Ezekiel 9:7

Eze 9:7 And he said unto them, Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain: go ye forth. And they went forth, and slew in the city.

Ver. 7. Defile the house.] Once hallowed by myself, but now abhorred and rejected as a stew or sty of filthiness.

Fill the courts.] That where they have sinned, there they may suffer, as did Ahab. {1Ki 22:38 2Ki 9:26}

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.

9:7 Defile the Temple! Unlike Queen Athaliah, who was dragged out of the Temple before she was executed so that her blood would not defile the holy site (2 Kgs 11:15-16), these idolaters were to be killed in the Temple, which was already so defiled by their idolatry that nothing sacred was left there. Without God’s holy presence, concern for the sanctity of the building was an empty gesture.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 7. Defile the house] A dreadful sentence, Let it be polluted, I will no more dwell in it; I now utterly forsake it.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Here God. repeats what he had formerly touched upon shortly and obscurely, namely, that the Jews trusted in vain in the visible temple, because already he had ceased to dwell there, as we shall afterwards see that he had departed. He had promised that his perpetual dwelling should be there, (Psalm 132:14,) but that promise is not opposed by the casual desertion of that dwelling-place. Now therefore he adds this sentence, when he orders the Chaldeans to pollute the temple itself But it was already polluted, some one will say: I confess it: but it regards the Common perception of the people; for although the Jews had infected the sanctuary of God with their wickedness, yet they boasted that his worship still remained there and his sacred name. Now therefore he speaks of another kind of pollution, namely, that the Chaldeans should fill all the area with the slain If a human corpse or even a dog was seen in the sanctuary, this was an intolerable pollution; all would cry out that it was portentous. But as often as they entered the temple, although they dragged their crimes into God’s presence, (for they went there polluted with blood, rapine, fraud, perjuries, and a whole heap of guilt,) yet they reckoned all these pollutions as nothing. God therefore here obliquely derides their sloth, when he says that they boasted of the sanctity of the temple in vain, because they should see it at length filled with corpses, and then should really acknowledge that the temple was no longer sacred. Now therefore we understand the intention of the Holy Spirit. He adds, that they had gone forth, and occasioned a slaughter in the city Here again the Prophet shows that the Chaldeans would be at hand to smite the Jews with terror, as soon as God commanded them to destroy the city and cut off the inhabitants. Perhaps the city had not yet been besieged, and that is probable, for the Jews thought Ezekiel’s threatenings fabulous. For this reason he says that the Chaldeans appeared to him, that they might hear or receive the commandment of God: then that they had returned from the slaughter, to prove their obedience to God. In fine, he shows that God’s threatenings should not be in vain, because as soon as the right time should arrive, the army of the Chaldeans would be prepared for obedience. It follows —

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.

(7) Defile the house.—The utmost possible pollution under the Mosaic economy was the touch of a dead body. (See Num_19:11; 1Ki_13:2; 2Ki_23:16.) It might be thought that the Temple would be spared this defilement; but not only must the execution of justice override all technicalities, as at the execution of Joab (1Ki_2:28-31), but in this case the very defilement itself was a part of the judgment, since God was about to forsake His sanctuary, and give over even this to the desolations of the heathen. From the Temple the destroying angels passed out into the city.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

7. Defile the house] The “house” embraces the temple house and its precincts, including the courts. The presence of dead in the courts defiled the whole.

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.

And he said unto them, defile the house,.... The temple; do not be afraid of slaying any person in it, for fear of defiling it; they have defiled it with their abominations, and now do you defile it with their blood:

and fill the courts with the slain; the court of the priests, and the court of the Israelites, and the court of the women, and all the chambers where the priests and Levites were, and had their images portrayed:

go ye forth; from the brasen altar by which they stood, and out of the temple, after they had done their business there, and had slain all they should:

and they went forth, and slew in the city; they went out of the temple, and slew in the city all but those that had the mark.

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

Defile the house - By filling the temple and its courts with the bodies of the slain. See Num 19:11.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Defile. Septuagint, "you have defiled." I regard the place no longer. (Calmet)

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).

Defile the house; regard not the holiness of the temple: idolaters, whom you are to slay, have defiled it with the blood of idols, sacrifices, do you defile it with the blood of the idolatrous sacrificers; slay them where you find them, for there they sinned against me.

Fill the courts with the slain; make a great slaughter, let every place be stained with their blood. There were the priests’, the Levites’, and the women’s courts, and there will be found persons of a different character; but unless my mark be upon them, forbear none of them.

Go ye forth; make haste, do not ye, for I do not, delay, nor will I.

They went forth: here, as before, they show their ready obedience.

Slew in the city: this slaughter was visional in the eye of the prophet, and a preface to the saddest butcheries Israel ever bled and groaned under.

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

7. Defile the house — Beginning in the priests’ court, where they stood to receive this command (see note Eze_9:3), they began to slay all who had not the mark of the cross on their foreheads. and continued from court to court until they had passed out of the temple and then continued their work in the streets of the city. The temple, which had ceased to be Jehovah’s, was now defiled by heaps of corpses (Eze_6:5; Eze_6:13; Eze_43:7; Num_19:11, etc.). This massacre in the temple, which is here seen only in vision, actually took place in the capture of the city by the Chaldeans.

