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Ezekiel 21:1

in Ezekiel 21

And the word of the LORD came to me, saying,

BSB

The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾

ASV

And the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying,

KJV

And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,

This verse in Ezekiel 21

Commentary

4 notes on this verse
And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying. Upon the above excuse or complaint about speaking in parables; wherefore the prophet is ordered to speak in plainer language to the people. It is very probable that the prophet delivered the prophecy recorded in the latter part of the preceding chapter in the figurative terms in which he received it; and he here is bid to explain it to the people, or to repeat it to them in clearer expressions.

This site's exposition

the word of the Lord came unto me, saying

on Ezekiel 21:1-5

The Lord draws forth his sword against the land of Israel and states plainly that it will cut off the righteous and the wicked together. Gill reads the righteous alongside the wicked as the ordinary judgment that falls on a besieged city, sword, famine and captivity making no exception.

The record, by era

The Church Fathers1 voice

A commentator

Jerome

Commentary on Ezekiel · Written before 420.

proposed

(Chapter 21, Verse 1 onwards) And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, set your face toward Jerusalem, and drop toward the sanctuaries, and prophesy against the land of Israel, and say to the land of Israel: Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against you, and I will draw forth my sword out of its sheath, and will cut off from you both the righteous and the wicked.

The Nineteenth Century1 voice

The first word of judgment Eze 21:1-7. Ezekiel speaks first to the people of Israel, shows the universality of the coming destructions, and indicates by a sign (that of sighing) the sadness of the calamity. The words and order of words are identical with Eze 20:45-46, except that for “south,” there are substituted: (1) “Jerusalem;” (2) “the holy place,” i. e., the temple and its various parts; (3) “the land of Israel.” No subterfuge is left for the people to pretend misunderstanding.

How the passage was read

What the Jewish commentators add

And the word of nevuah from before Hashem was with me, saying:
Targum · Targum Jonathan on Ezekiel 21:1, via Sefaria, Sefaria Community Translation

This section is reception history: how the passage was read and kept in the Jewish tradition. Where a reading parts from an essential of the Christian faith, the section says so at that point.

Texts and citation data: Sefaria; each excerpt follows its version’s licence. 6 further sources are cited on this chapter that carry no English text this site may quote or only restate the verse.

The words behind it

5 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.

  • וַיְהִ֥יand it came

    vayhiH1961 →3559 times

  • דְבַר־[the] word of

    devar-H1697 →1440 times

  • יְהוָ֖הYahweh

    yahwehH3068 →6520 times

  • אֵלַ֥יto me

    ʾelaiH413 →5510 times

  • לֵאמֹֽר׃<to> saying

    lemorH559 →5305 times

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

Where this verse is studied

About Ezekiel

Ezekiel’s Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones, Gustave Doré, 1866. Public domain.
Ezekiel’s Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones, Gustave Doré, 1866. Public domain.

This page draws on Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Jerome, Commentary on Ezekiel; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763) and John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament.