Глава 6

Ezek.6:1. And the word of the Lord came to me: In IV and V ch. the prophet had in mind the closest image of the city; now he moves on to the whole country (and in Chapter VII to the kingdom) in order to present guilt and punishment in a further connection. The desecration of the church by idolatry stands in connection with the ministry in the high places, which has become widespread throughout the whole country (v. 3), and can only be eradicated by the complete desolation of it (v. 6) and the destruction of its population (v. 5 and 7); only when all these sanctuaries with their pagan images have fallen (v. 4) and the idolatrous people have been thrown down right before their idols (v. 7); only then will the stubbornness of those few from Israel who survive the worldwide dispersion be broken (vv. 8-9) and although they will come to realize that Jehovah preached by the prophets is the one true God (vv. 10). This is what is being prepared for the land of Israel. With angry laughter and undisguised indignation the prophet can look at the behavior of the people: Jehovah will soon put an end to this behavior (vv. 11-13); the densely populated land will turn into a desert, which will spread over an immense space (v. 14). Ezek.6:2. son of man! turn your face towards the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them, Palestine, especially Judea, is a mountainous country, which is why the prophet who lived in the Babylonian lowlands likes to call it “the mountains of Israel,” cf. Ezek.13.17, etc. But this name also has a very special meaning for the prophet: on the mountains there are altars of heights that he hates. Ezek.6:3. and say: Mountains of Israel! listen to the word of the Lord God. Thus says the Lord God to the mountains and hills, valleys and dells: Behold, I will bring a sword against you, and will destroy your high places; If the prophet requires the mountains to listen to the word of the Lord, then this is more than a rhetorical figure: already the prophet Isaiah brings inanimate nature into religious consideration - “The Hollows”, lit. “streams,” that is, the beds of streams that dry up at times, are so numerous in Palestine and are now known there as wadis. “The purpose of joining the mountains to the valleys is to embrace the whole country (cf. Ezek. 32.5-6, etc.); but, in addition, here, as in the appeal to the mountains, the idolatrous purpose of the valleys is meant; in this regard, the valley of the sons of Hinnom was especially famous (Jer 7:31, 32:35); the valleys were covered with trees and groves, under the shade of which especially the service of Astarte was performed. – “Sword” – war. – “Heights”, bamot – terminus technicus; a place of some special cults; see Jer 7.31. Ezekiel's view of them is more fully stated in Ezekiel 20.27–29. Ezek.6:4. and your altars will be laid waste, your pillars in honor of the sun will be broken, and I will cast your slain before your idols; “Altars” are distinguished from “high places” in other places: 2 Kings 21:3, 23:15. – “Pillars... in honor of the sun”, glory. “Idols”, Heb. “khaman” - special pillars - symbols of Baal, as the sun god, placed at or on (according to 2 Chronicles 34.4) his altars (“Baalhamon” of Phoenician inscriptions); the Hebrew name may come from the ridge between Syria and Cilicia. “And I will cast down your slain (glorified, more precisely: “ulcerated”, wounded, because we will talk about the slain later) before your idols.” The insignificance of idols will become tangible when their servants, who were expecting help from their enemies, are killed before them. The idols here are called gilpul, d.b. from gel - kal - Ezekiel’s favorite name for them: used by him 38 times out of 47 of all cases of its use (even in Lev, Deut., Jer); XX are simply “idols”. “Jews are generally strong in the formation of such contemptuous names” (Bert.). The prophet's speech passes from the mountains and valleys, as listeners, to their inhabitants. Ezek.6:5. And I will lay the carcasses of the children of Israel before their idols, and will scatter your bones round about your altars. Double threat: those killed will be deprived of burial, their bones will be dung for the earth (cf. Jer 8.2) and the corpses will desecrate the sanctuary (cf. 2 Chr. 23.14; Josephus, Archaol. XVIII, 2, 2). Ezek.6:6. In all the places where you live, the cities will be laid waste and the high places destroyed, so that your altars will be laid waste and destroyed, so that your idols will be broken and destroyed, and your sun pillars will be broken, and your works will be blotted out. "The cities will be devastated". Idolatry will be completely destroyed, because there will be no one who can indulge in it. Perhaps this means mainly cities located on the slope of those heights, on the top of which stood the altars of the heights, for example, Rama. Ezek.6:7. And the slain will fall among you, and you will know that I am the Lord. The devastation of the country and the beating of the inhabitants is aimed primarily at the destruction of the hated altars, so that the prophet who predicts this and his God will be right. The main motivation for God’s activity for Ezekiel is generally the glory of His name. - “And the slain will fall among you.” Not all the inhabitants will be beaten, so that the survivors will not be able to help but recognize the hand of God in all this. Ezek.6:8. But I will preserve a remnant, so that among the nations you will have survivors of the sword, when you are scattered throughout the lands. Ezek.6:9. And your survivors will remember Me among the nations, where they will be led into captivity, when I bring into contrition their prodigal heart, which fell away from Me, and their eyes, which wandered after idols; and they will feel disgust with themselves