Ezekiel 5:15

So it shall be a reproach and a taunt, an instruction and an astonishment unto the nations that are round about thee, when I shall execute judgments in thee in anger and in fury and in furious rebukes. I the LORD have spoken it.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Benson Commentary

Ezekiel 5:15-17. So it shall be an instruction to the nations — They shall learn from such an example of vengeance to fear me, and be afraid of my judgments. When I shall send upon them the evil arrows of famine — Hail, tempest, drought, mildew, locusts, all which contribute to make a famine. So will I send upon you famine and evil beasts — Wild beasts multiply in a land when it becomes uninhabited, Exodus 23:29. This likewise is a punishment which, among others, was threatened against the Jews by Moses: see the margin. Pestilence and blood shall pass through thee — Blood signifies any unusual sort of death, and may denote here such a pestilence as would destroy multitudes; or that, in addition to destruction by pestilence, they should be slaughtered by their enemies throughout their land.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

5:5-17 The sentence passed upon Jerusalem is very dreadful, the manner of expression makes it still more so. Who is able to stand in God's sight when he is angry? Those who live and die impenitent, will perish for ever unpitied; there is a day coming when the Lord will not spare. Let not persons or churches, who change the Lord's statutes, expect to escape the doom of Jerusalem. Let us endeavour to adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things. Sooner or later God's word will prove itself true.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Comforted - In the sense of "consoling oneself" and "feeling satisfaction in punishing;" hence, to "avenge oneself."

The fury is to "rest" upon them, abide, so as not to pass away. The "accomplishment" of the divine anger is not the "completion" in the sense of bringing it to a close, but in the sense of carrying it out to the full.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

15. instruction—literally, "a corrective chastisement," that is, a striking example to warn all of the fatal consequences of sin. For "it shall be"; all ancient versions have "thou," which the connection favors.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

A reproach: see Ezekiel 5:14.

A taunt; a very proverb among men.

An instruction; sinners like thee shall learn by thy miseries what they may expect from me, and they shall acknowledge Divine justice in all.

When I shall execute judgments, in highest degrees of severity.

I the Lord; I, who can do it, because almighty; who may do it, because provoked; who will do it, because they repented not; I have spoken, and will do it, as Jeremiah 25:9.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

So it shall be a reproach and a taunt,.... The subject of the reproaches and taunts of the enemy; see Jeremiah 24:9; this is repeated for the greater confirmation of it:

an instruction; or "discipline", or "correction" (x). The meaning is, that the Gentiles, seeing the judgments of God upon the Jews, would hereby learn righteousness, forsake their sins, amend their ways, and fear, the Lord:

and an astonishment unto the nations that are round about thee; being amazed that such judgments should fall upon a people that had been so highly favoured of God; and at their stupidity, hardness, and incorrigibleness under them:

when I shall execute judgments in thee in anger and in fury, and in furious rebukes; a heap of words, not only denoting the certainty of divine judgments, but the greatness and fierceness of divine wrath, in the execution of them; that these were not fatherly chastisements, rebukes in love, but the effects of vindictive justice:

I the Lord have spoken it; or those things, as the Arabic version; and as sure as I have spoken, I will do. The Targum is,

"I the Lord have decreed in my word;''

and so in Ezekiel 5:13; where it is added, and I will confirm or accomplish.

(x) "disciplina", Pagninus; "castigatio", Vatablus, Starckius.

Geneva Study Bible

So it shall be a reproach and a taunt, an instruction and an astonishment unto the nations that are round about thee, when I shall execute judgments in thee in anger and in fury and in furious rebukes. I the LORD have spoken it.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

15. So it shall be] So shall she be, i.e. Jerusalem. The ancient versions, however, give: and thou shalt be.

an instruction] i.e. a lesson of warning, cf. ch. Ezekiel 23:48, “that all women may be taught (take warning) not to do after your lewdness.” Cf. Deuteronomy 29:23 seq.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 15. - A reproach and a taunt, etc. An echo of Deuteronomy 28:37. The accumulation of synonyms in both clauses of the verse is eminently characteristic of Ezekiel's style. Word follows word, like the strokes of a sledge hammer. The word for "instruction" is that which occurs so often in the Book of Proverbs (Proverbs 1:2, 3, and in twenty-two other passages). In Deuteronomy 11:12; Isaiah 53:5; Jeremiah 30:14, the Authorized Version renders it "chastisement," and that sense is manifestly implied here. Jerusalem was, as it were, to be the great object lesson in God's education of mankind. And the final stroke of all is that the words were not the prophet's own, but "I the Lord have spokes it." The words reappear in ver. 17. Ezekiel 5:15

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Further Execution of this Threat

