The document discusses a vision from Ezekiel in which God summons angels to execute judgment on Jerusalem due to its abominations, indicating a shift from protection to destruction. Six angels armed with destruction tools are depicted, alongside one angel clothed in linen, who serves the role of a mediator to secure the pious remnant who mourn for the city's sins. The vision underscores the theme of divine justice and mercy, highlighting the consequences of sin while assuring the faithful of God's protection.

1. EZEKIEL 9 COMMENTARY
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
Judgment on the Idolaters
1 Then I heard him call out in a loud voice, “Bring
near those who are appointed to execute judgment
on the city, each with a weapon in his hand.”
BARNES, "Them that have charge - The angels who have charge to execute God’s
sentence.
Every man - “angels,” not “men.”
CLARKE, "Cause them that have charge over the city - By those six men with
destroying weapons the Chaldeans are represented, who had received commission to
destroy the city; and when the north is mentioned in such cases, Chaldea and the
Chaldean armies are generally intended. There appears to have been six men with a sort
of slaughter-bills, and one man with an inkhorn. These may represent the seven
counsellors of the eastern monarchs, who always saw the king’s face, and knew all the
secrets of the government. One of them was that minister who had the office of reporting
concerning criminals, who carried the book of death and the book of life into the
presence of the king, where the names were entered of criminals who were destined to
suffer, and of those who were either considered as innocent or recommended to mercy;
those of the former in the book of death, those of the latter in the book of life. This
person with the inkhorn might be termed, in our phrase, the recorder.
GILL, "He cried also in mine ears with a loud voice,.... That is, the glory of the
Lord God of Israel, whom the prophet saw in the temple, and who directed him from
place to place, and showed him all the abominations committed there: this loud voice of
the Lord was not so much to excite the attention of the prophet, as to call together the
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2. ministers of his vengeance; and to show the greatness of his indignation, and the
vehemence of his wrath, which was stirred up by the sins of the people:
saying, cause them that have the charge over the city to draw near; or,
"who were appointed over the city,''
as the Targum; that is, the city of Jerusalem; by whom are meant either the ministering
angels, who had been the guardians of it, but now were to be employed another way; or
the princes of the Chaldean army, who had a charge against the city to destroy it; see
Isa_10:6. The Syriac version is, "draw near, ye avengers of the city"; and the Septuagint
and Arabic versions are "the vengeance of the city draws nigh":
even every man with his destroying weapon in his hand; weapons of war, as
bows and arrows, sword and spear; see Jer_6:22.
HENRY 1-4, “In these verses we have,
I. The summons given to Jerusalem's destroyers to come forth and give their
attendance. He that appeared to the prophet (Eze_8:2), that had brought him to
Jerusalem and had shown the wickedness that was done there, he cried, Cause those
that have charge over the city to draw near (Eze_9:1), or, as it might better be read,
and nearer the original, Those that have charge over the city are drawing near. He had
said (Eze_8:18), I will deal in fury; now, says he to the prophet, thou shalt see who are
to be employed as the instruments of my wrath. Appropinquaverunt visitationes
civitatis - The visitations (or visitors) of the city are at hand. They would not know the
day of their visitations in mercy, and now they are to be visited in wrath. Observe, 1.
how the notice of this is given to the prophet: He cried it in my ears with a loud voice,
which intimates the vehemency of him that spoke; when men are highly provoked, and
threaten in anger, they speak aloud. Those that regard not the counsels God gives them
in a still small voice shall be made to hear the threatenings, to hear and tremble. It
denotes also the prophet's unwillingness to be told this: he was deaf on that ear, but
there is no remedy, their sin will not admit an excuse and therefore their judgment will
not admit a delay: “He cried it in my ears with a loud voice; he made me hear it, and I
heard it with a sad heart.” 2. What this notice is. There are those that have charge over
the city to destroy it, not the Chaldean armies, they are to be indeed employed in this
work, but they are not the visitors, they are only the servants, or tools rather. God's
angels have received a charge now to lay that city waste, which they had long had a
charge to protect and watch over. They are at hand, as destroying angels, as ministers of
wrath, for every man has his destroying weapon in his hand, as the angel that kept the
way of the tree of life with a flaming sword. Note, Those that have by sin made God their
enemy have made the good angels their enemies too. These visitors are called and
caused to draw near. Note, God has ministers of wrath always within call, always at
command, invisible powers, by whom he accomplishes is purposes. The prophet is made
to see this in vision, that he might with the greater assurance in his preaching denounce
these judgments. God told it him with a loud voice, taught it him with a strong hand
(Isa_8:11), that it might make the deeper impression upon him and that he might thus
proclaim it in the people's ears.
II. Their appearance, upon this summons, is recorded. Immediately six men came
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3. (Eze_9:2), one for each of the principal gates of Jerusalem. Two destroying angels were
sent against Sodom, but six against Jerusalem; for Jerusalem's doom in the judgment
will be thrice as heavy as that of Sodom. There is an angel watching at every gate to
destroy, to bring in judgments from every quarter, and to take heed that none escape.
One angel served to destroy the first-born of Egypt, and the camp of the Assyrians, but
here are six. In the Revelation we find seven that were to pour out the vials of God's
wrath, Rev_16:1. They came with every one a slaughter-weapon in his hand, prepared
for the work to which they were called. The nations of which the king of Babylon's army
was composed, which some reckon to be six, and the commanders of his army (of whom
six are named as principal, Jer_39:3), may be called the slaughter-weapons in the hands
of the angels. The angels are thoroughly furnished for every service. 1. Observe whence
they came - from the way of the higher gate, which lies towards the north (Eze_9:2),
either because the Chaldeans came from the north (Jer_1:14, Out of the north an evil
shall break forth) or because the image of jealousy was set up at the door of the inner
gate that looks towards the north, Eze_8:3, Eze_8:5. At that gate of the temple the
destroying angels entered, to show what it was that opened the door to them. Note, That
way that sin lies judgments may be expected to come. 2. Observe where they placed
themselves: They went in and stood beside the brazen altar, on which sacrifices were
wont to be offered and atonement made. When they acted as destroyers they acted as
sacrificers, not from any personal revenge or ill-will, but with a pure and sincere regard
to the glory of God; for to his justice all they slew were offered up as victims. They stood
by the altar, as it were to protect and vindicate that, and plead its righteous cause, and
avenge the horrid profanation of it. At the altar they were to receive their commission to
destroy, to intimate that the iniquity of Jerusalem, like that of Eli's house, was not to be
purged by sacrifice.
III. The notice taken of one among the destroying angels distinguished in his habit
from the rest, from whom some favour might be expected; it should seem he was not one
of the six, but among them, to see that mercy was mixed with judgment, Eze_9:2. This
man was clothed with linen, as the priests were, and he had a writer's inkhorn hanging
at his side, as anciently attorneys and lawyers' clerks had, which he was to make use of,
as the other six were to make use of their destroying weapons. Here the honours of the
pen exceeded those of the sword, but he was the Lord of angels that made use of the
writer's inkhorn; for it is generally agreed, among the best interpreters, that this man
represented Christ as Mediator saving those that are his from the flaming sword of
divine justice. He is our high priest, clothed with holiness, for that was signified by the
fine linen, Rev_19:8. As prophet he wears the writer's inkhorn. The book of life is the
Lamb's book. The great things of the law and gospel which God has written to us are of
his writing; for it is the Spirit of Christ, in the writers of the scripture, that testifies to us,
and the Bible is the revelation of Jesus Christ. Note, It is a matter of great comfort to all
good Christians that, in the midst of the destroyers and the destructions that are abroad,
there is a Mediator, a great high priest, who has an interest in heaven, and whom saints
on earth have an interest in.
IV. The removal of the appearance of the divine glory from over the cherubim. Some
think this was that usual display of the divine glory which was between the cherubim
over the mercy seat, in the most holy place, that took leave of them now, and never
returned; for it is supposed that it was not in the second temple. Others think it was that
display of the divine glory which the prophet now saw over the cherubim in vision; and
this is more probable, because this is called the glory of the God of Israel (Rev_8:4), and
this is it which he had now his eye upon; this was gone to the threshold of the house, as it
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4. were to call to the servants that attended without the door, to send them on their errand
and give them their instructions. And the removal of this, as well as the former, might be
significant of God's departure from them, and leaving them their house desolate; and
when God goes all good goes, but he goes from none till they first drive him from them.
He went at first no further than the threshold, that he might show how loth he was to
depart, and might give them both time and encouragement to invite his return to them
and his stay with them. Note, God's departures from a people are gradual, but gracious
souls are soon award of the first step he takes towards a remove. Ezekiel immediately
observed that the glory of the god of Israel had gone up from the cherub: and what is a
vision of angels if God be gone?
V. The charge given to the man clothed in linen to secure the pious remnant from the
general desolation. We do not read that this Saviour was summoned and sent for, as the
destroyers were; for he is always ready, appearing in the presence of God for us; and to
him, as the most proper person, the care of those that are marked for salvation is
committed, Eze_9:4. Now observe, 1. The distinguishing character of this remnant that
is to be saved. They are such as sigh and cry, sigh in themselves, as men in pain and
distress, cry to God in prayer, as men in earnest, because of all the abominations that
are committed in Jerusalem. It was not only the idolatries they were guilty of, but all
their other enormities, that were abominations to God. These pious few had witnessed
against those abominations and had done what they could in their places to suppress
them; but, finding all their attempts for the reformation of manners fruitless, they sat
down, and sighted, and cried, wept in secret, and complained to God, because of the
dishonour done to his name by their wickedness and the ruin it was bringing upon their
church and nation. Note, It is not enough that we do not delight in the sins of others,
and that we have not fellowship with them, but we must mourn for them, and lay them
to heart; we must grieve for that which we cannot help, as those that hate sin for its own
sake, and have a tender concern for the souls of others, as David (Psa_119:136), and Lot,
who vexed his righteous soul with the wicked conversation of his neighbours. The
abominations committed in Jerusalem are to be in a special manner lamented, because
they are in a particular manner offensive to God. 2. The distinguishing care taken of
them. Orders are given to find those all out that are of such a pious public spirit: “Go
through the midst of the city in quest of them, and though they are ever so much
dispersed, and ever so closely hid from the fury of their persecutors, yet see that you
discover them, and set a mark upon their foreheads,” (1.) To signify that God owns them
for his, and he will confess them another day. A work of grace in the soul is to God a
mark upon the forehead, which he will acknowledge as his mark, and by which he knows
those that are his. (2.) To give to them who are thus marked an assurance of God's
favour, that they may know it themselves; and the comfort of knowing it will be the most
powerful support and cordial in calamitous times. Why should we perplex ourselves
about this temporal life if we know by the mark that we have eternal life? (3.) To be a
direction to the destroyers whom to pass by, as the blood upon the door-posts was an
indication that that was an Israelite's house, and the first-born there must not be slain.
Note, Those who keep themselves pure in times of common iniquity God will keep safe
in times of common calamity. Those that distinguish themselves shall be distinguished;
those that cry for other men's sins shall not need to cry for their own afflictions, for they
shall be either delivered from them or comforted under them. God will set a mark upon
his mourners, will book their sighs and bottle their tears. The sealing of the servants of
God in their foreheads mentioned in Rev_7:3 was the same token of the care God has of
his own people with this related here; only this was to secure them from being
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5. destroyed, that from being seduced, which is equivalent.
JAMISON, "Eze_9:1-11. Continuation of the preceeding vision: The sealing of the
faithful.
cried — contrasted with their “cry” for mercy (Eze_8:18) is the “cry” here for
vengeance, showing how vain was the former.
them that have charge — literally, officers; so “officers” (Isa_60:17), having the
city in charge, not to guard, but to punish it. The angels who as “watchers” fulfil God’s
judgments (Dan_4:13, Dan_4:17, Dan_4:23; Dan_10:20, Dan_10:21); the “princes”
(Jer_39:3) of Nebuchadnezzar’s army were under their guidance.
draw near — in the Hebrew intensive, “to draw near quickly.”
K&D 1-3, “The Angels which Smite Jerusalem
At the call of Jehovah, His servants appear to execute the judgment. - Eze_9:1. And He
called in my ears with a loud voice, saying, Come hither, ye watchmen of the city, and
every one his instrument of destruction in his hand. Eze_9:2. And behold six men came
by the way of the upper gage, which is directed toward the north, every one with his
smashing-tool in his hand; and a man in the midst of them, clothed in white linen, and
writing materials by his hip; and they came and stood near the brazen altar. Eze_9:3.
And the glory of the God of Israel rose up from the cherub, upon which it was, to the
threshold of the house, and called to the man clothed in white linen, by whose hip the
writing materials were. - ‫ת‬ ‫דּ‬ ֻ‫ק‬ ְ‫פּ‬ ‫יר‬ ִ‫ע‬ ָ‫ה‬ does not mean the punishments of the city. This
rendering does not suit the context, since it is not the punishments that are introduced,
but the men who execute them; and it is not established by the usage of the language.
‫ה‬ ָ‫דּ‬ ֻ‫ק‬ ְ‫פּ‬ is frequently used, no doubt, in the sense of visitation or chastisement (e.g., Isa_
10:3; Hos_9:7); but it is not met with in the plural in this sense. In the plural it only
occurs in the sense of supervision or protectorate, in which sense it occurs not only in
Jer_52:11 and Eze_44:11, but also (in the singular) in Isa_60:17, and as early as Num_
3:38, where it relates to the presidency of the priests, and very frequently in the
Chronicles. Consequently ‫ת‬ ‫דּ‬ ֻ‫ק‬ ְ‫פּ‬ are those whom God has appointed to watch over the
city, the city-guard (2Ki_11:18), - not earthly, but heavenly watchmen, - who are now to
inflict punishment upon the ungodly, as the authorities appointed by God. ‫בוּ‬ ְ‫ר‬ ָֽ‫ק‬ is an
imperative Piel, as in Isa_41:21, and must not be altered into ‫בוּ‬ ְ‫ר‬ ִ‫ק‬ (Kal), as Hitzig
proposes. The Piel is used in an intransitive sense, festinanter appropinquavit, as in
Eze_36:8. The persons called come by the way of the upper northern gate of the temple,
to take their stand before Jehovah, whose glory had appeared in the inner court. The
upper gate is the gate leading from the outer court to the inner, or upper court, which
stood on higher ground, - the gate mentioned in Eze_8:3 and Eze_8:5. In the midst of
the six men furnished with smashing-tools there was one clothed in white byssus, with
writing materials at his side. The dress and equipment, as well as the instructions which
he afterwards receives and executes, show him to be the prince or leader of the others.
Kliefoth calls in question the opinion that these seven men are angels; but without any
5

6. reason. Angels appearing in human form are frequently called ‫ים‬ ִ‫ָשׁ‬‫נ‬ֲ‫א‬ or ‫ישׁ‬ ִ‫,א‬ according
to their external habitus. But the number seven neither presupposes the dogma of the
seven archangels, nor is copied from the seven Parsic amschaspands. The dress worn by
the high priest, when presenting the sin-offering on the great day of atonement (Lev_
16:4, Lev_16:23), was made of ‫ד‬ ָ‫,בּ‬ i.e., of white material woven from byssus thread (see
the comm. on Exo_28:42). It has been inferred from this, that the figure clothed in
white linen was the angel of Jehovah, who appears as the heavenly high priest, to protect
and care for his own. In support of this, the circumstance may be also adduced, that the
man whom Daniel saw above the water of the Tigris, and whose appearance is described,
in Dan_10:5-6, in the same manner as that of Jehovah in Eze_1:4, Eze_1:26-27, and that
of the risen Christ in Rev_1:13-15, appears clothed in ‫ים‬ ִ‫דּ‬ ַ‫בּ‬ (Dan_10:5; Dan_12:6-7).
(Note: ‫בוּשׁ‬ָ‫ל‬ ‫ים‬ ִ‫דּ‬ ַ‫בּ‬ is rendered by the lxx, in the passage before us, ἐνδεδυκώς
ποδήρῃ. It is in accordance with this that Christ is described in Rev_1:13 as clothed
with a ποδήρης, and not after Dan_10:5, as Hengstenberg supposes. In Dan_10:5,
the Septuagint has ἐνδεδυμένος βαδδίν or τὰ βαδδίν. In other places, the Sept.
rendering of ‫ד‬ ָ‫בּ‬ is λίνον (thus Lev_16:4, Lev_16:23; Lev_6:3; Exo_28:42, etc.); and
hence the λίνον λαμπρόν of Rev_15:6 answers to the ‫ד‬ ָ‫בּ‬ made of ‫שׁ‬ֵ‫,שׁ‬ βύσσος, and is
really the same as the βύσσινον λαμπρόν of Rev_19:8.)
Nevertheless, we cannot regard this view as established. The shining white talar, which
is evidently meant by the plural ‫ים‬ ִ‫דּ‬ ַ‫,בּ‬ occurring only here and in Daniel (ut. sup.), is not
a dress peculiar to the angel of Jehovah or to Christ. The seven angels, with the vials of
wrath, also appear in garments of shining white linen (ἐνδεδυμένοι λίνον καθαρὸν
λαμπρόν, Rev_15:6); and the shining white colour, as a symbolical representation of
divine holiness and glory (see comm. on Lev_16:4 and Rev_19:8), is the colour generally
chosen for the clothing both of the heavenly spirits and of “just men made perfect”
(Rev_19:8). Moreover, the angel with the writing materials here is described in a totally
different manner from the appearance of Jehovah in Ezekiel 1 and Daniel 10, or that of
Christ in Rev 1; and there is nothing whatever to indicate a being equal with God. Again,
the distinction between him and the other six men leads to no other conclusion, than
that he stood in the same relation to them as the high priest to the Levites, or the
chancellor to the other officials. This position is indicated by the writing materials on his
hips, i.e., in the girdle on his hips, in which scribes in the East are accustomed to carry
their writing materials (vid., Rosenmüller, A. u. N. Morgenland, IV. p. 323). He is
provided with these for the execution of the commission given to him in Eze_9:4. In this
way the description can be very simply explained, without the slightest necessity for our
resorting to Babylonian representations of the god Nebo, i.e., Mercury, as the scribe of
heaven. The seven men take their station by the altar of burnt-offering, because the glory
of God, whose commands they were about to receive, had taken up its position there for
the moment (Kliefoth); not because the apostate priesthood was stationed there
(Hävernick). The glory of Jehovah, however, rose up from the cherub to the threshold of
the house. The meaning of this is not that it removed from the interior of the sanctuary
to the outer threshold of the temple-building (Hävernick), for it was already stationed,
according to Eze_8:16, above the cherub, between the porch and the altar. It went back
from thence to the threshold of the temple-porch, through which one entered the Holy
Place, to give its orders there. The reason for leaving its place above the cherubim (the
singular ‫רוּב‬ ְ‫כּ‬ is used collectively) to do this, was not that “God would have had to turn
6

7. round in order to address the seven from the throne, since, according to Eze_8:4 and
Eze_8:16, He had gone from the north gate of the outer court into the inner court, and
His servants had followed Him” (Hitzig); for the cherubim moved in all four directions,
and therefore God, even from the throne, could turn without difficulty to every side. God
left His throne, that He might issue His command for the judgment upon Israel from the
threshold of the temple, and show Himself to be the judge who would forsake the throne
which He had assumed in Israel. This command He issues from the temple court,
because the temple was the place whence God attested Himself to His people, both by
mercy and judgment.
CALVIN, “Now the manner of that vengeance which was lately mentioned is
expressed. Hence the Prophet says, God exclaimed, so that his command reached to
the Chaldeans, who were to be executors of his vengeance, and therefore the
imperative mood pleases me better, approach ye therefore. Those who consider the
tense past say “visitations,” nor can they do otherwise, because no sense can be
elicited from the words — to have approached the prefecture of the city. But if we
read the imperative mood, the sense agrees very well, approach ye the prefecture:
the thing is put for the persons, or the name of the men may be understood, and
thus ‫,פקדות‬ phekdoth, may be taken in the genitive case. As to the general meaning,
God commands his servants who held authority over the devoted city, to approach,
or apply themselves, or be ready to fulfill his work, and let each, says he, have his
instrument of destruction: here destruction is taken actively. For God does not mean
that the Chaldeans were armed for their own destruction, but for that of the Jews,
and the ruin of the city. It follows —
COFFMAN, “Verse 1
THE WICKED ISRAELITES SLAIN; THE FAITHFUL SPARED
This chapter continues the great theme of these four chapters by recording the first
stage of the removal of God's presence (Ezekiel 9:3). Keil's divisions of the chapter
are: (1) the supernatural executioners of Jerusalem are summoned (Ezekiel 9:1-3;
(2) mercy is extended to the faithful (Ezekiel 9:4-7); and (3) Ezekiel's intercession
cannot avail (Ezekiel 9:8-11).[1]
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8. THE EXECUTIONERS SUMMONED
Ezekiel 9:1-3
"Then he cried in mine ears with a loud voice, saying, Cause ye them that have
charge over the city to draw near, every man with his destroying weapon in his
hand. And, behold, six men came by way of the upper gate, which lieth toward the
north, every man with his slaughter weapon in his hand; and one man in the midst
of them, clothed in linen, with a writer's inkhorn by his side. And they went in and
stood beside the brazen altar. And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from
the cherub, whereupon it was, to the threshold of the house: and he called to the
man clothed in linen, who had the writer's inkhorn by his side."
"This chapter is closely connected with the preceding, and carries expressly the
threatening of Ezekiel 8:18 into immediate action."[2]
"Cause ye them that have charge over the city ..." (Ezekiel 9:1). These words need to
carry a more ominous import; and Cooke translated this sentence, "Approach, ye
executioners of the city."[3]
"Six men ... and one man ..." (Ezekiel 9:2). It is ridiculous for men to suppose that
there is any reference here to the pagan gods of the seven planets, or to the so-called
Seven Arch-angels (there being only one archangel). "Seven is a perfect number,
associated in Hebrew thought with 'completeness.'"[4] Clearly, the six men were
supernatural beings, probably angels; because, in the New Testament, angels are
always represented as aiding Christ in the execution of judgment. Also, the
appearance of the seventh `man' with an inkhorn, his evident superiority over the
six, and his having charge of marking the faithful, all suggest his identity as the pre-
incarnated Christ. Feinberg noted that, "From his clothing and the nature of his
work, it is to be inferred that the Chief of these six angels was the Angel of the
Lord."[5] Keil disputed this, but he offered no better explanation. Furthermore,
Keil admitted the superior rank of the seventh man; and that fact alone identifies
8

9. him as a member of the godhead, there being no one else, as far as we know, who is
any higher than the angels.
"These seven are an overwhelming embodiment of the Divine will, in the face of
which humanity is helpless."[6]
No details of the actual destruction of Jerusalem are included here. None are
needed. God decreed it, and it happened! Just exactly how it happened doesn't
really matter.
The supernatural nature of these six made them more powerful and formidable
than all of the greatest armies on earth combined into a single force.
"And stood beside the brazen altar ..." (Ezekiel 9:2). "This was the Solomonic altar
(1 Kings 8:64), which Ahab had removed and placed north of his new-style
Damascus altar (2 Kings 16:14)."[7] Significantly, these heavenly beings, by their
actions, snubbed Ahab's copy of the pagan altar by choosing to stand by the true
altar.
"And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon it was,
to the threshold of the house ..." (Ezekiel 9:3) The departure of the glory of the Lord
from Israel is part of the theme of these four chapters; and, "Ezekiel traces it in
stages, this being the first."[8] The normal place for God's glory in the temple was
above the mercy seat in the Holy of Holies; and in this first stage of the glory's
leaving, it removed from the Holy of Holies and went to the entrance of the temple.
COKE, “Verse 1-2
Ezekiel 9:1-2. Cause them that have charge, &c.— Those who are the avengers of
the city: the Chaldeans, whom God had appointed to besiege and destroy this city.
Some understand it of the angels, who have the charge of executing God's
9

10. judgments; and if so, instead of man and men, we should read person and persons.
One of these was in the habit of a scribe, and employed in the work of mercy; unlike
the rest, who were warriors and destroyers. They stood by the brazen altar; to
denote that the men ordained to destruction were offered up as so many sacrifices.
See chap. Ezekiel 39:17.
ELLICOTT, “ (1) He cried also . . . with a loud voice.—The pronoun refers to the
same Being as throughout the previous chapter. His nature is sufficiently shown by
the prophet’s address to Him in Ezekiel 9:8 : “Ah, Lord God!” The “loud voice” was
to give emphasis to what is said; it is the natural expression of the fierceness of the
Divine indignation and wrath.
Them that have charge over the city.—Not earthly officers, but those to whom God
has especially entrusted the execution of His will concerning Jerusalem. The word
is, no doubt, used often enough of human officers, but such sense is necessarily
excluded here by the whole circumstances of the vision. Nor does the phrase “every
man” at all indicate that they were human beings, the same expression being
constantly used of angels (as in Genesis 18:1-2; Joshua 5:13; Judges 13:11; Daniel
8:16, &c), and the representation here being plainly that of angelic executioners of
God’s wrath. They appear only in the light of the administrators of vengeance, the
description of them being that each had “his destroying weapon in his hand.” This is
repeated in the following verse.
TRAPP, “Ezekiel 9:1 He cried also in mine ears with a loud voice, saying, Cause
them that have charge over the city to draw near, even every man [with] his
destroying weapon in his hand.
Ver. 1. He cried also.] God, to whom vengeance belongeth, calleth aloud and with a
courage, as we say, to the executioners of his wrath, to come and fall on.
Cause them that have charge over the city.] Proefecti urbis - i.e., the angels, here
called the visitations or visitors of Jerusalem, the prefects of the city.
10

11. Every man with his destroying weapon.] Called [Ezekiel 9:2] a maul, or battle axe,
telum dissipatorium.
POOLE, “Verse 1
EZEKIEL CHAPTER 9
The prophet in the vision seeth a mark set upon some, Ezekiel 9:1-4, and the
destruction of all the rest, Ezekiel 9:5-7. God rejecteth his intercession, Ezekiel
9:8-11.
He cried; the man whom he had seen upon the throne, Christ, who is Lord and
Sovereign. Or, the glory of God, or the God of glory, or an angel by order from God.
In mine ears; either a Hebraism, he cried so that I distinctly heard; or rather to
intimate that Ezekiel only heard what was spoken; the elders who were now with
him hearing nothing of what was spoken.
Cause them to draw near; Approach, ye visitations, i.e. ye sore, wasting,
unparalleled judgments; so the concrete in the superlative degree is sometimes
expressed in the abstract, as it is here: or, these judgments are already near at hand.
It may point, at the chief commanders in the Babylonish army,
them that have charge; not those that were now officers under Zedekiah, and
commissioned by him, but those whom God hath appointed to destroy the city;
angels, say some; the Chaldean commanders, think others.
With his destroying weapon; each of these had a weapon proper for that kind of
11

12. destruction which he was to effect; and so, some to slay with sword, another with the
pestilence, another with famine; each had his proper work herein, and it is called his
destruction. In his hand, denoting both readiness unto, expedition in, and strength
for the work.
PARKER, “In the ninth chapter there is a vivid and instructive figure—"Cause
them that have charge over the city" ( Ezekiel 9:1). By these: we should naturally
understand the magistrates, the Judges , or the: constabulary. Yet no such reference
is intended by the command, There is no allusion to earthly officers. Those who had
charge: over the cities were spirits, angels, chosen ones of God. No doubt the same
word is used of human officers, but such officers are utterly excluded by all that
gives speciality to the vision of Ezekiel. We might suppose from the words "every
man" that human officers were intended, but we have had experience to the
contrary. The representation here, therefore, is evidently that angelic executioners
were awaiting the order to carry out the wrath of God. Are they not all ministering
spirits? Are we not in charge of guardian angels? A noble yet most solemn thought
is it that every city has its band of watchers, and that every man has near him the
angel of the Lord, bringing blessing or inflicting judgment, or training the life in all
the: mystery of progress. We cannot understand these things, but we should be
infinitely poorer if we excluded them from our thought and confidence and
imagination. How little we see! We know not that the whole air is full of spirits, and
that every breath we draw is a special gift of God, watched over as if we were the
solitary trustees of Heaven"s richest benefactions. Anything that impoverishes our
lives, that takes out of them such solemnising and uplifting thoughts as these, is
verily a foe to our best education. At the same time we must watch against the
superstitious degradation of these thoughts, lest we fall into the patronage of
wizardry and enchantment, witchcraft and incantation: we have nothing to do with
any attempt to incarnate these spiritual watchers, we must accept their ministry as
an assured fact, and, asking no questions, must believe that if we are pure, docile,
and obedient, God will not withhold the communication of his secret from us.
What was meant by the six men coming from the way of the higher gate, what was
meant by the one man clothed with linen carrying a writer"s inkhorn by his side, we
need not inquire: it is enough for us to know that God has agents other than
ourselves, scribes that do not write with our ink, registrars that are following the
course of human life, and are writing in the books that are on high. An awful
12

13. passage is this:—
"And the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of
Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for
all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof. And to the others he said in
mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare,
neither have ye pity: slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and
women" ( Ezekiel 9:4-6).
This is not the God with whose lovingkindness we have been familiar! So should we
say in our ignorance, and yet we owe the very lovingkindness of God to the fact that
such anger is possible: apart from the exercise of such indignation the
lovingkindness would be simply sentiment; but seeing that the wrath of God can be
so terrible, we find in his lovingkindness a counterpart of that dire extremity. A
singular suggestion is that that the eye of the executioner might spare where God"s
own eye had failed to shed a tear: it would seem as if the executioners would be
more pitiful than their Lord: were this so it could only be because they could descry
only a partial aspect of the awful case. He who could see all had no hesitation in
giving the commandment for an utter extermination of the rebels. Ezekiel himself
broke down when the fearful vision passed before him. Whilst the slaughter was
proceeding, he fell upon his "face, and cried, and said, Ah Lord God! wilt thou
destroy all the residue of Israel in thy pouring out of thy fury upon Jerusalem?"
This was very human, but this was profoundly sentimental. Ezekiel saw little more
than the merely physical suffering of the people; he could not grasp the full majesty
of eternal law. The Lord gave the reason in words which cover the whole of the sad
occasion:—
"The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great, and the land is
full of blood, and the city full of perverseness: for they say, The Lord hath forsaken
the earth, and the Lord seeth not. And as for me also, mine eye shall not spare,
neither will I have pity, but I will recompense their way upon their head" ( Ezekiel
9:9-10).
Observe, it was their way. Notice in particular that this is not an arbitrary act on the
13

14. part of God. This is a Lord of measurement, of proportion, who adapts means to
ends, who does not act indiscriminately and ruthlessly; a God who holds in his
hands the balances of righteousness and judgment, and who gives to every man
according to his deeds. The Lord himself is always careful to maintain this fact.
Whatever we have seen of the terribleness of divine judgment has been matched by
the terribleness of human sin. We may not see it; we may look upon the divine
judgment as an exaggeration; but surely those who have studied the divine way are
prepared to believe that God does nothing in excess, that in reality, if we could see
things as he sees them, it would be almost impossible for judgment to be coordinate
with sin. So terrible a thing is iniquity I so fearful a reality is a stain upon the robe
of ineffable holiness! We cannot tell how awful a thing this is. We must take it on the
authority of revelation that sin is the abominable thing which God hates, that it is an
insult, a wound, a shame, a degradation which can never be explained in words. Hell
itself can hardly enlarge its borders so as to take in all the tremendous issues of sin.
PETT, “In the ninth chapter there is a vivid and instructive figure—"Cause them
that have charge over the city" ( Ezekiel 9:1). By these: we should naturally
understand the magistrates, the Judges , or the: constabulary. Yet no such reference
is intended by the command, There is no allusion to earthly officers. Those who had
charge: over the cities were spirits, angels, chosen ones of God. No doubt the same
word is used of human officers, but such officers are utterly excluded by all that
gives speciality to the vision of Ezekiel. We might suppose from the words "every
man" that human officers were intended, but we have had experience to the
contrary. The representation here, therefore, is evidently that angelic executioners
were awaiting the order to carry out the wrath of God. Are they not all ministering
spirits? Are we not in charge of guardian angels? A noble yet most solemn thought
is it that every city has its band of watchers, and that every man has near him the
angel of the Lord, bringing blessing or inflicting judgment, or training the life in all
the: mystery of progress. We cannot understand these things, but we should be
infinitely poorer if we excluded them from our thought and confidence and
imagination. How little we see! We know not that the whole air is full of spirits, and
that every breath we draw is a special gift of God, watched over as if we were the
solitary trustees of Heaven"s richest benefactions. Anything that impoverishes our
lives, that takes out of them such solemnising and uplifting thoughts as these, is
verily a foe to our best education. At the same time we must watch against the
superstitious degradation of these thoughts, lest we fall into the patronage of
wizardry and enchantment, witchcraft and incantation: we have nothing to do with
any attempt to incarnate these spiritual watchers, we must accept their ministry as
14

