Studies in the Book of Ezekiel
Jay Wegter
Highlights from chapters seven through nine
Commentary
Ezekiel's message was that the end had come upon the four corners of the land. The four corners of the land indicate that no portion of Israel would escape God's judgment. These events about to unfold on Israel would bring a new revelation of God's character. The people would realize that God being righteous requires He punish sin. God vowed to unleash His anger against Israel. And without pity, He would judge her according to her conduct and repay her for her detestable practices. Then she would know that God is the Lord. A disaster, unheard of heretofore was coming. What was about to come on Jerusalem had no historical parallel. Ezekiel was announcing that the end had roused itself against you. Disaster had been predicted for Jerusalem by Micah (Mic 3:12). But that prophecy remained unfulfilled for over 100 years. Now, Jerusalem's end was about to come (7:1-6). As the day of judgment would approach, there'd be panic. Those who had been at ease in their idolatry on the high places would be thrown into a state of apprehension when overtaken in judgment. Ezekiel repeated the theme of impending calamity verses 8-9 of chapter 7. The destruction would come as predicted, so those affected would know that the Lord himself had struck the blow (7:8-16). Israel would find she had no defense against God's judgment, no escape from God's retribution. Outside the city walls would be the sword, inside, plague and famine. Those who sought escape outside of Jerusalem's walls were hunted down and murdered by Babylon's armies. Those who sought protection inside the city walls faced the dual enemies of famine and disease. The majority of people would die, even those who survived, would pay a price. The pitiful wail of those hiding in the mountains, who were weeping over their sins and over material losses, would sound like mourning doves (7:17-18).
Israel's response to God's onslaught is pictured in 7:17-19. There would be shame and shuddering as hands would go limp, and knees would have become as weak as water. Their gold and silver would become an unclean thing. What was previously ‘precious’ would be discarded. They couldn't buy the security for which they originally collected and amassed their precious metals. Earthly treasures would not be able to save them (7:19-20). God could not be bought off, and the revulsion of their wealth was drawn from the fact of their inability to buy food to satisfy their hunger. Their wealth was plundered by foreigners (7:21-22). God will turn His face from them and desecrate His treasured place. Robbers will enter and defile it.
But nobody believed that God would surely allow His holy abode to be destroyed. They were chanting the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord (Jer 7:4ff.), but not even the temple would escape God's judgment. God says He will bring on them the most wicked of the nations to take possession of their houses (7:23-24). Babylon is ruthless and cruel. She will be used to bring down Israel's haughty pride and destroy her religious prostitution, which will be crushed by the boot of Babylon's army. Israel's response to the judgment portrays the anguish and heartache and despair that comes when sin is allowed to run its course. Israel felt she could never fall, but she would finally realize the terror of her fate. It would be too late. Her desperate search for deliverance and peace would be in vain. God added calamity upon calamity. New disasters will come (7:25-27). One catastrophe would follow another; one rumor would follow another. People were racing through the city, seeking news from prophets, priests and elders, that they might gain insight, but this would be in vain. For they'd refuse to heed the warnings of God's true prophets, and so now they're in a desperate state to seek an answer, but none to be available.
