Ezekiel 21:1

THE SONG OF THE SWORD

This chapter is called by many "The Song of the Sword." Why? The word "sword" occurs no less than thirteen times in 32 verses, being repeated over and over again, doubled and thrice doubled in its significance. It is God's explanation of the parable of the great forest fire just presented in Ezekiel 20, which the stubborn sinners who heard it pretended not to understand. They certainly could not have missed the point of this explanation. It was the sword, the sword, the sword, the sword, etc. the sword sharpened, the sword polished, the sword swift as lightning, the sword of the Lord, but particularly the sword of Babylon the agent of God in his punishment of Israel.

Ezekiel 21:1-7

"And the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face toward Jerusalem, and drop thy word toward the sanctuaries, and prophesy against the land of Israel; and say to the land of Israel, Thus saith Jehovah; Behold, I am against thee, and will draw forth my sword out of its sheath, and will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked. Seeing then that I will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked, therefore shall my sword go forth out of its sheath against all flesh from the south to the north. And all flesh shall know that I, Jehovah, have drawn forth my sword out of its sheath; it shall not return any more. Sigh therefore, thou son of man; with the breaking of thy loins and with bitterness shalt thou sigh before their eyes. And it shall be when they say unto thee, Wherefore sighest thou? that thou shalt say, Because of the tidings, for it cometh; and every heart shalt melt, and all hands shall be feeble, and all knees shall be weak as water: behold, it cometh, and it shall be done, saith the Lord Jehovah."

The parable of the great fire is fully explained here. The South is Jerusalem; the field of the South is Palestine; the forest of the field of the South is the people; every green tree and every dry tree are references to the wicked and the righteous, both of whom are marked for destruction. The great fire stands for war, symbolized here as "the sword."

"Sigh, therefore, thou son of man ..." (Ezekiel 21:6). We have frequently noted the behavior of God's prophets who actually confirmed the predictive nature of their prophecies by their bizarre behavior at the time of giving the prophecy. Isaiah went barefoot for two years; Jeremiah wore an ox yoke to the king's court; Micah screamed like a jackal and wallowed in the dirt; here Ezekiel sighed and manifested great grief as a man with a broken heart, provoking an inquiry from the people, as to what it all meant. This behavior is the complete and irrevocable refutation of nonsense that Ezekiel "might not have written this chapter."[1] No man would possibly have behaved in the manner indicated here concerning an event that had already happened.

"With the breaking of thy loins ..." (Ezekiel 21:5). The KJV and the Revised Standard Version are better here, reading "breaking of thy heart." In ancient times the loins (kidneys) were thought to be the seat of the emotions, now said to be "in the heart," not the physical heart, of course, but the brain, which is the seat of intelligence and the emotions.