Ezekiel 7

10,11. The cycle of the Divine order brings thee thy day of doom. “The rod hath blossomed”—the rod for thy scourging hath developed itself and is in readiness for service; the pride of thy conquerors flowers out—i.e., into action and life, impelling them on to war and destruction against thee. The figure in regard to pride follows the previous figure of the rod. Violence becomes a rod to scourge and punish thy wickedness. H. C.

Two sins are particularly specified as provoking God to bring these judgments upon them, pride and oppression. God will humble them by His judgments, for they have magnified themselves. The rod of affliction has blossomed, but it was pride that budded (verse 10). What buds in sins will blossom in some judgment or other. The pride of Judah and Jerusalem appeared among all orders and degrees of men, as buds upon the tree in spring. Their enemies shall deal hardly with them, for they have dealt hardly with one another (verse 11); violence is risen up into a rod of wickedness; their injuriousness to one another is protected and patronized by the power of the magistrate. The rod of government was become a rod of wickedness; to such a degree of impudence was violence risen up. I saw the place of judgment, that wickedness was there (Eccles. 3:16; Isa. 5:7). Whatever are the fruits of God’s judgments, it is certain that our sin is the root of them. H.

The expression is in every way remarkable, and is very full of meaning. The rod is to be understood as denoting the instrument by which the sins of the people were to be punished. In this instance it was Nebuchadnezzar; but the consideration to which it directs us is applicable to any case of judgment. It illustrates the Lord’s deliberateness in executing His judgments, as contrasted with man’s haste, impatience, and precipitancy. Man, so liable to err in judgment and action, and to whom slow deliberation in inflicting punishment upon transgressors might seem naturally to result from his own consciousness of this, is in haste to judge and prompt to act; whereas He who cannot err, and whose immediate action must be as true and right as His most delayed procedure, works not after the common manner of men, but after the manner of a husbandman in sowing and planting. When the sin comes to that state which must in the end render judgment needful for the maintenance of righteousness upon the earth, and for the vindication of the Lord’s justice and honor, the rod of punishment is planted; it grows as the sin grows, and it attains its maturity for action at the exact time that the iniquity reaches maturity for punishment. When Israel entered upon that course of sin which ended in ruin, the rod of the Babylonian power was planted; and as the iniquities of Israel increased, the rod went on growing until, under Nebuchadnezzar, it became a great tree, overshadowing the nations; and when the full term was come it was ripe and ready for the infliction of the judgments upon Israel, which had so often been denounced, and were so greatly needed.

Exactly the same course was followed in the case of the Canaanites whom the Israelites superseded in the possession of Palestine. In that case Israel was the rod of Canaan. The rod was planted long before “the iniquities of the Canaanites were full” for judgment; but when that time arrived, the rod of judgment had grown to blossoming, and the long-predicted punishment was no longer withheld. All was ready; the sinners were ready for judgment—the rod was ready to inflict it. The same was the course with Babylon itself, in the present case the rod of Israel. For her pride, her arrogance, and her unrighteousness she was doomed to be brought low. The prophets foretold it; and they indicated the yet unplanted Medo-Persian rod as the future instrument of her chastisement. The rod was planted—it grew; and when it blossomed in strength the Lord brake in pieces therewith many nations, as He had threatened—great Babylon being the first and the chief.

God does not now deal any differently with mankind. As signal instances might be given from the modern history of nations, as any that ancient history can produce. No century of time has been more replete with them than the present. To produce instances would lead into the field of politics, which we avoid. But this we can say, that so sure as any nation enters upon and persists in a course of unrighteousness, or addicts itself to any particular sin, so surely the rod of judgment is planted; so surely will it blossom for chastisement at the set time.

To come nearer: as God deals with nations, so does He deal with individuals; there is the same law for both. Whether a man professes to be in Christ or not, if he follow any unrighteous course—if he cherish any bosom sin, mental or personal, of thought or action—let him be assured that the rod of judgment is planted, and will in due time bear the bitter fruits of shame, fear and sorrow to him. Because God waits till the rod has blossomed, the poor sinner may think that God tolerates him—that he may sin without dread—and that even to the end his peace shall flow like a river. But there is a sad and terrible hour to come, which shall teach him—perhaps too late—that the rod of judgment has all the while been growing, although he heeded it not, until it sheds over him all its blossoms of mourning, lamentation, and woe.

Nothing is more certain than God’s judgments; nor is there any help for us, any refuge, unless, before the rod has blossomed, or even while it is yet blossoming, we flee to Christ, and, in that love and pity which redeemed us, seek rest for our souls and pardon for our sins.

“Grant, Almighty God, since Thou hast recalled us to Thyself, that we may not grow torpid in our sins, nor yet become hardened by the chastisements; but prevent in time Thy final judgments, and so humble us under Thy powerful hand that we may seriously testify and really prove our repentance; and so study to obey Thee, that we may advance in newness of life, until at length we put off all the defilements of the flesh, and arrive at the enjoyment of that eternal rest which thine only-begotten Son hath acquired for us by His own blood.”

