Ezekiel 35:1-36:15 - Mount Seir and the mountains of Israel

Edom looks at Israel’s broken cities and sees an opportunity. The Lord looks at those same mountains and speaks a promise. Ezekiel 35:1-36:15 sets two mountain countries before us: Seir, hardened in ancient enmity, and Israel, shamed and waiting for its people to return. The difference is not that one people can boast in innocence. It is that no enemy can turn another’s judgment into a right to plunder.

The Lord’s word reaches both the triumphant heart and the desolate place. It forbids delight in a brother’s ruin, then gives the ruined land a future. External repair without inner cleansing would simply repeat the old cycle; the promise of a new heart follows in Ezekiel 36:16-38.

Previous: Ezekiel 34 · Next: Ezekiel 36:16-38

Historical and Scriptural Context

Jerusalem’s fall in chapter 33 is followed by the Lord’s promise to shepherd in chapter 34. These oracles now answer Edom’s claim on the emptied land. Genesis 36 identifies Edom with Esau’s descendants; Obadiah 10-14 and Psalm 137:7 (LXX 136:7) remember the betrayal of brotherhood when Jerusalem fell. Ezekiel 25 has already judged that gloating. The next study turns from the land to the people whose hearts must be renewed; chapter 37 will show the dry bones raised and the divided people gathered.

Geographical Significance ⛰️

Mount Seir is the mountainous territory of Edom, south and southeast of Judah, the land of Esau’s descendants. In the prophetic memory Edom stands for brotherly enmity that turned into opportunistic violence when Israel fell. The sin is not foreign existence but the claim that Israel’s disaster left the land ownerless and available for seizure. The mountains of Israel answer Mount Seir. The land that bore reproach will be cultivated again, but the deeper wound is the people’s uncleanness. God restores both the inheritance and the heart.

The land promise first addresses exile. The exiles longed for return to a concrete place after covenant judgment. The promise is never separated from holiness: the land is restored because the Lord sanctifies His name by cleansing His people. In Christian reading the inheritance opens toward the Church gathered from the nations and made holy in Christ. The literal hope is not erased; it is fulfilled in a greater key. The goal is not possession without cleansing. The goal is communion with the living God.

The Characters 👥

The Lord hears Edom’s swelling words and promises fruit and inhabited cities to the shamed land. Ezekiel addresses the mountains as witnesses. Mount Seir, Edom or Idumea is the country of Esau’s descendants; the mountains of Israel await their returning people. The house of Israel is wounded by hostile neighbors and remains responsible for its own covenant life.

Mount Seir judged for enmity and hostile claim (Ezekiel 35:1-15)

¹ And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ² Son of man, set thy face against mount Seir, and prophesy against it, ³ and say to it, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, O mount Seir, and I will stretch out my hand against thee, and will make thee a waste, and thou shalt be made desolate. ⁴ And I will cause desolation in thy cities, and thou shalt be desolate, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord. ⁵ Because thou hast been a perpetual enemy, and hast laid wait craftily for the house of Israel, with the hand of enemies with a sword, in the time of injustice, at the last: ⁶ Therefore, as I live, saith the Lord God, verily thou hast sinned even to blood, therefore blood shall pursue thee. ⁷ And I will make mount Seir a waste, and desolate, and I will destroy from off it men and cattle: ⁸ and I will fill thy hills and thy valleys with slain men, and in all thy plains there shall fall in thee men slain with the sword. ⁹ I will make thee a perpetual desolation, and thy cities shall not be inhabited any more: and thou shalt know that I am the Lord. ¹⁰ Because thou saidst, The two nations and the two countries shall be mine, and I shall inherit them; whereas the Lord is there: ¹¹ therefore, as I live, saith the Lord, I will even deal with thee according to thine enmity, and I will be made known to thee when I shall judge thee: ¹² and thou shalt know that I am the Lord. I have heard the voice of thy blasphemies, whereas thou hast said, The desert mountains of Israel are given to us for food; ¹³ and thou hast spoken swelling words against me with thy mouth: I have heard them. ¹⁴ Thus saith the Lord; When all the earth is rejoicing, I will make thee desert. ¹⁵ Thou shalt be desert, O mount Seir, and all Idumea; and it shall be utterly consumed: and thou shalt know that I am the Lord their God.

