Ezekiel 25:1

Came again. Thus begins a new series of prophecies having to do with various neighboring nations. Ezekiel had finished his testimony relative to the destruction of Jerusalem and the remnants of the Israelite state. He was to say no more about it, but was to await the fulfillment of the foretold doom. In the interval God bade him to direct his attention to the nations surrounding Israel, and to forecast their inevitable fate. Judgment had begun with the house of God (see Eze. 9:6; cf. 1 Peter 4:17), but now it was to extend to the outside world.

God is not a God of one nation only; He is a God of all the world. He is no respecter of persons. All souls are His regardless of national affiliations. He is as anxious to save the inhabitants of one nation as those of another. By revealing Himself as the supreme disposer of events and the arbiter of nations, He aimed to attract men to Himself and to solicit their worship. He planned that a display of His omniscience, in forecasting so accurately their future history, should provide the necessary basis for faith. True, the threatenings called down upon these peoples appear severe and unrelenting, unmixed with mercy. However, it must be remembered that these were national judgments in which the personal salvation of the individual citizens was not necessarily involved. It is often the case that national calamity drives men to seek God, so that what appears to be for their disadvantage really works for their good.

God keeps an accurate account with nations. They are all tested as to whether or not they will fulfill the high destiny assigned them. When their account is full, they suffer their penalty, as a nation. The same was true with Israel. It suffered the most tragic overthrow, but through it all God planned to work out the salvation of a small remnant. See on Dan. 4:17.

Furthermore, at a time when Israel was looking to some of these nations for military support, she needed to be shown the utter futility of her aspirations, for all these nations themselves would suffer defeat.

This new section contains messages to seven nations most closely connected with the fortunes of Israel and Judah: (1) Ammon (ch. 25:1-7), (2) Moab (ch. 25:8-11), (3) Edom (ch. 25:12-14), (4) Philistia (ch. 25:15-17), (5) Tyre (chs. 26:1 to 28:19), (6) Sidon (ch. 28:20-23), and (7) Egypt (chs. 29:1-32:32).

Some are puzzled that Ezekiel includes no prophecy against Babylon. Isaiah (Isa. 13), Jeremiah (Jer. 51:52, 53), and Daniel (Dan. 2; Dan. 7) all predict her downfall. Ezekiel’s work was to point out how God would use Babylon as the executor of His will in judgments upon His people, and the effect of this might have been destroyed had he dwelt upon Babylon’s own final overthrow. It was more appropriate that the exiles for whom he wrote should “seek the peace” of the people among whom they dwelt (see Jer. 29:7) than that they should exult in her eventual downfall. To speak openly against the country of his captors probably would have cost Ezekiel his life.