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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMatthew Poole Commentary - Ezekiel 21:21 - 21:21
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The prophet, by reason of the certainty of the thing, speaketh of what shall be as if it were already; he stood, i.e. he will make a halt, pitch his camp, and consult, on the borders of Arabia the Desert, to which one road brings travellers from Babylon, but henceforward it divides, and be comes two, one leading to Jerusalem, the other to Rabbath
To use divination; to consult with his gods, and to cast lots; and here the prophet foretells what divination he useth.
Made his arrows bright: this, the first kind of divination he used by arrows, (Begouanteia,) either writing on then the names of the cities and countries, then putting then into a quiver, and there mixing them, and thence drawing them out, and concluding according as the names were which were on the arrows, or perhaps by shooting the arrows and judging by the flight, or casting them up in the air and divining by their fall, as beggars are said to go a their staff falls. So then if Jerusalem were on the first arrow drawn out of the quiver, or if the arrows best ties or most fell that way, toward Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar will take that way. The next way of divining was by asking counsel of his idol, or image, which being made artificially by the skill of their juggling priests and conjurers, with little help they could give answers, and the image spake aloud what the sorcerer spake more softly, somewhat like the artificial whispering places which convey the voice, from unseen persons. Or by a Divine permission the devil gave them answers from those images. The third divination is by sacrifice, and judging of future prosperous or unprosperous events by the entrails, and more especially by the liver, its position and colour. All these he used, that with greater confidence of success he might proceed.