Edom’s sin is named with precision. Brenton preserves “perpetual enemy,” “laid wait craftily,” and “sinned even to blood.” The decisive claim appears in verse 10: “The two nations and the two countries shall be mine, and I shall inherit them; whereas the Lord is there.” Edom treats the land as abandoned property because the people have fallen. The prophetic qualification “whereas the Lord is there” answers Edom’s boast: the land is not ownerless merely because Israel has been defeated. The words about the Lord’s presence are the oracle’s correction of the claim, not Edom’s own confession. God hears the blasphemies and the swelling words. Judgment is severe because the sin is the public denial that the Lord remains faithful to His covenant even in judgment.

The original context matters. Edom descended from Esau, Jacob’s brother. The hostility is not generic foreign enmity but the betrayal of kinship when the weaker brother is down. Ezekiel refuses to let the Church read this as permission for personal revenge or ethnic contempt. Divine judgment on opportunistic hatred is not the same as human vindictiveness. The lesson is sober: it is possible to use another’s collapse as an opening for possession while speaking as if God has left the field. The Church must refuse that spirit in the heart.

The mountains of Israel restored from shame (Ezekiel 36:1-15)

¹ And thou, son of man, prophesy to the mountains of Israel, and say to the mountains of Israel, Hear ye the word of the Lord: ² Thus saith the Lord God; Because the enemy has said against you, Aha, the old waste places are become a possession for us: ³ therefore prophesy, and say, Thus saith the Lord God; Because ye have been dishonoured, and hated by those round about you, that ye might be a possession to the remainder of the nations, and ye became a by-word, and a reproach to the nations: ⁴ therefore, ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord; Thus saith the Lord to the mountains, and to the hills, and to the streams, and to the valleys, and to the places that have been made desolate and destroyed, and to the cities that have been deserted, and have become a spoil and a trampling to the nations that were left round about; ⁵ therefore thus saith the Lord; Verily in the fire of my wrath have I spoken against the rest of the nations, and against all Idumea, because they have appropriated my land to themselves for a possession with joy, disregarding the lives of the inhabitants, to destroy it by plunder: ⁶ therefore prophesy concerning the land of Israel, and say to the mountains, and to the hills, and to the valleys, and to the forests, Thus saith the Lord; Behold, I have spoken in my jealousy and in my wrath, because ye have borne the reproaches of the heathen: ⁷ therefore I will lift up my hand against the nations that are round about you; they shall bear their reproach. ⁸ But your grapes and your fruits, O mountains of Israel, shall my people eat; for they are hoping to come. ⁹ For, behold, I am toward you, and I will have respect to you, and ye shall be tilled and sown: ¹⁰ and I will multiply men upon you, even all the house of Israel to the end: and the cities shall be inhabited, and the desolate land shall be built upon. ¹¹ And I will multiply men and cattle upon you; and I will cause you to dwell as at the beginning, and will treat you well, as in your former times: and ye shall know that I am the Lord. ¹² And I will increase men upon you, even my people Israel; and they shall inherit you, and ye shall be to them for a possession; and ye shall no more be bereaved of them. ¹³ Thus saith the Lord God: Because they said to thee, Thou land devourest men, and hast been bereaved of thy nation; ¹⁴ therefore thou shalt no more devour men, and thou shalt no more bereave thy nation, saith the Lord God. ¹⁵ And there shall no more be heard against you the reproach of the nations, and ye shall no more bear the revilings of the peoples, saith the Lord God.

The prophet turns from the enemy’s claim to the land’s shame. The enemy said “Aha,” and the land has been devoured, mocked, and called a by-word. God speaks directly to the geography of loss: mountains, hills, streams, valleys, forests, ruined cities. The promise is concrete: grapes and fruits will be eaten, cities inhabited, the land tilled and sown, men and cattle multiplied, the reproach lifted. The land that was said to devour its people will no longer do so.

This is not a political slogan. The literal promise addressed exiles whose home had become a spectacle of judgment. At the same time, the land is restored only as part of the sanctifying of God’s name. External repair without inner cleansing would simply repeat the old cycle. The next sections move from land to name to water to heart to Spirit.

