Ezekiel Chapter 25

Sunday, 02/01/26 at 09:35
Solitary Man
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Eze 25:1 The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,

For those wonderful souls that have stuck with me thus far, I have only one question to ask:

‘Why?’. Don’t you have anything better to do than to listen to the endless ramblings of one such as myself?

Seriously, thank you! Give yourself a pat on the back. I truly hope and pray that you are being blessed even a fraction as much as I am by undertaking this deep dive into this most underappreciated book.

You will be happy to know that Yehovah has decided to catch his breath for a bit before continuing his unprecedented chastisement of his wayward tribe, the Judeans. We have just read that he has decided to seal Ezekiel’s lips for a time, since the final siege of Jerusalem has begun. But does that mean that Ezekiel can now close up shop, book that cruise, and take some much needed down time?

No. Not even close. Just because he has been silenced concerning Judah, God now uses this period to pronounce judgments on Judah’s surrounding nations. God did this very thing also in Isaiah chapters 13 to 19, and Jeremiah chapters 46 to 51. Here God will spend 8 chapters on 7 nations. Most of 7 chapters will be devoted to Tyre and Egypt. This first chapter will take care of 4 other nations, while the end of Tyre’s section will contain a short passage on Zidon, or Sidon.

The prime offence in God’s eyes was the gloating of these nations when Judah and Israel were being judged. Because there are going to be references that seem to indicate that these nations are gloating over the fact that the nation and temple are now gone, most commentators think that at least some of these prophecies were written after the fall of the temple. The fall was mentioned in chapter 33, so they believe these words should have been placed there. It is clear in the book of Jeremiah that the scribe collected Jeremiah’s various prophecies against the Gentile nations and attached them to the back of that book.

But Ezekiel is different from other prophets like Jeremiah, in that he takes great care to give us several dates and he makes a serious effort to write these things down chronologically, as he received them. Since chapter 33 actually has a date that is almost 1 and a half years after the fall of Jerusalem, I firmly believe that these words were all given between the start of the siege (9th year, 10th month, 10 day) and when Ezekiel was informed of the calamity (12th year, 10th month, 5th day – Jer 33:22 – 1 year, 6 months after the fall). God knew how each nation had behaved towards Judah’s past judgments, and saw how they continued to behave in the same way as Jerusalem fell this time.

What we will learn in this chapter is that, vengeance strictly belongs to God. While God is fully justified in punishing his people in any way that seems good to him, no one has the right to gloat, or to revel, or to rejoice, because the Jew is suffering.

Consequently, in this chapter, we will see very strong denunciations regarding both Jew hatred and replacement theology, 2 great plagues that have infected almost the entire world today.

This is so crucial for us to grasp. If anyone out there has, in any way, shape, or form, been deceived into giving an ear to these wicked ideas, let the lessons of what happens to nations that engage in this evil behavior take deep root in your heart. I don’t care what you think is right or wrong concerning the Jews. As far as God is concerned, they are his, and his alone, to do with as he pleases. Anyone that takes pleasure in, or contributes to, the suffering of the Jew, without the express permission and commandment of Yehovah himself, risks being wiped off the map. Even those whom God chose as his instruments of destruction, the Assyrians and the Babylonians, were also judged because they exceeded the boundaries of cruelty, as far as what God wanted them to do regarding the chastening of God’s people.

So let us enjoy a shorter chapter for a change, and take a break from God’s condemnation of his own. Let us now turn to see what happens to Israel’s traditional enemies.

Eze 25:2 Son of man, set thy face against the Ammonites (bane ammon – sons of the inbred), and prophesy against them;

You know, I simply love it when all of the heavy lifting of the sometimes tedious historical research has been taken care of already by the great scholars of the past. And remember that they had to do this without any computers, internet, search engines, and other modern day conveniences. It was all brute force searching and collating from what few texts that they had at their disposal. For a succinct, yet amazingly comprehensive biblical history of Ammon, let us allow Ellicott’s commentary to speak to us:

