Ezekiel 21 commentary

Here is an explanation of the parable in the last chapter. It is declared that the Lord was about to cut off Jerusalem and the whole land, that all might know it was his decree against a wicked and rebellious people. It behoves those who denounce the awful wrath of God against sinners, to show that they do not desire the woful day. The example of Christ teaches us to lament over those whose ruin we declare. Whatever instruments God uses in executing his judgments, he will strengthen them according to the service they are employed in. The sword glitters to the terror of those against whom it is drawn. It is a sword to others, a rod to the people of the Lord. God is in earnest in pronouncing this sentence, and the prophet must show himself in earnest in publishing it.

By the Spirit of prophecy Ezekiel foresaw Nebuchadnezzar's march from Babylon, which he would determine by divination. The Lord would overturn the government of Judah, till the coming of Him whose right it is. This seems to foretell the overturnings of the Jewish nation to the present day, and the troubles of states and kingdoms, which shall make way for establishing the Messiah's kingdom throughout the earth. The Lord secretly leads all to adopt his wise designs. And in the midst of the most tremendous warnings of wrath, we still hear of mercy, and some mention of Him through whom mercy is shown to sinful men.

The diviners of the Ammonites made false prophecies of victory. They would never recover their power, but in time would be wholly forgotten. Let us be thankful to be employed as instruments of mercy; let us use our understandings in doing good; and let us stand aloof from men who are only skilful to destroy.

As Calvin’s Latin Translation ends here, so the version by the Translator comes naturally to a close. It has not been thought necessary to re-translate from the original the remainder of Ezekiel, as the previously quoted labors of Newcome and Rosenmuller are sufficiently accessible and explanatory.

A LIST OF THE CHIEF INTERPRETERS, ANCIENT AND MODERN.

1. Jewish Commentators.

Schelomoh Jarchi Ben Jizchak, commonly called Solomon Jarchi, son of Isaac, known to the Jews by the word Raschi, made up of the initials of רבי שלמה ירחי, Rabbi Schelomoh Jarchi, was an eminent commentator on the whole of the Old Testament. the was born at Troyes, in Champagne, a province of France, and died A.D. 1180. His chief value arises from his having collected the best traditionary interpretations of his ancestors from the earliest times.

David Kimchi, son of Joseph, known to the Jews by the name of Radak, from the initial letters of רבי דור קמחי, Rabbi David Kimchi, was a Spaniard. Though he lived so lately as the twelfth ten bury, his interpretation is much valued by both Jews and. Christians for its grammatical accuracy. His commentary on Ezekiel is found in the Rabbinical Writings, edited by Buxtorf, A. D. 1618. Basil, 2 volumes.; and also 1724, Amsterdam.

Isaac Abarbanel, a Portuguese Jew, born at Lisbon, A.D. 1437, and died in Apulia, A.D. 1508. His comments on Ezekiel appeared first at Pesaro, in Italy, A.D. 1520; and then again at Amsterdam, A.D. 1641. He is highly esteemed for his extensive erudition and his clear style.

Shelomoh Ben Melech, a Spaniard, who lived at Constantinople in the middle of the sixteenth century. Under the title, The Perfection of Beauty, he wrote an elaborate commentary on the Old Testament, Constantinople, A.D. 1554, It was reprinted at Amsterdam, A.D. 1661 and 1685, fol., with the additions of Jacob Abendana. Tympius and Danzius have illustrated the manner in which he has improved upon or misunderstood D. Kimchi, according to Wolf, Bibliothec. Hebr., volume 4 pages 989, 991.

These references to Jewish interpreters will enable the reader to judge how far their opinion on the sense of a passage is decisive. It must be remembered that they all lived more than a thousand years after the Christian era., and that consequently they are not to be esteemed of decisive authority.

Further information may be obtained from Jo. Christ. Wolf’s Bibliotheca Hebraee, volume 2, page 368, and elsewhere. Le Long and Boerner’s Bib. Sac. ab. A. G. Masch, pt. 1, p. 135; and De Rossi’s Annal. Hebrews Typ., Parmae, 1795, page 131; and Hartwell Horne, volume 2, part 2, where he has chiefly followed Carpzov.

2. The Early Fathers.

Origin (between A.D. 185 and 254) appears to have commented very voluminously on Ezekiel, as, from the fragments which remain, it appears that the twentieth volume only reached to chap. 11. Jerome has translated fourteen homilies of Origen’s on Ezekiel into Latin, which are found in his works. Edit., Vallarsii, Venet. 1736, tom. 5 page 877; and in De La Rue’s collected edition of Origen’s Works, volume 3, page 325.

Ephrem of Edessa, who lived about A.D. 370, wrote a Commentary on this Prophet in Syriac, which is found in volume H of his works, as edited by Pet. Benedict, in Syriac and Latin, at Rome, 1740, fol.

Eusebius Hieronymus — the well-known Jerome — wrote fourteen books of Comments on Ezekiel. See his works, edit. Martiani, volume 3, and Valarsii, volume 5 Rosenmuller esteems his interpretations highly, and often quotes them at length. Smith’s Biographical Dictionary, Art. Ineronymus, page 465, states, that the fourteen books of his Comments on this Prophet were written at intervals, between A.D. 411 and 414, having been commenced immediately after his Comments on Isaiah, but repeatedly broken off. See also the prolegomena to the 126th Epistle to Marcellinus, etc.; the Benedictine edition, volume 3, page 1072.

Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus, in Syria, who lived about A.D. 420, wrote a Commentary on Ezekiel, found in his works, edited by Jac. Sirmond, volume 2 page 300; and in the edit. Halen., volume 2 part 2.

3. Commentators of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.

Jo. Cecolampadh Commentarius in Ezekielem. Argentorati, 1534, 4to; Basileae, 1548, fol.

Victorini Strigelh Ezechiel Propheta ad Ebraicam veritatem recognitus, et argumentis atque scholiis illustratus. Lipsiae, 1564, 1575, 1579, 8vo.

Hectoris Pinti Commentarius in Ezechielem. Salmanticae, 1568, fol.; Antverp, 1570, 1582; Lugduni, 1581, 4to; Ibid. 1584, fol.; Colon., 1615, 4to.

Phil. Heilbrunner Ezechielis Prophetae vaticinia illustrata. Lavingae, 1587, 8vo.

Hieron. Padri Et Jo. Bapt. Villalpandi, in Ezechielem Explanationes. Romae, 1596, 3 vols. fol.

This work is much praised and quoted by Rosenmuller. The first volume contains the Comments of Pradus on the first six-and-twenty chapters: he died before it was published; so that his coadjutor edited it, and compiled the two latter volumes. They had access to a Catena Patrum Graecorum in Ezechielem, preserved in the Vatican Library, which they inserted, translated into Latin by a member of their own order; and they enriched their work with valuable illustrations of the city and temple at Jerusalem. A full description of the work will be found in den Nachrichten von einer Hallischen Bibliothek, part 8 page 18, and foll.

Amandi Polani A Polansdorf Commentaria in Ezechielem. Basileae, 1601, 4to; and 1608, 4to.

A digest of public lectures delivered in the old Academy at Basil.

Franc. Junh Commentaria in Ezechielem Prophetam. Genevae, 1609, fol.; and 1610, 8vo.

Jo. Maldonati Commentarii in Ezechielem. Moguntiae, 1611, small 4to.

This work, by a learned Jesuit, is very explanatory. The Latin translation is good, and the Jewish interpretations freely used. Many Hebrew words we have found well explained.

Gasper Sancth Commentarius in Ezechielem. Lugduni, 1612, 1619, fol.

Jac. Brandmulleri Commentarius in Ezechielem. Basil. 1621, 4to.

An Exposition of the Prophecy of Ezekiel. By GEORGE GREENHILL. London, 1645. 5 vols. 4to.

Doctrinal and practical lectures delivered to a congregation at Stepney by the writer, a member of the Westminster Assembly of Divines. Excellent of its kind, but not critical. Various editions, originally published at different times, from 1645 to 1658.

Jo. Cocceh Commentarius in Ezekielem. 1668, 4to.

4. Later Commentators.

George Calixti Scholae Propheticae ex Prelectionibus in...Ezekielem collectae. Quedlinburgi, 1715, 4to.

Das Zeugniss Iesu aus dem Propheten Ezechiel durch den Geist der Weissagung dargethan von Wilhelm Petersen. Francofurti, 1719, 4to.

Jo. Frid. Starckh, V.D.M., Francofurtani, Commentarius in Prophetam Ezechielem. Francof. ad Moen., 1731, 4to.

A laborious, useful, and practical Commentary.

George Costard Dissertationes H. Critico-Sacrae quarum prima explicata Ezech. ch. 13:18. Oxon. 1752, 8vo.

Ezechiel aufs Neue aus dem Hebraischen ubersetzt, und mit kurgen Anmerkungen fur unstudirte Leser begleitet von Joh. Carl. Volborth. Goett. 1787.

For an account of this work, see Eichhorn’s Allgem. Biblioth. der Bib. Lit., volume 1, page 807.

An Attempt towards an Improved Version, a Metrical Arrangement, and an Explanation of the Prophet Ezekiel. By Wm. Newcome, D.D., Bishop of Waterford, and afterwards Archbishop of Armagh. Dublin, 1788, 4to.

This is an invaluable work: to the mere English reader of this Prophet. Tegg, in his edition of 1836, 1 volume 8vo, page 294, has rendered it very accessible: it is safe, sound, and judicious, with excellent notes. See also Eichhorn Bibl., volume 2, page 131; and J. D. Michaelis Neue orient. u. exeget. Bibli., pt. 6 page 87.

Hermanni Venema Lectiones Academicae ad Ezechielem. Part 1 usque ad cap. 21 Edidit. Jo. Hen. Verschuir. Leovard, 1790, 4to, 2 parts. See again, Eich. Bibl., volume 3, page 694.

Jo. Godofr Eichhorn die Biblischen Propheten, volume 2 and volume 3. Ezekielis Vaticinia. Gotting. 1818, 1819.

The Temple of Ezekiel; viz., an Elucidation of the 40th and following Chapters. By Solomon Bennett, R.A., of Berlin. London, 1824. 4to.

Em. F. Rosenmuller’s Scholia in Ezekielem. 2 vols. 8vo, 2d edition. 1826. Lipsiae.

Invaluable. The Editor is much indebted to it for many references to other valuable works.

Havernick’s Introduction to Ezekiel, translated from the German by the Revelation F.W. Gotch, M.A. See Kitto’s Journal of Sacred Literature, No. 1, January 1848; also the Article “Ezekiel” — Kitto’s Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature.

A NOTICE OF THE ANCIENT VERSIONS AND CODEXES

WHICH CONTAIN EZEKIEL’S PROPHECIES.

The Arabic Version Of Ezekiel. It was made from the Septuagint, and is contained in the London Polyglot,,. It agrees throughout with that Greek text which exists in the Alexandrine Codex, now in the British Museum. It was executed from Hesychius’s edition of the Septuagint, and is valuable for the comparison of cognate words and phrases with the Hebrew.

The Chaldee Version, said to have been made by Jonathan, the son of Uzziel, is found in the London Polyglott, and is praised in Buxtorf’s Rabbinical Commentaries.

The Alexandrine Codex is esteemed the most ancient MS. existing, written probably in the fourth century, though some authorities place it much later. See Hart well Horne’s Introduction, etc., volume 2, part 1 page 116, edit. 6th, where full information on this and kindred subjects is to be found. The book of Ezekiel was translated for this version during the reign of Ptolemy Philometer. Of all the prophets, Jeremiah seems the best executed: then Amos, and Ezekiel, and Isaiah the worst of all, except Daniel. Edited by Jo. Ern. Grabe, 1707-1720. 4 vols. fol. Oxon.

The Codices Of Kennicott And De Rossi. Only some of them contain Ezekiel; that formerly belonging to the learned Reuchlin (No. 154) contains this Prophet, with a Targum also. The Codex Norimburgensis, (No. 198,) written about A.D. 1290, is noticed here only for the order in which Ezekiel is placed: it is neither that of the Masorites nor the Talmudists. Again, in Codex No. 224, the order is Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah.

The Codex Romanus Or Vaticanus is of great antiquity. A facsimile of this MS. was made for Dr. Grabe in 1704, and Horne has given an accurate specimen of Ezekiel, Ezekiel 1:1-3. This facsimile is at long the MSS. of the Bodleian Library. Cardinal Anton. Carasa executed an edition under the auspices of Pope Sixtus V. Rome, 1587. Fol.

The Syro. Estranghelae Version is a translation into Syriac of Origen’s Hexaplar edition of the Septuagint A MS. exists in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. It contains Scholia of the Greek and Syrian fathers, and various valuable annotations. Matth. Norberg edited from it the Prophecies of Ezekiel and Jeremiah, in 1787, 4to, Londini Gothorum; giving it the title of Codex Syriaco-Hexaplaris Ambrosiano-Mediolanensis. See Eichhorn’s account of it in his Allgem. Bib. der Bibl. Lit., volume 1 page 837, and foll.

The Vulgate Version needs mention here only to point out the differences in rendering Ezekiel between the editions of Sixtus 5. and Clement 8. In Ezekiel 14:22, the former has egredientur, which is correct, and the latter ingredientur

Among The Five Gothic Mss. discovered by Ang. Mai, in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, amidst the Codices Rescripti, the homilies of Gregory the Great on this Prophet were found written over various portions of St. Paul’s Epistles. These homilies were executed before the eighth century.

DISSERTATIONS

ON IMPORTANT SUBJECTS,

TREATED OF IN THESE LECTURES.

1 — On The Cherubim Ezekiel 1:1.

2 — Calvinus Judaizans An Orthodoxus?

3 — Calvin’s Severity Towards The Jews

4 — The Figurative Expressions Of Ezekiel

5 — On Eating The Roll α Ezekiel 3:1. The Great Rushing β Ezekiel 3:12 On Tel-Abib γ Ezekiel 3:12.

6 — Jerusalem Painted On A Brick α Ezekiel 4:1 The Three Hundred And Ninety Days β Ezekiel 4:5.

7 — The Septuagint Order Ezekiel 7:3-13.

8 — The Image Of Jealousy Ezekiel 8:1-14.

9 — The Man In The Linen Garment Ezekiel 9:2.

10 — The Coals Scattered Over The City Ezekiel 10:2.

11 — The Five-And-Twenty Evil Counsellors Ezekiel 11:1.

12 — The False Prophets α Ezekiel 13:1. On The Principle Of Accommodation. Β On The Phrase Prostituerunt Deum γ Ezekiel 13:19.

13 — Israel An Adulteress α Ezekiel 16:1 Captive Israel And Papal Rome. β Ezekiel 16:20. On The Word Nephesh, Soul γ Ezekiel 16:27 The Primitive Church And The New Testament δ Ezekiel 16:61.

14 — The Great Eagle α Ezekiel 17:3 The Lofty Branch Of The Tall Cedar. β Ezekiel 17:22

15 — The Eating Sour Grapes α Ezekiel 18:1. Usury And Interest. β Ezekiel 18:8. Perplexing And Thorny Questions γ Ezekiel 18:20

16 — The Sabbath A Sacrament And A Mystery. Ezekiel 20:13, 14.

Dissertation First.

ON THE CHERUBIM.

THE Visions recorded in the first and tenth chapters of this Prophet have received much illustration, and yet remain involved in great obscurity. It seems desirable to supply some information, even at the risk of being tedious and minute. The living creatures of the first chapter are called in the ninth and tenth — cherubim. The derivation of the word is a point of some importance. Castell, in his elaborate Lex. Hept., connects it with the Chaldee root כרב, kereb, signifying “to plough,” and quotes Ezekiel 1:10, where “an ox” occurs, “a strong animal, of great labor, especially in ploughing; and being used for the expiation of sins, becomes a type of Christ, who is there perhaps to be understood; for as the ox is the leader of the herd, so Christ is the head of the faithful.” Josephus says they were animals never seen by any one. (Antiq., lib. 3. chapter 6, and lib. 8 chapter 2.) The Arabic root of the same three letters, kereb, signifies anxiety and oppressive labor, anxit animum, invertit aratio terram; while the cognate forms of the Syriac signify ploughing and laborious effort. “The most probable,” says Gesenius, “among the many derivations of this word which have been proposed, is that from the Syriac, potens magnus fortis.” Professor Lee writes, in evident despair, “It would be idle to offer anything on the etymology: nothing satisfactory having yet been discovered. Castell, Simonis, Gesenius, etc., may be consulted by those who wish to see what has been said on this subject.” The cherubic form has been fully portrayed by our Commentator; and by engravings in the Cyclopcedia of Biblical Literature

CHAPTER 21

Eze 21:1-32. Prophecy against Israel and Jerusalem, and against Ammon.

2. the holy places--the three parts of the temple: the courts, the holy place, and the holiest. If "synagogues" existed before the Babylonian captivity, as Psa 74:8 seems to imply, they and the proseuchæ, or oratories, may be included in the "holy places" here.

3. righteous ... wicked--not contradictory of Eze 18:4, 9 and Ge 18:23. Ezekiel here views the mere outward aspect of the indiscriminate universality of the national calamity. But really the same captivity to the "righteous" would prove a blessing as a wholesome discipline, which to the "wicked" would be an unmitigated punishment. The godly were sealed with a mark (Eze 9:4), not for outward exemption from the common calamity, but as marked for the secret interpositions of Providence, overruling even evil to their good. The godly were by comparison so few, that not their salvation but the universality of the judgment is brought into view here.

4. The "sword" did not, literally, slay all; but the judgments of God by the foe swept through the land "from the south to the north."

6. with the breaking of thy loins--as one afflicted with pleurisy; or as a woman, in labor-throes, clasps her loins in pain, and heaves and sighs till the girdle of the loins is broken by the violent action of the body (Jr 30:6).

7. The abrupt sentences and mournful repetitions imply violent emotions.

9. sword--namely, of God (De 32:41). The Chaldeans are His instrument.

