"Humans are
Fuel for Fire - As for you, son of man, prophesy: Thus says the Lord GOD
against the Ammonites and their insults: A sword, a sword is drawn for
slaughter, burnished to consume and to flash lightning, because you planned
with false visions and lying divinations to lay it on the necks of depraved and
wicked men whose day has come when their crimes are at an end. Return it
to its sheath! In the place where you were created, in the land of your
origin, I will judge you. I will pour out my indignation upon you,
breathing my fiery wrath upon you, I will hand you over to ravaging men,
artisans of destruction. You shall be fuel for the fire, your blood shall
flow throughout the land. You shall not be remembered, for I, the
LORD, have spoken. (Ezekiel 21:28-32 NAB)"
This
passage is a prophecy against the Ammonites.
The Ammonites were an ancient nation who were descendants of Lot
(Abraham's nephew) and one of his daughters (Genesis 19:30-38). The Ammonites were constantly at war with the
nation of Israel, and their relations were always hostile (Judges 3:13; 2
Chronicles 20; Nehemiah 4:7). They even
oppressed the Israelites for 18 years (Judges 10:6-9). Again and again, their mission seemed to be
not only to oppress Israel and take their land, but to humiliate and disgrace
them: they threatened to gouge the right eyes out of every man of Jabesh Gilead
(1 Samuel 11:1-2), and they humiliated a peaceful delegation of Israelite
ambassadors by shaving their beards and cutting off their clothing, leading to
a war (2 Samuel 10; 1 Chronicles 19).
They were also known for their cruelty in times of war: "This is what the LORD says: 'For
three sins of Ammon, even for four, I will not relent. Because he ripped open the pregnant women of
Gilead in order to extend his borders...'" (Amos 1:13, NIV).
This particular passage in Ezekiel mirrors other passages
in the books of prophecy of the Old Testament, stating that God would wipe out
the nation of the Ammonites (Jeremiah 49:1-6; Ezekiel 25:1-7; Zephaniah 2:8-9). God had given the Ammonites a chance to make
peace with Israel during the reign of King David, but the Ammonites rejected
the peaceful offer (2 Samuel 10; 1 Chronicles 19). Eventually, God's patience ran out, and he
determined to allow them to be conquered as they had conquered and oppressed
other nations. By the end of the Roman
Empire, the nation of Ammon was
completely dissolved, absorbed into the Arabians [1].
This is a prophecy of war, and like many of the
prophecies, it describes what the conquerors will do to the nation that is
being conquered. The Bible does not
record that the Ammonites were actually burned alive; "fuel for the
fire" can be literally translated as "food for the fire" or "consumed
by God's anger". Fire and burning
are used in Hebrew to designate any destruction, whether of humans or objects. To be consumed by fire, in this context,
means to be destroyed in war [2]. The
meaning is not necessarily literal. In
any case, as another passage in Ezekiel notes, God does not take pleasure in
the deaths of anyone (Ezekiel 18:23, 32; 33:11).
References
[1] Justin Martyr's
Dialogue With Trypho, (originally written circa 160 CE) translated by Henry
Brown, 1745. Pg. 167.
An Introduction to the
Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, Thomas Hartwell Horne, 1836. Pg. 405.
[2] Gesenius's
Lexicon,
Heinrich Friedrich Wilhelm Gesenius (translated by Samuel P. Tregelles), 1847
