Ezekiel 35:1-15

Ezekiel 35 f. The Occupation of the Land. Indispensable to the restoration of Israel is the possession of Canaan Israel's land and Yahweh's land (Ezekiel 35:10).

Ezekiel 35 f. The Destruction of Edom. The land had at the time been threatened, if not actually overrun, by the Edomites (Ezekiel 35:2; Mount Seir=Edom), between whom and Israel there had been from time immemorial a persistent hereditary feud (Ezekiel 35:5; cf. Genesis 27:40). Possibly the land, including the old northern and southern kingdoms (Ezekiel 35:10), had been given (Ezekiel 35:12) by Nebuchadrezzar in return for the support Edom had rendered to the Babylonians at the siege of Jerusalem (Psalms 137:7). The restoration of Israel must, therefore, be guaranteed by the destruction of Edom (cf. Ezekiel 25:12). But this destruction is morally justified on three grounds: (a) by Edom's cruel and ineradicable antipathy to Israel (Ezekiel 35:5); (b) by her occupation of Israel's soil and her implicit challenge of Yahweh (Ezekiel 35:10); (c) by her blasphemous pride. Her penalty is, therefore, to be desolation, utter and irrevocable; and by her extinction the way is cleared for Israel.