Ezekiel: Part 2
Overview
As we continue on with our study of Ezekiel, let’s remind ourselves what the first 24 chapters were all about. In part 1, we saw Israel being actively taken over by Babylon, and suffering for their sin that they committed against the Lord. One of the great sins that God’s people committed that led them to this judgment, was the abuse of God’s house. The temple of God can be seen being used as a place for idol worship and many other disgraceful acts that God has completely rejected. This is why in a vision that God gives Ezekiel, we can see the Spirit of God leaving the temple that the Israelites originally built for Him. This place of sin and wickedness was no longer a holy place where the Lord could dwell, so He needed to depart from it. It was because of this sin and many others that made God felt as if His bride, the Church, had left Him. All of this leads up to a terrible punishment that now falls on God’s people where many Israelites will lose loved ones, including Ezekiel’s wife. God is revealing to His children through discipline what they are doing to His heart and leading them to repentance through this judgment. And this is where we pick up. At a very depressing place where God still has much to tell Ezekiel about the coming judgment for the rest of the nations that have acted sinful towards God as well. All of these visions, prophecies, and symbols that God uses in His communication with Ezekiel, show us just how vital it is to understand the message that God is communicating. This is why the Britannica notes, “More than any of the classical biblical prophets, Ezekiel was given to symbolic actions, strange visions, and even trances.” With this in mind, let’s dive into these next 24 chapters and see what they’re all about.
Prophesy Against
To start, if you flip through the last few pages of this book and look at the subject titles of each chapter, you’ll notice a very common theme from chapter 25 to about chapter 40. This theme, of course, is that God is sending our Ezekiel to prophesy against multiple nations and people groups. God is not just punishing one or two particular nations. He is judging the sins of the world and the wickedness of all the nations that have abandoned Him and turned to idols. Just look at what God tells Ezekiel to prophesy over the sons of Ammon in Ezekiel 25:6-7 “‘For this is what the Lord GOD says: “Because you have clapped your hands and stamped your feet, and have rejoiced with all the malice in your soul against the land of Israel, therefore, behold, I have reached out with My hand against you and I will give you as plunder to the nations. And I will cut you off from the peoples and eliminate you from the lands. I will exterminate you. So you will know that I am the LORD.” These judgments go on for many chapters as God describes to Ezekiel what each people group and nation has done to deserve this discipline from the Lord. However, at the end of each prophecy and judgment, we see a line that is repeated over and over again that God tells Ezekiel. That line is, ‘So you will know that I am the Lord.’ Now why does God say this? And why does He continue to repeat it? To state the obvious right off the bat, one huge reason is that these people have forgotten! One of the biggest reasons that these nations and people groups fell into sinful practice in the first place was because they forgot who God was and why they served Him for so many generations. This is the ultimate goal of God’s discipline and the ultimate goal of mankind. To know God and glorify Him with all that we are.
Knowing God & His True House
This is why it is so important that God reveals He is the one true God to Ezekiel because God’s people must know that the God of the universe is the only one that can judge them, and that is exactly what is happening. This is further backed up in Ezekiel 36:22-23 where it says, “Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘This is what the Lord GOD says: “It is not for your sake, house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for My holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you went“And I will vindicate the holiness of My great name which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned among them. Then the nations will know that I am the LORD,” declares the Lord GOD, “when I show Myself holy among you in their sight.” Knowing and honoring God is the goal of all of His discipline. Finally, we come to the close of Ezekiel and notice that God gives Ezekiel another vision. This vision ties the end of the book back to the beginning of the book as God gives Ezekiel a vision of the House of God.
This vision of course is to show what the true dwelling place of our Lord should look like and not the idol-infested place that Israel turned the temple into. Ezekiel 40:2-4 says, “In the visions of God He brought me into the land of Israel and set me on a very high mountain, and on it to the south there was something like a structure of a city. So He brought me there; and behold, there was a man whose appearance was like the appearance of bronze, with a thread of flax and a measuring rod in his hand; and he was standing in the gateway. And the man said to me, “Son of man, see with your eyes, hear with your ears, and pay attention to all that I am going to show you; for you have been brought here in order to show it to you. Declare to the house of Israel all that you see.” This final vision that God gives Ezekiel wraps up beautifully what we have seen thus far. God is a holy God, and those who sin against Him must face the consequences. However, those who repent and trust in Him as the one true God will ultimately be rescued and dwell in His house forever. I hope and pray that the next time you read through Ezekiel, you will see why God does all things for His glory and why we must treat His house with utmost respect and care.
Sources
[1] Blue Letter Bible. (n.d.). Blue Letter Bible. https://www.blueletterbible.org/
[2] The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2024, November 5). Ezekiel | Hebrew Prophet & Biblical Visionary. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ezekiel-Hebrew-prophet
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