Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Ezekiel 23:25
And I will set my jealousy against thee, and they shall deal furiously with thee: they shall take away thy nose and thine ears; and thy remnant shall fall by the sword: they shall take thy sons and thy daughters; and thy residue shall be devoured by the fire.
25. “Jealousy” differs little from fury, ch. Eze 16:38.
take away thy nose ] Reference is either to the ancient practice (as in Egypt) of mutilating the adulteress, or to the habit of disfiguring the captives, cf. Eze 12:13; Eze 16:40.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Take away thy nose and thine ears – Alluding to the barbarous custom of mutilating prisoners in the east Dan 2:5. An Egyptian law prescribed this punishment for an adulteress.
Fire – A mode of capital punishment Jer 29:22; Dan. 3.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 25. Shall take away thy nose] A punishment frequent among the Persians and Chaldeans, as ancient authors tell. Adulteries were punished in this way; and to this Martial refers: –
Quis tibi persuasit nares abscindere moecho?
“Who has counselled thee to cut off the adulterer’s nose?”
Women were thus treated in Egypt. See Calmet.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
I will set my jealousy against thee; as a jealous provoked husband, I will be as much against thee as they are, their fury shall avenge my quarrel.
They shall deal furiously with thee; their disposition naturally is to furious wrath, my jealousy shall enkindle it more.
They shall take away thy nose and thine ears; as thou hast prostituted thy beauty like a harlot, so they shall use thee as such, and mar thy beauty, and brand thee for ever, as thou deservest, and that thou mayst be as loathsome in thy deformity as ever thou wast thought lovely in thy beauty. This punishment of adulteresses is known to have been used, and is yet in use.
Thy remnant shall fall by the sword; or else, at last thy latter end shall be to fall by the sword, those that do not live under such reproach shall die by the sword of the enemy.
They shall take thy sons and thy daughters for captives and slaves for work, and somewhat a thousand times worse.
Thy residue; either the people who did hide themselves in vaults and cellars, and came not out; or else what remains of that the Chaldeans cannot carry away; all this shall be devoured by fire, as when the city was burnt.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
25. take away thy nose . . .earsAdulteresses were punished so among the Egyptians andChaldeans. Oriental beauties wore ornaments in the ear and nose. Howjust the retribution, that the features most bejewelled should bemutilated! So, allegorically as to Judah, the spiritual adulteress.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And I will set my jealousy against thee, and they shall deal furiously with thee,…. As a jealous husband, enraged against his adulterous wife, falls upon her in his fury, and uses her with great severity; so the Jews having committed spiritual fornication, that is, idolatry, and departed from the Lord, he threatens to stir up the fury of his jealousy, and punish them severely by the Chaldeans, as follows:
they shall take away thy nose and thine ears, and thy remnant shall fall by the sword; as gallants use their harlots when they leave them, or jealous husbands their adulterous wives, disfiguring them, that they may be marked and known what they are, and be despised by others; and as has been the custom in some countries, particularly with the Egyptians, to cut off the noses of adulterous persons; here it is to be understood figuratively: by the “nose”, according to Jarchi, Kimchi, and Ben Melech, is meant the king, who is higher than his people, as the nose is the highest part in a man’s face; and by the “ears” the priest, who caused a noise to be heard when he entered into the temple with his bells; or rather because it was the priest’s office to attend to the word of God, and teach it the people; in general, these denote everything that was excellent among the Jews, their city, temple, king, kingdom, princes, priests, and prophets, which should be demolished and removed; and by the remnant is meant the common people, that should come into the hands of the Chaldeans, and fall by their sword. So the Targum paraphrases it,
“thy princes and thy nobles shall go into captivity, and thy people shall be killed with the sword:”
they shall take thy sons and thy daughters, and thy residue shall be devoured by the fire; take and carry their sons and daughters captive, and burn with fire the city left by them. Thus the Targum,
“they shall carry thy sons and daughters captive, and the beauty of thy land shall be burnt with fire;”
that is, the city of Jerusalem, the temple, the king’s palaces, the houses of the great men, and others in it, which were all burnt with fire when taken by the Chaldeans, Jer 52:13.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(25) Take away thy nose and thine ears.The barbarous custom of mutilating prisoners prevailed in the East from the earliest times; it is here mentioned with especial reference to the destruction of the attractiveness of the adulteress Aholibah, and the particulars of Eze. 23:26 have the same purpose. (Comp. Eze. 16:39.) In Egypt adultery was punished by cutting off the nose and ears.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
25. I will set my jealousy against thee See note Eze 5:13.
They shall take away thy nose and thine ears So Babylonian captives were often mutilated (for example, Zedekiah, Jer 52:11). It was also the practice among some ancient peoples to mutilate the adulteress.
Thy remnant thy residue The same word in both cases. The picture of the adulteress gives way for a moment to the picture of Jerusalem in flames and her inhabitants falling by the sword (compare 5-7).
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“And I will set my jealousy against you, and they will deal with you in fury. They will take away your nose and your ears, and your residue will fall by the sword. They will take away your sons and your daughters and your residue will be devoured by the fire. They will also strip you of your clothes, and take away your fair jewels.”
The punishment is portrayed as occurring because of Yahweh’s jealousy over their following other gods, but is dreadful, following Babylonian patterns (so its dreadfulness is by the design of men). As David said, they would have been better to have fallen directly into the hand of God. The cutting off of the nose and ears was a punishment for adulterous women, for they were the parts flaunted by her nose and ear rings, and also for captured prisoners of war, so that the picture is doubly applicable. It is apt. She had flaunted her beauty to her lovers, and now her lovers take it away from her. In other words she would lose her beauty. The taking away of sons and daughters was also a punishment that could happen to a disgraced woman. She loses all that is precious in life. But it was also a picture of the final exile of the people.
