Ezekiel 35:1-15 - Arthur Peake's Commentary on the Bible

Bible Comments

Ezekiel 35 f. The Occupation of the Land. Indispensable to the restoration of Israel is the possession of Canaan Israel's land and Yahweh's land (Ezekiel 35:10).

Ezekiel 35 f. The Destruction of Edom. The land had at the time been threatened, if not actually overrun, by the Edomites (Ezekiel 35:2; Mount Seir=Edom), between whom and Israel there had been from time immemorial a persistent hereditary feud (Ezekiel 35:5; cf. Genesis 27:40). Possibly the land, including the old northern and southern kingdoms (Ezekiel 35:10), had been given (Ezekiel 35:12) by Nebuchadrezzar in return for the support Edom had rendered to the Babylonians at the siege of Jerusalem (Psalms 137:7). The restoration of Israel must, therefore, be guaranteed by the destruction of Edom (cf. Ezekiel 25:12-14). But this destruction is morally justified on three grounds: (a) by Edom's cruel and ineradicable antipathy to Israel (Ezekiel 35:5); (b) by her occupation of Israel's soil and her implicit challenge of Yahweh (Ezekiel 35:10); (c) by her blasphemous pride. Her penalty is, therefore, to be desolation, utter and irrevocable; and by her extinction the way is cleared for Israel.

Ezekiel 35:1-15

1 Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

2 Son of man, set thy face against mount Seir, and prophesy against it,

3 And say unto it, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O mount Seir, I am against thee, and I will stretch out mine hand against thee, and I will make thee mosta desolate.

4 I will lay thy cities waste, and thou shalt be desolate, and thou shalt know that I am the LORD.

5 Because thou hast had a perpetualb hatred, and hast shed the blood of the children of Israel by the force of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time that their iniquity had an end:

6 Therefore, as I live, saith the Lord GOD, I will prepare thee unto blood, and blood shall pursue thee: sith thou hast not hated blood, even blood shall pursue thee.

7 Thus will I make mount Seir mostc desolate, and cut off from it him that passeth out and him that returneth.

8 And I will fill his mountains with his slain men: in thy hills, and in thy valleys, and in all thy rivers, shall they fall that are slain with the sword.

9 I will make thee perpetual desolations, and thy cities shall not return: and ye shall know that I am the LORD.

10 Because thou hast said, These two nations and these two countries shall be mine, and we will possess it; whereas the LORD was there:

11 Therefore, as I live, saith the Lord GOD, I will even do according to thine anger, and according to thine envy which thou hast used out of thy hatred against them; and I will make myself known among them, when I have judged thee.

12 And thou shalt know that I am the LORD, and that I have heard all thy blasphemies which thou hast spoken against the mountains of Israel, saying, They are laid desolate, they are given us to consume.d

13 Thus with your mouth ye have boastede against me, and have multiplied your words against me: I have heard them.

14 Thus saith the Lord GOD; When the whole earth rejoiceth, I will make thee desolate.

15 As thou didst rejoice at the inheritance of the house of Israel, because it was desolate, so will I do unto thee: thou shalt be desolate, O mount Seir, and all Idumea, even all of it: and they shall know that I am the LORD.