Charles Ellicott Commentary Ezekiel 5

Take thee a sharp knife, take thee a barber’s razor. —Rather, take thee a sharp sword, as a barber’s razor shalt thou take it to thee. The word knife is the same as that used twice in Ezekiel 5:2, and translated once by knife and once by sword. It is occasionally used for any sharp-cutting instrument, but is most commonly taken, as here, for a sword. The English version also neglects to notice the pronoun in the second clause. The thought is plainly that the prophet is to take a sword, on account of its symbolism, and use it instead of a razor.

Upon thine head, and upon thy beard. —The cutting off the hair was a common mark of mourning (Isaiah 22:12; Jeremiah 7:29); but the allusion here seems to be rather to Isaiah 7:20, in which God describes His coming judgments upon Israel as a shaving, with a razor that is hired ... by the king of Assyria, of the head and the beard. The symbolism was the more marked because Ezekiel was a priest, and the priests were expressly forbidden in the law to shave either the head or the beard (Leviticus 21:5). The shaving, therefore, of a priest’s head and beard with a sword signified a most desolating judgment.

Then take thee balances to weigh is not a mere detail introduced to give vividness to the symbolism, but seems designed to show the absolute certainty of the impending judgment.

Burn with fire a third part in the midst of the city. —It is better to suppose this was done only in description than to imagine that the prophet actually carried it out on the tile on which the city (Jerusalem) was portrayed. The meaning of this verse is explained in Ezekiel 5:12 and is made clearer by translating the same word consistently as “sword,” instead of changing it to “knife.” The third part, which is scattered, plainly signifies the small portion of the people who, escaping destruction, will be scattered among the nations.

A similar prophecy, referring however to a later time, may be found in Zechariah 13:8-9. The expression, “when the days of the siege are fulfilled,” of course refers to the symbolic siege of the prophet. The words, “I will draw out a sword after them,” are taken from Leviticus 26:33, and are repeated in Ezekiel 5:12 and again in Ezekiel 12:14. The suffering from the Divine judgments would still follow them in their exile. Plain prophecy is here mixed with the symbolism.

A few in number, and bind them in thy skirts. —A small remnant of the people was still left in the land after the great captivity (2 Kings 25:22); but even of these some were to perish by violence (cast them into the midst of the fire) in the disorders which arose, and from this shall a fire come forth into all the house of Israel. (See Jeremiah 40-41) The ultimate result was the expatriation of all that remained in Judæa, and the entire emptying of the land of the chosen people.

At this point the use of symbolism ceases for a while, and the prophet now, for the first time, begins to utter his prophecies in plain language. Accordingly, he changes his style from prose to the more ordinary form of prophetic utterance in parallelisms, which constitute the distinctive feature of Hebrew poetry, and this continues until another vision begins with Ezekiel 8:1.

I have set it in the midst of the nations.— This was eminently true of Jerusalem, and of Israel as represented by Jerusalem, in all the ages of its history. It constituted one of the great opportunities for Israel if they had been faithful to their calling, while it became a chief source of their disasters when they went astray from God.

On the south were Egypt and Ethiopia. On the north, at first the great nation of the Hittites, and later the Syrians, and also Assyrians (who had to reach Palestine from the north). On the coast were the Philistines at the southern end, and on the northern the Phoenicians, the great maritime nation interacting with all “the isles of the sea”; while on the deserts of the east and immediate south were the Ishmaelites, the chief inland traders, who maintained overland contact with all these nations.

Even with the great but little-known nations of India, commerce was established by Solomon. Thus centrally situated among the chief kingdoms of antiquity, Israel had the opportunity to present to the world the spectacle of a people strong and prosperous in the worship, and under the guardianship, of the one true God, and of becoming the great missionary of monotheism in the ancient world.

At the same time, they were separated from most of these nations by natural barriers—the deserts on the east and south, the sea on the west, the mountains on the north—which were sufficient to isolate them as a nation and allow for their free development, without interference, as a God-fearing people. But when, by the unfaithfulness of the Israelites to their religion, the one bond of national unity was weakened, they became a ready prey to the nations around them.

During the period of the Judges, they fell under the power of one and another of the petty tribes on their borders. Later, when the great empire of Solomon was broken up as a consequence of their sins, they were easily overcome by the powerful nations on either side. In all their later history, the Israelites were a football between Egypt and Chaldea, alternately despoiled by tribute as friends or devastated as enemies by each of them. Thus, in the Divine ordering of the world, responsibility must always be proportioned to privilege. The failure to fulfill that responsibility leads, as in this case, not only to a withdrawal of the privilege but also to corresponding condemnation.

Changed my judgments into wickedness.— Better, has wickedly resisted my judgments, the sense adopted by most modern expositors.

More than the nations. —Not, of course, absolutely, but in proportion to the knowledge and the privileges given them. It would be an exaggeration to say that the Israelites were actually more evil in their life than the surrounding heathen; for they were, no doubt, far better.

Even of those cities which our Lord, at a later day, so strongly upbraided, it would be absurd to suppose that they equaled Sodom and Gomorrah in their iniquity. God’s judgments are always relative and proportioned to the opportunities He has granted to people.

The point is that the Israelites had resisted His judgments more than the heathen; they had sinned against greater light. The pronoun they in the last clause refers, of course, to the Israelites, not to the heathen.