VII. The prophecy of this chapter is occupied with the nearness and the completeness of the judgment already foretold. It takes the form, to some extent, of a song of lamentation; and is more thoroughly poetic in its structure than anything which has gone before.
Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Also, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord GOD unto the land of Israel; An end, the end is come upon the four corners of the land. (2) The four corners.—A frequent Scriptural phrase for every part. (Comp. Isaiah 11:12; Revelation 7:1.) The origin of the expression is to be sought, not in any supposed popular belief that the earth was square, but in the fact that so many common things had just four sides or four corners (see Exodus 25:12; Exodus 27:2; Job 1:19; Acts 10:11, &c), that the phrase came naturally to be a common expression of universality. “An end, the end,” is a repetition for the sake of emphasis. It occurs again in Ezekiel 7:6, and, in varied words, also in Ezekiel 7:10; Ezekiel 7:12; Ezekiel 7:26.Ezekiel 7:3-4 are repeated almost exactly in Ezekiel 7:8-9. The frequent repetitions of this chapter are designed, and give great force to the denunciation of woe. “Thine abominations are in the midst of thee,” in the sense of calling down punishment upon them, as appears from the parallel in Ezekiel 7:9.
Now is the end come upon thee, and I will send mine anger upon thee, and will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense upon thee all thine abominations.
And mine eye shall not spare thee, neither will I have pity: but I will recompense thy ways upon thee, and thine abominations shall be in the midst of thee: and ye shall know that I am the LORD.
Thus saith the Lord GOD; An evil, an only evil, behold, is come. (5) An only evil.—That is, an evil so all-embracing as to be complete in itself, and need no repetition. Compare the same thought in Nahum 1:9, “affliction shall not rise up the second time.” Some MSS., and the Chaldee, by the alteration of one letter, read “evil after evil,” as in Ezekiel 7:26.
An end is come, the end is come: it watcheth for thee; behold, it is come.
The morning is come unto thee, O thou that dwellest in the land: the time is come, the day of trouble is near, and not the sounding again of the mountains. (7) The morning is come unto thee.—The word here used is not the usual one for morning. This word occurs elsewhere only in Ezekiel 7:10 and Isaiah 28:5, where it is translated crown. There is much difference of opinion both as to its derivation and its meaning. The most probable sense is circuit—“the circuit of thy sins is finished, and the end is come upon thee.”The sounding again of the mountains.—This is again a peculiar word, occurring only here; but it is nearly like and probably has the same meaning as the word in Isaiah 16:10, Jeremiah 25:10, denoting the joyous sounds of the people, especially at harvest-time, filling the land and echoing back from the mountains. Instead of this shall be the tumult (rather the trouble) of the day of war. (See the opposite contrast in Exodus 32:17-18.)
Now will I shortly pour out my fury upon thee, and accomplish mine anger upon thee: and I will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense thee for all thine abominations.
And mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: I will recompense thee according to thy ways and thine abominations that are in the midst of thee; and ye shall know that I am the LORD that smiteth. (9) The Lord that smiteth.—In Ezekiel 7:4 it is only said, “Ye shall know that I am the LORD,” without saying in what respect; here this is specified—they shall know that God is a God of judgment, and that these calamities are from Him.
Behold the day, behold, it is come: the morning is gone forth; the rod hath blossomed, pride hath budded. (10) The morning is gone forth.—The same word as in Ezekiel 7:7, and in the same sense—the circle is complete, the end is reached, sin hath brought forth death. “The rod” is commonly understood of the Chaldæan conqueror; but as the word is the same for rod and for tribe, and is very often used in the latter sense, it will be more in accordance with the connection to understand here a play upon the word. There will be then an allusion to the rods of the tribes in Numbers 17:8. There the rod of Aaron was made to bud and blossom by Divine power in evidence of his having been chosen of God; here the rod representing the tribe at Jerusalem in its self-will and pride has budded and blossomed to its destruction. So the description continues in the next verse, “Violence is risen up into a rod of wickedness.” Not a rod for the punishment of wickedness; but into a wicked people.
Violence is risen up into a rod of wickedness: none of them shall remain, nor of their multitude, nor of any of theirs: neither shall there be wailing for them. (11) Neither shall there be wailing for them.—The word for wailing is another of those words occurring only in this passage which have been variously understood. It is now generally taken for that which is glorious or beautiful. Israel has run its circle; prosperity has developed pride, and pride has culminated in all wickedness; now the end has come, they and their tumult (marg., for multitude) disappear together, and of their glory there shall be nothing left.
The time is come, the day draweth near: let not the buyer rejoice, nor the seller mourn: for wrath is upon all the multitude thereof.
For the seller shall not return to that which is sold, although they were yet alive: for the vision is touching the whole multitude thereof, which shall not return; neither shall any strengthen himself in the iniquity of his life. (13) The seller shall not return.—The previous verse described the general cessation of all the business of life in the utter desolation of the land. Among the Israelites the most important buying and selling was that of land, and it was provided in the law (Leviticus 25:14-16) that this should in no case extend beyond the year of jubilee, when all land must revert to its possessor by inheritance. The seller in that year should return to his possession. Now it is foretold that the desolation shall continue so long that, even if the seller lived, he should be unable to avail himself of the jubilee year. “It is a natural thing to rejoice in the purchase of property, and to mourn over its sale, but when slavery and captivity stare you in the face, rejoicing and mourning are equally absurd” (S. Jerome). The idea of the latter part of the verse is, that no one shall grow strong since his life is passed in iniquity.
Here closes the first series of Ezekiel’s prophecies, extending from the beginning of the fourth to the end of the seventh chapter. They were all uttered within the period of a year and two months. Like the following series (Ezekiel 8-19), they begin with a remarkable series of symbolic acts, or rather of descriptions of such acts, and are continued by plain prophecies. Ezekiel and his fellow-captives had now been between five and six years in exile, and they still looked to Jerusalem and the Temple as their pride and the strength of their nation, and doubtless many of them hoped to be able to return there to lead again their former lives. There could be no hope of affecting a thorough and lasting reformation among the people except by utterly dashing these hopes to the ground, and showing that the people must be led to repentance through a thorough humiliation and heavy punishment. Such is the purpose of these prophecies, and it is carried out with extraordinary vigour and power of language.
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