10. to make a sore slaughter--literally, "that killing it may kill."

glitter--literally, "glitter as the lightning flash": flashing terror into the foe.

should we ... make mirth--It is no time for levity when such a calamity is impending (Is 22:12, 13).

it contemneth the rod of my son, &c.--The sword has no more respect to the trivial "rod" or scepter of Judah (Ge 49:10) than if it were any common "tree." "Tree" is the image retained from Eze 20:47; explained in Eze 21:2, 3. God calls Judah "My son" (compare Ex 4:22; Ho 11:1). Fairbairn arbitrarily translates, "Perchance the scepter of My son rejoiceth; it (the sword) despiseth every tree."

11. the slayer--the Babylonian king in this case; in general, all the instruments of God's wrath (Re 19:15).

12. terrors by reason of the sword, &c.--rather, "they (the princes of Israel) are delivered up to the sword together with My people" [Glassius].

smite ... upon ... thigh--a mark of grief (Jr 31:19).

13. it is a trial--rather, "There is a trial" being made: the sword of the Lord will subject all to the ordeal. "What, then, if it contemn even the rod" (scepter of Judah)? Compare as to a similar scourge of unsparing trial, Job 9:23.

it shall be no more--the scepter, that is, the state, must necessarily then come to an end. Fulfilled in part at the overthrow of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar, but fully at the time of "Shiloh's" (Messiah's) coming (Ge 49:10), when Judea became a Roman province.

14. smite ... hands together--(Nu 24:10), indicative of the indignant fury with which God will "smite" the people.

sword ... doubled the third time--referring to the threefold calamity:--(1) The taking of Zedekiah (to whom the "rod," or scepter, may refer); (2) the taking of the city; (3) the removal of all those who remained with Gedaliah. "Doubled" means "multiplied" or "repeated." The stroke shall be doubled and even trebled.

of the slain--that is, by which many are slain. As the Hebrew is singular, Fairbairn makes it refer to the king, "the sword of the great one that is slain," or "pierced through."

entereth ... privy chambers--(Jr 9:21). The sword shall overtake them, not merely in the open battlefield, but in the chambers whither they flee to hide themselves (1Ki 20:30; 22:25). Maurer translates, "which besieged them"; Fairbairn, "which penetrates to them." English Version is more literal.

15. point--"the whirling glance of the sword" [Fairbairn]. "The naked (bared) sword" [Henderson].

ruins--literally, "stumbling-blocks." Their own houses and walls shall be stumbling-blocks in their way, whether they wish to fight or flee.

made bright--made to glitter.

wrapped, &c.--namely, in the hand of him who holds the hilt, or in its scabbard, that the edge may not be blunt when it is presently drawn forth to strike. Gesenius, translates, "sharpened," &c.

16. Apostrophe to the sword.

Go ... one way--or, "Concentrate thyself"; "Unite thy forces on the right hand" [Grotius]. The sword is commanded to take the nearest route for Jerusalem, "whither their face was set," whether south or north ("right hand or left"), according to where the several parts of the Chaldean host may be.

or other, ... on the left--rather "set thyself on the left." The verbs are well-chosen. The main "concentration" of forces was to be on "the right hand," or south, the part of Judea in which Jerusalem was, and which lay south in marching from Babylon, whereas the Chaldean forces advancing on Jerusalem from Egypt, of which Jerusalem was north, were fewer, and therefore "set thyself" is the verb used.

17. Jehovah Himself smites His hands together, doing what He had commanded Ezekiel to do (see on Eze 21:14), in token of His smiting Jerusalem; compare the similar symbolical action (2Ki 13:18, 19).

cause ... fury to rest--give it full vent, and so satisfy it (Eze 5:13).

19. two ways--The king coming from Babylon is represented in the graphic style of Ezekiel as reaching the point where the road branched off in two ways, one leading by the south, by Tadmor or Palmyra, to Rabbath of Ammon, east of Jordan; the other by the north, by Riblah in Syria, to Jerusalem--and hesitating which way to take. Ezekiel is told to "appoint the two ways" (as in Eze 4:1); for Nebuchadnezzar, though knowing no other control but his own will and superstition, had really this path "appointed" for him by the all-ruling God.

out of one land--namely, Babylon.

choose ... a place--literally, "a hand." So it is translated by Fairbairn, "make a finger-post," namely, at the head of the two ways, the hand post pointing Nebuchadnezzar to the way to Jerusalem as the way he should select. But Maurer rightly supports English Version. Ezekiel is told to "choose the place" where Nebuchadnezzar should do as is described in Eze 21:20, 21; so entirely does God order by the prophet every particular of place and time in the movements of the invader.

20. Rabbath of the Ammonites--distinct from Rabbah in Judah (2Sa 12:26). Rabbath is put first, as it was from her that Jerusalem, that doomed city, had borrowed many of her idols.

to Judah in Jerusalem--instead of simply putting "Jerusalem," to imply the sword was to come not merely to Judah, but to its people within Jerusalem, defended though it was; its defenses on which the Jews relied so much would not keep the foe out.

21. parting--literally, "mother of the way." As "head of the two ways" follows, which seems tautology after "parting of the way," Havernick translates, according to Arabic idiom, "the highway," or principal road. English Version is not tautology, "head of the two ways" defining more accurately "parting of the way."

made ... bright--rather, "shook," from an Arabic root.

arrows--Divination by arrows is here referred to: they were put into a quiver marked with the names of particular places to be attacked, and then shaken together; whichever came forth first intimated the one selected as the first to be attacked [Jerome]. The same usage existed among the Arabs, and is mentioned in the Koran. In the Nineveh sculptures the king is represented with a cup in his right hand, his left resting on a bow; also with two arrows in the right, and the bow in the left, probably practising divination.

images--Hebrew, "teraphim"; household gods, worshipped as family talismans, to obtain direction as to the future and other blessings. First mentioned in Mesopotamia, whence Rachel brought them (Ge 31:19, 34); put away by Jacob (Ge 35:4); set up by Micah as his household gods (Jud 17:5); stigmatized as idolatry (1Sa 15:23, Hebrew; Zec 10:2, Margin).

liver--They judged of the success, or failure, of an undertaking by the healthy, or unhealthy, state of the liver and entrails of a sacrifice.

22. Rather, "In his right hand was [is] the divination," that is, he holds up in his right hand the arrow marked with "Jerusalem," to encourage his army to march for it.

captains--The Margin, "battering-rams," adopted by Fairbairn, is less appropriate, for "battering-rams" follow presently after [Grotius].

open the mouth in ... slaughter--that is, commanding slaughter: raising the war cry of death. Not as Gesenius, "to open the mouth with the war shout."

23. Unto the Jews, though credulous of divinations when in their favor, Nebuchadnezzar's divination "shall be (seen) as false." This gives the reason which makes the Jews fancy themselves safe from the Chaldeans, namely, that they "have sworn" to the latter "oaths" of allegiance, forgetting that they had violated them (Eze 17:13, 15, 16, 18).

but he, &c.--Nebuchadnezzar will remember in consulting his idols that he swore to Zedekiah by them, but that Zedekiah broke the league [Grotius]. Rather, God will remember against them (Re 16:19) their violating their oath sworn by the true God, whereas Nebuchadnezzar kept his oath sworn by a false god; Eze 21:24 confirms this.

24. Their unfaithfulness to Nebuchadnezzar was a type of their general unfaithfulness to their covenant God.

with the hand--namely, of the king of Babylon.

25. profane--as having desecrated by idolatry and perjury his office as the Lord's anointed. Havernick translates, as in Eze 21:14, "slain," that is, not literally, but virtually; to Ezekiel's idealizing view Zedekiah was the grand victim "pierced through" by God's sword of judgment, as his sons were slain before his eyes, which were then put out, and he was led a captive in chains to Babylon. English Version is better: so Gesenius (2Ch 36:13; Jr 52:2).

when iniquity shall have an end--(Eze 21:29). When thine iniquity, having reached its last stage of guilt, shall be put an end to by judgment (Eze 35:5).

26. diadem--rather, "the miter" of the holy priest (Ex 28:4; Zec 3:5). His priestly emblem as representative of the priestly people. Both this and "the crown," the emblem of the kingdom, were to be removed, until they should be restored and united in the Mediator, Messiah (Psa 110:2, 4; Zec 6:13), [Fairbairn]. As, however, King Zedekiah alone, not the high priest also, is referred to in the context, English Version is supported by Gesenius.

this shall not be the same--The diadem shall not be as it was [Rosenmuller]. Nothing shall remain what it was [Fairbairn].

exalt ... low, ... abase ... high--not the general truth expressed (Pr 3:34; Lu 1:52; Jas 4:6; 1Pe 5:5); but specially referring to Messiah and Zedekiah contrasted together. The "tender plant ... out of the dry ground" (Is 53:2) is to be "exalted" in the end (Eze 21:27); the now "high" representative on David's throne, Zedekiah, is to be "abased." The outward relations of things shall be made to change places in just retaliation on the people for having so perverted the moral relations of things [Hengstenberg].

27. Literally, "An overturning, overturning, overturning, will I make it." The threefold repetition denotes the awful certainty of the event; not as Rosenmuller explains, the overthrow of the three, Jehoiakim, Jeconiah, and Zedekiah; for Zedekiah alone is referred to.

it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is--strikingly parallel to Ge 49:10. Nowhere shall there be rest or permanence; all things shall be in fluctuation until He comes who, as the rightful Heir, shall restore the throne of David that fell with Zedekiah. The Hebrew for "right" is "judgment"; it perhaps includes, besides the right to rule, the idea of His rule being one in righteousness (Psa 72:2; Is 9:6, 7; 11:4; Re 19:11). Others (Nebuchadnezzar, &c.), who held the rule of the earth delegated to them by God, abused it by unrighteousness, and so forfeited the "right." He both has the truest "right" to the rule, and exercises it in "right." It is true the tribal "scepter" continued with Judah "till Shiloh came" (Ge 49:10); but there was no kingly scepter till Messiah came, as the spiritual King then (Joh 18:36, 37); this spiritual kingdom being about to pass into the literal, personal kingdom over Israel at His second coming, when, and not before, this prophecy shall have its exhaustive fulfilment (Lu 1:32, 33; Jr 3:17; 10:7; "To thee doth it appertain").

28. Lest Ammon should think to escape because Nebuchadnezzar had taken the route to Jerusalem, Ezekiel denounces judgment against Ammon, without the prospect of a restoration such as awaited Israel. Jr 49:6, it is true, speaks of a "bringing again of its captivity," but this probably refers to its spiritual restoration under Messiah; or, if referring to it politically, must refer to but a partial restoration at the downfall of Babylon under Cyrus.

their reproach--This constituted a leading feature in their guilt; they treated with proud contumely the covenant-people after the taking of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar (Eze 25:3, 6; Zep 2:9, 10), and appropriated Israel's territory (Jr 49:1; Am 1:13-15).

furbished, to consume--Maurer punctuates thus, "Drawn for the slaughter, it is furbished to devour ('consume'), to glitter." English Version, "to consume because of the glittering," means, "to consume by reason of the lightning, flash-like rapidity with which it falls." Five years after the fall of Jerusalem, Ammon was destroyed for aiding Ishmael in usurping the government of Judea against the will of the king of Babylon (2Ki 25:25; Jr 41:15) [Grotius].

29. see vanity ... divine a lie--Ammon, too, had false diviners who flattered them with assurances of safety; the only result of which will be to "bring Ammon upon the necks," &c., that is, to add the Ammonites to the headless trunks of the slain of Judah, whose bad example Ammon followed, and "whose day" of visitation for their guilt "is come."

when their iniquity shall have an end--See on Eze 21:25.

30. Shall I cause it to return into his sheath--namely, without first destroying Ammon. Certainly not (Jr 47:6, 7). Others, as the Margin, less suitably read it imperatively, "Cause it to return," that is, after it has done the work appointed to it.

in the land of thy nativity--Ammon was not to be carried away captive as Judah, but to perish in his own land.

31. blow against thee in, &c.--rather, "blow upon thee with the fire," &c. Image from smelting metals (Eze 22:20, 21).

brutish--ferocious.

skilful to destroy--literally, "artificers of destruction"; alluding to Is 54:16.

32. thy blood shall be--that is, shall flow.

be no more remembered--be consigned as a nation to oblivion.

Set thy face toward Jerusalem - This is a continuation of the preceding prophecy; and in this chapter the prophet sets before them, in the plainest language, what the foregoing metaphors meant, so that they could not complain of his parables.

Behold, I am against thee - Dismal news! When God is against us, who can be for us?

And will draw forth my sword - War.

And will cut off from thee - The land of Judea.

The righteous and the wicked - All shall be removed from thee. Some shall be cut off - removed by the sword; shall be slain in battle, or by the pestilence; and some shall be cut off - die by the famine; and some shall be cut off - removed from the land by captivity. Now, among the two latter classes there might be many righteous as well as wicked. And when all the provisions were consumed, so that there was no more bread in the city, during the siege by Nebuchadnezzar, the righteous must have suffered as well as the wicked; for they could not be preserved alive, but by miracle, when there was no bread; nor was their perishing for want any loss to them, because the Lord would take them straight to his glory. And however men in general are unwilling to die, yet there is no instance, nor can there be, of any man's complaint that he got to heaven too soon. Again, if God had permitted none to be carried off captive but the wicked, the case of these would be utterly hopeless, as there would be none to set a good example, to preach repentance, to reprove sin, or to show God's willingness to forgive sinners. But God, in his mercy, permitted many of the righteous to be carried off also, that the wicked might not be totally abandoned, or put beyond the reach of being saved. Hence, both Ezekiel and Daniel, and indeed several others, prophets and righteous men, were thus cut off from the land, and carried into captivity. And how much was God's glory and the good of men promoted by this! What a seed of salvation was sown, even in the heathen countries, by thus cutting off the righteous with the wicked! To this we owe, under God, many of the Psalms, the whole of the Book of Ezekiel, all the prophecies of Daniel, the bright example of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, the decrees passed in favor of the religion of the true God by Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Darius, etc. And to this dispensation of God's merciful providence we owe the Books and example of Ezra and Nehemiah. Where then is the injustice, so loudly declaimed against, of God's thus cutting off from the land of Judea the righteous with the wicked? The righteous were not cut off for the crimes of the wicked, (see chap. 18), nor were these crimes visited upon them, yet several of them shared in the common calamity, but none perished. Those that were removed by a violent death, (and I believe we shall find few such), got a speedier entrance into eternal glory.

From the south to the north - The whole land shall be ravaged from one end to the other.

It shall not return any more - That is, till all the work that I have designed for it is done. Nor did it; for Nebuchadnezzar never rested till he had subdued all the lands from the south to the north, from the Euphrates to the Nile.

Sigh - with the breaking of thy loins - Let thy mourning for this sore calamity be like that of a woman in the pains of travail.

Wherefore sighest thou? - The prophet was a sign unto them.

His sighing and mourning showed them how they should act.

All knees shall be weak as water - See the note on Eze 7:17.

It contemneth the rod of my son - "It," the sword of Nebuchadnezzar, "contemneth the rod," despises the power and influence of my son - Israel, the Jewish people: "Out of Egypt have I called My Son."

As every tree - As all the stocks, kindreds, and nations, over which I have already given him commission. Can the rod of Israel be spared, when the trees of Assyria, Egypt, etc., have been cut down?

This sword is sharpened - It is prepared for the slaughter, it is furbished; from the French, foubir, to polish, brighten. He shall have splendid victories every where. Some complain of corruption in the original in this place; but I think without sufficient reason.

Smite - upon thy thigh - See on Jer 31:19 (note). So Homer, Il. 15 ver. 113: - Ὡς εφατ'· αυταρ Αρης θαλερω πεπληγετο μηρω Χερσι καταπρηνεσσ,ολοφυρομενος δε προσηυδα. "She spake; and, with expanded arms his thighs

Smiting, thus sorrowful the god exclaimed."

Cowper.

Because it is a trial - This will be a trial of strength and skill between the Chaldeans and the Jews; and a trial of faith and patience to the righteous.

And what if the sword, (Nebuchadnezzar), contemn even the rod? - Overthrow Zedekiah? It will do so; for the regal government of Judea shall be no more. Or, it is tried; that it the sword. Nebuchadnezzar has already shown himself strong and skillful.

Let the sword be doubled the third time - The sword has been doubled, and it shall come the third time. Nebuchadnezzar came against Judea Thrice.

1. Against Jehoiakim.

2. Against Jeconiah.

3. Against Zedekiah.

The sword had already been doubled; it is to come now the third time, i.e., against Zedekiah.

The sword of the slain - חרב חללים chereb chalalim, "the sword of the soldiers," of the Chaldeans. So in the next clause, היא חרב חלל הגדול hi chereb chalal haggadol, "it is the sword of that great soldier," that eminent king and conqueror. This is the meaning of the word חלל chalal, that is so ill rendered in almost every place of its occurrence, in our Version. See Dr. Kennicott.

Wrapped up - It is not a blunt sword, it is carefully sharpened and preserved for the slaughter.

Go thee one way or other - Thou shalt prosper, O sword, whithersoever thou turnest; against Ammon, or Judea, or Egypt.

Appoint thee two ways - Set off from Babylon, and lay down two ways, either of which thou mayest take; that to the right, which leads to Jerusalem; or that to the left which leads to Rabbath of the Ammonites, Eze 21:20. But why against the Ammonites? Because both they and the Moabites were united with Zedekiah against the Chaldeans, (see Jer 27:3), though they afterwards fought against Judea, Eze 12:6.

For the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way - He was in doubt which way he should first take; whether to humble the Ammonites by taking their metropolis, Riblath, or go at once against Jerusalem. In this case of uncertainty, he made use of divination. And this was of three kinds: 1. By arrows. 2. By images or talismans. 3. By inspecting the entrails of a sacrifice offered on the occasion.

