If the solemn pronouncements of chapter 5 had Jerusalem particularly in view, in chapters 6 and 7 the whole land falls under God’s solemn dealing, and the reason for it is plainly expressed: it was idolatry, the forsaking of God for another god. Upon the mountains and hills, the watercourses and valleys once described, even by the unbelieving spies (Exodus 13:27), as a land flowing with milk and honey, God was about to bring a devouring sword.
The altars should be desolate, their sun-images (see margin) broken and the worshipers slain before their idols. The Hebrew Scriptures contain several words for idols, but that which Ezekiel uses in every instance is one of contempt, meaning “objects rolled about.” To faith this was a fit name for them, but they were the means Satan’s craft successfully employed to lead men to give up God. When the sword of vengeance passed through the land, the children of Israel would know that Jehovah had visited them, and their idols would be powerless to help them.
In mercy to Israel God would leave a remnant (verse 8), but these would be only they who escaped the sword, and they should be scattered through the countries. Such is Israel, or at least Judah, today, (for the ten tribes are lost to our view)—a people under God’s displeasure, making their homes as best they can among the Gentiles they once despised.
Verses 9-10 bring a gleam of hope for Israel; not yet have they been fulfilled, though the people have not worshiped idols since the Babylonian captivity.
Verses 13-14 emphasize the judgment upon all the abominations of the iniquities of the house of Israel, and show that Nebuchadnezzar’s hosts ravaged the land beside besieging Jerusalem. Where-ever idol worship was carried on—round their altars, on every high hill, on all the tops of the mountains, under every green tree, and under every thick terebinth— the places where they offered sweet savor to all their idols, there would the slain be found, their last steps leading them to seek these Satanic substitutes for the worship of the true God.
Diblath, a wilderness whose identity is now unknown, we may well suppose to have been a very desolate place in Ezekiel’s day, but the whole land of Israel was to be more desolate than Diblath had been.