Ezek.
20:49-22:30
Welcome! Today we continue
in our study of Ezekiel, looking at Chapters 21 and 22. I want to open today,
however, with the last verse of Chapter 20.
Then I said, “Sovereign Lord, they are saying of me,
‘Isn’t he just telling parables?’”
– Ezekiel 20:49
I start with this verse as
a reminder that the chapter divisions in Scripture are much later editions made
by editors and copyists of the scrolls of the Bible. This verse is addressed in
the following prophecy in chapter 21.
The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of
man, set your face against Jerusalem and preach against the
sanctuary. Prophesy against the land of Israel and say to her: ‘This is what the Lord says: I am against you. I will draw My sword from
its sheath and cut off from you both the righteous and the wicked. Because I am going to cut off the righteous and the wicked, My
sword will be unsheathed against everyone from south to north. Then all people will know that I the Lord have drawn My sword from its sheath; it will not
return again.’ – Ezekiel 21:1-5
As we have been seeing in this series, God has
given Ezekiel visions and prophecies warning his people of the coming final
fall of Israel – more specifically, of the small part that was still standing,
portions of the land of Judah, and within it, Jerusalem, the capital city. Some
of the prophecies and visions focused on how God would remove His Spirit from
the Temple, and with it, His protection over it. Some focused on the king, and
some on the corrupt upper classes and the corrupt priests. Here we see a
prophecy against the entire land of Israel, from south to north, and to all
that live within it. The image used is that of a sword.
In this prophecy, God warns that both the
righteous and the wicked would be affected.
This does not contradict God’s earlier statements in Ezekiel that only
the soul who sins must die. This may not have been understand by Ezekiel’s
listeners, but we, with the benefit of the revelation of the New Testament,
know that death in this life is not the end – that there is a life yet to come,
and that those who give their lives to Christ are counted not with their own
righteousness (or more specifically, their lack of it), but are counted with
the perfect righteousness of Christ.
But we are wandering away from this prophecy –
the point is that, due to their continued grievous sin against the Lord, the
time had come for judgment.
“Therefore groan, son of man! Groan before them
with broken heart and bitter grief. And when
they ask you, ‘Why are you groaning?’ you shall say, ‘Because of the news that
is coming. Every heart will melt with fear and every hand go
limp; every spirit will become faint […].’ It is coming! It will
surely take place, declares the Sovereign Lord.” – Ezekiel
21:6-7
Note the words “It is
coming! It will surely take place!” These words are directly in response to our
opening verse. This is just a parable, a story meant to teach a lesson. It is a prophecy. Yes, it uses vivid
figurative imagery to tell what is to come, but the terrible judgment will
really come (and it did indeed come).
The Hebrew words used
for “broken heart” and “bitter grief” are extremely strong and describes the
most extreme expression of grief, the kind that makes anyone listening
extremely uncomfortable. God does not want Ezekiel to present these terrifying
declarations of judgment unemotionally; He wants Ezekiel to reflect God’s own
heart towards the people. I am reminded
of Jesus’ weeping over Jerusalem in Luke 19. There is a tendency of people who
don’t really know the Bible to say that the Old Testament is entirely unlike
the New, which is “kinder and gentler” but here is an example of a New
Testament passage that feels like it comes right out of Ezekiel:
As He approached Jerusalem and saw the city, He
wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would
bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The
days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you
and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your
walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not
recognize the time of God’s coming to you.” – Luke 19:41-44
The Greek word used for weeping here is likewise extremely
strong. Jesus did not just shed a tear or two. He truly grieved and did so in a
vocal and outward way. And Jesus’ words also came true with the destruction of
Jerusalem in AD 70. It is also possible that Jesus’ words refer to a coming
judgment as well. But let’s return to
the Ezekiel passage.
The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man,
prophesy and say, ‘This is what the Lord says: “‘A sword, a sword, sharpened
and polished — sharpened for the slaughter, polished to flash like lightning!
‘Shall we rejoice in the scepter of My royal son? The sword despises every such
stick. The sword is appointed to be polished, to be grasped with the hand; it
is sharpened and polished, made ready for the hand of the slayer. Cry out and
wail, son of man, for it is against My people; it is against all the princes of
Israel. They are thrown to the sword along with My people. – Ezekiel 21:8-12
“My royal son” almost
certainly refers to Zedekiah, the weak and sin-filled ruler of Judah who ruled
only because he had been placed their by the king of Babylon as a kind of
puppet leader. The “princes” likely refers to the elite who were unjustly
exploiting those less fortunate who were not a part of their group. The imagery
of sharpening and polishing the sword is powerful, imagery even used in modern
movies before a key battle with swords takes place. Note the progression:
previously the sword was drawn out of its sheath; now it is being sharpened and
polished.
