I will set my jealousy against you, and they will deal with you in fury. They will take away your nose and your ears. Your remnant will fall by the sword. They will take your sons and your daughters; and the rest of you will be devoured by the fire.
Parallel Translations
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I will set my jealousy against you, and they will deal with you in fury. They will take away your nose and your ears. Your remnant will fall by the sword. They will take your sons and your daughters; and the rest of you will be devoured by the fire.
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And I will set my jealousy against thee, and they shall deal furiously with thee: they shall take away thy nose and thine ears; and thy remnant shall fall by the sword: they shall take thy sons and thy daughters; and thy residue shall be devoured by the fire.
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And I will set My jealousy against thee, and they shall deal with thee in fury; they shall take away thy nose and thine ears, and thy residue shall fall by the sword; they shall take thy sons and thy daughters, and thy residue shall be devoured by the fire.
Cross-references (15)
Passages linked to Ezekiel 23:25 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Ezekiel 23:47 The company will stone them with stones, and dispatch them with their swords. They will kill their sons and their daughters, and burn up their houses with fire.
- Exodus 34:14 for you shall worship no other god; for Yahweh, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.
- Ezekiel 5:13 “ ‘Thus my anger will be accomplished, and I will cause my wrath toward them to rest, and I will be comforted. They will know that I, Yahweh, have spoken in my zeal, when I have accomplished my wrath on them.
- Ezekiel 8:1-18 In the sixth year, in the sixth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I sat in my house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, the Lord Yahweh’s hand fell on me there. Then I saw, and behold, a likeness as the appearance of fire; from the appearance of his waist and downward, fire; and from his waist and upward, as the appearance of brightness, as it were glowing metal. He stretched out the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of my head; and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and the sky, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the gate of the inner court that looks toward the north; where there was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy. Behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, according to the appearance that I saw in the plain. Then he said to me, “Son of man, lift up your eyes now the way toward the north.” So I lifted up my eyes the way toward the north, and saw, northward of the gate of the altar this image of jealousy in the entry. He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they do? Even the great abominations that the house of Israel commit here, that I should go far off from my sanctuary? But you will again see yet other great abominations.” He brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, behold, a hole in the wall. Then he said to me, “Son of man, dig now in the wall.” When I had dug in the wall, I saw a door. He said to me, “Go in, and see the wicked abominations that they do here.” So I went in and looked, and saw every form of creeping things, abominable animals, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed around on the wall. Seventy men of the elders of the house of Israel stood before them. In the middle of them Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan stood, every man with his censer in his hand; and the smell of the cloud of incense went up. Then he said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in his rooms of imagery? For they say, ‘Yahweh doesn’t see us. Yahweh has forsaken the land.’ ” He said also to me, “You will again see more of the great abominations which they do.” Then he brought me to the door of the gate of Yahweh’s house which was toward the north; and I saw the women sit there weeping for Tammuz. Then he said to me, “Have you seen this, son of man? You will again see yet greater abominations than these.” He brought me into the inner court of Yahweh’s house; and I saw at the door of Yahweh’s temple, between the porch and the altar, there were about twenty-five men, with their backs toward Yahweh’s temple, and their faces toward the east. They were worshiping the sun toward the east. Then he said to me, “Have you seen this, son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? For they have filled the land with violence, and have turned again to provoke me to anger. Behold, they put the branch to their nose. Therefore I will also deal in wrath. My eye won’t spare, neither will I have pity. Though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, yet I will not hear them.”
- Ezekiel 15:6-7 Therefore the Lord Yahweh says: “As the vine tree among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so I will give the inhabitants of Jerusalem. I will set my face against them. They will go out from the fire, but the fire will devour them. Then you will know that I am Yahweh, when I set my face against them.
