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Ezekiel 21

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God’s Sword of Judgment Against Israel 1–7

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 weak as water: behold, it cometh, and shall be brought to pass, saith the Lord GOD.

The Sharpened Sword of the LORD 8–17

8
Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
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Son of man, prophesy, and say, Thus saith the LORD; Say, A sword, a sword is sharpened, and also furbished:
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It is sharpened to make a sore slaughter; it is furbished that it may glitter: should we then make mirth? it contemneth 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: terrors by reason of the sword shall be upon my people: smite therefore upon thy thigh.
13
Because it is a trial, 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 hands 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 point 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.

Nebuchadnezzar at the Crossroads 18–27

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, 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, overturn, overturn, it: and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him. ​

Prophecy Against the Ammonites 28–32

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 brutish 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.

Bible text: King James Version (1769 Blayney text) · Public domain

Study Notes for Ezekiel 21

Verse 2

set thy face toward Jerusalem — The prophet’s posture, as in 4:7, ‘thou shalt set thy face toward the siege of Jerusalem’. ‘Drop thy word’ is nataph, to fall in drops, the verb of Job’s ‘my speech dropped upon them’ (Job 29:22) and of Amos’ ‘drop not thy word against the house of Isaac’ (Amos 7:16). The ‘holy places’ are the sanctuaries, and the word falls on the land of Israel.

Verse 3

the righteous and the wicked — The sword is the LORD’s own, drawn from ‘his sheath’, with Babylon its instrument (v.19). Both are ‘cut off’ from the land when it falls, while 14:14 says that Noah, Daniel and Job ‘should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness’. Chereb, the sword, is the theme of the whole chapter.

Verse 4

against all flesh from the south to the north — The reach of the sword matches the fire of 20:47, ‘all faces from the south to the north’, so the fire and the sword are one judgment on the land. The purpose is stated in the next verse: ‘That all flesh may know that I the LORD have drawn forth my sword out of his sheath: it shall not return any more’ (v.5).

Verse 6

Sigh… with the breaking of thy loins — The sigh is a sign, explained in v.7: asked ‘Wherefore sighest thou?’, Ezekiel is to answer, ‘For the tidings; because it cometh’. Anach, ‘sigh’, is the verb of the men marked in 9:4 who ‘sigh and that cry for all the abominations’. ‘Much pain is in all loins’ (Nah 2:10) shows the same bodily sign of terror.

Verse 10

it contemneth the rod of my son, as every tree — A hard verse. The ‘rod’ (shebet) is the sceptre of Judah’s kings (19:11, 14), and ‘my son’ is read of Israel, ‘Israel is my son, even my firstborn’ (Ex 4:22), or of its royal line. The sword rejects the sceptre as it would any tree. ‘Sharpened’, ‘furbished’ and ‘glitter’ (baraq) name its polish for slaughter.

Verse 13

Because it is a trial — Bachan, to test, is the verb of Ps 66:10, ‘thou, O God, hast proved us’. The sword is testing even the royal rod, and what is found wanting ‘shall be no more’. That is the sentence which stands until the one ‘whose right it is’ comes (v.27).

Verse 19

appoint thee two ways — Another sign-act, like the tile of 4:1, ‘pourtray upon it the city, even Jerusalem’. Two roads run out of Babylon’s land and part at a fork, one to Ammon’s capital and one to Jerusalem. ‘Place’ is literally ‘a hand’, a signpost set ‘at the head of the way to the city’, so that the way the sword will take is shown.

Verse 20

Rabbath of the Ammonites — The capital of Ammon, where the iron bedstead of Og was kept (Deut 3:11). One road leads there and the other ‘to Judah in Jerusalem the defenced’, batsar, made inaccessible by fortification. Ammon had a part in the plotting against Babylon when messengers came to Zedekiah (Jer 27:3).

Verse 21

he looked in the liver — The king of Babylon uses three means: arrows made bright, which the Hebrew verb (qalal) suggests were shaken for a sign, ‘images’ (teraphim, household gods, like those Rachel stole in Gen 31:19), and the liver. He stands ‘at the parting of the way’, literally the mother of the way, the fork. Yet ‘the whole disposing thereof is of the LORD’ (Prov 16:33).

Verse 23

as a false divination in their sight — Those who ‘have sworn oaths’ to Babylon (17:13; 2 Chr 36:13) see the omen as false, but the LORD ‘will call to remembrance the iniquity, that they may be taken’. The iniquity is the broken oath: ‘mine oath that he hath despised, and my covenant that he hath broken’ (17:19).

Verse 25

profane wicked prince of Israel — The king is Zedekiah, of whom Jeremiah records that he ‘did that which was evil in the eyes of the LORD’ (Jer 52:2), and who ‘rebelled against king Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God’ (2 Chr 36:13). ‘End’ (qets) recalls 7:2, ‘An end, the end is come upon the four corners of the land’.

Verse 27

until he come whose right it is — The threefold ‘overturn’ (avvah) removes the diadem and crown of v.26, and the kingdom ‘shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him’. It looks to David’s line: ‘I will raise unto David a righteous Branch’ (Jer 23:5), and ‘the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David’ (Luke 1:32).

Verse 28

concerning the Ammonites, and concerning their reproach — The sword turns to Ammon, whose taunt over Jerusalem is recorded in 25:3, ‘Aha, against my sanctuary, when it was profaned’. Zephaniah names the same sin, ‘the revilings of the children of Ammon, whereby they have reproached my people’ (Zeph 2:8). ‘The sword, the sword’ repeats the song of vv.9–10.

Verse 30

I will judge thee in the place where thou wast created — Spoken to Ammon: judgment comes in ‘the land of thy nativity’, in its own country. The sheath of vv.3 and 5 is named again, but the sword is not put back, and v.32 ends, ‘thou shalt be for fuel to the fire… thou shalt be no more remembered’.