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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Ezekiel 6:1 - 6:1
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The Desolation of the Land, and Destruction of the Idolaters
Eze 6:1. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Eze 6:2. Son of man, turn thy face towards the mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them. Eze 6:3. And say, Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord Jehovah: Thus saith the Lord Jehovah to the mountains, and to the hills, to the valleys, and to the low grounds, Behold, I bring the sword upon you, and destroy your high places. Eze 6:4. Your altars shall be made desolate, and your sun-pillars shall be broken; and I shall make your slain fall in the presence of your idols. Eze 6:5. And I will lay the corpses of the children of Israel before their idols, and will scatter your bones round about your altars. Eze 6:6. In all your dwellings shall the cities be made desolate, and the high places waste; that your altars may be desolate and waste, and your idols broken and destroyed, and your sun-pillars hewn down, and the works of your hands exterminated. Eze 6:7. And the slain will fall in your midst; that you may know that I am Jehovah. - With Eze 6:1 cf. Eze 3:16. The prophet is to prophesy against the mountains of Israel. That the mountains are mentioned (Eze 6:2) as pars pro toto, is seen from Eze 6:3, when to the mountains and hills are added also the valleys and low grounds, as the places where idolatry was specially practised; cf. Hos 4:13; Jer 2:20; Jer 3:6; see on Hos. l.c. and Deu 12:2. אֲפִיקִים, in the older writings, denotes the “river channels,” “the beds of the stream;” but Ezekiel uses the word as equivalent to valley, i.e., נַחַל, a valley with a brook or stream, like the Arabic wady. גַּיְא, properly “deepening,” “the deep ground,” “the deep valley;” on the form גֵּאָיֹות, cf. Ewald, §186da. The juxtaposition of mountains and hills, of valleys and low grounds, occurs again in Eze 36:4, Eze 36:6, and Eze 35:8; the opposition between mountains and valleys also, in Eze 32:5-6, and Eze 24:13. The valleys are to be conceived of as furnished with trees and groves, under the shadow of which the worship of Astarte especially was practised; see on v. 15. On the mountains and in the valleys were sanctuaries erected to Baal and Astarte. The announcement of their destruction is appended to the threatening in Lev 26:30, which Ezekiel takes up and describes at greater length. Beside the בָּמֹות, the places of sacrifice and worship, and the חַמָּנִים, pillars or statues of Baal, dedicated to him as the sun-god, he names also the altars, which, in Lev. l.c. and other places, are comprehended along with the בָּמֹות eht htiw; see on Lev 26:30 and 1Ki 3:3. With the destruction of the idol temples, altars, and statues, the idol-worshippers are also to be smitten, so as to fall down in the presence of their idols. The fundamental meaning of the word גִּלּוּלִים, “idols,” borrowed from Lev. l.c., and frequently employed by Ezekiel, is uncertain; signifying either “logs of wood,” from גָּלַל, “to roll” (Gesen.), or stercorei, from גֵּל, “dung;” not “monuments of stone” (Hävernick). Eze 6:5 is taken quite literally from Lev 26:30. The ignominy of the destruction is heightened by the bones of the slain idolaters being scattered round about the idol altars. In order that the idolatry may be entirely rooted out, the cities throughout the whole land, and all the high places, are to be devastated, Eze 6:6. The forms תִּישָׁמְנָה and יֶאְשְׁמוּ are probably not to be derived from שָׁמֵם (Ewald, §138b), but to be referred back to a stem-form יָשֵׁם, with the signification of שָׁמֵם, the existence of which appears certain from the old name יְשִׁימֹון in Ps 68 and elsewhere. The א in יאשׁמו is certainly only mater lectonis. In Eze 6:7, the singular חָלָל stands as indefinitely general. The thought, “slain will fall in your midst,” involves the idea that not all the people will fall, but that there will survive some who are saved, and prepares for what follows. The falling of the slain - the idolaters with their idols - leads to the recognition of Jehovah as the omnipotent God, and to conversion to Him.