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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Ezekiel 7:10 - 7:10
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Second Strophe
Eze 7:10. Behold the day, behold, it cometh; the fate springeth up; the rod sprouteth; the pride blossometh. Eze 7:11. The violence riseth up as the rod of evil: nothing of them, nothing of their multitude, nothing of their crowd, and nothing glorious upon them. Eze 7:12. The time cometh, the day approacheth: let not the buyer rejoice, and let not the seller trouble himself; for wrath cometh upon the whole multitude thereof. Eze 7:13. For the seller will not return to that which was sold, even though his life were still among the living: for the prophecy against its whole multitude will not turn back; and no one will strengthen himself as to his life through his iniquity. Eze 7:14. They blow the trumpet and make everything ready; but no one goeth into the battle: for my wrath cometh upon all their multitude. - The rod is already prepared; nothing will be left of the ungodly. This is the leading thought of the strophe. The three clauses of Eze 7:10 are synonymous; but there is a gradation in the thought. The approaching fate springs up out of the earth (יָצָא, applied to the springing up of plants, as in 1Ki 5:13; Isa 11:1, etc.); it sprouts as a rod, and flowers as pride. Matteh, the rod as an instrument of chastisement (Isa 10:5). This rod is then called za=dho4n, pride, inasmuch as God makes use of a proud and violent people, namely the Chaldeans (Hab 1:6.; Jer 50:31 seq.), to inflict the punishment. Sprouting and blossoming, which are generally used as figurative representations of fresh and joyous prosperity, denote here the vigorous growth of that power which is destined to inflict the punishment. Both châmâs (violence) and zâdhōn (pride) refer to the enemy who is to chastise Israel. The violence which he employs rises up into the chastening rod of “evil,” i.e., of ungodly Israel. In Eze 7:11 the effect of the blow is described in short, broken sentences. The emotion apparent in the frequent repetition of לֹא is intensified by the omission of the verb, which gives to the several clauses the character of exclamations. So far as the meaning is concerned, we have to insert יִהְיֶה in thought, and to take מִן ekat o in a partitive sense: there will not be anything of them, i.e., nothing will be left of them (the Israelites, or the inhabitants of the land). מֵהֶם (of them) is explained by the nouns which follow. הָמֹון and the ἁπ. λεγ. לחולם, plural of הָם or הָמֶה, both derivatives of הָמָה, are so combined that הָמֹון signifies the tumultuous multitude of people, הָמֶה the multitude of possessions (like הָמֹון, Isa 60:2; Psa 37:16, etc.). The meaning which Hävernick assigns to hâmeh, viz., anxiety or trouble, is unsupported and inappropriate. The ἁπ λεγ. נֹהּ is not to be derived from נָהָה, to lament, as the Rabbins affirm; or interpreted, as Kimchi - who adopts this derivation - maintains, on the ground of Jer 16:4., as signifying that, on account of the multitude of the dying, there will be no more lamentation for the dead. This leaves the Mappik in ה unexplained. נֹהּ is a derivative of a root נָוָהּ; in Arabic, na=ha, elata fuit res, eminuit, magnificus fuit; hence ,נֹהּres magnifica. When everything disappears in such a way as this, the joy occasioned by the acquisition of property, and the sorrow caused by its loss, will also pass away (Eze 7:12). The buyer will not rejoice in the property he has bought, for he will not be able to enjoy it; and the seller will not mourn that he has been obliged to part with his possession, for he would have lost it in any case.
(Note: “It is a natural thing to rejoice in the purchase of property, and to mourn over its sale. But when slavery and captivity stare you in the face, rejoicing and mourning are equally absurd.” - Jerome.)
The wrath of God is kindled against their whole multitude; that is to say, the judgment falls equally upon them all. The suffix in הֲמֹונָהּ refers, as Jerome has correctly shown, to the “land of Israel” (admath, Yisrâeel) in Eze 7:2, i.e., to the inhabitants of the land. The words, “the seller will not return to what he has sold,” are to be explained from the legal regulations concerning the year of Jubilee in Lev 25, according to which all landed property that had been sold was to revert to its original owner (or his heir), without compensation, in the year of jubilee; so that he would then return to his mimkâr (Lev 25:14, Lev 25:27-28). Henceforth, however, this will take place no more, even if הַיָּתָם, their (the sellers') life, should be still alive (sc., at the time when the return to his property would take place, according to the regulations of the year of jubilee), because Israel will be banished from the land. The clause 'וְעֹוד בּחַיִּים ה is a conditional circumstantial clause. The seller will not return (לֹא יָשׁוּב) to his possession, because the prophecy concerning the whole multitude of the people will not return (לֹא), i.e., will not turn back (for this meaning of שׁוּב, compare Isa 45:23; Isa 55:11). As לֹא יָשׁוּב corresponds to the previous לֹא יָשׁוּב, so does חָזֹון אֶת־כֹּל הֲמֹונָהּ to חָרֹון אֲֶל־כָּל־המֹונָהּ in Eze 7:12. In the last clause of Eze 7:13, חַיָּתֹו is not to be taken with בַּעֲֹונֹו in the sense of “in the iniquity of his life,” which makes the suffix in בַּעֲֹונֹו superfluous, but with יִתְחַזָּקוּ, the Hithpael being construed with the accusative, “strengthen himself in his life.” Whether these words also refer to the year of jubilee, as Hävernick supposes, inasmuch as the regulation that every one was to recover his property was founded upon the idea of the restitution and re-creation of the theocracy, we may leave undecided; since the thought is evidently simply this: ungodly Israel shall be deprived of its possession, because the wicked shall not obtain the strengthening of his life through his sin. This thought leads on to Eze 7:14, in which we have a description of the utter inability to offer any successful resistance to the enemy employed in executing the judgment. There is some difficulty connected with the word בַּתָּקֹועַ, since the infin. absolute, which the form תָּקֹועַ seems to indicate, cannot be construed with either a preposition or the article. Even if the expression ִּבִתְּקֹועַ תִּקְעוּ in Jer 6:1 was floating before the mind of Ezekiel, and led to his employing the bold phrase ַּבַתְּקֹועַ, this would not justify the use of the infinitive absolute with a preposition and the article. תָּקֹועַ must be a substantive form, and denote not clangour, but the instrument used to sound an alarm, viz., the shōphâr (Eze 33:3). הָכִין, an unusual form of the inf. abs. (see Jos 7:7), used in the place of the finite tense, and signifying to equip for war, as in Nah 2:4. הַכֹּל, everything requisite for waging war. And no one goes into the battle, because the wrath of God turns against them (Lev 26:17), and smites them with despair (Deu 32:30).