The God Who Settles Accounts Text: Ezekiel 25:15-17
Introduction: The Divine Memory
We live in an age that has a desperately short memory. Our culture is infatuated with the immediate, the novel, and the now. It believes that history is a river of forgetfulness, and that old sins, old hatreds, and old accounts can simply be washed away by the current of progress. The modern mind, when it is feeling particularly sentimental, wants to believe in a God who is something of a genial, slightly senile grandfather in the sky, a God who winks at rebellion and whose forgiveness is little more than divine forgetfulness. He just lets things go.
But the God of the Bible is not forgetful. The God of the Bible, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is a God who remembers. He remembers His covenants, He remembers His promises, He remembers His people, and He remembers the sins of those who set themselves against Him. He keeps meticulous accounts. And in His own time, at the right time, He settles every one of them. This is not a bug in the system; it is the central feature of His righteous government of the world. A universe where accounts are not settled is a universe without justice, and a universe without justice is a universe without meaning. It is a moral slop bucket.
Here in Ezekiel 25, the prophet has been delivering a series of short, sharp, thunderclap judgments against the nations surrounding Israel. These are not random broadsides. God is methodically going around the perimeter of Judah, to Ammon, Moab, Edom, and now, to Philistia. And in each case, the charge is specific. The charge is not merely that they are pagans. The charge is that they have sinned against God by sinning against His people, particularly in the moment of Judah's calamity. They kicked God's people when they were down. And in doing so, they revealed their true heart toward Yahweh Himself.
The prophecy against the Philistines is brief, but it is potent. It is a distilled lesson in the nature of divine justice. It shows us that God sees the motives of the heart, that He judges based on a long and consistent pattern of behavior, and that the ultimate purpose of His vengeance is the revelation of His own glorious name. God is not a cosmic reactionary. His judgments are not fits of pique. They are the deliberate, considered, and righteous response to entrenched, high-handed evil.
The Text
‘Thus says Lord Yahweh, “Because the Philistines have acted in revenge and have taken vengeance with scorn of soul to bring ruin with everlasting enmity,” therefore thus says Lord Yahweh, “Behold, I will stretch out My hand against the Philistines and cut off the Cherethites and cause the remnant of the seacoast to perish. So I will execute great vengeance on them with wrathful reproofs; and they will know that I am Yahweh when I lay My vengeance on them.” ’ ”
(Ezekiel 25:15-17 LSB)
The Indictment: A Grudge Match Against God (v. 15)
We begin with the charge sheet, the divine indictment in verse 15.
"‘Thus says Lord Yahweh, “Because the Philistines have acted in revenge and have taken vengeance with scorn of soul to bring ruin with everlasting enmity,”" (Ezekiel 25:15 LSB)
Notice how God begins. He lays out the reason for the sentence before He pronounces the sentence. God is not an arbitrary tyrant. His justice is rational and public. The first thing we see is the motive: "revenge." The Philistines have a long and storied history as the perennial enemies of Israel. From the time of the Judges, through Samson, Saul, and David, they were the uncircumcised thorns in Israel's side. Their conflict was not a recent flare-up; it was an ancient rivalry.
But God digs deeper than the mere fact of their actions. He diagnoses the condition of their heart. They took this vengeance "with scorn of soul." This is not just geopolitical maneuvering. This is malice. This is contempt. The Hebrew speaks of a deep-seated loathing. They did not just want to defeat Judah; they wanted to desecrate her. They despised the people of God, and in despising the people of God, they despised God Himself.
And what was the goal of their scornful revenge? It was "to bring ruin with everlasting enmity." The Philistines did not want a truce. They did not want a treaty. They wanted annihilation. Their hatred was not temporary; it was, in their minds, an "everlasting enmity." This is covenantal language turned on its head. God makes an everlasting covenant of peace with His people. The enemies of God, in their rebellion, seek to establish an everlasting covenant of hatred. This is the antithesis, the great spiritual war that runs through all of history, which began in the Garden when God put enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman (Gen. 3:15).
The Philistines, in their bitter, scornful, and perpetual hatred of Israel, were simply playing their assigned role as the seed of the serpent. They saw Judah's fall to Babylon not as a tragedy to be mourned, but as an opportunity to be exploited. They piled on. They took their shot. And they did so with glee. What they failed to understand is that while God was using Babylon to discipline His son, He does not take kindly to the neighborhood bullies who join in the beating.
The Sentence: An Eye for an Enmity (v. 16)
Because the indictment is clear, the sentence is therefore just. God responds in kind in verse 16.
