Yahweh’s word came to me, saying, “Son of man, set your face toward Jerusalem, and preach toward the sanctuaries, and prophesy against the land of Israel. Tell the land of Israel, ‘Yahweh says: “Behold, I am against you, and will draw my sword out of its sheath, and will cut off from you the righteous and the wicked. Seeing then that I will cut off from you the righteous and the wicked, therefore my sword will go out of its sheath against all flesh from the south to the north. All flesh will know that I, Yahweh, have drawn my sword out of its sheath. It will not return any more.” ’
“Therefore sigh, you son of man. You shall sigh before their eyes with a broken heart and with bitterness. It shall be, when they ask you, ‘Why do you sigh?’ that you shall say, ‘Because of the news, for it comes! Every heart will melt, all hands will be feeble, every spirit will faint, and all knees will be weak as water. Behold, it comes, and it shall be done, says the Lord Yahweh.’ ”
Yahweh’s word came to me, saying,
“Son of man, prophesy, and say, ‘Yahweh says: “A sword! A sword! It is sharpened, and also polished.
It is sharpened that it may make a slaughter. It is polished that it may be as lightning. Should we then make mirth? The rod of my son condemns every tree.
It is given to be polished, that it may be handled. The sword is sharpened. Yes, it is polished to give it into the hand of the killer.” ’
Cry and wail, son of man; for it is on my people. It is on all the princes of Israel. They are delivered over to the sword with my people. Therefore beat your thigh.
“For there is a trial. What if even the rod that condemns will be no more?” says the Lord Yahweh.
“You therefore, son of man, prophesy, and strike your hands together. Let the sword be doubled the third time, the sword of the fatally wounded. It is the sword of the great one who is fatally wounded, which enters into their rooms.
I have set the threatening sword against all their gates, that their heart may melt, and their stumblings be multiplied. Ah! It is made as lightning. It is pointed for slaughter.
Gather yourselves together. Go to the right. Set yourselves in array. Go to the left, wherever your face is set.
I will also strike my hands together, and I will cause my wrath to rest. I, Yahweh, have spoken it.”
Yahweh’s word came to me again, saying, “Also, you son of man, appoint two ways, that the sword of the king of Babylon may come. They both will come out of one land, and mark out a place. Mark it out at the head of the way to the city. You shall appoint a way for the sword to come to Rabbah of the children of Ammon, and to Judah in Jerusalem the fortified. For the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination. He shook the arrows back and forth. He consulted the teraphim. He looked in the liver. In his right hand was the lot for Jerusalem, to set battering rams, to open the mouth in the slaughter, to lift up the voice with shouting, to set battering rams against the gates, to cast up mounds, and to build forts. It will be to them as a false divination in their sight, who have sworn oaths to them; but he brings iniquity to memory, that they may be taken.
“Therefore the Lord Yahweh says: ‘Because you have caused your iniquity to be remembered, in that your transgressions are uncovered, so that in all your doings your sins appear; because you have come to memory, you will be taken with the hand.
“ ‘You, deadly wounded wicked one, the prince of Israel, whose day has come, in the time of the iniquity of the end, the Lord Yahweh says: “Remove the turban, and take off the crown. This will not be as it was. Exalt that which is low, and humble that which is high. I will overturn, overturn, overturn it. This also will be no more, until he comes whose right it is; and I will give it.” ’
“You, son of man, prophesy, and say, ‘The Lord Yahweh says this concerning the children of Ammon, and concerning their reproach: “A sword! A sword is drawn! It is polished for the slaughter, to cause it to devour, that it may be as lightning;
while they see for you false visions, while they divine lies to you, to lay you on the necks of the wicked who are deadly wounded, whose day has come in the time of the iniquity of the end.
Cause it to return into its sheath. In the place where you were created, in the land of your birth, I will judge you.
I will pour out my indignation on you. I will blow on you with the fire of my wrath. I will deliver you into the hand of brutish men, skillful to destroy.
You will be for fuel to the fire. Your blood will be in the middle of the land. You will be remembered no more; for I, Yahweh, have spoken it.” ’ ”
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On v1 As Calvin’s Latin Translation ends here, so the version…
As Calvin’s Latin Translation ends here, so the version by the Translator comes naturally to a close. It has not been thought necessary to re-translate from the original the remainder of Ezekiel, as the previously quoted labors of Newcome and Rosenmuller are sufficiently accessible and explanatory.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 19, 20, 21, 23, 25, 26, 27, 29 Speak sensibly, that all may understand.
Speak sensibly, that all may understand.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–32 Eze 21:1 And the word of the LORD came…
Eze 21:1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Ver. 1. And the word of the Lord.] See Eze 18:1.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32 A command or direction to speak plainly, that none…
A command or direction to speak plainly, that none might quarrel with his obscurity.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 8, 18, 28 The prophet had faithfully delivered the message he was…
The prophet had faithfully delivered the message he was entrusted with, in the close of the foregoing chapter, in the terms wherein he received it, not daring to add his own comment upon it; but, when he complained that the people found fault with him for speaking parables, the word of the Lord came to him again, and gave him a key to that figurative discourse, that with it he might let the people into the meaning of it and so silence that objection. For all men shall be rendered inexcusable at God's bar and every mouth shall be stopped. Note, He that speaks with tongues should pray that he may interpret, Co1 14:13. When we speak to people about their souls we should study plainness, and express ourselves as we may be the best understood. Christ expounded his parables to his disciples, Mar 4:34. 1. The prophet is here more plainly directed against whom to level the arrow of this prophecy. He must drop his word towards the holy places (Eze 21:2), towards Canaan the holy land, Jerusalem the holy city, the temple the holy house. These were highly dignified above other places; but, when they polluted them, that word which used to drop in the holy places shall now drop against them: Prophesy against the land of Israel. It was the honour of Israel that it had prophets and prophecy; but these, being despised by them, are turned against them. And justly is Zion battered with her own artillery, which used to be employed against her adversaries, seeing she knew not how to value it. 2. He is instructed, and is to instruct the people, in the meaning of the fire that was threatened to consume the forest of the south: it signified a sword drawn, the sword of war which should make the land desolate (Eze 21:3): Behold, I am against thee, O land of Israel! There needs no more to make a people miserable than to have God against them; for as, if he be for us, we need not fear, whoever are against us, so, if he be against us, we cannot hope, whoever are for us. And God's professing people, when they revolt from him, set him against them, who used to be for them. Was the fire there of God's kindling? The sword here is his sword, which he has prepared, and which he will give commission to; it is he that will draw it out of its sheath, where it had laid quiet and threatened no harm. Note, When the sword is unsheathed among the nations God's hand must be eyed and owned in it. Did the fire devour every green tree and every dry tree? The sword in like manner shall cut off the righteous and the wicked. Good and bad were involved in the common calamities of the nation; the righteous were cut off from the land of Israel when they were sent captives in Babylon, though perhaps few or none of them were cut off from the land of the living; and it was a threatening omen to the land of Israel that in the beginning of its troubles such excellent men as Daniel and his fellows, and Ezekiel, were cut off from it and conveyed to Babylon. But though the sword cut off the righteous and the wicked (for it devours one as well as another, Sa2 11:25), yet far be it from us to think that the righteous are as the wicked, Gen 18:25. No; God's graces and comforts make a great difference when his providence seems to make none. The good figs are sent into Babylon for their good, Jer 24:5, Jer 24:6. It is only in outward appearance that there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked, Ecc 9:2. But it speaks the greatness of God's displeasure against the land of Israel. Well might it be said, His eye shall not spare, when it shall not spare, no, not the righteous in it. Since there are not righteous men sufficient to save the land, to make the justice of God the more illustrious the few that there are shall suffer with it, and God's mercy shall make it up to them some other way. Did the fire burn up all faces from the south to the north? The sword shall go forth against all flesh from the south to the north, shall go forth, as God's sword, with a commission that cannot be contested, with a force that cannot be resisted. Were all flesh made to know that God kindled the fire? They shall be made to know that he has drawn forth the sword, Eze 21:5. And, lastly, Shall the fire that is kindled never be quenched? So when this sword of the Lord is drawn against Judah and Jerusalem the scabbard is thrown away, and it shall never be sheathed: It shall not return any more, till it has made a full end. 3. The prophet is ordered, by expressions of his own grief and concern for these calamities that were coming on, to try to make impressions of the like upon the people. When he has delivered his message he must sigh (Eze 21:6), must fetch many deep sighs, with the breaking of his loins; he must sign as if his heart would burst, sigh with bitterness, with other expressions of bitter sorrow, and this publicly, in the sight of those to whom he delivered the foregoing message, that this might be a sermon to their eyes as that was to their ears; and it was well if both would work upon them. The prophet must sign, though it was painful to himself and made his breast sore, and though it is probable that the profane among the people would ridicule him for it and call him a whining canting preacher. But, if we be beside ourselves it is to God; and, if this be to be vile, we will be yet more so. Note, Ministers, if they would affect others with the things they speak of, must show that they are themselves in the greatest sincerity affected with them, and must submit to that which may create uneasiness to themselves, so that it will promote the ends of their ministry. The people, observing the prophet to sigh so much and seeing no visible occasion for it, would ask, "Wherefore sighest thou? These sighs have some mystical meaning; let us know what it is." And he must answer them (Eze 21:7): "It is for the tidings, the heavy tidings, that we shall hear shortly; the tidings come (the judgments come which we hear the tidings of), they come apace, and then you will all sigh; nay, that will not serve. every heart shall melt and every spirit fail; your courage will all be gone and you will have no animating considerations to support yourselves with. And, when heart and spirit fail, it will follow of course that all hands will be feeble and unable to fight, and all knees will be weak as water and unable to flee or to stand their ground." Those who have God for them when flesh and heart fail have him to be the strength of their heart; but those who have God against them have no cordial for a fainting spirit, but are as Belshazzar when his thoughts troubled him, Dan 5:6. But some people are worse frightened than hurt; may not the case be so here and the event prove better than likely? No: Behold it cometh, and shall be brought to pass. It is not a bugbear that they are frightened with, but according to the fear so is the wrath, and more grievous than is feared.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–30 And the word of the Lord came unto me,…
And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying. Upon the above excuse or complaint about speaking in parables; wherefore the prophet is ordered to speak in plainer language to the people. It is very probable that the prophet delivered the prophecy recorded in the latter part of the preceding chapter in the figurative terms in which he received it; and he here is bid to explain it to the people, or to repeat it to them in clearer expressions.
And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying. Upon the above excuse or complaint about speaking in parables; wherefore the prophet is ordered to speak in plainer language to the people. It is very probable that the prophet delivered the prophecy recorded in the latter part of the preceding chapter in the figurative terms in which he received it; and he here is bid to explain it to the people, or to repeat it to them in clearer expressions.
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Ezekiel 21:2
eze 21:2
eze 21:2
eze 21:2Son of man, set thy face toward Jerusalem,.... Which shows that this city was meant by "the south", Eze 20:46,
and drop thy word toward the holy places; which also are meant by the south in the passage referred to, even the holy land, holy city, and holy temple; or the temple itself is only meant, with the courts adjoining to it; or as consisting of three parts, as Kimchi, the porch, the temple, and the oracle; or the outward court, the holy place, and the holy of holies; and it may respect all other places for sacred worship, as their synagogues, both in city and country; which were not to be spared any more than the temple, nor were they, Psa 74:7. Jarchi thinks that the destruction both of the first and second temple is here intended; and which sense Kimchi also mentions.
And prophesy against the land of Israel: by which it appears that this is intended by the "forest of the south field": even the numerous inhabitants of it in general, as well as the city of Jerusalem, Eze 20:46.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 An explication of the prophecy in the close of…
An explication of the prophecy in the close of the last chapter, with directions to the prophet upon it, ver. 1-7. A prediction of the sword that was coming on the land, ver. 8-17. A prospect given of the king of Babylon's coming to Jerusalem, to which he was determined by divination, ver. 18-24. Sentence passed on Zedekiah, ver. 25-27. The destruction of the Ammonites, ver. 28-32.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 32 The prophet goes on to denounce the fate of…
CHAPTER XXI
The prophet goes on to denounce the fate of Jerusalem and
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Judea; using signs of vehement grief, to denote the greatness
of the calamity, 2-7.
He then changes the emblem to that of a sharp and bright sword,
still denoting the same sad event, 8-17;
and, becoming yet more explicit, he represents the king of
Babylon, who was to be employed by God in this work, as setting
out to take vengeance on both the Jews and the Ammonites, for
joining with Egypt in a confederacy against him. He is
described as standing at the parting of the roads leading to
the respective capitals of the Jews and Ammonites; and doubting
which to attack first, he commits the decision of the matter to
his arts of divination, performed by mingling arrows inscribed
with the names of the different nations or cities, and then
marching against that whose name was written on the arrow first
drawn from the quiver. In this case the name Jerusalem comes
forward; and therefore he proceeds against it, 18-24.
History itself could scarcely be more explicit than this
prophecy. The profane prince Zedekiah as then declared to be
given up by God, and his kingdom devoted to utter destruction,
for that breach of oath of which the prophet foretells he
should be guilty, 25-27.
The remaining verses form a distinct prophecy relating to the
destruction of the Ammonites, which was fulfilled about five
years after the destruction of Jerusalem, 28-32.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXI
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 6, 9, 12, 14, 19, 21, 23, 25, 27, 28, 30 Eze 21:1-5. Son of man, set thy face toward…
Eze 21:1-5. Son of man, set thy face toward Jerusalem — Here God directs the prophet to declare in plain language, what he had ordered him to speak allegorically, from the 46th to the 48th verses of the foregoing chapter. And say to the land of Israel — The prophet’s face being turned toward Judea and Jerusalem, he addresses them as if they were present before him. Behold, I am against thee — I am become thine enemy because of thy sins; I hate thy practices, and will punish thee for them. And will draw forth my sword out of his sheath — By the sword here is meant the same as by the fire in the foregoing chapter, namely, every thing which destroys. It may, however, be taken in a rather more literal sense than the fire is there to be understood, as the calamities of Judea were chiefly to arise from the sword of the king of Babylon, who was God’s instrument to execute his purpose on Judea. And will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked — I will take away from thee the righteous by sending them into captivity; and the wicked by destroying them, either by the sword, or famine, or pestilence. My sword shall go forth against all flesh — Against all the Jews that dwell in the land. It shall not return any more — That is, into its sheath, till it hath executed all my purposes.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 6, 8, 18 The first word of judgment Eze 21:1-7. Ezekiel speaks…
The first word of judgment Eze 21:1-7. Ezekiel speaks first to the people of Israel, shows the universality of the coming destructions, and indicates by a sign (that of sighing) the sadness of the calamity.
The words and order of words are identical with Eze 20:45-46, except that for “south,” there are substituted:
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(1) “Jerusalem;”
(2) “the holy place,” i. e., the temple and its various parts;
(3) “the land of Israel.”
