Ezekiel 25:13

Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; I will also stretch out mine hand upon Edom, and will cut off man and beast from it; and I will make it desolate from Teman; and they of Dedan shall fall by the sword.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(13) From Teman; and they of Dedan.—Teman (a word meaning south) was a southern district of Edom (Jeremiah 49:20-21; Habakkuk 3:3), famed for its wisdom (Jeremiah 49:7; Obadiah 1:8-9). Dedan is frequently mentioned by the prophets, but in such a way that it has not been certainly identified. A better translation would be, From Teman unto Dedan, meaning from one end of the country to the other, they shall fall by the sword.

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

From Teman ... - Or "from Teman" even unto "Dedan," "shall they fall." Teman and Dedan were districts (not cities), the former in the south (Ezekiel 20:46 note), the latter in the north ("over the whole country").

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

13. Teman … they of Dedan—rather, "I will make it desolate from Teman (in the south) even to Dedan (in the northwest)" [Grotius], (Jer 49:8), that is, the whole country from north to south, stretching from the south of the Dead Sea to the Elanitic gulf of the Red Sea.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Stretch out mine hand: see Ezekiel 25:7, and Ezekiel 16:27.

Cut off man, by the sword of the Chaldeans, and by other wasting evils which accompany wars, as famine, pestilence, and other diseases.

And beast; either their cattle should be driven away by the plundering soldier, or devoured by the mighty numerous army of Nebuchadnezzar, or wasted with murrain, or all should concur to unstock their pastures.

Desolate; a desolation, i.e. most desolate.

From Teman; from the south, so the Chaldee paraphrase; but it is rather the name of the region, called by the name of Esau’s grandson Teman, who also gave name to the metropolis of Idumea, and probably it was in the southern coast of Edom’s country.

Dedan; the Dedanites, who were of Abraham by Keturah, Genesis 25:3; and these were neighbours to Edom, on the side of Arabia, or else intermixed with the Edomites in habitation and commerce, so that it might be a city reckoned either to Edom or Arabia. From Teman to Dedan the Chaldean sword should waste all.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Therefore thus saith the Lord God,.... Because of such base and barbarous usage, from a people that were originally brethren:

I will also stretch out mine hand upon Edom, and will cut off man and beast from it; by the army of Nebuchadnezzar, by the sword of the Chaldeans, and by famine and pestilence, and such like sore judgments; in which the hand of God is manifestly seen:

and I will make it desolate from Teman; a very principal city of Edom, so called from Teman, the son of Eliphaz, the son of Esau, Genesis 36:15 it lay in the south of the land of Idumea; the Targum renders it, "from the south":

and they of Dedan shall fall by the sword; of the Babylonians; this was another city of Edom, it lay in the north of that country; so that hereby is signified that destruction should go through it from the southern to the northern parts of it.

Geneva Study Bible

Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; I will also stretch out mine hand upon Edom, and will cut off man and beast from it; and I will make it desolate from Teman; and they of Dedan shall fall by the sword.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

13. they of Dedan shall fall] and unto (as far as) Dedan shall they fall. Teman in the N. of Edom (Genesis 36:11; Amos 1:11; Jeremiah 49:7, Obadiah 1:9), and Dedan to the south; the latter probably only bordered on Edom (Genesis 10:7; Isaiah 21:13; Jeremiah 25:23).

Ezekiel 25:13

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Against the Edomites

Ezekiel 25:12. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Because Edom acteth revengefully towards the house of Judah, and hath been very guilty in avenging itself upon them, Ezekiel 25:13. Therefore, thus saith the Lord Jehovah, I will stretch out my hand over Edom, and cut off man and beast from it, and make it a desert from Teman, and unto Dedan they shall fall by the sword. Ezekiel 25:14. And I will inflict my vengeance upon Edom by the hand of my people Israel, that they may do to Edom according to my anger and my wrath; and they shall experience my vengeance, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah. - Whilst the Ammonites and the Moabites are charged with nothing more than malicious pleasure at the fall of Israel, and disregard of its divine calling, the Edomites are reproached with revengeful acts of hostility towards the house of Judah, and threatened with extermination in consequence. The עשׂות, doing or acting of Edom, is more precisely defined as 'בּנקום וגו, i.e., as consisting in the taking of vengeance, and designated as very guilty, ישׁמוּ אשׁום. עשׂה, followed by בּ with an infinitive, as in Ezekiel 17:17. Edom had sought every opportunity of acting thus revengefully towards Israel (vid., Obadiah 1:11; Amos 1:11), so that in Ezekiel 35:5 Ezekiel speaks of the "eternal enmity" of Edom against Israel. For this reason we must not restrict the reproach in Ezekiel 25:12 to particular outbreaks of this revenge at the time of the devastation and destruction of Judah by the Chaldeans, of which the Psalmist complains in Psalm 137:1-9, and for which he invokes the vengeance of God upon Edom. Man and beast are to be cut off from Edom in consequence, and the land to become a desert from Teman to Dedan. These names denote not cities, but districts. Teman is the southern portion of Idumaea (see the comm. on Amos 1:12); and Dedan is therefore the northern district. Dedan is probably not the Cushite tribe mentioned in Genesis 10:7, but the tribe of the same name which sprang from the sons of Abraham by Keturah (Genesis 25:3), and which is also mentioned in Jeremiah 49:8 in connection with Edom. דּדנה has ה local with Seghol instead of Kametz, probably on account of the preceding a (vid., Ewald, 216c). There is no necessity to connect מתּימן with the following clause, as Hitzig and Kliefoth have done, in opposition to the accents. The two geographical names, which are used as a periphrasis for Idumaea as a whole, are distributed equally through the parallelismus membrorum between the two clauses of the sentence, so that they belong to both clauses, so far as the sense is concerned. Edom is to become a desert from Teman to Dedan, and its inhabitants from Teman to Dedan are to fall by the sword. This judgment of vengeance will be executed by God through His people Israel. The fulfilment of this threat, no doubt, commenced with the subjugation of the Edomites by the Maccabees; but it is not to be limited to that event, as Rosenmller, Kliefoth, and others suppose, although the foundation was thereby laid for the disappearance of the national existence of Edom. For it is impossible with this limitation to do justice to the emphatic expression, "my people Israel." On the ground, therefore, of the prophecies in Amos 9:12 and Obadiah 1:17, that the people of God are to take possession of Edom, when the fallen tabernacle of David is raised up again, i.e., in the Messianic times, which prophecies point back to that of Balaam in Numbers 24:18, and have their roots, as this also has, in the promise of God concerning the twin sons of Isaac, "the elder shall serve the younger" (Genesis 25:23), we must seek for the complete fulfilment in the victories of the people of God over all their foes, among whom Edom from time immemorial had taken the leading place, at the time when the kingdom of God is perfected. For even here Edom is not introduced merely as a single nation that was peculiarly hostile to Judah, but also as a type of the implacable enmity of the heathen world towards the people and kingdom of God, as in Ezekiel 35:1-15, Isaiah 34:63, etc. The vengeance, answering to the anger and wrath of Jehovah, which Israel, as the people of God, is to execute upon Edom, consists not merely in the annihilation of the national existence of Edom, which John Hyrcanus carried into effect by compelling the subjugated Edomites to adopt circumcision (see the comm. on Numbers 24:18), but chiefly in the wrathful judgment which Israel will execute in the person of Christ upon the arch-enemy of the kingdom of God by its complete extinction.