1And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 2“Man, set your face to Mount Seir and prophesy concerning it. 3And say to it, Thus said the Master the LORD:
Here I am against you, Mount Seir,
and I will reach out My hand against you
and turn you into a desolation and a devastation.
4Your towns I will make a ruin,
and you shall be a desolation,
and you shall know that I am the LORD.
5Inasmuch as you harbored age-old enmity and made the Israelites bleed with the sword in the time of their disaster, in the end-time of guilt. 6Therefore, as I live, said the Master, the LORD, I will surely turn you into blood, and blood shall pursue you. In blood did you hate, and blood shall surely pursue you. 7And I will turn Mount Seir into a desolation and a devastation and cut off from it anyone passing through or returning. 8And I will fill its mountains with its slain. Your hills and your valleys and all your watercourses—the slain by the sword shall fall in them.
9An everlasting desolation will I make you,
and none shall dwell in your towns,
and you shall know that I am the LORD.
10Inasmuch as you thought, ‘The two nations and the two lands shall be mine, and we shall take hold of them.’ But the LORD was there. 11Therefore, as I live, said the Master, the LORD: I will act according to your anger and according to your zeal as you acted from your hatred of them, and I will become known through them as I judge you. 12And you shall know that I am the LORD. I have heard all your jibes that you said of the mountains of Israel, saying, ‘A desolation! They have been given to us for food.’ 13And you were arrogant toward Me in your speech, and piled up words against Me. I have heard. 14Thus said the Master, the LORD: When all the earth rejoices, I will turn you into a desolation. 15Like your joy over the estate of the house of Israel for its becoming desolate, so will I do to you. Mount Seir shall be a desolation and all Edom, all of it, and they shall know that I am the LORD.”
CHAPTER 35 NOTES
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2. Mount Seir. This mountainous region in trans-Jordan was the territory of the Edomites.
5. you harbored age-old enmity. Hostile relations between Israel and Edom marked much of the period of the First Commonwealth.
made the Israelites bleed with the sword in the time of their disaster. Edom allied itself with Babylonia and played an eager role in the destruction of Jerusalem, as Psalm 137 vehemently recalls.
in the end-time of guilt. Ezekiel understands Israel’s violation of its covenant with God as the cause of national disaster, so the moment when Jerusalem is destroyed is the end-time when the people are doomed to pay the collective price for the guilt they have incurred.
6. I will surely turn you into blood, and blood shall pursue you. The Hebrew is terrifically compact and the meaning thus not entirely certain. What stands out is the triple insistence on “blood” in this verse. It is a way of emphasizing Edom’s bloodguilt: they shed the blood of Israelites, and now a fate of blood will befall them, bloodthirsty enemies will pursue them. The Hebrew for “blood,” dam, may play on Edom.
In blood did you hate. The Hebrew is literally “Blood did you hate,” and so the translation is somewhat conjectural.
10. The two nations and the two lands. These are Judah and Israel.
11. your hatred of them. That is, your hatred of Judah and Israel.
I will become known through them. This is a recurrent biblical theme: God’s fame is manifested to the nations as He shows His power through the destruction of the enemies of Israel.
12. A desolation! In this instance, the word appears to refer not to a landscape turned to desert but to a landscape emptied of human inhabitants. Thus the Edomites imagine that they will find or extract food on the mountains of Israel.
13. you were arrogant toward Me in your speech. Literally, “You were big against Me with your mouth.”
piled up. This translation takes the unusual verb he ʿetarta to derive from the Aramaic root ʿ-t-r, which indicates abundance or riches.
14. When all the earth rejoices. The probable reference is to the general rejoicing when Israel is restored to its land.