1. He made bright his arrows. This might be after the manner in which the divination is still practiced among the Arabs. These arrows were without head or wing. They took three. On one they wrote, Command me, Lord. On the second, Forbid me, Lord. The third was blank. These were put in a bag, and the querist put in his hand and took one out. If it was Command me, he set about the business immediately; if it was Forbid me, he rested for a whole year; if it was the blank one, he drew again. On all occasions the Arabs consulted futurity by such arrows. See D'Herbelot, under the word Acdah.

2. As to the images, the Hebrew calls them תרפים teraphim. See the note on Gen 31:19 (note).

3. And as to the liver, I believe it was only inspected to see whether the animal offered in sacrifice were sound and healthy, of which the state of the liver is the most especial indication. When the liver is sound, the animal is healthy; and it would have been a bad omen to any who offered sacrifice, to find that the animal they had offered to their gods was diseased; as, in that case, they would have taken for granted that the sacrifice was not accepted.

At his right hand was the divination for Jerusalem - He had probably written on two arrows; one, Jerusalem; the other, Riblath; the third, left blank. He drew, and that on which Jerusalem was written came to his hand; in consequence of which he marched immediately against that city. It was ripe for destruction; and had he marched before or after, it would have fallen; but he never considered himself as sure of the conquest till now.

To them that have sworn oaths - To Zedekiah and his ministers, who had bound themselves by the oath of the Lord to be faithful to the Chaldeans, and to pay them the promised tribute. The oaths may refer, farther, to the alliances formed with the Egyptians, Ammonites, and others. They will not believe that Nebuchadnezzar shall succeed against them, while they expect the powerful assistance of the Egyptians.

And thou profane wicked prince of Israel - Zedekiah, called here profane, because he had broken his oath; and wicked, because of his opposition to God and his prophet.

Whose day is come - Who in a short time shalt be delivered into the hands of thy enemies.

Exalt him that is low - Give Gedaliah the government of Judea.

Abase him that is high - Depose Zedekiah - remove his diadem, and take off his crown.

I will overturn - I will utterly destroy the Jewish government. Perverted will I make it. Heb. perverted, perverted, perverted I will make it.

Until he come whose - is - משפט mishpat, the judgment; i.e., till the coming of the son of David, the Lord Jesus; who, in a mystic and spiritual sense, shall have the throne of Israel, and whose right it is. See the famous prophecy, Gen 49:10, and Luk 1:32. The עוה avah, which we translate overturn, is thrice repeated here; to point out, say the rabbins, the three conquests of Jerusalem, in which Jehoiakim, Jeconiah, and Zedekiah were overthrown.

Concerning the Ammonites - They had reproached and insulted Judea in its low estate, see Ezekiel 25. This prophecy against them was fulfilled about five years after the taking of Jerusalem. See Joseph. Ant. lib. 10 c. 11; and Jeremiah 27, 48, 49; Ezekiel 25.

I will judge thee - This seems to refer to Nebuchadnezzar, who, after his return from Jerusalem, became insane, and lived like a beast for seven years; but was afterwards restored, and acknowledged the Lord.

Thou shalt be no more remembered - The empire of the Chaldeans was destroyed, and the power transferred to the Persians; the Persian empire was destroyed, and given to the Greeks; the Grecian empire was destroyed, and given to the Mohammedans; and the destruction of the Mohammedans is at no great distance.

The holy places - The temple and all parts of it.

The righteous - It is no unusual thing, that in publick calamities, those who are indeed righteous should be involved with others.

All flesh - All the Jews that dwell in the land.

Shall not return - It shall not return into the scabbard 'till it hath done full execution.

Sigh therefore - Thereby express deep sorrow. Breaking of thy loins - Like a woman in travail.

Because - The saddest news you ever heard is coming.

Furbished - Made clean and bright.

Of my son - To whom God saith, Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron, Psa 2:9. This sword is that rod of iron, which despiseth every tree, and will bear it down.

It - The devouring sword. Upon thy thigh - In token of thy sense of what they must suffer.

If - But if the king and kingdom of Judah despise this trial, both shall be destroyed and be no more.

And smite - In token of amazement and sorrow. Of the slain - Wherewith many shall be slain. Privy chambers - Where they were hidden in hope to escape.

All their gates - Both of cities, of palaces, and of private houses. Wrapt up - And hath been carefully kept in the scabbard, that it might not be blunted.

Go - O sword, take thy own course.

Smite my hands - In token of my approbation.

Appoint - Paint, or describe them on a tile. One land - That is, Babylon. Chuse - Pitch on some convenient place, where thou mayest place Nebuchadnezzar's army, consulting where this one way divides into two, which was on the edge of the desert of Arabia. At the head - Where each way runs, toward either Rabbath, or Jerusalem; for there Nebuchadnezzar will cast lots.

To Judah - The Jews.

Stood - The prophet speaks of what shall be, as if it were already. To use - To consult with his gods, and to cast lots. Arrows - Writing on them the names of the cities, then putting them into a quiver, and thence drawing them out and concluding, according to the name which was drawn. He consulted - Perhaps by a divine permission, the devil gave them answers from those images. In the liver - They judged of future events, by the entrails, and more especially by the liver.

The divination - The divination which concerned Jerusalem, was managed on his right hand.

Them - The Jews. That have sworn - Zedekiah, his princes, and nobles, who swore allegiance to the king of Babylon, these perjured persons will contemn all predictions of the prophet. He - Nebuchadnezzar. The iniquity - The wickedness of their perjury and rebellion. They - Zedekiah, and the Jews with him

Your transgressions - Against God, and against the king of Babylon. Discovered - To all in court, city, and country. With the hand - As birds, or beasts in the net, are taken with the hands, so shall you, and be carried into Babylon.

And thou - Zedekiah. Whose day - The day of sorrows, and sufferings, and punishment is at hand. Shall have an end - Shall bring the ruin of king and kingdom, and with the overthrow of your state, the means of sinning shall end too.

The diadem - The royal attire of the head, which the king daily wore. Shall not be the same - The kingdom shall never be what it hath been. Him that is low - Jeconiah. The advance of this captive king, came to pass in the thirty - seventh year of his captivity.

Shall be no more - Never recover its former glory, 'till the scepter be quite taken away from Judah, and way be made for the Messiah. He hath an incontestable right to the dominion both in the church and in the world. And in due time he shall have the possession of it, all adverse power being overturned.

Their reproach - Wherewith they reproached Israel in the day of Israel's afflictions.

While - While thy astrologers, and soothsayers, deceive thee with fair, but false divinations. To bring thee - To bring thee under the sword of the Chaldeans, and destroy thee as the Jews; to make thee stumble and fall on their necks, as men that fall among a multitude of slain.

Shall I cause it - God will by no means suffer the sword to be sheathed. Judge thee - Condemn, and execute.

I will blow - As those who melt down metals blow upon the metal in the fire, that the fire may burn the fiercer.

1 AND the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

A Command, or Direction to speak plainly, that none might quarrel with his obscurity.

2 Son of man, set thy face toward Jerusalem, and drop thy word toward the holy places, and prophesie against the land of Israel.

Put thy self in a posture may bespeak thy going to prophesie.

Or against Ierusalem, called chap. 20.46. Forest of South-field.

Of the phrase see chap. 20. ver. 46. let. p, as Rain from Heaven, so distil my word.

Either the Temple, and all the parts of it, which were three, the Porch, the Holy, and Holy of Holies, or their Synagogues, in which they met to Worship, and Read the Law, which were burnt up by this fire. Psal. 74.8.

Not only against Ierusalem, but the whole Land of Israel, from the South thereof to the North. As chap. 20. ver. 47.

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 I will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked.

Publish it to all the people of the Land, if any will consider it.

'Tis not the severe and morose conjecture of a disturbed and injured man, let them know God the Lord speaks it.

Weigh this, I say 'tis of great Importance.

You think your selves more righteous than those that come against you, that they are Heathen, you my peculiar People, that my Temple is with you, and that I will be on your side; but be not deceived, for I am, and I will be against you.

As an Enemy resolved to slay.

The Chaldaean Army under Captains that are skilful to destroy.

I will bring them out of their Land, where they are now quiet, and at rest.

This Army shall not vanish, but effect what 'tis raised for, it shall make a general havock.

Or take away, out of the midst of thee, partly by the Sword, and partly by Captivity, or by Famine.

Some say here's meant such as seemed to be, but were not, just; but 'tis no unusual thing that in outward troubles, and publick calamities those who are indeed Righteous should be involved with others, nor do'es this contradict any places, which seem to promise a security to them; they may be chastified, but shall not be condemned.

Profane, ungodly, and vitious ones, who shall be cut off with double destruction.

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.

'Tis both my purpose and threat.

To do that by the Chaldaeans in such manner as it shall appear, I did it.

Signified by the green tree, chap. 20. ver. 47.

The dry tree, chap. 20. ver. 47.

Have a Commission, such as I gave Nebuchadnezzar, as large as is necessary for this work.

All the Iews, that dwell in the Land; it may somewhat reflect upon the Nations near about the Iews, as Moab and Ammon.

As it doth certainly denote the whole of the Land of Iudea, it may intimate the rise, and spring of this evil from the South, i. e. Babylon, and its progress Northward.

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.

They that smart and suffer may see, and own God in their just sufferings, they that see and hear it may confess God's doings herein.

In chap. 20.48. 'tis exprest thus, it shall not be quenched, for there 'twas a fire, here it shall not return into the scabbard till it hath done full execution.

6 Sigh therefore, thou son of man, with the breaking of thy loins; and with bitterness sigh before their eyes.

Thereby express to them deepest sorrows for what is present, and most piercing fears of what is to come.

Like a Woman in Travel, or as one whose griefs are ready to break his heart. Isa. 21. ver. 3.

With bitterness, with all sorts of the most bitter cries, and tears.

Who were now with him in Babylon, and who, as they easily could, so surely would send word to them in Ierusalem, and Iudea.

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.

This directs the Prophet what account to give them, when they shall, as they certainly will, enquire what he meaneth by such unusual sorrows.

Is it any private misery, that makes thee sigh thus, or do'es it bode evil to others, or to us?

The saddest News you ever heard is coming, 'twill most assuredly come.

The courage of the stoutest heart shall fail, which shall appear in the feebleness of their Hands, dejectedness of their Spirit, and their Knees not able to support the Body; such Terrors shall seize them as shall make them unable to shift from, or to make head against the evils, that come against them.

None can prevent it.

For the News that is told me from Heaven, for the certain Rumour of Nebuchadnezzars preparations, and march against you.

It shall have its full effect, nothing shall be wanting to your compleat undoing, and then, as I do for a sign to you, so you, and yours shall do under the sorrows signified, sigh, and weep, to their breaking your very heart.

Marginal references: Heb. go into water.

8 Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

This I suppose is a farther explication of what was said already of the Sword God draweth out against them; with a farther direction, or command how the Prophet should note out the nearness of the evil, is bade to speak plainly, and tell them they may see it.

9 Son of man, prophesie, and say, thus saith the LORD, Say, a sword is sharpned, and also furbished.

Prepared to wound, slay, and that with greater speed, and sureness.

To terrifie the weaker courage, to dazzle the Eyes of such as encounter it: In a word, the danger is as near, as if an army come up in array, and their swords in their hands ready to go on, and fight.

Marginal references: Deut. 32.41. ver. 15.18.; As if he pointed to it, crying out as one, that suddenly seeth some dreadful sight. A mighty Sword or many, so the ingemination may imply the Forces of Nebuchadnezzar and his Confederates.

10 It is sharpned to make a sore slaughter ; it is furbished, that it may glitter: should we then make e mirth? It contemneth the rod of my son as every tree.

To slay m[illegible: 1 letter]ny, and with as little regard, as men kill beasts or to offer whole herds of wicked men in sacrifice to the offended justice of God; much after this stile both David, Psal. 44.22. and Isaiah, chap. 34.6.

And strike a terrour into the Enemy.

Shall we allow our selves in jollity, in Feasts, or Dances, or Songs? This would be very uncomely.

This great, sharp, and glittering Sword appointed to cut off.

Marginal references: Or, It is the rod of my son, it despiseth every tree.

11 And he hath given it to be furbished, that it may be handled the sword is sharpened, and it is furbished, to give it into the hand of the slayer.

Slights and despiseth all the resistance that can be made against it, and reckons all former chastisements were, but as the Rod, wherewith a Son is corrected, but now the Sword of an Enemy is drawn out, and will cut off all: Or, Nebuchadnezzar despiseth your King the Royal Family, and Nobles which are compared to Gods. chap. 19, 10, 11. and would use them as he would every common tree of the Wood, as it appears he did, when he put out Zedekiah's Eyes, and bound him in chains as a Slave.

Either God, whose Sword it is, or Nebuchadnezzar, God's Servant herein. Some refer it to Christ who is Lord, and Soveraign of his Church, and Governour of the World.

Be the fitter for use in the hand of the Slayer, i. e. the Chaldaean.

12 Cry and howl, son of man: for it shall be upon my people, it shall be upon all the princes of Israel: terrours, by reason of the sword, shall be upon my people; smite therefore upon thy thigh.

As one in great distress, nay how unseemly soever it may appear, howl, that they may by this know what sorrows are coming on them, and how they, like wild Beasts taken in the Toiles, and Gins, shall howl.

The devouring Sword of Babylon shall certainly be upon all, high, and low.

Surrounding terrours, out of which no way to escape.

That Sword God will draw against them.

In token o[illegible: 1 letter] thy sense of what they must suffer, and to presignifie what their sorrows shall be, when they must express them by signs, because too great for words.

Marginal references: Or, [illegible: 1 letter]he thrust [illegible: 1 span] the sword my people.; Jer. 3[illegible: 1 letter].

13 Because it is a trial, and what if the sword contemn even the rod? it shall be no more, saith the Lord GOD.

It is a sore Tryal, therefore shew all the signs of grief, and sorrow, or it may refer to what follows in the verse thus, since this is the exploration, or Tryal, which I will make in so severe manner to bring them to Repentance, mourn for them, lest they should harden themselves,

The addition of Sword, which is not in the Original, hath perplexed the words in my thoughts. I would read them thus: And what if the Rod contemn? It shall be no more, That the sense run thus; But if the King and Kingdom of Iudah despise this Tryal, and harden themselves against this Sword, both shall be destroyed and be no more, for nothing, but a right use of this last Tryal could help them. Or else, if we must adhere to our version, what if it amount to this. All this is for probation, and tryal, not for utter extirpating Israel, saith God to his Prophet, who might propose this, what if the Sword contemn those bounds, and despise the King and Kingdom, and resolve to destroy them from being a Nation, as Isa. 10.6, 7. to this God gives answer thus; This he shall never effect, and in due time this Sword shall be no more; Babylon shall be destroyed; in so perplext a place I rather conjecture, than affirm.

Marginal references: Or, [illegible: 1 word] tryal [illegible: 1 word] what [illegible: 1 word] they [illegible: 1 span] long to [illegible: 1 span] ▪

14 Thou therefore, son of man, prophesie, 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 entreth into their privy chambers.

Either in token of amazement, and sorrow, or else to signify what pleasure it should be to see justice executed on obstinate Rebels, or rather as ver. 17. clap thy hands to awaken and hearten the Babylonians on to the slaughter.

Wherewith many shall be slain.

Which were Princes, and Captains, and Rulers.

Searcheth the most secret rooms, where they slew such as they found hidden in hope to escape.

Perhaps 'tis too curious to search out, what particular Calamities are pointed out by this trebled Sword; whether 1. Zedekiah's Captivity with many of the Princes. And 2. Taking of the City, 3. killing of Gedaliah and those with him: To be sure it speaks both the certainty of the thing, and the greatness of the Affliction.

Marginal references: Heb. [illegible: 1 word] hand.

15 I have set the point of the sword against all their gates, that their heart may faint, and their ruines be multiplied: Ah, it is made bright it is wrapt up for the slaughter.

The Lord hath gathered them together round about Ierusalem, with their Swords sharpned and drawn at every gate to slay who so attempt to come out, or to slay all they meet with when they take the City.

Both of meaner Cities, of their Palaces, and private Houses.

As what heart can be thought able to retain its courage, when beset with Death by an Enemies sword, which killeth all that come out, and entreth to kill all that stay within.

For Number made many, for Nature made very great.

Prepared, brightned, and sharpned.

And hath been carefully kept in the Scabbard, that it might keep its edge, and not be blunted.

Marginal references: Or, [illegible: 1 word] or, [illegible: 1 word].; Or, [illegible: 1 word]

16 Go thee one way, or other, either on the right hand, or on the left, whithersoever thy face is set.

O Sword, take thy own course, O ye Slaughter men, ye Babylonian S[illegible: 1 letter]uldiers, all is open before you, go which way you will, I have brought you to waste the Land from South to North, begin where you will, and proceed as you will, none shall be able to resist you.

Marginal references: Heb. [illegible: 1 word] self, take [illegible: 1 word] hand.

17 I will also smite my hands together, and I will cause my fury to rest. I the LORD have said it.

In token of my approbation, and well-pleasedness in those executions, which the Chaldeans shall finish against you, those hands, that were used to restrain and check, shall excite, and encourage your Enemies.

See chap. 5.13. let. c. d.

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.

Paint, mark out, or describe on Tile or Tablet as chap. 4. 1. two roads and set it before they Countrey-men in Babylon, and let them know that the Arms, and Sword of Nebuchadnezzar are designed for exploits, where those ways lead them, thus Typically Ezekiel foretells the Invasion, the King of Babylon would make.

The ways, though two in the course, they lead as streams that divide, and multiply, yet

must take their rise from one and the same Land, that is Babylon; there the Prophet must begin to mark out the way, which is to be drawn out, till it divide into two.

Pitch on some convenient place, where thou mayst place Nebuchadnezzars Army, he, and his council of War consulting where this one way divides into two, which was on the edge of the Desert of Arabia as Nebuchadnezzar pursued his march from Babylon.

