1I stalo se ke mně Hospodinovo slovo: 2Lidský synu, nastav svou tvář proti pohoří Seíru a prorokuj proti němu. 3Řekneš mu: Toto praví Panovník Hospodin: Hle, jsem proti tobě, pohoří Seíre, vztáhnu proti tobě ruku a proměním tě ve spoušť a zpustošenou krajinu. 4Tvá města proměním v trosky a ty se staneš spouští — i poznáš, že já jsem Hospodin — 5jelikož v sobě máš odvěké nepřátelství a uvrhl jsi syny Izraele pod moc meče v době pohromy, v době dovršení zvrácenosti. 6Proto — jakože jsem živ, je výrok Panovníka Hospodina — tě vydám krveprolití a krveprolití tě bude pronásledovat. Jestliže jsi neměl krveprolití v nenávisti, krveprolití tě bude pronásledovat. 7Proměním pohoří Seír v hlušinu a spoušť a vyhladím z něj toho, kdo prochází a vrací se zpět. 8Jeho hory naplním jeho pobitými; tvá návrší, tvá údolí a všechna tvá řečiště — v nich padnou pobití mečem. 9Proměním tě ve věčnou spoušť a tvá města už nebudou obývána. I poznáte, že já jsem Hospodin. 10Jelikož říkáš: Ty dva národy a ty dvě země budou mé a obsadíme je, ačkoliv tam přebýval Hospodin. 11Proto, jakože jsem živ, je výrok Panovníka Hospodina, budu jednat podle tvého hněvu a podle tvé žárlivosti tak, jak jsi jednal ze své nenávisti proti nim. Dám se mezi nimi poznat podle toho, jak tě budu soudit. 12I poznáš, že já Hospodin jsem slyšel všechna tvá znevažování, která jsi pronesl proti izraelským horám slovy: Byly zpustošeny, byly nám dány za pokrm. 13Vyvyšovali jste se nade mnou svými ústy a množili jste svá slova proti mně. Já jsem to slyšel. 14Toto praví Panovník Hospodin: Zatímco se celá země raduje, udělám z tebe spoušť. 15Podle tvé radosti nad tím, že dědictví domu izraelského bylo zpustošeno, tak naložím s tebou. Pohoří Seír i celý Edóm, to všechno bude spouští. I poznají, že já jsem Hospodin.
Matthew Henry - Complete Commentary 1 Mount Seir was mentioned as partner with Moab in one of the threatenings we had before (
Ezek 25:8); but here it is convicted and condemned by itself, and has woes of its own. The prophet must boldly
set his face against Edom, and
prophesy particularly
against it; for the God of Israel has said,
O Mount Seir! I am against thee. Note, Those that have God against them have the word of God against them, and the face of his ministers, nor dare they prophesy any good to them, but evil. The prophet must tell the Edomites that God has a controversy with them, and let them know,
I. What is the cause and ground of that controversy,
Ezek 35:5. God espouses his people's cause, and will plead it, takes what is done against them as done against himself, and will reckon for it; and it is upon their account that God now contends with the Edomites. 1. Because of the enmity they had against the people of God, that was rooted in the heart. Thou hast had a
perpetual hatred to them, to the very name of an Israelite. The Edomites kept up an
hereditary malice against Israel, the same that Esau bore to Jacob, because he got the birth-right and the blessing. Esau had been reconciled to Jacob, had embraced and kissed him (Gen. 33), and we do not find that ever he quarrelled with him again. But the posterity of Esau would never be reconciled to the seed of Jacob, but hated them with a perpetual hatred. Note, Children will be more apt to imitate the vices than the virtues of their parents, and to tread in the steps of their sin than in the steps of their repentance. Parents should therefore be careful not to set their children any bad example, for though, through the grace of God, they may return, and prevent the mischief of what they have done amiss to themselves, they may not be able to obviate the bad influence of it upon their children. It is strange how deeply rooted national antipathies sometimes are, and how long they last; but it is not to be wondered at that profane Edomites hate pious Israelites, since the old
enmity that was put between the
seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent (
Gen 3:15) will continue to the end.
