Ezekiel 21:24

21:18-27 By the Spirit of prophecy Ezekiel foresaw Nebuchadnezzar's march from Babylon, which he would determine by divination. The Lord would overturn the government of Judah, till the coming of Him whose right it is. This seems to foretell the overturnings of the Jewish nation to the present day, and the troubles of states and kingdoms, which shall make way for establishing the Messiah's kingdom throughout the earth. The Lord secretly leads all to adopt his wise designs. And in the midst of the most tremendous warnings of wrath, we still hear of mercy, and some mention of Him through whom mercy is shown to sinful men.

Therefore thus saith the Lord God,.... Because of their vain confidence, added to their perjury and perfidy: because ye have made your iniquity to be remembered; their old sins, by committing new ones, both against the Lord, and against the king of Babylon: in that your transgressions are discovered, so that in all your doings your sins do appear; both in their religious and civil actions; in the worship of God, and in their covenants and agreements with men; their sins were exposed and manifest to all, not only to God, who was provoked thereby, but to men, to the nations round about; particularly to Nebuchadnezzar, who was enraged by them: because, I say, that they are come to remembrance; both before the Lord, and the king of Babylon: ye shall be taken with the hand; as easily as a bird is, when in the snare. The Targum is, "ye shall be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon;'' which is no doubt the sense of the passage.

(24) In all your doings your sins do appear.— But one particular has just been mentioned, their rebellion and perjury; but this was only the last act of a long course of sin in many ways. These have been spoken of at large in previous chapters, and therefore, when this last sin is exposed, it may well be said that sin is shown in all their doings.

It shalt be unto them - The Jews in their vain confidence shall look upon the hopes gathered from the divinations by the Babylonians as false and groundless. To them that have sworn oaths - According to some, "oaths of oaths are theirs;" i. e., they have the most solemn oaths sworn by God to His people, in these they trust, forgetful of the sin which broke the condition upon which these promises were given. More probably the allusion is to the oaths which the Jews had sworn to Nebuchadnezzar as vassals Ezekiel 17:18-19; therefore they trust he will not attack them, forgetting how imperfectly they had kept their oaths, and that Nebuchadnezzar knew this. But he will call to remembrance the iniquity - The king of Babylon will by punishment remind them of their perjury 2 Kings 25:6-7; 2 Chronicles 36:17.

Either referring to God, who saw still their wicked perjuries, and other sins which they persisted in, or rather referring to Nebuchadnezzar, and his ministers of state and war, to whose memory all the falsehood of the Jews was still kept fresh by repeated disloyalty, with reproach to God, whose oath the king and inhabitants of Jerusalem had violated. Your transgressions against God, and against the king of Babylon, whose yoke you submitted to with promised obedience. Discovered; visibly to all in court, city, and country. All your doings; public management of matters of the kingdom, and private too; you add sin to sin, and that without blushing for them, or hiding them. Because; the whole summed up for confirming the threats. Taken with the hand; as birds or beasts taken in the net, encompassed therein that they cannot get away, are taken with the hand, so shall you, and be carried into Babylon.

This announcement will appear to the Judaeans, indeed, to be a deceptive divination, but nevertheless it will be verified. - Ezekiel 21:23 . And it is like deceptive divination in their eyes; sacred oaths are theirs (lit., to them); but he brings the iniquity to remembrance, that they may be taken. Ezekiel 21:24 . Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Because ye bring your iniquity to remembrance, in that your offences are made manifest, so that your sins appear in all your deeds, because ye are remembered ye shall be taken with the hand. Ezekiel 21:25 . And thou pierced one, sinner, prince of Israel, whose day is come at the time of the final transgression, Ezekiel 21:26 . Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, The turban will be removed, the crown taken off. This is not this; the low will be lifted up, and the lofty lowered. Ezekiel 21:27 . Overthrown, overthrown, overthrown will I make it; even this shall not be, till He cometh, to whom is the right, to Him do I give it. - In Ezekiel 21:23 (28), להם, which is more precisely defined by בּעיניהם, refers to the Israelites, i.e., the Judaeans. This also applies to the following להם, which cannot possibly be taken as referring to a different subject, say, for example, the Chaldeans.

It is evident, therefore, that it is impossible to sustain the rendering given in Gesenius' Thesaurus (s.v.) to the obscure words שׁבעי שׁבעות, viz., qui juramenta jurarunt eis (sc., Chaldaeis), which Maurer has modified and expounded thus: "they will not fear these auguries; they will swear oaths to them (the Chaldeans), that is to say, according to their usual custom, these truce-breakers will take fresh oaths, hoping that the Chaldeans will be conciliated thereby." Moreover, the thought itself is an unsuitable one, inasmuch as "the defiant attitude of confidence with which they looked such awfully threatening danger in the face must have had some other ground than a reliance upon false oaths and Chaldean credulity" (Hvernick). The common explanation, which Rosenmller and Kliefoth uphold, is, "because the Chaldeans are sworn allies, sworn confederates of theirs;" or as Kliefoth explains it, "on account of the oath of fealty or vassalage sworn by Zedekiah to Nebuchadnezzar, they have sworn confederates in the Chaldeans, and relying upon this, they are confident that they have no hostile attack to fear from them." But this is altogether untenable, not only because it is perfectly arbitrary to supply "the Chaldeans," but still more for the reason adduced by Maurer. "How," he justly asks, "could the Judaeans despise these auguries because the Chaldeans were bound to them by an oath when they themselves had broken faith?