Chapter Five
1–4. Fourth symbolic action: the shorn hair. 5–17. Explanation of the symbolic actions.
Ezekiel 5:1. And you, son of man, take for yourself a sharp sword; as a barber’s razor take it for yourself, and draw it over your head and your beard; and take for yourself scales, and divide the hair by weight. The prophet must now represent the outcome of the siege of Jerusalem, whereby he himself again comes forward as the representative of the besieged city, and his hair—the inhabitants. He shaves his hair on his head and beard, thus symbolizing disgrace (cf. 2 Sam 10:4-5, which is why shaving was forbidden to priests—Lev 21:5) and devastation (Isa 7:20 and following), and by destroying the shaved hair in various ways, he represents the ways by which the Lord will carry out His judgment on the population of Jerusalem and Judea. “Take for yourself a sharp sword,” Slav. more accurately “a sword.” “As a barber’s razor take it for yourself,” i.e., as a proper razor use a sword; Slav.: “sharper than a razor.” The word “barber,” “galav,” used nowhere else in the Old Testament (its root is Arabic), testifies that in the time of Ezekiel this profession already existed. The shaved hair is weighed on scales in the sign of the special precision of God’s predetermination in 3 equal parts. According to the LXX, the hair is divided into 4 parts and the first lot is subjected to two parts; since Jerome it has been recognized as an oversight of copyists; perhaps originally a fourth part meant burned hair tied up in clothing (see verse 3), and later the first part was doubled.
Ezekiel 5:2. Burn one-third in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled; and take one-third and strike it with the sword in the surroundings of it; and scatter one-third to the wind; and I will draw out a sword after them. “In the midst of the city,” i.e., in the image of it on the brick. “When the days of the siege are fulfilled,” i.e., when the symbolic lying representing it is fulfilled. All three details of the symbolic action are explained in verse 12. The burning of hair signifies the deadly calamities of the siege: famine and plague, and perhaps the burning of the city during the siege. “Strike with the sword in the surroundings of it,” i.e., the engraved city; the slaying of those attempting sallies. Symbol and reality are so little separated from each other that this would be criticized by a modern writer; but an ancient man did not draw such a sharp boundary between symbol and reality as we do. “Scatter to the wind.” Signifies the scattering of the Jews throughout all the land, which began soon after the taking of Jerusalem: besides Babylon, some went to Egypt. “I will draw out a sword after them.” The scattered Jews will always be in fear of pursuing enemies. The symbol for a time gives way to direct speech: the Lord Himself takes the place of the prophet, and the people takes the place of the hair. But such an intrusion of direct speech causes some to see in the phrase an insertion from verse 12.
Ezekiel 5:3. But you shall take a small number of hairs, and bind them in the fold of your garment. Hair bound in the hem (a symbol of safety: 1 Sam 25:29) signifies the survivors of Jerusalem’s conquest among the Jews—both those who remained in Judea and those who were deported to Babylon. “A small number”—literally “a small count,” that is, so few that they can be counted, and these are hairs!
