Ezekiel 5

God’s Razor of Judgment

1 “Now, son of man, take a sharp sword and use it as a barber’s razor to shave your head and your beard. Then take a set of scales and divide up the hair.
2 When the days of your siege come to an end, burn a third of the hair inside the city. Take a third and strike it with the sword all around the city. And scatter a third to the wind. For I will pursue them with drawn sword.
3 But take a few hairs and tuck them away in the folds of your garment.
4 Again, take a few of these and throw them into the fire and burn them up. A fire will spread from there to all Israel.
5 “This is what the Sovereign LORD says: This is Jerusalem, which I have set in the center of the nations, with countries all around her.
6 Yet in her wickedness she has rebelled against my laws and decrees more than the nations and countries around her. She has rejected my laws and has not followed my decrees.
7 “Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: You have been more unruly than the nations around you and have not followed my decrees or kept my laws. You have not even[a] conformed to the standards of the nations around you.
8 “Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I myself am against you, Jerusalem, and I will inflict punishment on you in the sight of the nations.
9 Because of all your detestable idols, I will do to you what I have never done before and will never do again.
10 Therefore in your midst parents will eat their children, and children will eat their parents. I will inflict punishment on you and will scatter all your survivors to the winds.
11 Therefore as surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your vile images and detestable practices, I myself will shave you; I will not look on you with pity or spare you.
12 A third of your people will die of the plague or perish by famine inside you; a third will fall by the sword outside your walls; and a third I will scatter to the winds and pursue with drawn sword.
13 “Then my anger will cease and my wrath against them will subside, and I will be avenged. And when I have spent my wrath on them, they will know that I the LORD have spoken in my zeal.
14 “I will make you a ruin and a reproach among the nations around you, in the sight of all who pass by.
15 You will be a reproach and a taunt, a warning and an object of horror to the nations around you when I inflict punishment on you in anger and in wrath and with stinging rebuke. I the LORD have spoken.
16 When I shoot at you with my deadly and destructive arrows of famine, I will shoot to destroy you. I will bring more and more famine upon you and cut off your supply of food.
17 I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will leave you childless. Plague and bloodshed will sweep through you, and I will bring the sword against you. I the LORD have spoken.”

Cross References 36

  • 1. S Numbers 6:5; Isaiah 7:20
  • 2. Ezekiel 44:20
  • 3. S Leviticus 21:5; S 2 Samuel 10:4
  • 4. Zechariah 13:8
  • 5. Jeremiah 21:10; Ezekiel 15:7
  • 6. ver 10; Jeremiah 13:24
  • 7. ver 12; S Leviticus 26:33; S Jeremiah 9:16; S Jeremiah 39:1-2
  • 8. 2 Kings 25:12; S Psalms 74:11; Jeremiah 39:10
  • 9. Ezekiel 10:7; Ezekiel 15:7
  • 10. S Deuteronomy 4:6; S Lamentations 1:1; Ezekiel 16:14
  • 11. S 2 Kings 17:15; Nehemiah 9:17; Jeremiah 11:10; S Ezekiel 2:3; Ezekiel 16:47-51; Zechariah 7:11
  • 12. S 2 Kings 21:9; S 2 Chronicles 33:9; Jeremiah 2:10-11; Ezekiel 16:47
  • 13. S Jeremiah 21:5,13; Jeremiah 24:9; Ezekiel 11:9; Ezekiel 15:7; Zechariah 14:2
  • 14. Daniel 9:12; S Matthew 24:21
  • 15. S Leviticus 26:29; S Lamentations 2:20
  • 16. S Leviticus 26:33; S Psalms 44:11; S Jeremiah 13:14; Ezekiel 12:14; Zechariah 2:6
  • 17. S Numbers 14:21
  • 18. S Genesis 15:2
  • 19. S Leviticus 15:31
  • 20. Ezekiel 7:20; Ezekiel 11:18
  • 21. 2 Chronicles 36:14; Ezekiel 8:6
  • 22. S Job 27:22; S Jeremiah 16:18; S Lamentations 2:17; Ezekiel 7:4,9; Ezekiel 8:18; Ezekiel 9:5
  • 23. ver 10; Jeremiah 13:24
  • 24. S ver 2,17; S Psalms 107:39; S Jeremiah 15:2; S Jeremiah 21:9; Ezekiel 6:11-12; Ezekiel 7:15; Ezekiel 12:14; Amos 9:4; Zechariah 13:8; Revelation 6:8
  • 25. S 2 Chronicles 12:7; S Job 20:23; Ezekiel 21:17; Ezekiel 24:13; Ezekiel 36:6
  • 26. S Isaiah 1:24
  • 27. S Isaiah 59:17; Ezekiel 16:42; Ezekiel 38:19; Hosea 10:10; Zechariah 6:8
  • 28. S Leviticus 26:32; Nehemiah 2:17; Psalms 74:3-10; Psalms 79:1-4; Isaiah 64:11; Ezekiel 6:6; Ezekiel 22:4; Daniel 9:16; Micah 3:12
  • 29. S Isaiah 43:28
  • 30. S Deuteronomy 28:46
  • 31. S Deuteronomy 28:20; S 1 Kings 9:7; S Jeremiah 22:8-9; Jeremiah 24:9; Ezekiel 14:8
  • 32. S Jeremiah 23:40; Ezekiel 25:17
  • 33. S Leviticus 26:26; S Deuteronomy 32:24
  • 34. Ezekiel 14:15
  • 35. Ezekiel 38:22
  • 36. S ver 12; S Leviticus 26:25; Ezekiel 14:21; Ezekiel 28:23

Footnotes 1

  • [a]. Most Hebrew manuscripts; some Hebrew manuscripts and Syriac "You have"

Ezekiel 5 Commentaries

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