No subterfuge is left for the people to pretend misunderstanding.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31 Just. But had not God declared the contrary, chap.…
Just. But had not God declared the contrary, chap. xviii? The time was not yet arrived; or, he rescued the just from death, though he permitted them to experience the other common miseries. (Calmet) --- He preserved them from eternal death. (Estius) --- The just often means those who are so only in appearance, chap. xvi. 51. (Calmet) --- Temporal afflictions fall upon all; but the just derive benefit from them, while the wicked fall into eternal misery. (St. Jerome) (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 10. The Approaching Judgment (Ezekiel 21)
10. The Approaching Judgment (Ezekiel 21)
1And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 2Son of man, set thy face toward the right, and drop toward the south, and prophesy against the forest of the field in the south; 3And say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of Jehovah. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I am about to kindle in thee a fire, and it will devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree. The flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces shall be scorched in it 4[by it], from the south to the north. And all flesh shall see that I, Jehovah, 5have kindled it; and it shall not be quenched. And I said, Ah! Lord God, 6they say to me [of me], Doth he not speak parables? And the word of 7Jehovah came to me, saying, Son of man, set thy face toward Jerusalem, and drop toward the holy places, and prophesy toward the land of Israel, 8and say to the land of Israel, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I am against thee, and I have drawn My sword out of its scabbard, and will cut off 9from thee the righteous and the wicked. Because I cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked, therefore shall My sword go forth out of its 10scabbard against all flesh from south to north. And all flesh shall know that I, Jehovah, have drawn My sword out of its scabbard, nor shall it return 11again. And thou, son of man, sigh with breaking of loins, and with bitterness 12shalt thou sigh before their eyes. And it shall be, when they say to thee, Wherefore dost thou sigh? that thou shalt say, For the tidings, because it cometh; and every heart melts, and all hands hang down, and every spirit faints [is dulled], and all knees are dissolved into water. Lo, it comes, and has 13happened: sentence of the Lord Jehovah. And the word of Jehovah came 14to me, saying, Son of man, prophesy and say, Thus saith Jehovah; say, A 15sword, a sword, sharpened and also furbished [is it]! To kill with slaughter it is sharpened; furbished [is it], that it may glitter as lightning! Or can 16[shall] we rejoice over the staff [sceptre] of My son, despising every tree!? And He gave it [it is given] to be furbished, that it may be taken into the hand; it is a sword sharpened and furbished, that it may be put into the hand of the 17slayer. Cry and howl, son of man, for it shall be upon [against] My people, upon all the princes of Israel; they are given up [thrown] to the sword along 18with My people, therefore smite upon the thigh. For it makes trial [trial is made]. And how?—If also the despising staff [sceptre] shall not be!—Sentence 19of the Lord Jehovah. And thou, son of man, prophesy, and smite hand against hand, and the sword shall be doubled to the third time; it is the sword of the pierced-through, the sword of one pierced through, of the 20mighty, that penetrates to them. In order that the heart may faint, and the stumbling-blocks be multiplied at all their gates, have I given the threatening 21of the sword. Ah! made for flashing, drawn for slaughter! Unite thyself, turn to the right; direct thyself, turn to the left, whither thy face is appointed. 22And I also will strike My hands together, and I will cause My fury to rest.23I, Jehovah, have spoken. And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, 24And thou, son of man, set thee two ways for the coming of the sword of the king of Babylon; out of one land shall they both proceed; and make a finger-post 25—at the head of the way of a city make [it]. Thou shalt set a way for the coming of the sword to Rabbah of the sons of Ammon, and to Judah in 26Jerusalem, [the] inaccessible. For the king of Babylon stands at the mother of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination; shakes the arrows 27together, inquires at the teraphim, inspects the liver. In his right hand is the divination “Jerusalem,” to place [battering-] rams, to open the mouth in slaughter, to lift up the voice, in the war-cry, to place rams against the gates, 28to cast a mount, to build siege-towers. And it is to them as lying divination in their eyes that have sworn oaths for themselves; and [yet] he remembers iniquity, 29in order to take [them]. Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Because ye shall remember [bring to remembrance] your iniquity, since your transgressions are made bare, so that your sins are seen in all your doings, because ye are come 30to remembrance, ye shall be taken with the hand. And thou, pierced-through, wicked one, prince of Israel, whose day has come at the time of the iniquity 31of the end, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Remove the head-band, take off the crown. This [is] not this. The low is [to be] exalted, and the high [to be] 32brought low. Overturned, overturned, overturned will I make it. Yea, this [also] is not, till He comes to whom the judgment belongs, and I will give it to 33Him. And thou, son of man, prophesy and say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah concerning the sons of Ammon, and their reproach; even say, A sword, a 34sword, drawn for slaughter, furbished sufficiently to glitter! While they see vanity for thee, while they divine a lie to thee,—to lay thee upon the necks of the pierced-through, of the wicked, whose day has come at the time 35of the iniquity of the end. Let it return to its sheath. In the place where 36thou wast formed, in the land of thy origin will I judge thee. And I will pour out My indignation upon thee, with the fire of My wrath will I blow upon thee, and will give thee into the hand of consuming men, forgers of 37destruction. Thou shalt be for fuel to the fire; thy blood shall be in the midst of the land; thou shalt not be remembered, for I, Jehovah, have spoken.
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Eze_21:7. Another reading: אל מקדשם, ad sanctuarium eorum. Syr. Sept. et Arabs. have the suffix.
Eze_21:14. Sept.: ... ὀξυνου κ. θυμωθητι, (15) ὁπως σφαγια, ὀξυνου ὁπως γενη εἰς στιλβωσιν, ἑτοιμη εἰς παραλυσιν̓ σφαζε, ἐξουδενει, ἀπωθου παν ξυλον.—Vulg.: Qui moves sceptrum … succidisti omne lignum.
Eze_21:17. ... αροτησον ξτι την χειρα σου,—Vulg.: … Israel qui fugerant—
Eze_21:18 ὁτι δεδικαιωται. Και τι εἰ και φυλη ἀπωσθη;—Vulg.: … quia probatus est. Et hoc cum sceptrum subverterit, et non erit—
Eze_21:19. ... ἡ τριτη ῥομφαια τραυματειων ἐστιν, ῥομφαια τραυματειων ἡ μιγαλη, κ. ἐκστησει αὐτους,—ac triplicetur gladius interfectorum: hic est gl. occisionis magnæ, qui obstupescere eos facit,—There is a reading: החרדת, perterrefaciens). Another reading: לכם.
Eze_21:20. ... Κ. πληθυνθωσιν οἱ ἀσθενουντες ἐπι πασαν πυλην αὐτων. Κ. ταραδεδονται εἰς σφαγια ῥομφαιας, εὐ γαγονεν εἰς σφαγην, εὐ γεγονεν εἰς στιλβωσιν.—et multiplicat ruinas. In omnibus … conturbationem gladii acuti et limati ad … amicti ad cædem.
Eze_21:21. Another reading: התאחרי, retro ito vel: mora, retarda.
Eze_21:24. Et manu capiet conjecturam, in capite … conjiciet.
Eze_21:26. Sept.: ... τ. ὰρχαιαν ὁδον … ἀναβρασαι ῥαβδια κ. ἐπερωτησαι ἐν τοις γλυπτοις—
Eze_21:27 Ἐκ δεξιων αὐτου ἑγενετο … στομα ἐν βοη. Ad dexteram ejus facta est … os in cæde—
Eze_21:28. Κ. αὐτος αὐτοις ὡς μαντευομενος μαντειαν ἐνωτιον αὐτων, κ. αὐτος ἀναμιμνησκων ἀδικιας αὐτων μνησθηναι. Eritque quasi consulens frustra oraculum in oculis corum, et sabbatorum otium imitans; ipse autem recordabitur iniquitatis ad copiendam.
Eze_21:29. For בכל, read וכל.
Eze_21:30. ... βεβηλε, ἀνομε—Vulg.: profane … dies in temp, iniquitatis præfinita.
Eze_21:31. Ἀφειλου … ἐπεθου αὐτη τον στεφανον, οὐ τοιαυτη ἐσται. ἐταπεινωσας το … ὑψωφας.—Vulg.: … nonne hæc est, quæ humilem sublevavit—
Eze_21:32. Ἀδικιαν … θησομαι αὐτην, οὐ τοιαυτη ἐσται … ὡ καθηκει—Vulg.: … ponam eam; et hoc non factum est, donec—
Ezekiel 21:35. Ἀποστρεφε, μη καταλυσης …
Ezekiel 21:36. ... βαρβαρων—Vulg.: … insipientium.
EXEGETICAL REMARKS
To join Eze_21:1-5 with Ezekiel 20 (as is done in the Eng. Ver.) would be against the connection; while, as the first part of Ezekiel 21, it both admirably introduces the whole, and in particular, by Eze_21:5, paves the way for the explanation in Eze_21:6 sq.
Eze_21:1-5 [ch. Eze_20:45-49].—A Picture.
Eze_21:2. Comp. Eze_2:1 to Eze_6:2 (Eze_13:17); Luk_9:51. The right, according to Eze_21:7, is Jerusalem. Drop is after Deu_32:2 a very common expression for prophetic discourse. It is suggested by the rain or the dew, and points to the place of its origin,—above, and also to the beneficial influence which it is intended to exert, and is used even when the discourse does not contain promises merely, but also threatening and judgment, as is the case here exclusively, and to a large extent also in Deuteronomy 32. May it not also hint at the concise, abrupt style of composition adopted in the chapter? דָּרוֹם, the bright, sunny south, in Eze_21:7 the expression is: the “holy places.”—נֶגֶב (either “dryness,” or also from “brightness”) defines the forest of the field, more precisely, as situated in the south, pertaining to the south country (Eze_21:3), as Judea is often described. The threefold direction symbolizes perhaps the divine element in his commission. For field, comp. Eze_17:5; “land of Israel” in Eze_21:7 corresponds to it—the fruitful native soil of the whole people; Hengst.: because an agricultural people are here treated of. Forest, figurative for people, on account of the density of the population, but by no means with any reference to the degeneration of the noble vine (Isaiah 5) to a wild forest (Umbr.), or the impending reduction of the land to an uncultivated and forest condition, nor yet on account of its forest stretches; just as the southern definition of the direction from the standpoint of the exiled prophet is not to be taken in a precisely geographic sense. Besides, that which is said of the north in Eze_1:4 is here confirmed.
Eze_21:3. Eze_6:3.—The fire suits both the forest-figure and the idea of Jehovah’s avenging wrath. Comp. Ezekiel 1. (Ezekiel 15) Comp. Eze_17:24. Green and dry become in Eze_21:8 “righteous” and “wicked” (Luk_23:31).—לַהֶבֶת שַׁלְהֶבֶת, assonant ascending climax, to which the result corresponds. Endeavouring, in a far-fetched way, to conform to the figure, Hitzig interprets faces of the outside, as that which the fire first consumes. A similar view is maintained by Schnurrer in a special dissertation on the previous chapter,—“on all sides—out and out.”
Eze_21:4 explains “all faces” by: all flesh—all Israel; and so וְרָאו also can be understood as: seeing to their own hurt (Eze_21:9-10). Hengst. makes the “faces” stand for the persons, as the material which the fire is to consume. Comp. Eze_5:10. [Cocc. refers it to the judgment on Babylon, which was to follow the judgment on Israel.]—All flesh, equivalent to: every man. What does not pass speedily away, but endures to completion,—that which abides, makes on short-lived, fading man the impression of eternal duration.
Eze_21:5. Is it a complaint, owing to experiences following on what has just been propounded, or to his experience generally as a prophet? Perhaps an indirect petition for a less figurative message; as Hitzig, following the Chald.: “accept my petition.”—Comp. Eze_17:2 (2Co_4:4).—Transition to Eze_21:6 sq.
Eze_21:6-12 [1–7]. The Interpretation (through the Sword)
It is noteworthy that the foregoing figure is explained by another (Mat_13:10).
Eze_21:7. Comp. Eze_21:2.—Holy places (comp. Eze_7:24). Hengst. refers the plural to the glory of the one sanctuary, and understands it of “the spiritual abode of the people.” Others have thought of the individual buildings of the temple, its two or three parts. [Cocc.: “because many buildings were erected by men in addition to those authorized by God, or because Ezekiel prophesies not only of Solomon’s, but at the same time of Zerubbabel’s temple.”]
Eze_21:8. The land of Israel, equivalent to: “the forest of the south,” Eze_21:3. What follows is also parallel. The explanatory figure is the well-known one (Ezekiel 5, 6) of the sword.—The righteous and the wicked (comp. at Eze_3:18 sq.). According to Hengst., not in contradiction to Eze_9:4, “for if two suffer the same, yet it is not the same (Rom_8:28).” The contrast is to be taken like young and old, rich and poor, similarly to Mat_9:13. Those whom you call righteous and wicked,—all, fall under the power of the sword. With which Eze_21:9 harmonizes; for all flesh, etc., points to the whole extent of the Jewish territory as the field for its exercise. [“As is manifest from the whole nature of the representation, it is the merely external aspect of the visitation which the prophet has in his eye. The sword of the Lord’s judgment, he announced, was to pass through the land, and accomplish such a sweeping overthrow, that all, without exception, would be made to suffer in the fearful catastrophe. This did not prevent, however, but that there might be, in the midst of the outward calamities which were thus to burst like a mighty tempest over the land, a vigilant oversight maintained, and special interpositions of Providence exercised in behalf of the pious remnant who still continued faithful to the covenant of God. It was this distinguishing goodness to some, even amid the horrors of a general desolation, which, as we showed before, was the real object of that sealing of God’s servants on the forehead in a former vision; while here, on the other hand, it is merely the general desolation itself which is contemplated by the prophet. And the very circumstance that he should now have looked so exclusively on the outward scene of carnage and distress, which he descried in the approaching future, seemed to say that this was to be the grand feature of the time, and that the special interpositions which were to be put forth in behalf of the better portion would be so few that they scarcely required to be taken into account.”—Fairbairn’s Ezekiel, pp. 233, 234.—W. F.]—Others: on the ground of this certain universal destruction in Israel, a still more extensive judgment shall take place, e.g. on the Ammonites. [Cocc. thinks of all wars, etc. up to the subjugation of the nations to Christ.]
Eze_21:10 recalls, however, Eze_21:4. There: “it shall not be quenched,” here: nor shall it return. In other words, a full end. Some see the distinction between this and earlier judgments indicated here.
Eze_21:11. Symbolical description of intensest expression of sorrow. With breaking, etc., when the prophet sinks down like one whose loins are broken, and who is unable to stand upright (Deu_33:11). [Others: a pain which can break the seat of man’s strength; or as spasmodic pains; or as in travail-pangs; or with girdle burst asunder, etc. Ewald; smiting on the thigh.] Quite conceivable, without any hypocrisy, owing to Ezekiel’s sympathy with his people. Comp. Rom_9:1 sq. In bitterness, the pain at the same time audibly expresses itself. They shall become aware of it (before their eyes).
Eze_21:12. Eze_7:26; Eze_7:2 sq. That which to others is merely tidings, is to the prophet already coming, or it is to him a “thing heard” (Umbr.: a revelation made at an earlier time), which is passing into fulfilment; therefore his pain. But they shall be compelled to experience in themselves what they perceive in him. In all, courage gives place to terror, activity to prostration, counsel to perplexity. No one holds out any longer; as to which comp. Eze_7:17.—It is not merely coming, i.e. on the way, but that which the tidings bode, which they actually are (Eze_21:13 sq.), is as good as already accomplished.
Eze_21:13-22 [8–17]. The Sword
The prophet’s bitter pain (Eze_21:11) is audibly expressed in this sword-song, as it has been called.
Eze_21:14. The subject of the tidings emphatically repeated as a sword.—(הוּחַדָּה, perf. Hophal from מְרוּטָה—.חָדַד, partic, pass.)
Eze_21:15. It shall slay, and even before it proves its sharpness, terrify (הֱיֵה, infinitive). בָּרָק, from its gleaming brightness. (Deu_32:41) מֹרָטָּה, partic. Pual for מְמֹרָטָה, with the euphonic dag. forte.—The close of the verse is a crux interpretum. The abrupt statement of the contrary to that which was demanded of the prophet by Jehovah in Eze_21:11 is intelligible, and all the more so as an inquiry as to the reason for his exhibition of pain of heart has been already presupposed in Eze_21:12. Or can [shall] we rejoice, etc.? In this case the prophet can associate himself with Jehovah, while “crying,” etc., again (Eze_21:17) remains his occupation alone. The latter is made all the more prominent by the clause: “Can we rejoice?” The staff, in accordance with Eze_19:11 sq., is to be understood of the sceptre, and thus of the kingdom (comp. Eze_16:13). My son must be the same as “My people” in Eze_21:17—namely, Judah; which is all the more appropriate, as there is before us the promise of Gen_49:8 sq. (see Ezekiel 19), which was also confirmed to David, 2Sa_7:23. The sceptre of Judah, on account of this promise to bless Israel,—Jehovah regarding it as His own,—is perpetual. Despising every tree, conformably to Eze_17:24,—every other prince and king. (May not, conformably to Eze_21:3, allusion be also made to the man-despising wickedness (Eze_21:30) of the last Jewish kings, so as to yield the very striking sense: Or could we rejoice in the reigning wickedness which the sword makes an end of!?). The construing of the masculine שֵׁבֶט as a feminine (which Rosenm. calls the supreme difficulty of the passage) is sufficiently explained by the underlying idea of lordship. (See Häv. and Rosenm.) Therefore: in respect of the sword, is there room for any feeling but pain? Could there be joy over the kingdom, which shall not depart from Judah, according to the blessing which rests on it, and the promise made to David,—joy that Judah still survives, while the princes of Israel’s kingdom have long since passed away?! Should we be able to rejoice? Even this kingdom is about to fall beneath the sword, etc. Eze_21:17 sq., 19, 30 sq. But doubtless the Messiah will also come, Eze_21:32. The connection decidedly recommends this interpretation. One must remember what the kingdom and the last remnant in Jerusalem were, even in the lament of Jeremiah (Lam_5:15). [Other interpretations: “Shall we rejoice, namely, over this sword, which despises the stem (?) of My son Israel, and every tree?” Or שֵׁבֶט is taken as the chastening rod (?) of Israel, which this sword is, and which rod in hardness and solidity surpasses every other wood (Rashi). Hengst.: the punishment hanging over Israel exceeds in rigour all other punishments, according to the law set forth, Luk_12:46. (“We—I and thou—spoken from the soul of the people.”) Hävern. takes או ironically: “or should (נָסִים = נָשִׂישׂ (projecting) with a play on נָשִׂיא) the sceptre of My son be haughty (Exo_4:21; Hos_11:1; Gen_49:9; comp. therewith 1Ki_22:11; Deu_33:17), despising every tree (with reference to all other powers)?” Umbr.: “The rod of My Son—that which concerns Him—despises every (feeble) tree, has transformed itself into unbending iron.”1]
Eze_21:16. The most probable subject of וַיִתֵּן is the “son,”—Judah itself prepared the Chaldean sword of vengeance. Comp. Eze_19:14. Or indefinitely: it was given.
