EXEGETICAL NOTES.— Ezekiel 21:28-32. The overthrow of the Ammonites. Israel is to rise after judgment, but Ammon is to be utterly destroyed.
Ezekiel 21:28. “Concerning the Ammonites, and concerning their reproach even say thou, the sword, the sword is drawn.” “Lest it should be supposed that because Nebuchadnezzar had taken the route to Jerusalem, and not that to Rabbah, therefore the Ammonites should escape being invaded by his army, the prophet is instructed to denounce judgment against them also. The reproach with which the Ammonites are here charged, was their opprobrious and insulting treatment of the Hebrews at different periods of their history, and especially when Jerusalem was taken by the Chaldeans.”—(Henderson). “The children of Ammon represents the world—power hostile to the kingdom of God. Yet the representative is not taken accidentally out of the multitude of the heathen peoples hostile to the kingdom of God; but the prophet takes occasion from the circumstances of the time. Ammon had at that time, no less than Judah, incurred the anger of the Chaldeans, and so it was natural to exemplify in him the general truth, the more natural because the vengeance was first to fall on Judah, while Ammon appeared to come out of the affair with high shoes, and mocked Judah, who had to pay the score. “Their reproval”—the insults which they heaped upon Judah. The prophet forsees that the Ammonites, on the approach of danger, will withdraw from the coalition (Lamentations 1:2), and on the catastrophe of Jerusalem, give free course to their ancient hatred against Judah. Judah exchanges the prophecy that was unfavourable to him for the divination (Ezekiel 21:23), and by this fatal exchange, falls; Ammon exchanges (Ezekiel 21:29) the divination favourable to him, for the prophecy, and thereby prepares himself at all events, for the downfall.”—(Hengstenberg).
Ezekiel 21:29. “Whiles they see vanity unto thee, whiles they divine a lie unto thee.” (Heb). They have seen falsehood for thee, they have divined for thee a lie. The Ammonites also had those among them who practised divination. But these had divined a “lie” for them, promising them peace and safety when judgment was hard at hand. “To bring thee upon the necks of them that are slain.” The Ammonites are to be involved in one common ruin with the Jews.
Ezekiel 21:30. “I will judge thee in the place where thou wast created.” “The Ammonites were not to be carried away captives, like the Jews to Babylon, but were to perish in their own land. While the Jews were to be restored after the captivity had cured them of idolatry, the Ammonitish kingdom was to cease for ever. The prophecy was fulfilled five years after the destruction of Jerusalem.”—(Henderson.)
Ezekiel 21:31. “I will blow against thee in the fire of my wrath.” The idea is not to blow with fire—which is an unnatural figure—but rather a blowing which increases the intensity of the flame. “Brutish men, and skilful to destroy.” “The word must be explained from Psalms 92:7, ‘brutish,’ foolish, always bearing in mind that the Hebrew associated the idea of Godlessness with folly, and that cruelty naturally follows in its train.”—(Keil)
Ezekiel 21:32. “Thou shalt be no more remembered.” Ammon was to perish utterly. For her there was no hope of restoration, like that held out to Israel in Ezekiel 21:27. “From the times of the Maccabees, the Ammonites and Moabites have quite disappeared out of history.”—(Hengstenberg.)
HOMILETICS
1. When God brings judgments upon His people for their iniquities, then their enemies take advantage and revile them. The Ammonites were glad that the calamity of Jerusalem was at hand. They were neighbours of the Jews, brethren also as coming from the brother of Abraham; yet they reproached the Jews and added affliction to affliction (Zephaniah 2:8). The rabbies say, that when the Chaldeans carried the Jews captive, through the land of the Ammonites and Moabites, the Jews wept, and they reproached them saying, why do ye afflict yourselves? Why do you weep? Are you not going to your father’s house? They meant Chaldea, which was Abraham’s country and habitation. These and many other reproachful speeches they used against the Jews, when they were spoiled and led into capitivity, and “magnified themselves against their border.” They said, now their border—their land—should become theirs. Thus they reproached and wronged the Jews. So likewise did the Edomites in “the day of Jerusalem” (Psalms 137:7), that was in the day when Nebuchadnezzar’s force took and plundered it. They cried, “Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation.” The adversaries saw Jerusalem, and did mock at her Sabbaths; they scoffed at all her festivals, religion, and worship. Where is your God, whose days you have so religiously observed? Why did He not defend you from this day of your sufferings? Either He was infirm, and could not, or unfaithful, and would not.
2. The Lord takes notice of the enemies reproaching His people. He tells the prophet of the reproachings of the Ammonites. Ezekiel was in Babylon, and knew nothing of it, but God heard and observed it (Zephaniah 2:8). God saith in His indignation unto Moab, “Was not Israel a derision unto Thee?” Deny it, if thou darest. I saw it; I heard it This is some comfort to the Church and people of God, that He observes not only the wrongs wicked men do unto His people, but also the reproaching speeches they utter against them (Lamentations 3:6.)
3. Reproaching and reviling God’s people, when they are in affliction, draws judgments upon the reproachers and revilers. The Ammonites reproached the Jews when the Babylonish sword came upon them, and here the prophet must tell them the sword is drawn and furbished for slaughter. Reproach of this kind is a provoking sin; God’s name, truth, ordinances, suffer when His people are reproached for His correcting hand upon them for their iniquities. Moab for reproaching should be reproached; yea, grievously afflicted, yea, utterly destroyed.
4. When the Lord threatens sinful nations with sore judgments, they have those amongst them which divert them from the truth, possess them with delusions, and put them upon destructive practices. The Ammonites were threatened here with the Babylonish sword, but they neither believed Ezekiel nor Jeremiah, who told them the same thing. Their false prophets, their diviners, beat them off from it, possessed them with vanities and lies, put them upon insulting over the Jews when the hand of the Lord was most heavy upon them, and so brought them to suffer by the same sword the Jews did. It is just with God to give men and nations over to believe lies and lying prophets, which shall lead them to destruction, when they have stopped their ears against the true prophets. Ahab would not believe Micaiah, but the false prophets who spake words according to his mind; but they were vanity, lies and he smarted for it (1 Kings 22)
5. Though the Lord bears long with sinful nations, yet He hath His days and times of reckoning with them. The day of the Jews was come, and their iniquity had an end. The day of the Ammonites came, and their iniquity had an end. God punished them severely for their sins (Ezekiel 25) Babylon and its king had a time to sin and a time to suffer. God stayed many days, yet had His day, and came at the day appointed (Jeremiah 50:31; Jeremiah 51:13). Babylon was insatiably covetous, robbing the nations of their riches, but all her wealth could not purchase one day’s respite from the wrath of God, nor all her waters preserve her from the fire of His indignation. The fire God sent in His day burnt up their habitations, and licked up the water of Euphrates whereon Babylon sat. God bare long with us, and the nations about us, but His day is come, He is visiting; we, they, have had our times of sinning, and must now have our times of suffering.—(Greenhill.)