15. an assured fact, and, asking no questions, must believe that if we are pure, docile,
and obedient, God will not withhold the communication of his secret from us.
What was meant by the six men coming from the way of the higher gate, what was
meant by the one man clothed with linen carrying a writer"s inkhorn by his side, we
need not inquire: it is enough for us to know that God has agents other than
ourselves, scribes that do not write with our ink, registrars that are following the
course of human life, and are writing in the books that are on high. An awful
passage is this:—
"And the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of
Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for
all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof. And to the others he said in
mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare,
neither have ye pity: slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and
women" ( Ezekiel 9:4-6).
This is not the God with whose lovingkindness we have been familiar! So should we
say in our ignorance, and yet we owe the very lovingkindness of God to the fact that
such anger is possible: apart from the exercise of such indignation the
lovingkindness would be simply sentiment; but seeing that the wrath of God can be
so terrible, we find in his lovingkindness a counterpart of that dire extremity. A
singular suggestion is that that the eye of the executioner might spare where God"s
own eye had failed to shed a tear: it would seem as if the executioners would be
more pitiful than their Lord: were this so it could only be because they could descry
only a partial aspect of the awful case. He who could see all had no hesitation in
giving the commandment for an utter extermination of the rebels. Ezekiel himself
broke down when the fearful vision passed before him. Whilst the slaughter was
proceeding, he fell upon his "face, and cried, and said, Ah Lord God! wilt thou
destroy all the residue of Israel in thy pouring out of thy fury upon Jerusalem?"
This was very human, but this was profoundly sentimental. Ezekiel saw little more
than the merely physical suffering of the people; he could not grasp the full majesty
of eternal law. The Lord gave the reason in words which cover the whole of the sad
occasion:—
15

16. "The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great, and the land is
full of blood, and the city full of perverseness: for they say, The Lord hath forsaken
the earth, and the Lord seeth not. And as for me also, mine eye shall not spare,
neither will I have pity, but I will recompense their way upon their head" ( Ezekiel
9:9-10).
Observe, it was their way. Notice in particular that this is not an arbitrary act on the
part of God. This is a Lord of measurement, of proportion, who adapts means to
ends, who does not act indiscriminately and ruthlessly; a God who holds in his
hands the balances of righteousness and judgment, and who gives to every man
according to his deeds. The Lord himself is always careful to maintain this fact.
Whatever we have seen of the terribleness of divine judgment has been matched by
the terribleness of human sin. We may not see it; we may look upon the divine
judgment as an exaggeration; but surely those who have studied the divine way are
prepared to believe that God does nothing in excess, that in reality, if we could see
things as he sees them, it would be almost impossible for judgment to be coordinate
with sin. So terrible a thing is iniquity I so fearful a reality is a stain upon the robe
of ineffable holiness! We cannot tell how awful a thing this is. We must take it on the
authority of revelation that sin is the abominable thing which God hates, that it is an
insult, a wound, a shame, a degradation which can never be explained in words. Hell
itself can hardly enlarge its borders so as to take in all the tremendous issues of sin.
PULPIT, “He cried, etc. The voice comes, as before, from the human form, seen as a
theophany, in the midst of the Divine glory. Cause them that have charge over the
city. The noun is an abstract plural, commonly rendered "visitation" (Isaiah 10:3;
Jeremiah 11:23, and elsewhere). Here, however, it clearly stands for persons (just as
we use "the watch" for "the watchmen"), and is so used in Isaiah 60:17; 2 Kings
11:18 (comp. Ezekiel 44:11). The persons addressed are called "men," but they are
clearly thought of as superhuman; like the angels who came to Sodom (Genesis
19:1); like the angel with the drawn sword in 2 Samuel 24:16; 1 Chronicles 21:16.
His destroying weapon. The word clearly implies something different from a sword,
but corresponds in its vagueness to the Hebrew. In 1 Chronicles 21:2 the Hebrew for
"slaughter weapon" implies an instrument for crashing into fragments, probably an
axe or mace. A cognate word in Jeremiah 51:20 is translated "battle axe," and the
LXX. gives that meaning here, as also does the margin of the Revised Version.
16

17. BI 1-2, “One man among them was clothed with linen.
Christ the Commander of the angels
1. Elect Jews under the law were saved by the mediatorial work of Christ incarnate,
as we are under the Gospel. Christ frequently appeared as man, intimating thereby
His future incarnation, and that that nature must concur to the making up of His
mediatorship: He did not mediate for them as God, for us as man; but He mediated
then as man promised, now He mediates as man manifested.
2. The Lord Christ is the chief commander of all angelical and human forces. He was
in the midst of these six military angels that were to bring in the Chaldean forces at
the several gates of the city; He was their General.
3. When judgments are abroad, and the godly are in danger, Christ mediates and
intercedes for them.
4. Christ hath a special care of His in times of trouble; He appears with an inkhorn
to write down what is said and done against them, to make known the mind of God
to them, to seal and discriminate them from others.
5. Those who are upon great and public designs should begin with God, and consult
with Him. These seven here go in and stand by the altar, inquire of God what His
pleasure is. So have the worthies of God done (Ezr_8:21).
6. Those who are employed by the Lord must be careful that they countenance no
corruptions in worship. Neither Christ nor the angels would come at the false altar,
which Ahaz had caused to be set up; but they go to God’s altar, the brazen altar; by
this they stood, not the other.
7. In times of judgment, as God discountenances false worship, so He discovers and
countenances His own way of worship. (W. Greenhill, M. A.)
With a writer’s inkhorn.—
The man with the inkhorn
(to young men):—This man with the inkhorn may stand for a class—the whole class of
writers and literary men. I would start from the position that the powers of literature
belong of right to Jesus Christ, and that literature is included among those things of
which Paul said to the Christian man: “All are yours, for ye are Christ’s, and Christ is
God’s.”
I. The close relation that exists between Christianity and literature.
1. One fact that meets us on the very threshold is this, that, humanly speaking, the
Bible itself is a literary product. Had there been no such thing as literature there
never could have been a Bible; for no one would have been able either to write or to
read. As our Lord Jesus glorified the human body by His inhabitation of it in the
Incarnation, so we may say literature is transfigured and glorified by this special
inhabitation of the Divine Spirit in the books of the Old and New Testaments.
2. But, passing beyond the pages of the Bible, we see again how Christ-loving men
17

18. have used the powers of literature for the advancement of God’s kingdom in the
world. In the early days of the Church, Christianity owed very much to the literary
gifts of men like Origen and Chrysostom, Tertullian and Augustine. And when we see
the great days of the Reformation dawning upon Europe, there is no doubt that we
must associate that marvellous spiritual revival with the previous Revival of Letters.
Luther was indebted for his knowledge of Greek to those Greek scholars who, after
the Fall of Constantinople, came flocking to the West, and who spread abroad that
interest in the Greek language and literature which by and by sent men back once
more to the neglected pages of the Greek New Testament. And so we see Luther
sitting all alone through the midnight hours in his high tower of the Wartburg Castle,
in the very heart of the great Thuringian Forest. Before him lies his open Bible, and
from the closest study of its pages he is seeking to apprehend the very mind of his
Lord. When I was in the Wartburg some years ago I was shown the place on the wall
which was struck by the famous inkhorn that Luther flung at the Devil. Luther did
discomfit the devil with an inkhorn; but it was by that translation of the Bible which
came from his pen, and which is still one of the masterpieces of German literature,
and by those other writings which shook the hearts of men like a mighty trumpet
blast, and destroyed, in most European lauds, the awful domination of Rome.
3. But, when we speak of literature, we have to go beyond the Bible, and beyond all
purely religious writings. We have to think of that great world of books which
includes history and science, philosophy, poetry, and fiction. And may we not say
that the best books in those various departments, whether written by Christian men
or not, are all of them full of facts and principles that really illustrate and corroborate
the teaching of the Bible?
II. Some friendly counsels which are suggested by this subject.
1. First, let me put the old apostolic injunction which Paul addressed to a young
friend, “Give attendance to reading.” All around us there is a great and growing
devotion to athletic interests, which threatens in many cases to swallow up all
interests of a higher kind. Now, bodily exercise is profitable, without doubt; but it
cannot be profitable to exercise the body until we have no time or strength left for
the cultivation of the mind. You must read diligently, eagerly, carefully, if you would
enlarge and enrich and strengthen your mind. And let me exhort you here to begin to
form a little library of your own as early as possible. Do not be content with
borrowing books, but have your favourite authors around you in your own room. “A
young man,” says one, “may lodge in a very small room. But what do you mean by a
small room? When I go into a young man’s room, and see on the wall a shelf of
books; when I take down Shakespeare, or Dante, or Tennyson, or Carlyle, I do not
know the size of that room. The walls are nothing, for that man holds the ends of the
earth. For every taste like literature, or art, or science, or philosophy, is a window in
the smallest room, and through the windows a man can see anything, right on to the
throne of God.”
2. Next, I would say, take heed what you read. The world is full of bad books, as well
as of good books, for the man with the inkhorn, in not a few cases, has sold himself
to the service of the Devil. Beware of bad books! If a book fills your mind with evil
thoughts, or leaves a bad taste in your mouth, cast it from you at once. Why should a
man feed his soul on filth and garbage, when he is free to walk through the garden of
the Lord, plucking all manner of pleasant fruits? And, apart from what is positively
bad, do not spend too much time on what is scrappy or ephemeral. There are
18

19. diversities of gifts, and diversities of taste. Provided you confine yourself to what is
wholesome, whatever interests you most will be likely to profit you most. But do not
forget that the Bible must come first.
3. Let me remind you that, as Christian young men, you should consecrate to Christ
all the knowledge that you gain, and should use it as far as possible for the benefit of
others. Remember, after all, that life is more than literature, and that Christianity is
greater even than the Bible. Mohammedanism is the religion of a book, for above
Mohammed himself stands the Koran. But Christianity is not the religion of a book:
it is the religion of a life. Jesus Christ Himself is the Alpha and Omega of it, and it is
love to Jesus, loyalty to Jesus, the service of Jesus, that are the true marks of a
Christian. (J. G. Lambert, B. D.)
The writer’s inkhorn
No one ever had such Divine dreams as Ezekiel. In a vision this prophet had seen
wrathful angels, destroying angels, each with a sword, but in my text he sees a merciful
angel with an inkhorn. The receptacle for the ink in olden time was made out of the horn
of a cow, or a ram, or a roebuck, as now it is made out of metal or glass, and therefore
was called the inkhorn, as now we say inkstand. We have all spoken of the power of the
sword, of the power of wealth, of the power of office, of the power of social influence, but
today I speak of the power for good or evil in the inkstand. It is a fortress, an armoury, a
gateway, a ransom, or a demolition. “You mistake,” says someone, “it is the pen that has
the power.” No, my friend; what is the influence of a dry pen? Pass it up and down a
sheet of paper, and it leaves no mark. It expresses no opinion. It gives no warning. It
spreads no intelligence. It is the liquid which the pen dips out of the inkstand that does
the work. Here and there a celebrated pen, with which a Magna Charta or a Declaration
of Independence, or a treaty was signed, has been kept in literary museum or national
archives, but for the most part the pens have disappeared, while the liquid which the
pens took from the inkstand remains in scrolls which, if put together, would be large
enough to enwrap the round world.
1. First, I mention that which is purely domestic. The inkstand is in every household.
It awaits the opportunity to express affection or condolence or advice. Father uses it;
mother uses it; the sons and daughters use it. It tells the home news; it announces
the marriage, the birth, the departure, the accident, the last sickness, the death. That
home inkstand, what a mission it has already executed, and what other missions will
it yet fulfil! May it stand off from all insincerity and all querulousness. Oh, ye who
have with recent years set up homes of your own! out of the new home inkstand
write often to the old folks, if they be still living. A letter means more to them than to
us, who are amid the activities of life, and to whom postal correspondence is more
than we can manage. As the merciful angel of my text appeared before the brazen
altar with the inkhorn at his side in Ezekiel’s vision, so let the angel of filial kindness
appear at the altars of the old homestead.
2. Furthermore, the inkstand of the business man has its mission. Between now and
the hour of your demise, O commercial man, O professional man, there will not be a
day when you cannot dip from the inkhorn a message that will influence temporal
and eternal destiny. There is a rash young man running into wild speculation, and
with as much ink as you can put on the pen at one time you may save him from the
19

20. Niagara rapids of a ruined life. On the next street there is a young man started in
business, who through lack of patronage, or mistake in purchase of goods, or want of
adaptation, is on the brink of collapse. One line of ink from your pen will save him
from being an underling all his life, and start him on a career that will win him a
fortune which will enable him to become an endower of libraries, an opener of art
galleries, and builder of churches.
3. Furthermore, great are the responsibilities of the author’s inkhorn. When a bad
book is printed you do well to blame the publisher, but most of all blame the author.
The malaria rose from his inkstand. The poison that caused the moral or spiritual
death dropped in the fluid from the tip of his pen. But blessed be God for the
author’s inkhorn in ten thousand studies which are dedicated to pure intelligence,
highest inspiration, and grandest purpose. They are the inkstands out of which will
be dipped the redemption of the world. The destroying angels with their swords seen
in Ezekiel’s vision will be finally overcome by the merciful angel with the writer’s
inkhorn. Among the most important are the editorial and reportorial inkstands. You
have all seen what is called indelible ink, which is a weak solution of silver nitrate,
and that ink you cannot rub out or wash out. Put it there, and it stays. Well, the
liquid of the editorial and reportorial inkstands is an indelible ink. It puts upon the
souls of the passing generations characters of light or darkness that time cannot
wash out and eternity cannot efface. Be careful how you use it. While you recognise
the distinguished ones who have dipped into the inkstand of the world’s
evangelisation, do not forget that there are hundreds of thousands of unknown men
and women who are engaged in inconspicuous ways doing the same thing! How
many anxious mothers writing to the boys in town! How many sisters writing
encouragement to brothers far away! How many bruised and disappointed and
wronged souls of earth would be glad to get a letter from you! Stir up that
consolatory inkhorn. All Christendom has been waiting for great revivals of religion
to start from the pulpits and prayer meetings. I now suggest that the greatest revival
of all time may start from a concerted and organised movement through the
inkhorns of all Christendom, each writer dipping from the inkhorn nearest him a
letter of Gospel invitation, Gospel hope, Gospel warning, Gospel instruction. The
other angels spoken of in my text were destroying angels, and each had what the
Bible calls a “slaughter weapon” in his hand. It was a lance, or a battle axe, or a
sword. God hasten the time when the last lance shall be shivered, and the last battle
axe dulled, and the last sword sheathed, never again to leave the scabbard, and the
angel of the text, who Matthew Henry says was the Lord Jesus Christ, shall from the
full inkhorn of His mercy give a saving call to all nations. That day may be far off, but
it is hopeful to think of its coming. Is it not time that the boasted invention of new
and more explosive and more widely devastating weapons of death be stopped
forever, and the Gospel have a chance, and the question be not asked, How many
shots can be fired in a minute? but how many souls may be ransomed in a day? Hail,
Thou Mighty Rider of the white horse in the final triumph! Sweep down and sweep
by, Thou Angel of the New Covenant, with the inkhorn of the world’s evangelisation!
(T. De Witt Talmage.)
20

21. 2 And I saw six men coming from the direction of
the upper gate, which faces north, each with a
deadly weapon in his hand. With them was a man
clothed in linen who had a writing kit at his side.
They came in and stood beside the bronze altar.
BARNES, "Six men - angels of wrath - figurative of destruction. They come from the
north, the quarter from which invading armies entered the holy land. These “six” angels,
with the “one among them,” a superior over the six, make up the number “seven,” a
number symbolic of God’s covenant with His people.
The higher gate - The north gate of the court of the priests. The temple rose by
platforms; as there was a north gate to the outer and also to the inner court, the latter
was probably distinguished as the “higher gate.” It was built by Jotham 2Ki_15:35.
Clothed with linen - The priestly garment Exo_28:6, Exo_28:8; Lev_16:4. This
“One Man” (Compare Dan_10:5; Rev_1:13) was the “angel of the covenant,” the great
high priest, superior to those by whom He was surrounded, receiving direct
communication from the Lord, taking the coals of vengeance from between the
cherubim Eze_10:2, but coming with mercy to the contrite as well as with vengeance to
the impenitent; these are attributes of Jesus Christ Joh_5:30; Luk_2:34; Mat_9:13;
Joh_6:39.
A writer’s inkhorn - Usually a flat case about nine inches long, by an inch and a
quarter broad, and half an inch thick, the hollow of which serves to contain the reed
pens and penknife. At one end is the ink-vessel which is twice as heavy as the shaft. The
latter is passed through the girdle and prevented from slipping through by the projecting
ink-vessel. The whole is usually of polished metal, brass, copper or silver. The man with
the inkhorn has to write in the Book of Life the names of those who shall be marked. The
metaphor is from the custom of registering the names of the Israelites in public rolls.
Compare Exo_32:33; Psa_69:28; Isa_4:3; Phi_4:3; Rev_3:5.
CLARKE, "Stood beside the brazen altar - To signify that the people against
whom they had their commission were, for their crimes, to be sacrificed to the demands
of Divine justice.
21

22. GILL, "And, behold, six men,.... Either angels the form of men; or the generals of
Nebuchadnezzar's army, as Kimchi interprets it; whose names are, Nergalsharezer,
Samgarnebo, Sarsechim, Rabsaris, Nergalsharezer, Rabmag, Jer_39:3; these six
executioners of God's vengeance are, in the Talmud (n), called
"wrath, anger, fury, destruction, breach, and consumption:''
came from the way of the higher gate, Kimchi observes, from the Rabbins, that
this is the eastern gate called the higher or upper gate, because it was above the court of
the Israelites. Maimonides (o) says, the upper gate is the gate Nicanor; and why is it
called the upper gate? because it was above the court of the women; see 2Ki_15:35;
which lieth toward the north: where were the image of jealousy, and the women
weeping for Tammuz, and other idolatrous practices were committed; which were the
cause of the coming of these destroyers: moreover, the Chaldean army with its generals
came out of the north; for Babylon lay north or northeast of Jerusalem; and so this gate,
as Kimchi says, was northeast; and he adds, and Babylon was northeast of the land of
Israel; see Jer_1:13;
and every man a slaughter weapon in his hand; as ordered, Eze_9:1, a different
word is here used; it signifies a hammer, with which rocks are broken in pieces, as the
above mentioned Jewish writer observes. The Septuagint render it an axe or hatchet:
and one man among them; not one of the six, but who made a seventh. The Jews say
this was Gabriel (p); but this was not a created angel, as they; nor the Holy Spirit as
Cocceius; but the Son of God, in a human form; he was among the six, at the head of
them, as their leader and commander; he was but one, they six; one Saviour, and six
destroyers:
was clothed with linen; not in the habit of a warrior, but of a priest; who, as such,
had made atonement for the sins of his people, and intercession for them; and this may
also denote the purity of his human nature, and his unspotted righteousness, the fine
linen, clean and white, which is the righteousness of the saints: and
with a writer's inkhorn by his side; or "at his loins" (q); nor a slaughter weapon, as
the rest; but a writer's inkhorn; hence Kimchi takes him to be the king of Babylon's
scribe; but a greater is here meant; even he who took down the names of God's elect in
the book of life; and who takes an account, and keeps a book of the words, and even
thoughts, of his people and also of their sighs, groans, and tears; see Mal_3:16; but now
his business was to mark his people, and distinguish them from others, in a providential
way; and keep and preserve them from the general ruin and destruction that was coming
upon Jerusalem: or, "a girdle on his lions", as the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions
render it; and so was prepared and fit for business; which sense of the word is approved
of by Castel (r); and he asks, what has an inkhorn to do at a man's loins? but it should be
observed, that it was the custom of the eastern people to carry inkhorns at their sides,
and particularly in their girdles, as the Turks do now; who not only fix their knives and
22

23. poniards in them, as Dr. Shaw (s) relates; but the "hojias", that is, the writers and
secretaries, hang their inkhorns in them; and by whom it is observed, that that part of
these inkhorns which passes between the girdle and the tunic, and holds their pens, is
long and flat; but the vessel for the ink, which rests upon the girdle, is square, with a lid
to clasp over it:
and they went in; to the temple, all seven:
and stood beside the brasen altar; the altar of burnt offering, so called to
distinguish it from the altar of incense, which was of gold; here they stood not to offer
sacrifice, but waiting for their orders, to take vengeance for the sins committed in the
temple, and at this altar; near to which stood the image of jealousy, Eze_8:5.
JAMISON, "clothed with linen — (Dan_10:5; Dan_12:6, Dan_12:7). His clothing
marked his office as distinct from that of the six officers of vengeance; “linen”
characterized the high priest (Lev_16:4); emblematic of purity. The same garment is
assigned to the angel of the Lord (for whom Michael is but another name) by the
contemporary prophet Daniel (Dan_10:5; Dan_12:6, Dan_12:7). Therefore the
intercessory High Priest in heaven must be meant (Zec_1:12). The six with Him are His
subordinates; therefore He is said to be “among them,” literally, “in the midst of them,”
as their recognized Lord (Heb_1:6). He appears as a “man,” implying His incarnation;
as “one” (compare 1Ti_2:5). Salvation is peculiarly assigned to Him, and so He bears the
“inkhorn” in order to “mark” His elect (Eze_9:4; compare Exo_12:7; Rev_7:3; Rev_9:4;
Rev_13:16, Rev_13:17; Rev_20:4), and to write their names in His book of life (Rev_
13:8). As Oriental scribes suspend their inkhorn at their side in the present day, and as a
“scribe of the host is found in Assyrian inscriptions accompanying the host” to number
the heads of the slain, so He stands ready for the work before Him. “The higher gate”
was probably where now the gate of Damascus is. The six with Him make up the sacred
and perfect number, seven (Zec_3:9; Rev_5:6). The executors of judgment on the
wicked, in Scripture teaching, are good, not bad, angels; the bad have permitted to them
the trial of the pious (Job_1:12; 2Co_12:7). The judgment is executed by Him (Eze_10:2,
Eze_10:7; Joh_5:22, Joh_5:27) through the six (Mat_13:41; Mat_25:31); so beautifully
does the Old Testament harmonize with the New Testament. The seven come “from the
way of the north”; for it was there the idolatries were seen, and from the same quarter
must proceed the judgment (Babylon lying northeast of Judea). So Mat_24:28.
stood — the attitude of waiting reverently for Jehovah’s commands.
brazen altar — the altar of burnt offerings, not the altar of incense, which was of
gold. They “stood” there to imply reverent obedience; for there God gave His answers to
prayer [Calvin]; also as being about to slay victims to God’s justice, they stand where
sacrifices are usually slain [Grotius], (Eze_39:17; Isa_34:6; Jer_12:3; Jer_46:10).
CALVIN, “Now the Prophet writes that God’s command was not vain or empty,
because the effect appears directly by vision. Therefore six men offered themselves.
Why again he names six, rather than more or fewer, I have not found out. For some
cite the thirty-ninth chapter of Jeremiah, where eight leaders are referred to who
23

24. were in Nebuchadnezzar’s army, and had the chief authority; but first they vary in
number, then they twist themselves in many ways. But I am not so anxiously
curious, nor does it seem to me of any consequence, unless perhaps God wished to
show his servant that a little band was sufficient, and that there was no need of a
large army: or by six men he confusedly designated the whole army. It is certain
indeed that Nebuchadnezzar came surrounded with a large force to destroy the city;
but in the meantime God wished to destroy that pride and contumacy of the people,
since he only shows to his servant six men who could destroy the whole city. He says
therefore, that he came by the gate, or by way of a lofty gate, or higher one, which
was towards the north, because Babylon lay towards that region with respect to
Jerusalem. It appears therefore that the Chaldeans were here pointed out, to whom
the way was direct through that gate, since it ascended from the north over against
Jerusalem. He says, each man had an instrument of destruction, or of pounding.
This word is derived from ‫,נפף‬ nephetz, which is to destroy and rub to pieces:
therefore it can be taken as well for the mallet as for the act itself. There is no doubt
that the Prophet meant that God’s command should not be without immediate
effect: because as soon as he cried out, six men were directly at hand for obeying
him, which he afterwards expresses more clearly when he says that they stood near
the altar For it was a sign of their readiness to obey God’s commands when they
placed themselves before the altar. But this passage is worthy of notice, because it
shows us how anxiously we ought to give heed to God’s threats, which are for the
most part directed against us. In order that we may learn to rouse ourselves from
our torpor, here as in a glass the conjunction of God’s vengeance with his threats is
proposed to us. For as soon as he had spoken, we see that there were six men armed
and drawn up for destroying the city. But God wished to show his Prophet this
vision, because his business was with a hard and stupid people, as we have already
seen. God’s voice was as it were their final doom: just as if a trumpet resounded,
and announced that there was no hope of pardon unless the enemy gave himself up
directly. So therefore God exclaimed with a loud voice, but this was no empty cause
of fright, because he directly joined the execution of it, when six men appeared
before the altar. But he calls the altar which Solomon had built of square stones
brazen: even the brazen altar was not sufficient, but it looks to its first origin.
Now he says that there was among them, one man clothed with a linen garment (1
Kings 8:64.) He is not placed among the multitude, as one among the others, but he
is separated, because his signification is distinct. This man then doubtless sustained
the character of an angel, and it is sufficiently customary in Scripture that angels,
when they take a visible form, should be called men: not because they are really
24

25. men, but because God endues them with such forms as he sees fit. Some, whose
opinion I do not altogether reject, restrict this to Christ. But because the Prophet
adds no remarkable traits, I had rather receive it generally of any angel. He says
therefore, that there was among the Chaldeans, who were prepared to execute
God’s vengeance, one man clad in a linen garment A distinct mark is sometimes
given to angels which separates them from men. The linen garment was then a
remarkable ornament. And the sacrificing Papists, as if they were apes, have
imitated that custom in their garments called surplices. But since priests were
accustomed to be clad in linen robes, here the angel was represented to the Prophet
in this garb. Now let us go on, because in the next verse it will be evident why
mention was made of that angel.
COFFMAN, “Verse 4
"And Jehovah said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of
Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of men that sigh and that cry over all
the abominations that are done in the midst thereof, And to the others he said in my
hearing, Go ye through the city after him, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither
have ye pity; slay utterly the old man, the young man and the virgin, and little
children and women; but come not near any man upon whom is the mark: and
begin at my sanctuary. Then they began with the old men that were before the
house. And he said unto them, Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain: go
ye forth. And they went forth, and smote in the city."
MERCY EXTENDED TO THE FAITHFUL
"A mark upon the foreheads of men ..." (Ezekiel 9:4). This of course was an act of
Divine mercy. Although God would indeed destroy the apostate idolaters, he would
by no means destroy his faithful worshippers. This placing of a mark upon the ones
to be redeemed appears again in Revelation 7:3 and Revelation 14:1, indicating that
all of the saved in our own generation indeed bear the "mark of God" in their
forehead. As this appears to be the very same thing as the "sealing of God's
servants" in Revelation 7:3, which is clearly a reference to the gift of the Holy Spirit,
we are entitled to conclude that it is no literal mark of any kind, but a certain
25

26. characteristic of the human spirit, that would be recognized instantly by
supernatural beings. We do not believe that either in this vision or in the current
dispensation can it be shown that God brands his people with any kind of a literal
mark, such as a rancher would use to brand his cattle.
As Cook noted, "There are eschatological predictions in this chapter."[9] And one
of the clearest of these is that the Great Judgment of the last day will be individually
and not by races, nations, or groups of any kind. Note too that there are only two
classes, the saved and the lost. Another startling fact is that absolutely none shall be
spared except those who have received the mark of redemption. This was the way it
was in the days of the flood; and that is the way it will be in the final judgment.
"That sigh and cry over all the abominations ..." (Ezekiel 9:4). The truly righteous
are always those who grieve over the sins and wickedness of their contemporaries.
We are not impressed at all with some who try to find some reference to the Cross,
or the "sign of the Cross" in this passage. This notion is based upon the fact that the
word here translated "mark" is in Hebrew the name of tau, the last letter of the
Hebrew alphabet; and it is claimed that the early way of making that letter was with
a cross; but as Plumptre noted, "There could have been no anticipation of Christian
symbols, either in the mind of Ezekiel, or in the minds of his hearers."[10]
"And begin at my sanctuary ..." (Ezekiel 9:6). The very place where one should have
been able to find a few faithful believers in God was the holy temple; but here God
commanded that the slaughter should begin there. There is indeed a great
responsibility upon those persons who know God's word and are responsible for
teaching others. An apostle indicated that this principle shall be operative in all of
the judgments of God. "For the time is come for judgment to begin at the house of
God: and if it begin first at us, what shall be the end of them that obey not the
gospel of God?" (1 Peter 4:17).
"They began at the old men that were before the house ..." (Ezekiel 9:6) Dummelow
identified these as "the sun worshipping priests."[11] "Apparently the directive to
26

27. begin at the sanctuary was intended to imply that there was the seat of the worst
sins."[12] This should certainly be a warning to religious leaders of all generations.
"And he said unto them, Defile the house ..." (Ezekiel 9:7). This was accomplished
by their filling the courts with dead bodies. "If to touch a corpse and then to
worship without being sprinkled with the water of separation was to defile the
tabernacle of the Lord (Numbers 19:13), how much more would the blood of corpses
do so."[13]
Speaking of the defilement of the temple, Eichrodt noted that, "Such a stupendous
act of judgment left no room for any doubt that the complete liquidation of the
inhabitants of Jerusalem would be carried out in full."[14]
ELLICOTT, “(2) One man among them was clothed with linen.—He was among
them, but not of them. There were six with weapons, and this one without a weapon
formed the seventh, thus making up the mystical number so often used in Scripture.
He was “clothed in linen,” the ordinary priestly garment, and the special garment of
the high priest at the ceremonies on the great Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16); yet
also used by others, and on other occasions, simply as a garment of purity and of
distinction (comp. Daniel 10:5), so that there is no need here to suppose a priestly
character attached to this one. He carried in his girdle the “inkhorn,” i.e., the little
case, containing pens, knife, and ink, commonly worn by the Oriental scribe. There
is no occasion to understand this person either, on the one hand, as a representation
of the Babylonian god Nebo, “the scribe of heaven,” nor, on the other, as is done by
many commentators, of our Lord. There is nothing mentioned which can give him
any special identification. He is simply a necessity of the vision, an angelic
messenger, to mark out those whose faithfulness to God amid the surrounding evil
exempts them from the common doom (comp. Revelation 7:3). This party are seen
coming “from the way of the higher gate.” The courts of the Temple were built in
stages, the innermost the highest. This, then, was the gate of the inner court, and
was on the north, both as the place where the prophet had been shown the
idolatries, and as the quarter from which the Chaldæan destruction was poured out
upon the nation. They took their station “beside the brazen altar,” as the central
point at once of the true worship of Israel and of the present profanation of that
worship.
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28. TRAPP, “Ezekiel 9:2 And, behold, six men came from the way of the higher gate,
which lieth toward the north, and every man a slaughter weapon in his hand; and
one man among them [was] clothed with linen, with a writer’s inkhorn by his side:
and they went in, and stood beside the brasen altar.
Ver. 2. And, behold, six men came.] Ad hunc Dei clamorem vel clangorem; the
angels came, the Chaldees came, at the call of this Lord of hosts, who hath all
creatures at his beck and check.
By the way of the higher gate.] Called also the new gate, [Jeremiah 26:10] built by
Jotham. [2 Chronicles 27:3]
Toward the north.] Where stood the idol of jealousy, and whereby Nebuchadnezzar
entered.
“ Per quod quis peccat, per idem punitur et ipse. ”
One man among them.] This was a created angel, say some; [Ezekiel 10:2] Christ,
the angel of the covenant, say others, with more likelihood of truth.
Clothed with linen.] As high priest of his people, and in addition an offering for
them, and that without spot. [Hebrews 9:14]
And a writer’s inkhorn by his side.] An ensign of his prophetic office, say some, as
his linen clothing was of his priestly; and of his kingly, that he was among, or in the
midst of, the six slaughtermen, as their captain and commander.
They went in and stood beside the brazen altar.] Where they might receive further
28

