“And for the house of Israel there shall be no more a brier to prick or a thorn to hurt them among all their neighbors who have treated them with contempt. Then they will know that I am the Lord GOD.
Ezekiel 28 ends with a short word of judgment against Zidon (Sidon), one of Israel's hostile neighbours. Verse 24 gives the result: those neighbours will prick and grieve God's people no more, and they "will know that I am the Lord GOD."
Where the verse sits
Chapters 25–32 work through the nations around Israel. God measures each one by how it treated His people.
Numerical Bible NotesSeven of the nations around stand as special examples of that responsibility. How they treated the chosen people of God stands at the front of the account. In principle, what we have here will happen again in the last days, at the judgment before the Son of Man (Matt. 25:31-46). Ammon is against the sanctuary and the land. Moab, in pride of heart, sees 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.
Why there were thorns at all
The picture of neighbours as thorns goes back to Israel's own failure. When they did not clear the land, God left the enemy in place.
J. N. DarbyIn Judges 2 we find them in complete failure. So God says, "I will not drive out your enemies from before you, but they shall be as thorns in your sides." It is always the same picture — kindness on God's part, ingratitude on man's part.
That history does not excuse the neighbours. Zidon was a small power, and her weakness was no credit to her.
Numerical Bible NotesShe has been a pricking brier and a grievous thorn in Israel's side. She may not have been very dangerous, since she lacked the power; but that was not her fault. It is the enmity that God judges here, as elsewhere. Israel had sinned, and that gave others an opening for their malice and an excuse for it. Still, it was malice, and malice against God in His people.
The charge against Zidon
Zidon's record with Israel was not only hostility. She also trafficked in Israel's people. Where the ESV says "a brier to prick" and "a thorn to hurt," older translations read "pricking brier" and "grieving thorn."
Morrish Bible DictionaryThe prophets denounce Zidon and say it will be destroyed. They charge it with being a "pricking brier" to the house of Israel, and a "grieving thorn" around them (Ezek. 28:21-24). The LORD says that Zidon and Tyre took His gold and silver and precious things into their pagan temples. They also sold the children of Judah to the Greeks, to move them far from their border (Joel 3:4-8).
Her name carries the same idea.
Numerical Bible NotesSidon does not mean "the fisher," as some say — there is no word for that. It means "the taker of prey."
Briers as a sign of the curse
The brier and the thorn are not random insults. In Scripture, thorny growth marks ground under a curse, and its removal belongs to the age of blessing.
Morrish Bible DictionaryIt shows how abundant the fruits of the curse are — the curse pronounced in Eden because of man's sin. But that curse will be lifted in the millennium, when the myrtle and trees like it take its place (Isa. 55:13; Ezek. 28:24).
Two ways of knowing the LORD
The same phrase closes the word to Zidon and the word to Israel, but it reaches them by opposite roads.
William KellyHow solemn the difference between the portions measured out to Zidon and Israel! The Zidonians will know He is the LORD by the judgments He carries out in their city, and in those judgments He will be sanctified. Israel will know Him as the LORD their God when He has gathered them back from the nations where they are still scattered. In them He will be sanctified in the sight of the Gentiles.
For the nations, this knowing is not a change of heart. It is the plain fact forced on them by what God does.
J. N. DarbyThis knowledge of the LORD is by the judgment itself, not by any resulting spiritual knowledge of Him. With Israel we can see the two ways God makes Himself known (Ezek. 24:24-27; 28:26; 34:27; 36:11). In the other cases it is by judgment.
The settled result
The passage does not stop at removing the thorn. The closing verses go on to Israel's safety.
W. T. P. WolstonGod predicts her judgment. Then He declares that He will gather the house of Israel again, once He has carried out judgment on the nations. Nothing ever frustrates God's purposes — not the sins of His people, and not the pride of His enemies.
Summary
- Thorn. Zidon was the brier that pricked God's people. She fought them and sold them off to the Greeks: weak in power, full of malice.
- Cause. Israel failed to drive the nations out, so God left them in the land. His kindness met ingratitude, and the enemy stayed as thorns in their sides.
- Curse. Briers are a fruit of the curse on the ground, and their removal belongs to the coming age of blessing.
- Knowledge. Everyone ends up knowing the LORD. The nations learn it through judgment; Israel learns it when God gathers them home.
- Confidence. With the thorn gone, Israel dwells secure. Neither His people's sins nor His enemies' pride can stop God's purposes.