“Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because the enemy hath said against you, Aha, even the ancient high places are ours in possession:”
My Notes
What Does Ezekiel 36:2 Mean?
"Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because the enemy hath said against you, Aha, even the ancient high places are ours in possession." The nations surrounding Israel gloated ("Aha" — the same schadenfreude word from Ezekiel 25:3) and claimed Israel's sacred mountains as their own. The "ancient high places" (bamoth olam) are the mountains God chose for his people — Zion, Moriah, the land God gave Jacob. The enemy's claim of possession is a direct challenge to God's ownership. They're not just taking territory. They're claiming that Israel's God has lost control of his own real estate.
God responds with a prophecy of total reversal (36:1-15): the mountains the enemy claimed will produce abundance for Israel again. The "Aha" provokes divine defense of the land's permanent ownership.
Reflection Questions
- 1.What has the 'enemy' claimed as theirs that actually still belongs to God's covenant with you?
- 2.How does the nations' 'Aha' over Israel's vacant land mirror how opposition claims your desolated spaces?
- 3.What does the land still belonging to God (despite Israel's exile) teach about the durability of divine promises?
- 4.Where do you need to hear that the squatters' claim is temporary and the owner is returning?
Devotional
Aha. Again. The same syllable of gloating that condemned Ammon (25:3) now condemns every nation that looked at Israel's desolation and said: it's ours now. The high places belong to us. God's people are gone and the land is available.
The ancient high places are ours in possession. The claim is audacious: the mountains God gave to Jacob — the land promised to Abraham, the inheritance carried through four thousand years of covenant — is now claimed by the neighbors who watched Israel get exiled. They saw the vacancy and filed a claim. Finders keepers. God's people lost it. We'll take it.
But the land isn't Israel's to lose or the nations' to claim. It's God's. He gave it to his servant Jacob. The giving wasn't conditional on Israel's continuous occupation. The exile removed the tenants but didn't transfer the title. The deed stayed in God's filing cabinet the entire time Israel was in Babylon. And the nations who claimed the empty land were squatting on property that still belonged to someone else.
God's response fills the rest of chapter 36: the mountains will produce again. The trees will bear fruit. The cities will be rebuilt. The population will return. And the nations who said "Aha" will learn that the vacancy was temporary and the owner was paying attention the whole time.
If someone has claimed what was yours — if the enemy has looked at the desolation of your life and said "it's mine now" — God's response to the Aha is the same response he gives here: the land is still mine. The covenant still stands. The tenants are returning. And the squatters' days are numbered.
The ancient high places aren't available. The owner just hasn't sent the eviction notice yet.
Commentary
Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.
Thus saith the Lord God,.... By the mouth of the prophet, who was bid to prophesy:
because the enemy had said against…
Because the enemy hath said - The Idumeans thought they would shortly be put in possession of all the strong places of…
The prophet had been ordered to set his face towards the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them, Eze 6:2. Then…
Cf. Eze 25:3; Eze 26:2.
ancient high places "High places" is not used here in the usual religious sense of rural…
Cross References
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