Ezekiel 9:6

Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

9:5-11 The slaughter must begin at the sanctuary, that all may see and know that the Lord hates sin most in those nearest to him. He who was appointed to protect, reported the matter. Christ is faithful to the trust reposed in him. Is he commanded by his Father to secure eternal life to the chosen remnant? He says, Of all that thou hast given me, I have lost none. If others perish, and we are saved, we must ascribe the difference wholly to the mercy of our God, for we too have deserved wrath. Let us still continue to plead in behalf of others. But where the Lord shows no mercy he does no injustice; he only recompenses men's ways.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Begin at my sanctuary - The first to be punished were those who had brought idolatry nearest to the holy place. The "ancient men," i. e., the 25 men who had stood with their backs to the altar Ezekiel 8:16 were the first to be slain.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

6. come not near any … upon whom … mark—(Re 9:4). It may be objected that Daniel, Jeremiah, and others were carried away, whereas many of the vilest were left in the land. But God does not promise believers exemption from all suffering, but only from what will prove really and lastingly hurtful to them. His sparing the ungodly turns to their destruction and leaves them without excuse [Calvin]. However, the prophecy waits a fuller and final fulfilment, for Re 7:3-8, in ages long after Babylon, foretells, as still future, the same sealing of a remnant (one hundred forty-four thousand) of Israel previous to the final outpouring of wrath on the rest of the nation; the correspondence is exact; the same pouring of fire from the altar follows the marking of the remnant in both (compare Re 8:5, with Eze 10:2). So Zec 13:9; 14:2, distinguish the remnant from the rest of Israel.

begin at … sanctuary—For in it the greatest abominations had been committed; it had lost the reality of consecration by the blood of victims sacrificed to idols; it must, therefore, lose its semblance by the dead bodies of the slain idolaters (Eze 9:7). God's heaviest wrath falls on those who have sinned against the highest privileges; these are made to feel it first (1Pe 4:17, 18). He hates sin most in those nearest to Him; for example, the priests, &c.

ancient men—the seventy elders.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Slay utterly; my purpose is to exterminate and make desolate, therefore slay all that are designed to destruction. Old; whose venerable age, if innocent, might have awed you, whose wisdom might preserve some and themselves.

Young; who should be a seed-plot, or nursery, for posterity, cut them off too. Regard no state or sex, neither the loveliness of the virgin, nor the prettiness of the infant, nor the comeliness and gravity of the matron; spare none: yet in your fervours of revenge look you come not near to any sealed forehead; you may see them; though they blush for their own sins, and for the sins of others, yet they look up to me and wait for me in the way of my judgments, they will lift up their heads, and look you in the faces.

And begin, both the execution and the distinction, at my sanctuary; there are the great sinners, and the abominable sins which have brought this on them; and that all Israel may know nothing but repentance can secure them.

The ancient men; the seventy, or sanhedrim, Ezekiel 8:10,11. Which were before the house; who were governors in the temple and house of God by office, but idolaters by practice and principles.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children,

and women,.... All, of them objects of compassion, because of their age and sex; and yet none to be spared; and which orders were exactly obeyed; see 2 Chronicles 36:17;

but come not near any man on whom is the mark; these were not to be slain; and though some were carried captive, as Daniel, and others; yet it was for their good and God's glory; see Revelation 7:3;

and begin at my sanctuary; the temple, the house of God, and the priests and Levites that dwelt there. The Septuagint version is, "begin at my saints"; those who professed themselves to be the saints of the Lord, and were separated and devoted to his service; and so the Rabbins say (y), do not read "at my sanctuary"; but "at those that sanctify me", or "my sanctified ones"; which they interpret of those that keep the whole law, from "aleph" to "tau"; see 1 Peter 4:17;

then they began at the ancient men which were before the house; the seventy elders of Israel, who offered incense to the idols portrayed upon the walls of the chambers of the temple, Ezekiel 8:10; these they slew first.

(y) T. Bab. Avoda Zara, fol. 4. 1.

Geneva Study Bible

Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the {g} mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the {h} elders who were before the house.

(g) Thus in all his plagues the Lord preserves his small number, which he marks as in Ex 12:12, Re 7:3 but the chief mark is the spirit of adoption, with which the heart is sealed up to life everlasting.

(h) Which was the chief opportunity for all these evils, as in Eze 8:11.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

6. begin at my sanctuary] Judgment begins at the house of God. The Lord had returned for a moment to the place of his abode in the temple, and from there the judgment went forth; Amos 1:2, “The Lord shall roar out of Zion and give forth his voice from Jerusalem.” There he was most present, there most fully known, there if possible most forgotten and provoked, and there his holiness and godhead will assert themselves with most terribleness against the sins of men.

the ancient men] the elders, those mentioned, ch. Ezekiel 8:16.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 6. - Begin at my sanctuary, etc. It was fitting that the spot in which guilt had culminated should be the starting point of punishment. There seems something like a reference to this command in 1 Peter 4:17. In each case judgment "begins at the house of God." So the dread work began with the ancient men, or elders, of the same class, i.e., if not the same persons, as those in Ezekiel 8:11. Ezekiel 9:6