The Ammonites, descended from Lot’s incest with his younger daughter, had been for centuries persistent enemies of Israel. They had joined the Moabites in their oppression of Israel under Eglon (Judg 3:13), and in a later attack had been subdued by Jephthah (Judg 11:32-33); they fought with extreme cruelty and insolence against Saul (1Sam 11:2-11); they insulted and warred against David (2Sam 10:1-6), and were utterly crushed by him (2Sam 12:31); their idolatries were favoured by Solomon (1Ki 11:7); uniting with Moab and Edom, they attacked Judah under Jehoshaphat (2Chr 20:1-25), but utterly failed, and were tributary to his descendant, Uzziah (2Chr 26:8); again they fought with Jotham, and were reduced by him to heavy tribute (2Chr 27:5); and not long before this time they had occupied the vacant cities of Gad (Jer 49:1). Now they had joined Nebuchadnezzar’s army against Judah (2Ki 24:2). From Ez 25:3 it appears that their hostility arose not only from national jealousy, but from an especial hatred against the Jewish religion (comp. also Ps 83:7). They are the frequent subject of prophetic denunciation (Is 11:14; Jer 49:1-6; Amos 1:13-15; Zeph 2:8-11). [end]

From the above paragraph we can see that Ammon was a continual thorn in Israel’s side. There really was nothing good that could be said about them. Even their name, which means sons of the inbred, seems to tell you all that you need to know about them. Any nation that was formed because some daughter got her father so blind drunk that she could have sex with him is not a very good tale to share with your children, as far as founding father stories go!

Eze 25:3 And say unto the Ammonites, Hear the word of the Lord GOD; Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou saidst, Aha, against my sanctuary, when it was profaned (khaw-lal – polluted, dissolved); and against the land of Israel, when it was desolate (shaw-mame – stun, stupefy, lay waste); and against the house of Judah, when they went into captivity;

It is most likely that Ezekiel may have been told to send these prophetic words by the hands of some dignitary or merchant that was visiting Babylon at the time. I am sure that God did not simply have Ezekiel write this down for generations to come, but that these words were to be delivered to the kings of the respective nations. But it could be also be reasonable to assume that they also might have been primarily written for the comfort of Israel itself. While Yahweh had judged them most severely, at least Judah, and eventually even all Israel, had promises of future restoration. Many of these nations had no future whatsoever, once God finished with them. And since these prophecies were not conditional in any way, there would be no compelling reason to deliver them to those nations, since there was nothing that they could do to prevent it. Unlike Jonah, whom God specifically wanted to send to Nineveh, God was content to speak to the prophet from a place afar off. Maybe those pagan kings received a copy, maybe not. Since the meat of the judgments were sometimes a way off, some may have been made aware of them. But you get the sense that these things were written more for the comfort of God’s people rather than the enlightenment of the heathen.

This verse clearly shows the continual hatred of Ammon regarding Israel. From the fall of the northern kingdom, to the 3 deportations of Judah and its most recent destruction, Ammon was consistently glad. This eternal hatred of the Jew will be a recurring theme in this chapter. God does not like it at all.

Yehovah demands that Ammon hears his word. Unlike the ‘words’ from your false gods, these words shall come to pass.

Eze 25:4 Behold, therefore I will deliver thee to the men of the east for a possession, and they shall set their palaces (tee-raw – fortress, wall, castle, habitation) in thee, and make their dwellings in thee: they shall eat thy fruit, and they shall drink thy milk.

They rejoiced when Babylon destroyed Judah. Had they so soon forgotten who was next on Babylon’s list?

Eze 21:19 Also, thou son of man, appoint thee two ways, that the sword of the king of Babylon may come: both twain shall come forth out of one land: and choose thou a place, choose it at the head of the way to the city.
Eze 21:20 Appoint a way, that the sword may come to Rabbath of the Ammonites, and to Judah in Jerusalem the defenced.

Remember the passage above? God made the divination choose Judah first. But Ammon would not be forgotten:

Eze 21:28 And thou, son of man, prophesy and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD concerning the Ammonites, and concerning their reproach; even say thou, The sword, the sword is drawn: for the slaughter it is furbished, to consume because of the glittering:
Eze 21:29 Whiles they see vanity unto thee, whiles they divine a lie unto thee, to bring thee upon the necks of them that are slain, of the wicked, whose day is come, when their iniquity shall have an end.
Eze 21:30 Shall I cause it to return into his sheath? I will judge thee in the place where thou wast created, in the land of thy nativity.
Eze 21:31 And I will pour out mine indignation upon thee, I will blow against thee in the fire of my wrath, and deliver thee into the hand of brutish men, and skilful to destroy.
Eze 21:32 Thou shalt be for fuel to the fire; thy blood shall be in the midst of the land; thou shalt be no more remembered: for I the LORD have spoken it.

