For the king of Babylon standeth at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination he shaketh [his] arrows, he inquireth of the teraphim, he looketh in the liver.
An invading king halts where the road splits in two. He turns to arrows, images and the liver of a sacrifice to decide whether to strike Rabbah or Jerusalem. Commentators ask two things: what was he doing, and who decided the outcome?
The verse names three methods. One writer takes them in turn.
Divination (qesem) means "prediction." The king of Babylon had come to two roads. He wanted to know whether to take the road to Rabbath or the road to Jerusalem, so he turned to divination. First "he shook his arrows" (as it should be translated). No doubt two or more arrows were marked, each with the name of one city, and shaken in the quiver. Whichever arrow the right hand drew decided which road he would take. Jerusalem fell to the right hand. Perhaps the king was doubtful, so he consulted images, teraphim. No one knows how these were used for divination. The king still sought another guide: "he looked in the liver." Set rules decided whether the intestines of a sacrifice were favourable or not. Using three sets of predictions shows he had no great confidence in his divinations: they may have deceived him often before. How different from an answer from God granted to Israel!
The liver in particular belonged to a wider practice among the nations of that time.
Among the heathen the liver was one of the parts of an animal that were examined in order to foretell events, as practised by the king of Babylon.
The king thinks he is choosing. Another writer places his pause under a larger hand.
The sword is the sword of the king of Babylon, which, even if blindly, is still the instrument of the Hand that is always over him. The prophet traces his route, and sees him pause and hesitate where the one road out of his land splits in two. The one road leads to Rabbah of the Ammonite; the other to Jerusalem, strong in its walls. There he stands where the way parts, practising his useless divination.
Shaking arrows in a quiver is a form of casting lots. Scripture has already ruled on where the result comes from.
God overruled among His people how the lot should fall, as Proverbs 16:33 says: "The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD." He could also direct it among the heathen to work out His own purposes. He did this with Haman. The lot so delayed Haman's plan that Esther had time to act, and new decrees went out all over the kingdom, so that the Jews could be saved from destruction.
The "images" here are teraphim. One writer defines them, and turns the warning towards the believer's own home.
The teraphim was not really an idol, and the Word is careful to keep the two apart. The image (teraphim) ranks below the idol. It is a kind of lesser god whose place is the home, given a certain importance and even consulted at times. Such superstitions quickly lead to true idols. Often the believer lacks the energy to drive these causes of stumbling out of his family. Each one of us must take this to heart.
Jerusalem shrugged the arrows off as nonsense. One writer answers that the city aimed its contempt at the wrong thing.
In itself it was a poor thing, and men could brace themselves against it as nothing but the false divination of the heathen — men who had sworn faithfulness to the king of Babylon in Jehovah's name and then broken their oath! They were right to scorn the heathen divination. But what about Jehovah, whom they had scorned and defied? "He brings their guilt to remembrance, that they may be taken." And so the divination does not fail.
The march that began at this fork ended an era. One writer traces what it opened, and where it ends.
Jerusalem might think it "false divination," but God's judgment must go ahead, so the sword is drawn and will not go back into its sheath. God's throne had left the earth, and "the times of the Gentiles" had begun. The judgment day of the wicked prince of Israel — Zedekiah the profane — had come. God would overturn, overturn, overturn, until He comes whose was the throne and the diadem — even Christ Himself.
- Three tries. Shaken arrows, teraphim, a liver — three methods, and the king trusted none of them.
- One hand. The omens seemed to pick the route. The Lord disposed the arrow that fell to the right hand, as He did Haman's lot.
- A blind sword. The invading king was a real instrument even though he never knew whose he was.
- Wrong target. Judah was right to despise the omens. It was wrong to despise the God whose oath it had broken — so the divination "does not fail."
- Overturned, not abandoned. The road to Jerusalem opened the times of the Gentiles. The overturning lasts only until the One whose right it is comes.
In his right hand is the lot of Jerusalem to appoint battering-rams, to open the mouth for bloodshed, to lift up the voice with shouting, to appoint battering-rams against the gates, to cast mounds, to build siege-towers.
