Ezekiel 21:23
It will seem like a false omen to the eyes of those who have sworn allegiance to him, but it will draw attention to their guilt and take them captive.
Sermons
The All-Controlling Providence of GodJ.D. Davies Ezekiel 21:18-27
The Approaching JudgmentW. Jones Ezekiel 21:18-27
The Impartiality of Divine JusticeJ.R. Thomson Ezekiel 21:18-32














Very picturesque and memorable is this portion of Ezekiel's prophecies. The prophet in his vision beholds the King of Babylon on his way to execute the purposes of God upon the rebellious and treacherous prince of Judah, and upon his partakers in sin. He sees him at some point of this expedition, standing on the northeast of Palestine, uncertain whether in the first instance to direct his arms against Rabbath, the capitol of the Ammonites, or Jerusalem, the metropolis of Judah. He is at "the parting of the way," and calls to his aid, to help him to a decision, not only the counsel of the politician and the commander, but that also of the diviner. The bright arrows, on which the names of the two cities are inscribed, are drawn as in a lottery, the images are consulted, the liver is inspected by the augur. The prophet sees the resolve taken to proceed against Jerusalem; yet at the same time, he predicts that the children of Ammon shall not escape the edge of the glittering sword of retribution and vengeance.

I. DIVINE JUSTICE MAKES USE OF HUMAN AGENCIES OF RETRIBUTION, OFTEN THEMSELVES UNCONSCIOUS OF THE PURPOSES FOR WHICH THEY ARE EMPLOYED. The King of Babylon was appointed as the minister of righteous avenging upon both Judah and Ammon. Unawares to himself, he, in his military operations, was carrying out the predictions of God's prophets, and the decree of God himself. Infinite wisdom is never at a loss for means by which to bring to pass its own counsels and resolves.

II. DIVINE JUSTICE PUNISHES THE PRIVILEGED WHO ARE UNFAITHFUL TO THEIR PRIVILEGES AS WELL AS THOSE WHOSE PRIVILEGES HAVE NOT BEEN EXCEPTIONAL. Although the descendants of Abraham were selected from among the nations for a special purpose connected with God's plans for the moral government of the world, they were not thereby released from their righteous obligations, or from liability to punishment in case those obligations were repudiated. Israel's election did not secure exemption from the consequences of defection and rebellion. Rather was the guilt of the nation deemed to be aggravated by their neglect to use aright the many advantages with which they were favoured. On the other hand, the Ammonites were not secured against righteous retribution merely because they were less highly privileged than Israel. They had a measure of light, and they were responsible for walking in the light they enjoyed; and if they loved darkness rather than light, they secured their own condemnation.

III. DIVINE JUSTICE DECIDES WHICH GUILTY NATION SHALL BE CORRECTED, AND WHICH SHALL BE DESTROYED. Into the secret counsels of God it is not given us to enter. Facts are before us; and we see that, according to this prophecy, Ammon was committed as fuel to the fire, and was no more remembered; that the very name of the Ammonites vanished out of human history; and we see that the Jewish people survived, and were brought forth from the furnace into which they were cast. We can only apply to these facts our faith in the Divine righteousness, and hold fast by our conviction that in this, as in all his dealings with men, the Eternal Ruler has acted upon principles of unquestionable equity.

IV. DIVINE JUSTICE SUMMONS SINFUL NATIONS TO REPENTANCE AND NEWNESS OF LIFE. These predictions and their fulfilment in history have been recorded for our instruction. What we read in Scripture is fitted to deepen within our nature the conviction that this world is under the righteous government of God. And we shall be foolish indeed if we do not infer from this fact the necessity of repentance and of renewal; if we are not led to welcome the assurance that for the penitent there is mercy, and for the lowly, life. - T.

