Ezekiel 25

Chapter 25-32 Oracles Against Foreign Nations. The first question we must ask as we consider these chapters is as to why they are included in a prophecy to Israel, and why they are placed here between the first investment of Jerusalem by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar (Ezekiel 24:2), and the later successful conclusion of the siege by him.They do in fact present a remarkable message. Here was Jerusalem, surrounded by enemies, about to be crushed, and Yahweh’s land was about to be taken from them. Soon there would be no nation of Israel or Judah. Their surrounding neighbours were already taking advantage of their situation, great Tyre to the north was prospering and magnifying herself, partly at her expense, and Egypt was sitting back after a vain effort at assistance, having fomented many of their problems, and allowing them to be destroyed. Was not this therefore evidence that Yahweh had no more time for His people, that His favour was rather being shown to her neighbours? Did it not further mean that these nations would despise Israel’s God, and see Him of little account?Ezekiel’s answer here is a resounding ‘No!’.

Yahweh was also about to reveal His power against these very nations. They too would come under His judgment precisely because of their attitude towards Him and His people.

And they would be made to recognise that Yahweh was still powerful and at work by the judgments which came on them. They would know that He is Yahweh (something constantly reiterated throughout the section) as Egypt had known long before at the time of the Exodus (Exodus 7:5; Exodus 7:17; Exodus 8:22; Exodus 14:4; Exodus 14:18). They would learn a hard lesson.This is why Babylon is not included among them. Babylon is as yet the instrument of these judgments, and Nebuchadnezzar is acting under the constraint of Yahweh. What is happening therefore is not disaster, it is the forwarding of His plans by the hand of the supreme king Nebuchadnezzar who but unconsciously does His bidding.Thus we must see a number of reasons for these oracles, all centred around the above facts.1)They demonstrated that in spite of their dire straits God had not forgotten His people. He was still concerned about other nations’ behaviour towards them.2)They demonstrated that in spite of the fall of Jerusalem Yahweh was still God over the whole world.

The fall of Jerusalem would not mean that Yahweh was defeated. It would reveal that He was also controlling what was happening round about.

He controlled the destiny of nations.3)They filled in a gap during a period when Ezekiel was silent towards Jerusalem, when he had no word of Yahweh for them. Some of these prophecies, carefully dated, specifically occurred during that period, and bring home the fact that at the same time as there was no word from God through Ezekiel for Jerusalem and the exiles, God was still speaking on her behalf, to the surrounding world. They symbolised God’s final triumph over all things.4)They demonstrated the future decline of these foreign nations in contrast with the future promises of restoration for Israel, emphasising the certainty of the final triumph of God’s people.5)They happened and affected Israel.The oracles are split into a group of four which form a unity and follow a similar pattern (chapter 25), and may well have been given at the same time, and then a further three which are more expansive against Tyre, Sidon and Egypt.Some of the oracles against the nations are dated and come before the fall of Jerusalem, an oracle against Egypt in Ezekiel 29:1 onwards being in January 587 BC, oracles against Pharaoh in Ezekiel 30:20 onwards, and Ezekiel 31:1 onwards, being in April and June 587/6 BC, while others are dated after the fall of Jerusalem (Ezekiel 29:17; Ezekiel 32:1; Ezekiel 32:17). The oracle against Tyre in Ezekiel 26:1 onwards clearly comes after the siege by its content. We can tentatively date it in February 586/5 BC. This depends on the date given to the fall of Jerusalem (587/6 BC) and the information about the arrival of the newsbearer in Ezekiel 33:21 where there are variant readings (January 586/585 BC).It is probably noteworthy that seven nations were selected against whom oracles were uttered (Ammon, Moab, Edom, Philistia, Tyre, Sidon, Egypt).

Aside from Egypt they surrounded Israel in a clockwise direction commencing east of Jordan. The number seven was considered significant throughout the whole of the Ancient Near East as the number of divine perfection and completeness.

