Ezekiel 35:6

6 therefore, as I live, says the Lord Yahweh, I will prepare you to blood, and blood shall pursue you: since you have not hated blood, therefore blood shall pursue you.

Ezekiel 35:6 Meaning and Commentary

Ezekiel 35:6

Therefore, as I live, saith the Lord God
The form of an oath; the Lord swears by himself, because he could swear by no greater; and which he never does but in matters of importance, and for the confirmation of them, as the following is: I will prepare thee unto blood;
prepare them for war, which will issue in slaughter and blood, such as the battle at Armageddon, ( Revelation 16:14 Revelation 16:16 ) ( Revelation 19:18 Revelation 19:19 ) : or, "I will make thee blood" ^F23; nothing else but blood; a mere "Aceldama", a field of blood; turn thee into blood, as the sea, rivers, and fountains will be, at the pouring out the second and third vials, ( Revelation 16:3 Revelation 16:4 ) : and blood shall pursue thee;
the guilt and vengeance of blood; or the avengers of the blood of the saints; the angels that shall pour out the vials of wrath on Rome; the ten kings that shall hate the whore. So the Targum;

``they that slay with the sword shall pursue thee;''

or the shedders of blood, as Ben Melech: saith thou hast not hated blood;
Jarchi reads it; "hast hated blood": which he interprets of the blood of the sacrifices; as others, mentioned by him, of the blood of circumcision; and others, of his brother, who was his flesh and blood, and hated by him; but it is a figurative phrase, by which less is expressed than is intended. The sense is, thou hast loved blood; thou hast delighted in shedding blood; hast thirsted after it, and drank plentifully of it, and even been drunk with it, as the whore of Rome is said to be, ( Revelation 17:5 ) : even blood shall pursue thee;
this is repeated for the confirmation of it; and this was measure for measure; a just retaliation; having shed blood, it was but right that blood should pursue, and be given, ( Revelation 16:5 Revelation 16:6 ) .

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FOOTNOTES:

F23 (Kvea Mdl) "in sanguinem redigam te", Munster; "in sanguinem faciam te", Grotius; "sanguinem faciam te", Coceeius, Starckius.

Ezekiel 35:6 In-Context

4 I will lay your cities waste, and you shall be desolate; and you shall know that I am Yahweh.

5 Because you have had a perpetual enmity, and have given over the children of Israel to the power of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time of the iniquity of the end;

6 therefore, as I live, says the Lord Yahweh, I will prepare you to blood, and blood shall pursue you: since you have not hated blood, therefore blood shall pursue you.

7 Thus will I make Mount Seir an astonishment and a desolation; and I will cut off from it him who passes through and him who returns.

8 I will fill its mountains with its slain: in your hills and in your valleys and in all your watercourses shall they fall who are slain with the sword.