Ezekielchapter 5
17 verses · Ezekiel · 593 to 571 BC · The Prophets
“As for you, son of man, take a sharp sword, use it as a barber’s razor, and shave your head and beard. Then take a set of scales and divide the hair.
Introduction
Ezekiel, The Prophets, Ezekiel Overview.
Ezekiel was a priest, and the law of his office forbade him to shave his head or his beard, yet this chapter tells him to do both before his neighbours. The hearers were exiles who believed the temple made Jerusalem safe. The chapter pairs one more sign with the first long speech of judgment in the book. Listen for the scales, because every part of the sentence is weighed out. Notice where Jerusalem is said to stand among the nations, and what that place was meant to show them.
Context
- Who
- Deported Judeans watching their priest shave his own head in front of them
- What
- The prophet shaves his head and beard with a sword and divides the hair in three, and God declares the judgment it stands for on Jerusalem.
- Where
- Spoken at Tel Abib beside the clay model of Jerusalem, about the city and the nations around it.
- When
- About 593 BC, still some five years before the siege of Jerusalem began.
- Why
- To show that the judgment on Jerusalem was measured and deserved, because the city chosen to show God to the nations had become worse than they.
Historical context
Shaving was one of the sharpest humiliations available. Prisoners of war were shaved; mourners cut their hair; and a man's beard was his dignity, which is why an insult to it started wars. On top of that, the Law forbade a priest to shave his head or the edges of his beard. Ezekiel is not only disgracing himself, he is unpriesting himself in public.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
The sword used as a barber's razor is the whole point of the picture. What removes the hair is the thing that will remove the people.
Then he weighs the hair on a balance. Every market transaction in that world went across a two-pan balance with stone weights, and dozens of inscribed Judean weights have been dug up. Weighing is how you divide something exactly and fairly. God is saying this judgment is measured, not a fit of temper: a third burned inside the city, a third cut down around it, a third scattered to the winds, with a few hairs tucked into the fold of a garment and even some of those thrown into the fire.
The threat that fathers will eat their sons is not rhetorical exaggeration. Siege cannibalism is recorded of Samaria in the book of Kings, of Jerusalem in Lamentations, and later of Jerusalem again by Josephus in the Roman siege. Everyone hearing this knew of a city where it had happened.
Significance
God's charge against Jerusalem here is comparative, and that is what stings. Set in the middle of the nations to show them what a holy God is like, the city had become worse than the pagans around it.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
For hearers who were sure that the temple made Jerusalem untouchable, the verdict lands the other way round: the closer you stand to the holy place, the harder the judgment falls when you defile it.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
The site's table of synagogue readings ties no weekly portion and no Haftarah to this chapter. Probed for this lane, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts printed parashot 0 and haftarah uses 0 for Ezekiel 5, and no festival reading for the book. The table holds the Haftarah of each weekly portion and the six books read whole on a feast or a fast. Across chapters 1 to 24 of Ezekiel the same probe found a Haftarah only in chapters 20 and 22.
The corpus ties one custom to this chapter. An addendum is printed with Rashi on the third verse. It reads the binding of the hair as a hint "that whoever cuts his hair should not cast it away, but should hide it" (Rashi on Ezekiel 5:3:1).
How it is read
Rashi is the main commentator on this chapter in the corpus. He is quoted here from The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY. The translation is modern, so every quotation from it is fifty words or fewer.
The sharp sword is "the sword of Nebuchadnezzar" (Rashi on Ezekiel 5:1:1). The three parts of the hair are three ends. One third will perish by hunger inside the city (Rashi on Ezekiel 5:2:1). The few hairs bound in the skirt "are the few people who will be exiled to Babylon and will live" (Rashi on Ezekiel 5:3:1). The hairs thrown into the fire Rashi names as Ahab son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah son of Maaseiah, whom the king of Babylon burned (Rashi on Ezekiel 5:4:2).
