Ezekiel 21:1-32
1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, set thy face toward Jerusalem, and drop thy word toward the holy places, and prophesy against the land of Israel,
3 And say to the land of Israel, Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I am against thee, and will draw forth my sword out of his sheath, and will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked.
4 Seeing then that I will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked, therefore shall my sword go forth out of his sheath against all flesh from the south to the north:
5 That all flesh may know that I the LORD have drawn forth my sword out of his sheath: it shall not return any more.
6 Sigh therefore, thou son of man, with the breaking of thy loins; and with bitterness sigh before their eyes.
7 And it shall be, when they say unto thee, Wherefore sighest thou? that thou shalt answer, For the tidings; because it cometh: and every heart shall melt, and all hands shall be feeble, and every spirit shall faint, and all knees shall be weaka as water: behold, it cometh, and shall be brought to pass, saith the Lord GOD.
8 Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
9 Son of man, prophesy, and say, Thus saith the LORD; Say, A sword, a sword is sharpened, and also furbished:
10 It is sharpened to make a sore slaughter; it is furbished that it may glitter: should we then make mirth? it contemnethb the rod of my son, as every tree.
11 And he hath given it to be furbished, that it may be handled: this sword is sharpened, and it is furbished, to give it into the hand of the slayer.
12 Cry and howl, son of man: for it shall be upon my people, it shall be upon all the princes of Israel: terrorsc by reason of the sword shall be upon my people: smite therefore upon thy thigh.
13 Because it is a trial,d and what if the sword contemn even the rod? it shall be no more, saith the Lord GOD.
14 Thou therefore, son of man, prophesy, and smite thine handse together, and let the sword be doubled the third time, the sword of the slain: it is the sword of the great men that are slain, which entereth into their privy chambers.
15 I have set the pointf of the sword against all their gates, that their heart may faint, and their ruins be multiplied: ah! it is made bright, it is wrapped up for the slaughter.
16 Go thee one way or other, either on the right hand, or on the left, whithersoever thy face is set.
17 I will also smite mine hands together, and I will cause my fury to rest: I the LORD have said it.
18 The word of the LORD came unto me again, saying,
19 Also, thou son of man, appoint thee two ways, that the sword of the king of Babylon may come: both twain shall come forth out of one land: and choose thou a place, choose it at the head of the way to the city.
20 Appoint a way, that the sword may come to Rabbath of the Ammonites, and to Judah in Jerusalem the defenced.
21 For the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination: he made his arrows bright, he consulted with images, he looked in the liver.
22 At his right hand was the divination for Jerusalem, to appoint captains,g to open the mouth in the slaughter, to lift up the voice with shouting, to appoint battering rams against the gates, to cast a mount, and to build a fort.
23 And it shall be unto them as a false divination in their sight, to them that have sworn oaths: but he will call to remembrance the iniquity, that they may be taken.
24 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because ye have made your iniquity to be remembered, in that your transgressions are discovered, so that in all your doings your sins do appear; because, I say, that ye are come to remembrance, ye shall be taken with the hand.
25 And thou, profane wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come, when iniquity shall have an end,
26 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Remove the diadem, and take off the crown: this shall not be the same: exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high.
27 I will overturn,h overturn, overturn, it: and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him.
28 And thou, son of man, prophesy and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD concerning the Ammonites, and concerning their reproach; even say thou, The sword, the sword is drawn: for the slaughter it is furbished, to consume because of the glittering:
29 Whiles they see vanity unto thee, whiles they divine a lie unto thee, to bring thee upon the necks of them that are slain, of the wicked, whose day is come, when their iniquity shall have an end.
30 Shall I cause it to return into his sheath? I will judge thee in the place where thou wast created, in the land of thy nativity.
31 And I will pour out mine indignation upon thee, I will blow against thee in the fire of my wrath, and deliver thee into the hand of brutishi men, and skilful to destroy.
32 Thou shalt be for fuel to the fire; thy blood shall be in the midst of the land; thou shalt be no more remembered: for I the LORD have spoken it.
Ezekiel 21:2. Son of man, set thy face toward Jerusalem, and drop thy word toward the holy places. In the Latin bibles, this chapter begins at 21:45 of the preseding, which preserves unity in the subject. The prophecy is against the land of the south against Israel, which was southward of Mesopotamia, where Ezekiel then exercised his ministry. He must preach against the woods and groves, the seats of idolatry, and of utter ruin to the nation.
Ezekiel 21:3. I will cut off. Hebrews I will slay in thee, the righteous and the wicked. The LXX read, I will destroy from thee, the righteous and the wicked. How is this reconciled with the divine declaration to Abraham, that he would not destroy the righteous with the wicked. Genesis 18:23. Answer: in the unsearchable visitations of providence good men may sometimes be involved in temporal deaths with the wicked; yet he watches over his saints. When the Romans burned Jerusalem, the christians, when their army was called away to Egypt, fled beyond the Jordan. Also when Alaric, king of the Goths stormed the city of Rome, the followers of Christ were spared, being found at prayer in their churches. Anno 412, and eleven hundred and ten years after the building of Rome.
Ezekiel 21:5. I the Lord have drawn forth my sword out of its sheath. The Assyrian power is called the rod of God's anger; but here it is his sword. This whole passage is a sublime description of the terrors of the invading army, of the sword unsheathed against every green tree and pleasant abode. It was drunk with the fury of the Lord.
