Yahweh’s word came to me, saying, “Son of man, set your face toward the mountains of Israel, and prophesy to them, and say, ‘You mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord Yahweh! The Lord Yahweh says to the mountains and to the hills, to the watercourses and to the valleys: “Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword on you, and I will destroy your high places. Your altars will become desolate, and your incense altars will be broken. I will cast down your slain men before your idols. I will lay the dead bodies of the children of Israel before their idols. I will scatter your bones around your altars. In all your dwelling places, the cities will be laid waste and the high places will be desolate; that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your incense altars may be cut down, and your works may be abolished. The slain will fall among you, and you will know that I am Yahweh.
“ ‘ “Yet I will leave a remnant, in that you will have some that escape the sword among the nations, when you are scattered through the countries. Those of you that escape will remember me among the nations where they are carried captive, how I have been broken with their lewd heart, which has departed from me, and with their eyes, which play the prostitute after their idols. Then they will loathe themselves in their own sight for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations. They will know that I am Yahweh. I have not said in vain that I would do this evil to them.” ’
“The Lord Yahweh says: ‘Strike with your hand, and stamp with your foot, and say, “Alas!” Because of all the evil abominations of the house of Israel; for they will fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence. He who is far off will die of the pestilence. He who is near will fall by the sword. He who remains and is besieged will die by the famine. Thus I will accomplish my wrath on them. You will know that I am Yahweh, when their slain men are among their idols around their altars, on every high hill, on all the tops of the mountains, under every green tree, and under every thick oak, the places where they offered pleasant aroma to all their idols. I will stretch out my hand on them, and make the land desolate and waste, from the wilderness toward Diblah, throughout all their habitations. Then they will know that I am Yahweh.’ ”
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 The Prophet now turns himself to the kingdom of…
The Prophet now turns himself to the kingdom of Israel, since he had formerly spoken concerning the Jews alone. He says that he was divinely sent to the mountains of Israel. The first question may arise about the time; for the kingdom of Israel had been cut off, and the ten tribes dragged into exile- and the kingdom had come to an end in Ezekiel’s time. The time, therefore, does not seem to accord with the denunciation of the Prophet as to what had happened many years previously. But nothing will appear out of place, if we say that it was partly prophecy and partly doctrine, so that the Israelites might understand why they were driven out of their country, and dispersed among the nations. I say that God’s plans were partly explained to the exiles, that they might know why God had driven them to distant lands: for this punishment would not have been useful had not God convinced them of its cause. But although the kingdom had fallen, it is probable that some of the people were remaining: for the Assyrian did not carry off so many thousand men, and his kingdom would have been burdened by such a multitude. Doubtless he collected the flower of the people, and permitted the commonalty to remain there: for he sent from his own kingdom inhabitants for the deserted soil. But the change was great and ruinous to the king himself, and vexatious to all alike. Although, therefore, the kingdom did not exist any longer — nay, even the name of Israel was almost extinct, because there was no mass of people, and they dwelt in their country like foreigners and guests, yet there was still some portion of them left. Now, we collect from the words of the Prophet that they were obstinate, because they were not induced by either the exile of their brethren, or their own calamity, to leave their own superstitions, and embrace the true and pure worship of God.
Since, therefore, this chastisement did not profit them, hence the Prophet is ordered to preach against them It is ascertained from the first chapter that Ezekiel received this command after the destruction of the kingdom of Israel, (Ezekiel 1:1, 2) for he said that he was divinely stirred up in the thirtieth year after the jubilee, and in the fifth year of the captivity of Jechoniah or Joachim. It is evident, therefore, that the Prophet spake against the land of Israel after the ten tribes had been dispersed. Hence we may elicit that there were still many people there, because it would have been difficult for the Assyrians to receive all the people, and those who remained alive in the country went on in their own abominations, so that it became necessary for some other judgment to be denounced against them, on which we are about to enter. Now, therefore, this principle is established, that the Prophet so treats the slaughter of the kingdom of Israel, that he predicts as about to come to pass what those left in the country by no means feared; for they were persuaded that. they were free from all dangers. But the Prophet shows that God’s wrath was not yet complete, but that their former calamities were only a prelude, and that heavier woes were at hand, because they had so hardened themselves against the power of God. The prophecy, too, has greater weight when the Prophet addressed the mountains than when his discourse was directed to men. So that Ezekiel is not ordered to exhort the Israelites to penitence, and to threaten them with the punishment which still remained, but he is ordered to turn his discourse to hills, and mountains, and valleys Thus God obliquely signifies, first, that the Israelites were deaf, and then unworthy of the trouble which Ezekiel would spend in teaching them. Thus the Prophet sent to Jeroboam did not design to address him, but turning to the altar —
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“O altar, altar,” says he, “thus saith Jehovah, Behold a son shall be born to the family of David, by name Josiah, and he shall slay upon thee the priests of the high places, and shall burn upon thee the bones of the dead.” (1 Kings 13:2.)
The king was burning incense on the altar, the prophet does not regard him, but as I have just said, directs his discourse to the altar: that was far more vehement than if he had reproved the king sharply. For that was no common reproof, to pass by the king as if he had been only the shadow of a man, and to admonish the dead altar concerning a future event: so also in this place: Son of man, set thy face against the mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them The Prophet might object that the mountains had no ears, and hence that it was only child’s play. But he understood God’s intention, and so obeyed cheerfully, because he saw the people despised and rejected by God because they were deaf and incurable, and meanwhile he knew that his labor would not be lost although he addressed the mountains. For we know that the earth was created for the use of man, and hence God proposes to us examples of his wrath in brutes, trees, the atmosphere, and the heavens, that we may know that admonitions belonging to us are engraven there, although in every other way God turns away his eyes and his face. This, therefore, is a sign of his wrath, when God shows his judgments on all sides, and yet is silent towards us, because we gather from this that we are unworthy of any trouble for our improvement, and this was doubtless the Prophet’s conclusion.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14 He speaketh to all the places where the Israelites…
He speaketh to all the places where the Israelites accustomed to commit their idolatries, threatening them destruction.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–14 Eze 6:1 And the word of the LORD came…
Eze 6:1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Ver. 1. And the word of the Lord came unto me.] Junius observeth that this and the two following prophecies, viz., those in Eze 7:1-27; Eze 8:1-18, were delivered on the Sabbath day; that is the proper season for preaching.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–14 The word of the Lord, this revelation or prophecy,…
The word of the Lord, this revelation or prophecy, came in the sixth year of Jeconiah’s captivity, on the twenty-first day (being the sabbath day) of the fifth month, a twelvemonth and fortnight after the first vision, Eze 1:2, and probably it came so soon as three hundred and ninety days were ended.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 8, 11 Here, I. The prophecy is directed to the mountains…
Here, I. The prophecy is directed to the mountains of Israel (Eze 6:1, Eze 6:2); the prophet must set his face towards them. If he could see so far off as the land of Israel, the mountains of that land would be first and furthest seen; towards them therefore he must look, and look boldly and stedfastly, as the judge looks at the prisoner, and directs his speech to him, when he passes sentence upon him. Though the mountains of Israel be ever so high and ever so strong, he must set his face against them, as having judgments to denounce that should shake their foundation. The mountains of Israel had been holy mountains, but now that they had polluted them with their high places God set his face against them and therefore the prophet must. Israel is here put, not, as sometimes, for the ten tribes, but for the whole land. The mountains are called upon to hear the word of the Lord, to shame the inhabitants that would not hear. The prophets might as soon gain attention from the mountains as from that rebellious and gainsaying people, to whom they all day long stretched out their hands in vain. Hear, O mountains! the Lord's controversy (Mic 6:1, Mic 6:2), for God's cause will have a hearing, whether we hear it or no. But from the mountains the word of the Lord echoes to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys; for to them also the Lord God speaks, intimating that the whole land is concerned in what is now to be delivered and shall be witnesses against this people that they had fair warning given them of the judgments coming, but they would not take it; nay, they contradicted the message and persecuted the messengers, so that God's prophets might more safely and comfortably speak to the hills and mountains than to them.
II. That which is threatened in this prophecy is the utter destruction of the idols and the idolaters, and both by the sword of war. God himself is commander-in-chief of this expedition against the mountains of Israel. It is he that says, Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword upon you (Eze 6:3); the sword of the Chaldeans is at God's command, goes where he sends it, comes where he brings it, and lights as he directs it. In the desolations of that war,
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1. The idols and all their appurtenances should be destroyed. The high places, which were on the tops of mountains (Eze 6:3), shall be levelled and made desolate (Eze 6:6); they shall not be beautified, shall not be frequented as they had been. The altars, on which they offered sacrifice and burnt incense to strange gods, shall be broken to pieces and laid waste; the images and idols shall be defaced, shall be broken and cease, and be cut down, and all the fine costly works about them shall be abolished, Eze 6:4, Eze 6:6. Observe here, (1.) That war makes woeful desolations, which those persons, places, and things that were esteemed most sacred cannot escape; for the sword devours one as well as another. (2.) That God sometimes ruins idolatries even by the hands of idolaters, for such the Chaldeans themselves were; but, as if the deity were a local thing, the greatest admirers of the gods of their own country were the greatest despisers of the gods of other countries. (3.) It is just with God to make that a desolation which we make an idol of; for he is a jealous God and will not bear a rival. (4.) If men do not, as they ought, destroy idolatry, God will, first or last, find out a way to do it. When Josiah had destroyed the high places, altars, and images, with the sword of justice, they set them up again; but God will now destroy them with the sword of war, and let us see who dares re-establish them.
2. The worshippers of idols and all their adherents should be destroyed likewise. As all their high places shall be laid waste, so shall all their dwelling-places too, even all their cities, Eze 6:6. Those that profane God's dwelling-place as they had done can expect no other than that he should abandon theirs, Eze 5:11. If any man defile the temple of God, him will God destroy, Co1 3:17. It is here threatened that their slain shall fall in the midst of them (Eze 6:7); there shall be abundance slain, even in those places which were thought most safe; but it is added as a remarkable circumstance that they shall fall before their idols (Eze 6:4), that their dead carcases should be laid, and their bones scattered, about their altars, Eze 6:5. (1.) Thus their idols should be polluted, and those places profaned by the dead bodies which they had had in veneration. If they will not defile the covering of their graven images, God will, Isa 30:22. The throwing of the carcases among them, as upon the dunghill, intimates that they were but dunghill-deities. (2.) Thus it was intimated that they were but dead things, unfit to be rivals with the living God; for the carcases of dead men, that, like them, have eyes and see not, ears and hear not, were the fittest company for them. (3.) Thus the idols were upbraided with their inability to help their worshippers, and idolaters were upbraided with the folly of trusting in them; for, it should seem, they fell by the sword of the enemy when they were actually before their idols imploring their aid and putting themselves under their protection. Sennacherib was slain by his sons when he was worshipping in the house of his god. (4.) The sin might be read in this circumstance of the punishment; the slain men are cast before the idols, to show that therefore they are slain, because they worshipped those idols; see Jer 8:1, Jer 8:2. let the survivors observe it, and take warning not to worship images; let them see it, and know that God is the Lord, that the Lord he is God and he alone.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–13 And the word of the Lord came unto me,…
And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying. That is, the word of prophecy from the Lord, as the Targum: this, according to Junius, was delivered out by the prophet on a sabbath day, the twenty first of the fifth month, and in the sixth year of King Jehoiachin's captivity; and so was more than a year after the vision at Chebar, Eze 1:1.
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Ezekiel 6:2
eze 6:2
eze 6:2
eze 6:2Son of man, set thy face towards the mountains of Israel,.... Or cities of Israel, the inhabitants of them; not the ten tribes, for they had been carried captive long before this time, even in the times of Hezekiah; unless it can be thought that this prophecy is designed to show the reason of their captivity, which was their idolatry; or that it is directed to those of them which remained in the land, and were mixed with the other tribes; but rather the land of Judea is intended, in which were many mountains, and one part of it was called the hill country, Luk 1:39; and the mountains are mentioned, against which the prophet is ordered to direct his face, and look unto; partly because idolatry was much practised upon them; and partly to show the stupidity of the Jews, and the failure of the prophecy among them; that it was as well, or better, to speak to the mountains, than to them; for since they had so often put away the word of God from them, they were unworthy of it; wherefore such a direction to the prophet comes some degree of indignation and resentment:
and prophesy against them; as that the sword should be upon them, and the high places built upon them should be destroyed: or "unto them" (a); direct the prophecy to them; speak to them as if they were capable of hearing: or "concerning them", as the Syriac version; and so the Targum, concerning their desolation.
