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Ezekiel 5

KJV · Chapter 5/48

1And thou, son of man, take thee a sharp knife, take thee a barber’s razor, and cause it to pass upon thine head and upon thy beard: then take thee balances to weigh, and divide the hair.

2Thou shalt burn with fire a third part in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled: and thou shalt take a third part, and smite about it with a knife: and a third part thou shalt scatter in the wind; and I will draw out a sword after them.

3Thou shalt also take thereof a few in number, and bind them in thy skirts.

4Then take of them again, and cast them into the midst of the fire, and burn them in the fire; for thereof shall a fire come forth into all the house of Israel.

5Thus saith the Lord God; This is Jerusalem: I have set it in the midst of the nations and countries that are round about her.

6And she hath changed my judgments into wickedness more than the nations, and my statutes more than the countries that are round about her: for they have refused my judgments and my statutes, they have not walked in them.

7Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Because ye multiplied more than the nations that are round about you, and have not walked in my statutes, neither have kept my judgments, neither have done according to the judgments of the nations that are round about you;

8Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I, even I, am against thee, and will execute judgments in the midst of thee in the sight of the nations.

9And I will do in thee that which I have not done, and whereunto I will not do any more the like, because of all thine abominations.

10Therefore the fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of thee, and the sons shall eat their fathers; and I will execute judgments in thee, and the whole remnant of thee will I scatter into all the winds.

11Wherefore, as I live, saith the Lord God; Surely, because thou hast defiled my sanctuary with all thy detestable things, and with all thine abominations, therefore will I also diminish thee; neither shall mine eye spare, neither will I have any pity.

12A third part of thee shall die with the pestilence, and with famine shall they be consumed in the midst of thee: and a third part shall fall by the sword round about thee; and I will scatter a third part into all the winds, and I will draw out a sword after them.

13Thus shall mine anger be accomplished, and I will cause my fury to rest upon them, and I will be comforted: and they shall know that I the Lord have spoken it in my zeal, when I have accomplished my fury in them.

14Moreover I will make thee waste, and a reproach among the nations that are round about thee, in the sight of all that pass by.

15So it shall be a reproach and a taunt, an instruction and an astonishment unto the nations that are round about thee, when I shall execute judgments in thee in anger and in fury and in furious rebukes. I the Lord have spoken it.

16When I shall send upon them the evil arrows of famine, which shall be for their destruction, and which I will send to destroy you: and I will increase the famine upon you, and will break your staff of bread:

17So will I send upon you famine and evil beasts, and they shall bereave thee; and pestilence and blood shall pass through thee; and I will bring the sword upon thee. I the Lord have spoken it.

📖 Chapter study

Summary

Ezekiel cuts his hair and beard with a sword and divides it into three parts — burned, struck with the sword, and scattered to the wind — symbolizing the destruction of Jerusalem by famine, war, and dispersion.

Explanation

Cutting one's own beard was a gesture of public humiliation in the ancient world. Dividing the hair into three equal parts shows that no group among the people would escape the punishment unscathed: some would die of famine inside the besieged city, others by the sword, others would be exiled. The chapter insists that Jerusalem sinned 'more than the nations around her,' which is serious because she had received greater revelation and privilege. Today's message is about responsibility in proportion to the knowledge received — those who know more are called to greater consistency.

Fun facts

  • Keeping a small portion of the hairs in the folds of his garment (v.3) symbolizes the 'remnant' that would survive, a theme that runs through the entire Old Testament.
  • The phrase 'Jerusalem in the midst of the nations' (v.5) reflects the city's actual geography, situated at a central crossroads of trade routes between Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Mediterranean coast.

Verse-by-verse explanation

  1. Ezekiel 5:1Shaving his head and beard and dividing the hair into three parts — one burned, one struck with a sword, one scattered to the wind, with only a handful kept in the hem of his garment — is a new enactment: each portion of hair stands for a part of Jerusalem’s people and the fate awaiting them.
  2. Ezekiel 5:2The explanation of the gesture with the hair divided into three: one part burned, another struck with a sword around the city, and the third scattered to the wind — each portion foreshadows a different fate for the people of Jerusalem.
  3. Ezekiel 5:3A small handful of hair is kept in the hem of his garment — a sign that not everything would be lost, a remnant preserved despite the overall destruction.
  4. Ezekiel 5:4Even this preserved handful has part of it burned — showing that even the remnant kept aside will still pass through more judgment before anything is established.
  5. Ezekiel 5:5God explains the target of the enactment: Jerusalem, set by Him at the center of the nations — a position of prominence that should have been reason for faithfulness, not the opposite.
  6. Ezekiel 5:6The central accusation: Jerusalem did not merely sin like the surrounding nations, it sinned more than they did, rejecting the very rules God had given it specifically.
  7. Ezekiel 5:7The text presses the accusation further: the chosen people followed neither God’s own laws nor even the common standards of the neighboring nations — they failed on both counts at once.
  8. Ezekiel 5:8God announces He will act openly against Jerusalem, in a way the other nations will witness — the judgment will not be hidden.
  9. Ezekiel 5:9God describes the coming judgment as something without precedent — the gravity of Jerusalem’s situation would receive a correspondingly unique response.
  10. Ezekiel 5:10The image of parents eating their children during the siege is exaggerated language typical of ancient war curses, also found in Deuteronomy and Lamentations, used to describe the depth of desperation in a besieged city — it is not a point-by-point prediction of mass cannibalism.
  11. Ezekiel 5:11The gravest point of the accusation is defiling the temple itself — that is why God swears He will neither spare nor show pity, the opposite of how He normally responds to those who repent.
  12. Ezekiel 5:12The division into three parts — plague and famine, the sword, scattering to the winds — repeats the same structure as the hair cut into three, showing that the enactment at the start of the chapter was literally a visual summary of what follows.
  13. Ezekiel 5:13When the judgment is carried out, God describes it as a release of His own pent-up anger — and the final goal remains for the people to recognize that He was the one who announced all of it beforehand.
  14. Ezekiel 5:14Jerusalem will become a visible example of ruin to any foreigner passing by — public humiliation is part of the announcement.
  15. Ezekiel 5:15Jerusalem’s suffering will serve as a warning for other nations to see and fear — an example of what happens when God’s anger is carried out.
  16. Ezekiel 5:16Famine is described as “evil arrows” shot on purpose — the image of a weapon deliberately used, not just a random natural disaster.
  17. Ezekiel 5:17The chapter ends by adding up the various forms of disaster — famine, wild animals, plague, war — as a complete list of the collapse Jerusalem is about to experience.

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