Ezekiel 6:13

Then shall ye know that I am the LORD, when their slain men shall be among their idols round about their altars, upon every high hill, in all the tops of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick oak, the place where they did offer sweet savour to all their idols.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(13) Upon every high hill.—The various localities especially selected for idolatrous rites are enumerated one after another, to give more vividness and graphic character to the whole judgment. The words “sweet savour” are constantly applied to the commanded sacrifices to the Lord, and are here used ironically of the idol sacrifices.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

6:11-14 It is our duty to be affected, not only with our own sins and sufferings, but to look with compassion upon the miseries wicked people bring upon themselves. Sin is a desolating thing; therefore, stand in awe, and sin not. If we know the worth of souls, and the danger to which unbelievers are exposed, we shall deem every sinner who takes refuge in Jesus from the wrath to come, an abundant recompence for all contempt or opposition we may meet with.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Sweet savor - Compare Genesis 8:21. Words, applied to the smell of sacrifices accepted by God, applied here to idol-sacrifices in irony.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

12. He that is far off—namely, from the foe; those who in a distant exile fear no evil.

he that remaineth—he that is left in the city; not carried away into captivity, nor having escaped into the country. Distinct from "he that is near," namely, those outside the city who are within reach of "the sword" of the foe, and so fall by it; not by "famine," as those left in the city.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Then shall ye know: see Ezekiel 6:3-7,10.

Upon every high hill, & c.; each of which was accounted a fit place for such superstitions rites, and in all which some or other of you did commit idolatry, and, shame to speak it, burnt sweets, rich spices, which God had given them, to dunghill gods, stinking idols, which the devil had commended to them, Deu 32:17.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Then shall ye know that I am the Lord,.... Whom they had denied, by serving other gods; but now by those punishments their eyes would be opened to see, and be obliged to acknowledge, that there was no God but the Lord:

when their slain men shall be among their idols round about their altars; as is threatened, Ezekiel 6:5; by which it will appear that the idols whom they worshipped could not save them; since they should fall just by them, round about the altars on which they sacrificed unto them; which idols were placed, and altars for their worship built,

upon every high hill, in all the tops of the mountains: mountains and high hills were usual places of idolatry among the Heathens, in which the Jews imitated them, and particularly Herodotus (e) says of the Persians, that, going up to the highest parts of mountains, they offered sacrifice to Jupiter; so they called the whole circle of the heavens:

and under every green tree, and under every thick oak; see 1 Kings 14:23; here their slain were to fall, where they committed their idolatry: even in

the place where they did offer sweet savour to all their idols; or dunghill gods; yet, though they were such, sweet savour or incense was offered to them; wherefore, in righteous judgment, here their carcasses should fill and lie, and rot and stink.

(e) Clio, sive l. 1. c. 131.

Geneva Study Bible

Then shall {g} ye know that I am the LORD, when their slain men shall be among their idols all around their altars, upon every high hill, on all the tops of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick oak, the place where they offered sweet savour to all their idols.

(g) That is, all nations when you will see my judgments.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

13. Comp. Ezekiel 6:7 on the effect of these judgments on the minds of the people. On “idols,” cf. Ezekiel 6:4. The cumulative phrases “in all the tops of the mountains,” and “under every thick oak” are wanting in LXX.; and so “he that remaineth” Ezekiel 6:12. For oak rather terebinth.

sweet savour] Is said of the smoke or steam of the sacrificial fat burnt upon the altar, ch. Ezekiel 16:19, Ezekiel 20:28; Ezekiel 20:41, and often in the ritual laws of the Pentateuch.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 13. - The thought is the same as in ver. 6, but the localities are given in greater detail. The "hills" and "mountains" were naturally the scenes of the worship of the "high places," and these were commonly associated with groves of trees, as in Jeremiah 2:20; Jeremiah 3:6; Isaiah 57:5. In Hosea 4:13, oaks (or terebinths), poplars, and elms are specifically named (comp. Deuteronomy 12:2; 2 Kings 16:4). Where they did offer sweet savour, etc. The phrase is eminently characteristic of Ezekiel as a priest (Ezekiel 16:19; Ezekiel 20:28, 41), and is specially prominent in the books which he must have studied. It meets us three times in Exodus, seventeen in Leviticus, seventeen in Numbers, and seldom elsewhere. The crowning sin, from the prophet's point of view, was that the incense which was due to Jehovah had been lavished on the false gods of the nations. Ezekiel 6:13

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The Punishment Is Just and Well Deserved

