Chapter Thirty-Five

Against Seir

Until now the return of Israel to his land has been spoken of as something self-evident. But there are obstacles to such a return: the neighboring pagan peoples, chiefly the Edomites. The restoration of the chosen people, described in chapter XXXIV, is impossible without the restoration of the holy land, without its return to Israel. And here Edom says: “these two peoples and these two lands will be mine” (Ezek 35:10). “Edom or Jehovah?” (Bertholet). The answer, perhaps, can be only one. Edom, appearing here as the representative of all those who envy Israel (the heathendom nearest to him), who hindered the restoration of the chosen people and his dominion on the earth (of course, chiefly spiritual), must be destroyed. Thus the restoration of the holy land, which the prophet now needs to speak of after the discourse on the restoration of the state (chapter XXXIV) and before the discourse on the restoration of the people (chapter XXXVII), is treated in chapters XXXV and XXXVI from two sides: the negative in chapter XXXV and the positive in chapter XXXVI; the first gives a good background for the second. The chapter supplements chapter XXV; 12–14.

Ezek 35:1-9. The Lord will avenge the Edomites for the recent cruelties against Israel in that they will fall by the sword, and their country will become depopulated. Verses 10–15. For offending Jehovah by claiming His land and mocking Him, the Edomites will painfully be convinced that the all-knowing Lord heard their mockeries when He repaid them with the same that they did to His people.

Ezekiel 35:1. And the word of the Lord came to me: The formula is not repeated in Ezek 36:1, but only in Ezek 36:6 to show the close connection of the chapters.

Ezekiel 35:2. son of man! set your face toward the mountain of Seir and prophesy against it “Set your face”, Ezek 6:2. – “The mountain of Seir” an ancient name of the hilly region of Jebel el-Sera, located on the eastern side of the Arabah; but here it serves as a designation of all Edom, corresponding to the way “the mountains of Israel” means all Palestine.

Ezekiel 35:3. and say to it: thus says the Lord God: behold, I am against you, mountain of Seir! and I will stretch out My hand against you and make you a desolation and a waste. “I will stretch...My hand...a waste”, see the explanation Ezek 25:13.

Ezekiel 35:4. I will turn your cities into ruins, and you yourself will be desolate, and you will know that I am the Lord. See the explanation Ezek 12:20.

Ezekiel 35:5. Since you harbored an eternal enmity, and you delivered the sons of Israel into the hand of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time of their final ruin: “Eternal enmity.” This enmity of Edom with Israel began in the womb of their mother (Gen 25:22 and following, Gen 27:37), never ceased (Amos 1:11) and was especially manifested during the Chaldean conquest. – “Into the hand of the sword.” Jer 18:21; Ps 62:11. “In the time of their calamity” – the destruction of the kingdom by the Chaldeans (Obad 1:13-14). – “In the time of their final ruin”, see the explanation Ezek 21:29.

Ezekiel 35:6. therefore – as I live! says the Lord God – I will make you blood, and blood will pursue you; since you did not hate blood, blood will pursue you. “I will make you blood.” Edom will undergo an especially great bloodshed. – “Since you did not hate blood.” Did not feel aversion to bloodshed; but in Hebrew it is not a negation but an exclamation: “O if only you had hated blood”; therefore the Slavonic and Vulgate translate: “you hated blood”, that is, perhaps, your blood-relative brother Israel. The word “blood” is repeated four times in the verse for the intensification of the depiction of the bloodthirstiness of the Edomites. But most Greek manuscripts do not have verse 6b.

Ezekiel 35:7. And I will make the mountain of Seir a desolation and a waste, and I will cut off from it everyone who goes and everyone who returns. See the explanation Ezek 6:14. – “I will cut off from it everyone who goes and everyone who returns.” All movement in the country will cease.

Ezekiel 35:8. And I will fill its heights with its slain; on your hills and in your valleys and in all your ravines those slain by the sword will fall. See the explanation Ezek 32:5.

Ezekiel 35:9. I will make you a perpetual desolation, and your cities will not be inhabited, and you will know that I am the Lord. “I will make you a perpetual desolation”, which the prophets never threaten Judah with, but of other peoples, besides Edom, also Chaldea: Jer 25:12. – “Your cities will not be inhabited.” This softens or rather imparts greater precision to the somewhat hyperbolic earlier threats: Edom will become a desolation in the sense that its former rich cities will become depopulated; small settlements in it will remain.

Ezekiel 35:10. Since you said: “these two peoples and these two lands will be mine, and we will take possession of them, even though the Lord was there: A new guilt of Edom and basis for his condemnation to destruction: a claim on the land of God. “These two peoples” – Israel and Judah (Ezek 37:22), of whom, consequently, many inhabitants remained in Palestine after the destruction of the kingdoms. – “And these two lands” – the northern and southern kingdoms. – “And we will take possession of them.” LXX and Vulgate better: “and I will take them as an inheritance”, by right of a brother, moreover an older one, after the death of another. – “Even though the Lord was there.” A conscious and therefore the more sinful sacrilege. The Edomites were not complete polytheists. Their claims to the holy land were thus a known encroachment on the portion of God on earth: Zech 2:12.

Ezekiel 35:11. therefore – as I live! says the Lord God – I will deal with you according to your anger and your envy, which you showed out of your hatred for them; and I will make Myself known to them when I judge you. “I will deal with you according to your anger and your envy.” I will do with you what you wanted to do with Israel out of hatred for it, arising from envy (the humiliated elder brother’s envy of the younger). “Envy... for them” – not in most Greek manuscripts. – “And I will make Myself known to them”, that is, to Israel, as a righteous Judge over Edom, which will be a preliminary and, of course, incomplete revelation before the full revelation – in mercies to the chosen people. Slavonic “I will be known to you”, but Greek γνωσυησομαι σοι means “I will make Myself known to you.”

Ezekiel 35:12. And you will know that I, the Lord, have heard all your revilings, which you spoke against the mountains of Israel, saying: “they are desolate! they are given to us as food! “All.” LXX: “the voice”, which in Hebrew sounds the same – kol. – “The mountains of Israel” – the holy land; Ezek 6:2. – “They are desolate”, the inhabitants were killed or taken into captivity. “They are given to us as food”: they became our complete and easy prey.

Ezekiel 35:13. You boasted against Me with your mouth and multiplied your words against Me; I heard it. A new, third sin of Seir: arrogance, all the more unforgivable in that it was directed against God Himself. In psalms of post-exilic origin there are also frequent complaints about mockeries. – “And multiplied your words against me” – not in the LXX.

Ezekiel 35:14. Thus says the Lord God: when all the earth rejoices, I will make you a desolation. “When all the earth rejoices”: when the Kingdom of God is established on the earth, into which, besides Israel, and according to Ezekiel’s prediction (Ezek 16:53) pagan peoples will also enter.

Ezekiel 35:15. As you rejoiced when the inheritance of the house of Israel became desolate, so I will do to you: you will be desolate, mountain of Seir, and all Edom with you; and they will know that I am the Lord. “As you rejoiced” through “I will do to you” – not in the LXX. – “So I will do to you.” And they will likewise rejoice over the destruction of Edom.