“‘Testing will surely come. And what if even the scepter, which
the sword despises, does not continue? declares the Sovereign Lord.’ “So
then, son of man, prophesy and strike your hands together. Let the sword
strike twice, even three times. It is a sword for slaughter — a sword for great
slaughter, closing in on them from every side. So that hearts may melt with
fear and the fallen be many, I have stationed the sword for slaughter at all
their gates. Look! It is forged to strike like lightning, it is grasped for
slaughter. Slash to the right, you sword, then
to the left, wherever your blade is turned. I too will strike My
hands together, and My wrath will subside. I the Lord have spoken.” – Ezekiel 21:13-17
The
terrifying imagery continues. The image of God, Creator of the Universe,
striking His hands together as an act of judgment was meant to be terrifying,
along with the other vivid details of the sword, slashing left and right, in
every direction, stationed at every gate. Ezekiel is not instructed to clap his
hands like in polite applause but to strike them together, creating a sudden,
violent sound. The Hebrew words for this can also describe stomping your feet
at the same time. It is meant to startle, even scare, his listeners. The
subsiding of God’s wrath can only mean one thing – that God has carried out His
terrible judgment.
The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of
man, mark out two roads for the sword of the king of Babylon to take, both
starting from the same country. Make a signpost where the road branches
off to the city. Mark out one road for the sword
to come against Rabbah of the Ammonites and another against Judah and
fortified Jerusalem. For the king of Babylon will
stop at the fork in the road, at the junction of the two roads, to seek an
omen: He will cast lots with arrows, he will consult his idols, he
will examine the liver. Into his right hand will
come the lot for Jerusalem, where he is to set up battering rams, to give the
command to slaughter, to sound the battle cry, to set battering rams
against the gates, to build a ramp and to erect siege works. It will seem like a false omen to those who have sworn allegiance to
him, but he will remind them of their guilt and take them captive. –
Ezekiel 21:18-23
I do not think this meant that Ezekiel actually
went out hundreds of miles into the wilderness to set up a literal signpost for
the king of Babylon. I believe this is a continuation of the imagery. Ezekiel
would have passed on these prophecies to the Jews around him. What was
important was the message, the meaning of this passage. The king would
ultimately have to make a decision about whether to attack the land of the
Israelites (“fortified” Jerusalem, specifically) or the land of the Ammonites.
To assist in this decision, he would use the various methods leaders following
the false gods used at that time. Casting lots with the arrows (literally,
shaking the arrows) was a form of casting lots. Two arrows were marked with
each possible decision. They were then shaken, so as to mix them around, one
was grabbed without looking, and the one selected would determine what the gods
wanted them to do. But the king of Babylon did not stop at this one technique.
He also consulted his idols. This would involve preparing sacrifices to them
(animal or even human) and then a false prophet would tell him what they
“said.” The king then used a third technique: he (or one of his prophets) would
slaughter an animal and look at the fresh organs to somehow determine the
course of action. This kind of action is still found in some cultures today. The
point here is that each of these techniques led to the same decision. This gave
the king confidence that his gods were really behind the decision. We know that
false gods are just that, false, although it is possible, I suppose, that
demons might be masquerading as their gods. The implication of this passage is
that through these false divinations, the true God is the one who makes these
omens line up. The king and his army are God’s sword, and God is wielding it to
carry out His judgment on Israel.
The last verse is a bit confusing as worded here.
It helps to know or remember the backstory. The king of Israel was a puppet
king, put in place by Babylon after demanding that he swear an oath of
allegiance to him. So when it says “It will seem like a false omen to those who
have sworn allegiance to him,” “those who have sworn allegiance” means the king
of Israel and his cohorts and the “him” is the king of Babylon, who will then
remind them of their broken oaths while taking them captive. And indeed, this is what happened, as we know
from other passages which we have looked at earlier in this series. This
prophecy, like the others, came true.
