12 Thus says the Lord Yahweh: Because Edom has dealt against the house of Judah by taking vengeance, and has greatly offended, and revenged himself on them;
Of Edom. Thus says Yahweh of Hosts: Is wisdom no more in Teman? is counsel perished from the prudent? is their wisdom vanished? Flee you, turn back, dwell in the depths, inhabitants of Dedan; for I will bring the calamity of Esau on him, the time that I shall visit him. If grape-gatherers came to you, would they not leave some gleaning grapes? if thieves by night, wouldn't they destroy until they had enough? But I have made Esau bare, I have uncovered his secret places, and he shall not be able to hide himself: his seed is destroyed, and his brothers, and his neighbors; and he is no more. Leave your fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let your widows trust in me. For thus says Yahweh: Behold, they to whom it didn't pertain to drink of the cup shall assuredly drink; and are you he who shall altogether go unpunished? you shall not go unpunished, but you shall surely drink. For I have sworn by myself, says Yahweh, that Bozrah shall become an astonishment, a reproach, a waste, and a curse; and all the cities of it shall be perpetual wastes. I have heard news from Yahweh, and an ambassador is sent among the nations, [saying], Gather yourselves together, and come against her, and rise up to the battle. For, behold, I have made you small among the nations, and despised among men. As for your terror, the pride of your heart has deceived you, O you who dwell in the clefts of the rock, who hold the height of the hill: though you should make your nest as high as the eagle, I will bring you down from there, says Yahweh. Edom shall become an astonishment: everyone who passes by it shall be astonished, and shall hiss at all the plagues of it. As in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighbor cities of it, says Yahweh, no man shall dwell there, neither shall any son of man sojourn therein. Behold, he shall come up like a lion from the pride of the Jordan against the strong habitation: for I will suddenly make them run away from it; and whoever is chosen, him will I appoint over it: for who is like me? and who will appoint me a time? and who is the shepherd who will stand before me? Therefore hear the counsel of Yahweh, that he has taken against Edom; and his purposes, that he has purposed against the inhabitants of Teman: Surely they shall drag them away, [even] the little ones of the flock; surely he shall make their habitation desolate over them. The earth trembles at the noise of their fall; there is a cry, the noise which is heard in the Red Sea. Behold, he shall come up and fly as the eagle, and spread out his wings against Bozrah: and the heart of the mighty men of Edom at that day shall be as the heart of a woman in her pangs.
Thus says Yahweh: "For three transgressions of Edom, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; Because he pursued his brother with the sword, And cast off all pity, And his anger raged continually, And he kept his wrath forever; But I will send a fire on Teman, And it will devour the palaces of Bozrah."
For the violence done to your brother Jacob, shame will cover you, and you will be cut off forever. In the day that you stood on the other side, in the day that strangers carried away his substance, and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast lots for Jerusalem, even you were like one of them. But don't look down on your brother in the day of his disaster, and don't rejoice over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction. Don't speak proudly in the day of distress. Don't enter into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity. Don't look down on their affliction in the day of their calamity, neither seize their wealth on the day of their calamity. Don't stand in the crossroads to cut off those of his who escape. Don't deliver up those of his who remain in the day of distress. For the day of Yahweh is near all the nations! As you have done, it will be done to you. Your deeds will return upon your own head. For as you have drunk on my holy mountain, so will all the nations drink continually. Yes, they will drink, swallow down, and will be as though they had not been.
Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father blessed him. Esau said in his heart, "The days of mourning for my father are at hand. Then I will kill my brother Jacob." The words of Esau, her elder son, were told to Rebekah. She sent and called Jacob her younger son, and said to him, "Behold, your brother Esau comforts himself about you by planning to kill you.
For again the Edomites had come and struck Judah, and carried away captives. The Philistines also had invaded the cities of the lowland, and of the South of Judah, and had taken Beth-shemesh, and Aijalon, and Gederoth, and Soco with the towns of it, and Timnah with the towns of it, Gimzo also and the towns of it: and they lived there.
