Ezekiel 30:21 - Exposition

I have broken the arm . The metaphor was in itself one of the most familiar ( Ezekiel 17:9 ; Ezekiel 22:6 ; 1 Samuel 2:31 ; Jeremiah 48:25 ). What is characteristic in Ezekiel is the way in which he follows the figure, so to speak, into its surgical details. A man with a broken arm might be cured and fight again; but it was not to be so with Pharaoh. His arm was not to be bound with a roller (the equivalent of the modern process of putting it in "splints"). The Hebrew word for "roller" is not found elsewhere, and Ezekiel's use of it is one of the instances of his knowledge of surgery. The corresponding verb is used by him of the bandages or swaddling-clothes of infancy ( Ezekiel 16:4 ).