Ezekiel 21 A Sword
God tells Ezekiel that the ‘rod’ is not working. It’s time for the ‘sword’ to come out. God has given Israel plenty of opportunities to repent. Time is up!
Ezekiel is part of the story of God’s judgment of His people. The northern kingdom of Israel is already gone. Many of the inhabitants of Judah are in captivity. And there is still more to come.
God’s people are not getting the message. It’s time to put the rod of correction away and bring out the sword. “I brought you into this world, and I can take you out of it” takes on a whole new meaning when He says it!
The final swing of the sword is still a while away, but God wants His people to know what is coming; and why. Let’s join Ezekiel as God shares, through Ezekiel, what is about to happen. Holy Spirit, open my eyes to Your truths contained in Your words. Show me what to take for this time together for my life.
♥ ♦ ♥
The days are marching relentlessly onward to the judgment of Judah. Ezekiel knows this well, as the Lord continues to speak of His coming judgment. God has shown him the Jerusalem will fall and that her king won’t be able stop it.
Ezekiel is on his face in prayer this morning. He is not doing as Abraham did for the city of Sodom; asking God to spare it for the sake of even ten righteous men. What Ezekiel is praying for is for the people to open their eyes to what is come.
“Watch over the righteous Lord, as Your judgment falls around them. Hide them from the terror to come. Deliver them from the hand of their enemies.”
As Ezekiel prays, he hears the voice of the Lord. He also sees a vision of a gleaming sword. This sword is polished and gleaming as it twirls in the air before him. It is not an ornamental sword but one that is built for battle. Ezekiel watches it as the words of the Lord penetrate his heart.
“Son of man, set your face toward Jerusalem and preach against the sanctuaries. Prophesy against the land of Israel and say to the land of Israel, Thus says the Lord: Behold, I am against you and will draw my sword from its sheath and will cut off from you both righteous and wicked. Because I will cut off from you both righteous and wicked, therefore my sword shall be drawn from its sheath against all flesh from south to north. And all flesh shall know that I am the Lord. I have drawn my sword from its sheath; it shall not be sheathed again” (Ezekiel 21:2-5).
Ezekiel’s heart crumbles as he hears God’s words. “The wicked AND the righteous Lord?”
“As for you, son of man, groan; with breaking heart and bitter grief, groan before their eyes. And when they say to you, ‘Why do you groan?’ you shall say, ‘Because of the news that it is coming. Every heart will melt, and all hands will be feeble; every spirit will faint, and all knees will be weak as water. Behold, it is coming, and it will be fulfilled’” (Ezekiel 21:6-7).
Ezekiel doesn’t even need God’s command to groan and weep bitterly. These things he is already doing. But he will take this pain with him, outside his home, as a witness for what is to come. He will willingly answer ALL who ask him why he groans. He will share the Lord’s warning with his fellow exiles. And they too will bear witness to the Lord’s hand of judgment.
“Son of man, prophesy and say, Thus says the Lord, say: ‘A sword, a sword is sharpened and also polished, sharpened for slaughter, polished to flash like lightning!” (Ezekiel 21:9-10).
Ezekiel’s head hangs heavy on his neck. He cannot lift it for the sadness that weighs it down. He listens for the rest of the Lord’s message.
“So the sword is given to be polished, that it may be grasped in the hand. It is sharpened and polished to be given into 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 delivered over to the sword with my people. Strike therefore upon your thigh. For it will not be a testing—what could it do if you despise the rod?” (Ezekiel 21:11-13).
As Ezekiel envisions the things God wants him to act out in front of the exiles, the Lord gives him the final instructions for this demonstration.
“As for you, son of man, prophesy. Clap your hands and let the sword come down twice, yes, three times, the sword for those to be slain. It is the sword for the great slaughter, which surrounds them, that their hearts may melt, and many stumble. At all their gates I have given the glittering sword. Ah, it is made like lightning; it is taken up for slaughter. Cut sharply to the right; set yourself to the left, wherever your face is directed. I also will clap my hands, and I will satisfy my fury; I the Lord have spoken” (Ezekiel 21: 14-17).
