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Ezekiel Chapter
Twenty-five
Ezekiel 25
Chapter Contents
Judgments against the Ammonites. (1-7) Against the
Moabites, Edomites, and Philistines. (8-17)
Commentary on Ezekiel 25:1-7.
(Read Ezekiel 25:1-7.)
It is wicked to be glad at the calamities of any,
especially of God's people; it is a sin for which he will surely reckon. God
will make it appear that he is the God of Israel, though he suffers them for a
time to be captives in Babylon. It is better to know Him, and to be poor, than
to be rich and ignorant of him.
Commentary on Ezekiel 25:8-17
(Read Ezekiel 25:8-17)
Though one event seem to the righteous and wicked, it is
vastly different. Those who glory in any other defence and protection than the
Divine power, providence, and promise, will, sooner or later, be ashamed of
their glorying. Those who will not leave it to God to take vengeance for them,
may expect that he will take vengeance on them. The equity of the Lord's
judgments is to be observed, when he not only avenges injuries upon those that
did them, but by those against whom they were done. Those who treasure up old
hatred, and watch for the opportunity of manifesting it, are treasuring up for
themselves wrath against the day of wrath.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Ezekiel》
Ezekiel 25
Verse 3
[3] And say unto the Ammonites, Hear the word of the Lord
GOD; Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou saidst, Aha, against my sanctuary,
when it was profaned; and against the land of Israel, when it was desolate; and
against the house of Judah, when they went into captivity;
Aha — When thou shouldest have pitied, thou didst proudly
insult over my people.
Verse 4
[4] Behold, therefore I will deliver thee to the men of the
east for a possession, and they shall set their palaces in thee, and make their
dwellings in thee: they shall eat thy fruit, and they shall drink thy milk.
The men of the east — The Arabians,
associates of Nebuchadnezzar, who recompensed their service, with giving them
this country when it was conquered, as it was five years after the desolation
of Jerusalem.
Verse 5
[5] And I will make Rabbah a stable for camels, and the
Ammonites a couchingplace for flocks: and ye shall know that I am the LORD.
Rabbah — The royal city, called since Philadelphia from the
king of Egypt who built it.
The Ammonites — The land they dwelt in.
Verse 7
[7] Behold, therefore I will stretch out mine hand upon
thee, and will deliver thee for a spoil to the heathen; and I will cut thee off
from the people, and I will cause thee to perish out of the countries: I will
destroy thee; and thou shalt know that I am the LORD.
Know — Thus God will bring those that were strangers to him
into an acquaintance with him, and it will be a blessed effect of their calamities.
How much better is it, to be poor and know God, than to be rich, and ignorant
of him?
Verse 8
[8] Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because that Moab and Seir do
say, Behold, the house of Judah is like unto all the heathen;
Seir — The seed of Esau, the Edomites. Seir was the mountain
where they first planted themselves.
Is like — Are no more a select people than others.
Verse 9
[9] Therefore, behold, I will open the side of Moab from the
cities, from his cities which are on his frontiers, the glory of the country,
Bethjeshimoth, Baalmeon, and Kiriathaim,
The side — That part of his country which was best fortified.
Bethjeshimoth — An ancient city; it was a
fortress toward the desert, which watched lest any should make an inroad on the
country.
Verse 10
[10] Unto the men of the east with the Ammonites, and will
give them in possession, that the Ammonites may not be remembered among the
nations.
With the Ammonites — As I have given
Ammon, so I will with them give Moab to the Chaldeans, who will give it to the Arabians.
Verse 13
[13] Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; I will also stretch
out mine hand upon Edom, and will cut off man and beast from it; and I will
make it desolate from Teman; and they of Dedan shall fall by the sword.
Teman — A country in the southern coast of Edom.
Dedan — Adjoining to Edom.
Verse 15
[15] Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because the Philistines have
dealt by revenge, and have taken vengeance with a despiteful heart, to destroy
it for the old hatred;
It — Israel.
Verse 16
[16] Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will
stretch out mine hand upon the Philistines, and I will cut off the Cherethims,
and destroy the remnant of the sea coast.
The Cherethim — The bowmen, the strength of
Philistia.
The remnant — Who had escaped the sword of
Samuel, David, Hezekiah, and of Psammetichus king of Egypt.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Ezekiel》
25 Chapter 25
Verses 1-17
Verses 1-7
Set thy face against the Ammonites.