Marvel not if the world hate you. 2. Because of the injuries they had done to the people of God. They
shed their blood by the force of the sword, in the time of their calamity; they did not attack them as fair and open enemies, but laid wait for them, to
cut off those of them that had escaped (
Obad 1:14), or they drove them back upon the sword of the pursuers, by which they fell. It was cowardly, as well as barbarous, to take advantage of their distress; and for neighbours, with whom they had lived peaceably, to
smite them secretly when strangers openly invaded them. It was in the time
that their iniquity had an end, when the measure of it was full and destruction came. Note, Even those that suffer justly, and for their sins, are yet to be pitied and not trampled upon. If the father corrects one child, he expects the rest should tremble at it, not triumph in it.
II. What should be the effect and issue of that controversy. If God stretch out his hand against the country of Edom, he will
make it most desolate, Ezek 35:3.
Desolation and desolation. 1. The inhabitants shall be slain with the sword (
Ezek 35:6):
I will prepare thee unto blood. Edom shall be gradually weakened, and so be the more easily conquered, and the enemy shall gather strength the more effectually to subdue it. Thus preparation is in the making a great while before for this destruction.
Thou hast not hated blood; it implies, Thou hast delighted in it and thirsted after it. Those that do not keep up a rooted hatred of sin, when a temptation to it is very strong, will be in danger of yielding to it. 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.
If he turn not, he will whet his sword, Pss 7:12. But, if he turn, he will lay it by.
Blood shall pursue thee, the
guilt of the blood which thou hast shed or the
judgment of blood; thy blood-thirsty enemies shall pursue thee, which way soever thou seekest to make thy escape. A great and general slaughter shall be made of the Idumeans, such as had been foretold (
Isa 34:6): The
mountains and hills, the valleys and rivers, shall be
filled with the slain, Ezek 35:8. The pursuers shall overtake those that flee and shall give no quarter, but put them all to the sword. Note, When God comes to make inquisition for blood those that have shed the blood of his Israel shall have blood given them to drink, for they are worthy.
Satia te sanguine quem sitisti -
Glut thyself with blood, after which thou hast thirsted. 2. The country shall be laid waste. The cities shall be destroyed (
Ezek 35:4), the
country made most desolate (
Ezek 35:7); for God will
cut off from both him that
passes out and
him that returns; and when the inhabitants are cut off that should keep the cities in repair they will decay and go into ruins, and when those are cut off that should till the land that will soon be over-run with briers and thorns and become a wilderness. Note, Those that help forward the desolations of Israel may expect to be themselves made desolate. And that which completes the judgment is that Edom shall be made
perpetual desolations (
Ezek 35:9) and the cities shall never return to their former state, nor the inhabitants of them come back from their captivity and dispersion. Note, Those that have a perpetual enmity to God and his people, as the carnal mind has, can expect no other than to be made a perpetual desolation. Implacable malice will justly be punished with irreparable ruin.
10 Here is, I. A further account of the sin of the Edomites, and their bad conduct towards the people of God. We find the church complaining of them for setting on the Babylonians, and irritating them against Jerusalem, saying,
Rase it, rase it, down with it, down with it (
Pss 137:7), inflaming a rage that needed no spur; here it is further charged upon them that they triumphed in Jerusalem's ruin and in the desolations of the country. Many
blasphemies they spoke against the
mountains of Israel, saying, with pride and pleasure,
They are laid desolate, Ezek 35:12. Note, The troubles of God's church, as they give proofs of the constancy and fidelity of its friends, so they discover and draw out the corruptions of its enemies, in whom there then appears more brutish malice than one would have thought of. Now their triumphing in Jerusalem's ruin is here said to proceed, 1. From a sinful passion against the people of Israel; from
anger and
envy, and
hatred against them (
Ezek 35:11), that
perpetual hatred spoken of
Ezek 35:5. Though they were not a match for them, and therefore could not do them a mischief themselves, yet they were glad when the Chaldeans did them a mischief. 2. From a sinful appetite to the land of Israel. They pleased themselves with hopes that when the people of Israel were destroyed they should be let into the possession of their country, which they had so often grudged and envied them. They thought they could make out something of a title to it,
ob defectum sanguinis -
for want of other heirs. 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.
