Moreover Yahweh’s word came to me, saying, “Son of man, set your face against Mount Seir, and prophesy against it, and tell it, ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “Behold, I am against you, Mount Seir, and I will stretch out my hand against you. I will make you a desolation and an astonishment. I will lay your cities waste, and you will be desolate. Then you will know that I am Yahweh.
“ ‘ “Because you have had a perpetual hostility, and have given over the children of Israel to the power of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time of the iniquity of the end; therefore, as I live,” says the Lord Yahweh, “I will prepare you for blood, and blood will pursue you. Since you have not hated blood, therefore blood will pursue you. Thus I will make Mount Seir an astonishment and a desolation. I will cut off from it him who passes through and him who returns. I will fill its mountains with its slain. The slain with the sword will fall in your hills and in your valleys and in all your watercourses. I will make you a perpetual desolation, and your cities will not be inhabited. Then you will know that I am Yahweh.
“ ‘ “Because you have said, ‘These two nations and these two countries will be mine, and we will possess it;’ whereas Yahweh was there: therefore, as I live,” says the Lord Yahweh, “I will do according to your anger, and according to your envy which you have shown out of your hatred against them; and I will make myself known among them when I judge you. You will know that I, Yahweh, have heard all your insults which you have spoken against the mountains of Israel, saying, ‘They have been laid desolate. They have been given us to devour.’ You have magnified yourselves against me with your mouth, and have multiplied your words against me. I have heard it.” The Lord Yahweh says: “When the whole earth rejoices, I will make you desolate. As you rejoiced over the inheritance of the house of Israel because it was desolate, so I will do to you. You will be desolate, Mount Seir, and all Edom, even all of it. Then they will know that I am Yahweh.’ ”
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv2, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11 Where the Edomites dwelt.
Where the Edomites dwelt.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–15 Eze 35:1 Moreover the word of the LORD came…
Eze 35:1 Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Ver. 1. Moreover the word of the Lord.] 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 vv2–15 Put thyself in a posture looking towards Mount Seir,…
Put thyself in a posture looking towards Mount Seir, but with a stern and menacing countenance; the phrase you meet Eze 20:46; 21:2; 25:2.
Mount Seir; the country for the inhabitants of it, as is usual in Scripture. This was a mountainous country, yet fruitful. It was so called from the old lord of it, Seir the Horite, or mountaineer from Hor, whose posterity were ousted of it by Esau’s posterity, Deu 2:12.
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Prophesy against it; foretell what sad things are coming on them.
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Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 10 Mount Seir was mentioned as partner with Moab in…
Mount Seir was mentioned as partner with Moab in one of the threatenings we had before (Eze 25:8); but here it is convicted and condemned by itself, and has woes of its own. The prophet must boldly set his face against Edom, and prophesy particularly against it; for the God of Israel has said, O Mount Seir! I am against thee. Note, Those that have God against them have the word of God against them, and the face of his ministers, nor dare they prophesy any good to them, but evil. The prophet must tell the Edomites that God has a controversy with them, and let them know,
I. What is the cause and ground of that controversy, Eze 35:5. God espouses his people's cause, and will plead it, takes what is done against them as done against himself, and will reckon for it; and it is upon their account that God now contends with the Edomites. 1. Because of the enmity they had against the people of God, that was rooted in the heart. "Thou hast had a perpetual hatred to them, to the very name of an Israelite." The Edomites kept up an hereditary malice against Israel, the same that Esau bore to Jacob, because he got the birth-right and the blessing. Esau had been reconciled to Jacob, had embraced and kissed him (Gen. 33), and we do not find that ever he quarrelled with him again. But the posterity of Esau would never be reconciled to the seed of Jacob, but hated them with a perpetual hatred. Note, Children will be more apt to imitate the vices than the virtues of their parents, and to tread in the steps of their sin than in the steps of their repentance. Parents should therefore be careful not to set their children any bad example, for though, through the grace of God, they may return, and prevent the mischief of what they have done amiss to themselves, they may not be able to obviate the bad influence of it upon their children. It is strange how deeply rooted national antipathies sometimes are, and how long they last; but it is not to be wondered at that profane Edomites hate pious Israelites, since the old enmity that was put between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent (Gen 3:15) will continue to the end. Marvel not if the world hate you. 2. Because of the injuries they had done to the people of God. They shed their blood by the force of the sword, in the time of their calamity; they did not attack them as fair and open enemies, but laid wait for them, to cut off those of them that had escaped (Oba 1:14), or they drove them back upon the sword of the pursuers, by which they fell. It was cowardly, as well as barbarous, to take advantage of their distress; and for neighbours, with whom they had lived peaceably, to smite them secretly when strangers openly invaded them. It was in the time that their iniquity had an end, when the measure of it was full and destruction came. Note, Even those that suffer justly, and for their sins, are yet to be pitied and not trampled upon. If the father corrects one child, he expects the rest should tremble at it, not triumph in it.
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II. What should be the effect and issue of that controversy. If God stretch out his hand against the country of Edom, he will make it most desolate, Eze 35:3. Desolation and desolation. 1. The inhabitants shall be slain with the sword (Eze 35:6): I will prepare thee unto blood. Edom shall be gradually weakened, and so be the more easily conquered, and the enemy shall gather strength the more effectually to subdue it. Thus preparation is in the making a great while before for this destruction. Thou hast not hated blood; it implies, "Thou hast delighted in it and thirsted after it." Those that do not keep up a rooted hatred of sin, when a temptation to it is very strong, will be in danger of yielding to it. Some read it, "Unless thou hatest blood" (that is, "unless thou dost repent, and put off this bloody disposition) blood shall pursue thee." And then it is an intimation that the judgment may yet be prevented by a thorough reformation. If he turn not, he will whet his sword, Psa 7:12. But, if he turn, he will lay it by. Blood shall pursue thee, the guilt of the blood which thou hast shed or the judgment of blood; thy blood-thirsty enemies shall pursue thee, which way soever thou seekest to make thy escape. A great and general slaughter shall be made of the Idumeans, such as had been foretold (Isa 34:6): The mountains and hills, the valleys and rivers, shall be filled with the slain, Eze 35:8. The pursuers shall overtake those that flee and shall give no quarter, but put them all to the sword. Note, When God comes to make inquisition for blood those that have shed the blood of his Israel shall have blood given them to drink, for they are worthy. Satia te sanguine quem sitisti - Glut thyself with blood, after which thou hast thirsted. 2. The country shall be laid waste. The cities shall be destroyed (Eze 35:4), the country made most desolate (Eze 35:7); for God will cut off from both him that passes out and him that returns; and when the inhabitants are cut off that should keep the cities in repair they will decay and go into ruins, and when those are cut off that should till the land that will soon be over-run with briers and thorns and become a wilderness. Note, Those that help forward the desolations of Israel may expect to be themselves made desolate. And that which completes the judgment is that Edom shall be made perpetual desolations (Eze 35:9) and the cities shall never return to their former state, nor the inhabitants of them come back from their captivity and dispersion. Note, Those that have a perpetual enmity to God and his people, as the carnal mind has, can expect no other than to be made a perpetual desolation. Implacable malice will justly be punished with irreparable ruin.
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John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–15 Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me,....…
Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me,.... After the prophecy concerning the shepherds of Israel, and the goats of the flock, and of their oppressions of the sheep and lambs, the weak of the flock; and concerning the Messiah, and the blessings of grace promised the church in the latter day; came another concerning the destruction of her enemies, under the name of Seir or Edom:
saying: as follows:
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John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 14 A prophecy against Edom for their hatred to Israel,…
A prophecy against Edom for their hatred to Israel, ver. 1- 13. Their ruin shall be perpetual, ver. 14, 15.
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Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15 The prophet having formerly predicted the ruin of Edom,…
CHAPTER XXXV
The prophet having formerly predicted the ruin of Edom, the
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same with Seir, (Eze 25:12,)
now resumes and pursues the subject at greater length,
intimating, as did also Isaiah, (Isa 21:11-12,)
that though other nations should recover their liberty after
the fall of the Babylonian monarchy, the Edomites should
continue in bondage for their very despiteful behaviour towards
the children of Israel in the day of their calamity, 1-15.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXXV
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Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 7, 13 Eze 35:1-6. Moreover, the word of the Lord, &c.…
Eze 35:1-6. Moreover, the word of the Lord, &c. — “The prophet goes on to show, that the same reason which would operate in favour of the Jews, would not operate in favour of the heathen; especially not in favour of the Jews’ relations, the Edomites: for they showed no mercy, and therefore deserved to receive none; and, because they had perpetual hatred, they were to be made a perpetual desolation.” — Obs. on Books. Set thy face against mount Seir — Mount Seir is the same with Idumea: see Deu 2:5. I will lay thy cities waste, &c. — To the same effect Jeremiah prophesied against them, Jer 49:7, &c., where see the notes. Because thou hast had a perpetual hatred, &c. — See note on Eze 25:12. In the time that their iniquity had an end — That is, either at the time when God exercised against them the last chastisement of their iniquity; or at the time of their extreme affliction, when the anger of God was most inflamed against them. It is the greatest of all cruelties to insult the afflicted, and to add new sorrows to the unhappy: see Calmet. Therefore I will prepare thee unto blood — I will expose thee to great slaughter. Since thou hast not hated blood, &c. — Since thou hast loved cruelty, and taken delight in shedding blood, vengeance and slaughter shall pursue thee, and thou shalt fall into the hands of those that will be as eager to shed thine.
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Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1, 5, 9, 10 In Ezek. 35–36 we see the devastation of Edom,…
In Ezek. 35–36 we see the devastation of Edom, and the restoration of Israel. Edom was included among the nations against which Ezekiel prophesied Eze 25:12-14. But its fuller doom was reserved for this place, because Edom was one of the surrounding nations that profited at first by Judah’s fall, and because it helps by way of contrast to bring out in a marked way the better future designed for Israel. Edom is the God-hating, God-opposing power, ever distinguished for its bitter hatred against Israel; and so the ruin of Edom is the triumph of Israel in the power of God.
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Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv2, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15 Face. Address, or speak without fearing any man. (Worthington)…
Face. Address, or speak without fearing any man. (Worthington) --- Seir: Idumea. He speaks of its devastation, both by Nabuchodonosor on the side of Moab, and by the Machabees in what remained, Jeremias xxvii. 7., and 1 Machabees iv. 60., and xiv. 33. (Calmet)
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 2. Against Edom, with respect to the Mountains of…
2. Against Edom, with respect to the Mountains of Israel, in consequence of Jehovah’s Sanctification of His own Name (Ch 35–36)
1 Ch. 35 And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, 2Son of man, set thy face towards [against] the Mount [the mountain range of] Seir, and prophesy concerning 3[against] it; And say to it, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I am against thee, Mount Seir, and I stretch out My hand over thee, and I 4make thee a waste and a desolation. Thy cities will I make ruins, and thou shalt be a waste, and dost know that I am Jehovah. 5Because thou hast enmity for ever, and deliveredst the children of Israel into the hands of the sword, in the time of their calamity, in the time of the guilt of the end; 6Therefore, as I live,—sentence of the Lord Jehovah,—blood will I make thee, and blood shall pursue thee; where thou hatedst not blood, there shall blood 7pursue thee. And I make Mount Seir a desolation and a waste, and I cut off 8from it him that passes over, and him that returns. And I fill his mountains with his slain; thy hills, and thy valleys, and all thy ravines, the slain with 9the sword shall fall in them. I will give thee up to perpetual desolations, and thy cities shall not be inhabited, and ye know that I am Jehovah 10Because thou saidst, The two nations (haggoiim) and the two lands, mine 11shall they be, and we possess it (Jerusalem?), and Jehovah was there: Therefore, as I live,—sentence of the Lord Jehovah,—so do I according to thy anger and according to thy envy, which thou out of thy hatred hast shown towards them; and I make Myself known among them as Him who shall 12judge thee. And thou knowest that I Jehovah have heard all thy scornful speeches which thou utteredst against the mountains of Israel, saying, Lay 13waste, to us they are given for food. And ye magnified yourselves against Me with your mouth, and heaped up your words against Me; I have heard 14Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, as [when] the whole land [the whole earth] rejoices, 15I will make thee a desolation. According to thy rejoicing for the inheritance of the house of Israel because it was made desolate, so will I do to thee; a desolation shalt thou be, Mount Seir, and all Edom, the whole of it, and they know that I am Jehovah.
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Eze_35:3. Sept.: ... δωσω σε ἐρημον κ. ἐρημωθηση. Vulg.: … desolatum atque desertum.
Eze_35:5. ... γενεσθαι σε ἐχθραν αἰωνιον κ. ἐνεκαθισας τω οἰκω ʼΙσρ. δολωἐν καιρω ἐχθιρωαν ἐν χειρι μαχαιρας ἐν καιρω ἀδικας ἐπ’ ἐσχατων,
Eze_35:6. ... ἐι μην εἰς αἱμα ἡμαρτιες κ. αιμα σε διωξεται. Vulg: et cum sanguinem oderis—
Eze_35:7. ... ἀνθρωπονς κ. κτηνη. (Anoth. read.: ומשמה, et stuporem.)
Eze_35:9. Anoth. read.: תשובנה, revertentur.
Eze_35:11. Sept.: ... γνωσθησομαι σοι—(Anoth. read.: באפך, as also יבקנאתך.)
Eze_35:15. ... κ.παδα ἡ ʼΙδονμαια ἐξολεθρενθησεται—(Anoth. read.: כלה, totus ipse.)
EXEGETICAL REMARKS
In looking forward to the restoration of Israel, Ezekiel 34, the false shepherds chiefly furnished the connection; in what follows regarding Israel as a nation, Edom and its hatred form the connecting link. Comp. also what is said in p. 245, and Doct. Reflection 5, p. 246. Hävernick aptly points out the “glaring contrast” to the preceding. “The light of Israel is set in relief by the shadow of Edom” (Hengst.). After the “marvellous blessings of the theocracy,” comes “the curse which overtakes Edom.” Now since, as regards the blessings, the true Israel in Christ, that is, redeemed humanity, has ultimately to be looked to, so the curse here is attached not so much to the heathen world (Häv.) as to the heathenish, that is, the Antichristian world. Hengstenberg thinks that the reference is not to the heathen world “at large,” but “only to the small neighbouring nations, which stand in a similar relation as Edom, and resemble it in intensity of hatred”! Yet, as he says, Edom appears here “as a radically corrupt people, that is to have no share in the Messianic salvation.” Our prophecy has nothing to do with Eze_34:29 (against Keil). Cocceius maintains that, as the dismissal of the shepherds formed the subject in ch.34, so the subject here is the dissolution, by the coming of Christ, as foretold in Num_24:18-19, of the Jewish nation, represented here by Edom and Seir. The Jewish nation is called Seir per synecdochen partis, “because Edom was included in the Jewish community; the Idumæa, formed a part of the nation, and the kings were of Edomite descent; just as the land of Palestine is called Idumæa, whence Christ comes, Isaiah 63.” The signification of Edom is here, however, mainly symbolical and not literal, as in Eze_25:12 sq. Hengstenberg makes the prophecy there against Edom to be resumed here on the “report given by the fugitive of the injustice committed at the destruction of Jerusalem,” etc. (??).