Moreover the word of Yahweh came to me, saying, Son of man, set your face against Mount Seir, and prophesy against it, and tell it, Thus says the Lord Yahweh: Behold, I am against you, Mount Seir, and I will stretch out my hand against you, and I will make you a desolation and an astonishment. I will lay your cities waste, and you shall be desolate; and you shall know that I am Yahweh. Because you have had a perpetual enmity, and have given over the children of Israel to the power of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time of the iniquity of the end; therefore, as I live, says the Lord Yahweh, I will prepare you to blood, and blood shall pursue you: since you have not hated blood, therefore blood shall pursue you. Thus will I make Mount Seir an astonishment and a desolation; and I will cut off from it him who passes through and him who returns. I will fill its mountains with its slain: in your hills and in your valleys and in all your watercourses shall they fall who are slain with the sword. I will make you a perpetual desolation, and your cities shall not be inhabited; and you shall know that I am Yahweh. Because you have said, These two nations and these two countries shall be mine, and we will possess it; whereas Yahweh was there: therefore, as I live, says the Lord Yahweh, I will do according to your anger, and according to your envy which you have shown out of your hatred against them; and I will make myself known among them, when I shall judge you. You shall know that I, Yahweh, have heard all your insults which you have spoken against the mountains of Israel, saying, They are laid desolate, they are given us to devour. You have magnified yourselves against me with your mouth, and have multiplied your words against me: I have heard it. Thus says the Lord Yahweh: When the whole earth rejoices, I will make you desolate. As you did rejoice over the inheritance of the house of Israel, because it was desolate, so will I do to you: you shall be desolate, Mount Seir, and all Edom, even all of it; and they shall know that I am Yahweh.
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Commentary on Ezekiel 25 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 25
Eze 25:1-17. Appropriately in the Interval of Silence as to the Jews in 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 (1Pe 4:17, 18). Their ruin was to be utter: Israel's but temporary (Jer 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, a view too much then lost sight of by those who fretted against her universal supremacy.
3. (Jer 49:1).
when … profaned; … when … desolate; … when … captivity—rather, "for … for … for": the cause of the insolent exultation of Ammon over Jerusalem. 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 (Ps 83:4, 7, 8, 12, "Ammon … holpen the children of Lot," who were, therefore, the leaders of the unholy conspiracy, "Let us take to ourselves the houses of God in possession"), 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 (2Ki 24:2).
4. men of … east—literally, "children of the East," the nomad tribes of Arabia-Deserta, east of the Jordan and the Dead Sea.
palaces—their nomadic encampments or folds, surrounded with mud walls, are so called in irony. Where thy "palaces" once stood, there shall their very different "palaces" stand. Fulfilled after the ravaging of their region by Nebuchadnezzar, shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem (compare Eze 21:22; Jer 49:1-28).
5. Rabbah—meaning "the Great," Ammon's metropolis. Under the Ptolemies it was rebuilt under the name Philadelphia; the ruins are called Amman now, but there is no dwelling inhabited.
Ammonites—that is, the Ammonite region is to be a "couching place for flocks," namely 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." Instead of busy men, there shall be "still and couching flocks."
6, 7. "Because thou hast clapped thine hands," exulting over the downfall of Jerusalem, "I also will stretch out Mine hand upon thee" (to which Eze 21:17 also may refer, "I will smite Mine hands together").
hands … feet … heart—with the whole inward feeling, and with every outward indication. Stamping with the foot means dancing for joy.
7. a spoil—so the Hebrew Margin, or Keri, for the text or Chetib, "meat" (so Eze 26:5; 34:28). 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.
Judah is like … all … heathen—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. open … from the cities—I will open up the side, or border of Moab (metaphor from a man whose side is open to blows), from the (direction of) the cities on his northwest border beyond the Arnon, once assigned to Reuben (Jos 13:15-21), but now in the hands of their original owners; and the "men of the east," the wandering Bedouin hordes, shall enter through these cities into Moab and waste it. Moab accordingly was so wasted by them, that long before the time of Christ it had melted away among the hordes of the desert. For "cities," Grotius translates the Hebrew as proper names, the Ar and Aroer, on the Arnon. Hence the Hebrew for "cities," "Ar" is repeated twice (Nu 21:28; De 2:36; Isa 15:1).
glory of the country—The region of Moab was richer than that of Ammon; it answers to the modern Belka, the richest district in South Syria, and the scene in consequence of many a contest among the Bedouins. Hence it is called here a "glorious land" (literally, "a glory," or "ornament of a land") [Fairbairn]. Rather, "the glory of the country" is in apposition with "cities" which immediately precedes, and the names of which presently follow.