There is a timeless principle here, illustrated by our Savior in the parable of the house built upon rock or upon sand. Notice the house built on rock has a foundation of practicing Christ's commands (Mt 7:24), not just knowing them, but acting upon them. In the parable, the finality of death and judgment are likened to a storm of massive proportions. The assault of wind and waves will reveal the nature of one’s foundation. Surely, the judgment which came upon Judea in 586 B.C. revealed its rotten, sandy foundation. In chapter 8, Ezekiel repeatedly states that the coming judgment was prompted by the people's sins. But what had the people of Jerusalem done to deserve such punishment? God took Ezekiel back to Jerusalem by way of a vision to show him the wickedness there. Ezekiel's body was in Babylon, but the vision was so realistic it transported him to Jerusalem to see the depth of idolatry and wickedness taking place there. The hand of the sovereign Lord came upon him. He was in the house with the elders. They were sitting there with him. And they'd probably come to seek advice from Ezekiel. And then Ezekiel saw a figure like that of a man, a manifestation of a theophany, a theophany of God. This glowing fire emanating from the being’s body was like white-hot metal. What Ezekiel experienced, took place in visions (8:1-6). He was not physically transported, only by way of vision. And what he saw was the idol which provokes to jealousy (8:5). It was viewed as an affront to God. It violated the second of the Ten Commandments. This idol was probably the goddess Asherah, the Canaanite goddess of fertility. King Manasseh had placed a carved image of Asherah in the temple during his reign. See 2 Kings 21:7, but later removed it. After Manasseh's death an Asherah pole found its way back into the temple. Ezekiel stared at this idol. Beside him was the glory of the God of Israel. God's moral outrage was expressed in His rhetorical question to Ezekiel, "Do you see what they're doing, detestable things that will drive me far from my sanctuary?” God will not share his glory with an idol Isaiah 42:8. If an idol inhabited His temple, God would leave. The shock of seeing an idol in the Lord's house must have unnerved Ezekiel. Yet this was done to provoke her Lord. Ezekiel sees things even more detestable. God told him in the vision to dig through the hole he saw in the wall. And as he did so he saw a doorway there and portrayed all over the walls were all kinds of crawling things and detestable animals and all the idols of the house of Israel (8:7-13).
Ezekiel saw the 70 elders worshiping each his own god; each at the shrine of his own idol. Evidently, each elder had his own favorite god. But God knew their hearts and explained to Ezekiel that the elders sought to justify their sin by saying, the Lord does not see us. The Lord has forsaken the land, the elders felt that what they did in their darkened chambers would escape God's notice. They treated God as if he were a petty deity—as if He would abandon them. So, they were courting other gods for protection and prosperity. The elders’ attitude was soon transmitted to the people (8:7-13). If we harden our hearts under His discipline, we open our lives to elicit sexual sin and idolatry, which is the history of Israel as a nation (Heb 3-4).
Then in chapter 8, verses 14 and 15, Ezekiel sees the entrance to the north gate of the temple, and there, women are mourning for Tammuz. Tammuz is the Hebrew form of the Sumerian god, Damuzzi, a deity of spring vegetation. When the dry summer months would kill the vegetation, they believed it was caused by Tammuz's death and descent into the underworld. During this time his followers would weep, mourning his death. And then in the springtime, spring rains produced the foliage which emerged ‘victoriously’. They believe Tammuz ‘resurrected’, emerging victoriously from the underworld and brought with him life-giving rains. The worship of Tammuz involved sexual fertility rights as well. The worship of Yahweh, the true giver of rain had been supplanted by the debased adoration of a pagan deity. The worship of the Creator was replaced by the worship of the cycles of creation and the seasons which He had established.
Nothing has really changed. Today, nature worship operates under the cloak of pseudo-science. People believe that by their windmills and by their environmental philosophies and by their worship of Gaia, that they can control the weather and change the climate. In chapter 8 verses 17 and 18, the horrors that Ezekiel had seen in the temple were disturbing, but the evil was not confined there. The wickedness being practiced in the temple by the priests and by the people had spread throughout the nation. Violence filled the nation, which continually provoked God to anger, including the sacrifice of infants to Moloch. God says He will deal with them in anger and not with pity. A judgment without pity is a terrifying thing in many ways, this will be the judgment that Christ brings at His Second Coming as well as in the judgments and plagues of the Tribulation Period (8:17-18). The ‘guards’ with weapons are probably angels, who will be executing the will of God in slaying the wicked inhabitants of Jerusalem and the nation. The guards follow the scribe through the city and kill without showing any pity. There was no distinction about age or gender. The judgment would come up on old and young, men, women, and children. God ordered the guards to begin slaying at the sanctuary. It is significant that the judgment begins at the household of God (see 1 Pet 4:17). The guards begin with the elders, the priests whose backs were turned to God. Their slaughter would defile the temple and fill the courts with the slain. But the temple had already been defiled with their idolatrous practices. The historical fulfillment of this slaughter is seen in 2 Chronicles 36:17. The prophet Ezekiel is overwhelmed by the magnitude of the judgment. He cries out, “Are you going to destroy the entire remnant of Israel?” Although Ezekiel's appeal revealed his concern, the nation's sin had progressed too far to avert wholesale disaster (9:8). God had given them ample time to repent, but the people had used the time to grow more perverse in their ways of bloodshed and violence and injustice. The Lord would give them what they deserved. Then the angelic scribe returned with his report. I have done, as Thou hast said, as Thou hast commanded; those who were righteous, and whose hearts grieved over the nation's sins, had received God's mark of protection, they'd be spared. The unrighteous who had rejected God and embraced evil, did not receive the mark of protection. They would be killed. Each person's destiny was determined by his character, which was a revelation of his spiritual state: i.e. enemy of God, or true believer (9:4,10-11).