[“Superficial readers will be disposed to ask, what has Edom to do here? The Lord’s judgment has already been pronounced against Edom (Eze_25:12-14), among the enemies of the covenant-people; and this fresh denunciation against it is inserted among predictions which, both before and after, have immediate respect to the covenant-people themselves. It is, however, in its proper place; and brings out another element in the prosperity which the Lord promises to His Church and people. It gives body and prominence to the thought expressed in 35:28 of the preceding chapter, that ‘they should no more be a prey to the heathen.’ So far from it, the prophet now declares that the worst and bitterest of all the heathen shall be utterly destroyed and made desolate; and that those who were then rejoicing over Israel’s calamities must themselves become a spoil, without any prospect of recovery”.—Fairbairn’s Ezekiel, p. 381.—W. F.]
Eze_35:2-9. Against Edom, i.e. his Bloodthirsty Enmity to Israel
Eze_35:2. Eze_6:2 (Eze_25:2; Eze_28:21; Eze_19:2).—Gen_36:9.—הַר שֵׂעִיד, the woody mountain region in the south of that part of Palestine which lies to the east of Jordan, from the Dead Sea to the Ælanitic Gulf; the land for the people, corresponding antithetically to the prominence given to the land in the foregoing (Eze_34:25 sq.).
Eze_35:3. Eze_34:10; Eze_13:8; Eze_13:20; Eze_26:3, et passim.—Eze_25:7; Eze_25:13; Eze_6:14.—Eze_33:28-29.
Eze_35:4. Exemplification. Thy cities and חָרְבָּה ranked together; the latter not exactly: “destruction,” but rather: “destroyed,” heaps of ruins.—Eze_12:20; Eze_14:15-16.
Eze_35:5. Enmity for ever, as in Eze_25:15, but more expressive here on account of the kinship between Edom and Israel (comp. Psa_137:7). Infinitive construction passing over to the verb fin. The enmity is an abiding one; the next word, נָגַר (Hiphil, imperf. ap.), is an expression of that enmity. Besides, in this as well as in the expression בְנֵי־יִשְׂ׳, the people already come distinctly out from the land. אֵיד is: oppression; hence: burden, calamity, misfortune, farther and sufficiently defined by what immediately follows (comp. Ezekiel 21:30, 34 [ Eze_21:25; Eze_21:29]). Oppression of brethren calls at once for the exercise of compassion, which is best manifested where no one is innocent; when guilt makes the end, ancient enmity should not be let loose (Oba_1:13).
Eze_35:6. לְדָם, is there an allusion here to אֱדֹם? a suggesting, although not an express naming of Edom? In this case could there be also an antithetic allusion to “Adam” (men) in Eze_34:31, and at the same time an allusion to Gen_25:30!? At all events, the fourfold repetition of דָם has some significance. Edom shall, as it were, become entirely blood (Eze_16:38), and still farther, blood shall follow him, which might mean that he will leave behind him a track of blood, or, the effusion of blood will follow him; so that by this phrase, which is again repeated at the end of the verse, the words: blood will I make thee, are explained to mean: the effusion of blood, namely, of thy own blood, shall cleave fast to thy footsteps (comp. Eze_35:8). [Hävern.: I will make the event authenticate thy name, and blood-guiltiness shall pursue thee everywhere as a murderer, to cry for vengeance and to give thee up to punishment. Ewald, who reads מַעַשְׂךָ instead of אֶעֶשְׂךָ: “because thy inclination is after blood, blood shall,” etc.] אִם־לֹא דָם׳ scarcely implies an oath; affirmative, as Hengst.: “forsooth thou hast hated blood,” inasmuch as the murderer hates the blood which he sheds, in which is the hated life of the murdered man; and although the significant play upon the word דָם might include a reference to the blood-relationship of Edom and Israel (Theodoret), had not the Hebrew word for that been בָּשָׂר, it is simpler to adhere to the negation that Edom thus hated not bloodshed. [“The most peculiar part of the verse is the clause אִם־לֹא דָם שָׂנֵאתָ, which not only our version, but also nearly all commentators, render: ‘since thou hast not hated blood.’ But no examples can be produced to justify such a rendering, and the remark of Hitzig, that as the words stand, they must be regarded as an affirmative protestation, is quite correct. Taking blood in the usual sense, I do not see why, in a passage so strongly epigrammatic and alliteral as this, the hatred of it might not be affirmed of Edom; for the grand point on which the desires of the Edomites were centred was life, life in themselves, as opposed to the bloody extermination they sought for Israel; the shedding of their blood was what they would on no account think of. I take the meaning to be, therefore: The preservation of thy life is what thou art intent on securing; the thought of blood being shed among thee is what thou art putting far from thee as an object of aversion; but God’s purposes are contrary to thine, and what thou hatest He will send—blood shall pursue thee.”—Fairbairn’s Ezekiel.—W. F.]
Eze_35:7. שִׁמֲמָה instead of שִׁמְּמָה, the same as שְׁמָמָה. The land is made so because the people fill it only as slain (Eze_35:8). There is no going to and fro, no traffic, Eze_33:28. [Sept. according to Eze_25:13.]
Eze_35:8. Eze_32:5 sq., 31:12. Hence the desolation of death.
Eze_35:9. שִׁמ׳ עוֹלָם, a rejoinder to עוֹלָם אֵיבַת, ver 5. Instead of תֵּישַׁבְנָה, from יָשַׁב (Keil), to be read with י quiescent, the Qeri has תָשֹׁבְנָה, from שוּב, “not to return” to its original condition. Hengst.: “thy cities shall not sit,” but lie prostrate (Eze_26:20).
Eze_35:10-15. Against Edom, his Covetousness towards Israel
Eze_35:10. יַעַך, parallel to Eze_35:5. The other side of Edom’s guilt in respect to Israel. With significant allusion to their separation, Israel and Judah are called שְׁנֵי הַנּוֹיִם. In speaking thus, Edom considered them as heathen nations, and not the people of Jehovah; or this is the prophet’s representation. Hence שְׁתֵּי הָאֲרָצוֹת can mean nothing else than the land of Israel and the land of Judah, not Idumæa and the land of Judah (Jerome). Grotius sees here a reference to the Assyrian and also the Babylonian captivity. וִירַשְׁנוּהָ, neuter (Keil): the one land as well as the other (Rosenm.); Hitzig: referring to the plur. fem. If we understand the clause וַיהוָֹה שָׁם׳ of Jehovah’s presence in the temple, then for believers ideally, as it also in reality was in the kingdom of Israel, it comes into consideration for both kingdoms, and we may, with other expositors, make the suffix refer to Jerusalem. On this comp. Eze_9:3; Eze_11:23. But certainly the divine presence in the temple was only the sensible symbol of Jehovah’s governing agency among His people generally; hence, finally, the disregarding of Israel’s divine election, the ignoring of this, was the mistake in the reckoning which Edom made. Better thus than to say that Edom insulted Jehovah by coveting His possession (Hitzig); or (as Keil): “as if Jehovah were a feeble and unreal God, unable to protect His people;” but that which had been said in Israel, Eze_8:12 (Eze_9:9), in excuse for heathen superstition, the heathen unbelief of Edom repeats here with respect to Israel’s eternal destiny, which rests on the ground of Jehovah’s covenant revelation. It was practical atheism in both cases,—childish neglect of God in Israel, but active hostility to Him in Edom. Edom’s reckoning took sin into account, calling to remembrance the injury done by Jacob, the father of Israel, to Esau, their ancestor; but took no account of grace, and never thought that “Jehovah” should come into consideration. [From Eze_35:12 שָׁם has been also interpreted as referring to Idumæa.]
Eze_35:11. לָכֵך׳, as in Eze_35:6. From the hating (infinitive) come anger and envy, expressing themselves not only in word (Eze_35:10), but also in deed (עָשִׂיתָה). Jehovah acts according to Edom’s doings.—The making known בָּם, not, as Hengst., among “the children of Israel,” which is too remote (Eze_35:5), but among the two נּוֹיִם (Eze_35:10), just as תהְיֶינָה there refers to the two lands coveted by Edom. The making known among Israel shall happen as well as the judgment on Edom—comp. Eze_28:25 (Eze_26:20); not, however, as if both had like proportion (Hengst.), but because the making known is effected by the judgment. כַּאְשֶׁר, as Him who, etc.
Eze_35:12. Thus Edom shall know by experience that Jehovah does not leave unpunished such a saying as Edom has said. After speaking of doings in Eze_35:11, there is now a return to the sayings (Eze_35:10). He has heard all. The mountains of Israel, preparing for Eze_36:1, come forth in antithesis to the mountain range of Seir. Qeri שָׁמֵמוּ, simplifying, but needlessly, for the abrupt and significant שָׁמֵמָה (Eze_35:15), 3 perf. fem. sing., may refer to the land or be understood of what is meant; or we may with Rosenm. read: שְׁמָמָה, “a waste,” Eze_33:28. The following plural brings in the people.—Eze_34:5; Eze_34:8; Eze_34:10.
Eze_35:13. Thus their sayings were not only insults to Israel (עַל־הָרֵי יִשׂ׳), land and people, but at the same time boastings with their mouth heaped up against Jehovah (עָלַי), who was there (Eze_35:10), wherewith they already, as it were, took joyful possession of the land. They exulted over Jehovah with haughty words and much speaking. But now
Eze_35:14—He who hitherto has heard all these boastings speaks and acts (אֱעֶשֶׂה׳).According as the one happens, so shall the other happen to thee. [Ewald: “I will make thee a sport (a comedy) to the whole earth,” etc. Hitzig: While all the world rejoices even over thy desolation (?).] However natural it is at כָּל־הָאָרֶץ to think of the “whole earth,” such a thought is very foreign to the connection. Hävernick, on the other hand, insists on the necessary harmony with the following verse, according to which the interpretation must be: as all Edom exulted, so also should all Edom be subjected to punishment. The curious explanation, to take כְּ here as an adverb of time (so also Hitzig), and in Eze_35:15 as a word of comparison, readily suggests itself. But better (Kimchi), the one כְּ illustrates the other; hence כֵּן expressly in Eze_35:15, as also the infinitive שְׂמֹחַ here points to שִׂמְחָתְךָ Eze_35:15. To rejoice and desolation must correspond to one another, while the latter, however, must be the punishment. For and instead of joy of the whole land, desolation now. The לָּךְ at the end of the verse already intimates what land is meant. There is not a word said in the whole chapter of the “earth”; it is always land as opposed to land, the mountain range of Seir to the mountains of Israel (Eze_35:12). Hengst. best shows what the “whole earth” introduces into the clear text: “The glorious salvation which comes to Zion is a subject of rejoicing for the whole earth, because it gives testimony to the glory of God, who can only bless His people, so that in them all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, Deu_32:43 sq.; Isa_42:10 sq.; Psa_97:1; Psa_48:3; Lam_2:15.” [Klief.: “But when all that bears the name of Edom shall, through the judgment of God, be subjected to devastation, then the whole earth shall rejoice, as Edom rejoiced when Jerusalem fell.” Where is such an extravagant idea even hinted at in the text? Eze_36:2; Eze_36:5 speaks only of Edom’s exultation. Hence Keil thus applies כִּשְׂמֹחַ: “When joy shall be prepared for all the world (all mankind!), then shall,” etc.]
Eze_35:15. That the rejoicing of Edom, which is to be requited to him, had respect to the inheritance, etc., that is, the land given to the family of Israel as distinguished from Esau-Edom (Genesis 27; Gen_28:4), is now brought in at the close; and as thereby כִּשְׂמֹחַ in Eze_35:14 is explained, so the motive for שְׂמָמָה is given by עַל אֲשֶׁר־שָׁמֵמָה. In accordance with this, כֵּן אֶעֱשֶׂה־לָּךְ׳ repeats אֶעֱשֶׂה־לָּךְ שְׂמָמָה (Eze_35:14), and consequently is not to be interpreted, with Hitzig: so will I make others rejoice over thy desolation. שְׁמָמָה תִחְיֶה, which forms the complement to כֵּן אֶעֱ׳, is the second, not the third person. The following feminine suffix indicates the land, so that with כָּל־אֱדוֹם כֻּלָּהּ the meaning also of כָּל־הָאָרֶץ (Eze_35:14) is quite clear. Mount Seir, and all Edom, the whole of it, is set in contrast to the inheritance of the house of Israel.
DOCTRINAL REFLECTIONS
1. As the ideas by which the national life of Israel was upheld express themselves in a great variety and fulness of forms of worship, as to places, times, materials, and persons, so also in the course of the divine history of Israel, individuals and whole tribes and nations became symbolized into spiritual, and also unspiritual, very expressive types of character, which may serve as studies for the minister of the gospel.
2. The symbolical or typical signification of Esau-Edom, while treated more historically in Ezekiel 25. (p. 246), comes out with perfect clearness when we take also Hebrews 12 into consideration. Whether he is called (Heb_12:16) πόρνος in the literal sense, with reference to Gen_26:34 sq., or in a figurative and spiritual sense, so that the expression is synonymous with βέβηλος, at all events the picture given of Edom in Ezekiel corresponds to the latter sense of the word. To Edom, Judah and Israel (divide et impera in his thoughts) are merely nations and lands. Anything higher, as that Jehovah was there, enters not into his thoughts. It is the ordinary profane kind of a materialism, which takes its stand on natural rights, and does not want to know of grace and election, and so repays Jacob’s sin with abiding enmity, and actually carries out as Edom (Eze_35:5) what Esau only threatened (Gen_27:41); as, on the other hand, the carnal appetite (βρώσεως μιᾶς) is still exhibited in Eze_35:12 of our chapter (לְאָכְלָה).