“Therefore this is what
the Sovereign Lord says:
‘Because you people have brought to mind your guilt by your open rebellion,
revealing your sins in all that you do—because you have done this, you will be
taken captive. You profane and wicked prince of Israel, whose day has come, whose
time of punishment has reached its climax, this is what the
Sovereign Lord says: Take
off the turban, remove the crown. It will not be as it was: The lowly will
be exalted and the exalted will be brought low. A ruin! A ruin! I will
make it a ruin! The crown will not be restored until He to whom it rightfully
belongs shall come; to Him I will give it.’ – Ezekiel 21:24-27
“It will not be as it
was” is indicating that this will be the last king in this line of kings, that
this sequence of mostly wicked kings going back centuries will now come to an
end. And this is in fact what happened; the next period was captivity, and
after that, when the people finally were able to return to Israel, it was never
the same. They lived there at the permission of foreign leaders, even up into
the time of Jesus.
The idea that the lowly
will be exalted and the exalted will be brought low is a repeated theme
throughout Scripture, in both the Old and New Testaments. Proverbs 29:23 says,
“One’s pride will bring him low, but he who is lowly in spirit will obtain
honor.” Proverbs 3:34 says, “He [God] mocks proud mockers, but shows favor to
the humble and oppressed.” Mary the mother of Jesus says in her song in Luke
1:52, “He [God] has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up
the humble.” And Jesus in Matthew 23:12 says, “For those who exalt themselves
will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” And in both
James 4:6 and I Peter 5:5 we read, “For God opposes the proud and gives grace
to the humble.”
We see who the proud are
in this Ezekiel passage, the king and his cohorts, but who is the lowly that
will be exalted? Is it tied to the next verse? Who is He to whom the crown
rightfully belongs? To Whom is this person that God says He will give the
crown? It is king Jesus, King of kings and Lord of lords! He was God’s own Son,
and also God. He gave up his glory in the Godhead to come to earth as a lowly
human baby, born to poor parents, born in the humblest location imaginable, a
stable. He grew up as a lowly carpenter, and even though He drew crowds to
Himself during His ministry, He was never accepted by the power elite in
Israel, nor did He seek their approval – in fact, He did the opposite,
condemning them for their many sins and injustices and hypocrisy. He was
arrested, and beaten, not even having the status of a basic Roman citizen, and
He suffered and died the most inglorious death imaginable, torture and death on
a cross, a punishment normally only given to the very worst criminals.
I am reminded a New
Testament passage that speaks of Jesus in this way, fulfilling this prophecy in
Ezekiel:
[Jesus] Who, being in very nature God, did not consider
equality with God something to be used to His own advantage; rather, He
made Himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in
human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by
becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted
Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and
under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the
glory of God the Father. – Philippians 2:6-11
God has indeed waited
until Jesus to restore the crown that He took away from Zedekiah. Jesus is
indeed He to whom it rightfully belongs, and to Him has God given it. Praise
God!
“And you, son of man,
prophesy and say, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says about the Ammonites and their insults:
‘A sword, a sword, drawn for the slaughter, polished to consume and to
flash like lightning! Despite false visions concerning you and lying
divinations about you, it will be laid on the necks of the wicked who are
to be slain, whose day has come, whose time of punishment has reached its
climax. Let the sword return to its sheath. In the place where you were
created, in the land of your ancestry, I will judge you. I will pour out My wrath on you and breathe out my fiery
anger against you; I will deliver you into the hands of brutal men, men skilled
in destruction. You will be fuel for the fire, your blood will be shed in your
land, you will be remembered no more; for I the Lord have spoken.’” – Ezekiel 21:28-32
Remember the signpost at
the place of the fork of the road? The firs road, the one that the king of
Babylon and his army took, went into Jerusalem. The second went to the capital
of the Ammonites. The previous verses may have made the listeners assume that
the Ammonites were spared, but this was not the case. The implication here is
that the Ammonites would gloat after witnessing the Babylonians sacking
Jerusalem and ending the kingly line. But the Ammonites (in modern day Jordan)
were no more innocent of sin than their Hebrew neighbors. The symbolic sword would not only destroy
Israel; it would destroy Ammon as well.
This prophecy also came
true, about five years after the taking of Jerusalem. This event is described
in the writings of the ancient historian Josephus in his Antiquities of the
Jews.
