Ezekiel 5:1

And thou, son of man, take thee a sharp knife,.... Or, "sword" (m).

And thou, son of man, take thee a sharp knife, take thee a barber's rasor, and cause it to pass upon thine head and upon thy beard: then take thee balances to weigh, and divide the hair.

EZEKIEL CHAPTER 5 Under the type of the prophet’ s hair, , is showed God’ s judgment upon Jerusalem, , by pestilence, by famine, by the sword, and by dispersion, . It is not unlikely that this command was given to the prophet so soon as he had understood the former chapter’ s vision. Son of man: see . Take thee; procure it by any means. A sharp knife; a sword or knife very sharp, as the Hebrew; so the grievous judgment is expressed ,14-16, and here the speedy, irresistible, and sweeping judgment against this people is aptly set forth. A barber’ s razor: this in different words is the same thing, and explains the former, and makes the emblem more exact, for by hair shaved and destroyed is the destruction of Jerusalem and its people represented to us, Now, that this may appear in the certainty of it, both a sword for strength, and sharp for cutting, nay, a razor much sharper, that shaves close, leaves nothing behind it, and cannot be resisted by the weak hair, so shall it be here with this people. Cause it to pass; a Hebraism, shave close with it. Thy head; the chief, as king and rulers, the city. Thy beard; the common citizens; or, the towns round about. Balances; just and exact scales, an emblem of Divine justice and equity. To weigh: the prophet’ s weighing represents God weighing these men and their ways. The hair; these light, vain, and worthless ones, inhabitants of this sinful city, ,5 Jeremiah 41:5 48:37. Thus foretell them their mourning, reproach, and deformity that is coming, for all this is signified by this shaving head and beard.

Ezekiel 5:1 And thou, son of man, take thee a sharp knife, take thee a barber’ s razor, and cause [it] to pass upon thine head and upon thy beard: then take thee balances to weigh, and divide the [hair].Ver. 1. And thou, son of man.] See on Ezekiel 2:1. Take thee a sharp knife.] This was the King of Babylon. The Turk is at this day such another. Mohammed I was, in his time, the death of 800,000 men. Selymus II, in revenge of the loss received at Lepanto, would have put to death all the Christians in his dominions. Take thee a barber’ s razor.] Not a "deceitful razor," but one that will do the deed - sharp and sure. Pliny telleth us, out of Varo, that the Romans had no barbers till 454 years after the city was built; ante intonsi fuere. And cause it to pass upon thy head and upon thy beard.] As hairs are an ornament to the head and beard, so are people to a city. But, as when they begin to be a burden or trouble to either, they are cut off and cast away; so are people by God’ s judgments, when by their sins they are offensive to him; dealing as Dionysius did by his god Aesculapius, from whom he presumed to pull his golden beard. David felt himself shaved in his ambassadors; so doth God in his servants - whose very hairs are numbered - in his ministers especially - who, by a specialty, are called God’ s men - with whom to meddle is more dangerous than to take a lion by the beard or a bear by the hair. Then take the balances to weigh.] This showeth that God’ s judgments are just to a hair’ s weight: and capillus unus suam habet umbram, saith Mimus. And divide the hair.] Dii nos quasi pilas habent, saith Plautus; Imo quasi pilos, saith another. Turkish History, 885. Lib. vii. cap. 59.

(1) Take thee a sharp knife, take thee a barber’s razor.—Rather, take thee a sharp sword, as a barber’s razor shalt thou take it to thee. The word knife is the same as that used twice in Ezekiel 5:2, and translated once by knife and once by sword. It is occasionally used for any sharp-cutting instrument, but is most commonly taken, as here, for a sword. The English version also neglects to notice the pronoun in the second clause. The thought is plainly that the prophet is to take a sword, on account of its symbolism, and use it instead of a razor. Upon thine head, and upon thy beard.—The cutting off the hair was a common mark of mourning (see Job 1:20; Isaiah 22:12; Jeremiah 7:29); but the allusion here seems to be rather to Isaiah 7:20, in which God describes his coming judgments upon Israel as a shaving, “with a razor that is hired . . . by the king of Assyria,” of the head and the beard. The symbolism was the more marked because Ezekiel was a priest, and the priests were expressly forbidden in the law to shave either the head or the beard (Leviticus 21:5). The shaving, therefore, of a priest’s head and beard with a sword betokened a most desolating judgment. Then take thee balances to weigh is not a mere detail introduced to give vividness to the symbolism, but seems designed to show the absolute certainty of the impending judgment.

