The Sword Reaches the City and the Crown

In the Hebrew Bible this is 21:6, since the Hebrew chapter began with the burning forest. The oracle that follows is the forest explained, and its first verses answer 20:45–48 almost phrase for phrase: set thy face, drop thy word, prophesy.

The three targets match the three words for south in 20:46: Jerusalem for teman, the holy places for darom, the land of Israel for the Negeb. “Holy places” is plural, miqdashim, perhaps the temple’s courts together; several manuscripts read “their sanctuary”.

“Behold, I am against thee” is the formula of challenge before combat, which the book will turn on Tyre, Sidon and Pharaoh (26:3; 28:22; 29:3). The Greek translation, apparently unable to accept the phrase, rendered “the righteous and the wicked” as “the unrighteous and the lawless”.

The forest code is broken here: the green tree and the dry tree of 20:47 are the righteous and the wicked, and “all faces from the south to the north” becomes “all flesh from the south to the north”. The sheath, ta’ar, is the scabbard that holds a sword at rest.

Jeremiah 47:6 pleads with this same weapon: “O thou sword of the LORD, how long will it be ere thou be quiet? put up thyself into thy scabbard.” Here the answer is given in advance: “it shall not return any more.” Verse 30 will raise the question of the sheath again.

“With the breaking of thy loins” means a groan from the body’s centre of strength, doubled over. Isaiah 21:3 describes the same bodily collapse at bad news: “my loins filled with pain.” The sighing is to be done “before their eyes”, a sign act meant to be watched.

The tidings arrive in 33:21, when a fugitive from Jerusalem reaches Ezekiel with the words, “The city is smitten.” “Weak as water” is literally “all knees shall go water”, the phrase of 7:17, which many read as the loss of bladder control in terror.

A new word begins what is often called the Song of the Sword, verses 8 to 17. Its lines are short and hammering, and they are among the most difficult Hebrew in the book: several phrases defeated the ancient translators, who give quite different readings.

The repeated noun, “A sword, a sword”, is a cry. To furbish in 1611 English was to polish or burnish metal, as armour was furbished. The sword has had its edge ground and its surface scoured, both preparations for use rather than for show.

“That it may glitter” is literally “that it may have lightning”, the word baraq. Deuteronomy 32:41 has God say, “If I whet my glittering sword”, literally the lightning of my sword. “Should we then make mirth?” renders a Hebrew fragment that remains obscure.

The subject of “he hath given” is not named; the sentence keeps the hand that hands over the weapon out of sight until it names “the slayer”. “Handled” is literally grasped in the palm. Verse 19 will put a name to the slayer: the king of Babylon.

Striking the thigh was a gesture of grief and remorse: “I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed” (Jeremiah 31:19). “Terrors by reason of the sword” may also be read “delivered over to the sword”, the princes thrown to the blade together with the people.

“It is a trial” is bochan, a testing. The rest of the verse is so compressed that no translation is secure, and the Greek differs completely. The last clause may mean that the rod, the royal house, “shall be no more”.

Clapping the hands could mark derision or horror at a disaster; 6:11 told Ezekiel to smite with his hand and stamp with his foot. “Doubled the third time” pictures the sword striking twice, then three times. “Privy chambers” are inner rooms, the private spaces where people hid.

“Point” translates a word found only here, and its meaning is lost; the King James made a reasonable guess. “Ah!” is a single cry, ach. “Wrapped up for the slaughter” probably means gripped or sharpened for it, the weapon ready in the hand.

The sword is now spoken to as if it were alive, in a string of clipped imperatives: go right, go left. “Whithersoever thy face is set” gives the sword the same phrase used of the prophet, whose face God set toward Jerusalem in verse 2.

God does himself what he told Ezekiel to do in verse 14: “I will also smite mine hands together.” Prophet and God make the same gesture over the same judgment. “I the LORD have said it” closes the Song of the Sword.