Eze_21:17. As the joy was groundless (Eze_21:15), so all the more is the emotion of Eze_21:11 enjoined, Eze_9:8; Eze_11:13.—That which הָיְתָה בְ would say both as to the people and the princes of Israel is expressed by מְגוּרֵי׳ (part. pass. Kal of מָגַר). Others: “Terrors (מְגוּרִים from גוּר) because of (אֶל) the sword being upon (אֶת) My people.” Which, however, says too little in this connection.—Upon the thigh, as women upon the breast; pain, terror.
Eze_21:18. For, resumes what is said in the previous verse.—בֹחַן, proving, trying; or impersonal perf. Pual, trial is made. Häv.: “for there is a proving” in relation to the judgments of God. Too far-fetched. Hengst.: “for (it is) a trial.” A brief statement of the threatening character of the impending period. Phillips.: “for a purification must take place.” Consequently, either of the past (as Rashi), of the sufferings whereby the people have already been tried, or with reference to the future. According to the connection, the trial, if not spoken directly of the sword, must be thought of in relation to its terrible murderous violence, as shown in Eze_21:17.—וּמָה, briefest continuation, but rather an exclamation than a thought. What, in fine, when people and prince are doomed to the sword,—when even the scornful (become inhuman in its arrogance, comp. Eze_21:15) kingdom of Judah shall now be brought to an end? [Rashi: And what will happen to My son when the sword overtakes him? He shall perish. Kimchi: The sword will be for trying. And what if that sword, despising the stem of Israel also, should not smite it? There would be no trial. Häv.: “And how? if the sceptre is still so arrogant, it shall not stand.” Hengst.: “And how? should the despising rod (the punishment that far outstrips all other punishments) not be?” Keil: When even the sceptre of Judah fails to show the might expected from it, what shall then be? Neteler “And how? if also the sceptre of the despiser (Jerusalem) shall not be!”]
Eze_21:19. Comp. at Eze_6:11. The gesture here is the sign of an impending energetic action (Hengst). To say that it expresses lively excitement of feeling is little; rather it arouses the sword to demand redoubled slaughter, which immediately follows. One stroke shall not be enough, but the strokes are repeated. Not that Ezekiel shall call out the following words, repeating them three times; nor yet is threefold doubling (?) nor threefold multiplying meant (as doubling is the thing in question). But once, twice, and yet a third time a double sword-stroke, to wit, with reference to the people, princes, and king, so that what is stated before (Eze_21:17-18) is compressed. [Klief.: For the third time the sword is a slayer, after it had previously come doubled (twice); the number three is symbolical.] It is called the sword of the pierced-through, from the multitudes whom it pierces. Häv.: the sword of the slain.—Sword of one pierced through, of the mighty. The subject is indefinite, but becomes definite in the adjective. “Among the crowd of the slain there is also one pierced through, made altogether like to them, who is the great one” (Häv). As the sword-song throughout keeps the kingdom in view, the king (Eze_21:30) is undoubtedly referred to, to wit, Zedekiah. The fact that his sons were slain before his eyes, that his own eyes were put out (2Ki_25:7), that he died in bonds in Babylon (Jer_52:11), especially when one considers how the context as well as other passages point, sufficiently justifies the application of the “pierced-through” one to him; so that it is not to be referred to “the great” collectively, nor to the wicked Chaldee king (! ?), nor to “the great sword of the slain which surrounds them.” (Comp. Keil in opposition to Hitzig.) הַחֹדֶרֵת, from חָדַר. Gesen.: to surround, to besiege, “lies in wait for them.” That penetrates to them, with an allusion to חֶדֶר, the inner chamber. The old translations: which puts them in terror.
Eze_21:20. In order that; that which will abundantly come to pass is also abundantly expressed. The intention made prominent by being placed in the forefront. אִבְחַת is found here only = threatening, or quivering, or shaking, or destroying, etc.; or a misprint for טִבְחַת (shambles of the sword). But whatever the precise meaning of the word be, it qualifies the sword, so that by means of it the courage of the people fails, and at all their gates obstructions lie on which they stumble,—either “crowds of corpses hard by the gates where the besieged made their sallies,” or circumstances which exposed them to slaughter. The flashing explains the fainting, etc.; the slaughter points to the stumbling-blocks.—Eze_6:11. Abrupt exclamation of the prophet.—מְעֻטָה, ἁπ. λεγ.; meaning: polished, sharpened (Gesen.); Meier: whetted; Häv.: drawn; others the very opposite: covered, still in the sheath.
Eze_21:21. Address to the sword. Up to this point no more than one sword has been spoken of, so that the one must be summoned to ally itself with all other possible swords. But the concentration of the thrice-repeated double stroke in a single stroke, which would better correspond with Eze_21:19, could be the meaning. Or it is to collect its energies for the directions which are to be presently given it. [Hitzig reads: “turn thyself backwards,” and completes הָשִׂימִי supplying פָּנֶיךָ; “turn thyself forwards,” in order to procure the two additional directions to right and left. Ew.: “Collect thyself southwards, assail northwards, whithersoever thy points are appointed.”] Häv. connects: “Turn thyself with all vigour to the right,” and (corresponding to this): “direct (thy face, thy edge) to the left!” There are, however, four words which depict the activity and rapidity of the individual sword-strokes; perhaps they are also military commands? If הָשִׂימִי and הִתאַחֲדִי correspond, then the rendering must be: “attention,” “to your post!” (Gesen., Hengst.) Besides, it is perhaps preparatively to the following paragraph as to Jerusalem and Ammon that only a twofold direction, “right” and “left,” is specified. The destination whither, etc. concludes the passage. [Cocc. is not amiss in regarding אָנָה as an interrogative; Hitzig does the same.]
Eze_21:22. Comp. Eze_21:19. Jehovah makes the gesture of the prophet His own. Comp. further Eze_16:42; Eze_5:13. What a rest, and, going before it, what an agitation!
Eze_21:23-29. The King of Babylon against Jerusalem
A symbolical action, as in Eze_21:11 (17, 19). Hengst., as always, makes it belong to the internal world; but what would have been the meaning of a command of this sort, were it not to be carried out externally? The whole point lies in its external representation. It is a demonstration ad oculos (Eze_4:1 sq.). Ezekiel is to place before himself on a table or tablet a sketch of the nature mentioned, by means of cutting or engraving, as may be surmised from בָּרֵא, Eze_21:24.—The two ways already point to another reference besides that to Jerusalem.—The sword of the king of Babylon is the “tidings” which come (Eze_21:12); into his murdering “hand” (Eze_21:16) this approaching sword is given.—The one land (or land of one, namely, the Babylonish king) from which both ways shall proceed, owing to the manner in which it is emphasized, leads one already to suppose that both ways were originally one, which at a later point was parted into two.—יָד, the finger-post which here points the way to a (still indefinite) city. At the head of the way, i.e. where the way in question begins, the hand shall be formed.
Eze_21:25. More particular description of the way, according to which it appears as two ways (hence: for the coming of the sword, as in Eze_21:24), with the finger-post for guide. As to Rabbah, the capital city of the Ammonites, see Deu_3:11. The city at the head of whose way the finger-post stands can properly mean Rabbah only, from the fact of its being first mentioned; and this points it out as the place lying nearest on the way of the coming sword, so that (as Hengst. rightly remarks) the human probability was that the vengeance of the king of Babylon would begin with Ammon, which had provoked it by adhering to the same anti-Chaldean coalition (Jer_27:3). As if less exposed, behind it appears Judah, more precisely defined by Jerusalem; which supports our way of taking Judah-Jerusalem in Ezekiel 19. (See Doct. Reflec. there.) In, because Judah exists essentially in Jerusalem; and the way of the sword goes thither, so that the sword rests there. Its strength, its inaccessible elevation, shall be merely nominal (Deu_28:52).
Eze_21:26. Even the king of Babylon is uncertain which way to choose.—Mother of the way, is immediately explained by: the head of two ways, to be the point whence they branch off like two daughters from the way which had previously been one. [Häv. avails himself of the Arabic idiom, according to which “mother of the way” means the great military road, along (אֶל) which Nebuchadnezzar is about to proceed, which then divides into two ways.]—The tacit contrast between: to use divination, and: to “prophesy” (Eze_21:19; Eze_21:14; Eze_21:7; Eze_21:2) is interesting; they are nevertheless unified by the divine will. (Comp. at Deu_18:10.) Perhaps on account of this divine element in the background, it is carried out in a threefold manner, according to the symbolism of numbers.—Does the arrow-oracle refer to the significations of קלל, “light,” or “gleaming,” so that the divination is founded on the fact of the one flying more swiftly than the other, as being the lighter, or on the fact of its shining more brightly? It is the simplest way, however, to think of two arrows, the one marked “Rabbah,” the other “Jerusalem,” being put into a vessel, perhaps a helmet, when the decision is made according as the one or the other is first drawn or shaken out; unless the quarter to which the head of the lighter arrow points on falling out, either right or left, be the ground of the decision. Comp. Häv. on the passage.—It is impossible to decide as to the method of consulting the teraphim. See Winer, Realw.; Herzog, Realencycl. Eze_16:32. Israel brought them out of Chaldea, Gen_31:19; Gen_31:34. According to Häv.: gods of fortune; Hengst.: intermediate gods, serving for the investigation of the future. Häv. supposes a transference of the Hebrew popular faith to Babylonish divinities analogous to Gad and Meni. Hitzig: his household gods, private idols (θέραπες). As to the inspection of the liver, see Hävernick’s Commentary. Such circumstances were taken into account as its condition, size, whether large, with inwardly bent lobes, etc., whether dry, defective, ulcerated, etc.
Eze_21:27. In his light hand is the divination, requires to be understood neither as: into his right hand came, etc., nor yet, with Hitzig, of the arrow-lot in particular, which pointed to Jerusalem, if it be only stated that Jerusalem was designated by the divination ceremony as the object to be attacked,—therefore, the “right hand.” “The right hand is employed; he has the decision spiritually therein; is determined in his actions by the decision given for Jerusalem in its three forms” (Hengst.). Hence there immediately follows: לָשׂוּס׳. Comp. at Eze_4:2. To open the mouth, etc., either: the battle-cry calling and exciting them to destroy, or (with Jun.): to open a mouth (breach) in the wall by destroying and piercing it. [Hengst.: “with slaughter,” which is virtually contained in the slaughter-cry. Häv.: here, the cry of the besiegers according to its intention, afterwards according to its outward expression.] As the siege is the thing in question, the expression: rams, is repeated, with special reference to the gates. As to the rest, comp. at Eze_4:2 (Eze_17:17).
Eze_21:28. While the oracle determines the Chaldeans to proceed in this way, that which the prophet proclaims on the point is, to the Jews, as a lying divination in their eyes, inasmuch as they rely on the visible fact that Jerusalem still stands before their eyes.—שְׁבֻעֵי, שְׁבֻעוֹת, apposition clause: “who have sworn oaths” (Gesen.), and these for themselves (לָהֶם). And this circumstance, owing to their consciousness of infidelity towards the king of Babylon (comp. Ezekiel 17), must make the near approach of his unlingering vengeance in the highest degree probable. The latter (and he remembers) therefore assists their faithless memory in an active way (עָוֹן, Eze_18:30), so that they are taken and crushed by punishment (Eze_14:5). [Other interpretations:—Kimchi: Because the Chaldeans had sworn oaths to them (or: the Chaldeans were to them, as the oath of oaths, the most sacred oath), they were bound by oath to them, so that Nebuchadnezzar must first remember their treachery against him. Cocc. refers לָהֶם in both cases to the Babylonians, to whom the oracle appeared delusive, because they remembered the strength of Jerusalem and the fate of Sennacherib; whereupon the Chaldean divines made repeated protestations, and some one then called to mind the guilt of the Jews, who, having fallen away from their God, were given into the hand of the king of Babylon. There is a whole story on the subject, as to which see Targ., Rashi,—namely, that Nebuchadnezzar inquired at the oracle forty-nine times, and always received the answer, Besiege Jerusalem. (Similarly Eich., Schn.) Häv.: “Oaths of oaths are to them,” namely, from God; so that the Jews relied on God’s most holy promises, which were assured to them (!). To which, however, the sin of Judah stood in opposition, which Jehovah, as her husband, would bring to remembrance (Num_5:15). Hengst.’s view, who translates similarly, is at all events better: “that which was sworn to them by oath,” so that “the sworn of the oaths” is the announcement of destruction, sworn to them by oath (“as truly as I live”) in various ways, which they repelled as a delusion, while the prophet, behind whom the Almighty stands, makes known to them anew His irrevocable decree. “In this way Judah brings to remembrance (Eze_21:29) the iniquity, which it was its duty to atone for by sincere repentance.” Umbr.: But the inhabitants of the city live on in blind confidence, in spite of the most sacred protestations of God, etc. Yet Jehovah brings guilt to remembrance, so that Jerusalem shall at last be overtaken by punishment. Ewald: “They thought they should have weeks upon weeks,” while He (as their adversary—God) “recalls the (their) guilt (faithlessness towards Him), as a sufficient cause for allowing them to be besieged and taken.”]
Eze_21:29. It seems most appropriate to the previous context to regard them as brought to remembrance, and thus everything else stands in close connection with that fact.—Eze_16:57.—Eze_20:43.—Ewald: “Because ye come to remembrance, ye shall be taken by the hand.” Phillips.: “Because He hath brought sin to your remembrance, since, etc., because they are brought to your remembrance, ye shall be taken by His hand.” Rosenm.: Because ye are remembered—before Me.—בַּכַּף is equivalent to: violently (Eze_12:13; Eze_19:4). Usually it is understood of the minister of divine vengeance (Hengst.).—Nebuchadnezzar, with reference to Eze_21:16.
Eze_21:29 in connection with Eze_21:28 forms the transition—the introduction to the following paragraph.
Eze_21:30-32 [25–27]. The Prince of Israel
ADDITIONAL NOTE
[“By a lively and energetic turn in the discourse, the prophet passes from the people at large to address himself immediately to Zedekiah, and styles him not only wicked, but also pierced through, although, it is well known, he was not actually slain in the calamities that ensued. But it is not exactly what was to be done by the external sword of the Babylonians that comes here into view; it is the execution of the Lord’s judgment, under the same form and aspect of severity as that which had been presented in the former part of the vision—the terrors of His drawn sword. The sword is but an image of the judgment itself, precisely as the devouring fire had been in the vision immediately preceding; and it is not the less true that Zedekiah fell under its powerful stroke, though he personally survived the catastrophe. Driven ignominiously from his throne, doomed to see his family slain before his eyes, to have these eyes themselves put out, and to be led as a miserable and helpless captive in chains to Babylon, he might with the most perfect propriety be regarded as the grand victim of the Lord’s sword—already, in a manner, pierced through with it; for, to the strongly idealistic spirit of the prophet, the wickedness and the sword, the sin and its punishment, appear inseparably connected together. The overthrow to which he was destined seemed to the prophet’s eye at once so inevitable and so near, that he could speak of it no otherwise than as a thing already in existence.
“But it was to be no merely personal loss and degradation; the overthrow to be accomplished on Zedekiah was to draw along with it the complete subversion of the present state of things. Therefore, while the prophet represents the day of visitation as coming upon him, he also speaks of it as being at the time when sin generally had reached its consummation, and the completeness of the guilt was to have its parallel in the complete and terminal character of the judgment. All must now be made desolate; the mitre of the high priest (the emblem of his official dignity and honour, as the representative of a consecrated and priestly people), as well as the crown of the king, was to be put away, and everything turned upside down. Such a convulsed and disorganized state of things was approaching, that, as it is said, ‘this should no longer be this;’ in other words, nothing should be allowed to remain what it had been, it should be another thing than formerly; as is presently explained in what follows: ‘The low is exalted and the high is brought down,’—a general revolution, in which the outward relations of things should be made to change places, in just retaliation upon the people for having so grossly perverted the moral relations of things. Yet the agents and participators in these revolutions are warned not to expect any settled condition to come out of them; ‘this also,’ it is said, ‘shall not be,’ it shall not attain to permanence and security; and so, overthrow is to follow overthrow; ‘nowhere shall there be rest, nowhere security; all things shall be in a state of fluctuation, until the appearing of the great Restorer and Prince of Peace.’ ”—Fairbairn’s Ezekiel, pp. 242, 243.—W. F.]