for the evil that they did in all their abominations; The long captivity to which those who survived the sword of Nebuchadnezzar will be subjected will force them to recognize their sin and repent of it: “I will break ... the heart” (LXX, “I will swear to their heart”), but in addition to the heart, the eyes will also repent, that is, the external senses that led the heart into sin (cf. Numbers 15.39). “Prodigal..., who have gone astray after idols.” In this image, Ezekiel follows Hosea, who was the first to present the relationship between God and the people under the guise of marriage; Ezekiel subsequently developed this image to its possible limits (chap. XVI and XXIII); it could become all the more beloved by Ezekiel because the word “fornication” could contain an allusion to pagan cults in which debauchery played a role, and such cults were the most seductive; this image had wide and frequent use right up to the New Testament (“the adulterous generation”). – “Idols” of LXX are called here επιτηδευματων “institutions”, “customs”, glory. "beginnings" - “They will feel disgusted with themselves”; slav.: “they have their own faces.” Ezekiel 6:10. and they will know that I am the Lord; It was not in vain that I said that I would bring such disaster upon them. “And they will know,” that is, the captives, “that I am the Lord.” The Prophet Ezekiel may have already observed this in those around him. God did not punish without a purpose, but to arrange conversion. Ezekiel 6:11. Thus says the Lord God: Clasp your hands and stamp your foot, and say: Woe for all the vile crimes of the house of Israel! they will fall by sword, famine and pestilence. To clasp one's hands and stamp one's foot (Slavic: "stirred up") was a gesture of indignant ridicule; Wed Eze.25.6 (the gloating of the Ammonites over the destruction of Israel); Ezek.21:14, 22:13. - “And say: woe”; euro “ag” is more of an interjection of laughter (ha-ha) than of grief; so ευγε, and glory. "good..." From this we can see in what contrast Ezekiel appears to his people: he does not suffer with them, like Jeremiah, but seems insensitive and indifferent to their fate; Wed Ezek.5.5 (Bert.); but this was due to extraordinary zeal for the glory of God: the honor of the name of God was in danger. Ezekiel 6:12. He who is far away will die of pestilence; and whoever is close will fall by the sword; and the one who remains and survives will die of hunger; Thus will I bring My wrath upon them. Three punishments ch. V appear again, but in application to the whole country in a different distribution: where the Chaldean sword does not reach, epidemic and famine will seize the guilty (certain codes LXX, contrary to the accepted text, more correctly put the sword first, then the plague, θανατος, and famine). "Survivor"; glory “obderzhmii”, more consistent with the Hebrew. letters "besieged" Ezekiel 6:13. And you will know that I am the Lord when the slain lie among their idols around their altars, on every high hill, on all the tops of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every branching oak, in the place where they offered fragrant incense to all their idols. The verse repeats and complements thoughts 4 and 5, like v. 14. – 6 and 7. The verse gives a tactile, picturesque list of places of idolatry. Mountains and hills were chosen for idols and churches in the belief that these places are closer to heaven (Tacitus, Ann XIII, 57; cf. Num 22.41, etc.). Along with the mountains, shady valleys under densely leafed trees, for example, terebinth (“oak”), were chosen as places of worship, since they believed that a deity lived in the tree. - “Incense”, fame. “a fragrant stench” is a common designation for a sacrifice pleasing to God; what according to the law should have been kept for God was sacrificed to idols; the expression sounds like mournful jealousy. Ezekiel 6:14. And I will stretch out My hand against them, and I will make the land desolate and desert, from the wilderness of Divlath, in all their places of habitation, and they will know that I am the Lord. “I’ll stretch out my hand” - I’ll punish; Wed Ps 137.7, etc. - “I will make the earth desert and steppe”, glory: “to destruction and consumption”; in Ezek.33.29 the same Heb. words in Russian transl.: “by the desert of deserts.” Hyperbole, since St. the land never turned into a real desert. - “From the desert of Divlaf.” The Hebrew construction also allows for the translation: “From the desert to Divlaf,” or: “more (desert) than the desert of Divlaf”; one of the last two translations should be accepted, since the first (Russian Bible) does not indicate the terminus ad quem (to where). The Divlaf Desert is unknown. Jeremiah 48.22 and Numbers 33.46 mention the city of Beth-Divlathaim, which is also mentioned in the inscription of the Moabite king Mesha (line 30) and may be located near the great Arabian desert; but nowhere is this or any other desert called by the name of this insignificant city. Therefore, here we assume a copyist’s mistake instead of “Rivla” (the letters Rosh and Dalet are so similar in Hebrew that such an error is possible and frequent): “from the desert, that is, Arabian, to Rivla.” Rivla lay in the country of Hamath near Oron, on the same latitude as Tripoli, and in another. in places Hamath is often indicated as the northern border of the Promised Land; if here Ezekiel names Rivla, then this may be due to the fatal significance of this city for the Jews of that time: here Nebuchadnezzar overtook Zedekiah and carried out a cruel judgment on him (2 Kings 25.6–7). The scribes could change Rivla into Divlaf under the influence of the indicated passages of Ezekiel and Numbers - “In all their places of residence.” The conqueror did not spare a single city or village. You might be interested in: