Charles Ellicott Commentary Ezekiel 21:10

"it is sharpened that it may make a slaughter; it is furbished that it may be as lightning: shall we then make mirth? the rod of my son, it contemneth every tree." — Ezekiel 21:10 (ASV)

Make mirth. — The answer to this question has already been given in Ezekiel 21:6, and is repeated in Ezekiel 21:12.

Contemneth the rod of my son. — This refers to Genesis 49:9-10, in which Jacob addresses Judah as my son, and foretells that the sceptre shall not depart from him until Shiloh come. There is another allusion to the same passage in Ezekiel 21:27. Compare also Ezekiel 17:22-23.

There is, however, serious difficulty regarding the construction and meaning of the clause. The ancient versions and many commentators have more or less changed the text without improvement. The original is obscure in its extreme brevity, and allows the rod of my son to be either the object (as it is taken in the text) or the subject (as in the margin).

The true sense is probably that which makes the clause into an objection offered by the Jew to the prophet’s denunciation: But ‘the rod of my son’ despiseth every tree; i.e., the Divine promise from long ago to Judah is sure, and his sceptre must remain whatever power arises against it. The objection was in a certain sense true, but the objectors had little idea of the means by which its truth should be established, and vainly imagined that it gave a temporal security to the kingdom of Judah, whatever might be its sins. The prophet does not notice the objection further than to continue with his prediction of the approaching desolation.