Ezekiel 6:12

He that is far off shall die of the pestilence; and he that is near shall fall by the sword; and he that remaineth and is besieged shall die by the famine: thus will I accomplish my fury upon them.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(12) That is far off . . . that is near.—That is, all, wherever they may be, shall be reached and overwhelmed by the coming judgments; yet not in such wise that we are to think of one kind of judgment as especially reserved for one class, and another kind for another. The different forms of punishment shall all fall upon the people; and they that escape one shall fall by another.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

6:11-14 It is our duty to be affected, not only with our own sins and sufferings, but to look with compassion upon the miseries wicked people bring upon themselves. Sin is a desolating thing; therefore, stand in awe, and sin not. If we know the worth of souls, and the danger to which unbelievers are exposed, we shall deem every sinner who takes refuge in Jesus from the wrath to come, an abundant recompence for all contempt or opposition we may meet with.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The gleam of hope is but transitory. Darkness again gathers round, for as yet the prophet is predicting judgment.

Ezekiel 6:11

Smite ... stamp - Well-known modes of expressing grief.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

12. He that is far off—namely, from the foe; those who in a distant exile fear no evil.

he that remaineth—he that is left in the city; not carried away into captivity, nor having escaped into the country. Distinct from "he that is near," namely, those outside the city who are within reach of "the sword" of the foe, and so fall by it; not by "famine," as those left in the city.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Far off; either by his early and voluntary flight from his own country; or, he that is carried away captive, and sent by the enemy into a far country.

Pestilence; the arrow I will shoot after them.

He that is near; who stays in his own country, or dwells near to Jerusalem, or would retire to it when the Babylonians approach, but is taken before he can get thither.

He that remaineth; that surviveth those slain, but is shut up and besieged where he sought safety.

I will accomplish my fury; I will satisfy my just displeasure, and give them full measures of punishment; I will fulfil my threats.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

He that is far off shall die of the pestilence,.... That flies from the enemy into the wilderness, or into other countries, thinking himself safe there, the plague shall seize him, and he shall die of that; there is no fleeing from God, and escaping his hand; when he resolves to punish for sin, he has various ways to execute his wrath:

and he that is near shall fall by the sword; that is out of the city, and near it, attempting to get away; but within the reach of the enemy, shall be slain by him:

and he that remaineth, and is besieged, shall die by the famine; that abides in the city, and does not attempt to go out; but continues in the siege, hoping the enemy will be obliged to depart, shall perish by the grievous famine. The Targum is,

"he that remains, and goes into the cities of siege, shall die with famine:''

thus will I accomplish my fury upon them; which before had been gradually, by little and little, falling upon them, in order to bring them to repentance; but being incorrigible, wrath is brought upon them to the uttermost; and God fulfils the whole counsel of his will in their destruction.

Geneva Study Bible

He that is far off shall die of the pestilence; and he that is near shall fall by the sword; and he that remaineth and is besieged shall die by the famine: thus will I accomplish my fury upon them.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

12. and is besieged] and he that is besieged. In LXX. the previous “he that remaineth” is wanting. With this omission “he that is besieged” might stand, cf. ch. Ezekiel 7:15, “he that is in the city, famine shall devour him.” Otherwise the sense seems rather as in R.V. marg. preserved, as Isaiah 49:6.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 12. - He that is far off, etc. The three forms of judgment named in ver. 11 have each their special victims. Pestilence comes chiefly on those who are outside the city, exposed to the weather changes and the taint of unburied corpses (ver. 5); the sword of the Chaldeans on those who venture on a sally, or try to escape from the city; famine presses heaviest on those who are besieged within it. None can escape the judgment. The word besieged is the same as in Isaiah 1:8; but it may have the sense, as in Isaiah 49:6, of "kept," or "preserved," for the worst evil of the three. Ezekiel 6:12

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The Punishment Is Just and Well Deserved

