Ezekielchapter 35
15 verses · Ezekiel · 593 to 571 BC · The Prophets
Because you harbored an ancient hatred and delivered the Israelites over to the sword in the time of their disaster at the final stage of their punishment,
Introduction
Ezekiel, The Prophets, Ezekiel Overview.
This short chapter speaks to Edom, the nation descended from Esau, the twin brother of Jacob. Ezekiel wrote it for exiles who had learned how Edom behaved on the day Jerusalem burned. It stands on purpose just before the promise to the mountains of Israel in the next chapter. God deals first with the neighbour who had claimed Israel's land as his own. Listen for the old hatred named in the charge and for the plan Edom made to take two nations for itself. Listen at the end for what God says He heard Edom speak against Him.
Context
- Who
- Exiles who had learned what Edom did while Jerusalem burned
- What
- An oracle against Mount Seir, the land of Edom, for its lasting hatred of Israel and its plan to seize the emptied land.
- Where
- Spoken at Tel Abib in Babylonia against Mount Seir, the highland of Edom south-east of the Dead Sea.
- When
- About 585 BC, after the fall of Jerusalem, in the Babylonian exile.
- Why
- To answer Edom's violence and greed at Judah's fall and to clear the way for the promise that Israel's mountains would be restored.
Historical context
Mount Seir is a specific place: a spine of red sandstone and limestone highland running south from the Dead Sea, high enough for real rainfall, cut by gorges, and easy to defend. Its people controlled the King's Highway trade route and the copper workings of the Arabah valley below.
Show the rest of the historical context, 4 more paragraphs
The relationship with Israel was family and it was old. Edom descended from Esau, Jacob's twin, and the Law had said not to abhor an Edomite because he is your brother. What the chapter calls a perpetual enmity is a feud with a genealogy.
What Edom actually did at the fall is recorded elsewhere in Scripture and is what this oracle answers. Obadiah accuses them of standing at the crossroads to cut down the fugitives and of handing over survivors on the day of distress, and Psalm 137 remembers them shouting tear it down, tear it down to its foundations. They did not merely gloat; they closed the escape routes.
Their motive is quoted directly: these two nations and these two lands shall be mine, and we will take possession of them. With Israel and Judah both emptied, Edom expected to move north and inherit the whole country. In fact Edomites did push into the southern hill country in the following century, into the region later called Idumea.
The judgment answers each move exactly: you rejoiced over the inheritance of Israel because it was desolate, so I will make you desolate. And the closing charge is not against the land but against speech, you magnified yourselves against me with your mouth, and I heard it.
Significance
This short chapter sits between the shepherd promise and the restoration of the mountains of Israel for a reason. Before God tells the exiles their hills will be replanted, He deals with the neighbour who had already claimed them.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
For hearers who assumed the land was now legally lost, the message is that the men who staked out their fields had staked them out against God, and He was listening while they did it.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
The site's own table in src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed for this lane, printed no weekly portion and no Haftarah from this chapter, and no festival reading for the book. That table carries the Haftarah of each of the fifty-four weekly portions and the books read whole at the feasts, and it carries nothing for the special Sabbaths or the fast days. This card therefore names no public reading of the chapter and leaves that question to a source that holds those readings.
The corpus joins the chapter to the weeks of the Torah portions through the works arranged by portion. Under the sixth verse it carries Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Toldot 4:4, Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Toldot 4:5 and Midrash Tanchuma, Beshalach 28:1. Under the twenty-second verse it carries Midrash Tanchuma, Tetzaveh 1:4.
How it is read
Rashi is the one commentator on this chapter whose English the corpus carries, quoted here from The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY. Every quotation of it is held to fifty words or fewer because the translation is modern.
Rashi reads the oracle against Mount Seir as the answer to Edom's conduct on the day of Judah's fall. Edom handed over those who fled through its land, "and this is what Obadiah (1:14) says", setting the two prophets side by side (Rashi on Ezekiel 35:5:1).
The phrase that Edom hated blood draws four readings in one note, and Rashi leaves all four standing. In the first, Esau despised the birthright and its service of sacrifice, and "the filth of the blood of the slain will pursue you". In the second, citing Genesis Rabbah 63:13, "You hated the blood of circumcision". The third reads it as fear of murderers, and the fourth as hatred of "your brother, who is your flesh and blood" (Rashi on Ezekiel 35:6:2).
