Ezekiel 35
Berean Standard Bible · Compare translations · 585 BC – 573 BC · Exile in Babylon · Tap a verse to copy, share or highlight ·
15 verses · 375 words · ~2 min read · ~3 min listen
A Prophecy against Mount Seir
1Moreover, the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 2“Son of man, set your face against Mount Seir and prophesy against it, 3and declare that this is what the Lord God says:
5Because you harbored an ancient hatred and delivered the Israelites over to the sword in the time of their disaster at the final stage of their punishment, 6therefore as surely as I live, declares the Lord God, I will give you over to bloodshed and it will pursue you. Since you did not hate bloodshed, it will pursue you.
7I will make Mount Seir a desolate waste and will cut off from it those who come and go. 8I will fill its mountains with the slain; those killed by the sword will fall on your hills, in your valleys, and in all your ravines. 9I will make you a perpetual desolation, and your cities will not be inhabited. Then you will know that I am the Lord.
10Because you have said, ‘These two nations and countries will be ours, and we will possess them,’ even though the Lord was there, 11therefore as surely as I live, declares the Lord God, I will treat you according to the anger and jealousy you showed in your hatred against them, and I will make Myself known among them when I judge you.
12Then you will know that I, the Lord, have heard every contemptuous word you uttered against the mountains of Israel when you said, ‘They are desolate; they are given to us to devour!’ 13You boasted against Me with your mouth and multiplied your words against Me. I heard it Myself!
14This is what the Lord God says: While the whole earth rejoices, I will make you desolate. 15As you rejoiced when the inheritance of the house of Israel became desolate, so will I do to you. You will become a desolation, O Mount Seir, and so will all of Edom. Then they will know that I am the Lord.
Study notes on this chapter · 1
Edom brought down
Obadiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Malachi pronounce judgment on Edom for gloating over Jerusalem's fall and for taking advantage of it. Edomite territory was overrun by the Nabataean Arabs after c. 550–400 BC, and the Edomites moved into southern Judea (Idumea). The Idumeans were forcibly absorbed by the Hasmonean John Hyrcanus c. 125 BC, and Herod the Great came from an Idumean family.
When: Obadiah, c. 586 BC (or earlier); Edom displaced by Nabataeans from the 6th–4th centuries BC.
Ways people read this (3)
- The prophecies were fulfilled as Edom lost its land and identity over several centuries.
- Some readings see in Edom a symbol for the nations opposed to God at the end of the age (Obadiah 15-21).
- The date of Obadiah depends on which invasion of Jerusalem is meant (c. 845 BC or 586 BC).
Editorial note by BibleWay. Interpretations vary; dates are approximate scholarly estimates.