Ezekiel 21

46. There are three Hebrew synonyms, which in English we must render by the one word south, denoting the region on the right hand (47 : 1), the region of midday, the region of brightness. The variety of terms helps the force of the application. Ezekiel is dwelling by Chebar in the north of Babylon, from the north the Chaldean army is to come upon Judea. (See on 1 : 4.) B. C.

49. Doth he not speak parables? A feeling of sad discouragement comes over the prophet as he thinks of delivering this message (verses 46-48), for he remembers how the people received his threatenings from the Lord before, when they were clothed in strongly figurative language. Is it not altogether figurative, say they? How then can we know much about its real meaning? Does not the whole description bear the aspect of great exaggeration? To questions like these it may be replied briefly but most truthfully. Figures of speech are used in every human language, in all ages of time. They come nearer to the idea of a universal language, clearly intelligible to all, than any other form or mode of speech.

Chap. 21. In this description of judgments from God upon Jerusalem (verses 1-25), and upon Ammon (verses 28-32), the sword is made signally prominent—drawn out from the Lord’s scabbard, sharpened, polished, gleaming, flashing, and coming down fearfully for its work of slaughter! It is the chapter of the sword. If we suppose a connection with the closing words of the chapter previous, we shall see a special pertinence in this figure. The people are saying: These figures and symbols, parables and things of that sort—who can tell how much they mean? To which the Lord replies: “Ye must certainly know what the sword means: ye have seen and heard of the sword; let the sword therefore be the figure—yet scarcely a figure so much as a terrible reality—in the prophet’s foretelling of your doom!” H. C.

1-7. The prophet had faithfully delivered the message he was intrusted with in the close of the foregoing chapter, in the terms wherein he received it, not daring to add his own comment upon it; but when he complained that the people found fault with him for speaking parables, the word of the Lord came to him again and gave him a key to that figurative discourse, that with it he might let the people into the meaning of it, and so silence that objection. For all men shall be rendered inexcusable at God’s bar, and every mouth shall be stopped. H.

1-5. Set thy face toward the city to which the predicted judgments pertain, as in verse 46 and elsewhere. The destruction must be general, embracing both the righteous and the wicked. Since no discrimination is made on the ground of moral character, there can be no discrimination whatever (verses 4, 5), but the sword shall cut down all the living from south to north in the land. The Lord’s sword is drawn, and will not return to its scabbard till this work is done. H. C.

3. If God had permitted none to be carried off captive but the wicked, their case would be utterly hopeless, as there would be none to set a good example, to preach repentance, to reprove sin, or to show God’s willingness to forgive sinners. But God in His mercy permitted many of the righteous to be carried off also, that the wicked might not be totally abandoned or put beyond the reach of being saved. Hence both Ezekiel and Daniel, and several others, prophets and righteous men, were thus cut off from the land and carried into captivity. And how much was God’s glory and the good of men promoted by this! What a seed of salvation was sown, even in the heathen countries, by thus cutting off the righteous with the wicked! To this we owe, under God, many of the Psalms; the whole of the Book of Ezekiel; all the prophecies of Daniel; the bright example of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego; the decrees passed in favor of the religion of the true God by Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Darius, etc. And to this dispensation of God’s merciful providence we owe the books and example of Ezra and Nehemiah. Where then is the injustice, so loudly declaimed against, of God’s thus cutting off from the land of Judea the righteous with the wicked? The righteous were not cut off for the crimes of the wicked (see chap. 18), nor were these crimes visited upon them; yet several of them shared in the common calamity, but none perished. Those that were removed by a violent death—and we shall find few such—got a speedier entrance into eternal glory. A. C.

9-17. This passage may be called the Lay of the Sword; it is written in the form of Hebrew poetry, with its characteristic parallelism. It may be translated and arranged as follows:

A sword, a sword, it is sharpened and furbished,

Sharpened for sore slaughter,

It contemneth the rod of My people,

It contemneth every tree;

It was given for furbishing to be handled,

It is sharpened and furbished to be given into the hand of the slayer;

Cry aloud and howl, O son of man.

The sword is upon My people,

Upon all the princes of Israel,

They are given up to the sword with My peo- ple;

Therefore smite upon thy thigh.