Ezekiel 21:8. The word of the Lord came unto me saying, a sword, a sword is sharpened. Should we then make mirth? Nay, on the contrary, should we not howl and cry? A rebel nation exposed to fury: slaughter is diversion. Silent leges inter arma. The laws are silent in war. “It contemneth the rod of my Son as wood, or as every green tree.” By this highest title, my Son, the king of Judah cannot well be understood here, he being impeached and utterly condemned in the strongest language. The question is difficult; quomodo gaudebimus? How shall we rejoice at the intoxicated fury of a bloody sword? Yet some do make it an apostrophe, “And thou, oh sword of Nebuchadnezzar, that takest the sceptre from Judah, my son.” Be it so; but who commissioned and sent the Assyrians? It was the Christ, the Son of God. Isaiah 10:5. Therefore, nothing can obstruct our belief of the generally received opinion of christian doctors, that the Father speaks here to the Son, as in the second psalm, when he placed him over the nations, with a rod of iron in his hand. This is the rod which despises every other sceptre, as a sceptre of wood. The Father hath committed all judgment to the Son, and seated him in Zion at his own right hand.
Ezekiel 21:12. Smite therefore upon thy thigh. Homer makes Achilles to smite on his thigh, when he saw the city of Troy in flames, because he was attached to Polixena, daughter of Priam. It is a custom mentioned by Cicero, and seems much the same as smiting on the breast. It was a somewhat stronger expression of anguish than locking of the hands, mentioned at the fourteenth verse.
Ezekiel 21:14. Let the sword be doubled the third time. The people were carried to Babylon at three different times. First, when Jehoiakim was taken; secondly, when Jeconiah was taken; but the third time was doubly severe when the city was burnt, and all the poor carried to Babylon.
Ezekiel 21:21. To use divination. According to Jerome, it was the custom of the heathen, when an attack was proposed on several nations, to write the name of each nation on an arrow. Then they put them in a quiver, and the nation first drawn was the first object of attack. So Nebuchadnezzar, when he came to a place where the road divided, being undecided whether to go against Jerusalem or Rabbah, is here said to do. The second kind of divination here mentioned, was universal among the heathen. He looked in the liver, he inspected the liver of the victims for the altar. These were slain to render the gods propitious to the expedition. “If the liver,” says Dr. Potter, “had a pleasing and natural redness; if it was sound, without spot or blemish; if its head was large; if it had two heads, or there were two livers; then prosperity and success were expected. On the other hand, if there appeared on it any blisters, wheals or ulcers; if there was too much dryness, or a ligament between the parts; if any part was misplaced, or the liver itself altogether wanting, nothing but dangers and disappointments were expected.” The druids were far-famed for inspecting the liver of victims. Thank God, christianity has delivered us from these follies.
Ezekiel 21:25. Thou profane and wicked prince of Israel. The name of the king is omitted; some respect is due to the diadem, though in gross error. He had patronized the worship of Moloch, attended with infant victims, and had violated the oath he had sworn to Nebuchadnezzar. He had persecuted Jeremiah, and refused to hear him when speaking from the mouth of the Lord. Therefore he lost his crown; and with his crown he lost his kingdom. The Lord, as David said to Solomon, “cast him off for ever.” 2 Chronicles 28:10.
Ezekiel 21:26. Remove the diadem. Let it never more be worn, either by son or brother. Let it revert into his hands, who gave it to David when keeping his father's sheep. Let him be crowned, WHOSE RIGHT IT IS.
My servant David shall again feed my sheep, and be a prince among them: chap. 34. Yea, Israel in the latter day shall remember and turn unto the Lord. I will raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen. I will raise up his ruins, and build it as in the days of old. Amos 9:11. Messiah is the horn of salvation in the house of David.
We must remark here, that Ezekiel saw the humble and abject state of the Saviour before his elevation. Exalt him that is low; give him a name above every creature in heaven and earth. We remark also, that Messiah the prince is constituted the judge and ruler of all the nations of the earth. Give the king thy judgments, oh Lord; and thy righteousness to the king's son. Psalms 72:1. All judgment is committed to the Son, the King of kings, and Lord of lords. John 5:22. His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and of his government there shall be no end. Oh Zion, this is thy Messiah, without beginning of days or end of life.
REFLECTIONS.
The awful subject is here continued. It presents us with a glittering sword brandishing over Jerusalem. It presents the Lord as so indignant with an incorrigible nation, that he utters all the terrors of his secret counsel, and so abhors his polluted sanctuary that he would allow no sinner to remain, and no saint to pray on a spot accursed, for a time, because of its pollutions. The wicked were therefore numbered for the sword, the pestilence, and the captivity, while an interior providence guarded the lives of the faithful few, to instruct their brethren in exile.
It was equally horrible that the wicked should be so far infatuated as to indulge in sports and pleasures, vainly puffed up with the hope that the evil day would never come. To counteract this preposterous joy, the prophet was directed by sighs and gestures to represent the wailings which the survivors of the calamities should be compelled to assume. Let us hence learn, never to give our countenance to the wanton joys of the wicked; on the contrary, let us awe them by our seriousness and recollection.
But the most serious part of the chapter, is the apostrophe to Zedekiah: Thou profane and wicked prince! Here we are told that the diadem should be taken from him, and never more worn temporally by any of David's house. On the contrary, whether they were governed by Zerubbabel, or any of David's line, for the Persians; whether they were governed by the highpriest, or by a heathen, God would overturn, overturn, overturn it, by three successive revolutions, till no government remained, that all hope might henceforth be placed in the Messiah, and in him alone. Thus the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom and possess it for ever, yea for ever and ever. Thus joy is reserved for the righteous, while the wicked are covered with eternal gloom.