Ezekiel 21:6 - Exposition

Sigh therefore , etc. As in other instances ( Ezekiel 4:4 ; Ezekiel 5:1-4 ), the prophet dramatizes the coming calamity. He is to act the part of a mourner, whose sighs are so deep that they seem to "break his loins" (compare, for the gesture, Nahum 2:1 , Nahum 2:10 , Isaiah 21:3 ; Jeremiah 30:6 ). The strange action was meant to lead to questions. What did it mean? And then he is to answer that he does it "for the tidings" which are to him as certain as if they had already come. He is but doing what all would do, when the messenger brought word, as in Ezekiel 33:21 , five years later, that the city was at last smitten.