Ezekiel 21:30-32 - Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible

Bible Comments

“Cause it to return to its sheath. In the place where you were created, in the land of your birth, I will judge you. And I will pour out my indignation on you, and I will blow on you with the fire of my wrath, and I will deliver you into the hand of brutish men, skilful to destroy. You will be for fuel for the fire. Your blood will be in the midst of the land. You will be no more remembered. For I Yahweh have spoken it.”

Their vindictiveness has brought them also under God's judgment, and they must desist. Indeed they have determined their own fate. Only that judgment now awaits them, and it will come on them in their own native land where they were first established as a nation, where God had watched over them too (Deuteronomy 2:19).

It is depicted in severe terms. God's indignation, the fire of His wrath, being subjected to the hands of brutish war-skilled men, fuel for the fire, their land covered in blood, a nation destroyed. And in the end oblivion, to become a forgotten people, to the ancient the worst of all fates. And it is God Who has said it.

So while Jerusalem has faced the awful and seemingly final judgment of God there is here the recognition that there is hope for the future, for God has not taken His eye off them, and those who take advantage of them will themselves be destroyed.

Ezekiel 21:30-32

30 Shall I cause it to return into his sheath? I will judge thee in the place where thou wast created, in the land of thy nativity.

31 And I will pour out mine indignation upon thee, I will blow against thee in the fire of my wrath, and deliver thee into the hand of brutishi men, and skilful to destroy.

32 Thou shalt be for fuel to the fire; thy blood shall be in the midst of the land; thou shalt be no more remembered: for I the LORD have spoken it.