Ezekiel 11:10

Ye shall fall by the sword; I will judge you in the border of Israel; and ye shall know that I am the LORD.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(10) In the border of Israel.—The judgment should be cumulative: first, the sword should come upon them (Ezekiel 11:8); then they should be driven out of the city in which they trusted, and delivered into the hands of strangers (Ezekiel 11:9); and then, finally—what was most terrible to a Jew—they were to be arraigned and punished “in the border,” i.e., at the extremity or outside of the land of Israel. Historically, it appears from 2Kings 25:20-21, and Jeremiah 52:9-11, that the general of Nebuchadnezzar, after the capture of the city, carried the people of the land to the king at Riblah, just on the northern confines of Palestine. There Nebuchadnezzar pronounced his cruel judgments upon them, slaying the king’s sons before his eyes, and executing many others, and then, putting out Zedekiah’s eyes, carried him and the rest captive to Babylon. By all this, not in repentance, but through the experiencing of the Divine judgments, they should be at last forced to recognise Jehovah as the Almighty Ruler and Disposer of events. This place of the judgment, and this consequence of it, are emphatically repeated in Ezekiel 11:11-12.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

11:1-13 Where Satan cannot persuade men to look upon the judgment to come as uncertain, he gains his point by persuading them to look upon it as at a distance. These wretched rulers dare to say, We are as safe in this city as flesh in a boiling pot; the walls of the city shall be to us as walls of brass, we shall receive no more damage from the besiegers than the caldron does from the fire. When sinners flatter themselves to their own ruin, it is time to tell them they shall have no peace if they go on. None shall remain in possession of the city but those who are buried in it. Those are least safe who are most secure. God is often pleased to single out some sinners for warning to others. Whether Pelatiah died at that time in Jerusalem, or when the fulfilment of the prophecy drew near, is uncertain. Like Ezekiel, we ought to be much affected with the sudden death of others, and we should still plead with the Lord to have mercy on those who remain.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

In the border of Israel - Hamath was the northern border of Israel (margin reference). At Riblah in Hamath the king of Babylon judged and condemned Zedekiah and the princes of Judah Jeremiah 52:9-10.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

10. in the border of Israel—on the frontier: at Riblah, in the land of Hamath (compare 2Ki 25:19-21, with 1Ki 8:65).

ye shall know that I am the Lord—by the judgments I inflict (Ps 9:16).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The enemies’ sword shall slay you; my just judgments shall pursue you whithersoever you flee, and overtake some of you; and ye shall know, Zedekiah and others who were judged at Riblah, 2 Kings 25:20,

that I am the Lord.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Ye shall fall by the sword,.... Of the Chaldeans; not in the city of Jerusalem, but out of it, when it was broken up, and they fled:

I will judge you in the border of Israel; that is, inflict punishment on them, particularly by the sword; which was done at Riblah in the land of Hamath, where the sons of Zedekiah were slain, and all the princes of Judah, Jeremiah 52:9; and this was on the border of the land of Israel, Numbers 34:8;

and ye shall know that I am the Lord; who knows things, and foretells them before they are; and am able to accomplish all that is threatened; and am just and righteous in all my ways and works; and who am known by the judgments executed by me.

Geneva Study Bible

Ye shall fall by the sword; I will judge you in the border of {e} Israel; and ye shall know that I am the LORD.

(e) That is, in Riblah, read 2Ki 25:6.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

10. in the border of Israel] far away from the city, which they hoped would protect them. Cf. Jeremiah 52:26, “So Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard took them and brought them to the king of Babylon to Riblah; and he smote them and put them to death in Riblah, in the land of Hamath.” 2 Kings 25:18 seq.