- Ezekiel 16:38-42 I will judge you, as women who break wedlock and shed blood are judged; and I will bring on you the blood of wrath and jealousy. I will also give you into their hand, and they will throw down your vaulted place, and break down your lofty places. They will strip you of your clothes, and take your beautiful jewels. They will leave you naked and bare. They will also bring up a company against you, and they will stone you with stones, and thrust you through with their swords. They will burn your houses with fire, and execute judgments on you in the sight of many women. I will cause you to cease from playing the prostitute, and you will also give no hire any more. So I will cause my wrath toward you to rest, and my jealousy will depart from you. I will be quiet, and will not be angry any more.
- Ezekiel 20:47-48 Tell the forest of the South, ‘Hear Yahweh’s word: The Lord Yahweh says, “Behold, I will kindle a fire in you, and it will devour every green tree in you, and every dry tree. The burning flame will not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north will be burned by it. All flesh will see that I, Yahweh, have kindled it. It will not be quenched.” ’ ”
- Hosea 2:4-5 Indeed, on her children I will have no mercy; for they are children of unfaithfulness; For their mother has played the prostitute. She who conceived them has done shamefully; for she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’
- Deuteronomy 29:20 Yahweh will not pardon him, but then Yahweh’s anger and his jealousy will smoke against that man, and all the curse that is written in this book will fall on him, and Yahweh will blot out his name from under the sky.
- Deuteronomy 32:21-22 They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God. They have provoked me to anger with their vanities. I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people. I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation. For a fire is kindled in my anger, that burns to the lowest Sheol, devours the earth with its increase, and sets the foundations of the mountains on fire.
- Proverbs 6:34 For jealousy arouses the fury of the husband. He won’t spare in the day of vengeance.
- Song of Solomon 8:6 Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm; for love is strong as death. Jealousy is as cruel as Sheol. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a very flame of Yahweh.
- Ezekiel 22:18-22 “Son of man, the house of Israel has become dross to me. All of them are bronze, tin, iron, and lead in the middle of the furnace. They are the dross of silver. Therefore the Lord Yahweh says: ‘Because you have all become dross, therefore, behold, I will gather you into the middle of Jerusalem. As they gather silver, bronze, iron, lead, and tin into the middle of the furnace, to blow the fire on it, to melt it; so I will gather you in my anger and in my wrath, and I will lay you there, and melt you. Yes, I will gather you, and blow on you with the fire of my wrath, and you will be melted in the middle of it. As silver is melted in the middle of the furnace, so you will be melted in the middle of it; and you will know that I, Yahweh, have poured out my wrath on you.’ ”
- Zephaniah 1:18 Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to deliver them in the day of Yahweh’s wrath, but the whole land will be devoured by the fire of his jealousy; for he will make an end, yes, a terrible end, of all those who dwell in the land.
- Revelation 18:8 Therefore in one day her plagues will come: death, mourning, and famine; and she will be utterly burned with fire; for the Lord God who has judged her is strong.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (15 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain They shall destroy thy princes and priests with the…
They shall destroy thy princes and priests with the rest of thy people.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Eze 23:25 And I will set my jealousy against…
Eze 23:25 And I will set my jealousy against thee, and they shall deal furiously with thee: they shall take away thy nose and thine ears; and thy remnant shall fall by the sword: they shall take thy sons and thy daughters; and thy residue shall be devoured by the fire.
Ver. 25. And they shall take away thy nose and thine ears.] He seemeth to allude to the custom of the Egyptians, which was to cut off the nose and the ears of the adulteress. {a} John, a certain antipope, was served in like sort by the Romans. {b} Paul II deserved to be so served; of whom it is recorded that he was so proud that he painted his face to please his concubine; and that he was once in a mind to have taken to himself the name of Formosus, but that he thought it was ominous because his predecessor of that name came to so ill an end. {c}
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{a} Rhodigin., lib. xxiv. cap. 45.
{b} Pet. Damian, lib. i. cap. 21.
{c} Jacob. Revius, De. Vit, Pont.
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 I will set my jealousy against thee; as a…
I will set my jealousy against thee; as a jealous provoked husband, I will be as much against thee as they are, their fury shall avenge my quarrel.
They shall deal furiously with thee; their disposition naturally is to furious wrath, my jealousy shall enkindle it more.