For it is put to the proof, and if it contemneth even the rod,

What shall not be? saith the Lord God.

And thou, son of man, prophesy and strike hand upon hand,

And let the sword be thrice doubled;

This is the sword of the slain,

The sword of the mighty slain, which presseth hard upon them,

That the heart may faint

And ruin be multiplied,

Against all their gates have I set My threaten- ing sword,

Ah! it is prepared for a lightning-flash,

Drawn for slaughter.

Gather thyself up, O sword, to the right or to the left,

Whithersoever thy path is determined.

I also will strike hand on hand,

And will cause my fury to abide,

I the Lord have said it.

B. C.

18-27. The prophet, in the verses before, had showed them the sword coming; he here shows them that sword coming against them, that they might not flatter themselves that by some means or other it should be diverted a contrary way. H.

18-20. The object here seems to be to indi- cate the process by which the king of Babylon would decide by a sort of lot which course to take first, whether toward Ammon or toward Jerusalem. The statements imply that the prophet was to go through the usual ceremo- nies symbolically, to make a stronger impres- sion of the facts upon the people. Taking his position at the head of the way leading to the city, he marked out one way leading to Jerusa- lem; another to the country of Ammon. Both led out from the one land of Babylon. In the last part of the verse the sense is better given by reading or instead of “and;” “To Rabbath of the Ammonites, or to Judah in Jerusalem.”

21,22. This refers to ancient customs of learning the will of the gods (as supposed) by various forms of divination. Three forms are here. Shaking the arrows (previously labelled) in a bag, and then drawing out one, the label of which would give the desired answer. Numbers 2 and 3 are noticed frequently in the old classic authors; consulting images of the gods, and examining the liver of an animal slain for the purpose. If the indications led toward the right hand, then the king of Babylon would (not “appoint captains” but) “put up batter- ing rams”—the same word which the last clause renders in this way. He would also give command for slaughter, or, perhaps, open the mouth in outcry. (So Gesenius.) H. C.

21. At the head of these two roads the king of Babylon is depicted as standing at the en- trance of the Holy Land from the north. To his right is the road to Jerusalem, on the left that to Rabbath-Ammon: these are the two roads by one or other of which an invading army must march from Babylon to Egypt. He is meditating his campaign, taking divinations after the common fashion of the heathen.

Shook the arrows. This mode of divi- nation is one much in practice with the Ara- bians. Pocock (quoted by Rosenmüller) de- scribes it at length. Before undertaking a journey, marrying a wife, and entering upon any important business, it was usual to place in some vessel three arrows, on one of which was written, “My God orders me;” on the other, “My God forbids me;” on the third was no inscription. These three arrows were shaken together until one came out; if it was the first, the thing was to be done; if the sec- ond, it was to be avoided; if the third, the ar- rows were again shaken together until one of the arrows bearing a decided answer should come forth. This method of obtaining an omen by shaking lots together in a helmet was famil- iar to the ancient Greeks. (See Hom. “II.,” iii. 316.)

He looked in the liver. It was the practice both of the Greeks and the Romans to take omens from the inspection of the entrails (espe- cially the liver) of animals offered in sacrifice. The Romans derived this practice from the Etruscans. These Etruscans seem to have shown their Eastern origin in various ways— their writing was from right to left—the Etru- rian chiefs, from whom the young Roman nobles received instruction in the sacred sciences of divination, formed a warlike sacerdotal caste like the Chaldeans. B. C.

Archbishop Potter notices the practice among the Greeks, in which divination was made by arrows shaken together in a quiver. The meth- od of divination practised by the idolatrous Arabs, but forbidden by the Koran, is too sin- gular to be unnoticed. “Seven divining arrows were kept at the temple of Mecca; but generally in divination, the idolatrous Arabs made use of three only; on one was written ‘My lord hath commanded me;’ on another, ‘My lord hath forbidden me;’ and the third was blank. If the first was drawn, they looked upon it as an approbation of the enterprise in question; if the second, they made a contrary conclusion; but if the third happened to be drawn, they mixed them, and drew over again till a decisive answer was given by one of the others.” Abp. Newcome.