CHAPTER V In this chapter the prophet shows, under the type of hair, the judgments which God was about to execute on the inhabitants of Jerusalem by famine, sword, and dispersion, 14. The type or allegory is then dropped, and God is introduced declaring in plain terms the vengeance that was coming on the whole nation which had proved so unworthy of those mercies with which they had hitherto been distinguished, 5-17. NOTES ON CHAP. V Verse 1. - 4. Take thee a sharp knife] Among the Israelites, and indeed among most ancient nations, there were very few edge-tools. The sword was the chief; and this was used as a knife, a razor, c., according to its different length and sharpness. It is likely that only one kind of instrument is here intended a knife or short sword, to be employed as a razor. Here is a new emblem produced, in order to mark out the coming evils. 1. The prophet represents the Jewish nation. 2. His hair, the people. 3. The razor, the Chaldeans. 4. The cutting the beard and hair, the calamities, sorrows, and disgrace coming upon the people. Cutting off the hair was a sign of mourning; see on Jeremiah 45:5; Jeremiah 48:37; and also a sign of great disgrace; see 2 Samuel 10:4. 5. He is ordered to divide the hair, Ezekiel 5:2, into three equal parts, to intimate the different degrees and kinds of punishment which should fall upon the people. 6. The balances, Ezekiel 5:1, were to represent the Divine justice, and the exactness with which God's judgments should be distributed among the offenders. 7. This hair, divided into three parts, is to be disposed of thus: 1. A third part is to be burnt in the midst of the city, to show that so many should perish by famine and pestilence during the siege. 2. Another third part he was to cut in small portions about the city, (that figure which he had pourtrayed upon the brick,) to signify those who should perish in different sorties, and in defending the walls. 3. And the remaining third part he was to scatter in the wind, to point out those who should be driven into captivity. And, 4. The sword following them was intended to show that their lives should be at the will of their captors, and that many of them should perish by the sword in their dispersions. 5. The few hairs which he was to take in his skirts, Ezekiel 5:3, was intended to represent those few Jews that should be left in the land under Gedaliah, after the taking of the city. 6. The throwing a part of these last into the fire, Ezekiel 5:4, was intended to show the miseries that these suffered in Judea, in Egypt, and finally in their being also carried away into Babylon on the conquest of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar. See these transactions particularly pointed out in the notes on Jeremiah, Jeremiah 40, Jeremiah 41, Jeremiah 42.

Ch. Ezekiel 5:1-4. Symbol shewing the fate of the population during the siege and after it, and their dispersion among the nations The prophet is commanded to take a sharp sword and use it as a barber’s razor. With this he is to shave off the hair of his head and beard. He is then to take balances in order accurately to weigh the hair into three parts. One third is to be burned in the fire within the city; a second third to be cut to pieces with the sword round about the city; and the last third is to be strewn to all the winds, and pursued by the sword. Of these last a few were to be taken and bound in the skirts of the prophet’s garment; though of these again some were to be thrown into the fire and consumed. The sense of the symbol is clear; a third part of the population shall be consumed by pestilence and famine within the city (Ezekiel 5:12); a third shall fall by the sword round about the city, on its capture; and a third shall be scattered among all nations, pursued by the sword. Of these a few shall meantime escape, but shall be subjected anew to consuming judgments.

Translate it: take thee a sharp sword, for a barber’s razor thou shalt take it thee. Even if the action were literal, the use of an actual sword would best enforce the symbolic meaning.

1. A sharp knife,… a barber’s razor — The prophet uses a knife (literally, sword) as a razor — or, less probably, his razor is called a sword (Ewald) — to make the meaning more plain that the people