Prophecies against foreign nations
At the outset it must be understood that prophecies of this kind
form part of Jehovah’s message to Israel. Although they are usually cast in the
form of direct address to foreign peoples, this must not lead us to imagine
that they were intended for actual publication in the countries to which they
refer. A prophet’s real audience always consisted of his own countrymen,
whether his discourse was about themselves or about their neighbours. And it is
easy to see that it was impossible to declare the purpose of God concerning
Israel in words that came home to men’s business and bosoms, without taking
account of the state and the destiny of other nations. Just as it would not be
possible nowadays to forecast the future of Egypt without alluding to the fate
of the Ottoman Empire, so it was not possible then to describe the future of
Israel in the concrete manner characteristic of the prophets without indicating
the place reserved for those peoples with whom it had close intercourse.
Besides this, a large part of the national consciousness of Israel was made up
of interests, friendly or the reverse, in neighbouring states. We cannot read
the utterances of the prophets with regard to any of these nationalities without
seeing that they often appeal to perceptions deeply lodged in the popular mind,
which could be utilised to convey the spiritual lessons which the prophets
desired to teach. It must not be supposed, however, that such prophecies are in
any degree the expression of national vanity or jealousy. What the prophets aim
at is to elevate the thoughts of Israel to the sphere of eternal truths of the
kingdom of God; and it is only in so far as these can be made to touch the
conscience of the nation at this point that they appeal to what we may call its
international sentiments. Now, the question we have to ask is, What spiritual
purpose for Israel is served by the announcements of the destiny of the
outlying heathen populations? Speaking generally, prophecies of this class had
a moral value for two reasons. In the first place, they re-echo and confirm the
sentence of judgment passed on Israel herself. They do this in two ways: they
illustrate the principle on which Jehovah deals with His own people, and His
character as the righteous judge of men. Wherever a “sinful kingdom” was found,
whether in Israel or elsewhere, that kingdom must be removed from its place
among the nations. But again, not only was the principle of the judgment
emphasised, but the manner in which it was to be carried out was more clearly
exhibited. In all cases the pre-exilic prophets announce that the overthrow of
the Hebrew states was to be effected either by the Assyrians or the
Babylonians. These great world powers were in succession the instruments
fashioned and used by Jehovah for the performance of His great work in the
earth. Now it was manifest that if this anticipation was well founded, it
involved the overthrow of all the nations in immediate contact with Israel. The
people of Israel or Judah were thus taught to look on their fate as involved in
a great scheme of Divine providence, overturning all the existing relations
which gave them a place among the nations of the world, and preparing for a new
development of the purpose of Jehovah in the future. When we turn to that ideal
future we find a second and more suggestive aspect of these prophecies against
the heathen. All the prophets teach that the destiny of Israel is inseparably
bound up with the future of God’s kingdom on earth. What men needed to be
taught then, and what we need to remember still, is that each nation holds its
position in subordination to the ends of God’s government; that no power or
wisdom or refinement will save a state from destruction when it ceases to serve
the interests of His kingdom. The foreign peoples that come under the survey of
the prophets are as yet strangers to the true God, and are therefore destitute
of that which could secure them a place in the reconstruction of political
relationships of which Israel is to be the religious centre. And whether any
particular nation should survive to participate in the glories of that latter
day depends on the view taken of its present condition and its fitness for
incorporation in the universal empire of Jehovah soon to be established. We now
know that this was not the form in which Jehovah’s purpose of salvation was
destined to be realised in the history of the world. Since the coming of Christ
the people of Israel has lost its distinctive and central position as the
bearer of the hopes and promises of the true religion. In its place we have a
spiritual kingdom of men united by faith in Jesus Christ, and in the worship of
one Father in spirit and in truth--a kingdom which from its very nature can
have no local centre or political organisation. Hence the conversion of the
heathen can no longer be conceived as national homage paid to the seat of
Jehovah’s sovereignty on Zion; nor is the unfolding of the Divine plan of
universal salvation bound up with the extinction of the nationalities which
once symbolised the hostility of the world to the kingdom of God. This fact has
an important bearing on the question of the fulfilment of the foreign
prophecies of the Old Testament. As concrete embodiments of the eternal
principles exhibited in the rise and fall of nations, they have an abiding
significance for the Church in all ages; but the actual working out of these
principles in history could not, in the nature of things, be complete within
the limits of the world known to the inhabitants of Judaea. If we are to look
for their ideal fulfilment, we shall only find it in the progressive victory of
Christianity over all forms of error and superstition, and in the dedication of
all the resources of human civilisation--its wealth, its commercial enterprise,
its political power--to the advancement of the kingdom of our God and His
Christ. (John Skinner, M. A.)