This new passage in chapter 25 is simply reiterating what God had already promised in chapter 21. Ammon must have gotten under God’s skin a little bit more than the other nations, since he makes sure to mention them twice. Nothing really good was ever said of Ammon, so it is fitting that God has nothing good planned for them.

Ammon is one of the several nations to be given to Nebuchadnezzar, whom God called his servant:

Jer_27:6 And now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant; and the beasts of the field have I given him also to serve him.

Babylon would build their own structures there. They would come and inhabit the land. They would consume the wealth of the land for themself.

All this is what happens to nations that hate the Jew. And isn’t that exactly what has happened to us? When the west turned its back on Israel, our troubles really began. From trying to divide the land with retarded two state solutions, to appeasing muslims due to the oil we bought, we were signing our own death warrant. But by far the worse thing that we did was teach various forms of replacement theologies. Saying that the church had replaced Israel gave the people permission to condemn and turn against the Jew. The church was the worst at spreading lies about the evil Jew. From caricatures of the evil Jewish banker, to the rot of Hollywood being the fault of the Jew, to the insane idea of the Ashkenazi myth, where some tried to prove that almost everyone in Israel today are not real Jews, to saying that all Jews are something horrible called Zionists, and they are all of the synagogue of satan, to saying that Jews controlled American foreign policy. All these ideas come from the deepest pits of hell. And they were all inspired by the same evil spirits that ruled in these lands adjacent to Israel. All these lands carried an irrational, eternal hatred of the Jew.

As God overran Ammon with hostile easterners that devoured their wealth and replaced their population, so it has come to pass in our lands as well. Our Jew hatred has attracted the worst Jew haters of all – the muslims. They have overrun our Christian lands, and have defiled our cities with their mosques. Those are the modern day fortresses of the enemy, where they plot their next moves in destroying us from within. We have given them an unbelievable amount of support and welfare. We have showered God’s enemies with all sorts of gifts, and they are not going away anytime soon. We have preached the devil’s gospel, and now the devil is here with his followers.

And it all started with the blasphemy that the church replaced Israel. This is the result of biblical illiteracy. The New Testament does not replace the Old. It is merely the final chapter in the same story. We also must allow for simple hatred by the medieval Catholic church regarding the fact that the Jews were the most difficult tribe to convert in all of Europe. They simply refused to abandon their heritage, and that drove the church crazy. You will notice today that American Catholics in particular are some of the worst offenders regarding Jew hatred. I have witnessed so many devout Catholics who, in all other matters of faith and morals and patriotism, seem to be on the right side of history. But when you speak of the Jew, they lose their minds. The old hatred bubbles right up and destroys their testimony.

Let me make this perfectly clear once and for all. I will never fellowship with, listen to, or work with, anyone who hates the Jew. And I will never accept that there is a difference between hating Israel and hating Jews. That is a lie. If you hate Israel, you are, by default, taking the muslim’s side. In every instance of Jew bashing that I have had the misfortune of being subjected to in the past couple of years, they will speak of Israel committing genocide in Gaza, but not once do they speak of the real atrocities committed daily by Hamas and every other muslim sect. It is sickening, it is disgusting, it is vile, and I cannot stand those people.

I cannot stand those people because God cannot stand those people. God’s enemies are my enemies, as David rightly points out:

Psa 139:21 Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee?
Psa 139:22 I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies.
Psa 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
Psa 139:24 And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

I absolutely love this passage of scripture. It puts to death this garbage that Christians are not allowed to hate anybody.

Wrong. Untrue. I could care less if every denomination preaches that lie, I choose to side with God. Notice here that David brags about the fact that he counts God’s enemies as his own enemies. He is proud that he hates with perfect hatred. And right after that, he asks God to search his heart. He knows that this attitude of hatred is perfectly righteous, and is absolutely unafraid if God sees it inside him.

This scripture is very easy to reconcile with the command to love our enemies. We are to love our enemies, not God’s. Anyone who personally attacks me, I have to forgive and to love. But anyone who boasts about being an enemy of the God of the bible, we are to hate. Do you think that Mr. Soros, Mr. Gates, or Mr. Fauci qualify as enemies of God? Absolutely they do. And many others. And that is out of their very own mouths. They hate God, they hate his commandments, and they hate his judgments. They have chosen their side. We have chosen ours.

