Ezekiel 7:24 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Ezekiel 7:24
Wherefore I will bring the worst of the heathen, and they shall possess their houses: I will also make the pomp of the strong to cease; and their holy places shall be defiled.
to go or come (in a wide variety of applications) · conjunction + verb, hiphil sequential perfect, 1st person common singular
worst
רָעֵ֣יra.'Ei
H7451
bad or (as noun) evil (natural or moral) · adjective, masculine plural construct
heathen
גוֹיִ֔םgo.Yim
H1471
a foreign nation · noun, common masculine plural absolute
possess
וְיָרְשׁ֖וּve.ya.re.Shu
H3423
to occupy (by driving out previous tenants · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 3rd person common plural
houses
בָּֽתֵּיהֶ֑םba.tei.Hem
H1004
a house (in the greatest variation of applications · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
pomp
גְּא֣וֹןge.'on
H1347
arrogance or majesty · noun, common masculine singular construct
strong
עַזִּ֔ים'a.Zim
H5794
strong · adjective, masculine plural absolute
cease
וְהִשְׁבַּתִּי֙ve.hish.ba.Ti
H7673
to repose · conjunction + verb, hiphil sequential perfect, 1st person common singular
places
קָדַשׁqâdash
H6942
to be (causatively
defiled
וְנִחֲל֖וּve.ni.cha.Lu
H2490
properly · conjunction + verb, niphal sequential perfect, 3rd person common plural
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 28:7 Behold, therefore I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy…
Psalms 106:41 And he gave them into the hand of the heathen; and they that hated them ruled over them.
Ezekiel 21:31 And I will pour out mine indignation upon thee, I will blow against thee in the fire of my wrath, and deliver thee into the hand of brutish…
Ezekiel 33:28 For I will lay the land most desolate, and the pomp of her strength shall cease; and the mountains of Israel shall be desolate, that none sh…
2 Chronicles 7:19-20 But if ye turn away, and forsake my statutes and my commandments, which I have set before you, and shall go and serve other gods, and worshi…
Psalms 83:12 Who said, Let us take to ourselves the houses of God in possession.
Isaiah 5:14 Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he tha…
Jeremiah 4:7 The lion is come up from his thicket, and the destroyer of the Gentiles is on his way; he is gone forth from his place to make thy land deso…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Ezekiel 7:23–end
Here is, I. The prisoner arraigned: Make a chain, in which to drag the criminal to the bar, and set him before the tribunal of divine justice; let him stand in fetters (as a notorious malefactor), stand pinioned to receive his doom. Note, Those that break the bands of God's law asunder, and cast away those cords from them, will find themselves bound and held by the chains of his judgments, which they cannot break nor cast from them. The chain signified the siege of Jerusalem, or the slavery of those that were carried into captivity, or that they were all bound over to the righteous judgment of God, reserved in chains.
II. The indictment drawn up against the prisoner: The land is full of bloo…
worst of the heathen--literally, "wicked of the nations"; the giving up of Israel to their power will convince the Jews that this is a final overthrow.
pomp of . . . strong--the pride wherewith men "stiff of forehead" despise the prophet.
holy places--the sacred compartments of the temple (Psa 68:35; Jer 51:51) [CALVIN]. God calls it "their holy places," because they had so defiled it that He regarded it no longer as His. However, as the defilement of the temple has already been mentioned (Eze 7:20, Eze 7:22), and "their sacred places" are introduced as a new subject, it seems better to understand this of the places dedicated to their idols. As they defiled God's sanctuary, He will defil…
The worst of the heathen - The Chaldeans; the most cruel and idolatrous of all nations.
John Gill on Ezekiel 7:24
Wherefore I will bring the worst of the Heathen,.... The Chaldeans, notorious for their cruelty, savageness, and barbarity:
and they shall possess their houses; which they have built, and thought to have lived and died in, and left them to their children for an inheritance; but the Chaldeans, and not their children, became their heirs, and inherited their houses and lands:
I will also make the pomp of the strong to cease; or, "the pride of the mighty ones" (n); the noble and the rich; their wealth and substance, by which their pride and grandeur were supported, being takes away from them:
and their holy places shall be defiled; the temple, in which were the holy place, and the holy of hol…
The Church Fathers
(Verse 24) And I will bring the wicked from the nations, and they will possess their houses. And these are not found in the Septuagint. For the priests and prophets, I will bring the wicked Babylonians from all nations, that they may possess your houses and subject you to servitude. But even our houses, that is, our souls (for we are the temple of God, and the Holy Spirit dwells in us - 1 Corinthians VI), the wicked demons will possess, if our land is filled with bloodshed and our habitation is full of iniquity. And I will make the haughtiness of the mighty to cease, and their sanctuaries shall be possessed. I will turn away their roaring, and their holy places shall be defiled. All pride offends God. Therefore, the worst of the nations shall possess the houses of the mighty and the proud, and they shall occupy their sanctuaries, for a profane place of holiness enters, and its uncleanness contaminates it. But significantly, because the sanctuaries of God were polluted and his secret violated, he did not say, 'They shall possess my sanctuaries,' but 'their sanctuaries,' for they have departed from me after their contamination. Distress is imminent. LXX: Propitiation will come. According to the higher order, they have been correctly interpreted as Eagle and Theodotius, the distress is imminent; and Symmachus, mourning. But the seventy, in the midst of all sorrows, have set down the word of joy: so that the soul of the grieving may be sustained, and may hope for better things amidst adversity, and a propitious Lord; of whom it is written: The Lord raises up those who are crushed (Ps. 145:8). But we, according to the earlier opinion of Symmachus, have combined it with the later, that we may say:
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
Chains · FIGURATIVE — FIGURATIVE
Heathen, The · Employed to chastise the Church — Employed to chastise the Church
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).
Ezekiel 7:24
24. Wherefore I will bring the worst of the heathen, and they shall possess their houses: I will also make the pomp of the strong to cease; and their holy places shall be defiled.
24. Et venire faciam improbos gentium, [167] et possidebunt domos eorum: et cessare faciam superbiam fortium, et polluentur sanctuaria ipsorum.
He repeats what he had said, that enemies would come who should be ministers of God's vengeance. And again we learn from this place, that even the impious are impelled by the hand and secret direction of God, so that they cannot move a finger but by his will. He had formerly said that he would give the Jews into the hands of strangers; but what now? I will c…
Fourth Strophe
Still worse is coming, namely, the captivity of the people, and overthrow of the kingdom. - Eze 7:23. Make the chain, for the land is full of capital crime, and the city full of outrage. Eze 7:24. I shall bring evil ones of the nations, that they may take possession of their houses; and I shall put an end to the pride of the strong, that their sanctuaries may be defiled. Eze 7:25. Ruin has come; they seek salvation, but there is none. Eze 7:26. Destruction upon destruction cometh, and report upon report ariseth; they seek visions from prophets, but the law will vanish away from the priest, and counsel from the elders. Eze 7:27. The king will mourn, and the prince will clothe h…
Neither religious authorities (prophets and priests) nor civil leaders (king or prince) could bring the peace the people were looking for. High-born and low-born alike would be helpless in facing their judgment. In the complete absence of guidance and direction, no hope would be left for the people.
Rashi on Ezekiel 7:24
the most wicked of the nations Heb. רָעֵי גוֹיִם. The most wicked and cruel of the nations.
and they will deliver as an inheritance Heb. וְנִחֲלוּ, they will give over to others as an inheritance.
their meeting places Heb. מְקַדְשֵׁיהֶם. The temples of the high places, where they would gather at appointed times; an expression of a house of their appointment.