Ezekiel 5:4. Then take some more of them and throw them into the fire and burn them in the fire. From there a fire will go out against the whole house of Israel. Some of these hairs are burned, which according to certain interpreters signifies the struggle between Gedaliah and Ishmael Jer 40:1 and following, but more accurately the destruction of some of those who returned from exile. From this it is evident that Ezekiel expects a further purifying judgment, in which those who survive the first catastrophe will be destroyed (cf. Isa 6:13); this thought already appears in Ezek 3:16-21: “shall surely die” (Bertholet). “From there a fire will go out against the whole house of Israel.” From there, where the last part of the hair lies, from the place of exile, from those spared from disasters; Greek exautes may mean “the city”; according to others, from the people, from the very fire itself. By this latter fire, which is to spread over the whole house of Israel, various post-exilic calamities are understood, beginning with the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes (blessed Theodoret) and ending with the two destructions of Jerusalem under Titus and Hadrian (blessed Jerome). More soundly is it to understand here a purifying fire for Israel as a whole, which came “to cast fire upon the earth,” the Savior (Luke 12:49); cf. Isa 6:12-13, Ezek 6:8-10. But this interpretation too is not without difficulty: fire everywhere in the Old Testament symbolizes God’s judgment (Jer 4:4; Zeph 3:8 and others), and why would such fire go out if already two-thirds have been destroyed, and not all should perish according to Ezekiel? Therefore, it is thought that the words “against the whole house of Israel” should be connected according to the LXX with the following sentence, and “fire went out” may be an insertion from Ezek 19:14 (but these words are found everywhere). Ezek 5:5-17 The punishment threatening Jerusalem is established (v. 5-10) and described without symbols (v. 11-17), with speech gradually transitioning from Jerusalem to the land (cf. chapters VI and VII) and from the content of the last symbolic action to the explanation of all of them. The general thought of verses 5-10: Israel, so highly distinguished before the nations, has shown itself worse than they, and for this is subject to the severest punishment.
Ezekiel 5:5. Thus says the Lord God: this is Jerusalem! I have set it in the midst of the nations, and all around it are lands. Jerusalem is called the center of the nations and lands (cf. Ezek 38:12), as the focal point of the earth in the historical sense (not geographical, as rationalists wish to see here naive geographical conceptions), as the city in which God established the throne of His kingdom of grace, from which will go forth the law (Isa 2:2; Mic 4:1) and salvation (Ps 73:12) for all nations. This conception presupposes the people’s faith in their world-historical significance, on the basis of which they feel themselves to be the focal point of world history, and therefore of the earth. “For this evaluation of Jerusalem, Solomon, who pondered raising it to the level of a cosmopolitan capital, did far less than Isaiah; for the latter, world history revolves around Jerusalem as a cornerstone Ezek 29:5 and ff. Ezek 31:5); Jehovah has in Jerusalem a fire (Ezek 31:9); so also at the end of times it should become again a faithful city, a mountain of righteousness (Isa 1:26). In Ezekiel’s time, it was relied upon as an external reality, by possessing which they counted themselves unconquerable (Jer 7:7). For Ezekiel too Jerusalem is the incomparable city, because here is the temple, in which alone lawful worship is possible (Bertholet). “I have set it in the midst of the nations, and all around it are lands.” The second clause strengthens the thought of the first. “Lands” (plural) is characteristic of Ezekiel: it has the meaning of “heathen land” and appears in him 27 times, whereas in earlier prophets it does not occur, except in Jeremiah, in whom it appears 7 times” (Bertholet).
Ezekiel 5:6. But she has rebelled against My ordinances more wickedly than the nations, and against My statutes worse than the lands around her; for they have rejected My ordinances, and do not walk in My statutes. Ezekiel 5:7. Therefore thus says the Lord God: because you have multiplied your abominations more than the nations that are around you, and do not walk in My statutes, and do not keep My ordinances, and furthermore do not walk according to the ordinances of the nations that are around you— He who should have been a teacher of truth and piety has become a leader of all impiety. Apart from the ordinances (Church Slavonic: “justifications,” which are the more important, moral laws) and statutes (Church Slavonic “laws,” which are the ceremonial laws of God), Jerusalem does not even walk according to the “ordinances” (not statutes) of the nations, that is, according to the precepts of natural law and conscience (in Ezek 11:12 the prophet Ezekiel, on the contrary, reproaches the Jews for walking according to the ordinances of the surrounding nations, but there it is evident that religious and ceremonial ordinances are meant, so that passage does not contradict the present one, and there is no need to remove the negation here in order to resolve this contradiction, which moreover several Hebrew manuscripts do not have (Peshitta). Thus the present passage is a “dogmatic anticipation of the teaching of the Apostle Paul concerning the moral natural law among the nations in Rom 2:14 and ff., while being at the same time a further development of such thoughts of Amos (Amos 3:9) (Egypt and the Philistines have their moral judgment, by which Israel’s behavior is condemned); Amos 1:3—Amos 2:3 (the nations are accountable for their sins); appeal to the moral judgment of the nations is made also by Jeremiah Jer 18:13; Jer 6:18 and ff.; cf. Ezek 3:6; however, the thought of God’s revelation to all mankind, even a covenant with them, was already expressed in Gen 9:4-17; cf. from later times the so-called “Noahide Commandments” (Bertholet).
