Ezekiel 9: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Ezekiel hears God call out the men appointed to punish Jerusalem, and six armed men arrive with a seventh dressed in linen who carries a writing kit. God's glory moves from above the cherubim to the temple threshold, and the man in linen is sent to mark the foreheads of everyone who grieves over the sins committed in the city. The six are told to follow and kill everyone without the mark, starting at the temple. Ezekiel falls on his face and asks whether God will destroy all who are left of Israel; God answers that the guilt of Israel and Judah is very great, and the man in linen reports that his task is done.

Claim by Claim

1. 9:1
   • A loud voice cried in Ezekiel's ears.
   • The voice said to cause those appointed over the city to draw near.
   • The voice said that each man should have his destroying weapon in his hand.
2. 9:2
   • Six men came from the direction of the upper gate, which faces north.
   • Each of the men had a shattering weapon in his hand.
   • One man among them was clothed in linen.
   • The man clothed in linen had a scribe's writing case at his waist.
   • The men came in and stood beside the bronze altar.
3. 9:3
   • The glory of the God of Israel went up from the cherub on which it had been.
   • The glory moved to the threshold of the house.
   • He called to the man clothed in linen who had the scribe's writing case at his waist.
4. 9:4
   • The LORD said to the man clothed in linen to go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem.
   • The LORD told him to set a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations done in the midst of the city.
5. 9:5
   • He said to the others in Ezekiel's hearing.
   • He told them to go through the city after the man in linen and to strike.
   • He told them not to let their eye spare.
   • He told them to have no pity.
6. 9:6
   • He commanded them to kill utterly old men, young men, virgins, little children, and women.
   • He commanded them not to come near any man on whom the mark was.
   • He commanded them to begin at his sanctuary.
   • They began with the elders who were before the house.
7. 9:7
   • He told them to defile the house.
   • He told them to fill the courts with the slain.
   • He told them to go forth.
   • They went forth and struck down people in the city.
8. 9:8
   • While they were striking, Ezekiel was left.
   • Ezekiel fell on his face.
   • Ezekiel cried out.
   • Ezekiel asked whether the Lord GOD would destroy all the remnant of Israel in pouring out his fury upon Jerusalem.
9. 9:9
   • He said to Ezekiel that the iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great.
   • He said the land is full of blood.
   • He said the city is full of perversion.
   • He said they say the LORD has forsaken the land.
   • He said they say the LORD does not see.
10. 9:10
    • He said his own eye would not spare.
    • He said he would not have pity.
    • He said he would bring their way upon their head.
11. 9:11
    • The man clothed in linen who had the writing case at his waist brought back word.
    • He said he had done as he was commanded.

Words Worth Explaining

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

9:1

This scene continues without a break from the vision that began in chapter 8: Ezekiel, living among the exiles in Babylon, is being shown in vision what is going on in and around the temple in Jerusalem. The Hebrew behind "the men who are put in charge" is a single word meaning "appointed ones" or "overseers" of the city; it can suggest either officials set over the city or the punishments appointed for it, and here it clearly means executioners.

9:2

The upper gate was one of the gateways of the temple enclosure. North was the direction from which invading armies came down on Jerusalem. Linen was the fabric worn by priests on duty in the temple, and by figures in visions. The "writing kit" (the King James "inkhorn") was a scribe's palette: a case tucked into the belt holding reed pens and cakes of dried ink. The bronze altar stood out in the open courtyard in front of the temple building; it was where animal sacrifices were burnt.

9:3

Cherubim were winged creatures, not babies with wings; gold figures of them stood over the ark in the innermost room of the temple, and God was spoken of as enthroned above them. "The glory" translates a Hebrew word used for the visible blaze of God's presence, which Ezekiel describes at length in chapters 1 and 10. The doorway or threshold is the entrance of the temple building itself, so the glory has moved out of the innermost room to the door.

9:4

The "mark" is literally a *taw*, the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, which in the older script was written as an X or a cross shape. A mark on the forehead or hand was a familiar way of showing that a person belonged to someone. The "disgusting things" translate a word used for practices regarded as religiously repulsive, above all idol worship, chapter 8 describes what Ezekiel had been shown going on in the temple.

9:5

"Do not look on anyone with pity" renders a Hebrew idiom, literally "let not your eye spare": the eye stands for the pity a person feels at the sight of a victim.

9:6

"Begin at my temple" is literally "begin from my sanctuary", the holiest part of the complex, the place a reader would expect to be the safest. The elders (King James "ancient men") were the leading men of the city, who held authority in legal and civic matters; chapter 8 showed seventy of them burning incense to images inside the temple.

9:7

Contact with a dead body made a person or a place ritually unclean, and corpses were the most serious possible pollution of a sanctuary; ordering the courts filled with the dead is ordering the building put out of use for worship. The courtyards are the walled open enclosures around the temple building, where worshipers gathered.

9:8

"I was left" is brief in Hebrew and can be read either as "I alone was left alive" among those in the vision or as "I was left there" while the killing went on. Falling face down on the ground was the ordinary posture for making an urgent appeal to a king or to God. "Lord GOD" stands for two Hebrew words: *adonai*, meaning master or lord, and the personal name of God, which English Bibles represent by capital letters instead of spelling it out.

9:9

"Full of murder" is literally "full of blood," the standard expression for bloodshed and violent death. The word rendered "twisted dealing" has to do with bending or perverting things out of true, especially the bending of legal cases against the poor. "The LORD has left the land, the LORD does not see" repeats a saying already quoted in chapter 8:12.

9:10

"I will bring back on their own heads what they have done" is legal language: the consequences of an act were spoken of as falling on the head of the person who committed it, the way guilt for a crime was said to rest on the criminal's head.