Eze_21:30. One is specially singled out and apostrophized (comp. Eze_21:19).—חָלָל is not: “profane,” or “sacrilegious,” as רָשָׁע (we recall the contrast to צַדִּיק in Eze_3:18) stands beside it. The Chaldee gives: “worthy of death.”—Comp. at Eze_12:10.—The day is the time of judgment, of punishment, of overthrow (1Sa_26:10; Psa_37:13; Job_18:20).—The time of the iniquity of the end (Eze_7:2) is when iniquity, (breach of oaths) brings the end (generally). [Schn., Cocc.: The end-guilt as the last and utmost.] In what sense the end is to be taken, how far Zedekiah’s guilt, who is therefore the subject of address, brings it about, Eze_21:31 shows.—The infinitive denotes the mere action, without stating from whom it proceeds (Hengst.), more expressively than the imperative מַצְנֶפֶת, from צָנַף (Isa_22:18 : “enwrap”), denotes in the Pentateuch (11 times) the head-band (turban) of the high-priest. As עֲטָרָה, from עָטַר (to surround), denotes the royal crown, and thus stands for the kingdom in contradistinction to the high-priesthood, so הָרִים (from רוּם) could also be taken in as absolute contradistinction to הָסִיר,—as Hitzig interrogatively renders it: “lift,” “raise,” or “maintain in elevation.” But that the kingly dignity should remain untouched, cannot, in the light of the context, be a matter of uncertainty, and even in Hitzig’s opinion Jehovah’s negative to such a question is undoubted. צְנִוֹף מְלוּבה, in Isa_62:3, combines the royal and priestly, not merely in a figurative sense, but on the ground of Exo_19:6. Besides, Ezekiel is speaking of the end as a whole, not of the subversion of the kingdom merely; although it comes to pass specially by means of the iniquity of the king who is apostrophized, and the judgment (Eze_21:32) points to the priesthood as well as the royalty. Thus nothing remains but to interpret הָרִים as synonymous with הָסִיר, even without a מִיִּשְׂרָאֵל, which can be easily supplied from the context (Zedekiah is expressly designated “Prince of Israel” in Eze_21:30). Consequently, “sentence of death is pronounced on the theocracy,” according to its existing form, which the history of the people subsequent to the exile confirms. Comp. Keil on the passage. [Cocc. takes both as designating the kingdom as a whole, not merely Zedekiah’s; and then understands the following as referring to the elevation of the Asmonæans, whose crown, however, would not be the Messianic one promised. In reference to this latter, Ewald remarks: “This corrupt earthly kingdom is not this Messianic kingdom which is to come.”]—זוֹת לאֹ־זוֹת (neuter) indicates, according to most interpreters, the complete subversion of the existing state of things (Eze_21:32), so that the low is to be elevated, and the lofty made low, as Eze_21:32 shows, by Jehovah. Israel having abased herself by sin, God thoroughly abases her by punishment. Häv. takes הַשָּׁפָלָה—ָה as: “turned towards the low,” a constructio prœgnans, betokening the condescension of God. Compare at Eze_17:24. Then זאֹת׳ would be understood thus: This (what has just been brought low) is not this, namely, what it should be (according to its ideal), but a “not this.” And with this is connected elevation (ch Eze_17:24), namely, through the Messiah, as is seen in what follows; whereupon the bringing low of the high, which is more forcibly depicted in Eze_21:32, returns again to the existing condition of things under Zedekiah; and “this also,” merely recapitulating = Yea, this cast-down priesthood and royalty is not (namely, according to Eze_21:31) what it should be, and thus in reality is not, and this condition endures till its elevation in the Coming One (till, ideal terminus, like Gen_49:10).
Eze_21:32. The thrice-repeated overturn (found here only) accords with the well-known symbolism of the divine. Usually taken as emphatic, to denote total destruction. [According to Abarbanel, it refers to the three last kings, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah; according to others, to the three destructions—the Babylonish, the Greek under Antiochus, and the Roman.] Comp. Isaiah 24.—־נָה goes back on זאֹת, or means the land (?).—According to most, this also indicates an additional overthrow; it is more natural to regard it as betokening the present overthrow. הָיָה, masculine, being construed with it, shows זאֹת to be neuter. But this inverted state of things is not to be for ever. עַד, according to its root-signification, includes the future, so that the Person in question brings to an end the overthrow, or the abasement to “nothing,” since He completes it, i.e. makes it complete in form; but at the same time, through realization of the idea in the “overthrown” or “brought low,” effects the fulfilment.—The judgment is God’s, Deu_1:17, therefore here also Jehovah gives it. The expression speaks of a re-establishment of “the judgment” by means which include chastisement; it embraces the royal and priestly office (Exo_28:29; 1Ki_3:9 sq.). Comp. besides, Gen_49:10; Psa_72:1; Isa_9:6; Isa_42:1; Jer_23:5; Jer_33:17; Joh_5:22; Act_7:14.
ADDITIONAL NOTE ON Eze_21:32
[“We can have no hesitation in understanding by this person the Messiah, whether we translate, ‘Till he comes to whom the right is,’ or, ‘Till he comes to whom the judgment belongs;’ ‘and I give it to him.’ It is not expressly said what was to be given him, and should stand waiting for its proper possessor till he should come; but the context plainly forbids us to understand anything less than what was taken away—the things represented by the priestly mitre and the royal crown. The true priestly dignity, and the proper regal glory, were to be gone for a time into abeyance; some partial, temporary, and fluctuating possession of them might be regained, but nothing more; the adequate and permanent realization was only to be found in the person of Messiah, because in Him alone was there to be a fitting representation of the divine righteousness. It is true there was something like a restoration of the standing and honour of the priesthood after the return from the Babylonish exile; and if the ideas currently entertained upon the subject were correct, there might appear in that a failure of the prophecy. But there was no right restoration of the priestly, any more than of the regal dignity at the time specified; it was but a shadow of the original glory. For there was no longer the distinctive prerogative of the Urim and Thummim, nor the ark of the covenant, nor the glory over-shadowing the mercy seat; all was in a depressed and mutilated condition, and even that subject to many interferences from the encroachments of foreign powers. So much only was given, both in respect to the priesthood and the kingdom, as to show that the Lord had not forsaken His people, and to serve as pledge of the coming glory. But it was to the still-prospective, rather than the present state of things, that the eye of faith was directed to look for the proper restoration. And lest any should expect otherwise, the prophet Zechariah, after the return from Babylon, took up the matter, as it were, where Ezekiel had left it, and intimated in the plainest manner, that what was then accomplished was scarcely worth taking into account; it was, at the most, but doing in a figure what could only find its real accomplishment in the person and work of Messiah. Especially at Eze_6:14 : ‘And he (the branch) shall build the temple of the Lord, and he shall bear the glory; and shall sit and rule upon his throne, and he shall be a priest upon his throne.’ Thus the mitre and the crown were both to meet in him, and the temple in its noblest sense be built, and the glory be obtained, such as it became the Lord’s Anointed to possess. Meanwhile all was but preparatory and imperfect.”—Fairbairn’s Ezekiel, pp. 244, 245.—W. F.]
Ezekiel 21:33–37 [Eze_21:28-32]. Against Ammon
As the prince of Israel had his counterpart in the Messiah, so the declaration “against Jerusalem” in Eze_21:21-24 sq. finds its counterpart in this paragraph; hence also the analogous expressions.
Ezekiel 21:33. Reproach is injuring by words: directly,—reviling; or indirectly,—self-glorification. Thereby the mention made of the Ammonites is illustrated. When Babylon first of all inflicted punishment on Jerusalem, Ammon took occasion to boast over the besieged (Eze_25:3; Eze_25:6; Zep_2:8; Lam_1:2; Lam_3:61), and to applaud the conquerors. Ammon’s self-exaltation had exhibited itself practically by their seizing a portion of the trans-Jordanic territory of the former kingdom of Israel (Jer_49:1 sq.).—Comp. Eze_21:14; Eze_21:19; Eze_21:15; Eze_21:20. לְהָכִילֹ, according to Gesen., for הַאֲכִיל (from אָכַל), to cause to consume (?). Others: from כּוּל, holding, containing (Eze_23:32); almost adverbially: as much as possible, or (יָכֹל) as much as can be. Hengst.: abundantly. Hitzig: to dazzle; properly: to make the eyes dull of vision. (Oxymoron.)—That it may glitter, Eze_21:15.
Ezekiel 21:34. בְּ, equivalent to: “notwithstanding that,” and to be taken as parenthetic. Even in Ammon, therefore, false prophets and false confidence! Eze_13:6; Eze_7:9; Jer_27:9-10. Klief.: The oracles of Nebuchadnezzar, Eze_21:26, while they pointed to Jerusalem, showed Ammon false. See Keil in opposition to this notion.—לָתֵת, Hitz.: the occasion of the sword’s being placed (reading אוֹתָהּ) on the necks. (Of the pierced-through? Wherefore this again?) Others: that I may lay thee; or: that one (the enemy) may lay thee; or, as Ewald (History of the People of Israel): as it is falsely prophesied to thee that thou shalt be laid on the necks of the Jews to destroy them, I will return thee to thy sheath,—namely, the sword of the Ammonites which is addressed. It depends rather on the foregoing verse. The pierced-through of the wicked—from among the Jews; comp. Eze_21:30; Eze_21:19. They have received the death-blow of the sword on their necks, which are brought into prominence for the sake of pictorial description. Thus Ammon is judged like the prostrate Judah, which it mocked. Comp. Eze_21:30.
Ezekiel 21:35. Address to Ammon. The sword, which is to be supplied, is not mentioned, because it does not come into account in contrast to the sword of God’s vengeance against Ammon. The gender (הָשַׁב, with Patach, masc. imper.) alternates with feminines, the sword-bearing men with the nation as a feminine idea. [Ewald, infin. absol. as in Eze_21:31.] Therefore all resistance is vain. (Mat_26:52!) It receives its sentence from Jehovah,—its end where it originated. Comp. Joseph. Antiq. x. 9. 7.—Eze_16:3.—Eze_11:10. [Should one, with Jerome, in Ezekiel 21:35 (Rashi, Ezekiel 21:34) regard the Babylonians as the persons addressed, so that with the: “against Ammon,” an: “against Babylon” is joined, but which from intelligible reasons is simply implied, then Eze_21:10 would not be opposed to this view. A separation of Jehovah’s sword from that of Babylon, which as such scarcely comes still into account, especially in reference to that which follows, has nothing inconceivable in it; and since Jehovah judges Babylon, His sword would remain drawn. The scabbard does not therefore require to be understood as meaning the land, but the meaning would be, that after the completion of the judgment against both Jerusalem and Ammon, by means of war, Babylon’s sword should be sheathed, and should await the judgment of God in its own land. The execution of it by the Persians would be characteristically depicted in the following verses, while in relation to Ammon the statement seems rather strong; and the supposition of Häv. that Ammon represents heathenism generally, or, according to Hengst., “the world-power hostile to the kingdom of God,” is very suggestive of perplexity.]
Ezekiel 21:36. שָׁפַךְ (Eze_14:19) makes a paronomasia with שָׁפַט, immediately before. עֶבְרָה, “outpouring;” hence used of wrath as poured out. בְּ may also be translated by: blow upon, as, when fire is blown upon or against any one, the fire itself is blown on. Hitzig, however: “with the fire of My fury I will breathe upon thee.” In the end the subject passes over from the sword to the fire, as in the beginning, from the fire to the sword. Consuming men are those who prepare this fire; Hengst.: “burning men are those who are filled with glowing anger.” [In the explanation which points to the Persians, an allusion to their fire-worship!] Häv.: fierce, cruel; Gesen.: foolish, brutish, Psa_94:8. So also Hitzig, in relation to the language of the Chaldeans, which was unintelligible (stupid) to the Ammonites.
Ezekiel 21:37. Eze_15:4; Eze_15:6.—Thy blood, etc., in which the figures of fire and sword are unified,—in the midst of the land, as in Ezekiel 21:35: “in the place,” etc., “in the land,” etc. It will fall on them in their homes, so that weapons of defence shall be of no service. Contrast to a war of offence. Others: “flowing everywhere in the land” (?). Ewald: “Thy blood shall remain in the midst of the earth, and thou shalt not be made mention of.”—Hengst.: “from the times of the Maccabees, the Ammonites and the Moabites have quite disappeared from history.” Their subversion is complete, while Israel has still something to look forward to.
THEOLOGICAL REMARKS
1. The bitterest and most painful plaint finds expression in poetry. A truly spiritual grief and the poetic form readily combine. This is the psychological truth of the chapter. The unusual forms of expression, the rapid transitions, and the idiomatic difficulties which this chapter presents, are accounted for by its poetic construction. This subjective-logical, abrupt-dithyrambic text has been marred by a Philistine criticism which tramples on psychology and æsthetics.
2. Fire and sword are the two figures in which, divine judgment clothes itself. The latter is, however, more than a picture, if the significance of war in the history of the kingdom of God among men is not overlooked.
3. Every judgment of God keeps in view the establishment of the right on earth, and is unimaginable apart from grace and mercy.
4. It is to be noted as to the Jewish kingdom, now ripe for destruction, that it “despised every tree;” whether that means that which was subject to it, or mankind generally. It thus became inhuman, lost sight of Israel’s essential relation to humanity, and became faithless to the fundamental significance of the people of God.
5a. Justice will be done to the text by regarding the manifold Chaldaic divination as nothing more than a highly dramatic representation of the idea of Providence. Hävernick, indeed, since he makes the agreement of soothsaying and prophecy—brought about, of course, by divine guidance—subservient to the carrying out of God’s will, goes still farther; so far, indeed, as to maintain that there is in Ezekiel, notwithstanding his “otherwise markedly Levitical character,” “a decided recognition of divination.” He finds the occasion in the exile-period, when “Hebraism was so remarkably tinctured with the soothsaying of heathenism;” as appears also in Daniel, etc.
5b. [“What a sublime proof of the overruling providence and controlling agency of Jehovah! The mightiest monarch of the world, travelling at the head of almost unnumbered legions, and himself consciously owning no other direction than that furnished by the instruments of his own blind superstition, yet having his path marked out to him beforehand by this servant of the living God! How strikingly did it show that the greatest potentates on earth, and even the spiritual wickedness in high places, have their bounds appointed to them by the hand of God, and that however majestically they may seem to conduct themselves, still they cannot overstep the prescribed limits, and must be kept in all their operations subservient to the higher purposes of Heaven!”—P. F.—W. F.]
6. In his oft-cited work, The Prophets and their Prophecies, Tholuck calls attention to the distinction between “subordinate” divination, which, “resting upon a natural substratum, divines the future from this” (interpreters of oracles, diviners, augurs, haruspices), and the “higher” method of the “revealer of the future who is immediately impelled by God” (Divination, Prophecy). Plutarch, Vita Homeri, Ezekiel 212; Cicero, De Divin. i. 18. After giving a sketch of the views of the fathers, Tholuck comes to the conclusion: “Whatever we may ascribe to the agency of priestly fraud and superstitious self-deception, it is now universally acknowledged by philologists, and investigators into antiquity, that at the foundation there was a reality.” He then refers more particularly to the insight gained, since the end of last century, into a middle territory between the divine and the non divine agencies of divination (the phenomena of magnetism and somnambulism, which are ranked by medical men and philosophers as physiological and psychological facts).
7. “There is a natural divination,” says Beck, “inasmuch as the course of the world developes itself according to certain original and standing fundamental laws in exact regularity, which we are taught by our conscience to regard as the moral order of the world. As, by means of a definite consciousness of this standing divine order, conscience often gives a man, in relation to his own doing and suffering, very clear indications of his own future, so a living and vigorously aroused conscience can lead him to a perception of how the past and present must have come about in virtue of that moral order, and partly of what must farther emerge from it. Where, however, this prophetic conscience is intensified by especially profound experiences, or earnest investigation of history, the moral connection between past, present, and future may often become clear even to the smallest details. But this divination extends only to the world-bond already existing under the universal government of God, and to the historical bond regulated and limited by internal and eternal moral laws. Into new determinations of the course of the world, which first became manifest by special governmental acts of God which reveal them,—the proper divine order and development of the kingdom,—mere divination cannot penetrate, for it is destitute of the necessary preliminary conditions.”
8. As to the relations between divination and prophecy, see Tholuck in the treatise referred to, § 8, and Herzog’s Realencycl. xvii. p. 641 sq. In regard to the substance of the matter, the difference proves itself to be, that while, at most, room is made for the former by the providence of God as the principle of world-government, redemption, i.e. Christ’s redemption, lifts the latter to its post of elevation. Then also divination must always be estimated in relation to the physical region in which it moves, and according to whose laws it is excited; while prophecy finds its sphere not only in the soul, but also in the spiritual life, and, though dealing in some measure with individual, national, human interests, ever stretches beyond to eternal truth as the object of its supreme interest.
9. It is to be observed that the Davidic king, by whose means the ruin of Israel is brought about, on the other hand also serves here as a medium for the Messiah. Not only did David’s family furnish in point of fact the last “prince (king) of Israel,” but the idea of an everlasting royalty in Israel was bound up by God’s promises with David’s house. The contrast between sin and grace, despair of all and hope for all, death and resurrection, is concentrated in the last representative of David’s family. It is peculiar to our prophet to have so strongly emphasized this contrast, Eze_21:30-32.
