A third part of thee shall die by the pestilence, and shall be consumed by the famine in the midst of thee; and a third part shall fall by the sword round about thee; and I will scatter a third part to all the winds, and I will draw out a sword after them.
Ezekiel had just shaved his head and beard with a razor. He weighed the hair on scales and split it into three piles: one burned, one struck with a sword, one thrown to the wind. Verse 12 now sets the picture aside and names the reality. It gives three ways for a nation to die, and a sword that keeps chasing the survivors.
The prophet's own body carried the message. The act also broke the rules Ezekiel lived by as a priest.
Ezekiel was now to take a sharp sword and use it as a barber's razor. With it he put the mark of shame on his own head and beard, in the sight of everyone. A priest was forbidden to do this, and Ezekiel was a priest. So the sign made plain the loss of his priestly standing. But the forced shaving of the hair carries a further meaning. It shows the fate of Israel's scattered crowds, struck down in the same way. A third was to be burned in the middle of the city when the days of the siege ended. That clearly points to the slaughter of the crowds when the city was taken.
The verse assigns each third a place as well as a fate — inside the walls, around the walls, and far away. And the city stands for more than itself.
We clearly see the divine dealing. A third was to die of plague and famine inside the besieged city. A third was to fall by the sword around Jerusalem. The last third God would scatter to all the winds, with a sword drawn after them. Here too we see how the people of Jerusalem stand for "all the house of Israel." This passage takes no account of the ten tribes already carried away to the East.
Babylon did the work, but Babylon was not the author of it. The hair is the population; the blade belongs to someone else.
The sharp knife is the symbol of the king of Babylon. He was God's instrument in carrying out His wrath. The hair stands for the people. The third part of the hair burned with fire pictures the fate of a part of the people during the siege. The pestilence and the famine were also to consume them. Only a few, a small remnant, were to be kept safe. Ezekiel showed this when he took a few hairs and bound them in his skirt.
God had set this city at the centre of the nations. Losing it meant losing far more than a capital.
Jerusalem still stands as the sign of the state of the people as a whole. It was the city where the house of God stood. To lose it was to lose the only place where the atoning blood could be presented to God. So when God set Jerusalem aside, the nation was left to carry the full weight of its sins. But God had set them in this place of privilege for a great purpose. They alone in all the earth received divine revelations. They stood in the middle of the nations, and it should have been theirs to keep up a testimony for God among those who had turned their backs on Him. But what was the result? Israel had gone beyond the very nations in wickedness. They refused His judgments and rebelled against His statutes… So God had to make their judgment as unique as their sin had been.
The last clause is not a new threat. Older translations word it "I will draw out a sword after them," where the ESV says God will "unsheathe the sword" after them. That older wording already appears in the first five books of the Bible.
Another phrase found only in Ezekiel and the Pentateuch is, "I will draw out a sword after them." Compare Ex. 15:9 and Lev. 26:33 with Ezek. 5:2, 12 and Ezek. 12:14. Notice in Lev. 26:33 and Ezek. 12:14 that the threat of drawing the sword comes with the threat of scattering in both places. The original uses the very same words for it.
- Privilege. God set this people in the middle of the nations to carry His testimony. They abused that place, and that is why their judgment had to be "as unique as their sin had been."
- Shame. The razor on a priest's head and beard was the sermon. Ezekiel lost his priestly standing in public, before the nation was stripped bare.
- Instrument. The blade is the king of Babylon; the hair is the people. The invader is real, but the hand behind him is God's.
- Reach. Plague and famine inside, the sword around the walls, the wind beyond them — three thirds, and no safe corner. Jerusalem here stands for "all the house of Israel."
- Pursuit. Scattering is not escape: the drawn sword follows, in the very words used long before in Exodus and Leviticus. Yet a few hairs are bound in the prophet's skirt — a small remnant preserved.
And mine anger shall be accomplished, and I will satisfy my fury upon them, and I will comfort myself; and they shall know that I Jehovah have spoken in my jealousy, when I have accomplished my fury upon them.
Ezekiel 5 announces God's judgment on Jerusalem, and verse 13 says what that judgment will finish and settle. It also raises a hard question: how can God speak of satisfying Himself in His own fury, and what is He making known by it?
One writer sets this prophecy beside Jeremiah and finds a different note in it.
The character of this prophecy is well worth noticing — it is judgment, different from Jeremiah 15. In Jeremiah, bad as their ways were, God still reasons with their heart — He speaks... Here it is in the Temple — should He live with it, and share a throne with evil? His sanctuary was defiled.