The parting of the ways.
? — When you have been wandering in the country you have sometimes come to where two roads branched away from the one you were on — like the two arms of the letter Y — and then you stood puzzled which to take; for the one would take you where you wanted to go, and the other would take you from it. That spot, then, where you stood uncertain was "the parting of the way." Now, it is much the same with your life. It is a journey; you are always going on and on, getting older, getting better, or getting worse, just as you have turned to the right or the left at the parting of the way. In America there is a house built on the very top of a great ridge of mountains, and when the rain falls it gathers for a little on the flat roof and then drips over the eaves. But what do you think? the raindrops that fall on the one side and those that fall on the other never meet again! The one trickles away to the Atlantic, and the other descends to the Pacific ocean; they take just opposite ways, and never meet any more. That house is the parting of the way. And there are circumstances which divide people from each other in much the same way — once they are parted they never come together again. How careful, then, we should be, and how prayerful we should be, at these times in choosing what we shall do! How thoughtful and watchful, too, we should be about guiding others when they are at the parting of the way! A little word can sometimes save them then. About forty years ago a little boy went into a shoe shop in Boston to have some repairs made. While he was waiting he said to the errand boy of the shop, "Do you go to Sunday school?" "No," said he, "I don't know nothing about it, and can't read." "Oh," said the other, "I go to Sunday school, and I have such a nice teacher! If you tell me where you live, I will call for you next Sunday and take you." And he did; and the errand boy behaved very badly, saying naughty things, and sticking pins into his neighbours, altogether behaving so badly that the teacher threatened to turn him out of the school. Still, the teacher had patience and persevered — and who do you think that little wild scholar became? Mr. Daniel Moody, the great preacher, who along with Mr. Sankey has been the means of saving many, many people by bringing them to Jesus. And yet, it was a little boy who guided him right at the parting of the way! What a deal of good that little boy did that day! And you can do the same. Whenever you try to do good to others, or speak to them about Jesus, you are helping them more than you think to take the right way at the parting. When we come to the parting of the way there are two fashions of deciding which way we shall take. One way is by trusting to chance. That is the fashion the king the text speaks about decided which way to take. People do not use arrows nowadays, but sometimes they "toss up," and that is just the same thing. Is that the way we should decide? No! no! a blind man might as well "toss up" whether an orange was black or white, — "tossing up would never make it the one or the other. Never trust to chance; the book of Chance is Satan's Bible, and that is always meant to deceive. There is a surer way, namely — Go by the directions. I saw a picture once which has stuck to my memory for years and years. It was a picture of a dark, wild, stormy night, and a traveller was standing up in the stirrups of his horse at a parting of the way, trying to read the directions on the fingerpost. How eagerly he is looking! I can see him yet — holding the lighted match carefully in his hands, lest the wind should blow it out before he had read the directions! It was a good thing for him that there were directions, and it is a good thing we have them too. Where are our directions? They are — the Bible. That is God's word to us, telling us which road to take when we come to the parting of the way.

(J. R. Howatt.)

