Ezekiel 35:13

Thus with your mouth ye have boasted against me - Ye have said you would enter into those lands, and take them for your inheritance; though ye knew that God had promised them to the Israelites, and that you should never have them for your portion.

JUDGMENT ON EDOM. (Eze 35:1-15) Mount Seir--that is, Idumea (Gen 36:9). Singled out as badly pre-eminent in its bitterness against God's people, to represent all their enemies everywhere and in all ages. So in Isa 34:5; Isa 63:1-4, Edom, the region of the greatest enmity towards God's people, is the ideal scene of the final judgments of all God's foes. "Seir" means "shaggy," alluding to its rugged hills and forests.

Thus with your mouth ye have boasted against me,.... Or, "magnified against me" (a); spoke great swelling words of vanity, or had a mouth opened to speak great things and blasphemy against God, as antichrist is said to do, Rev 13:5, what is spoken against the Lord's people is taken by him as spoken against himself: and have multiplied your words against me; not in prayer, by deprecations or supplications, as the word (b) used sometimes signifies; but in reproaches and calumnies, vilifying expressions and hard speeches, against his people, in great numbers; which is all one as if they were directed against him: I have heard them; these the Lord takes notice of, and will call to an account for, either here or hereafter; see Jde 1:15. (a) "magnificastis contra me", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Polanus, Cocceius, Starckius. (b) ab "orare suppliciter".

It was promised, in the foregoing chapter, that when the time to favour Zion, yea, the set time, should come, especially the time for sending the Messiah and setting up his kingdom in the world, God would cause the enemies of his church to cease and the blessings and comforts of the church to abound. This chapter enlarges upon the former promise, concerning the destruction of the enemies of the church; the next chapter upon the latter promise, the replenishing of the church with blessings. Mount Seir (that is, Edom) is the enemy prophesied against in this chapter, but fitly put here, as in the prophecy of Obadiah, for all the enemies of the church; for, as those all walked in the way of Cain that hated Abel, so those all walked in the way of Esau who hated Jacob, but over whom Jacob, by virtue of a particular blessing, was to have dominion. Now here we have, I. The sin charged upon the Edomites, and that was their spite and malice to Israel (Eze 35:5, Eze 35:10-13). II. The ruin threatened, that should come upon them for this sin. God will be against them (Eze 35:3) and then their country shall be laid waste (Eze 35:4), depopulated, and made quite desolate (Eze 35:6-9), and left so when other nations that had been wasted should recover themselves (Eze 35:14, Eze 35:15).

35:13-15 The Edomites mistakenly assumed that God’s judgment of his people and his abandonment of the Temple meant that his covenant with Israel was no longer in effect. The Edomites had boasted and elevated themselves against both Israel and the Lord. The God of Israel would not tolerate such boasting, for he is the sovereign Lord of all. His choice of Israel and his giving them the land would not be revoked.