INTRODUCTORY
NOTE TO CHAPTERS 25-32
These chapters are a series
of prophetic utterances against seven foreign nations. They are intended to show that the calamities
which were falling on Judah were not arbitrary, nor an evidence of God’s
weakness, but that, on the contrary, He is supreme over all peoples and all His
acts are governed by fixed moral principles which reveal His holy nature. By
their position in the book they separate the prophecies that belong to the
period of Ezekiel’s ministry prior to the fall of Jerusalem from those that
followed later. (see Introduction.)
Study 18 From the Book of Ezekiel is: Ezekiel
25 and 26
Chapter 25 contains four
prophecies directed against Ammon, Moab, Edom and Philistines respectively.
Chapter 26 is a prophecy of the approaching destruction of the Tyre through the
armies of Nebuchadrezzar, together with a vivid description of far-reaching effects of her overthrow.
1.
In
chapter 25, find four ways in which unbelievers and enemies of the truth act
towards the people of God when the latter are brought low by calamity. How will
such adversaries be dealt with, and why? Cf. Pss. 94:1-5, 21-23; 46:8-10; Is.
26:9b.
2.
What,
according to 26:2, was the ground of God’s judgment upon Tyre? As we try to
imagine the scenes described in 26:7-14, and measure the fame and worldly
greatness of Tyre by the dismay caused by her fall (15-18), what lesson may we
learn? Cf. Je. 9:23, 24; Lk. 12:15-21.
Notes
1.
25:10.
‘The people of the East’ are the tribes of the desert. Moab and Ammon were
before long overrun by the Nabataeans.
2.
26:2.
Jerusalem had been as an open gate, by which commerce had been diverted from
Tyre.
3.
26:6.
‘Her daughters’: i.e., towns on the mainland dependent upon Tyre.