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They shall take away thy nose and thine ears; as thou hast prostituted thy beauty like a harlot, so they shall use thee as such, and mar thy beauty, and brand thee for ever, as thou deservest, and that thou mayst be as loathsome in thy deformity as ever thou wast thought lovely in thy beauty. This punishment of adulteresses is known to have been used, and is yet in use.
Thy remnant shall fall by the sword; or else, at last thy latter end shall be to fall by the sword, those that do not live under such reproach shall die by the sword of the enemy.
They shall take thy sons and thy daughters for captives and slaves for work, and somewhat a thousand times worse.
Thy residue; either the people who did hide themselves in vaults and cellars, and came not out; or else what remains of that the Chaldeans cannot carry away; all this shall be devoured by fire, as when the city was burnt.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And I will set my jealousy against thee, and…
And I will set my jealousy against thee, and they shall deal furiously with thee,.... As a jealous husband, enraged against his adulterous wife, falls upon her in his fury, and uses her with great severity; so the Jews having committed spiritual fornication, that is, idolatry, and departed from the Lord, he threatens to stir up the fury of his jealousy, and punish them severely by the Chaldeans, as follows:
they shall take away thy nose and thine ears, and thy remnant shall fall by the sword; as gallants use their harlots when they leave them, or jealous husbands their adulterous wives, disfiguring them, that they may be marked and known what they are, and be despised by others; and as has been the custom in some countries, particularly with the Egyptians, to cut off the noses of adulterous persons; here it is to be understood figuratively: by the "nose", according to Jarchi, Kimchi, and Ben Melech, is meant the king, who is higher than his people, as the nose is the highest part in a man's face; and by the "ears" the priest, who caused a noise to be heard when he entered into the temple with his bells; or rather because it was the priest's office to attend to the word of God, and teach it the people; in general, these denote everything that was excellent among the Jews, their city, temple, king, kingdom, princes, priests, and prophets, which should be demolished and removed; and by the remnant is meant the common people, that should come into the hands of the Chaldeans, and fall by their sword. So the Targum paraphrases it,
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"thy princes and thy nobles shall go into captivity, and thy people shall be killed with the sword:''
they shall take thy sons and thy daughters, and thy residue shall be devoured by the fire; take and carry their sons and daughters captive, and burn with fire the city left by them. Thus the Targum,
"they shall carry thy sons and daughters captive, and the beauty of thy land shall be burnt with fire;''
that is, the city of Jerusalem, the temple, the king's palaces, the houses of the great men, and others in it, which were all burnt with fire when taken by the Chaldeans, Jer 52:13.
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 I will set my jealousy - As a jealous…
I will set my jealousy - As a jealous provoked husband, I will be as much against thee as they are. Thy residue - Either the people, who hid themselves in vaults and cellars, or what the Chaldeans cannot carry away, all this shall be devoured by fire.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 25. Shall take away thy nose] A punishment…
Verse 25. Shall take away thy nose] A punishment frequent among the Persians and Chaldeans, as ancient authors tell. Adulteries were punished in this way; and to this Martial refers: -
Quis tibi persuasit nares abscindere moecho?
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"Who has counselled thee to cut off the adulterer's nose?"
Women were thus treated in Egypt. See Calmet.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Eze 23:25-27. I will set my jealousy against thee,…
Eze 23:25-27. I will set my jealousy against thee, &c. — I will be against thee, as a jealous man is against his wife; and they shall deal furiously — And they, as the executioners of my wrath, shall act toward thee as persons provoked to great fury. And they shall take away thy nose, &c. — A punishment of adultery which rage sometimes dictated. As husbands in that case render those women deformed whose beauty hath been too pleasing to strangers, so shall the Chaldeans deface all the glories and ornaments of Jerusalem, and after they have slain and carried captive its inhabitants, shall set the city on fire, and reduce it to a heap of ashes. The mutilations mentioned in this verse were common among the Chaldeans. St. Jerome assures us, that they frequently cut off the nose and the ears of adulterers. And this was practised toward adulteresses in Egypt. They shall also strip thee, &c. — As lewd, disgraced harlots and captives were used chap. Eze 16:39. And take away thy fair jewels — All thy rich, beautiful ornaments, which shall be a prey to the enemy. Thus will I make thy lewdness to cease — “These severe judgments shall effectually deter thee from idolatry, and make thee abhor the least approaches toward it. Accordingly we find that after the captivity the Jews never returned to their former idolatrous practices.” — Lowth. And thy whoredom brought from the land of Egypt — Thy idolatries which thou broughtest with thee from Egypt, where thou didst first learn idolatry, and ever hast had an inclination to it.