Ceditur occupanti -
Let us get possession and that will be title enough. Note, Those have the spirit of Edomites who desire the death of others because they hope to get by it, or are pleased with their failing because they expect to come into their business. When we see the vanity of the world in the disappointments, losses, and crosses, that others meet with in it, instead of showing ourselves, upon such an occasion, greedy of it, we should rather be made thereby to sit more loose to it, and both take our affections off it and lower our expectations from it. But in this case of the Edomites' coveting the land of Israel, and gaping for it, there was a particular affront to God, when they said,
These lands are given us to devour, and we shall have our bellies full of their riches. God says,
You have boasted against me and have multiplied your words against me; for they expected possession upon a vacancy, because Israel was driven out,
whereas the Lord was still
there, Ezek 35:10. His temple indeed was burnt, and the other tokens of his presence were gone; but his promise to give that land to the seed of Jacob for an inheritance was not made void, but remained in full force and virtue; and by that promise he did in effect still keep possession for Israel, till they should in due time be restored to it. That was Immanuel's land (
Isa 8:8); in that land he was to be born, and therefore that people shall continue in it of whom he is to be born, till he has passed his time in it, and then let who will take it.
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. Note, It is a piece of presumption highly offensive to God for Edomites to lay claim to those privileges and comforts that are peculiar to God's chosen Israel and are reserved for them. It is
blasphemy against the mountains of Israel, the holy mountains, to say, because they are for the present made a prey of and
trodden under foot of the Gentiles (
Revel 11:2), even the
holy city itself, that therefore the
Lord has forsaken them, their
God has forgotten them. The apostle will by no means admit such a thought as this, that
God hath cast away his people, Roma 11:1. No; though they are cast down for a time, they are not cast off for ever. Those
reproach the Lord who say they are.
II. The notice God took of the barbarous insolence of the Edomites, and the doom passed upon them for it:
I have heard all thy blasphemies, Ezek 35:12. And again (
Ezek 35:13),
You have multiplied your words against me, and
I have heard them, I have observed them, I have kept an account of them. 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. All the haughty and hard speeches, particularly, which are spoken against the Israel of God, the words which are
magnified (as it is in the margin,
Ezek 35:13) as well as the words which are multiplied, God takes notice of. For, as the most trifling words are not below his cognizance, so the most daring are not above his rebuke.
I have heard all thy blasphemies. This is a good reason why we should bear reproach as if we heard it not, because
God will hear, Pss 38:13,
Pss 38:15. God has heard the Edomites' blasphemy; let them therefore hear their doom,
Ezek 35:14,
Ezek 35:15. 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. And, 1. It shall be a distinguishing punishment. As God has peculiar favours for Israelites, so he has peculiar plagues for Edomites: so that
When the whole earth rejoices I will make thee desolate; when other nations have their desolations repaired, to their joy, thine shall be
perpetual, Ezek 35:9. 2. The punishment shall answer to the sin:
As thou didst rejoice in the desolation of the house of Israel, God will give thee enough of desolation; since thou art so fond of it,
thou shalt be desolate; I will make thee so. Note, Those who, instead of weeping with the mourners, make a jest of their grievances, may justly be made to weep like the mourners, and themselves to feel the weight, to feel the smart, of those grievances which they set so light by. Some read
Ezek 35:14 so as to complete the resemblance between the sin and the punishment:
The whole earth shall rejoice when I make thee desolate, as thou didst rejoice when Israel was made desolate. Those that are glad at the death and fall of others may expect that others will be glad of their death, of their fall. 3. In the destruction of the enemies of the church God designs his own glory, and we may be sure that he will not come short of his design. (1.) That which he intends is to manifest himself, as a just and jealous God, firm to his covenant and faithful to his people and their injured cause (
Ezek 35:11):
I will make myself known among them when I have judged thee. The Lord is and will be known by the judgments which he executes. (2.) His intention shall be fully answered; not only his own people shall be made to know it to their comfort, but even the Edomites themselves, and all the other enemies of his name and people,
shall know that he is the Lord, Ezek 35:4,
Ezek 35:9,
Ezek 35:15. 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.
