Ezekiel 21:19,20 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Appoint thee two ways So as to represent them to the eyes of thy countrymen: see Ezekiel 4:1; “Designa in tabella, lapide, aut terra.” Mark on a map, a stone, or on the earth. Vatablus. That the sword of the king of Babylon may come Dr. Waterland translates this, “Appoint thee two roads for the king of Babylon's sword to come by; let both go forth out of one land; and choose thou a way-mark; choose it at the head of the road toward the city: Ezekiel 21:20, Point out a road for the sword to go to Rabbath, and to Judah in Jerusalem the defenced.” Instead of the defenced, Houbigant reads, that he may besiege it. God here foreshows his prophet, that when the king of Babylon should come with his army into Syria, and find the Ammonites had entered into a confederacy with Egypt as well as Zedekiah, he would be in doubt against which of the two people he should first make war, and would commit the decision of the matter to his arts of divination, described Ezekiel 21:21; and that God should direct the divination to be for taking the road that leads to Jerusalem. The words, Let both go forth out of one land, seem to mean, that the single way should divide itself into two, leading to different places. This, as appears from what follows, was the road coming out of Arabia, which afterward parted into two, one leading to Rabbath, and the other to Jerusalem.