Ezekiel 33:28

For I will lay the land most desolate, and the pomp of her strength shall cease; and the mountains of Israel shall be desolate, that none shall pass through.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(28) Most desolate.—When the people of the northern kingdom had been carried into captivity, the land had been re-populated by colonies brought from various quarters by the king of Assyria, for the ten tribes were not to return; but now the land of Judah was to be left utterly desolate and uninhabited, that it might yet be re-occupied by the returning exiles. The complete dispersion of the people, not to be effected even by war and conquest, was finally accomplished by the flight of the remnant into Egypt (Jeremiah 43:5-7), in consequence of their fears.

Benson Commentary

Ezekiel 33:28-29. For I will lay the land most desolate — I will make the land destitute of inhabitants, by the destruction which shall be made of them by the sword, by wild beasts, and the pestilence, and by their being carried into captivity. And the pomp of her strength shall cease — All that wealth and magnificence wherein they pleased themselves, as that which gave them strength and reputation in the eyes of the world, are taken away: see Ezekiel 7:24. Or the phrase may denote the beauty and glory of the temple, which they looked upon as their chief strength and protection; none shall pass through — None shall choose even so much as to pass through the country, on account of its being infested with wild beasts through its desolateness, and because the air of it shall be rendered unwholesome, by means of the effluvia arising from dead and dying bodies, and the pestilential diseases which rage in the country, and sweep away its inhabitants. Then shall they know that I am the Lord — That I am their Lord, their righteous governor, and just judge. When I have laid the land most desolate, &c. — When I have brought these destructive calamities upon it, because of the sins and abominations of its inhabitants. Observe, reader, those are untractable and unteachable indeed, that are not made to know their dependence upon God when all their creature comforts fail them, and they are made desolate.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

33:21-29 Those are unteachable indeed, who do not learn their dependence upon God, when all creature-comforts fail. Many claim an interest in the peculiar blessings to true believers, while their conduct proves them enemies of God. They call this groundless presumption strong faith, when God's testimony declares them entitled to his threatenings, and nothing else.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Ye stand upon your sword - Ye put your trust in your swords.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

28. most desolate—(Jer 4:27; 12:11).

none … pass through—from fear of wild beasts and pestilence [Grotius].

Matthew Poole's Commentary

I will lay the land; I do purpose to destroy utterly all in this land; and what can escape, when savage beasts, cruel men, and a pestilential air all concur to ruin the land? The pomp of her strength; the stately and pompous shows of her strength, and her former riches and power.

The mountains of Israel, on which were vineyards and oliveyards, where the joyful sounds of the vintage and harvests did glad the heart, there shall be utter desolation.

None shall pass through; no man daring to venture for fear of wild beasts, or pestilential air, or famine in those wasted mountains.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For I will lay the land most desolate,.... Or, "desolation" and "desolation" (n); one desolating judgment shall follow upon another, until it is completely desolate; it was very desolate already, through the ravages of the Chaldean army; but it should become more so, through other judgments here threatened them:

and the pomp of her strength shall cease; some understand this of the temple, which was the most pompous building in the land, and in which they placed their strength and confidence: but this was destroyed already: it is rather to be interpreted of whatsoever riches, power, and glory, were yet remaining, which should be removed:

and the mountains of Israel shall be desolate; which used to abound with vines and olives, with flocks and pastures:

that none shall pass through; not only there should be no inhabitant, but no traveller in it, or very few, because of the sword in one part, the pestilence in another, and wild beasts in other places, and a general barrenness and unfruitfulness; so that a traveller would be both in great danger, and in want of provisions to supply himself and cattle.

(n) "desolationem et solitudiem", Montanus; "vastitatem et solitudinem", Starckius.

