The word of the Lord came unto me again, saying, Also, thou son of
man, appoint thee two ways, that the sword of the king of Babylon
may come: both twain shall come forth out of one land: and choose
thou a place, choose it at the head of the way to the city. Appoint
a way, that the sword may come to Rabbath of the Ammonites, and to
Judah in Jerusalem the defenced. For the king of Babylon stood at
the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use
divination: he shook his arrows to and fro, he consulted with
images, he looked in the liver. At this right hand was the
divination for Jerusalem, to appoint captains, to open the mouth in
the slaughter, to lift up the voice with shouting, to appoint
battering rams against the gates, to cast a mount, and to build a
fort. And it shall be unto them as a false divination in their
sight, to them that have sworn oaths: but he will call to
remembrance the iniquity, that they may be taken. Therefore thus
saith the Lord God: Because ye have made your iniquity to be
remembered, in that your transgressions are discovered, so that in
all your doings your sins do appear; because, I say, that ye are
come to remembrance, ye shall be taken with the hand (verses 18-24).
The King of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, is the chosen instrument through
whom the drawn and sharpened sword does its judgment work. He is seen in
this paragraph using divination, to decide if he should go to Rabbath of
the Ammonites or to Judah in Jerusalem. The King is standing at the
parting of the way, at the head of the two ways. First he used the
arrows. The authorized version is faulty in its translation; it is not,
"he made his arrows bright," but "he shook his arrows to and fro." The
Babylonians used all kinds of enchantments, sorceries, as well as
star-gazers, astrologers, etc., to be guided in their undertakings. (See
Isa. xlvii:8-15). The King took two arrows and put upon each the name of
the two cities mentioned; they were then shaken in the quiver and one
was drawn out. He also used images (teraphim) which he consulted and
looked into the liver. They generally killed a sheep and imagined that
the different lines and formation of the liver gave them directions what
to do. In the British Museum there is a Babylonian clay tablet with a
sheep's liver covered with all kinds of lines and oracles. In the
twenty-second verse we see the result of his divinations. He has pulled
out of the quiver the arrow which has on it the word "Jerusalem." And so
the siege of Jerusalem was prepared. But the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
who heard of the King's divination, branded it as a false divination
(verse 23). They still hoped that all attempts made by Nebuchadnezzar
would fail. But the hand of God was guiding all, and in the last verse
of this paragraph (verse 25) the Lord announces the hopelessness of
their expectations.