Ezekiel 25:10

Unto the men of the east with the Ammonites, and will give them in possession, that the Ammonites may not be remembered among the nations.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(10) With the Ammonites.—The division between the verses here seriously obscures the sense. The meaning is that God will throw open Moab, as well as Ammon, to the sons of the east, and will give both nations in possession to them, so that Ammon shall be no more remembered, and judgment shall be executed on Moab. They were to be conquered and desolated by Nebuchadnezzar, but possessed by the Bedouins. The Ammonites and Moabites were nations so closely connected together that nearly all which has been said of the one applies to the other.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

25:8-17 Though one event seem to the righteous and wicked, it is vastly different. Those who glory in any other defence and protection than the Divine power, providence, and promise, will, sooner or later, be ashamed of their glorying. Those who will not leave it to God to take vengeance for them, may expect that he will take vengeance on them. The equity of the Lord's judgments is to be observed, when he not only avenges injuries upon those that did them, but by those against whom they were done. Those who treasure up old hatred, and watch for the opportunity of manifesting it, are treasuring up for themselves wrath against the day of wrath.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Ammon and Moab, of common origin, whose lands had so often been interchanged, shall now share a common ruin. To "the men of the east" Ezekiel 25:4 shall Moab with Ammon be given, that Ammon may be remembercd no more, and judgment be executed on Moab.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

10. with the Ammonites—Fairbairn explains and translates, "upon the children of Ammon" (elliptically for, "I will open Moab to the men of the east, who, having overrun the children of Ammon, shall then fall on Moab"). Maurer, as English Version, "with the Ammonites," that is, Moab, "together with the land of Ammon," is to be thrown "open to the men of the east," to enter and take possession (Jer 49:1-39).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The men of the East: see Ezekiel 25:4.

With; rather against, and so the Hebrew, and the sense is plain; or, as our translation reads it, with, i.e. as I have given Ammon, so I will with them give Moab to the Chaldeans first, who will give Moab to the Arabians.

Possession: see Ezekiel 25:4.

That the Ammonites; I suppose here is either an ellipsis, thus, that as the Ammonites should so perish, as not to be remembered, so should Moab also; or else Ammon is appellative here, and speaks the numerousness of Moab, which yet should so cease as to be forgotten.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Unto the men of the east with the Ammonites, and I will give them in possession,.... Or, "against the Ammonites", as the Targum; that is, way should be made for the same people of the east, the Chaldeans or Arabians, that came against the Ammonites and destroyed them, to enter into the land of Moab and possess it, as they had done the land of Ammon:

that the Ammonites may not be remembered among the nations: the name of that people, which is entirely lost; and Moab likewise, which underwent the same fate.

Geneva Study Bible

Unto the men of the east with the Ammonites, and will give them in possession, that the Ammonites may not be remembered among the nations.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

10. Read, with full stop at Ezekiel 25:9 : Unto the children of the East will I give it for possession together with the children of Ammon (Ezekiel 25:4). Moab and Ammon alike shall become a possession of the wandering Bedawin. The name of Ammon shall disappear from among the nations, and Moab shall be visited with severe judgments.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 10. - Unto the men of the east with the Ammonites. The Authorized Version is obscure. What is meant is that the Moabites as well as the Ammonites were to be given to the nomadic tribes, the "children of the east," for a possession. The doom that Ammon was to be no more remembered (Ezekiel 21:32) was to be carried out to the uttermost, and the children of the east were to complete what Nebuchadnezzar had begun. The utter destruction of Ammon was, as it were, uppermost in the prophet's thoughts, and that of Moab was but secondary. Historically, the words received a partial fulfillment in Nebuchadnezzar's conquests five years after the destruction of Jerusalem (Josephus,' Ant.,' 10:9.7, and M. yon Niebuhr's 'Geseh. Assurs,' p. 215), but the Ammonites were still an important people in the time of the Maccabees (1 Macc. 5:6, 30-45) and Justin Martyr ('Dial. cum Trypho, p. 272). Ezekiel 25:10

