Ezekiel 5:14

Eze 5:14 Moreover I will make thee waste, and a reproach among the nations that [are] round about thee, in the sight of all that pass by.

Ver. 14. Moreover, I will make thee waste.] In ariditatem, a dry and barren wilderness, whose fruitfulness and pleasantness is so much celebrated, not only by divine, but profane authors also. See Psa 107:34. {See Trapp on "Psa 107:34"}

In the sight of all.] See on Eze 5:8.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

reproach among the nations--They whose idolatries Israel had adopted, instead of comforting, would only exult in their calamities brought on by those idolatries (compare Luk 15:15).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

He explains what we saw before more at length, whence also we understand that in the next verse God had not softened his anger, but proclaimed the ultimate destruction of the nation. He says therefore, that the Jews shall be desolate, as they translate it: it also signifies dryness, and hence is the name for a desert. But it suits this place to say, the Jews shall be laid waste, and a reproach among the nations: for they were formerly a celebrated nation: God had ennobled them with remarkable gifts, so that they excelled in dignity in the sight of all the nations. Now he says, they should be like a vast desert, and in utter ruin, and a reproach; and not only is this rumor spread abroad, but all travelers through that land are witnesses of this reproach. But in the next verse this is followed out more at length.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

14. reproach among the nations] Lam_2:15-16, “All that pass by clap their hands at thee, they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that they called the perfection of beauty?”

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Moreover I will make thee waste,.... That is, their land; which, being without inhabitants, lay untilled; and so became barren and unfruitful:

and a reproach among the nations that are round about thee, in the sight of all that pass by; who, seeing it in this desolate condition, shall throw out their taunts and jeers upon it, as in Lam 2:15.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

And a. Septuagint, "and thy daughters (dependances. Calmet) round," &c. (Haydock)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Judgments should empty the land of men that might till and manure it, and so your fruitful land shall be turned and continued a waste and desolate land.

A reproach, Jer 24:9; 29:18,22; a reproach or curse; men should taunt at them, and, in wishing the worst they can, wish their enemies like the Jews. So it was Lam 2:15,16.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

14, 15. I will make thee waste,… a reproach and a taunt, an instruction and an astonishment unto the nations (Deu_28:37; Lam_2:15-16) — These warnings of Jehovah were intended to move the people to repentance, but, failing in that, they were sorrowfully fulfilled. In the light of history no one dare affirm that this prophecy has not been literally accomplished. The history of the Jews is the history of fulfilled prophecy.

In anger and in fury and in furious rebukes — No doubt there were limitations to Ezekiel’s conception of God. This revelation of Jehovah’s nature does not read like the one given in the Gospels. Yet we can now see that it is the reverse side of a perfect being. The “wrath of the Lamb” is most furious. No anger is like that of insulted love. Ezekiel had need to arouse “the terrifying sense of divine anger against sin” in order to make a place for the Gospel of pardon and eternal love (Eze_23:11-20; Lev_26:6; Lev_26:22; Deu_32:24).

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

In the sight of them that pass by. The phrase reminds us of Lam_1:12 Lam_2:15: and the latter was probably a conscious reproduction of it. The scorn and mockery of the heathen who rejoiced in her humiliation were to be the keenest pang in the punishment of the guilty city.

Vers. 14, 15. The shame of moral shipwreck, and its lessons.

All the nations round about were to be witnesses of the shipwreck of Israel. The eyes of the world are upon the Church. No single Christian man can fall without his ruin being observed by many neighbor"s. The city set on a hill cannot be hid in its prosperity and splendour; much less will it be unnoticed when it is wrapped in flames, and even later when its melancholy ruins tell the world a tale of fallen greatness. The spectacle is striking; the thoughts which it suggests should be instructive. Let us note four things about this moral shipwreck.

I IT IS CULPABLE. The condition of Israel is to be "a reproach," i.e. blame will be attached to it. Nations must stand the chance of war, in which the most just and brave may suffer grievous loss; and yet history rarely, if ever, shows an instance of a people crushed and exterminated without any fault of its own. Moral corruption precedes total national overthrow. This was certainly the case with Israel, which fell in its wickedness, and was scattered for its sin. Misfortune may visit the Church, or an individual good man such as Job without guilt on the part of the sufferer, because a wholesome discipline or some other high and distant Divine purpose of love is to be wrought out through this means. But utter shipwreck of life does not come without moral delinquency. Unhappily, the reproach does not cease with the guilty person; it is laid against the cause of Christ, and it brings dishonour on his Name. This new "reproach of Christ" is the greatest hindrance to the progress of the gospel, and far more of a stumbling block than the old shame of the cross.

