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Ezekiel 35

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Prophecy Against Mount Seir 1–4

1
Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2
Son of man, set thy face against mount Seir, and prophesy against it, ​
3
And say unto it, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O mount Seir, I am against thee, and I will stretch out mine hand against thee, and I will make thee most desolate.
4
I will lay thy cities waste, and thou shalt be desolate, and thou shalt know that I am the LORD.

Edom's Perpetual Hatred 5–9

5
Because thou hast had a perpetual hatred, and hast shed the blood of the children of Israel by the force of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time that their iniquity had an end: ​
6
Therefore, as I live, saith the Lord GOD, I will prepare thee unto blood, and blood shall pursue thee: sith thou hast not hated blood, even blood shall pursue thee. ​
7
Thus will I make mount Seir most desolate, and cut off from it him that passeth out and him that returneth.
8
And I will fill his mountains with his slain men: in thy hills, and in thy valleys, and in all thy rivers, shall they fall that are slain with the sword.
9
I will make thee perpetual desolations, and thy cities shall not return: and ye shall know that I am the LORD. ​

Edom's Boast and Final Desolation 10–15

10
Because thou hast said, These two nations and these two countries shall be mine, and we will possess it; whereas the LORD was there: ​
11
Therefore, as I live, saith the Lord GOD, I will even do according to thine anger, and according to thine envy which thou hast used out of thy hatred against them; and I will make myself known among them, when I have judged thee. ​
12
And thou shalt know that I am the LORD, and that I have heard all thy blasphemies which thou hast spoken against the mountains of Israel, saying, They are laid desolate, they are given us to consume. ​
13
Thus with your mouth ye have boasted against me, and have multiplied your words against me: I have heard them.
14
Thus saith the Lord GOD; When the whole earth rejoiceth, I will make thee desolate.
15
As thou didst rejoice at the inheritance of the house of Israel, because it was desolate, so will I do unto thee: thou shalt be desolate, O mount Seir, and all Idumea, even all of it: and they shall know that I am the LORD. ​

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

Study Notes for Ezekiel 35

Verse 2

mount Seir — Seir is Edom’s land: ‘dwelt Esau in mount Seir: Esau is Edom’ (Gen 36:8), and the LORD told Israel, ‘I have given mount Seir unto Esau for a possession’ (Deut 2:5). ‘Set thy face against’ is Ezekiel’s formula for an oracle, as in 6:2 for the mountains of Israel. Ezekiel 36 turns back to the mountains of Israel, and names ‘all Idumea’ there (36:5).

Verse 5

a perpetual hatred — Eybah olam, enmity of long age; it occurs in only one other verse, against the Philistines (25:15). ‘The time of their calamity’ is the day Obadiah describes, ‘thou shouldest not have entered into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity’ (Obad 1:13); Psalm 137:7 recalls Edom’s cry, ‘Rase it, rase it’.

Verse 6

blood shall pursue thee — ‘Pursue’ is radaph, the verb of the persecutor. The sentence matches the crime, as Obadiah states: ‘as thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee’ (Obad 1:15). The same measure is stated in the Sermon on the Mount, ‘with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again’ (Matt 7:2).

Verse 9

perpetual desolations — ‘Perpetual’ (olam) is the word of ‘perpetual hatred’ in v.5, so the enmity and the ruin share it. ‘Desolations’ (shemamah) recurs in vv.3, 4, 7, 12, 14, 15. Malachi hears Edom say, ‘we will return and build the desolate places’, and the LORD answer, ‘They shall build, but I will throw down’ (Mal 1:4).

Verse 10

These two nations and these two countries shall be mine — The two nations are Israel and Judah, later made ‘one nation’ (37:22). Edom’s ‘we will possess it’ is answered in 36:2, ‘the ancient high places are ours in possession’. ‘Whereas the LORD was there’ recalls the name of the city, ‘The LORD is there’ (48:35), and the cry of Ps 83:12, ‘Let us take to ourselves the houses of God’.

Verse 11

according to thine anger, and according to thine envy — ‘Envy’ (qin’ah, not the qinah of a dirge) is the word of ‘the fire of my jealousy’ (36:5), and the LORD answers it with his own measure: ‘I will even do according to thine anger’. The judgment is how he is known: ‘The LORD is known by the judgment which he executeth’ (Ps 9:16). The oath ‘as I live’ is also in v.6.

Verse 12

I have heard all thy blasphemies — ‘Blasphemies’ is ne’atsah, contemptuous speech, the word of Hezekiah’s ‘day of trouble, and of rebuke, and blasphemy’ (2 Kgs 19:3). The scorn is aimed at the ‘mountains of Israel’, and v.13 adds, ‘I have heard them’. ‘He that planted the ear, shall he not hear?’ (Ps 94:9).

Verse 15

mount Seir, and all Idumea — ‘Idumea’ is the Greek form of the name Edom, used in Isa 34:5–6 for the land of the sword of the LORD. Obadiah forbade the rejoicing that this verse repays: ‘neither shouldest thou have rejoiced over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction’ (Obad 1:12). ‘Idumaea’ still appears among the regions in Mark 3:8.