3. In this sense the elder son Esau forms the Sadducean parallel to the Pharisaic elder son, Luk_15:25 sq.
4. There is also in Ezekiel an ἀπεδοκιμάσθη, namely, rejection which is complete desolation. As Esau receives not the blessing which he wished to inherit, so the inheritance of the house of Israel does not fall to Edom to devour, however often and widely he opened his mouth to snatch it (Eze_35:13). The anger and jealousy of Edom are as vain (Eze_35:11) as the tears of Esau (Heb_12:17). Instead of μετανοια, Edom exhibits perpetual enmity and his hatred.
5. Israel has now, on the contrary, eaten up Edom, incorporated it into itself by circumcision. Thus the two who were separated, finally come together. But the contest, which began even in their mother’s, womb, continues to the end. Jacob-Israel subdued the elder brother, but in this way the family of the Idumæan Herod obtained the Jewish sovereignty, and the persecution of the true Israel (Mat_2:13 sq.) was carried out to the full by the Edomite spirit of murder which took possession of the people (Mat_27:25). Because the Herodians favoured and imported Roman heathenism, the circus, wild-beast fights, etc., the conceptions of Edom and Rome run into each other in the later Jewish writers.
HOMILETIC HINTS
Eze_35:1 sq. After the blessing upon His people, and their revival and prosperity, comes now the contrast, namely, the curse upon the ungodly, and their desolation and miserable end.—“For who else are the Idumæans but Esau, who always persecutes Israel (Gal_4:20)? That raises up our hope when we are tried in the present. For if Christ is our Redeemer, He has redeemed us completely, and we have not to fear the ungodly. If suffering is a means to conduct us to the height of salvation, then the temporal prosperity of the wicked only increases the cause of their destruction; and one day there comes a change of affairs, when we experience the goodness of God, and they His deserved wrath” (Heim-Hoffmann).—“He who has God against him has also God’s word against him” (Richt.).—“The word of the Lord is a veritable treasury, out of which continually come forth things new and old. It leads into the past and the future, and would gladly have all applied to the present” (Berl. Bib.).
Eze_35:3 sq. The hand of God is the solemn mark of interrogation over every earthly height to which we look up, whether things or persons.—“When punishments break in and are already taking their course, in this God as it were stretches out His hand. Now, since His hand is not shortened to help His children, so also it is not too weak to punish His enemies, Isa_59:1” (Starke).—Desolateness is the lot of the wicked, for the world passes away with all its pleasure for man; but this comes in all its force only to him who was at home there, and set his confidence thereon.
Eze_35:4. “When godliness goes out of cities, confusion and devastation enter in” (Starck).—We can never sufficiently recognise that God alone is the Eternal.
Eze_35:5. Where enmity leads to: it perpetuates itself by degrees in the heart, it is not afraid even to use the sword; first the malice of the tongue, and then the violence of malice.—Therefore always become reconciled at once and completely, that no roots may remain in the heart which may shoot up afterwards.—The prayer of an implacable man is certain not to be heard.—Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.—“Woe unto you who are glad at evil to your neighbour and rejoice over his misfortune, Mat_5:25” (Tüb. Bib.). “God makes finally an end of sin even when the sinner will not cease, and thus many a one has been hurried away by death in the midst of a course of sin. Hence all are not godly who cease to sin. When one has no longer the power, then he must cease, when otherwise he would be still very willing. In old age, in sickness, in imprisonment, in poverty, much must be dispensed with because hands and feet are bound, when in other circumstances there would be no want of will; in the will, however, above all consists the sin” (Berl. Bib.).
Eze_35:6. God’s judgment for blood over Edom an instructive example, a disclosure for warning.—Blood a peculiar sap.—The Lord an avenger of blood.—The track of blood behind so many celebrated figures in history, behind so many socalled great exploits.—The shedding of blood a characteristic symptom of the world, a mark of the spirit that rules in the world, and of the wickedness in which it lies.
Eze_35:7 sq. Trade and intercourse cease where God sends His judgments.—“The Lord destroys nations that delight in war” (Tüb. Bib.).
Eze_35:9. “Sin is not to become eternalized, therefore eternal punishment” (Starck).—“God’s aim is the acknowledgment in all things of His sole and supreme dominion” (Starke).—Where sinners have dwelt, there punishment finally bears sway; not only Edom, but also Judæa serves as a visible example of this.
Eze_35:10. Bear always in mind that God still is there!—Every sin against man is always at the same time sinning against God; unbelief, practical blasphemy.—Bloodthirstiness and covetousness two satanic sisters.—Disdain of others a non-recognition of God, who has bestowed something on every one.—The world’s delight in blood, and also its contempt of believers, a proof how little the world knows what still holds together the earth under their feet.—The meek, however, shall, according to Matthew , 5, inherit the land.—“Most men speak and act as if God could neither hear nor see” (Starck).
Eze_35:11 sq. Wrath and jealousy, when proceeding from hatred, do not escape the divine judgment.—God beholds Himself in His people.—The revelation of God to His own is also at last the judgment over the world.—The omniscient and omnipresent, the incorruptible eye-and ear-witness.—Thirst for fresh territory an Edomitish characteristic.—The hatred against the sacred things of humanity now become the fashion.
Eze_35:14 sq. Only the children of God shall inherit, although it doth not yet appear what we shall be, etc.—“The acceptable year of Jehovah is inseparably and necessarily connected with a day of vengeance of our God, Isa_61:2. No true grace without justice. The theocracy must, accordingly, pass through the fire of affliction and become purified (Ezekiel 34.); for the same reason the heathenism whose iniquity is full must show that it has fallen under the divine justice. For grace is not toleration of the bad” (Hävernick).
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, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15 most desolate--literally, "desolation and desolateness" (Jer 49:17, &c.). It…
most desolate--literally, "desolation and desolateness" (Jer 49:17, &c.). It is only in their national character of foes to God's people, that the Edomites are to be utterly destroyed. A remnant of Edom, as of the other heathen, is to be "called by the name of God" (Amo 9:12).
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 v1 The most conspicuous mountain chain is here taken to…
FATE OF EDOM, AND EXALTATION OF ISRAEL OVER THE HEATHEN BECAUSE OF THE NAME OF JEHOVAH.
The most conspicuous mountain chain is here taken to represent the entire land of Edom, just as it is so used, seemingly (1400 B.C.), in the “land of Shiri” of the Tel-el-Amarna tablets. For Edom see notes Eze_25:12-14. As the lower classes of the Israelites who had been left in the holy land should not retain it for themselves (Eze_33:24, etc.), so these nearby and hereditary enemies (Eze_35:5) who had just assisted Nebuchadnezzar (Oba_1:10-15) to “give over the children of Israel to the power of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time of the iniquity of the end” (Eze_35:5, R.V.), would not be able, for all their boasting (Eze_35:10; Eze_35:12), to capture the country even in the absence of the best portion of the population. Judah had sinned, and her iniquity had reached its climax at the destruction of Jerusalem, which was the end of one national era; but there was to come a new era of national prosperity for the people of Jehovah (chap. 36, etc.), while those who now rejoiced in her ruin, and thought themselves more powerful than the God of Mount Zion (Eze_35:12), should be destroyed and their land left desolate. They should be given to the sword “prepared unto” (or, “appointed to”) blood. (Compare Eze_16:38.)
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Sith (Eze_35:6) — That is, since. They did not hate blood, but delighted in violence, “therefore blood shall pursue” them. Thus Mount Seir shall be made “an astonishment and a desolation” (Eze_35:7), without even a passing traveler” (compare Eze_33:28; Zec_7:14). [Compare Adam Clarke’s apt illustration of the ancient queen who, having killed a bloody tyrant, cast his head into a basin of blood, saying, “Thy thirst was blood, now drink thy fill.”] This desolation shall be perpetual, and the “cities shall not be inhabited” (Eze_35:9, R.V.), because of her attempt to possess the good heritage of Israel and Judah, and to devour it “as a feast” (Eze_35:12, Kautzsch), thinking that the God of the land as well as the people had been defeated or carried off into captivity (Eze_35:10). Therefore Jehovah would lay upon the Edomites the very afflictions which they thought to impose upon Israel.
And thus saith Jehovah: “I will make myself known among them [LXX., ‘in thee’], when [or, ‘according as’] I shall judge thee” (Eze_35:11, R.V.). Compare Eze_33:29, and the end of each threatening prophecy. The time was soon coming when the new Israel and the redeemed earth should rejoice (Eze_35:14, compare Eze_34:11-30, Isaiah lv, etc.), but “Mount Seir and all Edom” (R.V.) should be desolate (Eze_35:15; compare Isaiah 24; Isa_63:1-6). Only thus could they be made to know the omnipotence of the one God and his tender love toward those who trusted him. This is not, as the Polychrome Bible thinks, a picture of Jehovah as a “non-moral” or revengeful autocrat, but it is the picture of a just Judge who inflicts legal penalties upon guilty nations for worthy ends. The literal fulfillment of this prophecy has often startled the modern traveler. “Idumea, once so rich in flocks, so strong in its fortresses and rock-hewn cities, so extensive in its commercial relations, so renowned for the architectural splendor of its palaces, is now a deserted and desolate wilderness.… No merchant would now dare to enter its borders; its highways are untrodden, its cities are all in ruins.” — J.L. Porter, quoted in the Pulpit Commentary.
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, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15 1. On Edom cf. Eze_25:12 seq.
1. On Edom cf. Eze_25:12 seq.
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, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 14, 15 (2) Mount Seir.—This poetical designation of the Edomites from…
(2) Mount Seir.—This poetical designation of the Edomites from the land which they inhabited is common in Scripture (Gen_36:8-9; Deu_2:1; Deu_2:5; 1Ch_4:42, &c.). The land included the whole mountainous region between the Dead Sea and the Elanitic Gulf, or eastern branch of the Red Sea. The earlier denunciation of the Edomites had in view their historical relations to Israel; this, on the other hand, as already said—like Isaiah 34; Isa_63:1-6—while still keeping this historical relation in view, regards them also as representative of the world’s hostility to the covenant people of God. This appears from the fact that the desolation of Edom, itself but a small province, is put in contrast (Eze_35:14) with the rejoicing of the whole earth, and that in Eze_36:5 (and generally Eze_35:3-7) Edom is coupled with “the residue of the heathen.” For the phrase “set thy face against,” see Eze_13:17; and on Eze_35:3, comp. Eze_6:14.
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, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15 Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me,…
Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying. As no date is given, the present oracle, extending to the close of Eze_36:15, may be assumed to have been communicated to and delivered by the prophet in immediate succession to the foregoing, with which it has also an intimate connection. Having announced the future restoration of Israel, as Jehovah"s flock, to her own land under the leadership of Jehovah"s servant David, who should feed them like a shepherd and rule them like a prince, (Eze_34:13, Eze_34:23, Eze_34:24) the prophet proceeds to contemplate the existing hindrance to this return in the occupation of Palestine by the Edomites, who had probably been allowed by the Chaldeans to take possession of it in payment of services rendered by them against Judah in the siege of Jerusalem to predict the entire removal of this hindrance. (vers. 1-15), and to administer to Israel the comfort which, as a consequence, would ensue. (Eze_36:1-15)
Vers. 1-4. The desolation of Mount Seir.
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I AN AFTER-THOUGHT OF JUDGMENT. This is a distressing and disappointing passage. We seemed to have done with the weary recital of successive judgments against the several heathen nations. Passing from these painful scenes, we had come to the cheerful picture of the restoration of Israel. Now that picture is rudely torn, and a description of the desolation of Mount Seir inserted in the midst of it. The darkness of this unexpected scene of judgment is the more appalling inasmuch as it is in startling contrast with the preceding and the succeeding brightness of Israel"s restoration. This looks like an after-thought of judgment. It is as though Edom, the nation typified by Mount Seir, had been forgotten until suddenly, by an unlucky chance, she came into mind, and then without delay the thread of joyous prophecy is broken and her doom is ruthlessly pronounced. At all events, the solitary and peculiar position of the prophecy against Edom gives to it a striking significance.
1. No impenitent sinners can be always overlooked. There are no exceptions to the law of retribution. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," is a principle of universal application. No single soul can by any rare good fortune ultimately escape from it.
2. God"s forbearance does not destroy his justice. He may wait long. But if the soul is finally impenitent, he will surely smite.
3. The goodness of God does not abolish his wrath against sin. Even when the mercy is most fully displayed, this wrath is also seen.
II THE DOOM OF THOSE WHO ARE NOT FAR FROM THE KINGDOM. There was one reason why Edom should receive exceptional treatment. She was not only a near neighbor to Israel, she was a blood-relation. Her people were the descendants of Esau, the brother of Jacob.
Though a foreign nation, her cousinly relationship with Israel was like that of America with England. She could reckon two the two best of the patriarchs as her ancestors. Like Israel, she was descended from Abraham and Isaac. Might not she, then, expect the blessings of the patriarchs? Esau had begged for a blessing with bitter tears, and he had received one, but not the best blessing. (Gen_27:38-40) The young man whom Christ loved was "not far from the kingdom of God". (Mar_12:34) Yet for all we know, he did not enter it. The members of Christians families are favored with great religious privileges. It is much to be able to claim godly ancestors. But these advantages will not serve as substitutes for personal piety. Nay, they will make the guilt of godlessness the greater. We may be like Edom, very near to Israel, yet like Edom we may be cast aside and lost, if we have not really entered ourselves into the Divine covenant.
III THE PUNISHMENT OF HATRED. Edom was accused of "perpetual hatred" (ver. 5) a hatred which perhaps sprang from original jealousy, still one that had been long cherished. As love is the fulfilling of the Law, so hatred is the most effectual breaking of it. It is hatred that brings war and misery on mankind. This is constituted out of the very venom of hell. It cannot be allowed to remain unchecked. If it is not abandoned and repented of, its curses must come home to roost, and they who harbor it must suffer its doom. So long as a man cherishes hatred in his heart towards a single fellow-creature, he cannot be accepted by God. (1Jn_4:20)
HOMILIES BY J.D. DAVIES Vers. 1-15. Special punishment of special sin.
Very painful must it be to an intelligent spirit to be the executor of Jehovah"s vengeance upon transgressors: the pain is only one remove the less to announce the coming doom. Yet, as we gain broader and clearer views of God"s administration, we discover that the suffering of a few brings advantage to the many. The splendor and the rare excellence of God"s righteousness are thereby clearly revealed. And gradually we perceive that pain and pleasure are matters vastly inferior to right and wrong. The well-being of heaven is suspended upon just government in the universe. Right must be done, though the stars should fall and the material fabric become a wreck.
