Ezekiel 7:5

⁴I will not look on you with pity, nor will I spare you, but I will punish you for your ways and for the abominations among you. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’ ⁵This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Disaster! An unprecedented disaster — behold, it is coming! ⁶The end has come! The end has come! It has roused itself against you. Behold, it has come!

Summary

Ezekiel 7:5 delivers a powerful message of impending judgment from God upon the people of Israel due to their persistent disobedience and idolatry. The verse conveys a sense of urgency and finality, emphasizing that the day of reckoning has come and that the consequences of their actions cannot be avoided. It serves as a solemn warning of the severe consequences of sin and rebellion against God, urging repentance and a turning back to Him before it is too late. Ultimately, Ezekiel 7:5 highlights the righteousness and holiness of God, who will not tolerate unrepentant sin but desires genuine repentance and obedience from His people.

Commentary

Adam Clarke
Keil-Delitzsch
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown
John Gill
Tyndale

Adam Clarke Bible Commentary

An evil, an only evil - The great, the sovereign, the last exterminating evil, is come: the sword, the pestilence, the famine, and the captivity. Many MSS. read אחר achar, after. So evil cometh after evil; one instantly succeeds another.

Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary

The execution of the judgment announced in Eze 7:2-4, arranged in four strophes: Eze 7:5-9, Eze 7:10-14, Eze 7:15-22, Eze 7:23-27. - The first strophe depicts the end as a terrible calamity, and as near at hand. Eze 7:3 and Eze 7:4 are repeated as a refrain in Eze 7:8 and Eze 7:9, with slight modifications. Eze 7:5. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Misfortune, a singular misfortune, behold, it cometh. Eze 7:6. End cometh: there cometh the end; it waketh upon thee; behold, it cometh. Eze 7:7. The fate cometh upon thee, inhabitants of the land: the time cometh, the day is near; tumult and not joy upon the mountains. Eze 7:8. Now speedily will I pour out my fury upon thee, and accomplish mine anger on thee; and judge thee according to thy ways, and bring upon thee all thine abominations. Eze 7:9. My eye shall not look with pity upon thee, and I shall not spare; according to thy ways will I bring it upon thee, and thy abominations shall be in the midst of thee, that ye may know that I, Jehovah, am smiting. - Misfortune of a singular kind shall come. רעה is made more emphatic by אחת רעה, in which אחת is placed first for the sake of emphasis, in the sense of unicus, singularis; a calamity singular (unique) of its kind, such as never had occurred before (cf. Eze 5:9). In Eze 7:6 the poetical הקיץ, it (the end) waketh upon thee, is suggested by the paronomasia with הקּץ. The force of the words is weakened by supplying Jehovah as the subject to הקיץ, in opposition to the context. And it will not do to supply רעה (evil) from Eze 7:5 as the subject to הנּה באה (behold, it cometh). באה is construed impersonally: It cometh, namely, every dreadful thing which the end brings with it. The meaning of tzephirâh is doubtful. The only other passage in which it occurs is Isa 28:5, where it is used in the sense of diadem or crown, which is altogether unsuitable here. Raschi has therefore had recourse to the Syriac and Chaldee צפרא, aurora, tempus matutinum, and Hvernick has explained it accordingly, "the dawn of an evil day." But the dawn is never used as a symbol or omen of misfortune, not even in Joe 2:2, but solely as the sign of the bursting forth of light or of salvation. Abarbanel was on the right track when he started from the radical meaning of צפר, to twist, and taking tzephirâh in the sense of orbis, ordo, or periodical return, understood it as probably denoting rerum fatique vicissitudinem in orbem redeuntem (Ges. Thes. p. 1188). But it has been justly observed, that the rendering succession, or periodical return, can only give a forced sense in Eze 7:10. Winer has given a better rendering, viz., fatum, malum fatale, fate or destiny, for which he refers to the Arabic tsabramun, intortum, then fatum haud mutandum inevitabile. Different explanations have also been given of הד הרים. But the opinion that it is synonymous with הידד, the joyous vintage cry (Jer 25:30; Isa 16:10), is a more probable one than that it is an unusual form of הוד, splendor, gloria. So much at any rate is obvious from the context, that the hapax legomenon dh̀ is the antithesis of מהוּמה, tumult, or the noise of war. The shouting of the mountains, is shouting, a rejoicing upon the mountains. מקּרוב, from the immediate vicinity, in a temporal not a local sense, as in Deu 32:17 (= immediately). For כּלּה , see Eze 6:1-14;12. The remainder of the strophe (Eze 7:8 and Eze 7:9) is a repetition of Eze 7:3 and Eze 7:4; but מכּה is added in the last clause. They shall learn that it is Jehovah who smites. This thought is expanded in the following strophe.