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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Ezekiel 21:23 - 21:23
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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), לָהֶם, which is more precisely defined by בְּעֵינֵיהֶם, refers to the Israelites, i.e., the Judaeans. This also applies to the following לָהֶם, 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 שְׁבֻעֵי שְׁבֻעֹות, 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 שְׁבֻעֵי by the side of שְׁבֻעֹות 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 נְפָשִׁים for נְפָשֹׁות in Eze 13:20, he may also have formed שְׁבֻעִים (שְׁבֻעֵי) by the side of שְׁבֻעֹות. - 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. וְהוּא is Jehovah, upon whose oaths they rely. עָֹון 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. לְהִתָּפֵשׂ 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. הִזְכִּיר עָֹון is used in Eze 21:24 (29) in a different sense from Eze 21:23 (28), and is therefore explained by 'בְּהִגָּלֹות. בַּכַּף, which is indefinite in itself, points back to יַד הֹורֵג 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 חָלָל, רָשָׁע, and 'נְשִׂיא ישׂ are asyndeta, co-ordinate to one another. חָלָל 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 חָלָל stands both to Eze 21:14 and to חַלְלֵי רְשָׁעִים 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 חָלָל 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 חָלָל 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 חָלָל is no proof of actual slaying with the sword. יֹומֹו .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 קֵץ 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 נָשִׂיא... אָתָּה (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 נָשִׂיא, 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) הָסִיר and הָרִים are selected for the purpose of expressing the truth in the most emphatic manner; and the verbs are synonymous. הָרִים, to lift up, i.e., not to elevate, but to take away, to abolish, as in Isa 57:14; Dan 8:11. מִצְנֶפֶת does not mean the royal diadem, like צָנִיף 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. הָעֲטָרָה, 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. זֹאת לֹא זֹאת .el (this is not this) does not refer to the tiara (mitre) and crown. זֹאת is neuter, and therefore construed with the masculine הָיָה. This (mitre and crown) will not be this (הָיָה 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. הַגְבֵּהַּ and הַשְׁפִּיל are infinitives, and are chosen in the same sense as in the first hemistich. The form הַשָּׁפָלָה, 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 הַגָּבֹהַּ.
(Note: Hitzig has given a most preposterous exposition of this verse. Taking the words הָסִיר and הָרִים 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 זֹאת לֹא (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 זֹאת לֹא זֹאת 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 הָרִים without מִן cannot possibly signify to abolish.)
This general thought is expressed still more definitely in Eze 21:27. עַוָּה, which is repeated twice to give greater emphasis to the thought, is a noun derived from עִוָּה, inversion, overthrow; and the suffix in אֲשִׂימֶנָּהּ points back to זֹאת 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 זֹאת cannot also refer to the tiara and crown, as Kliefoth supposes, on account of the גַּם which precedes it. This shows that זֹאת 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 עַד־בֹּא 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 עַד־בֹּא אֲשֶׁר־לֹו הַמִּשְׁפָּט contain an allusion to Gen 49:10, עַד כִּי; 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, אֲשֶׁר־לֹו הַמִּשְׁפָּט is of course not to be taken as a philological explanation of the word שִׁילֹה, 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. הַמִּשְׁפָּט 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 נְתַתִּיו is not a dative, but an accusative, referring to מִשְׁפָּט (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 אֲשֶׁר לֹו.