Ezekiel 6:11

11 This is what the Lord has said: Give blows with your hand, stamping with your foot, and say, O sorrow! because of all the evil and disgusting ways of the children of Israel: for death will overtake them by the sword and through need of food and by disease.

Ezekiel 6:11 Meaning and Commentary

Ezekiel 6:11

Thus saith the Lord God, smite with thine hand, and stamp with
thy foot
These are gestures of persons in distress and agony, who, to show their trouble and grief, smite one hand against the other; or smite with the hand upon the thigh, as in ( Jeremiah 31:19 ) ; and "stretch out", or "make a distension with the foot" ^F4; as it is in the Hebrew text; extend their thighs; throw out their feet; stamp with them; beat the earth, and make it shake, as the Syriac version; all expressive of anguish and sorrow: and say, alas, for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel!
the word "alas", or "woe", as the Targum, Jarchi, and Kimchi, an interjection of mourning and lamentation, explains the above gestures; and what follows shows the cause of all; namely, the sins and abominations committed by the house of Israel; which they being insensible of, and unconcerned about, the prophet is ordered to take such a method to awaken them out of their stupidity and lethargy; and the rather, since the heaviest of judgments were coming upon them: for they shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence;
which are threatened in ( Ezekiel 5:12 Ezekiel 5:16 Ezekiel 5:17 ) ; and the persons on whom they should be separately executed are mentioned in ( Ezekiel 6:12 ) .

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FOOTNOTES:

F4 (Klgrb eqr) "extende pede tuo", Pagninus, Montanus, Polanus; "fac distensionem cum pede tuo", Munster; "divarica pedes tuos": Calvin.

Ezekiel 6:11 In-Context

9 And those of you who are kept safe will have me in mind among the nations where they have been taken away as prisoners, how I sent punishment on their hearts which were untrue to me, and on their eyes which were turned to their false gods: and they will be full of hate for themselves because of the evil things which they have done in all their disgusting ways.

10 And they will be certain that I am the Lord: not for nothing did I say that I would do this evil to them.

11 This is what the Lord has said: Give blows with your hand, stamping with your foot, and say, O sorrow! because of all the evil and disgusting ways of the children of Israel: for death will overtake them by the sword and through need of food and by disease.

12 He who is far away will come to his death by disease; he who is near will be put to the sword; he who is shut up will come to his death through need of food; and I will give full effect to my passion against them.

13 And you will be certain that I am the Lord, when their dead men are stretched among their images round about their altars on every high hill, on all the tops of the mountains, and under every branching tree, and under every thick oak-tree, the places where they made sweet smells to all their images.