10. Israel ought to have been a kingdom of priests to Jehovah. As Israel fell away from this position with the fall of the priesthood and the kingdom, so on the other hand, with the renewed bestowal of priesthood and royalty in the Messiah, Israel is also reinstated in Him as that which it ought to be, 1Pe_2:9-10.
11. The high-priesthood, indeed, still continued after the exile. But in that period it fared with the priesthood as with the temple. “Both,” says Häv., “bound together in the closest way by divine arrangement, fell short of that which they had been before the exile. There was only a shadow of the ancient glory, as the temple was only a provisional one for an abnormal state of things. This was outwardly apparent, for there was no ark of the covenant in the temple, and the high priest was denied the right of consulting by Urim and Thummim, Ezr_2:63. As, then, the high-priesthood was totally in abeyance so far as the exiles were concerned, and as after the exile only its shadow was provisionally set up, so in the eye of prophecy the exile and the appearance of the Messiah are closely connected facts.”
12. As to the kingdom, Zerubbabel, the leader of the people after the exile, although of David’s line, was no king on David’s throne. But Herod, who becomes king over Israel, is of Edomite origin.
13. “In the remarkable passage of the Tract. Sota, p. 1069, ed. Wagenseil, it is said: The Urim and Thummim, and the king from David’s stem, had ceased with the destruction, and their restoration is to be expected only when the dead are raised up, and the Messiah, David’s Son, appears” (Häv.).
14. The old versions, with great unanimity, have made use of the Messianic passage here in Ezekiel for the explanation of “Shiloh,” Gen_49:18. Hengst. complains, in his Christology, that instead of an allusion, they have mostly assumed an explanation; to him the relation of Ezekiel to the passage in question seems unrecognisable. But while the prophet supplemen’s Genesis 49 from Psa_72:1-5, where righteousness and judgment are the basis of the peace introduced by the Messiah, we do not find in Ezekiel that which we might expect,—to whom the “peace,” but “to whom the judgment,” belongs. In Ezekiel, however, the peace is also in the background, for the advent of Him whose is the judgment makes an end of destruction. That dangers would threaten the sceptre of Judah before the coming of Shiloh, even Jacob intimated by the stress which he put on: it “shall not depart from Judah till,” etc. Kurtz, however, in his History of the Old Covenant (vol. II. pp. 87, 88, Clark’s Trans.), maintains too much when he asserts that the two passages are entirely different. The completion of the glory of Judah is here, as there, kept in view, and in both cases in a Messianic sense. The distinction is, that what concerns Judah as Judah is taken ideally in Genesis 49, and really in Ezekiel. Therefore, here a temporary “is not,” and there a (definitive) “not depart.”
15. Obscurity, ambiguity, and difficulty of interpretation are characteristic of the Messianic prophecies. Comp. 1Pe_1:10-11.
HOMILETIC HINTS
Eze_21:1 sq. [Eze_20:45 sq.] The sentence of burning; the Judge who pronounces it; the avenger who executes it; the judgment whereby it is accomplished.—The forest in the south—a picture, a history, an example.—“In nature descends now a gentle, now a dashing rain-shower” (St.).—“The word of God is rightly likened to rain. Like rain, it descends from above, and not according to man’s will; it is also, like it, useful and beneficial; as rain flows down from rocks upon the fields, so the word of God upon the godless, and, on the other hand, into pious hearts; and, like the rain, it is not equally acceptable to all,” etc. (Fessel.)—“That which is bitter to the mouth is wholesome to the heart. The word of God, even when it is sharper than a two-edged sword, is like the quickening rain” (Hengst.).
Eze_21:3 [Eze_20:47]. A wood bends beneath the storm of the Almighty, and rustles while it waves; but we men harden ourselves more and more.—“God will turn us from the instruments whom He employs against us to Himself, that we may learn whom we have sinned against, and by whom therefore we are punished” (St.).—The tree, which in spite of everything is unfruitful, is ripe for the fire.—“When the green tree does not stand, how will it go with the dry?” (Stck.)—The fire which is not quenched.
Eze_21:4 [Eze_20:48]. “If we see that all human plans and devices, even the most promising, come to nothing, we are led to the confession that we have to do with personal Omnipotence and Righteousness, against which the battle is unavailing” (Hengst.).—Contemplation of the judgment of God.—God’s judgments permit no malicious or even idle spectators.—Knowledge of the holy and righteous God from His judgments in this world.
Eze_21:5. “The godless never want for excuses: if one preaches by analogies, it is too dark; if by plain statements, it is too simple, blundering, etc., 1Ki_22:15” (Cr.).—“The world cries out against preachers who touch their conscience; that which is hateful to the world, many are ashamed to confess” (Schm.).—“The sighing of preachers over their hearers.”—The bad style of criticism of preaching.—“Nothing remains but to flee to Him by whom they were sent to preach” (Stck.).—How do so many sermons meet such opposition?—The fault is the hearer’s. Thus many a sermon is a judgment to many people.—“The disciples, Luke 8, asked, ‘What might this parable be?’ ” (Stck.)
Eze_21:6 sq. [Eze_21:1 sq.] The sword-word over Judah—a word of God, and a word of destruction.—“Jerusalem,” the address of a sword, and what a sword!
Eze_21:7 [Eze_21:2]. Thither the Jews turned their face when they prayed in war or in a foreign land, 1Ki_8:44; 1Ki_8:48 (B. B.).
Eze_21:8 sq. [Eze_21:3 sq.] “In national chastisements the pious suffer along with others” (St.).—But there is a difference even when the suffering is outwardly the same.—“All men are, besides, unrighteous of themselves, and according to their nature have deserved nothing better than the godless. But during judgments they separate from the fellowship of the wicked, from which they may not before have held themselves sufficiently aloof” (L.).—The sword is God’s. God is in the swords, although men bear them.—“Let us learn to judge rightly of war. God oversees it from beginning to end” (L.).—“The sheath in which God’s sword is put is His forbearance” (Theodoret).—“Man’s sword we may escape, but not God’s” (Stck.).—The axe was even then laid unto the root of the trees. The sword of the Romans at last followed that of the Chaldeans.—“So it proceeds till the last Antichrist and his desolation” (B. B.).
Eze_21:11 sq. [Eze_21:6 sq.] “The judgments which hang over the wicked world are so dreadful, that a believer may well sigh over them, Dan_9:4 sq.” (St.)—“A preacher who wishes to move and teach others must himself feel similar emotions” (Cr.).—The sighing of the servant of God over that which men can and yet will not hear, and over that which they will require to hear and see.—He who will not hear must feel.—“Just as we, when we read that the Saviour wept over Jerusalem, lightly ask why He wept” (Richt.).—“How insolent and confident the godless are in prosperity; in adversity they are equally fainthearted and desolate! Then they are in terror of a falling leaf; much more of a destroying sword” (L.).—“Ah, it is not good when God’s witnesses merely weep in secret (Jer_13:17); much more when God’s messengers and angels of peace weep bitterly (Isa_33:7), and are obliged to fulfil their office with sighing (Heb_13:7), because it is too much for them; and usually there follows thereupon a mighty outpouring of wrath” (B. B.).
Eze_21:13 sq. [Eze_21:8 sq.] The sacred, terrible sword-song. See Körner’s Song of the Sword.—The prophets doubtless treated politics both on their outward and inward side, but only the politics of the kingdom of God.
Eze_21:14 [Eze_21:9]. “God shows us the sword, and waves it over our heads, so that we should be timeously and profitably alarmed” (Stck.).—“God can use every creature as His sword; it is always prepared to execute His command” (St.).—“War as a divine judgment, therefore for the punishment of evil-doers; but it is also a preaching of repentance, when God sharpens the sword and makes it glitter” (L.).—“He who will not submit to the sword of God’s word (Heb_4:12) will be overtaken by the sword of the enemy” (Stck.).
Eze_21:15 [Eze_21:10]. God Himself takes the offering which men will not give Him voluntarily. The personal offering—the free and the constrained.—“He fares as a brute who lives brutishly, Psalms 49. Wickedly have I lived, wickedly died, shall be the epitaph of the godless” (Stck.).—There can be joy amid the deepest suffering, but not over another’s suffering, especially when it is punishment for sin.—“But they obey God only who are obliged to slay such offerings for Him” (L.).
Eze_21:16 [Eze_21:11]. “The executioner with whole armies” (B. B.).—The sin of the people presses the sword into the hand for war.—Sin was also interwoven with the conquering chaplets of the victors, as the dew upon these chaplets was innumerable tears and drops of blood.—Which is ever to be remembered amid songs of triumph!—Fortune of war, as men call it, what a sad fortune!—God is the judge, behind and in the conqueror.
Eze_21:17 [Eze_21:12]. Like people, like prince, the sorrow of the prophets.—“Even the great have no privilege to sin” (B. B.).—“Pain, but not murmuring” (Stck.).
Eze_21:18 [Eze_21:13]. “Trial is a terrible word to a people that suffers the deepest calamities. When the trial comes, nothing remains undisclosed, nothing unrequited; every varnish disappears, and all glitter vanishes” (Hengst.).—A tried sword is a dreadful thing when it turns against a people whom God has given up to judgment.—If a king or a people should never have regarded men, they must regard the man who bears God’s sword.—One day an end will be made of all despisers of God and man.—A kingdom’s’ inhumanity its death-sentence. God relieves men from the sceptre of tyrants. Rehoboam had formerly despised Israel, 1 Kings 12; Zedekiah regarded neither God nor Nebuchadnezzar in his perjury; Judah had long lightly esteemed God’s prophets.
Eze_21:19 [Eze_21:14]. The history of the world as the fulfilment of prophecy.—Symbolical prophecy.—The emblems of punishment.—Some must prophesy judgment who would so willingly speak of redemption, and redemption alone; men will not have the blessing, and therefore the curse must be exhibited.—“Where sin is doubled, there also is punishment doubled” (Stck.).—God’s sword draws not back from human elevation; it reaches the dwellers in the valley, and those also who sit on lofty seats.—No earthly throne is a protection from the sword of God; the history of the world is filled with proofs of this.—The last mighty pierced-through one is Antichrist.—“Alas, who can hide from the wrath of God!” (B. B.)
Eze_21:20 sq. [15 sq.] Every heart melts under judgment, why not under God’s mercy?—God is always as a stumbling-block to the ungodly. How terrible is judgment in times of peace, but how much worse in times of war! With the severer judgments of God, the ungodliness of the sinner comes wholly to light.—Walls are no defence to sinners, when God is not their defence.—The terror of a servant at the judgment which will certainly overtake the world.—The troubled heart of those who proclaim peace, and say, Be ye reconciled to God!—Those whom nothing amazes will at last be amazed by God’s judgment.—God’s sword on all sides.—“Mountains fall on us,” etc., Luk_23:30; Rev_6:15 sq.—“God has still a king of Babylon, who shall destroy the false Jerusalem” (B. B.).
Eze_21:22. The fearful hands of God, Heb_10:31.
Eze_21:23 sq. [Eze_21:18 sq.] The ways of the sword of God. Its manifestation.—God knows how to find sinners.—Just as Ezekiel sketched to the Jews, as if with chalk on the table, that which was to happen to them.—Everything proceeds according to the divine will, whether we will it or not. When God judges, everything becomes a finger-post to the avengers whom He sends. On many a life-way the finger-post which will direct punishment is already erected.
Eze_21:25 [Eze_21:20]. “By God’s arrangement, judgment shall begin at the house of God” (Hengst.).—“Let us not reckon ourselves guiltless when others are found guilty! God spares us still in His long-suffering” (Stck.).—Sins scale the best fortified cities.
Eze_21:26 [Eze_21:21]. Prophecy and divination in their resemblance and difference.—Divination under the omnipotence and wisdom of God, as to which comp. Matthew 2.—The Egyptian enchanters and the Chaldean magi in their significance for the kingdom of God.
Eze_21:27 [Eze_21:22]. To-day, Jerusalem; to-morrow, thou!—“God makes use even of divination for prophesying, but in doubtful circumstances we should apply to Him; His word will direct us and divine for us” (Stck., St.).—“Unbelief is punished in the Ammonites, Ezekiel 21:34” (Richt.).
Eze_21:28 [Eze_21:23]. “Unbelievers always believe that they are far from judgment” (Stck.).—His own evil conscience, and not merely the judgment of God which bursts upon him, ought to lead the unbeliever to belief,—at least that a righteous God lives, and will not be mocked.—“The nearer God’s judgments, the more callous the ungodly are wont to become” (Stck.).
Eze_21:29 [Eze_21:24]. “Their own sins cry out against the ungodly, and call for God’s vengeance, Gen_4:10” (St.).
Eze_21:30 [Eze_21:25]. “Thus God gives various titles; comp. Psa_82:6” (W.).—“The ungodly is already judged; a couple of years’ respite, which are still left to him, are not accounted of. Before the eye of faith, the sinner, who is still in reality set on high, lies already in his blood” (Hengst.).—“From whom He will, God can take away, and on whom He will, bestow kingdoms, Dan_4:29. Therefore stand in awe of this great Lord, ye princes of the people, and serve Him with trembling in the presence of His holy majesty, Psa_2:10-11” (Tüb. Bib.).—“Unrepentant wickedness, which has been often warned and chastised, which has witnessed many examples of judgment, and been long borne with, is the iniquity of the end” (B. B.).
Eze_21:31 [Eze_21:26]. “In the kingdom of God there are no promises, but such as resemble those streams which alternately flow above and under ground, as surely as all the bearers of the promises are infected with sin” (Hengst.).—The lifting up of Jehoiachin, the casting down of Zedekiah.—“Of this Mary also sang, Luk_1:52” (Stck.).—“David’s line proceeds through Zerubbabel to Christ” (L.).
Eze_21:32 [Eze_21:27]. The royal sinner, and the royal Saviour.—Since royalty and priesthood shall both be given to Him (Psalms 110), these can only be spoken of spiritually, as in this sense they pertained to the Anointed with the Spirit. His kingdom was not of this world, and the Epistle to the Hebrews is to be read in reference to His high-priesthood.
Ezekiel 21:33 sq. [Eze_21:28 sq.] There are doubtless race-types, prophetic national physiognomies.—In Ammon there are the manner of Edom and the mocking of Ishmael.—To defer is not to revoke.—Ammon’s mocking of Israel was at the same time a deriding of its true and future King; in other words, of Jehovah and His Anointed, Psalms 2.—Jerusalem’s punishment should be traced back, not to God’s impotence to defend them, but to His righteousness, which Ammon also is to experience.—The judgment of sinners never happens for the self-justification of other sinners.
Ezekiel 21:34 [Eze_21:29]. Divination, looking beyond sin and the righteousness of God, is at all times false and deceptive.—But men prefer lies to truth; for the lie flatters, while truth does not spare. We love the joys of the present, and therefore we hate the painfulness of truth.—“Divine punishment has a day, which is not deferred when the measure is full” (W.).—False doctrine is punished as well as an evil life.
Ezekiel 21:35 [Eze_21:30]. The place of the sin is often also the place of punishment; but God knows how to find the guilty everywhere. How can our sweet home become so bitter? Thy own heart is thy judgment.—We all have our sentence of death in Adam.—Besides, it also comes to Babylon’s turn. For the sword continues to be God’s, although it glittered for a while in Babylon’s hand.
Ezekiel 21:36 [Eze_21:31]. How consoling to die in the Lord! How dreadful to be destroyed by God!—The world, men, one’s own heart, can become a hell.—Let me not fall into the hands of men!—The wicked the executioners of the wicked.
Ezekiel 21:37. The memory of the righteous is blessed, and endures, but the name of the ungodly perishes. “Well for him who obtains a new name from God, Pro_10:7; Rev_3:12” (St.).—God’s words of mercy and of judgment are alike sure.
Footnotes:
[1]The greater number of Schroeder’s bracketed “other interpretations” have been omitted, as being destitute of probability, and quite unworthy of notice. Dr. Fairbairn’s rendering: “perchance the sceptre of My son rejoiceth,” is grammatically inadmissible, for נָשִׂישׂ is not a participle, but the 1st plur. imperf. But could we not adopt his translation of the last clause and render the passage: “Or shall we rejoice over the rod [sceptre] of My son?” as if it at least were safe, come what will? Nay, that cannot be, for “it (the sword) despiseth every tree [all wood],” the sceptre of Judah not excepted.—W. F.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32 righteous . . . wicked--not contradictory of Eze 18:4,…
righteous . . . wicked--not contradictory of Eze 18:4, Eze 18:9 and Gen 18:23. Ezekiel here views the mere outward aspect of the indiscriminate universality of the national calamity. But really the same captivity to the "righteous" would prove a blessing as a wholesome discipline, which to the "wicked" would be an unmitigated punishment. The godly were sealed with a mark (Eze 9:4), not for outward exemption from the common calamity, but as marked for the secret interpositions of Providence, overruling even evil to their good. The godly were by comparison so few, that not their salvation but the universality of the judgment is brought into view here.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv2, 6, 7, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29 2. Drop thy word — See Deu_32:2; Isa_55:11. This…
2. Drop thy word — See Deu_32:2; Isa_55:11. This word of the prophet did not drop as the dew, but fell like the blow of a sword. (Compare also Amo_7:16; Heb_4:12.)
