Glory and Judgment

Glory and Judgment

Ezekiel Chapters 4-11

Prophetic Action

In Chapter 4, the Lord begins to tell Ezekiel to do some very interesting things as prophecy to the people. Rather than simply deliver words of prophecy, the Lord tells Ezekiel in verses 1-4 to make a clay replica of Israel and lay siege to it to symbolize what will happen to the city. If this is not strange enough, verses 4-8 say that Ezekiel is to lie first on one side and then the other for a period of 430 days to symbolize the total time the people of Judah and of Israel will be in exile.

In Chapter 5, verses 1-4, Ezekiel is told to shave off his hair and beard and carefully measure it into thirds, one of which he is to burn within his model city, another he is to attack with the sword around the city, and the rest he is to scatter to the wind. This is to show what will happen to the whole house of Israel, save for a few strands that cling to his robe.

They Will Know that I Am the Lord

In Chapter 6, Ezekiel returns to words, which are at first directed to the mountains themselves, though they begin to be directed towards the people who live there. The word that the Lord gives Ezekiel for the mountains is that the high places of worship would be destroyed, and the people who worshipped idols there would be slain. In the latter half of the chapter we begin to get a sense of the purpose of all this prophecy, as in the closing verses 13 & 14 the Lord says that when all this comes to pass, “Then they will know that I am the Lord.”

The Lord, of course, is the Lord, and does not have to prove this in any way to any one, but it seems that the people were not behaving as if there were a Sovereign Lord who was active in their lives. Chapter 7 makes it clear that this is a time of judgment for their actions. In verses 5-20 the Lord says that the end has come, and judgment is here. The people have been an arrogant, violent nation, depending on their wealth and the “gods” that they have made.

The final verse of the chapter is quite ominous “I will deal with them according to their conduct, and by their own standards I will judge them. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”

The Temple Vision

Ezekiel has seen some strange things already, but the extended vision which begins in Chapter 8 is strange indeed. As recorded in verses 1-12, while Ezekiel is sitting in conference with the leaders of the exiled of Judah, the Spirit of God grabbed him by the hair and took him back to Jerusalem to show him the terrible things that were happening there.

First, within the temple, there is some “idol of jealousy”. What this idol was exactly, we do not know. Certainly, however, it was an idol to a false god, and it did not belong in the temple. But further, there was a secret room in the temple, and in it the very leaders of the temple were practicing idolatry. Curiously, they were doing this in secret, though they claimed the Lord either did not know or did not care what they did.

In the final verse of this chapter, the Lord says “Therefore I will deal with them in anger; I will not look on them with pity or spare them. Although they shout in my ears, I will not listen to them.” This is a continuation of the thought that closes the previous chapter “I will deal with them according to their conduct.” The people turned away from God and taught themselves to follow idols and as a result their relationship with God was broken and they had separated themselves from God’s grace.

Glory and Judgment

In Chapter 9, Ezekiel is no longer the focus of the action. Having witnessed the sin of the people, he is left to watch as, in verses 1-6, the Lord gives orders for a census of the city to be taken, and for all the unrighteous to be slain. This action is immediately carried out, and in Chapter 10, verses 1-2, the Lord gives another order for this “man clothed in linen” to fill his hands with coals from the throne platform to scatter over the city. We must assume the man in linen clothed in linen completes this request, because Ezekiel gets caught up in once again attempting to describe the indescribable glory of the Lord that he loses track of everything else.

In Jeremiah, the judgment of God is never separate from the love of God: God is worthy to judge us because God loves us. In Ezekiel, judgment is an aspect of the glory of God: God may judge us because God is the Sovereign Lord, completely perfect, and entirely beyond our knowledge. The two ideas are in no way contradictory.

Ezekiel continues to grapple with his description of the glory of the Lord for some time until, in verses 18 & 19, we read that the glory of the Lord begins to move. We will read in the next chapter of the eventual destination over the mountain east of the city, but the symbolic importance here is that, as a part of the judgment against the people, the Glory of the Lord left the temple.

Hope

Ezekiel’s vision continues in Chapter 11, as he sees various Jewish leaders, some of whom he recognizes. These men have become self-important, and Ezekiel is told to prophesy to them. As he is doing so, one of them dies. It is hard to know whether these men are aware of Ezekiel’s presence, or if all of the prophetic vision is for Ezekiel to bring back to his fellow exiles, but Ezekiel certainly does do the latter. He begins to fear for the complete obliteration of Israel, and he is returned to his people. In verses 14-21, the Lord tells Ezekiel that, despite the wickedness he has seen in others, he and his people have their own mission and their own promise.

It may seem arrogant of God to remove himself from his people because he did not like the way they were behaving. We do well first to remember that an all-powerful being cannot, by definition, be arrogant. More importantly, we must remember that God is a completely other being, who makes himself available to us in the first place. We cannot reject him forever. Fortunately, he is working within us, to replace our hearts of stone with hearts of flesh. He wants to be our God, and us to be his people.