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Against the Moabites

Ezekiel 25:8. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Because Moab, like Seir, saith, Behold, like all other nations is the house of Judah: Ezekiel 25:9. Therefore, behold, I will open the shoulder of Moab from the cities, from its cities even to the last, the ornament of the land, Beth-hayeshimoth, Baal-meon, and as far as Kiryathaim, Ezekiel 25:10. To the sons of the east, together with the sons of Ammon, and will give it for a possession, that the sons of Ammon may no more be remembered among the nations. Ezekiel 25:11. Upon Moab will I execute judgments; and they shall learn that I am Jehovah. - Moab has become guilty of the same sin against Judah, the people of God, as Ammon, namely, of misunderstanding and despising the divine election of Israel. Ammon gave expression to this, when Judah was overthrown, in the malicious assertion that the house of Judah was like all the heathen nations, - that is to say, had no pre-eminence over them, and shared the same fate as they. There is something remarkable in the allusion to Seir, i.e., Edom, in connection with Moab, inasmuch as no reference is made to it in the threat contained in Ezekiel 25:9-11; and in Ezekiel 25:12-13, there follows a separate prediction concerning Edom. Hitzig therefore proposes to follow the example of the lxx, and erase it from the text as a gloss, but without being able in the smallest degree to show in what way it is probable that such a gloss could have found admission into an obviously unsuitable place. Seir is mentioned along with Moab to mark the feeling expressed in the words of Moab as springing, like the enmity of Edom towards Israel, from hatred and envy of the spiritual birthright of Israel, i.e., of its peculiar prerogatives in sacred history. As a punishment for this, Moab was to be given up, like Ammon, to the Bedouins for their possession, and the people of the Moabites were to disappear from the number of the nations. Ezekiel 25:9 and Ezekiel 25:10 form one period, לבני קדם in Ezekiel 25:10 being governed by פּתח in Ezekiel 25:9. The shoulder of Moab is the side of the Moabitish land. In the application of the word כּתף to lands or provinces, regard is had to the position of the shoulder in relation to the whole body, but without reference to the elevation of the district. We find an analogy to this in the use of כּתף in connection with the sides of a building. In 'מהערים וגו' , the מן cannot be taken, in a privative sense, for מהיות; for neither the article הערים, nor the more emphatic מעריו מקּצהוּ, allows this; but מן indicates the direction, "from the cities onwards," "from its cities onwards, reckoning to the very last," - that is to say, in its whole extent. מקּצהוּ, as in Isaiah 56:11; Genesis 19:4, etc. This tract of land is first of all designated as a glorious land, with reference to its worth as a possession on account of the excellence of its soil for the rearing of cattle (see the comm. on Numbers 32:4), and then defined with geographical minuteness by the introduction of the names of some of its cities. Beth-Hayeshimoth, i.e., house of wastes (see the comm. on Numbers 22:1), has probably been preserved in the ruins of Suaime, which F. de Saulcy discovered on the north-eastern border of the Dead Sea, a little farther inland (vid., Voyage en terre sainte, Paris 1865, t. i. p. 315). Baal-meon, - when written fully, Beth-Baal-Meon (Joshua 13:17) - contracted into Beth-Meon in Jeremiah 48:23, is to be sought for to the south-east of this, in the ruins of Myun, three-quarters of an hour's journey to the south of Heshbon (see the comm. on Numbers 32:38). Kiryathaim was still farther south, probably on the site of the ruins of El Teym (see the comm. on Genesis 14:5 and Numbers 32:37). The Chetib קריתמה is based upon the form קריתם, a secondary form of קריתים , like דּתן, a secondary form of דּתין, in 2 Kings 6:13. The cities named were situated to the north of the Arnon, in that portion of the Moabitish land which had been taken from the Moabites by the Amorites before the entrance of the Israelites into Canaan (Numbers 21:13, Numbers 21:26), and was given to the tribe of Reuben for its inheritance after the defeat of the Amoritish kings by the Israelites; and then, still later, when the tribes beyond the Jordan were carried into captivity by the Assyrians, came into the possession of the Moabites again, as is evident from Isaiah 15:1-9 and Isaiah 16:1-14, and Jeremiah 48:1, Jeremiah 48:23, where these cities are mentioned once more among the cities of the Moabites. This will explain not only the naming of this particular district of the Moabitish country, but the definition, "from its cities." For the fact upon which the stress is laid in the passage before us is, that the land in question rightfully belonged to the Israelites, according to Numbers 32:37-38; Numbers 33:49; Joshua 12:2-3; Joshua 13:20-21, and that it was therefore unlawfully usurped by the Moabites after the deportation of the trans-Jordanic tribes; and the thought is this, that the judgment would burst upon Moab from this land and these cities, and they would thereby be destroyed (Hvernick and Kliefoth). על, not "over the sons of Ammon," but "in addition to the sons of Ammon." They, that is to say, their land, had already been promised to the sons of the east (Ezekiel 25:4). In addition to this, they are now to receive Moab for their possession (Hitzig and Kliefoth). Thus will the Lord execute judgments upon Moab. Ezekiel 25:11 sums up what is affirmed concerning Moab in Ezekiel 25:9 and Ezekiel 25:10, in the one idea of the judgments of God upon this people.

The execution of these judgments commenced with the subjugation of the Ammonites and Moabites by Nebuchadnezzar, five years after the destruction of Jerusalem (vid., Josephus, Antt. x. 9. 7, and M. von Niebuhr, Gesch. Assurs, etc., p. 215). Nevertheless the Ammonites continued to exist as a nation for a long time after the captivity, so that Judas the Maccabaean waged war against them (1 Macc. 5:6, 30-43); and even Justin Martyr speaks of ̓Αμμανιτῶν νῦν πολὺ πληθος (Dial. Tryph. p. 272). - But Origen includes their land in the general name of Arabia (lib. i. in Job). The name of the Moabites appears to have become extinct at a much earlier period. After the captivity, it is only in Ezra 9:1; Nehemiah 13:1, and Daniel 11:41, that we find any notice of them as a people. Their land is mentioned by Josephus in the Antiq. xiii. 14. 2, and xv. 4, and in the Bell. Jude 3.3. 3. - A further fulfilment by the Messianic judgment, which is referred to in Zephaniah 2:10, is not indicated in these words of Ezekiel; but judging from the prophecy concerning the Edomites (see the comm. on Ezekiel 25:14), it is not to be excluded.