Ezekiel 6:11. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Smite with thy hand, and stamp with thy foot, and say, Woe on all the wicked abominations of the house of Israel! that they must perish by sword, hunger, and pestilence. Ezekiel 6:12. He that is afar off will die by the pestilence; and he that is near at hand shall fall by the sword; and he who survives and is preserved will die of hunger: and I shall accomplish my wrath upon them. Ezekiel 6:13. And ye shall know that I am Jehovah, when your slain lie in the midst of your idols round about your altars, on every high hill, upon all the summits of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick-leaved terebinth, on the places where they brought their pleasant incense to all their idols. Ezekiel 6:14. And I will stretch out my hand against them, and make the land waste and desolate more than the wilderness of Diblath, in all their dwellings: so shall ye know that I am Jehovah. - Through clapping of the hands and stamping of the feet - the gestures which indicate violent excitement - the prophet is to make known to the displeasure of Jehovah at the horrible idolatry of the people, and thereby make manifest that the penal judgment is well deserved. הכּה בכפּך is in Ezekiel 21:19 expressed more distinctly by הך כּף אל , "to strike one hand against the other," i.e., "to clap the hands;" cf. Numbers 24:10. אח, an exclamation of lamentation, occurring only here and in Ezekiel 21:20. אשׁר, Ezekiel 6:11, is a conjunction, "at." Their abominations are so wicked, that they must be exterminated on account of them. This is specially mentioned in Ezekiel 6:12. No one will escape the judgment: he who is far removed from its scene as little as he who is close at hand; while he who escapes the pestilence and the sword is to perish of hunger. נצוּר, servatus, preserved, as in Isaiah 49:6. The signification "besieged" (lxx, Vulgate, Targum, etc.), Hitzig can only maintain by arbitrarily expunging הנּשׁאר as a gloss. On Ezekiel 6:12, cf. Ezekiel 5:13; on 13a, cf. Ezekiel 6:5; and on 13b, cf. Ezekiel 6:3, and Hosea 4:13; Jeremiah 2:20; Jeremiah 3:6; Deuteronomy 12:2. 'אל כּל־גב, according to later usage, for על כּל־גב. ריח ניחח, used in the Pentateuch of sacrifices pleasing to God, is here transferred to idol sacrifices; see on Leviticus 1:9 and Genesis 8:21. On account of the prevalence of idolatry in all parts, God will make the land entirely desolate. The union of שׁממה serves to strengthen the idea; cf. Ezekiel 33:8., Ezekiel 35:3. The words ממּדבּר דּבלתה are obscure, either "in the wilderness towards Diblath" (even to Diblath), or "more than the wilderness of Diblath" (מן of comparison). There is no doubt that דּבלתה is a nom. prop.; cf. the name of the city דּבלתים in Jeremiah 48:22; Numbers 33:46. The second acceptation of the words is more probable than the first. For, if ממּדבּר is the terminus a quo, and דּבלתה the terminus ad quem of the extent of the land, then must ממּדבּר be punctuated not only as status absolut., but it must also have the article; because a definite wilderness - that, namely, of Arabia - is meant. The omission of the article cannot be justified by reference to Ezekiel 21:3 or to Psalm 75:7 (Hitzig, Ewald), because both passages contain general designations of the quarters of the world, with which the article is always omitted. In the next place, no Dibla can be pointed out in the north; and the change of Diblatha into Ribla, already proposed by Jerome, and more recently brought forward again by J. D. Michaelis, has not only against it the authority of all the old versions, but also the circumstance that the Ribla mentioned in 2 Kings 23:33 did not form the northern boundary of Palestine, but lay on the other side of it, in the land of Hamath; while the הרבלה, named in Numbers 34:11, is a place on the eastern boundary to the north of the Sea of Gennesareth, which would, moreover, be inappropriate as a designation of the northern boundary. Finally, the extent of the land from the south to the north is constantly expressed in a different way; cf. Numbers 23:21 (Numbers 34:8); Joshua 13:5; 1 Kings 8:65; 2 Kings 14:65; Amos 6:14; 1 Chronicles 13:5; 2 Chronicles 7:8; and even by Ezekiel himself (Ezekiel 48:1) לבוא is named as the boundary on the north. The form דּבלתה is similar to תּמנתה for תּמנה, although the name is hardly to be explained, with Hvernick, as an appellation, after the Arabic dibl, calamitas, exitium. The wilderness of Diblah is unknown. With 'וידעוּ כּי וגו the discourse is rounded off in returning to the beginning of Ezekiel 6:13, while the thoughts in Ezekiel 6:13 and Ezekiel 6:14 are only a variation of Ezekiel 6:4-7.