(a) "ad eos", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus; "ad illos", Piscator.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14 A threatening of the destruction of Israel for their…
A threatening of the destruction of Israel for their idolatry, ver. 1-7. A promise of the gracious return of a remnant, ver. 8-10. Directions to lament the sins and calamities of Israel, ver. 11-14.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 9, 11, 14 In this chapter, which forms a distinct section, the…
CHAPTER VI
In this chapter, which forms a distinct section, the prophet
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denounces the judgments of God against the Jews for their
idolatry, 1-7;
but tells them that a remnant shall be saved, and brought to a
sense of their sins by their severe afflictions, 8-14.
NOTES ON CHAP. VI
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv2, 8, 11 Eze 6:2-7. Set thy face toward the mountains of…
Eze 6:2-7. Set thy face toward the mountains of Israel — Turn thy face to that part where Judea is situated. Judea was a hilly country; therefore that whole land is expressed here and elsewhere by the mountains of Israel, Judah being called Israel, because the ten tribes, generally distinguished by that name, had been long since carried captive into Assyria, and Judah possessed a great part of their country. And prophesy against them — Direct thy discourse to them. The prophets sometimes directed their discourse to the inanimate parts of the creation, thereby to upbraid the stupidity of men. Thus saith the Lord to the mountains and to the hills — Every part of the country had been defiled with idolatry. The altars built for idol-worship were commonly placed upon mountains and hills; the shady valleys and river-sides were likewise made use of for the same purpose, particularly for the sacrificing of children to Moloch: see Isa 57:5; Jer 7:31. So by this the prophet denounces a general judgment upon the whole country. And your altars shall be desolate — See note on Lev 26:30, where Moses denounces against the Israelites the same judgments upon their provocations. I will cast down your slain men before your idols, &c. — So that their sin shall be read in the manner of their punishment; and while the idols are upbraided with their inability to help their worshippers, the idolaters are reproached with the folly of trusting in them. And ye shall know that I am the Lord — “An epiphonema, or conclusion of a severe denunciation often repeated by this prophet, importing that the judgments which God intended to bring on the Jews, would make the most hardened and stupid sinners sensible that this was God’s hand.” — Lowth.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 7, 9, 11 The former prophecies concerned the city of Jerusalem and…
The former prophecies concerned the city of Jerusalem and the inhabitants of Judaea. The present is addressed to the whole land and people of Israel, which is to be included in a like judgment, The ground of the judgment is “idolatry,” and the whole rests on Deut. 12. The prophecy is against the “mountains” of Israel, because the mountains and valleys were the seats of idol-worship. It is also the proclamation of the final judgment of Israel. It is the picture of the future judgment of the world.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 11, 14 Mountains, where idols were chiefly adored. Here their votaries…
Mountains, where idols were chiefly adored. Here their votaries find death. (Worthington) --- Israel, including all God’s people, as the sacred writers make no distinction (Calmet) after the destruction of Samaria.
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 3. The Two Discourses of Rebuke (Ch. 6 and…
3. The Two Discourses of Rebuke (Ch. 6 and 7).
Eze_6:1. And the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying: Son of man, set 2thy face toward the mountains of Israel, and prophesy to them. And say, 3Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord Jehovah. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah to the mountains and to the hills, to the brook-channels and to the valleys: Behold, I, even I, cause a sword to come upon you, and I destroy your high places. 4And your altars are desolated, and your sun-pillars are broken in pieces; and I make your slain to fall before your dung-idols. 5And I lay the carcases of the children of Israel before their dung-idols, and scatter your bones round about your altars. 6In all your dwelling-places shall the cities be laid waste, and the high places become desolate, in order that your altars may be laid waste and broken in pieces, and your dung-idols be laid waste and done away with, and your sun-pillars be thrown down, and your handiworks be rooted out. 7And the slain falls in your midst, and ye know that I Amos 8 Jehovah. And I leave a remnant, inasmuch as there are to you some that have escaped the sword among the heathen nations, when ye are scattered in the 9countries. And your escaped ones remember me among the heathen nations, whither they are carried captive, when I have broken their whorish heart, which hath departed from me, and their eyes, which go a whoring after their dung-idols; and they feel loathing in their faces for the evil things which they have done in 10respect of all their abominations. And they know that I am Jehovah; not in vain have I said that I would do this evil unto them. 11Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Strike into thy hand, and stamp with thy foot, and say, Woe to all the evil abominations of the house of Israel, who shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence. 12He that is far off shall die by the pestilence; and he that is near shall fall by the sword; and he that remained over, and he that is preserved, shall die by the famine; and I accomplish My fury upon [in] 13them. And ye know that I am Jehovah, when their slain are in the midst of their dung-idols round about their altars, at every high hill, upon all the tops of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick terebinth, on 14whatever place they did offer sweet savour to all their dung-idols. And I stretch out My hand upon them, and make the land a desert and waste more than the wilderness of Diblath, in all their dwelling-places; and they know that I am Jehovah.
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Eze_6:3 Vulg.: … rupibus et vallibus—(Anoth. read.: אני ;הנה is wanting in some.)
Eze_6:5. Anoth. read.: לפני גלוליכם. Vulg.: simulacrorum vestrorum.
Eze_6:6. ... ἐν παση τ κατοικια ὑμων. Αἱ πολεις—
Eze_6:9. Sept.: ... ὁτι ὀμωμοκα τη καρδια αὐτων—
Eze_6:12. ̔Ο ἐγγυς ἐν ῥομφαια...ὁ δε μακραν ἐν θανατω τελευτησει, κ. ὁ... κ.ὁ περιεχομενος ἐν λιμω—relictus … et obsessus—
Eze_6:13. ... ὑμων
EXEGETICAL REMARKS
The first discourse is not exactly a continuation, or even a farther elucidation of what precedes, but a word by itself, although with reference to what went before. Its resemblance to Jeremiah will be shown by manifold points of contact with the style of Jeremiah. According to Calv., Ezekiel turns now from Judah to Israel (?).
Eze_6:1. Comp. Eze_1:3; Eze_3:16.
Eze_6:2. שים פניך expresses the direction, and that simply: toward; the translation of אל by: “against,” is stronger than is necessary.—The mountains of Israel remove, of course, the horizon of the prophet from Jerusalem, which was hitherto mainly the subject of discourse, to a greater distance; but the expression is used, not so much in order to characterize the whole land according to its peculiarity, as a land of mountains in the sense of Deu_11:11 (Hengst.), which in the connection here would be quite superfluous; but the mountains come into consideration, as the sequel shows, as Israel’s well-known, favourite places of sacrifice (Jer_3:6). According to J. D. Mich.: “a prophecy against the remnant of the ten tribes in Palestine, which took part even in Hezekiah’s and Josiah’s passover.” As in the case of words of speaking, אליהם might also mean: “to prophesy of them;” but they are
Eze_6:3—formally addressed. Comp. 1Ki_13:2.—אָפִיק may be a narrow valley, a defile, and equally well a river-bed, a brook-channel.—For וְלַנֵּיאָוֹת we have in the Qeri: וְלַגֵּאָיוֹת. Not for the purpose of depicting the whole land, but in order graphically to set forth the mountains; or because defiles and valleys, on account of the growth of trees, are distinctively for idolatrous services (e. g. the valley of Hinnom, Jer_7:31; Jer_32:35). In the latter respect, the sword comes and destroys the high places, as high places of worship, self-chosen; hence your.—הנני אני energetically expressive. The sword-tone from Ezekiel 5 begins again to make itself heard.
Eze_6:4. ונשמו perf. Niph. of שָׁמֵם, comp. Eze_4:17; here of being rendered silent by devastation: to lay waste.—The altars where sacrifices are offered.—חַמָּנִים only in the plural, statues, images of the Phenician sun-god (Baal-Hamman); Raschi: “sun-pillars.”—גִּלּוּלִים likewise only in the plural, certainly not: “stocks,” from גָּלַל, “to roll” (?), but undoubtedly connected with גָּלֶל and גֵּלֶל, “dung,” unless: the “abominable,” “horrible,” from the original meaning: “to separate,” “to divide.” Häv.: stone monuments (contemptuously: loose stones), dead masses of stone. (Perhaps: “your excrements.”)—לפני, “in face of,” lying before the face. Dust to dung.
Eze_6:5. פגר is: something fallen, a dead body; comp. Lev_26:30.—עצם is “what is strong,” hence: a bone. (Lav. remarks here, that perhaps also they made themselves be buried beside their idols, and that now the bones of the dead were to be brought out and scattered by their enemies seeking after the ornaments of the dead.) The discourse is addressed to the mountains; but as it is spoken of the children of Israel, so also in reality it is spoken to them.
In Eze_6:6 the place of execution is extended by means of בכל מושבותיכם to the inhabited land, more specially to the cities (Jer_2:28).—תחרבנה, with significant allusion to חֶרֶב (sword).—למעןּ the extermination of the idolatrous worship therefore is the object.—וישמו. Hengst.: “and become guilty,” be convicted as guilty by means of the destruction. אשם is “to demolish,” “to break in pieces,” and from that morally: to commit a fault, and consequently to become guilty, finally: to suffer punishment. Guilt appears a strange thought for our context here.
Eze_6:7. Slain [sing.]; the individual instead of all who are like him, one here, another there.—Because the discourse reaches a pause, after the personal element (as in Eze_6:4-5) has been added to the material, there is mentioned as the result the experimental knowledge of Jehovah,—not so much of His being God alone, as of His eternity; here in contrast with the idols which pass away. With such knowledge taken into view as the effect of later experience, the way is paved at the same time for Eze_6:8. (Ew. converts והותרתי, which is to him “incapable of explanation” (! !), into דִּבַּרְתִּי, which he attaches to Eze_6:7.)—The remnant are such as have escaped so far as the sword is concerned, etc.; comp. Eze_5:2; Eze_5:12; Eze_5:3 (Rom_9:27; Rom_11:5).—בהזרותֵיכם, inf. Niph. with plur. suffix, for בְּהִןָּרוֹתְכֶם.
Eze_6:9. Comp. Luk_15:17 sqq. (Lev_26:41).—אשר: if, or when.—נשברתי Ges. understands in a middle sense: “I break for myself.” Hengst.: “The passivity passes over, as it were, from those whose heart is broken to Him by whom, and in whose interest, it has been broken. I was broken, instead of: I have broken for myself.” [Others: By whose whorish heart I am broken (with pain, Gen_6:6). Hitz.: their heart and eyes, which could not be satisfied with whoredom (Eze_16:28-29), God will then “satisfy” with bitter feelings (הִשְׂבַּעְתִּי instead of נשברתי). Ew. reads, instead of אשר נשברתי, “more simply,” וְנַשְׁבְּרוּ. The LXX. have read נשׁבעתי.] Is there an allusion to David in Psa_51:17 (2Sa_11:2), as Hengst. supposes?—זנה is found properly only of the woman, as here also in the application to the marriage relationship of Israel to Jehovah. The word means properly: to incline; but whether is it towards or away from? In the latter sense (Hos_9:1) we have it interpreted by means of אשר־סר מעלי; in the former by means of אחרי־.—ונקטוֹ (קוט) with Dag. euphon. in the last.—בפניהם, not of the idols לפני=, Eze_6:4-5, but of the escaped, who feel loathing in their own faces (“not reciprocally,” Hitz.). (Hengst.: to become a loathing to themselves. Rosenm.: so that their face shows the loathing.) Eze_20:43; Eze_36:31.—אל־הרעות: “in reference to,” as respecting, etc. Comp. besides, Jer_22:22; Hos_4:19.—לְכל, like אל, of which it is an abbreviation.
