This image depicts the prophet Ezekiel's vision of the heavenly throne room, with Ezekiel receiving a scroll from a hand that emerges from heaven. In the bottom-left corner is Ezekiel’s rendering of the siege of Jerusalem on a brick. At the bottom-right are the executioners that go through Jerusalem killing its inhabitants. To the right an angel shows Ezekiel the abominations that are taking place in the Temple and around Jerusalem. In the top-left corner a vine symbolizing Israel burns, and in the top-right corner are the two great eagles. To the left is a lioness with her cubs and a sentinel on a watchtower sounding the alarm by blowing a trumpet. At the bottom are shepherds and Ezekiel writing next to the altar from his vision.
Bible in a Year Series - Day #240 - This post is part of a year-long series where we are reading chronologically through the Bible. Click here to learn more. You are most welcome to join along at any time.
Today's text from the ESV Study Bible: Ezekiel 5-8 & Ezekiel 9-12
As I was listening/reading to today's narrative, I couldn't stop at chapter eight as it was just the beginning of Ezekiel's second vision. Therefore, I kept going into tomorrow's assignment as well.
A few thoughts from this vision:
- God desires to make it clear to Ezekiel (and us) why he is about to destroy Jerusalem.
- As I watched along with Ezekiel, it was greatly disheartening to see the priests worshipping idols in God's house. This syncretism exists today, and I am certain that God is equally displeased. Likewise, as we shall see in later books, there is another judgment stored up for those who worship idols.
- Two things in particular stabbed me in the heart:
- "...I [God] have been broken over their whoring heart that has departed from me and over their eyes that go whoring after their idols..." (Ezekiel 6:9)
- "Then the cherubim lifted up their wings, with the wheels beside them, and the glory of the God of Israel was over them. And the glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city and stood on the mountain that is on the east side of the city." (Ezekiel 11:22-23)
This destruction is very difficult to view unless you can understand things from God's perspective. To understand God's heart then you simply need to weep over the book of Hosea.
A couple more things caught my attention:
- "And the Lord said to him, “Pass through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it.” 5 And to the others he said in my hearing, “Pass through the city after him, and strike. Your eye shall not spare, and you shall show no pity. 6 Kill old men outright, young men and maidens, little children and women, but touch no one on whom is the mark. And begin at my sanctuary.” (Ezekiel 9:4-6)
- And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, 20 that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. (Ezekiel 11:19-20)
God preserved those who truly belonged to him. Furthermore, he has great plans for his remnant which we will begin to see unfold later in our chronological study.
In closing, I thought it would be important to meditate on the un-creation that is happening here. Consider this from the New Dictionary of Biblical Theology:
"There are many points of contact between Ezekiel’s opening vision of the glory of God and the opening chapters of Genesis. Ezekiel sees a mighty windstorm (ru®ahΩ s§}aœra®, 1:4) approaching from the north, the traditional source of Judah’s enemies. This windstorm recalls the activity of God both in creation, where the spirit (ru®ahΩ) of God was hovering over the waters (Gen. 1:2), and in the re-creation of the earth after the flood, when God sent a wind (ru®ahΩ) to dry up the floodwaters (Gen. 8:1). At the centre of this windstorm, Ezekiel sees living creatures (hΩayyo®t; cf. Gen. 1:24, 28), which in a later vision are explicitly identified as cherubim (10:1), those who enforce divine judgment in Genesis 3:24. Over the heads of the cherubim is an awesome ‘expanse’ (raœqˆîa}, 1:25, NIV), like that of Genesis 1:6. The aura of God’s radiance is compared to a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day (v. 28), a description which evokes Genesis 9:13–16, the only other passage in the OT which speaks of God’s setting his bow in the clouds. Together, these references set the tone of the entire book of Ezekiel as an account of uncreation – re-creation.
The re-creation aspect is most evident in the ‘new Adam’ theme which emerges in two places. Ezekiel himself is characteristically addressed in the book as ben-aœdaœm a phrase normally translated ‘son of man’, but which literally means ‘son of Adam’. Just as the first Adam received the breath of life from God (Gen. 2:7), so Ezekiel as ‘son of Adam’ receives an infusion of divine spirit (ru®ahΩ) (see Holy Spirit) which raises him from the prone position to which the vision of God’s fearsome glory reduced him (Ezek. 2:1–2). Like the first Adam, he faces a test of obedience which revolves around the idea of eating, though in his case he is to eat whatever the Lord commands him to eat (2:8), rather than to abstain from eating what the Lord prohibits. In another reversal of the original sin, what Ezekiel is given to eat is anything but ‘good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom’ (Gen. 3:6): it is a scroll covered on both sides with words of lament and mourning and woe (Ezek. 2:10). Yet though its appearance is unattractive, to the obedient eater it tastes as sweet as honey (3:3), and through eating it the ‘new Adam’ becomes equipped to bring life to many (3:16–21). As the ‘new Adam’, Ezekiel is the founder member and firstfruits of the renewed community (see People of God), whose re-creation is the theme of Ezekiel 37:1–11. This re-creation of the community from the valley of dry bones involves first the forming of the raw material into bodies and then their being filled with breath, resulting in life, as at the creation of the first Adam."
How great is God's faithfulness to those that love him!
