Albert Barnes Commentary Ezekiel 5

Translate it: 'Take a sharp sword for yourself; you shall take it for yourself as a barber’s razor.' Even if the action were literal, the use of an actual sword would best enforce the symbolic meaning.

The 'head' represents the chief city; the 'hair,' the inhabitants—its ornament and glory; and the 'hair cut from the head,' the exiles cast out from their homes. It adds to the force of the representation that 'to shave the head' was a token of mourning (Job 1:20) and was forbidden to the priests (Leviticus 21:5).

Thus, in many ways, this action of Ezekiel 'the priest' is significant of calamity and ruin. The sword indicates the avenging power; the shaving of the head, the removal of grace and glory; and the scales and weights, the determination of divine justice. .

“The third part burnt in the middle of the city” represents those who perished within the city during the siege; “the third part struck down around it” (the city) “with” the sword, those who were killed around the city during the same period; “the third part scattered to the wind” those who after the siege were dispersed in foreign lands.

In the middle of the city - The prophet is in exile, and is to do this in the middle of Jerusalem. His action, being ideal, is fittingly assigned to the place which the prophecy concerns.

When the days of the siege are fulfilled - that is, “when the days of the figurative representation of the siege are fulfilled.”

Of the third part, a few are still to be taken and kept in the fold of the garment (representing those still to remain in their native land), and yet, even of those few, some are to be cast into the fire. Such was the fate of those left behind after the destruction of Jerusalem (Jeremiah 40:0; Jeremiah 41:0). The whole prophecy is one of denunciation (Ezekiel 5:4).

Thereof - Or, from there, out of the midst of the fire. Omit “For.”

I have set it in the midst of the nations - It was not unusual for nations to regard the sanctuary, which they most revered, as the center of the earth. In the case of the holy land this was both natural and appropriate. Egypt to the south, Syria to the north, Assyria to the east and the Isles of the Gentiles in the Great Sea to the west, were to the Jew proofs of the central position of his land in the midst of the nations .

The habitation assigned to the chosen people was suitable at first for separating them from the nations; then for the seat of the vast dominion and commerce of Solomon; then, when they learned from their neighbors idol-worship, their central position was the source of their punishment. Midway between the mighty empires of Egypt and Assyria, the holy land became a battlefield for the two powers and suffered alternately from each, as one or the other became predominant at the time.

They — The inhabitants of Jerusalem.