| Barnes' Notes on the Bible The gleam of hope is but transitory. Darkness again gathers round, for as yet the prophet is predicting judgment. Ezekiel 6:11 Smite ... stamp - Well-known modes of expressing grief.
Clarke's Commentary on the BibleSmite with thine hand, and stamp with thy foot - Show the utmost marks of thy astonishment and indignation, and dread of the evils that are coming upon them. Some have contended for the propriety of clapping and stamping in public worship from these words! It is scarcely a breach of charity to think that such persons are themselves incapable either of attending on or conducting the worship of God. To be consistent, they should copy the prophet in his other typical actions as well as these; and then we shall hear of their lying on their left side for three hundred and ninety days, and on their right side for forty days; shaving their heads, burning their hair, baking their bread with dung, etc. Now all these things, because they were typical and commanded, were proper in the prophet: in such persons as the above they would be evidences of insanity. Such extravagant acts are no part of God's worship.
Gill's Exposition of the Entire BibleThus saith the Lord God, smite with thine hand, and stamp with thy foot,.... These are gestures of persons in distress and agony, who, to show their trouble and grief, smite one hand against the other; or smite with the hand upon the thigh, as in Jeremiah 31:19; and "stretch out", or "make a distension with the foot" (d); as it is in the Hebrew text; extend their thighs; throw out their feet; stamp with them; beat the earth, and make it shake, as the Syriac version; all expressive of anguish and sorrow: and say, alas, for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel! the word "alas", or "woe", as the Targum, Jarchi, and Kimchi, an interjection of mourning and lamentation, explains the above gestures; and what follows shows the cause of all; namely, the sins and abominations committed by the house of Israel; which they being insensible of, and unconcerned about, the prophet is ordered to take such a method to awaken them out of their stupidity and lethargy; and the rather, since the heaviest of judgments were coming upon them: for they shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence; which are threatened in Ezekiel 5:12; and the persons on whom they should be separately executed are mentioned in Ezekiel 6:12. (d) "extende pede tuo", Pagninus, Montanus, Polanus; "fac distensionem cum pede tuo", Munster; "divarica pedes tuos": Calvin.
Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old TestamentThe Punishment Is Just and Well Deserved Ezekiel 6:11. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Smite with thy hand, and stamp with thy foot, and say, Woe on all the wicked abominations of the house of Israel! that they must perish by sword, hunger, and pestilence. Ezekiel 6:12. He that is afar off will die by the pestilence; and he that is near at hand shall fall by the sword; and he who survives and is preserved will die of hunger: and I shall accomplish my wrath upon them. Ezekiel 6:13. And ye shall know that I am Jehovah, when your slain lie in the midst of your idols round about your altars, on every high hill, upon all the summits of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick-leaved terebinth, on the places where they brought their pleasant incense to all their idols. Ezekiel 6:14. And I will stretch out my hand against them, and make the land waste and desolate more than the wilderness of Diblath, in all their dwellings: so shall ye know that I am Jehovah. - Through clapping of the hands and stamping of the feet - the gestures which indicate violent excitement - the prophet is to make known to the displeasure of Jehovah at the horrible idolatry of the people, and thereby make manifest that the penal judgment is well deserved. הכּה בכפּך is in Ezekiel 21:19 expressed more distinctly by הך כּף אל , "to strike one hand against the other," i.e., "to clap the hands;" cf. Numbers 24:10. אח, an exclamation of lamentation, occurring only here and in Ezekiel 21:20. אשׁר, Ezekiel 6:11, is a conjunction, "at." Their abominations are so wicked, that they must be exterminated on account of them. This is specially mentioned in Ezekiel 6:12. No one will escape the judgment: he who is far removed from its scene as little as he who is close at hand; while he who escapes the pestilence and the sword is to perish of hunger. נצוּר, servatus, preserved, as in Isaiah 49:6. The signification "besieged" (lxx, Vulgate, Targum, etc.), Hitzig can only maintain by arbitrarily expunging הנּשׁאר as a gloss. On Ezekiel 6:12, cf. Ezekiel 5:13; on 13a, cf. Ezekiel 6:5; and on 13b, cf. Ezekiel 6:3, and Hosea 4:13; Jeremiah 2:20; Jeremiah 3:6; Deuteronomy 12:2. 'אל כּל־גב, according to later usage, for על כּל־גב. ריח ניחח, used in the Pentateuch of sacrifices pleasing to God, is here transferred to idol sacrifices; see on Leviticus 1:9 and Genesis 8:21. On account of the prevalence of idolatry in all parts, God will make the land entirely desolate. The union of שׁממה serves to strengthen the idea; cf. Ezekiel 33:8., Ezekiel 35:3. The words ממּדבּר דּבלתה are obscure, either "in the wilderness towards Diblath" (even to Diblath), or "more than the wilderness of Diblath" (מן of comparison). There is no doubt that דּבלתה is a nom. prop.; cf. the name of the city דּבלתים in Jeremiah 48:22; Numbers 33:46. The second acceptation of the words is more probable than the first. For, if ממּדבּר is the terminus a quo, and דּבלתה the terminus ad quem of the extent of the land, then must ממּדבּר be punctuated not only as status absolut., but it must also have the article; because a definite wilderness - that, namely, of Arabia - is meant. The omission of the article cannot be justified by reference to Ezekiel 21:3 or to Psalm 75:7 (Hitzig, Ewald), because both passages contain general designations of the quarters of the world, with which the article is always omitted. In the next place, no Dibla can be pointed out in the north; and the change of Diblatha into Ribla, already proposed by Jerome, and more recently brought forward again by J. D. Michaelis, has not only against it the authority of all the old versions, but also the circumstance that the Ribla mentioned in 2 Kings 23:33 did not form the northern boundary of Palestine, but lay on the other side of it, in the land of Hamath; while the הרבלה, named in Numbers 34:11, is a place on the eastern boundary to the north of the Sea of Gennesareth, which would, moreover, be inappropriate as a designation of the northern boundary. Finally, the extent of the land from the south to the north is constantly expressed in a different way; cf. Numbers 23:21 (Numbers 34:8); Joshua 13:5; 1 Kings 8:65; 2 Kings 14:65; Amos 6:14; 1 Chronicles 13:5; 2 Chronicles 7:8; and even by Ezekiel himself (Ezekiel 48:1) לבוא is named as the boundary on the north. The form דּבלתה is similar to תּמנתה for תּמנה, although the name is hardly to be explained, with Hvernick, as an appellation, after the Arabic dibl, calamitas, exitium. The wilderness of Diblah is unknown. With 'וידעוּ כּי וגו the discourse is rounded off in returning to the beginning of Ezekiel 6:13, while the thoughts in Ezekiel 6:13 and Ezekiel 6:14 are only a variation of Ezekiel 6:4-7.