I AN AGGRAVATED NATIONAL OFFENSE.
1. It sprang out of an ancient hatred. The then-existent inhabitants of Israel had done the Edomites no wrong. It was simply an ember of an old fire the Edomites had fanned and kept alive generation after generation. Their duty clearly was to forgive and to forget. Centuries before, the blood-stained hatchet ought to have been buried. Heedlessly the Edomites were doing their own nature a cruel wrong. They were strangling their noblest qualities,
2. Hatred, nursed, soon develops into murder. "They had shed the blood of the children of Israel." Murder may stain the character of a state as much as it stains the character of an individual; and every war, unjustly provoked, is only murder. The lives of a myriad innocent men will be required at some tyrants" hands. And this murderous outrage was an act of basest cowardice. They had plunged the sword into Israel"s breast when Israel was prostrate and wounded by other foes. It was as black deed as ever had been done under the eye of the sun.
3. Added to this was an attempted spoliation of Israels territory. "Because thou hast said, These two nations shall be mine." Edom had hoped to blot Israel"s name completely out of history, and to embrace the sacred territory in the empire of Edom. Their hatred had hatched a purpose to murder and bury a nation a nation that had been and might again be a blessing to the globe. And the guilt was equally as great as if the vile purpose had succeeded. To the eye of our righteous God there is often a vast volume of crime secreted in a single purpose, in a hidden motive. The quintessence of sin may be found there.
II CRIME AGAINST A NATION IS SIN AGAINST GOD.
1. God has identified himself with men. This was conspicuous in a marked degree in the case of Israel. Yet this identification with Israel"s true welfare is typical of God"s fatherly interest in all trustful souls. More or less, God identifies himself with humanity; and no wrong to humanity shall go unpunished. He will champion the interests of the oppressed everywhere.
2. God carefully notes every act of injustice. "I have heard all thy blasphemies which thou hast spoken against the mountains of Israel." Every whisper of man is heard by God. Such acute hearing staggers our understanding. Yet "he that formed the ear, shall he not hear?" The secrets of imperial councils are all seen and heard by Jehovah. Ultimately, and in the best time, he bathes all wicked designs.
3. Human folly in ignoring God"s presence. "Whereas the Lord was there." In every age worldly men concoct their plans as if no God ruled over the affairs of men. Ambitious rulers parcel out a neighbor"s territory, totally unmindful that God is in possession. "The earth is the Lord"s," and his eye is never absent from his property. The weakest child of man may always summon God to his side his Helper and Friend.
III EQUITABLE RETRIBUTION.
1. Divine activity. "I will stretch out mine hand." Hath God, then, a human hand? The language is an accommodation to the understanding of man. God has an adaptation of power more than equivalent to the dexterous strength of the human hand. His almighty hand can reach to the very extremities of the universe. As by a breath of the lips he can create, so by a breath can he desolate cities.
2. Exact retribution. "Sith thou hast not hated blood, even blood shall pursue thee." No human judge has ever been able to mete out such exact penalties as God does. A combination of perfect qualities is needed, and this perfect combination no one possesses save Jehovah. It is always a real alleviation if the victim can feel that he has not deserved so much severity; and it is the very core of anguish to realize that the suffering is absolutely just. Conscience itself becomes the executioner of God.
3. The penalty will be set in the light of contrast. "When the whole earth rejoiceth, I will make thee desolate." It is a slight mitigation of suffering when others share it with us. It aggravates our suffering if all around us are bright with joy. The rich man of the parable felt his torment the keener because Lazarus was seen in the repose of blessedness. Isolation in misery is an additional element of woe.
4. The desolation was to be final. No prospect, not the most distant, could be entertained of relief. The stroke was to be, not disciplinary, but utterly penal. It was to be a perpetual desolation. The race was to suffer extirpation from the district.
5. The edict was confirmed by an oath. "As I live, saith the Lord God," this shall be done. This form of speech by God is a further accommodation to men. As an affirmation makes a deeper impression upon the minds of men when accompanied by an oath, by a solemn appeal to the presence of God, so God condescends to speak to men in such manner as shall most powerfully affect them. From God the simplest form of words is enough. "He is not a man, that he should lie." A word from him creates or destroys. But he speaks by way of oath, in order to arrest our thoughts and to convince our judgment.
6. Conviction of Gods jurisdiction often comes too late. Men ignore God"s presence and God"s interference in human affairs, until events force upon them the fact that they are fighting, not simply against their fellows, nor contending against adverse circumstance, but are verily fighting against God. At length, out of the chaos of atheistic thoughts there looms the form and features of the living God. But the knowledge comes too late. They know God as their overpowering Foe, whereas they might have known him as a gracious Friend. D.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON Vers. 1-9, 14, 15. Features to be found in penalty.
When God is obliged to be "against" a man or a people, as he was against Edom (ver. 2), he (it) may look for these three things in the retribution which impends
I AN INFLICTION ANSWERING IN CHARACTER TO THE SIN. "Because thou hast given over to the power of the sword therefore I will prepare thee unto blood, and blood shall pursue thee" (vers. 5, 6). Our Lord also himself tells us that "they who take the sword shall perish with the sword." Violence shown to others commonly brings down violence on its own head. Craft and cunning lead men to great wariness, and even to a corresponding wiliness, in their dealing with the man who endeavors to undermine and to deceive. The man who is much engaged in digging pits for others is very likely to fall into one himself. Miserliness of spirit and behavior always leads to a real impoverishment of soul, and often to an imaginary poverty of circumstance which, though imaginary, is real enough to the man s own mind. There is no one whom the penurious man deprives of so much good and joy as himself. Penalty always answers to wrong-doing in its character. They who sin in the flesh suffer in the flesh, and they who sin in the spirit suffer in the spirit. The man who sins against his family will suffer domestic trouble; he that does not respect himself wrongs himself grievously, if not fatally.
II AS INFLICTION ANSWERING IN MEASURE TO THE SIN. The severity of Edom"s punishment was to answer to the greatness of her crime.
1. Lasting enmity was to be visited with lasting desolation (see vers. 5, 9).
2. Because they had "hated blood," i.e. had shown such determined malice and cruel hatred towards their own relatives (Theodoret, Jerome, Michaelis), therefore "blood should pursue them;" violence should not only overtake and slay, but should pursue them, should continue to smite them.
3. "According to the joy of the whole land of Edom, God would make it a desolation" (ver. 14; Fairbairn); as it did rejoice in Israel"s fall, in like measure would it be the object of derision and of triumph "in the dark hour coming on." As its joy, so its desolation; the height of the one would measure the depth of the other. We cannot always prove that penalty answers in measure to the extent of the wrong that has been wrought; but we can very often see that it does, and we are quite sure that it does so when we cannot recognize the fact. The truth that much sorrow is not penalty at all but discipline and preparation for higher work and a larger life, and the further and deeper truth that a very large and most important part of penalty is found in inward experience and especially in spiritual deterioration, will explain many apparent exceptions to this rule. Fuller knowledge and profounder wisdom will bring their sufficient revelations in good time; meanwhile we may be perfectly assured of the fact that the further we wander from God, from truth, from righteousness, from love, the deeper is the brand that enters into our soul, and the sadder is the destiny we are weaving for ourselves.
III THE CONSTANTLY RECURRING ELEMENT OF DESOLATION. As the word "desolate," or "desolation," is the prevailing note of this prophecy, and indeed of many others also, so may it be said that loss, diminution, destitution, ruin, is the constantly recurring evil which sin is working in the Soul and in the life of men. They who forsake the God of their fathers and who seek their heritage not in his holy service but in material successes or in the lower affections and delights, will surely find that they are bereaving themselves of all that is best; that they are denuding their life of its highest worth, that they are going down, step by step sometimes it is by very steep steps, too to the condition which may be well described in the prophet"s words as "a desolation and an astonishment" (ver. 3). C.
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 vv8, 10 But ye . . . shall shoot forth your…
Eze_35:8-15
But ye . . . shall shoot forth your branches.
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The Divine benison
When does God give short measure? When did He give otherwise than pressed down, heaped up, running over? This is the consolation of heaven; this is the measure of the Divine benison.
1. That blessing is to be physical: Ye shall shoot forth your branches, and yield your fruit. God is not ashamed to have His name connected with the daily loaf and with the daily goblet of water. When we go to the harvest field we should think we ace going to church; when we go to the well of springing water we should think we are going to a fountain rising in heaven. Your harvests are Gods; your fields are the green ways leading up to His sanctuary.
2. Not only physical, but social: I will multiply men upon you . . . and the wastes shall be builded. God would have all the earth inhabited. He would build men into organisations and brotherhoods; He would establish fraternities of souls. The Lord is never ashamed to associate Himself with social economy, social purity, social progress.
3. Not only physical and social, but municipal: And the cities shaft be inhabited. Cities have not a good history; cities had a bad founder. The foundations of cities were laid by a murderer. But it hath pleased God to accept many human doings, and to purify them and ennoble them and turn them to purposes sanctified and most beneficial. The Lord never set king over anybody with His own real consent. He gave the people the desire of their hearts, and plagued them every day since they got the answer. So He accepts the city, and He will do what He can with the municipalities, to inhabit them, and direct them, and purify them.
4. The Lord never concludes simply within the letter. At, the last the invariably says something that opens up a distant and ever-receding because ever-enlarging horizon. He says in this instance, I will do better unto you than at your beginnings. He is able, let us say again with rising thankfulness, to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. The Church constantly exclaims, Thou hast kept the good wine until now! We never can get in advance of God. When we have reaped our most abundant harvest He says, This is only an earnest of the harvest you shall one day possess; I will do more for you and better unto you than at your beginnings.
5. Then let us grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us he no longer thoughtless; let us no longer limit the Holy One of Israel, saying, The Lord hath made an end of His revelation, the Lord hath no more grace to give, no more love to show; He has given us the Cross. Paul says, If He has freely given us the Cross,--it is not an end, it is a beginning,--with the Cross He will also freely give us all things. The Lord cannot be exhausted. His providence is ascending, expanding, deepening. (J. Parker, 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 35, Ezekiel 36
JEHOVAHS LAND
Ezekiel 35, Ezekiel 36
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THE teaching of this important passage turns on certain ideas regarding the land of Canaan which enter very deeply into the religion of Israel. These ideas are no doubt familiar in a general way to all thoughtful readers of the Old Testament; but their full import is scarcely realised until we understand that they are not peculiar to the Bible, but form part of the stock of religious conceptions common to Israel and its heathen neighbours. In the more advanced Semitic religions of antiquity each nation had its own god as well as its own land, and the bond between the god and the land was supposed to be quite as strong as that between the god and the nation. The god, the land, and the people formed a triad of religious relationship, and so closely were these three elements associated that the expulsion of a people from its land was held to dissolve the bond between it and the god. Thus while in practice the land of a god was coextensive with the territory inhabited by his worshippers, yet in theory the relation of the god to his land is independent of his relation to the inhabitants; it was his land whether the people in it were his worshippers or not. The peculiar confusion of ideas that arose when the people of one god came to reside permanently in the territory of another is well illustrated by the case of the heathen colony which the king of Assyria planted in Samaria after the exile of the ten tribes. These settlers brought their own gods with them; but when some of them were slain by lions, they perceived that they were making a mistake in ignoring the rights of the god of the land. They sent accordingly for a priest to instruct them in the religion of the god of the land; and the result was that they "feared Jehovah and served their own." {2Ki_17:24-41} It was expected no doubt that in course of time the foreign deities would be acclimatised.
In the Old Testament we find many traces of the influence of this conception on the Hebrew religion. Canaan was the land of Jehovah {Hos_9:3} apart altogether from its possession by Israel, the people of Jehovah. It was Jehovahs land before Israel entered it, the inheritance which He had selected for His people out of all the countries of the world, the Land of Promise, given to the patriarchs while as yet they were but strangers and sojourners in it. Although the Israelites took possession of it as a nation of conquerors, they did so in the consciousness that they were expelling from Jehovahs dwelling-place a population which had polluted it by their abominations. From that time onwards the tenure of the soil of Palestine was regarded as an essential factor of the national religion. The idea that Jehovah could not be rightly worshipped outside of Hebrew territory was firmly rooted in the minds of the people, and was accepted by the prophets as a principle involved in the special relations that Jehovah maintained with the people of Israel. {Jos_11:19; Hos_9:3-5} Hence no threat could be more terrible in the ears of the Israelites than that of expatriation from their native soil; for it meant nothing less than the dissolution of the tie that subsisted between them and their God. When that threat was actually fulfilled there was no reproach harder to bear than the taunt which Ezekiel here puts into the mouth of the heathen: "These are Jehovahs people-and yet they are gone forth out of His land". {Eze_36:20} They felt all that was implied in that utterance of malicious satisfaction over the collapse of a religion and the downfall of a deity.
There is another way in which the thought of Canaan as Jehovahs land enters into the religious conceptions of the Old Testament, and very markedly into those of Ezekiel. As the God of the land Jehovah is the source of its productiveness and the author of all the natural blessings enjoyed by its inhabitants. It is He who gives the rain in its season or else withholds it in token of His displeasure; it is He who multiplies or diminishes the flocks and herds which feed on its pastures, as well as the human population sustained by its produce. This view of things was a primary factor in the religious education of an agricultural people, as the ancient Hebrews mainly were. They felt their dependence on God most directly in the influences of their uncertain climate on the fertility of their land with its great possibilities of abundant provision for man and beast, and on the other hand its extreme risk of famine and all the hardships that follow in its train. In the changeful aspects of nature they thus read instinctively the disposition of Jehovah towards themselves. Fruitful seasons and golden harvests, diffusing comfort and affluence through the community, were regarded as proofs that all was well between them and their God; while times of barrenness and scarcity brought home to them the conviction that Jehovah was alienated. From the allusions in the prophets to droughts and famines, to blastings and mildew, to the scourge of locusts, we seem to gather that, on the whole, the later history of Israel had been marked by agricultural distress. The impression is confirmed by a hint of Ezekiels in the passage now before us. The land of Canaan had apparently acquired an unenviable reputation for barrenness. The reproach of the heathen lay upon it as a land that "devoured men and bereaved its population." {Eze_36:13} The reference may be partly (as Smend thinks) to the ravages of war, to which Palestine was peculiarly exposed on account of its important strategic situation. But the "reproach of famine" {Eze_36:30; Cf. Eze_34:29} was certainly one point in its ill fame among the surrounding nations, and it is quite sufficient to explain the strong language in which they expressed their contempt. Now this state of things was plainly inconsistent with the amicable relations between the nation and its God. It was evidence that the land lay under the blight of Jehovahs displeasure, and the ground of that displeasure lay in the sin of the people. Where the land counted for so much as an index to the mind of God, it was a postulate of faith that in the ideal future when God and Israel were perfectly reconciled the physical condition of Canaan should be worthy of Him whose land it was. And we have already seen that amongst the glories of the Messianic age the preternatural fertility of the Holy Land holds a prominent place.
