Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadEzekiel, Jonah, and Pastoral Epistles by Patrick Fairbairn - Ezekiel 21:28 - 21:32
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Eze_21:28. And thou, son of man, prophesy and say: Thus saith the Lord Jehovah concerning the Ammonites and their reproach (or scorn); even say thou, A sword, a sword, drawn for slaughter, furbished to the utmost, (The literal rendering here (taking ìְäָëִéì as the infinitive of ëּååֹì which seems the most natural derivation) would be—furbished for what it was capable, or as much as possible; the infinitive of the verb being taken adverbially.) that it might flash!
Eze_21:29. While they see nothingness for thee, while they divine lies to thee (while this delusive process is going on, and thou art giving heed to it, there is that drawn and furbished sword flashing in the distance), to lay thee upon the necks of the pierced-through godless ones, whose day has come, at the time of the final iniquity. (The meaning seems to be, that these Ammonites were to be added to the slain in Judah, —thrown, as it were, upon the decapitated bodies of those wicked men who had there perished in judgment, and whom they had imitated in their foolhardy and sinful ways.)
Eze_21:30. Let it return to the scabbard; in the place where thou wast formed, in the land of thy nativity, will I judge thee. (The destruction was to overtake them in their own territory; and the sentence at the beginning of the verse, “Let it return to the scabbard,” may be understood thus:—The sword must do the work of destruction for which it is drawn; do not trouble yourselves to move out of your place; let it do its work, and then be sheathed; it is in vain to resist or strive against the doom.)
Eze_21:31. And I will pour out my indignation upon thee; with the fire of my wrath will I blow upon thee, and will give thee into the hand of savage men, forgers of destroying weapons. (The word here is singular in the Hebrew, îַùְּׁçִéú , though it scarcely admits of being rendered but in the plural,—forgers of that which destroys—slaughter-weapons. There is an evident allusion to the language in Isa_54:16. But compare also Jer_5:26.)
Eze_21:32. Thou shalt be for fuel to the fire; thy blood shall be in the midst of the land; thou shalt not be remembered, for I Jehovah have spoken it.
Here all is darkness, trouble, and desolation. The Ammonites had not only sinned, like other heathen nations, but they had also taken up a taunt and reproach against the covenant-people in the time of their declension, and had pressed forward, and, in the proud spirit of conquerors, spread themselves over a part of Israel’s territory (Zep_2:8; Jer_49:1). They might, therefore, be fitly taken here as representatives of the enemies generally of the people of God. And in them the Lord was going to show, by a palpable demonstration, that while Israel could not escape this righteous judgment, when they walked like the heathen, their fall would be no gain to the heathen adversaries, but only the forerunner of a still more severe, even a remediless destruction. A germ of life and blessing still existed in the one, which Babylon with all its might could not extirpate; but in the other there was no such divine element, and when the sword of vengeance was drawn, it must accomplish a final end. So was it with the Ammonites as a people. A few years after the fall of Jerusalem,, the arms of the king of Babylon were turned against them, and desolated their country. But this was only the beginning of their troubles, for they never attained again to political power and importance; they gradually dwindled away, till their separate existence ceased, and their place was no more known. “So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord (so shall they indeed perish—in the destruction of these aliens and scorners the doom of all is reflected); but let them that love thee be as the sun when he goeth forth in his strength.”