind — they exercise no claim on the future. This verse forms a theological bridge from Mosaic law (where persistent transgression brings death) to the logic of grace.

Ezekiel 18:23 — "Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked?"

The passage culminates in a rhetorical question — one of the most luminous in all prophetic literature. God is not merely permitting the repentant sinner to live; God desires the sinner's conversion and life. The question form is not rhetorical in the sense of being empty — it demands an answer, and the answer the text forces is: No, God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. The phrase "return from his way" reinforces the šûb theology: what God desires is not punishment but the turning. The word "live" closes the verse as it does verse 21, forming a bracket. Structurally and theologically, life is the telos — the final purpose — of God's address to the sinner. This verse functions as a divine self-disclosure. God is not revealing a policy; he is revealing his heart. The Fathers read it as a window into divine philanthropia — the love of God for humanity that cannot be satisfied by the sinner's destruction but only by his return.

Catholic tradition has returned to this passage across centuries as one of the clearest Old Testament foundations for the theology of repentance, the sacrament of Penance, and the universal salvific will of God.

The Sacrament of Penance. The Council of Trent, in its Decree on the Sacrament of Penance (Session XIV, 1551), drew on the entire tradition of divine mercy in Scripture — with passages like Ezekiel 18 as its background — to affirm that mortal sin does not destroy the sinner beyond recovery, and that genuine contrition joined to sacramental absolution restores the sinner to life. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (§1422) calls Penance the sacrament of conversion, explicitly using the language of "turning back" — the very šûb of Ezekiel 18. Verse 22's declaration that transgressions are "not remembered" maps directly onto the Catholic understanding that sacramental absolution removes not just the eternal punishment but the guilt of sin itself (CCC §1449).

Universal Salvific Will. Verse 23 is a primary Old Testament testimony to what the Church teaches in 1 Timothy 2:4 — that God "desires all people to be saved." The Catechism (§1037) affirms that "God predestines no one to go to hell." St. Thomas Aquinas, in the Summa Theologiae (I, q. 19, a. 12), treats this divine will for salvation as an expression of God's antecedent will — his genuine desire that every rational creature attain the good.

The Church Fathers. St. John Chrysostom, preaching on repentance, cited Ezekiel 18:23 as proof that God's longing for the sinner exceeds even a father's longing for a prodigal son. St. Augustine (Enchiridion, Ch. 103) used the verse to argue against Manichaean pessimism: the God of the Old Testament is not a god of wrath alone but the same God of love revealed in Christ. Origen saw in Ezekiel's God a prefigurement of the Father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son.

Divine Immutability and Mercy. Catholic theology also addresses the apparent tension in verse 22 (past sins are "not remembered") with the doctrine of divine eternity: God does not literally "forget" but rather, in the eternal Now of his knowledge, reconstitutes how the repentant sinner stands before him — the medieval theologians called this a change not in God but in the relation of the creature to God.

Many Catholics live in quiet despair about their past — convinced that certain sins are too grave, too repeated, or too shameful to be truly forgiven. Ezekiel 18:21–23 speaks to this despair with prophetic directness: God not only permits repentance, he desires it more than the sinner does. Verse 23's rhetorical question is meant to shatter the assumption that God is waiting to condemn. This passage is a powerful preparation for a good Confession, particularly for Catholics who have been away from the sacrament for years or who struggle with scrupulosity on one end or presumption on the other. The priest who speaks the words of absolution is the living voice of the God who declares, "None of his transgressions will be remembered against him." Practically, a Catholic reader might sit with verse 23 in prayer — not as a theological proposition but as a word addressed personally to them — and allow God's own desire for their life and flourishing to displace the interior voice that insists the damage is permanent. Repentance (šûb, turning) is always available, and God is always already facing the direction of our return.