This conception of Canaan as the Land of Jehovah undoubtedly has its natural affinities with religious notions of a somewhat primitive kind. It belongs to the stage of thought at which the power of a god is habitually regarded as subject to local limitations, and in which accordingly a particular territory is assigned to every deity as the sphere of his influence. It is probable that the great mass of the Hebrew people had never risen above this idea, but continued to think of their country as Jehovahs land in precisely the same way as Assyria was Asshurs land and Moab the land of Chemosh. The monotheism of the Old Testament revelation breaks through this system of ideas, and interprets Jehovahs relation to the land in an entirely different sense. It is not as the exclusive sphere of His influence that Canaan is peculiarly associated with Jehovahs presence, but mainly because it is the scene of His historical manifestation of Himself, and the stage on which events were transacted which revealed His Godhead to all the world. No prophet has a clearer perception of the universal sweep of the divine government than Ezekiel, and yet no prophet insists more strongly than he on the possession of the land of Canaan as an indispensable symbol of communion between God and His people. He has met with God in the "unclean land" of his exile, and he knows that the moral government of the universe is not suspended by the departure of Jehovah from His earthly sanctuary. Nevertheless he cannot think of this separation as other than temporary. The final reconciliation must take place on the soil of Palestine. The kingdom of God can only be established by the return both of Israel and Jehovah to their own land; and their joint possession of that land is the seal of the everlasting covenant of peace that subsists between them.
We must now proceed to study the way in which these conceptions influenced the Messianic expectations of Ezekiel at this period of his life. The passage we are to consider consists of three sections. The thirty-fifth chapter is a prophecy of judgment on Edom. The first fifteen verses of chapter 36 (Eze_36:1-15) contain a promise of the restoration of the land of Israel to its rightful owner. And the remainder of that chapter presents a comprehensive view of the divine necessity for the restoration and the power by which the redemption of the people is to be accomplished.
I.
At the time when these prophecies were written the land of Israel was in the possession of the Edomites. By what means they had succeeded in effecting a lodgment in the country we do not know. It is not unlikely that Nebuchadnezzar may have granted them this extension of their territory as a reward for their services to his army during the last siege of Jerusalem. At all events their presence there was an accomplished fact, and it appeals to the mind of the prophet in two aspects. In the first place it was an outrage on the majesty of Jehovah which filled the cup of Edoms iniquity to the brim. In the second place it was an obstacle to the restoration of Israel which had to be removed by the direct intervention of the Almighty. These are the two themes which occupy the thoughts of Ezekiel, the one in chapter 35 and the other in chapter 36. Hitherto he had spoken of the return to the land of Canaan as a matter of course, as a thing necessary and self-evident and not needing to be discussed in detail. But as the time draws near he is led to think more clearly of the historical circumstances of the return, and especially of the hindrances arising from the actual situation of affairs.
But besides this one cannot fail to be struck by the effective contrast which the two pictures-one of the mountain land of Israel, and the other of the mountain land of Seir-present to the imagination. It is like a prophetic amplification of the blessing and curse which Isaac pronounced on the progenitors of these two nations. Of the one it is said:-
"God give thee of the dew of heaven, and of the fatness of the earth,
And abundance of corn and wine." {Gen_27:28}
And of the other:-
"Surely far from the fatness of the earth shall thy dwelling be,
And far from the dew of heaven from above." {Gen_27:39}
In that forecast of the destiny of the two brothers the actual characteristics of their respective countries are tersely and accurately expressed. But now, when the history of both nations is about to be brought to an issue, the contrast is emphasised and perpetuated. The blessing of Jacob is confirmed and expanded into a promise of unimagined felicity, and the equivocal blessing on Esau is changed into an unqualified and permanent curse. Thus, when the mountains of Israel break forth into singing, and are clothed with all the luxuriance of vegetation in which the Oriental imagination revels, and cultivated by a happy and contented people, those of Seir are doomed to perpetual sterility and become a horror and desolation to all that pass by.
Confining ourselves, however, to the thirty-fifth chapter, what we have first to notice is the sins by which the Edomites had incurred this judgment. These may be summed up under three heads: first, their unrelenting hatred of Israel, which in the day of Judahs calamity had broken out in savage acts of revenge (Eze_35:5); second, their rejoicing over the misfortunes of Israel and the desolation of its land (Eze_35:15); and third, their eagerness to seize the land as soon as it was vacant (Eze_35:10). The first and second of these have been already spoken of under the prophecies on foreign nations; it is only the last that is of special interest in the present connection. Of course the motive that prompted Edom was natural, and it may be difficult to say how far real moral guilt was involved in it. The annexation of vacant territory, as the land of Israel practically was at this time, would be regarded according to modern ideas as not only justifiable but praiseworthy. Edom had the excuse of seeking to better its condition by the possession of a more fertile country than its own, and perhaps also the still stronger plea of pressure by the Arabs from behind. But in the consciousness of an ancient people there was always another thought present; and it is here if anywhere that the sin of Edom lies. The invasion of Israel did not cease to be an act of aggression because there were no human defenders to bar the way. It was still Jehovahs land, although it was unoccupied; and to intrude upon it was a conscious defiance of His power. The arguments by which the Edomites justified their seizure of it were none of those which a modern state might use in similar circumstances, but were based on the religious ideas which were common to all the world in those days. They were aware that by the unwritten law which then prevailed the step they meditated was sacrilege; and the spirit that animated them was arrogant exultation over what was esteemed the humiliation of Israels national deity: "The two nations and the two countries shall be mine, and I will possess them, although Jehovah was there" (Eze_35:10: cf. Eze_35:12-13). That is to say, the defeat and captivity of Israel had proved the impotence of Jehovah to guard His land; His power is broken, and the two countries called by His name lie open to the invasion of any people that dares to trample religious scruples underfoot. This was the way in which the action of Edom would be interpreted by universal consent; and the prophet is only reflecting the general sense of the age when he charges them with this impiety. Now it is true that the Edomites could not be expected to understand all that was involved in a defiance of the God of Israel. To them He was only one among many national gods, and their religion did not teach them to reverence the gods of a foreign state. But though they were not fully conscious of the degree of guilt they incurred, they nevertheless sinned against the light they had; and the consequences of transgression are never measured by the sinners own estimate of his culpability. There was enough in the history of Israel to have impressed the neighbouring peoples with a sense of the superiority of its religion and the difference in character between Jehovah and all other gods. If the Edomites had utterly failed to learn that lesson, they were themselves partly to blame; and the spiritual insensibility and dulness of conscience which everywhere suppressed the knowledge of Jehovahs name is the very thing which in the view of Ezekiel needs to be removed by signal and exemplary acts of judgment.
It is not necessary to enter minutely into the details of the judgment threatened against Edom. We may simply note that it corresponds point for point with the demeanour exhibited by the Edomites in the time of Israels final retribution. The "perpetual hatred" is rewarded by perpetual desolation (Eze_35:9); their seizure of Jehovahs land is punished by their annihilation in the land that was their own (Eze_35:6-8); and their malicious satisfaction over the depopulation of Palestine recoils on their own heads when their mountain land is made desolate "to the rejoicing of the whole earth" (Eze_35:14-15). And the lesson that will be taught to the world by the contrast between the renewed Israel and the barren mountain of Seir will be the power and holiness of the one true God: "they shall know that I am Jehovah."
II.
The prophets mind is still occupied with the sin of Edom as he turns in the thirty-sixth chapter to depict the future of the land of Israel. The opening verses of the chapter (Eze_36:1-7) betray an intensity of patriotic feeling not often expressed by Ezekiel. The utterance of the single idea which he wishes to express seems to be impeded by the multitude of reflections that throng upon him as he apostrophises "the mountains and the hills, the watercourses and the valleys, the desolate ruins and deserted cities" of his native country (Eze_36:4). The land is conceived as conscious of the shame and reproach that rest upon it; and all the elements that might be supposed to make up the consciousness of the land-its naked desolation. the tread of alien feet, the ravages of war, and the derisive talk of the surrounding heathen (Edom being specially in view)-present themselves to the mind of the prophet before he can utter the message with which he is charged: "Thus saith the Lord Jehovah; Behold, I speak in My jealousy and My anger, because ye have borne the shame of the heathen: therefore I lift up My hand, Surely the nations that are round about you-even they shall bear their shame" (Eze_36:6-7).
The jealousy of Jehovah is here His holy resentment against indignities done to Himself, and this attribute of the divine nature is now enlisted on the side of Israel because of the despite which the heathen had heaped on His land. But it is noteworthy that it is through the land and not the people that this feeling is first called into operation. Israel is still sinful and alienated from God; but the honour of Jehovah is bound up with the land not less than with the nation, and it is in reference to it that the necessity of vindicating His holy name first becomes apparent. There is what we might almost venture to call a divine patriotism, which is stirred into activity by the desolate condition of the land where the worship of the true God should be celebrated. On this feature of Jehovahs character Ezekiel builds the assurance of his peoples redemption. The idea expressed by the verses is simply the certainty that Canaan shall be recovered from the heathen dominion for the purposes of the kingdom of God.
The following verses (Eze_36:8-15) speak of the positive aspects of the approaching deliverance. Continuing his apostrophe to the mountains of Israel, the prophet describes the transformation which is to pass over them in view of the return of the exiled nation, which is now on the eve of accomplishment (Eze_36:8). It might almost seem as if the return of the inhabitants were here treated as a mere incident of the rehabilitation of the land. That of course is only an appearance caused by the peculiar standpoint assumed throughout these chapters. Ezekiel was not one who could look on complacently
"Where wealth accumulates and men decay";
nor was he indifferent to the social welfare of his people. On the contrary we have seen from chapter 34 that he regards that as a supreme interest in the future kingdom of God. And even in this passage he does not make the interests of humanity subservient to those of nature. His leading idea is a reunion of land and people under happier auspices than had obtained of old. Formerly the land, in mysterious sympathy with the mind of Jehovah, had seemed to be animated by a hostile disposition towards its inhabitants. The reluctant and niggardly subsistence that had been wrung from the soil justified the evil report which the spies had brought up of it at the first as a "land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof." {Num_13:32} Its inhospitable character was known among the heathen, so that it bore the reproach of being a land that "devoured men and bereaved its nation." But in the glorious future all this will be changed in harmony with Jehovahs altered relations with His people. In the language of a later prophet, {Isa_42:4} the land shall be "married" to Jehovah, and endowed with exuberant fertility. Yielding its fruits freely and generously, it will wipe off the reproach of the heathen; its cities shall be inhabited, its ruins rebuilt, and man and beast multiplied on its surface, so that its last state shall be better than its first (Eze_36:11). And those who till it and enjoy the benefits of its wonderful transformation shall be none other than the house of Israel, for whose sins it had borne the reproach of barrenness in the past (Eze_36:12-15).
III.
The next passage (Eze_36:16-38) deals more with the renewal of the nation than with that of the land; and thus forms a link of connection between the main theme of this chapter and that of chapter 37. It contains the clearest and most comprehensive statement of the process of redemption to be found in the whole book, exhibiting as it does in logical order all the elements which enter into the divine scheme of salvation. The fact that it is inserted just at this point affords a fresh illustration of the importance attached by the prophet to the religious associations which gathered round the Holy Land. The land indeed is still the pivot on which his thoughts turn; he starts from it in his short review of Gods past judgments on His people, and finally returns to it in summing up the world-wide effects of His gracious dealings with them in the immediate future. Although the connection of ideas is singularly clear, the passage throws so much light on the deepest theological conceptions of Ezekiel that it will be well to recapitulate the principal steps of the argument.
We need not linger on the cause of the rejection of Israel, for here the prophet only repeats the main lesson which we have found so often enforced in the first part of his book. Israel went into exile because its manner of life as a nation had been abhorrent to Jehovah, and it had defiled the land which was Jehovahs house. As in chapter 22 and elsewhere, bloodshed and idols are the chief emblems of the peoples sinful condition; these constitute a real physical defilement of the land, which must be punished by the eviction of its inhabitants: "So I poured out My wrath upon them [on account of the blood which they had shed upon the land, and the idols wherewith they had polluted it]: and I scattered them among the nations, and they were dispersed through the countries."
Thus the Exile was necessary for the vindication of Jehovahs holiness as reflected in the sanctity of His land. But the effect of the dispersion on other nations was such as to compromise the honour of Israels God in another direction. Knowing Jehovah only as a tribal god, the heathen naturally concluded that He had been too feeble to protect His land from invasion and His people from captivity. They could not penetrate to the moral reasons which rendered the chastisement inevitable; they only saw that these were Jehovahs people, and yet they were gone forth out of His land (Eze_36:20), and drew the natural inference. The impression thus produced by the presence of Israelites amongst the heathen was derogatory to the majesty of Jehovah, and obscured the knowledge of the true principles of His government which was destined to extend to all the earth. This is all that seems to be meant by the expression "profaned My holy name." It is not implied that the exiles scandalised the heathen by their vicious lives, and so brought disgrace on "that glorious name by which they were called," {Jam_2:7} although that idea is implied in Eze_12:16. The profanation spoken of here was caused directly not by the sin but by the calamities of Israel. Yet it was their sins which brought down judgment upon them, and so indirectly gave occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme. There were probably already some of Ezekiels compatriots who realised the bitterness of the thought that their fate was the means of bringing discredit on their God. Their experience would be similar to that of the lonely exile who composed the forty-second psalm:-
"As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me;
While they say daily unto me,
Where is thy God?". {Psa_42:10}
Now in this fact the prophet recognises an absolute ground of confidence in Israels restoration. Jehovah cannot endure that His name should thus be held up to derision before the eyes of mankind. To allow this would be to frustrate the end of His government of the world, which is to manifest His Godhead in such a way that all men shall be brought to acknowledge it.
