Then shall they know that I am the LORD, when I have laid the land most desolate because of all their abominations which they have committed.
A refugee brought the news a year and five months after Jerusalem burned, though the prophet had surely heard it sooner through steady commerce between Babylon and the ruins. Yet this eyewitness account was different: a man who escaped the flames himself could speak with particularity and real feeling of what he had seen, fulfilling the sign God gave that one would come to make him hear it with his own ears.
AI summary
Commenting on Ezekiel 33:21-29
And they come unto thee as the people cometh,.... As the people of God, who came to the prophets's house to hear him preach the word, and explain it for their spiritual profit and edification these came when they did, and as early and constantly, and with seeming pleasure: and they sit before thee as my people; with great decency and reverence, and very gravely...
The remnant left in the ruins argue from Abraham's solitary faith to their own numbers as reason to claim the land. But those who eat upon the blood, worship idols, shed blood, trust the sword, and defile one another's wives have no claim whatever. The Lord swears by His own life: those in ruins fall by sword, those in fields feed beasts, those in caves die of plague. The land becomes waste because of their abominations, and they shall know He is Lord.
AI summary
Commenting on Ezekiel 33:23-29