29. instructions from God. So in the Revelation, those angels that were to pour out the
vials of divine vengeance, are said to come out of the temple.
POOLE, “ So soon as command was given out, these ministers of God’s just
displeasure appear ready to execute.
Six; that was the precise number, neither more nor fewer.
Men. In appearance and vision they were men, and the prophet calls them as he saw
them; whether angels in the shape of men, or whether really men, needs not much
inquiry; they came without delay.
From the way of the higher gate; either because, being more inward, it is higher
than the outward, as in all buildings upon ascents, where you go up by steps from
the outward parts towards the inmost building; or because it was built more lofty
than the other, enlarged likely by Jotham, 2 Chronicles 27:3.
Toward the north; insinuating whence their destruction should come; from Babylon
came that whirlwind, Ezekiel 1:4, which was to overthrow Jerusalem. And this
north gate was the weakest, both by their sins there committed, and by its situation,
which invited Antiochus and Titus to pitch their tents on that side when they
besieged it, and on this side the Chaldeans did first enter.
A slaughter weapon: see Ezekiel 9:1.
One man; not companion, but as one of great authority over them, who are as
officers waiting on him on every side.
Linen; a garment proper to the priesthood, whether ordinary priest or high priest,
29

30. Exodus 28:42,43 Le 6:10: in this habit appeared the angel, Daniel 10:5 12:6,7; and a
very fit resemblance of Christ, who is the only Saviour of his elect, whose names he
knows as if written by him.
They went in; all the seven, both the six executioners, and the single man clothed in
linen, went into the inner court, where they stand waiting till the word be given for
execution.
Stood beside the brazen altar; either showing that they were ready to offer up many
sacrifices to the just revenge of God; or to show their value, zeal, and constancy to
God’s appointment, for they are not where Ahaz’s altar was in the middle of the
court, but near the brazen altar of God’s own direction.
WHEDON, “ 2. Six men… every man a slaughter weapon in his hand — These were
symbolic of the divine executioners. In what form they appeared, other than that
they looked like men, is not stated. Did they to the prophet’s eyes appear as the
temple butchers, or as angels (Ezekiel 40:3; Ezekiel 43:6), or as Assyrians? The
latter actually were the future destroyers of Jerusalem. In any case they were
symbolic representatives of supernaturally directed powers. As six was the usual
symbol of the world and its satanic acts, and as a marked distinction is made
between these and the seventh, it may be that these represented worldly heathen
forces overruled and controlled by the heavenly.
From the way of the… gate — Which was the higher or upper gate is not made
certain in the context. One thing is positive, however, that the agents of punishment
came out of one of the northern gates; either entering the temple through the north
gate of the outer court or coming out of the holy place from the northern gate of the
sanctuary, thus passing through the very doors which had so recently opened for the
abominable idol worshipers (chap. 8). The fact that in Ezekiel’s temple the
innermost gate was the highest (Jeremiah 36:10), together with the appropriateness
of God’s agents of justice coming from his own holy place, makes it most probable
that these ministers of Jehovah first appeared coming from the temple sanctuary.
30

31. One… clothed with linen — This man completes the sacred symbolic number of
perfection. God’s ministers of justice are seven. No more are needed. This number
suggests also the fact that these agents are engaged in holy work. To punish is as
divine as to forgive. This seventh man is the divine scribe, who knows the names of
all God’s people (Ezekiel 9:4). He is the priestly mediator between God’s justice and
human sin. He is the divine executive and evidently chief of the seven (Ezekiel 9:3).
Orelli and many others do not hesitate to see in him the “Angel of the Covenant”
(Zechariah 1:11; Joshua 5:14; Genesis 17:1). White linen garments are always the
symbol of purity. (Compare Daniel 10:5; Daniel 12:6; Leviticus 16:4; Revelation
15:6.)
Stood beside the brazen altar — This was in the inner court. (Compare Ezekiel
43:13-17.) Coming from the holy of holies, these mysterious messengers of Jehovah
pause at the altar for further commands.
PETT, “Verse 2
‘And behold six men came from the way of the upper gate, which lies towards the
north, every one with his weapon for destruction in his hand, and one man in the
midst of them, clothed in linen, with a writer’s kit hanging by his side (‘on his
loins’). And they went in and stood beside the bronze altar.’
Seven heavenly ‘men’ now entered the temple area, six equipped for destruction and
one for mercy (compare Revelation 8:2; Revelation 8:6). In all Near Eastern nations
seven was the number of divine perfection and completeness. These men were thus
seen as complete for the divine task in hand. The fact that they came from a
northerly direction was probably either to indicate the direction from which
judgment was coming, or to confirm that they came from the heavenly dwelling
place of God (see on Ezekiel 1:4). They entered by the way where the women were
weeping for Tammuz (Ezekiel 8:14), and the image of jealousy had its place (Ezekiel
8:5). They saw enough to stir their righteous anger.
They entered in a group with the man with the writing kit in the middle. He was
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32. clothed in linen. This regularly denotes a heavenly personality (Daniel 10:5; Daniel
12:6-7; Revelation 15:6). The remainder were probably dressed as warriors, and the
weapon held ready in the hand was always an indication of judgment. But we must
not see the man with the writing kit as being of a different temper than the others,
for he is the one who will throw the coals of judgment over Jerusalem (Ezekiel 10:2).
He merely has a different function. All are one in their actions. The group reminds
us that in the midst of God’s judgments there is always mercy for those who
respond to Him.
The word for ‘writing kit’ is found only here and may well be an Egyptian loan
word (qeset from Egyptian gsti). Such a writing kit was usually made from animal
horn or wood. It would have a palette with a long groove for the rush pens and
circular hollows for two kinds of ink, usually black and red. It was a kit that would
be carried by professional scribes.
‘And they went in and stood beside the bronze altar.’ This bronze altar was the old
altar from Solomon’s temple which had been replaced with a stone altar by Ahaz,
which he patterned on a Syrian altar (2 Kings 16:14), the old bronze altar being
removed and put to the north of the stone altar for the king to ‘enquire by’ (2 Kings
9:15). But this was the altar recognised by Yahweh. This is another indication of
how the temple had been defiled. God had not overlooked the replacing of His altar
with a foreign altar. From the true altar His mercy and judgment would reach out.
The action is very significant. On that bronze altar had been offered sacrifices for
Israel for many generations. There atonement had been made. It had also been a
place of sanctuary when there was nowhere else to go. Men could flee to the altar (1
Kings 1:50; 1 Kings 2:28). But now the right of sanctuary was lost. The sacrifices
had ceased. God was deserting His temple and His altar. It was no longer a holy
place.
PULPIT, “Behold, six men, etc. The man clothed with linen brings the number up to
the sacred number seven, as in Zechariah 4:10; Revelation 1:16,Revelation 1:20;
Revelation 15:6. He is over them rather than among them, and answers to the scribe
who appears so frequently in Assyrian sculptures, as the secretary who counts the
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33. prisoners that have been taken in battle. They come from the north, the region from
which the vision of Ezekiel 1:4 had come, in which, in the nearer vision of Ezekiel
8:4, the prophet had seen the same glorious presence. They appear, i.e; as issuing
from the Divine presence to do their work of judgment. Possibly. as in Jeremiah
1:1-19; there may be an allusive reference to the fact that the Chaldeans, as the
actual instruments of their judgment, came from the same region. The gate in
question was built by Jotham (2 Kings 15:35). The captain of the band is arrayed in
the "white linen" of the hosts of heaven and of the priests on earth ( ποδήρης in the
LXX.; comp. Le Jeremiah 6:10; Jeremiah 16:4; Ezekiel 44:17; Daniel 10:5; Daniel
12:6). A writer's inkhorn. Through all the changes of Eastern life this has been the
outward sign of the scribe's office. Here it is obviously connected with the oft-
recurring thought of the books of life and death in the chancery of heaven (Exodus
32:32; Psalms 69:28; Psalms 139:16; Isaiah 4:3; Daniel 41:1; Philippians 4:3). It was
to be the work of this scribe (Jeremiah 1:4) to mark such as were for death to death,
such as were for life to life. The LXX; misunderstanding the Hebrew, or following a
different text, gives, not "a writer's inkhorn," but "a girdle of sapphire." With all
the precision of one who knew every inch of the temple courts, the priest-prophet
sees the visitants take their station beside the brazen altar, probably, as they came
from the north, on the north side of it.
3 Now the glory of the God of Israel went up from
above the cherubim, where it had been, and
moved to the threshold of the temple. Then the
Lord called to the man clothed in linen who had
the writing kit at his side
BARNES, "Cherub - The singular is put collectively for the “cherubim,” which were
upon the mercy-seat of the ark in the holy of holies, the proper seat of the glory of the
33