A new word arrives, and it is the most concrete in the chapter. In 589 BC Nebuchadnezzar marched west to crush a rebellion; Jeremiah 27:3 records envoys from Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre and Sidon meeting Zedekiah in Jerusalem to plan one.

“Choose thou a place” is literally “cut a hand”, that is, carve a signpost; yad, hand, is used for a marker or monument. Ezekiel is apparently to draw a road map with a pointing sign at the fork, as he drew Jerusalem on a brick in 4:1. “Out of one land” means both roads start in Babylonia.

Rabbath of the Ammonites is modern Amman, the capital of Jordan. “Jerusalem the defenced” names its fortifications, walls that Hezekiah and Manasseh had built up (2 Chronicles 32:5; 33:14). The strongest city in the region is set beside the other road as the alternative.

Three methods are named. Arrows marked with names were shaken in a quiver until one fell out; the Hebrew verb means shook, not “made bright”. Teraphim were household images, like those Rachel stole from Laban (Genesis 31:19). Babylonian diviners read sheep’s livers, and clay liver models inscribed with omens survive.

“At his right hand” means the lot came up in his right hand. The list that follows is siege language: battering rams (named twice in the Hebrew), a ramp, a siege tower. Ezekiel had acted out exactly these on a brick years before: “set battering rams against it round about” (4:2).

“Call to remembrance the iniquity” is the phrase of Numbers 5:15, the jealousy offering, “an offering of memorial, bringing iniquity to remembrance”. Jerusalem dismisses the omen as empty, but the one it answers to is not the omen. “Them that have sworn oaths” is obscure; it may mean those trusting in sworn treaties.

Remembering occurs three times in one verse: made to be remembered, and twice “come to remembrance”. “Discovered” means exposed. “Taken with the hand” is literally “seized in the palm”, caught as easily as something held in the hand.

“Profane” is chalal, which can also mean mortally wounded or slain; some translate “you pierced and wicked prince”. The prince is Zedekiah, and again Ezekiel calls him nasi, not king. “Whose day is come” means his appointed time of reckoning has arrived.

“Diadem” is mitsnefet, a word used elsewhere only for the high priest’s turban (Exodus 28:4, 37–39), so some see priestly and royal headgear removed together. “This shall not be the same” is three clipped Hebrew words, “this not this”: nothing will stay as it was.

The triple “overturn” is ‘avvah ‘avvah ‘avvah, ruin upon ruin. “Until he come whose right it is” echoes Genesis 49:10, “until Shiloh come”, which ancient readers took as “until he comes to whom it belongs”. The word “right” is mishpat, the just claim.

Ammon’s “reproach” is its taunting of Judah: in 25:3 and 25:6 Ammon says “Aha” and claps over Israel’s ruin, and Zephaniah 2:8 speaks of “the revilings of the children of Ammon”. The sword-song of verses 9 and 10 is quoted again and turned on them.

Jeremiah 27:9 warned the plotting nations, Ammon among them, against their diviners and soothsayers. Ammon’s seers promised safety, but they will only lay Ammon beside the slain of Judah. The last clause repeats verse 25 word for word, so Ammon shares Zedekiah’s sentence.

“Where thou wast created” uses bara’, the verb of Genesis 1:1, of Ammon’s own origin, and “nativity” is the word of 16:3 for Jerusalem’s birth. Genesis 19:38 traces Ammon to Ben-ammi, son of Lot. Judgment will meet Ammon at home, not on a distant field.

“Blow against thee” is the smith blowing on coals, an image the next chapter develops (22:20–21). “Brutish men” is bo’arim, which can also mean burning men, a pun beside the fire. “Skilful to destroy” is literally craftsmen of destruction. Josephus says Nebuchadnezzar subdued Ammon in 582 BC.

“No more remembered” marks the difference from Israel. Jeremiah 49:6 does promise Ammon a return, “afterward I will bring again the captivity of the children of Ammon”, but this oracle has no such line. Ammon vanished as a people under later Arab tribes, just as 25:4 warns.