Ezekiel 7:7

The morning is come unto thee, O thou that dwellest in the land: the time is come, the day of trouble is near, and not the sounding again of the mountains.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(7) The morning is come unto thee.—The word here used is not the usual one for morning. This word occurs elsewhere only in Ezekiel 7:10 and Isaiah 28:5, where it is translated crown. There is much difference of opinion both as to its derivation and its meaning. The most probable sense is circuit—“the circuit of thy sins is finished, and the end is come upon thee.”

The sounding again of the mountains.—This is again a peculiar word, occurring only here; but it is nearly like and probably has the same meaning as the word in Isaiah 16:10, Jeremiah 25:10, denoting the joyous sounds of the people, especially at harvest-time, filling the land and echoing back from the mountains. Instead of this shall be the tumult (rather the trouble) of the day of war. (See the opposite contrast in Exodus 32:17-18.)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

7:1-15 The abruptness of this prophecy, and the many repetitions, show that the prophet was deeply affected by the prospect of these calamities. Such will the destruction of sinners be; for none can avoid it. Oh that the wickedness of the wicked might end before it bring them to an end! Trouble is to the impenitent only an evil, it hardens their hearts, and stirs up their corruptions; but there are those to whom it is sanctified by the grace of God, and made a means of much good. The day of real trouble is near, not a mere echo or rumour of troubles. Whatever are the fruits of God's judgments, our sin is the root of them. These judgments shall be universal. And God will be glorified in all. Now is the day of the Lord's patience and mercy, but the time of the sinner's trouble is at hand.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The morning - Rather, "The conclusion:" a whole series (literally circle) of events is being brought to a close. Others render it: Fate.

The day of trouble ... - Or, The day is near; a tumult Zechariah 14:13, and not the echo of (or, shouting on) the mountains. The contrast is between the wild tumult of war and the joyous shouts of such as keep holiday.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

7. The morning—so Chaldean and Syriac versions (compare Joe 2:2). Ezekiel wishes to awaken them from their lethargy, whereby they were promising to themselves an uninterrupted night (1Th 5:5-7), as if they were never to be called to account [Calvin]. The expression, "morning," refers to the fact that this was the usual time for magistrates giving sentence against offenders (compare Eze 7:10, below; Ps 101:8; Jer 21:12). Gesenius, less probably, translates, "the order of fate"; thy turn to be punished.

not the sounding again—not an empty echo, such as is produced by the reverberation of sounds in "the mountains," but a real cry of tumult is coming [Calvin]. Perhaps it alludes to the joyous cries of the grape-gatherers at vintage on the hills [Grotius], or of the idolaters in their dances on their festivals in honor of their false gods [Tirinus]. Havernick translates, "no brightness."

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The morning; the word is variously rendered, and accordingly variously applied. It is, say some, of a Chaldee original, and signifies to cry out, to encompass, and to rise betimes in the morning, very fitly applicable here. With the morning star, which ushers in the light, thine enemies and thy sorrows are risen, have compassed thee about, and the cry of their shoutings, and the cry of thy distressed people, is raised; a long day of sorrows threatens thee, is upon thee, upon every one that dwelleth in the land. The day of trouble is near; as the day near to the morning, so near are thy troubles, thy great. perplexed, and tumultuous troubles, as the word implies, like that Isaiah 22:5 Zephaniah 1:14-17.

The sounding again; either it means the echo, which mountains make, and is an empty sound, makes great noise, and only startles children; the noise and report of your calamities are real, yea dreadful. Or else thus; on the mountains were your vineyards, and in vintage time your grape gatherers were wont to shout for joy, and fill the neighbourhood with their joys, but no such soundings shall you hear now. Or it may allude to the music with which their idol worship was celebrated in mountains, high places, in valleys, & C, whence the sound was heard and echoed from hill to hill. Those soundings from the mountains shall cease, it is a long day of vengeance for those sins.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

The morning is come upon thee, O thou that dwellest in the land,.... That is, early ruin was come, or was coming, upon the inhabitants of Judea, which before is said to be awake, and to watch for them; and now the day being broke, the morning come, it hastened to them. Some, because this word (g) is used in Isaiah 18:5; for a crown or diadem, think a crowned head, a king, is here meant; particularly Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the instrument of the destruction of Jerusalem. So the Targum,

"the kingdom is revealed upon or against thee, O inhabitant of the land.''