Eze_6:10. Like Eze_6:7, a pause in the discourse, a repetition of the object in view. He remains what He is, but they must change, must away back to Him. In this experimental way they come to know Jehovah.—חנם (חֵן), gratis, frustra, in complete form אל־חנם. That the deed proves the word is not the special point of this second pause in the discourse, but (according to the accents) the eternity of Jehovah, as in Eze_6:7, in contrast with the idols that pass away, so now in contrast with those who change in Israel.—The words “Not in vain have I said,” etc. (comp. on Eze_14:23), show in general how it is possible, by means of the fulfilment of what has been said, that they can acquire from experience the knowledge of Jehovah; and they form, besides, the transition to Eze_6:11 : כה־אמר. Pain and displeasure, in general lively emotion (Num_24:10; Eze_21:19 [17], Eze_22:13). Not like Eze_25:6 or 2Sa_22:43. But comp., as to the first gesture, Eze_6:14. Either: with the hand upon the thigh (Jer_31:19), or: one hand into the other. The gesture with the foot Hengst. takes in the sense of impatience, which cannot wait for the suffering following upon the sinful action. The prophet symbolizes in his own person the indignation of Jehovah.—אשר, according to Keil, a conjunction: that.
Eze_6:12. Since the “house of Israel” (Eze_6:11) as a whole is interpreted by means of אשר in the plural, and since, in fact, more exactly it is those who fall by the sword, etc., the specification of our verse refers to the same parties. He that is far off, who may reckon himself far off from the sword, which is first named in Eze_6:11, dies by that which is last named in Eze_6:11, and hence relatively farthest off: pestilence. He that is near, who is near the death by famine, the second named, does not, however, perish by it, but falls by what is still nearer to him (according to Eze_6:11), the first named sword. He that remaineth over, viz. from the pestilence, and he that is preserved, viz. from the sword, dies nevertheless, as it were of himself, by the famine. The prevailing reference here, according to Ezekiel 4, 5, is to the siege of Jerusalem; but הנצור is not on that account: he that is besieged (Hitz.). Comp. besides, Eze_5:13.
Eze_6:13. A third pause in the discourse; comp. Eze_6:7; Eze_6:10. The point in hand is the eternity of Jehovah—the beginning being at the same time resumed in a supplementary way now at the close and termination of the discourse—in contrast with the land, consequently with what has been promised and given by Jehovah Himself! Thus the accomplishment of the divine fury just threatened (Eze_6:12) is brought about. Perhaps also the hearers of the prophet are addressed, who may be conceived of as acquiring such knowledge. Comp. besides, Eze_6:4-5; 1Ki_14:23; 2Ki_17:10; Deu_12:2; Isa_57:5 sqq.; Hos_4:13; Jer_2:20; Jer_3:6.—Heights of hills and tops of mountains, as being nearer heaven, the heavenly powers, as it were like natural altars of the earth, adapted also for matching the progress of the sacrifice, of the sacrificial smoke mentioned in what follows.—Not forests, groves, but single green trees found in the brook-channels and ravines.—אלה like אַלּוֹן, from its strength, a tree similar to the oak, ever-green, rich in shade, with fruit in clusters, capable of reaching a great age, hence also used for monuments, Landmarks, and the like (Kimchi: our elms). In arboriculture the tree most preferred, perhaps as being sacred to Astarte. מקום אשר, loco quo = ubi.—The standing formula in the law of the offering in general, and in particular of the burnt-offering which is wholly consumed, ריח ניחח, “savour of rest,” is a bitter criticism, where God must pronounce it of the worship of idols. (“The idea of rest is, like that of peace, synonymous with acceptability, pleasantness, so that the formula is intended to assert that the offering, when it rises up, is acceptable, well-pleasing to God,” Bähr.) Comp. Gen_8:21; Eze_8:11; Eze_16:18; Hos_2:13.
Eze_6:14. The exceedingly expressive gesture (Eze_14:9; Eze_14:13) explains itself, in contrast with the foregoing spread of idolatry (ונתתי over against נתנו־שם in Eze_6:13).—שממה ומשׁמח is: a waste and desolation, the greatest waste. Comp. Eze_5:14; Jer_6:8.—A wilderness of Diblah is not known elsewhere, hence many have read Riblah, a city which lay on the northern boundary of Palestine (?), with ה local attached to it, in this sense: “from the wilderness (in the south and east) as far as Riblah.” Besides the fact that the change of reading is without support from the ancient translators, there is so much against it in a linguistic and geographical point of view (comp. Deu_34:11 and 2Ki_23:33; Jer_39:5; Jer_52:10), that certainly the simpler plan recommends itself, to take מ comparatively (מן) and “Diblathah” = Diblathaim (Jer_48:22; Num_33:46), which is also in the inscription recently discovered at Dhiban, on the other side of the Dead Sea Comp. Schlottmann’s Osterprogramm, 1870; Nöldeke, Die Inschrift des Königs Mesa von Moab, Kiel, 1870), the Moabite city on the margin of the great wilderness of Arabia Deserta. Comp. Keil on the passage. [Häv. takes “Diblathah” as a proper name formed by Ezekiel, whose appellative meaning (the form like תִּמְנָתָה, side by side with תִּמְנָה) is perhaps: “wilderness of ruin, of destruction” (Joe_2:3; Jer_51:26), analogously to “Babylon.”]
Additional Note on Ch. 5, 6
[In the vision of the siege and the iniquity-bearing, a heavy burden of troubles, partly in progress, and partly still impending, had been announced by the prophet as determined against the covenant people. The afflictions of Egypt and the trials of the wilderness were, in a manner, to pass over them again. But even that was not enough; for as their guilt exceeded the guilt of their forefathers, so the chastisement now to be received from the hand of God was to surpass all that had been experienced in the history of the past. This more severe message is unfolded in the next vision, that recorded in these chapters.
The judgments themselves are distributed into three classes, according to the threefold division of the hair: the sword was to devour one-third of the people; famine and pestilence another; and that which remained was to be scattered among the nations. The strongest language is employed to describe the calamities indicated under these various heads, and everything is introduced that might have the effect of conveying the most appalling idea of the coming future. Amid the horrors to be produced by famine and pestilence, the dreadful words of Moses, that “their fathers should eat their sons in the midst of them,” are reiterated, with the addition of the still darker feature, that “the sons should also eat their fathers” (Eze_6:10). The wild beasts of the field, too, were to embitter by their ravages the calamities produced by the evil arrows of famine; and the sword was to pass through the land in such fury, that none should be able to escape, rendering all a desolate wilderness (Eze_6:14), destroying also their idols, and scattering around them the dead carcases of the people, so that the things in which they had foolishly trusted should only in the day of evil prove the witnesses and companions of their ruin (Eze_6:3-6). Finally, in respect to those who should escape the more immediate evils, not only should they be scattered far and wide among the nations, but should there also meet with taunting and reproaches; nay, a sword should be drawn out after them, as had already been predicted by Moses (Eze_5:12; Lev_26:33); they, too, were to be for burning (so also Isa_6:13); for the anger of the Lord was still to pursue after them with “furious rebukes,” until He had completely broken their rebellious hearts, and wrought in them a spirit of true contrition for sin and perfect reconciliation of heart with God (Eze_6:9).
Nothing of a definite nature is mentioned as to time and place in this dark outline of revealed judgments. That the doom of evil was by no means to be exhausted by the troubles connected with the Chaldean conquest is manifest; for that portion of the people who were to go into exile and be dispersed among the nations were appointed to other and still future tribulations. There was to be a germinating evil in their destiny, because there would be, as the Lord clearly foresaw, a germinating evil in their character; and so long as this root of bitterness should still be springing up into acts of rebellion against God, it should never cease to be recoiling upon them with strokes of chastisement in providence. In this there was nothing absolutely singular as to the principle on which the divine government proceeded—only, as God had connected himself with Israel in a manner He never had done with any nation before, nor would with any other again, there should be a certain singularity in their case as to the actual experience of suffering on account of sin. In their history as a people, the footsteps of God’s righteous judgment would leave impressions behind it of unexampled severity, according to the word here uttered: “And I will do in thee that which I have not done, and whereunto I will not do any more the like, because of all thine abominations.”
But there is no caprice in the dealings of God. When He afflicts with the rod of chastisement and rebuke, it is only because the righteous principles of His government demand it; and the fearful burden of evils here suspended over the heads of ancient Israel sounds also, a warning-note of judgment to all nations and all ages of the world. There have been, it is true, such changes introduced into the outward administration of God’s kingdom, as render it, for the most part, impossible to trace the execution of His judgments with the same ease and certainty with which we can mark their course in the history of ancient Israel. But it is not the less certain that the principles which produced such marked effects then are in active operation still; and wherever Israel’s guilt is incurred anew, there will infallibly be experienced a renewal of Israel’s doom. For the gospel has brought no suspension of God’s justice any more than of His mercy. It contains the most glorious exhibition of His grace to sinners; but along with this it contains the most affecting and awful display of His righteous indignation against sin. Both features, indeed, of the divine character have reached under the gospel a higher stage of development; and so far has the introduction of the new covenant been from laying an arrest on the severity of God, that not till it appeared did the Jews themselves experience the heaviest portion of the evils threatened against them; then only did the wrath begin to fall upon them to the uttermost, and the days of darkness and tribulation come, such as had not hitherto been known. This vision of woe, therefore, extends alike over both dispensations, and speaks to men of every age and clime; it is a mirror, in which the justice of God reflects itself for the world at large, with no further alteration for gospel times than such as is implied in the words of the apostle: “Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?”—Fairbairn’s Ezekiel, pp. 64, 65–67.—W. F.]
DOCTRINAL REFLECTIONS
1. But what has Israel sought with all its idolatry? It has sought a strange righteousness instead of that offered to it in the law of God, viz. the heathen righteousness, which is that of the natural man in his self-will. Therefore God’s righteousness in judgment breaks in pieces this self-righteousness in all its manifold forms.
2. It is therefore the first petition in the prayer which the Messiah has taught us: Hallowed be Thy name, of which the first step is thus expressed in the Heidelberg Catechism: Grant that we may rightly know Thee, a point to which this chapter also returns over and over again. And to glorify and praise God in all His works, as the catechism farther teaches, is exactly the opposite of the works of our own hands in Eze_6:6.
3. Without a remnant, the eternity of the divine covenant, and with it the eternity of Jehovah Himself, the essence of His name, would fall to the ground. The continuity of the Church of God is the defence of the divine covenant-faithfulness, the proof of the divine providence (government), the triumph of grace over all judgment. He who judges, sifts.
4. “But first must heart and eye be broken, and fallen man must feel a loathing of himself on account of his wickedness, before he turns to Him who has not spoken in vain. This is the only way to the knowledge of the living and true God; and we all must first with Israel learn to seek and find with broken whorish hearts and eyes the light of the gospel in the shame of captivity among the blind heathen” (Umbr.).
5. “One may certainly feel that he has to do with God, but not humble himself; just as Cain (Gen_4:6) was compelled to tremble before God, but always remained the same. So it usually happens with the lost. It is certainly a part of repentance to recognise God’s judgment, but the half merely. To be displeased with oneself is the other half” (Calv.).
6. By consenting to God’s judgment, by approving of it and of His righteousness with our whole heart, as the prophet is to smite with his hands and to stamp with his foot, let us judge ourselves, and then we shall not be judged. Our justification of God leads to our justification by God, in the way shown, e.g., in Psalms 51.
7. It is a specialty of the prophecy of Ezekiel, on the one hand, the prominence given to Jehovah, who speaks and will act accordingly (Ezekiel 5.), and, on the other, the emphasis laid on knowledge as the result of experience. Because Jehovah speaks in accordance with His nature, will, decree, He will be what He is, when what He has said comes to pass. In such knowledge of Jehovah, reached through experience of what comes to pass, there lies an eschatological, New Testament element. There is a reference to the fulness of the times, alike in the judgment on Israel, and as regards the salvation of the whole world. The judgment on the heathen element in Israel is, besides, the judgment on heathenism in general. Jehovah is the holy monogram of all the future, the divine motto for the appearing of eternity in time, the manifestation of God in flesh. (Comp. Hos_2:19 sqq.)
HOMILETIC HINTS
Eze_6:1-2. So a son of man may be brought by God into such a position as to assail “mountains” even, i.e. those who tower like mountains above the level of the rest of men, princes and kings and the like, with the word (Psa_144:5).—“Sin not only pollutes man, but drags the rest of the creatures also into suffering along with him” (a. L.).
Eze_6:3 sqq. Against the sword of God idols are of no avail.—How many a place condemns many a man, and becomes his place of judgment!—There thou seest the manifold ways of men, in which they depart from the One Living God, and make to themselves broken cisterns, Jer_2:13.—In particular, a false worship does not remain unpunished, although it boasts a long time.—The power of strange gods over a heart which is not at home with God, and which follows unceasingly its strange lust: this, namely, that house and heart become desolate places of death.