For on the
fifth year after the destruction of Jerusalem, which was the twenty third
of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, he [Nebuchadnezzar] made an expedition against
Cele Syria; and when he had possessed himself of it, he made war against the
Ammonites, and Moabites: and when he had brought all those nations under
subjection, he fell upon Egypt, to overthrow it. And he slew the king that then
reigned and set up another, and he took those Jews there that were captives and
led them away to Babylon. – Josephus, Antiquities book X, chapter 9
The Ammonites continued
as a people (for example, they harassed the Israelites who reentered Jerusalem
after the exile ended), but they only continued as a people but only for a
limited time, and ultimately, in stark contrast to the Israelites, they ceased
to be a people, indeed “remembered no more” except as recorded in history.
The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, will
you judge her? Will you judge this city of bloodshed? Then confront her
with all her detestable practices and say: ‘This is what the
Sovereign Lord says: You
city that brings on herself doom by shedding blood in her midst and
defiles herself by making idols, you have become guilty because of the
blood you have shed and have become defiled by the idols you have made.
You have brought your days to a close, and the end of your years has
come. Therefore I will make you an object of scorn to the nations and
a laughingstock to all the countries. Those who are near and those who are
far away will mock you, you infamous city, full of turmoil. – Ezekiel 22:1-5
The commentator Block
points out that this phrase “city of bloodshed” or “bloody city” is earlier
used by Nahum, to describe Nineveh. Here God uses the phrase as a name for
Jerusalem, implying that Jerusalem is as bad as Nineveh!
Being an object of scorn
or a laughingstock does not carry the same weight of meaning to us as it did to
those to whom the prophecy was proclaimed. The people then lived in a society
governed by honor-shame dynamics, and to become an object of shame was
considered worse than to experience any kind of physical pain, even torture.
The phrase “your worst nightmare” comes to mind – and indeed, this is what God
intended.
“‘See how each of the princes of Israel who are
in you uses his power to shed blood. In you they have treated father and mother with contempt; in
you they have oppressed the foreigner and mistreated the fatherless and
the widow. You have despised my holy things and
desecrated my Sabbaths. In you are
slanderers who are bent on shedding blood; in you are those who eat
at the mountain shrines and commit lewd acts. […] In you are people who accept bribes to shed blood; you take
interest and make a profit from the poor. You extort unjust gain from your
neighbors. And you have forgotten Me, declares the Sovereign Lord. – Ezekiel 22:6-12
This passage lists some of the sins that the
people committed. I want to focus on the final thing listed here: forgetting
the Lord. Forgetting the Lord is, in a way, the core sin behind all other sins.
Forgetting the Lord can mean forgetting that He even exists, but it also can
mean forgetting His holiness, His power, His love, and so on. If you are a
believer in Christ, and then you sin, you are at that moment forgetting the
Lord. What you are forgetting specifically can vary, but you are certainly
forgetting something important about Him. This is why it is so important that
we spend time with Him each day, through reading the Bible and also through
prayer. We are, all of us, a forgetful people. We need to spend time daily with
Him or we will, in one way or another forget Him. The longer we go at it alone,
the more we forget. The good news is that restoration is simply a prayer away, and
remembering what we have forgotten is easily done by returning to spending time
with Him through Bible reading and study. We also remember Him every time we
partake of the bread and cup.
“‘I will surely strike my hands together at
the unjust gain you have made and at the blood you have shed in your
midst. Will your courage
endure or your hands be strong in the day I deal with you? I
the Lord have spoken, and I will do it. I will disperse you among the nations and scatter you through the countries;
and I will put an end to your uncleanness. When
you have been defiled in the eyes of the nations, you will know that I am
the Lord.’” – Ezekiel 22:13-16
These verses also speak of the shame of being a
deposed people – “defiled in the eyes of the nations.” This makes me also think
back to the Josephus passage – the people described here are doubly shamed, as
not only were they captured by Egypt, but when Egypt fell, they were taken into
Babylon, the very place they had tried to avoid by fleeing to Egypt. How
embarrassing to be captured essentially twice!
Then the word of the Lord came to me: “Son of
man, the people of Israel have become dross to me; all of them are the
copper, tin, iron and lead left inside a furnace. They are but the dross
of silver. Therefore this is what the
Sovereign Lord says: ‘Because you have all become dross, I will gather
you into Jerusalem. As silver, copper, iron, lead
and tin are gathered into a furnace to be melted with a fiery blast, so will I
gather you in My anger and My wrath and put you inside the city and melt you. I will gather you and I will blow on you with my fiery wrath,
and you will be melted inside her. As silver is
melted in a furnace, so you will be melted inside her, and you will know
that I the Lord have poured out My wrath on you.’” – Ezekiel 22:17-22
Dross is a term for the solid impurities that float
on a molten metal or lie elsewhere, such as on the surface of a cooled solid
metal or stuck to the walls of a furnace; the last description applies to this
passage. Dross attached in this manner is “stuck” – you cannot simply lift it
out of the furnace. In this disturbing word picture, the sinning people are the
dross, and Jerusalem is the furnace. If the temperature of dross is raised high
enough, it melts and then can be easily removed. Note that modern steel is
produced at such a high temperature that the dross fully melts and floats,
making it easy to scoop off. That is not true for tin, lead, zinc, aluminum, or
wrought iron, whose melting temperatures are much lower.
