Forge the chain, for the land is full of crimes of bloodshed, and the city is full of violence.
Interpreters refer the Prophet’s being ordered to make a chain to the captivity; for we know that captives are accustomed to be bound with chains and fetters, or manacles. Hence they explain it that God threatens the people with exile. But the Spirit seems rather to allude to criminals, who plead their cause in chains.
Here is, I. The prisoner arraigned: Make a chain, in which to drag the criminal to the bar, and set him before the tribunal of divine justice; let him stand in fetters (as a notorious malefactor), stand pinioned to receive his doom.
Commenting on Ezekiel 7:23-27
Wherefore I will bring the worst of the Heathen,.... The Chaldeans, notorious for their cruelty, savageness, and barbarity: and they shall possess their houses; which they have built, and thought to have lived and died in, and left them to their children for an inheritance; but the Chaldeans, and not their children, became their heirs, and inherited their houses and lands: I will also make...