Either, where the way begins at Babylon. Or rather at the head where each distinct way runs out, toward either Rabbath of the Ammonites, or Ierusalem; for there Nebuchadnezzar will cast lots,

20 Appoint a way, that the sword may come to Rabbath of the Ammonites , and to Judah in Jerusalem the defenced.

This Royal City of the Ammonites, it seems, the King of Babylon had a quarrel with, as well, as with Ierusalem, and he was resolved, when he came out of Babylon, to set upon one of them. There were two or three Cities of this name Rabba, or Rabbath, one in the Tribe of Iudah, one in Issachar, one in Moab, but this in the Text is distinguisht by Rabbath of the Ammonites.

They were the Children of Lots daughter by incestuous mixture.

i. e. The Jews, the Land for the people of the Land.

Particularly against Ierusalem.

Whose Fortifications do now as little discourage, as they shall ere long hinder Nebuchadnezzar from taking the City and destroying it.

21 For the king of Babylon r stood at the parting of the way , at the head of the two wayes, to use divination: he made his arrows bright, he consulted with images, he looked in the liver.

On the borders of Arabia the Desert, to which one Road brings Travellers from Babylon, but henceforward it divides, and becomes two, one leading to Ierusalem, the other to Rabbath.

To consult with his Gods, and to cast lots and here the Prophet foretels what divination he useth.

This, the first kind of divination he used by Arrows, ([non-Latin text not transcribed]) either writing on them the names of the Cities, and Countreys, then putting them into a quiver, and there mixing them, and thence drawing them out, and concluding according, as the names were, which were on the Arrows, or perhaps by shooting the arrows and judging by the flight, or casting them up in the air, and divining by their fall, as beggars are said to go, as their staffe falls. So then if Ierusalem were on the first arrow drawn out of the quiver, or if the arrows best flew, or most fell that way, toward Ierusalem, Nebuchadnezzar will take that way.

The next way of divining was by asking counsel of his idol, or image, which being made artificially by the skill of their jugling Priests, and Conjurers with little help they could give answers, and the image spake aloud what the Sorcerer spake more softly, somewhat like the artificial whispering places which convey the voice from unseen persons, or by a divine permission, the Devil gave them answers from those Images.

The third divination is by Sacrifice, and judging of future prosperous or unprosperous events by the Entrails, and more especially by the Liver its position and colour. All these he used, that with greater confidence of success he might proceed.

The Prophet by reason of the certainty of the thing speaketh of what shall be as if 'twere already, he stood i. e. he will make a halt, pitch his camp, and consult.

Marginal references: Heb. mother [illegible: 1 word] the way.; Or, knives.; Heb. Teraphim.

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 .

Either the divination, which concerned Ierusalem was managed on his right hand, that way the arrows thrown, the images stood, and sacrifices were offered, or else the lot drawn with the right hand of the Priest came forth for Ierusalem. The promising lot, encouraging tokens were those which directed this superstitious Idolatrous King to attacque Ierusalem first, and this by the overruling providence of God, who determined by infinite wisdom what seemed to blind men to be the event designed by their divinations.

Now Nebuchadnezzar sets all in order pursuant to his observance of the Diviners.

The commanders of his Forces, and their particular charges in the march, and siege he did, 'tis probable, assign them by lot, [illegible: 1 letter]s is ordinary where greatest dangers attend the charges.

To assault the City where breaches were made, and storm the battered Walls to slay the defenders, and to run the hazzard of being slain by them.

So all the barbarous fierce nations did with shouts, and hideous noises assault, and fight their Enemies, and with this they hoped to terrifie, and amaze them, and so more easily master them, and so these Babylonians did, as may be collected from Psal. 137.7. and Ier. 51.14. where Babylon shall be repayed her shouts.

Engines made to beat down walls, and they had this name from the Iron or Brass-head, which usually was at the end of it like unto the head of a Ram.

Which might more easily be broken, and beat down.

In a siege of some length Mounts must be raised to offend the besieged by shooting from the tops of them into the City, and to defend the Besiegers, and the toil, and danger hereof seems here to be cast on both overseers, and labourers too by lot.

Wooden Towers, now all these w[illegible: 1 letter]rks being thus by lot disposed, the wary Tyrant prevents the murmurs of his Commanders, and Souldiers, and insinuates a courage into them by the pretences of assured success, and his Idols approving them.

Marginal references: chap. 4.2.; Or, battering [illegible: 1 word].; Heb. rams.

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.

The Jews who shall, either not believe, that Nebuchadnezzar did so consult, or else that 'tis a vain, false and lying divination, which will delude him, that believes it, but never hurt them who deride it.

Zedekiah his Princes, and Nobles who swore Allegiance to the King of Babylon first, and afterward conspired with Egypt, and by new, and contrary oathes perjured themselves, provokt, as well as dishonoured God, and enraged Nebuchadnezzar to revenge their perfidiousness, these perjured persons will contemn all predictions of the Prophet, and all the preparations of the King of Babylon.

Nebuchadnezzar.

Will think on, and throughly weigh, and impart it also to his Council, as the ground of his War.

The great wickedness of their perjury, and rebellion.

Both Zedekiah, and the Jews with him may be subdued, taken Captives, and the Kingdom overthrown, the City burnt, and they sent into Babylon.

Marginal references: Or, for the oaths made unto them.

24 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because ye have made your iniquity to be remembred, 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 .

Either referring to God, who saw still their wicked perjuries, and other sins, which they persisted in, or rather referring to Nebuchadnezzar, and his Ministers of state, and war, to whose memory all the falsehood of the Jews was still kept up fresh by repeated disloyalty with reproach to God, whose oath the King, and inhabitants of Ierusalem had violated.

Against God, and against the King of Babylon, whose yoke you submitted to with promised obedience.

Visibly to all in Court, City, and Countrey.

Publick manage of matters of the Kingdom, and private too, you add sin to sin, and that without blushing for them, or hiding them.

The whole summ'd up for confirming the threats.

As Birds, or Beasts taken in the net encompassed therein, that they cannot get away, are taken with the hand, so shall you, and be carried into Babylon.

25 ¶ And thou , profane wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come, when iniquity shall have an end.

Zedekiah.

Tainted with secret deep irreligious opinions, whence he despised God, and his oath, and prophaned the name of God.

So much was his royal dignity lessened, that indeed he was rather a Prince subject, and dependent, then a King.

Day of sorrows, and sufferings, and punishment is at hand.

The irreligion, which is spread by thee among thy Courtiers shall cease to spread it self, because of thy low estate. Or, when iniquity shall bring the fatal ruine of King, and Kingdom, and both shall be destroyed, and with the overthrow of your state the opportunities, and means of sinning shall end too.

Marginal references: verse 2[illegible: 1 letter].

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 .

Either God speaks to the Prophet to declare the thing, or to Nebuchadnezzar to do the thing, to take away the Diadem, the Royal tire of the head, which the King did ordinarily, and dayly wear.

Which was a Royal ornament used on solemnities, and more then ordinary occasions, Or, it may be one thing in doubled expressions of the deposing of Zedekiah.

The Kingdom, and Crown shall never be what it hath been, as we say of one greatly altered, he is not himself. So here. This shall not be the same, 'twas great, glorious and flourishing but hereafter small, dependent, ignoble, and withering.

Ieconiah, 'tis probable the Prophet foretels the advance of this Captive King, which came to pass in the 37th. year of Ieconiahs Captivity in the first year of Merodach, 2 Kin. 25.27, 28.29. and Ier. 52.31. who exalted his seat above all the Captive Kings in Babylon.

Now in captivity in Babylon.

Zedekiah.

Not now on the Throne of Iudah strengthned with the Confederacy of Egypt, on which he relieth, and exalteth himself, and bears himself high against the Prophet, the King of Babylon, and which is most insolent against the God of Heaven.

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.

As this triplication of the threat speaks the certainty of the event, so the gradual, successive troubles, and overthrows, that this Kingdom should ever after be afflicted with.

Never recover its former glory, and strength, but consume, till the Scepter be quite taken away from Iudah, and way be made for the Messiah, who is he that is to come, whose is the Dominion and to whom the Father will give it, so the final desolation of the temporal Kingdom of the seed of David, which was most heavy tidings to the carnal Jew is threatned, and the eternal Kingdom of the Messiah, most joyful tidings to the believing Jews, is promised.

Marginal references: Heb. perve[illegible: 1 letter]ted▪ perverted, perverted will I make it.

28 ¶ And thou, son of man, prophesie, 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 .

In ver. 19. and 20. you had the mention of Rabbath chief City of the Ammonites in equal danger with Ierusalem, but while Ierusalem is threatned, Rabbath is no farther minded, till now God directs the Prophet to declare the ruine thereof.

A stout, but proud, injurious, and insulting people.

Wherewith they reproacht Israel in the day of Israels afflictions as Ier. 49.1. and chap. 25.3, 5, 6. and blasphemed the God of Israel.

All warlike preparations are made against you.

The War is declared, and your enemy hath drawn the Sword, vid. 9, 10, 11.

To make waste, by avenging former quarrels, and affronts the Babylonish King comes out with bloody mind against you O Ammonites! you countenanced Ismael, who slew Gedaliah Viceroy by Nebuchadnezzars appointment, and you would have set Ismael on the Throne, this affront you shall satisfie for with your blood.

Verse 9, 10.

Marginal references: Zeph. 2.9.

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 .

War, and desolation indeed hasten on thee, though in mean while thy Astrologers, and Soothsayers promise peace, and prosperity, and deceive thee with fair, but false divinations, of which Ieremiah warns them, Ier. 27.9.

To bring thee under the Sword of the Chaldeans, and to destroy thee as the Jews are, who already are fallen under the destroying Sword, to make thee stumble and fall on their necks, as men, that fall among a multitude of slain.

i. e. both Jews, and their King, as ver, 25. let. b.

See ver. 25. l. c.

Marginal references: chap. 22.28.

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.

Some read it without interrogation, as an advice to the Ammonites to put up the Sword they had drawn for their defence, as being to no purpose to resist, if it be an interrogation, 'tis such as more vehemently denieth. God will by no means suffer the Sword to be sheathed, in this sense it refers to the Sword of the Chaldeans.

Plead, condemn, and execute too.

Explained by that which follows, though they might boast of their antient original, and their safe and impregnable strengths, yet God will bring a Sword into those very places, and there they should perish.

Marginal references: Or, cause it to return.; Jer. 47.6, 7.

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.

As a flood sweeps all away, so God will let out his indignation to overwhelm the Ammonites.

As those who melt down mettals blow upon the Mettal in the Fire, that the Fire might burn the fiercer, and consume the dross.

Or, as there is no hope to one delivered up to barbarous, merciless ruffians, whose Trade is to destroy, so will God deal with these Ammonites.

Marginal references: Or, burning.

32 Thou shalt be for fewel to the fire, thy blood shall be in the midst of the land, thou shalt be no more remembred : for I the LORD have spoken it.

Rabbath, and thy people.

Which is soon, and unavoidably consumed in such a furnace.

Thy name shall perish.

Thou shalt no where be safe, or thy bloud shall not be covered, nor thou buried.

Eze 21:1-7

The Sword of the Lord and Its Disastrous Effects

Eze 21:1. And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, Eze 21:2. Son of man, set thy face toward Jerusalem, and trickle over the holy places, and prophesy over the land of Israel, Eze 21:3. And say to the land of Israel, Thus saith Jehovah, Behold, I will deal with thee, and will draw my sword out of its scabbard, and cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked. Eze 21:4. Because I will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked, therefore shall my sword to go forth from its scabbard against all flesh from south to north. Eze 21:5. And all flesh shall know that I, Jehovah, have drawn my sword out of its scabbard: it shall not return again. Eze 21:6. And thou, son of man, sigh! so that the hips break; and with bitter pain sigh before their eyes! Eze 21:7. And when they say to thee, Wherefore dost thou sigh? say, Because of a report that it is coming; and every heart will sink, and all hands become powerless, and every spirit will become dull, and all knees turn into water: Behold, it cometh, and will happen, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah. - In the preceding parable, the expression “forest of the field in the south,” or “forest of the south-land,” was enigmatical. This is explained to signify Jerusalem with its holy places (מקדּשׁים, see comm. on Eze 7:24), and the land of Israel, i.e., the kingdom of Judah. In accordance with this, the fire kindled by the Lord is interpreted as being the sword of the Lord. It is true that this is a figurative expression; but it is commonly used for war, which brings with it devastation and death, and would be generally intelligible. The sword will cut off both righteous and wicked. This applies to the outer side of the judgment, inasmuch as both good and bad fall in war. This is the only aspect brought into prominence here, since the great purpose was to alarm the sinners, who were boasting of their security; but the distinction between the two, as described in Eze 9:4., is not therefore to be regarded as no longer existing. This sword will not return, sc. into the scabbard, till it has accomplished the result predicted in Eze 21:3 (cf. 2Sa 1:22; Isa 55:11). As Tremellius has aptly observed upon this passage, “the last slaughter is contrasted with the former ones, in which, after the people had been chastened fore a time, the sword was returned to its scabbard again.” In order to depict the terrors of this judgment before the eyes of the people, the prophet is commanded to groan before their eyes in the most painful way possible (Eze 21:6.). בּשׁברון מתנים, with breaking of the hips, i.e., with pain sufficient to break the hips, the seat of strength in man (compare Nah 2:11; Isa 21:3). מרירוּת, bitterness, i.e., bitter anguish. The reason which he is to assign to the questioners for this sighing is “on account of the report that is coming,” - an antiptosis for “on account of the coming report” (cf. Gen 1:4, etc.). the report comes when the substance of it is realized. The reference is to the report of the sword of the Lord, - that is to say, of the approach of the Chaldeans to destroy Jerusalem and the kingdom of Judah. The impression which this disclosure will make upon the hearers will be perfectly paralyzing (Eze 21:7). All courage and strength for offering resistance will be crippled and broken. נמס כּל־לב (cf. Nah 2:11) is strengthened by כּהתה, every spirit will become dull, so that no one will know what counsel to give. 'כּל־בּרכּים תּלכנה וגו corresponds to רפוּ כּל־ידים (cf. Eze 7:17). The threat is strengthened by the words, “behold, it cometh, and will take place.” The subject is שׁמוּעה, the report, i.e., the substance of the report. - This threat is more fully expanded in Eze 21:8-17; Eze 21:8-13 corresponding to Eze 21:1-5, and Eze 21:14-17 to Eze 21:6, Eze 21:7.

Eze 21:8-17

The Sword is Sharpened for Slaying

Eze 21:8. And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, Eze 21:9. Son of man, prophesy, and say, Thus saith Jehovah, A sword, a sword sharpened and also polished: Eze 21:10. That it may effect a slaughter is it sharpened; that it may flash is it polished: or shall we rejoice (saying), the sceptre of my son despiseth all wood? Eze 21:11. But it has been given to be polished, to take it in the hand; it is sharpened, the sword, and it is polished, to give it into the hand of the slayer. Eze 21:12. Cry and howl, son of man, for it goeth over my people, it goeth over all the princes of Israel: they have fallen by the sword along with my people: therefore smite upon the thigh. Eze 21:13. For the trial is made, and what if the despising sceptre shall not come? is the saying of the Lord Jehovah. Eze 21:14. And thou, son of man, prophesy and smite the hands together, and the sword shall double itself into threefold, the sword of the pierced: it is the sword of a pierced one, of the great one, which encircles them. Eze 21:15. That the heart may be dissolved, and stumbling-blocks may be multiplied, I have set the drawing of the sword against all their gates: Alas! it is made into flashing, drawn for slaying. Eze 21:16. Gather thyself up to the right hand, turn to the left, whithersoever thine edge is intended. Eze 21:17. And I also will smite my hands together, and quiet my wrath: I, Jehovah, have spoken it. - The description of the sword is thrown into a lyrical form (Eze 21:8-13), - a kind of sword-song, commemorating the terrible devastation to be effected by the sword of the Lord. The repetition of חרב in Eze 21:9 is emphatic. הוּחדּה is the perfect Hophal of חדד, to sharpen. מרוּטה is the passive participle of מרט, to polish; מרטּה (Eze 21:10), the participle Pual, with מ dropped, and Dagesh euphon. היה, a rare form of the infinitive for היות. The polishing gives to the sword a flashing brilliancy, which renders the sharpness of its edge still more terrible. The very obscure words, 'או נשׂישׂ וגו, I agree with Schmieder and Kliefoth in regarding as a protest, interposed by the prophet in the name of the people against the divine threat of the sword of vengeance, on the ground of the promises which had been given to the tribe of Judah. או, or perhaps; introducing an opposite case, or an exception to what has been said. The words 'שׁבט  are to be taken as an objection, so that לאמר is to be supplied in thought. The objection is taken from the promise given in Jacob’s blessing to the tribe of Judah: “the sceptre will not depart from Judah” (Gen 49:10). שׁבט בּני points unquestionably to this. בּני is taken from Eze 21:9, where the patriarch addresses Judah, whom he compares to a young lion, as בּני. Consequently the sceptre of my son is the command which the patriarch holds out to view before the tribe of Judah. This sceptre despises all wood, i.e., every other ruler’s staff, as bad wood. This view is not rendered a doubtful one by the fact that שׁבט is construed as a feminine here, whereas it is construed as a masculine in every other case; for this construction is unquestionable in Eze 21:7 (12), and has many analogies in its favour. All the other explanations that have been proposed are hardly worth mentioning, to say nothing of refuting, as they amount to nothing more than arbitrary conjectures; whereas the assumption that the words are to be explained from Gen 49:10 is naturally suggested by the unquestionable allusion to the prophecy in that passage, which we find in Eze 21:27 of the present chapter. ויּתּן in Eze 21:11 is to be taken adversatively, “but he gave it (the sword) to be sharpened.” The subject to ויּתּן is not Jehovah, but is indefinite, “one” (man, Angl. they), although it is actually God who has prepared the sword for the slaughter of Israel. The train of thought is the following: Do not think we have no reason to fear the sharply-ground sword of Jehovah, because Judah has received the promise that the sceptre shall not depart from it; and this promise will certainly be fulfilled, and Judah be victorious over every hostile power. The promise will not help you in this instance. The sword is given to be ground, not that it may be put into the scabbard, but that it may be taken in the hand by a slayer, and smite all the people and all its princes. In the phrase היא הוּחדּה חרב, חרב is in apposition to the subject היא, and is introduced to give emphasis to the words. It is not till Eze 21:19 that it is stated who the slayer is; but the hearers of the prophecy could be in no doubt. Consequently - this is the connection with Eze 21:12 - there is no ground for rejoicing from a felling of security and pride, but rather an occasion for painful lamentation.