God's reason reaches back to what Jerusalem was there for.
Jerusalem should have been a witness among the nations. The house of Jehovah should have drawn them in, or at least have made them responsible by giving a true witness to the God who lived there. Instead of this, her people went even further in wickedness than the idol-worshipping nations. So God would carry out judgments on her in the sight of all the nations — a just repayment for her sins.
Here God says He will satisfy Himself; older translations read, "I will comfort myself." One writer holds that word together with God's refusal to look at what He must strike.
Here we have the summing up of the judgment as a whole, along with the solemn declaration of what the judgment comes for. ... The eye affects the heart. It is as if He said that, if He so much as let His eye rest on them, He could not bear to carry out the judgment. This is the Heart behind the Hand. But the Hand does not falter on that account in carrying out what righteousness now demands so urgently. On one side He has a pitying eye that would spare. On the other side there is something in His character that makes Him speak of the wrath He causes to rest on them as the thing in which He will "comfort Himself."
The verse traces the judgment back to God's jealousy. Writers read that word through the marriage language of the prophets.
The prophets say much about Israel's conduct as a wife, and about Jehovah's jealousy over it... Israel could not stand the searching test of the bitter water. Her unfaithfulness has been exposed. She has broken her vows. She has turned away from her Husband, the Holy One of Israel, and His burning jealousy has poured out on the faithless nation. He is a jealous God, and He cannot bear the thought that the heart He claims as His own should be given to another.
The same zeal marks God when He judges:
The same feature of zeal must necessarily mark the actions of God as He deals in judgment with a rebellious and disobedient people (see Ezekiel 5).
This line repeats through the whole book. Writers read it as God making His rule visible on earth. Where they write "Jehovah," the ESV has "the LORD."
Many verses say, "And they shall know that I am Jehovah." Other passages show the leading thought in these declarations and judgments of God. It is the showing of His government on the earth. That government makes the true character of God plain in His rule, and makes sure it is displayed in the world, despite the unfaithfulness of His people — and that in grace as well as in holiness.
God makes Himself known another way now:
The Father reveals Himself to our souls by the gospel, by the spirit of adoption. But Jehovah makes Himself known by His judgments — by the exercise of His power on the earth.
- Placed — God set Jerusalem among the nations as a witness to Himself. She outdid them in wickedness, so He judged her where they could all see.
- Defiled — this prophecy judges; it does not plead. His sanctuary was defiled, and He would not share a throne with evil.
- Jealous — the fury is a Husband's jealousy. He cannot bear the heart He claims being given to another.
- Comforted — He will not let His eye rest on them, or He could not strike. That is the Heart behind the Hand — and the Hand does not falter.
- Known — what the judgment leaves behind is knowledge. Here God makes Himself known by His judgments; today He makes Himself known as Father through the gospel.
And I will make thee a waste and a reproach among the nations that are round about thee, in the sight of all that pass by.
Ezekiel has already acted out the siege and scattered the hair he shaved off. Now God says plainly what the ruin of Jerusalem is for, and why He wanted the nations around to watch.
The setting of Jerusalem was not an accident of geography. God had put her where every passing traveller and trading caravan would see her, and the whole chapter turns on what she did with that placement.
Jerusalem should have been a testimony in the middle of the nations. The house of the Lord should have drawn those nations in, or at least have made them responsible by a true witness to the God who dwelt there. Instead, her people went even further in wickedness than the idol-worshipping nations. Therefore God would execute judgments on her in the sight of all the nations — a just repayment for her sins. He would also lay her waste and make her a reproach among the nations round about her.
One writer ties the severity of the judgment to Israel's privilege. The only people who received God's revelations copied the very nations they were meant to teach.
But for what a purpose had God set them in this place of privilege — this people alone in all the earth receiving divine revelations? In the middle of the nations, they should have kept up a testimony for God among people who had turned their backs on Him. That testimony might have appealed to every heart seeking God in the lands around. But what was the result? Israel had gone beyond the very nations themselves in wickedness... God therefore had to make their judgment as unique as their sin had been.
Another commentator traces the same line and names the location itself as what made the sin unbearable.
It was the high and central position of Israel, and of Jerusalem above all, among the peoples and lands round about, which made their rebellion and idolatry so grievous, so impossible to be overlooked or spared any longer.
The nations who had seen Israel abandon her God would now see what He did about it. Their own reaction is part of the account. (The quotations below follow an older English translation of the verses.)