Application and Discussion
God says He's going to bring upon them the consequences of their ways (7:4). He's going to pour out His holy wrath upon them. God will profane what was once sacred, His temple. He will issue punishment in like kind. In other words, the form of punishment will be illustrative of the folly of their transgressions. For they did not trust Yahweh, but trusted implicitly their hoard of gold and silver for security. Therefore, their stores of gold will mock their hunger and their exposure to Babylon’s invading force. The punishment in like kind will be depictive of the deceptive nature of the sin itself. Also known as poetic justice (lex talionis). Pharoah drowned Hebrew babies in the Nile River. Pharoah’s army was drowned in the Red Sea. The reprobate has spurned his conscience; his conscience will torment him forever. God won't help Israel. This will be a pitiless judgment. Though the means of their education in God’s holy and just character is wrath-filled judgment, they will come to know that He is the Lord (7:27). Severe judgment is the means by which they will come to know that I am the Lord. Through this acute judgment, their sin is permitted to catch up with them in utter destruction. This pitiless retribution is traceable to God's action. Their illusory sense of autonomy and control will die a humiliating death. The gold and silver in which they trusted will mock their starvation (7:19-20). They'll be exposed to the sword and completely out of ideas for any form of security or safety. What a statement, one can know the God of the universe in His grace and forgiveness, or one can know the God of the universe in His wrath and absolute justice. But a Day is coming in which everyone will come to know that God is the Lord. The elders of Israel, who were worshiping their gods, sought to appease the conscience by repeating this phrase, God doesn't see, and He has forsaken the land (8:12). The writer of Hebrews attributes this similar failure in the wilderness to unbelief, and to not knowing God’s ways (Heb 3:10, 19).
The pagan religion of the god Tammuz is traceable to Babel, the mother of harlots. Illicit sex, violence, and idolatry go together. They are bed-partner abominations. Every culture that has worshipped illicit sex has become a culture of death—whether the death of infants by flames before the idol Moloch, or by a scalpel at an abortion clinic. The people of Israel having descended into full blown idolatry were attempting to palliate their consciences with a lie that God doesn't see, and He had forsaken the land (8:12, and 9:9). God won't answer their prayer for deliverance when the Babylonians are breaking through; it'll be too late (8:18).
The conscience planted by God is about truth in the innermost being, providing the bellwether for our
choices and affections. To habitually say no to conscience is a terrible thing. In the instance of 6ᵗʰ Century Judea, the nation had reached the point at which absence of pity will accompany their judgment (9:5-6,10). That awful phrase revealing their apostasy is an attempt to pacify the conscience, the Lord has forsaken the land; the Lord does not see. It's interesting that this phrase, which they used to justify their idolatry is an overt denial of God's attributes. The very divine attributes which the Torah was designed to teach were denied. They kept ‘refreshing’ their denial of the attributes of God with that phrase—thus, it served to keep their devotion to idols in place. The Lord said to him, “Go through the midst of the city, even through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations which are being committed in its midst” (Ezek 9:4). The character of those who are truly mourning over Israel’s sin, in many ways, lines up with the beatitudes (Mt 5:3-4, 6). Judgment begins with the household of God (1 Pet 4:17). That's true, even in this judgment of Jerusalem—by way of a vision, Ezekiel is witness to God’s glory leaving the temple prior to its desecration and destruction by Babylon. In wanting their ears tickled by the message of the false prophets, the people were defaming God's character. They rejected the authority of the Word of God through His prophets, allowing the false teachers’ lies to fuel their idolatry. How does this apply to false teachers today?