Eze_6:6. God first smites man repeatedly on the hand; at last He smites in pieces the works of his hands.
Eze_6:7. “If, therefore, sin is committed in our midst, be not silent, laugh not, give no applause” (Stck.).—God is not less to be known in His judgments.
Eze_6:1-7. God and idols: (1) how His word condemns them; (2) how His judgment annihilates them; (3) how those who serve them come to shame, spiritually and corporeally.
Eze_6:8. “The Jews among the heathen nations—an example of the goodness, but also of the severity, of God, both leading us to repentance”(Stck.).—“God has and keeps for Himself at all times a little flock in the world, which can be overpowered by no one”(Cr.).—“Yes, what is there that is not scattered over the earth! Only think of the many graves and gravestones!” (Stck.)
Eze_6:9. “So long as it goes well with the sinner, he is usually deaf and blind amid all admonitions and judgments. What a benefit therefore conferred by God, when he opens his eyes and ears by means of evil days!” (St.)—“Among the heathen” means grace in the strange land, where one was not to expect it.—The blessing of affliction.—In prosperity misery, in adversity salvation!—Remembrance a way to God.—“Affliction is, as it were, a hammer for our strong heart, and is able to force tears from the eyes” (a L.).—“Misery is the best preacher of repentance, when one will not listen to others. The majority are always like horses and mules; they are not to be brought to God otherwise than by bits and bridles, whips and rods” (B. B.).—In idolatry there is a whorish ardour, as the religious history of heathendom characteristically proves.—“For it is chastity of the sprit to serve God purely” (C.).—How must the good God thus go after us men, in order merely to bring back our heart and our eyes even from destruction!—“The sinner has nothing of his own, neither his heart, nor his eyes, nor his feet; everything belongs to the world, and is in the service of the devil” (a L.).—“The true grief for our sin begins in the heart, manifests itself through the eyes, and proves itself in the whole life and walk” (Stck.).—“Sincere repentance never comes too late, but has always access to the grace of God, Rev_3:17; Rev_3:19” (W.).—“When it is right in the penitent heart, there is also loathing of ourselves, Luk_18:13” (after St.).
Eze_6:10. “The knowledge of God a fruit of repentance” (C.).—“Men make their boast with empty threatenings; but with God there is earnestness” (B. B.).
Eze_6:11. Ezekiel’s exclamation of woe has, as one may say, hand and foot. The whole man is wholly in it with his heart. Such excitement is not to be blamed in any servant of the Living God. The messengers of peace at least (Matthew 10.) are to shake the dust off their feet. And He Himself, the Peaceful One, has in Luke 11. uttered one woe after another.—“God has many rods, wherewith He chastises evil-doers, but three especially, in which all the rest are gathered up” (L.).
Eze_6:12. “No man can escape God” (Stck.).—Death overtakes us in all forms; woe to the impenitent!—“There are two kinds of flight from God: one which is of no use, and that by means of true repentance, which avails” (L.).
Eze_6:13. “As is the case with Paul in Philippians , 3, it causes the prophet also no annoyance to say the same thing repeatedly” (Stck.).—How sin can turn what is pleasing to the Most High into exactly the opposite!
Eze_6:14. “When God has held His hand long enough stretched out to allure, to bless, then at length He stretches it out also to punish” (Stck.).—The wilderness shall blossom (Isaiah 35); but what was blossoming may also become a wilderness, and both from God.—“Jehovah is He who will be what He is; in other words, He who shows His eternity and power, and fulfils His word, and does not change, nor deny Himself” (Cocc.).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14 rivers--literally, the "channels" of torrents. Rivers were often the…
rivers--literally, the "channels" of torrents. Rivers were often the scene and objects of idolatrous worship.
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 vv1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 PROPHECY OF ISRAEL’S CAPTIVITY AND THE LAND’S UTTER DESOLATION…
PROPHECY OF ISRAEL’S CAPTIVITY AND THE LAND’S UTTER DESOLATION BECAUSE OF IDOLATRY, Ezekiel 6, 7.
2. Son of man — See note Eze_2:1.
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Mountains of Israel — Which had become defiled by the idolatrous worship which had its chief centers in “mountains” and “high places” (Deu_12:2; 2Ki_17:10-11; Jer_2:20; Jer_3:6).
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14 2. Son of man] See on ch. Eze_2:1.
2. Son of man] See on ch. Eze_2:1.
mountains of Israel] i.e. the mountain-land of Israel, but with special reference to the mountains as the seats of idolatrous worship.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14 (2) Toward the mountains of Israel.—It is not uncommon…
(2) Toward the mountains of Israel.—It is not uncommon to address prophetic utterances to inanimate objects as a poetic way of representing the people. (Comp. Eze_36:1; Mic_6:2, &c.) The mountains are especially mentioned as being the chosen places of idolatrous worship. (See Deu_12:2; 2Ki_17:10-11; Jer_2:20; Jer_3:6; Hos_4:13.) Baal, the sun-god, was the idol especially worshipped upon the hills.
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, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 Vers. 1-3. The doom of the mountains.
Vers. 1-3. The doom of the mountains.
After leaving the low flat shores of Egypt, the traveller is struck by a great contrast of scenery as he approaches the Holy Land, and sees the purple mountains rising one behind another from the sandhills of Jaffa in the foreground to the distant uplands of Judah far away in the interior of the country. On landing he finds that travelling in Palestine is a rough experience in mountaineering, for the territory of Israel is a mountain country. Though Ezekiel could not see his native land from the plains of Mesopotamia, he could turn his face westward, and, looking across the great Syrian desert, fix his eyes in imagination on the old familiar beacons the more memorable from their contrast with his present tamesurroundings and picture to himself his mountain home, with the passion of a highlander banished to the plains. In prophesying against Israel he then denounces a doom on the mountains.
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I THE MOUNTAINS ARE CONSPICUOUS. They were and are to this day the leading features of the Palestine landscape. God"s judgment does not fall in obscure corners. He is not confined to secret places. The most public scenes witness his work. He paints his warning pictures on a broad canvas, and lifts them up for all to see.
II THE MOUNTAINS ARE LOST. Men in high places do not escape the power of God. No position is so exalted as to be above the reach of the Divine government. The waters of the Flood covered the mountains, and drowned the people who vainly expected safety by climbing. (Gen_7:20) Kings are called to God"s bar of judgment. Exalted rank, high intelligence, fame, power, influence, all come under the great sweep of God"s rule, and may suffer punishment from his just anger.
III THE MOUNTAINS ARE HISTORIC. They carry memories of many a glorious age. Moriah is sacred to the education of Abraham; the very stones that now lie scattered on the hills of Bethel once shaped themselves in Jacob"s dream as a heaven-scaling stairway; Gilboa witnessed the death of Saul; the hills of Judah are fresh with associations of the shepherd-king. The changeless, venerable mountains enshrine the national story. The doom of the mountains is a doom of history. It declares failure and ruin after a glorious past a splendid day ending with a stormy sunset. Happily there was a new sunrise when these same mountains were trodden by the feet of the Saviour, and upon them the feet of the messengers of peace were seen.
IV THE MOUNTAINS ARE MASSIVE. They are the bulwarks of Israel. The old Amorites defended themselves in their mountain fastnesses against the Israelite invasion. When Israel was in possession she found these mountains to be natural fortresses. They were also hiding places. Men in danger fled to the mountains for safety. But now the mountains themselves are doomed. The best earthly refuge falls. The curse of sin breaks the soul"s stoutest shield.
V THE MOUNTAINS ARE SACRED. They were "high places" on which old altars have been built. There Abraham sacrified, there Elijah invoked the attesting fire. But the sacred associations were defiled by later idolatrous rites, and the high places became evil places. Then no sacredness could protect them. There is no asylum at a defiled sanctuary. Religion joined to sin does not save the sinner; it only proclaims him a hypocrite, or at best one who sins against light.
VI THE MOUNTAINS ARE FRUITFUL. Cut into terraces, their slopes were formerly converted into vineyards, but now all round Jerusalem the ragged lines of stone tell the tale of neglected culture and long destroyed productiveness. A blight has fallen on the doomed mountains. The very land has shared in the sufferings of its people. All things external as well as spiritual suffer from the curse of sin. No ancient fruitfulness will stay this curse. Under its ban, the garden of Eden becomes a waste howling wilderness, and the fertile mountain side a desolation.
HOMILIES BY J.R. THOMSON Vers. 1-6. The idolatry of the land avenged.
Turning from the city of Jerusalem to the land generally, the Prophet Ezekiel addresses himself to Israel, the nation whom God had chosen, and who had rejected God. By a striking figure of speech, he delivers his message to the mountains and hills, the water courses and ravines of Palestine. How dear all these features of the land of his fathers must have been to the prophet, we can easily imagine; national and religious associations must, in the course of centuries, have gathered round every portion of the territory which Jehovah had given to the descendants of Abraham. The apostrophe to the country was at the same time a word to the nation; the people and the land were identified. The artist, the poet, may deal with scenery apart from the living inhabitants who dwell amidst it. But the patriot, the prophet, the preacher, love the land for the people"s sake who make it their home. To Ezekiel the land of Israel was
I A SCENE OF IDOLATRY. Before its possession by the Israelites, the land of Canaan was a stronghold of idolatry and of idolatrous rites and practices of the foulest and cruellest kind. The commission which the children of Israel received was a commission to extirpate the idolaters, and to purse the land of its heathen abominations. Yet the candid and faithful record of Old Testament Scripture informs us that from the first the chosen people were led away by the example and influence of the ancient dwellers in the land, and learned to practise the abominations they were appointed to repress. One great aim of the seers and prophets was to reproach the nation because of prevailing idolatry and superstition, and to summon them to return to their allegiance, ever due to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It is evident that the worship of the deities adored by the surrounding nations was prevalent even among those who were called to a purer faith; and that some of the kings, both of Judah and of Israel, sanctioned and encouraged idolatrous observances and idolatrous priesthoods. Thus the high places and the ravines of Palestine were defiled by the rites of folly, cruelty, and lust. These heathen deities were embodiments in imagination of the lusts which corrupt the human heart.
II A SCENE OF PROPHETIC PROTEST AND REBUKE. It was a token of Divine mercy and forbearance that the apostate Israelites were not left to the delusions and errors, the defection and rebellion, into which they had suffered themselves to be led. The voice of the Lord"s prophets was heard upon the mountains, and throughout the valleys, which had been abandoned to those who practised the fanatical, bloodthirsty, and polluted observances distinctive of Canaanitish and Phoenician idolatry. Impressions were produced upon individuals which resulted in a return to the service of Jehovah. There were temporary reformations, distinguished by penitence and by vows. But the reader of the prophetic Scriptures cannot but admit that there was no great national movement in the right direction. Notwithstanding faithful rebuke, severe denunciation, compassionate promise, the people returned again and again to their former follies. It was as though Israel had resolved that no exhortation and no threat should avail to keep the nation faithful to him who bad exalted, defended, and prospered it, and who bad borne with the manners of the rebellious people, not only in the wilderness, but in the land of promise. It was as though nothing short of captivity and exile, conjoined with the destruction and desolation of the capital, could teach the lesson which it was Israel"s vocation first to acquire, and then to communicate to the world around.
III A SCENE OF DESOLATION AND OF DEATH. The Prophet Ezekiel speaks here with conviction and certainty. There rises before his mind a vision which can only fill his heart with grief and mourning. It is a satisfaction, indeed, to his righteous soul to foresee the high places destroyed, the altars desolate, the images broken, and the works of idolaters abolished. But this is not all. He sees the dead carcases of the children of Israel, the scattered bonus, the slain in the midst of the city, etc. And the vision of the depopulated land, the deserted and silent city, the vanquished and decimated nation, profoundly affects his patriotic and sensitive nature. It is a stern lesson, this which he has to teach; it is a terrible punishment, this which he has to anticipate and to foretell. Yet the lesson and the punishment are the Lord"s. It is the word of the Lord which the prophet has to declare, the Lord of Israel who is at the same time the King of righteousness and of judgment. God brings the sword upon his own people; covers his own land with ruin and desolation. For his authority must not be defied, his laws must not be broken; his name must not be dishonoured with impunity. "The way of transgressors is hard." "The wages of sin is death." Until this lesson is learned, there is no place for the publication of clemency, for the proffer of mercy. The Law comes before the gospel; and they who do not honour the Law will not appreciate the gospel. It is in the midst of wrath that God remembers mercy.