Ezekiel 5:8. Therefore thus says the Lord God: behold, I Myself am against you, even I, and I will execute judgments in your midst before the eyes of the nations. “Behold, I am against you”—a favorite expression of Ezekiel’s. The speech returns to the second person singular (understood primarily as Jerusalem), but not to the third person. “Even I.” An emphatic repetition (for reinforcing the thought). “It is I, whom you considered asleep, but who always reigns and punishes sin” (Trapp). “Judgment before the eyes of the nations” (cf. Jer 1:15) is also so that they might see in this proof of God’s righteousness. “Later Jews showed anxiety lest they become a shame to the godless, and their constant prayer to God, for example in some psalms, was that He would mercifully protect them from the malice of the latter. Ezekiel does not share this anxiety for his people; on the contrary, he nails it to the pillar of shame, as though he were bound to it by no ties” (Bertholet); for him God is everything.
Ezekiel 5:9. And I will do to you that which I have never done, and the like of which I will never do again, because of all your abominations. To unprecedented godlessness will correspond unprecedented punishment. Here one keenly perceives how unprecedented the destruction of the nation was for the captives. For the conquest of Jerusalem and the Babylonian exile, here seems too strong an expression (apparently contradicting Matt 24:21); one can understand the destruction of Jerusalem under Titus and Hadrian; and the latter interpretation can scarcely be hindered by the consideration that the Jews were then no longer the people of God and that they were punished then for a new sin—the rejection of the Messiah (Kliefoth, Das Buch Ezechiels Prophet, 1864–1865, on this passage), the people and their sin cannot be divided so into epochs.
Ezekiel 5:10. Fathers shall eat sons in your midst, and sons shall eat their fathers. And I will execute judgments on you, and I will scatter all your survivors to every wind. This terrible contravention of nature threatens also those who do not stop short of violating the most fundamental demands of natural moral law, Lev 26:29; Deut 28:53; but here the threat is aggravated by the final words: “and sons shall eat their fathers.” Something similar already occurred during the siege of Samaria (2 Sam 6:24-29) and probably this is not mere hyperbole in the fear of the horrors of the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in Lam 2:20; Bar 2:8; Jer 19:9. “One can also understand the Roman siege” (blessed Jerome). “I will scatter all your survivors, that is, those who escape the siege.” The same metaphor appears in Ezek 12:14; cf. Jer 49:32. Ezek 5:11-17 The punishment of Jerusalem is described more closely, in its execution, with the constant reiteration that it is not Ezekiel but the Lord who thus speaks; this is done in three distinct stanzas, which are separated from each other by the same number of repetitions of: “I the Lord have spoken this” (v. 13, 15, and 17).
Ezekiel 5:11. Therefore, as I live, says the Lord God, because you have defiled My sanctuary with all your detestable things and all your abominations, I will diminish you, and My eye will not spare, and I will show you no pity. The Lord swears by His life (the most solemn of oaths; cf. Num 14:21; Deut 32:40) that because of Jerusalem’s transgressions, the chief of which was the defilement of the temple (begun by Manasseh) with abominations (which are idols) and detestable things (which may relate to their worship; similarly in chapter VI the chief sin of Israel is considered to be the “high places” with their idolatry), Jerusalem will be treated without the mercy usually shown by God. “I will diminish,” literally “I will reject” (Church Slavonic: “I will cast out”) or “I will turn away” My eyes from you, so that somehow mercy should not awaken toward you.