Jarchi interprets it of the morning setting as the sun does, its light and glory disappearing; and so denotes a dark and gloomy day;

the time is come; the appointed time of Jerusalem's ruin, the time of her visitation;

the day of trouble, or "noise" (h),

is near; either of the Chaldean army, its chariots and horses, and of their armour; or of the howling and lamentation of the Jews:

and not the sounding again of the mountains; not like the echo of a man's voice between the mountains, which is only imaginary, but this is real; so Kimchi and Ben Melech interpret it: or this was not like the shoutings of the vintage, which were joyful ones, Isaiah 16:9; but this the voice of lamentation and sorrow, doleful sounds. Jarchi says the word signifies the cry of the voice, proclaiming or calling on persons to fly to the tops of the mountains, which now should not be; and so the Targum,

"and there is no fleeing or escaping to the tops of the mountains.''

(g) "corona", Tigurine version, so some is Vatablus; "cidaris matutina", Montanus. (h) "tumultus", Montanus, Piscator, Starckius; "strepitus", Calvin; "clamoris", Vatablus.

Geneva Study Bible

The {c} morning is come upon thee, O thou that dwellest in the land: the time is come, the day of trouble is near, and not the joyful {d} shouting upon the mountains.

(c) The beginning of his punishments is already come.

(d) Which was a voice of joy and mirth.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

7. The morning is come] The sense “morning” is that which a similar word has in Aramaic; but the dawn or morning is always used of the breaking in of felicity not of calamity (cf. Isaiah 8:20). The term occurs in Isaiah 28:5 in the sense of crown or chaplet, probably from the idea of encircling, going a round or circuit (Jdg 7:3, R.V. marg.), and it has been conjectured that the word may have the sense of “turn” (vicem), naturally with the meaning “calamitous turn,” misfortune or fate (as da’irah in Arab.). So Abulwalid followed by most moderns (R.V. doom). Dukes quotes a Chaldee proverb of Sirach in which another form of the word has the sense of times (a hundred times, Blumenlese, p. 80). LXX. does not recognise the word either here or in Ezekiel 7:10.

the day of trouble] Rather: the day is near, even tumult, and not joyful shouting Upon the mountains, as R.V. This rendering assumes that the word translated “joyful shouting” is another form of the term rendered “shouting” (vintage shouting) Isaiah 16:9-10; Jeremiah 48:33—“the shouting is no vintage shouting” but tumult of invasion (Lamentations 2:22).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 7. - The morning is come unto thee, etc. In the only other passage in which the Hebrew noun occurs (Isaiah 28:5), it is translated "diadem," the meaning being strictly a circular ornament. Here the LXX. gives πλοκὴ, something twirled, out of which may come the meaning of the changes of fortune. Possibly, as in the familiar "wheel of fortune," that thought was involved in the circular form by itself. In the Tahnud it appears as the name of the goddess of fate at Ascalon (Furst). On the whole, I follow the Revised Version, Keil, and Ewald, in giving "thy doom." The "morning" of the Authorized Version probably rises from the thought that the dawn is, as it were, the glory and diadem of the day. The Vulgate gives contritio. The day of trouble; better, with the Revised Version, of tumult. The word is specially used of the noise of war (Isaiah 22:5; Amos 3:9; Zechariah 14:3). Not the sounding again upon the mountains. The first noun is not found in the Old Testament, but a closely allied form appears in Isaiah 16:9; Jeremiah 25:30; Jeremiah 48:33, for the song of the vintage. Not that, the prophet says, shall be heard on the mountains, but in its place the cry of battle and the noise of war. The LXX. "not with travail-pangs," and the Vulgate non gloriae montium, show that the word was in both cases a puzzle to the translators. Ezekiel 7:7