"They shall know that I the Lord have spoken it in My zeal, when I have accomplished My fury in them." (v. 13) Their judgment would be in the sight of those nations who had seen their unfaithfulness to the true God, their God... The nations themselves were astonished, for they had no idea of a national deity dealing this way with the people who professed that worship.
God's judgment does more than punish. It teaches the nations watching, and it teaches any heart still open inside Israel.
Yet even here there is a lesson, as we know, for every responsive heart among them. And there is a terrible lesson of holiness for the nations around. "It shall be a reproach and a taunt and a warning and an astonishment to the nations that are round about you." He seals this again and again with the solemn declaration: "I, the Lord, have spoken."
The same book later takes the identical picture — land lying desolate before every passer-by — and turns it inside out. What the nations watched God pull down, they will watch Him rebuild.
"The desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by. And they shall say, This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden. Then the nations that are left round about you shall know that I the Lord build the ruined places, and plant what was desolate: I the Lord have spoken it, and I will do it." So the Lord will wipe away all reproach from outside, to the praise of His own name, while He works feelings and ways that fit repentance in Israel.
- Placed — God set Jerusalem in the middle of the nations as a visible testimony to Himself.
- Failed — she out-sinned the very nations she was meant to teach. Abused privilege shaped the severity of the sentence.
- Exposed — the ruin comes in front of the same onlookers who watched her unfaithfulness. The audience is chosen, not accidental.
- Instructive — reproach, taunt, warning, astonishment. The wreck teaches holiness, and behind the striking Hand is a Heart that would have spared.
- Reversed — the same picture returns later in Ezekiel. There the watching eyes see desolate land become like Eden, for "I the Lord have spoken it, and I will do it."
And it shall be a reproach, and a taunt, an instruction, and an astonishment unto the nations that are round about thee, when I shall execute judgments upon thee in anger, and in fury, and in furious rebukes I, Jehovah, have spoken.
God had placed Jerusalem at the center of the nations so that the peoples around her would learn something true about Him. Ezekiel 5:15 announces the reversal. Now those same nations will learn about God from her ruin, and God seals every word of it: "I am the LORD; I have spoken."
The nations were meant to look at Jerusalem and see God. Now they will look and see a wreck. One writer traces the collapse:
"Thus says the Lord GOD: This is Jerusalem. I have set her in the center of the nations, with countries all around her." She should have been a testimony among the nations. The house of the LORD should have drawn them in, or at least made them responsible through a true testimony to the God who dwelt there. Instead, her inhabitants had gone even beyond the idolatrous nations in wickedness. So God would carry out judgments on her in the sight of all the nations — a just repayment for her sins.
The severity here troubles readers. The punishment matches what Israel threw away — a people who alone received God's revelations, and who then copied the very nations God had separated them from:
But why had God given them this place of privilege? They alone in all the earth received divine revelations. In the middle of the nations, it should have been theirs to keep up a testimony for God among those who had turned their backs on Him. Such a testimony might appeal to every heart seeking God in the lands around. But what was the result? Israel had gone beyond the very nations themselves in wickedness. They refused His judgments and rebelled against His statutes. They copied the ways of the very people God had separated them from. So, as had to happen where privileges are abused, they became all the more aliens from God and devoted to their abominations. God therefore had to make their judgment as unique as their sin had been.
The verse piles up anger, fury and furious rebukes. One writer finds tenderness in the announcement itself:
Even here the tenderness of His love shows in the very announcement of His judgment… He says He will withdraw His eye, so that it will not spare them. The eye affects the heart. It is as if He said that, if He let His eye rest on them, He could not bear to carry out the judgment. This is the Heart behind the Hand. Yet for all that, the Hand does not falter in carrying out what righteousness now so urgently demands.
The verse makes Jerusalem "a horror" to the nations around her. Their shock was not only at the size of the ruin. It was at what the ruin showed about Israel's God:
Their judgment would happen in full sight of those nations who had watched their unfaithfulness to the true God, their God… The surrounding nations themselves were astonished. They had no idea of a national god dealing this way with the people who professed to worship Him.
Here was a God who judged His own worshippers first.
Jerusalem becomes more than "a reproach and a taunt." She becomes "a warning" — older translations read "an instruction." The ruin is meant to teach, and what it teaches is holiness. The closing words seal it:
Yet even here there is a lesson for every heart among them able to feel it. And there is a terrible lesson of holiness for the nations around. "They shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken in my jealousy, when I spend my fury upon them. And I will make you a desolation and a reproach among the nations all around you, in the sight of all who pass by… " The solemn declaration seals this again and again: "I, the LORD, have spoken."