Edom's cities will not return, and Rashi sets that against Egypt and Ammon, whose captivity the prophets promised to restore (Rashi on Ezekiel 35:9:1). At the tenth verse he reads the two nations as "Israel and Judah". He then reports a Midrash Aggadah of Rabbi Tanchuma, whose source he marks unknown, in which Esau schemed through Ishmael to take the inheritance of both Isaac and Ishmael (Rashi on Ezekiel 35:10:1). The words that the Lord was there he reads in four words: "He knows your thoughts" (Rashi on Ezekiel 35:10:2). The rejoicing of the whole earth is the day "when I claim My kingdom" (Rashi on Ezekiel 35:14:1).
The corpus carries fourteen further notes on this chapter without an English text, each of them marked linked because Sefaria holds no English version of the ref. They stand cited and unquoted at Radak on Ezekiel 35:1:1, 35:2:1, 35:3:1, 35:4:1, 35:7:1, 35:8:1, 35:9:1, 35:12:1 and 35:15:1 and at Metzudat David on Ezekiel 35:2:1, 35:3:1, 35:4:1, 35:7:1 and 35:8:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries twenty-seven rabbinic locators on this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. On the second verse it holds Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Eduyot 2:2. On the sixth verse it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 4:8, Bereshit Rabbah 63:13 and Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 17:13. It also holds Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Amalek 1:40, Midrash Lekach Tov, Genesis 25:31:3 and Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 25:34:28 there. It also holds Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Toldot 4:4, Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Toldot 4:5 and Midrash Tanchuma, Beshalach 28:1 there. It also holds Tractate Kallah Rabbati 7:5, Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 111:4 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 265:4 there. It also holds Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 785:24 there. On the tenth verse it holds Aggadat Bereshit 2:2, Aggadat Bereshit 47:2 and Bereshit Rabbah 67:8. It also holds Midrash Lekach Tov, Genesis 27:41:3, Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 27:41:3 and Midrash Tehillim 14:2 there. It also holds Tanna DeBei Eliyahu Rabbah 24:1 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 115:22 there. On the thirteenth verse it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 11:1 and Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 25:21:1.
On the fourteenth verse it holds Midrash Tehillim 95:1. On the twenty-second verse it holds Midrash Tanchuma, Tetzaveh 1:4. On the twenty-sixth verse it holds Midrash Aggadah, Leviticus 16:30:11. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Ezekiel 35:5:1 to 35:14:1, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, reported CC-BY; Radak, Radak on Ezekiel 35:1:1, 35:2:1, 35:3:1, 35:4:1, 35:7:1, 35:8:1, 35:9:1, 35:12:1 and 35:15:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on Ezekiel 35:2:1, 35:3:1, 35:4:1, 35:7:1 and 35:8:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/ezekiel/35.json, the 27 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter; The site's own files, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed for this chapter and printing no weekly portion, no Haftarah and no festival reading.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Mount Seir given over to perpetual desolation
Ezekiel 35:1-4
the word of the LORD came to me: The oracle turns south to Edom, named here by its ancestral territory, Mount Seir, the hill country given to Esau. Total desolation is announced against the nation that had stood as Israel's oldest rival brother. The recognition formula names the purpose that runs through every judgment in this book.
set your face against Mount Seir: Set your face is Ezekiel's formula for an oracle of judgment, used toward the mountains of Israel at 6:2 and toward Ammon at 25:2. Edom already received a short oracle at 25:12 to 14. This second one stands beside chapter 36, where Israel's mountains hear the opposite word.
Ezekiel 35:2
“Set thy face against Mount Seir - That is, against the Edomites. This prophecy was probably delivered about the time of the preceding, and before the destruction of Idumea by Nebuchadnezzar, which took place about five years after. Calmet supposes that two destructions of Idumea are here foretold; one by Nebuchadnezzar, and the other by the Jews after their return from their captivity.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Ezekiel 35:2
“Singled out as badly pre-eminent in its bitterness against God's people, to represent all their enemies everywhere and in all ages. 63:1-4, Edom, the region of the greatest enmity towards God's people, is the ideal scene of the final judgments of all God's foes. "Seir" means "shaggy," alluding to its rugged hills and forests.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
stretch out My hand against you: The outstretched hand is the gesture of the exodus plagues, the LORD acting in power against Egypt. Mount Seir is the rugged range south and east of the Dead Sea, where Edom's towns stood among the cliffs. Obadiah 3 mocks Edom for trusting that height.
