“He shakes the arrows and examines the liver”
For the king of Babylon stands at the fork in the road, at the junction of the two roads, to seek an omen: He shakes the arrows, he consults the idols, he examines the liver. (Ezekiel 21:21 BSB)
What it sounds like today
A vague description of a king making up his mind.
The cultural key
A modern reader glides past this as the king weighing options. It actually catalogs three specific pagan divination techniques used across Mesopotamia. 'He shakes the arrows' is belomancy: marked arrows were shaken in a quiver or cast like lots, and the one that fell or was drawn gave the answer. 'He consults the idols' refers to the teraphim, small household gods or images used for divination. 'He examines the liver' is hepatoscopy, the highly developed art of slaughtering an animal and reading omens from the shape, lobes, and markings of its liver, for which Babylonian priests kept detailed clay models. Standing where the road forks toward Rabbah or Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar uses all three to decide his target. The deep irony Ezekiel presses is that although these are worthless pagan rites, the omens point him to Jerusalem, so that even the king's superstition unwittingly carries out God's judgment. Knowing the methods turns a fuzzy scene into a vivid picture of occult decision-making overruled by God.
Recovered meaning
The verse names three Babylonian divination arts, shaking marked arrows, consulting household idols (teraphim), and reading a sacrificed animal's liver, by which Nebuchadnezzar chooses to attack Jerusalem. The irony is that his pagan omens still carry out God's judgment.