BOOK 26 OF 66 · MAJOR PROPHETS · KING JAMES BIBLE

Ezekiel 21

Ezekiel book home•Chapter 21 of 48•32 verses

Chapter overviewAt a glance + deeper study

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Ezekiel 21 Overview

The LORD commands Ezekiel to announce a sharpened sword against Jerusalem and to groan publicly. Babylon’s king is pictured at a crossroads using divination to choose between Rabbah and Jerusalem; the road points to Jerusalem. Judah’s profane prince will lose his crown until the rightful ruler comes.

EzekielBook

21Chapter

32Verses

Major ProphetsDivision

Before you read Ezekiel 21

Coming from

When elders come to inquire of the LORD, Ezekiel recounts Israel’s long history of rebellion in Egypt, the wilderness, and the land. Again and again God acts for His name’s sake, judges idolatry, preserves the people from total destruction, and promises a future purging and restored worship on His holy mountain.

In this chapter

Leads into

The LORD indicts Jerusalem as a “bloody city” filled with murder, idolatry, contempt for parents, oppression of strangers and vulnerable people, sexual corruption, bribery, extortion, profaned holy things, corrupt priests, princes, prophets, and people. No one is found to stand in the gap, so judgment is poured out.

Key understandingExplore deeper

The sword is Babylon’s military power functioning as the instrument of God’s announced judgment. Ezekiel’s dramatic gestures—sighing, clapping, and marking roads—make the approaching violence vivid.

The statement that the crown will be overturned “until he come whose right it is” echoes royal hope beyond Zedekiah. Its wording recalls Genesis 49:10 in the KJV tradition and supports anticipation of a rightful future ruler without requiring every immediate detail to be messianic.

Major truths in this chapterExplore deeper

God can use a pagan empire as an instrument without approving its religion

Babylon’s divination is real within the narrative, yet the outcome serves the LORD’s judgment.

False security cannot stop an announced sentence

Jerusalem may regard the omen as false, but covenant guilt brings the sword anyway.

Present royal failure does not erase hope for rightful kingship

The overturned crown is not the final word on God’s rule.

Connections to the rest of ScriptureExplore deeper

Genesis 49:10

The promise concerning the one to whom the right belongs provides important background to royal expectation.

2 Kings 25

Babylon’s siege and Zedekiah’s downfall historically fulfill the chapter’s immediate judgment.

Luke 1:32-33

The New Testament identifies Jesus as the heir to David’s throne whose kingdom will have no end, giving ultimate clarity to Davidic kingship hope.

What is clear, and where care is neededExplore deeper

Do not interpret Babylonian divination as a method God authorizes His people to imitate.

The chapter reports a pagan king’s practice while showing God’s sovereignty over the historical outcome.

Do not teach that Ezekiel 21 gives a date or detailed timetable for Christ’s coming.

It preserves rightful-king expectation but does not provide a chronological scheme.

Read Ezekiel 21 watching for…

the repeated sword imagery

Ezekiel’s public sighing

the fork in the road to Rabbah and Jerusalem

Babylon’s divination

the removal of crown and diadem until the rightful ruler

Chapter outline4 sections

1-7The sword of the LORD is directed against Jerusalem and all flesh 8-17A sharpened and polished sword is prepared for slaughter 18-27Babylon’s king chooses the road to Jerusalem, and the profane prince is condemned until the rightful ruler comes 28-32Ammon is warned that the sword will also consume them in their own land

And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

Son of man, set thy face toward Jerusalem, and drop thy word toward the holy places, and prophesy against the land of Israel,

And say to the land of Israel, Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I am against thee, and will draw forth my sword out of his sheath, and will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked.

Seeing then that I will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked, therefore shall my sword go forth out of his sheath against all flesh from the south to the north:

That all flesh may know that I the LORD have drawn forth my sword out of his sheath: it shall not return any more.

Sigh therefore, thou son of man, with the breaking of thy loins; and with bitterness sigh before their eyes.

And it shall be, when they say unto thee, Wherefore sighest thou? that thou shalt answer, For the tidings; because it cometh: and every heart shall melt, and all hands shall be feeble, and every spirit shall faint, and all knees shall be weak as water: behold, it cometh, and shall be brought to pass, saith the Lord GOD.

Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

Son of man, prophesy, and say, Thus saith the LORD; Say, A sword, a sword is sharpened, and also furbished:

It is sharpened to make a sore slaughter; it is furbished that it may glitter: should we then make mirth? it contemneth the rod of my son, as every tree.

And he hath given it to be furbished, that it may be handled: this sword is sharpened, and it is furbished, to give it into the hand of the slayer.

Cry and howl, son of man: for it shall be upon my people, it shall be upon all the princes of Israel: terrors by reason of the sword shall be upon my people: smite therefore upon thy thigh.

Because it is a trial, and what if the sword contemn even the rod? it shall be no more, saith the Lord GOD.

Thou therefore, son of man, prophesy, and smite thine hands together, and let the sword be doubled the third time, the sword of the slain: it is the sword of the great men that are slain, which entereth into their privy chambers.

I have set the point of the sword against all their gates, that their heart may faint, and their ruins be multiplied: ah! it is made bright, it is wrapped up for the slaughter.

Go thee one way or other, either on the right hand, or on the left, whithersoever thy face is set.

I will also smite mine hands together, and I will cause my fury to rest: I the LORD have said it.

The word of the LORD came unto me again, saying,

Also, thou son of man, appoint thee two ways, that the sword of the king of Babylon may come: both twain shall come forth out of one land: and choose thou a place, choose it at the head of the way to the city.

Appoint a way, that the sword may come to Rabbath of the Ammonites, and to Judah in Jerusalem the defenced.

For the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination: he made his arrows bright, he consulted with images, he looked in the liver.

At his right hand was the divination for Jerusalem, to appoint captains, to open the mouth in the slaughter, to lift up the voice with shouting, to appoint battering rams against the gates, to cast a mount, and to build a fort.

And it shall be unto them as a false divination in their sight, to them that have sworn oaths: but he will call to remembrance the iniquity, that they may be taken.

Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because ye have made your iniquity to be remembered, in that your transgressions are discovered, so that in all your doings your sins do appear; because, I say, that ye are come to remembrance, ye shall be taken with the hand.

And thou, profane wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come, when iniquity shall have an end,

Thus saith the Lord GOD; Remove the diadem, and take off the crown: this shall not be the same: exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high.

I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it: and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him.

And thou, son of man, prophesy and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD concerning the Ammonites, and concerning their reproach; even say thou, The sword, the sword is drawn: for the slaughter it is furbished, to consume because of the glittering:

Whiles they see vanity unto thee, whiles they divine a lie unto thee, to bring thee upon the necks of them that are slain, of the wicked, whose day is come, when their iniquity shall have an end.

Shall I cause it to return into his sheath? I will judge thee in the place where thou wast created, in the land of thy nativity.

And I will pour out mine indignation upon thee, I will blow against thee in the fire of my wrath, and deliver thee into the hand of brutish men, and skilful to destroy.

Thou shalt be for fuel to the fire; thy blood shall be in the midst of the land; thou shalt be no more remembered: for I the LORD have spoken it.

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Ezekiel 21:22

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