Charles Ellicott Commentary Ezekiel 35

Mount Seir. — This poetical designation of the Edomites from the land they inhabited is common in Scripture (Genesis 36:8–9; Deuteronomy 2:1; Deuteronomy 2:5; 1 Chronicles 4:42, etc.). The land included the whole mountainous region between the Dead Sea and the Elanitic Gulf, or eastern branch of the Red Sea. The earlier denunciation of the Edomites concerned their historical relations to Israel; this, on the other hand, as already said — like Isaiah 34:0; Isaiah 63:1–6 — while still keeping this historical relation in view, regards them also as representative of the world’s hostility to the covenant people of God.

This appears from the fact that the desolation of Edom, itself only a small province, is contrasted (Ezekiel 35:14) with the rejoicing of the whole earth, and that in Ezekiel 36:5 Edom is coupled with the residue of the heathen. For the phrase set thy face against, see Ezekiel 13:17; and concerning Ezekiel 35:3, compare to Ezekiel 6:14.

Perpetual hatred.— Enmity towards Israel is also imputed to the Ammonites, Moabites, and Philistines in Ezekiel 25; but that of Edom was deeper and as old as its first ancestor (see Genesis 25:22 and following, Genesis 27:41); its peculiar malignity is noticed by Amos 1:11. (Compare also Obadiah 1:10-15.)

Shed the blood.—“Blood” is not in the original and should be omitted. The verb literally means to pour out, and the clause should be rendered you have scattered the children of Israel. This same expression occurs in Psalm 63:10 and Jeremiah 18:21.

The time specifically referred to is that of the overthrow of Jerusalem, as both that of their great calamity and that when their iniquity had an end. (On the last phrase, see Note on Ezekiel 21:29.) So the world-power generally, while it may fawn upon and corrupt the Church in the day of its prosperity, shows its undisguised hostility in every time of adversity.

I will prepare you to blood.— Rather, I will make you blood. There is here a play on the name of Edom in the original: I will make you dom (= blood); Edom itself means red. The latter part of the verse brings out, as frequently, the congruity of the punishment: violence shall come upon him who has loved ("not hated") violence.

Him that passeth out.—The cutting off of the traveller is a striking feature in the doom of Edom, for her nomadic tribes had been the great carriers between India and the East and Egypt, and she had grown rich by this commerce. The fierceness of the few tribes now wandering over the land makes even the occasional visit of the curious traveller a matter of difficulty and danger.

Rivers. — As elsewhere, this refers to river-courses, in which water was found only at times.