Verse 2
I shall be replenished, now she is laid waste.
Designs of avarice defeated
All their (the Tyrians) care was to get estates and enlarge their
trade, and they looked upon Jerusalem not as an enemy, but as a rival. Tyre
promised herself that the fall of Jerusalem would be an advantage to her in
respect of trade and commerce, that now she shall have Jerusalem’s customers.
To be secretly pleased with the death or decay of others, when we are likely to
get by it, with their fall when we may thrive upon it, is a sin that does most
easily beset us. This comes from a want of that love to our neighbour as to
ourselves which the law of God so expressly requires, and from that inordinate
love of the world as our happiness which the love of God so expressly forbids.
And it is just with God to blast the designs and projects of those who thus
contrive to raise themselves upon the ruins of others; and we see they are
often disappointed (M. Henry.)
.
Verse 3
I am against thee, O Tyrus.
On the importance of having God for our friend
That vengeance belongs unto God is emphatically declared in the
book of God (Romans 12:19). And exemplary is the
vengeance with which the Almighty has from time to time visited, not only those
who had either arrayed themselves in hostility against Himself, His Word, or
His servants; but those who had, without His sanction, either assailed or
oppressed His people Nor individuals merely, but assemblages of men,--nay,
cities,--and even nations, have often, in a sudden and calamitous overthrow,
borne memorable testimony to the truth of these remarks. My text refers to an
occasion of the kind. The Tyrians, so called from their chief city, Tyre, but
also known by the name of Phoenicians, were at one time the most commercial,
most opulent, and, at the same time, proudest people of the oriental world.
Shipbuilding was prosecuted to a vast extent at this celebrated place. The
carrying trade, too, of most of the mercantile world was in the hands of the
Tyrians; besides which the city was the grand depot for the rarest and richest
productions of distant nations. Gold, spices, and precious stones from
Ethiopia, and the coast of Arabia;--emeralds, fine linen and embroidery work,
coral, agate, and wool of delicate hue as well as texture, from Damascus and
other parts of Syria;--chests of cedar for bestowing fragrancy on splendid
apparel, and splendid apparel itself in ample quantity, from Mesopotamia and
other bordering countries;--wheat, honey, oil, and balm, as well as wrought
iron, steel, and aromatic gums, from various quarters of Palestine;--silver,
iron, tin, and lead, from Tarshish, a place itself of considerable maritime
trade;--brazen vessels, and, alas! slaves, from Ionia;--lambs, with other
creatures used as provisions, from Arabia;--and ivory from sundry parts of the
east:--all these commodities, useful, ornamental, costly, elegant, and various,
brought in abundance into Tyre, were sold in her fairs and markets; whence they
were exported, or otherwise dispersed, into different and distant countries,
cities, and provinces. The consequence was, that Tyre spread itself till it was
nearly twenty miles in circumference; containing, ‘tis probable, nearly one
million of souls. Further, such was the luxurious prodigality that sprung from
the opulence which flowed in upon Tyre from her vast commerce, that not only
were the people very generally clad in costly stuffs, dyed of the richest hues--among
the rest the far-famed Tyrian purple--but even the very sails of their ships
were “of fine linen, with embroidered work from Egypt.” This minuteness in
description has appeared scarcely less than necessary to a proper comprehension
of the force of that declaration in the text: “I (God) am against thee, O
Tyrus.” Having learned from the detail how commercial, great, and splendid, how
strong, opulent, and well-peopled a city Tyre was, we can easily deem how it
was that the Tyrians, lifted up with pride, and full of self-confidence, had,
in their hearts, set at nought the power of Almighty God, thinking that their
mountain stood too strong for even His arm to shake. It was, in effect, we
conclude, through such a spirit as this that they vaunted themselves over the
Jewish people, and spoke scornfully of Jerusalem; though fully aware, at the
same time, that the former were under the special patronage of God, and that
the latter was the most favoured seat of His majesty and glory on earth. Such,
then, as has been described, was the famous city of Tyre when the prophet
Ezekiel was commanded to denounce it as marked out for particular judgment by
the Most High. The reason is given in verse
2. Jerusalem had been taken and sacked by Nebuchadnezzar; but this
should have been far, very far from ministering to the Tyrians occasion of
self-gratulation and triumph. Yet did the latter not confine themselves to the
manifestation of a selfish and brutal joy at the misfortunes of their Jewish
neighbours--to a mere rejoicing over the circumstance that the trade of
Jerusalem would from that time flow in Tyrian channels. There is but too full
evidence of the fact that they went further than this--that they became ready
purchasers of all the spoil which could be wrung from the unhappy people; and,
not content even with thus abetting the cruelty and rapacity of others, bought
with avidity the wretched Jews themselves--bought them in great numbers, and
either kept or transferred them as slaves. “Therefore, thus saith the Lord God,
Behold, I am against thee, O Tyrus.” On the particulars of the denunciation
that follows, a very long and awful one, I need not dwell. My design next
carries me to view the accomplishment of those predictions of vengeance which
Ezekiel was thus commissioned to pour forth against the devoted city.