Such is the beautiful prayer with which Calvin concludes his consideration of the passage (verses 9-18), which includes the text before us. Kitto.

12,13. The customary business transactions of life will cease, and with them the consequent feelings of joy or sorrow which they occasion. Let not the buyer rejoice in his purchase and new acquisition; it shall avail him nothing. Let not the seller mourn as one compelled to part with things of fond endearment; it is all the same to him, for none can retain the choice things they prize most. The wrath of God is upon all the people, to poison all the enjoyments of life. To see the force of this passage, one needs to bear in mind the wide distinction between the business dealings of Oriental and Hebrew life, and those of our own age and country. Selling, especially of real estate, was then not a business, but a necessity. Men sold only when poverty or necessity compelled them. Hence the presumption that the seller would mourn and the buyer rejoice. The seller’s returning to what he has sold contemplates that provision of the Hebrew law by which real estate, having been sold, returned to its former owner at the jubilee (Lev. 25: 23). The prophet says that although the seller should live to the next jubilee, yet the country would then be desolate; there would be no returning to the possession of land sold. This prophetic vision relates to the whole people, and not one shall escape this visitation of judgment and doom. It could avail nothing for any man to make himself strong in his iniquity. H. C.

Death in its various shapes shall ride triumphantly, both in town and in country, both within the city and without it. Men shall be safe nowhere, for he that is in the field shall die by the sword, every field shall be to them a field of battle; and he that is in the city, though it be a holy city, yet it shall not be his protection, but famine and pestilence shall devour him. H.

16. Here, as often elsewhere, amid the most terrific threatenings of universal doom, there breaks forth a glimmering ray of hope for a very small remnant—a few who shall (as said here) be mourning over their great sins, even as doves of the valley are noted for mourning the loss of their mates.

19,20. Gold and silver will not avail them to withstand the wrath of God or to satisfy their personal wants, because it has been their temptation—in this sense “the stumbling-block of their iniquity”—an occasion of their falling into sin. I understand verse 20 to say, The people made use of their beautiful ornaments for purposes of pride and display. They also made their images of idols and abominations out of this gold and silver (as in Ex. 32), and therefore God made this wealth a thing loathed, abhorred, and cast away. Thus God is wont to, send judgments so plainly in the line of men’s sins as to remind them perpetually of the sins which they were sent to scourge. H. C.

19. Their gold and silver could not protect them from the judgments of God; they shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord, they shall not serve to atone His justice, or turn away His wrath, or to screen them from the judgments He is bringing upon them. Riches profit not in the day of wrath (Prov. 11:4); they neither set them so high that God’s judgments cannot reach them, nor make them so strong that they cannot conquer them. There is a day of wrath coming, when it will appear that men’s wealth is utterly unable to deliver them or do them any service. What the better was the rich man for his full barns when his soul was required of him; or that other rich man for his purple and scarlet, and sumptuous fare, when he could not procure a drop of water to cool his tongue? H.

23. Those that break the bands of God’s law asunder and cast away these cords from them will find themselves bound and held by the chains in His judgments, which they cannot break or cast from them. The chain signified the siege of Jerusalem, or the slavery of those that were carried into captivity, or that they were all bound over to the righteous judgment of God, reserved in chains.

24. Since they had filled their houses with goods unjustly gotten and used their pomp and power for the crushing and oppressing of the weak, God would give their houses to be possessed, and all the furniture of them to be enjoyed, by strangers, and make the pomp of the strong to cease, so that their great men should not dazzle the eyes of the weak-sighted with their pomp, nor with their might at any time prevail against right, as they had done. And since they had defiled the holy places with their idolatries, God would defile them with His judgments; since they had set up the images of other gods in the Temple, God would remove thence the tokens of the presence of their own God. When the holy places are deserted by their God, they will soon be defiled by their enemies. H.

26,27. Like King Saul when the Lord had forsaken him, they shall seek some vision from the Lord, but He shall make them no reply. He shuts His ear and gives them no counsel in the day of their imploring cry. So He said (Prov. 1:28), “Then shall they call upon Me, but I will not answer; they shall seek Me early [earnestly], but they shall not find Me.” These terrible judgments would reach the throne and carry terror and woe to all hearts. Then the nations abroad, and the Jewish people no less, will know that the Lord Jehovah is indeed the Lord, the King of nations and the righteous Judge and Avenger of the guilty.

Thus closes this section of Ezekiel’s prophecies, including chaps. 4–7, freighted with threatenings of terrific judgments upon Jerusalem and Judah for their grievous idolatries and utter apostasy from their own God. Let us bear in mind that these announcements are made to the Jewish exiles in Chaldea, now only some five years out from their native land, and up to this moment, doubtless, full of hope for the future of their country, and very probably with high anticipations of themselves returning at no distant day to enjoy peace and good there. Over these fond hopes, such predictions must have passed rough-shod like the terrible threshing sledge of Oriental times, crushing them down into shapeless ruin. Yet this bitter wreck of their cherished hopes was kindly purposed on God’s part to give them a new sense of the awful sin of idolatry and to open their eyes to the wrath of God against their nation for this great national sin. H. C.