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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Ezekiel 9:1 - 9:1
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The Angels which Smite Jerusalem
At the call of Jehovah, His servants appear to execute the judgment. - Eze 9:1. And He called in my ears with a loud voice, saying, Come hither, ye watchmen of the city, and every one his instrument of destruction in his hand. Eze 9:2. And behold six men came by the way of the upper gage, which is directed toward the north, every one with his smashing-tool in his hand; and a man in the midst of them, clothed in white linen, and writing materials by his hip; and they came and stood near the brazen altar. Eze 9:3. And the glory of the God of Israel rose up from the cherub, upon which it was, to the threshold of the house, and called to the man clothed in white linen, by whose hip the writing materials were. - פְּקֻדֹּות הָעִיר does not mean the punishments of the city. This rendering does not suit the context, since it is not the punishments that are introduced, but the men who execute them; and it is not established by the usage of the language. פְּקֻדָּה is frequently used, no doubt, in the sense of visitation or chastisement (e.g., Isa 10:3; Hos 9:7); but it is not met with in the plural in this sense. In the plural it only occurs in the sense of supervision or protectorate, in which sense it occurs not only in Jer 52:11 and Eze 44:11, but also (in the singular) in Isa 60:17, and as early as Num 3:38, where it relates to the presidency of the priests, and very frequently in the Chronicles. Consequently פְּקֻדֹּות are those whom God has appointed to watch over the city, the city-guard (2Ki 11:18), - not earthly, but heavenly watchmen, - who are now to inflict punishment upon the ungodly, as the authorities appointed by God. קָֽרְבוּ is an imperative Piel, as in Isa 41:21, and must not be altered into קִרְבוּ (Kal), as Hitzig proposes. The Piel is used in an intransitive sense, festinanter appropinquavit, as in Eze 36:8. The persons called come by the way of the upper northern gate of the temple, to take their stand before Jehovah, whose glory had appeared in the inner court. The upper gate is the gate leading from the outer court to the inner, or upper court, which stood on higher ground, - the gate mentioned in Eze 8:3 and Eze 8:5. In the midst of the six men furnished with smashing-tools there was one clothed in white byssus, with writing materials at his side. The dress and equipment, as well as the instructions which he afterwards receives and executes, show him to be the prince or leader of the others.
Kliefoth calls in question the opinion that these seven men are angels; but without any reason. Angels appearing in human form are frequently called אֲנָשִׁים or אִישׁ, according to their external habitus. But the number seven neither presupposes the dogma of the seven archangels, nor is copied from the seven Parsic amschaspands. The dress worn by the high priest, when presenting the sin-offering on the great day of atonement (Lev 16:4, Lev 16:23), was made of בָּד, i.e., of white material woven from byssus thread (see the comm. on Exo 28:42). It has been inferred from this, that the figure clothed in white linen was the angel of Jehovah, who appears as the heavenly high priest, to protect and care for his own. In support of this, the circumstance may be also adduced, that the man whom Daniel saw above the water of the Tigris, and whose appearance is described, in Dan 10:5-6, in the same manner as that of Jehovah in Eze 1:4, Eze 1:26-27, and that of the risen Christ in Rev 1:13-15, appears clothed in בַּדִּים (Dan 10:5; Dan 12:6-7).
(Note: לָבוּשׁ בַּדִּים is rendered by the lxx, in the passage before us, ἐνδεδυκώς ποδήρῃ. It is in accordance with this that Christ is described in Rev 1:13 as clothed with a ποδήρης, and not after Dan 10:5, as Hengstenberg supposes. In Dan 10:5, the Septuagint has ἐνδεδυμένος βαδδίν or τὰ βαδδίν. In other places, the Sept. rendering of בָּד is λίνον (thus Lev 16:4, Lev 16:23; Lev 6:3; Exo 28:42, etc.); and hence the λίνον λαμπρόν of Rev 15:6 answers to the בָּד made of שֵׁשׁ, βύσσος, and is really the same as the βύσσινον λαμπρόν of Rev 19:8.)
Nevertheless, we cannot regard this view as established. The shining white talar, which is evidently meant by the plural בַּדִּים, occurring only here and in Daniel (ut. sup.), is not a dress peculiar to the angel of Jehovah or to Christ. The seven angels, with the vials of wrath, also appear in garments of shining white linen (ἐνδεδυμένοι λίνον καθαρὸν λαμπρόν, Rev 15:6); and the shining white colour, as a symbolical representation of divine holiness and glory (see comm. on Lev 16:4 and Rev 19:8), is the colour generally chosen for the clothing both of the heavenly spirits and of “just men made perfect” (Rev 19:8). Moreover, the angel with the writing materials here is described in a totally different manner from the appearance of Jehovah in Ezekiel 1 and Daniel 10, or that of Christ in Rev 1; and there is nothing whatever to indicate a being equal with God. Again, the distinction between him and the other six men leads to no other conclusion, than that he stood in the same relation to them as the high priest to the Levites, or the chancellor to the other officials. This position is indicated by the writing materials on his hips, i.e., in the girdle on his hips, in which scribes in the East are accustomed to carry their writing materials (vid., Rosenmüller, A. u. N. Morgenland, IV. p. 323). He is provided with these for the execution of the commission given to him in Eze 9:4. In this way the description can be very simply explained, without the slightest necessity for our resorting to Babylonian representations of the god Nebo, i.e., Mercury, as the scribe of heaven. The seven men take their station by the altar of burnt-offering, because the glory of God, whose commands they were about to receive, had taken up its position there for the moment (Kliefoth); not because the apostate priesthood was stationed there (Hävernick). The glory of Jehovah, however, rose up from the cherub to the threshold of the house. The meaning of this is not that it removed from the interior of the sanctuary to the outer threshold of the temple-building (Hävernick), for it was already stationed, according to Eze 8:16, above the cherub, between the porch and the altar. It went back from thence to the threshold of the temple-porch, through which one entered the Holy Place, to give its orders there. The reason for leaving its place above the cherubim (the singular כְּרוּב is used collectively) to do this, was not that “God would have had to turn round in order to address the seven from the throne, since, according to Eze 8:4 and Eze 8:16, He had gone from the north gate of the outer court into the inner court, and His servants had followed Him” (Hitzig); for the cherubim moved in all four directions, and therefore God, even from the throne, could turn without difficulty to every side. God left His throne, that He might issue His command for the judgment upon Israel from the threshold of the temple, and show Himself to be the judge who would forsake the throne which He had assumed in Israel. This command He issues from the temple court, because the temple was the place whence God attested Himself to His people, both by mercy and judgment.