For Teaching

Ezekiel 21: What the Passage Says

133 claims across 32 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Ezekiel 21 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

God tells Ezekiel to speak against Jerusalem and the land of Israel: the LORD's sword is drawn from its sheath and will cut off both the righteous and the wicked, and Ezekiel is to groan and wail so the people ask him why. A chant about the sword follows, describing the blade sharpened and polished and put into the killer's hand. Ezekiel is then to mark two roads for the king of Babylon, who stops at the fork to seek omens and gets the sign for Jerusalem; the prince of Israel is stripped of turban and crown, and the rule is overturned until the one comes who has the right to it. The chapter ends with a word against the Ammonites, against whom the sword is drawn and polished for slaughter, and who will be judged in the land where they came from.

Claim by Claim

21:1
- The word of the LORD came to Ezekiel.
- The word of the LORD came with speech following.
21:2
- The LORD addressed Ezekiel as son of man.
- The LORD commanded him to set his face toward Jerusalem.
- The LORD commanded him to let his word drop toward the sanctuaries.
- The LORD commanded him to prophesy against the land of Israel.
21:3
- The LORD commanded Ezekiel to speak to the land of Israel.
- The LORD said he is against the land of Israel.
- The LORD said he will draw his sword out of its sheath.
- The LORD said he will cut off from her both the righteous and the wicked.
21:4
- The LORD said that because he will cut off from her the righteous and the wicked, his sword will go out of its sheath.
- The LORD said his sword will go out against all flesh.
- The LORD said the sword will go out from the south to the north.
21:5
- The LORD said the purpose is that all flesh may know that he, the LORD, has drawn his sword out of its sheath.
- The LORD said the sword will not return again.
21:6
- The LORD commanded the son of man to sigh.
- The LORD commanded him to sigh with breaking loins.
- The LORD commanded him to sigh with bitterness before their eyes.
21:7
- The LORD said they will ask Ezekiel why he is sighing.
- The LORD said Ezekiel is to answer that it is because of the tidings.
- The LORD said the tidings are coming.
- The LORD said every heart will melt.
- The LORD said all hands will be feeble.
- The LORD said every spirit will faint.
- The LORD said all knees will be weak as water.
- The LORD said it is coming and will be brought to pass.
- The Lord GOD said this.
21:8
- The word of the LORD came to Ezekiel again.
- The word of the LORD came with speech following.
21:9
- The LORD commanded the son of man to prophesy and speak.
- The LORD said to declare that a sword is sharpened.
- The LORD said the sword is also polished.
21:10
- The sword is sharpened to make a great slaughter.
- The sword is polished so that it may flash.
- A question is raised whether then there should be rejoicing.
- The saying about the rod or scepter of the LORD's son and every tree is obscure: it states either that the sword despises the scepter of the LORD's son as it despises every stick, or that there is no rejoicing in that scepter.
21:11
- He has given the sword to be polished.
- The sword is polished so that it may be handled.
- The sword is sharpened and polished.
- The purpose is to place the sword into the hand of the slayer.
21:12
- The LORD commanded the son of man to cry out and wail.
- The reason is that the sword will be upon the LORD's people.
- The sword will be upon all the princes of Israel.
- Terrors because of the sword will be upon the LORD's people.
- The LORD commanded him therefore to strike his thigh.
21:13
- A testing or trial is taking place.
- A question is raised about what happens if the sword despises even the rod or scepter.
- It is said that it will be no more.
- The Lord GOD said this.
21:14
- The LORD commanded the son of man to prophesy.
- The LORD commanded him to strike his hands together.
- The LORD commanded that the sword be doubled a third time.