“Passing,” says a celebrated traveller, “by Tyre, from curiosity only, I came
to be a mournful witness of the truth of the prophecy that Tyre, the queen of
nations (queen of the sea, too, was she styled); that Tyre, the queen of
nations, should be a rock to fishers to dry their nets on: two wretched
fishermen with miserable nets had just given over their occupations.” “On the
north side of Tyre,” says another traveller, Maundrell, “there is an old
Turkish ungarrisoned castle; besides which you see nothing here but a mere
babel of broken walls, pillars, vaults, etc.; there not being so much as one
entire house left. Its present inhabitants are only a few wretches harbouring
themselves in the vaults, and subsisting themselves chiefly upon fishing; who
seemed to be preserved in this place by Divine Providence, as a visible
argument how God has fulfilled His word concerning Tyre.” Has not God then
shown Himself indeed “against Tyrus”? Be it our endeavour, next, to inquire
into the use which we should ourselves, with God’s help, make of this
interesting piece of Bible history.
1. First, then, we may the more clearly discern the force of that
scripture that “vengeance belongs to God” alone; to whom it must be left to
repay evils or injuries done, derived, or wished against His people. The people
of God are to repose their cause in the hands of God. And why are they so to
act? Why, when the injuries which they receive are great and unquestionable,
may they not themselves endeavour to take an adequate revenge? Because the
truly religious temper, which only God can approve, is a temper that can have
no affinity with a revengeful disposition. Neither is the retribution that God
inflicts at all allied to revenge. It is the righteous chastisement of a
lawgiver, whose statutes, holy, just, and good, have been inexcusably
transgressed, and His authority set at nought, by those on whom the visitations
fall.
2. We are taught from our subject that God will not fail to avenge,
as far as shall be proper, His people, of their inveterate and irreclaimable
adversaries.
3. We are taught by this scripture the severity of the Divine
vengeance, when once the long-suffering of God has reached its limit, as well
as the absolute impossibility of anyone’s escaping or avoiding the terrible
effects of the aroused anger of the Almighty Jehovah. Long may His patience be
tried, ere that holy anger be excited, but when once kindled, how resistless
and destructive is its power. Dreadful, truly, is their condition who, being
still in their sins, have God “against” them. Alarming would be the danger of
that traveller who, unarmed, should discover a lion advancing towards him, in a
path out of which he could not turn to escape the terrible beast; with which
again, personal contest would be to all appearance hopeless. Yet would some
possibility of escape in such a case exist. Aid, unknown to the stranger, might
be at hand. To another object, a different kind of prey, the attention of the
savage creature might be drawn off. Presence of mind, aiding the happy
execution of some sudden thought, might render the jeoparded stranger
victorious, or put him in unlocked for safety. Nay, the lion might, unstung by
hunger, or with the magnanimity that some have been fond of ascribing to this
animal, allow the other, unhurt, quietly to pass him. Such things have indeed
happened. But no probabilities exist--no possibility exists, that he against
whom God cometh as an avenging adversary, will be able to avoid encountering
Him, and perishing in the encounter. None. His purposes change not; their
execution nought can hinder. And as for God’s not troubling Himself about the
evil that He cannot but see--think what is His own character. First, is He not
of an infinite wisdom, purity, and holiness? Then think what He has done for
sinful man, when a believer, repentant, and reformed; not because of man’s own
merit in being such, but when he is such;--given to him, that is, everlasting
life in happiness and glory. Think of these things, and then let common sense
answer the question, whether this all-holy and all-beneficent Being will or
will not take notice of--will or will not tremendously punish--the unbelieving,
impenitent, and unholy? (W. M. Wade.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》