Today’s Passage: Ezekiel 25
For twenty-four chapters the prophet has aimed the word of God at Jerusalem, and now, with the city fallen and the temple in ashes, his gaze turns outward. Here begins a long section of oracles against the nations, and it opens close to home, with the four neighbors that ringed Judah on the east and the west: Ammon, Moab, Edom, and Philistia. Each of them watched Judah go down, and each of them, instead of trembling, gloated. They clapped, they jeered, they said in their hearts that the God of Israel was no different from the idols of any other land. So the LORD speaks a word to each in turn, and the same solemn refrain closes every one of them: then they will know that I am the LORD. The lesson of this chapter is large and steadying. The same God who does not spare His own house when it sins will not overlook the malice of the nations who rejoiced in its fall.
As you read, hold this: The God who judges His own people holds every nation accountable too, and His justice reaches them all.
Context The world of Ezekiel 25
These four peoples were not distant strangers. They were Judah’s near neighbors, bound to her by old ties of blood and older wounds of war. Ammon and Moab were descended from Lot, Abraham’s nephew, and Edom from Esau, the brother of Jacob himself, so the quarrels here run all the way back to the book of Genesis. The Philistines, along the coast, had fought Israel since the days of the judges and Samson and David. For centuries these nations had watched their neighbor rise and fall, and when Babylon finally broke Jerusalem in 586 B.C., they saw their chance to sneer at a rival brought low, and even to move in and seize the emptied land.
But God had been watching them the whole time. The great truth behind this chapter is that the LORD is not a local god who rules only within the borders of Israel. He is the Maker and Judge of every people under heaven, and the cruelty of the nations toward His people, and their contempt for His name, did not go unnoticed. To gloat over a grave that God Himself had dug is a fearful thing, for it treats His righteous discipline as if it were a common misfortune, and it mocks the hand that struck. So the word comes to each in turn, measured and just, and each oracle ends by declaring the one purpose of it all: that they, too, would come to know who the LORD truly is.
Ezekiel 25:1–3 (BSB)
¹ Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, ² “Son of man, set your face against the Ammonites and prophesy against them. ³ Tell the Ammonites to hear the word of the Lord GOD, for this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Because you exclaimed, “Aha!” when My sanctuary was profaned, when the land of Israel was laid waste, and when the house of Judah went into exile,
The first word falls upon Ammon, and notice exactly what the charge is. It is not that Ammon marched an army or drew a sword. It is that Ammon opened its mouth and cried, “Aha!” That little word carries a whole heart in it. It is the sound a person makes when someone he resents is finally brought down, that ugly gladness that warms itself at another’s ruin. And see what they gloated over: the sanctuary profaned, the land laid waste, the people carried off into exile. These were the very things that should have made any onlooker sober and afraid. Ammon looked at the judgment of God and found it entertaining, and the Lord GOD marks that “Aha!” as a sin worth answering. Heaven keeps account not only of the swords men swing but of the delight they take in another’s fall.
Ezekiel 25:4–5 (BSB)
⁴ therefore I will indeed give you as a possession to the people of the East. They will set up their camps and pitch their tents among you. They will eat your fruit and drink your milk. ⁵ I will make Rabbah a pasture for camels, and Ammon a resting place for sheep. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’
The answer fits the offense with perfect justice. Ammon rejoiced when strangers overran its neighbor’s land, so strangers from the eastern desert would overrun Ammon in turn, pitching their tents among its fields, eating its fruit, drinking its milk. Its proud capital, Rabbah, would be turned into a field where camels graze, and the whole country into a quiet pasture for sheep. There is something almost gentle in the picture, and yet it is devastating, for a city reduced to grassland is a city that is simply no longer there. And then comes the refrain, sounding here for the first time in the chapter: then you will yada, pronounced yah-DAH. Strong's H3045, to know, especially by experience or intimate acquaintance. This little verb runs through the whole chapter like a heartbeat, closing every oracle: “then they will know that I am the LORD.” It is not the cool knowing of a fact filed away in the mind. In Hebrew it is the deep, personal knowing of experience, the way a man knows his own home or his own field, a knowledge that grips and changes you. That is the tragedy and the mercy tangled together in this word. These nations would come to know the LORD, but they would learn it the hard way, through judgment, when a gentler knowing had been theirs for the taking all along. It is far better to know Him now in reverence and worship than to be made to know Him at last through the falling of His hand. Every soul will one day know that He is the LORD; the only question is whether that knowledge comes as joy or as reckoning. that I am the LORD. That is the aim of it all. God does not judge merely to punish; He judges so that even those who mocked Him will at last be forced to reckon with the truth of who He is.
Ezekiel 25:6–7 (BSB)
⁶ For this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Because you clapped your hands and stomped your feet and rejoiced over the land of Israel with a heart full of contempt, ⁷ therefore I will indeed stretch out My hand against you and give you as plunder to the nations. I will cut you off from the peoples and exterminate you from the countries. I will destroy you, and you will know that I am the LORD.’
Now the LORD returns to Ammon’s sin and lays it bare in its full ugliness. Clapping the hands, stamping the feet, rejoicing with a heart full of contempt: this is not quiet satisfaction but open, gleeful celebration over a neighbor’s grief. And against that celebrating hand God sets His own outstretched hand, the great arm that no nation can turn aside. What Ammon did to Judah in its heart would now be done to Ammon in fact, given up as plunder, cut off from the peoples, its name erased from the countries of the earth. We should let this land soberly. Contempt for the suffering of others, and above all a heart that laughs at what God has done, is not a small thing in His sight. He hears the clapping, and He answers it.