34. Lord in the midst of Israel. God is represented as “arising” from between the cherubim
to scatter His enemies Num_10:35.
CLARKE, "And he called to the man - The person here who called was that who
sat on the chariot of the Divine glory. See Eze_1:26.
GILL, "And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub,
whereupon he was,.... That is, the glorious God of Israel; or the glorious Shechinah,
and divine Majesty, which dwelt between the cherubim over the mercy seat in the most
holy place, removed from thence, as a token of his being about to depart from the
temple, which in a short time would be destroyed. The Targum is,
"the glory of the God of Israel departed in the cherub on which he dwelt, in the house of
the holy of holies;''
the cherubim removed with him, and were his chariot in which he rode; see Eze_10:18;
to the threshold of the house; of the holy of holies, as Jarchi interprets it; and so
was nearer to the brasen altar, where the seven men stood, to give them their orders; of
which an account follows:
and he called to the man clothed with linen, which had the writer's inkhorn
by his side; he, being the principal person, is called first; and his business being to
preserve the Lord's people shows that this was the first care of God.
JAMISON, "glory of ... God — which had heretofore, as a bright cloud, rested on
the mercy seat between the cherubim in the holy of holies (2Sa_6:2; Psa_80:1); its
departure was the presage of the temple being given up to ruin; its going from the inner
sanctuary to the threshold without, towards the officers standing at the altar outside,
was in order to give them the commission of vengeance.
CALVIN, “Now the Prophet shows why the angel was added to the Chaldeans,
namely, to put a bridle on them, lest they should rage promiscuously and without
selection against the elect and the reprobate. This is a remarkable passage, because
from it we learn, first, that God effectually threatens the impious, so that he may
have attendants always at hand to obey him; then, that even unbelievers make war
under the direction of God, and are governed by his rod, and do nothing except at
his will. Nor are the Chaldeans said to have come to the temple in vain, and to have
placed themselves before the altar of God. This is not related to their praise, as if
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35. they obeyed God spontaneously, or as if they had purposed to themselves to carry
out his commands, but the secret providence of God is here treated. Although,
therefore, the Chaldeans gave the rein to their self-will, and did not think
themselves divinely governed; yet God here pronounces that they were under his
hand just as if God had them as hired soldiers: as Satan is said to have joined
himself to the sons of God: this was not a voluntary obedience, but because his
machinations could not attack the holy Job, unless by God’s command. (Job 1:6.)
God’s sons appear in a very different way, since they offer a free obedience, and
desire him only to reign. But how great soever is the difference between the sons of
God and Satan, and all the reprobate, yet it is equally true that Satan and the
wicked obey God. This, therefore, we must learn in the second place. But, thirdly,
we are taught that God never rashly executes his vengeance without sparing his
elect. For this reason in the slaughter of Jerusalem he has an angel, who opposes a
shield, as it were, to the Chaldeans, lest their cruelty should injure them beyond
God’s pleasure, as we shall by and bye see. Therefore I said that the place was
remarkable, because when God puts forth the signs of his wrath, the sky is, as it
were, overclouded, and the faithful no less than the unbelieving are frightened, nay
terrified with fear. For as to outward condition, there was no difference between
them. Because therefore the sons of God are subject to that terror which obscures
all sense of God’s favor in adversity, so this doctrine must be held diligently,
namely, when God gives the rein to furious men, so that they dissipate, overthrow,
and destroy all things, then the angels are always united, who restrain their
intemperance with a hidden bridle, since otherwise they would never be moderate.
He says, therefore, that the glory of the God of Israel ascended from the cherub to
the threshold He takes the glory of God for God himself, as we may readily collect
from the next verse; for he says that Jehovah had spoken. But this speech agrees
very well, because God cannot be comprehended by us, unless as far as he
accommodates himself to our standard. Because therefore God is incomprehensible
in himself, nor did he appear to his Prophet as he really is, (since not angels even
bear the immense magnitude of his glory, much less a mortal man,) but he knew
how far it was expedient to discover himself, therefore the Prophet here takes his
glory for himself; that is, the vision, which was a sign or symbol of the presence of
God. But he says that it ascended from the cherub Here also is a change of number,
because God is said everywhere to sit between the cherubim. (2 Samuel 6:2; 2 Kings
19:15; Isaiah 37:16.) But here only one cherub is put, but this figure of speech is well
understood, as it is so common, for God resided between the cherubim: it is said that
he went thence to the threshold of the temple This was a prelude to departure, as we
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36. shall afterwards see. And this testimony was needful to the Jews, because they
thought that God was bounded by the visible temple. Hence the Prophet shows that
God was not fixed to a place, so as to be compelled to remain there. This is the
reason why it is said that he came from his seat to the threshold of the temple Now,
he adds, that he cried out to the man clad in the linen garment, and whose inkhorn
was by his side, though others translate it writing-tablets: but as he afterwards says,
write on their foreheads, it is very probable that the ink was in his girdle, that he
might mark the elect of God, that the Chaldeans should not touch them. Again he
calls the angel a man, but on account of the form which he put on, as I said before. I
cannot proceed further.
COKE, “Ezekiel 9:3. And the glory, &c.— Meaning the glory which Ezekiel saw in
the preceding chapter; that is to say, not only the chariot of glory, with the wheels
and the cherubim, but also the Man sitting in the chariot; for it is the Man who
speaks in this and the following verses, and who in the fourth verse is called
Jehovah, or the Lord: It is observable, that cherub is here used in the singular for
the whole divine apparatus: Houbigant renders it, From the cherubim whereupon
he sat. In 1 Chronicles 28:18 the chariot of the cherubims is spoken of. This glory of
God is mentioned here and in other places as going to and standing over the
threshold of the house, in order, as it seems most probable, to denote that God was
now about to depart from his temple. See on chap. Ezekiel 11:23.
He called— He who sat on the throne, chap. Ezekiel 1:26. See chap. Ezekiel 10:2.:
"He spake." Or, we may render it, "And Jehovah called to the man clothed with
linen, who had the writer's inkhorn by his side, and said unto him, &c."
ELLICOTT, “(3) The glory . . . to the threshold.—In Ezekiel 8:4 the prophet had
seen the same vision as he has described in Ezekiel 1 standing at the entrance of the
court of the priests, and there it still remained. The word cherub is here used
collectively. Now that special glory above the cherubim, which represented the
Divine Being Himself, was gone from its place to the threshold of the house, but is
returned again in Ezekiel 10:1. At the same time, there is also suggested the idea
that the ordinary presence of God between the cherubim in the Holy of Holies
within the Temple has left its place, and come out to the door of the house. The two
ideas are indeed distinct, and yet by no means incapable of being blended in the
imagery of a vision. The significance of the former is that the command for
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37. judgment proceeds from the very Temple itself to which the Pharisaic Jews looked
as the pledge of their safety; while the other would mean that the Lord had already
begun to forsake His Temple. Both thoughts are true, and both are emphasised in
the course of the vision.
TRAPP, “Ezekiel 9:3 And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the
cherub, whereupon he was, to the threshold of the house. And he called to the man
clothed with linen, which [had] the writer’s inkhorn by his side;
Ver. 3. And the glory of the God of Israel,] i.e., The Son of God appearing upon the
glorious chariot, [Ezekiel 1:3; Ezekiel 3:23] and being "the brightness of his
Father’s glory, the express image of his person." [Hebrews 1:3]
Was gone up from the cherub,] i.e., From those four cherubims upon which the
glory of the Lord did then appear to the prophet. [Ezekiel 8:4] He was gone from his
ark, to show that the refractory Jews were now discovenanted; and from his mercy
seat, to show that he would show them no more mercy. Many moves God makes in
this and the two following chapters to show his loathness utterly to move; and still,
as he goeth out, some judgment cometh in. Here he removeth from the cherubims in
the oracle to the threshold; and upon that removal see what followeth; [Ezekiel
9:3-7] so for the rest see Ezekiel 10:1-2; Ezekiel 10:4; Ezekiel 10:18-19; Ezekiel
11:8-10; Ezekiel 11:22-23; and when God was quite gone from the city, then
followed the fatal calamity in the ruin thereof. But that he went away by degrees,
and not soon and at once, was an argument of his very great love and longsuffering.
He left them step by step, as it were, and pled loath to depart; but that there was no
remedy. Tied he is not to any place, as these fond Jews thought he was to their
visible temple, which now he is about therefore to abandon, and to make their very
sanctuary a slaughterhouse.
POOLE, “ The glory; either a glorious brightness, such as some times appeared
above the cherubims in the most, holy place, or the glorious God of Israel, who is the
Lord that speaks, Ezekiel 9:4, or that glory which the prophet saw, Ezekiel 1:28 3:23
8:4, which see, and which brought him into the temple.
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38. Gone up; withdrawn in part, departing from the place he had so long dwelt in. The
cherub, or cherubims; for it is here singular instead of plural.
Whereupon he was either wont to sit and appear, or else on which he was when he
appeared unto Ezekiel, as Ezekiel 8:4.
The threshold of the house; of the holy of holies, or of the temple, towards the
brazen altar; in token either of his sudden departure from the Jews because of their
sins; or that he might come nearer to those seven, to give them orders about wasting
the city.
He called with a plain and loud voice, declaring his purpose to proceed to judge and
execute his righteous judgment; but yet first providing for the safety of the good.
WHEDON, “ 3. From the cherub — LXX., cherubim. For a full explanation of these
symbolic forms and the differences between Ezekiel’s cherubim and those of
Genesis see notes on chap. 10. These strange creatures came out of the same forests
with the lions and cats and bulls and dragons of English heraldry. They are closely
related to the allegorical forms, so reverenced in Egypt, by which it was sought to
explain the mystery of life and the character and attributes of the deities. An
Egyptian text of the Mosaic period reads: “The god of this world is in the light over
the heaven. His symbols are upon the earth and to them reverence is paid every
day” (Ani Papyrus). Professor James Strong (Biblical World, April, 1893) says the
cherubim of the tabernacle were “imaginative embodiments of the four leading
attributes of Deity in the physical world according to the unscientific, but really
profound and correct, notions of the Hebrews; namely, intelligence, power,
constancy, and rapidity. Accordingly they are… bearers of Jehovah’s throne; and
they correspond essentially to what we term cardinal ‘laws of nature,’ that is, forces
acting for a definite purpose, uniformly and instantaneously. In this light the
location of the two upon the lid of the sacred ark is pre-eminently fitting as the
custodians of the divine law, nature thus corroborating revelation.”
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39. To the threshold of the house — The threshold, like the court and the gate of the
court (see note Ezekiel 8:6), from a priestly standpoint probably means the priests’
court. If so, this perfectly explains the expression in Ezekiel 10:5, and it seems far
more natural that these priestly sacrificers, pausing at the altar, should receive their
orders from the threshold of the priests’ court or the sanctuary rather than that
these orders should have been shouted to them from the threshold of the outer
court. (See Temple Plan, p. 209). It is also suggestive that from earliest ages the
threshold of a sanctuary was a sacred place (Trumbull, Threshold Covenant).
PETT, “Verse 3-4
‘And the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the cherub, on which it was, to
the threshold of the house. And he called to the man clothed in linen, who had the
writer’s kit hanging at his side. And Yahweh said to him, “Go through the midst of
the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark (‘a taw’, in ancient Hebrew
an X) on the foreheads of the men who sigh and who cry for all the abominations
that are done in the midst of it.” ’
The movement of ‘the glory of God’ is also very significant. Being ‘on the cherub’
referred to the Ark of the Covenant of Yahweh on which was the throne of Yahweh
overseen by cherubim. In the past the glory of God had regularly covered the Ark
and the Tabernacle (Exodus 40:34-35), and in vision Ezekiel had seen this as
transportable as we have seen earlier, with the living creatures bearing it. But the
latter have not yet been identified as cherubim. But now He leaves His throne in the
sanctuary and moves to the threshold of the temple. He is at this point deliberately
rejecting the temple and all it means. He is about to depart.
The use of the singular ‘cherub’ to indicate the cherubim is paralleled in Ezekiel
10:2; Ezekiel 10:4; 2 Samuel 22:11; Psalms 18:10.
But God never forgets His own. Within the city there were still those who were
faithful to Him and whose hearts were broken at what was going on. They sighed
and cried at what they saw around them. True faith and true righteousness are
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40. always revealed by men’s attitude to sin and disobedience to God. He had
determined to put His protecting mark on them. None would harm those who were
faithful to Him. His mark would be on their foreheads. Compare Revelation 7:3;
Revelation 9:4; Revelation 14:1. In the later words of Jesus, ‘the hairs of their head
were all numbered’. Ezekiel and his listeners would think in terms of preservation
of life. With our greater revelation we recognise that the meaning was their eternal
preservation. They were untouchable.
The mark on their foreheads was an X (the ancient form of the letter taw). Compare
Job 31:35 where it represented a signature. It was sometimes used by the scribes at
Qumran to indicate points of importance in their scrolls such as Messianic passages.
We may well see in it a remarkable precursor to the sign of the cross. These men
were ‘signed’ by God, marked as belonging to Him. They were engraved on the
palms of His hands (Isaiah 49:16). In all His wrath against sin He was faithful to His
covenant with those who still trusted Him, with the righteous.
PULPIT, “Was gone up; better, went up. The prophet saw the process as well as the
result. The "glory of the Lord" which he bad seen (Ezekiel 8:4) by the northern gate
rose from its cherub throne (we note the use of the singular to express the unity of
the fourfold form), as if to direct the action of his ministers, to the threshold of the
"house." This may be connected also with the thought that the normal abiding place
of the presence of the Lord had been "between the cherubim" (Psalms 80:1) of the
mercy seat, but that thought seems in the present instance to be in the background,
and I adopt the former interpretation as preferable.
BI 3-6, “Set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh.
The protected people
I. God has a people of His own in a world of sinners, who feel for His honour, and desire
to sustain His authority. These are the salt of the earth; the preservation of men. Set
apart by the Lord, for Himself; made by the Holy Spirit, new creatures in Christ Jesus;
standing with His robe of righteousness, complete in Him; instant in prayer; fruitful in
holiness; and preferring the reproach of Christ to the treasures of the world; they are at
once the ornament and the defence of mankind. And it imports an amazing amount of
corruption and guilt in a land, when it is proclaimed that such men can but deliver their
own souls, and shall be no longer the instruments to convey Divine blessings to others.
These people of God have not sighed in listless idleness, or wept tears of fearful
indolence, without an effort to stop the progress of man’s iniquity. No. They are those
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41. who have first done all in active effort which they could do to restrain the wickedness of
others; and who now, while they are mourning for their sins, are bearing their testimony
with fidelity against them. Jealous for the honour of God, happy in the acceptance of a
Saviour, knowing the comforts of the Holy Ghost, believing the revealed responsibility
and destiny of sinful men, they long to the end of life for the salvation of the ungodly;
and sigh and cry unto God, while they live, over a destruction in which they have no
participation, and which men bring wholly upon themselves.
II. This people are entirely protected in the destruction which God brings upon the
ungodly. Amidst surrounding ungodliness, the secret of the Lord is with them that fear
Him, and He will hide them in His tabernacle, until the danger be overpast. They are
marked by His infallible determination, and are sealed by His Spirit unto the day of
redemption. Known by the mark of grace—grace which loved them, bought them, found
them, brought them back, kept them, and crowned them—they stand before God,
sanctified and secured. Happy in their eternal enjoyments. Happy in all their earthly
sorrows. Happy, peculiarly in this, that they sighed and cried for the abominations of
men, in their zeal for the honour of the Lord of hosts.
III. While the people of God are thus distinguished and protected, the destruction of the
ungodly will be entire. Long has God endeavoured to lead them to repentance; long has
the Saviour stood waiting to receive them; long has the Divine Spirit exerted Himself to
bring them back to Christ. And while all this was passing, they might have found a refuge
in the Gospel, and have gained eternal life. But now the dispensation of mercy has been
closed, and they are left, as they have chosen to be left, to the unbending operation of
law. They die without mercy. They perish without redemption. They are destroyed
forever. This destruction will begin with those who are most highly favoured with
religious privileges. “Begin at My sanctuary,” says the Lord to the angels of destruction.
“Judgment must begin at the house of God,” says the apostle Peter, as if in reference to
this very passage of our text. Neither the pulpit nor the sanctuary; neither profession nor
self-complacency shall afford protection to the sinner’s soul. There is no respect of
persons before the tribunal of the living God. The hypocrite shall be unveiled; the false
professor shall be exhibited as he is; the self-righteous man shall be held up to view in
his own deformities and unrepented sin shall everywhere see the destroying weapon,
with an irreversible energy, coming upon itself. (S. H. Tyng, D. D.)
The mark of life
The mark in this case was, as the Hebrew verb indicates, to be the letter Tau, the oldest
form of which, as in Phoenician and earlier Hebrew alphabets, was that of a cross. Such
a mark had been in use from the time of the Book of Job, as the equivalent of a signature
(Job_31:35); or, as in later Arab use, was branded on sheep and cattle as a sign of
ownership. To assume that there was any reference in it to the significance which was to
attach to the sign of the cross in Christian symbolism would be, perhaps, too bold a
hypothesis; but the fact that such a symbol appeared in the crux ansata (the cross with a
handle to it) of Egyptian monuments, as the sign of life, may possibly have determined
its selection in this instance, when it was used to indicate those who, as the people of
Jehovah, bearing His stamp upon them, were to escape the doom of death passed upon
the guilty. (Dean Plumptre.)
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42. Safety in time of destruction
I. The description here given of those persons whom the man with the writer’s inkhorn
was commanded in the day of wrath to mark upon the forehead. Idolatry, infidelity,
mockery of God, appear to have been the principal part—the head and front of Israel’s
offending, and for this the destroyer was sent forth, and the hand of unrelenting,
unsparing vengeance commanded to do its work. Are we individually and unfeignedly
sighing and crying for England’s abominations? Are we confessing our sins, and feeling
the weight of personal transgressions, and acknowledging the power and faithfulness of
God in pardoning and removing them? Are our hearts and hands uplifted for the land we
dwell in? Are our voices as loud in prayer to God for mercy towards the guilty as they are
to our fellow creatures in reprobation of them?
II. What is the nature of that mark to which the prophet in the text refers? We find
similar language used by St. John in the Apocalypse (Rev_7:3-4). Of whatever nature,
then, the mark may be, it is expressive of, and a security for preservation. The allusion
may be to the ancient custom of branding slaves upon the forehead, by which it was
known whose property they were, or probably to that signalising mark of blood seen
upon the door post of Israel, in Egypt, which secured them in the hour that the
destroying angel smote the first-born of her oppressors. Both ideas may be involved, and
from both we shall compound our idea of the mark.
1. There will be the blood, the mark of the blood, which blood, sprinkled upon the
heart, disarms just vengeance, and secures it against the wrath of God. Is the blood
upon your heart?—in plain terms, do you know its character, estimate its worth; rest
upon its merits, and consider it as the mark of distinguishing grace and the security
for certain preservation?
2. There is the mark of servitude.
III. God’s command to the destroyers. First the man with the inkhorn goes forth to
secure God’s chosen, and then goes forth the command unto the men with the slaughter
weapons. “Begin at My sanctuary,” slay, spare not. Christendom, generally, is His
professed house, and England, in peculiar, is His sanctuary. The other nations have
tasted a little of these judgments, and war and pestilence and forebodings of fresh evil
are now among the bitter ingredients of the Continental cup of vengeance. But the time
is come when judgment in her severest form must begin at the house of God—begin with
us, and shake with its most appalling force, not merely those institutions which papal
and schismatical revenge are bent on destroying, but the imposing fabric of evangelical
profession. This sanctuary needs cleansing. This amalgamation of wheat and tares under
the common aspect of wholesome grain needs sifting. (H. J. Owen.)
The distinguishing signs of the righteous
I. The characters described.
1. The characters are those who inwardly feel and lament on account of the
abominations of men. They thus feel—
(1) From a remembrance of their own former condition.
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43. (2) From a sincere concern for the glory of God.
(3) From a deep compassion and love to souls.
2. The evidence of this inward feeling for souls.
(1) The cry of a godly example.
(2) The cry of earnest entreaty and admonition.
(3) The cry of fervent prayer for their salvation.
II. The mark appointed.
1. A mark of distinction.
2. A Divine mark.
3. This mark is prominent. “In the forehead.” Grace, in its essence, is secret, but
always visible in its effects.
4. This mark is essential.
III. The deliverance secured.
1. From destruction.
2. Personal.
3. Certain.
Application—
1. The subject furnishes a test of Christian character. Do we sigh and cry, etc.
2. It should be a stimulus to increased exertion.
3. Urge upon the exposed sinner the necessity of immediately obtaining the mark. (J.
Burns, D. D.)
The mark of deliverance
When God visits the world, or any part of it, with His desolating judgments, He usually
sets a mark of deliverance on such as are suitably affected with the sins of their fellow
creatures.
I. What is implied in being suitably affected with the sins of our fellow creatures? That
we are naturally disposed to be little or not at all affected with the sins of others, unless
they tend, either directly or indirectly, to injure ourselves, it is almost needless to
remark. If our fellow creatures infringe none of our real or supposed rights, and abstain
from such gross vices as evidently disturb the peace of society, we usually feel little
concern respecting their sins against God; but can see them following the broad road to
destruction with great coolness and indifference, and without making any exertion, or
feeling much desire to turn their feet into a safer path. This being the case, it is evident
that a very great and radical change must take place in our views and feelings before we
can be suitably affected with the sins of our fellow creatures, if the conduct of the
persons mentioned in our text is the standard of what is suitable.
1. If we fear sin more than the punishment of sin; if we mourn rather for the
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44. iniquities than for the calamities which we witness; if we are more grieved to see God
dishonoured, His Son neglected, and immortal souls ruined, than we are to see our
commerce interrupted, our fellow citizens divided, and our country invaded it is one
proof that we resemble the characters mentioned in our text.
2. Being suitably affected with the sins of our fellow creatures implies the diligent
exertion, by every means in our power, to reform them. This attempt must be made—
(1) By our example. Men are imitative beings; the force of example is almost
inconceivably great, and there is, perhaps, no man so poor or insignificant as not
to have some friend or dependant who may be influenced by his example.
(2) By our exertions. We must endeavour ourselves, and exert all our influence to
induce others, to banish from among us intemperance, profanity, violations of
the Sabbath, neglect of religious institutions, and other prevailing sins of the age
and country in which we live.
(3) By our prayers. Exertion without prayer, and prayer without exertion, are
alike presumptuous, and can be considered as only tempting God—and if we
neglect either, we have no claim to be numbered among the characters described
in our text.
3. Those who are suitably affected with the sins of their fellow creatures will
certainly be much more deeply affected with their own. While they smart under the
rod of national calamities, they will cordially acknowledge the justice of God, and feel
that their own sins have assisted in forming the mighty mass of national guilt.
II. On such as are thus affected, God will set a mark of deliverance, when those around
them are destroyed by His desolating judgments. This may be inferred—
1. From the justice of God. As they have separated themselves from others by their
conduct, it requires that a mark of separation and deliverance should be set upon
them by the hand of a righteous God. Hence the plea of Abraham with regard to
Sodom, a plea of which God tacitly allowed the force. Witness the preservation of
guilty Zoar for the sake of Lot, and the declaration of the destroying angel, I cannot
do anything till thou be come thither.
2. From God’s holiness. As a holy God He cannot but love holiness; He cannot but
love His own image; He cannot but love those who love Him. But the characters of
whom we are speaking evince by their conduct that they do love God. His cause, His
interest, His honour, they consider as their own. A holy God, therefore, will, nay, He
must, display His approbation of holiness by placing upon them a mark of
distinction.
3. From His faithfulness. God has said, Them that honour Me I will honour. (E.
Payson, D. D.)
The character of Zion’s mourners
In the text we have two things.
1. A party distinguishing themselves from others in a sinning time. And this they do
by their exercise, not by any particular name of sect or party, but by their practice.
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45. (1) The heavy exercise they have on their spirits at such a time. It is expressed by
two words, both passive, importing that there is a load and a weight of grief and
sorrow on them: which makes them sigh when others laugh; oppresses their
spirits while others go lightly: and makes them cry. The word rather signifies to
groan, as a deadly wounded man, who is hardly able to cry (Jer_51:52).
(2) The ground of this their heavy exercise, the abominations done in the midst
thereof.
2. Here is God’s distinguishing that party from others in a suffering time, seeing to
their safety when the men with the slaughter weapons were to go through.
(1) Who gives the orders concerning them: The Lord said.
(2) Who gets the orders about them: He that was clothed with linen, having a
writer’s inkhorn by his side. This is Jesus Christ, the Angel of the covenant. He
appears here in all His offices: He is among the destroying angels as a king; He is
clothed in linen as a priest; He has a writer’s inkhorn by His side as a prophet.
(3) The charge given concerning them.
(i) To go through the midst of Jerusalem, the high streets. The mourners would be
found there, by their carriage among others, testifying their dislike of the God-
provoking abominations abounding among them.
(ii)
To set a mark upon them. This is to be done before the destroying angels get the
word to fall on, to show the special care that God has of His own in the time of the
greatest confusion.
(iii)
To set it in their foreheads. In the Egyptian destruction the mark was set on their
door posts, because their whole families were to be saved; but here it was to be set on
their foreheads, because it was only designed for particular persons.
I. Times of abounding sin are heavy times, times of sighing and groaning to the serious
godly, Zion’s mourners. I am to give the import of this exercise, and therein the
character of Zion’s mourners, to whom times of abounding sin are heavy times, times of
sighing and groaning.
1. Zion’s mourners are godly persons, who in respect of their state have come out
from the world lying in wickedness, and joined themselves to Jesus Christ (1Jn_
5:19).
2. Waking godly persons, not sleeping with the foolish virgins.
3. Mourners for their own sins (Eze_7:16).
4. Public spirited persons, who are concerned to know how matters go in the
generation wherein they live: how the interest of the Gospel thrives, what regard is
had to the law and honour of God, what case religion is in,—whether Satan’s
kingdom is gaining or losing ground.
5. Tender persons, careful to keep their own garments clean in a defiling time, and
dare not go along with the course of the times (Rev_3:4).
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46. 6. Zealous persons, opposing themselves to the current of abominations, as they
have access (Psa_69:9).
7. Persons affected at the heart for the sins of the generation, to the making of them
sigh and groan on that account before the Lord, when no eye sees but the all-seeing
One (Jer_13:17).
(1) The abominations done lie cross to the grain and disposition of their souls:
otherwise they would not make them sigh and groan.
(2) They are a burden to their spirits, as vile and filthy things are to the senses.
(3) They are wounds to their hearts, they groan like wounded men (Jer_15:18).
(4) Their grief vents itself in sighs and groans, as native indications of the
affections of their hearts (2Co_5:4).
II. Why such times are heavy times, times of sighing and groaning to Zion’s mourners.
1. Because of the dishonour they see done to God by these abominations (Psa_69:9).
2. Because of the wounds they see given to religion and the interest of Christ by these
abominations, and the advantage they see accruing to the interest of the devil and his
kingdom thereby (Rom_2:24).
(1) An arrow of grief for the loss on Christ’s side.
(2) An arrow of grief for the gain on the devil’s side.
3. Because of the fearful risk they see the sinners themselves run by these their
abominations (Psa_119:53).
4. Because of the contagion to others they see ready to spread from these
abominations (Mat_18:7; Ecc_9:1-18).
5. Because of the judgments of God which they see may be brought upon those yet
unborn, by reason of these abominations. Hence says the prophet (Hos_9:13-14).
6. Because of the Lord’s displeasure with the generation for these abominations
(Jer_15:1).
7. Because of the common calamity in which they see these abounding abominations
may involve themselves and the whole land. (T. Boston, D. D.)
Mourning for other men’s sins
I. It is a duty. If we are by the prescript of God to bewail in confession the sins of our
forefathers, committed before our being in the world, certainly much more are we to
lament the sins of the age wherein we live, as well as our own (Lev_26:40).
1. This was the practice of believers in all ages. Seth called the name of his son, which
was born at the time of the profaning the name of God in worship, Enos, which
signifies sorrowful or miserable, that he might in the sight of his son have a constant
monitor to excite him to an holy grief for the profaneness and idolatry that entered
into the worship of God (Gen_4:26). The rational and most precious part of Lot was
vexed with the unlawful deeds of the generation of Sodom, among whom he lived
(2Pe_2:7-8). The meekest man upon earth, with grief and indignation breaks the
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47. tables of the law when he sees the holiness of it broken by the Israelites, and
expresseth more his regret for that, than his honour for the material stones, wherein
God had with His own finger engraven the orders of His will. David; a man of the
greatest goodness upon record, had a deluge of tears, because they kept not God’s
law (Psa_119:136). Besides his grief, which was not a small one, horror seized upon
him upon the same account (Psa_119:53). How doth poor Isaiah bewail himself, and
the people among whom he lived (Isa_6:5). Perhaps such as could hardly speak a
word without an oath, or by hypocritical lip service, mocked God in the very temple.
2. It was our Saviour’s practice. He sighed in His spirit for the incredulity of that
generation, when they asked a sign, after so many had been presented to their eyes
(Mar_8:12). The hardness of their hearts at another time raised His grief as well as
His indignation (Mar_3:5). He was sensible of the least dishonour to His Father
(Psa_69:9). He wept at Jerusalem’s obstinacy, as well as for her misery, and that in
the time of His triumph. The loud hosannas could not silence His grief, and stop the
expressions of it (Luk_19:41).
3. Angels, as far as they are capable, have their grief for the sins of men. They can
scarce rejoice at men’s repentance without having a contrary affection for men’s
profaneness. How can they be instruments of God’s justice if they are without anger
against the deservers of it?
II. It is an acceptable duty to God.
1. It is a fulfilling the whole law, which consists of love to God and love to our
neighbours.
(1) It is a high testimony of love to God. The nature of true love is to wish all
good to them we love, to rejoice when any good we wish doth arrive unto them,
to mourn when any evil afflicts them, and that with a respect to the beloved
object.
(2) Nothing can evidence our love to man more than a sorrowful reflection upon
that wickedness which is the ruin of his soul, the disturbance of human society,
and unlocks the treasures of God’s judgments to fall upon mankind.
2. It is an imitating return for God’s affection. The pinching of His people doth most
pierce His heart; a stab to His honour, in gratitude, should most pierce theirs.
3. This temper justifies God’s law and His justice. It justifies the holiness of the law
in prohibiting sin, the righteousness of the law in condemning sin; it owns the
sovereignty of God in commanding, and the justice of God in punishing.
4. It is a sign of such a temper God hath evidenced Himself in Scripture much
affected with. A sign of a contrite heart, the best sacrifice that can smoke upon His
altar, next to that of His Son.
III. It is a means of preservation from public judgments.
1. Sincerity always escapes best in common judgments, and this temper of mourning
for public sins is the greatest note of it.
2. This frame clears us from the guilt of common sins. To mourn for them, and pray
against them, is a sign we would have prevented them if it had lain in our power; and
where we have contributed to them, we, by those acts, revoke the crime.
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48. 3. A grief for common sins is an endeavour to repair the honour God has lost. When
we concern ourselves for God’s honour, God will concern Himself for our protection.
God never was, or ever will be, behind-hand with His creature in affection.
4. The mourners in Sion are humble, and humility is preventive of judgments. God
revives the spirit of the humble (Isa_57:15). They that share in the griefs of the Spirit
shall not want the comforts of the Spirit.
5. Such keep covenant with God. The contract runs on God’s part to be an enemy to
His people’s enemies (Exo_23:22). It must run on our parts to love that which God
loves, hate that which God hates, grieve for that which grieves and dishonours Him;
who can do this by an unconcernedness?
6. Such also fear God’s judgments, and fear is a good means to prevent them. The
advice of the angel upon the approach of judgments is to fear God, and give glory to
Him (Rev_14:7).
IV. The use.
1. Reproof for us. Where is the man that hangs his harp upon the willows at the time
the temple of God is profaned? It reproves, then—
(1) Those that make a mock and sport of sin, so far they are from mourning for
it.
(2) Those that make others’ sins the matter of invectives, rather than of
lamentations, and bespatter the man without bewailing the sin.
(3) Those who are imitators of common sins, instead of being mourners for
them; as though others did not pilfer God’s right fast enough, and were too slow
in pulling Him from His throne; as if they grieved that others had got the start of
them in wickedness.
(4) Those that fret against God, instead of fretting against their own foolishness
(Pro_19:3).
(5) Those who are more transported against others’ sins, as they are, or may be,
occasions of hurt to them, than as they are injuries to God.
(6) Those who are so far from mourning for common sins that they never truly
mourned for their own; who have yet the treasures of wickedness, after the rod of
God hath been upon them (Mic_6:9-10).
2. Of comfort to such as mourn for common sins. All the carnal world hath not such
a writ of protection to show in the whole strength of nature, as the meanest mourner
in Sion hath in his sighs and tears. Christ’s mark is above all the shields of the earth;
and those that are stamped with it have His wisdom to guard them against folly, His
power against weakness, the everlasting Father against man, whose breath is in his
nostrils.
3. Mourn for the sins of the time and place where you live. It is the least dislike we
can show to them. A flood of grief becomes us in a flood of sin.
(1) This is a means to have great tokens of the love of God.
(2) It is a means to prevent judgments. Tears cleansed by the blood of Christ are
a good means to quench that justice which is a consuming fire. (S. Charnock, B.
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49. D.)
Christian humiliation
I. Some of the grounds we have for humiliation before God, for sighing and crying,
because of iniquity. God is entitled to the love and service which He receives from us. He
made us, and in requiring that we should devote those powers and faculties with which
He has endowed us, to Himself and to His service, He only requires that property which
is His own, and which should be employed in a way that is agreeable to the great Author
and Owner of that property. Jehovah is also infinitely worthy of the supreme love and
devoted obedience of His people. He is possessed of every possible perfection—He is
distinguished by every moral excellence in a degree that is infinite. God has also been
exceedingly kind to us. He has heaped upon us unnumbered benefits. He supplies our
daily, our hourly, wants, and He has not only made provision for us in time, but at the
expense of His own Son’s life; He has provided also for our eternal happiness. Besides all
this, the service to which God calls us is not only obedience to which He has a right, but
it is also obedience of a kind that is calculated to confer upon those who render it the
highest degree of satisfaction. This, then, being the case, this the relation in which we
stand to God, these the benefits we have received at His hand, this the nature and
character of the service He demands from us, how utterly inexcusable on our part any
kind, any degree, of transgression! One transgression is directly opposed to the nature of
His kingdom. Thus, then, have we ample grounds of humiliation were we this day
chargeable in the sight of God, with having only once deviated from the moral path of
God. But, oh! how often have we wandered from it! Never once have we given to God the
holy sense of love He is entitled to receive at our hands. Every moment of our conscious
or waking existence we have been guilty of coming short of what it was our imperious
duty to have rendered. But besides these shortcomings which have been thus
innumerous, oh! how numerous, and also how aggravated our actual positive
transgressions! Seek, oh! seek the contrition, the humiliation of soul, which a sense of
sin ought to inspire. But besides iniquities within, do not iniquities also prevail around
us, of a very heinous and aggravated character; iniquities in a high degree insulting to
the name of God; iniquities in a high degree calculated, if we would have the Lord’s
indignation averted, and if we would be distinguished by the state of mind with which
such prevailing iniquities should be contemplated by us all, to lead us to sigh and cry
because of them?
II. A mark is still stamped upon every child of God. They have the impress of God’s own
image upon their character,—they have those moral lineaments of character stamped
upon them by which God Himself is distinguished; they are thus marked as Jehovah’s
property, as in a very peculiar and special manner His own; and, regarding all such, it
may unhesitatingly be affirmed, that because of prevailing abominations they sigh and
cry. Oh! how desirous that we should seek to have the spirit that is here adverted to by
the Lord! Is calamity at any great distance from us? Are there no threatening clouds
lowering above us? (J. Marshall, M. A.)
The care of Christ over His mourners
I. God at all times narrowly inspects the state of His Church. “Go through the midst of
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50. the city,” etc. His eyes are in every place, but especially upon the Church, His pleasant
land, from the one end of the year to the other. He distinguishes with an accuracy
peculiar to Himself, her true members from hypocrites. He knows her enemies, and
restrains or destroys them. He knows when her members are in right exercise, and when
they are in the wrong. How should this inspire fear and reverence, faith and hope,
simplicity and godly sincerity in all her members!
II. Christ’s principal work is in the Church. Christ is head over all things, for His
Church, which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all. He worketh as God in
all places, but the particular sphere of His work is in His Church. He executes all His
offices in her, and nowhere else, and He has appointed ordinances as tokens of His
gracious presence with His people.
III. Christ’s errands to His Church are generally in mercy. “Set a mark upon the
foreheads,” etc. There are indeed exceptions to this rule. Sometimes He comes to
unhinge her constitution, to remove His ordinances, to bid a farewell to her, and to
execute His judgments upon her, as in the case of the Jewish Church afterwards, and of
the seven Churches of Asia. His design, notwithstanding these and other instances, is to
save and deliver, when He cometh to His Church. He is the Saviour of His body, the
Church, and all He doth for her is for her eternal advantage.
IV. In times of great and general defection God has a mourning remnant. He had so at
Jerusalem at the time specified, wicked as it was. These were few in number, and
unknown to the prophet, perhaps unknown to the angels, and to one another; but they
were known to Christ. He found them out, and it was His delightful work to signalise His
mercy, and the mercy of His Father, in setting a mark upon their foreheads. He is
infinite in wisdom, and cannot commit a mistake; He is infinite in power, and nothing
can obstruct His design of mercy towards His own elect. These mourners may be few in
number, but they are reckoned by Christ as equal, and superior to a generation of other
men. They are sometimes a third part, sometimes a tenth, and at other times as a few
berries on the top of the uppermost branches; but still these few are mourners.
V. Sin is always hateful to a holy soul. He sighs and cries for it. Every good man, like
Hannibal against the Romans, has sworn eternal war against sin. It is bitter to him,
because contrary to the nature, the will, and the law of that God whom he supremely
esteems and loves; because it killed the Lord Jesus, and grieves the Holy Spirit of God. It
is bitter in his heart, in his closet, in his family, in all places and circumstances.
VI. Saints not only hate sin, but sigh and cry for it. The first refers to the affection of
mind, and the last to the expressions of it in tears and other signs of grief. Grief for sin
made the saints in Scripture water their couch with tears, to eat no pleasant bread, to
keep them waking, to make them roll in dust, because God was dishonoured, and sin was
committed by themselves and others. Alas! how few are now found in such exercise!
VII. Good men mourn, not only for their own sins, but for all the abominations done in
the midst of the land. They grieve, first for their own sins, and then for the sins of others.
It were rank hypocrisy to invert this order; to do so is insufferable in the eyes of God and
man. They who live in sin, who never grieve for their own sins, and yet pretend to bewail
public crimes, are most detestable characters. As far as the knowledge of sin extends,
good men loathe and grieve for it. When robberies, murders, and other crimes which
tend to dissolve society are committed, when the sword of the magistrate is stretched
forth in vain, then it is time for God to work, and for saints to be dreadfully afraid of His
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51. judgments.
VIII. In times of judgments for sin, God generally sets a mark upon his mourning
remnant. He did so here, and in other instances innumerable. He is the guardian of the
Church, the protector of the poor. He issues out a writ of protection in their favour, as in
the 91st Psalm. He invites them to flee from danger, as in Isa_26:1-21. He delivers the
island of the innocent, He saves His righteous Lots in the destruction of the wicked. His
Calebs and Joshuas live still. His fruit-bearing trees are spared, while the barren trees
are struck with His lightning. (Christian Magazine.)
Godly sorrow for abounding iniquity
I. When, or upon what occasions, the exercise of godly sorrow for sin is in a peculiar
manner seasonable.
1. When transgressors are very numerous; when the body of a people is corrupted.
2. The call becomes still more pressing when transgressors are not only numerous,
but likewise bold and impudent; sinning, as Absalom did, “before all Israel, and in
the sight of the sun.” This is fatal presage of approaching vengeance; for God will not
always tolerate such insolent contempt of His authority.
3. Especially when sinners are not only numerous and impudent, but likewise guilty
of those grossest abominations which in former ages have been followed with the
most tremendous judgments. If you read the Scriptures you will find that profane
swearing, perjury, contempt of the Sabbath, theft, murder, and adultery are all of
this kind.
4. When the persons that commit them are resolute and incorrigible. When the
wicked are forewarned of their sin and danger; when, by the preaching of the Word,
their duty is plainly and faithfully set before them; when they are exhorted by others
and rebuked by their own consciences; when they are smitten with such rods as bear
the most legible signature of their crimes; or when, in a milder way, they are
admonished and warned by the punishments inflicted upon others for the same
crimes; when, after all or any of these means employed to reclaim them, they still
hold fast their iniquities, and will not let them go: then should the godly lament and
mourn, and pray with redoubled earnestness for those miserable creatures who have
neither the ingenuity nor the wisdom to pray for themselves.
II. A few obvious remarks relative to the time and place in which our lot is cast. It is too
apparent to be denied, that the vices I mentioned under the former head, intemperance,
lewdness, the most insolent abuse of the Christian Sabbath, lying, cursing, and even
perjury itself, are more or less practised in every corner of the land. However, as they
cannot be strictly accounted the peculiar reproach of the present age, I shall remind you
of some other instances of departure from God which, with greater and more evident
propriety, may be termed the distinguishing characteristics of the times in which we live.
1. I begin with Infidelity, which of late hath spread itself through all orders of men,
the lowest not excepted.
2. Again, is there not a visible contempt of the authority of God?
3. Further, we seem, in a great measure, to have lost any proper sense of our
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52. dependence upon God. “When His hand is lifted up we do not see.” We forget Him in
prosperity; and in adversity we look no higher than the creature.
4. To all these I must add the luxury and sensuality which have now spread their
roots and branches so wide that they may truly be said to fill the whole land. Pleasure
is at length become a laborious study; and with many, I am afraid, it is their only
study: for it leaves them no room to pursue any other. While the poor are striving,
while many who are willing to labour can find no employment, and not a few have
abandoned their native country to seek that sustenance in foreign parts which they
could not earn at home; still is pleasure pursued with increasing ardour, and no price
is deemed extravagant that can purchase an addition to it.
III. A few of the genuine symptoms and proper effects of the gracious temper I mean to
recommend.
1. We can never be assured that our grief for the sins of others is pure, and of the
right kind, unless our hearts be duly affected with grief and sorrow for our own
transgressions. Godly sorrow is just and impartial; it always begins at home, and
makes few visits abroad, till domestic sins are first bewailed.
2. Our grief is of the right kind when it leads us to pray for transgressors: and when
it hath not this effect, we have not only cause to suspect, but may conclude, without
hesitation, that it is spurious and counterfeit.
3. Our grief for the sins of others, if pure and genuine, will be accompanied with
proper endeavours to reclaim them. Every true mourner will consider himself as “his
brother’s keeper,” and will leave no means unattempted to prevent his ruin. He will
set his guilt and danger before him in the most prudent and affecting manner he can;
and though he meet with many repulses, nay, though his labour of love should be
requited with scorn and hatred, yet he will repeat his application again and again,
and take hold of every favourable opportunity that presents itself.
4. If we are in truth possessed of this gracious temper, if our grief for abounding
iniquity flows from the pure fountain of love to God, and zeal for His glory, we shall
own His cause in the most perilous times, and reckon nothing too dear to be
hazarded in His service. We must be doing in a humble dependence upon His grace;
and then we may both ask, and hope to obtain, His blessing upon our endeavours.
But if we pray, and sit still; if we lie howling upon our beds, when we should be
abroad at our labour, we offend God instead of pleasing Him, and can look for no
other answer but this, “Who hath required these things at your hand?” (R. Walker.)
Mourning over the sins of the city
I. The persons mentioned. Those that sigh and cry, etc. From whence we may observe,
that such persons there are that do so, and it is their duty so to do, even to sigh and cry
for the abominations, all of them, that are done in the midst of the city.
1. Out of their inward hatred and antipathy, even to sin itself.
2. Out of love to God, and a tenderness of His honour and glory.
3. Out of respect to themselves, and their own advantage. The more sin there is
abroad, the more are all men concerned in it; not only evil men but good, who are
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53. from hence in so much the greater danger; and that in a twofold respect, both as to
matter of defilement and of punishment. They are more in danger from hence to be
polluted, and they are more in danger from hence to be afflicted; and this makes
them to be so much troubled at it.
4. The servants of God have herein also a respect to others, even sometimes to
wicked men themselves, whom considered as men they lament for, while they are
guilty of such and such miscarriages. Those that cannot mourn for themselves,
through the obstinacy of themselves; yet they have in those cases others better than
themselves to mourn for them.
(1) Here are the expressions of sorrow, and they are two, “sighing” and “crying.”
The first signifies such a mourning as is more secret, and retired in itself. The
second signifies such a mourning as is more open, and exposed to observation.
Both of them such as are agreeable to the occasion and business here in hand.
Those that are the servants of God, they do both of them upon these occasions;
they do both inwardly conceive grief and also they do outwardly express it. The
second is the occasion of these expressions, and that is the abominations that are
committed. That which is abominable should especially be abominated by us.
The third thing is the extent of the commission, both in the word of universality,
all; and of place, in the midst of the city. This shows how far these abominations
had spread, and what footing they had got amongst them as matter of just
bewailing and lamentation to them.
II. A special care or regard which is had of them. Go and set a mark upon the foreheads
of them that, etc.
1. It is a mark of honour and observation; such persons as these are, they are highly
esteemed and accounted of by God Himself.
2. It is a mark of preservation likewise, and that especially; it is such a mark as
whereby God does distinguish them from other persons in the execution of His
judgments, which He does graciously exempt them from. Now, the reason of God’s
indulgence to such persons as are thus affected is especially upon this account—
(1) Because they are such as do more especially honour God, and glorify Him,
both in His attributes and providence; and those that honour Him He will
honour, and He will also protect.
(2) Such as these, they do close, and comply with Him in the way of His
judgment; therefore He will be more gracious to them. They come off to Him in
those ends which He propounds to Himself in His visitations, and so prevent
Him, and save Him a labour. And God loves not at all to afflict more than needs
must.
III. There are divers sorts of persons in the world, which come short of this duty.
1. Those that practise the abominations are far enough from mourning for them, and
so consequently far enough from this privilege here mentioned in the text, of having
a mark set upon them.
2. Such that do encourage others in wickedness, and not only not restrain them, but
rather countenance them, and further them in it.
3. Which is a lower degree of it, which do not lay the sins and abominations to their
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54. heart, which are not humbled for them, when it concerns them, and becomes them
to be. As we desire that God should not judge us, it concerns us to judge ourselves.
(T. Herren, D. D.)
The safety mark in troublous times
I. The search.
1. It is no surface search which God institutes. Were it so, who would not have “the
mark”? how few would there be on whom “the slaughter weapon” shall do its work.
2. It is a house search whereby we must be proved. Look well to what goes on within
thy habitation, if thou wouldst have “the slaughter weapon” pass and touch thee not.
Hath God His altar in thy house, so that thy family cannot be classed amongst those
“that call not on His name”? Is the Word of God read within thy walls, and is that
Word made the court of decision from which there is no appeal? It is a heart search.
God “trieth the reins and the heart.” It was the sad confession of one, at an hour, too,
when he needed every stay, “that though he had kept up the profession of religion in
his house, he had never had the reality of it in his heart.” Let not this conviction be
yours. “Keep thy heart with all diligence.”
II. The sigh and the cry. “Set a mark on the foreheads of the men that sigh and cry for all
the abominations that be done,” etc. Men account those as poor and pitiful that, looking
for the signs of the times, are solemnised at heart, because of “the things that are coming
on the earth”; but grant me, O Lord! the contrite heart, “the sigh and the cry” for the evil
that is in the world. This attracts the eye of God.
1. This disposition of mind includes an insight into sin, some perception of the
mystery of iniquity; such see that with all the fair surface sin presents, it is hateful in
God’s sight, ruinous to the soul in which it dwells, that it is of hell, and leads to hell.
2. Love of God, and hence desire for His glory, is the mainspring of that grief of heart
spoken of in our text.
3. Know we this blessed sorrow, this “sigh and cry” of our text? Loud are the calls for
it; do they find an answer within us?
III. The safety mark. “Set a mark.”
1. This is the protecting mark which men should seek in troublous times. The world
hath its places of safety, its towers of strength, its carnal weapons, its wise plans, but
“like a dream when one awaketh,” so do these disappear, and fail them in the hour of
need.
2. This mark is indelible, it cannot be taken away. Kings have their marks, their
orders of merit, their distinctions and titles to distribute, but a breath of popular
outbreak may sweep them all away. Death certainly removes them, breaks the staff of
office, “man being in honour abideth not”; but this safety mark of which our text
speaks, who shall deprive us of?
3. It shall be recognised and acknowledged at the last day. Woes may come on the
earth, but they cannot injure you; death shall come, but it shall prove life to you; the
judgment day shall but gather you to glory. (F. Storr, M. A.)
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55. God’s care of His people in time of peril
1. The Lord looks upon the world with a discriminating eye; some He looks upon to
be marked, and some to be left unmarked. His eye distinguisheth between the
precious and the vile (Psa_34:15-16).
2. When the Lord proceeds to judgment of cities, churches, people, kingdoms, He
doth it judiciously, considerately. He doth not pour out wrath from heaven at all
adventures, let it light where and upon whom it will; but He makes inquiry who are
fit to be punished, and who are to be spared.
3. In the worst times God hath some who are faithful, and serve Him. God had His
Huss, Jerome of Prague, and Luther, in times bad enough.
4. The number of men to be saved in Jerusalem is few.
5. The Lord hath a special care of His saints when dreadful and destroying
judgments are coming upon others.
(1) From the person employed to do it, and that is the Lord Christ, who was the
man with the inkhorn by His side. When God shall employ not a prophet, not an
angel, but His own dear Son, to do this work, to mark the godly, it is argument of
tender care towards them.
(2) He must “go through the midst of the city,” and look into every place, make
an exact search, and find them out wherever they were hid; God would not have
Him neglect any place, lest He should pass by any saint.
(3) He must surely mark them. You shall sign them with a sign, that is, certainly
sign them; the doubling of the word in the original notes God’s intention and
care to have it done.
(4) From the persons sealed—
(i) Men. It is put indefinitely, not confined to noble, wise, rich, learned, but any
condition of men that were godly; any poor man, any servant, any child, any little
one, let their grace be never so mean, if they had any grace at all, they should have
the seal as well as the best.
(ii)
Mourners.
6. It is the Lord Christ who is the marker of the saints.
7. God and Christ are not ashamed of theirs in the worst times and greatest dangers.
8. The faithful are so far from complying with the wickedness of the times, that they
sigh and cry for the abominations thereof. (W. Greenhill, M. A.)
Christians a living protest against sin
I. God’s people described.
1. They are sighing ones, sorrowing.
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56. 2. They are crying ones, protesting.
II. Their peculiar mark, a mark of—
1. Separation.
2. Service.
3. A visible mark.
4. A mark of safety. (W. W. Whythe.)
Let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity.
Retribution
I. The chief distinction between men is moral. Upon what principle were these two
divisions (verses 4, 5) made?
1. Not unreasoning caprice.
2. Not any material characteristics.
3. Not any mental qualities.
4. Simply the moral character.
The “great gulf fixed” is the spiritual difference between the impenitent and the devout,
the selfish and the loving, the Christly and the Christless.
II. The results of this distinction are tremendous. To be on the wrong side of this
dividing line meant to be doomed to the six slayers, and means ever destruction. Lust is
a fare, love of money is a cancer, intemperance is a flood, self-love is a petrifaction; and
these are ever burning or eating out or drowning or hardening the manhood of sinners.
And there is, moreover, “the second death.” Goodness is safety now, and forever.
III. The Divine superintendence of human destiny is perfect. Every detail of this
judgment was given by God. Through Him the angel knew whom to seal, and the others
knew whom to slay. So is it ever; the arrangements for man’s retributive future are
securely safe, because—
1. The moral character and condition now are conspicuous. The seal is on the
forehead.
2. The arrangement is Divine. There can be no mistake or injustice. (Urijah R.
Thomas.)
4 and said to him, “Go throughout the city of
Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of
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57. those who grieve and lament over all the
detestable things that are done in it.”
BARNES, "mercy precedes judgment. So in the case of Sodom Gen. 19, and in the last
day Luk_21:18, Luk_21:28; Rev_7:1. This accords with the eschatological character of
the predictions in this chapter (see the introduction of Ezekiel).
A mark - literally, “Tau,” the name of the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The old
form of the letter was that of a cross. The Jews have interpreted this sign variously, some
considering that “Tau,” being the last of the Hebrew letters, and so closing the alphabet,
denoted completeness, and thus the mark indicated the completeness of the sorrow for
sin in those upon whom it was placed. Others again observed that “Tau” was the first
letter of Torah (“the Law”) and that the foreheads were marked as of men obedient to
the Law. Christians, noting the resemblance of this letter in its most ancient form to a
cross, have seen herein a reference to the cross with which Christians were signed. The
custom for pagan gods and their votaries to bear certain marks furnishes instances, in
which God was pleased to employ symbolism, generally in use, to express higher and
more divine truth. The sign of the cross in baptism is an outward sign of the designation
of God’s elect, who at the last day shall be exempted from the destruction of the ungodly
Mat_24:22, Mat_24:31.
CLARKE, "Set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh - This is in
allusion to the ancient every-where-used custom of setting marks on servants and slaves,
to distinguish them from others. It was also common for the worshippers of particular
idols to have their idol’s mark upon their foreheads, arms, etc. These are called sectarian
marks to the present day among the Hindoos and others in India. Hence by this mark we
can easily know who is a follower of Vishnoo, who of Siva, who of Bramah, etc. The
original words, ‫תו‬ ‫והתוית‬ vehithvitha tau, have been translated by the Vulgate, et signa
thau, “and mark thou tau on the foreheads,” etc. St. Jerome and many others have
thought that the letter tau was that which was ordered to be placed on the foreheads of
those mourners; and Jerome says, that this Hebrew letter ‫ת‬ tau was formerly written
like a cross. So then the people were to be signed with the sign of the cross! It is certain
that on the ancient Samaritan coins, which are yet extant, the letter ‫ת‬ tau is in the form
+, which is what we term St. Andrew’s cross. The sense derived from this by many
commentators is, that God, having ordered those penitents to be marked with this
figure, which is the sign of the cross, intimated that there is no redemption nor saving of
life but by the cross of Christ, and that this will avail none but the real penitent. All this
is true in itself, but it is not true in respect to this place. The Hebrew words signify
literally, thou shalt make a mark, or sign a sign, but give no intimation what that mark or
57