Writers apply this beyond ancient Jerusalem. The greater the light a people are given, the more terrible the breakdown:
God set Israel apart from all nations to bear witness to the true God. Israel broke down in responsibility so badly that at last this had to be said to them: "The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you" (Romans 2:24). But with far greater light and greater privileges, how much more terrible has been the breakdown of the professing church.
- Set — God placed Jerusalem among the nations as a testimony, to draw them to Him or at least leave them responsible.
- Sunk — She went beyond the surrounding nations in wickedness. She copied the very people God had separated her from.
- Scaled — Unique privilege meant unique judgment; punishment follows the measure of light given. Yet His tenderness shows even in the announcement — the Heart behind the Hand.
- Seen — The nations are astonished. No one expected a God to judge His own worshippers. The wreck teaches the watching world holiness.
- Sealed — God repeats "I, the LORD, have spoken" as a guarantee. The same principle reaches any people given greater light.
When I send upon them the evil arrows of famine, that are for [their] destruction, which I send to destroy you, then will I increase the famine upon you, and will break your staff of bread.
Here the famine is not bad luck in a city under siege. God aims it and fires it. Two questions follow. Why does God shoot arrows at His own city? And what does it mean to break her "supply of bread"?
Chapter 4 showed Ezekiel acting out the siege of Jerusalem and its rationed food. Chapter 5 raises the stakes.
Chapter 5 adds new details of unsparing, destructive judgment. The chapter before it had gone no further than the Chaldean siege of Jerusalem and the deeply distressing miseries that came with it.
Four times in one verse God makes Himself the actor: I send, I send, I bring, I break. Starvation in a siege looks like plain arithmetic instead. An army surrounds the walls and the food runs out. Writing on Jeremiah, Kelly says what faith does with such a blow.
In such times faith always has this spirit. It accepts the blows as righteously measured out of His hand. It does not treat them as a mistake by the people, or as skill and strength in their enemies. God ruled in it all, and He did so because His people had shamelessly turned away from Him.
The picture is of bread as a walking stick — the thing you lean on. Snap it and the body has nothing to hold it up. Baines finds the same image in Revelation, in the vision of the black horse and its scales.
The black horse stands for mourning and shock. Destructive wars have brought in famine. The "pair of scales" in the rider's hand recalls what Ezekiel prophesied about the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar's army: "I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem, and they will eat bread by weight and with anxiety, and they will drink water by measure and in dismay." (Ezek. 4:16.) It is a picture that strongly suggests scarcity.
(The older translation reads "staff of bread"; ESV has "supply of bread.")
The phrase is not Ezekiel's invention. One study of his words traces it back to the books of Moses.
Again, the phrase "staff of bread" appears in our prophet at Ezek. 4:16, Ezek. 5:16 and Ezek. 14:12. Outside his book it is found only in the Pentateuch, at Lev. 26:26.
Leviticus 26 is that chapter. Its warnings list the same blows that fall in verses 16–17 here: famine, wild animals and the sword.
Most of the chapter gives warnings about the dreadful evils their disobedience would provoke. Those evils would fall on them with sevenfold intensity. In Ezekiel's day Israel's sad record of law-breaking was reaching its climax. Through him the Lord spoke of "My four severe judgments … the sword, and the famine, and the wild beast, and the pestilence" (Ezek. 14:21).
God had put Jerusalem at the centre of the nations for a purpose. Darby explains what she did with that place.
She should have been a testimony in the middle of the nations. The house of Jehovah should have drawn them in, or at least left them responsible before the God who lived there. Instead, her own people went even further in wickedness than the idol-worshipping nations. So God would carry out judgments on her in the sight of all the nations — a just retribution for her sins.
Kelly names the offence behind that judgment.
Kings, priests and people alike brought pagan abominations into Jehovah's sanctuary. That defilement made Jerusalem intolerable.
The same weapons turn up again in Revelation. One list of Bible symbols ties these verses to the pale horse and its rider.
Pale Horse. — Excessive mortality by sword, famine, and pestilence. (Ezek. 5:16-17; 14:12-21.)
- Sent, not suffered. God aims and fires the famine like arrows. Faith reads such blows as measured out of His hand, not as enemy skill or bad luck.