Ezekiel Saw the Wheel

Ezekiel Saw the Wheel

Ezekiel Chapters 1-4

Introduction

Ezekiel as a book is almost certainly the words of the prophet Ezekiel. There is, according to scholars, some evidence of editorial work on the text, but the editor may have been Ezekiel himself. The chronology of Ezekiel is fairly well ordered, and there are references to events for which the dates can be established via external sources. The setting of the book is slightly more difficult to establish. The author himself states that he is among the exiles in Babylon. Much of the prophecy, however, is directed to the city of Judah, and the prophet makes a visionary visit to the city itself. After the fall of Judah, there are many oracles against the surrounding nations.

Among the themes of Ezekiel are the following.

1. God is beyond our understanding.
2. We have sinned.
3. Judgment is sure.
4. Redemption is possible.

Ezekiel Saw the Wheel

Chapter 1 begins in verses 1-3 to identify Ezekiel and establish the time and setting. What exactly is meant by “in the thirteenth year” we do not know, but it has been translated “in my thirteenth year” and may mean when Ezekiel was thirteen years old. If so, it would be the time that Ezekiel would become a man and, if he had been in his homeland, begin to participate in the priestly duties. Instead he received a strange vision from God.

The record of the vision itself begins in verses 4-18. The vision is quite complex, and there has been a great deal of speculation as to the meaning of the figures in the vision. Lately, of course, there has even been speculation that what Ezekiel saw was a spaceship flown by aliens. Others look for symbolism in each feature of each creature and device. Whether Ezekiel intended or was aware of such symbolism we do not know. It is clear that he was struggling to describe what he saw using the language and imagery he had at his disposal.

As the vision continues, Ezekiel’s struggle continues, and his imagery begins increasingly to fail. In verses 25-28, we find that what Ezekiel is seeing in his vision is a throne platform. He has difficulty describing the throne itself, and as for what he sees on the throne, he can at last only say “This was the appearance of the likeness of the Lord.”

They Will Know

In Chapter 2, God calls Ezekiel to be a prophet. As recorded in verses 1-5, the Lord tells Ezekiel first to “get up” as there is a time for abject worship and a time when work is to be done. The Lord says that the prophet must speak, even though the people may not listen. This may at first seem like callous disregard for their fate, but it is regard for their fate that caused the Lord to call Ezekiel and many other prophets. “How are they to hear without a preacher?” (Romans 10:14)

We should note that the Lord begins here to call Ezekiel “Son of man” and continues to use that title for Ezekiel as recorded throughout the remainder of the book. This is significant because it is also the favorite title that Jesus used for himself. Though it did in later writings have a Messianic significance, its use here is to emphasize Ezekiel’s humanity in the face of his experience with the Lord; Ezekiel was not only a man, but the son of man – the very essence of man, and very different from God.

Sweet as Honey

Ezekiel’s commissioning continues on into Chapter 3, with the story of the eating of the scroll, which is recorded in 2:8-3:3. Besides being edible and tasty, the scroll has the curious feature of having writing on both front and back. A number of suggestions have been made as to the meaning of this, the most obvious being that there were simply too many words of lamentation and woe to fit on one side of the scroll, so the scroll was jam-packed with them on both sides.

Though the imagery may be unique to Ezekiel, the idea is not. The Psalmist speaks of ordinances of the Lord being sweeter than honey (Psalm 19:9-11; Psalm 119:102-104) and Jeremiah says he ate the words of the Lord (Jeremiah 15:16). The idea behind the imagery was that once Ezekiel was called, he must be prepared; he was not to go speaking his on mind in the name of the Lord, but to speak the words the Lord gave him.

A Watchman

In verses 16-21, the Lord tells Ezekiel that he bears an awesome responsibility. It would be so easy to misrepresent this responsibility so that it becomes our burden to instruct and even to force others to behave as we understand they should, but the Lord was very clear that it was Ezekiel’s task to do as he was told. This responsibility for others was not limited to Ezekiel, but Christ passed it on to us, when he gave us the keys to the kingdom (Matthew 16:19).

Not What We Expect

In verses 22-23, the Lord tells Ezekiel the Lord tells Ezekiel to go out to the plain. Ezekiel does, and there he sees the glory of the Lord, just as he did at the Kebar River. This must have been very strange for Ezekiel, in a number of ways, but he was a priest, after all, and so he knew where God dwelt, and were to go to experience the glory of the Lord, and it was not by the river or out on the plain or anywhere in Babylon, but back in Jerusalem. He only had an inkling of what God wanted him to say, but he did find that God was judging, not only the actions of those rebellious sinners he would be preaching to, Ezekiel’s actions, as well. It was not what we expected.

It’s comforting to have a God we expect. It is nice to know where to go to find God. It is easy to believe we know what God wants for our lives. But someday we may find ourselves by the Kebar River, far from everything we ever expected for our lives, and without anything we planned to depend on. If we do, it will be good to encounter a God that is bigger than our expectations and has plans that go beyond our dreams.