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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Ezekiel 6:11 - 6:11
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The Punishment Is Just and Well Deserved
Eze 6:11. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Smite with thy hand, and stamp with thy foot, and say, Woe on all the wicked abominations of the house of Israel! that they must perish by sword, hunger, and pestilence. Eze 6:12. He that is afar off will die by the pestilence; and he that is near at hand shall fall by the sword; and he who survives and is preserved will die of hunger: and I shall accomplish my wrath upon them. Eze 6:13. And ye shall know that I am Jehovah, when your slain lie in the midst of your idols round about your altars, on every high hill, upon all the summits of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick-leaved terebinth, on the places where they brought their pleasant incense to all their idols. Eze 6:14. And I will stretch out my hand against them, and make the land waste and desolate more than the wilderness of Diblath, in all their dwellings: so shall ye know that I am Jehovah. - Through clapping of the hands and stamping of the feet - the gestures which indicate violent excitement - the prophet is to make known to the displeasure of Jehovah at the horrible idolatry of the people, and thereby make manifest that the penal judgment is well deserved. הַכֵּה בְכַפְּךָ is in Eze 21:19 expressed more distinctly by הַךְ כַּף אֶל , “to strike one hand against the other,” i.e., “to clap the hands;” cf. Num 24:10. אָח, an exclamation of lamentation, occurring only here and in Eze 21:20. אֲשֶׁר, Eze 6:11, is a conjunction, “at.” Their abominations are so wicked, that they must be exterminated on account of them. This is specially mentioned in Eze 6:12. No one will escape the judgment: he who is far removed from its scene as little as he who is close at hand; while he who escapes the pestilence and the sword is to perish of hunger. נָצוּר, servatus, preserved, as in Isa 49:6. The signification “besieged” (lxx, Vulgate, Targum, etc.), Hitzig can only maintain by arbitrarily expunging הַנִּשְׁאָר as a gloss. On Eze 6:12, cf. Eze 5:13; on 13a, cf. Eze 6:5; and on 13b, cf. Eze 6:3, and Hos 4:13; Jer 2:20; Jer 3:6; Deu 12:2. 'אֶל כָּל־גב, according to later usage, for עַל כָּל־גב. רֵיחַ נִיחֹחַ, used in the Pentateuch of sacrifices pleasing to God, is here transferred to idol sacrifices; see on Lev 1:9 and Gen 8:21. On account of the prevalence of idolatry in all parts, God will make the land entirely desolate. The union of שְׁמָמָה serves to strengthen the idea; cf. Eze 33:8., Eze 35:3. The words מִמִּדְבַּר דִּבְלָתָה are obscure, either “in the wilderness towards Diblath” (even to Diblath), or “more than the wilderness of Diblath” (מִן of comparison). There is no doubt that דִּבְלָתָה is a nom. prop.; cf. the name of the city דִּבְלָתַיִם in Jer 48:22; Num 33:46. The second acceptation of the words is more probable than the first. For, if מִמִּדְבַּר is the terminus a quo, and דִּבְלָתָה the terminus ad quem of the extent of the land, then must מִמִּדְבָּר be punctuated not only as status absolut., but it must also have the article; because a definite wilderness - that, namely, of Arabia - is meant. The omission of the article cannot be justified by reference to Eze 21:3 or to Psa 75:7 (Hitzig, Ewald), because both passages contain general designations of the quarters of the world, with which the article is always omitted. In the next place, no Dibla can be pointed out in the north; and the change of Diblatha into Ribla, already proposed by Jerome, and more recently brought forward again by J. D. Michaelis, has not only against it the authority of all the old versions, but also the circumstance that the Ribla mentioned in 2Ki 23:33 did not form the northern boundary of Palestine, but lay on the other side of it, in the land of Hamath; while the הָרִבְלָה, named in Num 34:11, is a place on the eastern boundary to the north of the Sea of Gennesareth, which would, moreover, be inappropriate as a designation of the northern boundary. Finally, the extent of the land from the south to the north is constantly expressed in a different way; cf. Num 23:21 (Num 34:8); Jos 13:5; 1Ki 8:65; 2 Kings 14:65; Amo 6:14; 1Ch 13:5; 2Ch 7:8; and even by Ezekiel himself (Eze 48:1) לְבֹוא is named as the boundary on the north. The form דִּבְלָתָה is similar to תִּמְנָתָה for תִּמְנָה, although the name is hardly to be explained, with Hävernick, as an appellation, after the Arabic dibl, calamitas, exitium. The wilderness of Diblah is unknown. With 'וְיָדְעוּ כִּי וגו the discourse is rounded off in returning to the beginning of Eze 6:13, while the thoughts in Eze 6:13 and Eze 6:14 are only a variation of Eze 6:4-7.