Ezekiel 5:1-7

Jerusalem Will Be Destroyed

1 “And you, ¹O son of man, take a ²sharp sword. Use it as ³a barber’s razor and ⁴pass it over your head and your beard. Then take balances for weighing and divide the hair.

2 ⁵A third part you shall burn in the fire ⁶in the midst of the city, ⁷when the days of the siege are completed. And a third part you shall take and strike with the sword all around the city. ⁸And a third part you shall scatter to the wind, and ⁹I will unsheathe the sword after them.

3 ¹⁰And you shall take from these a small number and bind them in the skirts of your robe.

4 ¹¹And of these again you shall take some and cast them into the midst of the fire and burn them in the fire. From there a fire will come out into all the house of Israel.

5 “Thus says the Lord God: ¹²This is Jerusalem. I have set her ¹³in the center of the nations, with countries all around her.

6 And she has rebelled against my rules by doing wickedness ¹⁴more than the nations, and against my statutes more than ¹⁵the countries all around her; for they have rejected my rules and have not walked in my statutes.

7 Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because you are ¹⁶more turbulent than the nations that are all around you, ¹⁷and have not walked in my statutes or obeyed my rules, ¹⁸and have not^[a] even acted according to the rules of the nations that are all around you,

Ezekiel 5:1-7 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO EZEKIEL 5

This chapter is of the same argument with the former; and contains a type of Jerusalem's destruction; an explanation of that type; what were the reasons of God's judgments on that city; and the nature, rise, and end of them. The type is in Eze 5:1-4; the explanation of that type is in Eze 5:5; the reasons of the severe judgments threatened are changing the statutes of the Lord, and not walking in them, and defiling the sanctuary with their abominations, Eze 5:6-11; an account of the judgments of God, answerable to each of the parts in the type, Eze 5:12; the ends of these judgments are, with respect to God, the accomplishment of his anger, and the satisfaction of his justice; with respect to the Jews, bringing them to an acknowledgment that he had spoken in his zeal; and, with respect to the nations, their instruction and astonishment, Eze 5:13-15; and the chapter is concluded with an assurance that these judgments would be sent, Eze 5:16,17.

Cross References

• 1. 5:1 See ch. 2:1
• 2. 5:1 Ps. 57:4; Isa. 49:2
• 3. 5:1 [Isa. 7:20]
• 4. 5:1 [ch. 1:3; 44:20; Lev. 21:5]
• 5. 5:2 See ver. 12
• 6. 5:2 [ver. 5; ch. 4:1]
• 7. 5:2 See ch. 4:8
• 8. 5:2 [ver. 10]
• 9. 5:2 ver. 12; ch. 12:14; [Jer. 9:16]
• 10. 5:3 [Jer. 40:6; 52:16]
• 11. 5:4 [Jer. 42:18; 44:14]
• 12. 5:5 [ver. 2; ch. 4:1]
• 13. 5:5 [ch. 38:12]
• 14. 5:6 See ch. 16:47, 48
• 15. 5:6 [See ver. 5 above]
• 16. 5:7 Ps. 2:1; 46:6
• 17. 5:7 ch. 16:47
• 18. 5:7 [ch. 11:12]

Footnotes

• [a] 5:7 Some Hebrew manuscripts and Syriac lack 'not'