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 Take away thy nose and thine ears - Alluding…
Take away thy nose and thine ears - Alluding to the barbarous custom of mutilating prisoners in the east Dan 2:5. An Egyptian law prescribed this punishment for an adulteress.
Fire - A mode of capital punishment Jer 29:22; Dan. 3.
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 Jealousy, the most violent of passions. (Calmet) --- So…
Jealousy, the most violent of passions. (Calmet) --- So the Chaldeans are styled, as Assur is the rod, Isaias x. 5. (Worthington) --- Ears, the punishment of adulteresses: both king and priests suffer. (St. Jerome) --- Thus the captives were probably treated. (Calmet) See Seneca, Ira. iii. 20. --- Fire, by Ismahel, chap. xix. 14.
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).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain take away thy nose . . . ears--Adulteresses were…
take away thy nose . . . ears--Adulteresses were punished so among the Egyptians and Chaldeans. Oriental beauties wore ornaments in the ear and nose. How just the retribution, that the features most bejewelled should be mutilated! So, allegorically as to Judah, the spiritual adulteress.
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 25. I will set my jealousy against thee —…
25. I will set my jealousy against thee — See note Eze_5:13.
They shall take away thy nose and thine ears — So Babylonian captives were often mutilated (for example, Zedekiah, Jer_52:11). It was also the practice among some ancient peoples to mutilate the adulteress.
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Thy remnant… thy residue — The same word in both cases. The picture of the adulteress gives way for a moment to the picture of Jerusalem in flames and her inhabitants falling by the sword (compare 5-7).
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 25. “Jealousy” differs little from fury, ch. Eze_16:38.
25. “Jealousy” differs little from fury, ch. Eze_16:38.
take away thy nose] Reference is either to the ancient practice (as in Egypt) of mutilating the adulteress, or to the habit of disfiguring the captives, cf. Eze_12:13; Eze_16:40.
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 (25) Take away thy nose and thine ears.—The barbarous…
(25) Take away thy nose and thine ears.—The barbarous custom of mutilating prisoners prevailed in the East from the earliest times; it is here mentioned with especial reference to the destruction of the attractiveness of the adulteress Aholibah, and the particulars of Eze_23:26 have the same purpose. (Comp. Eze_16:39.) In Egypt adultery was punished by cutting off the nose and ears.
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 They shall take away thy nose and thine ears,…
They shall take away thy nose and thine ears, etc. (For instances of this or like mutilation, in the case of prisoners of war, see the case of Zedekiah. (Jer_52:11; Herod., 3:69, 154.) Possibly it may have been known to Ezekiel as a punishment for the adulterer or adulteress in Egypt and other countries, and if so, he might have selected it as specially appropriate to his parable (Martial, "Epigr.," 2:83; 3:85). Thy residue shall be consumed with fire. The Hebrew word for "residue" (not that usually so translated) is the same as that previously translated "remnant." In the first clause it clearly points to the men of Jerusalem who are left after the capture. In the second its meaning is determined by the fact that it follows after the deportation of the sons and daughters. All that was left in the parable, of the mutilated trunk of the adulteress, in the history, of the devastated city, sc. the empty houses should be destroyed by fire.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 23:25-29 Stripping an adulterous wife naked—to expose in public…
23:25-29 Stripping an adulterous wife naked—to expose in public what she had done in private—was a punishment for adultery (see study note on 16:35-38). The Babylonians similarly stripped Jerusalem and Judah of everything valuable and exposed them to their own shame.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.