Ezekiel rises from his place. He puts on his cloak and a belt around it. He has no real sword. He is a captive in the land, and his captors would not allow that. He will use pantomime instead. His sword will be an imaginary one. He has no doubt that the people will recognize his actions for what they are intended to be; the REAL sword of judgment against his people.
Ezekiel steps from his home and lets out a terrible groaning, one that is bitter in the soul. He doesn’t even need to pretend here. He feels this bitterness and pain of what is to come.
When Ezekiel’s groanings are heard, people stop in their tracks. They turn towards the sound and find Ezekiel moving towards his gate. People rush to his side to see what the reason for his distress.
Their response to him is exactly what the Lord told him they would say.
“Why do you groan?”
Ezekiel replies with the words of the Lord. “Because of the news that it is coming. Every heart will melt, and all hands will be feeble; every spirit will faint, and all knees will be weak as water. Behold, it is coming, and it will be fulfilled.”
The peoples’ eyes go wide as they listen. “What does he know that we don’t” runs through their minds. So, Ezekiel tells them.
“A sword, a sword is sharpened
and also polished,
sharpened for slaughter,
polished to flash like lightning!”
Ezekiel takes up a position outside of his gate. He faces left and slaps his thigh. Then he draws his invisible sword. The moment he draws the sword, lighting strikes. Ezekiel cuts sharply to the right three times with his sword. Each time he swings his sword, thunder rumbles overhead. The first time it happened, Ezekiel jumped. Then he remembered God saying that He would ‘clap His hands’ too. When he made the second and third slices, the thunder didn’t surprise him at all.
The people watching, however, were shaking in their sandals by the time Ezekiel finished. They hurried away to tell their friends what they witnessed.
Ezekiel presented his demonstration several times throughout the day with the same reinforcement from Heaven. By the end of the day, the elders were begging him to stop.
“Let the Lord speak to us through words from you. Please, don’t let Him speak to us directly anymore!”
Ezekiel remembered when Israel had made this same request of Moses. God honored their request. “I wonder if He will honor it this time” mused Ezekiel.
The next morning, God speaks to Ezekiel again. “As for you, son of man, mark two ways for the sword of the king of Babylon to come. Both of them shall come from the same land. And make a signpost; make it at the head of the way to a city. Mark a way for the sword to come to Rabbah of the Ammonites and to Judah, into Jerusalem the fortified. For the king of Babylon stands at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination. He shakes the arrows; he consults the teraphim; he looks at the liver. Into his right hand comes the divination for Jerusalem, to set battering rams, to open the mouth with murder, to lift up the voice with shouting, to set battering rams against the gates, to cast up mounds, to build siege towers. But to them it will seem like a false divination. They have sworn solemn oaths, but he brings their guilt to remembrance, that they may be taken” (Ezekiel 21:19-23).
“I wonder if it’s time to bring the brick back out for use” Ezekiel says to himself. “I am to make a signpost, but am I to build the two destinations?” Ezekiel don’t hear an answer to his musings, but the Lord gives him more to prophecy over Israel.
“Say to Israel: ‘Because you have rebelled against even the ones you swore to obey, your sins are being remembered against you. “And you, O profane wicked one, prince of Israel, whose day has come, the time of your final punishment, thus says the Lord God: Remove the turban and take off the crown. Things shall not remain as they are. Exalt that which is low, and bring low that which is exalted. A ruin, ruin, ruin I will make it. This also shall not be, until he comes, the one to whom judgment belongs, and I will give it to him” (Ezekiel 21:25-27.’”
Ezekiel knows that the Lord is punishing Israel for her rebellious spirit. Their spirit chafes against any in authority. Her rebellion against the Lord is long, and she is being judged for it. But she is also being judged for swearing before the Lord to the king of Babylon that she would be loyal and faithful. She is not. Israel is seeking allies to stand with her as they rise up against the one she swore loyalty to.
God has a surprise for Ezekiel. The other direction on the sign he is to make points to Ammonites; it also points to a destruction. God is bringing judgment on Ammon as well.
