Ezekiel
Chapter 6
Against the Mountains of Israel
The word of the Lord came to me:
“Son of man, focus your attention on the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them. Say to them:
Mountains of Israel, listen to the word of the Lord! To the mountains and hills, to the rivers and valleys, the Lord has spoken: I am going to bring the sword against you and destroy your high places.
Your altars will become deserted, and your incense burners will be shattered;
I will lay your corpses before your idols and scatter your bones around your altars.
Wherever you live, the towns will be in ruins, and the high places will be deserted; your altars will be torn down and defiled, your filthy idols smashed
and destroyed, your incense burners overturned all around you; and you will know that I am the Lord.
But I will spare some of you. They will escape the sword and be scattered among the nations.
Your survivors will remember me among the people where they are exiled, for I will break the adulterous hearts of those whose eyes lusted after their idols. They will hate themselves for the evil they committed, for all their abominations.
And they will realize that I, the Lord, have not spoken in vain when I say I will bring this disaster upon them.
This is what the Lord said: “Clap your hands, stamp your feet, and say: ‘Well done!’ when the people of Israel fall by the sword, famine, and plague because of their abominations.
He who is far away will die of the plague; he who is near will fall by the sword; those who survive and are spared will die of starvation. I will pour out my fury against them.
And you will know that I am the Lord when their people lie slain among their idols, around their altars, on every high hill, mountain peaks, under every green tree, and beneath spreading oaks, wherever they have offered fragrant incense to their idols.
I will reach out to them and turn their land into a barren wasteland from the desert to Riblah, wherever they live. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”
Commentaries
Against the Mountains of Israel.
Altars had been built on many mountains near villages and cities to offer sacrifices to the Canaanite gods (3). The threat comes from God himself: “and you will know that I am the Lord” (7). This phrase is frequently used in this book and shows that the Lord often uses foreign nations to punish Israel. The bones of the dead will defile these sites of idolatry (v. 5; cf. 2 Kgs 23:14). Leafy and lush oak trees were viewed as gods of fertility, and worship activities, including “sacred prostitution,” took place in their shade (v. 13; cf. Is 57:5). The prophet boldly condemns the widespread idolatrous practices across the country, from the south to the far north: “…from the desert to Ribla” (14).