They may thus in one sense be seen as God’s word to the whole world. That they did not include Babylon arises from the fact that Babylon was temporarily God’s agent (Ezekiel 17:20; Jeremiah 32:3-5), and Nebuchadnezzar temporarily His ‘servant’ (Jeremiah 25:9; Jeremiah 27:6) and ‘son’ (see on Ezekiel 21:10), although their final certain punishment had also been declared elsewhere.The first four oracles, against Ammon, Moab, Edom and Philistia, are stern and brief and follow a similar pattern of ‘because – therefore –’. Compare similar oracles of Amo 1:3 to Amos 2:3 in slightly different format but with a parallel idea. They bear the mark of a prophetic denouncement. These were nations already on the wane, as Israel seemed to be itself. The other three oracles are more colourful and expanded.

They were dealing with those thought of as more worthy of notice and therefore deserving of wider treatment. Tyre appears to have been selected for special treatment because, along with Egypt, it symbolised the height of blasphemy against Yahweh, the claim to being divine.

Ezekiel 25:1-7

The Oracle Against Ammon (Ezekiel 25:1-7). The Ammonites, while possibly having been joined with Judah and others in an anti-Babylon alliance, were permanent enemies of Israel/Judah (see Judges 3:13; Judges 10-11; 1 Samuel 11; 2 Samuel 10; 2 Kings 24:2; 2 Chronicles 20; Amos 1:13; Zephaniah 2:8-9). They were excluded from becoming Israelites by adoption for ‘ten generations’ (Deuteronomy 23:3). That they were part of an alliance with Jerusalem is suggested by Ezekiel 21:18-22. But that did not prevent them from pouring scorn on Jerusalem’s situation, which made their sin the worse. And later their king would help to arrange the assassination of Gedaliah (Jeremiah 40:14 to Jeremiah 41:2) at the hand of Israelites who had fled to Ammon for protection against the approaching Babylonian armies.

Ezekiel 25:4-5

“Therefore, behold, I will deliver you to the children of the east for a possession, and they will set their encampments in you, and make their dwellings in you. They will eat your fruit and they will drink your milk. And I will make Rabbah a pasturage for camels, and the children of Ammon a fold for flocks, and you will know that I am Yahweh.”Their punishment was to be that their country would be taken over by the very people whom they probably despised the most, the desert nomads, the ‘children of the east’, who would simply use their capital city and their land as a pasturage and sheepfold. Civilisation would cease. Ammon would be no more (Ezekiel 21:32). It would be total humiliation.Ammon itself was a wilder country than the more civilised and sophisticated Moabites, but none feel their status more than those who feel the superiority of having risen above their even wilder desert neighbours. The thought that their country, and their proud cities, which had been theirs for centuries, and which distinguished them from their desert neighbours, would become mere pasturage and sheepfolds for such desert-dwellers would have appalled them.

Ezekiel 25:6-7

‘For thus says the Lord Yahweh, “Because you have clapped your hands, and stamped with the feet, and rejoiced with all the malice of your heart against the land of Israel, therefore behold I have stretched out my hand on you, and will deliver you for a spoil to the nations, and I will cut you off from the peoples, and I will cause you to perish from among the countries. I will destroy you, and you will know that I am Yahweh.” ’The charge is extended to the fact that they had not only said the knowing ‘Aha’ but had actually shown great glee and delight in Jerusalem’s misery. Indeed their malice is stressed. And this was against the people of Yahweh, and therefore a slight on Yahweh Himself. Thus Yahweh, Who deals righteously with all nations, would stretch out His hand and hand them over as spoil to the nations, and would have them removed for ever from the list of nations. As this occurred to them they would then know that He is Yahweh, and that they were wrong to say ‘Aha’ at what they thought was His defeat.

It would now be His turn to say ‘Aha’.According to Josephus it was an historical fact that Ammon no longer existed as a nation after Nebuchadnezzar had first destroyed it, and then the Bedouins from the east had plundered it and taken it over. The ‘bringing again’ of the captivity of the children of Ammon (Jeremiah 49:6) may refer to the Persian period (Nehemiah 2:10; Nehemiah 2:19; Nehemiah 4:7), but more probably it is God’s way of saying that finally none of these nations go beyond His purview even in their extremity. When God reaches out to the new Israel, the ‘Israel of God’ (Galatians 6:16), with the Gospel (Isaiah 61:1-2), it will include many from all these countries.