Ezekiel 11:10

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

And the Spirit of Jehovah fell upon me, and said to me: Say, Thus saith Jehovah, So ye say, O house of Israel, and what riseth up in your spirit, that I know. Ezekiel 11:6. Ye have increased your slain in this city, and filled its streets with slain. Ezekiel 11:7. Therefore, thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Your slain, whom ye have laid in the midst of it, they are the flesh, and it is the pot; but men will lead you out of it. Ezekiel 11:8. The sword you fear; but the sword shall I bring upon you, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah. Ezekiel 11:9. I shall lead you out of it and give you into the hand of foreigners, and shall execute judgments upon you. Ezekiel 11:10. By the sword shall ye fall: on the frontier of Israel shall I judge you; and ye shall learn that I am Jehovah. Ezekiel 11:11. It shall not be as a pot to you, so that you should be flesh therein: on the frontier of Israel shall I judge. Ezekiel 11:12. And ye shall learn that I am Jehovah, in whose statutes ye have not walked, and my judgments ye have not done, but have acted according to the judgments of the heathen who are round about you. - For תּפּל עלי , compare Ezekiel 8:1. Instead of the "hand" (Ezekiel 8:1), the Spirit of Jehovah is mentioned here; because what follows is simply a divine inspiration, and there is no action connected with it. The words of God are directed against the "house of Israel,' whose words and thoughts are discerned by God, because the twenty-five men are the leaders and counsellors of the nation. מעלות, thoughts, suggestions of the mind, may be explained from the phrase עלה על לב, to come into the mind. Their actions furnish the proof of the evil suggestions of their heart. They have filled the city with slain; not "turned the streets of the city into a battle-field," however, by bringing about the capture of Jerusalem in the time of Jeconiah, as Hitzig would explain it. The words are to be understood in a much more general sense, as signifying murder, in both the coarser and the more refined signification of the word.

(Note: Calvin has given the correct explanation, thus: "He does not mean that men had been openly assassinated in the streets of Jerusalem; but under this form of speech he embraces all kinds of injustice. For we know that all who oppressed the poor, deprived men of their possessions, or shed innocent blood, were regarded as murderers in the sight of God.")

מלּאתים is a copyist's error for מלּאתם. Those who have been murdered by you are the flesh in the caldron (Ezekiel 11:7). Ezekiel gives them back their own words, as words which contain an undoubted truth, but in a different sense from that in which they have used them. By their bloodshed they have made the city into a pot in which the flesh of the slain is pickled. Only in this sense is Jerusalem a pot for them; not a pot to protect the flesh from burning while cooking, but a pot into which the flesh of the slaughtered is thrown. Yet even in this sense will Jerusalem not serve as a pot to these worthless counsellors (Ezekiel 11:11). They will lead you out of the city (הוציא, in Ezekiel 11:7, is the 3rd pers. sing. with an indefinite subject). The sword which ye fear, and from which this city is to protect you, will come upon you, and cut you down - not in Jerusalem, but on the frontier of Israel. על־גּבוּל, in Ezekiel 11:10, cannot be taken in the sense of "away over the frontier," as Kliefoth proposes; if only because of the synonym אל־גּבוּל in Ezekiel 11:11. This threat was literally fulfilled in the bloody scenes at Riblah (Jeremiah 52:24-27). It is not therefore a vaticinium ex eventu, but contains the general thought, that the wicked who boasted of security in Jerusalem or in the land of Israel as a whole, but were to be led out of the land, and judged outside. This threat intensifies the punishment, as Calvin has already shown.

(Note: "He threatens a double punishment; first, that God will cast them out of Jerusalem, in which they delight, and where they say that they will still make their abode for a long time to come, so that exile may be the first punishment. He then adds, secondly, that He will not be content with exile, but will send a severer punishment, after they have been cast out, and both home and land have spued them out as a stench which they could not bear. I will judge you at the frontier of Israel, i.e., outside the holy land, so that when one curse shall have become manifest in exile, a severer and more formidable punishment shall still await you.")

In Ezekiel 11:11 the negation (לא) of the first clause is to be supplied in the second, as, for example, in Deuteronomy 33:6. For Ezekiel 11:12, compare the remarks on Ezekiel 5:7. The truth and the power of this word are demonstrated at once by what is related in the following verse.