Geneva Study Bible

For I will lay the land most desolate, and the pomp of her strength shall cease; and the mountains of Israel shall be desolate, that none shall pass through.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

28. Cf. Ezekiel 7:24, Ezekiel 24:21, Ezekiel 30:6-7. The “mountains of Israel” are the mountain land of Israel.

Ezekiel 33:28

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Preaching of Repentance after the Fall of Jerusalem

The first word of God, which Ezekiel received after the arrival of the fugitive with the intelligence of the destruction of Jerusalem, was not of a consolatory, but of a rebuking nature, and directed against those who, while boasting in an impenitent state of mind of the promise given to the patriarchs of the everlasting possession of the Holy Land, fancied that they could still remain in possession of the promised land even after the destruction of Jerusalem and of the kingdom of Judah. This delusion the prophet overthrows by the announcement that the unrighteous are to have no share in the possession of the land of Israel, but are to perish miserably, and that the land is to be utterly waste and without inhabitants (Ezekiel 33:23-29). The Lord then shows him that his countrymen will indeed come to him and listen to his words, but will only do that which is pleasant to themselves; that they will still seek after gain, and not do his words; and that it will not be till after his words have been fulfilled that they will come to the knowledge of the fact that he really was a prophet (Ezekiel 33:30-33). We perceive from these last verses that the threat uttered in Ezekiel 33:24-29 was to form the basis for Ezekiel's further prophecies, so that the whole of this word of God has only the force of an introduction to his further labours. But however the two halves of this word of God may appear to differ, so far as their contents are concerned, they are nevertheless closely connected. The state of heart disclosed in the first half, with reference to the judgment that has already fallen upon the land and kingdom, is to preclude the illusion, that the fact of the people's coming to the prophet to hear his words is a sign of penitential humiliation under the punishing hand of God, and to bring out the truth, that the salvation which he is about to foretell to the people is only to be enjoyed by those who turn with sincerity to the Lord.

Ezekiel 33:23-29

False reliance upon God's Promises

Ezekiel 33:23. And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, Ezekiel 33:24. Son of man, the inhabitants of these ruins in the land of Israel speak thus: Abraham was one, and received the land for a possession; but we are many, the land is given to us for a possession. Ezekiel 33:25. Therefore say to them, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Ye eat upon the blood, and lift up your eyes to your idols, and shed blood, and would ye possess the land? Ezekiel 33:26. Ye rely upon your sword, do abomination, and one defileth another's wife, and would ye possess the land? Ezekiel 33:27. Speak thus to them, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, By my life, those who are in the ruins shall fall by the sword, and whoever is in the open field him do I give to the beasts to devour, and those who are in the fortresses and caves shall die of the pestilence. Ezekiel 33:28. And I make the land devastation and waste, and its proud might shall have an end, and the mountains of Israel shall be waste, so that no one passeth through. Ezekiel 33:29. And they shall know that I am Jehovah, when I make the land devastation and waste because of all the abominations which they have done. - This threat is directed against the people who remained behind in the land of Judah after the destruction of Jerusalem. ישׁבי are the Israelites who dwelt amidst the ruins of the Holy Land, the remnant of the people left behind in the land. For it is so evident as to need no proof that Kliefoth is wrong in asserting that by החרבות we are to understand the district bordering on the Chaboras, which was not properly cultivated; and by the inhabitants thereof, the exiles who surrounded Ezekiel. It is only by confounding אמר and דּבּר that Kliefoth is able to set aside the more precise definition of the inhabitants of these ruins contained in the words על אדמת ישׂראל, and to connect ישׂ 'על אד with אמרים, "they speak concerning the land of Israel;" and in Ezekiel 33:27 it is only in a forced manner that he can generalize החרבות and take it as referring to the waste places both in the Holy Land and on the Chaboras. The fact, moreover, that Ezekiel 33:30-33 treat of the Israelites by the Chaboras, is no proof whatever that they must also be referred to in Ezekiel 33:24-29. For the relation in which the two halves of this word of God stand to one another is not that "Eze 33:30-33 depict the impression made upon the hearers by the words contained in Ezekiel 33:24-29," so that "the persons alluded to in Ezekiel 33:30-33 must necessarily be the hearers of Ezekiel 33:24-29." Ezekiel 33:30-33 treat in quite a general manner of the attitude which the prophet's countrymen would assume towards his words - that is to say, not merely to his threats, but also to his predictions of salvation; they would only attend to that which had a pleasant sound to them, but they would not do his words (Ezekiel 33:31, Ezekiel 33:32). It is quite in harmony with this, that in Ezekiel 33:23-29 these people should be told of the state of heart of those who had remained behind on the ruins of the Holy Land, and that it should be announced to them that the fixed belief in the permanent possession of the Holy Land, on which those who remained behind in the land relied, was a delusion, and that those who were victims of this delusion should be destroyed by sword and pestilence. Just as in the first part of this book Ezekiel uttered the threatened prophecies concerning the destruction of Jerusalem and Judah in the presence of his countrymen by the Chaboras, and addressed them to these, because they stood in the same internal relation to the Lord as their brethren in Jerusalem and Judah; so here does he hold up this delusion before them as a warning, in order that he may disclose to them the worthlessness of such vain hope, and preach repentance and conversion as the only way to lie.