Ezekiel 5:10. Therefore shall fathers devour their children in thy midst, and children shall devour their fathers: and I will exercise judgments upon thee, and disperse all thy remnant to the winds. Ezekiel 5:11. Therefore, as I live, is the declaration of the Lord Jehovah, Verily, because thou hast polluted my sanctuary with all thine abominations and all thy crimes, so shall I take away mine eye without mercy, and will not spare. Ezekiel 5:12. A third of thee shall die by the pestilence, and perish by hunger in thy midst; and the third part shall fall by the sword about thee; and the third part will I scatter to all the winds; and will draw out the sword after them. Ezekiel 5:13. And my anger shall be fulfilled, and I will cool my wrath against them, and will take vengeance. And they shall experience that I, Jehovah, have spoken in my zeal, when I accomplish my wrath upon them. Ezekiel 5:14. And I will make thee a desolation and a mockery among the nations which are round about thee, before the eyes of every passer-by. Ezekiel 5:15. And it shall be a mockery and a scorn, a warning and a terror for the nations round about thee, when I exercise my judgments upon thee in anger and wrath and in grievous visitations. I, Jehovah, have said it. Ezekiel 5:16. When I send against thee the evil arrows of hunger, which minister to destruction, which I shall send to destroy you; for hunger shall I heap upon you, and shall break to you the staff of bread. Ezekiel 5:17. And I shall send hunger upon you, and evil beasts, which shall make thee childless; and pestilence and blood shall pass over thee; and the sword will I bring upon thee. I, Jehovah, have spoken it. - As a proof of the unheard-of severity of the judgment, there is immediately mentioned in Ezekiel 5:10 a most horrible circumstance, which had been already predicted by Moses (Leviticus 26:29; Deuteronomy 28:53) as that which should happen to the people when hard pressed by the enemy, viz., a famine so dreadful, during the siege of Jerusalem, that parents would eat their children, and children their parents; and after the capture of the city, the dispersion of those who remained "to all the winds, i.e., to all quarters of the world." This is described more minutely, as an appendix to the symbolical act in Ezekiel 5:1 and Ezekiel 5:2, in Ezekiel 5:11 and Ezekiel 5:12, with a solemn oath, and with repeated and prominent mention of the sins which have drawn down such chastisements. As sin, is mentioned the pollution of the temple by idolatrous abominations, which are described in detail in Ezekiel 8. The אגרע, which is variously understood by the old translators (for which some Codices offer the explanatory correction אגדע), is to be explained, after Job 36:7, of the "turning away of the eye," and the עיני following as the object; while ולא־תחוס, "that it feel no compassion," is interjected between the verb and its object with the adverbial signification of "mercilessly." For that the words ולא תחוס are adverbially subordinate to אגרע, distinctly appears from the correspondence - indicated by וגם אני - between אגרע and לא . Moreover, the thought, "Jehovah will mercilessly withdraw His care for the people," is not to be termed "feeble" in connection with what follows; nor is the contrast, which is indicated in the clause וגם־אני, lost, as Hvernick supposes. וגם־אני does not require גּרע to be understood of a positive act, which would correspond to the desecration of the sanctuary. This is shown by the last clause of the verse. The withdrawal without mercy of the divine providence is, besides, in reality, equivalent to complete devotion to destruction, as it is particularized in Ezekiel 5:12. For Ezekiel 5:12 see on Ezekiel 5:1 and Ezekiel 5:2. By carrying out the threatened division of the people into three parts, the wrath of God is to be fulfilled, i.e., the full measure of the divine wrath upon the people is to be exhausted (cf. 7, 8), and God is to appear and "cool" His anger. הניח חמה, "sedavit iram," occurs again in Ezekiel 16:42; Ezekiel 21:22; Ezekiel 24:13. הנּחמתּי, Hithpael, pausal form for הנּחמתּי, "se consolari," "to procure satisfaction by revenge;" cf. Isaiah 1:24, and for the thing, Deuteronomy 28:63. In Ezekiel 5:14. the discourse turns again from the people to the city of Jerusalem. It is to become a wilderness, as was already threatened in Leviticus 26:31 and Leviticus 26:33 to the cities of Israel, and thereby a "mockery" to all nations, in the manner described in Deuteronomy 29:23. והיתה, in Ezekiel 5:15, is not to be changed, after the lxx, Vulgate, and some MSS, into the second person; but Jerusalem is to be regarded as the subject which is to become the object of scorn and hatred, etc., when God accomplishes His judgments. מוּסר is a warning-example. Among the judgments which are to overtake it, in Ezekiel 5:16, hunger is again made specially prominent (cf. Ezekiel 4:16) and first in Ezekiel 5:17 are wild beasts, pestilence, blood, and sword added, and a quartette of judgments announced as in Ezekiel 14:21. For pestilence and blood are comprehended together as a unity by means of the predicate. Their connection is to be understood according to Ezekiel 14:19, and the number four is significant, as in Ezekiel 14:21; Jeremiah 15:3. For more minute details as to the meaning, see on Ezekiel 14:21. The evil arrows point back to Deuteronomy 32:23; the evil beasts, to Leviticus 24:22 and Deuteronomy 32:24. To produce an impression, the prophet heaps his words together. Unum ejus consilium fuit penetrare in animos populi quasi lapideos et ferreos. Haec igitur est ratio, cur hic tanta varietate utatur et exornet suam doctrnam variis figuris (Calvin).