22. In his right hand was the divination for Jerusalem. His divinations show that he was to go to the right hand—that is, toward Jerusalem. Dathius.—Supposing the face toward the east, the southern branch of the two roads, which was toward the right hand, led toward Jerusalem; for this city lay to the south of Rabbah. You must represent Nebuchadnezzar as coming from Dan, and marching along the Jordan. Here Rabbah was situated at the left hand, and Jerusalem at the right. Abp. Newcome.

The Ammonites appear to have revolted against the Chaldean sway at the same time with the Jews; and when the king of Babylon commenced his march with the purpose of reducing them to obedience, he seems to have been undecided whether to direct his march against Jerusalem or against Rabbah. When, however, he came to “the parting of the way,” to the point where it became necessary to decide in which direction to lead his forces, he resorted to divination to determine the question for him—a favorite resource among the ancients in doubtful contingencies, to save themselves the trouble and responsibility of decision, by casting it upon their gods and their diviners. It is at this point the prophet sets the great king before us. “Appoint a way that the sword may come to Rabbath of the Ammonites, and to Judah in Jerusalem the defenced. For the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination: he shook the arrows, he consulted the teraphim, he looked in the liver.” The result was that he should go against Jerusalem, for “At his right hand was the divination for Jerusalem, to appoint captains, to open the mouth in slaughter, to lift up the voice with shouting, to appoint battering-rams against the gates, to cast a mount, and to build a fort.” Kitto.

23,24. I understand these verses to mean that this divination, taken by the king of Babylon and directing him to besiege Jerusalem, would be held by the Jews as false and of no account because they had been in sworn allegiance to that king and assumed that they could have peace with him on easy terms again. But that king remembers their iniquity in violating those oaths, and this exasperates him to sterner vengeance. It should be borne in mind that this very king placed Zedekiah on his throne (2 Chron. 36:10, 13; Jer. 52:3; Ezek. 17:15, 18) under a solemn oath of fidelity to himself as his liege lord. H. C.

25-27. The principal passage of any length in this prophet that is amended is the remarkable prediction to Zedekiah, of repeated overthrows in Judah, until the true rightful monarch came (21:25-27). In verse 25 the prince of Israel is called “deadly wounded” instead of “profane,” for this the original means, indicating that the blow is final. In verse 26, “Remove the diadem and take off the crown,” diadem is changed to mitre, showing that both priestly and royal dignities are destroyed. “This shall not be the same” becomes “This shall be no more the same,” which is a plainer statement of the perpetuity of the change. Then after a repeated announcement of changes and revolutions, there is added in verse 27 a new assurance, not “and it shall be no more,” as the Authorized Version, but “this also shall be no more”—that is, even the apparently final outcome of successive revolutions shall not endure. Nowhere shall there be permanence, but constant fluctuations, until at last the rightful priest upon his throne shall appear. Chambers.

