Ezekiel 5:1-17 Jerusalem’s Future
God tells Ezekiel to perform another visual lesson. This one symbolizes Jerusalem’s future downfall. It shows what will happen to the people. Sword, famine, fire, and scattered to the wind.
First thing I want to know is, WHY did he have to use a sword?! That sounds pretty dangerous to me. I know. Symbolism was important. And the initial act that God had Ezekiel perform would be noticeable for a LONG time.
On the average, Jewish men do NOT cut their hair or shave their faces. There is one person in the bible who we hear about that got regular haircuts. Absalom, King David’s son, got his hair cut yearly. It wasn’t shaved, but the weight of what was cut YEARLY was around FIVE pounds. That’s some MASSIVE hair growth! There is another man in the bible who had only ONE haircut in his whole life, and it was his downfall; Sampson. His parents were told to NEVER cut his hair, for it was the ‘source of his strength’. That strength was robbed when his hair was cut after telling the woman he loved his secret.
Shaving one’s head and face did happen other times. It was the sign of a completed vow to the Lord; a Nazirite vow. When God told Ezekiel to do it, he was FAR from the Temple, where such things took place. God was also not using this act as record of a completed vow. He was using it as another object lesson for the people. A lesson that would take a LONG TIME before things went ‘back to normal’ for Ezekiel. They would take even LONGER to get ‘back to normal’ for Jerusalem.
God didn’t simply tell Ezekiel to cut his hair and be done with it. Ezekiel was to take an accurate weight and divide his hair into thirds. Each third, God gave instructions as to what to do with it. These instructions were to be carried out in the view of the people; fellow exiles. Ezekiel’s three portions of hair are all destined for destruction. Almost all of them anyway. God told Ezekiel to take a small portion from all three groups and to bind them inside his robe. This symbolizes the “remnant” that God will leave for the people. Even of this remnant though, some will still be destroyed.
Ezekiel was to let the people know EXACTLY why he was doing these actions. God loosed his tongue and told him to speak to the people His words. Jerusalem is WORSE than all her neighbors. Her neighbors didn’t follow God’s word, but they never had before anyway. Jerusalem had, and then she turned away. She wasn’t even living up to the standards of the other nations. Specifically, the one where they STUCK WITH their gods. For THIS reason, God says “Behold, I, even I, am against you. And I will execute judgments in your midst in the sight of the nations. And because of all your abominations I will do with you what I have NEVER yet done, and the like of which I will NEVER do again” (verses 8-9).
This does NOT mean that Israel/Judah/the Jews would never again face trouble. It means that God wouldn’t ‘set His face against them’ and refuse to hear their pleas again. The whole nation would be uprooted and scattered to the wind. The sword would follow them. And their future (history now) would be something that all nations talked about. I wonder how the Holocaust fits into this. Was it part of Israel’s punishment? Was it an act of Satan against God’s people as a test; Job like? Was it simply man’s inhumanity against man? I wonder how service to the Lord looked before the Holocaust compared to now. I know the Jewish people still refuse to accept Jesus as God’s Son. Maybe that is part of why these things have come about. Honestly, only GOD knows why. One day He may tell us.
The lesson of Ezekiel’s time would be one that stuck with Israel from then on. It is also one that Ezekiel is not responsible to ensure that the people learn. His only job is to tell them by doing and saying exactly what God gives him.
I like visual demonstrations to help me learn something. How different would things have been if the people had listened to all the visual lessons that came before Ezekiel? We will never know. And yet, God still did AND He made man ANYWAY! I will never fully understand that but I will be FOREVER grateful!
Father God, the fact that You were STILL speaking through Your prophets tells me that You hadn’t given up on Your people. You KNEW their hearts and the fact that many of them wouldn’t listen, but You spoke anyway! THANK YOU that You never give up on me either! I KNOW I have deserved it more than once. You keep giving the lessons in different formats for the different ‘learning styles’ of all Your people. That also tells me that You will do whatever it takes to get through to me too. Be it send a different person or present it in a different format.
I think that’s what You did for me when You started stirring my imagination. Making me wonder about ‘the rest of the story’ as I read Your word. You bring me into the stories. Thank You for inviting me in with You.
