Ezekiel 5:1

“And as for you, son of man, obtain for yourself a sharp knife for shaving hair, and you shall take it and draw it across your head and across your beard. And you shall obtain for yourself a balance for weighing, and you shall divide the hair.

Catholic Public Domain Version

In The King James Version

And thou, son of man, take thee a sharp knife, take thee a barber’s razor, and cause it to pass upon thine head and upon thy beard: then take thee balances to weigh, and divide the hair.

In Context

2A third part you shall burn with fire in the midst of the city, according to the completion of the days of the siege. And you shall take a third part, and you shall cut it with the knife all around. Yet truly, the other third, you shall scatter to the wind, for I will unsheathe the sword after them.

Read all of Ezekiel 5

Cross References

Leviticus 21:5Neither shall they shave their head or their beard, and they shall not make incisions in their flesh.

Jeremiah 19:1Thus says the Lord: “Go, and take a potter’s earthen bottle from the elders of the people and from the elders of the priests.

Ezekiel 44:20Now they shall not shave their heads, and they shall not grow long hair. Instead, they shall trim the hair of their heads.

Matthew Henry on Ezekiel 5:1

In this chapter we have a further, and no less terrible, denunciation of the judgments of God, which were coming with all speed and force upon the Jewish nation, which would utterly ruin it; for when God judges he will overcome. This destruction of Judah and Jerusalem is here, I. Represented by a sign, the cutting, and burning, and scattering of hair, ver. 1-4 . II. That sign is expounded, and applied to Jerusalem. 1. Sin is charged upon Jerusalem as the cause of this desolation—contempt of God's law ( ver. 5-7 )… Read the whole commentary →

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