Ezekiel 6:9 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Ezekiel 6:9
And they that escape of you shall remember me among the nations whither they shall be carried captives, because I am broken with their whorish heart, which hath departed from me, and with their eyes, which go a whoring after their idols: and they shall lothe themselves for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations.
a refugee · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine plural
remember
וְזָכְר֨וּve.za.khe.Ru
H2142
properly · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 3rd person common plural
nations
בַּגּוֹיִם֮ba.go.Yim
H1471
a foreign nation · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
captives
נִשְׁבּוּnish.bu-
H7617
to transport into captivity · verb, niphal perfect, 3rd person common plural
broken
נִשְׁבַּ֜רְתִּיnish.Bar.ti
H7665
to burst (literally or figuratively) · verb, niphal perfect, 1st person common singular
whorish
הַזּוֹנֶ֗הha.zo.Neh
H2181
to commit adultery (usually of the female · definite article + verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Ezekiel 20:43 And there shall ye remember your ways, and all your doings, wherein ye have been defiled; and ye shall lothe yourselves in your own sight fo…
Isaiah 7:13 And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also?
Job 42:6 Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.
Psalms 78:40 How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness, and grieve him in the desert!
Isaiah 43:24 Thou hast bought me no sweet cane with money, neither hast thou filled me with the fat of thy sacrifices: but thou hast made me to serve wit…
Deuteronomy 4:29-31 But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.
Ezekiel 20:7 Then said I unto them, Cast ye away every man the abominations of his eyes, and defile not yourselves with the idols of Egypt: I am the LORD…
Zechariah 10:9 And I will sow them among the people: and they shall remember me in far countries; and they shall live with their children, and turn again.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Ezekiel 6:8-10
Judgment had hitherto triumphed, but in these verses mercy rejoices against judgment. A sad end is made of this provoking people, but not a full end. The ruin seems to be universal, and yet will I leave a remnant, a little remnant, distinguished from the body of the people, a few of many, such as are left when the rest perish; and it is God that leaves them. This intimates that they deserved to be cut off with the rest, and would have been cut off if God had not left them. See Isa 1:9. And it is God who by his grace works that in them which he has an eye to in sparing them. Now,
I. It is a preserved remnant, saved from the ruin which the body of the nation is involved in (Eze 6:8): That you…
they that escape of you shall remember me--The object of God's chastisements shall at last be effected by working in them true contrition. This partially took place in the complete eradication of idolatry from the Jews ever since the Babylonian captivity. But they have yet to repent of their crowning sin, the crucifixion of Messiah; their full repentance is therefore future, after the ordeal of trials for many centuries, ending with that foretold in Zac 10:9; Zac 13:8-9; Zac 14:1-4, Zac 14:11. "They shall remember me in far countries" (Eze 7:16; Deu 30:1-8).
I am broken with their whorish heart--FAIRBAIRN translates, actively, "I will break" their whorish heart; English Version is better.…
They that escape of you shall remember me - Those that escape the sword, the pestilence, and the famine, and shall be led into captivity, shall plainly see that it is God who has done this, and shall humble themselves on account of their abominations, leave their idolatry, and worship me alone. And this they have done from the Babylonish captivity to the present day.
John Gill on Ezekiel 6:9
And they that escape of you shall remember me,.... Either my grace and mercy to them, as Jarchi; or the fear of me, as the Targum; and so return by repentance, and worship the Lord their God, being influenced by his kindness and goodness to them: even when
among the nations, whither they shall be carried captive; so that their afflictions should be sanctified and made useful to them: in prosperity men are apt to forget God; in adversity they are brought to a sense of themselves and duty; and happy it is when chastening dispensations are teaching ones, and bring to God, and not drive from him:
because I am broken with their whorish heart, which hath departed from me: by committing spiritual…
The Church Fathers
(Verse 9, 10) Because I have broken their heart by committing adultery and turning away from me, and their eyes are adulterous, looking after their idols. And they will displease each other with the evils they have done in all their abominations. And they will know that I, the Lord, have not spoken in vain, in order to bring harm upon them. Many things from this chapter have been omitted by the Septuagint, and that part has been changed. I have sworn to their adulterous heart: therefore we have put: I have broken their heart by committing adultery. But he swore and determined that he would do what he had shown through his actions; or he deceived by fornicating and turning away from God, concerning those about whom the Lord speaks through Hosea: They have been seduced by the spirit of prostitution (Hosea 4:12). And they fornicated their eyes after idols, through whose windows it is said that death entered. For this reason, in the book of Daniel, two elder men commanded that Susanna be revealed, so that they could enjoy the beauty of her naked body (Dan. 13). And the Lord spoke not in vain, when He brought evil or evils, when those who were subject to His sentence repent. But if the heart is hard and untamable, not even feeling the punishments of the correcting benefactor, it is said to them: I struck your children without cause: you have not received discipline. (Jeremiah 2:30). However, it is beneficial even to heretics, that their heart be broken, the worst treasure of perverse doctrines, because they have turned away from the Lord, and their eyes commit adultery after their own inventions. Those who remember the Lord will be displeased with all their abominations and those who understand the truth of the true faith will know that He is the Lord. Therefore, He often brings tribulation, which seems harmful and evil to the patient, so that they may be converted to repentance.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Forsaking God · Followed by remorse — Followed by remorse
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
heart
לִבָּ֣םli.Bam
H3820
the heart · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
departed
סָר֙sar
H5493
to turn off (literal or figurative) · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
eyes
עֵֽינֵיהֶ֔ם'ei.nei.Hem
H5869
an eye (literally or figuratively) · noun, common feminine dual construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
whoring
הַזֹּנ֕וֹתha.zo.Not
H2181
to commit adultery (usually of the female · definite article + verb, qal active participle, feminine plural absolute
Ezekiel 6:9
9. And they that escape of you shall remember me among the nations whither they shall be carried captives, because I am broken with their whorish heart, which hath departed from me, and with their eyes, which go a whoring after their idols: and they shall loathe themselves for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations.
9. Et recordabuntur qui ex vobis evaserint mei in gentibus, apud quas captivi fuerint illic [134] quia frangar ad cor ipsorum quod fornicatur, [135] a quod recessit a me, et ad oculos ipsorum scortantes [136] post idola sua, et pudifient coram facie sua super malis quae fecerunt in omnibus abominationibus suis.
I see that I cannot finish, and…
A remnant would be scattered among the nations of the world to bear witness to God’s faithfulness to his covenant. They would recognize the reality of their own unfaithful hearts and hate themselves for all their detestable sins, and they will know that God’s threat of calamity on covenant breakers was absolutely serious. Some of those who know that I alone am the Lord might even experience the other side of God’s faithfulness: his swiftness to forgive those who repent. In the book of Exodus, Israel came to know that God is the Lord through his mighty acts of rescue (see Exod 6:7). Unfortunately, Israel’s behavior throughout their history showed that they had forgotten. They would come again…
And those of you that escape will remember Me My kindnesses and My compassion, that I had compassion on them when they committed iniquities before Me in their land.
that I yielded to their straying heart That I yielded to them. Although their heart went astray and they turned away from Me, I begged of them, through My prophets, to return to Me, and [promised] that I will [then] do good for them, but they were unwilling.
and they will quarrel with themselves Heb. וְנָקֹטוּ. Menachem associated it with (Ps. 119:158): “I saw traitors, and I quarreled (וָאֶתְקוֹטָטָה).” They will quarrel with themselves for not listening to Me. Jonathan renders: וְידַנְקוּן and they will see, and so does he tr…