Ezekiel 25:8-11

‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh, “Because Moab and Seir say, ‘Behold the house of Judah is like all nations’, therefore behold I will open the side of Moab from the cities, from his cities which are on his frontiers, the glory of the country, Beth-jeshimoth, Baal-meon, and Kiriathaim, to the children of the East, along with the children of Ammon, and I will give them for a possession, that the children of Ammon may not be remembered among the nations. And I will execute judgments on Moab, and they will know that I am Yahweh.” ’Moab is here connected with Edom (Seir) as saying that ‘the house of Judah is just like other nations’, and thus that her God is the same. Together they reject the idea that Judah are the favoured of Yahweh Who is all-powerful. They deride Judah from afar.Thus Moab will share the fate of Ammon with whom she was in continual alliance. Her countryside will be opened up to the children of the East by the destruction of her main fortresses, that were the source of her strength. It will be opened up ‘from the cities, that is the frontier cities’.

Its most glorious areas, her pride and joy, will be opened up, Beth-jeshimoth (‘house of the deserts’), a place near the north-east shore of the Dead Sea in the Jordan rift valley, Baal-meon, built by the Reubenites (Numbers 32:38) and captured and held by the Moabites when they became strong, and Kiriathaim, declared by Mesha in his 9th century inscription to have been rebuilt by him when he captured it from Israel.Note the stress again on the fact that Ammon’s days were numbered. Moab will suffer alongside her as being so closely connected with her that she can be seen as one with her, and indeed she would suffer the same fate, disappearing from history. Thus she too learned too late Who and What Yahweh was. And in her disappearance Yahweh, the everlasting One, was vindicated.

Ezekiel 25:12-14

The Oracle Against Edom (Ezekiel 25:12-14). Edom has already been mentioned in the charge against Moab. Ammon and Moab were seen as brother nations descended from Lot (Genesis 19:37-38), while Edom was seen as descended from Esau (Genesis 32:3; Genesis 36:8). They were thus related nations, and their land was seen as given to them by Yahweh, which was why Moses had sought to avoid conflict with them (Deuteronomy 2:18-19; Deuteronomy 2:22). But now He was taking it away from them. They had gone too far.

Ezekiel 25:14

‘ “And I will lay my vengeance on Edom by the hand of my people Israel, and they will do in Edom according to my anger and according to my fury, and they will know my vengeance”, says the Lord Yahweh.’Here was a message of hope for Israel. For God’s just judgment on Edom would come through the hand of Israel herself, and if that were to be so she had to be restored to the land. There are two kinds of revenge. One is thoughtless and indiscriminate going beyond what is justified. God would have no part in that. The other is measured and deserved, a measured response to a genuine offence given in accordance with the deserts of those on whom the vengeance is requited.

That was what was intended here.What we do know is that later Edom and its survivors were subdued by Judas Maccabaeus, and then by John Hyrcanus (later Jewish leaders), who incorporated them into the Jewish race by compulsory circumcision. Again they lost their nationhood. And all this would take place because of God’s antipathy against their gross sin.

Ezekiel 25:15-17

‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh, “Because the Philistine have dealt by revenge, and have taken revenge with heartfelt malice to destroy it with perpetual enmity, therefore, thus says the Lord Yahweh, Behold I will stretch out my hand on the Philistines, and I will cut off the Cherethites, and destroy the remnant of the sea coast. And I will execute vengeance on them with severe rebukes, and they will know that I am Yahweh when I will lay my vengeance on them.” ’The oracle is short and to the point. ‘Because – therefore –.’ Those who are at enmity with God’s people are at enmity with God, especially as by their attitude they are declaring their attitude towards Yahweh Himself (for here they were to be made to know that He is Yahweh). Here the enmity of Philistia is depicted as permanent and perpetual. There was no pity, only malice. That I why they were to be punished (compare Zephaniah 2:5). Those who show malice will reap what they sow.The Cherethites were regularly linked with the Philistines as one.

The name probably connects with ‘Cretans’. They had come over together from Crete and the Aegean. They are last mentioned in the Old Testament in Zechariah 9:6. After Maccabaean times the Philistines ceased as a people although the names of their cities were perpetuated. The alliteration ‘the cutting off of the Cherethites’ is more prominent in the Hebrew.