Ezekiel 25:17

And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.

They shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them - they shall know me, not in mercy, but by my vengeance on them ().

Remarks:

(1) The triumphing of the wicked over the people of God is but short. If God spared not the elect nation Israel, He was sure not to suffer the Ammonites to escape with impunity, because they were in many respects no less guilty than Israel, and they added to their guilt by the grievous sin of insolently exulting, not merely over the land of Israel and the house of Judah in their distress, but also over the downfall of the Lord's own sanctuary, as if this were tantamount to the triumph of paganism over the worship of Yahweh. Let not the carnal and worldly exult prematurely when God chastises His people for sin; because if these suffer for a time, the day is coming to those also, when not merely for a time, but forever, they shall suffer for their hatred against the people, the house, and the cause of the Lord. (2) Pride and the spirit of revenge are characteristics of the unrenewed man, and are especially hateful to God, and provoke His wrath (). The retribution on Ammon was to correspond to the offe nse. As she had clapped her hands with joy at the downfall of Jerusalem, so God would stretch out His hand to cause her own downfall. As she had taken the land and houses of God in possession (Psalms 83:4), so she was herself to be made a possession to the marauding "men of the east" (), and "a spoil to the pagan" (). Yahweh is especially indignant at any injury done to His people, and vindicates their cause as His own.

(3) The taunt of Moab and Seir against Judah was, "Behold, the house of Judah is like unto all the pagan" (); that is to say, The Jews-who boasted of the advantage which their worship of Yahweh gave them over the Gentiles around-after all fare no better than they. What use, then, is there in serving Yahweh, whom they falsely asserted to be the only true God? This taunt it was which, in particular, provoked the jealousy of God for His own honour. Moab was therefore, by the judgment of God, given up for a possession to her enemies, who entered in through her opened-out frontier (Ezekiel 25:9). She has long ceased to be "remembered among the nations" (), while Israel is still preserved, awaiting the day of her glorious restoration, when her name shall be had in everlasting remembrance, and all the nations shall know that her God is the Lord ().

(4) Edom also greatly offended by taking vengeance against the house of Judah; therefore the vengeance of God was doomed to fall on herself, and that, too, "by the hand of the Lord's people Israel," under the Maccabees, in order that it might be plainly discerned that the judgment on her was not fortuitous, but was the act of the Lord's judicial vengeance (). They who take vengeance out of God's hands into their own must expect that the vengeance of the Lord shall fall on themselves. By treasuring up "old hatred," and cherishing spite in the heart, and watching for opportunities to wreak it, as did the Philistines against Israel, men only treasure up for themselves wrath against the day of wrath. Let us rather overcom e evil with good, as becomes the followers of Him who so loved His enemies that He died in order that they might live. Let us, when wronged, leave our cause in the hands of God the righteous Judge; and, meanwhile, let us love our enemies, bless them that curse us, do good to them that hate us, and pray for them that despitefully use us, and persecute us ().