Ezekiel 23

Ezekiel 23:1

Merathaim - The names of some places which Cyrus took in his way to Babylon.

Ezekiel 23:2

The land - Of Chaldea.

Ezekiel 23:6

Open her store - houses - The granaries, or treasures of the Babylonians.

Ezekiel 23:7

Bullocks - The great and rich men of Babylon.

Ezekiel 23:8

The vengeance - The revenge which God had taken for his holy temple, which the Chaldeans had destroyed.

Ezekiel 23:13

Together - Together in this place signifies no more than that they were both oppressed, or alike oppressed.

Ezekiel 23:14

Plead - He will actually and readily effect it.

Ezekiel 23:16

Dote - Their soothsayers and wizards shall dote, not foreseeing what will be. Dismayed - Their hearts shall fail them when this day comes.

Ezekiel 23:17

Horses - Through they be full of chariots and horses, the enemy shall destroy them. Mingled people - People that were not native Chaldeans, but under their dominion.

Ezekiel 23:18

Dried - This phrase has a plain reference to Cyrus’s stratagem used in the surprize of Babylon; one part of it was fortified by the great river Euphrates, which Cyrus diverted by cutting several channels, ’till he had drained it so low, that it became passable for his army; others think that a want of rain is here threatened.

Ezekiel 23:20

No man - Cyrus only made them tributaries, and took away their government. But Seleucus Nicanor, a Grecian prince, utterly destroyed Babylon, so that in the time of Adrian the Roman emperor, there was nothing left standing of that great city.

Ezekiel 23:32

Forsaken - Not utterly forsaken.

Ezekiel 23:33

Soul - By soul is meant life, and by iniquity the punishment of the Babylonian’s iniquity.

Ezekiel 23:34

Drunken - She had made all the nations about her drunken with the Lord’s fury. Mad - Through the misery they felt from her.

Ezekiel 23:36

We - The prophet seems to personate the mercenary soldiers, saying, they would have helped Babylon, but there was no healing for her.

Ezekiel 23:37

Some - These words are spoken in the person of the Jews, owning the destruction of Babylon to be the mighty work of God, and an act of justice, revenging the wrongs of his people.

Ezekiel 23:39

Set up - These seem to be the prophet’s words to the Babylonians, rousing them out of their security. Historians tell us that the city was fortified by walls of fifty cubits high, and two hundred cubits broad, and by a very deep and large ditch.

Ezekiel 23:40

Waters - Babylon is said to dwell upon many waters, because the great river Euphrates, did not only run by it, but almost encompass it branching itself into many smaller rivers, which made several parts of the city, islands.