God set Jerusalem among the nations, "In the middle of the world" (Rashi on Ezekiel 5:5:1). She did worse than the nations, and Rashi points to Manasseh, who led Judah to do more evil than the nations the Lord had destroyed (Rashi on Ezekiel 5:6:2).
At the seventh verse Rashi gives two readings of one word. He takes it from the root of an allotted portion, and he reports that Menachem took it as a word for stirring, like the nations that rage in Psalm 46 (Rashi on Ezekiel 5:7:2). The famine of the sixteenth verse he reports as he heard it: "the famine of the penny depleted from the pocket" (Rashi on Ezekiel 5:16:1).
The corpus carries 7 notes on this chapter without an English text, marked linked. Radak's notes stand at 5:3:1, 5:5:1, 5:9:1, 5:10:1, 5:11:1, 5:12:1 and 5:17:1. Each stands cited and unquoted, because Sefaria holds no English version of the ref.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries 28 rabbinic locators on the verses of this chapter, 2 filed under the Talmud and 26 under the Midrash. It carries the text of none, so each is cited by ref here and never quoted or paraphrased. The verse numbers are the Hebrew ones the corpus prints.
On verse 3 it holds Sifrei Zuta 15:38:2. On verse 5 it holds Midrash Lekach Tov on Lamentations 1:17:1, Midrash Tannaim on Deuteronomy 11:11:2, Pesikta Rabbati 27:1, Shir HaShirim Rabbah 2:2:5 and Sifrei Devarim 39:2. It also holds Vayikra Rabbah 21:6, Vayikra Rabbah 23:5 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 859:1. On verse 6 it holds Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 951:26. On verse 7 it holds Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sanhedrin 4:28, Ein Yaakov, Sanhedrin 4:34, Midrash Shmuel 22:3 and Sanhedrin 39b:19.
On verse 10 it holds Eikhah Rabbah 1:45, Midrash Lekach Tov, Leviticus 26:29:1, Pesikta Rabbati 29:1, Pesikta Rabbati 29:5 and Sifra, Bechukotai, Chapter 6 3. It also holds Tanna DeBei Eliyahu Rabbah 26:1. On verse 11 it holds Eikhah Rabbah, Petichta 21. On verse 13 it holds Berakhot 59a:6, Ein Yaakov, Berakhot 9:22 and Midrash Tehillim 85:1. On verse 16 it holds Eikhah Rabbah, Petichta 13, Midrash Lekach Tov, Deuteronomy 32:23:1, Midrash Tannaim on Deuteronomy 32:23:6 and Sifrei Devarim 321:3.
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 5:1:1 to 5:16:1, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, reported CC-BY; Radak, Radak on Ezekiel 5:3:1 to 5:17:1, cited by ref only: Sefaria holds no English version of the ref; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/ezekiel/5.json, the 28 Talmud and Midrash locators on the verses of this chapter; The site's own files, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed for Ezekiel 5: parashot 0, haftarah uses 0, no festival reading for the book.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A sword for a razor, the hair divided in three
Ezekiel 5:1-4
use it as a barber’s razor: Ezekiel shaves his head and beard with “a sharp sword” used as “a barber’s razor” and divides the hair in three. A third is burned “inside the city,” a third struck “with the sword,” and a third scattered “to the wind,” as Ezekiel 5:12 explains.
Ezekiel 5:1
“And thou, son of man, take thee a sharp knife,.... Or, "sword" (m). The word signifies any sharp instrument, by which anything is cut off, or cut asunder; what is here meant is explained by the following: take thee a barber's razor.”
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Ezekiel 5:1
“He must weigh the hair and divide it into three parts. This intimates the very exact directing of God's judgments according to equity (by him men and their actions are weighed in the unerring balance of truth and righteousness) and the proportion which divine justice observes in punishing some by one judgment and others by another; one way or other, they shall all be met with.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
burn up a third of the hair: Each third of the hair stands for part of Jerusalem's people. Albert Barnes reads the burned third as those who die inside the city. The third slashed with the sword are those killed around it, and the third scattered to the wind are those carried to foreign lands.