Islam is the most serious enemy of Yehovah that we have on the earth today. This religion was created with one purpose only. To wipe the Jew and the Christian off the face of the earth. And for anyone to take islam’s side against the Jew is taking the side of God’s enemy, making yourself an enemy of God.

Let me be perfectly clear. Take islam’s side on anything versus the Jew, and you are guaranteeing yourself a place in hell. I don’t care if you claim to have accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, for you to take the side of those who want to eliminate the tribe that Jesus comes from, is a certain ticket to hell.

So go ahead. Be like the Ammonites. Take the side that opposes the Jew. If you do, stock up on suntan lotion. But you’ll about a million SPF (sun protection factor). Or should I say HFPF (hellfire protection factor).

Eze 25:5 And I will make Rabbah (great) a stable for camels, and the Ammonites a couchingplace (reclining place) for flocks: and ye shall know that I am the LORD.

Here we see that the nation is going to be turned into one gigantic stable. It looks like it will be nothing more than a big barnyard, fit only for the flocks of Babylon.

Eze 25:6 For thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast clapped thine hands, and stamped with the feet, and rejoiced in heart with all thy despite (sheh-awt – contempt) against the land of Israel;

This sounds like the fools who attend all those sporting events in our sports obsessed western nations. Or maybe a mega church ‘worship’ session? These guys were hooting and hollering up a storm. They couldn’t be happier that Judah just got whacked. They held Israel in total contempt.

And this is another thing that drives me mad. Why is the entire world solely picking on tiny Israel?

7 enemies are fighting against her all at once, over the tiniest piece of land imaginable, and the entire world cares nothing about most every other conflict in the planet today. They only care if Israel actually succeeds in defending itself. Every time a crazed, demon possessed Palestinian is killed, the world goes mad. Hamas can murder to their heart’s content. They can microwave babies, rape little girls, behead and burn everyone, and no one cares. But let one Israel rocket kill one ‘innocent’ Palestinian, and the world acts like the worst genocide in history has just taken place.

Think of what it must be like to be a Jew. You are the only people in history that went through a holocaust that was done on an industrial, scientific level. And since then, you have been given the tiniest piece of land on which to try and exist. All the while surrounded on all sides by people who hate you. And why do they hate you? Have you done anything to them? No. They simply hate, for the sake of hating. And nothing that you do can ever change that. You can kill 99.9% of them, and that 0.1% will come back and hate you all the more. There is nothing to be done with Gaza except to level it. The people cannot be reasoned with. And that is because they are under the influence of the same powerful evil spirits that have always lived in this land. We will deal with Philistia at the end of this chapter.

Eze 25:7 Behold, therefore I will stretch out mine hand upon thee, and will deliver thee for a spoil (baz – booty, prey, plunder) to the heathen (goy – gentiles); and I will cut thee off from the people, and I will cause thee to perish (aw-bad – lose oneself, be undone, have no way to flee) out of the countries (eh-rets – earth): I will destroy (shaw-mad – overthrow, perish) thee; and thou shalt know that I am the LORD.

Ammon is slated for total extinction. At least as a nation state. As with all things, we need to look at the entire word of God. Apparently there is yet some hope for some sort of remnant.

Jer 49:6 And afterward I will bring again the captivity of the children of Ammon, saith the LORD.

In the passage in Jeremiah, destruction is foretold. Here, they are to be given over as plunder, and are said to be cut off and perish. That perish also means to lose oneself. We know that Ammon ceased from being a nation, and disappeared from history. But perhaps this verse in Jeremiah hints at some surviving people group finding some sort of future. Note that it says God will turn the captivity of the children of Ammon, not Ammon itself. Thus the destroying spoken of here in Ezekiel would refer to the nation itself being wiped out for good.

If you have studied the prophets in any depth, you know that there are passages that sometimes are not obvious as to how they perfectly reconcile. And that is because prophecy is often written with a certain level of obscurity. That is to keep the enemy guessing, and to keep us humble and always seeking God. Future prophecies can never be spoken of with total certainty, as God has some very unique ways of fulfilling his word that most often would never cross our minds, until after the fact.

The point is to not be discouraged if you do not understand every little thing, especially in the prophetical books. That should not discourage us from studying them, but rather cause us to seek the deeper spiritual applications that lie within.

Eze 25:8 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because that Moab (from father) and Seir (rough) do say, Behold, the house of Judah is like unto all the heathen (goy);

Now Yahweh turns to Moab and Seir, which is Edom. Moab lay south of Ammon, Edom to the south of that. Edom is identified with mount Seir. They all shared a hatred of the Jew, and all rejoiced when Israel suffered.

One cannot discount the eternal consequence of the Patriarch’s deeds. While Abraham is touted as the father of the faith, he also recklessly gave the world Ishmael, and his son gave us Esau. While Lot was called a righteous man, he also gave us Moab and Ammon. Out of these sprung many of the Arab tribes, which were the backbone that created the foul religion of islam, which has become the bane of the entire planet.

And isn’t it amazing that when God decided not to choose them as his own, even though he did show them more favor than other Gentile nations, that a resentment and hatred developed that has not abated even unto this day? How can something last so long?

This teaches us the power of hatred and unforgiveness. While love and forgiveness have tremendous power, so does the opposite. One powers heaven, the other powers hell. Why in the world would any Christian want to power hell? Just look at how long hatred and unforgiveness can last! Let us run from these deadly things.

The judgment on Moab and Edom is not quite as severe, perhaps because they don’t take as much direct pleasure in Judah’s destruction as Ammon did. In effect, by stating that Judah is like all the other nations of the earth, they are engaging in their own form of replacement theology. That is, they claim that there is nothing special about the Jew. That they are not God’s chosen people.

God takes great exception to that. How could they forget all the special miracles that he performed on Israel’s behalf in delivering them out of Egypt? Had he ever done anything remotely similar for anyone else? Of course not. To treat Israel as common was blaspheming God’s holy name. He has placed his name and his presence in one nation only. To suggest otherwise was to attract his hot displeasure.

Eze 25:9 Therefore, behold, I will open the side of Moab from the cities, from his cities which are on his frontiers, the glory (tseb-ee – prominence, splendor) of the country (eh-rets), Bethjeshimoth (house of the deserts), Baalmeon (habitation of Baal), and Kiriathaim (double city),

So Moab will have their cities invaded and ruined. And isn’t that the pattern in our nations today? It is the great cities of the west that are first being overrun by the wicked. They destroy the main population centers, and spread out from there.

Barnes commentary gives us an interesting tidbit on the location of these cities:

I will open the side – i. e., lay it open to the attack of the enemy from the cities, from his cities, from his frontier (or, in every quarter). There is an ironical stress on “his” cities, because these cities belonged not to Moab but to Israel, having been assigned to the Reubenites Num 32:38; Josh 13:20. They lay to the north of the river Arnon, which was the proper boundary of Moab Num 21:13. The Moabites had in the last days of the kingdom of Israel recovered this territory Is 16:1-14. They still occupied this land in the time of Ezekiel (see Jer 48). [end]

So in actuality, they weren’t really ‘their’ cities, but Israel’s, given to them by Yahweh.

I could also provide you with some historical babbling about these three cities – where they were located exactly, what they were known for, and so forth, but I saw nothing that piqued my interest. This land was known for good pasturage, as that was why the 2 and a half tribes wished to settle there on the east side of the Jordan. Apparently these cities were the glory of Moab. That probably meant that they were what people would judge was the best feature of the nation. Something like Paris would be the glory of France, or Istanbul the glory of Turkey.

Eze 25:10 Unto the men of the east with the Ammonites, and will give them in possession, that the Ammonites may not be remembered among the nations (goy).
Eze 25:11 And I will execute judgments (sheh-fet – sentence, infliction) upon Moab; and they shall know that I am the LORD.

The verses were separated awkwardly here. Verses 9, 10, and 11 should be read together. It would then say that Moab will be opened, even their best cities, to the men of the east, along with Ammon, and both shall be given away, so that Ammon shall not be remembered, and Moab shall also experience my sentencing, and both shall realize that Yehovah is responsible for this.

Moab may have had a less harsh judgment due to the fact of its ties with David. Remember Ruth the Moabitess? She married into the line of David. When David was on the run from Saul, he brought his parents into Moab for safekeeping.

1Sa_22:3 And David went thence to Mizpeh of Moab: and he said unto the king of Moab, Let my father and my mother, I pray thee, come forth, and be with you, till I know what God will do for me.
1Sa_22:4 And he brought them before the king of Moab: and they dwelt with him all the while that David was in the hold.

Maybe that bit of history saved them from a harsher judgment. And let us not forget that God chose to give 47 verses of prophecy on Moab in the book of Jeremiah, compared to just 6 verses for Ammon! And Moab also has some sort of future as well:

Jer 48:47 Yet will I bring again the captivity of Moab in the latter days, saith the LORD. Thus far is the judgment of Moab.