This is the meaning contained in the command to the prophet to cry and howl. For the sword will come upon the nation and its princes. It is the simplest rendering to take היא as referring to הרב, היה ב, to be at a person, to fasten to him, to come upon him, as in 1Sa 24:14; 2Sa 24:17. מגוּרי, not from גּוּר, but the passive participle of מגר in the Pual, to overthrow, cast down (Psa 89:45): “fallen by the sword have they (the princes) become, along with my people.” The perfects are prophetic, representing that which will speedily take place as having already occurred. - Smiting upon the thigh is a sign of alarm and horror (Jer 31:19). בּחן, perfect Pual, is used impersonally: the trial is made. The words allude to the victories gained already by Nebuchadnezzar, which have furnished tests of the sharpness of his sword. The question which follows וּמה contains an aposiopesis: and what? Even if the despising sceptre shall not come, what will be the case then? שׁבט מאסת, according to Eze 21:10, is the sceptre of Judah, which despises all other sceptres as bad wood. יהיה, in this instance, is not “to be,” in the sense of to remain, but to become, to happen, to come (come to pass), to enter. The meaning is, if the sceptre of Judah shall not display, or prove itself to possess, the strength expected of it. - With Eze 21:14 the address takes a new start, for the purpose of depicting still further the operations of the sword. Smiting the hands together (smiting hand in hand) is a gesture expressive of violent emotion (cf. Eze 6:11; Num 24:10). The sword is to double, i.e., multiply itself, into threefold (שׁלישׁתה, adverbial), namely, in its strength, or its edge. Of course this is not to be taken arithmetically, as it has been by Hitzig, but is a bold paradoxical statement concerning the terrible effect produced by the sword. It is not even to be understood as referring to three attacks made at different times by the Chaldeans upon Jerusalem, as many of the commentators suppose. The sword is called חבב חללים, sword of pierced ones, because it produces the pierced or slain. The following words are rendered by Hitzig and Kliefoth: the great sword of the slain. But apart from the tautology which this occasions, the rendering can hardly be defended on grammatical grounds. For, in the first place, we cannot see why the singular חלל should have been chosen, when the expression was repeated, instead of the plural חללים; and secondly, חגּדול cannot be an adjective agreeing with חרב, for חרב is a noun of the feminine gender, and is construed here as a feminine, as החדרת clearly shows. הגּדול is in apposition to חלל, “sword of a pierced man, the great one;” and the great man pierced is the king, as Ewald admits, in agreement with Hengstenberg and Hävernick. The words therefore affirm that the sword will not only slay the mass of the people, but pierce the king himself. (See also the comm. on Eze 21:25.) - Eze 21:15 is not dependent upon what precedes, but introduces a new thought, viz., for what purpose the sword is sharpened. God has placed the flashing sword before all the gates of the Israelites, in order that (למען, pleonastic for למען) the heart may dissolve, the inhabitants may lose all their courage for defence, and to multiply offendicula, i.e., occasions to fall by the sword. The ἁπ. λεγ. אבחת signifies the rapid motion or turning about of the sword (cf. Gen 3:24); אבח, related to הפך, in the Mishna אפך. The ἁπ. λεγ. מעטּה, fem. of מעט, does not mean smooth, i.e., sharpened, synonymous with מרט, but, according to the Arabic m̀t, eduxit e vagina gladium, drawn (from the scabbard). In Eze 21:16 the sword is addressed, and commanded to smite right and left. התאחדי, gather thyself up, i.e., turn with all thy might toward the right (Tanchum). To the verb השׂימוּ it is easy to supply פּניך, from the context, “direct thine edge toward the left.” אנה, whither, without an interrogative, as in Jos 2:5 and Neh 2:16. מעדות, from יעד, intended, ordered; not, directed, turned. The feminine form may be accounted for from a construction ad sensum, the gender regulating itself according to the חרב addressed in פּניך. The command to the sword is strengthened by the explanation given by Jehovah in Eze 21:17, that He also (like the prophet, Eze 21:14) will smite His hands together and cool His wrath upon them (cf. Eze 5:13).

Eze 21:18-22

The sword of the king of Babylon will smite Jerusalem, and then the Ammonites also. - Eze 21:18. And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, Eze 21:19. And thou, son of man, make to thyself two ways, that the sword of the king of Babylon may come by them; out of one land shall they both come forth, and draw a hand, at the cross road of the city do thou draw it. Eze 21:20. Make a way that the sword may come to Rabbah of the sons of Ammon, and to Judah into fortified Jerusalem. Eze 21:21. For the king of Babylon is stopping at the cross road, at the parting of the two ways, to practise divination. He is shaking the arrows, inquiring of the teraphim, looking at the liver. Eze 21:22. The divination falls to his right: Jerusalem, to set battering-rams, to open the mouth with a death-cry, to lift up the voice with a war-cry, to set battering-rams at the gates, to heap up a rampart, to build siege towers. - After the picture of the terrible devastation which the sword of the Lord will produce, the last word of God in this prophecy answers the questions, in whose hand Jehovah will place His sword, and whom it will smite. The slayer into whose hand the sharpened sword is given (Eze 21:11) is the king of Babylon, and it will smite not only Judah, but the Ammonites also. Jerusalem and Judah will be the first to fall, and then the arch-enemy of the covenant nation, namely Ammon, will succumb to the strokes of the sword of Jehovah, in order that the embittered enemies of the Lord and His people may learn that the fall of Jerusalem is not, as they fancy, a proof of the impotence, but rather of the omnipotence, of its God. In this way does our prophecy expand into a prediction of the judgment which will fall upon the whole of the world in hostility to God. For it is only as the arch-enemies of the kingdom of God that the Ammonites come into consideration here. The parallel between Israel and the sons of Ammon is carried out in such a way as to give constant prominence to the distinction between them. Jerusalem will fall, the ancient theocracy will be destroyed till he shall come who will restore the right (Eze 21:26 and Eze 21:27). Ammon, on the other hand, will perish, and not a trace be left (Eze 21:31, Eze 21:32).

This prediction is exhibited to the eye by means of a sign. The prophet is to make two ways, i.e., to prepare a sketch representing a road leading from a country, viz., Babylon, and dividing at a certain spot into two roads, one of which leads to Rabbath-Ammon, the capital of the kingdom of the Ammonites, the other to Judah, into Jerusalem. He is to draw the ways for the coming (לבוא) of the sword of the king of Babylon. At the fork of the road he is to engrave a hand, יד, i.e., an index. בּרא signifies in the Piel to cut away (Jos 17:15, Jos 17:18), to dig or hew (Eze 23:47), here to engrave written characters in hard material. The selection of this word shows that Ezekiel was to sketch the ways upon some hard material, probably a brick or tile (cf. Eze 4:1). יד does not mean locus spatium, but a hand, i.e., an index. ראשׁ , the beginning of the road, i.e., the fork of the road (Eze 16:25), is explained in Eze 21:21, where it is called אם, mother of the road, inasmuch as the roads start from the point of separation, and ראשׁ שׁני הדּרכים, beginning of the two roads. דּרך עיר, the road to a city. For Rabbath-Ammon, which is preserved in the ruins of Ammân, on the Upper Jabbok (Nahr Ammân), see the comm. on Deu 3:11. The road to Judah is still more precisely defined by בּירוּשׁלים בּצוּרה, into fortified Jerusalem, because the conquest of Jerusalem was the purpose of Nebuchadnezzar’s expedition. The omission of the article before בּצוּרה may be explained from the nature of the participle, in which, even in prose, the article may be left out after a definite noun (cf. Ewald, §335 a). The drawing is explained in Eze 21:21 and Eze 21:22. The king of Babylon is halting (עמד, to stand still, stop) to consult his oracles, and inquire which of the two roads he is to take. קסם, to take in hand, or practise divination. In order that he may proceed safely, he avails himself of all the means of divination at his command. He shakes the arrows (more strictly, the quiver with the arrows). On the practice itself Jerome writes as follows: “He consults the oracle according to the custom of his nation, putting his arrows into a quiver, and mixing them together, with the names of individuals inscribed or stamped upon them, to see whose arrow will come out, and which state shall be first attacked.”The arrow-lot (Belomantie) of the ancient Greeks (Homer, Il. iii. 324, vii. 182, 183) was similar to this; also that of the ancient Arabs (vid., Pococke, Specim. hist. Arab. pp. 327ff., and the passages from Nuweiri quoted by Reiske, Samml. einiger Arab. Sprichwörter von den Stecken oder Stäben, p. 21). Another kind, in which the lot was obtained by shooting off the arrows, was common according to the Fihrist el Ulum of En-Nedîm among the Hananian Ssabians (see Chwolsohn, Ssabier, ii. pp. 26 and 119, 200).

He consults the Teraphim, or Penates, worshipped as oracular deities and gods of good fortune (see the comm. on Gen 31:19 and my Biblical Archaeology, §90). Nothing is known concerning the way in which these deities were consulted and gave their oracles. He examines the liver. The practice of ἡπατοσκοπία, extispicium, in which signs of good or bad luck, of the success or failure of any enterprise, were obtained from the peculiar condition of the liver of the sacrificial animals, was a species of divination to which great importance was attached by both the Babylonians (vid., Diod. Sic. ii. 29) and the Romans (Cicero, de divin. vi. 13), and of which traces were found, according to Barhebr. Chron. p. 125, as late as the eighth century of the Christian era among the Ssabians of Haran.

The divination resulted in a decision for Jerusalem. בּימינו היה is not to be translated “in his right hand was,” but “into his right hand there came.” היה: ἐγένετο (lxx), נפיל (Chald.), קסם does not mean lot (Ges.), but soothsaying, divination. ירוּשׁלים is connected with this in the form of a noun in apposition: the divination which indicated Jerusalem. The right hand is the more important of the two. The meaning of the words cannot be more precisely defined, because we are not acquainted with the king of divination referred to; even if we were to take the words as simply relating to the arrow in this sense, that an arrow with the inscription “Jerusalem” came into his right hand, and thus furnished the decision, which was afterwards confirmed by consulting the Teraphim and examining the liver. But the circumstance itself, that is to say, the fact that the divination coincided with the purpose of God, must not be taken, as Hävernick supposes, as suggesting a point of contact between Hebraism and the soothsaying of heathenism, which was peculiar to Ezekiel or to the time of the captivity. All that is proved by this fact is, that even heathenism is subject to the rule and guidance of Almighty God, and is made subservient to the accomplishment of the plans of both His kingdom and His salvation. In the words, to set bettering rams, etc., the substance of the oracle obtained by Nebuchadnezzar is more minutely given. It is a double one, showing what he is to do: viz., (1) to set bettering rams, i.e., to proceed to the siege of Jerusalem, as still further described in the last portion of the verse (Eze 4:2); and (2) to raise the war-cry for storming the city, that is to say, to take it by storm. The two clauses 'לפתּח וגו and 'להרים וגו are synonymous; they are not “pure tautology,” however, as Hitzig affirms, but are chosen for the purpose of giving greater emphasis to the thought. The expression בּרצח creates some difficulty, inasmuch as the phrase “ut aperiat os in caede” (Vulg.), to open the mouth in murder or ruin, i.e., to put to death or lay in ruins, is a very striking one, and could hardly be justified as an “energetic expression for the battle-cry” (Hävernick). ב does not mean “to,” and cannot indicate the intention, all the less because בּרצח is parallel to בּתרוּעה, where תרועה is that in which the raising of the voice expresses itself. There is nothing left then but to take רצח in the sense of field-or war-cry, and to derive this meaning either from רצח or, per metathesin, from צרח.

Eze 21:23-27

This announcement will appear to the Judaeans, indeed, to be a deceptive divination, but nevertheless it will be verified. - Eze 21:23. And it is like deceptive divination in their eyes; sacred oaths are theirs (lit., to them); but he brings the iniquity to remembrance, that they may be taken. Eze 21:24. Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Because ye bring your iniquity to remembrance, in that your offences are made manifest, so that your sins appear in all your deeds, because ye are remembered ye shall be taken with the hand. Eze 21:25. And thou pierced one, sinner, prince of Israel, whose day is come at the time of the final transgression, Eze 21:26. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, The turban will be removed, the crown taken off. This is not this; the low will be lifted up, and the lofty lowered. Eze 21:27. Overthrown, overthrown, overthrown will I make it; even this shall not be, till He cometh, to whom is the right, to Him do I give it. - In Eze 21:23 (28), להם, which is more precisely defined by בּעיניהם, refers to the Israelites, i.e., the Judaeans. This also applies to the following להם, which cannot possibly be taken as referring to a different subject, say, for example, the Chaldeans. It is evident, therefore, that it is impossible to sustain the rendering given in Gesenius’ Thesaurus (s.v.) to the obscure words שׁבעי שׁבעות, viz., qui juramenta jurarunt eis (sc., Chaldaeis), which Maurer has modified and expounded thus: “they will not fear these auguries; they will swear oaths to them (the Chaldeans), that is to say, according to their usual custom, these truce-breakers will take fresh oaths, hoping that the Chaldeans will be conciliated thereby.” Moreover, the thought itself is an unsuitable one, inasmuch as “the defiant attitude of confidence with which they looked such awfully threatening danger in the face must have had some other ground than a reliance upon false oaths and Chaldean credulity” (Hävernick). The common explanation, which Rosenmüller and Kliefoth uphold, is, “because the Chaldeans are sworn allies, sworn confederates of theirs;” or as Kliefoth explains it, “on account of the oath of fealty or vassalage sworn by Zedekiah to Nebuchadnezzar, they have sworn confederates in the Chaldeans, and relying upon this, they are confident that they have no hostile attack to fear from them.” But this is altogether untenable, not only because it is perfectly arbitrary to supply “the Chaldeans,” but still more for the reason adduced by Maurer. “How,” he justly asks, “could the Judaeans despise these auguries because the Chaldeans were bound to them by an oath when they themselves had broken faith? When a treaty has been violated by one party, is not the other released from his oath?” We therefore adopt the same explanation as Hävernick: “oaths of oaths are theirs (to them), i.e., the most sacred oaths are (made) to them, namely, by God.” They rely upon that which God has solemnly sworn to them, without considering upon what this promise was conditional, namely, upon a faithful observance on their part of the commandments of God. For the fact itself, compare Eze 20:42, and such passages as Psa 105:9., etc. The form שׁבעי by the side of שׁבעות may be explained in a very simple way from the relation of the construct state, i.e., from the endeavour to secure an obvious form for the construct state, and cannot in any case furnish a well-founded argument against the correctness of our explanation. As Ezekiel uses נפשׁים for נפשׁות in Eze 13:20, he may also have formed שׁבעים (שׁבעי) by the side of שׁבעות. - As they rely upon the promises of God without reflecting upon their own breach of covenant, God will bring their sin to remembrance through His judgment. והוּא is Jehovah, upon whose oaths they rely. עון must not be restricted to Zedekiah’s breach of covenant, since Eze 21:24 clearly shows that it is the wrong-doing of Judah generally. להתּפשׂ in Eze 21:24 (29) is also to be understood of the whole nation, which is to be taken and punished by the king of Babylon. For Eze 21:24 (29) introduces the reason for the statement made in the last clause of Eze 21:23 (28). God must put the people in remembrance of their iniquity by inflicting punishment, because they have called it to remembrance by sins committed without any shame, and thereby have, so to speak, compelled God to remember them, and to cause the sinners to be grasped by the hand of the slayer. הזכּיר עון is used in Eze 21:24 (29) in a different sense from Eze 21:23 (28), and is therefore explained by 'בּהגּלות. בּכּף, which is indefinite in itself, points back to יד הורג in Eze 21:11 (16), and receives from that its more exact definition.