Ezekiel 5:2
“The third part burnt in the midst of the city” represents those who perished within the city during the siege; “the third part smitten about it” (the city) “with” the sword, those who were killed about the city during the same period: “the third part scattered to the wind” those who after the siege were dispersed in foreign lands. In the midst of the city - The prophet is in exile, and is to do this in the midst of Jerusalem. His action being ideal is fitly assigned to the place which the prophecy concerns.
2 more voices on this verse
Ezekiel 5:2
“Thou, shall burn with fire a third part in the midst of the city,.... Of Jerusalem, as portrayed upon the tile, Eze 4:1; or the prophet was now in Chaldea.”
Ezekiel 5:2
“Three classes are described. The sword was to destroy one third of the people; famine and plague another third ("fire" in Eze 5:2 being explained in Eze 5:12 to mean pestilence and famine); that which remained was to be scattered among the nations.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
take a few strands of hair: A few strands go into the folds of the garment. John Gill names them as the poor whom Nebuzaradan left in Judah to tend the vines. The folds show how few they are and that they are kept safe.
Ezekiel 5:3
Of the third part a few are yet to be taken and kept in the fold of the garment (representing those still to remain in their native land), and yet even of those few some are to be cast into the fire. Such was the fate of those left behind after the destruction of Jerusalem Jer. 40; 41. The whole prophecy is one of denunciation. Eze 5:4 Thereof - Or, from thence, out of the midst of the fire. Omit “For.”
2 more voices on this verse
Ezekiel 5:3
“Thou shall also take thereof a few in number,.... These are they that were left in the land of Judea by Nebuzaradan, for vinedressers and husbandmen, and such as returned out of Egypt into the land of Judah, Jer 44:28; and bind them in thy skirts; in the pockets of them; signifying both the very small number of them, and their preservation. Jarchi and Kimchi interpret these of those that were carried captive to Babylon, and lived there, and were preserved, and returned again.”
Ezekiel 5:3
“This signified perhaps that little handful of people which were left under the government of Gedaliah, who, it was hoped, would keep possession of the land when the body of the people was carried into captivity.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
throw them into the fire: Even the few kept in the garment face more loss. Some are thrown into the fire, and the fire spreads to the whole house of Israel. Albert Barnes sees this in the fate of those left behind after Jerusalem fell, told in Jeremiah 40 and 41.
Ezekiel 5:4
“Then the application will follow; but this I shall pass by today, because I cannot proceed farther. It is sufficient to hold briefly, that men are here designated by hairs, for hair can scarcely be counted, indeed that of the beard is countless; such was the multitude at Jerusalem, for we know that the city was very populous.”
John Calvin · Commentaries (1554)reformed
Jerusalem worse than the nations around her
Ezekiel 5:5-7
The Lord explains the sign: “This is Jerusalem, which I have set in the center of the nations.” The charge is by comparison, for she “has rebelled against My ordinances more wickedly than the nations.” Verse 7 presses further: “nor have you even conformed to the ordinances of the nations.”
Ezekiel 5:5
“I have set it in the midst of the nations - It was not unusual for nations to regard the sanctuary, which they most revered, as the center of the earth. In the case of the holy land this was both natural and appropriate. Egypt to the south, Syria to the north, Assyria to the east and the Isles of the Gentiles in the Great Sea to the west, were to the Jew proofs of the central position of his land in the midst of the nations (compare Jer 3:19).”
more wickedly than the nations: Jerusalem has rebelled against God's ordinances more wickedly than the nations around her. Adam Clarke explains the charge by her height. She fell from the knowledge of the true God, so her fall went lower than that of peoples who never had His statutes.
