Worthy.Bible » BBE » Ezekiel » Chapter 33 » Verse 25

Ezekiel 33:25 Bible in Basic English (BBE)

25 For this cause say to them, This is what the Lord has said: You take your meat with the blood, your eyes are lifted up to your images, and you are takers of life: are you to have the land for your heritage?

Cross Reference

Jeremiah 7:9-10 BBE

Will you take the goods of others, put men to death, and be untrue to your wives, and take false oaths, and have perfumes burned to the Baal, and go after other gods which are strange to you; And come and take your place before me in this house, which is named by my name, and say, We have been made safe; so that you may do all these disgusting things?

Deuteronomy 12:16 BBE

But you may not take the blood for food, it is to be drained out on the earth like water.

Genesis 9:4 BBE

But flesh with the life-blood in it you may not take for food.

Ezekiel 22:27 BBE

Her rulers in her are like wolves violently taking their food; putting men to death and causing the destruction of souls, so that they may get their profit.

Ezekiel 22:6 BBE

See, the rulers of Israel, every one in his family, have been causing death in you.

Ezekiel 18:6 BBE

And has not taken flesh with the blood for food, or given worship to the images of the children of Israel; if he has not had connection with his neighbour's wife, or come near to a woman at the time when she is unclean;

Leviticus 3:17 BBE

Let it be an order for ever, through all your generations, in all your houses, that you are not to take fat or blood for food.

Ezekiel 22:9 BBE

In you there are men who say evil of others, causing death; in you they have taken the flesh with the blood for food; in your streets they have put evil designs into effect.

Acts 21:25 BBE

But as to the Gentiles who have the faith, we sent a letter, giving our decision that they were to keep themselves from offerings made to false gods, and from blood, and from the flesh of animals put to death in ways against the law, and from the evil desires of the body.

Acts 15:29 BBE

To keep from things offered to false gods, and from blood, and from things put to death in ways which are against the law, and from the evil desires of the body; if you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. May you be happy.

Acts 15:20-21 BBE

But that we give them orders to keep themselves from things offered to false gods, and from the evil desires of the body, and from the flesh of animals put to death in ways against the law, and from blood. For Moses, from times long past, has his preachers in every town, reading his law in the Synagogues every Sabbath.

Leviticus 7:26-27 BBE

And you are not to take for food any blood, of bird or of beast, in any of your houses. Whoever takes any blood for food will be cut off from his people.

Ezekiel 18:15 BBE

Who has not taken the flesh with the blood for food, or given worship to the images of the children of Israel, and has not had connection with his neighbour's wife,

Ezekiel 18:12 BBE

Has done wrong to the poor and to him who is in need, and taken property by force, and has not given back to one in his debt what is his, and has given worship to images and has done disgusting things,

Ezekiel 9:9 BBE

Then he said to me, The sin of the children of Israel and Judah is very, very great, and the land is full of blood and the town full of evil ways: for they say, The Lord has gone away from the land, and the Lord does not see.

Jeremiah 44:15-19 BBE

Then all the men who had knowledge that their wives were burning perfumes to other gods, and all the women who were present, a great meeting, answering Jeremiah, said, As for the word which you have said to us in the name of the Lord, we will not give ear to you. But we will certainly do every word which has gone out of our mouths, burning perfumes to the queen of heaven and draining out drink offerings to her as we did, we and our fathers and our kings and our rulers, in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then we had food enough and did well and saw no evil. But from the time when we gave up burning perfumes to the queen of heaven and draining out drink offerings to her, we have been in need of all things, and have been wasted by the sword and by need of food. And the women said, When we were burning perfumes to the queen of heaven and draining out drink offerings to her, did we make cakes in her image and give her our drink offerings without the knowledge of our husbands?

Psalms 24:4 BBE

He who has clean hands and a true heart; whose desire has not gone out to foolish things, who has not taken a false oath.

1 Samuel 14:32-34 BBE

And rushing at the goods taken in the fight, the people took oxen and sheep and young oxen, and put them to death there on the earth, and had a meal, taking the flesh with the blood in it. Then it was said to Saul, See, the people are sinning against the Lord, taking the blood with the flesh. And he said to those who gave him the news, Now let a great stone be rolled to me here. And Saul said, Go about among the people and say to them, Let every man come here to me with his ox and his sheep, and put them to death here, and take his meal: do no sin against the Lord by taking the blood with the flesh. So all the people took their oxen with them that night and put them to death there.

Deuteronomy 4:19 BBE

And when your eyes are lifted up to heaven, and you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the army of heaven, do not let yourselves be moved to give them worship, or become the servants of what the Lord has given equally to all peoples under heaven.