58. sign was. It was intended here to be what the sprinkling of the blood of the paschal lamb
on the lintels and door-posts of the Israelites was, namely, a notice to the destroying
angel what house he should spare. As the whole of this matter only passed in vision we
are bound to neither letter, nor any other kind of figure. The symbolical action teaches
us that God, in general judgments, will make a distinction between the innocent and the
guilty, between the penitent and the hardened sinner.
GILL, "And the Lord said unto him,.... This shows that a divine Person is meant by
the glory of the God of Israel:
go through the midst of the city; that is, as it is next explained,
through the midst of Jerusalem; the city the six men had the charge over or against,
Eze_9:1;
and set a mark upon the foreheads; not the Hebrew letter ‫,ת‬ as some say, because
in the form of a cross, and so signifying salvation by the cross of Christ; for this letter has
no such form, neither in the characters used by the Jews, nor by the Samaritans, at least
in the present character; though Origen and Jerom on the place say that the letter "tau"
had the form of a cross in the letters the Samaritans used in their time; and this is
defended by Walton (t), who observes, that Azariah in his Hebrew alphabet gives a
double figure, one like that which is in present use, and another in the form of a cross,
called St. Andrew's cross, and as it appears in some shekels; and in the Vatican alphabet,
which Angelus E Roccha published, the last letter has the form of a cross; as have the
Ethiopic and Coptic alphabets, which, it is certain, sprung from the ancient Hebrew; and
so Montfaucon says (u), in some Samaritan coins, the letter "thau" has the form of a
cross; which, if Scaliger had met with, he says he would never have opposed the
testimonies of Origen and Jerom; though, after all, it seems to be no other than the form
of the Greek "x"; and so the Talmudists say (w) the high priest, was anointed on his
forehead in the same form: some think this letter was the mark, because it is the first
letter of the word ‫,תורה‬ "the law"; as if it pointed out such who were obedient to it; or of
the word ‫תחיה‬ "thou shall live". It is a Rabbinical fancy, mentioned by Kimchi (x), that
Gabriel had orders to write the letter ‫ת‬ in ink upon the foreheads of the righteous, and in
blood upon the foreheads of the wicked; in the one it signified ‫,תחיה‬ "thou shall live",
and in the other ‫,תמות‬ "thou shall die"; but, as Calvin observes, rather, if this letter could
be thought to be meant, the reason of it was, because it is the last letter of the alphabet;
and so may signify, that the Lord's people marked with it are the last among men, or the
faith of the world; or that such who persevere to the end shall be saved: but the word
signifies, not a letter, but a mark or sign; and so it is interpreted in the Septuagint
version, and by the Targum, Jarchi, Kimchi, and others; and denotes the distinction the
Lord had made by his grace between them and others; and now by his power and
providence in the protection of them; for the, Lord knows them that are his, and will
preserve them. The allusion is either to the marking of servants in their foreheads, by
which they were known who they belonged to, Rev_7:3; or to the sprinkling of the posts
of the Israelites' houses with blood, when the firstborn of Egypt were destroyed, Exo_
58

59. 12:22;
of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the
midst thereof; the abominations were those abominable idolatries mentioned in the
preceding chapter, and those dreadful immoralities hinted at in Eze_9:9; all which were
grieving and distressing to godly minds, because they were contrary to the nature and
will of God; transgressions, of his righteous law; and on account of which his name was
dishonoured, and his ways blasphemed and evil spoken of; for these they sighed and
groaned in private, and mourned and lamented in public; bearing their testimony
against them with bitter expressions of grief and sorrow, by groans, words, and tears;
and such as these are taken notice of by the Lord; he comforts those that mourn in Zion,
and preserves them.
JAMISON, "midst of ... city ... midst of Jerusalem — This twofold designation
marks more emphatically the scene of the divine judgments.
a mark — literally, the Hebrew letter Tau, the last in the alphabet, used as a mark
(“my sign,” Job_31:35, Margin); literally, Tau; originally written in the form of a cross,
which Tertullian explains as referring to the badge and only means of salvation, the cross
of Christ. But nowhere in Scripture are the words which are now employed as names of
letters used to denote the letters themselves or their figures [Vitringa]. The noun here is
cognate to the verb, “mark a mark.” So in Rev_7:3 no particular mark is specified. We
seal what we wish to guard securely. When all things else on earth are confounded, God
will secure His people from the common ruin. God gives the first charge as to their
safety before He orders the punishment of the rest (Psa_31:20; Isa_26:20, Isa_26:21).
So in the case of Lot and Sodom (Gen_19:22); also the Egyptian first-born were not slain
till Israel had time to sprinkle the blood-mark, ensuring their safety (compare Rev_7:3;
Amo_9:9). So the early Christians had Pella provided as a refuge for them, before the
destruction of Jerusalem.
upon the foreheads — the most conspicuous part of the person, to imply how their
safety would be manifested to all (compare Jer_15:11; Jer_39:11-18). It was customary
thus to mark worshippers (Rev_13:16; Rev_14:1, Rev_14:9) and servants. So the Church
of England marks the forehead with the sign of the cross in baptizing. At the exodus the
mark was on the houses, for then it was families; here, it is on the foreheads, for it is
individuals whose safety is guaranteed.
sigh and ... cry — similarly sounding verbs in Hebrew, as in English Version,
expressing the prolonged sound of their grief. “Sigh” implies their inward grief
(“groanings which cannot be uttered,” Rom_8:26); “cry,” the outward expression of it.
So Lot (2Pe_2:7, 2Pe_2:8). Tenderness should characterize the man of God, not harsh
sternness in opposing the ungodly (Psa_119:53, Psa_119:136; Jer_13:17; 2Co_12:21); at
the same time zeal for the honor of God (Psa_69:9, Psa_69:10; 1Jo_5:19).
K&D 4-7, “The Divine Command
Eze_9:4. And Jehovah said to him, Go through the midst of the city, through the
midst of Jerusalem, and mark a cross upon the foreheads of the men who sigh and
groan over all the abominations which take place in their midst. Eze_9:5. And to those
59

60. he said in my ears: Go through the city behind him, and smite. Let not your eye look
compassionately, and do not spare. Eze_9:6. Old men, young men, and maidens, and
children, and women, slay to destruction: but ye shall not touch any one who has the
cross upon him; and begin at my sanctuary. And they began with the old men, who
were before the house. Eze_9:7. And He said to them, defile the house, and fill the courts
with slain; go ye out. And they went out, and smote in the city. - God commands the
man provided with the writing materials to mark on the forehead with a cross all the
persons in Jerusalem who mourn over the abominations of the nation, in order that they
may be spared in the time of the judgment. ‫ו‬ ָ‫,תּ‬ the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet,
had the form of a cross in the earlier writing. ‫ָה‬‫ו‬ ְ‫ת‬ ִ‫ה‬ ‫ו‬ ָ‫,תּ‬ to mark a ‫,ת‬ is therefore the same
as to make a mark in the form of a cross; although there was at first no other purpose in
this sign than to enable the servants employed in inflicting the judgment of God to
distinguish those who were so marked, so that they might do them no harm. Eze_9:6.
And this was the reason why the ‫ו‬ ָ‫תּ‬ was to be marked upon the forehead, the most
visible portion of the body; the early Christians, according to a statement in Origen,
looked upon the sign itself as significant, and saw therein a prophetic allusion to the sign
of the cross as the distinctive mark of Christians. A direct prophecy of the cross of Christ
is certainly not to be found here, since the form of the letter Tâv was the one generally
adopted as a sign, and, according to Job_31:35, might supply the place of a signature.
Nevertheless, as Schmieder has correctly observed, there is something remarkable in
this coincidence to the thoughtful observer of the ways of God, whose counsel has
carefully considered all before hand, especially when we bear in mind that in the
counterpart to this passage (Rev_7:3) the seal of the living God is stamped upon the
foreheads of the servants of God, who are to be exempted from the judgment, and that
according to Rev_14:1 they had the name of God written upon their foreheads. So much,
at any rate, is perfectly obvious from this, namely, that the sign was not arbitrarily
chosen, but was inwardly connected with the fact which it indicated; just as in the event
upon which our vision is based (Exo_12:13, Exo_12:22.) the distinctive mark placed
upon the houses of the Israelites in Egypt, in order that the destroying angel might pass
them by, namely, the smearing of the doorposts with the blood of the paschal lamb that
had been slain, was selected on account of its significance and its corresponding to the
thing signified. The execution of this command is passed over as being self-evident; and
it is not till Eze_9:11 that it is even indirectly referred to again.
In Eze_9:5, Eze_9:6 there follows, first of all, the command given to the other six
men. They are to go through the city, behind the man clothed in white linen, and to
smite without mercy all the inhabitants of whatever age or sex, with this exception, that
they are not to touch those who are marked with the cross. The ‫ל‬ַ‫ע‬ for ‫ל‬ ַ‫א‬ before ‫ס‬ ‫ח‬ ָ‫תּ‬ is
either a slip of the pen, or, as the continued transmission of so striking an error is very
improbable, is to be accounted for from the change of ‫א‬ into ‫,ע‬ which is so common in
Aramaean. The Chetib ‫ם‬ ֶ‫ֵיכ‬‫נ‬‫י‬ֵ‫ע‬ is the unusual form grammatically considered, and the
singular, which is more correct, has been substituted as Keri. ‫גוּ‬ ְ‫ר‬ ַ‫ה‬ ַ‫תּ‬ is followed by
‫ית‬ ִֽ‫ח‬ ְ‫שׁ‬ ַ‫מ‬ ְ‫,ל‬ to increase the force of the words and show the impossibility of any life being
saved. They are to make a commencement at the sanctuary, because it has been
desecrated by the worship of idols, and therefore has ceased to be the house of the Lord.
To this command the execution is immediately appended; they began with the old men
who were before the house, i.e., they began to slay them. ‫ים‬ ִ‫ָשׁ‬‫נ‬ֲ‫א‬ ָ‫ה‬ ‫ים‬ִ‫נ‬ ֵ‫ק‬ְ‫זּ‬ ַ‫ה‬ are neither the
60

61. twenty-five priests (Eze_8:16) nor the seventy elders (Eze_8:11). The latter were not
‫ֵי‬‫נ‬ ְ‫פ‬ ִ‫ל‬ ‫ת‬ִ‫י‬ ַ‫בּ‬ ַ‫,ה‬ but in a chamber by the outer temple gate; whereas ‫ֵי‬‫נ‬ ְ‫פ‬ ִ‫ל‬ ‫ת‬ִ‫י‬ ַ‫בּ‬ ַ‫,ה‬ in front of the
temple house, points to the inner court. This locality makes it natural to think of priests,
and consequently the lxx rendered ‫י‬ ִ‫שּׁ‬ ָ‫דּ‬ ְ‫ק‬ ִ‫מּ‬ ִ‫מ‬ by ἀπὸ τῶν ἁγίων μου. But the expression
‫ים‬ ִ‫ָשׁ‬‫נ‬ֲ‫א‬ ‫ים‬ִ‫נ‬ ֵ‫ק‬ְ‫ז‬ is an unsuitable one for the priests. We have therefore no doubt to think of
men advanced in years, who had come into the court possibly to offer sacrifice, and
thereby had become liable to the judgment. In Eze_9:7 the command, which was
interrupted in Eze_9:6, is once more resumed. They are to defile the house, i.e., the
temple, namely, by filling the courts with slain. It is in this way that we are to connect
together, so far as the sense is concerned, the two clauses, “defile...and fill.” This is
required by the facts of the case. For those slain “before the house” could only have been
slain in the courts, as there was no space between the temple house and the courts in
which men could have been found and slain. But ‫ֵי‬‫נ‬ ְ‫פ‬ ִ‫ל‬ cannot be understood as
signifying “in the neighbourhood of the temple,” as Kliefoth supposes, for the simple
reason that the progressive order of events would thereby be completely destroyed. The
angels who were standing before the altar of burnt-offering could not begin their work
by going out of the court to smite the sinners who happened to be in the neighbourhood
of the temple, and then returning to the court to do the same there, and then again going
out into the city to finish their work there. They could only begin by slaying the sinners
who happened to be in the courts, and after having defiled the temple by their corpses,
by going out into the city to slay all the ungodly there, as is related in the second clause
of the verse (Eze_9:7).
ELLICOTT, “ (4) Set a mark upon the foreheads.—The word for mark is literally a
Tau, the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet. This, in many of the ancient alphabets,
and especially in that in use among the Hebrews up to this time, and long retained
upon their coins, was in the form of a cross—X or +. Much stress was laid upon this
use of the sign of the cross as the mark for the Divine mercy by the older Christian
writers, Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian, and Jerome. This marking was done, it is true,
in vision, but the symbolism is taken from such passages as Genesis 4:15; Exodus
12:7; Exodus 12:13; Exodus 28:36; and it is used several times in the Apocalypse
(Ezekiel 7:3; Ezekiel 9:4; Ezekiel 14:1). Such marks may be necessary for the
guidance of the angelic executors of God’s commands, and at all events, the
symbolism is of value to the human mind. It is with reference to such Scriptural
instances of marking, doubtless, that the Church has provided for the signing of the
baptized with the sign of the cross. It is to be observed here that the distinction of
the marking has reference wholly and only to character. No regard is paid to birth
or position; they and they only are marked who mourned for the prevailing
sinfulness, and kept themselves apart from it.
61

62. TRAPP, “Ezekiel 9:4 And the LORD said unto him, Go through the midst of the
city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men
that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.
Ver. 4. And the Lord.] That great Imperator, General.
Go through the midst.] Discriminate; make a difference; "take out the precious
from the vile." God will sever his saints from others in common calamities, and
deliver them, if not from the common destruction, yet from the common distraction.
And set a mark upon the foreheads.] Vulgate, Et signa Thau. Whatever this mark
was, it was signum salutare. The letter Tau some think it was, as part of the word
Tichieh - i.e., Thou shalt live; according to that, "The just shall live by his faith." Or
as part of the word Torah - i.e., The law, to show that these had the law of God
written in their hearts, and this made them mourn to see it so little set by.
Howsoever, it is not the sign of the cross, as Papists would have it, but rather the
blood of the cross, wherewith, when believers are sprinkled from an evil conscience,
as the houses of the Israelites in Goshen were with the blood of the paschal lamb,
they are sure of safety here and salvation hereafter. The election of God is sure, and
hath this seal, "The Lord knoweth who are his," [2 Timothy 2:19] and it shall
appear by them. [Psalms 91:1-16] Tau is the basis of the Hebrew alphabet, saith one,
and marking by Christ is the basis of all true comfort and sound profession. Tau
endeth and closeth up the alphabet, saith another; so he who persevereth to the end
shall be saved. The mark here mentioned was not corporal but spiritual, even the
merit and spirit of Christ, the value and virtue of his death and sufferings.
Of the men that sigh and cry.] That sigh deeply and cry out bitterly for their own
and other men’s sins and miseries, and this out of piety and pity. These are not
many, yet some such are found in all ages. [Revelation 11:3] Inter vepres rosa
nascitur, et inter feras nonnullae mitescunt. (a) Let us mourn in time of sinning: so
shall we be marked in times of punishing.
62

63. SIMEON, "DUTY AND BENEFIT OF MOURNING FOR SIN
Ezekiel 9:4. And the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through
the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and
that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.
THERE is in the minds of ungodly men an atheistical idea, that God “does not
regard” the actions of men; and that, as to any interference in their concerns, “he
has forsaken the earth.” This was a common sentiment among the Jews [Note:
Ezekiel 8:12; Ezekiel 9:9.]; and it practically obtains to a vast extent amongst us. To
imagine that God notices such trifling matters as those which occupy our minds, is
supposed to derogate from his honour. But God is omnipresent and omniscient; the
minutest as well as the greatest things are all equally present to his all-seeing eye;
and every thing is noticed by him with an especial view to a future day of
retribution. This is particularly stated in the whole of the preceding chapter. The
elders of Israel who were at Jerusalem were given to idolatry; but they were
extremely anxious to conceal their practices from the eyes of men: hence they
performed their idolatrous rites in some secret chambers of the temple, which they
had enclosed with a wall in order to a more effectual concealment. But God in a
vision pointed out to his prophet, who was at Babylon, every thing that was
transacted in the temple at Jerusalem: and, after having given him many successive
and more enlarged views of the abominations that were committed there, issued an
order to the angels who had charge over the city, “to go forth and slay” the
offenders; but strictly prohibited them from coming near to any person to whom
these abominations had been a source of grief, and who had, in consequence of that,
been “marked in the forehead” by a person expressly commissioned for that
purpose [Note: Read the whole preceding chapter, as connected with the text.].
Though the whole of this was a vision, it was, in fact, a just representation of the
distinction which God would make between the persons who were guilty of idolatry,
and those who lamented its prevalence among them: and it may serve to shew us, in
a very instructive way,
I. The character of the Lord’s people—
63

64. Sin is “that abominable thing which God hates:” and, as it prevailed to an awful
extent at that day, so abominations of every kind yet prevail—
[They prevail in the world at large. We speak not now of the evils that are visible to
all, but of those which are of a more hidden nature. In every order of society there
are peculiar and appropriate evils, justified perhaps by those who commit them, yea
possibly dignified with the name of virtues, which yet are an utter “abomination in
the sight of God.” Were all the intrigues of the ambitious, the wantonness of the
licentious, the deceits of the covetous, the characteristic arts of every class of sinners,
exposed to view, what a mass of iniquity should we behold! Yet God beholds it all; a
mass which infinitely exceeds our highest conceptions, and which none but God
himself could endure to behold.
They prevail also, we regret to say it, even in the Church of God. It was amongst
those who professed the worship of the true God, that all those abominations were
practised in the Temple at Jerusalem: and we know that many lamentable evils were
found in the Churches that were planted by the Apostles themselves. Can we
wonder, then, if at this time tares be growing up with the wheat? It were vain to
deny that there are many who dishonour their holy profession, and give sad
occasion to the enemies of religion to blaspheme that name whereby we are named.
The pride, intolerance, and overbearing conceit of Diotrephes may yet be found,
amidst high professions of superior zeal and sanctity. Who has ever looked into the
interior of religious societies, and not seen the same undue preference to some
preachers, and contempt of others, as disgraced the Corinthian Church in the days
of Paul? Who has not discovered many a Demas, who “loves this present world,”
and foregoes his spiritual advantages with a view to increase his gains [Note: 2
Timothy 4:10.]? It would be well if even the base crimes of falsehood, and
overreaching, and dishonesty were not sometimes found in the skirts of those who
would be thought to have kept their garments clean; yea, if intemperance also and
uncleanness did not give the lie to their profession. But the more we inspect the
sanctuary of God, the more we shall see occasion for humiliation and grief on
account of many, who “have a name to live, but are dead;” and who, through their
misconduct, “cause the way of truth to be evil spoken of.” And such may well expect
that “judgment shall begin with them [Note: Compare ver. 6. with 1 Peter 4:17.].”
We need scarcely add, that evils prevail also in the heart even of true believers. Paul
64

65. himself confessed, that there was “a law in his members warring against the law of
his mind, and sometimes bringing him into captivity to the law of sin in his
members:” and the more conversant we are with our own hearts, the more we shall
bewail our innumerable short-comings and defects. Our impatience, our distrust of
God, our unbelief, our obduracy, our sloth, our coldness in duties, our sad mixture
of principle even in our better actions; our want of love to the Saviour, our want of
compassion for our fellow-creatures, our want of zeal for God; alas! alas! our want
of every thing that is good, may well make the very best of us “sigh and cry,” and,
like Paul, to account ourselves “less than the least of all saints,” or rather as “the
chief of sinners.”]
To bewail these abominations is characteristic of every child of God—
[Hear how Moses lamented them in his day [Note: Deuteronomy 9:18-19.]: how
David also [Note: Psalms 119:53; Psalms 119:136.], and Ezra, bewailed them [Note:
Ezra 9:3; Ezra 9:5.]: what extreme heaviness the Apostle Paul felt in his soul on this
account [Note: Romans 9:1-2.]; and especially in relation to those very evils which
we have specified as obtaining amongst the professing people of God [Note:
Philippians 3:18-19.]! And where is the saint in all the Bible who did not “groan
within himself” on account of the burthen of his own in-dwelling corruptions [Note:
Romans 8:23.]? The more any person knows of God and of his own soul, the more
disposed he is to say with Job, “Behold, I am vile [Note: Job 40:4.]!”
Before we proceed to the second point for our consideration, let us examine
ourselves, whether these things are a burthen to us, yea, our chief burthen [Note:
Zephaniah 3:18. Jeremiah 13:17. Romans 7:24.]? — — — We have no pretensions
to true religion, any farther than we answer to this character of mourners on
account of sin — — —]
From marking thus minutely the character of the Lord’s people, we proceed to
notice,
II. Their privilege—
65

66. God sets a mark on every one of his people, a mark on their foreheads, whereby
they are infallibly known to him, and shall assuredly be screened from the
destroying angels. They shall be protected,
1. Here—
[The deliverance of Noah from the Deluge, and of Lot from Sodom, shews not only
what deliverances God can vouchsafe to his chosen people, but what may be
expected by all who mourn over, and labour to counteract, the abominations that
are around them [Note: 2 Peter 2:5-9.]. In Babylon, God interposed to effect a literal
accomplishment of this prophetic vision; obtaining liberty for Jeremiah, and others
of his believing people, whilst the unbelieving part were visited with the heaviest
calamities [Note: Jeremiah 15:11; Jeremiah 39:11-12.]. And at the final destruction
of Jerusalem by the Romans, the disciples of Christ were rescued, as it were by
miracle, from all the horrors of the siege, whilst their unhappy and devoted
brethren were left to experience such troubles as never came upon any other nation
under heaven.
But, if God do not see fit to exempt his people from the calamities that fall on others,
he will so support them under their trials, and so sanctify to them their afflictions,
that they shall be constrained to say, “It was good for them to have been afflicted.”
He will enable them to “glory in tribulations,” and to “take pleasure in distresses,”
as fruits of his paternal love, and as means of furthering in their souls the purposes
of his grace.]
2. Hereafter—
[The seal which God has set in their foreheads will distinguish them from all others,
as clearly as sheep are distinguished from goats. Nor will there be any danger of
mistake in any instance whatever. In Egypt the destroying angel did not smite one
house whereon the blood of the Paschal lamb was sprinkled; nor will the judgments
of God fall on one individual, who has laid to heart the abominations of Israel. “God
66