APPLICATION.
1. There is such a thing as national guilt and apostasy. In our own time,individualism is carried to such an extreme that this fact is apt to be overlooked. A nation sins by its collective acts, and a nation suffers the just punishment of its evil doing. History is ever teaching this lesson, which men good and bad in their absorption in personal interests, are prone to overlook.
2. The Church has responsibility for witnessing against national errors, forwarning the people of the inevitable consequences of apostasy from God, and for uttering clearly and boldly the mind and will of him who is eternal righteousness and eternal love. T.
HOMILIES BY J.D. DAVIES Vers. 1-7. The land involved in man"s punishment.
We have here a dramatic appeal to the stony hills of Palestine. Canaan is emphatically a mountainous country; and Ezekiel, speaking as the mouthpiece of God, addresses himself to the high places of Canaan, as the scenes of flagrant idolatry. From his residence by the banks of Chebar he could not see with his bodily eye these renowned, but now desecrated, hills; yet he sees them with the clear eye of imagination. His fervid appeal to these loved hills would naturally produce a new and wholesome impression on the minds of his hearers. The very mountains and rivers of the sacred land were stained with the people"s sin and cursed with their curse. This dramatic address
I INDICATES MAN"S VAST RESPONSIBILITIES. Constituted as man is, the sovereign lord of this material globe, the fortunes of the land are indissolubly linked with the fortunes of its ruler. If man prospers, the fields smile with beauty and plentifulness; in man"s curse, the hills and valleys participate. Guilty man cannot circumscribe the limits within which his misdeeds shall fall. Obedience makes oar earth a paradise; transgression blasts it with barrenness and desolation.
II THIS APPEAL IS A HUMILIATION TO THE PEOPLE. It implies that appeal to the stony ears of men is useless; appeal to the unconscious hills is more likely to succeed. When trees shall intelligently listen, and granite rocks shed tears of penitence, then may the expectation arise that the stolid hearts of the Hebrews will respond. When God speaks to the material elements, they do respond in their own proper way; but the corrupt nature of men resists all Divine appeals. "The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master"s crib: but Israel doth not know". (Isa_1:3) If God shed his sunshine on grass and flowers, fragrant incense spontaneously flows forth; yet, though Divinest love shines on every part of man, no effect is seen.
III THIS APPEAL IS A MEASURE OF GOD"S DISPLEASURE. Wherever, in God"s universe, there is a mark of sin, there shall be a mark of Divine displeasure. If the stones which God"s hand has fashioned be employed in the service of idolatry, they shall be desecrated; they shall be stained with human blood; they shall bear a lasting mark of dishonour. The hill tops and forest groves, which have been forced by man into this unholy alliance with idols, shall be marked by the symbols of death shall be devoted to oblivion and to lizards. Becoming a scene of dead men"s bones, they shall be associated, in the minds of the living, with slaughter, defeat, and ruin. Nothing shall last that does not bear the seal of God"s favour. "The idols shall cease." And ceased they have! Where now is Moloch, and Dagon, and Baal, and Jupiter?
IV THIS APPEAL DEMONSTRATES THE VANITY OF IDOLS. It was clear as the sun in the heavens that Israel"s chosen idols had not protected them from famine and invasion. So long as the idols were preferred to Jehovah, there was safety nowhere. The temples and the altars of the gods had always been regarded as a sanctuary, fleeing to which human life was secure. But this custom was to cease. So fierce and destructive were God"s avengers, that they would not respect the vicinity of altars, nor groves devoted to idol gods. Even in the act of idolatrous sacrifice these delinquents should be slain, and it should be manifest that not the slightest modicum of power appertained to dumb idols.
V This APPEAL EXHIBITS THE INGENUITY OF GOD"S LOVE. This dramatic appeal to the hills of Canaan was a gracious design of love, to find some entrance into the hearts of the people. As the skilful leader of a besieged city will go round it on every side, if haply he may find some gate or point by which access may be gained, so does God try every method which his eternal love can invent to gain admission to the hostile heart of the sinner. By speaking to the stolid mountains, does he not impress us with the callousness of our guilty nature? The devices of his compassion are inexhaustible. He will not give us over to destruction so long as a single ray of hope remains. Every threat of coming woe is a tear of Divine pity. God would not forewarn with such variety of argument if he did not deeply love. This is God"s method God-like. D.
HOMILIES BY W. JONES Vers. 1-7. The impotence of idols.
the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy thee toward the mountains of Israel," etc. The former prophecies related chiefly to the city of Jerusalem and the laud of Judah. But this one relates to the whole of the land of Israel. Hence the Lord God, through his prophet, addresses "the mountains and the hills," etc. (ver. 3). The burden of this chapter is a proclamation of Divine judgment because of the idolatry of the people. This, also, is a reason why certain geographical features of the country are mentioned. Mountains and hills, ravines and valleys, were chosen as localities for the worship of idols. (cf. Deu_12:2; 2Ki_17:10, 11 23:10) The Israelites should have sternly opposed and utterly abolished the idolatry of the land. They were explicitly and solemnly commanded to do so. (Deu_12:1-3, 29-32 13) But instead of doing this, they had themselves become idolaters; and they persisted in idolatry. Therefore God himself will take the work into his own hands, and will make an utter end of their idols and images, their altars and sacrifices. "Behold, I, even l, will bring a sword upon you, and I will destroy your high places," etc.. (cf. Lev_26:30-33) And by the execution of his dreadful judgment the impotence and vanity of the idols would be conspicuously exhibited. The text shows
I THE INABILITY OF IDOLS TO PROTECT THEIR WORSHIPPERS. "I will cast down your slain before your idols. And I will lay the dead carcases of the children of Israel before their idols .... And the slain shall fill in the midst of you." The dead bodies of the idolaters, slain for their idolatry, and cast down before the idols, constituted a striking testimony to the impotence of the idols to succour or defend their worshippers. But there are idols and idolaters in our age and in Christian lands. A man may he an idolater who never bows down to any image, or statue, or anything else. A man"s god is that which he loves supremely; and in this sense he may make an idol of his wife, or his child, or of riches, power, popularity, success in business, or even of himself. "And an idol in the heart is as bad as one set up in the house." And these things, viewed as gods, are as impotent as the idols of the Israelites. They cannot ennoble human nature; they rather crush its highest aspirations, degrade its best affections, and dwarf its noblest faculties. They are altogether incapable of satisfying the cravings of the soul. Its hunger is too great, its thirst too intense, to be satisfied with any of the gods of modern civilization, or with all of them, or with anything less than God himself. "My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God." Only in him can the religious heart of man find true rest. And these modern idols cannot protect their votaries. There are circumstances and conditions in life in which neither riches nor rank, popularity nor power, relatives nor friends, can render man any aid. There are trials which none of them can ward off; dangers which none of them can shield us from; and none of them can save us from death, or give us hope beyond it.
II THE INABILITY OF IDOLS TO PROTECT THEMSELVES AND THEIR ALTARS,
1. They cannot protect themselves and their altars from desecration. " I will cast down your slain before your idols. And I will lay the dead carcases of the children of Israel before their idols; and I will scatter your bones round about your altars." Thus were the idolatrous images and altars polluted by dead bodies and decaying bones. (cf. 1Ki_13:2; 2Ki_23:15, 2Ki_23:16)
2. They cannot protect themselves and their altars from destruction. "I will destroy your high places. And your altars shall be desolate, and your images shall be broken And the high places shall be desolate, that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your images may be cut down, and your works may be abolished." And these idols, which the Israelites worshipped, were utterly powerless to avert their own destruction. How often does God in mercy destroy our idols! The riches which we are almost worshipping he makes to slip from our tightening grasp. Our worldly successes, which were drawing our hearts away from him, he turns into disastrous failures. The man who has made fame his god, and endeavoured to satisfy his soul with the fickle breath of popular applause, has found his idol broken into fragments; he is no longer greeted with plaudits, but with execrations. And when our love to any one has been growing into idolatry, God has taken from us the desire of our eyes with a stroke. And in all these cases the Divine intent has been that we should discover the vanity of our idols, and turn unreservedly to the one living and true God. And in all, the idols are powerless to save themselves, and we are powerless to save them.
III THE INABILITY OF IDOLS LEADING IDOLATERS TO KNOW AND ACKNOWLEDGE THE TRUE GOD. "And ye shall know that I am the Lord." When these judgments had been executed, and the vanity of their idols thus demonstrated, the Israelites would know by experience that Jehovah is the true God.
1. That he is the true God as distinguished from the false gods the idols.
2. That he is the almighty God as contrasted with the impotent idols.
3. That he is the living and eternal God as contrasted with the dead idolswhich had been demolished. Israel would not learn this lesson in seasons of peace and prosperity, though it had been. taught them in many forms, and with the reiteration of infinite patience. But they would learn it, and, as a matter of fact, they did learn it, when it was impressed upon them by the stern judgments of siege and famine, sword and captivity. And still there are those who need trial and suffering to teach them the same lesson. They will not in heart and life acknowledge the true God until they have been taught, by bitter and painful experience, the vanity of the idols which they had set up in their hearts. Blessed are they, if even thus they learn that only the Supreme Being is worthy of the soul"s supreme love and reverence.
CONCLUSION. "Little children, guard yourselves from idols." "Wooden idols are easily avoided, but take heed of the idols of gold. It is no difficult matter to keep from dead idols" in the form of statues or images, but guard yourselves against the manifold forms of modern and civilized idolatry. Yield not even the least to anything or any person who would contend for the throne of your heart. "Thou shalt have no other gods before me; Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. W.J.
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 vv1, 6, 7, 9 I, even I, will bring a sword upon you.
Eze_6:1-3
I, even I, will bring a sword upon you.
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The character of God
Taking chapters 6 and 7 as revealing the character of God, in how awful a light is the Divine Being made to appear! How infinite, for example, are His resources of judgment and penalty! He attributes to Himself the exercise of every possible action of vengeance and humiliation: I will bring a sword; I will destroy your high places; I will cast down your slain men; I will lay the dead carcasses; I will scatter your bones; I will break the whorish heart; He that is afar off shall die of the pestilence; He that is near shall fall by the sword; the man who remained was to die by famine; and thus, and thus, in every way, God said, I will accomplish My fury. He said He would stretch out His hand upon the idol-cursed hills and mountains, and green tree and thick oak, and He would make the fair land desolate, yea, more desolate than the wilderness toward Diblath. These are the judgments of the living God! Think of every disease that can afflict the human body; think of every force of nature that can strike human edifices and habitations; think of every trouble that can assail the sanity of the mind; think of every spectre and image that can come along the highway of the darkness and fill night and sleep with mortal fear; think of every appeal that can be addressed to the imagination; think of all possible terror, and loss, and shame, and ruin; multiply all these realities and possibilities by an unrestrained imagination, and even then we have hardly begun to touch the resources of God when He arises to shake terribly the earth and to inflict upon the nations the judgments which they have deserved and defied. Wonderful is the striking frankness of all these declarations on the part of the Most High God. There is mercy even in the terribleness of the revelation. An opportunity for repentance was created by the very awfulness of the method of revelation. Threatenings are meant to lead to promises. The thunderstorm is sent to avert us from a way that is wrong and to drive us to consideration on account of sin. God does not fulminate merely for the sake of showing His greatness; when He makes us afraid it is that He may bring us to final peace. Nothing is more evident than that underneath all these denunciations, and in explanation of them, there is a sublime moral reason. These judgments are not exhibitions of omnipotence; they are expressions of a moral emotion on the part of God. The people had departed from Him--they had done everything in their power to insult His majesty and to call into question His holiness and His justice; they had worshipped false gods; they had been faithful to forbidden altars; they had made a study of profanity and blasphemy; they had defied heaven in all their abominations; and not until the cup of their iniquity was full did the last beam of light vanish from the skies, and the whole heaven become darkened with thunderclouds. When judgment begins at the house of God, it burns with infinite indignation; there are no mitigating circumstances, there are no palliations whatsoever; the judgment is inflicted upon men who knew the right and yet pursued the wrong, who were intrusted with the custody of the truth, and yet threw it down and went with eagerness to the altar of falsehood that they might worship and obey a lie. How terrible, then, must be our judgment when God comes to visit us! What have we not known? With what treasures have we not been intrusted? (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 Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 4. FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS AS TO THE CONSEQUENCES OF ISRAEL’S…
4. FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS AS TO THE CONSEQUENCES OF ISRAEL’S CONDUCT (Chap. 6)
EXEGETICAL NOTES.—The judgment on places of idolatry and the worshippers (Eze_6:1-7). After asserting, in Eze_6:1, his renewed consciousness that he was to speak from the inworking power of the Lord, Ezekiel unfolds the procedure which will be taken. Here he has special reference to the whole country, as in chaps. 4 and 5 the city Jerusalem was chiefly in view.
