And they shall not lie with the mighty that are fallen of the uncircumcised, which are gone down to hell with their weapons of war: and they have laid their swords under their heads, but their iniquities shall be upon their bones, though they were the terror of the mighty in the land of the living.
They shall not lie with the mighty - i:e., they shall not have separate tombs, such as mighty conquerors have, but shall all be heaped together in one pit, as is the case with the vanquished (Grotius). Havernick reads it interrogatively, 'Shall they not lie with the mighty that are fallen?' But the English version is supported by the parallel (Isaiah 14:18-19) to which Ezekiel refers, and which represents them as not lying, as mighty kings lie, in a grave, but "cast out of" one, as "a carcass trodden under foot."
Which are gone down to hell with their weapons of war - alluding to the custom of burying warriors with their arms (1Ma 13:29). Though honoured by the laying of "their swords under their heads," yet the punishment of "their iniquities shall be upon their bones." Their swords shall thus attest their shame, not their glory, being the instruments of their violence, the penalty of which they are paying (Matthew 26:52, "All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword").