Sermon Tone Analysis

Against the Nations

Following the prophecy of Jerusalem’s fall (Ezek 24), the next major section in the book of Ezekiel is a series of oracles against the foreign, enemy nations that celebrated the city’s demise.

Seven nations are denounced by the prophet as under Yahweh’s judgment.

Nearly every book classified among the major and minor prophets contains a collection of such oracles (e.g., Isaiah 13–23; Jeremiah 46–51).

This episode discusses the nature of these oracles and discusses how the oracles of Chapter 25 can be read in the context of the Deuteronomy 32 cosmic-geographical worldview of Israel.

Well, let's jump in here.

This is going to be chapter 25, but before we hit 25, I'm also going to use this episode as sort of an introduction to what this section is.

Scholars typically refer to this as "the oracles against the nations."

This is something that the prophetic books do.

With most of the prophetic books in the Hebrew Bible, there's a section in the book somewhere where we have what are essentially prophecies or prophetic utterances—diatribes—against the nations.

A lot of prophetic content is, of course, directed against Israel (God's own people).

Just like Ezekiel has been saying, "You've been bad—all this stuff that you're doing—and this is why you're under judgment,” and so on and so forth.

But then there's always this section devoted to, "Oh, well, we're not forgetting about our enemies.

Even though God's using your enemies against you to judge you, God's going to get them, too."

These sections in the prophetic books are called "oracles against the nations."

Chapter 25

So let's jump into 25.

Again, in terms of the section (chapters 25-32), we're going to have oracles against seven nations.

You're going to get five of them in this one chapter!

After this chapter we're going to have chapters 26-28, where it's Tyre and then the rest of it's going to be Egypt.

They're going to get a lot of attention, and then we have these five smaller groups here in this chapter.

And the five are Ammon, Moab, Seir, Edom, and the Philistines.

They're the ones that are targeted specifically in this chapter.

I think probably the easiest thing to do is just read through the chapter—maybe not all of it, but we might have time to do all of it.

Let's just jump in here.

So in the first seven verses, it starts against Ammon.

He says to Ammon, "Boy, you had a good time watching Israel get the tar kicked out of them, but the same guys who did that are going to take care of you, too."

The Ammonites and the Israelites (if you're familiar with the Old Testament), they're not exactly the best of friends.

There's a lot of conflict there.

You have references in Judges 10 and 11, 1 Samuel 11, 2 Samuel 10, where Israel is getting into it with the Ammonites.

Taylor notes:

After the fall of Jerusalem, their king Baalis appears to have encouraged Ishmael

in the assassination of Gedaliah (Jer.

40:14).

Their crime in this oracle was that of gloating at Judah’s misfortune (3, 6)… and their punishment would be to be overrun by nomadic desert tribesmen (men of the east)…

Tribesmen or, of course, the Babylonians themselves.

Commentators go either way there.

So just think about this.

We're not going to go into every one in specific detail, but their specific crime is (to quote the text) "because you said 'Aha!'" (essentially like, "All right!

High five!" or something like that)... because you rejoiced over my sanctuary when it was profaned and over the land when it was made desolate, over the house of Judah when it went into exile.

That's the reason this is going to happen to you now.

So just tuck that away.

Let's put it this way: it has something to do with a nation who's thrilled to see the presence of Yahweh displaced from Yahweh's inheritance—thrilled to see the people of God (Yahweh's children) driven away from their inheritance.

Again, I'm saying it this way deliberately.

I want you to be thinking in Deuteronomy 32 Worldview terms, because that's really what this is about.

They're being targeted because they hate the Most High and they hate his people, and they and their gods want the people of God destroyed.

They want the land abandoned.

They want to take it for themselves.

Again, you have to be thinking in terms of the cosmic geographical ramifications of this to understand why God is basically making a point to tell the prophet, "Okay, all the stuff I said that was going to happen in Jerusalem has come to past, but we're not done there.

I want the nations to know that it doesn't end here.

I want them and their gods to know that they have not won.

It's still my land, this is still my people.

So I have a message for them."

And you get these oracles, and it happens somewhere in all the prophetic books to some degree.

If you continue on with the chapter, you get verses 8-11, and now it's Moab and Seir.

In other words, Moab and Seir are going to get theirs, but look at the accusation again.

Why is God angry?

What's the point?

What sets this whole thing off?

What's their specific crime.

Because Moab and Seir said, ‘Behold, the house of Judah is like all the other nations…’

In other words, they're not ruled by the Most High, or the Most High has abandoned them.

The Most High has disinherited them, too.

For someone like an Israelite who is familiar with the cosmic geographical context for this kind of back and forth—this tit-for-tat—it really helps you to read between the lines here.

What's sort of lurking under the surface is this worldview of the nations and their gods.

"He disinherited them, too.

Yahweh has no people.

He's done.

They're done.

The land is ours; let's take it."

Verses 12-14... Now you get Edom.

We've spent a lot of time talking about Edom in our episodes about Obadiah, so I don't want to go back and rehearse all that.

If you want more on Edom, go listen to the two episodes on Obadiah.

In Ezekiel 25 verse 12:

Now the specific crime here Edom had historically sided with (assisted in some way) the Babylonians when the Babylonians came in and destroyed Jerusalem and the temple.

Here, that whole sort of thing is worded this way: their specific crime is 40:00 that they have acted vengefully against Israel.

Their punishment is going to be "by Israel's own hand, I'm going to take revenge on you."

In other words, Israel is not done with.

They're going to come back here.

(laughs) "My people are not dead.

I have not cut them off entirely, and there's going to come a time when my own people will conquer you to make the point.”

I don't want to backtrack too far into that.

We know that historically, some of this happens in the Intertestamental Period.

Taylor notes:

…Although Edom proper was also overrun by Nabateans, the ancestors of the modern Arabs, Edomite survivors were later subdued first by Judas Maccabaeus and then by John Hyrcanus, who incorporated them into the Jewish race by compulsory circumcision.

So some scholars point to that as being the fulfillment.

But remember when we talked about Obadiah, that the prophecy against Edom was really fulfilled by the conquest of Adam (humankind—all the nations) through the Gospel.

If that sounds kind of strange, go listen to the episodes on Obadiah.

We also talked about how certain prophecies in the book of Amos are quoted and used and theologically applied in Acts 15, where Edom becomes paradigmatic for all the nations and Babylon is sort of the source of the problem.

Remember, Babylon is where the nations were disinherited (Deuteronomy 32 Worldview).

And the solution to that, ultimately, is the overspread of the Gospel through all the nations, which begins in Acts 2 at the hands of God's own people—the Jews who have converted to follow Jesus.

After the crucifixion and resurrection, they kickstart the reclamation of the nations.

So you have all this stuff in play.

Again, if this is unfamiliar content to you, you're just going to have to catch up.

You could read Unseen Realm and that would help.

You could watch the introductory videos on the podcast website and that would help—but especially, listening to the two episodes on Obadiah.

For our purposes here, think about the term "act vengefully."

We're going to come back to that.

The last group here, the Philistines, are accused of the same thing.

Now we know historically, the Philistines are a longstanding enemy.

Taylor writes: