35:1–9 As in chapter 34, the prophet begins by announcing doom upon one group of people before declaring salvation for another. In this case the one singled out for destruction is Edom, the nation to the southeast of Judah, who had sought to capitalize on the chaos following the Babylonian invasion by staking a claim to part of Israel’s territory. This was merely the latest skirmish in a “perpetual enmity” (Ezek. 35:5; Hb. ʾeybat ʿolam) stretching back to the rivalry between Jacob and Esau that led the Edomites to aid the Babylonian invaders in the time of Judah’s need. According to Obadiah 14, the Edomites blocked fleeing refugees and handed them back to the Babylonians. Their goal was apparently to reclaim the birthright of the land that Esau so carelessly traded away (cf. Gen. 25:29–34) by repossessing the territory of Israel. But their bloodthirsty hatred (Ezek. 35:6) will return on their own heads. Their perpetual enmity toward Israel will result in their land being made into a perpetual wasteland (v. 9; cf. the judgment pronounced upon the mountains of Israel in 6:14). Israel’s time of “calamity” (ʾeydam, a play on the name “Edom”) will bring to an end their iniquity (or “punishment,” ʿavon; the word can mean either); the time of Edom’s punishment, however, will never come to an end. Their land will be left permanently desolate, its inhabitants slain by the sword—precisely the opposite outcome promised to Israel in the Abrahamic covenant (35:9).

35:10–15 The Edomite ambition is transparent in verse 10: they desire to possess (Hb. yarash) the property promised to Abraham in Genesis 15:7. Ironically, Genesis notes Abraham’s origins in the land of the Chaldeans, which is where his disobedient offspring are exiled in Ezekiel’s day. The one united people that was supposed to come from Jacob/Israel—a “company of nations” (qehal goyim; Gen. 35:11)—has been divided into two nations and two countries over the course of history (Ezek. 35:10), and Edom seeks to swallow up them both. Alternatively, the “two nations” may be a reference to the oracle at the birth of Esau and Jacob, telling Rebekah that two nations were struggling in her womb but that “the older shall serve the younger” (Gen. 25:23). In rebellion against that decree Edom is claiming for itself the territory of both nations.

That land is not Edom’s to claim, however; it belongs to Yahweh. The Lord has taken up residence there (Ezek. 35:10), so Edom’s plans could never succeed—divine election is irrevocable. The claim that “the Lord was there” is particularly striking in light of Ezekiel 8–11, in which the glory of the Lord leaves Jerusalem and goes to be a temporary sanctuary for the exiles (11:16). Yet the Lord’s departure from the land could only ever be temporary; here there is an anticipation of the Lord’s return to his temple in chapter 43 and his dwelling among his restored people forever (cf. 48:35). Instead of Edom’s possessing the land the Lord promised to Israel, their own territory will be wiped out. As the Edomites have rejoiced at Israel’s downfall, so now all nations will rejoice over theirs (35:14–15).

The central motive for the Lord’s actions against Edom is this: “Then you will know that I am the Lord” (vv. 9, 12, 15). The subject of this knowledge of God (the “you”) shifts from Edom (vv. 9, 12), to Israel (v. 11), and then to the whole earth (v. 15). In other words, the Lord fulfills his promises to Israel not because of human deserving, or even from divine compassion, but out of an overriding concern for his own name and glory. The “inheritance of the house of Israel” (Hb. nakhlat bet yisrael; v. 15) was chosen for her by God when he brought her out of Egypt (Num. 34:2), and he will not let that promise fail. Instead, he will demonstrate his power before a watching world in restoring Israel to her land, just as he had demonstrated it in judging his people for their sin and sending them into exile.

36:1–7 From an oracle declaring the destruction of Mount Seir (and thus Edom) we turn to a section proclaiming the restoration of the mountains of Israel, whose destruction Ezekiel had prophesied in chapter 6. These passages are not merely juxtaposed but explicitly linked: the declaration of good news is a response to an enemy saying, “Aha! . . . The ancient heights have become our possession” (36:2). The enemy is not identified explicitly, but the claim echoes 35:10, where Edom declared, “These two nations and these two countries shall be mine, and we will take possession of them”; the word “ancient” (Hb. ʿolam) is the same word translated “perpetual” in 35:5, 9. Yet, as the initial oracle of further judgment unfolds, it becomes clear that Edom is not alone in her attitudes or actions toward Judah; she is part of a coalition of nations that has crushed Judah from all sides (36:3, 5), resulting in the “mountains of Israel” becoming a name used with derision by Judah’s neighbors (vv. 3–4).

From henceforth things will be different. First, the Lord will intervene to judge these nations that have attacked Judah and sought to possess her (v. 5). His fierce jealousy—the proper passion to protect a possession that belongs exclusively to him—will be aroused, finding expression in his wrath, which will turn the tables on the nations, making them the objects of reproach (v. 7). As Zechariah 2:8 puts it, the Lord now declares, “He who touches you touches the apple of [my] eye.”

36:8–15 As with the oracles against the nations in Ezekiel 25–32, which precede and presage the turn from judgment to blessing for God’s own people, so these oracles against Edom and her companions prepare the way for words of blessing upon the mountains of Israel. The crucial turning point is the ascription given to them in 36:8: “My people Israel” (cf. Hos. 1:9–10). If they are indeed once again the people chosen by the Lord to inherit the land flowing with milk and honey (cf. Ex. 3:8), then the mountains of Israel must deliver that abundant fruitfulness to the Lord’s renewed people. If the Lord is for them (Ezek. 36:9), who can be against them? Not only will the land once again be fruitful, but so too will the people. The promise of offspring is, after all, the necessary corollary of the promise of a land: the land must be peopled and the people must have somewhere to live. The scene takes on overtones of the blessed fruitfulness of Genesis 1:28, with a multiplication of people (Hb. ʾadam) and animals (behemah; Ezek. 36:11).

When the ten unfaithful spies reported back on the Promised Land, they claimed it was a “land that devours its inhabitants” (Num. 13:32) and therefore unworthy of claiming as Israel’s inheritance, even if the mighty occupants of Canaan could ever be overcome. That myth has been repeated by Israel’s neighbors, who say to the mountains of Israel, “You devour people, and you bereave your nation of children” (Ezek. 36:13). Yet this is simply the result of the people of Israel’s alienation from their God. Once their relationship with him is restored—they as his people and he as their God—then their inheritance will indeed prove to have been assigned in pleasant places and to be a beautiful portion (cf. Ps. 16:6). The curse will be lifted, and with it the reproaches cast upon them by their neighbors.