He made his arrows bright, he consulted with images
? — Two modes of divination by which the King of Babylon proposed to find out the will of God. He took a bundle of arrows, put them together, mixed them up, then pulled forth one, and by the inscription on it decided what city he should first assault. Then an animal was slain, and by the lighter or darker colour of the liver the brighter or darker prospect of success was inferred. Stupid delusion! And yet all the ages have been filled with delusions. It seems as if the world loves to be hoodwinked. In the latter part of the eighteenth century Johanna Southcote came forth pretending to have Divine power, made prophecies, had chapels built in her honour, and 100,000 disciples came forth to follow her. So late as the year 1829, a man arose in New York, pretending to be a Divine being, and played his part so well that wealthy merchants became his disciples, and threw their fortunes into his discipleship. And so in all ages there have been necromancies, incantations, witchcrafts, sorceries, magical arts, enchantments, divinations, and delusions. None of these delusions accomplished any good. They opened no hospitals, healed no wounds, wiped away no tears, emancipated no serfdom. But there are those who say that all these delusions combined are as nothing compared with the delusion now abroad in the world, the delusion of the Christian religion. That delusion has today two hundred million dupes. It has conquered England and the United States, for they are called Christian nations. This champion delusion, this hoax, this swindle of the ages, as it has been called, has gone forth to conquer the islands of the Pacific the Melanesia and Micronesia, and Malayan Polynesia have already surrendered to the delusion. Yea, it has conquered the Indian Archipelago, and Borneo, and Sumatra, and Celebes and Java have fallen under its wiles. What a delusion! This delusion of the Christian religion shows itself in the fact that it goes to those who are in trouble. Now, it is bad enough to cheat a man when he is prosperous; but this religion comes to a man when he is sick, and says: "You will be well again after awhile; you're going into a land where there are no coughs, and no pleurisies, and no consumptions; take courage and bear up." Yea, this awful chimera of the Gospel comes to the poor, and it says to them" "You are on your way to vast estates and to dividends always declarable." This delusion of Christianity comes to the bereft, and it talks of reunion before the throne, and of the cessation of all sorrow. And then, to show that this delusion will stop at absolutely nothing, it goes to the dying bed and fills the man with anticipations. How much better it would be to have him die without any more hope than swine and rats and snakes. Annihilation, vacancy, everlasting blank, obliteration! Why not present all that beautiful doctrine to the dying, instead of coming with this hoax, this swindle of the Christian religion, and filling the dying man with anticipations of another life until some in the last hour have clapped their hands, and some have shouted, and some have sung, and some had been so overwrought with joy that they could only look ecstatic. To show the immensity of this delusion, this awful swindle of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I open a hospital, and I bring into that hospital the deathbeds of a great many Christian people, and I ask a few questions. "Dying Stephen, what have you to say? Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." "Dying John Wesley, what have you to say? The best of all is, God is with us." "Dying Edward Payson, what have you to say?" "I float in a sea of glory." "Dying John Bradford, what have yon to say?" "If there be any way of going to heaven on horseback, or in a fiery chariot, it is this." "Dying Neander, what have you to say? I am going to sleep now — goodnight." "Dying Mrs. Florence Foster, what have you to say?" "A pilgrim m the valley, but the mountain tops are all agleam from peak to peak." "Dying Alexander Mather, what have you to say?" "The Lord who has taken care of me fifty years will not cast me off now; glory be to God and to the Lamb! Amen, amen, amen, amen!" "Dying John Powson, after preaching the Gospel so many years, what have you to say? My deathbed is a bed of roses." "Dying Doctor Thomas Scott, what have you to say?" "This is heaven begun." "Dying soldier in the last war, what have you to say?" "This is heaven begun." "Dying soldier in the last war, what have you to say?" "Boys, I am going to the front." "Dying telegraph operator on the battlefield of Virginia, what have you to say? The wires are all laid, and the poles are up from Stony Point to headquarters." "Dying Paul, what have you to say?" "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Oh death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be unto God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." Oh my Lord, my God, what a delusion! what a glorious delusion! Submerge me with it; fill my eyes and ears with it; put it under my dying head for a pillow — this delusion; spread it over me for a canopy; put it underneath me for an outspread wing; roll it over me in ocean surges ten thousand fathoms deep. The overwhelming conclusion is that Christianity, producing such grand results, cannot be a delusion, an hallucination; cannot launch such a glory of the centuries. Your logic and your common sense convince you that a bad cause cannot produce an illustrious result. Some of you have read everything. You are scientific and you are scholarly, and yet if I should ask you, What is the most sensible thing you ever did? you would say, "The most sensible thing I ever did was to give my heart to God." But there may be others here who have not had early advantages, and if they were asked to give their experience they might rise and give such testimony as the man gave in a prayer meeting when he said: "On my way here tonight, I met a man who asked me where I was going. I said, 'I am going to a prayer meeting.' He said, 'There are a great many religions, and I think the most of them are delusions; as to the Christian religion, that is only a notion, that is a mere notion, the Christian religion.' I said to him: 'Stranger, you see that tavern over there?' 'Yes,' he said, 'I see it.' 'Do you see me?' 'Yes, of course I see you.' 'Now, the time was when, every body in this town knows, if I had a quarter of a dollar in my pocket I could not pass that tavern without going and getting a drink; all the people of Jefferson could not keep me out of that place; but God has changed my heart, and the Lord Jesus Christ has destroyed my thirst for strong drink, and there is my whole week's wages, and I have no temptation to go in there. And, stranger, if this is a notion, I want to tell you it is a mighty powerful notion; it is a notion that has put clothes on my children's backs, and it is a notion that has put good food on our table, and it is a notion that has filled my mouth with thanksgiving to God; and, stranger, you had better go along with me, you might get religion too; lots of people are getting religion now.'" Well, we will soon understand it all. We will soon come to the last bar of the music, to the last act of the tragedy, to the last page of the book — yea, to the last line and to the last word, and to you and to me it will either be midnoon or midnight.