Ezekiel 6:11. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Smite with thy hand, and stamp with thy foot, and say, Woe on all the wicked abominations of the house of Israel! that they must perish by sword, hunger, and pestilence. Ezekiel 6:12. He that is afar off will die by the pestilence; and he that is near at hand shall fall by the sword; and he who survives and is preserved will die of hunger: and I shall accomplish my wrath upon them. Ezekiel 6:13. And ye shall know that I am Jehovah, when your slain lie in the midst of your idols round about your altars, on every high hill, upon all the summits of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick-leaved terebinth, on the places where they brought their pleasant incense to all their idols. Ezekiel 6:14. And I will stretch out my hand against them, and make the land waste and desolate more than the wilderness of Diblath, in all their dwellings: so shall ye know that I am Jehovah. - Through clapping of the hands and stamping of the feet - the gestures which indicate violent excitement - the prophet is to make known to the displeasure of Jehovah at the horrible idolatry of the people, and thereby make manifest that the penal judgment is well deserved. הכּה בכפּך is in Ezekiel 21:19 expressed more distinctly by הך כּף אל , "to strike one hand against the other," i.e., "to clap the hands;" cf. Numbers 24:10. אח, an exclamation of lamentation, occurring only here and in Ezekiel 21:20. אשׁר, Ezekiel 6:11, is a conjunction, "at." Their abominations are so wicked, that they must be exterminated on account of them. This is specially mentioned in Ezekiel 6:12. No one will escape the judgment: he who is far removed from its scene as little as he who is close at hand; while he who escapes the pestilence and the sword is to perish of hunger. נצוּר, servatus, preserved, as in Isaiah 49:6. The signification "besieged" (lxx, Vulgate, Targum, etc.), Hitzig can only maintain by arbitrarily expunging הנּשׁאר as a gloss. On Ezekiel 6:12, cf. Ezekiel 5:13; on 13a, cf. Ezekiel 6:5; and on 13b, cf. Ezekiel 6:3, and Hosea 4:13; Jeremiah 2:20; Jeremiah 3:6; Deuteronomy 12:2. 'אל כּל־גב, according to later usage, for על כּל־גב. ריח ניחח, used in the Pentateuch of sacrifices pleasing to God, is here transferred to idol sacrifices; see on Leviticus 1:9 and Genesis 8:21. On account of the prevalence of idolatry in all parts, God will make the land entirely desolate. The union of שׁממה serves to strengthen the idea; cf. Ezekiel 33:8., Ezekiel 35:3. The words ממּדבּר דּבלתה are obscure, either "in the wilderness towards Diblath" (even to Diblath), or "more than the wilderness of Diblath" (מן of comparison). There is no doubt that דּבלתה is a nom. prop.; cf. the name of the city דּבלתים in Jeremiah 48:22; Numbers 33:46. The second acceptation of the words is more probable than the first. For, if ממּדבּר is the terminus a quo, and דּבלתה the terminus ad quem of the extent of the land, then must ממּדבּר be punctuated not only as status absolut., but it must also have the article; because a definite wilderness - that, namely, of Arabia - is meant. The omission of the article cannot be justified by reference to Ezekiel 21:3 or to Psalm 75:7 (Hitzig, Ewald), because both passages contain general designations of the quarters of the world, with which the article is always omitted. In the next place, no Dibla can be pointed out in the north; and the change of Diblatha into Ribla, already proposed by Jerome, and more recently brought forward again by J. D. Michaelis, has not only against it the authority of all the old versions, but also the circumstance that the Ribla mentioned in 2 Kings 23:33 did not form the northern boundary of Palestine, but lay on the other side of it, in the land of Hamath; while the הרבלה, named in Numbers 34:11, is a place on the eastern boundary to the north of the Sea of Gennesareth, which would, moreover, be inappropriate as a designation of the northern boundary. Finally, the extent of the land from the south to the north is constantly expressed in a different way; cf. Numbers 23:21 (Numbers 34:8); Joshua 13:5; 1 Kings 8:65; 2 Kings 14:65; Amos 6:14; 1 Chronicles 13:5; 2 Chronicles 7:8; and even by Ezekiel himself (Ezekiel 48:1) לבוא is named as the boundary on the north. The form דּבלתה is similar to תּמנתה for תּמנה, although the name is hardly to be explained, with Hvernick, as an appellation, after the Arabic dibl, calamitas, exitium. The wilderness of Diblah is unknown. With 'וידעוּ כּי וגו the discourse is rounded off in returning to the beginning of Ezekiel 6:13, while the thoughts in Ezekiel 6:13 and Ezekiel 6:14 are only a variation of Ezekiel 6:4-7.