Ezekiel 5:6
“And she hath changed my judgments into wickedness more than the nations,.... So they changed their glory for that which did not profit; and the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man; and the truth of God into a lie, Jer 2:11; or, "for wickedness" (q); for judgments and laws that were not good, and which to observe was wickedness.”
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 5:6
“She hath changed my judgments - God shows the reason why he deals with Jerusalem in greater severity than with the surrounding nations; because she was more wicked than they. Bad and idolatrous as they were, they had a greater degree of morality among them than the Jews had. Having fallen from the true God, they became more abominable than others in proportion to the height, eminence, and glory from which they had fallen. This is the common case of backsliders; they frequently, in their fall, become tenfold more the children of wrath than they were before.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
more insubordinate than the nations around you: The charge ends with a comparison. Albert Barnes reads it this way: the nations kept the ordinances of their gods, and Israel would not keep even the ordinances of the Lord. Other interpreters drop the word nor, as at Ezekiel 11:12, and read Israel followed the ways of the nations.
Ezekiel 5:7
“Because ye multiplied - Some prefer: Because ye have raged tumultuously.” Neither have done according to the judgments - (or, ordinances) of the nations The reproach is that the Israelites have not even been as faithful to their one true God as the nations have been to their false gods (compare 2Ki 17:33).”
Ezekiel 5:8-10
I Myself am against you: The Lord says, “Behold, I Myself am against you, Jerusalem.” In the siege “fathers among you will eat their sons, and sons will eat their fathers.” Clarke ties this to the covenant curses of Leviticus 26:29 and Deuteronomy 28:53, and Lamentations 4:10 records women who cooked their own children.
Ezekiel 5:8
“I will execute judgments. Note, God himself undertakes to execute his own judgments, according to the true and full intent of them; whatever are the instruments, he is the principal agent.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 more voices on this verse
Ezekiel 5:8
“I, even I--awfully emphatic. I, even I, whom thou thinkest to be asleep, but who am ever reigning as the Omnipotent Avenger of sin, will vindicate My righteous government before the nations by judgments on thee.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 5:8
“Commentary on Chapter V 1. Take - Thus foretel the mourning, reproach, and deformity that are coming, for all this is signified by shaving the head and beard. A third part - Described on the tile, chap. iv, 1, a type of what should be done in Jerusalem.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Because of all your abominations: The Lord will do to Jerusalem what He has never done before and will not do again. It comes because of all her abominations. Albert Barnes compares Matthew 24:21 and sees the Roman siege pass even the Babylonian one.
fathers among you will eat their sons: Famine in the siege will drive fathers to eat their sons and sons to eat their fathers. Adam Clarke points to Lamentations 4:10, where mothers cooked their own children. Those who live through it will be scattered to every wind.
Ezekiel 5:10
“The fathers shall eat the sons - Though we have not this fact so particularly stated in history, yet we cannot doubt of it, considering the extremities to which they were reduced during the siege. The same is referred to by Jeremiah, Lam 4:10. Even the women, who were remarkable for kindness and humanity, boiled their own children, and ate them during the siege. Will I scatter into all the winds - Disperse you, by captivity, among all the nations of the earth.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Ezekiel 5:10
“Scatter - This was verified when they were fetched away, who were left at the departure of the besiegers, and when the very small remnant with Johanan fled into Egypt.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 5:10
“Nay, and Cain's curse (to be fugitives and vagabonds) is not the worst of it neither; their restless life shall be cut off by a bloody death: " I will draw out a sword after them, which shall follow them wherever they go." Evil pursues sinners; and the curse shall come upon them and overtake them.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 5:11-13
as surely as I live: The Lord swears “as surely as I live” and names the cause: “you have defiled My sanctuary with all your detestable idols and abominations.” The thirds of the hair in Ezekiel 5:2 are explained as plague and famine within, the sword “outside your walls,” and scattering “to every wind.”