Leviticus 19:26 BBE

Nothing may be used for food with its blood in it; you may not make use of strange arts, or go in search of signs and wonders.

Leviticus 17:10-14 BBE

And if any man of Israel, or any other living among them, takes any sort of blood for food, my wrath will be turned against that man and he will be cut off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in its blood; and I have given it to you on the altar to take away your sin: for it is the blood which makes free from sin because of the life in it. For this reason I have said to the children of Israel, No man among you, or any others living with you, may take blood as food. And any man of Israel, or any other living among them, who gets with his bow any beast or bird used for food, is to see that its blood is covered with earth. For the blood is the life of all flesh: and so I have said to the children of Israel, You may not take any sort of blood as food, and any man who does so will be cut of.

Commentary on Ezekiel 33 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible


CHAPTER 33

Eze 33:1-33. Renewal of Ezekiel's Commission, Now that He Is Again to Address His Countrymen, and in a New Tone.

Heretofore his functions had been chiefly threatening; from this point, after the evil had got to its worst in the overthrow of Jerusalem, the consolatory element preponderates.

2. to the children of thy people—whom he had been forbidden to address from Eze 24:26, 27, till Jerusalem was overthrown, and the "escaped" came with tidings of the judgment being completed. So now, in Eze 33:21, the tidings of the fact having arrived, he opens his heretofore closed lips to the Jews. In the interval he had prophesied as to foreign nations. The former part of the chapter, at Eze 33:2-20, seems to have been imparted to Ezekiel on the evening previous (Eze 33:22), being a preparation for the latter part (Eze 33:23-33) imparted after the tidings had come. This accounts for the first part standing without intimation of the date, which was properly reserved for the latter part, to which the former was the anticipatory introduction [Fairbairn].

watchman—Eze 33:1-9 exhibit Ezekiel's office as a spiritual watchman; so in Eze 3:16-21; only here the duties of the earthly watchman (compare 2Sa 18:24, 25; 2Ki 9:17) are detailed first, and then the application is made to the spiritual watchman's duty (compare Isa 21:6-10; Ho 9:8; Hab 2:1). "A man of their coasts" is a man specially chosen for the office out of their whole number. So Jud 18:2, "five men from their coasts"; also the Hebrew of Ge 47:2; implying the care needed in the choice of the watchman, the spiritual as well as the temporal (Ac 1:21, 22, 24-26; 1Ti 5:22).

3. the sword—invaders. An appropriate illustration at the time of the invasion of Judea by Nebuchadnezzar.

4. blood … upon his own head—metaphor from sacrificial victims, on the heads of which they used to lay their hands, praying that their guilt should be upon the victims.

6. his iniquity—his negligence in not maintaining constant watchfulness, as they who are in warfare ought to do. The thing signified here appears from under the image.

7. I have set thee a watchman—application of the image. Ezekiel's appointment to be a watchman spiritually is far more solemn, as it is derived from God, not from the people.

8. thou shalt surely die—by a violent death, the earnest of everlasting death; the qualification being supposed, "if thou dost not repent."

9. Blood had by this time been shed (Eze 33:21), but Ezekiel was clear.

10. be upon us—that is, their guilt remain on us.

pine away in them—if we suffer the penalty threatened for them in Eze 24:23, according to the law (Le 26:39).

how should we … live?—as Thou dost promise in Eze 33:5 (compare Eze 37:11; Isa 49:14).

11. To meet the Jews' cry of despair in Eze 33:10, Ezekiel here cheers them by the assurance that God has no pleasure in their death, but that they should repent and live (2Pe 3:9). A yearning tenderness manifests itself here, notwithstanding all their past sins; yet with it a holiness that abates nothing of its demands for the honor of God's authority. God's righteousness is vindicated as in Eze 3:18-21 and Eze 18:1-32, by the statement that each should be treated with the closest adaptation of God's justice to his particular case.

12. not fall … in the day that he turneth—(2Ch 7:14; see Eze 3:20; 18:24).

15. give again that he had robbed—(Lu 19:8).

statutes of life—in the obeying of which life is promised (Le 18:5). If the law has failed to give life to man, it has not been the fault of the law, but of man's sinful inability to keep it (Ro 7:10, 12; Ga 3:21). It becomes life-giving through Christ's righteous obedience to it (2Co 3:6).