Ezekiel 25:8–11 (BSB)
⁸ This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Because Moab and Seir said, “Look, the house of Judah is like all the other nations,” ⁹ therefore I will indeed expose the flank of Moab beginning with its frontier cities—Beth-jeshimoth, Baal-meon, and Kiriathaim—the glory of the land. ¹⁰ I will give it along with the Ammonites as a possession to the people of the East, so that the Ammonites will no longer be remembered among the nations. ¹¹ So I will execute judgments on Moab, and they will know that I am the LORD.’
The word turns next to Moab, and its sin is a sin of the tongue and of the heart. Moab looked at fallen Judah and said, “Look, the house of Judah is like all the other nations.” That sounds almost like a harmless observation, but hear what it really means. It is a denial that there was ever anything set apart about God’s people, a way of saying that their God was no different from the carved idols of Moab and every other land, and that their downfall proved it. It was a shrug at the living God. So the LORD would open Moab’s frontier wide to the desert peoples, its proud border cities, the very glory of the land, laid bare and given away. And once more the refrain seals it: they will know that I am the LORD. The nation that said God’s people were nothing special would learn that God’s name is not nothing at all.
Ezekiel 25:12–14 (BSB)
¹² This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Because Edom acted vengefully against the house of Judah, and in so doing incurred grievous guilt, ¹³ therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: I will stretch out My hand against Edom and cut off from it both man and beast. I will make it a wasteland, and from Teman to Dedan they will fall by the sword. ¹⁴ I will take My vengeance on Edom by the hand of My people Israel, and they will deal with Edom according to My anger and wrath. Then they will know My vengeance, declares the Lord GOD.’
Edom’s guilt is named more sharply still, for Edom did not merely gloat but “acted vengefully against the house of Judah.” Here was Esau’s line turning on Jacob’s in the day of its weakness, an old family hatred pressing in with the sword when Judah was too broken to defend herself. And so the LORD calls it what it is: grievous guilt. His hand would stretch out against Edom from one end to the other, from Teman to Dedan, leaving the land a wasteland. Yet notice the striking thing in verse fourteen: God says He will take His naqam, pronounced nah-KAHM. Strong's H5359, vengeance, retribution, just repayment. This is a word we must handle with care, because in our mouths vengeance usually means something petty and personal, a settling of scores driven by wounded pride. When the Philistines and Edom took vengeance “with malice of soul,” that is precisely what it was, spiteful, self-appointed, an old grudge nursed until it could strike a fallen enemy. But when God says He will take His vengeance, the same word is washed clean of all that pettiness. Divine vengeance is not a temper but a matter of pure justice, the settled response of a holy God who will not let cruelty and contempt stand forever unanswered. Scripture is emphatic that this vengeance belongs to Him and not to us, and that is a great comfort, for it means we can leave every wrong done to us in hands far surer and far more righteous than our own. The Judge of all the earth will do what is right. on Edom “by the hand of My people Israel.” Even in exile, even in weakness, God’s people are not forgotten, and the very nation that trampled them will not have the last word. When the LORD repays, He may do it through the very ones the world thought finished.
Ezekiel 25:15–17 (BSB)
¹⁵ This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Because the Philistines acted in vengeance, taking vengeance with malice of soul to destroy Judah with ancient hostility, ¹⁶ therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: Behold, I will stretch out My hand against the Philistines, and I will cut off the Cherethites and destroy the remnant along the coast. ¹⁷ I will execute great vengeance against them with furious reproof. Then they will know that I am the LORD, when I lay My vengeance upon them.’”
Last of the four come the Philistines, and their sin is the oldest and coldest of all: an “ancient hostility,” a hatred carried down through generations and never once laid aside. They struck at Judah “with malice of soul,” out of the sheer, long-nursed spite of the heart. And so the LORD’s hand stretches out one final time along the coast, cutting off the Cherethites and the last remnant of that people. Read how the chapter ends, on the same note where it began: then they will know that I am the LORD. Four nations, four old grudges, four different flavors of contempt, and one single conclusion pressed upon them all. There is a God in heaven, He is holy, His people are His own concern, and every soul and every nation will finally have to reckon with Him. That is a warning to the proud, and it is a deep and steady comfort to all who suffer wrong, for it means no injustice slips past the notice of the King.
Study notes Going deeper
It is easy to read a chapter like this and think of the judgment of God only as a threat. But hear what it truly declares: that the LORD is not the private deity of one small nation but the sovereign Judge of all the earth, exalted over every people whether they bow to Him or not. The nations laughed as though His name meant nothing, and He answered that His name would be known from Teman to the coast of Philistia. Long before, the psalmist had sung of this very God, the One who quiets the raging of the nations and lifts Himself high above them all.
"Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted over the earth." Psalm 46:10 (BSB)
There is the same word sounding again, the same command that closes every oracle of Ezekiel 25: know. The nations that clapped and jeered would be made to know it in the hard falling of His hand, but the invitation of the psalm is far kinder, to be still and know Him now, gladly, in reverence, before the day of reckoning ever comes. His justice reaches every people, and His majesty stands above every throne, and the only wisdom is to bow before Him while His hand is still stretched out in mercy. Learn the Word, be still before the God who is exalted over all the earth, and give thanks.