Ezekiel 33:26

Ye stand upon your sword, ye work abomination, and ye defile every one his neighbour's wife: and shall ye possess the land? YE STAND UPON YOUR SWORD - your dependence is not on right and equity, but on force and arms. YE DEFILE EVERY ONE HIS NEIGHBOUR'S WIFE - scarcely any one refrains from adultery....

21-29 Those are unteachable indeed, who do not learn their dependence upon God, when all creature-comforts fail. Many claim an interest in the peculiar blessings to true believers, while their conduct proves them enemies of God. They call this groundless presumption strong faith, when God's testimony declares them entitled to his threatenings, and nothing else....

Verse Ezekiel 33:26. _YE STAND UPON YOUR SWORD_] Ye live by plunder, rapine, and murder. Ye are every way impure; and shall ye possess the land? No....

The exhortation to repentance. Ezekiel first addresses the remnant that still linger in their ancient home, and warns them against presumptuous hopes resting on false grounds Ezekiel 33:23; then he turns his eyes to those near him, and points out that their apparent attention to his words was illusory. Ezekiel 33:24 THOSE WASTES - The places in the holy land devastated by the conqueror. ABRAHAM - The argument is, Abraham was but one man, and he had the promise of the land, though he did not at once possess it; much more shall we, the descendants of Abraham, being many, retain this promise and possess the land, though for a time we are depressed and subject. Compare...

EXPOSITION EZEKIEL 33:1 If we may think of Ezekiel as compiling and arranging his own prophecies, we may think of him as returning, with something like a sense of relief, to his own special work as the watchman of the house of Israel. For upwards of two years the messages which it had been given him to write (how far they were in any sense published we have no means of knowing) in Ezekiel 25-32; had dealt exclusively with foreign nations. Now his own people are again the object of his care. He resumes his pastoral office at once for warning and consolation. From this point onwards, with the exception of the strange Meshech-Tubal episode in Ezekiel 38:1; Ezekiel 39:1; all is leading

Ver. 26 YE STAND UPON YOUR SWORD,.... You trust in it, and think to support yourselves by it, and secure your possession and right of it by that means. So the Targum, "you stand in your strength:'' YE WORK ABOMINATION; that which is abominable to God, and not fit to be named among men; Jarchi interprets it of sodomy: the word is in the feminine gender, and may be rendered, "ye women work abomination"; referring to that unnatural lust the apostle speaks of, Romans 1:26 so Ben Melech: AND YE DEFILE EVERYONE HIS NEIGHBOUR'S WIFE; were guilty of adultery; and which was so common, that scarce any were free from it, and therefore is charged upon the whole body of them: AND SHALL YE POSSESS THE LAND? such vile creatures as these, guilty of the abominations for which the land formerly spewed out its ancient inhabitants, the Canaan

II. PREDICTIONS AFTER THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM (33-48) Chapter S 33-34 A. The Watchman, the False Shepherds, and the True Shepherd _ 1. The renewed call of Ezekiel as watchman (Ezekiel 33:1) _ 2. Ezekiel's mouth opened after Jerusalem's fall is announced (Ezekiel 33:21) 3. Message against the shepherds of Israel (Ezekiel 34:1) 4. The True Shepherd and restoration promised (Ezekiel 34:20) Ezekiel 33:1. The commission of Ezekiel as watchman corresponds to the same call in...

NEED OF A DEEPENED SENSE OF PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY (EZEKIEL 33), and this alike for himself and his hearers. EZEKIEL 33:1. He feels that he is responsible for them, and that they are responsible for themselves. He compares himself, as once before (Ezekiel 3:16), to a watchman whose duty is to raise the alarm in case of impending danger; so it is his, in view of the crisis, to care for and warn individual souls. EZEKIEL 33:10. But the people are despondent, stupefied by the news of the fall of the city (Ezekiel 33:21), sullenly at last admitting their guilt, but believing themselves to lie under the i

YE: i.e. Ye [men]. The verb is masculine. YE STAND UPON YOUR SWORD. Ye take your stand (first occurrence Genesis 18:8; Genesis 18:22), [leaning] upon, &c. The posture assumed by necromancers waiting for the rites, ye work, &c.: i.e. ye [women] work, &c. The verb is feminine....

The confirmation by the fugitives of all his previous predictions gave the prophet boldness to speak anew, and what he says is but a continuation of that which he had said before, and had been so literally confirmed. He had predicted the city's fall because of its sins, and his prophecy had been verified; those remaining in the land continue in the sins for which the city fell, and its fate shall certainly overtake them. The judgment must be carried out till the offences cease. But the teaching of these verses is the natural supplement also to that in Ezekiel 33:1. Those remaining in the land presume that they shall inherit the land because they are in it, notwithstanding their evil conduct: the inheritance of the land will be given on different conditions (Ezekiel 33:1, cf....