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The Divine Command

Ezekiel 9:4. And Jehovah said to him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and mark a cross upon the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations which take place in their midst. Ezekiel 9:5. And to those he said in my ears: Go through the city behind him, and smite. Let not your eye look compassionately, and do not spare. Ezekiel 9:6. Old men, young men, and maidens, and children, and women, slay to destruction: but ye shall not touch any one who has the cross upon him; and begin at my sanctuary. And they began with the old men, who were before the house. Ezekiel 9:7. And He said to them, defile the house, and fill the courts with slain; go ye out. And they went out, and smote in the city. - God commands the man provided with the writing materials to mark on the forehead with a cross all the persons in Jerusalem who mourn over the abominations of the nation, in order that they may be spared in the time of the judgment. תּו, the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, had the form of a cross in the earlier writing. התוה תּו, to mark a ת, is therefore the same as to make a mark in the form of a cross; although there was at first no other purpose in this sign than to enable the servants employed in inflicting the judgment of God to distinguish those who were so marked, so that they might do them no harm. Ezekiel 9:6. And this was the reason why the תּו was to be marked upon the forehead, the most visible portion of the body; the early Christians, according to a statement in Origen, looked upon the sign itself as significant, and saw therein a prophetic allusion to the sign of the cross as the distinctive mark of Christians. A direct prophecy of the cross of Christ is certainly not to be found here, since the form of the letter Tâv was the one generally adopted as a sign, and, according to Job 31:35, might supply the place of a signature. Nevertheless, as Schmieder has correctly observed, there is something remarkable in this coincidence to the thoughtful observer of the ways of God, whose counsel has carefully considered all before hand, especially when we bear in mind that in the counterpart to this passage (Revelation 7:3) the seal of the living God is stamped upon the foreheads of the servants of God, who are to be exempted from the judgment, and that according to Revelation 14:1 they had the name of God written upon their foreheads. So much, at any rate, is perfectly obvious from this, namely, that the sign was not arbitrarily chosen, but was inwardly connected with the fact which it indicated; just as in the event upon which our vision is based (Exodus 12:13, Exodus 12:22.) the distinctive mark placed upon the houses of the Israelites in Egypt, in order that the destroying angel might pass them by, namely, the smearing of the doorposts with the blood of the paschal lamb that had been slain, was selected on account of its significance and its corresponding to the thing signified. The execution of this command is passed over as being self-evident; and it is not till Ezekiel 9:11 that it is even indirectly referred to again.

In Ezekiel 9:5, Ezekiel 9:6 there follows, first of all, the command given to the other six men. They are to go through the city, behind the man clothed in white linen, and to smite without mercy all the inhabitants of whatever age or sex, with this exception, that they are not to touch those who are marked with the cross. The על for אל before תּחוס is either a slip of the pen, or, as the continued transmission of so striking an error is very improbable, is to be accounted for from the change of א into ע, which is so common in Aramaean. The Chetib עיניכם is the unusual form grammatically considered, and the singular, which is more correct, has been substituted as Keri. תּהרגוּ is followed by למשׁחית, to increase the force of the words and show the impossibility of any life being saved. They are to make a commencement at the sanctuary, because it has been desecrated by the worship of idols, and therefore has ceased to be the house of the Lord. To this command the execution is immediately appended; they began with the old men who were before the house, i.e., they began to slay them. האנשׁים הזּקנים are neither the twenty-five priests (Ezekiel 8:16) nor the seventy elders (Ezekiel 8:11). The latter were not לפני הבּית, but in a chamber by the outer temple gate; whereas לפני הבּית, in front of the temple house, points to the inner court. This locality makes it natural to think of priests, and consequently the lxx rendered ממּקדּשּׁי by ἀπὸ τῶν ἁγίων μου. But the expression אנשׁים זקנים is an unsuitable one for the priests. We have therefore no doubt to think of men advanced in years, who had come into the court possibly to offer sacrifice, and thereby had become liable to the judgment. In Ezekiel 9:7 the command, which was interrupted in Ezekiel 9:6, is once more resumed. They are to defile the house, i.e., the temple, namely, by filling the courts with slain. It is in this way that we are to connect together, so far as the sense is concerned, the two clauses, "defile...and fill." This is required by the facts of the case. For those slain "before the house" could only have been slain in the courts, as there was no space between the temple house and the courts in which men could have been found and slain. But לפני cannot be understood as signifying "in the neighbourhood of the temple," as Kliefoth supposes, for the simple reason that the progressive order of events would thereby be completely destroyed. The angels who were standing before the altar of burnt-offering could not begin their work by going out of the court to smite the sinners who happened to be in the neighbourhood of the temple, and then returning to the court to do the same there, and then again going out into the city to finish their work there. They could only begin by slaying the sinners who happened to be in the courts, and after having defiled the temple by their corpses, by going out into the city to slay all the ungodly there, as is related in the second clause of the verse (Ezekiel 9:7).