Gems from the Fathers 💎

St Cyprian, in On Jealousy and Envy §§6 and 17, traces the way envy becomes greed, ambition, and hostility, then calls the Christian to heal the habit by rejoicing in another’s good. “Love those whom you previously had hated”.¹ Edom’s refusal of brotherhood thus reaches into an ordinary temptation: treating another person’s loss as one’s own advancement. Christ’s sweetness heals that bitterness so that a neighbor’s restoration can become our joy.

The Church’s Voice in Worship ⛪

The prayer over Jerusalem’s betrayal belongs with Ezekiel 25, where Psalm 137 (LXX 136), prayed at Compline and the Third Watch of Midnight Prayer, gives the wounded a voice before God. Here the mountains teach us to refuse the next step from remembered injury into delight at another person’s fall.

Bring one desolate place to prayer without declaring it beyond renewal. Ask for its healing even if you will not be the person who receives the credit or benefit.

Iconography Connection 🖼️

The two mountain countries give the passage its own visual contrast: Seir claims, Israel waits to bear fruit. Neither a ruined city nor another person’s disgrace is empty space for our appetite. The Lord hears what is said over both.

Spiritual Fruit 🍇

1. Refuse the sin of Edom in the heart. Edom rejoiced over ruin and called another’s weakness an opportunity for possession. Ask where you are tempted to possess what belongs to someone else because they are tired, exposed, or disgraced. Repent of malicious joy before it becomes action or speech.

2. Let God name both wounds and sins. Israel was mocked by enemies, but Israel also defiled the land. A healed soul does not choose between victimhood and responsibility. Bring your own sins to confession, and bring the wounds others inflicted into prayer and safe pastoral care. Being harmed is not itself something to confess as guilt.

Lord, forbid us to build our security from another person’s ruin. Give us the patience to pray over desolate places, and the mercy to welcome the good You restore there.

Teaching Notes

Ezekiel 35:1-15 - Mount Seir judged for enmity and hostile claim

• Ask: Where do we see the spirit of Edom in ordinary life, rejoicing over another’s fall or treating someone’s weakness as our opportunity?
• Emphasize: The sin is not foreign existence but perpetual enmity, bloodguilt, blasphemy, and the claim that the Lord is absent so the land is available.
• Watch for: Using the chapter to baptize personal revenge, ethnic contempt, or modern political triumphalism.
• Connect: The Lord is still there even when His people have fallen under judgment. Hostile claims against God’s inheritance will be answered.
• Practice: When you hear of a rival’s trouble, say no word about it except a prayer.

Ezekiel 36:1-15 - The mountains of Israel restored from shame

• Ask: What shame or reproach still clings to places or memories in your life or parish?
• Emphasize: God restores the land as part of sanctifying His name and healing His people. External repair without inner cleansing repeats the old cycle.
• Watch for: Teaching the land promise as a simplistic modern slogan or as a replacement for inner holiness.
• Connect: The land promise prepares for the deeper promise of the new heart.
• Practice: Name one place or memory you have called desolate, and ask God to speak to it.

Glossary

• Seir / Edom / Idumea: The mountainous country south and southeast of Judah associated with Esau’s descendants.
• The mountains of Israel: The land addressed as a witness to reproach and promised restoration.
• Holy name: The Lord’s revealed holiness and faithfulness, which His action makes known.
• Reproach: Public shame inflicted on a defeated people; the Lord promises to remove it.

Translation and Source Notes

Brenton’s words and numbering are retained. In 35:10, the clause about the Lord being there corrects Edom’s boast; it is not Edom confessing the divine presence.

Sources

Embedded Scripture is from Brenton’s English Septuagint (LXX).

• Brenton, Ezekiel 35:1-36:15; Genesis 36; Obadiah 10-14; Psalm 137:7 (LXX 136:7).
• St Cyprian of Carthage, On Jealousy and Envy §§6, 17, newadvent.org.
• St Bishoy Coptic Orthodox Church, Book of Agpeya, Compline and Midnight Third Watch, Psalm 136 (137), saintbishoy.ca.

Footnotes

1. St Cyprian of Carthage, On Jealousy and Envy §17; compare §6, newadvent.org. ↩