Ezekiel 5:11
“The images of their pretended deities, and the groves erected in honour of them, were brought into the temple; and the ceremonies used by idolaters were brought into the worship of God. Thus every thing that is sacred was polluted. Note, Idols are detestable things any where, but more especially so in the sanctuary.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
A third of your people will die by plague: This verse explains the three parts of hair in verse 2. A third dies of plague or famine inside, a third falls by the sword outside the walls, and a third is scattered. Albert Barnes reads the sword behind them as God's anger following them even into exile.
Ezekiel 5:12
“The judgments Eze 5:12-17 of “famine, pestilence,” and the “sword,” were precisely those which attended the coming siege of Jerusalem (Jer 15:2 ff). The “drawing out the sword after them” indicates that the anger of God will follow them even to the land of their exile (compare Jer 42:19-22; Lev 26:25), and that the horrors of the Babylonian siege are but the beginning of the sorrows of the nation.”
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 5:12
“But the prophecy is not restricted to Zedekiah's time. It includes all that Israel suffered, or was still to suffer, for their sins, especially those committed at that period (Eze 17:21).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Sword, famine, and wild beasts spend God's fury
I will be appeased: The Lord's anger will be spent in full on the city. Albert Barnes reads the word appeased as the satisfaction of justice carried out, with wrath that rests on them and stays. Then they will know that the Lord spoke in His zeal.
Ezekiel 5:13
“Comforted - In the sense of “consoling oneself” and “feeling satisfaction in punishing;” hence, to “avenge oneself.” The fury is to “rest” upon them, abide, so as not to pass away. The “accomplishment” of the divine anger is not the “completion” in the sense of bringing it to a close, but in the sense of carrying it out to the full.”
Ezekiel 5:14-15
a ruin and a disgrace: Jerusalem will become “a ruin and a disgrace among the nations around you.” Four words name what she will be to her neighbors: “a reproach and a taunt, a warning and a horror.” The city set in the center of the nations in Ezekiel 5:5 becomes their warning.
Ezekiel 5:14
“Moreover I will make thee waste,.... That is, their land; which, being without inhabitants, lay untilled; and so became barren and unfruitful: and a reproach among the nations that are round about thee, in the sight of all that pass by; who, seeing it in this desolate condition, shall throw out their taunts and jeers upon it, as in Lam 2:15.”
a reproach and a taunt: Jerusalem will become a reproach and a taunt to the nations around her. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown explain the word warning as a lesson taught by punishment. Her ruin will show every neighbor where sin ends.
Ezekiel 5:15
“This she was warned of as much as any thing when her glory commenced ( 1 Kings ix. 8 ), and this was lamented as much as any thing when it was laid in the dust, Lam. ii.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 5:16-17
the deadly arrows of famine: The Lord will send “the deadly arrows of famine,” and “cut off your supply of food,” as He said in Ezekiel 4:16. Famine, wild beasts, plague and bloodshed, and the sword follow, the four judgments named in Ezekiel 14:21. The oracle closes with the same seal as verse 15.
Ezekiel 5:16
“The evil arrows of famine - Famine and pestilence are represented as poisoned arrows, inflicting death wherever they wound. The ancients represented them in the same way.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
I will send famine and wild beasts against you: Famine, wild beasts, plague, bloodshed and the sword close the chapter. Adam Clarke notes wild animals multiply in an emptied land, and he allows the beasts may picture Nebuchadnezzar's armies, like the lion of Jeremiah 4:7. The Lord seals the sentence with His own word.
Ezekiel 5:17
“So will I send upon you famine and evil beasts, and they shall bereave thee - Wild beasts always multiply in depopulated countries. In England, wolves abounded when the country was thinly peopled, it is now full of inhabitants, and there is not one wolf in the land. Nebuchadnezzar and his Chaldeans may be called here evil beasts. He is often compared to a lion, Jer 4:7; Dan 7:14; on account of the ravages made by him and his Chaldean armies.”
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 Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Ezekiel; Jamieson Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.