With Eze 21:25 the address turns to the chief sinner, the godless King Zedekiah, who was bringing the judgment of destruction upon the kingdom by his faithless breach of oath. The words חלל, רשׁע, and 'נשׂיא ישׂ are asyndeta, co-ordinate to one another. חלל does not mean profane or infamous (βέβηλε, lxx), but simply pierced, slain. This meaning is to be retained here. This is demanded not only by the fixed usage of the language, but also by the relation in which חלל stands both to Eze 21:14 and to חללי רשׁעים in Eze 21:29 (34). It is true that Zedekiah was not pierced by the sword either at that time or afterwards, but was simply blinded and led in captivity to Babylon, where he died. But all that follows from this is, that חלל is used here in a figurative sense, given up to the sword, i.e., to death; and Zedekiah is so designated for the purpose of announcing in a more energetic manner the certainty of his fate. The selection of the term חלל is the more natural, because throughout the whole prophecy the description of the judgment takes its character from the figure of the sword of Jehovah. As God does not literally wield a sword, so חלל is no proof of actual slaying with the sword. יומו .dro, his day, is the day of his destruction (cf. 1Sa 26:10), or of the judgment upon him. The time of the final transgression is not the time when the transgression reaches its end, i.e., its completion, but the time when the wickedness brings the end, i.e., destruction (cf. Eze 35:5, and for קץ in this sense, Eze 7:2-3). The fact that the end, the destruction, is come, i.e., is close at hand, is announced in Eze 21:26 to the prince, and in his person to the whole nation. If we understand the connection in this way, which is naturally suggested by Eze 21:25, we get rid of the objection, which led Kliefoth to question the fact that it is the king who is addressed in Eze 21:25, and to take the words as collective, “ye slaughtered sinners, princes of Israel,” and to understand them as referring to the entire body of rulers, including the priests, - an explanation that is completely upset by the words נשׂיא... אתּה (thou...prince), which are so entirely opposed to the collective view. Again, the remark that “what follows in Eze 21:26, viz., the statement to be made to the נשׂיא, has really nothing to do with him, since the sweeping away of the priesthood did not affect Zedekiah personally” (Kliefoth), is neither correct nor conclusive. For Eze 21:26 contains an announcement not only of the abrogation of the priesthood, but also of the destruction of the kingdom, which did affect Zedekiah both directly and personally. Moreover, we must not isolate the king addressed, even as an individual, from the position which he occupied, or, at any rate, which he ought to have occupied as a theocratic monarch, so as to be able to say that the abrogation of the priesthood did not affect him. The priesthood was one of the fundamental pillars of the theocracy, the removal of which would necessarily be followed by the collapse of the divine state, and therefore by the destruction of the monarchy. Hence it is that the abolition of the priesthood is mentioned first. The infinitives absolute (not imperatives) הסיר and הרים are selected for the purpose of expressing the truth in the most emphatic manner; and the verbs are synonymous. הרים, to lift up, i.e., not to elevate, but to take away, to abolish, as in Isa 57:14; Dan 8:11. מצנפת does not mean the royal diadem, like צניף in Isa 62:3, but the tiara of the high priest, as it does in every instance in the Pentateuch, from which Ezekiel has taken the word. העטרה, the king’s crown. The diadem of the priest and the regal crown are the insignia of the offices of high priest and king; and consequently their removal is the abolition of both high-priesthood and monarchy. These words contain the sentence of death upon the theocracy, of which the Aaronic priesthood and the Davidic monarchy constituted the foundations.

They predict not merely a temporary, but a complete abolition of both offices and dignities; and their fulfilment took place when the kingdom of Judah was destroyed by the king of Babylon. The earthly sovereignty of the house of David was not restored again after the captivity; and the high-priesthood of the restoration, like the second temple, was only a shadowy outline of the glory and essential features of the high-priesthood of Aaron. As the ark with the Shechinah, or the gracious presence of God, was wanting in the temple of Zerubbabel; so were the Urim and Thummim wanting to the high-priesthood, and these were the only means by which the high priest could really carry out the mediation between the Lord and the people. זאת לא זאת .el (this is not this) does not refer to the tiara (mitre) and crown. זאת is neuter, and therefore construed with the masculine היה. This (mitre and crown) will not be this (היה is prophetic), i.e., it will not continue, it will be all over with it (Hävernick, Maurer, and Kliefoth). To this there is appended the further thought, that a general inversion of things will take place. This is the meaning of the words - the low will be lifted up, and the lofty lowered. הגבּהּ and השׁפּיל are infinitives, and are chosen in the same sense as in the first hemistich. The form השּׁפלה, with ה without the tone, is masculine; the ־ה probably serving merely to give greater fulness to the form, and to make it correspond more nearly to הגּבהּ.Hitzig has given a most preposterous exposition of this verse. Taking the words הסיר and הרים as antithetical, in the sense of removing ad exalting or sustaining in an exalted position, and regarding the clauses as questions signifying, “Shall the high-priesthood be abolished, and the real dignity, on the contrary, remain untouched?” he finds the answer to these questions in the words זאת לא  (this, not this). They contain, in his opinion, as affirmation of the former and a negation of the latter. But he does not tell us how זאת לא זאת without a verb can possibly mean, “the former (the abrogation of the high-priesthood) will take place, but the latter (the exaltation of the monarchy) will not occur.” And, finally, the last clause, “the low shall be lifted up,” etc., is said to contain simply a watchword, which is not for the time being to be followed by any result. Such trifling needs no refutation. We simply observe, therefore, that there is no ground for the assertion, that הרים without מן cannot possibly signify to abolish.

This general thought is expressed still more definitely in Eze 21:27. עוּה, which is repeated twice to give greater emphasis to the thought, is a noun derived from עוּה, inversion, overthrow; and the suffix in אשׂימנּהּ points back to זאת in Eze 21:26 (31). This, the existing state, the high-priesthood and the monarch, will I make into destruction, or utterly overthrow. But the following זאת cannot also refer to the tiara and crown, as Kliefoth supposes, on account of the גּם which precedes it. This shows that זאת relates to the thing last mentioned. Even this, the overthrow, shall have no durability; or, as Tanch. has correctly expressed it, neque haec conditio erit durabilis. The following עד־בּא attaches itself not so much to this last clause as to the main thought: overthrow upon overthrow will ensue. The thought is this: “nowhere is there rest, nowhere security; all things are in a state of flux till the coming of the great Restorer and Prince of peace” (Hengstenberg). It is generally acknowledged that the words עד־בּא אשׁר־לו המּשׁפּט contain an allusion to Gen 49:10, עד כּי; and it is only by a false interpretation of the preceding clauses, wrung from the words by an arbitrary alteration of the text, that Hitzig is able to set this connection aside. At the same time, אשׁר־לו המּשׁפּט is of course not to be taken as a philological explanation of the word שׁילה, but is simply a theological interpretation of the patriarchal prophecy, with direct reference to the predicted destruction of the existing relations in consequence of the ungodliness and unrighteousness of the leaders of the theocracy up to that time. המּשׁפּט is not the rightful claim to the mitre and crown, but right in an objective sense, as belonging to God (Deu 1:17), and entrusted by God to the earthly government as His representative. He then, to whom this right belongs, and to whom God will give it, is the Messiah, of whom the prophets from the time of David onwards have prophesied as the founder and restorer of perfect right on earth (cf. Ps 72; Isa 9:6; Isa 42:1; Jer 23:5; Jer 33:17). The suffix attached to נתתּיו is not a dative, but an accusative, referring to משׁפּט (cf. Psa 72:1). There was no necessity to mention the person again to whom God would give the right, as He had already been designated in the previous expression אשׁר לו.

Eze 21:28-32

Overthrow of the Ammonites

Eze 21:28. And thou, son of man, prophesy and say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, concerning the sons of Ammon, and concerning their scorn, sword, sword, drawn to slay, polished, that it may devour, that it may flash! Eze 21:29. While they prophesy deceit to thee, while they divine lying to thee, it shall lay thee by the necks of the sinners slain, whose day cometh at the time of the final transgression. Eze 21:30. Put it in its scabbard again. At the place where thou wast created, in the land of thy birth will I judge thee, Eze 21:31. And pour out my anger upon thee, kindle the fire of my wrath against thee, and give thee into the hand of foolish men, of smiths of destruction. Eze 21:32. Thou shalt be for the fire to devour; thy blood shall remain in the midst of the land; thou shalt be remembered no more; for I Jehovah have spoken it. - As Judah in Jerusalem will fall by the sword of the king of Babylon, contrary to all expectation; so will the Ammonites be punished for their scorn with utter extermination. חרפּה is scorn at the overthrow of Israel (cf. Eze 25:3, Eze 25:6, and Zep 2:8). The sword is already drawn against them. פּתוּחה, taken out of the scabbard, as in Psa 37:14. לטבח is to be connected with פּתוּחה, notwithstanding the accents, and להכיל להכיל with מרוּטה. This is required by the correspondence of the clauses. הכיל is regarded as a derivative of כּוּל by Ewald and others, in the sense of ad sustinendum, according to capacity, i.e., as much as possible. But the adverbial rendering it opposed to the context, and cannot be sustained from Eze 23:32. Moreover, כּוּל, to contain, is applicable enough to goblets and other vessels, but not to a sword. Hitzig therefore explains it from the Arabic kll, to blunt (sc., the eyes), i.e., to blind. But this is open to the objection that the form הכיל points to the verb כּוּל rather than כּלל; and also to a still greater one, - namely, that there is nothing in the Hebrew usage to suggest the use of כלל in such a sense as this, and even if it were used in the sense of blunting, it would be perfectly arbitrary to supply עינים; and lastly, that even the flashing of the sword does not suggest the idea of blinding, but is intended to heighten the terror occasioned by the sharpness of the sword. We therefore adhere to the derivation of הכיל from אכל, and regard it as a defective form for האכיל, like תּמרוּ for תּאמרוּ in 2Sa 19:14, יהל as syncopated form for יאהל (Isa 13:20), and watochez ותּחז for ותּאחז in 2Sa 20:9; literally, to cause it to eat or devour, i.e., to make it fit for the work of devouring. למען , literally, for the sake of the lightning (flash) that shall issue therefrom (cf. Eze 21:10). - In Eze 21:29 (34), לתת (to lay, or place) is also dependent upon חרב פּתוּחה, drawn to lay thee; so that the first half of the verse is inserted as a parenthesis, either to indicate the occasion for bringing the sword into the land (Hitzig), or to introduce an attendant circumstance, according to the sense in which the ב in בּחזות is taken. The parenthetical clause is understood by most of the commentators as referring to deceptive oracles of Ammonitish soothsayers, which either determined the policy of Ammon, as Hitzig supposes (cf. Jer 27:9-10), or inspired the Ammonites with confidence, that they had nothing to fear from the Chaldeans. Kliefoth, on the other hand, refers the words to the oracles consulted by Nebuchadnezzar, according to Eze 21:23. “These oracles, which directed the king not to march against the Ammonites, but against Jerusalem, proved themselves, according to Eze 21:29, to be deceptive prophesying to the Ammonites, inasmuch as they also afterwards fell by the sword; just as, according to Eze 21:23, they proved themselves to be genuine so far as the Israelites were concerned, inasmuch as they were really the first to be smitten.” This view is a very plausible one, if it only answered in any degree to the words. But it is hard to believe that the words, “while it (one) prophesies falsehood to thee,” are meant to be equivalent to “while its prophecy proves itself to be false to thee.” Moreover, Nebuchadnezzar did not give the Ammonites any oracle, either false or true, by the circumstance that his divination at the cross-road led him to decide in favour of the march to Jerusalem; for all that he did in consequence was to postpone his designs upon the Ammonites, but not to relinquish them. We cannot understand the words in any other sense, therefore, than as relating to oracles, which the Ammonites received from soothsayers of their own.

Hitzig takes offence at the expression, “that it (the sword) may lay thee by (to) the necks of the sinners slain,” because colla cannot stand for corpora decollata, and consequently proposes to alter אותך into אותהּ, to put it (the sword) to the necks. But by this conjecture he gets the not less striking thought, that the sword was to be put to the necks of those already slain; a thing which would be perfectly unmeaning, and is therefore not generally done. The sinners slain are the Judaeans who have fallen. The words point back to Eze 21:25, the second half of which is repeated here, and predict the same fate to the Ammonites. It is easy to supply חרב to השׁב אל־תּערהּ: put the sword into its scabbard again. These words can only be addressed to the Ammonites; not to the Chaldeans, as Kliefoth imagines, for the latter does not harmonize in any way with what follows, viz., in the place of thy birth will I judge thee. God does not execute the judgment independently of the Chaldeans, but through the medium of their sword. The difficulties occasioned by taking the words as referring to the Ammonites are not so great as to necessitate an alteration of the text (Hitzig), or to call for the arbitrary explanation: put it now or for the present into the scabbard (Kliefoth). The use of the masculine השׁב (with Patach for השׁב, as in Isa 42:22), if Ammon is addressed by the side of the feminine אותך, may be explained in a very simple way, from the fact that the sword is carried by men, so that here the thought of the people, the warriors, is predominant, and the representation of the kingdom of the Ammonites as a woman falls into the background. The objection that the suffix in תּערהּ can only refer to the sword (of the Chaldean) mentioned in Eze 21:28, is more plausible than conclusive. For inasmuch as the scabbard presupposes a sword, and every sword has a scabbard, the suffix may be fully accounted for from the thing itself, as the words, “put the sword into its scabbard,” would lead any hearer to think at once of the sword of the person addressed, without considering whether that particular sword had been mentioned before or not. The meaning of the words is this: every attempt to defend thyself with the sword and avert destruction will be in vain. In thine own land will God judge thee. For מכרותיך, see the comm. on Eze 16:3. This judgment is still further explained in Eze 21:31, where the figure of the sword is dropped, and that of the fire of the wrath of God introduced in its place. אפיח...בּאשׁ, we render: “the fire of my wrath I blow (kindle) against thee,” after Isa 54:16, and not “with the fire...do I blow, or snort, against thee,” as others have done; because blowing with the fire is an unnatural figure, and the interpretation of the words in accordance with Isa. l.c. is all the more natural, that in the closing words of the verse, חרשׁי משׁחית, the allusion to that passage is indisputable, and it is only from this that the combination of the two words can be accounted for. - Different explanations have been given of בּערים. Some render it ardentes, and in accordance with Isa 30:27 : burning with wrath. But בּער is never used in this sense. Nor can the rendering “scorching men” (Kliefoth) be sustained, for בּער, to burn, only occurs in connection with things which are combustible, e.g., fire, pitch, coals, etc. The word must be explained from Psa 92:7, “brutish,” foolish, always bearing in mind that the Hebrew associated the idea of godlessness with folly, and that cruelty naturally follows in its train. - Eze 21:32. Thus will Ammon perish through fire and sword, and even the memory of it be obliterated. For Eze 21:32 compare Eze 15:4. The words, “thy blood will be בּתוך הארץ in the midst of the land,” can hardly be understood in any other sense than “thy blood will flow over all the land.” For the rendering proposed by Ewald, “remain in the midst of the earth, without thy being mentioned,” like that given by Kliefoth, “thy blood will the earth drink,” does not harmonize with Eze 24:7, where דּמהּ בּתוכהּ היה is affirmed of blood, which cannot penetrate into the earth, or be covered with dust. For תּזּכרי, see Eze 25:10. Ammon as the enemy of the kingdom of God will utterly perish, leaving no trace behind, and without any such hope of restoration as that held out in Eze 21:27 to the kingdom of Judah or the people of Israel.

Threatenings against Israel; Judgments Predicted. (b. c. 592.)

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 prophet had faithfully delivered the message he was entrusted with, in the close of the foregoing chapter, in the terms wherein he received it, not daring to add his own comment upon it; but, when he complained that the people found fault with him for speaking parables, the word of the Lord came to him again, and gave him a key to that figurative discourse, that with it he might let the people into the meaning of it and so silence that objection. For all men shall be rendered inexcusable at God's bar and every mouth shall be stopped. Note, He that speaks with tongues should pray that he may interpret, 1 Cor. xiv. 13. When we speak to people about their souls we should study plainness, and express ourselves as we may be the best understood. Christ expounded his parables to his disciples, Mark iv. 34. 1. The prophet is here more plainly directed against whom to level the arrow of this prophecy. He must drop his word towards the holy places (v. 2), towards Canaan the holy land, Jerusalem the holy city, the temple the holy house. These were highly dignified above other places; but, when they polluted them, that word which used to drop in the holy places shall now drop against them: Prophesy against the land of Israel. It was the honour of Israel that it had prophets and prophecy; but these, being despised by them, are turned against them. And justly is Zion battered with her own artillery, which used to be employed against her adversaries, seeing she knew not how to value it. 2. He is instructed, and is to instruct the people, in the meaning of the fire that was threatened to consume the forest of the south: it signified a sword drawn, the sword of war which should make the land desolate (v. 3): Behold, I am against thee, O land of Israel! There needs no more to make a people miserable than to have God against them; for as, if he be for us, we need not fear, whoever are against us, so, if he be against us, we cannot hope, whoever are for us. And God's professing people, when they revolt from him, set him against them, who used to be for them. Was the fire there of God's kindling? The sword here is his sword, which he has prepared, and which he will give commission to; it is he that will draw it out of its sheath, where it had laid quiet and threatened no harm. Note, When the sword is unsheathed among the nations God's hand must be eyed and owned in it. Did the fire devour every green tree and every dry tree? The sword in like manner shall cut off the righteous and the wicked. Good and bad were involved in the common calamities of the nation; the righteous were cut off from the land of Israel when they were sent captives in Babylon, though perhaps few or none of them were cut off from the land of the living; and it was a threatening omen to the land of Israel that in the beginning of its troubles such excellent men as Daniel and his fellows, and Ezekiel, were cut off from it and conveyed to Babylon. But though the sword cut off the righteous and the wicked (for it devours one as well as another, 2 Sam. xi. 25), yet far be it from us to think that the righteous are as the wicked, Gen. xviii. 25. No; God's graces and comforts make a great difference when his providence seems to make none. The good figs are sent into Babylon for their good, Jer. xxiv. 5, 6. It is only in outward appearance that there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked, Eccl. ix. 2. But it speaks the greatness of God's displeasure against the land of Israel. Well might it be said, His eye shall not spare, when it shall not spare, no, not the righteous in it. Since there are not righteous men sufficient to save the land, to make the justice of God the more illustrious the few that there are shall suffer with it, and God's mercy shall make it up to them some other way. Did the fire burn up all faces from the south to the north? The sword shall go forth against all flesh from the south to the north, shall go forth, as God's sword, with a commission that cannot be contested, with a force that cannot be resisted. Were all flesh made to know that God kindled the fire? They shall be made to know that he has drawn forth the sword, v. 5. And, lastly, Shall the fire that is kindled never be quenched? So when this sword of the Lord is drawn against Judah and Jerusalem the scabbard is thrown away, and it shall never be sheathed: It shall not return any more, till it has made a full end. 3. The prophet is ordered, by expressions of his own grief and concern for these calamities that were coming on, to try to make impressions of the like upon the people. When he has delivered his message he must sigh (v. 6), must fetch many deep sighs, with the breaking of his loins; he must sign as if his heart would burst, sigh with bitterness, with other expressions of bitter sorrow, and this publicly, in the sight of those to whom he delivered the foregoing message, that this might be a sermon to their eyes as that was to their ears; and it was well if both would work upon them. The prophet must sigh, though it was painful to himself and made his breast sore, and though it is probable that the profane among the people would ridicule him for it and call him a whining canting preacher. But, if we be beside ourselves it is to God; and, if this be to be vile, we will be yet more so. Note, Ministers, if they would affect others with the things they speak of, must show that they are themselves in the greatest sincerity affected with them, and must submit to that which may create uneasiness to themselves, so that it will promote the ends of their ministry. The people, observing the prophet to sigh so much and seeing no visible occasion for it, would ask, "Wherefore sighest thou? These sighs have some mystical meaning; let us know what it is." And he must answer them (v. 7): "It is for the tidings, the heavy tidings, that we shall hear shortly; the tidings come (the judgments come which we hear the tidings of), they come apace, and then you will all sigh; nay, that will not serve. every heart shall melt and every spirit fail; your courage will all be gone and you will have no animating considerations to support yourselves with. And, when heart and spirit fail, it will follow of course that all hands will be feeble and unable to fight, and all knees will be weak as water and unable to flee or to stand their ground." Those who have God for them when flesh and heart fail have him to be the strength of their heart; but those who have God against them have no cordial for a fainting spirit, but are as Belshazzar when his thoughts troubled him, Dan. v. 6. But some people are worse frightened than hurt; may not the case be so here and the event prove better than likely? No: Behold it cometh, and shall be brought to pass. It is not a bugbear that they are frightened with, but according to the fear so is the wrath, and more grievous than is feared.