- The sword is the sword of the slain.
- It is the sword of great men who are slain.
- The sword enters into their inner chambers.
21:15
- The LORD has set the point of the sword against all their gates.
- The purpose is that their heart may faint.
- The purpose is that their ruins may be multiplied.
- The sword is made bright.
- The sword is wrapped up for the slaughter.
21:16
- A command is given to go one way or the other.
- The direction may be to the right hand or to the left.
- The direction is wherever the face or edge is set.
21:17
- The LORD will also strike his hands together.
- The LORD will cause his fury to rest.
- The LORD said it.
21:18
- The word of the LORD came to Ezekiel again.
- The word of the LORD came with speech following.
21:19
- The LORD commanded the son of man to appoint two ways.
- The purpose is that the sword of the king of Babylon may come.
- Both ways will come out of one land.
- The LORD commanded him to choose a place.
- The place is to be chosen at the head of the way to the city.
21:20
- The LORD commanded him to appoint a way for the sword to come to Rabbah of the Ammonites.
- The LORD commanded him to appoint a way for the sword to come to Judah in Jerusalem the fortified.
21:21
- The king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way.
- He stood at the head of the two ways.
- He stood there to use divination.
- He shook or made bright his arrows.
- He consulted with household idols.
- He examined the liver.
21:22
- The divination for Jerusalem was in his right hand.
- The divination was to appoint captains or battering rams.
- It was to open the mouth in the slaughter.
- It was to lift up the voice with shouting.
- It was to appoint battering rams against the gates.
- It was to cast up a siege mound.
- It was to build a fort.
21:23
- The divination will seem to them like a false divination in their sight.
- Those to whom it seems false are people who have sworn oaths.
- But he will call the iniquity to remembrance.
- The purpose is that they may be taken.
21:24
- The Lord GOD said this.
- They have caused their iniquity to be remembered.
- Their transgressions are uncovered.
- Their sins appear in all their doings.
- Because they have come to remembrance, they will be taken with the hand.
21:25
- The LORD addressed the prince of Israel.
- The prince of Israel is called profane and wicked.
- The prince's day has come.
- The prince's day comes at the time when iniquity has an end.
21:26
- The Lord GOD said this.
- A command is given to remove the turban.
- A command is given to take off the crown.
- This will not remain the same.
- A command is given to exalt the one who is low.
- A command is given to bring low the one who is high.
21:27
- The LORD will overturn it, overturn it, overturn it.
- It will be no more until he comes whose right it is.
- The LORD will give it to him.
21:28
- The LORD commanded the son of man to prophesy and speak.
- The Lord GOD said this concerning the Ammonites.
- The Lord GOD said this concerning their reproach.
- The son of man is to say that the sword is drawn.
- The sword is polished for the slaughter.
- The sword is polished to consume, because of the flashing.
21:29
- They see false visions for you.
- They divine a lie for you.
- The purpose is to bring you upon the necks of those who are slain.
- Those slain are the wicked.
- Their day has come.
- Their day comes at the time when their iniquity has an end.
21:30
- It is unclear whether this asks if the sword will be returned to its sheath or commands that it be returned to its sheath.
- The LORD will judge you in the place where you were created.
- The LORD will judge you in the land of your birth.
21:31
- The LORD will pour out his indignation upon you.
- The LORD will blow against you in the fire of his wrath.
- The LORD will deliver you into the hand of brutish men.
- Those men are skilled in destroying.
21:32
- You will be fuel for the fire.
- Your blood will be in the midst of the land.
- You will not be remembered any more.
- The LORD has spoken it.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

