Ezekiel 28:20-24
God displays His glory by judging malicious neighboring hostility: the Lord proves Himself holy among the nations and removes the briers and thorns that have wounded His people.
20 Yahweh’s word came to me, saying,
21 “Son of man, set your face toward Sidon, and prophesy against it,
22 and say, ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “Behold, I am against you, Sidon. I will be glorified among you. Then they will know that I am Yahweh, when I have executed judgments in her, and am sanctified in her.
23 For I will send pestilence into her, and blood into her streets. The wounded will fall within her, with the sword on her on every side. Then they will know that I am Yahweh.
24 “ ‘ “There will be no more a pricking brier to the house of Israel, nor a hurting thorn of any that are around them that scorned them. Then they will know that I am the Lord Yahweh.”
God displays His glory by judging malicious neighboring hostility: the LORD proves Himself holy among the nations and removes the briers and thorns that have wounded His people.
To command Ezekiel to prophesy against Sidon and declare that the Sovereign LORD is against her, will display His glory within her, will prove Himself holy through judgments of plague, blood, and sword, and will remove the malicious neighboring pressure that has pierced Israel like briers and thorns.
The oracle is spoken within Ezekiel's exilic ministry and belongs to the foreign-nations judgment sequence surrounding the fall of Jerusalem and the exposure of hostile powers around Judah. Ezekiel's first hearers are the exiles, who must learn that the LORD remains sovereign over the nations and attentive to the hostility surrounding His people even after Jerusalem's collapse. This unit belongs to the exile-and-restoration stage, where the LORD judges both His covenant people and the nations, vindicates His holiness, and prepares promises of regathering and secure dwelling.