Judgments Predicted. (b. c. 592.)

8 Again the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, 9 Son of man, prophesy, and say, Thus saith the Lord ; Say, A sword, a sword is sharpened, and also furbished: 10 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.

Here is another prophecy of the sword, which is delivered in a very affecting manner; the expressions here used are somewhat intricate, and perplex interpreters. The sword was unsheathed in the foregoing verses; here it is fitted up to do execution, which the prophet is commanded to lament. Observe,

I. How the sword is here described. 1. It is sharpened, that it may cut and wound, and make a sore slaughter. The wrath of God will put an edge upon it; and, whatever instruments God shall please to make use of in executing his judgments, he will fill them with strength, courage, and fury, according to the service they are employed in. Out of the mouth of Christ goes a sharp sword, Rev. xix. 15. 2. It is furbished, that it may glitter, to the terror of those against whom it is drawn. It shall be a kind of flaming sword. If it have rusted in the scabbard for want of use, it shall be rubbed and brightened; for though the glory of God's justice may seem to have been eclipsed for a while, during the day of his patience and the delay of his judgments, yet it will shine out again and be made to glitter. 3. It is a victorious sword, nothing shall stand before it (v. 10): It contemneth the rod of my son as every tree. Israel, said God once, is my son, my first-born. The government of that people was called a rod, a strong rod; we read (ch. xix. 11) of the strong rods they had for sceptres. But when the sword of God's justice is drawn it contemns this rod, makes nothing of it; though it be a strong rod, and the rod of his son, it is no more than any other tree. When God's professing people have revolted from him, and are in rebellion against him, his sword despises them. What are they to him more than another people? The marginal reading gives another notion of this sword: It is the rod of my son; and we know of whom God has said (Ps. ii. 7), Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee, and (v. 9) Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron. This sword is that rod of iron which contemns every tree and will bear it down. Or, This sword is the rod of my son, a correcting rod, for the chastening of the transgression of God's people (2 Sam. vii. 14), not to cut them off from being a people. It is a sword to others, a rod to my son.

II. How the sword is here put into the hand of the executioners: "It is the rod of my Son, and he has given it that it may be handled (v. 11), that it may be made use of for the end for which it was drawn. It is given into the hand, not of the fencer to be played with, but of the slayer to do execution with. The sword of war my Son makes use of as a sword of justice, and to him all judgment is committed. It is made bright (v. 15), it is wrapped up, that it may be kept safe, and clean, and sharp for the slaughter, not as Goliath's sword was wrapped up in a cloth only for a memorial," 1 Sam. xxi. 9.

III. How the sword is directed, and against whom it is sent (v. 12): It shall be upon my people; they shall fall by this sword. It is repeated again, as that which is scarcely credible, that the sword of the heathen shall be upon God's own people; nay, it shall be upon all the princes of Israel; their dignity and power as princes shall be no more their security than their profession of religion as princes of Israel. But, if the sword be at any time upon God's people, have they not comfort within sufficient to arm them against every thing in it that is frightful? Yes, they have, while they conduct themselves as becomes his people; but these had not done so, and therefore terrors, by reason of the sword, shall be upon those that call themselves my people. Note, While good men are quiet, not only from evil, but from the fear of it, wicked men are disturbed not only with the sword, but with the terrors of it, arising from a consciousness of their own guilt. This sword is directed particularly against the great men, for they had been the greatest sinners among them; they had altogether broken the yoke and burst the bonds (Jer. v. 5), and therefore with them in a special manner God's controversy is, who had been the ringleaders in sin. The sword of the slain is the sword of the great men that are slain, v. 14. Though they have furnished themselves with places of retirement, places of concealment, where they flatter themselves with hopes that they shall be safe, they will find that the sword will enter into their privy chambers, and find them out there, as the frogs, when they were one of Egypt's plagues, found admission into the chambers of their kings. The sword, the point of this sword, is directed against their gates, against all their gates (v. 15), against all those things with which they thought to keep it out and fortify themselves against it. Note, The strongest gates, though they be gates of brass, ever so well barred, ever so well guarded, are no fence against the point of the sword of God's judgments. But when that is pointed against sinners, 1. They are ready to fear the worst; their hearts faint, so that they are not able to make any resistance. 2. The worst comes; whatever resistance they make, it is to no purpose, but they are ruined, and their ruins are multiplied. But what need have we to observe the particular directions of this sword when it has a general commission, is sent with a running warrant? (v. 16): "Go thee, one way or other, which way thou wilt, turn to the right hand or to the left, thou wilt find those that are obnoxious, for there are none free from guilt; and thou hast authority against them, for there are none exempt from punishment; and therefore, whithersoever thy face is set, that way do thou proceed, and, like Jonathan's sword, from the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, thou shalt never return empty," 2 Sam. i. 22. Note, So full is the world of wicked people that, which way soever God's judgments go forth, they will find work, will find matter to work upon. That fire will never go out on this earth for want of fuel. And such various methods God has of meeting with sinners that the sword of his justice is still as it was at first when it flamed in the hand of the cherubim: it turns every way, Gen. iii. 24.

IV. What is the nature of this sword, and what are the intentions and limitations of it as to the people of God, v. 13. It is a correction; it is designed to be so; the sword to others is a rod to them. This is a comfortable word which comes in in the midst of these terrible ones, though it be expressed somewhat obscurely. 1. The people of God begin to be afraid that the sword will contemn even the rod, that the sword will go on with such fury that it will despise its commission to be a rod only, will forget its bounds and become a sword indeed, even to God's own people. They fear lest the Chaldeans' sword, which is the rod of God's anger, contemn its being called a rod, and become as the axe that boasts itself against him that heweth therewith or the staff that lifts up itself as if it were no wood, Isa. x. 15. Or, "What if the sword contemn even the rod? that is, what if this sword make the former rods, as that or Sennacherib, to be contemned as nothing to this? What if this should prove not a correcting rod, but a destroying sword, to make a full end of our church and nation?" This is that which the thinking, but timorous, few are apprehensive of. Note, When threatening judgments are abroad it is good to suppose the worst that may be the consequences of them, that we may provide accordingly. What if the sword contemn the tribe or sceptre? namely, that of Judah and the house of David (so some think Shebet here signifies); what if it should aim at the ruin of our government? If it do, the Lord is righteous and will be gracious notwithstanding. But, 2. These fears are silenced with an assurance that it is not so; the sword shall not forget itself, nor the errand on which it is sent: It is a trial, and it is no more than a trial. He that sends it makes what use of it, and sets what bounds to it, he pleases. Here shall its proud waves be stayed. Note, It is matter of comfort to the people of God, when his judgments are abroad, and they are ready to tremble for fear of them, that, whatever they are to others, to them they are but trials; and, when they are tried, they shall come forth as gold, and the proving of their faith shall be the improving of it.

V. Here the prophet and the people must show themselves affected with these judgments threatened. 1. The prophet must be very serious in denouncing these judgments. He must say, A sword! a sword! v. 9. Let him not study for fine words, and a variety of quaint expressions; when the town is on fire people do not so give notice of it, but cry, with a frightful doleful voice, Fire! fire! So must the prophet cry, A sword! a sword! and (v. 14), Let the sword be doubled the third time in thy preaching. God speaks once, yea, twice, yea, thrice; it were well if men, after all, would perceive and regard it. It shall be doubled the third time in God's providence; for it was Nebuchadnezzar's third descent upon Jerusalem that made a full end of it. Ruin comes gradually, but at last comes effectually, upon a provoking people. Yet this is not all: the prophet is not only as a herald at arms to proclaim war, and to cry, A sword! a sword! once and again, and a third time, but, as a person nearly concerned, he must cry and howl (v. 12), must sadly lament the desolations that the sword would make, as one that did himself not only sympathize with the sufferers, but feel from the sufferings. Again (v. 14), Prophesy, and smite thy hands together, wring thy hands, as lamenting the desolation, or clap thy hands, as by thy prophecy instigating and encouraging those that were to be the instruments of it, or as one standing amazed at the suddenness and severity of the judgment. The prophet must smite his hands together; for (says God) I will also smite my hands together, v. 17. God is in earnest in pronouncing this sentence upon them, and therefore the prophet must show himself in earnest in publishing it. God's smiting his hands together, as well as the prophet's smiting, is in token of a holy indignation at their wickedness, which was really very astonishing. When Balak's anger was kindled against Balaam he smote his hands together, Num. xxiv. 10. Note, God and his ministers are justly angry at those who might be saved and yet will be ruined. Some make it an expression of triumph and exultation, agreeing with that (Isa. i. 24), Ah! I will ease me of my adversaries; and that (Prov. i. 26), I also will laugh at their calamity. And so it follows here, I will cause my fury to rest, not only it shall be perfected, but it shall be pleased. And observe with what solemnity, with what authority, this sentence is ratified: "I the Lord have said it, who can and will make good what I have said. I have said it, and will never unsay it. I have said it, and who can gainsay it?" 2. The people must be very serious in the prospect of these judgments. An intimation of this comes in in a parenthesis (v. 10): Should we then make mirth? Seeing God has drawn the sword, and the prophet sighs and cries, Should we then make mirth? The prophet seems to give this as a reason why he sighs; as Neh. ii. 3, Why should not my countenance be sad, when Jerusalem lies waste? Note, Before we allow ourselves to be merry, we ought to consider whether we should be merry or no. Should we make mirth, we who are sentenced to the sword, who lie under the wrath and curse of God? Shall we make mirth as other people, who have gone a whoring from our God? Hos. ix. 1. Should we now make mirth, when the hand of God has gone out against us, when God's judgments are abroad in the land and he by them calls to weeping and mourning? Isa. xxii. 11, 13. Shall we now make mirth as the king and Haman, when the church is in perplexity (Esther iii. 15), when we should be grieving for the affliction of Joseph? Amos vi. 6.

Judgments Predicted. (b. c. 592.)

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.

The prophet, in the verses before, had shown them the sword coming; he here shows them that sword coming against them, that they might not flatter themselves that by some means or other it should be diverted a contrary way.

I. He must see and show the Chaldean army coming against Jerusalem and determined by a supreme power so to do. The prophet must appoint him two ways, that is, he must upon a paper draw out two roads (v. 19), as sometimes is done in maps; and he must bring the king of Babylon's army to the place where the roads part, for there they will make a stand. They both come out of the same land; but when they come to the place where one road leads to Rabbath, the head city of the Ammonites, and the other to Jerusalem, he makes a pause; for, though he is resolved to be the ruin of both, yet he is not determined which to attack first; here his politics and his politicians leave him at a loss. The sword must go either to Rabbath or to Judah in Jerusalem. Many of the inhabitants of Judah had now taken shelter in Jerusalem, and all the interests of the country were bound up in the safety of the city, and therefore it is called Judah in Jerusalem the defenced; so strongly fortified was it, both by nature and art, that it was thought impregnable, Lam. iv. 12. The prophet must describe this dilemma that the king of Babylon is at (v. 21); for the king of Babylon stood (that is, he shall stand considering what course to take) at the head of the two ways. Though he was a prince of great foresight and great resolution, yet, it seems, he knew neither his own interest nor his own mind. Let not the wise man then glory in his wisdom nor the mighty man in his arbitrary power, for even those that may do what they will seldom know what to do for the best. Now observe, 1. The method he took to come to a resolution; he used divination, applied to a higher and invisible power, perhaps to the determination of Providence by a lot, in order to which he made his arrows bright, that were to be drawn for the lots, in honour of the solemnity. Perhaps Jerusalem was written on one arrow and Rabbath on the other, and that which was first drawn out of the quiver he determined to attack first. Or he applied to the direction of some pretended oracle: he consulted with images or teraphim, expecting to receive audible answers from them. Or to the observations which the augurs made upon the entrails of the sacrifices: he looked in the liver, whether the position of that portended good or ill luck. Note, It is a mortification to the pride of the wise men of the earth that in difficult cases they have been glad to make their court to heaven for direction; as it is an instance of their folly that they have taken such ridiculous ways of doing it, when in cases proper for an appeal to Providence it is sufficient that the lot be cast into the lap, with that prayer, Give a perfect lot, and a firm belief that the disposal thereof is not fortuitous, but of the Lord, Prov. xvi. 33. 2. The resolution he was hereby brought to. Even by these sinful practices God served his own purposes and directed him to go to Jerusalem, v. 22. The divination for Jerusalem happened to be at his right hand, which, according to the rules of divination, determined him that way. Note, What services God designs men for he will be sure in his providence to lead them to, though perhaps they themselves are not aware what guidance they are under. Well, Jerusalem being the mark set up, the campaign is presently opened with the siege of that important place. Captains are appointed for the command of the forces to be employed in the siege, who must open the mouth in the slaughter, must give directions to the soldiers what to do and make speeches to animate them. Orders are given to provide every thing necessary for carrying on the siege with vigour; battering rams must be prepared and forts built. O what pains, what cost, are men at to destroy one another!

II. He must show both the people and the prince that they bring this destruction upon themselves by their own sin.

1. The people do so, v. 23, 24. They slight the notices that are given them of the judgment coming. Ezekiel's prophecy is to them a false divination; they are not moved or awakened to repentance by it. When they hear that Nebuchadnezzar by his divination is directed to Jerusalem, and assured of success in that enterprise, they laugh at it and continue secure, calling it a false divination; because they have sworn oaths, that is, they have joined in a solemn league with the Egyptians, and they depend upon the promise they have made them to raise the siege, or upon the assurances which the false prophets have given them that it shall be raised. Or it may refer to the oaths of allegiance they had sworn to the king of Babylon, but had violated, for which treachery of theirs God had given them up to a judicial blindness, so that the fairest warnings given them were slighted by them as false divinations. Note, It is not strange if those who make a jest of the most sacred oaths can make a jest likewise of the most sacred oracles; for where will a profane mind stop? But shall their unbelief invalidate the counsel of God? Are they safe because they are secure? By no means; nay, the contempt they put upon divine warnings is a sin that brings to remembrance their other sins, and they may thank themselves if they be now remembered against them. (1.) Their present wickedness is discovered. Now that God is contending with them so perverse and obstinate are they that whatever they offer in their own defence does but add to their offence; they never conducted themselves so ill as they did now that they had the loudest call given them to repent and reform: "So that in all your doings your sins do appear. Turn yourselves which way you will, you show a black side." This is too true of every one of us; for not only there is none that lives and sins not, but there is not a just man upon earth that does good and sins not. Our best services have such allays of weakness, and folly, and imperfection, and so much evil is present with us even when we would do good, that we may say, with sorrow and shame, In all our doings, and in all our sayings too, our sins do appear, and witness against us, so that if we were under the law we were undone. (2.) This brings to mind their former wickedness: "You have made your iniquity to be remembered, not by yourselves that it might be repented of, but by the justice of God that it might be reckoned for. Your own sins make the sins of your fathers to be remembered against you, which otherwise you should never have smarted for." Note, God remembers former iniquities against those only who by the present discoveries of their wickedness show that they do not repent of them. (3.) That they may suffer for all together, they are turned over to the destroyed, that they may be taken (v. 23): "You shall be taken with the hand that God had appointed to seize you and to hold you and out of which you cannot escape." Men are said to be God's hand when they are made use of as the ministers of his justice, Ps. xvii. 14. Note, Those who will not be taken with the word of God's grace shall at last be taken by the hand of his wrath.

