Thus saith the Lord Jehovah Because Moab and Seir do say, Behold, the house of Judah is like unto all the nations,
At chapter 25 Ezekiel turns from Jerusalem to the nations that watched her fall. Moab and Seir answer for one sentence they spoke about Judah — so why does that bring down judgment, when Jerusalem had just fallen?
After Jerusalem falls, the prophet turns to the neighbours who were glad to see it happen. Their gladness is what brings judgment on them.
Ezekiel 25 has a special character. The nations around Israel rejoiced at the destruction of Jerusalem and of the sanctuary. So did the nations inside her territory. So God would carry out judgment on them. This prophecy is about Ammon, Moab, Edom, and the Philistines. Obadiah develops God's testimony against Edom further. So by the judgment that would fall on them, these nations would know that the LORD alone is God — even though Jerusalem had not been a faithful witness.
Each nation in this list answers for something of its own. Moab's charge is the flattest of them all: it looked at Judah and saw nothing special.
Seven of the nations around Israel stand here as representatives, and their attitude towards God's chosen people is at the front of the account. In principle we have here what will be repeated in the last days, in the judgment before the Son of Man (Matthew 25:31-46). Ammon we find to be against the sanctuary and the land. Moab, in pride of heart, will see nothing in Israel but a nation like all the rest. Edom and Philistia have nursed a spirit of vengeance against her. Tyre finds her own gain in Israel's fall. Sidon has been a sting and a thorn to her, and Egypt always a staff of reed.
Moab's sentence was not a plain lie. Judah had sinned like the nations. But Moab refused the difference God Himself had made, and pride lay behind the refusal.
How true it is that God resists the proud. We have heard of Moab's pride. He resented it all the more because they dared to say, as they would have liked to believe, that "the house of Judah is like all the other nations." But it was not so. They were not alike in their privileges. They were not alike in their punishment. Sadly, they were too much alike in their sins. This, however, was not what Moab disliked. What Moab disliked was the mercy God had shown them, and their calling to be at the head of the nations as the witness of the LORD. So He carried out judgments in Moab, so that they might know Him. The God of Israel governs the nations.
The verse names two speakers, and the pairing is itself part of the lesson. Moab is read as the man who cannot tell one company from another, and the writers apply it directly to religion today.
In all this, Moab pictures the man who professes religion but always drifts easily towards the heretic. He makes Christianity itself just one more of the forms that show the religious side of man, as Moab made Judaism. Everyone knows what a favourite idea this is becoming in these last days. So Moab keeps full company with Ammon in his later history and in his spirit, and shares his doom. Other places in Scripture treat the two as one. The company a man keeps tells you what he is; this is a lesson about association that we constantly need.
Each judgment in these chapters ends with the nations coming to know the LORD. Commentators are careful about what that knowing means.
So this knowledge of the LORD comes by the judgment itself. It does not come from any spiritual knowledge of Him that follows… It will be through judgment that all the nations shall know that the LORD is God.
Moab is not written off for ever. Commentators note that Moab's end is not Edom's, and the reason goes back to Israel's entry into Canaan.
There is a difference in the restoration of those nations in the last days. Egypt, Elam, Moab and Ammon are restored then. Edom, Damascus, Philistia and Hazor are not… When the people of Israel entered Canaan, they were to spare Ammon and Moab. They were not Canaanites under the curse. Their origin was sad, but they were related to the family of Israel, and so their land was kept for them.
- Words. God judges Moab for one sentence about His people. He weighs what the nations say about those He has chosen.
- Pride. The saying came from pride of heart. What Moab resented was the mercy and calling given to Judah, not Judah's failure.
- Difference. Judah was like the nations in sin, but not in privileges and not in punishment. Jerusalem's ruin did not erase the difference God had made.
- Company. Moab keeps company with Ammon and shares his doom. He pictures the man who makes all religion one and the same.
