Verse 6 Sigh - with the breaking of thy loins - Let thy mourning for this sore calamity be like that of a woman in the pains of travail.

And stood - On the right side of the house, where the cherubim were in the inner court.

Eze 21:6

Sigh therefore, etc. As in other instances (Eze 4:4; Eze 5:1-4), the prophet dramatizes the coming calamity. He is to act the part of a mourner, whose sighs are so deep that they seem to "break his loins" (compare, for the gesture, Nah 2:1, Nah 2:10 Isa 21:3; Jer 30:6). The strange action was meant to lead to questions. What did it mean? And then he is to answer that he does it "for the tidings" which are to him as certain as if they had already come. He is but doing what all would do, when the messenger brought word, as in Eze 33:21, five years later, that the city was at last smitten.

Eze 21:8, Eze 21:9

A sword, a sword, etc. The new section (Eze 21:9-17) rises out of the thought of the unsheathed sword in Eze 21:3. More than most other portions of Ezekiel’s writings, it assumes a distinctly lyrical character, and might be headed, "The Lay of the Sword of Jehovah." The opening words are probably an echo of Deu 32:41. The dazzling brightness of the sword is added to its sharpness as a fresh element of terror.