Ezekiel 5:1-6

1 And you, O mortal, take a sharp sword; use it as a barber's razor and run it over your head and your beard; then take balances for weighing, and divide the hair.
2 One third of the hair you shall burn in the fire inside the city, when the days of the siege are completed; one third you shall take and strike with the sword all around the city; and one third you shall scatter to the wind, and I will unsheathe the sword after them.
3 Then you shall take from these a small number, and bind them in the skirts of your robe.
4 From these, again, you shall take some, throw them into the fire and burn them up; from there a fire will come out against all the house of Israel.
5 Thus says the Lord God: This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the center of the nations, with countries all around her.
6 But she has rebelled against my ordinances and my statutes, becoming more wicked than the nations and the countries all around her, rejecting my ordinances and not following my statutes.

Ezekiel 5:1-6 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.

Footnotes 1

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.