- Knowing. Moab learns who the LORD is through judgment. Yet God still restores Moab in the last days, rather than wiping it out.
therefore behold, I will open the side of Moab from the cities, from his cities even to the last of them, the glory of the country, Beth-jeshimoth, Baal-meon, and Kirjathaim,
In Ezekiel 25 the prophet turns away from Jerusalem. He speaks against the neighbouring peoples who watched Judah fall and enjoyed it. Verse 9 is God's sentence on Moab. God will open its border towns — the pride of the land, and once Israel's own.
These words came while Jerusalem's fate still hung in the balance. One writer explains why God now turns to speak against foreign nations.
During the gap between the start of the siege and the news that Jerusalem had fallen, the weight of his prophecy is against foreign nations. God would judge them because they had interfered with those who had been His people. Yet because of their sins, He had now not only called His people Lo-ammi (not My people), but treated them as such.
Verse 9 answers what Moab said a verse earlier: that Judah was no different from any other nation. The frontier towns were Moab's guard, and God says He will open that side. One writer shows why those proud hills would be no shelter.
Their mountain strongholds, their proud fortifications, would prove useless when God's time came; and it was coming soon… How true it is that God resists the proud! We have heard of Moab's pride. He resented it all the more because they dared to say, as they would have liked to believe, that "the house of Judah is like all the other nations." But it was not so, either in their privileges or in their punishment, though sadly they were too alike in their sins.
One of the towns named has a history of its own. A Bible dictionary traces Kiriathaim back to Reuben, one of Israel's tribes, who settled east of the Jordan.
City of Reuben, east of the Jordan. Numbers 32:37; Joshua 13:19. Called Kiriathaim in Jeremiah 48:1, 23 and Ezekiel 25:9, where it is linked with Moab and handed over to judgement.
So the "glory of the country" was, in part, borrowed glory.
The three towns are not a random list. Their names describe what Moab prized.
In contrast with Ammon, he can win his land and have his cities, which are its glory. As specially mentioned here, he has a Beth-jeshimoth ("a house of the wastes") to redeem the wastes. He has a Baal-meon, or more fully Beth-baal-meon ("the house of the owner of a dwelling"), and of course he values it. Then he has a Kiriathaim, "a walled double city." It combines security with the companionship he loves, which is so useful for polish and practical activity. These things stand for principles men still glory in.
The cities pass to the same raiders who overran Ammon. One writer shows how fitting that exchange is.
In the fitting ways of God, God gives up the land of Ammon to raiders like itself, "the sons of the East." The word for east means what is opposite to you. But it can easily take on the character we find in the east wind: what is against you, or hostile. "The sons of the East," such as the Ishmaelites, were men whose hand was against everyone, and everyone's hand against them.
One writer traces Moab's character to his family line, and to the company he keeps.
Moab is the company-lover, and not careful about the company he keeps. He is the true child of Lot. We see this at once if we remember Lot with Abraham on the one hand, and on the other going off into Sodom, drawn there by whatever gain he could find. Moab is the very picture of the comfortable worldling. He will keep company with the people of God until he can almost persuade himself, as he would persuade others, that he is one of them. Yet at the same time he can mix with what is most deadly opposed to the people of God. He cannot see for himself what makes the difference.
- Words: Moab's crime began as a sentence — that Judah was just like everyone else. God answers the tongue with an open border.
- Walls: The strongholds Moab trusted are the very thing God opens. Proud fortifications prove useless when His time comes.
- Wealth: The towns Moab counted as the land's pride carry names of waste redeemed, of ownership, of a walled double city. These stand for principles men still glory in.
- Wanderers: What Moab held passes to "the sons of the East" — men whose hand was against everyone.
- Worldling: Moab pictures the comfortable man of the world. He keeps company with God's people, yet cannot see what makes them different.
unto the children of the east, with [the land of] the children of Ammon; and I will give it them for a possession, that the children of Ammon may not be remembered among the nations
Ezekiel 25:10 sits inside a short word against Moab (verses 8–11), but the sentence falls on Ammon too. Two questions drive the verse: who are "the people of the East," and why does Ammon's doom sit inside Moab's judgment?