Beth-jeshimoth—meaning "the city of desolations"; perhaps so named from some siege it sustained; it was towards the west.
Baal-meon—called also "Beth-meon" (Jer 48:23), and "Beth-baal-meon" (Jos 13:17, called so from the worship of Baal), and "Bajith," simply (Isa 15:2).
Kiriathaim—"the double city." The strength of these cities engendered "the pride" of Moab (Isa 16:6).
10. with the Ammonites—Fairbairn explains and translates, "upon the children of Ammon" (elliptically for, "I will open Moab to the men of the east, who, having overrun the children of Ammon, shall then fall on Moab"). Maurer, as English Version, "with the Ammonites," that is, Moab, "together with the land of Ammon," is to be thrown "open to the men of the east," to enter and take possession (Jer 49:1-39).
12. taking vengeance—literally, "revenging with revengement," that is, the most unrelenting vengeance. It was not simple hatred, but deep-brooding, implacable revenge. The grudge of Edom or Esau was originally for Jacob's robbing him of Isaac's blessing (Ge 25:23; 27:27-41). This purpose of revenge yielded to the extraordinary kindness of Jacob, through the blessing of Him with whom Jacob wrestled in prayer; but it was revived as an hereditary grudge in the posterity of Esau when they saw the younger branch rising to the pre-eminence which they thought of right belonged to themselves. More recently, for David's subjugation of Edom to Israel (2Sa 8:14). They therefore gave vent to their spite by joining the Chaldeans in destroying Jerusalem (Ps 137:7; La 4:22; Ob 10-14), and then intercepting and killing the fugitive Jews (Am 1:11) and occupying part of the Jewish land as far as Hebron.
13. Teman … they of Dedan—rather, "I will make it desolate from Teman (in the south) even to Dedan (in the northwest)" [Grotius], (Jer 49:8), 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, by compulsory circumcision, incorporated with the Jewish state by John Hyrcanus (see Isa 34:5; 63:1, &c.; 1 Maccabees 5:3). So complete was the amalgamation in Christ's time, that the Herods of Idumean origin, as Jews, ruled over the two races as one people. Thus the ancient prophecy was fulfilled (Ge 25:23), "The elder shall serve the younger."
15. (1Sa 13:1-14:52; 2Ch 28:18). 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 (2Ch 26:6), and by Hezekiah (2Ki 18:8). Nebuchadnezzar overran the cities on the seacoast on his way to Egypt after besieging Tyre (Jer 47:1-7). God will take vengeance on those who take the avenging of themselves out of His hands into their own (Ro 12:19-21; Jas 2:13).
16. cut off the Cherethims—There is a play on similar sounds in the Hebrew, hichratti cherethim, "I will slay the slayers." The name may have been given to a section of the Philistines from their warlike disposition (1Sa 30:14; 31:3). They excelled in archery, whence David enrolled a bodyguard from them (2Sa 8:18; 15:18; 20:7). They sprang from Caphtor, identified by many with Crete, which was famed for archery, and to which the name Cherethim seems akin. Though in emigration, which mostly tended westwards, Crete seems more likely to be colonized from Philistia than Philistia from Crete, a section of Cretans may have settled at Cherethim in South Philistia, while the Philistines, as a nation, may have come originally from the east (compare De 2:23; Jer 47:4; Am 9:7; Zep 2:5). In Ge 10:14 the Philistines are made distinct from the Caphtorim, and are said to come from the Casluhim; so that the Cherethim were but a part of the Philistines, which 1Sa 30:14 confirms.
remnant of—that is, "on the seacoast" of the Mediterranean: those left remaining after the former overthrows inflicted by Samuel, David, Hezekiah, and Psammetichus of Egypt, father of Pharaoh-necho (Jer 25:20).
17. know … vengeance—They shall know Me, not in mercy, but by My vengeance on them (Ps 9:16).