The holy places — Peshito, their holy place. Reference is made to the temple building in Jerusalem (Eze_7:24; Lam_2:6).
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32 Eze_21:1-5. These verses, though still figurative, are plainer than…
Eze_21:1-5. These verses, though still figurative, are plainer than the preceding, of which they furnish the explanation. The sword of the Lord is drawn finally from its sheath, to which it shall not return (Eze_21:5); it is drawn against Jerusalem and its sanctuaries (Eze_21:2); it shall slay indiscriminately righteous and wicked (Eze_21:3, cf. Eze_20:47), and all flesh shall know that it is the sword of the Lord, and that it is his hand that wields it (Eze_21:5).—Even to-day the study of Israel’s history occupies men, and its lessons are not yet exhausted.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32 (2) Set thy face . . . drop thy…
(2) Set thy face . . . drop thy word . . . prophesy.—These expressions, with the “say to the land” of Eze_21:3, connect this with 20:46, 47; but there they were followed by figurative terms, while here we have plainly “Jerusalem,” “the holy places,” and “the land of Israel.”
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32 Vers. 2, 3. The opening words, reproducing those of…
Vers. 2, 3. The opening words, reproducing those of Eze_20:46, indicate that the interpretation of that parable is coming. So the three variants of "south" are shown to mean respectively Jerusalem, the holy places, and the land of Israel. So, in ver. 3, the righteous and the wicked take the place of the "green" and the "dry" tree, and the fire is explained as meaning the sword of the invader. The teaching of ch. 18, had shown that Ezekiel had entered, as regards the ultimate judgment of individual men, into the spirit of Abram"s words "That be far from thee to destroy the righteous with the wicked". (Gen_18:25) But in regard to temporal judgments there would be in this case, as in the complaint of Job_9:22, no distinction. The sword went forth "against all flesh.
HOMILIES BY J.D. DAVIES Vers. 1-17. Irresistible slaughter.
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The subject matter of this prophecy is substantially the same as the foregoing. The parable is now put into plainest language. There is an advantage in using the parable method. It awakens attention. It leads men to examine and reflect. There is an excitement in discovering a riddle. Yet God will speak also to men in language plain enough tot the simplest understanding. No lost man is able to cast any blame on our God. We have "line upon line, precept upon precept.
I THE SCENE OF DIVINE DESTRUCTION. God"s righteous anger is directed against the Holy Land, the holy places, the temple itself. Kings and priests alike are doomed. Traditional eminence and renown are impotent as a defence Against just retribution. God is no respecter of persons. Sin is equally detestable in an Israelite as in an Egyptian, and will be punished with equal severity. Oat of regard for a good man, God may employ a different method more patience, perhaps in dealing with his son; yet, in the end, there will not be the deviation of a hair"s breadth from righteous principle. No man can cloak himself with privilege.
II GOD"S VENGEANCE IRRESISTIBLE. "I have set the point of the sword against all their gates, that their heart may faint." As Samson lifted off the gates of Gaza from their hinges, much more can Samson"s Creator pierce with his sword gates of brass and fortresses of iron. Who can withstand his thunderbolts? Who can raise a defence against his lightning? "Every heart shall melt, and all hands shall be feeble." Did the antediluvians stop the rising of the Deluge? Could the families of Egypt protect their firstborn against the angel of destruction? Had the dwellers in Pompeii any power to prevent the overthrow of their city? How vain and impotent are men in league against an avenging God!
III GOD"S VENGEANCE IS THOROUGH IS ITS ACTION. "I will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked." Man"s estimate of righteousness and God"s estimate differ widely. In a nation every variety of character will be found, and sin will exist in every shade and gradation. In comparison with the blackest characters some will appear righteous who are only less tainted with sin. These are the so called righteous. In the very nature of things God will not and cannot treat alike the righteous and the wicked. The truth, then, set before us here is this that the whole nation was corrupt, yea, ripe for slaughter. So few were the righteous, as to be left out in this graphic and impressive description. The scourge should sweep through the land, and penetrate every secret place.
IV GOD"S VENGEANCE, THOUGH APPARENTLY, NOT REALLY, INDISCRIMINATE. Outwardly the same calamity may befall the righteous and the wicked, while the real and inward effect differs widely. The same sentence of death will send the righteous to their heavenly rest, the wicked to their final doom. The sun that hardens clay, melts wax. The storm that sends a leaky ship to the bottom, drives faster home the tight and gallant hark. The scourge that kills the wicked, only chastens the righteous. The furnace that destroys the alloy, refines the silver. To the few righteous this visitation of God "is a trial" (ver. 13). The rod had not been severe enough, therefore the sword came. No ill can befall the righteous. Death is ours. "To die is gain.
V DIVINE AND HUMAN COOPERATION. This sword, which was sharpened to destroy, was no less God"s sword, though it was wielded by the captains of Babylon, The prophet had his part to take. The king and statesmen of Babylon yea, even the rank and file of the army had their part to take, with God, in the execution of his just fury. The prophet is directed (ver. 14) "to smite his hands together a matter of fact prophecy of the coming event the sign to summon the great army. And (in ver. 17) God describes himself as about to do the same act: "I will also smite mine hands together." Men are often called to act in God"s stead as God"s delegates.
VI DIVINE ADMONITIONS, THROUGH MEN, MUST BE DELIVERED WITH DEEP EMOTION. "Sigh therefore, son of man, with the breaking of thy loins; and with bitterness sigh before their eyes." If it be possible, on our part, to impress our fellow, men with the reality and severity of God"s judgments, we must do our utmost to arouse earnest repentance, or we incur grave responsibility. God has constituted human nature so that strong emotion in the preacher, seemingly manifested, awakens strong emotion in the hearers. Men everywhere are susceptible of influence from a superior or a holier man. Nothing God allows us to omit which may serve to lead our fellows to repentance. We must make it clear that the events of coming retribution adequately impress our own minds; then, and then only, shall we arouse attention, promote inquiry, and lead to reflection, self-examination, and return to God. D.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv2, 6, 9, 16, 21, 26, 27 Behold, I am against thee.
Eze_21:2-3
Behold, I am against thee.
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A prophecy of judgment
I. The prophets compellation, or title--Son of man. There are but two persons in Scripture which have eminently this name--the one is our Saviour, the other Ezekiel. For our Saviour, it was not without very good reason--namely, as hereby to discover the truth of His humanity to us--that amongst those many miracles which were wrought by Him, from whence He did appear to be God, He might have somewhat also fastened upon Him declaring Him likewise to be man. Besides, as suitable to His present state of humiliation and future passion, that He might be looked upon according to that view wherein He tendered Himself to the world, and that those which were about Him might be prepared for what should happen unto Him, He thought it fitting thus to be called; in the meantime, likewise, encouraging them, upon these terms, to close with Him, as who having taken their nature upon Him, was not now ashamed to call them brethren. As for Ezekiel, why this name should be put upon him, this is a thing further considerable--especially why upon him rather than upon any other of the prophets, Daniel only excepted, who but once is distinguished by this compellation (Dan_8:17). It is the general sense of divines, that it was for this reason especially, namely, to humble him in the midst of those many divine visions and revelations which he was partaker of, that though in regard of his work and employment he was a companion of angels, yet, for his condition, he was numbered amongst men. And so, in that respect, had a double disparagement upon him, which served to abase him--both of mortality and sinfulness. But we may add also another reason here in this place for the giving of it; and that was, not only to breed in him an humble spirit, but likewise a pitiful and compassionate. The message which he was now sent about, it was a matter of judgment and terror; it was a threatening, and foretelling of Gods wrath and indignation against His people. Now, this did require some bowels and tenderness in him, that he should do it; and therefore Son of man was a very fit and proper compellation, that so, being a man himself, he might the more commiserate his brethren.
II. The prophets injunction, or command, which is laid upon him: and that is, how to carry himself in the denunciations of Gods judgments against His people. This is laid forth in three clauses--First, to set his face toward Jerusalem. Secondly, to drop his word towards the holy places. Thirdly, to prophesy against the land of Israel. Where ye have a full enumeration of all kind of places, and conditions, and persons, as the objects of Divine wrath, which is threatened against them. First, the city, expressed in Jerusalem. Secondly, the Church, signified in the holy places. Thirdly, the country, or whole community, implied in the land of Israel. Here is Gods judgments extended to all sorts and ranks of men--to the civil State, to the ecclesiastical, and to the popular. We will begin with the civil. The Lords voice crieth to the city (Mic_6:9).
1. The place threatened is Jerusalem, the mother-city in the land of the princes and governors of the nation. This is that which God begins withal in the denunciation of His judgments against His people here in this place. This carries in it Gods anger against great ones--the nobles and princes and judges and magistrates of the land; those which were of any eminency amongst them, whether for birth, or place, or power, or wealth; these sinning against the Lord were not without their correction--nay, God thinks fitting to take aim at them first of all: Set thy face against Jerusalem. Now, there is a very good account which may be given of this dispensation.
(1) Because such places as these are, do abound with greater mercies, and so opportunities of doing good; therefore they, rebelling against the Lord, and provoking Him, do become more obnoxious.
(2) Because the sins of these are more exemplary and scandalous, The more eminent any are in place, the more notorious are their miscarriages--everyone looks upon them as so many patterns to all the rest.
(3) They are populous places, and they are such places wherein the flower and glory of the whole land is gathered together. The strength and riches and state of any nation are in their chief cities. Now, therefore, when God has a mind to stain the pride of all glory, He does especially aim at these.
2. The prophets gesture which he is required to use to it--and that is, to set his face towards it. Set thy face towards Jerusalem. The setting of the face, in Scripture, does carry a different notion in it.
(1) It is a note of attention. God would have him to set his face upon it, by way of serious consideration; to take notice of the manifold abominations which were in it. And thus now is it the concernment of ministers in like manner to do--not to shoot their arrows at random, rashly and unadvisedly, they care not how; but as being thoroughly appreciative of the guilt of the persons themselves they deal withal.
(2) It is a note of compassion and commiseration. So we also find it sometimes in Scripture. As our Saviour (Luk_19:41).
(3) It is a note of displeasure and indignation. So it is used sometimes (Jer_21:10; Eze_25:2; Eze_28:21; Eze_29:2).
The second is in reference to the Church, or State Ecclesiastical. And drop thy word towards the holy places.
1. The place is the Church and house of God. Here is Gods vengeance threatened against that, as to the destruction of it. This is worse than the former; by how much spirituals are better than temporals, and any prejudice to our souls worse than to our outward estates.
(1) Here is a threatening of the place, the temple itself, which was afterwards verified and made good in the destruction and rendition of that: Not one stone left upon another. God threatens to take away that visible token of His presence from amongst them, which was one step of this punishment.
(2) Here is a threatening of the persons, the priests and ministers--there is an heavy judgment belonging to them; forasmuch as they had corrupted themselves, and others with them.
(3) In reference to the performances--the ordinances and ministerial dispensations. God drops upon the sanctuary when He threatens to suspend these, as oftentimes He does when He sends a famine of His word (Amo_8:11) Especially when His ordinances are neglected, when there is no heed or regard unto them: in such cases as these does God remove them, and otherwise bestow them; neither is there anything here which shall stand in the way of His judgments.
2. The carriage and proceeding towards it, and that is expressed here by dropping.
(1) A leisurable proceeding--one thing after another, in a succession. The judgments of God, they are not to be denounced all at once; that were enough to astonish men, and wholly overwhelm them. No, but by steps and degrees. They must first be acquainted with lesser judgments, and then afterwards with greater.
(2) A gentle proceeding--not boisterously, with over-much rigour; but mildly, and with the spirit of meekness.
(3) A constant proceeding. Dropping--it has frequency in it. So should it be with us here: Precept upon precept, and line upon line (Isa_28:10).
The third, and last, in reference to the community and whole nation in general. In these words: And prophesy against the land of Israel.
1. The place threatened--the land of Israel. These words do carry two things in them, which might seem, at the first hearing, to plead for exemption from punishment.
(1) Israel, Gods own peculiar people.
(2) The land of Israel, that is, a great number of them. Yet it will not do, or serve the turn neither. Though it be Israel, Gods own people; though it be the land of Israel, all states and degrees amongst them; yet sinners, they must not shun judgment.
2. The carriage towards it, and that is prophesying. Prophesy against the land of Israel. This was a very ill message, and very unwelcome, which Ezekiel was sent with; but yet he must carry it, for all that. He must prophesy against them--that is, declare Gods punishments upon them for their sins and provocations of Him. (T. Herren, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Ezekiel 21
THE SWORD UNSHEATHED
Ezekiel 21
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THE date at the beginning of chapter 20 introduces the fourth and last section of the prophecies delivered before the destruction of Jerusalem. It also divides the first period of Ezekiels ministry into two equal parts. The time is the month of August, 590 B.C., two years after his prophetic inauguration and two years before the investment of Jerusalem. It follows that if the Book of Ezekiel presents anything like a faithful picture of his actual work, by far his most productive year was that which had just closed. It embraces the long and varied series of discourses from chapter 8 to chapter 19; whereas five chapters are all that remain as a record of his activity during the next two years. This result is not so improbable as at first sight it might appear. From the character of Ezekiels prophecy, which consists largely of homiletic amplifications of one great theme, it is quite intelligible that the main lines of his teaching should have taken shape in his mind at an early period of his ministry. The discourses in the earlier part of the book may have been expanded in the act of committing them to writing; but there is no reason to doubt that the ideas they contain were present to the prophets mind and were actually delivered by him within the period to which they are assigned. We may therefore suppose that Ezekiels public exhortations became less frequent during the two years that preceded the siege, just as we know that for two years after that event they were altogether discontinued.
In this last division of the prophecies relating to the destruction of Jerusalem we can easily distinguish two different classes of oracles. On the one hand we have two chapters dealing with contemporary incidents-the march of Nebuchadnezzars army against Jerusalem (chapter 21), and the commencement of the siege of the city (chapter 24). In spite of the confident opinion of some critics that these prophecies could not have been composed till after the fall of Jerusalem, they seem to me to bear the marks of having been written under the immediate influence of the events they describe. It is difficult otherwise to account for the excitement under which the prophet labours, especially in chapter 21, which stands by the side of chapter 7 as the most agitated utterance in the whole book. On the other hand, we have three discourses of the nature of formal indictments-one directed against the exiles (chapter 20), one against Jerusalem (chapter 22), and one against the whole nation of Israel (chapter 23). It is impossible in these chapters to discover any advance in thought upon similar passages that have already been before us. Two of them (chapters 20 and 23) are historical retrospects after the manner of chapter 16, and there is no obvious reason why they should be placed in a different section of the book. The key to the unity of the section must therefore be sought in the two historical prophecies and in the situation created by the events they describe. It will therefore help to clear the ground if we commence with the oracle which throws most light on the historical background of this group of prophecies-the oracle of Jehovahs sword against Jerusalem in chapter 21.
The long-projected rebellion has at length broken out. Zedekiah has renounced his allegiance to the king of Babylon, and the army of the Chaldeans is on its way to suppress the insurrection. The precise date of these events is not known. For some reason the conspiracy of the Palestinian states had hung fire; many years had been allowed to slip away since the time when their envoys had met in Jerusalem to concert measures of united resistance. {Jeremiah 27} This procrastination was, as usual, a sure presage of disaster. In the interval the league had dissolved. Some of its members had made terms with Nebuchadnezzar; and it would appear that only Tyre, Judah, and Ammon ventured on open defiance of his power. The hope was cherished in Jerusalem, and probably also among the Jews in Babylon, that the first assault of the Chaldeans would be directed against the Ammonites, and that time would thus be gained to complete the defences of Jerusalem. To dispel this illusion is one obvious purpose of the prophecy before us. The movements of Nebuchadnezzars army are directed by a wisdom higher than his own; he is the unconscious instrument by which Jehovah is executing His own purpose. The real object of his expedition is not to punish a few refractory tribes for an act of disloyalty, but to vindicate the righteousness of Jehovah in the destruction of the city which had profaned his holiness. No human calculations will be allowed even for a moment to turn aside the blow which is aimed directly at Jerusalems sins or to obscure the lesson taught by its sure and unerring aim.
We can imagine the restless suspense and anxiety with which the final struggle for the national cause was watched by the exiles in Babylon. In imagination they would follow the long march of the Chaldean hosts by the Euphrates and their descent by the valleys of the Orontes and Leontes upon the city. Eagerly would they wait for some tidings of a reverse which would revive their drooping hope of a speedy collapse of the great world-empire and a restoration of Israel to its ancient freedom. And when at length they heard that Jerusalem was enclosed in the iron grip of these victorious legions, from which no human deliverance was possible, their mood would harden into one in which fanatical hope and sullen despair contended for the mastery. Into an atmosphere charged with such excitement Ezekiel hurls the series of predictions comprised in chapters 21 and 24. With far other feelings than his fellows, but with as keen an interest as theirs, he follows the development of what he knows to be the last act in the long controversy between Jehovah and Israel. It is his duty to repeat once more the irrevocable decree-the Divine delenda est against the guilty Jerusalem. But he does so in this instance in language whose vehemence betrays the agitation of his mind, and perhaps also the restlessness of the society in which he lived. The twenty-first chapter is a series of rhapsodies, the product of a state bordering on ecstasy, where different aspects of the impending judgment are set forth by the help of vivid images which pass in quick succession through the prophets mind.
