1And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 2“Man, set your face to the Ammonites and prophesy about them. 3And say to the Ammonites, ‘Listen to the word of the Master, the LORD. Thus said the master, the LORD: Inasmuch as you have said hurrah concerning My sanctuary when it was profaned and concerning the soil of Israel when it was desolated and concerning the house of Judah when they went into exile, 4therefore am I about to give you to the Easterners as an inheritance, and they shall set up their encampments within you and place their dwellings within you. They shall eat your fruit and they shall drink your milk. 5And I will turn Rabbah into a camel pasture and the Ammonite towns into a place where sheep bed down, and you shall know that I am the LORD. 6For thus said the Master, the LORD: Inasmuch as you have clapped your hands and stamped your feet and rejoiced in all your utmost spite over the soil of Israel, 7therefore, look, I have stretched out My hand against you and have made you spoil for the nations and have cut you off from among the peoples and made you perish from among the lands. I have destroyed you. And you shall know that I am the LORD.’”
8Thus said the Master, the LORD: “Inasmuch as Moab and Seir have said, ‘Look, the house of Judah is like all the nations,’ 9therefore will I expose the flank of Moab, its towns every one of them, the splendor of the land—Beth-Jeshimoth, Baal-Meon, and Kiriathaim 10to the Easterners, besides the Ammonites, I will give it as an inheritance, that the Ammonites be not recalled among the nations. 11And against Moab will I wreak punishment, and they shall know that I am the LORD.”
12Thus said the Master, the LORD, “Inasmuch as Edom has taken vengeance on the house of Judah and incurred guilt and wreaked vengeance upon them, 13therefore thus said the Master, the LORD: I will stretch out My hand against Edom and cut off from her man and beast and turn her into ruins, from Teman to Dedan they shall fall by the sword. 14And I will set My vengeance against Edom through the hand of My people of Israel, and they shall act against Edom according to My anger and according to My wrath; and they shall know My vengeance, said the Master, the LORD.”
15Thus said the Master, the LORD, “Inasmuch as the Philistines have acted in vengeance and wreaked vengeance in utmost spite as a destroyer, in age-old enmity, 16therefore, thus said the Master, the LORD: I am about to stretch out My hand against the Philistines and I will cut off the Cherithites and destroy the remnant of the seacoast. 17And I will wreak great vengeance upon them in punishing wrath, and they shall know that I am the LORD when I exact vengeance from them.”
CHAPTER 25 NOTES
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2. set your face to the Ammonites and prophesy about them. Ezekiel now turns his attention from Israel to the surrounding peoples that have been hostile toward Israel, each now predicted to have its comeuppance. Four different peoples are singled out in this chapter, and the language used is stereotypical, varying only slightly from one prophecy to the next.
3. Listen to the word of the Master, the LORD. One may regard this direct address to the Ammonites as a kind of rhetorical fiction since it is virtually inconceivable that Ezekiel actually will speak to them.
you have said hurrah. The guilt of the Ammonites is in their open expression of schadenfreude at the destruction of Jerusalem. Given the context, it looks as if this sequence of prophecies was pronounced after 586 B.C.E.
4. the Easterners. These are nomadic tribes, chiefly Arab, living in the desert area east of the Jordan. Their nomadic character is indicated in their setting up “encampments,” not towns, in the conquered area of Ammon. The erasure of the urban nature of Ammon is spelled out in the next verse.
7. I have destroyed you. This phrase (a single Hebrew word) looks out of place syntactically and is a superfluous repetition of what immediately precedes.
10. besides the Ammonites. The evident sense is that Moab as well as Ammon will be given to the eastern tribes.
12. Edom has taken vengeance. Unlike the previously mentioned peoples, who gloated over the fall of Judah, Edom actually allied itself with the Babylonians and played an active role in Judah’s destruction. The anger against the Edomite collaboration with the Babylonian invaders is sharply registered in Psalm 137.
13. from Teman to Dedan. Though both are obviously Edomite towns and are mentioned elsewhere, their exact location has not been determined.
15. the Philistines. They were perennial enemies of the Israelites from the period of the Judges onward, a fact noted in the phrase “age-old enmity.”
16. the Cherithites. That is, the Cypriots. According to biblical tradition, the origin of the Philistines, who certainly came from the Greek sphere, was Cyprus.
the remnant of the seacoast. The Philistines, associated with the Sea Peoples who are mentioned in Egyptian sources, arrived via the Mediterranean in the thirteenth century B.C.E. and remained largely confined to a strip of territory close to the seacoast.