Ezekiel 6 Study Notes

6:1-2 When God tells the prophet to face the mountains of Israel, it reflects the Lord’s adverse attitude toward his people. The phrase mountains of Israel does not occur outside the book of Ezekiel. Mountains represent the whole land because the land of Israel was mountainous and hilly (Dt 11:11). Mountains were often centers of idolatrous worship; thus, reference to Israel as mountainous is a reference to Israel’s apostasy (Ezk 6:13; 18:6,11; 22:9).

6:3 The translation of the Hebrew word bamah as high places goes back at least to the Latin Vulgate, which translated the word excelsus. These man-made installations were elevated platforms where sacrifices were performed. They existed in the land of Canaan before the Israelite conquest and were supposed to have been destroyed (Nm 33:52). After Shiloh was destroyed (Jr 7:12), but before the temple in Jerusalem was built, the high place was used as a place of legitimate worship.

6:4-5 For the Hebrews, burning corpses on altars defiled the altars (1Kg 13:2; 2Kg 23:16). Ezekiel’s favorite word for idol (Hb gillulim) is based on the root gll, which means “to roll.” Many believe the term is associated with round dung pellets, which would graphically express Ezekiel’s disposition toward useless idols.

6:6 The Hebrew verb machah (“to wipe out”) is used in Gn 6:7; 7:4,23 to describe the decimation of the human race by the flood (2Kg 21:13).

6:7 The phrase you will know that I am the Lord is known as a recognition formula. It expresses Yahweh’s intention to make his character and glory known to Israel as well as to the nations. It is a characteristic way of closing oracles or sections within oracles (some sixty times in Ezekiel) and expresses the intended effect of the event predicted in the oracle. It was frequently used in the context of the exodus from Egypt (Ex 7:5; 14:4).

6:8-9 Here is the first explicit reference in Ezekiel to leaving a remnant (ytr). See 12:16; 14:22; 39:28.

6:10 The expression threaten to bring this disaster on them occurs outside this passage only in the account of the golden calf (Ex 32:14).

6:11-12 Ezekiel was commanded to sing a number of taunt songs against Israel’s enemies (e.g., chaps. 27-28; 31-32).

6:13 The phrases on every high hill, on all the mountaintops, and under every green tree and every leafy oak echo Dt 12:2 and Hs 4:13 (1Kg 14:23; Jr 2:20). In the pagan belief system of the ancient Near East, people sought the assistance of gods and goddesses of nature to bless themselves and make themselves productive.

6:14 On desolation as punishment, see Lv 26:32-35,43; Dt 29:23. Most of the Hebrew manuscripts read Diblah here, although a minority, including the Septuagint, read Riblah, which represented the northern border of Israel (47:15-17). If the reading Diblah is correct, this is the only reference to this city in the Bible. The Hebrew name may mean “cake of figs.” Riblah was a city in Syria (2Kg 23:33; 25:21; Jr 39:5; 52:9,27) that served as the headquarters of Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon during his third expedition against Jerusalem in 588-586 BC.