“And you, son of man, prophesy, and say, Thus says the Lord God concerning the Ammonites and concerning their reproach; say, A sword, a sword is drawn for the slaughter. It is polished to consume and to flash like lightning— while they see for you false visions, while they divine lies for you—to place you on the necks of the profane wicked, whose day has come, the time of their final punishment. Return it to its sheath. In the place where you were created, in the land of your origin, I will judge you. And I will pour out my indignation upon you; I will blow upon you with the fire of my wrath, and I will deliver you into the hands of brutish men, skillful to destroy. You shall be fuel for the fire. Your blood shall be in the midst of the land. You shall be no more remembered, for I the Lord have spoken” (Ezekiel 21:28-32).
Ezekiel realizes that, regardless which direction Nebuchadnezzar takes first, the second will also meet the same end. The sword is for both of them. Ezekiel freezes as he ponders one of God’s statements. “In the place where you were created, in the land of your origin, I will judge you.” He shakes his head as he puts two things together. Out of Ur of Chaldea Abram was called by the Lord and now His people have returned to the land of the Chaldeans. “A restarting of God’s calling. A ‘do over’ of sorts.”
Ezekiel wastes no time in making the sign God commanded. He didn’t hear an answer regarding making symbolic end points, so he decides to go ahead and do it. As soon as his sign in finished, he picks up two bricks and goes out to the roadside in front of his house. Here he places Jerusalem to the left and Rabbah to the right. His sign post will point in the two directions, with labels for each destination. Ezekiel even labels his bricks with the name of the cities. Then he pounds the post into the ground for his sign. Once everything is set, he begins prophesying.
Ezekiel takes his place at the point of diversion. He pantomimes drawing his sword again and looks to Jerusalem and then to Rabbah. He pretends to be rattling arrows and to be receiving direction.
“To Jerusalem first is the way Nebuchadnezzar will go.” Ezekiel steps past the sign and faces Jerusalem with his sword drawn. He proclaims God’s words against her and strikes with the sword, the same as he did yesterday. God once again provides the ‘sound effects’ for Ezekiel’s performance.
After proclaiming the fall of Jerusalem, Ezekiel returns to the sign post and then takes the direction towards Rabbah. He steps past the post and raises his sword against Ammon. He proclaims the Lord’s destruction on Ammon.
Once he is finished, he replaces his sword in its sheath and withdraws to the signpost again. His final move is to withdraw back the way Nebuchadnezzar would have come and proclaim God’s final words for Israel. From the land of the Chaldeans, in spirit and in truth, Ezekiel proclaims the fate of God’s people.
“In the place where you were created, in the land of your origin, I will judge you. And I will pour out my indignation upon you; I will blow upon you with the fire of my wrath, and I will deliver you into the hands of brutish men, skillful to destroy. You shall be fuel for the fire. Your blood shall be in the midst of the land. You shall be no more remembered, for I the Lord have spoken.”
Ezekiel performs this message and the previous one given to him for six days. On the Sabbath, he rests. The people, once terrified by the lightening and thunder, now accept it as part of Ezekiel’s prophecy. Some wonder if Ezekiel is somehow secretly providing the ‘sound effects’. Ezekiel does not fear the sounds or sights God has attached to the performances Ezekiel is commanded to observe.
Ezekiel enjoys his Sabbath rest. He doesn’t get too comfortable though, as he is certain that the Lord has more for him to do, next week.
(to be continued)
Even after going through this story in my previous times through this book, I didn’t notice Israel being ‘brought back to start’ to begin again. Israel won’t be starting off again from scratch, but they will be going out with a new heart. Those that the Lord brings out will not chase after idols like their fathers did. (At least I don’t believe that they return to idol worships.) But there is still a long way to go before Jesus steps into the picture. A LOT of things have to be put in place first.
Father God, You have a plan for everything. Nothing is left to chance. And NOTHING I can do will alter Your plans. Bring me in line with Your plans Father. Help me fight for them instead of against them. Let me be Your instrument somehow to bring Your words to the world. To reach even one person for Your name.