The meaning of the words spoken by these people, "Abraham was one," etc., is, that if Abraham, as one solitary individual, received the land of Canaan or a possession by the promise of God, the same God could not take this possession away from them, the many sons of Abraham. The antithesis of the "one" and the "many" derived its significance, in relation to their argument, from the descent of the many from the one, which is taken for granted, and also from the fact, which is assumed to be well know from the book of Genesis, that the land was not promised and given to the patriarch for his own possession, but for his seed or descendants to possess. They relied, like the Jews of the time of Christ (John 8:33, John 8:39), upon their corporeal descent from Abraham (compare the similar words in Ezekiel 11:15). Ezekiel, on the other hand, simply reminds them of their own sinful conduct (Ezekiel 33:25, Ezekiel 33:26), for the purpose of showing them that they have thereby incurred the loss of this possession. Eating upon the blood, is eating flesh in which the blood is still lying, which has not been cleansed from blood, as in Leviticus 19:26 and 1 Samuel 14:32-33; an act the prohibition of which was first addressed to Noah (Genesis 9:4), and is repeatedly urged in the law (cf. Leviticus 7:26-27). This is also the case with the prohibition of idolatry, lifting up the eyes to idols (cf. Ezekiel 18:6), and the shedding of blood (cf. Ezekiel 18:10; Ezekiel 22:3, etc.). עמד, to support oneself, or rely (עמד, used as in Ezekiel 31:14) upon the sword, i.e., to put confidence in violence and bloodshed. In this connection we are not to think of the use of the sword in war. To work abomination, as in Ezekiel 18:12. עשׂיתן is not a feminine, "ye women," but ן is written in the place of מ on account of the ת which follows, after the analogy of פּדיון for פּדיום (Hitzig). On the defiling of a neighbour's wife, see the comm. on Ezekiel 18:6. Such daring sinners the Lord would destroy wherever they might be. In v. 37 the punishment is individualized (cf. Ezekiel 14:21). Those in the חרבות shall fall by the חרב (the play upon the word is very obvious); those in the open country shall perish by wild beasts (compare 2 Kings 17:25; Exodus 23:19; Leviticus 26:22); those who are in mountain fastnesses and caves, where they are safe from the sword and ravenous beasts, shall perish by plague and pestilence. This threat is not to be restricted to the acts of the Chaldeans in the land after the destruction of Jerusalem, but applies to all succeeding times. Even the devastation and utter depopulation of the land, threatened in Ezekiel 33:28, are not to be taken as referring merely to the time of the Babylonian captivity, but embrace the devastation which accompanied and followed the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. For גּאון ע, see the comm. on Ezekiel 7:24. For Ezekiel 33:29, compare Ezekiel 6:14.