Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Ezekiel 9:7
And he said unto them, Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain: go ye forth. And they went forth, and slew in the city.
7. Defile the house ] The “house” embraces the temple house and its precincts, including the courts. The presence of dead in the courts defiled the whole.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Defile the house – By filling the temple and its courts with the bodies of the slain. See Num 19:11.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 7. Defile the house] A dreadful sentence, Let it be polluted, I will no more dwell in it; I now utterly forsake it.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Defile the house; regard not the holiness of the temple: idolaters, whom you are to slay, have defiled it with the blood of idols, sacrifices, do you defile it with the blood of the idolatrous sacrificers; slay them where you find them, for there they sinned against me.
Fill the courts with the slain; make a great slaughter, let every place be stained with their blood. There were the priests, the Levites, and the womens courts, and there will be found persons of a different character; but unless my mark be upon them, forbear none of them.
Go ye forth; make haste, do not ye, for I do not, delay, nor will I.
They went forth: here, as before, they show their ready obedience.
Slew in the city: this slaughter was visional in the eye of the prophet, and a preface to the saddest butcheries Israel ever bled and groaned under.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
And he said unto them, defile the house,…. The temple; do not be afraid of slaying any person in it, for fear of defiling it; they have defiled it with their abominations, and now do you defile it with their blood:
and fill the courts with the slain; the court of the priests, and the court of the Israelites, and the court of the women, and all the chambers where the priests and Levites were, and had their images portrayed:
go ye forth; from the brasen altar by which they stood, and out of the temple, after they had done their business there, and had slain all they should:
and they went forth, and slew in the city; they went out of the temple, and slew in the city all but those that had the mark.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Here God. repeats what he had formerly touched upon shortly and obscurely, namely, that the Jews trusted in vain in the visible temple, because already he had ceased to dwell there, as we shall afterwards see that he had departed. He had promised that his perpetual dwelling should be there, (Psa 132:14,) but that promise is not opposed by the casual desertion of that dwelling-place. Now therefore he adds this sentence, when he orders the Chaldeans to pollute the temple itself But it was already polluted, some one will say: I confess it: but it regards the Common perception of the people; for although the Jews had infected the sanctuary of God with their wickedness, yet they boasted that his worship still remained there and his sacred name. Now therefore he speaks of another kind of pollution, namely, that the Chaldeans should fill all the area with the slain If a human corpse or even a dog was seen in the sanctuary, this was an intolerable pollution; all would cry out that it was portentous. But as often as they entered the temple, although they dragged their crimes into God’s presence, (for they went there polluted with blood, rapine, fraud, perjuries, and a whole heap of guilt,) yet they reckoned all these pollutions as nothing. God therefore here obliquely derides their sloth, when he says that they boasted of the sanctity of the temple in vain, because they should see it at length filled with corpses, and then should really acknowledge that the temple was no longer sacred. Now therefore we understand the intention of the Holy Spirit. He adds, that they had gone forth, and occasioned a slaughter in the city Here again the Prophet shows that the Chaldeans would be at hand to smite the Jews with terror, as soon as God commanded them to destroy the city and cut off the inhabitants. Perhaps the city had not yet been besieged, and that is probable, for the Jews thought Ezekiel’s threatenings fabulous. For this reason he says that the Chaldeans appeared to him, that they might hear or receive the commandment of God: then that they had returned from the slaughter, to prove their obedience to God. In fine, he shows that God’s threatenings should not be in vain, because as soon as the right time should arrive, the army of the Chaldeans would be prepared for obedience. It follows —
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(7) Defile the house.The utmost possible pollution under the Mosaic economy was the touch of a dead body. (See Num. 19:11; 1Ki. 13:2; 2Ki. 23:16.) It might be thought that the Temple would be spared this defilement; but not only must the execution of justice override all technicalities, as at the execution of Joab (1Ki. 2:28-31), but in this case the very defilement itself was a part of the judgment, since God was about to forsake His sanctuary, and give over even this to the desolations of the heathen. From the Temple the destroying angels passed out into the city.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
7. Defile the house Beginning in the priests’ court, where they stood to receive this command (see note Eze 9:3), they began to slay all who had not the mark of the cross on their foreheads. and continued from court to court until they had passed out of the temple and then continued their work in the streets of the city. The temple, which had ceased to be Jehovah’s, was now defiled by heaps of corpses (Eze 6:5; Eze 6:13; Eze 43:7; Num 19:11, etc.). This massacre in the temple, which is here seen only in vision, actually took place in the capture of the city by the Chaldeans.
Go It matters not whether these six executioners represented the Assyrians or the doubled power of famine, pestilence, and war (Eze 5:12). In either case the presence of a seventh is to be noted. The forces of the heathen and the powers of nature may burn and destroy, but behind these there is supreme Intelligence and Will. Schopenhauer was not altogether wrong when he called gravitation an act of will. Behind all destructive as well as creative and protective providences God standeth in the shadow.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘And he said to them, “Defile the house and fill the courts with the slain. Go forth.” And they went forth and smote in the city.’
The house was to be deliberately defiled (compare Num 19:11; 1Ki 13:2; 2Ki 23:16). It was no longer God’s temple. They had handed it over to idolatry, so that just as bones were scattered around the high places (Eze 6:5), they would be around the temple precincts. It was a house of idolatry. And once that was so defiled then the visitants were to go out and destroy the city.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Eze 9:7. Defile the house God hereby declares that he will no longer own the temple for the place of his residence, as having been polluted with idolatry; and therefore he delivers up both the inner and outer court to be polluted with blood. See chap. Eze 10:3; Eze 10:5.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Eze 9:7 And he said unto them, Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain: go ye forth. And they went forth, and slew in the city.
Ver. 7. Defile the house. ] Once hallowed by myself, but now abhorred and rejected as a stew or sty of filthiness.
Fill the courts.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Eze 7:20-22, 2Ch 36:17, Psa 79:1-3, Lam 2:4-7, Luk 13:1
Reciprocal: 2Ki 11:15 – Let 2Ch 23:14 – Slay her not Jer 51:51 – for strangers Lam 1:10 – seen Eze 6:7 – slain Eze 24:21 – I will Dan 11:31 – they shall pollute
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Eze 9:7. The house of the Lord had been, defiled doctrinally by the abominable idolatry of these evil men, now it will be fitting to defile it physically by filling it with their dead bodies. So the men were again told to go forth and slay in the city.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
The Lord directed these executioners to go out into the city. They were even to slay people in the temple courtyards, though by doing so they defiled the temple (made it ritually unclean; cf. Num 19:11; 1Ki 13:2; 2Ki 23:16). Justice was more important than ritual cleanliness. The six men proceeded to carry out their duty (cf. 2Ch 36:17-19).