Ezekiel 21:30

30 Shall I cause it to return into his sheath? I will judge thee in the place where thou wast created, in the land of thy nativity.

Ezekiel 21:30 Meaning and Commentary

Ezekiel 21:30

Shall I cause it to return into his sheath?
&c.] The drawn and furbished sword of the Chaldeans? no, I will not; it shall never return or be put up until the Ammonites are utterly consumed. Some read these words in the imperative, as the Targum,

``return the sword to its sheath;''

so the Vulgate Latin version, "return to thy sheath"; and so may be considered as a direction to the Ammonites to put up their swords, and not stand in their own defence, since it would be to no purpose; though Jerom, and Grotius after him, take the words to be an apostrophe to the drawn sword of the Chaldeans to sheath itself, having done its work upon the Jews and Ammonites; or to the Chaldeans to return to Babylon, and where they also should be punished; and so interpret all that follows of the destruction of the Babylonians by the Medes and Persians; but the first sense is best: I will judge thee in the place where thou wast created, in the land of
thy nativity;
not in the place where their father Ammon was born, which was at Zoar; but where they first became a kingdom and state, a body politic; or where the present generation of them were born; they should not be carried out of their own land, but destroyed in it.

Ezekiel 21:30 In-Context

28 "And thou, son of man, prophesy and say, `Thus saith the Lord GOD concerning the Ammonites and concerning their reproach; even say thou: "`The sword, the sword is drawn; for the slaughter it is furbished to consume because of the glittering"

29 while they see vanity unto thee, while they divine a lie unto thee, to bring thee upon the necks of them that are slain, of the wicked whose day is come when their iniquity shall have an end.

30 Shall I cause it to return into his sheath? I will judge thee in the place where thou wast created, in the land of thy nativity.

31 And I will pour out Mine indignation upon thee; I will blow against thee in the fire of My wrath, and deliver thee into the hand of brutish men, and skillful to destroy.

32 Thou shalt be for fuel to the fire; thy blood shall be in the midst of the land. Thou shalt be no more remembered; for I the LORD have spoken it.'"