(T. De Witt Talmage.)

People
Ammonites, Ezekiel
Places
Babylon, Jerusalem, Negeb, Rabbah
Topics
FALSE, Arts, Bringeth, Brings, Broken, Captive, Captured, Caught, Causing, Divination, Evil-doing, Guilt, Iniquity, Memory, Oaths, Omen, Remembered, Remembrance, Remind, Secret, Seem, Seized, Sight, Solemn, Sworn, Weeks
Outline
1. Ezekiel prophesies against Jerusalem with a sign of sighing
8. The sharp and bright sword
18. against Jerusalem
25. against the kingdom
28. and against the Ammonites

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Ezekiel 21:22

     5228   battering-rams

Ezekiel 21:21-22

     7392   lots, casting of

Library
Scriptures Showing the Sin and Danger of Joining with Wicked and Ungodly Men.
Scriptures Showing The Sin And Danger Of Joining With Wicked And Ungodly Men. When the Lord is punishing such a people against whom he hath a controversy, and a notable controversy, every one that is found shall be thrust through: and every one joined with them shall fall, Isa. xiii. 15. They partake in their judgment, not only because in a common calamity all shares, (as in Ezek. xxi. 3.) but chiefly because joined with and partakers with these whom God is pursuing; even as the strangers that join
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Light for them that Sit in Darkness;
OR, A DISCOURSE OF JESUS CHRIST: AND THAT HE UNDERTOOK TO ACCOMPLISH BY HIMSELF THE ETERNAL REDEMPTION OF SINNERS: ALSO, HOW THE LORD JESUS ADDRESSED HIMSELF TO THIS WORK; WITH UNDENIABLE DEMONSTRATIONS THAT HE PERFORMED THE SAME. OBJECTIONS TO THE CONTRARY ANSWERED. 'Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.'--Galatians 3:13. by John Bunyan--1674 ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. This solemn and searching treatise was first published in 1674, a copy of which is in
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Sundry Sharp Reproofs
This doctrine draws up a charge against several sorts: 1 Those that think themselves good Christians, yet have not learned this art of holy mourning. Luther calls mourning a rare herb'. Men have tears to shed for other things, but have none to spare for their sins. There are many murmurers, but few mourners. Most are like the stony ground which lacked moisture' (Luke 8:6). We have many cry out of hard times, but they are not sensible of hard hearts. Hot and dry is the worst temper of the body. Sure
Thomas Watson—The Beatitudes: An Exposition of Matthew 5:1-12

Saurin -- Paul Before Felix and Drusilla
Jacques Saurin, the famous French Protestant preacher of the seventeenth century, was born at Nismes in 1677. He studied at Geneva and was appointed to the Walloon Church in London in 1701. The scene of his great life work was, however, the Hague, where he settled in 1705. He has been compared with Bossuet, tho he never attained the graceful style and subtilty which characterize the "Eagle of Meaux." The story is told of the famous scholar Le Clerc that he long refused to hear Saurin preach, on the
Grenville Kleiser—The world's great sermons, Volume 3

Ezekiel
To a modern taste, Ezekiel does not appeal anything like so powerfully as Isaiah or Jeremiah. He has neither the majesty of the one nor the tenderness and passion of the other. There is much in him that is fantastic, and much that is ritualistic. His imaginations border sometimes on the grotesque and sometimes on the mechanical. Yet he is a historical figure of the first importance; it was very largely from him that Judaism received the ecclesiastical impulse by which for centuries it was powerfully
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

Links
Ezekiel 21:23 NIV
Ezekiel 21:23 NLT
Ezekiel 21:23 ESV
Ezekiel 21:23 NASB
Ezekiel 21:23 KJV

Ezekiel 21:23 Bible Apps
Ezekiel 21:23 Parallel
Ezekiel 21:23 Biblia Paralela
Ezekiel 21:23 Chinese Bible
Ezekiel 21:23 French Bible
Ezekiel 21:23 German Bible

Ezekiel 21:23 Commentaries

Bible Hub
Ezekiel 21:22
Top of Page
Top of Page