- Sent as warned. "Staff of bread" is Leviticus language. He sends nothing He had not written into those warnings long before.
- Sent to the centre. God set the city among the nations to testify to Him. She outran them in wickedness instead, and defiled His sanctuary.
- Sent in full. Famine here comes bundled with wild beasts and the sword — part of what God calls His four severe judgments.
- Sent again. Commentators tie the same weapons to the pale horse of Revelation. The warning is still open.
And I will send upon you famine and evil beasts, which shall bereave thee of children; and pestilence and blood shall pass through thee; and I will bring the sword upon thee I, Jehovah, have spoken.
The last verse of Ezekiel 5 gathers the whole sentence against Jerusalem into four blows, and then God signs it with His own name. Why would He deal so with the city He chose, and what does such language teach a reader today?
This prophecy does not plead; it sentences. One writer points to the temple to explain why.
The character of this prophecy deserves close attention — it is judgment... God wanders about, as it were alone, in Ezekiel, and what can He say among such a people?... It is in the Temple — should He dwell with it, and make a throne alongside evil? His sanctuary was defiled; Ezekiel 5:11, 13.
God gave Jerusalem a place among the nations for a reason. Another writer shows how she turned it upside down.
Among the nations, as we have often seen, their task was to hold up a testimony for God among people who had turned their backs on Him. That testimony could appeal to every heart that sought God in the lands around. But what was the result? Israel went further in wickedness than the nations themselves. They refused His judgments and rebelled against His statutes... So God had to make their judgment as unique as their sin. Even in the very announcement of His judgment the tenderness of His love shows... This is the Heart behind the Hand. Even so, the Hand does not falter in carrying out what righteousness now urgently demands.
Animals robbing a nation of its children is not a new threat. Going through the warnings of Leviticus 26, one writer shows how each stage comes only when the stage before it has failed.
If such dealings failed to bring real repentance, then wild beasts would multiply. They would rob the people of their children, destroy their cattle, thin the population, and leave the highways empty. Ezekiel refers to this affliction (14:15). If the Lord's dealings still would not correct them, and they kept walking against Him, then He would walk against them. He would punish them seven times for their sins. He would bring a sword to avenge the quarrel of the covenant, with its too frequent companions, hunger and pestilence.
Later Ezekiel sees all four of these judgments fall on Jerusalem at once. One writer asks who could survive that, and what such judgment does not decide.
If God sent famine, or wild beasts, or a sword, or a pestilence, not even Noah, Daniel or Job could save a son or a daughter. They would save only themselves. But what would it be when God sends all four terrible plagues on Jerusalem? Who could screen the guilty people?... it is a question here of government in this world, not of grace for eternal life.
God signs the sentence with His own name. That signature also teaches the watching nations something.
Yet even here there is a lesson for every open heart among them. There is also a terrible lesson of holiness for the nations around. "They shall know that I, Jehovah, have spoken in my jealousy when I have accomplished my wrath upon them"... The solemn declaration seals this again and again: "I, Jehovah, have spoken."
The repeated words "they shall know" carry one aim.
Many verses say, "And they shall know that I am Jehovah." Other passages show the leading thought in those declarations and judgments of God. That thought is the display of His government on the earth. This government makes the true character of God plain in His rule. It secures that display in the world, despite the unfaithfulness of His people — and it does so in grace as well as in holiness.
One writer sees the same four judgments falling on the earth in a coming day, and explains what they are for.
War, famine, pestilence, and the plague of wild beasts are now crowded together (as they have often been)... These are what Ezekiel calls God's four terrible plagues, and these are the weapons with which He will one day deal with the earth because of her wickedness. We have said "the earth"; it is really the fourth part of the earth, so these fearful judgments will be limited in their area. They will be preparatory blows and solemn warnings. They are God's call to humble themselves and repent, made to all who can recognise His hand.
- Spoken. God signs the sentence with His own name. It is stamped on the chapter again and again: the judgment is sure because He said it.
- Defiled. The cause was a polluted sanctuary; God would not keep a throne standing beside evil.
- Privileged. God placed Jerusalem among the nations to bear witness for Him. She abused that privilege, so her judgment was as unique as her sin — yet His love stayed tender even as He announced it.
- Warned. Beasts, famine, sword and pestilence were graded warnings, announced long before in Leviticus 26. They belong to God's government of this world, not to the question of eternal life.
- Repeated. The same four judgments will strike the earth again in a coming day. They come as warnings, calling all who recognise God's hand to repent.