Although He is known as yet only as the national God of a particular people, He must be disclosed to the world as all that the inspired teachers of Israel know Him to be-the one Being worthy of the homage of the human heart. There must be some way by which His name can be sanctified before the heathen, some means of reconciling the partial revelation of His holiness in Israels dispersion with the complete manifestation of His power to the world at large. And this reconciliation can only be effected through the redemption of Israel. God cannot disown His ancient people, for that would be to stultify the whole past revelation of His character and leave the name by which He had made Himself known to contempt. That is divinely impossible; and therefore Jehovah must carry through His purpose by sanctifying Himself in the salvation of Israel. The outward token of salvation will be their restoration to their own land (Eze_36:24); but the inward reality of it will be a change in the national character which will make their dwelling in the land consistent with the revelation of Jehovahs holiness already given by their banishment from it.
At this point accordingly (Eze_36:25) Ezekiel passes to speak of the spiritual process of regeneration by which Israel is to be transformed into a true people of God. This is a necessary part of the sanctification of the divine name before the world. The new life of the people will reveal the character of the God whom they serve, and the change will explain the calamities that had befallen them in the past. The world will thus see "that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity," {Eze_39:23} and will understand the holiness which the true God requires in His worshippers. But for the present the prophets thoughts are concentrated on the operations of the divine grace by which the renewal is effected. His analysis of the process of conversion is profoundly instructive, and anticipates to a remarkable degree the teaching of the Old Testament. We shall content ourselves at present with merely enumerating the different parts of the process. The first step is the removal of the impurities contracted by past transgressions. This is represented under the figure of sprinkling with clean water, suggested by the ablutions or lustrations which are so common a feature of the Levitical ritual (Eze_36:25). The truth symbolised is the forgiveness of sins, the act of grace which takes away the effect of moral uncleanness as a barrier to fellowship with God. The second point is what is properly called regeneration, the giving of a new heart and spirit (Eze_36:26). The stony heart of the old nation, whose obduracy had dismayed so many prophets, making them feel that they had spent their labour for nought and in vain, shall be taken away, and instead of it they shall receive a heart of flesh, sensitive to spiritual influences and responsive to the divine will. And to this is added in the third place the promise of the Spirit of God to be in them as the ruling principle of a new life of obedience to the law of God (Eze_36:27). The law, both moral and ceremonial, is the expression of Jehovahs holy nature, and both the will and the power to keep it perfectly must proceed from the indwelling of His Holy Spirit in the people, It is thus Jehovah Himself who "saves" the people "out of all their uncleanness" (Eze_36:29), caused by the depravity and infirmity of their natural hearts. When these conditions are realised the harmony between Jehovah and Israel will be completely restored: He will be their God, and they shall be His people. They shall dwell forever in the land promised to their fathers; and the blessing of God resting on land and people will multiply the fruit of the tree and the produce of the field, so that they receive no more the reproach of famine among the nations (Eze_36:28-30).
Having thus described the process of salvation as from first to last the work of Jehovah, the prophet proceeds to consider the impression which it will produce first on Israel and then on the surrounding nations (Eze_36:31-36). On Israel the effect of the goodness of God will be to lead them to repentance. Remembering what their past history has been. and contrasting it with the blessedness they now enjoy, they shall be filled with shame and self-contempt, loathing themselves for their iniquities and their abominations. It is not meant that all feelings of joy and gratitude will be swallowed up in the consciousness of unworthiness; but this is the feeling that will be called forth by the memory of their past transgressions. Their horror of sin will be such that they cannot think of what they have been without the deepest compunction and self-abasement. And this sense of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, reacting on their consciousness of themselves, will be the best moral guarantee against their relapse into the uncleanness from which they have been delivered.
To the heathen, on the other hand, the state of Israel will be a convincing demonstration of the power and godhead of Jehovah.. Men will say, "Yonder land, which was desolate, has become like the garden of Eden; and the cities that were ruined and waste and destroyed are fenced and inhabited" (Eze_36:35). They will know that it is Jehovahs doing, and it will be marvellous in their eyes.
The last two verses seem to be an appendix. They deal with a special feature of the restoration, about which the minds of the exiles may have been exercised in thinking of the possibility of their deliverance. Where was the population of the new Israel to come from? The population of Judah must have been terribly reduced by the disastrous wars that had desolated the country since the time of Hezekiah. How was it possible, with a few thousands in exile, and a miserable remnant left in the land, to build up a strong and prosperous nation? This thought of theirs is met by the announcement of a great increase of the inhabitants of the land. Jehovah is ready to meet the questionings of human anxiety on this point: He will "let Himself be inquired of" for this. The remembrance of the sacrificial flocks that used to throng the streets leading to the Temple at the time of the great festivals supplies Ezekiel with an image of the teeming population that shall be in all the cities of Canaan when this prophecy is fulfilled.
Such is in outline the scheme of redemption which Ezekiel presents to the minds of his readers. We shall reserve a fuller consideration of its more important doctrines for a separate chapter. One general application of its teaching, however, may be pointed out before leaving the subject. We see that for Ezekiel the mysteries and perplexities of the divine government find their solution in the idea of redemption. He is aware of the false impression necessarily produced on the heathen mind by Gods dealings with His people, as long as the process is incomplete. On account of Israels sin the revelation of God in providence is gradual and fragmentary, and seems even for a time to defeat its own end. The omnipotence of God was obscured by the very act of vindicating His holiness; and what was in itself a great step towards the complete revelation of His character came on the world in the first instance as an evidence of His impotence. But the prophet, looking beyond this to the final effect of Gods work upon the world, sees that Jehovah can be truly known only in the manifestation of His redeeming grace. All the enigmas and contradictions that arise from imperfect comprehension of His purpose find their answer in this truth, that God will yet redeem Israel from its iniquities. God is His own interpreter, and when His work of salvation is finished the result will be a conclusive demonstration of that lofty conception of God to which the prophet had attained.
Now this argument of Ezekiels illustrates a principle of wide application. Many objections that are advanced against the theistic view of the universe seem to proceed on the assumption that the actual state of the world adequately represents the mind of its Creator. The heathen of Ezekiels day have their modern representatives amongst dispassionate critics of Providence like J. S. Mill, who prove to their own satisfaction that the world cannot be the work of a being answering to the Christian idea of God. Do what you will, they say, to minimise the Evils of existence, there is still an amount of undeniable pain and misery in the world which is fatal to your doctrine of an all-powerful and perfectly good Creator. Omnipotence could, and benevolence would find a remedy; the Author of the universe, therefore, cannot possess both. God, in short, if there be a God, may be benevolent, or He may be omnipotent; but if benevolent He is not omnipotent, and if omnipotent He cannot be benevolent. How very convincing this is-from the standpoint of the neutral, non-Christian observer! And how poor a defence is sometimes made by the optimism which tries to make out that most evils are blessings in disguise, and the rest not worth minding! The Christian religion rises superior to such criticism mainly in virtue of its living faith in redemption. It does not explain away evil, nor does it profess to account for its origin. It speaks of the whole creation groaning and travailing in pain together even until now. But it also describes the creation as waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God. It teaches us to discover in history the unfolding of a purpose of redemption the end of which will be the deliverance of mankind from the dominion of sin and their eternal blessedness in the kingdom of our God and His Christ. What Ezekiel foresaw in the form of a national restoration will be accomplished in a world-wide salvation, in a new heavens and a new earth, where there shall be no more curse. But meanwhile to judge of God from what is, apart from what is yet to be revealed, is to repeat the mistake of those who judge Jehovah to be an effete tribal deity because He had suffered His people to go forth out of their land. Those who have been brought into sympathy with the divine purpose, and have experienced the power of the Spirit of God in subduing the evil of their own hearts, can hold with unwavering confidence the hope of a universal victory of good over evil; and in the light of that hope the mysteries that surround the moral government of God cease to disturb their faith in the eternal Love which labours patiently and unceasingly for the redemption of man.
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 v1 THE UTTER RUIN OF IDUMEA. (Chap. 35)
THE UTTER RUIN OF IDUMEA. (Chap. 35)
EXEGETICAL NOTES.—Eze_35:2. “Mount Seir”—Idumea, the woody mountain region in the south of that part of Palestine which lies to the east of Jordan from the Dead Sea to the Atlantic Gulf. “Seir” means shaggy, alluding to its rugged hills and forests, and originally to Esau, the ancestor of Edom (Gen_25:25; Gen_27:11).
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Eze_35:3. “I will make thee most desolate”—literally desolation and desolateness. “It is only in their national character of foes to God’s people that the Edomites are to be utterly destroyed. A remnant of Edom, as of the other heathen, is to be called by the name of God (Amo_9:12).”—Fausset.
Eze_35:5. “A perpetual hatred”—enmity for ever, an abiding enmity. Edom perpetuated the hereditary hatred derived from Esau against Jacob. “By the force of the sword”—by the hands of the sword, the sword being personified as a devourer whose hands were the instruments of destruction. “In the time their iniquity had an end”—its consummation. “Oppression of brethren calls at once for the exercise of compassion, which is best manifested where no one is innocent. When guilt makes the end, ancient enmity should not be let loose.”—Lange.
Eze_35:6. “Sith thou hast not hated blood”—rather the affirmative, Surely thou dost hate blood. “The preservation of thy life is what thou art intent on securing. The thought of blood being shed among thee is what thou art putting far from thee as the object of aversion; but God’s purposes are contrary to thine, and what thou hatest He will send—blood shall pursue thee.”—Fairbairn. “The effusion of blood, of thy own blood, shall cleave fast to thy footsteps. The murderer hates the blood which he sheds. If he hates the man with such an energy of hate that he attempts his life, he hates the blood in which is the man’s soul.”—Hengstenberg.
Eze_35:7. “Cut off from it him that passeth.” There is no going to and fro—no traffic. Hence the desolation of death. A retribution in kind, that she should be cut off herself, even as she stood in the crossway to cut off the Israelites who escaped (Oba_1:14).
Eze_35:10. “Whereas the Lord was there.” “It is not said the Lord is there, but was there. For a moment He had withdrawn Himself (chap. Eze_11:23); but that He was there secures that He will be there, since He has not yet definitely given up His inheritance. Where God is in the midst there Edom cannot possibly gain a footing, though He give over His people even for a long time to the foe.”—Hengstenberg.
Eze_35:11. “I will do according to thine anger.” “From the hating come anger and envy, expressing themselves not only in word but also in deed. Jehovah acts according to Edom’s doings.”—Lange.
Eze_35:13. “With your mouth ye have boasted against me.” Edom implied, if he did not express it, in his taunts against Israel, that God had not sufficient power to protect His people. A type of the spirit of all the foes of God and His people (1Sa_2:3; Rev_13:6).
Eze_35:14. “When the whole earth rejoiceth, I will make thee desolate.” “The ‘whole earth’ refers to Judea and the nations that submit themselves to Judea’s God. When these rejoice, the foes of God and His people, represented by Edom as a nation, shall be desolate. Things shall be completely reversed: Israel, that now for a time mourns, shall then rejoice, and that for ever. Edom, that now rejoices over fallen Israel, shall then, when elsewhere all is joy, mourn, and for ever (Isa_65:17-19; Mat_5:4; Luk_6:25).”—Fausset.
Eze_35:15. “Mount Seir, and all Idumea, even all of it”—set in contrast to the inheritance of the house of Israel.
HOMILETICS
THE ENEMIES OF GOD
(Eze_35:1-15.)
It sounds strange to hear again the voice of denunciation interposed in the midst of prophecies full of consolation and hope. The doom of Edom has been dealt with in chapter 25, but it is introduced once more in perfect harmony with the immediate design of the prophet, which is to show that the future triumph of Israel will be assured by the utter defeat of her bitterest enemies. Idumea, savagely gloating over the downfall of its hated rival, and eagerly taking possession of the desolated land, had an apparent superiority over Israel. The real advantage was still with the people of God. With them was deposited the seed of Divine blessing, the germ of a glorious future. In Idumea no such germ existed. There was nothing there but inveterate hostility to Jehovah, and no prospect but that of ultimate ruin. “While Israel rose in Christ to the supremacy of the world, Edom vanished from the face of history—their memorial perished, their envy and cruel hatred were for ever buried among the ruins of the nations.” The Edomites represent the heathen world and all who have rebelled against and opposed the truth, and in their destruction we read the ultimate fate of the enemies of God in all ages. Observe—
I. That the enemies of God are actuated by a spirit of malignant hatred. “Because thou hast had a perpetual hatred” (Eze_35:5). The enmity existing between Jacob and Esau from their birth was fostered with increasing aggravation by the descendants of the latter. Immediately after the death of Isaac, Esau settled in Edom, and conquered the rocky territory in the neighbourhood of Mount Seir. From their mountain heights, overlooking the southern border of the Holy Land, the Edomites watched with undisguised envy the growing power of the favoured tribes. Their hatred became more acrid and implacable in every succeeding generation. As the father of Hannibal caused his son, when only nine years of age, to swear at the altar eternal hatred to the Romans, so the sons of Edom were pledged to maintain unceasing hostility to Israel. Time, which mollifies the fiercest passions, only intensified the ever-cherished malice of the Edomites, and they embraced every opportunity to make it manifest. The wild unreasoning hatred of the Edomites is a type of the malignant opposition of the enemies of God. This deplorable condition of mind is an evidence of the demoralising effect of sin. It is not simply a dull, sullen indifference, but an ungovernable, demoniacal passion, horribly real in its activity. Goodness is hated because it is good: God is hated because He is God.
II. That the enemies of God are infatuated with the fury of their opposition.
1. They exult over the disasters of God’s people. “Thou didst rejoice at the inheritance of Israel, because it was desolate” (Eze_35:15). As Edom watched the advancement of Israel with envy, so it noted the invasion and dismemberment of the kingdom with chuckling satisfaction. When the Israelites were prostrate and groaning under the triumphant Chaldean power, Edom laughed at their misfortunes. There is a laughter that is utterly joyless, harsh, metallic, ringing with scorn and an indescribable contemptuousness. It is the laughter of inveterate hatred—an inhuman guffaw. It is thus that the enemies of God exult over the temporary defeat of His people.