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The execution of the judgment announced in Ezekiel 7:2-4, arranged in four strophes: Ezekiel 7:5-9, Ezekiel 7:10-14, Ezekiel 7:15-22, Ezekiel 7:23-27. - The first strophe depicts the end as a terrible calamity, and as near at hand. Ezekiel 7:3 and Ezekiel 7:4 are repeated as a refrain in Ezekiel 7:8 and Ezekiel 7:9, with slight modifications. Ezekiel 7:5. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Misfortune, a singular misfortune, behold, it cometh. Ezekiel 7:6. End cometh: there cometh the end; it waketh upon thee; behold, it cometh. Ezekiel 7:7. The fate cometh upon thee, inhabitants of the land: the time cometh, the day is near; tumult and not joy upon the mountains. Ezekiel 7:8. Now speedily will I pour out my fury upon thee, and accomplish mine anger on thee; and judge thee according to thy ways, and bring upon thee all thine abominations. Ezekiel 7:9. My eye shall not look with pity upon thee, and I shall not spare; according to thy ways will I bring it upon thee, and thy abominations shall be in the midst of thee, that ye may know that I, Jehovah, am smiting. - Misfortune of a singular kind shall come. רעה is made more emphatic by אחת רעה, in which אחת is placed first for the sake of emphasis, in the sense of unicus, singularis; a calamity singular (unique) of its kind, such as never had occurred before (cf. Ezekiel 5:9). In Ezekiel 7:6 the poetical הקיץ, it (the end) waketh upon thee, is suggested by the paronomasia with הקּץ. The force of the words is weakened by supplying Jehovah as the subject to הקיץ, in opposition to the context. And it will not do to supply רעה (evil) from Ezekiel 7:5 as the subject to הנּה באה (behold, it cometh). באה is construed impersonally: It cometh, namely, every dreadful thing which the end brings with it. The meaning of tzephirâh is doubtful. The only other passage in which it occurs is Isaiah 28:5, where it is used in the sense of diadem or crown, which is altogether unsuitable here. Raschi has therefore had recourse to the Syriac and Chaldee צפרא, aurora, tempus matutinum, and Hvernick has explained it accordingly, "the dawn of an evil day." But the dawn is never used as a symbol or omen of misfortune, not even in Joel 2:2, but solely as the sign of the bursting forth of light or of salvation. Abarbanel was on the right track when he started from the radical meaning of צפר, to twist, and taking tzephirâh in the sense of orbis, ordo, or periodical return, understood it as probably denoting rerum fatique vicissitudinem in orbem redeuntem (Ges. Thes. p. 1188). But it has been justly observed, that the rendering succession, or periodical return, can only give a forced sense in Ezekiel 7:10. Winer has given a better rendering, viz., fatum, malum fatale, fate or destiny, for which he refers to the Arabic tsabramun, intortum, then fatum haud mutandum inevitabile. Different explanations have also been given of הד הרים. But the opinion that it is synonymous with הידד, the joyous vintage cry (Jeremiah 25:30; Isaiah 16:10), is a more probable one than that it is an unusual form of הוד, splendor, gloria. So much at any rate is obvious from the context, that the hapax legomenon dh̀ is the antithesis of מהוּמה, tumult, or the noise of war. The shouting of the mountains, is shouting, a rejoicing upon the mountains. מקּרוב, from the immediate vicinity, in a temporal not a local sense, as in Deuteronomy 32:17 ( equals immediately). For כּלּה , see Ezekiel 6:1-14;12. The remainder of the strophe (Ezekiel 7:8 and Ezekiel 7:9) is a repetition of Ezekiel 7:3 and Ezekiel 7:4; but מכּה is added in the last clause. They shall learn that it is Jehovah who smites. This thought is expanded in the following strophe.