II IT IS SHAMEFUL AND DEGRADING. The evil condition of the fallen nation will be "a taunt." Contempt will succeed to the old respect. The Church may expect to meet with opposition from the world, but she is indeed in an evil state when she has earned its contempt. To be despised wrongfully through the pride and superficial judgment of ethers is a fate which brave men can learn to endure. But to merit contempt is to lie in abject wretchedness. When Christian men fall from their pure profession, they sink into this most shocking ignominy. Even godless people can look clown upon them, and taunt them with their high pretensions and boasted attainments and prized privileges.

III IT IS INSTRUCTIVE. The condition of the people will be "an instruction." As "no man liveth to himself," so also "no man dieth to himself." The ruin of nations is a lesson to the world. History is studded with beacon warnings. The greatest nations have been defeated and destroyed. The prosperity of the Church in one age has been succeeded by corruption and shame in another. Men called "pillars" of the Church have fallen. People praised as "ornaments" of society have left tarnished reputations. Such sights not only warn us against pride and self-assurance; in searching for the explanation of them we may learn many a lesson as to the causes of success and failure, e.g. that secret sin leads to open shame, that past prosperity will not prevent present failure, that a good name is not an impregnable bulwark, that to forsake God is to court ruin.

IV IT IS ASTONISHING. Israel"s state will be "an astonishment.

1. It surprises the sufferers. They never expected such a fall. Living m a fool"s paradise, they spent their days at their ease till the crash came. Careless Christians are surprised at their own shipwreck.

2. It surprises the onlookers. It is contrary to expectation founded on previous observation and confident pretensions. Can the long successful nation fall, and the people favoured of Heaven be abandoned to ruin? There will be many surprises in the future judgment, because ignorance of the awful power of moral law and of the just retribution of God destroys men"s expectations of the punishment of sin. To some it will come with a shock of amazement, unless they now turn to the redemption of Christ.

Vers. 14, 15. A reproach and a lesson.

The symbolical prediction recorded m this chapter was evidently intended to convey to the minds of the Jews the Divine purpose that their city should be destroyed, and their nation dispersed and politically extinguished. A third part should perish by pestilence and famine, a third part should be slain, and the remaining third part should be scattered throughout the earth. So far, all seems vengeance. There appears, for the present, no ray of light to irradiate the gloom, i.e. so far as the once favoured and now depressed and threatened Hebrew people are concerned. But, however calamity may affect the Jews, the prophet was assured that it should not be in vain with respect to neighbouring nations. They should learn the lesson, whether the scourged and scattered seed of Jacob would hear or forbear, This purpose, at least, the fate of Jerusalem and the calamities of the Jews in their exile and dispersion should not fail to accomplish; a lesson should be taught to the nations of the earth concerning the sinfulness of sin and the justice and truth of God, which should not be forgotten down to the end of time.

I THE DESOLATION OF JERUSALEM WAS DESIGNED TO BE A REPROACH AND A TAUNT, AND THUS AN EXHIBITION TO ALL THE NATIONS OF THE DIVINE JUSTICE. The attribute of justice has its punitive side; and this was displayed in the fate of the proud and once highly favoured city. If this purpose was answered by the fall of Jerusalem and the calamities which followed, it may surely be acknowledged that the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, which followed upon the rejection of the Divine Messiah, and the dispersion of the Jews during the following centuries of history, have constituted a lesson of similar import for the warning of mankind.

II THE SAME EVENT WAS AN INSTRUCTION AND AN ASTONISHMENT, AND THUS AN INCULCATION UPON THE NATIONS OF THE DIVINE LAW AND AUTHORITY. Justice has its distributive as well as its corrective side. Not only is Law to be vindicated by the sanction of penalty inflicted upon the disobedient; the excellence and glory of the Law has to be displayed as the proper rule for the moral guidance and government of mankind. Thus the nations were not only to wonder and to tremble, when they beheld the just indignation of outraged Divine authority manifest itself in a city"s siege, capture, and subjection; they were to learn to inquire into the Law which had been broken, the authority which had been defied. There is an aspect of construction, as well as an aspect of destruction, in the government of the world. It is the part of wisdom, not merely to recognize the power which avenges infraction of Divine decrees, but to admire the holy Law, to submit to the righteous Lawgiver, to forsake evil, and to do good. T.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

a ruin Heb. לְחָרְבָּה, destroyer in Old French, to make desolate, destroy.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.