67. has set them apart for himself;” and for him they shall be preserved. No evil shall be
“come near to him who has the mark in his forehead.” Whilst “fire and brimstone
are rained” down upon all others without distinction, these will be safely lodged in
God’s holy mountain, beyond the reach or possibility of harm.]
Address—
1. To those who think lightly of sin—
[By many it is thought a mark of weakness to sigh and cry for the sins of others, or
even for our own [Note: See their character drawn: Amos 6:1; Amos 6:3; Amos
6:5-6.]. But let those who have such light thoughts of sin, consider what sin has
done, in this world, and especially in the world to come. What innumerable evils
have existed, and do yet exist, throughout the world! yet is there not one in the
whole creation, which is not the fruit of sin. And if we could obtain one sight of
those dreary mansions, where fallen angels, together with all who have perished in
their sins, abide; or could hear but one groan of a damned soul; we should no more
account sin a light matter: no indeed, it is “fools only, who make a mock at sin.” If
this do not suffice, let such an one consider, what has been done to expiate sin. Go,
sinner, to Gethsemane, go to Calvary, and contemplate the agonies and death of
your incarnate God; and then say, Whether sin be not a tremendous evil, for which
no sighs or tears can ever be sufficient? But, without extending our thoughts to
subjects so much beyond our reach, let us only observe what have been the feelings
of persons when once they were brought to a just sense of their sins: let us hear the
bitter lamentations of Peter, or the heart-rending cries of the converts on the day of
Pentecost; and we shall no longer doubt what ought to be our views of sin, by
whomsoever it may have been committed, whether by ourselves or others. Sure we
are, that in the last day there will be no diversity of sentiment respecting this: the
glorified saints, and the condemned sinners, will have but one view of this matter, O
that now, even now, the judgment of every one amongst us might be rectified; and
that, before another day, God might see reason to set his mark upon us, as
“mourners in Zion!”]
2. To those who answer to the character described in our text—
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68. [Persons who sigh and cry on account of sin, are apt to yield too much to desponding
fears. But they have in reality abundant cause for joy and gratitude: for if, on the
one hand, they be greatly burthened on account of sin, they have, on the other hand,
reason to rejoice that sin is their burthen. Instead of being in so deplorable a state as
they imagine, they are in a state most pleasing to God, and most profitable to
themselves. So pleased is God with those “who are poor and of a contrite spirit,”
that his eyes are fixed upon them with the utmost complacency and delight [Note:
Isaiah 66:2.]: and the Lord Jesus, the Judge of quick and dead, repeatedly declares
them blessed [Note: Matthew 5:3-4.]. Let not any one therefore be dejected because
of the depths of depravity which he sees within him; but let him rather conclude,
that God has discovered to him these hidden abominations; and let him beg of God
to give him a clearer and fuller insight into them; that so his humiliation may he
more deep, his faith more simple, his gratitude more lively, and his devotedness to
God more entire. Nor let any one be afraid of seeing thus the corruptions of his
heart: for, if only our self-knowledge drive us to Christ, and endear him to our
souls, it will prove a source of every virtue; of contrition, of fear, of dependence on
Christ, of love to his name, and of zeal for his glory. A sense of our necessities will
make us cry unto him for the gift of his Spirit; and by that Spirit we shall be “sealed
unto the day of redemption,” and “rendered meet for our heavenly inheritance.”
COKE, “Ezekiel 9:4. Set a mark— This expression alludes to the ancient custom of
marking servants in the forehead, to distinguish what they were, and to whom they
belonged. See Bishop Newton on Revelation 7:3. The reader is to remember, that all
this passed in vision, and only means that God made a distinction, and separated the
good from the bad, as really as if he had marked them with some visible sign. This
parabolic command, says Bishop Warburton, alludes to the sanction of the Mosaic
law; and implies, that virtuous individuals should be distinguished from the wicked
in a general calamity.
POOLE, “ The Lord said, spake from the midst of that glory, Ezekiel 9:3.
Unto him, the man clothed in linen, i.e. to Christ.
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69. Go through; pass through as men use to go who keep an even, steady pace.
The midst of the city; the chief street of the city.
Set a mark: it is too curious, and as useless, to inquire what mark this was. It is
groundless to confine it to the sign of the cross, whatever some discourse of the
antique form of the letter Thau. It is sufficient that, after the manner of man’s
speaking, the Lord assures us his remnant are safe, as what is under a seal, which
none can or dare break open.
Upon the foreheads, as the faithful servants of God, in allusion perhaps to the
custom in the East, that servants wore their master’s name in their foreheads, or to
let us know that now this deliverance would be not as in Egypt by whole families,
but by single and selected persons.
That sigh, out of inward grief for other men’s sins and sorrows.
That cry; express their grief by vocal lamentations, who dare openly bewail the
abominations of this wicked city, and so bear their testimony against it.
For all the abominations; not as if these mourners knew every particular
abomination, but they mourned for all the kinds of wickedness which they knew of.
WHEDON, “4. Set a mark upon the foreheads — Literally, set a tau (T) upon the
foreheads. Tau was the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, which in ancient times
had the form of a cross. The cross is one of the simplest and therefore one of the
most common “marks” used by ancient peoples. (See Job 31:35, Hebrews) Perhaps
this is the only reason why it is commanded to be used here; yet it is a suggestive fact
that centuries before Ezekiel’s time the cross had been used as a sacred symbol. The
kings and nobles of Egypt covered themselves with long chains of interwoven
crosses and held this “symbol of life” ( † ) in their dying hands as reverently as any
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70. Roman Christian ever cherished his crucifix. Among the Babylonians this same
symbol is found. The Hebrews must have known of the symbolic value attached to
the cross, and it is just like Ezekiel to express in this striking way the fact that the
gift of life had come from God upon all those marked with the mysterious letter
which, it may be noticed, was also the initial of the Hebrew word “live.” (Compare
Revelation 7:3; Revelation 22:4.) This seal of grace was to be put upon all — men,
women, and children (Ezekiel 9:5-6) — who sorrowed over their city’s sin. The cross
on the forehead corresponds exactly to the blood upon the doorposts when the
destroying angel flew over Egypt. (Compare Galatians 6:17.) Both marks — the
blood and the cross — were chosen, not arbitrarily, but because they were
“inwardly connected” with the facts indicated (Keil). Neither Moses nor Ezekiel
could have known, but Infinite Wisdom foresaw, the peculiar significance and
correspondence of these strange symbols. The man with the inkhorn was not to put
any mark upon the foreheads of the people but this. It was the sign of the cross that
saved them. “This mark was, of course, only visible to the angels.” — Orelli.
PULPIT, “Set a mark upon the foreheads, etc. The command reminds us of that
given to the destroying angel in Exodus 12:13, and has its earlier and later
analogues in the mark set upon Cain (Genesis 4:15), and in the "sealing" of the
servants of God in Revelation 7:3. Here, as in the last example, the mark is set, not
on the lintels of the doorposts, but upon the "foreheads" of the men. And the mark
is the letter tau, in old Hebrew, that of a cross + , and like the "mark" of mediaeval
and (in the case of the illiterate) of modern usage, seems to have been used as a
signature, and is rightly so translated in the Revised Version of Job 31:35. Jewish
writers have accounted for its being thus used, either
5 As I listened, he said to the others, “Follow him
through the city and kill, without showing pity or
compassion.
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71. GILL, "And, to the others he said in mine hearing,.... To the other six men that
had the slaughter weapons in their hands:
go ye after him through the city; that is, after the man clothed with linen; for he was
sent out first to take care of the righteous, and preserve them; and the rest were not
suffered to stir till he was gone; and then they are bid to go after him. The Syriac version
is,
"to them that were with him he said to them before me, go through the city after me;''
as if these were the words of the man clothed with linen to the other six; and so the
Arabic version; of it the other is the true reading, and gives the right sense, as the
following words show:
and smite; the inhabitants of the city:
let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity; not that the Chaldeans were inclined
to mercy and pity, for they were a cruel and barbarous people; but this is said to show
the resentment of God against the sins of the Jews; and that it was his will they should
act the severe part they did.
HENRY 5-11, “In these verses we have,
I. A command given to the destroyers to do execution according to their commission.
They stood by the brazen altar, waiting for orders; and orders are here given them to cut
off and destroy all that were either guilty of, or accessory to, the abominations of
Jerusalem, and that did not sigh and cry for them. Note, When God has gathered his
wheat into his garner nothing remains but to burn up the chaff, Mat_3:12.
1. They are ordered to destroy all, (1.) Without exception. They must go through the
city, and smite; they must slay utterly, slay to destruction, give them their death's
wound. They must make no distinction of age or sex, but cut off old and young; neither
the beauty of the virgins, nor the innocency of the babes, shall secure them. This was
fulfilled in the death of multitudes by famine and pestilence, especially by the sword of
the Chaldeans, as far as the military execution went. Sometimes even such bloody work
as this has been God's work. But what an evil thing is sin, then, which provokes the God
of infinite mercy to such severity! (2.) Without compassion: “Let not your eye spare,
neither have you pity (Eze_9:5); you must not save any whom God has doomed to
destruction, as Saul did Agag and the Amalekites, for that is doing the work of God
deceitfully, Jer_48:10. None need to be more merciful than God is; and he had said
(Eze_8:18), My eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity.” Note, Those that live in sin,
and hate to be reformed, will perish in sin, and deserve not to be pitied; for they might
easily have prevented the ruin, and would not.
2. They are warned not to do the least hurt to those that were marked for salvation:
“Come not near any man upon whom is the mark; do not so much as threaten or
frighten any of them; it is promised them that there shall no evil come nigh them, and
therefore you must keep at a distance from them.” The king of Babylon gave particular
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72. orders that Jeremiah should be protected. Baruch and Ebed-melech were secured, and,
it is likely, others of Jeremiah's friends, for his sake. God had promised that it should go
well with his remnant and they should be well treated (Jer_15:11); and we have reason
to think that none of the mourning praying remnant fell by the sword of the Chaldeans,
but that God found out some way or other to secure them all, as, in the last destruction
of Jerusalem by the Romans, the Christians were all secured in a city called Pella, and
none of them perished with the unbelieving Jews. Note, None of those shall be lost
whom God has marked for life and salvation; for the foundation of God stands sure.
3. They are directed to begin at the sanctuary (Eze_9:6), that sanctuary which, in the
chapter before, he had seen the horrid profanation of; they must begin there because
there the wickedness began which provoked God to send these judgments. The
debaucheries of the priests were the poisoning of the springs, to which all the corruption
of the streams was owing. The wickedness of the sanctuary was of all wickedness the
most offensive to God, and therefore there the slaughter must begin: “Begin there, to try
if the people will take warning by the judgments of God upon their priests, and will
repent and reform; begin there, that all the world may see and know that the Lord,
whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God, and hates sin most in those that are nearest to
him.” Note, When judgements are abroad they commonly begin at the house of God,
1Pe_4:17. You only have I known, and therefore I will punish you, Amo_3:2. God's
temple is a sanctuary, a refuge and protection for penitent sinners, but not for any that
go on still in their trespasses; neither the sacredness of the place nor the eminency of
their place in it will be their security. It should seem the destroyers made some difficulty
of putting men to death in the temple, but God bids them not to hesitate at that, but
(Eze_9:7), Defile the house, and fill the courts with slain. They will not be taken from
the altar (as was appointed by the law, Exo_21:14), but think to secure themselves by
keeping hold of the horns of it, like Joab, and therefore, like him, let them die there, 1Ki_
2:30, 1Ki_2:31. There the blood of one of God's prophets had been shed (Mat_23:35)
and therefore let their blood be shed. Note, If the servants of God's house defile it with
their idolatries, God will justly suffer the enemies of it to defile it with their violences,
Psa_79:1. But these acts of necessary justice were really, whatever they were
ceremonially, rather a purification than a pollution of the sanctuary; it was putting away
evil from among them. 4. They are appointed to go forth into the city, Eze_9:6, Eze_9:7.
Note, Wherever sin has gone before judgement will follow after; and, though judgement
begins at the house of God, yet it shall not end there. The holy city shall be no more a
protection to the wicked people then the holy house was to the wicked priests.
II. Here is execution done accordingly. They observed their orders, and, 1. They began
at the elders, the ancient men that were before the house, and slew them first, either
those seventy ancients who worshipped idols in their chambers (Eze_8:12) or those
twenty-five who worshipped the sun between the porch and the altar, who might more
properly be said to be before the house. Note, Ringleaders in sin may expect to be first
met with by the judgements of God; and the sins of those who are in the most eminent
and public stations call for the most exemplary punishments. 2. They proceeded to the
common people: They went forth and slew in the city; for, when the decree has gone
forth, there shall be no delay; if God begin, he will make an end.
III. Here is the prophet's intercession for a mitigation of the judgement, and a reprieve
for some (Eze_9:8): While they were slaying them, and I was left, I fell upon my face.
Observe here, 1. How sensible the prophet was of God's mercy to him, in that he was
spared when so many round about him were cut off. Thousands fell on his right hand,
and on his left, and yet the destruction did not come nigh him; only with his eyes did he
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73. behold the just reward of the wicked, Psa_91:7, Psa_91:8. He speaks as one that
narrowly escaped the destruction, attributing it to God's goodness, not his own deserts.
Note, The best saints must acknowledge themselves indebted to sparing mercy that they
are not consumed. And when desolating judgements are abroad, and multitudes fall by
them, it ought to be accounted a great favor if we have our lives given us for a prey; for
we might justly have perished with those that perished. 2. Observe how he improved this
mercy; he looked upon it that therefore he was left that he might stand in the gap to turn
away the wrath of God. Note, We must look upon it that for this reason we are spared,
that we may do good in our places, may do good by our prayers. Ezekiel did not triumph
in the slaughter he made, but his flesh trembled for the fear of God, (as David's, Psa_
119:120); he fell on his face, and cried, not in fear for himself (he was one of those that
were marked), but in compassion to his fellow-creatures. Those that sigh and cry for the
sins of sinners cannot but sigh and cry for their miseries too; yet the day is coming when
all this concern will be entirely swallowed up in a full satisfaction in this, that God is
glorified; and those that now fall on their faces, and cry, Ah! Lord God, will lift up their
heads, and sing, Hallelujah, Rev_19:1, Rev_19:3. The prophet humbly expostulates with
God: “Wilt thou destroy all the residue of Israel, and shall there be none left but the few
that are marked? Shall the Israel of God be destroyed, utterly destroyed? When there are
but a few left shall those be cut off, who might have been the seed of another generation?
And will the God of Israel be himself their destroyer? Wilt thou now destroy Israel, who
wast wont to protect and deliver Israel? Wilt thou so pour out thy fury upon Jerusalem
as by the total destruction of the city to ruin the whole country too? Surely thou wilt
not!” Note, Though we acknowledge that God is righteous, yet we have leave to plead
with him concerning his judgements, Jer_12:1.
IV. Here is God's denial of the prophet's request for a mitigation of the judgement and
his justification of himself in that denial, Eze_9:9, Eze_9:10. 1. Nothing could be said in
extenuation of this sin. God was willing to show mercy as the prophet could desire; he
always is so. But here the case will not admit of it; it is such that mercy cannot be
granted without wrong to justice; and it is not fit that one attribute of God should be
glorified at the expense of another. Is it any pleasure to the Almighty that he should
destroy, especially that he should destroy Israel? By no means. But the truth is their
crimes are so flagrant that the reprieve of the sinners would be a connivance at the sin:
“The iniquity of the house of Judah and Israel is exceedingly great; there is no suffering
them to go on at this rate. The land is filled with the innocent blood, and, when the city
courts are appealed to for the defence of injured innocency, the remedy is as bad as the
disease, for the city is full of perverseness, or wrestling of judgement; and that which
they support themselves with in this iniquity is the same atheistical profane principle
with which they flattered themselves in their idolatry, Eze_8:12. The Lord has forsaken
the earth, and left it to us to do what we will in it; he will not intermeddle in the affairs of
it; and, whatever wrong we do, he sees not; he either knows it not, or will not take
cognizance of it.” Now how can those expect benefit by the mercy of God who thus bid
defiance to his justice? No; nothing can be offered by an advocate in excuse of the crimes
while the criminal puts in such a plea as this in his own vindication; and therefore. 2.
Nothing can be done to mitigate the sentence (Eze_9:10): “Whatever thou thinkest of it,
as for me, my eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity; I have borne with them as
long as it was fit that such impudent sinners should be borne with; and therefore now I
will recompense their way on their head.” Note, Sinners sink and perish under the
weight of their own sins; it is their own way, which they deliberately chose rather than
the way of God, and which they obstinately persisted in, in contempt of the word of God,
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74. that is recompensed on them. Great iniquities justify God in great severities; nay, he is
ready to justify himself, as he does here to the prophet, for he will be clear when he
judges.
V. Here is a return made of the writ of protection which was issued out for the
securing of those that mourned in Zion (Eze_9:11): The man clothed with linen reported
the matter, gave an account of what he had done in pursuance of his commission; he had
found out all that mourned in secret for the sins of the land, and cried out against them
by a public testimony, and had marked them all in the forehead. Lord, I have done as
thou hast commanded me. We do not find that those who were commissioned to destroy
reported what destruction they had made, but he who was appointed to protect reported
his matter; for it would be more pleasing both to God and to the prophet to hear of those
that were saved than of those that perished. Or this report was made now because the
thing was finished, whereas the destroying work would be a work of time, and when it
was brought to an end then the report should be made. See how faithful Christ is to the
trust reposed in him. Is he commanded to secure eternal life to the chosen remnant? He
has done as was commanded him. Of all that thou hast given me I have lost none.
JAMISON, "the others — the six officers of judgment (Eze_9:2).
CALVIN, “Now the Prophet adds, that the Chaldeans were sent to destroy the city
and its inhabitants, but the order must be observed, because they are ordered to go
behind the angel. The grace of God therefore precedes to the safety of all the pious:
then he opened the gate, and made a way open for his wrath, long and wide, after he
had removed the faithful from all danger: for this reason it is said, that he went
through the city yet after him. And Patti also signifies this, when he says, after that
your obedience has been fulfilled, then wrath is at hand against all rebels and proud
ones. (2 Corinthians 10:6.) God therefore first cares for his own; but after he has
received them into his keeping, and hid them as it were under his wings, then he
permits the flame of his wrath to burn against all the wicked. In fine, we see that as
often as God revenges man’s wickedness, he regards his Church, and treats all as
worthy of peculiar care who are endued with true and serious piety.
Then he orders them to strike, so that their eye should not spare; what God had
taken to himself he transfers to the Chaldees, because there ought to be an
agreement between God and all his servants, even those who are not voluntary
agents, but whom he bends every way by his secret instinct. Then he expresses more
clearly, that they should not spare either old men or young men or boys or girls; as
if he said, that he must rage against all promiscuously, without any choice of age or
sex. He here opposes women to men, because that sex bends even the most cruel to
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75. pity, and we know that when men are slain, women are preserved. Now girls seem to
hold a better position and boys also: and decrepit old men, because nothing is to be
feared from them, are preserved safe. But God wishes the Chaldeans so to attack the
whole city, that they respect neither age nor sex. Meanwhile he excepts the faithful
of whom he had spoken, upon whomsoever the mark shall be, do not approach him.
Here it is asked, were all the good preserved free from slaughter? for we know that
Jeremiah was drawn into Egypt, to whom Chaldaea would have been a preferable
place of banishment. Already Daniel and his companions had been snatched away
before him, many were faithful in that multitude. On the other hand, we see many
despisers of God either escaped or left in the land, as Nebuchadnezzar wished the
dregs of the people to remain there. But we saw of what sort they were in Jeremiah.
It follows therefore that God neither spared all the elect, nor made a difference in
consequence of the mark, because the wicked obtained safety as well as the faithful.
(Jeremiah 39:10; Jeremiah 43:2; Jeremiah 44:15.) But we must observe, although
God apparently afflicts his people with the ungodly, yet they are so separated, that
nothing happens which does not tend to the safety of the righteous. When therefore
God forbids the Chaldeans to approach them, he does not mean them to be free
from all injury or disadvantage, but he promises that they should be so separated
from the ungodly, that they should acknowledge by sure experience that God was
never forgetful of his faith and promise. Now therefore we see how that difficulty
must be solved, since God does not so spare his own as not to exercise their faith and
patience, but he does spare them so that no destruction happens to them, while he is
always their protector. But when he seems to give license to the impious, he grants
this to their destruction, because they are rendered more and more inexcusable. And
this daily experience teaches us. For we see that the very best are so afflicted, that
God’s judgment begins with them. We see meanwhile that many reprobate exult
with joy, even when they wantonly rage against God. But God has the care of his
own as if they had been sealed, and separates them from the ungodly; but their own
destruction remains for the ungodly, and they are already held within its folds,
although it is not yet perceptible by the eye.
It follows, begin at my sanctuary. By the word “sanctuary” the priests and Levites
are doubtless intended, and their fault was clearly greater. There was indeed a small
number who worshipped God purely, and stood firm in their duty, but the greater
part had revolted from the worship of God. Hence this passage ought to be
understood of those impious priests who had despised God and his servants. Nor is
it surprising that God’s wrath should begin with them. For they sin doubly; because
if any private man fall away, his example is not so injurious as that of the eminent,
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76. who thus draw all men into the same ruin. For we know that the eyes of the
multitude are turned towards their superiors. Since therefore the priests sinned
more severely than all the rest, it is not surprising if God should punish them in the
first place. Those who interpret this sentence generally, as if God ordered the
Chaldeans to begin from his Church, extenuate the sense of the Prophet too much.
For this is not a comparison between the Church of God and profane nations, but
God rather compares the ministers of his temple with the people in general, and a
clearer explanation follows directly after, that the Chaldeans began from the men,
the elders who were before the house; that is, who were set over the temple Now it
follows —
ELLICOTT, “(5) Go ye after him.—No interval is allowed. Here, as in the
corresponding visions in Revelation referred to above, judgment waits only until
those whom mercy will spare have been protected. (Comp. the deliverance of Lot,
Genesis 19:22-25.) The destruction was to be utter and complete, and was to begin at
the sanctuary, where the gross sin of the people had culminated. This is one of those
many important passages in Scripture (comp. Matthew 25:41; Luke 23:30;
Revelation 6:16, &c.) in which God reveals Himself as one who will ultimately take
vengeance without pity upon those who have rejected and insulted His mercy and
long-suffering kindness. The revelation of future wrath is no less clear and distinct
than that of love to those who trust in Him.
TRAPP, “Ezekiel 9:5 And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him
through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity:
Ver. 5. Go ye after him.] Go not till he hath marked the mourners, so chary and
choice is God of his jewels. Mercy is his firstborn, saith one, and visits the saints ere
judgments break out. [Isaiah 26:20-21]
Verse 6
Ezekiel 9:6 Slay utterly old [and] young, both maids, and little children, and
women: but come not near any man upon whom [is] the mark; and begin at my
sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which [were] before the house.
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77. Ver. 6. Slay utterly old and young.] (a) A dreadful commission; see it fully executed,
2 Chronicles 36:17 : all sorts, sexes, and sizes of people were corrupted; and since
there was no hope of curing, there must be cutting.
But come not near any upon whom is the mark.] These were the "precious sons of
Zion," the "excellent ones of the earth" - as whatsoever is sealed is excellent in its
kind, [Isaiah 28:25] hordeum signatum. - these are the darlings, the favourites;
handle them gently therefore for my sake, touch not mine anointed, come not near
any such to fright them, but keep your distance.
And begin at my sanctuary.] From whence went forth profaneness into the whole
land. [Jeremiah 23:15] These sanctuary men were an ill generation; at them
therefore begins the judgment. God will be sanctified in all that draw near unto
him. Nadab and Abihu found the flames of jealousy hottest about the altar. Uzzah
and the Bethshemites felt that justice as well as mercy is most active about the ark.
Murderers must be drawn from the altar to the slaughter. [Exodus 21:14] Holy
places were wont to be refuges; not so here, but the contrary.
Then they began at the ancient men.] At those seventy seniors, [Ezekiel 8:11] whose
foul offences had flown far upon the two wings of evil example and scandal.
POOLE, “ The others; the six slaughtermen.
He said; the God of glory, or Christ, who appeared in great glory.
In my hearing; a note of certainty of the thing.
Go ye after him; linger not ere you set forward against the wicked, yet still go after,
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78. that you destroy none that are to be sealed; so also Revelation 7:3.
Through the city; this order must be observed through the whole city, and through
the whole execution. Smite; strike each with his weapon of perdition, so let every one
fall by the sword, or famine, &c.
Let not your eye spare; do all with severity, act the Chaldeans’ part indeed, and
without remorse execute my just displeasure by your cruelty.
PETT, “Verse 5-6
‘And to the others he said in my hearing, “Go through the city after him, and smite.
Do not let your eye spare, nor have pity. Slay utterly (literally ‘slay to destruction’)
the old man, the young man and the maiden, and little children and women. But do
not come near any man on whom is the mark. And begin at my sanctuary.” ’
Then came the command for judgment. It was to be without mercy, without pity.
None was to be spared. The judgment and wrath of God was to come on each one,
from the oldest to the youngest. All were marked out by God for judgment in one
way or another. (The Assyrians would make no distinctions). And it was to begin at
His sanctuary where those who were supposed to serve Him had proved so utterly
unfaithful. It is a serious thing to profess to be a leader of God’s people but to lead
them astray (1 Peter 4:17; compare Matthew 18:6; Mark 9:42; Luke 17:2; Hebrews
13:17).
But none who were marked by God was to be touched. They may suffer at the hands
of men, but not at the hands of God’s visitants. This underlines one of Ezekiel’s
central messages. Judgment is individual. It is the one who sins who must die in
judgment. Those who are faithful to God and His covenant may die, but they will
not die in judgment.
78

79. We must remember that this was a vision and a heavenly message. It symbolised
God’s view and purpose in what was to come. It would not be fulfilled literally as we
have already been told, for some would go into captivity. But it indicated that God’s
judgment was upon all.
6 Slaughter the old men, the young men and
women, the mothers and children, but do not
touch anyone who has the mark. Begin at my
sanctuary.” So they began with the old men who
were in front of the temple.
BARNES, "egin at my sanctuary - The first to be punished were those who had
brought idolatry nearest to the holy place. The “ancient men,” i. e., the 25 men who had
stood with their backs to the altar Eze_8:16 were the first to be slain.
CLARKE, "Begin at my sanctuary - Let those who have sinned against most
mercy, and most privileges, be the first victims of justice. Those who know their Lord’s
will, and do it not, shall be beaten with many stripes. The unfaithful members of Christ’s
church will be first visited and most punished. But let not those who belong to the
synagogue of Satan exult in this, for if judgment begin at the house of God what will the
end be of them who obey not the Gospel! However, the truly penitent of all descriptions
in such cases shall be safe. The command of God is, “Set a mark on all them that sigh
and cry;” and his command to the destroyers is, “Come not near any man on whom is the
mark.”
GILL, "Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children,
79

80. and women,.... All, of them objects of compassion, because of their age and sex; and
yet none to be spared; and which orders were exactly obeyed; see 2Ch_36:17;
but come not near any man on whom is the mark; these were not to be slain; and
though some were carried captive, as Daniel, and others; yet it was for their good and
God's glory; see Rev_7:3;
and begin at my sanctuary; the temple, the house of God, and the priests and Levites
that dwelt there. The Septuagint version is, "begin at my saints"; those who professed
themselves to be the saints of the Lord, and were separated and devoted to his service;
and so the Rabbins say (y), do not read ‫,ממקדשי‬ "at my sanctuary"; but ‫,ממקודשי‬ "at
those that sanctify me", or "my sanctified ones"; which they interpret of those that keep
the whole law, from "aleph" to "tau"; see 1Pe_4:17;
then they began at the ancient men which were before the house; the seventy
elders of Israel, who offered incense to the idols portrayed upon the walls of the
chambers of the temple, Eze_8:10; these they slew first.
JAMISON, "come not near any ... upon whom ... mark — (Rev_9:4). It may be
objected that Daniel, Jeremiah, and others were carried away, whereas many of the vilest
were left in the land. But God does not promise believers exemption from all suffering,
but only from what will prove really and lastingly hurtful to them. His sparing the
ungodly turns to their destruction and leaves them without excuse [Calvin]. However,
the prophecy waits a fuller and final fulfillment, for Rev_7:3-8, in ages long after
Babylon, foretells, as still future, the same sealing of a remnant (one hundred forty-four
thousand) of Israel previous to the final outpouring of wrath on the rest of the nation;
the correspondence is exact; the same pouring of fire from the altar follows the marking
of the remnant in both (compare Rev_8:5, with Eze_10:2). So Zec_13:9; Zec_14:2,
distinguish the remnant from the rest of Israel.
begin at ... sanctuary — For in it the greatest abominations had been committed; it
had lost the reality of consecration by the blood of victims sacrificed to idols; it must,
therefore, lose its semblance by the dead bodies of the slain idolaters (Eze_9:7). God’s
heaviest wrath falls on those who have sinned against the highest privileges; these are
made to feel it first (1Pe_4:17, 1Pe_4:18). He hates sin most in those nearest to Him; for
example, the priests, etc.
ancient men — the seventy elders.
WHEDON, “ 6. Begin at my sanctuary — Or, consecrated ones (LXX.). It is fitting
that the heaviest and speediest judgment fall upon those who have had greatest
privileges, and thus have sinned against greatest light (Amos 1:2; 1 Peter 4:17;
Matthew 11:21). “Dante and Michael Angelo locate bishops in hell. The cardinal’s
hat appears in Fra Angelico’s picture of the prison of lost souls. We shall not escape
the punishment of our sins by putting on clerical vestments.” — Adeney.
80

81. The ancient men — The elders. (Compare Ezekiel 8:16.)
PETT, “Verse 6
‘Then they began at the old men (elders) who were before the house.’ These would
be the five and twenty who represented the priesthood, worshippers of the sun
(Ezekiel 8:16). They were the most guilty because of their closeness to the sanctuary.
These men who had had the most holy privileges had betrayed their trust.
PULPIT, “Begin at my sanctuary, etc. It was fitting that the spot in which guilt had
culminated should be the starting point of punishment. There seems something like
a reference to this command in 1 Peter 4:17. In each ease judgment "begins at the
house of God." So the dread work began with the ancient men, or elders, of the
same class, i.e; if not the same persons, as those in Ezekiel 8:11.
7 Then he said to them, “Defile the temple and fill
the courts with the slain. Go!” So they went out
and began killing throughout the city.
BARNES, "Defile the house - By filling the temple and its courts with the bodies of
the slain. See Num_19:11.
CLARKE, "Defile the house - A dreadful sentence, Let it be polluted, I will no
more dwell in it; I now utterly forsake it.
81

82. GILL, "And he said unto them, defile the house,.... The temple; do not be afraid
of slaying any person in it, for fear of defiling it; they have defiled it with their
abominations, and now do you defile it with their blood:
and fill the courts with the slain; the court of the priests, and the court of the
Israelites, and the court of the women, and all the chambers where the priests and
Levites were, and had their images portrayed:
go ye forth; from the brasen altar by which they stood, and out of the temple, after they
had done their business there, and had slain all they should:
and they went forth, and slew in the city; they went out of the temple, and slew in
the city all but those that had the mark.
CALVIN, “Here God. repeats what he had formerly touched upon shortly and
obscurely, namely, that the Jews trusted in vain in the visible temple, because
already he had ceased to dwell there, as we shall afterwards see that he had
departed. He had promised that his perpetual dwelling should be there, (Psalms
132:14,) but that promise is not opposed by the casual desertion of that dwelling-
place. Now therefore he adds this sentence, when he orders the Chaldeans to pollute
the temple itself But it was already polluted, some one will say: I confess it: but it
regards the Common perception of the people; for although the Jews had infected
the sanctuary of God with their wickedness, yet they boasted that his worship still
remained there and his sacred name. Now therefore he speaks of another kind of
pollution, namely, that the Chaldeans should fill all the area with the slain If a
human corpse or even a dog was seen in the sanctuary, this was an intolerable
pollution; all would cry out that it was portentous. But as often as they entered the
temple, although they dragged their crimes into God’s presence, (for they went there
polluted with blood, rapine, fraud, perjuries, and a whole heap of guilt,) yet they
reckoned all these pollutions as nothing. God therefore here obliquely derides their
sloth, when he says that they boasted of the sanctity of the temple in vain, because
they should see it at length filled with corpses, and then should really acknowledge
that the temple was no longer sacred. Now therefore we understand the intention of
the Holy Spirit. He adds, that they had gone forth, and occasioned a slaughter in the
city Here again the Prophet shows that the Chaldeans would be at hand to smite the
Jews with terror, as soon as God commanded them to destroy the city and cut off
the inhabitants. Perhaps the city had not yet been besieged, and that is probable, for
the Jews thought Ezekiel’s threatenings fabulous. For this reason he says that the
Chaldeans appeared to him, that they might hear or receive the commandment of
82

83. God: then that they had returned from the slaughter, to prove their obedience to
God. In fine, he shows that God’s threatenings should not be in vain, because as
soon as the right time should arrive, the army of the Chaldeans would be prepared
for obedience. It follows —
COKE, “Ezekiel 9:7. Defile the house— God hereby declares that he will no longer
own the temple for the place of his residence, as having been polluted with idolatry;
and therefore he delivers up both the inner and outer court to be polluted with
blood. See chap. Ezekiel 10:3; Ezekiel 10:5.
ELLICOTT, “(7) Defile the house.—The utmost possible pollution under the Mosaic
economy was the touch of a dead body. (See Numbers 19:11; 1 Kings 13:2; 2 Kings
23:16.) It might be thought that the Temple would be spared this defilement; but not
only must the execution of justice override all technicalities, as at the execution of
Joab (1 Kings 2:28-31), but in this case the very defilement itself was a part of the
judgment, since God was about to forsake His sanctuary, and give over even this to
the desolations of the heathen. From the Temple the destroying angels passed out
into the city.
TRAPP, “Ezekiel 9:7 And he said unto them, Defile the house, and fill the courts
with the slain: go ye forth. And they went forth, and slew in the city.
Ver. 7. Defile the house.] Once hallowed by myself, but now abhorred and rejected
as a stew or sty of filthiness.
Fill the courts.] That where they have sinned, there they may suffer, as did Ahab. [1
Kings 22:38 2 Kings 9:26]
POOLE, “ Defile the house; regard not the holiness of the temple: idolaters, whom
you are to slay, have defiled it with the blood of idols, sacrifices, do you defile it with
the blood of the idolatrous sacrificers; slay them where you find them, for there they
83

84. sinned against me.
Fill the courts with the slain; make a great slaughter, let every place be stained with
their blood. There were the priests’, the Levites’, and the women’s courts, and there
will be found persons of a different character; but unless my mark be upon them,
forbear none of them.
Go ye forth; make haste, do not ye, for I do not, delay, nor will I.
They went forth: here, as before, they show their ready obedience.
Slew in the city: this slaughter was visional in the eye of the prophet, and a preface
to the saddest butcheries Israel ever bled and groaned under.
WHEDON, “ 7. Defile the house — Beginning in the priests’ court, where they stood
to receive this command (see note Ezekiel 9:3), they began to slay all who had not
the mark of the cross on their foreheads. and continued from court to court until
they had passed out of the temple and then continued their work in the streets of the
city. The temple, which had ceased to be Jehovah’s, was now defiled by heaps of
corpses (Ezekiel 6:5; Ezekiel 6:13; Ezekiel 43:7; Numbers 19:11, etc.). This massacre
in the temple, which is here seen only in vision, actually took place in the capture of
the city by the Chaldeans.
Go — It matters not whether these six executioners represented the Assyrians or the
doubled power of famine, pestilence, and war (Ezekiel 5:12). In either case the
presence of a seventh is to be noted. The forces of the heathen and the powers of
nature may burn and destroy, but behind these there is supreme Intelligence and
Will. Schopenhauer was not altogether wrong when he called gravitation an act of
will. Behind all destructive as well as creative and protective providences God
standeth in the shadow.
84

85. PETT, “Verse 7
‘And he said to them, “Defile the house and fill the courts with the slain. Go forth.”
And they went forth and smote in the city.’
The house was to be deliberately defiled (compare Numbers 19:11; 1 Kings 13:2; 2
Kings 23:16). It was no longer God’s temple. They had handed it over to idolatry, so
that just as bones were scattered around the high places (Ezekiel 6:5), they would be
around the temple precincts. It was a house of idolatry. And once that was so defiled
then the visitants were to go out and destroy the city.
PULPIT, “Defile the house, etc. What Ezekiel saw in vision was, we may well
believe, fulfilled literally when the city was taken by the Chaldeans. The pollution of
the temple by the bleeding corpses of the idolatrous worshippers was a fitting
retribution for the worship with which they had polluted it (comp. Ezekiel 6:13).
8 While they were killing and I was left alone, I
fell facedown, crying out, “Alas, Sovereign Lord!
Are you going to destroy the entire remnant of
Israel in this outpouring of your wrath on
Jerusalem?”
BARNES, "Left - The prophet was left alone, all who had been around him were
slain.
85

86. CLARKE, "Wilt thou destroy all the residue of Israel, On thy pouring out
of thy fury upon Jerusalem? - These destroyers had slain the seventy elders, the
twenty-five adorers of the sun, and the women that mourned for Tammuz; and on seeing
this slaughter the prophet fell on his face, and began to make intercession.
GILL, "And it came to pass, while they were slaying them,.... That were in the
city:
and I was left; in the temple; and the only one that was left there, the rest were slain;
for there were none marked in the temple, only in the city, Eze_9:4;
that I fell upon my face; as a supplicant, with great humility:
and cried, and said; being greatly distressed with this awful providence:
ah, Lord God! wilt thou destroy all the residue of Israel; the ten tribes had been
carried captive before; there only remained the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, and
these were now threatened with an utter destruction:
in thy pouring out of thy fury upon Jerusalem? shown in the destruction of men,
both in the city and temple, by famine, pestilence, and sword.
JAMISON, "I was left — literally, “there was left I.” So universal seemed the
slaughter that Ezekiel thought himself the only one left [Calvin]. He was the only one left
of the priests “in the sanctuary.”
fell upon my face — to intercede for his countrymen (so Num_16:22).
all the residue — a plea drawn from God’s covenant promise to save the elect
remnant.
K&D 8-11, “Intercession of the Prophet, and the Answer of the Lord
Eze_9:8. And it came to pass when they smote and I remained, I fell upon my face,
and carried, and said: Alas! Lord Jehovah, wilt Thou destroy all the remnant of Israel,
by pouring out Thy wrath upon Jerusalem? Eze_9:9. And He said to me: The iniquity
of the house of Israel and Judah is immeasurably great, and the land is full of blood-
guiltiness, and the city full of perversion; for they say Jehovah hath forsaken the land,
and Jehovah seeth not. Eze_9:10. So also shall my eye not look with pity, and I will not
spare; I will give their way upon their head. Eze_9:11. And, behold, the man clothed in
white linen, who had the writing materials on his hip, brought answer, and said: I
have done as thou hast commanded me. - The Chetib ‫נאשׁאר‬ is an incongruous form,
composed of participle and imperfect fused into one, and is evidently a copyist's error. It
is not to be altered into ‫ר‬ ֵ‫א‬ָ‫שּׁ‬ ֶ‫,א‬ however (the 1st pers. imperf. Niph.), but to be read as a
86