Chapter 25 turns from Jerusalem's fall to the peoples who cheered it. One writer gives the reason God judged them:
Ezekiel 25 has a special character. The nations around Israel, and those living inside its land, rejoiced at the destruction of Jerusalem and of the sanctuary. So God would carry out judgment on them. Ammon, Moab, Edom, and the Philistines are the objects of this prophecy… So the judgment that fell on them would teach these nations this: although Jerusalem had not been a faithful witness, Jehovah alone is God.
Who are these invaders? One commentator weighs the idea that they were the Babylonians, and prefers another answer:
The main question is who the sons of the east are. Some (both Jews and Christians) take them to be the Chaldeans. But Theodoret seems to me more right, who views them as the Ishmaelites. After Nebuchadnezzar's great overthrow of the existing state, they would pitch their tents, tend their flocks and herds — in short, live their wandering life in the land of those who had celebrated the desecration of Jehovah's sanctuary, the ruin of Israel's land, and the captivity of Judah… It was a greater blow to become the possession of the wandering Bedouins than to have simply fallen under the towers and strength and skill of the Babylonians.
The punishment matches the character of the people punished. Ammon lived by plunder, not by farming, and the sentence answers in kind:
If we look back at the history of Ammon it will have constant meaning for us… The land he covets for himself, as we find in the history of the Judges. Yet he can take real possession of nothing, being only the wandering raider that everything shows him to be. So, as others have noted, we have no cities of the land of Ammon. We find nothing that shows real working of the soil or the care of the farmer. Rabbah is his one city… In the fitting ways of God, He gives up the land of Ammon to raiders like himself, "the sons of the East"… men whose hand was against everyone, and everyone's hand against them.
The charge against Moab is a sentence it spoke: that Judah was no different from any other nation. One writer shows what lay under those words:
How true it is that God resists the proud! We have heard of Moab's pride. He resented it all the more because they dared to say, as they would have liked to believe, that "the house of Judah is like all the nations." But it was not so, either in their privileges or in their punishment — though sadly they were too much alike in their sins. What Moab disliked was not this, but the mercy God had shown Israel and their calling to be at the head of the nations as the witness of Jehovah. So He carried out judgments in Moab, so that they might know Him. The God of Israel governs the nations.
The verse does not sentence Moab alone. It names Ammon inside the word against Moab. Another writer draws a lesson from their shared doom:
Moab, in full company with Ammon in his later history and in his spirit, becomes a sharer of his doom. Other places of Scripture treat them as if they were one. The company he keeps testifies of the man he is; this is a lesson about association which is always needed.
One writer measures how complete Ammon's disappearance was:
The sons of Ammon have been destroyed, and beyond any repair that man can make…
But the prophets do not close the book there:
Both Ammon and Moab were related to Israel by blood, since they came from Lot (Gen. 19:37-38). They were in constant conflict with Israel… Scripture promises both Ammon and Moab a national restoration in the latter days, that is, when the Lord comes (Jer. 48:47; 49:6). Let us remember that these nations were proud in the extreme. And these judgments on proud, self-exalting, God-forgetting nations are not limited to the past. He will repeat them in the future when He judges the nations.
- Cheering — Moab and Ammon gloated over the ruined sanctuary and called Judah no different from any other nation. That is the charge that brings the sentence.
- Pride — Kelly reads those words as pride that resented the mercy God had shown Israel. The God of Israel governs the nations.
- Matching — God hands the raider over to raiders. Ammon lived by plunder and held one city; now "the people of the East" take his land.
- Company — Moab's sentence carries Ammon's doom inside it. Grant reads that shared doom as a lesson about whom you stand with.
- Knowing — the aim of it all, Darby says, is that these nations learn what Jerusalem's own failure could not teach them: the Lord alone is God. Gaebelein adds that mercy for Moab and Ammon still lies beyond the judgment.
and I will execute judgments upon Moab, and they shall know that I [am] Jehovah.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.