NOTES for Eze 21:1-32
It would seem that this chapter, which describes annihilation in detail, leaves sinners no hope of escaping retribution. Yet even here we can see that the requital for sins is not fate, not a blind and indifferent force, but the manifestation of that highest justice which, in a way incomprehensible to us, is tempered by the highest mercy. The Lord does not wish to destroy sinners; rather, He shows us what we deserve, what we ourselves have provoked.
The prophetic words about the sword refer us to Christ's words: “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matt 10:34). How easy it would be to confuse the meaning of these different swords and call the coming sword an instrument of punishment! Yet that sword will not be a means of annihilation, but an instrument that separates one thing from another, life with God from life in sin.