Nebuchadnezzar stands at a fork in the road: one way leads to Rabbah of the Ammonites, the other to Jerusalem. He picks his target by pagan fortune-telling, and this verse shows the result: siege mounds, shouting, and rams at the gates.
Here is how the king reached his decision — by arrows, by household idols called teraphim, and by the liver of a sacrifice:
The king of Babylon had come to two roads, and wanting to know whether he should take the road to Rabbath or to Jerusalem, he turned to divination. First "he shook his arrows" (as it should be translated). No doubt someone marked two or more arrows, each with the name of one of the cities, and shook them in the quiver. Whichever arrow his right hand drew decided which road he would take. Jerusalem fell to the right hand. Perhaps the king was doubtful, so he consulted with images, teraphim... The king still looked for another guide: "he looked in the liver." Set rules decided whether the insides of a sacrifice were favourable or not. The king used three sets of forecasts, which shows he had no great confidence in his divinations. How different from an answer given by God to Israel!
The king thought he was reading omens. In fact God was steering him. One writer describes his hesitation and where it led:
Ezekiel describes how unsure the king was about carrying out his revenge. Should he begin with Rabbah of the Ammonites, or with Jerusalem? He practised divination to know where to begin. Without his being aware of it, the Lord's hand led him against Judah.
The sword itself belonged to Someone else:
They might then see the sword drawn out of its sheath. God says plainly that it was not the sword of a mere human enemy, but His own... As the chapter itself declares, the king of Babylon was only an instrument in the hands of the Almighty. God held all the power that Nebuchadnezzar would credit to himself.
After the omen came the siege work. The verse lists mounds, towers, a war shout, an order for bloodshed, and rams at the gates. Here is what a ram was:
The machine used in ancient times for knocking down gates or walls. Chains held up a heavy beam, with an iron head at the end shaped something like a ram... Men pulled it back from the wall and then swung it hard against it.
Jerusalem dismissed the whole business as heathen superstition. That dismissal missed the real question:
In his right hand is the divination for Jerusalem, to lay siege to it. In itself it was a poor thing, and men might brace themselves against it as nothing but the false divination of the heathen. But these were men who had sworn faithfulness to the king of Babylon in Jehovah's name and then broken their oath! They had every right to scorn heathen divination. But what about Jehovah, whom they had scorned and defied? "He brings the iniquity to remembrance, that they may be taken." And so the divination does not fail.
The broken oath was no small matter. Judah's king Zedekiah had sworn loyalty to Nebuchadnezzar in God's own name:
He made a covenant with the king of Babylon. He took an oath in the name of Jehovah to obey Nebuchadnezzar, so much so that Jehovah said "my oath" and "my covenant." Afterwards he rebelled against the king that Jehovah had set over him, and sent to Egypt for horses and men. He despised the covenant and the oath he had sworn so solemnly. So he treated the name of the Holy One of Israel as nothing before the heathen king.
The rams did more than breach a wall. They marked a change in who ruled the world:
Jerusalem might think it "false divination," but God's judgment had to fall. So the sword is drawn, and it will not return to its sheath. God's throne had left the earth, and "the times of the Gentiles" had begun. The judgment-day of the wicked prince of Israel — Zedekiah the profane — had come.
Yet the same chapter fixes a limit to that overturning:
Messiah will come and reign. Until then there is overturning and only overturning. The right is His.
- Arrows — The king shook marked arrows, consulted household idols, and looked into a liver. Three methods in a row show how little he trusted any of them.
- Hand — The arrow fell to his right hand and pointed to Jerusalem; the Lord's hand led him there without his knowing it.
- Sword — The blade drawn against the city was God's own; the king who thought the power was his was only the instrument.
- Gates — What the arrow decided, the rams carried out: ramps, shouting, and a beam swung against the gates.
- Oath — Judah could scorn heathen fortune-telling, yet Judah's king had sworn in God's name and broken his word. So the siege stood, the throne fell, and the overturning goes on until He comes whose right it is.