Ezekiel 35:3
“And say unto it, thus saith the Lord God,.... The prophet was not upon the spot, and could not direct his speech immediately to the Edomites; but he might send this prophecy to their ambassadors at Babylon; or in a letter to them in their own land, in the name of the Lord: behold, O Mount Seir, I am against thee: not the face of the prophet only, but the face of God himself was against them; and a terrible thing it is for any to have God to be against them, whether a nation, or a particular person.”
I will turn your cities into ruins: Edom's chief towns included Bozrah and Teman, both named in Jeremiah 49 and Amos 1:12. Malachi 1:3 later looks back on Esau's hill country already a desolation. The cities became ruins.
Ezekiel 35:4
“As the works of creation and common providence demonstrate that there is a God, so the care taken of Israel shows that Jehovah, the God of Israel, is that God alone, the true and living God.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 35:5-9
you harbored an ancient hatred: The ground of the sentence is a long history. It ends in Edom's violence “in the time of their disaster”, the same hostility Obadiah and Psalm 137:7 record. The talion principle answers blood with blood, “Since you did not hate bloodshed, it will pursue you”.
Ezekiel 35:5
“Shed blood - Omit “blood:” better as in the margin, i. e., and hast given up the children of Israel to the sword; thou hast scattered the children of Israel in confusion like stones poured down a mountain-side Mic 1:6. That their iniquity had an end - Or, “of the iniquity of the end,” i. e., the time when by the capture of the city the iniquity of Israel came to an end Eze 21:29.”
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 35:5
“If Jacob's issue fail, they think that they are next in the entail, and that the remainder will be to his brother's issue: " These two nations of Judah and Israel shall be mine. Now is the time for me to put in for them." At least they hope to come in as first occupants, being near neighbours: We will possess it when it is deserted.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
you did not hate bloodshed: The Hebrew word for blood, dam, sounds like Edom, the red one, a name tied to the red stew of Genesis 25:30. The sentence turns Edom's own name against it. Bloodshed is pictured as a pursuer, like the avenger of blood in Numbers 35.
Ezekiel 35:6
Blood shall pursue thee - Thou lovest blood, and thou shalt have blood. It is said that Cyrus and two hundred thousand men were slain in an ambush by Thomyris, queen of the Scythians, and that she cut ok his head, and threw it into a vessel filled with blood, with this severe sarcasm: - Satia te sanguine quem sitisti, Cyre. “O Cyrus, now satisfy thyself with blood.” Hence, the figure: - “Sarcasmus, with this biting taunt doth kill: Cyrus, thy thirst was blood, now drink thy fill.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 35:6
“Some read it, " Unless thou hatest blood " (that is, "unless thou dost repent, and put off this bloody disposition) blood shall pursue thee. " And then it is an intimation that the judgment may yet be prevented by a thorough reformation.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
those who come and go: are traders and travellers. Edom sat astride the King's Highway and the caravan routes between Arabia and the Mediterranean, and much of its wealth came from that traffic. A desolate Mount Seir would lose its trade.
Ezekiel 35:8
fill its mountains with the slain: Hills, valleys and ravines cover every kind of ground in Edom's rough country. Edom had trusted its heights for safety. Now those heights hold its dead, the same picture that 6:3 to 7 gave for the mountains of Israel.
Ezekiel 35:8
“The pursuers shall overtake those that flee and shall give no quarter, but put them all to the sword. Note, When God comes to make inquisition for blood those that have shed the blood of his Israel shall have blood given them to drink, for they are worthy. Satia te sanguine quem sitisti--Glut thyself with blood, after which thou hast thirsted.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 35:9
“I will make thee perpetual desolations, and thy cities shall not return,.... To their former dignity and glory; should not be built and inhabited again, but lie waste for ever: this agrees with what is prophesied of Edom, Mal 1:4 and will be true of Rome or Babylon when destroyed; it will never rise more, but be like a millstone in the midst of the sea, Rev 18:21, and ye shall know that I am the Lord; See Gill on Eze 35:4.”
You said, these two nations are mine
Ezekiel 35:10-13
Edom's crime widens from hostility to acquisitive claim, treating the fallen kingdoms of Israel and Judah as territory for the taking. The text answers the claim by naming God's prior stake in the land, “even though the LORD was there”. The boastful words are heard directly, “I heard it Myself”.