21:1: "The LORD" in small capitals stands in for the personal name of Israel's God, written in Hebrew with four consonants (YHWH); Jewish readers said "Lord" aloud in its place, and English Bibles keep that substitution. "Lord GOD" later in the chapter renders a doubled title in the Hebrew. A numbering note: in Hebrew Bibles this chapter begins five verses earlier, so Hebrew 21:6 is English 21:1, and the Hebrew chapter runs to 37 verses. Translations that follow the Hebrew numbering will be out of step with this one.
21:2: "Son of man" is a Hebrew idiom meaning simply "human being, mortal." It is God's standard way of addressing Ezekiel throughout the book, over ninety times, and marks the distance between the speaker and the man spoken to. "Turn your face toward" describes a real gesture: a prophet physically faced the place he was denouncing while delivering the message. The "holy places" are sanctuaries, the temple in Jerusalem with its several sacred areas, and possibly other shrines in the land.
21:3: "Cut off" is the standard biblical phrase for killing or removing someone completely, whether by execution, disaster, or war.
21:4: "From the south to the north" is a way of saying "the entire land," naming the two extremes to include everything between them. Hebrew often marks totality this way, as in "heaven and earth."
21:6: Ezekiel regularly performed his messages in public rather than only speaking them, lying on his side, shaving his head, packing an exile's bag. This is one of those acted signs. The King James "breaking of thy loins" reflects the Hebrew: the loins, the lower back and hips, were thought of as the seat of a person's physical strength, so the picture is of a man doubled over, his strength gone.
21:7: "Knees will turn to water" is an idiom for terror so complete that the body gives way; it may refer to loss of bladder control. "Hearts melting" and "hands hanging limp" are the same kind of stock battle-panic language, found in war reports across the ancient Near East.
21:9: "Furbished" is an obsolete word meaning polished or burnished. A blade was scoured smooth partly to keep it from catching in a wound and partly for the flash of light off the metal, which is the point of the next verse.
21:10: The "royal staff" (King James "rod," elsewhere "sceptre") is the ornamented rod a ruler held as the visible sign of his authority. "My son" is a title used for Israel as a people and for its king. This verse is among the most difficult in the book: the Hebrew is compressed and damaged, ancient copies disagree, and no translation can claim certainty about the second half.
21:12: Striking the thigh was a recognized public gesture of shock and grief, like beating the breast, see Jeremiah 31:19.
21:13: The Hebrew of this verse is broken and uncertain; translators reconstruct it in noticeably different ways, and the plain sense of the second half is not recoverable.
21:14: Clapping the hands here is not applause. In Hebrew it is a gesture of violent feeling (anger, scorn, or grim satisfaction) and God makes the same gesture in verse 17. "Twice, even three times" is a Hebrew way of saying that the blows are repeated and mounting, not an exact count.
21:15: This verse is textually difficult. "That their ruins be multiplied" renders a word that most likely means stumblings or people falling, and "it is wrapped up for the slaughter" translates a term whose meaning is uncertain, though "drawn" or "made ready" fits the context.
21:17: "I will cause my fury to rest" does not mean the anger goes to sleep. The idea is that it comes to a stop because it has been fully spent, the way a storm exhausts itself.
21:19: Another acted sign: Ezekiel is to mark out roads, probably by scratching a rough map on the ground or on a clay tablet, with a signpost at the fork. The king of Babylon is Nebuchadnezzar II, whose army campaigned in the region in the late 580s BC and destroyed Jerusalem in 587/586.
21:20: Rabbah was the capital of Ammon, a small kingdom east of the Jordan River and north of Moab; the site is modern Amman, Jordan. Ammon and Judah were neighbors, sometime allies against Babylon, and long-standing rivals.
21:21: Three standard Babylonian methods of seeking omens, all well documented outside the Bible. Marked arrows were shaken in a quiver or thrown, and the one that fell out or landed first gave the answer. The "idols" translate a Hebrew word for household figures used to obtain oracles. Examining the liver of a freshly sacrificed sheep was the most prestigious method of all: Babylonian diviners trained on inscribed clay models of livers, dozens of which survive, mapping which markings meant what.
21:22: The technical vocabulary of an ancient siege. Battering rams were beam-and-frame machines, often housed under a protective shed, driven against a gate or wall. The "ramp" was a huge artificial slope of earth and rubble piled against the city wall so troops and rams could reach its upper, weaker part. The "siege walls" were a line of works thrown up around the city to cut off escape and supply.
21:23: The oath-swearers are most naturally Judah's leaders: King Zedekiah had sworn loyalty to Nebuchadnezzar in God's name when Babylon installed him, and had then broken it by rebelling (see 2 Chronicles 36:13; Ezekiel 17:13-19). The verse can also be read as saying that the people of Jerusalem dismissed Babylon's omen as worthless superstition; the Hebrew allows both.
21:24: "Seized by the hand" is an idiom for being arrested and carried off as a prisoner.
21:25: "Prince" is Ezekiel's habitual word for the ruler of Judah; he almost never calls him "king." The man meant is Zedekiah, the last ruler of Judah, placed on the throne by Nebuchadnezzar and reigning as his vassal. "Unholy" (King James "profane") means the opposite of consecrated, someone stripped of any sacred standing.
21:26: Two different headdresses. The turban was the headpiece of the high priest (Exodus 28:4, 36-38); the crown or diadem was the king's. Taking off both signals the end of both offices at once.
21:27: The threefold "a ruin" repeats a single Hebrew word three times for maximum emphasis; the King James "I will overturn, overturn, overturn" reflects the same repetition. The closing line ("until the one comes who has the right to it") echoes the wording of Genesis 49:10 and has been read since antiquity as pointing to a future ruler, but the Hebrew is only three words long and translators disagree about how to fill it out.
21:28: The "insults" (King James "reproach") refer to Ammon's public jeering at Judah's downfall, spelled out in Ezekiel 25:3-6: they applauded when the temple was desecrated and the people taken away.
21:29: The false visions are Ammon's own diviners and prophets, telling their people they are safe. "Whose day has come" uses "day" in its common prophetic sense: the appointed time of reckoning.
21:30: The Hebrew here can be read either as a question, should the sword go back in its sheath? or as a command, "Put it back in its sheath," and translations split between the two. It is also unclear whether "you" addresses the sword itself or the nation of Ammon. "The place where you were made" means the homeland: Ammon will be judged on its own soil rather than carried off elsewhere.
21:31: The image is a metalworker's: bellows blown on coals to force the fire hotter. "Cruel men skilled at destroying" is a stock way of describing a professional invading army, the same phrase pattern used elsewhere of the Babylonians.
21:32: To be "no longer remembered" meant more to ancient hearers than being forgotten as individuals: it meant a people's name, land, and descendants all erased, with no one left to speak of them.

Read Ezekiel 21