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Eze_6:2. “Son of man, set thy face,” a frequent command given to the prophet, and intended to impress him with a vivid sense of the objects he was to address; “towards the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them.” The Lord has a controversy with the mountains and their prominent physical features, as if they had ears and faculties for understanding. He, as it were, directs His admonitions through them to the men who had disordered those features by setting up forbidden idols and paying open dishonour to His holy name.
Eze_6:3. “And say … Thus saith the Lord God to the mountains and to the hills, to the rivers”—the last word is used of the beds or channels in which waters run, and should be translated here by gorges or ravines; it thus forms a more exact parallelism “to the valleys.” “They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and burn incense upon the hills, under oaks and poplars and elms, because the shadow thereof is good” (Hos_4:13). Cf. Eze_6:13 below. “Behold I, even I, will bring a sword upon you, and I will destroy your high places.” The Hebrew word for high places is occasionally employed simply to signify elevated spots, but more commonly refers to them as the shrines for worship habitually carried on. The worship in such places was part of that nature-worship which has prevailed in many regions of the world, and in which Baal, the sun-god, had a prominent share (Num_22:41, Jos_13:17). From what quarter the Israelites were influenced towards Baal-worship is doubtful, but they had yielded to it, and crowned the high places, which lay exposed to the rays of the sun, with figures of some sort. How far that worship was alien to the mind of the living God is illustrated by what the reforming King Josiah did in his zeal for the Lord (2 Kings 23), and in what Ezekiel adds.
Eze_6:4. All the apparatus belonging to this idol-worship is doomed to destruction, “your altars shall be desolate,” not fit to be resorted to, “and your images,” in margin, sun-images, but probably figures of some kind representing Baal, the god of the sun, and Astarte, goddess of the moon, “shall be broken, and,” directing the address to the people, “I will cast down your slain before your idols.” This is a reference to Lev_26:30, though this special word for idols is found chiefly in Ezekiel. It is probably connected with a root which signifies filth, and is a contemptuous description of them—they are dung, or refuse-gods.
Eze_6:5. “And I will lay the dead carcases of the children of Israel before their refuse-gods”—the gods they cried to could not defend from death, and, their nothingness having been proved, they would be defiled by the corpses of their unhelped devotees; “and I will scatter your bones round about your altars”—the utmost ignominy would be cast upon idolatry by this utter desecration of its materials for worship.
Eze_6:6. The declaration is made that, beside the destruction in the high places, &c., extreme desolation would be produced wherever population had gathered. The ground of this extension of punishment is indicated in Isaiah’s words, “According to the number of thy cities so are thy gods,” and the end aimed at is to sweep away every trace of idol-service, “that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate.” The Hebrew word in the preceding portion of this verse and translated desolate is different from this one, which more appropriately should be translated be guilty. The altars are regarded as participating in, and so held guilty of the sin which they were used to carry out. A similar sentence was passed by the prophet sent to Jeroboam in the word of the Lord. When the king “stood by the altar to burn incense” the prophet cried, “O altar, altar, thus saith the Lord, Behold … upon thee shall Josiah offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men’s bones shall be burnt upon thee.” The refuse-idols should be done away with and the sun-pillars be hewn down and a complete abrogation ensue of all that had been unfaithfully done. “And your works”—“whatever can be ascribed to men which they have not taken from the mouth of God and the commands of His law”—“may be abolished.”
Eze_6:7. “And the slain”—a word in the singular, as if to show that one mind had animated the mass of the slain in practising idolatry—“shall fall in the midst of you.” There will be survivors to see the slaughtered idolaters, and the eye will affect their heart so that they shall recognise the action of the almighty, righteous One, “and ye shall know that I am the Lord.” Thus a ground is laid for the following promise.
HOMILETICS
CREATION’S MATERIALS INSTRUCTING MEN (Eze_6:1-7)
It is common enough for men of all countries, when under the influence of strong emotions, to appeal to inanimate objects as if they were animated. It is a natural form of speech, proceeding from the formative hand. “He that formed the ear shall He not hear?” There is a likeness of the Creator in the creature; and when the impulse of feeling moves us to speak to sun or stars, to mountains or glens, as if they could comprehend our meaning, we are imitating Him who made all things and knows to what uses He can put them all. In His Word prophets and poets apostrophise created objects as witnesses of the Lord’s doings. Thus Ezekiel does, and here we may consider—
I. There is a life in created objects. “Prophesy against the mountains.” This susceptibility in creation was signified to Ezekiel in his “visions of God:” this is signified by Apostle Paul in the words, “All things have been created for Christ, and in Him all things consist”—have their continuance and order. Each has its post and its purpose in the administration of God; and because it helps to accomplish His far-reaching will, it may be truly regarded as having a portion in that life with which He fills all things. All things may not be called living, but they are sustained by that life which is present everywhere. They suffer in man’s bondage to corruption—“The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together.” They are abashed and silent when ordered to be so by the Son of Man—“He rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.” Not as a freak of fancy, but as a suggestive and awful fact, we may look at the materials of nature and find tokens of the living God, observant of us and interested in us and our ways. In view of mountains and hills, girded by ravines and valleys, we may exclaim, “Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid Thine hand upon me!”
II. There is a perversion of created objects. Men who look at and act upon nature colour it and swathe it with their own thoughts and aims. Advantages of position, capabilities for the application of human strength and skill to material things, are turned into means of doing that which pleases men and displeases the Lord. Mountains and valleys, heaps of stones and carved pillars, are thus associated with man in man’s sins. They are placed under a sentence of condemnation, and marked with signs of disorder and destruction. What though they have no consciousness of good and evil, what though they have no power of action against the will of man, they are made into his instruments for evil, and must be broken when he is broken. For God does not abandon His claim over them. Every creature of His is good, only the dark shadow has fallen on them; their glory is tarnished; their tribute to the Maker’s praise is obstructed; their pollution is as “a smoke in His nose,” and He “will make them desolate.” But man is the cause of all the evil. It is his procedure with the forms of things which depraves them; the mountain is occupied with the worship of the created sun, the shade of trees becomes the haunt for immoralities under the sanction of the gods. Thus are the creatures perverted. In olden times, altars were polluted, oblations were vain, incense was an abomination; in modern times, our buildings for public worship, with their decorations, our church music, with its display or its listlessness, may be perverted so as to be a condemnation of the worshippers. What need is there to serve the Lord in the beauty, not of any outward appearance, but of holiness!
III. There are tokens of doom on created objects.
1. In their desolation. “I will bring a sword upon you [mountains], and will destroy your high places.” The ruins and the dreariness of spots, in which people were accustomed to serve their gods, suggest to inspecting eyes that the supremacy and sanctity of the Most High had been invaded there, and the invasion had been repelled with unsparing vehemence. Judgments were executed upon them, not because they could be held guilty, but because they had been the scenes of human wrong-doing. We are taught the needed lesson that sin is to be abhorred, not only because it defiles the sinner, but also because it draws the trail of the serpent over all he uses in his sin. “Every prospect” does not “please” where “man is vile.”
2. In the human sufferings they are made witnesses of. “I will lay the dead carcases … before their idols.” The very places to which they would flee for shelter will be turned into shambles; the reed they leaned on shall pierce their hand. So deserted would the districts become that the bodies would lie unburied, be made into ghastly skeletons, be bleached and crumble into pieces; their “bones would be scattered round about their altars.” The fields of battle, the shores of surging seas, the ruins of earthquakes, with more or less distinct utterance, declare in Reason’s ear, We are witnesses of the pains and death inflicted on a world over whose physical features the dishonour done to God has been imprinted, and we tell back to hearing ears that that God is holy in all His ways, cannot look upon sin, and will make good His title to supreme power and righteousness.”
EXEGETICAL NOTES.—Eze_6:8-10. A gleam of comfort. Ezekiel has told how bitter ruin and slaughter should teach the children of Israel that “God ruleth in Jacob unto the ends of the earth,” and now he will tell that that same truth would be learned in another way. Some of those who have survived and been taken into captivity shall be moved, by the hard conditions of their lives, to acknowledge that they have done very wickedly, and that God has done righteously.
Eze_6:8. “Yet will I leave a remnant that ye may,” or, in that ye shall, “have some,” because they have been preserved so as to “escape the sword among the nations,” and who will be found amongst their fellow-countrymen “scattered through the countries.”
Eze_6:9. In the privations and sorrows of exile, like the prodigal son in feeding on husks, they would come to themselves, and recall what they had been and done. “They that escape of you shall remember me.” The thought of God Himself would be brought distinctly into their hearts, and that would alter their convictions as to their bygone life. They would perceive that against Him, Him only, they had sinned; “because I am broken with their whorish heart.” The “Speaker’s Commentary,” in agreement with others, proposes to translate thus: Because I have broken their whorish heart, which hath departed from Me, and their eyes, &c. Hengstenberg, with others also, says, “The word properly means, ‘I was broken:’ this stands for, ‘I have broken for myself;’ ” a translation which is equivalent to the former. Both signify that it was not what their whorish heart did to Him, but what He did to it, that is set forth. We cannot acquiesce in this opinion. The remnant, who remembered the Lord, perceived also that by various methods He had shown how grieved and provoked and wounded He was by the people turning away from His worship—that He was broken by their unfaithfulness. The expression is peculiar—is it more so than others in reference to the Lord? “I also will laugh at your calamity, I will mock,” &c. (Pro_1:26). “Wilt thou be altogether unto me as a liar, and as waters that fail?” (Jer_15:18). “Behold I am pressed under you, as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves” (Amo_2:13). This pain to God was occasioned, not by the inward only, but also by the outward proceedings of Israel, “with their eyes, which go a whoring after their refuse-idols: and,” in consequence of this remembrance of “the Lord and the words of His holiness,” “they shall loathe themselves,” will look into the face of their past conduct with deepest aversion, “because of all the evils,” &c.
Eze_6:10 should be read, “And they shall know that I the Lord have not said in vain that I would do this evil unto them.” The words do not assert that the remnant should know He was the living God, but that He was true to all His warnings about the evil things which had come to pass among “a disobedient and gainsaying people.” “By the correspondence of utterance and event, they know that He who spoke by the son of man is Jehovah—is God in the fullest sense.”
HOMILETICS
CONDITIONS OF SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE (Eze_6:8-10)
Among those indicated by the verses are—
I. A specialising action of the Lord. “I will leave a remnant.” Out of the idolatrous people; out of their broken-down trust in their land, their Temple, their covenant with God; out of their ranks as they were living amidst heathenism, what hope could there be that one even would receive a new life in his spirit? For men it might be impossible, but not for God. It is His spontaneous action. They would not have sought Him. They would have continued in sin and sorrow unless a power external to themselves had moved upon them. “Except the Lord of hosts had left us a very small remnant,” &c. “We love Him because He first loved us.” It is an action superior to circumstances. Sins may be still prevailing, judgments in course of execution, the moral atmosphere of the places in which the sinners live apparently repulsive to spiritual health, yet the Lord is able to work there upon whom He will. He can make His mercy as well as His fury rest where all circumstances seem unfavourable. He can deliver a soul in Babylon as well as in Zion. It is a mysterious action. We may try to conjure up suppositions about reasons why God does not at once do all the evil which He threatens, or why He bestows on some that which He does not bestow on others; but a duly reverent heart will rather repeat the words of Jesus, “Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight.” For not in ourselves can we discover fitness. The acknowledgment of every sin-conscious soul must be, “I shall perish if He does not save me.” It is a comforting action. It tells that greater is He that is for us than all that can be against us; that He is able to redeem souls from death; that however low His cause may have fallen, as if it were even destroyed, its preservation is with Him. He will not let it disappear. He will revive it in many or in few.