87. participle ‫ר‬ ָ‫א‬ ְ‫שׁ‬ִ‫,נ‬ and taken with ‫ם‬ ָ‫ת‬ ‫כּ‬ ַ‫ה‬ ְ‫כּ‬ as a continuation of the circumstantial clause.
For the words do not mean that Ezekiel alone was left, but that when the angels smote
and he was left, i.e., was spared, was not smitten with the rest, he fell on his face, to
entreat the Lord for mercy. These words and the prophet's intercession both apparently
presuppose that among the inhabitants of Jerusalem there was no one found who was
marked with the sign of the cross, and therefore could be spared. But this is by no means
to be regarded as established. For, in the first place, it is not stated that all had been
smitten by the angels; and, secondly, the intercession of the prophet simply assumes
that, in comparison with the multitude of the slain, the number of those who were
marked with the sign of the cross and spared was so small that it escaped the prophet's
eye, and he was afraid that they might all be slain without exception, and the whole of
the remnant of the covenant nation be destroyed. The ‫ית‬ ִ‫ר‬ ֵ‫א‬ ְ‫שׁ‬ of Israel and Judah is the
covenant nation in its existing state, when it had been so reduced by the previous
judgments of God, that out of the whole of what was once so numerous a people, only a
small portion remained in the land. Although God has previously promised that a
remnant shall be preserved (Eze_5:3-4), He does not renew this promise to the prophet,
but begins by holding up the greatness of the iniquity of Israel, which admits of no
sparing, but calls for the most merciless punishment, to show him that, according to the
strict demand of justice, the whole nation has deserved destruction. ‫ה‬ ֶ‫טּ‬ ֻ‫מ‬ (Eze_9:9) is
not equivalent to ‫ט‬ ַ‫ה‬ ‫,מ‬ oppression (Isa_58:9), but signifies perversion of justice;
although ‫ט‬ָ‫פּ‬ ְ‫שׁ‬ ִ‫מ‬ is not mentioned, since this is also omitted in Exo_23:2, where ‫ה‬ ָ‫טּ‬ ִ‫ה‬
occurs in the same sense. For Eze_9:9, vid., Eze_8:12. For ‫י‬ ִ‫תּ‬ ַ‫ָת‬‫נ‬ '‫ם‬ ָ‫כּ‬ ְ‫ר‬ ַ‫דּ‬ ‫בר‬ (Eze_9:10
and Eze_11:21-22, 31), vid., 1Ki_8:32. While God is conversing with the prophet, the
seven angels have performed their work; and in Eze_9:11 their leader returns to Jehovah
with the announcement that His orders have been executed. He does this, not in his own
name only, but in that of all the rest. The first act of the judgment is thus shown to the
prophet in a figurative representation. The second act follows in the next chapter.
CALVIN, “The Prophet does not so carefully preserve the historical order in the
context of the words. For he says, the Chaldeans had returned He afterwards adds,
while they were striking the city that he fell upon his face. But we know this to be
sufficiently common among the Hebrews, to relate first what is done afterwards.
Although the Prophet seems to have fallen upon his face a little after their return,
i.e., as soon as he perceived the city to have been nearly destroyed; yet he says, while
they were smiting, he himself was left. They think the word compounded of the past
and future tense, because there can be no grammatical reason that the word should
be one and single. Indeed the word seems compounded of the first and third
persons, as if he would say that he was left alone when all the rest were perishing.
Yet there is no ambiguity in the sense; for it signifies that the Chaldeans had so
attacked them everywhere, that they left none remaining. Since, therefore, they
raged so savagely against the whole multitude, the Prophet seemed to himself to
remain alone, as if God had snatched him from the horrible burning, by which he
wished the whole people to be consumed and perish. Now if any one should object,
87

88. that they were not all slain, the answer is, that a slaughter took place which almost
destroyed the name of the people; then the survivors were like the dead, because
exile was worse to them than death itself. Lastly, we must remark that the prophecy
was extended to the last penalty, which at length awaits the ungodly, although God
connives at them for a time, or merely chastises them moderately.
In fine, the slaughter of the city was shown to the Prophet as if all the citizens had
utterly perished. And so God wished to show how terrible a destruction pressed
upon the people, and yet no one feared it. Now as the Prophet fell upon his face, it
was a testimony of the human affection, by which he instructed the people although
unworthy. Hence he fell upon his face as a mediator, for we know that when the
faithful ask pardon of God, they fall upon their face. They are said also to pour
forth their prayers for the sake of humility, because they are unworthy to direct
their prayers and words upwards. (Psalms 102:1.) Therefore Ezekiel shows that he
interceded for the safety of the people. And truly God was unwilling that his
servants, under pretense of zeal, should cast off all sense of humanity, so that the
slaughter of the people should be their play and joke. We have seen how anxiously
Jeremiah prayed for the people, so that he was at length entirely overwhelmed with
grief; for he wished, as we see in the ninth chapter, that his eyes flowed down as
fountains. (Jeremiah 9:1.) Hence the Prophets, although they were God’s heralds to
promulgate his wrath, yet had not altogether put off all care and anxiety; for when
they seemed to be hostile to the people they pitied them. And to this end Ezekiel fell
on his face before God And truly that was a grievous trial, which he did not
disguise; for he complains that a populous city was destroyed, and women and boys
slain promiscuously with men. But he lays before God his own covenant, as if he
said, even if the whole world should perish, yet it was impossible for God to lose his
own Church, because he had promised, that as long as the sun and moon shone in
heaven, there should be a seed of the pious in the world. “They shall be my faithful
witnesses in heaven,” said he. (Psalms 89:37.) The sun and moon are remaining in
their place: therefore God seemed to have broken his covenant when he destroyed
the whole people. This is the reason why the Prophet lies on his face, as if
astonished, and exclaims with vehemence, Alas! O Lord God, wilt thou destroy the
remnant of Israel by pouring forth thine anger? that is, whilst thou so purest forth
thine anger against Jerusalem — for that city remained as a testimony of God’s
covenant; for as yet some safety could be hoped for; but although after it was cut
off, the faithful wrestled with that temptation, yet the contest was hard and
fatiguing; for no one thought that any memorial of God’s covenant could flourish
when that city was extinct. For he had there chosen his seat and dwelling, and
88

89. wished to be worshipped in that one place. Since, therefore, the Prophet saw that
city destroyed, he broke forth into a cry, what then will become of it! For when thou
hast poured forth thine anger against Jerusalem, nothing will remain left in the city.
Hence also it will readily be understood, that God’s covenant was almost
obliterated, and had lost all its effect. Now it follows —
COFFMAN, “Verse 8
"And it came to pass while they were smiting, and I was left, that I fell upon my
face, and cried, and said, Ah Lord Jehovah, wilt thou destroy all the residue of
Israel in thy pouring out of thy wrath upon Jerusalem? Then said he unto me, The
iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great, and the land is full of
blood, and the city full of wresting of judgment: for they say, Jehovah hath forsaken
the land, and Jehovah seeth not. And as for me also, mine eye shall not spare,
neither will I have pity, but I will bring their ways upon their head. And, behold, the
man clothed in linen, who had the inkhorn by his side, reported the matter saying, I
have done as thou hast commanded me."
EZEKIEL'S INTERCESSION OF NO AVAIL
"This passage shows how wrong are those evaluations of Ezekiel that see him only
as a merciless religious zealot. The prophets of God had a heart for the people to
whom they had to preach condemnation and judgment."[15] Ezekiel loved his
people and their sacred city Jerusalem; and it is possible that he still might have
been thinking that the "righteous remnant" so often mentioned by Isaiah, and
which also vividly appears now and then in his own writings, would undoubtedly be
found "in Jerusalem."
However, the events which Ezekiel saw in this vision appeared to the prophet as the
end of any such possibility as that of a "righteous remnant" remaining in
Jerusalem. No! The "righteous remnant" would be found among the captives in
Babylon, not in Jerusalem; and the complete end of Jerusalem, as it began to unfold
before the eyes of Ezekiel, broke his heart, because he probably thought there might
89

90. not be left any remnant at all; and that appears to be the reason for his passionate,
tearful and heartbroken intercession.
"I fell upon my face, and cried, and said, Ah Lord, wilt thou destroy all the residue
of Israel ..." (Ezekiel 9:8)? The background of this plea is most certainly that of
Ezekiel's knowledge of God's promise that a "righteous remnant" would remain,
There is a similarity here to Abraham's intercession for Sodom and Gomorrah.
Both intercessions were offered in the form of a question. Both were based upon
previous promises of God. Here, the promise was that God would spare a remnant.
With Abraham, the promise that God would destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Here
the tearful question is "Wilt thou destroy the residue of Israel?" With Abraham, the
question was, "Wilt thou destroy the righteous with the wicked?" There is also a
third similarity, namely, in the fact that both intercessions failed. Both Jerusalem
and Sodom were destroyed, exactly as God promised. God did not violate his
promise in either case. There were not ten righteous persons in Sodom; and God
preserved a "righteous remnant," as he promised, only it was not in Jerusalem, but
in Babylon!
"The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great ..." (Ezekiel 9:9).
God here gave the grounds for the utter necessity of Jerusalem's destruction. At
first, we are surprised that God did not here enumerate such things as Israel's
worshipping other gods, or their defiling the temple, or of their neglect of sacrifices,
despite the fact of such sins being the source of all their wickedness. The wickedness
mentioned here was, (1) the land was filled with blood; (2) the city is full of injustice,
and (3) they do not believe in an omniscient, personal God to whom every man must
give an account. "These terrible conditions were the end result of the peoples' false
religion."[16]
Nothing is any more important in the life of any man or any nation than his religion.
The relationship to God is the governor and determiner of everything else. If that
relationship is correct, so will be his life; if it is wrong, no other obligation or duty
will be honored for one minute longer than the personal wishes of the sinner may
dictate.
90

91. Illustration: This writer once visited a young woman just married who was severely
prejudiced against her husband's religion; and she vowed that, "I am going to take
him away from that church."
She did so. Seven years later, she called, pleading for aid to save her marriage. He
had developed an affair with another woman; and the answer to her was, "What
did you expect? When any person forsakes his duty to God, why should he honor
any other duty?"
"Mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity ..." (Ezekiel 9:10). This was God's
answer to Ezekiel. Jerusalem would be subjected to the destruction which they so
richly deserved. "God would have his servants humbly acquiesce in his judgments
and trust God to do exactly what is right."[17]
Ezekiel's passionate intercession evidently caused him to forget the sparing of those
who received the mark upon their foreheads; and, to soften the dreadful news of
Jerusalem's fall, God permitted him to hear the report of the Angel of Jehovah in
Ezekiel 9:11.
Those who received that mark were the true "righteous remnant"; and they were in
no danger whatever of being forsaken.
"I have done as thou hast commanded me ..." (Ezekiel 9:11). Yes indeed, some of the
righteous remnant were in Jerusalem right up to the fall and through the dreadful
events that followed, among whom, we feel sure the great prophet Jeremiah was
numbered.
"The execution of God's command in Ezekiel 9:4 to mark the faithful was passed
over as being self-evident until this verse (v. 11), where the accomplishment of it was
reported."[18] It might have been mentioned indirectly here in order to encourage
Ezekiel and to let him know that, after all, that "righteous remnant" was still and
91

