Ezekiel 28:20–23

Ezekiel 28:20 — "Yahweh's word came to me, saying" This formulaic opening — appearing dozens of times throughout Ezekiel — is far from mechanical. The Hebrew wayĕhî dĕbar-YHWH ʾēlay lēʾmōr signals the prophetic reception of a divinely initiated word. Ezekiel does not speak on his own authority or out of historical analysis; he speaks because he has been addressed. In the architecture of the book, this verse introduces the shortest of the oracles against foreign nations (chapters 25–32), and its brevity is itself significant: even a few words from the God of Israel constitute a complete and irresistible decree.

Ezekiel 28:21 — "Son of man, set your face toward Sidon, and prophesy against it" The command to "set your face" (śîm pānêkā) is a physical gesture of deliberate, confrontational orientation. Earlier, Ezekiel had set his face toward Jerusalem (Ezek 4:3), toward the mountains of Israel (Ezek 6:2), and toward other nations. The gesture embodies the prophet's role as a physical instrument of the divine word — his body, posture, and speech are all conscripted into service. Sidon (modern Saïda in Lebanon) was one of the oldest and most prestigious cities of Phoenicia, a great maritime and commercial power. Unlike Tyre, which receives an extended and elaborate oracle just before this one (Ezek 26–28), Sidon is addressed with stark economy. This disproportion itself communicates something: Sidon is not exempted from divine attention simply because it is less prominent. God's prophetic word reaches every corner of the ancient Near East.

Sidon had a long and deeply negative association in the Hebrew scriptures. It was from Sidon's royal house that Jezebel came — the Phoenician queen who brought Baal worship into the Northern Kingdom and systematically persecuted the prophets of Israel (1 Kings 16:31). Sidon thus represents not merely political opposition to Israel, but active corruption of Israel's covenant fidelity. The prophetic word against Sidon therefore carries a moral and theological weight beyond mere geopolitics.

Ezekiel 28:22 — "And say, 'The Lord Yahweh says'" The doubled divine name ʾădōnāy YHWH — rendered in many translations as "the Lord GOD" — is a characteristic marker of the book of Ezekiel, appearing over two hundred times. It combines the relational title of divine sovereignty (ʾădōnāy, "My Lord") with the personal covenant name (YHWH), the name revealed to Moses at the burning bush (Exod 3:14). Together, they assert both transcendent lordship over all nations and intimate covenant identity with Israel. Sidon is being addressed not by a tribal deity, but by the Lord of all creation and history.

Ezekiel 28:23 — "For I will send pestilence into her" The word translated "pestilence" (deber) is one of the great instruments of divine judgment in the Hebrew Bible — alongside sword, famine, and wild beasts, it forms part of a tetrad of punishments that Ezekiel deploys repeatedly (cf. Ezek 14:21). Pestilence is not random epidemic; within the prophetic framework it is a divine sending (šālaḥ), a purposeful act. The fragment ends here in this cluster, but the full oracle continues through verse 26, culminating in the refrain "then they shall know that I am the LORD." This recognition formula (wĕyādĕʿû kî-ʾănî YHWH) is the theological heartbeat of the entire passage and of the book of Ezekiel as a whole.

Typologically, the oracle against Sidon anticipates the Church's understanding that no human power — however ancient, wealthy, or cultured — stands beyond the reach of divine justice. Origen and later Jerome read the Phoenician oracles as figures of spiritual pride: Sidon, like Tyre, represents the city of human self-sufficiency that refuses to acknowledge God as the source of its prosperity. Jerome, in his Commentary on Ezekiel, explicitly links Tyre and Sidon with the pride of worldly wisdom that must be humbled before Christ's lordship can be recognized.

Catholic tradition reads this oracle within a rich framework of divine pedagogy — the teaching that God's judgments, even when terrible, are ordered toward recognition, conversion, and ultimately salvation. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that "God's justice and his mercy are not opposed; rather both flow from the same divine love" (CCC §211). The oracle against Sidon does not contradict this: the pestilence sent against the city is the means by which, as the fuller oracle states, "they shall know that I am the LORD." Judgment is itself a form of divine self-communication.

St. Gregory the Great, in his Moralia in Job and his homilies, frequently returns to the theme that nations which enjoy prosperity without gratitude or acknowledgment of God are already in a state of spiritual ruin; the external calamity simply makes visible what is already interior. Sidon's pestilence, in Gregory's reading, is not merely punishment but revelation — it strips away the illusions of self-sufficiency.

The Church Fathers also note the Christological dimension of such oracles. Origen (Homilies on Ezekiel) and Theodoret of Cyrus observe that the final word of these judgment oracles — "you shall know that I am the LORD" — is never simply retrospective condemnation. It is an invitation to recognition that ultimately finds its fullest expression in the Incarnation, where the God of Israel makes himself definitively known in the person of Jesus Christ. The oracle against Sidon thus belongs, in the Catholic interpretive tradition, to the long preparation of humanity to receive the revelation of God's face in Christ (cf. CCC §702).

Lumen Gentium §16 teaches that God's saving will extends even to those outside the visible bounds of the Church, and that divine providence uses history — including its painful moments — to draw all peoples toward him.

Contemporary Catholics can be tempted to read oracles of divine judgment as embarrassing relics — too harsh for modern sensibilities, best skipped over in favor of more consoling passages. But these verses offer a deeply needed corrective. They remind us that God is not indifferent to the conduct of nations, institutions, and cultures. When powerful secular structures — whether ancient Sidon or modern equivalents — are built on pride, exploitation, and the displacement of God, they do not simply thrive indefinitely. History itself becomes a form of prophetic speech.

For the individual Catholic, these verses issue a quiet but serious challenge: have I built portions of my life on a kind of personal "Sidon" — on achievements, networks, or identities that effectively function as if God were unnecessary? The prophetic posture of Ezekiel — body turned, face set, word spoken regardless of reception — models what it looks like to remain anchored in divine truth even when the surrounding culture considers itself beyond accountability. The discipline of examining one's conscience not only for personal sins but for complicity in structures of pride and injustice is squarely within the scope of Catholic moral teaching (cf. CCC §1868).