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.
Thy blood shall be in the midst of the land - i:e., shall flow in the midst of the land.
Thou shalt be no more remembered - be consigned, as a nation, to oblivion.
Rk Remarks:
(1) This chapter gives an explanation of the parable in the latter part of last chapter. The forest to be consumed by fire (Ezekiel 20:47-48) is the guilty people of Judah about to be destroyed by the righteous vengeance of God (Ezekiel 21:2). As the flaming flame in the parable devoured every green tree and every dry tree, so "the righteous and the wicked" (Ezekiel 21:3) alike are to stiffer in the general calamity. Not that God would break His promise of saving the righteous as individuals; but in the outward aspect, the visitation of wrath would be upon the nation universally and indiscriminately. Still, outward calamities are to the godly covert blessings. The providence of God secretly interposes in their behalf, overruling seeming evil to real good; whereas, to the impenitent transgressors, punishment is nothing but unmitigated evil, while "all flesh" is made to "know" the righteousness of God in punishing the guilty (Ezekiel 21:5).
(2) Ezekiel is directed to "sigh with bitterness before the eyes " of the doomed people (Ezekiel 21:6). So they who denounce the coming and everlasting wrath of God against sinners should do so feelingly, not as if they wished the destruction of their fellow-sinners, but with heartfelt sorrow for the self-destroyers, and with deep humility at the remembrance of the grace of God which snatched themselves as brands from the burning. The example of Christ weeping over the city which was just about to crown its guilt by murdering Him, teaches us to mourn over those whose ruin we declare.
(3) When the sword of God's judgments is unsheathed for vengeance it is no time for "mirth" (Ezekiel 21:10). Let us beware of losing the lesson designed by chastisements. At such times what becomes us is a humbled and chastened spirit. We should search and try our ways, in order to learn why it is that the Lord contends with us, and that so we may turn again to the Lord. How many there are who try to drown serious thoughts in feasting and amusement! But let such remember "the end of that mirth is heaviness " (Proverbs 14:13): "For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool" (Ecclesiastes 7:6); whereas the end of godly sorrow is, "By the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better" (Ecclesiastes 7:3)
(4) The kingdom and sceptre of Judah were doomed to be "no more" (Ezekiel 21:13) for ages. The tribal sceptre of Judah and the Jewish state, indeed, were in some degree restored at the return from Babylon; but even these passed away at the time when "Shiloh," "the Prince of Peace," came, as foretold by the patriarch Jacob (Genesis 49:10). Then Judea became a Roman province, and in a few years afterward the nation was dispersed in all lands, as they still are in our day. When the sword of God descended with its lightning-flash "it contemned " even the sceptral "rod" of Judah, "God's son " (Ezekiel 21:10; Ezekiel 21:13). It overtook the guilty people, not only in the open battlefield, But even in "their privy chambers" (Ezekiel 21:14), where they fled to hide themselves. Let us hence learn that no past favours or privileges conferred on us by God secure us from His righteous judgment, if we be unfaithful to His covenant. Nothing but unfeigned repentance and living faith shall stand in the day of His wrath.
(5) God's never-failing providence ordereth all things that are in heaven and earth. "The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord" (Proverbs 16:33). Thus, Nebuchadnezzar, in his advance with an invading army, knew no other guiding principle but his own will, and superstitious divination by means of arrows; but an unseen and Almighty hand "appointed" his way (Ezekiel 21:19-22). Credulous as the Jews were of idolatrous divinations ordinarily, now that the augury was against them, it seemed to them as false. So just was the retribution in kind, that the idolatrous superstition which was their sin should be made the instrument of their punishment.
(6) How amazing is the blind infatuation of doomed transgressors! Forgetting their flagrant violation of their oaths of allegiance to Babylon, the Jews still flattered themselves with vain hopes of security. But though they forgot their sin, God did not forget it. "Calling to remembrance" (Ezekiel 21:23-24) their perjury, as a sample of the sin that "appeared in all their doings, " He now gives them up to "the hand" of the avenger. (7) King Zedekiah, as being foremost in guilt, was to be foremost in punishment (Ezekiel 21:25). Having "profaned" the holy name of God, by whom he had sworn fealty to Nebuchadnezzar, he had now attained the last stage of iniquity; therefore his "day" was now come that his "crown and diadem (Ezekiel 21:26) should be "taken off" from him, and that, as he and the Jews had upturned the whole moral relation of things, so the whole existing social and political state of persons and things should be reversed, "the low being exalted and the high abased."
(8) The manifold "overturning" (Ezekiel 21:27) of the Jewish state is, according to the sure word of prophecy, to continue until "He shall come whose is the right" to the suspended kingly dominion of the throne of Judah and Israel. All shall be un settled, and nowhere shall there be permanence and rest, until He shall come as the Restorer of all things (Acts 3:21), and the rightful heir of the throne of David, which fell with Zedekiah (Ezekiel 21:27). Thou shall the name of the once lowly Jesus of Nazareth be exalted (Ezekiel 21:26) above every name, and His once despised people shall share His triumph and kingdom. As Ammon was punished, and put out of remembrance forever (Ezekiel 21:32), for proudly reproaching the people of the Lord God (Ezekiel 21:28) so in that day shall Christ appear, to the joy of his people and to the shame of His foes (Isaiah 66:5), and "the rebuke of His people shall He take away from off all the earth" (Isaiah 25:8). Let us see that we have our portion with the people of God and His Christ!