Ezekiel 35:10
HEREIN lay the special security of the chosen land. The Edomites saw the whole country of Israel and Judah left desolate. Babylonians and Chaldeans had carried away the people and ravaged the land, therefore the proud inhabitants of the city in the rock said—"These two nations and these two countries shall be mine and we will possess it." The dukes of Edom counted upon an easy conquest and such, indeed, the Holy Land would have proved, had there not been one great difficulty—quite unknown to them—"The Lord was there."
3 more voices on this verse
Ezekiel 35:10
“The Lord is there, the Lord Jesus is to be there; and therefore Israel's discontinuance of possession is no defeasance of their right, but it shall be kept for them, and they shall have, hold, and enjoy it by virtue of the divine grant, till the promise of this Canaan shall by the Messiah be changed into the promise of a far better.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 35:10
“These two nations - Israel and Judah. The Idumeans thought of conquering and possessing both; and they would have succeeded, but only the Lord was there; and this spoiled their projects, and blasted their hopes.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 35:10
“The broken sentences express the excited feelings of the prophet at Edom's wicked presumption. The transition from the "two nations and two countries" to "it" marks that the two are regarded as one whole. The last clause, "and Jehovah was there," bursts in, like a flash of lightning, reproving the wicked presumption of Edom's thought.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
the anger and jealousy you showed: Jealousy here is envy, Edom's lasting resentment of the brother who received the birthright and the blessing in Genesis 27. The LORD repays those same passions in kind. Israel will know Him when He judges Edom.
Ezekiel 35:11
“Therefore, as I live, saith the Lord,.... An oath, as before in Eze 35:6, I will do according to thine anger, and according to thine envy which thou hast used out of thy hatred against them: as thou hast been angry with them, and hated them, and done mischief to them, so will I be angry with thee, and hate thee, and inflict punishment on thee; I will retaliate all the anger, envy, and hatred showed unto my people, and punish thee according to thy just demerits.”
every contemptuous word you uttered: Devour is the word used of the wild beasts that fed on the scattered flock in 34:5 and 34:8. Edom speaks as one of those predators. The mountains it claimed are the mountains addressed in 36:1.
Ezekiel 35:12
“They are laid desolate, they are given us to consume - They exulted in seeing Judea overrun; and they rejoiced in the prospect of completing the ruin, when the Chaldeans had withdrawn from the land.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
multiplied your words against Me: Obadiah 12 rebukes Edom for boasting in the day of Judah's distress. The LORD's own hearing answers a mocker who assumed the God of Israel had left His land. Words are judged here as deeds.
Ezekiel 35:13
“Note, In the multitude of words, not one escapes God's cognizance; let men speak ever so much, ever so fast, though they multiply words, which they themselves regard not, but forget immediately, yet none of them are lost in the crowd, not the most idle words; but God hears them, and will be able to charge the sinner with them.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 35:14-15
While the whole earth rejoices: As Edom rejoiced over Israel's desolation, so Edom becomes the desolation, named twice, by Mount Seir and by all Idumea, the same region's later name. The recognition formula gives the chapter's last word, judgment and self-knowledge tied together as everywhere else in the book.
Ezekiel 35:14
“When the whole earth rejoiceth - When the whole land shall rejoice in the restoration of the Jews, I will make thee desolate. Probably this refers to the time of the Maccabees.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 35:14
“It was a national sin (the blasphemies charged upon them were the sense and language of all the Edomites), and therefore shall be punished with a national desolation.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
the inheritance of the house of Israel: Inheritance names the land as a family holding the LORD allotted to Israel's tribes, never to be sold away. Edom rejoiced at the loss of land it had never owned. Deuteronomy 2:5 had given Seir to Esau and forbidden Israel to take it.
Ezekiel 35:15
“So will I do unto thee - Others shall rejoice in thy downfall as thou hast rejoiced at their downfall. This whole chapter strongly inculcates this maxim: Do as thou wouldst be done by; and what thou wouldst not have done to thee, do not to others. And from it we learn that every man may, in some sort, be said to make his own temporal good or evil; for as he does to others, God will take care to do to him, whether it be evil or good, weal or wo. Would you not be slandered or backbitten?”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Carl Friedrich Keil; Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible; Patrick Fairbairn and Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible.