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Impending Disaster

The word of the L ord came to me: ²You, O mortal, thus says the Lord G od to the land of Israel:

An end! The end has come

upon the four corners of the land.

Now the end is upon you,

I will let loose my anger upon you;

I will judge you according to your ways,

I will punish you for all your abominations.

My eye will not spare you, I will have no pity.

I will punish you for your ways,

while your abominations are among you.

Then you shall know that I am the L ord.

⁵ Thus says the Lord G od:

Disaster after disaster! See, it comes.

An end has come, the end has come.

It has awakened against you; see, it comes!

Your doom has come to you,

O inhabitant of the land.

The time has come, the day is near—

of tumult, not of reveling on the mountains.

Soon now I will pour out my wrath upon you;

I will spend my anger against you.

I will judge you according to your ways,

and punish you for all your abominations.

My eye will not spare; I will have no pity.

I will punish you according to your ways,

while your abominations are among you.

Then you shall know that it is I the L ord who strike.

See, the day! See, it comes!

Your doom has gone out.

The rod has blossomed, pride has budded.

Violence has grown into a rod of wickedness.

None of them shall remain,

not their abundance, not their wealth;

no pre-eminence among them.

The time has come, the day draws near;

let not the buyer rejoice, nor the seller mourn,

for wrath is upon all their multitude.

¹³ For the sellers shall not return to what has been sold as long as they remain alive. For the vision concerns all their multitude; it shall not be revoked. Because of their iniquity, they cannot maintain their lives.

They have blown the horn and made everything ready;

but no one goes to battle,

for my wrath is upon all their multitude.

The sword is outside, pestilence and famine are inside;

those in the field die by the sword;

those in the city—famine and pestilence devour them.

If any survivors escape,

they shall be found on the mountains

like doves of the valleys,

all of them moaning over their iniquity.

All hands shall grow feeble,

all knees turn to water.

They shall put on sackcloth,

horror shall cover them.

Shame shall be on all faces,

baldness on all their heads.

They shall fling their silver into the streets,

their gold shall be treated as unclean.

Their silver and gold cannot save them on the day of the wrath of the L ord. They shall not satisfy their hunger or fill their stomachs with it. For it was the stumbling block of their iniquity. ²⁰From their beautiful ornament, in which they took pride, they made their abominable images, their detestable things; therefore I will make of it an unclean thing to them.

I will hand it over to strangers as booty,

to the wicked of the earth as plunder;

they shall profane it.

I will avert my face from them,

so that they may profane my treasured place;

the violent shall enter it,

they shall profane it.

Make a chain!

For the land is full of bloody crimes;

the city is full of violence.

I will bring the worst of the nations

to take possession of their houses.

I will put an end to the arrogance of the strong,

and their holy places shall be profaned.

When anguish comes, they will seek peace,

but there shall be none.

Disaster comes upon disaster,

rumor follows rumor;

they shall keep seeking a vision from the prophet;

instruction shall perish from the priest,

and counsel from the elders.

The king shall mourn,

the prince shall be wrapped in despair,

and the hands of the people of the land shall tremble.

According to their way I will deal with them;

according to their own judgments I will judge them.

And they shall know that I am the L ord.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

I doubt not that Ezekiel strengthens what he had just taught by other words, namely, that the people’s silver should be cast away, because it had been unworthily abused for luxury, vain pomps and superstitions. Some explain צבי עדיו, tzebi-gnediu, of the temple; and certainly I confess that the temple was the chief glory of the Jews, so that they might boast of it, if they had rightly and properly worshipped God there. Hence God conveyed great glory to the Jews when he desired a temple to be erected among them to himself, which should be as it were his earthly dwelling-place. But I do not see why we should take these words of the temple, because the Prophet explains his own discourse: for he mentions gold and silver: he said, there should be no use for gold and silver, because every one should cast it into the mud, since they should cast away all hope of life and safety. He now continues the same sentiment; he shows the lawful use of gold and silver: it was, says he, the glory of his ornament For whatever God has given to men is a testimony of his paternal favor: therefore God’s liberality is refulgent in us when he enriches us with his gifts. If therefore riches are a glory and ornament, so also are bodily health, and honors, and things of this kind. Since therefore God wishes his favor to be conspicuous in all his gifts, by which he adorns and marks men out, the Prophet properly says that the Jews were adorned with gold and silver. But he accuses them of ingratitude because they turned such glory to pride. For גאון, gaon, I here take in a bad sense, as in many other places: it sometimes signifies excellence, but I have no doubt that the Prophet here blames the Jews, because they were proud of their wealth, which they took as a testimony of God’s favor. Therefore, says he, he turned the beauty of their ornament, he turned it to pride It follows, and the images of their abominations and of their detestable things, or of their idols, for the Hebrews thus speak sometimes of idols, they made therewith Here ב, is used as if it were מ, as often in other places, and thus it points out the material; for he says, that the Jews made their images, which were so many abominations before God, out of gold and silver This was a second profanation of God’s gifts: the former was in pride, when the Jews through wantonness and abundance began to be insolent against God, thus they profaned the glory with which they had been adorned. But another pollution is also added, namely, that they made their idols of gold and silver, and offered to them gifts and sacrifices: as God complains in Hosea, (Hosea 2:8,) that they converted whatever he had conferred upon them into impious worship. I had given, said he, my corn, and wine, and oil: but they adorned their idols: this was forsooth their thanksgiving, that blind to my liberality, they offered sacrifices to their idols of my corn and oil and wine. Of which matter Ezekiel discourses more fully in Ezekiel 16. But he now says: that they made images of their abominations out of that glory by which he had distinguished them And at the end of the verse he confirms what we have lately seen: wherefore, says he, I will appoint it, namely, that beauty, to them for a castaway We see the same sentiment repeated which he had used before: but he here relates the reasons why the Jews should disregard their gold and silver in the day of God’s wrath, since they had unworthily defiled these gifts of God in which his grace and paternal favor shone forth. I will make, therefore says he, their gold or beauty as a castaway: he had said the same thing before, but had not yet expressed the reason of God’s wrath. It follows —