92. would continue to be intact.
ELLICOTT, “ (8) I was left.—The words imply left alone. The prophet had just
before seen the courts of the sanctuary thronged with idolaters in the full glory of
their heaven-defying sin. Now it is a city of the dead, and he is left standing alone in
the midst of the dead. He falls upon his face in consternation, and pleads that “the
residue of Israel” may not be utterly destroyed. The sternness of the Divine answer
leaves no room for hope of any mitigation of the judgment. No mention is made here
of those who were to be saved; they were so few among the mass as to have no effect
upon the general impression of the vision. Yet they are not forgotten; and to show
that they are not, the man in linen is represented in the next verse (11) as reporting
that he had executed the command given him.
TRAPP, “Ezekiel 9:8 And it came to pass, while they were slaying them, and I was
left, that I fell upon my face, and cried, and said, Ah Lord GOD! wilt thou destroy
all the residue of Israel in thy pouring out of thy fury upon Jerusalem?
Ver. 8. And I was left.] And, as I was apt to think, alone. [Romans 11:3]
I fell upon my face and cried.] This is the guise of the gracious in evil times, as may
be seen in Moses, Jeremiah, Paul, Athanasius, Ambrose, &c.
Ah, Lord God!] Adonai Jehovi (not Jehova, as elsewhere usually), so the saints have
sometimes prayed, tanquam singultientes in patheticis precibus, (a) or rather sighed
out their most earnest suits to God. {as Genesis 15:2-8 Deuteronomy 3:24;
Deuteronomy 9:26}
Wilt thou destroy all the residue of Israel?] Brevis quidem est haec querimonia
prophetae: at multa complectitur. (b) This is a brief but a complexive complaint,
and hath much in it.
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93. POOLE, “ And it came to pass: this is a most usual transition, and Scripture phrase.
While; there was some space of time taken up in the execution.
They were slaying; the six slaughtermen; not bodily and actually, but visionally, and
in prophetic representation.
Slaying them; those about the sanctuary, and in the city.
I was left; either survived the slaughter, or left alone, now both the sealer and the
slayers were gone; or alone sealed of all the priests, the rest being exposed to
destruction.
I fell on my face, in most humble and earnest manner addressing to God, as one that
would entreat mercy for a ruined state; and
cried, importunately prayed; and the prayer follows.
Ah! an expression of the greatest compounded affection of pity, desire, and zeal for
the afflicted; and what follows is a complex of arguments for pity and sparing
mercy; from God himself, from his peculiar hand in this, from his people, the
remnant of them, and from the sad and mournful state Jerusalem was already in.
Must all Israel drink thus of the cup of thine indignation?
The residue of Israel; so called, because many were already in captivity with
Jeconiah, and had been so about six or seven years; or else in respect to the electing
love of God, who ever reserved a remnant to himself.
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94. WHEDON, “8. Ah Lord God — The executioners have passed on, and the prophet
is left in the inner court alone with the dead. It seems to him that the last hope of
Israel is gone, and that even the last residue of the nation would now be destroyed.
Like Elijah, he believes he alone of all God’s people is to be left (1 Kings 19:10). Like
Moses, he cries out in agony pleading for his speechless, unrepentant countrymen
(Numbers 11:2; Numbers 14:19; compare Romans 9:1-3).
PETT, “Verse 8
‘And it was so that while they were smiting and I was left, I fell on my face and cried
out, and said, “Ah, Lord Yahweh. Will you destroy all the residue of Israel in your
pouring out of your fury on Jerusalem?” ’
As Ezekiel watched every man in the temple around him smitten down one by one,
until he was left alone, it was more than he could bear. And he cried out to God.
Would there be no mercy for any, for the residue of Israel? Would not God leave
but a few? The Christian must never gloat over God’s judgments. Though he
recognise that they are right, as a sinner among fellow sinners they should break his
heart even while he rejoices that God’s way is fulfilled (compare Amos 7:1-6)
PULPIT, “I fell upon my face, etc. The ministers of vengeance and the prophet were
left in the courts of the temple alone. His human, national sympathies led him, as
they led Moses (Numbers 11:2; Numbers 14:19) and St. Paul (Romans 9:1-3) to
undertake the work of intercession. With the words which had been the keynote of
Isaiah's prophecies, probably present to his thoughts (Isaiah 37:32, et al.), he asks
whether Jehovah will indeed destroy all that remnant of Israel (comp. Ezekiel
11:13) who might be as the germ of hope for the future.
9 He answered me, “The sin of the people of Israel
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95. and Judah is exceedingly great; the land is full of
bloodshed and the city is full of injustice. They
say, ‘The Lord has forsaken the land; the Lord
does not see.’
CLARKE, "For they say, The Lords hath forsaken the earth - ‫הארץ‬ ‫את‬ eth
haarets, “this land.” He has no more place in Israel; he has quite abandoned it; he neither
sees nor cares, and he can be no longer the object of worship to any man in Israel. This
seems to be the meaning; and God highly resents it, because it was bringing him on a
level with idols and provincial deities, who had, according to supposition, regency only
in some one place.
GILL, "Then he said unto me,.... In order to satisfy the prophet, and make him easy,
and show the equity and justice of the divine proceedings:
the iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great; it cannot be
well conceived or expressed how great it is; it abounded and superabounded: this is the
answer in general, but in particular it follows:
and the land is full of blood; of murders, as the Targum interprets it; of shedding of
innocent blood; and even of all atrocious and capital crimes:
and the city full of perverseness; or of perversion of judgment, as the Targum; the
city of Jerusalem, where was the highest court of judicature, where the sanhedrim of
seventy one sat to do justice and judgment, have nothing but perversion and injustice:
for they say, the Lord hath forsaken the earth, and the Lord seeth not; does
not concern himself with human affairs, and takes no notice of what is done below; and,
having imbibed such atheistical principles, were hardened in sin, and gave themselves
over to all iniquity; having no restraints upon them from the consideration of the
providence of God, and his government of the world: or else the sense is, that the Lord
had withheld his mercy and favours from them; and therefore they showed no regard to
him, and looked upon all their evils and calamities as fortuitous events, and not as
ordered by him as punishments for their sins.
JAMISON, "exceeding — literally, “very, very”; doubled.
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96. perverseness — “apostasy” [Grotius]; or, “wresting aside of justice.”
Lord ... forsaken ... earth ... seeth not — The order is reversed from Eze_8:12.
There they speak of His neglect of His people in their misery; here they go farther and
deny His providence (Psa_10:11), so that they may sin fearlessly. God, in answer to
Ezekiel’s question (Eze_9:8), leaves the difficulty unsolved; He merely vindicates His
justice by showing it did not exceed their sin: He would have us humbly acquiesce in His
judgments, and wait and trust.
BI, “The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great.
The evil and its remedy
(with 1Jn_1:7):—We can learn nothing of the Gospel except by feeling its truths,—no one
truth of the Gospel is ever truly known and really learned until we have tested and tried
and proved it, and its power has been exercised upon us. No man can know the greatness
of sin till he has felt it, for there is no measuring rod for sin except its condemnation in
our own conscience, when the law of God speaks to us with a terror that may be felt. And
as for the richness of the blood of Christ and its ability to wash us, of that also we can
know nothing till we have ourselves been washed, and have ourselves proved that the
blood of Jesus Christ the Son of God hath cleansed us from all sin.
1. I shall begin, then, with the first doctrine—“The iniquity of the house of Israel and
Judah is exceeding great.” Some imagine that the Gospel was devised, in some way
or other, to soften down the harshness of God towards sin. Ah! how mistaken the
idea! There is no more harsh condemnation of sin anywhere than in the Gospel. Nor
does the Gospel in any way whatever give man a hope that the claims of the law will
be in any way loosened. Christ hath not put out the furnace; He rather seemeth to
heat it seven times hotter. Before Christ came sin seemed unto me to be but little;
but when He came sin became exceeding sinful, and all its dread heinousness started
out before the light. But, says one, surely the Gospel does in some degree remove the
greatness of our sin. Does it not soften the punishment of sin? Ah, no! Stand at the
feet of Jesus when He tells you of the punishment of sin, and the effect of iniquity,
and you may tremble there far more than you would have done if Moses had been the
preacher, and if Sinai had been in the background to conclude the sermon. And now
let us endeavour to deal with hearts and consciences a moment. There are some here
who have never felt this truth. But come, let me reason with you for a moment. Your
sin is great, although you think it small. Follow me in these few thoughts, and
perhaps thou wilt better understand it. How great a thing is one sin when, according
to the Word of God, one sin could suffice to damn the soul. One sin, remember,
destroyed the whole human race. Again, what an imprudent and impertinent thing
sin is. Behold! there is one God who filleth all in all, and He is the Infinite Creator.
He makes me, and I am nothing more in His sight than an animated grain of dust;
and I, that animated grain of dust, with a mere ephemeral existence, have the
impertinence and imprudence to set up my will against His will! I dare to proclaim
war against the Infinite Majesty of heaven. Again, how great does your sin and mine
seem, if we will but think of the ingratitude which has marked it. Oh, if we set our
secret sins in the light of His mercy, if our transgressions are set side by side with His
favours, we must each of us say, our sins, indeed, are exceeding great! And again, I
repeat it, this is a doctrine that no man can rightly know and receive until he has felt
it. Hast thou ever felt this doctrine to be true—“my sin is exceeding great”?
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97. 2. “Well,” cries one, turning on his heel, “there is very little comfort in that. It is
enough to drive one to despair, if not to madness itself.” Ah, friend! such is the very
design of this text. We turn therefore from that terrible text to the second one” The
blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.” There lies the blackness;
here stands the Lord Jesus Christ. What will He do with it? Will He go and speak to
it, and say, “This is no great evil, this blackness is but a little spot?” Oh, no; He looks
at it, and He says, “This is terrible blackness, darkness that may be felt; this is an
exceeding great evil.” Will He cover it up, then? Will He weave a mantle of excuse,
and then wrap it round about the iniquity? Ah, no; whatever covering there may have
been He lifts it off, and He declares that when the Spirit of truth is come He will
convince the world of sin, and lay the sinner’s conscience bare, and probe the wound
to the bottom. What then will He do? He will do a far better thing than make an
excuse or than to pretend in any way to speak lightly of it. He will cleanse it all away,
remove it entirely by the power and meritorious virtue of His own blood, which is
able to save unto the uttermost. “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us
from all sin.” Dwell on the word “all” for a moment. Great as are thy sins, the blood
of Christ is greater still. Thy sins are like great mountains, but the blood of Christ is
like Noah’s flood; twenty cubits upwards shall this blood prevail, and the top of the
mountains of thy sin shall be covered. Just take the word “all” in another sense, not
only as taking in all sorts of sin, but as comprehending the great aggregate mass of
sin. Couldst thou bear to read thine own diary if thou hadst written there all thy acts?
No; for though thou be the purest of mankind, thy thoughts, if they could have been
recorded, would now, if thou couldst read them, make thee startle and wonder that
thou art demon enough to have had such imaginations within thy soul. But put them
all here, and all these sins the blood of Christ can wash away. Nay, more than that.
Come hither, ye thousands who are gathered together to listen to the Word of God;
what is the aggregate of your guilt? Could ye put it so that mortal observation could
comprehend the whole within its ken, it were as a mountain with a base, broad as
eternity, and a summit lofty almost as the throne of the great archangel. But,
remember, the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth from all sin. Yet, once more,
in the praise of this blood we must notice one further feature. There be some of you
here who are saying, “Ah! that shall be my hope when I come to die, that in the last
hour of my extremity the blood of Christ will take my sins away; it is now my comfort
to think that the blood of Christ shall wash, and purge, and purify the transgressions
of life.” But, mark! my text saith not so; it does not say the blood of Christ shall
cleanse—that were a truth—but it says something greater than that—it says, “The
blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth”—cleanseth now. Come, soul, this moment
come to Him that hung upon the Cross of Calvary! come now and be washed. But
what meanest thou by coming? I mean this, come thou and put thy trust in Christ,
and thou shalt be saved. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The land is full of blood.—
Crime
I. The utter want of moral training in thousands of homes is one cause of the prevalence
of crime. What cares the fashionable mother or the father deeply immersed in business
for the moral culture of their children? Hence they grow up in ignorance of all those
moral and virtuous principles which are the great safeguards against crime. Then, in
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98. thousands of homes the overworked mother has no heart for the duties which she owes
to her poor neglected children.
II. The almost universal desecration of the holy Sabbath is another fruitful source of
crime. This is God’s day, and man has no right to appropriate it to pleasure or to
business.
III. Intemperance is constantly adding to the long list of criminals. It is itself a crime,
and the prolific source of every form of iniquity.
IV. The laxity with which the laws are enforced invites to their violation.
V. Another source of crime is the low, vicious literature.
VI. With shame we utter the truth, that many of the crimes of this age may be traced to
the pulpit. It is too tender of crime. It is afraid or ashamed to denounce sin. (R. H.
Rivers, D. D.)
And the city full of perverseness.—
Temptations peculiar to Christians in great cities
As this is a state of moral probation, it is the design of God to allow us to be surrounded
by temptations while we live in this world. Sometimes these come from our intercourse
with our fellow men, sometimes from our own corrupted hearts within us, and
sometimes from the wiles of the great tempter. There are also certain periods or
situations in life when we are exposed to particular kinds of temptations. Those which
beset the young man, those which beset the middle-aged man, and those which beset the
old man, may be unlike, and yet each is adapted to the particular period of life. There are
also particular places in which temptations are heavier than in others.
I. Christians in great cities are peculiarly tempted to overlook the guilt of sin. We all
know that familiarity with anything has a wonderful effect upon our feelings; and that it
is a principle in human nature, that what is in itself revolting will, by familiarity, cease to
disgust. The first time the medical student enters the dissecting room he has a feeling
excited very nearly allied to that of shuddering. The mangled dead are strewn around,
and those who hold the dissecting knife are there, silent as the dead, as if that were no
place for cheerfulness. The images which he sees haunt him after leaving the room. But
in a few years this same man can shut himself up there for days, and have scarcely a
feeling of revolt, or an unpleasant image remain upon his mind. The young soldier, who
first joins his company, has never voluntarily inflicted a wound upon any human being.
He has never seen human blood flow, and has never beheld distress created by design.
The first oath of his comrade startles him. At the beat of the drum, which, for the first
time, calls him to face the enemy, he turns pale. But he need be in the army but a very
few years, and he can witness the falling of men around him—see the mangled remains
of his fellow—hear the groans of death, and see all the cruelties of the battlefield, and
even close with the enemy, bayonet to bayonet, and slay his foes man by man, and yet, at
the close of the day, take his meal, and lie down to sleep with as much indifference as if
he had been engaged in reaping the harvest of wheat. This is almost literally getting
hardened to misery and woe, and is a clear illustration of the principle. Now, in great
cities it is nearly impossible not to have the mind in almost constant contact with sin and
crime. There the Sabbath is trampled upon, fearlessly, constantly, and shamelessly, by
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99. the high and the low. And do you need proof that this familiarity with Sabbath breaking
destroys something of the sacredness of that day? In great cities, too, the temptation to
feel no responsibility to God how money is spent is very great and very distressing.
Familiarity with sin, too, begins early in large cities; and if God, in His providence,
should take off the veil which covers all, we should be astonished at the crimes which the
children of Christian parents practise in early life, and at what practices are allowed,
with hardly a trembling for the consequences.
II. Christians in large cities are peculiarly tempted to engage in worldly amusements. By
worldly amusements I mean such as are the greatest delight of people who profess to live
only for this world. If I specify cards, balls, and theatres I shall be sufficiently definite to
be understood. Now, when the doors are wide open—when the world around—the great
mass of mankind—say there is no harm in those exciting amusements, though they know
that they are most thronged by those who live farthest from God; when they are so
fashionable that you can hardly mingle with genteel society, unless you fall in with them;
when they are precisely adapted to our natural and strong desire for excitement, is there
anything strange that the Christian should feel it hard that his Bible warns, “touch not,
taste not, handle not”? Is it wonderful that some think it is a little sin—a sin, to be sure,
but so small that God will not notice it—that many feel that they may pluck the fruit this
once; that many think they are not known to do it, and think it is all buried from the eye
of their fellow Christians?
III. Christians in great cities are peculiarly tempted to neglect the religion of the heart. It
requires much more labour to roll a stone up a steep hill than up a hill whose angle of
ascent is less; and if the stone be a very smooth one, and the ground very slippery, the
labour is still more increased. Who that has lived in the great city only a few years need
be reminded that all good impressions fade away almost as soon as made? Perhaps the
very habits of business, so essential to your prosperity in the city, have an unhappy
influence upon the religion of the heart. You rise at a stated time in the morning; open
your store at a given moment; know to a moment when the mail arrives and closes; must
meet your accounts at a given moment; and thus you are in the habit of being punctual
and exact. When the moment arrives for you to do this or that, you do it, and then throw
it off the mind. And is there not a temptation to treat the duties of the closet in the same
way? And thus we may have the name of religion and the form of religion, while the
heart is a stranger to its power; and when we place religion on the cold level with
business, we may be sure that it will have too slight hold of us either to subdue the soul
or console it. It is to my purpose here to remark, how very seldom personal,
experimental religion is made the subject of conversation between Christians. The fact
will not be questioned. How can it be accounted for? Is it because there are so many
other topics floating, that we are never at a loss to hear or tell some new thing? But why
is not religious experience one of the first topics of conversation? Or, if not among the
first, why is it wholly banished? Do we need it less here than elsewhere? Or is it because
we are very prone to neglect the heart, and find it more agreeable to tread upon the
surface, than to go as deep as the heart? Then as to reading, how much stronger is the
temptation to lay the hand on the fresh morning paper, and spend some time over that,
than over the Book of God! To keep along with the tide of human events, and yet not
have eternal things weigh upon us! The temptation to neglect the heart, too, from the
fact that our time is so completely absorbed, is very great. This makes superficial
Christians—Christians who cannot stand against temptation; and who, when
temptations come, inquire not what God will now have them do, and how He would have
them meet them, but how they can shift off responsibility, and make everything turn to
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100. their own advantage.
IV. Christians in great cities are peculiarly tempted to be uncharitable towards one
another. Character, strained, and in full action, is ever before you, and you see all its
defects. The joints of the harness are constantly opening, and any man can throw in an
arrow, though he draw the bow at venture. Character is the easiest thing in the world to
talk about. We know, and we must know each other most fully, situated as we are in
large cities; but this, instead of making us uncharitable, censorious, and severe towards
each other, ought to lead us to remember that every man lives in a glass house, and that
therefore we ought to be very watchful and very careful.
V. Christians in great cities are peculiarly tempted to be jealous of one another. No
Christian is sanctified but in part; and very few are so sanctified that they can bear to be
overlooked or unnoticed. Hence, when they see that one of their number is, by any
means, attracting attention—is considerably noticed, and they are left behind, the feeling
of jealousy is very likely to be awakened. Does such a one give more liberally than
others—does he pray or speak more acceptably in public—does he, on any account,
receive more notice than others—does he exercise any acquired influence—the feeling of
jealousy is awakened, and, almost unconsciously to himself, the complaining Christian
takes the sharpest of all weapons by which to remove the envied one, and that weapon is
the tongue. (John Todd, D. D.)
Duties peculiar to Christians in great cities
I. Christians, in the large city, should constantly bear in mind that they are continually
surrounded by great temptations. Some may prefer to remain in ignorance of their
dangers, because responsibility and duty come with knowledge. But is this wise or safe?
A father sends a son to a distant city on business. When the young man reaches it he
finds the plague is there. It is all around him, and daily, in every street, death is doing his
work. What is safe for this young man? to remain in ignorance of his danger, or to know
it all, and, by care, abstinence, and medicine, do all in his power to preserve his life and
health? A valuable ship, freighted with a rich cargo, is just passing through a winding
channel, amid rocks and shoals, islands and reefs. Would you have her captain sleep in
his berth, or would you have him, though accompanied with painful anxieties, on the
watch, eyeing and shunning these dangers? In all such cases, the answer is plain enough.
If God has made it the duty of a man to live in a large city, He will shield him and protect
him, if faithful to his God. But even the Son of God must not tempt His Father, by
throwing Himself down from the pinnacle of the temple, and then claiming the promise
that He would give His angels charge over Him. The mercy of God may follow a man
who throws himself in the way of danger, and may pluck him out; but no man has a right
to rely upon this. And what shall we do, say you—and how shall we be safe? Ah! it would
be comparatively easy to answer this question, could I first make you sensible of the fact
that the temptations of the crowded city are great in number, and powerful to resist. Oh!
could you see the spots where Christians have fallen, all marked with blood, you would
be almost afraid to walk the streets.
II. Christians in great cities should feel that they are peculiarly bound to act from
principle, and not from impulse, fashion, or popularity. That man only has a correct
standard of action and of life who makes the revealed will of God his standard. In all
places and circumstances, all other standards will vary, and especially is this the case in
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101. the large city. Here new things are constantly coming up, and what is in vogue and
popular today may be the very reverse tomorrow. What comes in on the flood tide today
may be left on the sand when the tide comes to ebb, and nobody will think it worth
picking up. It is painfully amusing to notice how things, men, and measures, which are
popular beyond description today, and of which it seems as if we could never tire, will, in
a few days, have passed away and be forgotten. The reason is, that which decides a thing
to be good or bad, desirable or otherwise, is public opinion; and that is as variable as the
wind. Men, and communities of men, are governed, moved, and guided by it, and even
the Christian is in great danger of allowing himself to be guided by it too. To do this or
that, because public sentiment says so, and make this a rule of action, will save much
reflection, much thought, and much prayer for direction. But this is not that standard
which God has revealed, and which never varies. How much easier, too, to act from
impulse, and to go forward in a certain course as long as the impulse sets us that way,
and then to go backward if a counteracting impulse sets us the other way, than to do
right, and go right at all times, without waiting for impulses, and without being driven
out of our proper orbit by them!
1. Be familiar with the Bible. The book of God is so full of biography—it places men
in such a variety of situations, and all under the strong light of inspiration, that it is
almost, if not literally, impossible to find a situation in which a man can be placed
where all his relations to God and to man are to be drawn out, for which a parallel
may not be found in the Word of God.
2. Habituate yourself to read sound and thorough works in practical theology, and
by this means strengthen the mind and heart, and the purposes of the soul, in what is
correct and right.
3. Make every decision of moral conduct the subject of individual and fervent prayer.
A conscience intuitively knowing what is right and what is wrong is what God gives
only in answer to prayer.
III. It is peculiarly the duty of Christians in large cities to set their faces against
extravagance. But do not such and such families, who profess to be Christian, do so and
so? Yes; but do they show that the Gospel of Christ, and the glory of God, is the ruling
passion of their lives? If not, are they safe models for us? But my neighbour does thus
and thus. Very likely; and your neighbour may be better able than you are, or he may be
doing what he ought not to do, and what he cannot do long. But, say you, can you draw
the limits, and go into the particulars, and say whether this and that is wrong? No; nor
have I any wish to do it. But am I not safe in saying, that so long as Christians are so
extravagant that they are not known from the world—so long as, in consequence of
extravagance, they fail in business as often as the world, in proportion to their numbers,
there must be something wrong in their slavery to fashion?
IV. Christians in great cities are peculiarly bound to become attached to the cause of
Christ. The soul, without any doubt, was formed for strong attachments. We love those
who are bound to us by the ties of relationship; and the last ties which the hand of death
shall sever are those which bind us to the beings whom we love. But this is not all. In
most situations we become attached to inanimate objects. The man who spent his
childhood in the country loves his native hills—he loves the fields which lie in sight of his
father’s door. Every tree and shrub is connected with some pleasant recollection of
childhood. Now, in a great city there are no such attachments. You live in a street, or in a
particular house, for years, and you leave it without regret and without sorrow. You go
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102. into another without reluctance, and without emotion. The unceasing hurry and
perpetual pressure for time prevent our forming those deep attachments which we do in
country life. Our attachments, so to speak, are to things in general—to the general
excitement which surrounds us. The waves roll too rapidly to allow us to love anyone
very strongly. And the danger is, that these same feelings and associations be applied to
the cause of Christ; that the habits of mind and of situation lead us to place the cause of
God just where we do everything else; and that we feel an attachment to that no stronger
than we do to other things. Now we reach the point at which I am aiming, and I say that
though you are so situated in Providence that you form no very strong attachment to
your dwelling, to your street, to your business, to the family pew in the church, to the
changing mass of human beings around you, yet it ought to be a matter of deep interest,
of study, and of great effort, to have one set of attachments that are strong, permanent,
and which make a part of your very existence—and these should be your attachments to
the cause of Jesus Christ. You will ask how you can thus become attached to the cause of
Christ, and exercise towards that a set of feelings so entirely different from what you do
towards other things? My reply is, Be in the habit of doing something for the cause of
Christ every day, and you will soon find that you love that cause above all other things.
What makes you love the flower that stands in your parlour, meekly curling its graceful
form towards the window, to drink in the beams of light? Not because it is helpless or
beautiful. The china vase may be all that; but because you every day do something for it.
You give it water—you remove it, when it requires more heat or more air—you watch its
budding—you study its nature and its wants. What makes the stranger, who takes the
helpless infant to her home, so soon attached to it? Because she is every hour doing
something for it; and God has made it impossible for us not to love anything which we
aid—an unanswerable argument for the benevolence of Him who formed the human
heart! Let the Christian be in the daily habit of making sacrifices, in order to be punctual
in his closet—to be daily growing in a knowledge of his Bible—to be prompt and faithful
in attending the meetings for prayer, keeping his heart warm and solemn—to give of his
property to build up the cause of Christ cheerfully; let him aim to do something that
shall be a self-denial, every day, in order to aid the cause of Christ, and he will love that
cause; and, while mingling in the tide of men that is passing away, and where everything
is changing, he will have his heart and hopes bound to the throne of God, and his soul
will have an anchor that is sure and steadfast. Perhaps the very fact that his attachments
to other things are loose may render these the stronger.
V. It is peculiarly the duty of Christians, in great cities, to feel a high responsibility. By
the talents which Christ puts into the hands of His servants we understand all the
opportunities which we have of doing good to ourselves, or to others; and if, at the great
day, our responsibilities are to be commensurate with our opportunities, in those
respects, they will be great indeed. (John Todd, D. D.)
Dangers peculiar to worldly men engaged in business in great cities
I. Success in business in the great city requires close attention, severe application, and
engrossing watchfulness; and this tends to shut eternal things from the mind and to
endanger the soul. But perhaps you will say, this very devotedness of heart and mind is
necessary in order to success in business here, and any diversion of the attention will
endanger success; and therefore, if a man have his attention so diverted and engrossed
that he becomes a religious man, he will be less likely to succeed in business. I reply, that
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103. does not follow; for if he did, God could not assure us that godliness is profitable for the
life that now is, as well as for the life to come. It does not follow, also for three very plain
reasons; namely—
1. If you become really a religious man, your weary spirit will be periodically bathed,
cooled, and refreshed, by turning off your thoughts, and having them come in
contact with the Bible, with the Sabbath, and with God’s Spirit.
2. The community will have confidence in a conscientious, holy man, and will do
much to aid, to sustain, and to encourage him.
3. The blessing of God will more surely attend him; and His blessing can make rich.
II. The object for which the worldly man comes to a great city, and for which he stays
there, is to acquire property—and this tends to lead him to shut God away from his
thoughts. Suppose a man were to go into some distant part of the world, for the express
purpose of making money; and if he found that spot very unfavourable to meditation, to
prayer, to finding eternal life, what would he say? Would he not be apt to say, I cannot
here attend to religion—it is a poor place for that; but I will give my whole time and
attention and soul and mind to the business which brought me here, and as soon as
possible I will return to my home, where I shall have time and opportunity and
everything favourable to my finding eternal life. I will therefore give it no thought at
present. And is not the man of the world, in the great city, tempted to do this very thing?
Is he not in danger of feeling that the great, the absorbing object for which he is here is
to acquire property; and till this end is gained he has no time, no heart, to give to his
soul? In all that he does he wishes to keep that plan uppermost—to be sure that every
sun that shines, and every breeze that blows, has something to do in promoting that
great plan—that one plan.
III. The sympathies of all around him tend to carry his feelings in the channels of
earth—and these endanger the soul of the worldly man in the great city. You speak with
perhaps fifty men during the day, and five hundred during the week, and among them all
you hear not a word about the interests of the soul. And you will say, we must not only
he men of business, but we must talk and think about business, about commerce and
politics, the light and the grave news of the day, to show that we are men of business. All
this may be true, and I mention it because it is true, and because the great impression
which this great crowd of immortal beings makes upon each other is adverse to their
finding eternal life. Oh! if you lived in a world where everything, from the fresh daily
paper that you find in the morning on your table, to the late partings at evening, tended
to remind you of God, and to call forth your sympathies towards Him, it would be very
different. But the living mass around you, so alive, and so awake to everything relating to
this world—so eager for something new—so delighted with anything that can excite—so
anxious to live in the swollen tide of human sympathies, seek to turn all this tide in a
channel that leads from God.
IV. Dangers attend the man of the world, in his business, before and after the question
of his success is settled. Is it not so, that a man in the full tide of business—while
straining every nerve to reach the point of certain success and entire safety, so chases the
world all the week—so courts it, in all possible ways, that when the Sabbath arrives he is
so exhausted that he has no energy of body, no energy of soul, no elasticity of spirit, to
meet the duties of that holy day? Is it not so, that he can hardly rise on the Sabbath
morning in season to find the house of God; and when he does go there, does he not too
often come much like an exhausted machine, and has no power to gird up his mind to
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104. sober thought, to deep reflection, to manly discussion, or to close and thorough
reasoning? But suppose he has passed the point alluded to, and is sure to succeed in
business, and to become an independent man. The dangers to his soul may now be
increased tenfold. There may now be some relaxation to that keen, intense, anxious
pursuit of business; hut his very relaxations become dangerous, inasmuch as they tend
to animalism. How often do we see a man, as soon as it is decided that he will be
successful in business, commence a course of stimulating his system, till it becomes
overburdened, and is destroyed by its own fulness. What creates that riot in the blood,
which cuts off such men at a stroke, and with a suddenness that would be painfully
surprising were it not so common? All this animalism, which leads the man to yield to
good eating and good drinking continually, is certain to drive God from the heart, while
it destroys the powers of the body; and experience will testify that, as a general thing,
such men are the very last that are brought into the kingdom of God. Then there is that
loftiness and pride of feeling which is almost inseparable from success in business, and
which makes us look down upon those beneath us with feelings allied to scorn, and upon
ourselves as great and wise, or we could not have succeeded. How few who are successful
in business are willing to ascribe it all to God’s good providence which favoured them!
V. The man of the world, in the great city, is in fearful danger of having his soul ruined
by the money spirit of this age. Wherever you turn you will see proofs of the universal
presence of this spirit. You have heard it in the murmurs of the street—you have seen it
written on the golden splendours of those who have not fallen—you have seen it upon
the tarnished glories of the fallen and falling—in the blasted hopes of thousands—and
you will read it on the anxious brow of your acquaintance. You have heard the proof of it
sighed from the massy prison; it is read in the glance of the fugitive from justice;—it is
summed up in startling numbers at the bottom of the daily expense book. Now, what
have been the inevitable consequences of this race in the fashions of earth? One very
plain one is, that everybody must be in debt! It is the order of the age that all must make
as much show as possible; and money is desired only for this end. Of course, every man
will calculate to live up, fully up, to his income. Then others, and many, too, will go
beyond their income—beyond what they can earn. The next result is, that those who are
honest cannot get all their honest income, because all by which a dishonest man exceeds
his income must come out of the honest: And as very few calculate to live under their
supposed income, and as many will live over theirs, the consequence must be that
everybody runs in debt. This must be the result to all who do not live as much within
their income as will make up for what others exceed theirs. Now, the very spirit of the
age tempts the man of business to graduate his expenses, not by what he has in his hand,
but by what he ought to have. A man in business this year makes sales, the profits of
which are some five thousand dollars. He sells to some fifty different people, and at the
end of the year he is to receive the profits. Now, what is the temptation? Is it not to
consider the five thousand dollars as already his own, to graduate his expenses
accordingly, and to forget that he has virtually been insuring on the honesty and success
of the fifty men to whom he has made sales? And when at length he finds that he is
disappointed—that instead of obtaining profits, he has lost fully to that amount—what
does he do, or rather what is he tempted to do? To contract and curtail expenses? Or is
he now tempted to become reckless, and to plunge headlong into almost any speculation
which promises relief? Hence we have an evil arising from the spirit of the age worse
than any and all yet mentioned; and that is, men are tempted to use dishonest means
and reckless measures to obtain money to keep up in the race which all around them are
running.
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105. VI. The man of the world, in the great city, is tempted to undervalue truth. The buyer
pretends that he is quite indifferent whether he purchases or not; and the seller is quite
indifferent whether he sells or not; and so these two indifferent men will contrive to
meet every few hours, and throw out baits to each other, and yet both professing not to
desire the trade! The purchaser decries the goods—he has seen better, has had cheaper
offered him—can do better elsewhere; and yet, when he cannot cheapen them any
further, to oblige the seller, he takes them! “It is naught, it is naught,” saith the buyer,
“and straightway goeth away and boasteth.” It is not for us to say how much news is
manufactured for particular purposes—how many letters are conveniently forgotten to
be delivered, till too late to take advantage of the news—how many letters are received
which were never written; but it is for us to say that the man of business, in the great
city, is awfully tempted to exaggerate good qualities, to point them out where they do not
exist, to conceal defects, and to gloss over imperfections, without recollecting that the
eye of God is upon him. If he says it is difficult to get along without doing so, I reply, that
this very difficulty constitutes his danger—that it will be more difficult to bear the
indignation of God forever; that “lying lips are an abomination to the Lord”; and that no
apology will be accepted by Him. (John Todd, D. D.)
CALVIN, “Here God so answers his Prophet, that he restrains too much fervor, and
at the same time asserts his own justice — for the Prophet might be impelled this
way and that — he might even doubt whether God would be true to his word. God
might also shake his confidence in another manner, as by raging too much against
the innocent; since therefore he might be agitated amidst those waves of trial, what
God now does ought to set him at rest. Therefore, as I have already said, he
mitigates the feelings of his Prophet, and at the same time asserts the equity of his
judgment against all false opinions which are apt to creep over us when God’s
judgments do not answer to our will. Meanwhile it must be remarked, how the
Prophet complains suppliantly of the slaughter of the city, and although he seemed
to expostulate with God, yet he submitted all his senses to his command, and on that
account an answer is given which can calm him. Whenever, therefore, God does not
seem to work as our carnal reason dictates to us, we may learn, by the Prophet’s
example, how to restrain ourselves, and to subject our reason to God’s will, so that it
may suffice us that he wills a thing so, because his will is the most perfect rule of all
justice. We see that Prophets sometimes complain, and seem also to permit
themselves too much liberty when they expostulate with God, as we saw a
memorable example in Jeremiah. (Jeremiah 12:0 and Jeremiah 20:0.) Then we read
also a similar one in Habakkuk. (Habakkuk 1:2.) How so? Do the Prophets contend
with God himself? yea, they directly return to themselves, and collect into order all
those wandering opinions by which they perceive that they were greatly disturbed.
So also our Prophet, on the one hand, wonders at the slaughter of the city, and
exclaims vehemently; at the same time he falls upon his face, and in this way testifies
that he would be obedient, as soon as God answered him. This is the reason, then,
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106. why God also desires to appease his servant; nor is it doubtful that we shall
experience the same thing, if we modestly and soberly learn to enquire when God’s
judgments do not answer our opinions. If, therefore, we approach God in this way,
he will doubtless show us that what he does is right, and thus supply us with
material for rest. Hence, also, God’s inestimable indulgence toward his people is
collected, because he so deigns to render a reason, as if he wished to satisfy them. It
is certain that men are carried forward into too much rashness, as often as they ask
questions of God; for who will dare to oppose himself to his judgments? and who
will reply to him? so Paul says. (Romans 9:20.) But God in his amazing goodness,
descends even thus far, so as to render a reason of his deeds to his servants, to settle
their minds, as I have said.
COKE, “Ezekiel 9:9. Full of perverseness; for they say— Full of oppression;
because they say.
REFLECTIONS.—1st, We have heard the provocations of this people, and we here
see that their judgment lingereth not.
1. A charge is given to the destroyers to approach; and instantly six warriors appear
armed. Their business is, as ministers of wrath, to destroy the city. They come from
the north, where the image of jealousy stood; from which quarter also their
destruction advanced: and they went in and stood beside the brazen altar, waiting
for orders, or intimating that judgment would begin at the house of God; where the
priests ministered, whose hand had been chief in the transgression. A seventh
personage differently clad, appears among them, arrayed not as a warrior but as a
priest, with a writer's inkhorn by his side; and this may signify the great high-priest
of our profession Christ Jesus, represented here as marking down in his book, who
were sincere among the multitude of his enemies. Note; (1.) God never wants
ministers of wrath, when he has vengeance to execute against sinners. (2.) They who
have profaned the altar by their wickedness, justly fall as sacrifices before it. (3.)
The saints of God need not fear, whatever judgments are on the earth; their Lord
and Saviour governs the whole, and will protect them from evil.
2. God's glory, the Shechinah, removes from between the cherubims to the threshold
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107. of the house, as ready now to depart from the devoted temple, when he had given
the last directions to separate the few precious from the vile. And,
[1.] He called to the man clothed with linen, &c. God's first care is for his believing
people: they were but few, yet precious in his sight. They could not behold these
abominations practised by their countrymen without the bitterest concern and
anguish, which they terrified publicly, and lamented before God in private. On
them, therefore, God commands a distinguishing mark to be set, on the foreheads,
that they might be known to belong to God, see Revelation 7:3 in allusion to the
marks on servants, or to the blood on the lintels and side-posts of the Israelites in
Egypt, to guard them from the destroying angel. Note; (1.) God's people cannot
without the deepest concern behold a world lying in wickedness; they remonstrate
against the evil, and with tears before God and man lament over perishing souls. (2.)
They who distinguish themselves by a concern for God's glory, shall be
distinguished by his care for their safety.
[2.] To the others he said, to the six destroyers, Go ye after him, through the city,
and slay with unrelenting severity both young and old, all of every age and sex,
beginning at the sanctuary: the priests, who were chief in iniquity, must be the first
and chief sufferers; and none must be spared, but those on whom is God's mark;
these they may not touch, nor come near. No sooner is the command issued, than the
destroyers obey, beginning with those ancients, the five-and-twenty, or the seventy,
which were before mentioned, profaning God's temple with their idolatries. Nor
need they fear to defile God's house with the blood of the slain, since they have his
commission. Because these ancients have polluted it with their abominations, God
will more pollute it with their dead carcases: and when they have begun their
bloody work in the sanctuary, they must finish it in the city by a general massacre;
and it is done. Note; (1.) They who persist in their impenitence will die without
mercy. (2.) None in a judgment day will meet so terrible a doom as those who, being
appointed to admonish others, have seduced and destroyed the souls to whom they
were ordained to minister.
2nd, We have,
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108. 1. The prophet an intercessor in behalf of this miserable people. While the execution
was performing, and the prophet alone in the temple, all who were there besides
being slain, he fell upon his face in great humility, and cried and said, Ah, Lord
God, wilt thou destroy all the residue of Israel, in thy pouring out of thy fury upon
Jerusalem? he dreaded a total excision, and fain would stay the avenging arm. Note;
A gracious soul cannot unmoved behold the miseries coming on the wicked, and fain
would avert the dreadful storm by his prayers.
2. God cannot grant his request; their iniquities are such as admit of neither pardon
nor reprieve: their sins are most aggravated; their land full of blood; murders the
most inhuman, and every atrocious crime prevailing; the city is fall of perverseness;
no justice or truth is regarded; and, atheistical in principles as in practice, they
blasphemously dared to deny the government of his providence, and flattered
themselves with impunity in their iniquity: therefore God threatens with unsparing
hand to punish them, to shut up his compassions, and to refuse to be in-treated by
them or for them, bringing upon them the wrath which they had so highly provoked
and deserved. Note; Though we may never cease to cry to God, there is a time when
sinners are past the efficacy of prayer.
3. The man clothed with linen, &c. reports, that the divine orders were
accomplished; the genuine people of God marked; the wicked destroyed. Oh, that all
might learn from these awful lessons to turn to God, and walk with him in holiness
of heart and life!
TRAPP, “Ezekiel 9:9 Then said he unto me, The iniquity of the house of Israel and
Judah [is] exceeding great, and the land is full of blood, and the city full of
perverseness: for they say, The LORD hath forsaken the earth, and the LORD seeth
not.
Ver. 9. The iniquity of Israel is exceeding great.] Nimls veldt. Still there is a cause, to
be sure; and God’s judgments are sometimes secret, ever just; and as swift rivers,
when they once fall into lakes or seas, are at rest, so are our restless minds, when
once they fall into the depth of the Divine justice, duly considered.
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109. And the city full of perverseness.] Or, Wresting of judgment. Declinatione et
detorsone iudicii. Mutteh, i.e., mishpat din Mitteh, saith the Hebrew scholiast; (a)
that is, judgment turned from the bias, as it were: when the balance of justice is
tilted on to one side, as Paul’s word, κατα προσκλισιν, importeth. [1 Timothy 5:21]
For they say, The Lord hath forsaken the earth.] See on Ezekiel 8:12. Hic est fons
omnium scelerum, saith A Lapide: hinc ruunt homines in celerum abyssam, saith
Theodoret. When men are once turned atheists, what will they not dare to do? What
should hinder them from laying the reins on the neck, and running riot in
wickedness?
POOLE, “ Then said he; God gives him a speedy answer.
Of the house of Israel; of those who either joined themselves to the house of David
when the ten tribes fell off, or those that escaped when Shalmaneser carried them
captive.
Judah; the two tribes; though only one is expressed the other is included.
Exceeding great; grown beyond all measure, that my justice cannot, and my mercy
must not, longer forbear. Full of blood; very much innocent blood is spilt, or there
are many bloodshedders among them.
Full of perverseness; all judgment is perverted; in judges, to injustice; in priests, to
idolatry; in all, to scepticism, or atheism.
They say; they argue and dispute against my concerning myself in the government
of the world and the church.
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110. The Lord hath cast off the care of his people, and so they spoil him of his dominion,
deny his omniscience, and make him as idols for ignorance, just as Psalms 10:11
94:7.
WHEDON, “ 9. Then said he unto me — Out of the glory upon the threshold of the
holy place the answer comes, and Jehovah defends himself.
Full of blood… full of perverseness: for they say — The people, both Israel and
Judah, have been guilty of violence even to bloodshed, and of perverseness or
“wresting of judgment,” and they have been led to this by their belief that Jehovah
has been defeated by strange gods and that moral restraints are therefore binding
upon them no longer (Ezekiel 6:11-12; Ezekiel 7:17; Ezekiel 7:21; Ezekiel 22:25).
Let the prophet be silent, for even Jehovah has no hope of the possible reformation
of such a people!
PETT, “Verse 9
‘Then he said to me, “The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly
great, and the land is full of blood, and the city full of injustice (‘bending’ of justice).
For they say, “Yahweh has forsaken the land, and Yahweh sees not.” ’
These men left in Jerusalem and its surrounds had seen the previous judgments of
God and the carrying away of the cream of the people, first of Israel and then of
Judah. But they had not taken warning. Instead of repenting and turning to God
they had increased their sinfulness. Instead of recognising that He had done what
He had always promised they had interpreted it as meaning that God had forsaken
the land and the people in it. That God no longer noted their behaviour. Thus
instead of becoming better they had become worse. Murder was rife. True justice
was unobtainable. Might was right. There was only one thing to do. Begin with
those who in exile had learned to be humble and to seek God. And that was why
Ezekiel was here.
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111. Note in passing that God saw the inhabitants of Jerusalem and its surrounds as
representing in fact the whole of Israel, ‘the house of Israel and Judah’. There were
no ‘lost tribes’ to Him.
PULPIT, “Then said he unto me. The answer holds out but little comfort. The
iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah (we note the coupling of the names though
Judah only was the immediate subject of the vision, as if his prayer had gone up for
the whole body of the twelve tribes) was immeasurably great. Not idolatry only, but
its natural fruits, bloodshed and oppression, had eaten into the life of the nation
(comp. Ezekiel 7:11, Ezekiel 7:12; Ezekiel 8:17; Ezekiel 22:25). And these evils had
their root in the practical atheism of the denials which had been already uttered in
Ezekiel 8:12. and which are here reproduced. The unpitying aspect of God's
judgments is, for the present, dominant, and the work must be thorough. One notes
how the despair of the prophet leads him to forget those who were to have the mark
upon their foreheads, who were indeed the true "remnant." Like Elijah, he does not
know of any such (1 Kings 19:10); like Jeremiah, he searches through the streets of
Jerusalem, and cannot find one righteous man (Jeremiah 5:1).
10 So I will not look on them with pity or spare
them, but I will bring down on their own heads
what they have done.”
CLARKE, "Mine eye shall not spare - They say, the Lord seeth not: this is false; I
have seen all their iniquities, and do see all their abominations; and I will bring deserved
judgment upon them, and then that eye which now sees will neither pity nor spare.
111

112. GILL, "And as for me also,.... As they have not spared the poor and the needy, the
widow and the fatherless, but have perverted their judgment, and shed innocent blood:
mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity, but I will recompence their
way upon their head; deal with them by the law of retaliation, and reward them
according to their deserts; see Eze_7:4.
JAMISON, "mine eye — to show them their mistake in saying, “The Lord seeth
not.”
recompense their way upon their head — (Pro_1:31). Retribution in kind.
CALVIN, “Now God pronounces the Jews to be so obstinate in their malice as to
have cut off from themselves all hope of pardon. For when he now says, that he
would be hostile to them without pity, he shows the necessity of taking vengeance,
because their impiety had penetrated even heaven, so that he could not spare them
without denying himself. And abrupt speech increases vehemence, as if God
pronounced that he had changed his plans. Now then we understand the meaning of
this answer, that the Jews were bound by so many and such impious crimes, that
they had closed the door of God’s pity: nay, they had compelled him to the utmost
pitch of vengeance, because they continued to provoke him more and more. Let us
learn then from this passage not to weigh God’s judgments in our scale, because we
are too much accustomed to extenuate our sins, and to treat our serious iniquities as
but slight errors, because we do not attribute just honor to God as the only judge.
Now when God commands his Prophet to rest and be silent, without doubt he at the
same time restrains that rashness of ours by which we burst forth in disobedience
when he seems to us to be too rigid. But, as I have said, we do not consider the
greatness of our sins. Therefore it is God’s province alone to pronounce concerning
sins, that no mortal should estimate the quality of actions, for then we trench on
God’s peculiar office. It follows —
TRAPP, “Ezekiel 9:10 And as for me also, mine eye shall not spare, neither will I
have pity, [but] I will recompense their way upon their head.
Ver. 10. And as for me also.] Quapropter etiam ego, Wherefore also I and there is a
stop by an elegant aposiopesis. (a)
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113. Mine eye shall not spare.] Ezekiel 5:11; Ezekiel 7:4; Ezekiel 8:18. See a just
commentary upon these words, Jeremiah 9:3-17.
POOLE, “ As for me, my resolution is fixed.
Mine eye, that eye they thought did not see to govern, shall see to punish.
I will recompense; they shall find me a Sovereign to vindicate myself, and do justice
against their injustice. See Ezekiel 5:11 7:4.
WHEDON, “10. Mine eye shall not spare — How constantly this terrible statement
is repeated (Ezekiel 5:11; Ezekiel 7:4; Ezekiel 8:18). Yet it must be remembered that
this was only a prophetic vision of calamities that would certainly come if the people
remained impenitent, but which might still be averted. Even the prophecies against
Nineveh were recalled when the people repented. All these positive declarations,
“mine eye shall not pity,” etc., are conditional upon the persistent and obstinate
impiety of the nation; are in reality intended to drive back the people from their
wickedness, and seem finally, at least in part, to have attained their merciful object.
“The surgeon has a steadier hand than the soldier. His knife is more inexorable than
the sword of war (Hebrews 12:6)” — Adeney.
PETT, “Verse 10
“And as for me also, my eye will not spare, nor will I have pity. But I will bring their
way on their head.”
So as there was no justice and mercy among the inhabitants of Jerusalem and its
surrounds, so there would be no mercy from God. He would make them reap what
they had sown, and there would be no restraint. His eye was and had been on them
all the time. And now it would demand justice. ‘All things are laid bare and open to
the eye of Him with Whom we have to do’ (Hebrews 4:13), and He will always
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114. finally call to account.
11 Then the man in linen with the writing kit at
his side brought back word, saying, “I have done
as you commanded.”
CLARKE, "I have done as thou hast commanded me - Angels and men must
all give account of their conduct to God; for although he is every where, and his eye sees
all things, yet they must personally account for all that they have done. I have done as
thou hast commanded me. The penitents are all signed; the penitents are all safe. This is
good news for them that mourn.
GILL, "And, behold, the man clothed with linen, which had the inkhorn by
his side,.... Eze_9:2; to whom the orders were given to mark the mourners in the city,
Eze_9:4. The Syriac version is, "then I saw the man", &c. which must direct him to
observe and call to mind the distinguishing goodness of God to his own people:
reported the matter, saying, I have done as thou hast commanded me;
meaning that the righteous were marked, and had been preserved, while the others were
slain. Christ, as man and Mediator, sustains the character of a servant; as such he has
commands enjoined him, which he has obeyed; he has done all he was to do; he has
fulfilled the whole will of God, and wrought out the complete salvation of his people; a
report of which he made when here on earth, Joh_17:4; and will do again at the last day;
when all his people will be gathered in, and he shall deliver the kingdom to the Father,
and present them all to him, having been kept by his power, saying, "lo, I and the
children thou hast given me", Isa_8:18; when all will be done as was commanded, and
he undertook, and the report made accordingly. Ben Melech observes, that the "Keri", or
marginal reading is,
"according to all which thou hast commanded me;''
as if he should say, there is nothing wanting of all that was commanded.
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115. JAMISON, "I have done as thou hast commanded — The characteristic of
Messiah (Joh_17:4). So the angels (Psa_103:21); and the apostles report their fulfillment
of their orders (Mar_6:30).
CALVIN, “This sentence confirms what I said yesterday about God’s paternal
anxiety towards the faithful. For the Prophet taught, before God would permit the
Chaldeans to destroy the city, that an angel was sent before to succor the elect, and
thus to oppose himself to the violence of the enemies: where we have said that it is
shown to us as in a glass that God holds this order in his judgments, that his fatherly
love towards the faithful always precedes them, so that he does not permit anything
to happen to them but what tends to their safety. For this reason the angel now says,
that he had done as he was commanded. Doubtless the obedience of the angel is
reported to us, because it answers to the will of God. Hence, therefore, we gather
that the safety of the faithful is always precious to God, and therefore they will
always be safe and secure when we think heaven and earth mingled together. This
then is the explanation. Now follows —
TRAPP, “Ezekiel 9:11 And, behold, the man clothed with linen, which [had] the
inkhorn by his side, reported the matter, saying, I have done as thou hast
commanded me.
Ver. 11. And behold the man reported the matter.] The Vulgate hath it respondit
verbum, as if he had been asked before whether he had done as was bidden.
I have done as thou hast commanded me.] So did David; [Psalms 119:112 Acts
13:22] and the Son of David; [John 17:4; John 14:31] and Paul, witness his famous
vox voice προαγωνιος. [2 Timothy 4:6-8] Let every of us so carry the matter toward
God that at death we may say with that servant in Luke 17:9, "Lord, it is done as
thou hast commanded."
POOLE, “ While God gave the prophet the account of the people’s sins, and of his
own resolutions, Christ,
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116. clothed with linen, the innocent one, and our Priest,
reported the matter, as it were came in, or returned from doing that work most
delightful to him.
As thou hast commanded me; the Hebrew text is according, or as; but the reading is
with all added, according to
all that which thou, O my Father, hast commanded me; as John 14:31.
PETT, “Verse 11
‘And behold the man clothed in linen, who had the writing kit by his side, reported
the matter, saying, “I have done as you have commanded me.” ’
The marking of the righteous had taken place as God had commanded. Justice must
now take its course.
As we review these chapters that we have been considering we should recognise
their primary message, the seriousness of sin and rebellion against God. The end of
an era had been reached. In spite of all the efforts of the prophets, and the pleadings
and constant demonstrations of the mercy of God, the people had remained
hardhearted. Indeed they had become even more hardhearted. And in the end sin
must be accounted for. God is longsuffering, but even that longsuffering will one
day come to an end. And then there is nothing but judgment for the unrepentant.
That is what had happened here. We too must recognise that to go on sinning
deliberately is a very serious matter. One day God’s longsuffering with us will also
cease.
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117. PULPIT, “And, behold, etc. The speaker in the previous verses had been none other
than the Presence which remained upon the cherubic lotto, while the seven ministers
did their work. The captain of the seven now returns to report, as an officer to his
king, that the work has been accomplished.
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