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Ezekiel 5:1

in Ezekiel 5

“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.

BSB

The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾

ASV

And thou, son of man, take thee a sharp sword; as a barber’s razor shalt thou take it unto thee, and shalt cause it to pass upon thy head and upon thy beard: then take thee balances to weigh, and divide the hair.

KJV

And thou, son of man, take thee a sharp knife, take thee a barber’s razor, and cause it to pass upon thine head and upon thy beard: then take thee balances to weigh, and divide the hair.

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This verse in Ezekiel 5

Commentary

4 notes on this verse
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.

This site's exposition

take thee a barber’s razor

on Ezekiel 5:1-4

The razor sign follows the tile and the iron pan as the third acted judgment: Ezekiel shaves his own head and beard, weighs the hair, and divides it in three. A third is burned inside the drawn city when the siege is fulfilled, a third struck with the knife round about it, and a third scattered to the wind with a sword drawn out after it, the razor doing to Ezekiel's own body what the sword and famine and pestilence will do to Jerusalem's people. A small remnant of the hair is bound in his skirts, and even that remnant is not left untouched, some of it cast back into the fire, a further burning out of an already spared few. Keil reads the double burning of the remnant as the chapter's harshest note, that even those who survive the first judgment are not simply safe.

The record, by era

The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice

A commentator

Matthew Henry

1662–1714

Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710)

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.
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
Translate it: take thee a sharp sword, for a barber’s razor thou shalt take it thee. Even if the action were literal, the use of an actual sword would best enforce the symbolic meaning. The “head” represents the chief city, the “hair” the inhabitants - its ornament and glory - the “hair cut from the head” the exiles cast forth from their homes. It adds to the force of the representation that “to shave the head” was a token of mourning Job 1:20, and was forbidden to the priests Lev 21:

The words behind it

21 Hebrew words

Every Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.

  • וְאַתָּ֨הand you

    veatahH859 →1094 times

  • בֶן־O son of

    ven-H1121 →4930 times

  • אָדָ֜םhumankind

    ʾadamH120 →551 times

  • קַח־take

    kach-H3947 →966 times

  • לְךָ֣׀<for> yourself

    lekha

  • חֶ֣רֶבa sword

    cherevH2719 →413 times

  • חַדָּ֗הsharp

    chadahH2299 →

  • תַּ֤עַר<the> razor of

    taarH8593 →13 times

  • הַגַּלָּבִים֙<the> barbers

    hagalavimH1532 →

  • תִּקָּחֶ֣נָּהyou will take it

    tikachenahH3947 →966 times

  • לָּ֔ךְ<for> yourself

    lakh

  • וְהַעֲבַרְתָּ֥and you will make [it] pass

    vehaavartaH5674 →556 times

  • עַל־over

    ʾal-H5921 →5755 times

  • רֹאשְׁךָ֖head your

    roshekhaH7218 →599 times

  • וְעַל־and over

    veal-H5921 →5755 times

  • זְקָנֶ֑ךָbeard your

    zekanechaH2206 →

  • וְלָקַחְתָּ֥and you will take

    velakachtaH3947 →966 times

  • לְךָ֛<for> yourself

    lekha

  • מֹאזְנֵ֥יscales of

    mozneiH3976 →

  • מִשְׁקָ֖לweight

    mishkalH4948 →

  • וְחִלַּקְתָּֽם׃and you will divide them

    vechilaktamH2505 →

A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.

Related verses

5 in all, six open

The walk

8 stops

Each card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.

  • Through

    Leviticus 21:5

    Priests must not make bald spots on their heads, shave off the edges of their beards, or make cuts in their bodies.

    it leads to

    • Deuteronomy 14:1

      You are sons of the LORD your God; do not cut yourselves or shave your foreheads on behalf of the dead,

      Reached by 2 separate paths from here.

    • Ezekiel 44:20

      They must not shave their heads or let their hair grow long, but must carefully trim their hair.

    • Leviticus 19:27–28

      You must not cut off the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard.

  • Through

    Daniel 5:27

    TEKEL means that you have been weighed on the scales and found deficient.

    it leads to

    • Job 31:6

      let God weigh me with honest scales, that He may know my integrity.

    • Psalms 62:9

      Lowborn men are but a vapor, the exalted but a lie. Weighed on the scale, they go up; together they are but a vapor.

    • 1 Corinthians 3:13

      his workmanship will be evident, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will prove the quality of each man’s work.

    • Jeremiah 6:30

      They are called rejected silver, because the LORD has rejected them.”

    • Ezekiel 22:18–20

      “Son of man, the house of Israel has become dross to Me. All of them are copper, tin, iron, and lead inside the furnace; they are but the dross of silver.

About Ezekiel

The Prophet Ezekiel — Gustave Doré, Doré's English Bible (1866), public domain
The Prophet Ezekiel — Gustave Doré, Doré's English Bible (1866), public domain
Ezekiel: the study guide →Read Ezekiel 5 →

This page draws on Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Ezekiel; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.

Read on in Ezekiel 5 →