Ezekiel 5:12. A third part of you shall die of plague and be consumed with hunger in your midst; a third part shall fall by the sword around you; and I will scatter a third part to every wind, and I will draw out a sword after them. This serves to explain verse 2, which however needed explanation only for its first member: it is here divided into two parts (plague and hunger), whereby four punishments result; if they are divided into three groups (the LXX has four), the basis for such division is that the first third perishes in the city, the second in the immediate vicinity of the city, and the third at a distance, in captivity. Hunger, plague, and sword appear frequently in Ezekiel (Ezek 6:11 and ff. Ezek 7:15) as three punishments of God; often joined to them as a fourth punishment are wild beasts (v. 17; Ezek 14:21); the same punishments are enumerated in this way by Jeremiah (18 times) and in cuneiform inscriptions (Müller, Ez. - Studien, 58–62). “I will draw out a sword”—v. 2.
Ezekiel 5:13. Thus My anger will be spent, and I will vent My wrath upon them, and I will satisfy Myself; and they shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken in My jealousy, when I have spent My wrath upon them. A strongly expressed anthropomorphism. The prophet himself is evidently infected with the Lord’s indignation, and his speech here reaches the highest degree of angry passion. “And they shall know”—the survivors, that is, the third part mentioned in verse 12. “And they shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken.”—A favorite expression of Ezekiel, not found in other prophets.
Ezekiel 5:14. And I will make you a ruin and a reproach among the nations that are around you, in the sight of all who pass by. Ezekiel 5:15. And you shall be a taunt and a reproach, a warning and a horror to the nations that are around you, when I execute judgments on you in anger and wrath, and in furious rebukes—I, the Lord, have spoken— The discourse naturally returns from the fate of the captives to the fate of the devastated city, with further development of verses 8 and ff. The land will become a wasteland, a comparison with which will be insulting to every land. “A warning”—of punishment, which will teach other nations not to sin. “A horror”—before the great calamities that will befall Jerusalem.
Ezekiel 5:16. When I send upon you my deadly arrows of famine, which will be for destruction, which I will send to destroy you, and I will increase famine upon you, and I will break the supply of bread for you, Ezekiel 5:17. and I will send upon you famine and wild beasts, and they shall rob you of your children; and pestilence and blood shall pass through you, and I will bring the sword upon you. I, the Lord, have spoken. Further development of verse 15b; verse 16a even continues the construction of verse 15, which then breaks off anacoluthically (without maintaining the sequence of thought). The threat is completed by repeating again the punishments mentioned in verse 12, but with intensified expressions and the addition of one new punishment, whereby the number 4, so significant for the present case, is obtained; cf. Ezek 14:21 and Ezek 1:5. It is remarkable that famine stands out as the greatest calamity, before which even the enemy’s sword gives way, which corresponded to reality. Attention is drawn to the change from third person plural first to second person plural, and then to second person singular. That the copyists were not troubled by this and did not attempt to correct it, Bertholet explains by the fact that for them the connection between the individual and the whole, and the personification of the people and society, lay deeper in their blood than we in modern times can understand; for them the people and society were constructed far less out of individual persons, than these latter received their right to exist through their belonging to the people and society. The horror before wild beasts, which resulted from military devastation, is spoken of very often (cf. especially 2 Sam 17:25; Exod 23:29; Deut 32:24; Lev 26:22). “The evidence that the cultivation of holy land remained relative at all times. The juxtaposition of pestilence and blood is striking, since the latter evidently is not shed by sword (cf. Ezek 14:19); meanwhile the expression hardly has a pathological basis (“blood boil”), but rather is only alliteration (the placing together of words with the same letters at the beginning, in Hebrew: dever - dam) and perhaps a byword” (Bertholet).