Ezekiel 5:16

When I shall send upon them the evil arrows of famine, which shall be for their destruction, and which I will send to destroy you: and I will increase the famine upon you, and will break your staff of bread: I SHALL SEND UPON THEM ... ARROWS OF FAMINE - hail, rain, mice, locusts, mildew (see ). I WILL INCREASE THE FAMINE - literally, congregate or collect, When ye think your harvest safe, because ye have escaped drought, mildew, etc, I will find other means (Calvin), which I will congregate, or accumulate, as the forces of an invading army, to bring famine on you....

He illustrates the sentiment which we have seen, but not after the manner of rhetoricians, who affect splendor and ornament of speech; but his only design was to penetrate the minds of the people, like stones or iron. This, then, is the reason why he uses such variety here, and adorns his teaching with various figures. For he now compares God to an archer, who points his arrows against them; but he speaks metaphorically concerning the arrows of God; for he calls them _arrows of famine and evil, _that is, deadly and death-bearing. _Since, _then, _I shall hurl evil arrows against them, they shall cause their destruction, _says he; that is, they shall not escape death, because they shall be struck with mortal wounds. A person might be struck by the blow of an arrow, and yet become convalescent; but God pronounces the arrows of which he speaks deadly, so that whoever is struck by them has no...

5-17 The sentence passed upon Jerusalem is very dreadful, the manner of expression makes it still more so. Who is able to stand in God's sight when he is angry? Those who live and die impenitent, will perish for ever unpitied; there is a day coming when the Lord will not spare. Let not persons or churches, who change the Lord's statutes, expect to escape the doom of Jerusalem. Let us endeavour to adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things. Sooner or later God's word will prove itself true....

Verse Ezekiel 5:16. _THE EVIL ARROWS OF FAMINE_] Famine and pestilence are represented as _poisoned arrows_, inflicting death wherever they _wound_. The ancients represented them in the same way....

EXPOSITION EZEKIEL 5:1 TAKE THEE A BARBER'S RAZOR, etc. The series of symbolic acts is carried further. Recollections of Isaiah and Leviticus mingle strangely in the prophet's mind. The former had made the "razor" the symbol of the devastation wrought by an invading army (Isaiah 7:20). The latter had forbidden its use for the head and beard of the priests (Le Leviticus 19:27; Leviticus 21:5). Once again Ezekiel is commanded to do a forbidden thing as a symbolic act. He is, for the moment, the representative of the people of Jerusalem, and there is to be, as of old, a great destructio

WHEN I SHALL SEND UPON THEM THE EVIL ARROWS OF FAMINES,.... Either famine itself, which is as an arrow; it is taken out of the quiver of the Lord of hosts, and is shot by him; and moves swiftly when it has a commission; and is very destructive: or arrows which bring on a famine, such as drought, excessive rains, blasting, mildew, locusts, c. or arrows which the famine brings, as leanness, faintness, blackness, and death and, in either sense, are evil ones; and are sent of God for the following end: WHICH SHALL BE FOR [THEIR] DESTRUCTION, [AND] WHICH I WILL SEND TO DESTROY YOU; God's design in sending them was to destroy, and that was answered; and a very destroying arrow famine is, and therefore called evil: AND I WILL INCREASE THE FAMINE UPON YOU; or "gather y [it] upon", or "against you"; as if it was an army with bows and arrows: AND WILL BREAK YOUR STAFF OF BREAD: take away the vi...

Ezekiel 5:1. The sharp knife is the symbol of the king of Babylon. (See Isaiah 7:20 .) He was God's instrument in the execution of His wrath; the people are represented by the hair. The third part of the hair burned with fire pictures the fate of a part of the people during the siege. The pestilence and the famine were also to consume them. Only a few in number, a small remnant, were to be preserved, as indicated when Ezekiel took a few hairs and bound them in his skirt. Ezekiel 5:5. These solemn words should be carefully read. In connection with them there ought to be read Jeremiah's lamentations, for Jeremiah's outburst of sorrow shows the literal fulfillment of this message. (See...

EXPLANATION OF THE SYMBOLS. By the four preceding symbolical actions the doom has been made too terribly clear: the reason for it is now given. Jerusalem is the centre of the world, conspicuous alike for her position and her privileges, especially for her possession of a unique religious law, the gift of her own unique God. But so far was she from gratefully conforming her life to it, that she fell disgracefully below even heathen standards (_cf._ Jeremiah 2:11); and so, conspicuous in her doom as in her privileges, she must be punished before all the world a fate from which Israel had always shrunk with special horror (Ezekiel 5:8). Her punishment was to be unparalleled (Ezekiel 5:9) parents would literally devour their own

I SHALL SAND, &c. Reference to Pentateuch (Deuteronomy 32:23; Deuteronomy 32:24). WHICH: or, who. BREAK YOUR STAFF OF BREAD, &c. Reference to Pentateuch (Leviticus 26:26). App-92. Compare Ezekiel 4:13....

Second Section. Ch. Ezekiel 3:22 to Ezekiel 7:27 The second section of the Book contains these parts: (1) Ch. Ezekiel 3:22-27. A preface in which the prophet is commanded to confine himself to his own house, and abandon for a time his public ministry. (2) Ch. Ezekiel 4:1-4. A series of symbols representing the siege of Jerusalem, the scarcity during it, the pollution of the people in exile among the nations, and the terrible fate of the inhabitants on the capture of the city. (3) Ch. Ezekiel 5:5-17. Exposition of these s