Ezekiel 9:1 - Exposition

He cried, etc. The voice comes, as before, from the human form, seen as a theophany, in the midst of the Divine glory. Cause them that have charge over the city. The noun is an abstract plural, commonly rendered "visitation" ( Isaiah 10:3 ; Jeremiah 11:23 , and elsewhere). Here, however, it clearly stands for persons (just as we use "the watch" for "the watchmen"), and is so used in Isaiah 60:17 ; 2 Kings 11:18 (comp. Ezekiel 44:11 ). The persons addressed are called "men," but they are clearly thought of as superhuman; like the angels who came to Sodom ( Genesis 19:1 ); like the angel with the drawn sword in 2 Samuel 24:16 ; 1 Chronicles 21:16 . His destroying weapon. The word clearly implies something different from a sword, but corresponds in its vagueness to the Hebrew. In 1 Chronicles 21:2 the Hebrew for "slaughter weapon" implies an instrument for crashing into fragments, probably an axe or mace. A cognate word in Jeremiah 51:20 is translated "battle axe," and the LXX . gives that meaning here, as also does the margin of the Revised Version.