From a view of the intense depravity and horrible idolatry of the king and his people, now culminating in perjury against the king of Babylon, the course of thought passes suddenly to direct address to the guilty king now to be slain and of course deposed and stripped of his crown. The passage might be translated, almost literally, thus: “And thou, most wicked prince of Israel; pierced through with the sword, whose day has come in the time of fatal sin: Thus saith the Lord God: The sacred headband is removed; the regal crown is taken off; this shall be no longer this (what it has been); the lowly is exalted; the lofty is brought down: I will utterly overturn, and even then it shall not be permanent until he comes to whom it belongs; then I will give it to him.” In Zedekiah’s utter fall the crown of Judah is vilely cast away: the ancient throne of David seems to be fearfully subverted; but the Lord’s hand is in these revolutions; He will push them on for His own purposes until the greater Prince of David’s line shall come to whom the eternal promise of David’s throne stands sure. Then God will give him that crown and kingdom. It was specially appropriate that this prophecy should indicate the suspension of the functions of the high priest as well as those of the king. Remarkably both were restored by special promise according to the prophecies of Zechariah (chaps. 4 : 14 ; 6 : 13) after the return from captivity. Both were united under one head and given to the great Messiah when He ultimately came. Both went down together in this fearful judgment upon the nation for its sin. Both returned together when, through the repentance of the people and the Divine mercy, they returned again to become the Lord’s. I will overturn utterly. He to whom “the judgment” or the right is can be none other than the great Messiah. The idea of His “coming” may tacitly refer to Gen. 49 : 10, “Until Shiloh shall come.” The term “come” is in Hebrew used to designate the Messiah as “He that should come”—e.g., “Art thou He that should come, or look we for another?” (Matt. 11 : 3). Onkelos, the best of the Chaldee paraphrasts, gives us his paraphrase of Gen. 49 : 10, with his eye on our passage : “Until Messiah come whose is the kingdom.” Thus the prediction of fearful ruin on Jerusalem and her king and high priest suggests the consummation of the kingdom of God on earth under that great Personage, both King and Priest, who fills the throne of David forever—a glorious Priest on His throne for the joyful salvation of His redeemed people. This passage is rich in its suggestive resources—e.g., that none need fear the results of the revolutions of earthly thrones, determined in the providence of God ; that the helm of universal dominion is in hands equal to every emergency, guided by a far-seeing wisdom and evermore evolving events toward the sublime and blessed consummation of God’s great purposes of human redemption. These lessons bear toward a peaceful, joyful trust in our Divine Father and Lord, and bid us wait on Him in faith and prayer, and with such labor as we may, till He bring forth His righteousness as the light and His faithfulness in promise as the noonday ! H. C.

25. And thou, profane, wicked prince of Israel. The words are addressed to King Zedekiah, whom the prophet calls “profane” and “wicked,” chiefly with respect to his breaking that solemn oath uttered in the name of God, whereby he had engaged himself to be tributary to the king of Babylon (chap. 17 : 19). W. Lowth.

27. I will overturn . . . it ; and it shall be no more, until He come whose right it is ; and I will give it Him. This is a threat that the kingdom should never recover its former glory and strength, but consume, till the sceptre should be quite taken away from Judah, and way be made for the Messiah, who is He that was to come, whose was the dominion, and to whom the Father would give it ; so that the final desolation of the temporal kingdom of the seed of David is here threatened, and the eternal kingdom of the Messiah is promised. The triple use of the word “overturn” expresses the certainty of the event. Poole.

It is only redemption now that carries on the counsel of Providence and opens the seals thereof. John’s Book of Revelation is a book of Providence all through, celebrating as the crises arrive all the overturnings of Christ’s advancing empire, with successive hymns and acclamations ; chanting everywhere the Lamb, the Lamb, the Lamb that was slain ; sometimes, when public wrong is incorrigible and fierce, the wrath, and always the victory, of the Lamb ; closing off at the river that proceedeth out of the throne of God and the Lamb ; and showing there installed and everlastingly established a glorious and complete Lamb-Providence for the world. Bushnell.

We learn through the living lessons of our own experience that the eternal Gospel covers the facts of life, its sorrows, its needs, its joys, its wealth. Through every conflict the truth is seen in the majesty of its growing vigor. Shakings, shakings not of the earth only, but of the heaven, will come ; but what then ? We know this, that all that falls is taken away, that those things which are not shaken may remain. Bp. Westcott.

28. The burden of the Song of the Sword is directed now against the Ammonites, who, exulting in Judah’s destruction, fondly deemed that they were themselves to escape. But over them too the like doom is spoken, only with this difference, that for them is no prospect of recovery. For Judah there is yet hope, for Ammon irremediable ruin. B. C.

28-32. It was indicated (verses 19-22) that the king of Babylon sought divination to determine which city to attack first in order, Jerusalem or Ammon. Both were in his plan and in God’s plan. The one being finished, the other follows as here. Perhaps it stands in this connection with the fall of Jerusalem to show that the Lord tenderly remembers His true people ; that He resents the reproaches cast on them by the heathen under their great calamities ; and

that it is only as apostates that God scourges His own city and nation; while His sympathies are none the less against the wicked heathen nations round about them and with His own chosen people. Another prophecy against Ammon, similar in its general tone, appears (chap. 25:1-7). In form this passage is legitimately a continuation of the sword chapter (20), the figure of the devouring sword being prominent throughout. H. C.