A sword was ready
21
And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 2 📚“Son of man, set your face toward Jerusalem, and utter your words toward the holy places, and prophesy against the land of Israel, 3 📚and say to the land of Israel, Thus says the Lord: See, I am against you, and will draw my sword 📖 out of its scabbard, and will cut off the righteous and the wicked from you. 4 📚Since, then, I will cut off the righteous and the wicked from you, therefore my sword will come out of its scabbard against all flesh from the south to the north, 5 📚so that all flesh may know that I, the Lord, have drawn my sword out of its scabbard. It will not return again.21:5 Men will know it because God repeatedly foretold it through His prophets.⚜
6 📚“Therefore, son of man, groan with a breaking heart, and with bitterness. Groan before their eyes.
21:6 God wants His servants to be in tune with Him, to think and feel about things as He thinks and feels, and to reveal to people what He thinks and feels. Compare v 12; Isa 22:4; Jer 8:21—9:1; Jer 48:36; Lam 1:16; Ezek 18:23; Luke 19:41.⚜
7 📚And when they say to you, ‘Why are you groaning?’ then you are to answer, ‘Because of the news. It is coming; and every heart will melt, and all hands will be feeble, and every spirit will faint, and all knees will be as weak as water. See, it comes, and will happen, says the Lord God.’ ”
8 Again the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 9 📚“Son of man, prophesy, and say, Thus says the LORD. Say:
“A sword, a sword is sharpened,
and also polished!
10 📚It is sharpened to make
a terrible slaughter;
it is polished to flash like lightning.
Should we then be merry?
It despises the rod, my son,
and all wood.
11 📚And he has given it to be polished,
that it may be handled.
This sword is sharpened,
and it is polished, to give it into
the hand of the slayer.’
12 📚Cry and wail, son of man!
For it will come on my people,
it will come on all the princes of Israel.
Because of the sword terrors
will be on my people.
Therefore strike your thigh.
13 📚Because it is for testing.
And what if the sword despises
even the rod? It will no longer be,
says the Lord God.
14 📚Therefore, son of man, prophesy,
and strike your hands together,
and let the sword do double
the third time, the sword for the slaughter,
the sword for the slaughter
of great men,
that enters their private rooms.
15 📚I have set the point of the sword
against all their gates,
that their heart may faint,
and their ruins be multiplied.
Ah! it is made bright,
it is grasped for slaughter.
16 📚Go one way or another,
either to the right
or to the left,
wherever your face is set.
17 📚I will also strike my hands together,
and I will cause my fury to rest.
I, the LORD, have said it”.
21:8-17 This is a sword song. In poetic language God’s “sword” is described. It was all ready to descend in judgment on God’s own people (v 12). Though that nation was like a son to God (v 10) it could not escape the punishment God was sending by means of Babylon’s armies. Babylon’s soldiers, swords in hand, would surround them, would stand at every gate to slaughter the people (vs 14-16). God will thus spend His anger on them as He had declared He would (v 17; Ezek 5:12-13).⚜
18 The word of the LORD came to me again, saying, 19 📚“Also, son of man, mark out two ways for the sword of the king of Babylon to come. Both of them are to come out of the same land. And make a sign and put it at the head of the road to the city. 20 📚Mark out a way for the sword to come to Rabbah of the Ammonites, and to Judah, to fortified Jerusalem. 21 📚For the king of Babylon stands at the fork in the road, at the head of the two roads, to use divination. He shakes his arrows, he consults images, he looks in the liver 📖. 22 📚In his right hand is the divination for Jerusalem, to appoint captains, to open the mouth for the slaughter, to lift up the voice with shouting, to appoint battering rams against the gates, to raise a siege mound, and to build fortifications.
21:18-22 Ezekiel in exile in Babylon was to enact before the people the approach of King Nebuchadnezzar to Jerusalem. Compare Ezek 4:1-3. Verse 21 predicts that Nebuchadnezzar would be indecisive whether to first attack Jerusalem, or Rabbah the capital city of Ammon. He would seek for signs and omens to make a decision and then decide to come on to Jerusalem.⚜
23 📚And in the eyes of those who have sworn oaths 📖 it will seem like a false divination, but he will remind them of wrongdoing, that they may be captured.
24 📚“Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because you have caused your wrongdoing to be remembered, because your transgressions are uncovered, so that your sins appear in all your deeds; because, I say, that you have come to remembrance, you will be captured by hand.
25 📚“And to you, O profane, wicked prince of Israel, whose day has come, when wrongdoing will come to an end,
21:25 Zedekiah.⚜
26 📚thus says the Lord God:
Remove the turban and
take off the crown.
Things will not be the same.
Exalt him who is lowly,
and abase him who is high up.
27 📚I will overturn it, overturn,
overturn, and it will be no more
until he comes whose right it is;
and I will give it to him.’
28 📚“And you, son of man, prophesy and say, Thus says the Lord God concerning the Ammonites, and concerning their reproach. Say:
The sword, the sword is drawn.
It is polished for the slaughter
to consume, to flash like lightning,
29 📚While they see vain visions
for you, while they divine a lie for you,
to bring you on the necks of those
to be slain, the wicked,
whose day has come,
and whose wrongdoing
will have an end.
30 📚Shall I cause it to return
to its scabbard?
I will judge you in the place
where you were created,
in the land of your birth.
31 📚And I will pour out my indignation
on you. I will blow against you
in the fire of my wrath,
and deliver you into the hands
of savage men, skillful in destruction.
32 📚You will be fuel for the fire.
Your blood will be in the midst
of the land.
You will no longer be remembered;
for I, the LORD, have spoken it”.
21:28-32 Verse 20. After destroying Jerusalem God would send the king of Babylon against the Ammonites. For other prophecies concerning them see Ezek 25:1-7; Jer 49:1-6; Amos 1:13-15; Zeph 2:8-11.⚜