MPV Commentary

The Eight Chapters (Twenty-fifth through Thirty-second) Ezekiel Denounces Judgments on the Heathen World Kingdoms.

If Israel was not spared, much less the heathen utterly corrupt and having no mixture of truth, such as Israel in its worst state possessed (1 Peter 4:17-18). Their ruin was to be utter; Israel's but temporary (Jeremiah 46:28). The nations denounced are seven, the perfect number; implying that God's judgments would visit not merely these, but the whole round of the heathen foes of God. Babylon is excepted because she is now for the present viewed as the rod of God's retributive justice.

3. (Jeremiah 49:1)

When Ammon profaned Jerusalem, when it was desolate, and when its captivity took place, they triumphed especially over the fall of the sanctuary, as the triumph of heathenism over the rival claims of Jehovah. In Jehoshaphat's time, when the eighty-third Psalm was written (Psalm 83:4-8), we see the same profane spirit. Now at last their wicked wish seems accomplished in the fall of Jerusalem.

Ammon, descended from Lot, held the region east of Jordan, separated from the Amorites on the north by the river Jabbok and from Moab on the south by the Arnon. They were auxiliaries to Babylon in the destruction of Jerusalem (2 Kings 24:2).

4. The nomadic tribes of Arabia-Deserta, east of the Jordan and the Dead Sea, are called "children of the East." Their nomadic encampments or folds, surrounded with mud walls, are ironically referred to as "palaces." Where their "palaces" once stood, there shall be their very different "palaces."

5. Rabbah, Ammon's metropolis, is to become a place for flocks of the Arabs. The camels, being the chief beast of burden of the Chaldeans, are put first as their invasion was to prepare the Ammonite land for the Arab flocks.

6-7. Because Ammon has clapped its hands in exultation over the downfall of Jerusalem, God will also stretch out His hand upon them. The whole inward feeling and every outward indication will be affected; even stamping with the foot means dancing for joy.

7. Their goods were to be a spoil to the foe; their state was to be cut off so as to be no more a people; and they were as individuals, for the most part, to be destroyed.

8. Moab, Seir, and Ammon were contiguous countries stretching in one line from Gilead on the north to the Red Sea. They therefore naturally acted in concert and in joint hostility to Judea. The Jews fare no better than others; it is of no use to them to serve Jehovah, who they say is the only true God.

9-10. I will open up the side or border of Moab from the cities on his northwest border beyond the Arnon, once assigned to Reuben (Joshua 13:15-21), but now in the hands of their original owners; and the "men of the east" shall enter through these cities into Moab and waste it. Moab was so wasted by them that long before the time of Christ it had melted away among the hordes of the desert.

10. The region of Moab was richer than that of Ammon, answering to the modern Belka, the richest district in South Syria. Hence it is called here a "glorious land." Beth-jeshimoth, meaning "the city of desolations," perhaps so named from some siege it sustained; Baal-meon, also called "Beth-meon" and "Beth-baal-meon"; and Kiriathaim, "the double city," were the strength of these cities that engendered "the pride" of Moab.

10. I will open Moab to the men of the east who shall then fall on Moab. The grudge of Edom or Esau was originally for Jacob's robbing him of Isaac's blessing (Genesis 25:23; 27:27-41). This purpose of revenge yielded to the extraordinary kindness of Jacob, but it was revived as an hereditary grudge in the posterity of Esau.

12. I will take vengeance on Edom with unrelenting vengeance. The grudge of Edom or Esau was for Jacob's robbing him of Isaac's blessing (Genesis 25:23; 27:27-41). This purpose of revenge yielded to the extraordinary kindness of Jacob, but it was revived as an hereditary grudge in the posterity of Esau.

13. I will make Edom desolate from Teman even to Dedan, that is, the whole country from north to south, stretching from the south of the Dead Sea to the Elanitic gulf of the Red Sea.

14. By my people Israel, namely by Judas Maccabeus, the Idumeans were finally incorporated with the Jewish state by John Hyrcanus (Isaiah 34:5; 63:1). So complete was the amalgamation in Christ's time that the Herods of Idumean origin ruled over the two races as one people.

15. The "old hatred" refers to their continual enmity to the covenant-people. They lay along Judea on the seacoast at the opposite side from Ammon and Moab. They were overthrown by Uzziah and Hezekiah, and Nebuchadnezzar overran the cities on the seacoast on his way to Egypt after besieging Tyre.

16. I will cut off the Cherethims, a play on similar sounds in the Hebrew, "I will slay the slayers." The name may have been given to a section of the Philistines from their warlike disposition (1 Samuel 30:14; 31:3). They excelled in archery, whence David enrolled a bodyguard from them.

17. Those left remaining after the former overthrows inflicted by Samuel, David, Hezekiah, and Psammetichus of Egypt shall know Me not in mercy but by My vengeance on them (Psalm 9:16).