II. The pressure of tribulations. They did not serve the Lord when they were in their native land, when the Temple and its ordinances were accessible, when early and late prophets were addressing them in the Word of the Lord; but they do so when they are scattered among the nations, when they have seen death mowing down numbers of their friends, when they are in heaviness because of the loss of so much which they had formerly possessed. The gods they had trusted in had utterly failed to protect them, and they were made to feel that their own folly and wickedness had brought all the evil to pass, and they judged themselves, their lusts, their corruptions, their unfaithfulness to the Lord. “When He slew them, then they sought Him.” Tribulations we may have, but Christ can give His peace. We may not have relief from them, and yet be taught of God. Cast into beds of affliction, surrounded by those who regard not the Lord, deprived of the means of grace, we may find spiritual blessings which a state of worldly comfort had not brought to us. “I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction,” and reconciliation to God makes up for all trouble in earthly things.
III. A consciousness of God. “They shall remember me.” They will recall His doings, and see how utterly He is different from the creatures they had worshipped; how they had been fed by His bounty; how they had heard His words; how patiently He had borne with their offences; how just He is in punishing; how good in preserving them from famine, pestilence, and the sword; how full of gracious love in acting upon their long-shut hearts. They set the Lord Himself before their faces. We may desire to be at peace with an armed man who is stronger than we, and yet not care to live with him; but let penitence kindle at the remembrance of the strong Lord, and we do not want to think about His pardon only, we want to live and walk in His presence. “Because I am broken with their whorish hearts,” &c. They learn truly of God, not because they were under the stripes of His wrath, and said as Cain, “My punishment is greater than I can bear,” but because they had produced disappointment and pain to Him. In His light they see light. The thought that His heart was broken breaks theirs. They are humbled before His wonderful pity. His goodness leads them to repentance.
IV. A deep sense of personal unworthiness. “They shall loathe themselves for the evils,” &c. We find in this—
1. That their hearts were affected. The effect of a consciousness of God was, as it was with Job, to make them abhor themselves and repent in dust and ashes. No more palliation of their idolatry, no attempting to lessen the blamableness of their conduct, could be entertained. From the depths of their souls they heaved sighs and groans of shame. It was sorrow according to God, and it wrought revenge, &c.
2. That they understood the controversy of God against them. They did not loathe themselves because of their banishment, their poverty, their bereavements, the contempt of the heathen, but because they had done evil. They had left Him, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out broken cisterns that could hold no water; they had treated their Lord unkindly, and wounded Him by offending against His majesty and grace. They saw that He had brought them into grievous sufferings; but it was when they saw that they had in sin disobeyed their God that they took right views of themselves and justified Him. Ah! we shall not escape condemnation because we have never worshipped an idol, never perpetrated any open transgression. Worldliness of temper, unkindness to a brother, formality in the worship of God, are bitter and abominable things before the Heart-searcher, and which He rebukes sternly. For such evils He will not need to condemn us; we shall condemn ourselves.
3. That they made not one reserve. “The evils committed in all their abominations.” They would not defend any course they had taken. Sins in any place or with any person, sins in business or religion, sins in secret or in the railway, sins meant to be done or not looked on as sins, will form part of our confession of the unworthy conduct for which we loathe ourselves.
Look on your ways, look into your hearts, let the light of Christ shine on them, and shall ye not be ashamed and confounded for all ye have done? No door of hope for men can be opened other than that which brings us to God. With Him we should be blessed with spiritual blessings, and we should act as heralds to make known His coming to save and reign. “When I am weak, then am I strong.”
THE POWER OF THE WORD OF GOD (Eze_6:10)
I. Before men are afflicted and humbled for their sin, they refuse and slight the Word of God. Let prophets preach powerfully, and lay God’s judgments before the evildoers; they do not pay heed, but they shall know that their hearts were stout against God and His truth.
II. A heart under affliction, loathing itself for its sins, will give due honour to the Word of God. “Then shall they know.” Blows beget brains, and ingratitude and abuse of the threatenings and promises which the Lord had made known will be acknowledged. The truest penitent doth most abhor himself, and the more of that self-abhorrence, the more complacency in the faithfulness of God in His word and His infinite love in Christ.
III. The Lord will not let His Word be unaccomplished. “I have not said in vain that I would do this. A word is in vain when it is not fulfilled, inefficaciously fulfilled, or unseasonably fulfilled; but none of these befall the Word of the Lord. It shall accomplish that which He pleases, and prosper in the thing whereto He sent it.”—Greenhill (abridged).
EXEGETICAL NOTES.—Eze_6:11-14. The doom assured. The break in the dark threatening clouds is but for a moment. The time is not yet for the prophet to unfold the bright sunshine of rich mercy. He has pointed to a blessing among penitent exiles, but calamities are nearer than that is, and once more he recurs to the sombre and painful scene which must be the precursor of blessings. It is, with a few additional touches of colour, a repetition of former words.
Eze_6:11. “Smite with thine hand and stamp with thy foot.” These gestures do not signify derision of the unhelping refuse—idols or their worshippers; or pain at the sufferings or revulsion at the iniquities of the people. A sharp, almost unconscious, clapping of the hand and stamping with the foot is occasionally seen when a thing has turned out badly, and all hope of accomplishing anything by it is at an end. This is the idea which has been wrapped up in similar gestures, on the part of God or man, which are recorded in the Scriptures (chaps. Eze_21:14; Eze_21:17, Eze_22:13, Eze_25:6; Num_24:10; Job_27:23). The gestures are consequent on the belief that the last scene of the observed proceedings is played out. To his gestures the prophet adds the exclamation, “Ah!” and affirms its reference “to all the evil abominations of the house of Israel; for,” because of the evils, “they shall fall by the sword,” &c. The three great means of punishment formerly threatened to the city (chap. Eze_4:2; Eze_4:12) shall be applied to the country also.
Eze_6:12. “He that is far off,” out of the range of the invading Chaldeans, “shall die of the pestilence, and he that remaineth, and he that is besieged,” or rather he that is preserved—as in Isa_49:6, “To restore the preserved of Israel”—from pestilence and sword, “shall die by the famine,” &c.
Eze_6:13. (comp. Eze_6:3; Eze_6:5; Eze_6:7). A fuller characterisation of the localities in which the people had reared idol-shrines is here given, and shows that “the land was full of idols,” and that there should be an utter desecration of each “place where they did offer sweet savour to all their refuse-idols.” They were as eager to gratify, if they could, the inanimate idols as true worshippers were to offer what would be acceptable to the holy God; as Noah when he presented burnt-offerings for the first time on the renovated land (Gen_8:21).
Eze_6:14. “And I will stretch out my hand against them;” they had placed idols all over the country, and He, too, would exert His power so as to “make the land desolate utterly, more desolate than the wilderness toward Diblath;” an obscure reference, but probably applicable to the Moabitish double city of Diblathaim (Num_33:46), which lay westward from the Arabian desert. A name, closely allied to this, is found on the lately discovered Moabitish stone as the name of some place. The thought is expressed that this desolation would be “in all their habitations.” No dwelling-house would exist where the sense of wasteness and loneliness should not be felt. This verse is ended, as Eze_6:13 had been begun, with a declaration that by such inflictions there would be impressed on the people a knowledge of the Eternal, Holy One.
HOMILETICS
SOME CONCLUSIONS AS TO SIN (Eze_6:11-14)
I. That its results will be a manifest wonder and pain to servants of the Lord. They will not merely “muse” upon the evils which are presented to them; they will at times give way to external expression of feeling. They will clap with their hands, &c.; rivers of water will run down their eyes; they could wish themselves accursed from Christ. Nowhere should there be such intense interest in watching the development of individual and national procedure as among those who believe in God who is light and love.
II. That all sins are considered in the judgments of the Lord. “All the evil abominations.” And with reason. An inner or outward evil is a violation of law, and exerts a certain influence in contrariety to the will of God. Each is taken into His estimate of what He must do when He visits for transgressions.
III. That various forms of penalty against sin shall be inflicted. Through disease, violence, hunger, or some other method, every sinner shall become an object on which holy wrath will fall in greater or less heaviness. What if we do not understand the meaning of the manifold variety of griefs, pains, hardships, which beset men on their way to death, is our ignorance a measure by which to judge of the knowledge and justice of the Lord, or not rather a ground for making us dumb, not opening our mouth, because He has done it? Multiform sufferings betoken multiform sins.
IV. That the punishment has a correspondence to the sin. It was declared to the Israelites, Acknowledge the supremacy of idols, and your carcases will defile the places in which you have worshipped. It is declared to those who may never have kissed their hands to any images, Indulge your appetites in an illegitimate way, and your bodies will be infected by the virus of the lust which is specially gratified; be insincere or dishonest or proud, and your souls will be cowed and stagger before the flashes of truth; be a professing worshipper of God whose heart has not taken the way to the Father by Christ, and to you the perfect peace which He gives shall be altogether a stranger True, it is rarely possible for men to say why one person should be laid under a different kind of affliction from that which another bears; but could we see the invisible links which bind the sin and its own penalty, should we not learn the true source of many sufferings which are now wholly inexplicable? The Lord’s judgments are a great deep, but in that deep uniform forces are ever at work.
V. That God alone deals with sin. Germs of disease, invading bands of men, unpropitious seasons, irreverence and neglect of the means of grace apparently occasion pains, bereavements, struggles for life, a God who does no mighty work; but the apparent factors are His methods of acting. Behind the laws of nature and the forces which operate through social man, and which are operating in punishing wrong-doing, a spiritual mind will perceive the Lord’s hand. Judgment and mercy come from Him. Understanding this, Jesus Christ, “bearing our sins in His own body on the tree,” will be accepted and adored as the Son of God who came to destroy the works of the devil.
THE JUDICIARY ADMINISTRATION OF GOD (Eze_6:1-14)
God connected Himself with Israel in a manner He never had done with any nation before, nor would with any other again. In their case the actual experience of suffering on account of sin must have a certain singularity in it, so that it is possible to trace the execution of His judgments upon them. Still there is no caprice in His dealings; whensoever Israel’s guilt is incurred, there will infallibly be a renewal of Israel’s doom. The gospel has brought no suspension of God’s justice, and only after it had been sent and put from them did the wrath fall upon the Jews to the uttermost, as it will upon similar transgressors. The reasonableness of the severity exercised may be perceived by glancing at the guilt and the punishment.
1. The peculiar calling of Israel. They were placed in a region that afforded obvious and varied facilities for exerting a beneficial and commanding influence on the mind of ancient heathendom. They were to take advantage of this position so as to make known the character and extend the worship of Jehovah. Thus Moses declared, “All the people of the earth should see that the Lord had established them to be a holy people to Himself and called them by His name.” They were settled on a high vantage-ground for acting the part of the world’s benefactors. This calling of Israel in respect to the nations now rests upon the Christian Church; only owing to dispensational changes the impulse is communicated individually, not nationally. Besides, the Jewish religion was predominantly of a symbolical character, and outward prosperity had to play an essential part in its propagation. Now the great element of power lies in the truth itself and in its influence exhibited by the lives of God’s people. With differences as to method of working, the obligation remains substantially the same. The possession of the world is Christ’s by right, and He commits it to His people to make good the title. Happy if they do so; but if not, heavy must be their condemnation.
2. The condemnation of Israel. They did not extend the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, but adopted the corrupt worships of surrounding nations, and did worse than they. In the face of all remonstrances and warnings they fell in with Gentile superstitions. They did so because of their prevailing carnality and corruption of heart, which the nature-religions of heathenism did nothing to check, but rather fostered. In those religions every god had its representation in a visible idol, but the gods themselves were such as the natural heart desires—gods “whose attributes were pride, revenge, and lust;” while in Judaism there was, in the bosom of every service, a spiritual and holy God as the sole object of veneration, and conformity to His will the one great end to be aimed at. With the loss of a spirit of piety they became unfit for the duties of a pure service and ashamed of its sanctity, and accepted from their neighbours a more palatable religion. The same perversity lives in the Christian Church, and in every country in Christendom Israel’s folly is perpetually repeating itself. What is Popery but an accommodation of the pure spirit of the gospel to the grovelling tendencies of the flesh? And in Protestant lands the thoughts and maxims of the world are mixed up with those of the gospel, so that a compound is formed which the natural man does not quarrel with or blush for. Hence the spiritual languor, the worldly mindedness, the numberless forms of vanity and pollution, which are so commonly seen going hand in hand with a religious profession, and which rob the Church of her power to conquer and bless the world. Nor can she fulfil her destiny or be safe from the rod of chastisement and rebuke till the foul admixtures are purged out, and in reliance on the Divine Word, and in unswerving adherence to righteousness and truth, she goes forth to resist and put down whatever is opposed to the will of Heaven.—Fairbairn (abridged).