Geneva Study BibleThus saith the Lord GOD; {f} Smite with thy hand, and stamp with thy foot, and say, Alas for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel! for they shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence. (f) By these signs he would that the prophet would signify the great destruction to come.
Wesley's Notes 6:11 Smite - To shew thy wonder, indignation, sorrow, and pity, for their sins and sufferings.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary11. Gesticulations vividly setting before the hearers the greatness of the calamity about to be inflicted. In indignation at the abominations of Israel extend thine hand towards Judea, as if about to "strike," and "stamp," shaking off the dust with thy foot, in token of how God shall "stretch out His hand upon them," and tread them down (Eze 6:14; Eze 21:14).
Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary6:11-14 It is our duty to be affected, not only with our own sins and sufferings, but to look with compassion upon the miseries wicked people bring upon themselves. Sin is a desolating thing; therefore, stand in awe, and sin not. If we know the worth of souls, and the danger to which unbelievers are exposed, we shall deem every sinner who takes refuge in Jesus from the wrath to come, an abundant recompence for all contempt or opposition we may meet with.
Matthew Henry's Whole Bible CommentaryVerses 11-14 The same threatenings which we had before in the foregoing chapter, and in the former part of this, are here repeated, with a direction to the prophet to lament them, that those he prophesied to might be the more affected with the foresight of them. I. He must by his gestures in preaching express the dep sense he had both of the iniquities and of the calamities of the house of Israel (v. 11): Smite with thy hand and stamp with thy foot. Thus he must make it to appear that he was in earnest in what he said to them, that he firmly believed it and laid it to heart. Thus he must signify the just displeasure he had conceived at their sins, and the just dread he was under of the judgments coming upon them. Some would reject this use of these gestures, and call them antic and ridiculous; but God bids him use them because they might help to enforce the word upon some and give it the setting on; and those that know the worth of souls will be content to be laughed at by the wits, so they may but edify the weak. Two things the prophet must thus lament:-1. National sins. Alas! for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel. Note, The sins of sinners are the sorrows of God's faithful servants, especially the evil abominations of the house of Israel, whose sins are more abominable and have more evil in them than the sins of others. Alas! What will be in the end hereof? 2. National judgments. To punish them for these abominations they shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence. Note, It is our duty to be affected not only with our own sins and sufferings, but with the sins and sufferings of others; and to look with compassion upon the miseries that wicked people bring upon themselves; as Christ beheld Jerusalem and wept over it. II. He must inculcate what he had said before concerning the destruction that was coming upon them. 1. They shall be run down and ruined by a variety of judgments which shall find them out and follow them wherever they are (v. 12): He that is far off, and thinks himself out of danger, because out of the reach of the Chaldeans' arrows, shall find himself not out of the reach of God's arrows, which fly day and night (Ps. 91:5): He shall die of the pestilence. He that is near a place of strength, which he hopes will be to him a place of safety, shall fall by the sword, before he can retreat. He that is so cautious as not to venture out, but remains in the city, shall there die by the famine, the saddest death of all. Thus will God accomplish his fury, that is, do all that against them which he had purposed to do. 2. They shall read their sin in their punishment; for their slain men shall be among their idols, round about their altars, as was threatened before, v. 5-7. There, where they had prostrated themselves in honour of their idols, God will lay them dead, to their own reproach and the reproach of their idols. They lived among them and shall die among them. They had offered sweet odours to their idols, but there shall their dead carcases send forth an offensive smell, as it were to atone for that misplaced incense. 3. The country shall be all laid waste, as, before, the cities (v. 6): I will make the land desolate. That fruitful, pleasant, populous country, that has been as the garden of the Lord, the glory of all lands, shall be desolate, more desolate than the wilderness towards Diblath, v. 14. It is called Diblathaim (Num. 33:46; Jer. 48:22), that great and terrible wilderness which is described, Deu. 8:15, wherein were fiery serpents and scorpions. The land of Canaan is at this day one of the most barren desolate countries in the world. City and country are thus depopulated, that the altars may be laid waste and made desolate, v. 6. Rather than their idolatrous altars shall be left standing, both town and country shall be laid in ruins. Sin is a desolating thing; therefore stand in awe and sin not. |
