(5) Perpetual hatred.--Enmity towards Israel is also imputed to the Ammonites, Moabites, and Philistines in Ezekiel 25; but that of Edom was deeper and coeval with its first ancestor (see Genesis 25:22, &c., Genesis 27:41); its peculiar malignity is noticed by Amos 1:11. (Comp. also Obadiah 1:10-15.)

Shed the blood.--"Blood" is not in the original, and should be omitted. The verb means literally to pour out, and the clause should be rendered hast scattered the children of Israel. The same expression occurs in Psalm 63:10; Jeremiah 18:21. The time specifically referred to is that of the overthrow of Jerusalem, as both that of their great "calamity" and that when "their iniquity had an end." (On the last phrase, see Note on Ezekiel 21:29.) So the world-power generally, while it may fawn upon and corrupt the Church in the day of its prosperity, shows its undisguised hostility in every time of adversity.

Verse 5. - Because thou hast had a perpetual hatred; literally, hatred of old, or eternal enmity (cf. Ezekiel 25:15). This was the first of the two specific grounds upon which Eden should feel the stroke of Divine vengeance. Edom had been Israel's hereditary foe from the days of Esau and Jacob (Genesis 25:22, sqq.; and Genesis 27:37) downwards. Inspired with unappeasable wrath (Amos 1:11), during the period of the wandering he had refused Israel, "his brother," a passage through his territory (Numbers 20:14-21; Judges 11:17), and in the days of Jehoshaphat had combined with Ammon and Moab to invade Judah (2 Chronicles 20:10, 11; cf. Psalm 83:1-8). His relentless antipathy to Israel culminated, according to Ezekiel (cf. Obadiah 1:13), in the last days of Jerusalem, in the time of her calamity, when Nebuchadnezzar's armies encompassed her walls, in the time that her iniquity had an end; or, in the time of the iniquity of the end (Revised Version); meaning, according to Keil, "the time of Judah's final transgression;" or, according to Dr. Currey, in the 'Speaker's Commentary,' the time when the capture of the city put an end to her iniquity; but, with more probability, according to Hengstenberg, Plumptre, and others, the time of that iniquity which brought on her end (comp. Ezekiel 21:29). Ewald translates, "at the time of her extremest punishment," taking avon in the sense of punishment - a rendering the Revisers have placed in the margin. Then, according to Obadiah (vers. 11-14), the Edomites had not only stood coolly by, but malevolently exulted when they beheld Jerusalem besieged by the Babylonian warriors; and not only joined with the foreign invaders in the sacking of the city, but occupied its gates and guarded the roads leading into the country, so as to prevent the escape of any of the wretched inhabitants, and even hewed down with the sword such fugitives as they were not able to save alive and deliver up to captivity. To this Ezekiel refers when he accuses Edom of having shed the blood of the children of Israel by the fores of the sword; literally, of having poured the children of Israel upon the hands of the sword; i.e. of having delivered them up to the sword (cf. Psalm 63:11; Jeremiah 18:21).

35:1-9 All who have God against them, have the word of God against them. Those that have a constant hatred to God and his people, as the carnal mind has, can only expect to be made desolate for ever.Because thou hast had a perpetual hatred,.... There was an old grudge and enmity subsisting in the posterity of Esau against the posterity of Jacob, because the latter supplanted the former, and got the birthright and blessing from him; and which was discovered in all ages, and at all opportunities, and on all occasions which offered; and such has been the hatred of the church of Rome against the true professors and followers of Christ, as their bloody persecution of them in all ages have shown:

and hast shed the blood of the children of Israel by the force of the sword in the time of their calamity: when Jerusalem was taken by the Chaldeans, the Edomites not only rejoiced at it, and took part of the spoil, but stood in the crossways, and slew those that made their escape; or drove them back upon the sword of the enemy; or delivered them into their hands; which was barbarous and inhuman usage of their neighbours and brethren; see Obadiah 1:10. The Targum is,

"and thou didst deliver the children of Israel into the hands of those that slay with the sword, in the time of their destruction:''

in the time that their iniquity had an end; when either the measure of that was full; or when they received for it full correction and chastisement; at the consummation of that.