Go — It matters not whether these six executioners represented the Assyrians or the doubled power of famine, pestilence, and war (Eze_5:12). In either case the presence of a seventh is to be noted. The forces of the heathen and the powers of nature may burn and destroy, but behind these there is supreme Intelligence and Will. Schopenhauer was not altogether wrong when he called gravitation an act of will. Behind all destructive as well as creative and protective providences God standeth in the shadow.

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

Defile the house, etc. What Ezekiel saw in vision was, we may well believe, fulfilled literally when the city was taken by the Chaldeans. The pollution of the temple by the bleeding corpses of the idolatrous worshippers was a fitting retribution for the worship with which they had polluted it. (comp. Eze_6:13)

The temple defiled.

The Jews had a horror of death, and regarded a corpse with disgust as an unclean thing, the presence of which would defile the most holy place, and the touch of which would render unclean any person who came in contact with it. Therefore a massacre in the temple would defile that sanctuary in the eyes of the nation by filling it with scenes of death, and strewing its courts with abhorred dead bodies. The irony of such a conception lies in the fact that the aggravated abominations of idolatry and vice which brought down this fate on the doomed temple had not been regarded as any defilement. So it was when the Jews feared to enter Pilate"s palace lest the consequent defilement should prevent them from eating the Passover, although the stain of murder on their consciences was not reckoned to be any impediment. (Joh_18:28) Thus men strain out the gnat and swallow the camel.

I SIN LEADS TO AN UNDUE PREFERENCE OF THE EXTERNAL TO THE INTERNAL.

1. This is caused by the deadening influence of sin. The once keen conscience is blunted, and the perception of real evil dulled, so that what should be regarded with loathing is tolerated with indifference. At the same time, the conventional standards by which questions of outward propriety are measured remain undiminished. The loss of the higher standards then gives these lower ones a fictitious supremacy. The fog which hides the eternal mountains of Divine righteousness magnifies the petty hillocks of human opinion.

2. This is illustrated in all phases of experience. Not only is more thought of external than of internal defilement in religion; external things generally take the lead. The punishment of a sin is more considered than the evil of the sin itself. Shame is treated as worse than guilt. The word "character" comes to be transferred from interior disposition to public reputation. A social stigma is dreaded, while undiscovered sin is harboured complacently.

II REAL DEFILEMENT IS MORAL AND INTERNAL. It is those things which proceed out of a man that defile him, (Mat_15:18) because they spring from the centre of all true evil, the heart of man.

1. The sanctuary of worship is only defiled by the corrupt conduct of the worshippers. Pompey could not really defile the sacred courts by trampling rudely over the holy ground. The true abomination of desolation was the sin of the Jews. A church is desecrated by worldliness and evil thoughts in the worshippers.

2. The temple of the body is only defiled by unholy conduct. It is a mere symbol of this defilement when contact with a corpse is thought to render the person unclean. Contact with sinful occupations is the real defilement. When this temple of the Holy Ghost is turned into a depository of evil, its glory departs. It is not the dead flesh of a corpse, but living carnality that defiles. When this rottenness is cut out no external defilement can hurt, for then "to the pure all things are pure.

III THE PUNISHMENT OF INTERNAL DEFILEMENT IS OUTWARD SHAME. The Jews are to have the temple defiled in this external manner as a punishment for the previous moral degradation of it. In the end sin blossoms into shame. The commission of sin may be hidden, but the punishment of it will be public. In God"s great day the secrets of all hearts will be revealed. Then hypocrisy will cease, and the external will be a true index to the internal The defiled soul will be seen in a foul body; the corruption of heart will be punished by the degradation of all things that a man prizes. The only way of escape is by a previous confusion of the soul corruption, and the cleansing of the heart from its defilement through the grace of Christ. (Psa_51:7)

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

And slew - The slaughter also was in vision.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

General Information:

God continuing to speak to the guards judging the people of Israel.

the house

the temple

attacked the city

The word "city" is a metonym for the people in the city. AT: "attacked the people in the city" (See: Metonymy)

I fell on my face

"I bowed down to the ground" or "I lay on the ground." Ezekiel did not fall by accident. He went down to the ground to show that he respected and feared Yahweh. See how you translated this in Ezekiel 1:28. (See: Idiom)

Ah, Lord Yahweh

Ezekiel says this because he is very troubled by what the Lord told the men to do to Jerusalem. See how you translated this in Ezekiel 4:14.

will you destroy all the remnant of Israel in the outpouring of your wrath on Jerusalem?

Ezekiel is pleading with Yahweh not to destroy the remnant. AT: "please do not destroy all the remnant of Israel in the outpouring of your wrath on Jerusalem!" (See: Idiom and Rhetorical Question)

in the outpouring of your wrath on Jerusalem

Wrath is spoken of as if it were a liquid that Yahweh could pour out of a container. The word "Jerusalem" is a metonym for the people in the city. The abstract noun "outpouring" can be translated as a verb. AT: "when you pour out your wrath on Jerusalem" or "when you punish the people of Jerusalem because you are very angry with them" (See: Abstract Nouns)

translationWords

defile

house

court

die

Lord Yahweh

remnant

wrath

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.