17. The way of the Lord—The Lord's way of dealing in His moral government.

21. twelfth year … tenth month—a year and a half after the capture of the city (Jer 39:2; 52:5, 6), in the eleventh year and fourth month. The one who escaped (as foretold, Eze 24:26) may have been so long on the road through fear of entering the enemy's country [Henderson]; or, the singular is used for the plural in a collective sense, "the escaped remnant." Compare similar phrases, "the escaped of Moab," Isa 15:9; "He that escapeth of them," Am 9:1. Naturally the reopening of the prophet's mouth for consolation would be deferred till the number of the escaped remnant was complete: the removal of such a large number would easily have occupied seventeen or eighteen months.

22. in the evening—(see on Eze 33:2). Thus the capture of Jerusalem was known to Ezekiel by revelation before the messenger came.

my mouth … no more dumb—that is, to my countrymen; as foretold (Eze 24:27), He spake (Eze 33:2-20) in the evening before the tidings came.

24. they that inhabit … wastes of … Israel—marking the blindness of the fraction of Jews under Gedaliah who, though dwelling amidst regions laid waste by the foe, still cherished hopes of deliverance, and this without repentance.

Abraham was one … but we are many—If God gave the land for an inheritance to Abraham, who was but one (Isa 51:2), much more it is given to us, who, though reduced, are still many. If he, with 318 servants, was able to defend himself amid so many foes, much more shall we, so much more numerous, retain our own. The grant of the land was not for his sole use, but for his numerous posterity.

inherited the land—not actually possessed it (Ac 7:5), but had the right of dwelling and pasturing his flocks in it [Grotius]. The Jews boasted similarly of their Abrahamic descent in Mt 3:9 and Joh 8:39.

25. eat with the blood—in opposition to the law (Le 19:26; compare Ge 9:4). They did so as an idolatrous rite.

26. Ye stand upon your sword—Your dependence is, not on right and equity, but on force and arms.

every one—Scarcely anyone refrains from adultery.

27. shall fall by the sword—The very object of their confidence would be the instrument of their destruction. Thinking to "stand" by it, by it they shall "fall." Just retribution! Some fell by the sword of Ishmael; others by the Chaldeans in revenge for the murder of Gedaliah (Jer 40:1-44:30).

caves—(Jud 6:2; 1Sa 13:6). In the hilly parts of Judea there were caves almost inaccessible, as having only crooked and extremely narrow paths of ascent, with rock in front stretching down into the valleys beneath perpendicularly [Josephus, Wars of the Jews, 1.16.4].

28. most desolate—(Jer 4:27; 12:11).

none … pass through—from fear of wild beasts and pestilence [Grotius].

30. Not only the remnant in Judea, but those at the Chebar, though less flagrantly, betrayed the same unbelieving spirit.

talking against thee—Though going to the prophet to hear the word of the Lord, they criticised, in an unfriendly spirit, his peculiarities of manner and his enigmatical style (Eze 20:49); making these the excuse for their impenitence. Their talking was not directly "against" Ezekiel, for they professed to like his ministrations; but God's word speaks of things as they really are, not as they appear.

by the walls—in the public haunts. In the East groups assemble under the walls of their houses in winter for conversation.

in the doors—privately.

what is the word—Their motive was curiosity, seeking pastime and gratification of the ear (2Ti 4:3); not reformation of the heart. Compare Johanan's consultation of Jeremiah, to hear the word of the Lord without desiring to do it (Jer 42:1-43:13).

31. as the people cometh—that is, in crowds, as disciples flock to their teacher.

sit before thee—on lower seats at thy feet, according to the Jewish custom of pupils (De 33:3; 2Ki 4:38; Lu 10:39; Ac 22:3).

as my people—though they are not.

hear … not do—(Mt 13:20, 21; Jas 1:23, 24).

they show much love—literally, "make love," that is, act the part of lovers. Profess love to the Lord (Mt 7:21). Gesenius translates, according to Arabic idiom, "They do the delights of God," that is, all that is agreeable to God. Vulgate translates, "They turn thy words into a song of their mouths."

heart goeth after … covetousness—the grand rival to the love of God; therefore called "idolatry," and therefore associated with impure carnal love, as both alike transfer the heart's affection from the Creator to the creature (Mt 13:22; Eph 5:5; 1Ti 6:10).

32. very lovely song—literally, a "song of loves": a lover's song. They praise thy eloquence, but care not for the subject of it as a real and personal thing; just as many do in the modern church [Jerome].

play well on an instrument—Hebrew singers accompanied the "voice" with the harp.

33. when this cometh to pass—when My predictions are verified.

lo, it will come—rather, "lo it is come" (see Eze 33:22).

know—experimentally, and to their cost.