Ezekielchapter 25
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Speaks with:Ezekiel 25×6Zephaniah 2×3Jeremiah 49×2Ezekiel 6×2Deuteronomy 28×2Ezekiel 21×2
Summary
Chapter summary
The oracles against the nations begin, four in one chapter, each answering a sin of the tongue or the heart against Judah's fall. Ammon said 'Aha' against the sanctuary when it was profaned, and is given to the children of the east for a possession. Moab said 'Judah is like unto all the nations,' flattening Israel's election, and loses her frontier cities. Edom dealt vengefully against the house of Judah: 'I will lay my vengeance upon Edom by the hand of my people Israel.' And the Philistines took vengeance with despite of soul to destroy with perpetual enmity, so the Cherethites are cut off. Each closes: they shall know that I am Jehovah.
Context
Prophecy · Ezekiel — Ezekiel overview
- A. 1–7 Ammon clapped when the sanctuary fell
- B. 8–11 Moab said Judah is like all the other nations
- C. 12–14 Edom's vengeance repaid by Israel's hand
- D. 15–17 The Philistines' old hatred answered
The outline
A.Ammon clapped when the sanctuary fellvv. 1 to 7
Read vv. 1 to 7 →B.Moab said Judah is like all the other nationsvv. 8 to 11
Read vv. 8 to 11 →C.Edom's vengeance repaid by Israel's handvv. 12 to 14
Read vv. 12 to 14 →D.The Philistines' old hatred answeredvv. 15 to 17
Read vv. 15 to 17 →
The world behind this chapter
Ezekiel 25The history
These four were not distant empires. They were the countries over the next ridge, all within a few days' walk of Jerusalem, and Israel had been trading, fighting and intermarrying with them for six hundred years. Ammon and Moab were reckoned in Genesis as descendants of Lot, Abraham's nephew — family, in the long memory of that world.
Ammon's capital was Rabbah, on the edge of the eastern desert where the farmland runs out. The threat that it will become a pasture for camels and a resting place for flocks is precise geography: when a caravan city loses its wall and its trade, the desert tribes graze it. Those men of the east are the nomadic groups who moved between the settled land and the steppe according to the season.
The specific charge against Ammon is a gesture: you clapped your hands and stamped your feet and rejoiced with all the malice of your heart against the land of Israel. Ammon did more than gloat. Jeremiah records that the Ammonite king sponsored the assassination of Gedaliah, the governor Babylon installed after the fall, which destroyed the last chance of an orderly life in the land.
Moab's charge is a sentence, not a gesture: behold, the house of Judah is like all the other nations. That is, there was nothing special about them after all — their God was no different. Edom's is revenge taken personally, and Philistia's is old, settled hatred acted on with an everlasting grudge. Four neighbours, four different ways of kicking a country while it is down.
What it meant to them
For a community that had just lost everything, the reaction of the neighbours was its own wound. This chapter says God heard the clapping.
It also does something structural that the exiles needed. Judgment did not stop at Jerusalem. The same God who had just used Babylon on His own people is holding every nation on that map to account, which means the world is under one government and not simply under Babylon's.
Sources cited
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
- K. A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Ezekiel 25. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.