I.
The first vision which the prophet sees of the approaching catastrophe (Eze_21:1-4) is that of a forest conflagration, an occurrence which must have been as frequent in Palestine as a prairie fire in America. He sees a fire break out in the "forest of the south," and rage with such fierceness that "every green tree and every dry tree" is burned up; the faces of all who are near it are scorched, and all men are convinced that so terrible a calamity must be the work of Jehovah Himself. This we may suppose to have been the form in which the truth first laid hold of Ezekiels imagination; but he appears to have hesitated to proclaim his message in this form. His figurative manner of speech had become notorious among the exiles (Eze_21:5), and he was conscious that a "parable" so vague and general as this would be dismissed as an ingenious riddle which might mean anything or nothing. What follows (Eze_21:7-10) gives the key to the original vision. Although it is in form an independent oracle, it is closely parallel to the preceding and elucidates each feature in detail. The "forest of the south" is explained to mean the land of Israel, and the mention of the sword of Jehovah instead of the fire intimates less obscurely that the instrument of the threatened calamity is the Babylonian army. It is interesting to observe that Ezekiel expressly admits that there were righteous men even in the doomed Israel. Contrary to his conception of the normal methods of the Divine righteousness, he conceives of this judgment as one which involves righteous and wicked in a common ruin. Not that God is less than righteous in this crowning act of vengeance, but His justice is not brought to bear on the fate of individuals. He is dealing with the nation as a whole, and in the exterminating judgment of the nation good men will no more be spared than the green tree of the forest escapes the fate of the dry. It was the fact that righteous men perished in the fall of Jerusalem; and Ezekiel does not shut his eyes to it, firmly as he believed that the time was come when God would reward every man according to his own character. The indiscriminateness of the judgment in its bearing on different classes of persons is obviously a feature which Ezekiel here seeks to emphasise.
But the idea of the sword of Jehovah drawn from its scabbard, to return no more till it has accomplished its mission, is the one that has fixed itself most deeply in the prophets imagination, and forms the connecting link between this vision and the other amplifications of the same theme which follow.
II.
Passing over the symbolic action of Eze_21:11-13, representing the horror and astonishment with which the dire tidings of Jerusalems fall will be received, we come to the point where the prophet breaks into the wild strain of dithyrambic poetry, which has been called the "Song of the Sword" (Eze_21:14-22). The following translation, although necessarily imperfect and in some places uncertain, may convey some idea both of the structure and the rugged vigour of the original. It will be seen that there is a clear division into four stanzas:-
(1) Eze_21:14-16.
"A sword, a sword!
It is sharpened and burnished withal.
For a work of slaughter is it sharpened!
To gleam like lightning burnished!
And twas given to be smoothed for the grip of the hand, -
Sharpened is it, and furbished-
To put in the hand of the slayer."
(2) Eze_21:17-18.
"Cry and howl, son of man!
For it has come among my people;
Come among all the princes of Israel!
Victims of the sword are they, they and my people
Therefore smite upon thy thigh!
It shall not be, saith Jehovah the Lord."
(3) Eze_21:19-20.
"But, thou son of man, prophesy, and smite hand on hand;
Let the sword he doubled and tripled(?).
A sword of the slain is it, the great sword of the slain whirling around them, -
That hearts may fail, and many be the fallen in all their gates.
It is made like lightning, furbished for slaughter!"
(4) Eze_21:21-22.
"Gather thee together!
Smite to the right, to the left,
Whithersoever thine edge is appointed!
And I also will smite hand on hand,
And appease My wrath:
I Jehovah have spoken it."
In spite of its obscurity, its abrupt transitions, and its strange blending of the divine with the human personality, the ode exhibits a definite poetic form and a real progress of thought from the beginning to the close. Throughout the passage we observe that the prophets gaze is fascinated by the glittering sword which symbolised the instrument of Jehovahs vengeance. In the opening stanza (1) he describes the preparation of the sword; he notes the keenness of its edge and its glittering sheen with an awful presentiment that an implement so elaborately fashioned is destined for some terrible day of slaughter. Then (2) he announces the purpose for which the sword is prepared, and breaks into loud lamentation as he realises that its doomed victims are his own people and the princes of Israel. In the next stanza (3) he sees the sword in action; wielded by an invisible hand, it flashes hither and thither, circling round its hapless victims as if two or three swords were at work instead of one. All hearts are paralysed with fear, but the sword does not cease its ravages until it has filled the ground with slain. Then at length the sword is at rest (4), having accomplished its work. The divine Speaker calls on it in a closing apostrophe "to gather itself together" as if for a final sweep to right and left, indicating the thoroughness with which the judgment has been executed. In the last verse the vision of the sword fades away, and the poem closes with an announcement, in the usual prophetic manner, of Jehovahs fixed purpose to "assuage" His wrath against Israel by the crowning act of retribution.
III.
If any doubt still remained as to what the sword of Jehovah meant, it is removed in the next section (Eze_21:23-32), where the prophet indicates the way by which the sword is to come on the kingdom of Judah. The Chaldaean monarch is represented as pausing on his march, perhaps at Riblah or some place to the north of Palestine, and deliberating whether he shall advance first against Judah or the Ammonites. He stands at the parting of the ways-on the left hand is the road to Rabbath-ammon, on the right that to Jerusalem. In his perplexity he invokes supernatural guidance, resorting to various expedients then in use for ascertaining the will of the gods and the path of good fortune. He "rattles the arrows" (two of them in some kind of vessel, one for Jerusalem and the other for Riblah); he consults the teraphim and inspects the entrails of a sacrificial victim. This consulting of the omens was no doubt an invariable preliminary to every campaign, and was resorted to whenever an important military decision had to be made. It might seem a matter of indifference to a powerful monarch like Nebuchadnezzar which of two petty opponents he determined to crush first. But the kings of Babylon were religious men in their way, and never doubted that success depended on their following the indications that were given by the higher powers. In this case Nebuchadnezzar gets a true answer, but not from the deities whose aid he had invoked. In his right hand he finds the arrow marked "Jerusalem." The die is cast, his resolution is taken, but it is Jehovahs sentence sealing the fate of Jerusalem that has been uttered.
Such is the situation which Ezekiel in Babylon is directed to represent through a piece of obvious symbolism. A road diverging into two is drawn on the ground, and at the meeting-point a sign-post is erected, indicating that the one leads to Ammon and the other to Judah. It is of course not necessary to suppose that the incident so graphically described actually occurred. The divination scene may only be imaginary, although it is certainly a true reflection of Babylonian ideas and customs. The truth conveyed is that the Babylonian army is moving under the immediate guidance of Jehovah, and that not only the political projects of the king, but his secret thoughts and even his superstitious reliance on signs and omens, are all overruled for the furtherance of the one purpose for which Jehovah has raised him up.
Meanwhile Ezekiel is well aware that in Jerusalem a very different interpretation is put on the course of events. When the news of the great kings decision reaches the men at the head of affairs they are not dismayed. They view the decision as the result of "false divination"; they laugh to scorn the superstitious rites which have determined the course of the campaign, not that they suppose the king will not act on his omens, but they do not believe they are an augury of success. They had hoped for a short breathing space while Nebuchadnezzar was engaged on the east of the Jordan, but they will not shrink from the conflict whether it be today or tomorrow. Addressing himself to this state of mind, Ezekiel once more (Cf. chapter 17) reminds those who hear him that these men are fighting against the moral laws of the universe. The existing kingdom of Judah occupies a false position before God and in the eyes of just men. It has no religious foundation; for the hope of the Messiah does not lie with that wearer of a dishonoured crown, the king Zedekiah, but with the legitimate heir of David now in exile. The state has no right to be except as part of the Chaldaean empire, and this right it has forfeited by renouncing its allegiance to its earthly superior. These men forget that in this quarrel the just cause is that of Nebuchadnezzar, whose enterprise only seems to "call to mind their iniquity" (Eze_21:28)-i.e., their political crime. In provoking this conflict, therefore, they have put themselves in the wrong; they shall be caught in the toils of their own villainy.
The heaviest censure is reserved for Zedekiah, the "wicked one, the prince of Israel, whose day is coming in the time of final retribution." This part of the prophecy has a close resemblance to the latter part of chapter 17. The prophets sympathies are still with the exiled king, or at least with that branch of the royal family which he represents. And the sentence of rejection on Zedekiah is again accompanied by a promise of the restoration of the kingdom in the person of the Messiah. The crown which has been dishonoured by the last king of Judah shall be taken from his head; that which is low shall be exalted (the exiled branch of the Davidic house), and that which is high shall be abased (the reigning king); the whole existing order of things shall be overturned "until He comes who has the right."
IV.
The last oracle is directed against the children of Ammon. By Nebuchadnezzars decision to subdue Jerusalem first the Ammonites had gained a short respite. They even exulted in the humiliation of their former ally, and had apparently drawn the sword in order to seize part of the land of Judah. Misled by false diviners, they had dared to seek their own advantage in the calamities which Jehovah had brought on His own people.
The prophet threatens the complete annihilation of Ammon, even in its own land, and the blotting out of its remembrance among the nations. That is the substance of the prophecy; but its form presents several points of difficulty. It begins with what appears to be an echo of the "Song of the Sword" in the earlier part of the chapter:-
"A sword! a sword! It is drawn for slaughter; it is furbished to shine like lightning" (Eze_21:28).
But as we proceed we find that it is the sword of the Ammonites that is meant, and they are ordered to return it to its sheath. If this be so, the tone of the passage must be ironical. It is in mockery that the prophet uses such magnificent language of the puny pretensions of Ammon to take a share in the work for which Jehovah has fashioned the mighty weapon of the Chaldaean army. There are other reminiscences of the earlier part of the chapter, such as the "lying divination" of ver. 34, and the "time of final retribution" in the same verse. The allusion to the "reproach" of Ammon and its aggressive attitude seems to point to the time after the destruction of Jerusalem and the withdrawal of the army of Nebuchadnezzar. Whether the Ammonites had previously made their submission or not we cannot tell; but the fortieth and forty-first chapters of Jeremiah show that Ammon was still a hotbed of conspiracy against the Babylonian interest in the days after the fall of Jerusalem. These appearances make it probable that this part of the chapter is an appendix, added at a later time, and dealing with a situation which was developed after the destruction of the city. Its insertion in its present place is easily accounted for by the circumstance that the fate of Ammon had been linked with that of Jerusalem in the previous part of the chapter. The vindictive little nationality had used its respite to gratify its hereditary hatred of Israel, and now the judgment, suspended for a time, shall return with redoubled fury and sweep it from the earth.
Looking back over this series of prophecies, there seems reason to believe that, with the exception of the last, they are really contemporaneous with the events they deal with. It is true that they do not illuminate the historical situation to the same degree as those in which Isaiah depicts the advance of another invader and the development of another crisis in the peoples history. This is due partly to the bent of Ezekiels genius, but partly also to the very peculiar circumstances in which he was placed. The events which form the theme of his prophecy were transacted on a distant stage; neither he nor his immediate hearers were actors in the drama. He addresses himself to an audience wrought to the highest pitch of excitement, but swayed by hopes and rumours and vague surmises as to the probable issue of events. It was inevitable in these circumstances that his prophecy, even in those passages which deal with contemporary facts, should present but a pale reflection of the actual situation. In the case before us the one historical event which stands out clearly is the departure of Nebuchadnezzar with his army to Jerusalem. But what we read is genuine prophecy; not the artifice of a man using prophetic speech as a literary form, but the utterance of one who discerns the finger of God in the present, and interprets His purpose beforehand to the men of his day.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 8, 18, 23, 28 THE FIRE AND SWORD OF DIVINE JUSTICE GO FORTH…
THE FIRE AND SWORD OF DIVINE JUSTICE GO FORTH AGAINST HEATHENISED JERUSALEM. (Chap. 21).
EXEGETICAL NOTES.—The people had turned all their hopes towards the mother country,—the city and kingdom. The prophet shows this to be a delusion. The sword of the Lord will cut off Jerusalem and the land of Israel, both righteous and wicked. (Eze_21:1-17). The instrument to be used is the king of Babylon, who will draw his sword against Jerusalem and the children of Ammon, first putting an end to the kingdom of Judah, and then destroying the Ammonites (Eze_21:18-23). The design is, to withdraw the people from their delusions, and to teach them that they must trust no longer in human policy but rather in repentance towards God.
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Eze_21:1-7. The sword of the Lord is to be drawn against Jerusalem, in which the people placed all their confidence.
Eze_21:2. “The holy places.” “Heb. sanctuaries. These include not only the temple with its holy places, but also the other edifices appropriated in purer times to Divine worship, and afterwards called synagogues” (Psa_73:17)—(Henderson). Hengstenberg refers the plural to the glory of the one sanctuary, and understands it of “the spiritual abode of the people.” Others account for the plural form of the word by understanding it of the individual buildings of the temple, its two or three parts.” “The land of Israel.” Equivalent to “the forest of the south field.” (Eze_20:46).
Eze_21:3. “My sword.” “The fire kindled by the Lord is interpreted as being the sword of the Lord. It is true that this is a figurative expression; but it is commonly used for war, which brings with it devastation and death, and would be generally intelligible.”—(Keil.) “Out of his sheath.” The sword of God had rested in its sheath for above 400 years. In the days of David it was suspended over Jerusalem; but the arm of the Destroying Angel was then “stayed.” David by God’s direction offered burnt-offerings on the very place where the temple was afterwards built; and the destroying sword was returned “into the sheath thereof” (1Ch_21:16; 1Ch_21:27; 1Ch_22:1). God’s forbearance was the sheath in which it rested so long. Now Israel had become heathenized, the vile profanation of God’s altar was no longer to be endured, and the sword must again leave its scabbard. “The righteous and the wicked.” “This is not in contradiction with Eze_9:4, according to which the righteous, amidst the impending catastrophe, are the object of the protecting and sustaining activity of God. For if two suffer the same, yet it is not the same. To those who love God must all things be for the best” (Rom_8:28).—(Hengstenberg.) “There is no real contradiction between the doctrine taught in this passage, and that vindicated ch. 18. Though removed from their native land along with the wicked, inasmuch as they were nationally connected with them, yet the righteous were to be regarded only as the subjects of corrective discipline, whereas to the idolatrous Jews the sufferings were unmitigated punishment.”—(Henderson.)
Eze_21:4. “From the south to the north.” The whole extent of the country, from Dan to Beersheba.
Eze_21:5. “It shall not return any more.” It shall go on to make a full end. The same idea as in Eze_20:48, where it is stated that the fire of God’s judgments shall not be quenched.
Eze_21:6. “Sigh, therefore, thou son of man, with the breaking of thy loins.” The loins are said to be broken when acute pain robs a man of all power and strength (Deu_33:11). “The more deeply to affect his countrymen with a sense of the dire calamities which were so soon to overtake them, the prophet is commanded openly to assume the appearance of a person in deep distress, clasping his loins with his hands, as sadly bruised; and, giving utterance to piteous groans in the bitterness of his spirit, he was to present himself before them.”—(Henderson.)
Eze_21:7. “For the tidings, because it cometh.” “That which to others is merely tidings, is to the prophet already coming, or it is to him a ‘thing heard’ which is passing into fulfilment; therefore his pain. But they shall be compelled to experience in themselves what they perceive in him. In all, courage gives place to terror, activity to prostration, counsel to perplexity. NO one holds out any longer.”—(Lange.) “All knees shall be weak as water.” They become like water in laxity and incoherence. Their strength is, as it were, dissolved, flows away and is scattered in all directions.
HOMILETICS
(Eze_21:6-7.)
Such fear should possess them upon the tidings of the Babylonish army’S approaching, as should make their rocky hearts melt as snow before the sun, or fat of lambs before the fire; and the hands, spirits, and knees of their stoutest man to be feeble, faint, and weak; so that they should be inept unto all services, especially military ones.
1. God will have the prophet to see what prophetical signs will do, when prophetical threats did nothing. “Sigh, son of man, with the breaking of thy loins,” &c. These were prophetical sighs, representing unto them the great evils which were coming upon them; that so they might consider, sigh in like manner for their sins, and prevent their destruction, or else certainly expect the same. God laid a heavy burden upon the prophet when he is called so to sigh.
