Ezekiel 5:6

Thus saith the Lord GOD; This is Jerusalem: I have set it in the midst of the nations and countries that are round about her. THIS IS JERUSALEM - not the mere city, but the people of Israel generally, of which it was the center and representative. I HAVE SET IT IN THE MIDST OF THE NATIONS. Jerusalem is regarded in God's point of view as center of the whole earth, designed to radiate the true light ever the nations in all directions (Compare Ezekiel 38:12, margin, 'that dwell in the midst (navel) of the land;' Psalms 48:2, "Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great king." This design of God is hereafter to be realized, as is foretold in...

He now adds, _My judgments are changed _concerning the word מרה, _mereh_, I said that it signifies sometimes to change, but oftener to transgress or to reject, and there the sense suits very well, because the Jews were rebellious against the judgments of God even to impiety. But he enlarges upon their wickedness when he says, my _statutes have been despised _since they so addicted themselves to impiety. For if there had been any pretext of virtue, their fault might have been extenuated, but when they cast themselves into gross impiety, and thus despise God’s commandments, this is inexcusable. Let us learn from this passage, that unless we use God’s blessings with purity the charge of ingratitude will always lie against us: for whatever God bestows upon us, he sanctifies as well to our salvation as to the glory of his name. We are then sacrilegious when we corrupt those things which were...

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 5:6. _SHE HATH CHANGED MY JUDGMENTS_] God shows the reason why he deals with Jerusalem in greater severity than with the surrounding nations; because she was more wicked than they. Bad and idolatrous as they were, they had a greater degree of _morality_ among them than the Jews had. Having fallen from the true God, they became _more abominable_ than others in proportion to the height, eminence, and glory from which they had fallen. This is the common case of _backsliders_; they frequently, in their fall, become tenfold more the children of wrath than they were before....

THEY - The inhabitants of Jerusalem....

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

AND SHE HATH CHANGED MY JUDGMENTS INTO WICKEDNESS MORE THAN THE NATIONS,.... So they changed their glory for that which did not profit; and the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man; and the truth of God into a lie, Jeremiah 2:11; or, "for wickedness" q; for judgments and laws that were not good, and which to observe was wickedness. The word rendered "changed" signifies to "rebel against" or to "transgress": and the may be, she, that is, Jerusalem, has "rebelled" against my judgments, and "transgressed" r them in a wicked manner, even to a greater degree than the nations of the world. The Targum and Jarchi interpret it changed as we do: AND MY STATUTES MORE THAN THE COUNTRIES THAT [ARE] ROUND ABOUT HER. "Judgments" and "statutes", are the same laws and ordinances of worship, being just and righteous, and firm and unalterable; unless it

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

CHANGED. rejected, or rebelled against. Compare Ezekiel 20:8; Ezekiel 20:13; Ezekiel 20:21; Numbers 20:24; Numbers 27:14. Hebrew. _march._ Occurs forty-two times in O.T., and rendered "changed" only here. See notes on Ezekiel 2:3; Ezekiel 2:6. WICKEDNESS. Hebrew. _rdshii'._ App-44. THEY: i.e. the nations and the countries....