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 5 (Eze 6:1-14).
Section 5 (Eze 6:1-14).
The sinful people in Jehovah’s hands.
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The word of Jehovah now comes afresh to the prophet with the distinct count in the indictment against Israel. The mountains are here specifically addressed because of their connection with the people’s idolatrous foreign worship which had its location there. The channels of water and the valleys, as dependent upon them, have a necessary place here also. In contrast with Egypt, the land of independence -watered by its river, whose sources were so far off that practically they could forget all about them -Israel’s land was a land of mountains and valleys, drinking the water of the rain of heaven, a land essentially dependent, and its dependence manifest, but a land which, as thus cast upon God, was such as He specially chose for a people that were in like manner to be dependent upon Himself, and thus to realize His gracious and continual care. Thus it was "a land that the Lord thy God careth for," where the eyes and the heart of Jehovah were continually. It is noticeable that Shinar was, like Egypt, nourished by its rivers, and in distinct contrast with the mountains from which those who colonized it had come down. "They found," Scripture says (what exactly suited them), "a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there." Here, therefore, as so constantly in Scripture, the material thing is significant of the spiritual condition. Israel’s mountains were in this way like a constant prayer to God, upon which the dews of heaven settled, and brought down the rain so continually needed. At the same time, and beautifully, these mountains were also the fortifications of the land which would derive its strength in the same way in which it preserved constantly its dependence upon and appeal to heaven. This distinguished and separated them from the nations around which had got far enough away from God to identify Him with the mere creatures of His hand.
Thus Israel’s land was to be a protest against the heathenism which everywhere else prevailed, and in this way suited to be the depository of a continually growing revelation, the blessing of which is ours today. But, alas, what had Israel done? They had made these very mountains to be but heathen altars with which to insult their gracious Protector, the Source of all their blessing. Upon the tops of those mountains, the idolatrous altars that were so conspicuous there were now the sad witnesses of their own departure from Jehovah, their covenant God, who had signified Himself such in the very name which they thus insulted. They must, therefore, by judgment be made to recognize Him as the Jehovah that He was. And thus, as if the people themselves were unworthy to be addressed, the word by the prophet comes to the mountains, to the hills, to the water channels and to the valleys: "Behold, I, even I, am bringing upon you a sword. And I will destroy your high places, and your altars shall be desolate, and your sun-pillars shall be broken, and I will cast down your slain before your altars. I will even lay the carcases of the children of Israel before their idols, and scatter your bones round about your altars." Thus were they to prove now by experience, as bitter as God would have made it sweet to them, that He was Jehovah indeed.
Yet a remnant is to be left, to be His witness on the one hand of the grace in which He would for His own sake at last fulfil His promises "a remnant," as the apostle says, "according to the election of grace" on the other hand a remnant that must witness in sorrow and brokenness of spirit the judgment which had come in because of the abominations practised, and from which grace alone could exempt any. "Yet will I leave a remnant," He says, "in that ye shall have some escaped from the sword among the nations, when ye shall be scattered through the countries. And they of you that escape shall remember Me among the nations whither they have been carried captives how that I have been broken with their lewd hearts which have departed from Me, and their eyes which play the harlot after their idols." But here the judgment should have its desired effect: "And they shall loathe themselves in their own sight for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations, and they shall know that I am Jehovah." Alas for the people, to whom God had revealed Himself after so abundant a manner, who now needed to be called back to the recognition of the blessed Person Himself who had delivered and blessed them!
But, for the mass, no judgment could avail: "Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Smite with thy hand, and stamp with thy foot, and say, Alas, because of all the evil abominations of the house of Israel! for they shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence." Nothing but a complete emptying of the land as to the living could now suffice -leaving it a mere sepulchre of their multitudinous dead, reeking with the unburied corpses which would make it desolate, "more desolate than the wilderness towards Diblath." This last word, though there is question about it, probably means "fertility." Such indeed should have been the condition in every way of Jehovah’s land, which was now to be so utter a desolation. In all their dwelling-places, as scattered amongst the nations, they were at last to know, without any peradventure, that their God was 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 A Prophecy against the Mountain Land of Israel
A Prophecy against the Mountain Land of Israel
The coming judgment is here announced to the land of Israel, which is identified with the people. Eze_6:8-9, following up the hint in Eze_5:3-4, speak of a remnant of the nation which will be led to repentance in exile.
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2, 3. The physical features of the land are described, not only because their variety was in strong contrast to the monotony of the Babylonian plains where Ezekiel lived, but also, and chiefly, because they were associated with different forms of idolatrous and impure worship. The mountains and hills were the sites of the 'high places'—shrines of Canaanite origin (Deu_12:2). The ravines and valleys were the scenes of Baal-worship (Jer_2:23) and of child-sacrifice (Isa_57:5): see also Eze_6:13.
4, 6. Images] RV 'sun-images,' probably obelisks representing the sun-god.
7. Ye shall know that I am the Lord] Ezekiel's favourite expression for the result of God's dealings with men in prophecy and in history. It means the recognition now of one, now of another, aspect of the character of the true God. Here it is the conviction that His warnings are not empty threats: see Eze_6:10, Eze_6:14.
8. A remnant] already hinted at in Eze_5:8.
9. Because I am broken with, etc.] RM 'how that' (better, 'when') 'I have broken their.. heart.. and their eyes.' The metaphor of breaking is extended to 'eyes,' though it strictly applies only to 'heart.' Idolatry was accompanied by licentiousness, and this is one reason why the prophets so often described it under the figure of a breach of the marriage vow: see especially Ezekiel 16, 23.
11. Smite (i.e. 'clap').. and stamp] emphatic gestures of satisfaction in the calamities that are announced. Ezekiel was called to be in complete sympathy with God's attitude towards Israel: see Eze_21:14, Eze_21:17; Eze_25:6. Alas 1] rather, 'Aha!': see Eze_25:3.
12. He that is far off, etc.] The judgment would fall on idolatrous Israelites not only in Jerusalem, but wherever they might be.
14. More desolate than] RV 'waste, from.' The wilderness toward Diblath] RV 'Diblah.' Diblath, or Diblathaim, was in Moab, beyond the Dead Sea (Num_33:46; Jer_48:22). The phrase in AV would mean the wilderness of Judæa, which lay in that direction (eastwards) from Jerusalem. Another and more probable reading is 'Riblah 'instead of 'Diblah.' Riblah was a city of Hamath in the far north (2Ki_25:21). 'From the wilderness to Riblah' would mean 'from one end of the land to the other.'
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v8 (See Scofield "Jer 15:21").
remnant
(See Scofield "Jer 15:21").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 Eze 6:1-14. The mountains of Israel are mentioned first,…
Eze 6:1-14. The mountains of Israel are mentioned first, because they were the places where the people practiced idolatry; they were the high places so often mentioned in the historical books. (Read Lev 26:30-33.) Hundreds of years before, Moses wrote these words; and now they were all to be fulfilled. But the Lord also promised that a remnant should be left. That remnant would acknowledge the evil they had done. “They shall loathe themselves for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations.” The words “because I am broken with their whorish heart” means literally translated, “When I shall have broken their whorish heart which has departed from Me.” No judgment which has ever come upon Israel made a complete end of the nation. A remnant always remained and returned to the Lord. (See Rom 11:5.) During the greatest and longest judgment which has come upon that nation, their world-wide dispersion during this present age, there is also a remnant still among them. When the Lord resumes His dealings with them during the last seven years of the times of the Gentiles, with which our age closes, a remnant from among them will turn to Him and be saved. That remnant will be carried through the judgments of the great tribulation and receive the promised kingdom.
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, 8 The Desolation of the Land and the Slaughter of…
The Desolation of the Land and the Slaughter of the Idolaters
v. 1. And the word of the Lord came unto me, again in direct verbal inspiration, saying,
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v. 2. Son of man, set thy face toward the mountains of Israel, in a prophecy of condemnation, and prophesy against them,
v. 3. and say, Ye mountains of Israel, the special places of idolatrous cults, here representing the entire country formerly occupied by the Lord’s people, hear the word of the Lord God, of the sovereign Ruler of the universe: Thus saith the Lord God to the mountains and to the hills, the high places of heathen worship, to the rivers and to the valleys, where the idolaters lived, Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword upon you, the murderous sword of the invading foes, and I will destroy your high places, where the altars and sanctuaries erected to idols were commonly found.
v. 4. And your altars, namely, those devoted to the service of idols, shall be desolate, and your images shall be broken, the sun-pillars erected in honor of the Phoenician god Baal; and I will cast down your slain men before your idols. In the original the word here used has a contemptuous flavor, so that it means either stone monuments, loose stones, dead masses of stone, or—dung-idols. In the presence of the very logs or pillars in which they trusted these men would be slaughtered, for their idols were powerless to help them.
v. 5. And I will lay the dead carcasses of the children of Israel before their idols, as a proper votive offering; and I will scatter your bones round about your altars, a fitting mockery of their idolatrous trust.
v. 6. In all your dwelling-places, that is, throughout the country occupied by them, the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate, heaps of ruins, that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate and your idols may be broken and cease, totally exterminated, and your images may be cut down, the sun-pillars being destroyed utterly, and your works may be abolished, all the buildings and vessels of idolatry which they had erected or made.
v. 7. And the slain shall fail in the midst of you, so that some, indeed, would still be delivered, and ye shall know that I am the Lord, the one and only true God, as contrasted with the idols, which have no true existence and pass away under the blows of the enemy’s hammer. The falling of the slain, of the idolaters with their idols, leads to the knowledge of Jehovah as the almighty Lord.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4, 6, 8, 11, 13 General Information:
General Information:
Yahweh is telling Ezekiel to speak to the mountains as if they were people so that the people of Israel would hear the words and know that Ezekiel's words were for them. (See: Apostrophe)
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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 the mountains of Israel
This is a command to stare at the mountains as a symbol of punishing the people there. See how you translated a similar phrase in Ezekiel 4:3. AT: "stare at the mountains of Israel" or "stare at the mountains of Israel so that the people there will be harmed" (See: Symbolic Action)
set your face against the mountains of Israel
The mountains of Israel were far away, so Ezekiel could not see them, but staring in that direction would be a symbol of harming it. AT: "turn toward the mountains of Israel and stare" or "stare toward the mountains of Israel so that the people there will be harmed" (See: Symbolic Action)
set your face
Here "face" is a metonym for attention or gaze. (See: Metonymy)
the mountains of Israel
"the mountains in the land of Israel"
Behold!
"Look!" or "Listen!" or "Pay attention to what I am about to tell you!"
Lord Yahweh
See how you translated this in Ezekiel 2:4.
I am bringing a sword against you
The word "sword" is a metonym for soldiers who kill people using swords. AT: "I am bringing soldiers to come and kill you" (See: Metonymy)
translationWords
word of God
Son of Man
face
Israel
prophet
Lord Yahweh
sword
high place
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, 4, 8, 11, 12, 13 6:1-14 The two oracles of judgment in this chapter…
6:1-14 The two oracles of judgment in this chapter (6:2-10 and 6:11-14) present two alternatives—a positive future through repentance, or continued rebellion and a dark future of total annihilation. Either way, the Lord’s power and holiness would be manifested.
6:1-3 The circle of judgment broadened out from Jerusalem to include the mountains of Israel, which were Israel’s political heartland. This territory had belonged to Israel continuously since the time of Joshua, and it had been infected by idolatry. The hill country had become home to many pagan shrines (literally high places)—raised stone platforms that often housed idols or became the location for sacrifices and pagan festivities. Most predated Israel’s entry into the land, and God had commanded Israel to destroy them (Deut 12:2-3). However, in many cases, the Israelites had permitted them to remain in place, and the political and religious leaders had ignored or even encouraged those who worshiped there.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.