2. They take a savage delight in helping to make those disasters more complete. “Thou hast shed the blood of the children of Israel by the force of the sword in the time of their calamity” (Eze_35:5). Edom, forgetful of all ties of kinship, sent troops to assist the Chaldeans in the siege of Jerusalem. More cruel than the Chaldeans, they clamoured for the total destruction of the city, and exclaimed with fiendish gesticulations—“Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof” (Psa_137:7). They eagerly took part in plundering the city, they occupied the passes and cut off the retreat of the fugitives who escaped the massacre at the storming, and openly rejoiced when the citizens were carried off into slavery, boasting loudly of their share in the terrible catastrophe (Oba_1:11-14). They were never forgotten for their base and cruel treachery. The enemies of God not only make sport of the misfortunes of His people, but show their vindictiveness in doing all they can to intensify their sufferings.
3. They seize with avaricious haste the possessions they help to ruin. “These two countries shall be mine, and we will possess it” (Eze_35:10). The Edomites not only re-entered the cities captured from them by David when he was settling the boundaries of the Hebrew empire, but they made inroads into Southern Palestine, taking possession of the towns as far as Hebron. The race of the warrior kings of Judah who had kept them in check was extinct, and the country was too feeble to resist the rapacity of the Idumeans. The enemies of God are ever eager to make gain out of the troubles they have helped to create.
4. They are ignorant of the Power they rashly defy. “Whereas the Lord was there” (Eze_35:10). What a sublime stroke of the prophetic pen! The sentence breaks in like a flash of lightning—the Lord is there! The land is desolate, but not forsaken; conquered, but not surrendered. Israel has been carried away, but not Israel’s God. The land and the people still belong to Him. This fact is flashed out to rebuke the presumption of Edom; but Edom sees it not, heeds it not. Like all the enemies of God, in his blind infatuation he wrestles with a Power that ultimately crushes him.
III. That the enemies of God will be inevitably destroyed.
1. Their destruction will be a Divine act. “I will stretch out mine hand against thee” (Eze_35:3). The Being they had insulted and defied vindicated His honour and supremacy by their righteous punishment. Josephus informs us that, soon after the destruction of Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar turned his arms against Edom and the adjoining nations and defeated them with great slaughter. As in the conquest of Israel, Nebuchadnezzar was the instrument of Jehovah in working out the doom of Edom. Jeremiah (chap. 49), Ezekiel (chaps. 25, 35), and Obadiah describe in graphic language the fearful ravage of the Chaldean forces. The ordinary raids of robber tribes might be beaten off, for the Edomites had a reputation for warlike valour; but the Chaldees were irresistible, and were accustomed to do their work with desolating thoroughness. The enemies of God are helpless when His power is put forth to chastise.
2. Their destruction will be on account of their inveterate wickedness. “I will do according to thine anger, envy, hatred, blasphemies, boasting” (Eze_35:11-13; Eze_35:15). Their malignity towards God and His chosen people was hereditary, and was nourished from generation to generation. Their impregnable position among the hills increased their haughtiness; they boasted of the wisdom of their great men, and they had all the insolence of wealth, their country being situated in the route of commerce from north to south. They were continually stirring up the jealousies of the tribes, and were always as sharp thorns in the side of Israel. But their course of wickedness had an end; their sins ruined them.
3. Their destruction will be by the same weapon with which they destroyed others. “Because thou hast shed blood by the force of the sword” (Eze_35:5-6). The law of retribution is ever operating with surprising exactitude and impartiality. Edom had wrought incredible horrors with the sword and been reckless in shedding human blood. By the sword shall he be punished, and be surfeited with a very carnival of slaughter and bloodshed. Joab was slain by the weapon with which he murdered Abner and Amasa years previously (1Ki_2:28-34). Dogs lapped the blood and picked the bones of Jezebel, as they had done to Naboth, the victim of her fury, fifteen years before (2Ki_9:36).
4. Their destruction will be complete and irrevocable. “I will make thee most desolate” (Eze_35:3-4; Eze_35:7; Eze_35:9; Eze_35:15). Thirty ruined towns within three days’ journey of the Red Sea attest the former greatness of Edom. The utter desolation that fell on the country and on the descendants of Esau is one of the most impressive facts of history. They were formerly distinguished for wisdom, now they are sunk in the grossest folly. They regard the ruins around them as the work of spirits. The tribes now wandering in Edom are savage and treacherous. Even the Arabs are afraid to enter the country, or to conduct any party within its borders. The desolation is irrecoverable, and travellers state that the whole region is a vast expanse of sand drifted up from the Red Sea (Isa_34:6-15; Jer_49:7-22). The enemies of God will be smitten beyond the power of recovery.
5. Their destruction will be a vindication of the character of the Being they madly oppose. “Thou shalt know that I am the Lord” (Eze_35:4; Eze_35:9; Eze_35:11-12; Eze_35:15).
LESSONS.—
1. Active opposition to the good is the offspring of intensified hatred.
2. It is utterly futile to oppose God.
3. The Divine vengeance may be averted by timely submission and repentance.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Eze_35:1-15. “Why, in this connection, should Edom have alone been singled out for destruction? Not as if her people only were appointed to suffer vengeance at the hand of God, but because, in the bitterness of their spite and the intensity of their hatred to the cause and people of God, they stood pre-eminent among the nations, and so were fitly chosen as the representatives of the whole. The region where the greatest enmity reigned is the ideal territory where the final recompenses of judgment take place. The Edomite spirit, the carnal, unbelieving, rebellious spirit, is most surely doomed to perdition: enmity to the cause and kingdom of Christ is marked out in the councils of heaven for irretrievable ruin. They who are of it cannot overthrow the Church, but must themselves be overthrown and fall under the stroke of vengeance.”—Fairbairn.
Eze_35:3. “When punishments break in and are already taking their course, in this God, as it were, stretches out His hand. Now, since His hand is not shortened to help His children, so also it is not too weak to punish His enemies (Isa_59:1).”—Starke.
Eze_35:4. “When godliness goes out of cities, confusion and devastation enter in. We can never sufficiently recognise that God alone is eternal.”—Lange.
Eze_35:5-7. Hatred—
1. One of the fruits of sin.
2. A prolific source of other evil passions.
3. Is intensified in virulence the longer it is cherished.
4. Prompts to deeds of cruelty and bloodshed.
5. Will be signally punished.
—“The fiercest mutual hatred had for centuries thrust apart the brother-races of Jacob and Esau. The refusal of a passage through Mount Seir to the Hebrews under Moses, in their march from Egypt nine hundred years before, had entailed the long sufferings of the wilderness life, and had never been forgotten. Under Joram, Amaziah, and Uzziah in succession, it had been virtually a Jewish province, till the reign of the weak Ahaz. The destruction of Jerusalem, however, had at last given the Edomites a chance of revenge, and they had indulged it to the uttermost.”—Geikie.
Eze_35:5. “Edom was of the same stock, brother to Jacob, and it was sin to envy, but greater to hate, and greatest to retain a perpetual hatred, an hereditary enmity from Esau’s time, the father of the Edomites, till now: near one thousand two hundred years had the seed of Esau hated Jacob’s seed for inheriting the blessing, which they as little valued as their father did before them.”—Pool.
—“To afflict the afflicted is cruel. This is scarcely of man, bad as he is. He must be possessed by the malignant spirit of the devil, when he wounds the wounded, exults over the miseries of the afflicted, and seeks opportunities to add affliction to those who are already under the rod of God.”—A. Clarke.
—“Edom is often in Scripture made the type of the most bitter and inveterate enemies of God’s people in all ages. The hatred of brothers, when they are at variance, is proverbially rancorous. Such was Esau’s hatred of Jacob, though the latter averted it by soft words and conciliatory acts; and such was the inherited bitterness of Esau’s descendants towards Israel.”—Fausset.
—“Where enmity leads to: it perpetuates itself by degrees in the heart; it is not afraid even to use the sword: first the malice of the tongue, and then the violence of malice. Therefore, always become reconciled at once and completely, that no roots may remain in the heart which may shoot up afterwards.—The prayer of an implacable man is certain not to be heard.”—Lange.
Eze_35:6. “Even blood shall pursue thee.” “As a bloodhound. It shall, it shall; believe me, it shall.”—Trapp.
—“The track of blood behind so many celebrated figures in history, behind so many so-called great exploits.—The shedding of blood a characteristic symptom of the world, a mark of the spirit that rules in the world, and of the wickedness in which it lies.”—Lange.
Eze_35:7. “Trade and intercourse cease where God sends His judgments. The Lord destroys nations that delight in war.”—Lange.
Eze_35:9. “Edom’s sin was perpetual hatred, and Edom’s punishment shall be perpetual desolations. Edomites would never return into friendship with the Israelites, but still hate, molest, and waste them; now, for just recompense, Edom’s cities shall be wasted, and never return to their former glory.”—Pool.
—“Sin is not to become eternalised; therefore eternal punishment.”—Starck.
Eze_35:10. “Whereas the Lord was there.” The Presence of God—
1. A reality though unrecognised.
2. A comfort in the midst of desolation and suffering.
3. The hope and guarantee of deliverance and future prosperity.
4. A startling revelation to His enemies.
Eze_35:10-11. “The overthrow and exile of the Israelites from their land ought to have moved Edom to self-examination, lest there should be in herself sins found which might provoke God to inflict similar judgments. Instead of this, she regarded Israel’s calamity as her opportunity. ‘These two countries shall be mine, and we will possess it.’ She forgot, in her wicked presumption, that the land of Israel was peculiarly the Lord’s possession and the Lord’s earthly dwelling-place; therefore, so far was Edom from being about to gain possession of Israel’s inheritance, that she was about to be deprived of her own, and that for ever.”—Fausset.
Eze_35:11-15. The Triumph of the Wicked—
1. Finds its joy in the downfall of those they hated (Eze_35:11; Eze_35:15).
2. Is unreal: their conquered possessions a desolation; their boasting hollow and joyless (Eze_35:12-15).
3. Is soon changed to dejection, while all else rejoice (Eze_35:14).
Eze_35:12-13. The Speech of the Wicked—
1. Blasphemous. “All thy blasphemies which thou hast spoken” (Eze_35:12).
2. Boastful. “With your mouth ye have boasted” (Eze_35:13).
3. Copious in its insolent vocabulary. “Ye have multiplied your words against Me” (Eze_35:13).
4. Does not escape Divine notice. “I have heard thee” (Eze_35:13).
Eze_35:13. “Worldly men think lightly of speaking vindictive and calumnious words against the people of God, and of forming projects for taking selfish advantage of their times of extremity; but God regards such words against His people as spoken against Himself. There is not a word that goeth out of our lips which God does not hear. How careful and guarded we should be in our words, especially in times when our carnal passions and tempers are excited! (Pro_10:19).”—Fausset.
Eze_35:14-15. “What an entire reversal of the present order of things there will be at the second coming of Christ! The enemies of God, who so often seem now to triumph, shall then be cast down in everlasting sorrow. The people of God, Israel and the elect Church, who so often now mourn, shall then rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Edom, that rejoiced over fallen Israel, shall then mourn over her own irretrievable fall while ‘Jerusalem shall be a rejoicing and her people a joy.’ Let us see that we take our portion new with the people of God in their season of trial, that so we may have our everlasting portion with them in their coming blessedness.”—Fausset.
Eze_35:14. Suffering—
1. Aggravated when all around is gay.
2. Has always in it a depressing element of loneliness.
3. Has special significance when we are conscious it is Divinely inflicted.
—“When the whole land of Israel rejoiceth; as it is sometimes hale and well with the Church when the wicked are in the suds. Judea was the world of the world, as Athens was the Epitome of Greece, the Greece of Greece.”—Trapp.
—“When the whole earth is in peace and plenty and enjoys both, thou shalt want all; and then envy at the welfare of others shall break thy heart. Envy was thy sin, and now what is the object of envy—the prosperity of others—shall be thy grief.”—Pool.
—“No true grace without justice. The theocracy must accordingly pass through the fire of affliction and become purified: for the same reason, the heathenism whose iniquity is full must show that it has fallen under the Divine justice. For grace is not toleration of the bad.”—Havernick.
Eze_35:15. “The Edomites who thought of seizing on others’ lands, lost their own. They who covet all do oft lose all, yea, even the pleasure of that they possess; as a greedy dog swalloweth the whole meat that is cast him, without any pleasure, as gaping still for the next morsel.”—Trapp.
—“Thou tookest pleasure in the ruin of My people; for this thy sin I will ruin thee, and then do to thee as thou didst; I will retaliate and rejoice in thy ruin: thou helpedst to make Jerusalem desolate; I will make thee so: thou criedst to ruin them all, to destroy all the land; all thy land shall be ruined, and by these judgments I will be known to be the Lord.”—Pool.
—“This whole chapter strongly inculcates this maxim—Do as thou wouldst be done by, and what thou wouldst not have done to thee, do not to others. And from it we learn that every man may, in some sort, be said to make his own temporal good or evil; for as he does to others God will take care to do to him, whether it be evil or good, weal or woe. Would you not be slandered or backbitten? Then do not slander or backbite. Wouldst thou wish to live in peace? Then do not disturb the peace of others. Be merciful, and thou shalt obtain mercy.”—A. Clarke.
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.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v1 Section 2 (Eze 35:1-15).
Section 2 (Eze 35:1-15).
The enemy answered.
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We have now a prophecy of a wholly different character; it is a natural corollary of what we have had before us. Israel are now the people of God. But "was not Esau Jacob’s brother?" It is God’s own challenge to Israel in Malachi: "Was not Esau Jacob’s brother? saith the Lord. Yet I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness. Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places; thus saith the Lord of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against whom the Lord hath indignation forever. And your eyes shall see, and ye shall say, The Lord will be magnified from the border of Israel" (Mal 1:2-5). This is the question which comes up here, Esau was Jacob’s brother. Were they so unlike each other after all? Was he not Jacob "the supplanter?" -the man with the hand upon the heel of his brother; the man always intent upon his own gain and little careful as to his means of acquirement; the man who believed in himself and who, if he cannot fully trust God, must act for himself? whose motto, "God helps those who help themselves" has had wide circulation. It is but the picture of a fallen being, and Jacob was such, we know. Are any of us different? We may take comfort then that God can yet say: "I loved Jacob!" Nay, that He can call Himself "The God of Jacob," which is but another way of saying, The God of grace. Jacob has another name, as we know, but that is what he is by the work of God, by that only. This "worm" Jacob can only by divine fashioning become a threshing instrument which shall "thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and make the hills as chaff ". (Isa 41:15). Upon these two names, Jacob and Israel, God dwells in contrast all through their history. It is the history essentially of every soul that has learnt what divine grace is; as Esau’s, on the other hand, is the history of a soul that has never learnt grace, and whose misery is this, not only that he has never learnt it, but resists it.