So you never know how your one little act of kindness may affect your future. For Moab, it seemed to put them in a better position than her almost identical sister Ammon. So too we should not grow weary in well doing, as who knows what benefits each act will bring further down the road.

Eze 25:12 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because that Edom (red) hath dealt against the house of Judah by taking vengeance, and hath greatly offended, and revenged himself upon them;

Ellicott is such a fantastic guy, that I will let him speak again as he concisely summarizes this age old foe of God’s people:

The reason of Edom’s hostility to Israel is expressly said to be revenge. Descended from the elder son, they had never looked complacently on the spiritual superiority given to the descendants of the younger. They showed their hostility from the first in refusing, with a show of violence, a passage to the Israelites through their territory (Num 20:18-21); and although they were subdued and made tributary under David and Solomon (2Sam 8:14; 1Ki 9:26), yet in the decline of the Jewish power they availed themselves of every opportunity for hostility (2Chr 28:17, etc). At this time they not only joined the armies of Nebuchadnezzar, but appear to have urged on the conqueror to greater cruelty, and to have themselves waylaid the fugitives to cut them off (Ez 35:5; Ps 137:7; Am 1:11; Ob 1:11). They also, during the Captivity, took possession of many towns of Judea, including Hebron (Josephus., Antiquities of the Jews, xii. 8, & 6; B. J., 4:9, & 7), which were re-conquered in the time of the Maccabees. Other prophecies against Edom may be found in Num 24:18-19; Is 11:14; Jer 49:7-12; Joel 3:19, besides the extended prophecy of Ezekiel in Ezekiel chapter 35. [end]

They sound like Hamas and the Palestinians, do they not? Look at one of the above verses:

Psa 137:7 Remember, O LORD, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof.
Psa 137:8 O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.
Psa 137:9 Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

The fact that Edom is tied in with Babylon strongly suggests that they were there, aiding the Babylonians in the siege. God had no trouble including Ps 137:9 in the bible. Babylon was once a servant of God, but quickly went out of its way in excessive cruelty. All the psalmist is saying is that he looks forward to the day when they will be fully repaid. While Judah was guilty of her crimes, Babylon committed their share, and soon it would be their turn. The bible is full of rough language, as we have clearly found out in the book of Ezekiel. It is time for us to put away our political correctness, and face the fact that we are heading into a very dark time. The niceties of civilized men are rapidly disappearing. More and more people are noticing this. You can find an increasing number of videos that speak about the impossibility of our current culture surviving, if we continue in this nonsensical direction that we are headed. No one can get along with anyone else anymore. Unless we unplug and reconnect (with actual people), we are doomed to disappear, even as these nations have disappeared.

God becomes very upset if anyone takes vengeance into their own hands. He becomes over the top angry if you decide to take vengeance against his own chosen race.

Eze 25:13 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; I will also stretch out mine hand upon Edom, and will cut off man and beast from it; and I will make it desolate (khor-baw – drought, laid waste) from Teman (south); and they of Dedan shall fall (naphal – cast down, lost, slain) by the sword.

Gen 25:1 Then again Abraham took a wife, and her name was Keturah.
Gen 25:2 And she bare him Zimran, and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shuah.
Gen 25:3 And Jokshan begat Sheba, and Dedan. And the sons of Dedan were Asshurim, and Letushim, and Leummim.

We see from the above passage that Dedan was a descendant from Abraham.

Jer 49:7 Concerning Edom, thus saith the LORD of hosts; Is wisdom no more in Teman? is counsel perished from the prudent? is their wisdom vanished?

Gen 36:15 These were dukes of the sons of Esau: the sons of Eliphaz the firstborn son of Esau; duke Teman, duke Omar, duke Zepho, duke Kenaz,

Apparently Teman was known for its wisdom. The name would have been derived from one of the grandsons of Esau himself. One was in the north, the other in the south. It would be like saying from Dan (north) to Beersheba (south). All of Edom would fall by the enemy army. Nothing would be spared, not even the animals.

That sounds like our nations today, when animals are being slaughtered by the hundreds of millions due to fake PCR tests for bird flu. It seems to have eased off in America, but in Canada, it is full steam ahead. Ostriches, turkeys, peacocks, and God knows what else is next.

