Ezekielchapter 35
15 verses · KJVEzekiel book hub →
Key verse
Because thou hast said, These two nations and these two countries shall be mine, and we will possess it; whereas the Lord was there:
It stands in scene B of the chapter, verses 10 to 15.
The chapter
Chapter summary
A short oracle against Mount Seir, set deliberately opposite the mountains of Israel in the next chapter. Edom is charged with perpetual enmity: giving over the children of Israel to the power of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time of the iniquity of the end. And with the greed that said of Israel and Judah, 'These two nations and these two countries shall be mine, and we will possess it.' The answer names what Edom forgot: 'whereas Jehovah was there.' Blood shall pursue the one who hated not blood; the mountain that rejoiced over another's desolation is made desolate itself.
Context
Prophecy · Ezekiel · Ezekiel overview
Where the chapter sits
Ezekiel 35 falls in Restoration promised (chapters 33–37). The watchman's charge renewed; false shepherds denounced (34); the new heart and new spirit (36:26–27); the valley of dry bones (37); one stick, one shepherd.
Before it: Oracles against the nations, chapters 25–32. After it: Gog and Magog, chapters 38–39.
The whole shape of Ezekiel→The world behind this chapter
Ezekiel 35The history
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.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
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.
What it meant to them
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.
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.
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
A. Mount Seir given over to perpetual desolation
1. (vv. 1-4)
a.the word of the Lord came unto me, saying: 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, and the recognition formula names the purpose that runs through every judgment in this book.
Ezekiel 35:1, 1 voiceWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Ezekiel 35:1
“In Ezek. 35–36 we see the devastation of Edom, and the restoration of Israel. Edom was included among the nations against which Ezekiel prophesied Eze 25:12-14. But its fuller doom was reserved for this place, because Edom was one of the surrounding nations that profited at first by Judah’s fall, and because it helps by way of contrast to bring out in a marked way the better future designed for Israel.”
Ezekiel 35:2, 2 voices
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
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
Ezekiel 35:3, 1 voice
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.”
Ezekiel 35:4, 1 voice
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
2. (vv. 5-9)
a.perpetual hatred: The ground of the sentence is a long history the bench traces from Esau's own grudge against Jacob through Edom's refusal of passage at the exodus to violence in the time of their calamity, most commentators reading this as Edom's part in Jerusalem's fall, the same hostility Obadiah and Psalm 137:7 record. The talion principle answers blood with blood, thou hast not hated blood, even blood shall pursue thee.
Ezekiel 35:5, 2 voices
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.”
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
Ezekiel 35:6, 3 voices
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
Ezekiel 35:6
“I will prepare thee unto blood--I will expose thee to slaughter. sith--old English for "seeing that" or "since." thou hast not hated blood--The Hebrew order is, "thou hast hated not--blood"; that is, thou couldst not bear to live without bloodshed [GROTIUS]. There is a play on similar sounds in the Hebrew;”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
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
Ezekiel 35:9, 1 voice
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.”
B. You said, these two nations are mine
1. (vv. 10-13)
a.These two nations and these two countries shall be mine: Edom's crime widens from hostility to acquisitive claim, treating the fallen kingdoms of Israel and Judah as territory for the taking, whereas the Lord was there, a claim the text answers by naming God's own prior stake in the land. The boastful words spoken against the mountains of Israel are heard directly, I have heard them, setting up the mountains' own vindication argued at length in the chapter that follows.
Ezekiel 35:10, 4 voices
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
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."
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
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 35:12, 1 voice
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
Ezekiel 35:13, 1 voice
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
2. (vv. 14-15)
a.the whole earth rejoiceth: The sentence closes on exact reciprocity: as Edom rejoiced over Israel's desolation, so Edom itself becomes the desolation, named twice, by its territory 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, 2 voices
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
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
Ezekiel 35:15, 1 voice
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
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Ezekiel 35. 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 10 works. Open for the list.
This page draws on Adam Clarke; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Ezekiel; Charles Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 536: “Jehovah-Shammah” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition) (1863); Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871); Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Matthew Henry and Patrick Fairbairn, An Exposition of Ezekiel.
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