This lesson, which God is holding up before us all, Esau might have learnt, but did not. God has sworn that He has no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, and Ezekiel has borne witness to this. But He has but one way of acceptance and blessing, and not another; and he that will not learn this must be without the blessing, akin as he may be naturally, as indeed he is, to his brother that has obtained it. But thus there arises the perpetual grudge and enmity that the Edomite has against the Israelite, and it is an enmity which is really to God, to God’s thoughts and ways. Thus we need not wonder if it come into special consideration here, just when Israel comes into his blessing, which is also the time when Edom is finally cast out.
The prophet is instructed to set his face against Mount Seir and prophesy against it, and say: "Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I am against thee, Mount Seir, and I will stretch out my hand upon thee, and will make thee a desolation astonishment." Mount Seir is Edom’s possession, a "rough," or "rugged place," as the word means. Esau has chosen for himself; therefore he has not chosen well. Does ever any one choose well who chooses for himself? When Abram stood with Lot in the land which God had told him was to be his by divine gift, the man of faith could say in the liberality which comes from faith, "Is not the whole land before thee? Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right: or if thou depart to the left hand, then I will go to the right," but Lot was of another mind: "Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan that it was well watered everywhere, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah -even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar. Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east: and they separated themselves the one from the other" (Gen 13:9-11). Alas, they were separated by more than locality, and we know the after-history of Lot’s fatal choice. In a sense, God was before him also. This plain of Jordan was it not like the Garden of God? All this that spoke so alluringly to his heart, was it not of God, and good? Why should he not enjoy what God had made so manifestly for enjoyment? Alas, how is it that we can forget how sin has disordered everything, even to the very eyes that look upon things now? And Lot chose, as we know, what did not become to him a Mount Seir only because God had mercy towards him -only that God forbade it to be that to him! Lot was to be driven out, as he was driven out, and that was God’s mercy to him; but Edom, the profane person, had chosen in deliberate profaneness, and Mount Seir accordingly was his.
Alas, when God has to give according to one’s own desire merely, and not according to what would be for His heart a gift! Mount Seir was Esau’s choice; yet it could not, after all, remain his. The things that we choose naturally are things which cannot abide because we would have them do so; for there is a judgment of God which may follow, though we see it not, of which we may be warned and yet have no eyes to see. And Edom was to know that God is Jehovah, the true and unchanging God in what He threatens, as in what He promises. Yet the portion of Jacob invited Edom too. But the kind of craving he had for it only stirred in his heart as enmity against its possessor; and thus Edom is the typical enemy of Israel through all his history. That is the point here: "Because thou hast had perpetual enmity, and hast given over the children of Israel to the power of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time of the iniquity of the end; therefore, as I live, saith the Lord Jehovah, I will appoint thee to blood, and blood shall pursue thee. Since thou hast not hated blood, therefore blood shall pursue thee." We have already had this in brief in a former prophecy, but God returns to dwell upon it for the lesson that is in it, a lesson that we may all well ponder. He that will nurse enmity in his soul shall be himself pursued by the enmity that he nurses, and when this is enmity to God and to His grace, however he may disguise it, it will necessarily be judged as such, and the end is sure. Edom is the ancient infidel as to God. He sees Israel’s land, but he does not see Jehovah’s presence in it. Thus he thinks to possess himself of that in which he finds Jehovah as his adversary, and the bitter fruit of his unbelief is made good to him as what he has indeed chosen, little as he knew the character of his choice. Was there not plenty in Israel to provoke righteous wrath against them? Yes, and God had to show this as against their misdeeds.
But the enemy’s wrath is not righteous; it is of another character. It is against Jehovah at bottom, as all unbelief is; and this is what comes out in result here. The question is not between Edom and Israel, but between Edom and God. If they said of the mountains of Israel that they were desolate, was it not true? But they did not discern the difference between chastening and rejection: therefore they said, "They are given us to devour." But if Israel can for the time cast themselves out of the very land that is their own, Edom can never enjoy it: "Ye have magnified yourselves against Me with your mouth, and have multiplied your words against Me. I have heard it. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah; When the whole earth rejoiceth, I will make thee a desolation. As thou didst rejoice over the inheritance of the house of Israel because it was desolate, so will I do unto thee. Thou shalt be a desolation, O Mount Seir, and all Edom, the whole of it; and they shall know" -what a wail there is once more in this, "they shall know -that I am Jehovah."
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The Land of Israel in the Future
The Land of Israel in the Future
Ezekiel 35 is an introduction to Ezekiel 36, the connexion being shown by Eze_36:5. The claim of Edom to the land having been repudiated (Ezekiel 35), its reoccupation by Israel is promised (Eze_36:1-15), and the reason of the restoration is explained (Eze_36:16-38).
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(a) The Punishment of Edom's Presumption (Ezekiel 35)
Edom has already been included by Ezekiel among the nations whose humiliation would prepare the way for the restoration of Israel (Eze_25:12-14), and this new prophecy requires a special explanation, which is easily found. Before the land could be given to its true owners all false claimants had to be disposed of. The claim of the wicked survivors of Jerusalem has already been set aside (Eze_33:23-29), and the claim of the surrounding heathen has to be dealt with in the same way. Edom is introduced here as their representative (Eze_35:10, Eze_35:12). Its former enmity and malice are recalled (Eze_35:5), and the arrogance and blasphemy of its pretensions to possess the land of Israel are specially denounced. Ezekiel foretells that God will repay the Edomites in their own coin, making their land desolate, and compelling them to recognise Him as the true God.
2. Mount Seir] Edom: see on Eze_25:12-14.
5. Time.. end] RV 'time of the iniquity of the end,' as in Eze_21:25, Eze_21:29.
9. Return] RV 'be inhabited.'
10. These two.. countries] the territories of Israel and Judah. The Lord was there] God might seem to abandon His Temple and forsake His people, but He never gave up His choice of them or His possession of their land.
14. When.. rejoiceth] rather, 'to the rejoicing of the whole earth.'
15. Idumea] RV 'Edom.'
(b) The Mountain Land of Israel repeopled (Eze_36:1-15)
This prophecy is the counterpart of Ezekiel 6. The land, made desolate for the people's sin, as was foretold, and presumptuously claimed by Edom and the other surrounding nations, will again become fertile, fruitful, and populous. Israel will inhabit it once more, and will no longer suffer famine, or be oppressed by the heathen.
1. The mountains of Israel] the mountain land of Israel, as in Eze_6:1, Eze_6:2.
2. The ancient high places] the everlasting hills, with no reference to the idolatrous worship associated with them: see Deu_33:15.
5 Idumea] RV 'Edom.' This v. makes clear the connexion of Ezekiel 35 with the present passage. To cast it out] better, perhaps, 'to possess it.'
7. Have Hfted up mine hand] have sworn.
8. They are at hand to come] The restoration of Israel is viewed as close at hand.
13. Bereaved thy nations] RV 'been a bereaved of thy nation.' The famines to which the land of Israel had been subject had given rise to the reproach that it bereaved and devoured its inhabitants (Num_13:32). This would be the case no longer.
14. Nations] RV 'nation': so in Eze_36:15.
15. Cause.. to fall] rather, 'bereave,' as in Eze_36:14.
(c) God's Reason for restoring Israel (Eze_36:16-38)
God had justly sent Israel into exile for their sins (Eze_36:17-19), but the heathen had misunderstood this event, taking it as a sign of God's inability to save His people (Eze_36:20). In this way the exiles had occasioned the profanation of God's name, and to vindicate His own honour He was compelled to restore them (Eze_36:21-24). This high argument passes into a promise of the moral renewal, as well as of the outward blessings, which would accompany the restoration (Eze_36:25-30). Yet the fact is reiterated that all this will be done, not because Israel has deserved it, but because God's glory has required it. It must minister not to pride, but to humility (Eze_36:31-32). When the sinful nation has been purified, and the desolate land repeopled, the heathen will know that the whole is God's doing (Eze_36:33-36). The blessing, too, though undeserved, will be sent in response to Israel's prayers (Eze_36:37-38).
20. Profaned] not now by actual wickedness, but indirectly, as the v. goes on to explain. When they said to them] RV 'in that men said of them.'
23. Sanctify] the exact opposite of 'profane.'
25-28. These vv. expand the promise in Eze_11:19, Eze_11:20. They include purification from guilt, inward renewal, the spirit of obedience, and the privileges of the people of God. In its essence this passage repeats Jeremiah's promise of the New Covenant (Jer_31:31-34).
26. Heart of flesh] see 2Co_3:3; (RV).
31, 32. Cp. Eze_16:61; Jer_29:11-14.
36. Build.. and plant] RV 'have builded.. and planted.'
37. I will yet for this] RV 'for this moreover will I.'
38. Holy flock] RV 'flock for sacrifice,' the point of comparison being the great numbers: see 1Ch_29:21; 2Ch_7:5; 2Ch_29:33; 2Ch_35:7-9.
Solemn] RV 'appointed.'
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 Judgment Announced and Israel’s Final Restoration Promised
CHAPTERS 35-36
Judgment Announced and Israel’s Final Restoration Promised
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1. The message against Mount Seir and Idumea (Eze 35:1-15)
2. The message of comfort to Israel (Eze 36:1-38)
Eze 35:1-15. This is another judgment message, which is closely related to the coming restoration of Israel. When the Lord is merciful to His people and bestows upon them the promised blessings, He will also deal with their enemies in judgment. Edom was the most bitter enemy of Israel, their blood-relation. The judgment threatened here was executed upon Edom; but it has a prophetic meaning of the judgment which is in store for the enemies of God’s people when the times of the Gentiles end and God arises in behalf of His suffering and persecuted people.
Then, in Eze 35:14-15, we hear of the time of rejoicing which will come for His people when their enemies are judged Deu 32:43.
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, 10 Against the Enmity of Edom
Against the Enmity of Edom
v. 1. Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
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v. 2. Son of man, set thy face against Mount Seir, this mountain range with its valleys, extending southward from the Dead Sea, being the home of the descendants of Esau, or Edom, and prophesy against it,
v. 3. and say unto it, Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, O Mount Seir, the entire country of Idumea, Gen 36:9, I am against thee, and I will stretch out Mine hand against thee, in an act of punishment, and I will make thee most desolate, literally, "desolation and desolation," that is, an utter waste.
v. 4. I will lay thy cities waste, so that they would be heaps of ruins, and thou shalt be desolate, a dreary desert waste, and thou shalt know, by the evidence thus given, that I am the Lord.
v. 5. Because thou hast had a perpetual hatred, a lasting enmity, even from the time of Esau, Gen 25:22 ff; Gen 27:37, and hast shed the blood of the children of Israel by the force of the sword in the time of their calamity, literally, "and hast delivered the sons of Israel to the hands of the sword at the time of trouble," in the time that their iniquity had an end, literally, "at the time of the guilt of the end," namely, at the time of the Chaldean conquest of Judah, when the Edomites gave particular evidence of the fact that their hostility was as severe as ever:
v. 6. therefore, as I live, saith the Lord God, I will prepare thee unto blood, so that Edom, as it were, would be dissolved in blood, and blood shall pursue thee, slaughter following after the inhabitants of Idumea, no matter where they would go; sith (since) thou hast not hated blood, had not been found shrinking back from bloodshed upon all occasions, even blood shall pursue thee. The measure which Edom had meted unto others would be meted to his own country.
v. 7. Thus will I make Mount Seir most desolate, an utter waste and desert, and cut off from it him that passeth out and him that returneth, so that traffic would no longer be carried on, no caravans passing across the country from Southern Arabia to Egypt.
v. 8. And I will fill his mountains with his slain men, in an act of slaughter which would wipe out the nation; in thy hills and in thy valleys and in all thy rivers shall they fall that are slain with the sword, the war consuming them without mercy.
v. 9. I will make thee perpetual desolations, a permanent desert waste, and thy cities shall not return, not be restored to their former power and be inhabited again; and ye shall know that I am the Lord. Idumea lies prostrate and deserted to this day, a lasting memorial of the Lord’s punitive anger when He carries out his judgments in righteousness.
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, 7, 10, 12, 14 General Information:
General Information:
Yahweh tells Ezekiel to speak a prophecy. Ezekiel is to speak to Mount Seir, but the message is for all of the people of Edom.
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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)
Son of man
"Son of a human being" or "Son of humanity." 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. AT: "Mortal person" or "Human"
set your face against Mount Seir
Mount Seir was far away, so Ezekiel could not see it, but Yahweh commands him to stare in that direction as a symbol of harming the people there. See how you translated a similar phrase in Ezekiel 6:2. AT: "turn toward Mount Seir and stare" or "stare toward Mount Seir so that the people there will be harmed" (See: Symbolic Action)
Mount Seir and prophesy against it
"the mountain of Seir." Yahweh tells Ezekiel to speak to Mount Seir as if it could hear him. The message is for all of the people of Edom. AT: "Mount Seir and prophesy against it because of what the people of Edom have done" (See: Personification)
to it
"to the mountain" or "to the people of Edom"
Behold! I am against you, Mount Seir, and I will strike you with my hand and make you a desolation and a waste
Yahweh tells Ezekiel to speak to Mount Seir as if it could hear him. The message is for all of the people of Edom. AT: "Listen, Mount Seir, I will strike you with my hand and make you a desolation and a waste because of what your people did" (See: Personification)
Behold!
The word "Behold" here adds emphasis to what follows. AT: "Listen!" or "Indeed!"
I am against you
"I am your enemy" or "I oppose you"
I will strike you with my hand
Here "hand" represents power. AT: "I will use my power to strike you" (See: Metonymy)
make you a desolation
The abstract noun "desolation" can be translated as an adjective. AT: "make you desolate" (See: Abstract Nouns)
translationWords
word of God
Son of Man
face
prophet
Lord Yahweh
hand
desolate
waste
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, 5, 13 35:1-15 This oracle is addressed to Edom, Israel’s neighbor…
35:1-15 This oracle is addressed to Edom, Israel’s neighbor to the southeast, here identified by its central mountain, Mount Seir. Edom was emblematic of all Israel’s enemies (e.g., in their rejoicing at Israel’s fall, 36:2; see also 25:12-14). The demise of Judah at the hands of the Babylonians might have given Edom room to thrive, but the Lord declared that this prosperity would be short-lived.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.