Again the word of the Lord came to me: “Son of
man, say to the land, ‘You are a land that has not been cleansed or rained on
in the day of wrath.’ There is a
conspiracy of her princes within her like a roaring lion tearing
its prey; they devour people, take treasures and precious things and make
many widows within her. Her priests do violence
to My law and profane My holy things; they do not distinguish between the
holy and the common; they teach that there is no difference between the
unclean and the clean; and they shut their eyes to the keeping of My
Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them. Her
officials within her are like wolves tearing their prey; they shed
blood and kill people to make unjust gain. Her
prophets whitewash these deeds for them by false visions and lying
divinations. They say, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says’—when the Lord has
not spoken. The people of the land practice
extortion and commit robbery; they oppress the poor and needy and mistreat
the foreigner, denying them justice. – Ezekiel 22:23-29
Here we have many more examples of the sin of the
leaders and the people. The roaring lion verse brings to mind I Peter 5:8 which
says that devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking people to devour.
The implication, when putting these verses together, is that the leaders are
acting exactly like the devil. This brings us to our final verses for today:
“I looked for someone among them who would build
up the wall and stand before Me in the gap on behalf of the land so I
would not have to destroy it, but I found no one. So I will pour out My wrath on them and consume them with My fiery
anger, bringing down on their own heads all they have done, declares
the Sovereign Lord.” – Ezekiel 22:30-31
The wall here ties in with the previous verses
that describe the prophets as those who whitewash the people’s deeds.
Literally, the Hebrew says that they cover the walls with untempered mortar.
Untempered mortar will not hold up over any length of time. Our house, which is
about 16 years old, has several short external walls around landscaping made of
cinder blocks covered over with plaster. Each one of these is now showing signs
of major damage. This is not how you are supposed to build up a wall. God is saying
that He could not find anyone who was building properly, by which it means
keeping the Law, loving the Lord, loving neighbors as you would love yourself.
A natural question to ask is “What about
Ezekiel?” Doesn’t he count? The answer is no, because Ezekiel is the prophet; a
leader, or king, could not be a prophet. There was one exception to this: Jesus
Christ. He was prophet, King, and priest.
I want to finish this morning with three
applications of this passage.
We will
close today by taking communion together. I encourage you to reflect on the
application of these verses to your own life and to freshly remember what the
Lord has done for us.
"For I
received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the
night when He was betrayed took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke
it, and said, ‘This is My body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.’
In the same way also He took the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is
the new covenant in My blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance
of Me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim
the Lord's death until He comes." – 1 Corinthians 11:23-26
- The lowly will be exalted and the exalted will be brought low. – Ezekiel 21:26; I encourage you to examine your heart – are there areas in which you think of yourself higher than you ought? Are there areas in which you think of others lower than you ought? Are there commands or even principles from Scripture that you choose to ignore? Doing so means that you think you know better than Scripture. Pride is at the root of almost every sin.
- And you have forgotten Me, declares the Sovereign Lord. – Ezekiel 22:12; How is your walk with the Lord? Are you spending time with Him in prayer and the Word every day? Are these times quality times? Although long periods with the Lord are of course great and encouraged, my question has more to do with quality of these times than their duration. Are you being real with the Lord? Are you confessing your sin to Him? Do you pray for others? Do you ask the Lord to help you live out what you are reading in His Word? Do you talk to the Lord in short prayers throughout the day?
- I looked for someone among them who would build up the wall and stand before Me in the gap […], but I found no one. – Ezekiel 22:30; Do you see yourself as someone who will stand before the Lord in the gap? Are you willing to serve the Lord by sharing the gospel with those you meet around you who are lost? Are you willing to serve the Lord by helping those who need help? Are you willing to serve the Lord by helping those younger in the Lord than you to grow in the Lord? Are you willing to stand before the Lord in the gap at school? At home with your family? At work?
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