"therefore thus says Lord Yahweh, “Behold, I will stretch out My hand against the Philistines and cut off the Cherethites and cause the remnant of the seacoast to perish." (Ezekiel 25:16 LSB)
The "therefore" is the hinge of divine logic. Because of their heart, therefore My hand. The punishment fits the crime, not just in proportion but in kind. They stretched out their hand in vengeance, so God will stretch out His hand in judgment. The language is personal: "I will stretch out My hand." This is not an impersonal, karmic force. This is the personal, intentional act of the sovereign God of Israel.
He says He will "cut off the Cherethites." The Cherethites were a clan of the Philistines, likely originating from Crete, who were known as fierce warriors. In fact, some of them had served as loyal mercenaries in King David's own bodyguard. But here, God lumps them in with the whole rotten stock of Philistia. This is a reminder that covenantal identity trumps all other allegiances. You can admire certain qualities in the ungodly, you can even employ their talents, but in the final analysis, God judges nations and peoples based on their corporate standing before Him.
God's judgment will be total. He will "cause the remnant of the seacoast to perish." The Philistines were a sea people; their power was concentrated in their five cities along the coastal plain. God is saying that He will wipe them out from their place of strength. There will be no remnant left. They wanted to bring ruin with everlasting enmity against Judah; God will bring ruin with everlasting finality against them. This is the lex talionis, the eye for an eye principle, applied on a national and covenantal scale. As they have done, so it will be done to them.
The Purpose: The Great Revelation (v. 17)
Finally, in verse 17, God reveals the ultimate purpose behind this terrifying display of judgment.
"So I will execute great vengeance on them with wrathful reproofs; and they will know that I am Yahweh when I lay My vengeance on them.” ’ ”" (Ezekiel 25:17 LSB)
God's actions are not just punitive; they are instructive. They are revelatory. He will execute "great vengeance on them with wrathful reproofs." A reproof is a rebuke, a sharp correction intended to teach a lesson. God's wrath is not a blind rage; it is a pedagogical wrath. It is a fury that teaches. And what is the lesson? What is the final exam that the Philistines, and all the nations watching, are about to take?
The lesson is this: "and they will know that I am Yahweh." This phrase is the drumbeat of the book of Ezekiel. It is the ultimate goal of everything God does, in salvation and in judgment. Pharaoh came to know that He was Yahweh when the plagues fell and the Red Sea crashed down. Israel came to know He was Yahweh in their deliverance. And here, the Philistines will come to know Him as Yahweh, the covenant-keeping God of Israel, precisely at the moment His vengeance falls upon them.
This is a terrifying thought. You can come to know God in one of two ways. You can know Him as your Savior, through the blood of His Son, and find mercy. Or you can know Him as your Judge, through the fire of His wrath, and find justice. But one way or another, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. There are no atheists in hell. There are only those who learned too late the lesson that God was teaching all along. The Philistines would learn that the God of Israel was not some local, tribal deity who had been defeated by the gods of Babylon. They would learn that He is Yahweh, the sovereign Lord of all history, who disciplines His own people and who utterly destroys His implacable foes.
Conclusion: Vengeance Belongs to God
So what do we do with a passage like this? First, we must see that the principle of God's righteous vengeance has not been retired. It has been fulfilled. All the wrathful reproofs, all the great vengeance that was due to us for our own scornful, high-handed rebellion against God, was laid upon Jesus Christ at the cross. The final judgment, the ultimate expression of God's vengeance against sin, fell on Him. If you are in Christ, you have already passed through the judgment. The Philistine in your own heart has been cut off.
Second, this means we are commanded to leave all personal vengeance to God. Paul quotes Deuteronomy when he says, "Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord'" (Romans 12:19). The Philistines were judged because they took vengeance into their own hands with malice in their hearts. We are to do the opposite. We are to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, not because their sins do not matter, but precisely because they do. Their sins are so grievous that only the infinite wrath of God is sufficient to deal with them. Our petty acts of revenge are nothing but a sinful attempt to usurp God's throne.
But leaving vengeance to God does not mean becoming passive in the face of evil. It means we actively entrust the case to the only righteous Judge. It means we pray the imprecatory psalms, not as personal vendettas, but as corporate cries for God's kingdom to come and His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. It is a prayer for God to vindicate His own name, to protect His people, and to bring justice to the earth. We are asking God to do what He promises right here in Ezekiel that He will do.
The everlasting enmity is real. The seed of the serpent still rages against the seed of the woman. The spirit of the Philistines, that scornful contempt for Christ and His church, is alive and well in our world. But the Lord Yahweh still sits on His throne. He still stretches out His hand. And He has promised that the gates of Hell will not prevail against His church. He will get the glory. He will settle all accounts. And in the end, everyone, whether in heaven or in hell, will know that He is Yahweh.