Such a sick world that we live in. Slaughtering innocent animals, and for what? All to demonstrate to the citizens that our governments are now all powerful. They can do whatever they want, and there is nothing that you can do about it. The police and the courts will not lift one finger to help you. In fact, if you make a fuss, they will make your life so miserable that you will wish you were never born.

But we can take some obscure sort of comfort that often it is Yahweh himself who is really behind these evil things. God knows that Canada deserves everything that is happening to it. If the beasts are to be slaughtered, and God has decreed it, then what can we do, except pray and plead for mercy. But even that is not really biblical, is it, if we are truly in the season of total judgment? Remember, when judgment starts, the prophet’s mouth is shut, and God will not repent until the judgment has run its course. If you pray, pray for the possibility of being hid, and being spared, as God does spare the righteous, but not always. And always pray that more and more people’s eyes will be opened to what is truly going on, so that they too can repent.

Eze 25:14 And I will lay my vengeance upon Edom by the hand of my people Israel (he will rule as GOd): and they shall do in Edom according to mine anger (af – wrath as smoke from the nostril) and according to my fury (khay-maw – hot poisonous wrath and rage); and they shall know my vengeance, saith the Lord GOD.

This must have been an unbelievable prophecy at the time. Jerusalem has just been razed to the ground, and all the people scattered and deported. And yet God said that Israel would be God’s instrument of retribution in this case.

I am sorry if I am making too much use of Mr. Ellicott, but he worded things so well, that why should I spend the time in paraphrasing what he has already unearthed:

This points distinctly to the fact that the Divine vengeance on Edom should be accomplished by the hand of the Israelites, a prophecy which was fulfilled when they were conquered by John Hyrcanus, and compelled to submit to circumcision as a mark of absorption into the Jewish people. Subsequently Herod (who was himself of Idumean origin), as king of the Jews, reigned over them, and their name disappeared from history. [end]

John Hyrcanus (175-104 BC) ruled as king and priest of Judah from 135 to 104 BC. He was the only ruler in Jewish history to force conversion on any Gentile group. His was the last reign where Judah was a powerful, united state.

The fact that God forced them to abandon their heritage finally put an official end to the nation of Esau, the man whom God is said to have hated. And according to this verse, this was all done according to the dictates of God’s anger.

Eze 25:15 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because the Philistines have dealt by revenge, and have taken vengeance with a despiteful (sheh-awt – full of contempt) heart, to destroy (mash-kheeth – corrupt, trap) it for the old (o-lawm – time out of mind) hatred (ay-baw – hostility, enmity);

We now come to the 4th and final group in this chapter. The history of Israel is one of an almost continual battle with these unrelenting enemies of Yehovah. And looking at Gaza today, they are still alive and well, are they not? Other passages that prophesy concerning them can be found in Is 14:29-32; Jer 47; Amos 1:6-8; Zep 2:4-7.

The passage in Amos is particularly telling:

Amo 1:6 Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Gaza, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they carried away captive the whole captivity, to deliver them up to Edom:
Amo 1:7 But I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza, which shall devour the palaces thereof:
Amo 1:8 And I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod, and him that holdeth the sceptre from Ashkelon, and I will turn mine hand against Ekron: and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish, saith the Lord GOD.

Now this passage would have referred to an earlier time, well before Ezekiel’s day. They seemed to have been in the business of capturing slaves from Israel and selling them to the Edomites. God remembers everything, and one day, everyone’s bill for their iniquities comes due.

The old hatred would refer to the initial kindling of their hostility, when Joshua entered the promised land. The Philistines had come from Phoenicia, and had built a wealthy seafaring mercantile empire. But here came these upstarts from the desert, claiming that their god had given them this land. Of course, that would not have gone over too well!

Philistia was never fully conquered. But they did fully disappear from history. The ‘Palestinians’ bear no tie to these people. That was a name given by the Romans to this area, after they had utterly destroyed the last of Jewish resistance in the promised land. They did this as a slight, referring to Israel’s eternal enemy. Somehow the name stuck. It has now been adopted by these wandering Arabs, whom the rest of the Arab lands want nothing to do with. They are glad to leave them in Gaza, as a permanent thorn in the side of the Jew.

The verse is soaked in hate, is it not? Anyone with half a brain can see the exact same implacable hatred that emanates out of the very pores of every Palestinian today. We must remember that even after 2 full years of obliteration of Hamas by Israel by late 2025, well over 70% of Palestinians still support Hamas. They are a death cult, and will continue to be a death cult, right to the very last man. There is nothing that Israel can do about this. Except to continue to kill them until Jesus returns.

