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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Ezekiel 21:8 - 21:8
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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 חֶרֶב in Eze 21:9 is emphatic. הוּחַדָּה is the perfect Hophal of חָדַד, to sharpen. מְרוּטָה is the passive participle of מָרַט, to polish; מֹרָטָּה (Eze 21:10), the participle Pual, with מ dropped, and Dagesh euphon. הֱיֵה, a rare form of the infinitive for הֱיֹות. The polishing gives to the sword a flashing brilliancy, which renders the sharpness of its edge still more terrible. The very obscure words, 'אֹו נָשִׂישׂ 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. אֹו, or perhaps; introducing an opposite case, or an exception to what has been said. The words 'שֵׁבֶט are to be taken as an objection, so that לֵאמֹר 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). שֵׁבֶט בְּנִי points unquestionably to this. בְּנִי is taken from Eze 21:9, where the patriarch addresses Judah, whom he compares to a young lion, as בְּנִי. 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 שֵׁבֶט 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. וַיִּתֵּן in Eze 21:11 is to be taken adversatively, “but he gave it (the sword) to be sharpened.” The subject to וַיִּתֵּן 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 הִיא הוּחַדָּה חֶרֶב, חֶרֶב is in apposition to the subject הִיא, 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 הִיא as referring to הֶרֶב, הָיָה בְ, to be at a person, to fasten to him, to come upon him, as in 1Sa 24:14; 2Sa 24:17. מְגוּרֵי, not from גּוּר, but the passive participle of מָגַר 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). בֹּחַן, 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 וּמָה contains an aposiopesis: and what? Even if the despising sceptre shall not come, what will be the case then? שֵׁבֶט מֹאֶסֶת, according to Eze 21:10, is the sceptre of Judah, which despises all other sceptres as bad wood. יִהְיֶה, 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 (שְׁלִישִׁתָה, 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 חֶבֶב חֲלָלִים, 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 חָלָל should have been chosen, when the expression was repeated, instead of the plural חֲלָלִים; and secondly, חַגָּדֹול cannot be an adjective agreeing with חֶרֶב, for חרב is a noun of the feminine gender, and is construed here as a feminine, as הַחֹדֶרֶת clearly shows. הַגָּדֹול is in apposition to חָלָל, “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 (לְמַעַן, pleonastic for לְמַעַן) 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. אִבְחַת signifies the rapid motion or turning about of the sword (cf. Gen 3:24); אבח, related to הפךְֹ, in the Mishna אפךְ. The ἁπ. λεγ. ְמעֻטָּה, fem. of מָעֹט, does not mean smooth, i.e., sharpened, synonymous with מָרַט, 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. הִתְאַחֲדִי, gather thyself up, i.e., turn with all thy might toward the right (Tanchum). To the verb הָשִׂימוּ it is easy to supply פָּנַיִךְ, from the context, “direct thine edge toward the left.” אָנָה, whither, without an interrogative, as in Jos 2:5 and Neh 2:16. מֻעָדֹות, from יָעַד, intended, ordered; not, directed, turned. The feminine form may be accounted for from a construction ad sensum, the gender regulating itself according to the חֶרֶב addressed in פָּנַיִךְ. 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).