Ezekiel 35:10-12

35:10 “‘You said, “These two nations, these two lands ¹  will be mine, and we will possess them,” ²  – although the Lord was there – 35:11 therefore, as surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, I will deal with you according to your anger, and according to your envy, by which you acted spitefully against them. I will reveal myself to them when I judge you. 35:12 Then you will know that I, the Lord, have heard all the insults you spoke against the mountains of Israel, saying, “They are desolate, they have been given to us for food.”

Psalms 83:4-12

83:4 They say, “Come on, let’s annihilate them so they are no longer a nation! ³ 

Then the name of Israel will be remembered no more.”

83:5 Yes, ⁴  they devise a unified strategy; ⁵ 

they form an alliance ⁶  against you.

83:6 It includes ⁷  the tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites,

Moab and the Hagrites, ⁸ 

83:7 Gebal, ⁹  Ammon, and Amalek,

Philistia and the inhabitants of Tyre. ¹⁰ 

83:8 Even Assyria has allied with them,

lending its strength to the descendants of Lot. ¹¹  (Selah)

83:9 Do to them as you did to Midian ¹²  –

as you did to Sisera and Jabin at the Kishon River! ¹³ 

83:10 They were destroyed at Endor; ¹⁴ 

their corpses were like manure ¹⁵  on the ground.

83:11 Make their nobles like Oreb and Zeeb, ¹⁶ 

and all their rulers like Zebah and Zalmunna, ¹⁷ 

83:12 who said, ¹⁸  “Let’s take over ¹⁹  the pastures of God!”

Jeremiah 49:1

Judgment Against Ammon

49:1 The Lord spoke about the Ammonites. ²⁰ 

“Do you think there are not any people of the nation of Israel remaining?

Do you think there are not any of them remaining to reinherit their land?

Is that why you people who worship the god Milcom ²¹ 

have taken possession of the territory of Gad and live in his cities? ²² 

[35:10]  ¹ sn The reference is to Israel and Judah.

[35:10]  ² tn Heb “it.”

[83:4]  ³ tn Heb “we will cause them to disappear from [being] a nation.”

[83:5]  ⁴ tn Or “for.”

[83:5]  ⁵ tn Heb “they consult [with] a heart together.”

[83:5]  ⁶ tn Heb “cut a covenant.”

[83:6]  ⁷ tn The words “it includes” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[83:6]  ⁸ sn The Hagrites are also mentioned in 1 Chr 5:10, 19-20.

[83:7]  ⁹ sn Some identify Gebal with the Phoenician coastal city of Byblos (see Ezek 27:9, where the name is spelled differently), though others locate this site south of the Dead Sea (see BDB 148 s.v. גְּבַל; HALOT 174 s.v. גְּבַל).

[83:7]  ¹⁰ map For location see Map1 A2; Map2 G2; Map4 A1; JP3 F3; JP4 F3.

[83:8]  ¹¹ tn Heb “they are an arm for the sons of Lot.” The “arm” is here a symbol of military might.

[83:9]  ¹² tn Heb “do to them like Midian.”

[83:9]  ¹³ sn The psalmist alludes here to Gideon’s victory over the Midianites (see Judg 7-8) and to Barak’s victory over Jabin’s army, which was led by his general Sisera (Judg 4-5).

[83:10]  ¹⁴ sn Endor is not mentioned in the accounts of Gideon’s or Barak’s victories, but both battles took place in the general vicinity of the town. (See Y. Aharoni and M. Avi-Yonah, The Macmillan Bible Atlas, 46, 54.) Because Sisera and Jabin are mentioned in v. 9b, many understand them to be the subject of the verbs in v. 10, though they relate v. 10 to Gideon’s victory, which is referred to in v. 9a, 11. (See, for example, Y. Aharoni, The Land of the Bible, 263.)

[83:10]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “they were manure.” In addition to this passage, corpses are compared to manure in 2 Kgs 9:37; Jer 8:2; 9:21; 16:4; 25:33.

[83:11]  ¹⁶ sn Oreb and Zeeb were the generals of the Midianite army that was defeated by Gideon. The Ephraimites captured and executed both of them and sent their heads to Gideon (Judg 7:24-25).

[83:11]  ¹⁷ sn Zebah and Zalmunna were the Midianite kings. Gideon captured them and executed them (Judg 8:1-21).

[83:12]  ¹⁸ tn The translation assumes that “Zebah and Zalmunna” are the antecedents of the relative pronoun (“who [said]”). Another option is to take “their nobles…all their rulers” as the antecedent and to translate, “those who say.”

[83:12]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “let’s take possession for ourselves.”

[49:1]  ²⁰ sn Ammonites. Ammon was a small kingdom to the north and east of Moab which was in constant conflict with the Transjordanian tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh over territorial rights to the lands north and south of the Jabbok River. Ammon mainly centered on the city of Rabbah which is modern Amman. According to Judg 11:13 the Ammonites claimed the land between the Jabbok and the Arnon but this was land taken from them by Sihon and Og and land that the Israelites captured from the latter two kings. The Ammonites attempted to expand into the territory of Israel in the Transjordan in the time of Jephthah (Judg 10-11) and the time of Saul (1 Sam 11). Apparently when Tiglath Pileser carried away the Israelite tribes in Transjordan in 733 b.c., the Ammonites took over possession of their cities (Jer 49:1). Like Moab they appear to have been loyal to Nebuchadnezzar in the early part of his reign, forming part of the contingent that he sent to harass Judah when Jehoiakim rebelled in 598 b.c. (2 Kgs 24:2). But along with Moab and Edom they sent representatives to plot rebellion against Nebuchadnezzar in 594 b.c. (Jer 27:3). The Ammonites were evidently in rebellion against him in 588 b.c. when he had to decide whether to attack Rabbah or Jerusalem first (Ezek 21:18-23 [21:23-28 HT]). They appear to have remained in rebellion after the destruction of Jerusalem because their king Baalis was behind the plot to assassinate Gedaliah and offered refuge to Ishmael after he did it (Jer 40:13; 41:15). According to the Jewish historian Josephus they were conquered in 582 b.c. by Nebuchadnezzar.

[49:1]  ²¹ tc The reading here and in v. 3 follows the reading of the Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions and 1 Kgs 11:5, 33; 2 Kgs 23:13. The Hebrew reads “Malcom” both here, in v. 3, and Zeph 1:5. This god is to be identified with the god known elsewhere as Molech (cf. 1 Kgs 11:7).

[49:1]  ²² tn Heb “Does not Israel have any sons? Does not he have any heir [or “heirs” as a collective]? Why [then] has Malcom taken possession of Gad and [why] do his [Malcom’s] people live in his [Gad’s] land?” A literal translation here will not produce any meaning without major commentary. Hence the meaning that is generally agreed on is reflected in an admittedly paraphrastic translation. The reference is to the fact that the Ammonites had taken possession of the cities that had been deserted when the Assyrians carried off the Transjordanian tribes in 733 b.c. assuming that the Israelites would not return in sufficient numbers to regain control of it. The thought underlying the expression “Why has Milcom taken possession…” reflects the idea, common in the OT and the ancient Near East, that the god of a people drove out the previous inhabitants, gave their land to his worshipers to possess, and took up residence with them there (cf., e.g., Deut 1:21; Judg 11:24 and line 33-34 of the Moabite stone: “Chemosh said to me, ‘Go down, fight against Hauronen.’ And I went down [and I fought against the town and took it], and Chemosh dwelt there in my time.” [ANET 321]).