Ezekiel 36:6-7 - Exposition

Because ye have borne the shame of the heathen ( i.e. the shame cast upon you by the heathen, see Ezekiel 34:29 )… surely the heathen that are about you, they shall bear their shame. Not the shame which should be cast upon them by Israel, which would be retaliation, but their own shame—the shame due to them in virtue of the Divine law of retribution ( Ezekiel 16:52 ), their own curses come home to roost, Ezekiel seeming to distinguish between retaliation and retribution. "The law [of retribution] is demanded by the absolute righteousness of God. The judicial visitations of God cannot possibly be one-sided. Punishment can so much the less strike Israel alone, as precisely in its punishment the deep degradation of heathendom, its apostasy from God and its pride, has set itself forth in the most striking way" (Havernick). The certainty that this law would operate in the case of the heathen no less than in that of Israel, the prophet expresses by representing Jehovah as having lifted up his hand , or sworn that it should be so (comp. Ezekiel 20:5 , Ezekiel 20:6 , Ezekiel 20:15 , Ezekiel 20:23 , Ezekiel 20:28 ; Ezekiel 47:14 ; Exodus 6:8 ; Numbers 14:30 ; Deuteronomy 32:40 ; and Virgil, ' AE neid,' 12.195, "Teaditque ad sidera dextram").