Ezekiel 21:30

30 Return the sword to the sheath! I'll judge you in your home country, in the land where you grew up.

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 "But, son of man, your job is to prophesy. Tell them, 'This is the Message from God, the Master, against the Ammonites and against their cruel taunts: "'A sword! A sword! Bared to kill, Sharp as a razor, flashing like lightning.
29 Despite false sword propaganda circulated in Ammon, The sword will sever Ammonite necks, for whom it's punishment payday.
30 Return the sword to the sheath! I'll judge you in your home country, in the land where you grew up.
31 I'll empty out my wrath on you, breathe hot anger down your neck. I'll give you to vicious men skilled in torture.
32 You'll end up as stove-wood. Corpses will litter your land. Not so much as a memory will be left of you. I, God, have said so.'"
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.