Eze 25:16 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will stretch out mine hand upon the Philistines, and I will cut off the Cherethims (executioner), and destroy (aw-bad – wander away, be undone, perish) the remnant of the sea coast.

The Cherethims lived within Philistia, and are referenced in these passages:

1Sa 30:13 And David said unto him, To whom belongest thou? and whence art thou? And he said, I am a young man of Egypt, servant to an Amalekite; and my master left me, because three days agone I fell sick.
1Sa 30:14 We made an invasion upon the south of the Cherethites, and upon the coast which belongeth to Judah, and upon the south of Caleb; and we burned Ziklag with fire.

Zep 2:5 Woe unto the inhabitants of the sea coast, the nation of the Cherethites! the word of the LORD is against you; O Canaan, the land of the Philistines, I will even destroy thee, that there shall be no inhabitant.

Obviously according to Zephaniah, these boys were slated to be wiped out! While the nation of Philistia is no more, the spirit of the Philistines is alive and well in the area of Gaza today. I would hate to meet these fallen ones that are in charge of that place. Insane, unending anger and rage are what they are all about, and will continue to be for all eternity. You really feel sorry for Israel that they have to live right next to such a thing. The events of October 7, 2023, were proof that the only permanent solution to the problems in Gaza is a spiritual one. Until that ruling spirit is cast out, the spirit of the Philistines will endure, like the spirit of Sauron endured in the Lord of the Rings.

Eze 25:17 And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious (khay-maw) rebukes (to-kay-khaw – chastisement, correction, reproof, argument); and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.

It’s all about vengeance when it comes to dealing with the Philistines, is it not? God is not interested in offering a fig leaf to them. He is not concerned about seeing if by some chance they could be made to see the light, and repent. No, repentance is not on the menu. Neither is any sort of salvation or reprieve.

If by now we still don’t grasp the depth of God’s anger that he is capable of exhibiting, then we haven’t been paying attention. If God says that he is very angry, then he is very angry! There is no nuance here, no alternate meaning. He is in a vengeful mood, and that means you better get out of his way!

All these nations that have made themselves enemies of God and his chosen people. But have you noticed that they surround tiny Israel? Does this not strongly hint at the celestial war taking place behind the scenes? If our understanding is correct, that after the tower of Babel, God gave authority of all the nations of the earth to 70 ‘sons of God’, ie, fallen watchers. If they have control of virtually the entire planet, then why are they so obsessed with tiny Israel? A country that is only 0.0144% of all the land on the planet (basically, 1/100th of one percent), and the whole world is obsessed with taking that away. A whole new religion was created by satan that today has almost reached 2 billion adherents, whose real purpose is to first and foremost, destroy the Jew.

What sort of madness are we living in today?

Well, books such as Ezekiel help us in understanding where all this evil originated. God was against it then, and he is against it now. God also keeps an eye on every nation, not just Israel. But he seems to judge them by the way they treat his people.

That is a very sobering thought, is it not? Of course, he will judge the individual and the nation by all their sin. Western nations that had Jesus as their foundation can be looked upon as being treated more like Israel and Judah than like these pagan nations, since we claim to be God’s people. Of course, most western nations were converted from paganism to Christianity. The exceptions to that are America and Canada. Australia and New Zealand may fall under that category as well, since these 4 nations did not really have any form of national power, only scattered primitive indigenous tribes. Thus these 4 nations were founded as nations under the God of the bible, just as Israel was. But Israel itself was a nation that conquered its land, so who is to say which western nation fits the pattern better? All we know is that there is no nation like Israel. We may call ourselves Christian. Our forefathers may have attempted to initiate a covenant with Yehovah. But that is entirely different than what Yehovah did with Israel. He initiated the covenant with Abraham, not the other way around. Israel is unique.

So how does God judge the nations? How a nation treats Israel seems to be at the top of God’s list. I think it is reasonable to conclude that as a nation falls deeper into sin, the more hostile they become towards Israel. In fact, I think one could look at a nation’s attitude toward Israel as a fairly accurate spiritual barometer.

We have now firmly wet our feet regarding the judgments of God on the heathen. Next up is Tyre. Surprisingly, Yahweh will devote 3 chapters to this seemingly obscure nation. We will begin to investigate this odd fact when we begin the next chapter.

Solitary Man
solitaryman.substack.com