2. Ill tidings sink the hearts and spirits of hypocrites and wicked ones. When they hear of wars and great forces coming against them, not only doth their mirth cease, but their hearts, hands, spirits, knees fail them. When Nebuchadnezzar came their hands were upon their loins, they knew not what to do, whither to go, where to hide themselves. But in Psa_112:7, it is said of a godly man, “He shall not be afraid of evil tidings; his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord.”—(Greenhill.)
(Eze_21:1-7.)
GOD’S SWORD OF VENGEANCE AGAINST JERUSALEM
The parabolic character of Eze_20:45-49 in the last chapter is continued. Then the destruction by fire was threatened; now it is the sword. Of this sword of vengeance against Israel for their sins we learn:—
I. It was lifted against those things in which the people trusted most. “Toward Jerusalem, the holy places, the land of Israel” (Eze_21:2). The Jews turned their faces towards Jerusalem when they prayed in war, or in a foreign land. The sword of the Lord was to be drawn against all those glories of their country in which they most prided themselves. The candlestick will be removed from unfaithful churches.
II. It was manifestly the Sword of the Lord. “My sword” (Eze_21:3). Human instruments were to be used, human passions; yet behind all these, and directing them, God was working out his own purposes. The swords were His, though men bare them. This will teach us to judge rightly of war, wherein the enmities of nations are so controlled by Providence that they are made to minister to the moral and intellectual welfare of the human race. God “maketh the wrath of man to praise Him,” and the “remainder” of that wrath, which might work but unmixed evil, He restrains from so futile a purpose. He can punish by whatever instrument He pleases. And because this judgment coming upon Jerusalem and the land of Israel is described as the sword of God, it follows that that judgment is a reality. The prophet is to drop his word of prophecy toward Jerusalem. That “word” was not a mere sound; but a sword, a real calamity. With God, words stand for things which have a real existence. The threatenings against sinners, however they may be disregarded in the present, will in the future have a terribly real meaning.
III. It was long threatened before it was drawn to smite. “And will draw forth My sword out of his sheath” (Eze_21:3). It had lain in the sheath for 400 years, during all their wanderings and rebellions. The sheath in which God’s sword of vengeance lies unused is His forbearance.
IV. It still hangs over unrighteous nations. “It shall not return any more,” but “go forth against all flesh” (Eze_21:4-5). This was the sword of the Chaldeans: it was followed by the sword of the Romans. And so the sword of God will rest not until the last Antichrist and his desolation. Israel fell beneath the stroke of God for her sins, and who then can escape? Whole nations have perished for lack of righteousness.
V. The thought of it should produce the greatest terror and alarm.
1. In the prophet who utters the threat of it. “Sigh therefore, thou son of man” (Eze_21:6). The sigh is the momentary failure of the heart when suddenly overcome by the thought of sorrow. It answers to the tongue dumb with silence at the tidings of some overwhelming calamity. The prophet charged with the message is to sigh, as if completely overcome. Even God’s people may well tremble when they think of His judgments (Dan_9:4, etc.). Christ wept over Jerusalem at the thought of her doom, and as if unwilling to abandon her to her enemies. It is with reluctance that the Almighty Judge pronounces sentence. Judgment is God’s “strange work.” The preacher who wishes to affect the feelings of others must feel himself. The thought of God’s sword of vengeance should produce the greatest terror and alarm,—
2. In the people to whom his message is delivered. If the prophet who simply announces the judgments is bidden to sigh, what must they do on whom the judgments are to fall! The prophet is to sigh for the tidings, “because it cometh.” He knows that they shall be fulfilled in grim reality. Therefore he announces that as concerning the people, “Every heart shall melt, and all hands shall be feeble, and every spirit shall faint, and all knees shall be weak as water” (Eze_21:17). They refused to hear, now they shall be made to feel. Those who were so insolent in prosperity, and defied God, become, when His judgments fall upon them, faint-hearted and desolate. “Weak as water:” the strength of the most daring sinners melts away before the righteous anger of God.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 3, 4. The righteous and the wicked] corresponding to…
3, 4. The righteous and the wicked] corresponding to the green tree and the dry in the parable (Eze_20:47). In spite of his strict theory of retribution in Ezekiel 18, Ezekiel recognised the fact that good men as well as bad would perish in the siege of Jerusalem.
10. It contemneth, etc.] RV 'The rod of my son, it contemneth every tree' These words are almost hopelessly obscure, and the text is probably corrupt. As it stands, the meaning may be (a) that the rod (the sword) with which God chastises His son (the king or people of Israel) is more severe than any mere rod of wood (any previous chastisement), or (b) that the king of Judah (the rod or sceptre of my son) despises all other powers (every other rod or tree).
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12. Cry.. howl.. smite] tokens of Ezekiel's excited sympathy with God's justice. Terrors.. upon my people] RV 'they' (the princes) 'are delivered over to the sword with my people.'
13. What if the sword contemn even the rod?] equally obscure with Eze_21:10. RV 'what if even the rod that contemneth shall be no more? 'What if Judah in its pride shall be destroyed?
14. Smite, etc.] another gesture of excited sympathy. Doubled the third time] rather, 'doubled and trebled' in its destructive power.
Slain] RV 'deadly wounded.' The great men that are slain] RV 'the great one that is deadly wounded'—Zedekiah.
15. Point] RM 'consternation.' Ruins] RV 'stumblings.'
Wrapped up] RV 'pointed.'
17. I will also smite] God also exults in His judgment. His sternest justice is a true expression of Himself.
Cause.. to rest] RV 'satisfy.'
19. Choose thou (RV 'mark out') a place] rather, 'grave a hand,' i.e. a sign-post. Nebuchadrezzar is imagined as halting at some point where the roads to Jerusalem and Rabbah (the capital of Ammon) diverge, and as consulting his oracles as to which way he shall take.
20. In Jerusalem] rather, 'unto Jerusalem.'
21. He made his arrows bright] RV 'He shook the arrows to and fro.' Two arrows, inscribed with the names of the two cities, were put into a bag and shaken, and then one was drawn out. With images] RV 'the teraphim,' the portable images of the gods whose advice was sought. Looked in the liver] another ceremony of divination. The liver would be that of the animal sacrificed on the occasion, and an omen would be drawn from its shape or colour.
22. At his right hand] RV 'In his right hand. Nebuchadrezzar drew the arrow marked 'Jerusalem.'
23. The people of Jerusalem would make light of Nebuchadrezzar's omens.
That have sworn oaths] This may refer to the broken oaths of allegiance to Babylon (see Eze_17:13-16), or perhaps to the covenant to free their j slaves which the people of Jerusalem made in Zedekiah's reign (Eze_34:8-10), and which may have led them into self-righteous confidence.
25. Profane wicked] RV 'O deadly wounded wicked one.' Zedekiah is addressed.
27. Until he come] the future ideal king.
(b) Concerning Ammon (Eze_21:28-32)
The Ammonites were a nation E. of the Jordan, and descended from Lot (Gen_19:38). They had joined in the league against Nebuchadrezzar (Jer_27:3), and had reason to fear his vengeance (Eze_21:20 above). But they seem to have thought they would escape, and to have indulged in reproach, and even hostility, against 'Judah. Ezekiel foretells their certain punishment. For another prophecy against Ammon see Eze_25:1-7
28. The sword.. is drawn] most naturally understood to be the sword of the Lord against Ammon, as against Jerusalem in Eze_21:9. But others take it to be the sword which Ammon drew against Jerusalem: see on Eze_21:30.
29. They see vanity] The Ammonites were misled by false prophets. Them that are slain, of the wicked] RV 'The wicked that are deadly wounded'—the people of Jerusalem (Eze_21:14).
30. Shall I cause it] RV 'cause it.' As it stands this is a command to Ammon to sheathe the sword, and hence the sword in Eze_21:28 is generally understood to be theirs. But the prophecy is so closely parallel otherwise to the preceding one that it is probable that the text in Eze_21:30 is corrupt, and that the sword in Eze_21:28 is the Lord's.
31. Brutish men] most naturally understood of the Babylonians, but see Eze_25:4.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 Eze 21:1-32. A solemn message is given to the…
Eze 21:1-32. A solemn message is given to the prophet: “Behold I am against thee, and will draw forth my sword out of its sheath, and will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked.” It was to be a widespread judgment, against all flesh. Ezekiel was commanded to sigh with bitterness before their eyes and was to tell them the cause of his grief (Eze 21:1-7). The sharpening of the sword of judgment is given in Eze 21:8-17. It was hanging over their heads, ready to strike at any moment. The question is asked, “Should we then make mirth?” is this the time of mirth, worldly pleasures and enjoyment? Not for the faithful in Israel. Nor is the present solemn time a time of mirth for those who know the signs of the times and what God has revealed concerning things to come.
The king of Babylon and his divination is vividly pictured in Eze 21:18-24. The Babylonians used different kinds of enchantments, etc., to ascertain what they should do. The king stands at the cross-roads. Shall he go to Rabbath or against Jerusalem? He used arrows and put on one the name of “Rabbath” of the Ammonites; on the other “Jerusalem.” Then he shook them to and fro (correct rendering--”he made his arrows bright”). In Eze 21:22, we see the result of this divination. He has in his hands the arrow with “Jerusalem” on it.
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The wicked prince and the Coming One are seen in Eze 21:25-27. Here Christ and Antichrist are contrasted. There can be no question that Zedekiah is first of all in view as the profane wicked prince of Israel. But the prophecy looks far beyond Zedekiah. It is the coming wicked prince, the one who comes in his own name, the final Antichrist, the false messiah, or, as he is also called in Revelation, the false prophet. That Eze 21:25 refers to the time of the end, is seen by the words, “in the time of the iniquity of the end” (correct translation). The same phrase appears in Dan 11:35-39, “the time of the end,” and the person described in that passage is the Antichrist, the wicked prince. It is the time of the future great tribulation “when the transgressors are come to the full” Dan 8:23. This false Christ will claim priestly and kingly honors. He is the beast out of the earth, Rev 13:1-18) having two horns like a lamb, but speaking as a dragon. The two horns represent the priesthood and the kingship he assumes. And this, we learn from Eze 21:26, is the character of the wicked prince of Israel of whom Ezekiel speaks. Again, we must correct the faulty translation of the Authorized Version: “Remove the mitre and take off the crown”; the word “diadem” is mitre, the head-dress of the high-priest Exo 28:4. He wears the mitre of the priest and the crown of the king. He is Satan’s final counterfeit (like the pope) of the Priest-King. In Eze 21:27, the overturning times are mentioned. Thrice it is stated, “I will overturn.” Even so will it be at the time of the end until He comes whose right it is.
Eze 21:28-32 give the announcement of judgment upon the Ammonites.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 18 The Sword of the Lord.
The Sword of the Lord.
v. 1. And the word of the Lord came unto me, evidently in answer to his complaint, saying,
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v. 2. Son of man, set thy face, in firm determination, toward Jerusalem, the capital of this same south country of which the Lord had just spoken in figurative language, and drop thy word, in a stream of denunciation and threatening, toward the holy places, the various parts of the Temple, and prophesy against the land of Israel,
v. 3. and say to the land of Israel, Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I am against thee, in stern opposition, and will draw forth My sword out of his sheath, in sending war with bloodshed and devastation, and will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked, all of them being included alike in the outward form of the punishment.
v. 4. Seeing, then, that I will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked, the Lord having the external aspect of His visitation upon Judah in mind, therefore, in fulfillment of this object, shall My sword go forth out of his sheath against all flesh from the South to the North, against all the inhabitants of the country,
v. 5. that all flesh may know that I, the Lord, have drawn forth My sword out of his sheath, to accomplish this sweeping overthrow, this fearful catastrophe; It shall not return any more, it must perform its mission of carnage and distress.
v. 6. Sigh, therefore, thou son of man, with the breaking of thy loins, as though the very seat of strength would burst; and with bitterness sigh before their eyes, in bitter sorrow and pain over the coming calamity.
v. 7. And it shall be when they say unto thee, Wherefore sighest thou? that thou shalt answer, For the tiding, because it cometh, because the message contained in the evil tidings would be fulfilled; and every heart shall melt, in utter discouragement and despair, and all hands shall be feeble, hanging down in a disheartened manner, and every spirit shall faint, be dull with apprehension and fear, and all knees shall be weak as water, in utter weakness; behold, it cometh and shall be brought to pass, saith the Lord God, for He was fully determined to carry out His punishment upon His rebellious children. This thought is now set forth in greater detail.
v. 8. Again the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
v. 9. Son of man, prophesy and say, Thus saith the Lord, Say, A sword, a sword, is sharpened, the repetition increasing the emphasis upon the deadliness of the weapon, and also furbished, ready for immediate use, for terrifying bloodshed;
v. 10. it is sharpened to make a sore slaughter, literally, "that, killing, it may kill"; it is furbished that it may glitter, the flash of its wielding striking terror to the hearts of all beholders. Should we, then, make mirth? It contemneth the rod of my son, as every tree, literally, "Shall we rejoice over the staff of my son, despising every tree?" or, "Shall we rejoice, saying, The scepter of my son despises every tree?" that is, the kingly power and authority of Judah could afford to despise every other power as inferior, on account of the Messianic promise to Judah.
v. 11. And he hath given it to be furbished that it may be handled, Judah himself causing the preparations for the slaughter of his own people; this sword is sharpened, and it is furbished, to give it into the hand of the slayer, so that the judgment upon Judah might take its course.
v. 12. Cry and howl, son of man, namely, from fear and grief; for it shall be upon My people, it shall be upon all the princes of Israel; terrors by reason of the sword shall be upon My people, the sword of slaughter being sure to accomplish its purpose. Smite therefore upon thy thigh, as a mark of extreme terror and pain.
v. 13. Because it is a trial, literally, "for a testing-out it is," and what if the sword contemn even the rod? What if the despising scepter shall not be? the power of Judah coming to an end before the advance of the Chaldean host; It shall be no more, saith the Lord God.
v. 14. Thou therefore, son of man, prophesy and smite thine hands together, in extreme agitation, and let the sword be doubled, the third time, the sword of the slain, so that its sharpness and strength will be increased in their terrible effects. It is the sword of the great men that are slain, for rank and standing shielded no man against the Chaldean attack and slaughter, which entereth into their privy chambers, literally, "which encircles them, which circulates about them," giving them no chance to escape.
v. 15. I have set the point of the sword against all their gates that their heart may faint and their ruins, literally, "their stumbling-blocks," that is, the occasions for them to fall by the sword, be multiplied. Ah! it, the sword, is made bright, it is wrapped up for the slaughter, sharpened and drawn for the fray, for the bloodshed. With this in mind, the sword is directly addressed.
v. 18. Go thee one way or other, literally, "gather thy strength," either on the right hand or on the left, striking wherever an opportunity offers, whithersoever thy face is set, the activity and rapidity of the sword-strokes thus being pictured.
v. 17. I will also smite Mine hands together, so Jehovah states, and I will cause My fury to rest, to find satisfaction in carrying out His vengeance. I, the Lord, have said it. Jehovah excels in long-suffering, but when His hour for punishing comes, He gives vent to His fury in a manner which is not readily forgotten. It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 15, 18, 21, 24, 25, 28, 30, 32 the word of Yahweh came
the word of Yahweh came
This is an idiom that is used to introduce something that God told his prophets or his people. See how you translated this in Ezekiel 3:16. AT: "Yahweh spoke this message" or "Yahweh spoke these words" (See: Idiom)
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Son of man
"Son of a human being" or "Son of humanity or "Mortal person" or "Human." God calls Ezekiel this to emphasize that Ezekiel is only a human being. God is eternal and powerful, but humans are not. See how you translated this in Ezekiel 2:1.
set your face toward Jerusalem
This is a command to stare at Jerusalem as a symbol of punishing the people there. AT: "stare at Jerusalem" or "stare at Jerusalem so that the people there will be harmed" (See: Symbolic Action)
set your face toward Jerusalem
Jerusalem was far away, so Ezekiel could not see it, but staring in that direction would be a symbol of harming it. See how you translated a similar phrase in Ezekiel 6:2 AT: "Turn toward Jerusalem and stare" or "stare toward Jerusalem so that the people there will be harmed" (See: Symbolic Action)
I will draw my sword from its sheath and cut off both the righteous person and the wicked person from you
This speaks of Yahweh causing these people to die as if he actually killed them with his own sword. AT: "I am opposed to you, and it will be as though I pull my sword from its sheath to kill both the righteous and the wicked people among you" (See: Metaphor)
the righteous person and the wicked person
"righteous people and wicked people." This refers to multiple people, not just one righteous person and one wicked person.
sheath
something that holds and covers a sword when no one is using it
cut off
This is a euphemism that means to kill. AT: "kill" (See: Euphemism)
translationWords
word of God
Son of Man
face
Jerusalem
sanctuary
prophet
sword
cut off
righteous
evil
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 6, 8, 12, 14, 18, 21, 23, 25, 28, 30 21:1-32 This chapter is unified by references to a…
21:1-32 This chapter is unified by references to a sword (21:3-5, 9, 11-12, 14-16, 19, 28-30), which in each case depicts God’s judgment.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.