These two illustrations are then paralleled with their actual fulfilment in their falling by the sword and their suffering in the burning of their city (see 2Ki 24:10-16; 2Ki 25:11; Dan 1:1; 2Ki 25:18-21). That is, all who remain after the terrible things that will come on her. Ezekiel then returns to the parable picturing it all in terms of the stripping away of her beautiful clothing and her prized jewels. All the glories and luxuries she had enjoyed from Babylon, and the wealth that she had built up, would be stripped away. Her unfaithfulness will have brought her nothing. This may partly have in mind the loss of the Temple treasures (2Ki 25:13-17; 2Ch 36:18).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Eze 23:25. I will set my jealousy against thee “They shall punish thee with that fury with which a man in the rage of jealousy shall treat a wife who has been unfaithful to him. The mutilations mentioned in this verse were common among the Chaldeans. St. Jerome assures us, that they frequently cut off the nose and the ears of adulterers; and Martial, to the same purpose, epist. 43: lib. 3: says,
Quis tibi persuasit nares abscindere maecho?
This was practised towards the women in Egypt.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Eze 23:25 And I will set my jealousy against thee, and they shall deal furiously with thee: they shall take away thy nose and thine ears; and thy remnant shall fall by the sword: they shall take thy sons and thy daughters; and thy residue shall be devoured by the fire.
Ver. 25. And they shall take away thy nose and thine ears. ] He seemeth to allude to the custom of the Egyptians, which was to cut off the nose and the ears of the adulteress. a John, a certain antipope, was served in like sort by the Romans. b Paul II deserved to be so served; of whom it is recorded that he was so proud that he painted his face to please his concubine; and that he was once in a mind to have taken to himself the name of Formosus, but that he thought it was ominous because his predecessor of that name came to so ill an end. c
a Rhodigin., lib. xxiv. cap. 45.
b Pet. Damian, lib. i. cap. 21.
c Jacob. Revius, De. Vit, Pont.
I will set: Eze 5:13, Eze 8:1-18, Eze 16:38-42, Exo 34:14, Deu 29:20, Deu 32:21, Deu 32:22, Pro 6:34, Son 8:6, Zep 1:18
they shall take away: This refers to the severe vengeance which enraged husbands took on their faithless wives, and implies that God would employ the Chaldeans to destroy the princes and priests of Judah, for violating their covenants and treaties. Such punishments were anciently common; and such is the present practice in one of the South Sea Islands.
they shall take thy: Eze 23:47, Hos 2:4, Hos 2:5
thy residue: Eze 15:6, Eze 15:7, Eze 20:47, Eze 20:48, Eze 22:18-22, Rev 18:8
Reciprocal: Deu 21:8 – lay not Isa 3:17 – discover Eze 16:27 – delivered Eze 23:29 – deal Eze 24:21 – that which your soul pitieth Nah 3:5 – I am
Eze 23:25. When GodB jealousy is mentioned we are reminded of Exo 20:5 where the subject is idolatry. That is the subject of this present chapter, described and condemned in the form of adultery, This verse predicts the severe treatment that Jeru-salem is to receive from the Babylonians in the last stage of the 70-year captivity, including a bitter siege of more than two years.
Eze 23:25-27. I will set my jealousy against thee, &c. I will be against thee, as a jealous man is against his wife; and they shall deal furiously And they, as the executioners of my wrath, shall act toward thee as persons provoked to great fury. And they shall take away thy nose, &c. A punishment of adultery which rage sometimes dictated. As husbands in that case render those women deformed whose beauty hath been too pleasing to strangers, so shall the Chaldeans deface all the glories and ornaments of Jerusalem, and after they have slain and carried captive its inhabitants, shall set the city on fire, and reduce it to a heap of ashes. The mutilations mentioned in this verse were common among the Chaldeans. St. Jerome assures us, that they frequently cut off the nose and the ears of adulterers. And this was practised toward adulteresses in Egypt. They shall also strip thee, &c. As lewd, disgraced harlots and captives were used chap. Eze 16:39. And take away thy fair jewels All thy rich, beautiful ornaments, which shall be a prey to the enemy. Thus will I make thy lewdness to cease These severe judgments shall effectually deter thee from idolatry, and make thee abhor the least approaches toward it. Accordingly we find that after the captivity the Jews never returned to their former idolatrous practices. Lowth. And thy whoredom brought from the land of Egypt Thy idolatries which thou broughtest with thee from Egypt, where thou didst first learn idolatry, and ever hast had an inclination to it.
23:25 And I will set my jealousy against thee, and they shall deal furiously with thee: they shall take away thy {i} nose and thy ears; and thy remnant shall fall by the sword: they shall take thy sons and thy daughters; and thy remnant shall be devoured by the fire.
(i) They will destroy your princes and priests with the rest of your people.
The Lord would express His jealousy over Jerusalem and deal with her in His wrath. Her enemies would cut off her nose and her ears. This was an ancient Near Eastern punishment for adulteresses, which was understandable since these women typically adorned themselves with nose-rings and earrings. [Note: See Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near . . ., p. 181.] This appears to have been a method of mutilating enemies and prisoners of war as well. [Note: See Cooper, p. 231.] This punishment would make Jerusalem grotesque, unappealing, and repulsive to other nations.
These enemies would also kill many Israelites, deport others (2Ki 24:10-16; 2Ki 25:11; Dan 1:1), and burn still others (2Ki 25:18-21). They would strip the nation of her clothes and jewelry, perhaps a reference to her wealth, possessions, and temple treasures (cf. 2Ki 25:13-17; 2Ch 36:18). The Lord would allow this to teach Oholibah to abhor the Egyptians as political partners.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)