2. The prince likewise brings his ruin upon himself. Zedekiah is the prince of Israel, to whom the prophet here, in God's name, addresses himself; and, if he had not spoken in God's name, he would not have spoken so boldly, so bluntly; for is it fit to say to a king, Thou art wicked? (1.) He gives him his character, v. 25. Thou profane and wicked prince of Israel! He was not so bad as some of his predecessors, and yet bad enough to merit his character. He was himself profane, lost to every thing that is virtuous and sacred. And he was wicked, as he promoted sin among his people; he sinned, and made Israel to sin. Note, Profaneness and wickedness are bad in any, but worst of all in a prince, a prince of Israel, who as an Israelite should know better himself, and as a prince should set a better example and have a better influence on those about him. (2.) He reads him his doom. His iniquity has an end; the measure of it is full, and therefore his day has come, the day of his punishment, the day of divine vengeance. Note, Though those who are wicked and profane may flourish awhile, yet their day will come to fall. The sentence here passed is, [1.] That Zedekiah shall be deposed. He has forfeited his crown, and he shall no longer wear it; he has by his profaneness profaned his crown, and it shall be cast to the ground (v. 26): Remove the diadem. Crowns and diadems are losable things; it is only in the other world that there is a crown of glory that fades not away, a kingdom that cannot be moved. The Chaldee paraphrase expounds it thus: Take away the diadem from Seraiah the chief priest, and I will take away the crown from Zedekiah the king; neither this nor that shall abide in his place, but shall be removed. This shall not be the same, not the same that he has been; this not this (so the word is); profane and wicked perhaps he is as he has been. Note, Men lose their dignity by their iniquity. Their profaneness and wickedness remove their diadem, and take off their crown, and make them the reverse of what they were. [2.] That great confusion and disorder in the state shall follow hereupon. Every thing shall be turned upside down. The conqueror shall take a pride in exalting him that is low and abasing him that is high, preferring some and degrading others, at his pleasure, without any regard either to right or merit. [3.] Attempts to re-establish the government shall be blasted and come to nothing, Gedaliah's particularly, and Ishmael's who was of the seed-royal (to which the Chaldee paraphrase refers this); neither of them shall be able to make any thing of it. I will overturn, overturn, overturn, first one project and then another; for who can build up what God will throw down? [4.] This monarchy shall never be restored till it is fixed for perpetuity in the hands of the Messiah. There shall be no more kings of the house of David after Zedekiah, till Christ comes, whose right the kingdom is, who is that seed of David in whom the promise was to have its full accomplishment, and I will give it to him. He shall have the throne of his father David, Luke i. 32. Immediately before the coming of Christ there was a long eclipse of the royal dignity, as there was also a failing of the spirit of prophecy, that his shining forth in the fulness of time both as king and prophet might appear the more illustrious. Note, Christ has an incontestable title to the dominion and sovereignty both in the church and in the world; the kingdom is his right. And, having the right, he shall in due time have the possession: I will give it to him; and there shall be a general overturning of all rather than he shall come short of his right, and a certain overturning of all the opposition that stands in his way to make room for him, Dan. ii. 45; 1 Cor. xv. 25. This is mentioned here for the comfort of those who feared that the promise made in David would fail for evermore. "No," says God, "that promise is sure, for the Messiah's kingdom shall last for ever."

The Destruction of the Ammonites. (b. c. 592.)

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.

The prediction of the destruction of the Ammonites, which was effected by Nebuchadnezzar about five years after the destruction of Jerusalem, seems to come in here upon occasion of the king of Babylon's diverting his design against Rabbath, when he turned it upon Jerusalem. Upon this the Ammonites grew very insolent, and triumphed over Jerusalem; but the prophet must let them know that forbearance is no acquittance; the reprieve is not a pardon; their day also is at hand; their turn comes next, and it will be but a poor satisfaction to them that they are to be devoured last, to be last executed.

I. The sin of the Ammonites is here intimated; it is their reproach, v. 28. 1. The reproach they put upon themselves when they hearkened to their false prophets (for such it seems there were among them as well as among the Jews), who pretended to foretel their perpetual safety in the midst of the desolations that were made of the countries round about them: "They see vanity unto thee and divine a lie, v. 29. They flatter thee with promises of peace, and thou art such a fool as to suffer thyself to be imposed upon by them and to encourage them therein by giving credit to them." Note, Those that feed themselves with a self-conceit in the day of their prosperity prepare matter for a self-reproach in the day of their calamity. 2. The reproach they put upon the Israel of God, when they triumphed in their afflictions, and thereby added affliction to them, which was very barbarous and inhuman. Their divines, by puffing them up with a conceit that they were a better people than Israel, being spared when they were cut off, and with a confidence that their prosperity should always continue, made them so very haughty and insolent that they did even tread on the necks of the Israelites that were slain, slain by the wicked Chaldeans, who had commission to execute God's judgments upon them when their iniquity had an end, that is, when the measure of it was full. We shall meet with this again, ch. xxv. 3, &c. Note, Those are ripening apace for misery who trample upon the people of God in their distress, whereas they ought to tremble when judgment begins at the house of God.

II. The utter destruction of the Ammonites is threatened. For the reproach cast on the church by her neighbours will be returned into their own bosom, Ps. lxxix. 12. Let us see how terrible the threatening is and the destruction will be. 1. It shall come from the wrath of God, who resents the indignities and injuries done to his people as done to himself (v. 31): I will pour out my indignation as a shower of fire and brimstone upon thee. The least drop of divine indignation and wrath will create tribulation and anguish enough to the soul of man that does evil; what then would a full stream of that indignation and wrath do? "I will blow against thee in the fire of my wrath; that is, I will blow up the fire of my wrath against thee; it shall burn with the utmost vehemence." Thou shalt be for fuel to this fire, v. 32. Note, Wicked men make themselves fuel to the fire of God's wrath; they are consumed by it, and it is inflamed by them. 2. It shall be effected by the sword of war; to them he must cry, as before to Israel, because they had triumphed in Israel's overthrow: The sword, the sword is drawn (v. 28, compare v. 9, 10); it is drawn to consume because of the glittering, because it is brandished and glitters, and is fit to be made use of. God's executions will answer his preparations. This sword, when it is drawn, shall not return into its sheath (v. 30) till it has done the work for which it was drawn. When the sword is drawn it does not return till God causes it to return, and he is in one mind and who can turn him? Who can change his purpose? 3. The persons employed in it are brutish men, and skilful to destroy. Men of such a bad character as this, who have the wit of men to do the work of wild beasts—human reason, which makes them skilful, but no human compassion, which makes them skilful only to destroy—though they are the scandal of mankind, yet sometimes are made use of to serve God's purposes. God delivers the Ammonites into the hands of such, and justly, for they themselves were brutish, and delighted in the destruction of God's Israel. We have reason to pray, as Paul desired to be prayed for, that we may be delivered from wicked and unreasonable men (2 Thess. iii. 2), men that seem made for doing mischief. 4. The place where they should thus be reckoned with: "I will judge thee where thou wast created, where thou wast first formed into a people, and where thou hast been settled ever since, and therefore where thou seemest to have taken root; the land of thy nativity shall be the land of thy destruction." Note, God can bring ruin upon us even where we are most secure, and turn us out of that land which we thought we had a title to not to be disputed and a possession of not to be disturbed. Thy blood shall be shed not only in thy borders, but in the midst of thy land. Lastly, it shall be an irreparable ruin: "Though thou mayest think to recover thyself, it is in vain to think of it; thou shalt be no more remembered with any respect," Ps. ix. 6. Justly is their name blotted out who would have Israel's name for ever lost.

CHAP. XXI.

Ver. 1. ANd the Word of the Lord] See chap. 18.1.

Ver. 2. Set thy face] See on chap. 20.46.

And drop thy Word] See Deut. 32.2. Amos 7.16. As drops of rain follow one upon another, ſo do words: Speak thick, ſpeak home, though they forbid thee to drop ſuch vineger or nitre on their galled conſcience, Mic. 2.6, 11.

Toward the holy places] i. e. Againſt the Temple which they ſo cryed up, Jer. 7.5. like ſo many Oyſter-wives, ad ravim uſque.

Ver. 3. Behold I am againſt thee] That's miſery enough: for all the creatures are ſoon againſt ſuch: as a Noble mans ſervants draw their ſwords, when their Lord once draweth.

And will cut off from thee the righteous] Who are ſometimes wrapt up with the wicked in a common calamity. The husbandman cutteth down his corn and weeds together; but for a different end and purpoſe. If the righteous alſo be judged of the Lord, it that they may not be condemned with the world, 1 Cor. 11.31.

Ver. 4. Seeing then that I will cut off from thee the righteous] Velut codem contubernio deprehenſos. This is repeated for more aſſurance, becauſe it might ſeem ſtrange. The Sept. hath it The unrighteous and the wicked: The Chaldee, I will make the righteous flee, and deſtroy the wicked. But the Hebrew verity is as before: neither need we wonder, ſith the beſt have their infirmities.

Ver. 5. have drawn forth my ſword] And put it in commiſſion; not to return, till the Circuit ended; till it hath done full execution.

Ver. 6. Sigh therefore—with the breaking of thy loines] Gemituque & geſtu dolorem referas, ſhew greateſt grief, ſuch as is deep and downright:Non ut praficae in funeribus ſolent. ſigh till thy buttons flye; or, as a travelling woman.

Ver. 7. For the tidings] Ol the Chaldaeans comming. This was to the wicked as thoſe knuckles of a mans hand were afterward to Baltaſar, to write them their deſtiny: or as Daniel was to him, to read it unto them. Whenas the righteous man is no whit afraid of evil tidings, his heart is fixed truſting in the Lord, Pſal. 112.7.

And every heart ſhall melt, &c.] As wax before the fire: which, before the danger, ſeemed to be made all of ſteel or adamant. The wicked, when in adverſity, are wofully deſpondent and creſt-falne: as was the King of Sodom, Gen. 14. Manaſſeh among the buſhes, 2 Chron. 33.12. and others not a few, who in their proſperity ſeem to face the heavens and to draw the devil himſelf to a duel.

And all hands ſhall be feeble] The ſpirits and blood being run to the heart, in that fright, to relieve it.

And all knees ſhall be weak as water] Heb. ſhall go into water, that is, they ſhall bepiſſe themſelves for fear, ſaith Jerom: they ſhall be all on a cold ſweat, ſay others, or their knees ſhall ſhake, inſtar aquae tremulae, and knock together as Belſhazzar's did, Dan. 5.6.

Ver. 8. Again the word] See on chap. 18.1.

Exacutus & exterſus.Ver. 9. A ſword, a ſword is ſharpened] Not only drawn but ſharpened, that it may wound ſwiftly and deadly: fourbiſhed alſo, that it may the more affray, and make the quicker diſpatch. And that no doubt may be made of it, the word ſword is doubled.

Ver. 10. Sould we then make mirth?] Not, if we be in our right minds: for would it not be now a mad mirth, when as we ſhould be moſt ſerious and ſeek God? See Iſa. 22.12, 13, 14. with the Notes.

It contemneth the rod of my ſon] Other Judgements forerun the ſword: which when they will not do the deed, the ſword will then contemn the rod: that is, it will ſet at naught whatever thoſe have done, and come fourbiſhed and ſharpened for the ſlaughter. See ver. 3.

Ver. 11. To give it into the hand of the ſlayer] Nebuchadnezzar; who will therewith lay about him luſtily, as Eleazar once did till his hand clave unto the ſword, 2 Sam. 23.10. or, as ſince Scanderbeg, who killed many hundred Turkes with his own hand,Turk. Hiſt. and fought oft with ſo much eagerneſſe, that the very blood brake forth at his lipps.

Ver. 12. Cry and howl, ſon of man] Whileſt others make mirth, as ver. 10. and are inſolent againſt God. Mourners ſhall be marked, chap. 9.4, comforted, Iſa. 57.18.

Smite therefore upon thy thigh] See on Jer. 31.19.

Ver. 13. Becauſe it is a trial] Sore and ſharp, therefore cry and howl: eſpecially ſince they are not bettered. Hang heavy weights on rotten boughes, they preſently break: the beſt divination of men is at the parting way: See ver. 21.

And what if the ſword contemn even the rod?] q. d. What doth this ſilly rod do here? will they not ſtoop? Will they not put their necks under the yoke of Gods Son? ver. 10. Let me come. I'le make them either bow or break; either yeeld, or bleed.

Ver. 14. Smite thy hands together] So to ſhew what I will do ſhortly, ver. 17.

Let the ſword be doubled the third time] Doubled and trebbled, till it hath made an utter end of this untoward generation.

Which entereth into their privy Chambers] Ferretting, and fetching them out of their lurking-holes.

Oecol.Ver. 15. Ah it is made bright] By this doleful exclamation the Prophet venteth, himſelf, tanquam coràm deformitatem cladis cerneret, as if he had ſeen the execution.

Ver. 16. Go thee one way or other] This he ſpeaketh to the bright and ſharp ſword;Trem. ſtirring it up to make impreſſion that way whereunto it was appointed, quocunque occurrent tibi res comparatae.

Exultat quaſi hortator gladii ſaevientis. Hier. Ver. 17. I will alſo ſmite mine hands together] As animating the enemy, and rejoycing at thy ruine. Chaldee, I will bring revenge upon revenge; — animumque expleſſe juvabit.

Ver. 18. The Word of the Lord] See on chap. 18.1.

Ver. 19. Appoint thee two wayes] Pinge duas vias, ut chap. 4.1. by prophetike action draw out two wayes, by either of which Nebuchadnezzar may march againſt Egypt, his preſent ayme; as the great Turkes now is Italy.

Chuſe it at the head of the way to the City] All this the Jews heard and ſlighted, as being infatuated, and ſo fitted for deſtruction.

Ver. 20. And to Judah in Jeruſalem the defenced] Either againſt the one or the other of them (not againſt both at once,Ne Hercules quidem contra duos. for they were both ſtrong, and Jeruſalem was well aware of it) for they had both revolted from Nebuchadnezzar, and one of them was enough at once to undertake.

Ver. 21. For the King of Babylon ſtood at the parting] Heb. at the mother of the way, ubi via una in duas bifidata eſt. Ubi ſe via findit in ambas. Virg.

To uſe divination] Without which and offering ſacrifice, the very Heathens held it not fit to fight. But this their art of divination was (as One ſaith of Alchymie) Ars falſiſſima & fallaciſſima.

He made his arrows bright] Vulg. he mingled his arrows: that is, ſaith Hierom, he took two arrows, writing upon the one Jeruſalem, and upon the other, Rabbath. Then, putting them into a quiver together, he took one out, being blindfolded: upon which ſeeing Jeruſalem written, he divined that he ſhould go with ſucceſſe againſt Jeruſalem.

He conſulted with images] In which the devil ſometimes ſpake: See Aug. de C. D. lib. 4. cap. 18.

He looked into the liver] This was much practiſed by the Roman Generals:Lucan: as by Caeſar, when he went againſt Pompey.

Ver. 22. To appoint Captains] Heb. raws; fierce and forward to lead on their ſoldiers, let them get off as they could.

To open their mouth] To ſtorm and take it by an onſlaught, and with a general ſlaughter, non ſine barritu militari, vociferatione, & claugore inſolenti.

Ver. 23. And it ſhall be to them as a falſe divination] The Jewes ſhall believe nothing, till wrath comes upon them to the utmoſt. They ſhall laugh at Nebuchadnezzar's fopperies, and think thee, O Ezekiel, to be little wiſer then him:Jun. ludificabuntur te, adeoque teipſum, divinationis nefariae, quam de Nebuchadnetzare praedicas, incuſabunt: but they ſhall rue this their madneſſe.

To them that have ſworn oaths] But cared not at all to keep them. Lingua juravi, Medea. Juſjurandum tanquam mantile adhibent quo nov[illegible: 1 letter]e noxae quotidiè extergeantur. Pacuvius. mens injurata eſt.

But he will call to remembrance the iniquity] The perfidy and perjury which they make nothing of. They that harden themſelves in any one ſin, put God in mind, as it were, of the reſt, which he had ſeemed to have forgotten.

Ver. 24. Becauſe ye have made your iniquity] Your old ſins, by an addition of new ones.

Your ſins do appear] You are ſcandalous, ſhameleſſe as Sodom, Iſa. 3.9.

Ver. 25. And thou profane] Or, worthy to be wounded to death.

Wicked Prince] Zedekiah, who now hath his own told him plainly by a Prophet. See the like done, 1 Sam. 13.13. 1 Kings 18.18. 2 Kings 3.13, 14. with the Notes there.

Ver. 26. Remove the diadem] This was a fine linnen cloth wherwith the Kings head uſed to be bound about, and then the crown was ſet on.Diadema of [non-Latin text not transcribed] circumligare.

Take off the crown] Our Richard the ſecond, when to be depoſed, was brought forth crowned and in royal robes. Never, ſaith the Chronicler, was Prince ſo gorgeous with leſſe glory, and more grief.

This ſhall not be the ſame] Haec non erit hae[illegible: 1 letter]. This crown or kingdom ſhall not be as it hath been.

Exalt him that is low] Jeconiah, or, as ſome will, Chriſt the King of the Church.

And abaſe him that is high] Zedekiah: Juſt the ſame that Cambyſes threatened unto Egypt, [non-Latin text not transcribed]. Herod. lib. 2. Let him not henceforth be the Maſter of a mole-hill, nor owner of his own liberty. In him let it appear that Mortality is but the ſtage of Mutability.

Ver. 27. I will overturn, overturn, overturn it] Curvam, curvam, curvam ponam [illegible: 1 letter]am, So the Tigurines tranſlate. A crown there ſhall be ſtill; but ſuch as ſhall hang on one ſide of the head as it were. Princes of the people there were. Thoſe three High-Prieſts, Alexander, Aroſtobulus, and Hircanus, who called themſelves Kings, had very ill ſucceſſe.

Ʋntill he come] Chriſt the rightful King of Iſrael. To this text alludeth Nathaniel, Joh. 1.49.

Ver. 28. Concerning the Ammonites] Who had likewiſe rebelled againg Nebuchadnezzar, and were very injurious to Gods people: See Chap. 25.3, 6. Zeph. 2.8, 9.

[non-Latin text not transcribed].

Ver. 29. To bring thee upon the necks of them thee are ſlain] To deal inhumanely with the dead: or to raiſe thy ſelf upon the Jews ruine.

Ver. 30. Shall I cauſe it to return] No, but it ſhall ſtill eat your fleſh, and drink your blood, till none remaineth.

In the land of thy nativity] In thine own neſt, and on thine own dunghil.

Ver. 31. Into the hand of brutiſh men] Or, of burning men, Ardelionum, artificum perditionis.

Saltem cum benedictione. Polan. Ver. 32. Thou ſhalt be no more remembred] The Ammonites were ſo rooted out by the Medes and Perſians, that beſides what we find in the Bible, there is no mention of their name. A type of ſuch as are deſtroyed for ever in hell, being fuel for that black fire, and eternally forgotten.