The big picture
God turns Ezekiel, his prophet, towards mount Seir, the hill country of Edom, a neighbour of his people. Its hostility is old, but the charge concerns acts taken during a recent crisis. It shed blood when Israel, the people bound to God, was already suffering judgement. It also expected to take the emptied lands as its own. God says he heard that boast. The neighbour that rejoiced in ruin will face ruin, and its plans must answer to the Lord's presence.
In this chapter
- Violence in a Time of Calamity Is Named Ezekiel 35:1-5
Ezekiel must face Seir and announce that God is against it.
- Bloodshed Returns Upon the Violent Land Ezekiel 35:6-9
Blood will pursue those who did not turn from shedding it, God swears.
- The Boast Against Empty Lands Reaches God Ezekiel 35:10-15
Seir claims that both neighbouring nations and their lands will become its possession.
Central truth
God judges Seir for violence, old hatred, and plans to seize his people's land while celebrating their ruin.
Scripture beside the summary
Ezekiel · King James Version · 15Ezekiel 35:1-5
Violence in a Time of Calamity Is Named
Ezekiel must face Seir and announce that God is against it. He will stretch out his hand and leave its towns in ruins. The people will know the Lord through that loss. God gives the reason: enduring hatred led them to shed his people's blood with the sword at the moment of their calamity. His people were under judgement for their guilt. That did not give their neighbour a right to attack. The accusation holds both realities together instead of using one people's sin to excuse another's violence.
In everyday life
A community mediator reads testimony that a neighbouring group used an evacuation to settle a longstanding grievance. The victims' own disputed conduct appears in a separate file. Neither file cancels responsibility for the attack. She keeps both before the panel. God declares ruin for a nation that struck his people during judgement, not a mediator's proposed settlement.
Notice
Ezekiel 35:5 The attack occurs during the people's calamity. God names that timing within the charge, so their prior suffering is no defence for those who added bloodshed.
Ezekiel 35:1-5
King James Version1Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2Son of man, set thy face against mount Seir, and prophesy against it,
3And say unto it, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O mount Seir, I am against thee, and I will stretch out mine hand against thee, and I will make thee most desolate.
4I will lay thy cities waste, and thou shalt be desolate, and thou shalt know that I am the LORD.
5Because thou hast had a perpetual hatred, and hast shed the blood of the children of Israel by the force of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time that their iniquity had an end:
Ezekiel 35:6-9
Bloodshed Returns Upon the Violent Land
Blood will pursue those who did not turn from shedding it, God swears. He will make their mountain country desolate and cut off movement through it. Hills, valleys, and stream beds will fill with those killed by the sword. The towns will not return to their former life. The warning answers the shedding of blood with a matching loss in the attackers' own land. It does not describe their violence as a source of lasting gain. They will know the Lord through a ruin that reaches the places they considered home.
In everyday life
A post-conflict surveyor follows an old route through emptied villages once used to launch attacks on neighbouring settlements. Broken crossings now interrupt every return path. She records the human cost without celebrating the reversal. Ezekiel declares blood pursuing a guilty land as God's judgement, not a surveyor's explanation of how damage spread.
Notice
Ezekiel 35:7 Both outgoing and returning travellers are cut off in the warning. The desolation reaches ordinary movement through the land as well as the towns themselves.
Ezekiel 35:6-9
King James Version6Therefore, as I live, saith the Lord GOD, I will prepare thee unto blood, and blood shall pursue thee: sith thou hast not hated blood, even blood shall pursue thee.
7Thus will I make mount Seir most desolate, and cut off from it him that passeth out and him that returneth.
8And I will fill his mountains with his slain men: in thy hills, and in thy valleys, and in all thy rivers, shall they fall that are slain with the sword.
9I will make thee perpetual desolations, and thy cities shall not return: and ye shall know that I am the LORD.
Ezekiel 35:10-15
The Boast Against Empty Lands Reaches God
Seir claims that both neighbouring nations and their lands will become its possession. God answers that he was there. He will respond to the anger, envy, and hatred with which the claim was made. He has heard the insults against the homeland's mountains and the boast that empty land is ready to consume. Those words were also against him. While others rejoice, Seir and all Idumea, another name for Edom, will be desolate. The joy it took in its neighbour's inheritance lying waste becomes the measure of the reversal announced upon it.
In everyday life
A land agent reaches for the deed to an evacuated family's property and treats their absence as permission to claim it. The actual owner enters with the title still in force. Empty rooms have not created a right to take them. God's presence and judgement answer a nation's boast, not merely an owner's proof of legal title.
Notice
Ezekiel 35:10 The claim to take two countries is answered by the statement that the Lord was there. Empty land does not mean its relationship to God has disappeared.
Ezekiel 35:10-15
King James Version10Because thou hast said, These two nations and these two countries shall be mine, and we will possess it; whereas the LORD was there:
11Therefore, as I live, saith the Lord GOD, I will even do according to thine anger, and according to thine envy which thou hast used out of thy hatred against them; and I will make myself known among them, when I have judged thee.
12And thou shalt know that I am the LORD, and that I have heard all thy blasphemies which thou hast spoken against the mountains of Israel, saying, They are laid desolate, they are given us to consume.
13Thus with your mouth ye have boasted against me, and have multiplied your words against me: I have heard them.
14Thus saith the Lord GOD; When the whole earth rejoiceth, I will make thee desolate.
15As thou didst rejoice at the inheritance of the house of Israel, because it was desolate, so will I do unto thee: thou shalt be desolate, O mount Seir, and all Idumea, even all of it: and they shall know that I am the LORD.
Details worth noticing
The opening image
Ezekiel 35:1 begins with “Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,”
Where the chapter turns
Ezekiel 35:6 forms a natural hinge: “Therefore, as I live, saith the Lord GOD, I will prepare thee unto blood, and blood shall pursue thee: sith thou hast not hated blood, even blood shall…”
The final note
Ezekiel 35:15 leaves the reader with “As thou didst rejoice at the inheritance of the house of Israel, because it was desolate, so will I do unto thee: thou shalt be desolate, O mount Seir, and…”
A word trail through the chapter
The words LORD, desolate, blood, know, mount, Seir help reveal the chapter’s repeated concerns.
KJV words made clear
- perpetual
- Continuing without an end, here describing lasting hostility or ruin.
- sith
- An old form of since, giving the reason for what follows.
Music and video connected to the passage
Related media appears when its Scripture reference overlaps this study. Music and video can illuminate a theme while the biblical text remains the foundation.