Retribution is simply the ‘reaping aspect’ of moral cause and effect; of sin and consequence, wherein conduct is brought down on the heads of the transgressors. Idols don't require holiness. In some ways all judgments of God maintain certain parallels with one another. Jesus says in Matthew 7 in the parable of the house built on sand and the house built upon rock that the storm, which rages against the house, reveals it's foundation. This storm of unimaginable proportions is final death and judgment.
We have a fascinating verse in Amos 3:7. “Surely the Lord God does nothing unless He reveals His secret counsel to His servants the prophets.” And then in Amos 3:6, “if a trumpet is blown in a city, will not the people tremble? If a calamity occurs in a city, has not the Lord done it?” This is a crucial byword in understanding the role of the prophets in judgment. That the people must know that God is behind the calamity He sends, that people might respond in trust, repentance, and faith—completely retreating into God, who is the only place of refuge. The message of Amos 3:7 is saying that God in His sovereignty communicates His plans and judgments to His prophets before executing His plans and judgments. Why? To warn and to give opportunities for repentance and transformation (see Amos 3:2). This is why these warnings proceed the judgments. And if this foundational principle is missing from a pastor's mindset, it's a deadly serious thing. As one Christian leader said, "There's very little difference at times that separates the message of a true preacher from a false teacher, other than the fact that the false teacher refuses to warn.” He leaves the consciences of his hearers alone. There's a history of God sending prophets before a judgment. We think of Noah, of Abraham, being warned about the destruction of Sodom, where Lot lived. We think about Christ warning the inhabitants of Jerusalem, about the 70 A.D coming destruction. We think about God warning the Israelites through Moses about a proper response to their trials in the wilderness. Regarding divine warnings amidst chastening’s and tribulations, we are given a very powerful caution in Hebrews chapter 3 and 4 that we should not harden our hearts. It was a costly thing for the Israelites to harden their hearts, for it was their children who entered the land of milk and honey and not the adult Israelites who had been delivered from Egyptian bondage. Ezekiel’s congregation had been hardened by decades of idolatry. It's a highly dangerous attitude to adopt the mindset that if God doesn't care, I don't care. This is an open door to sexual immorality, to idolatry, and to apostasy. According to according to Deuteronomy 8, and Hebrews 3, we must know God's ways—namely the paths He takes with His people by means of difficult seasons, deep waters, and tribulations. He does so that He might do good to them in the end (Deut 8:16), that we might learn to live by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Deut 8:3-6). And so we must have the deepest respect for our heavenly Father when He brings these corrections and chastisements. According to Hebrews 12, there is much need for His discipline, and there is worldliness left in our hearts. And as one of my friends says, when God pulls that worldliness out of you, it's like pulling out a long strand of rusty barbed wire. It's going to be painful; tearing tissue as it exits. So again, we review the fact that the Israelites in their murmuring in the wilderness was not simply, ‘we're sick of manna’. No, their murmuring was born of the carnal conclusion that God does not hold them in favor. Murmuring was the symptom of hardening their hearts (Heb 3). They concluded that God hated them; that He brought them out into the wilderness to kill them. And so, they reasoned, let us appoint leaders and return to Egypt. And why not have an orgy while worshipping a golden calf? What is the allure of an idol?
An idol promises the devotee a measure of control, of bartering
offerings for prosperity, protection, and indulgence. Because we are made by God, for God, and to find our all-in-all in God, an idol is therefore a false integration point. We have no stability, no security, no integration, no true peace, joy, purpose, unless we are operating according to our created purpose to know our God. He's at work in our lives from eternity and for eternity. Thus, an idol can only bring non-integration and dehumanizing enslavement, and alienation from God.
We look to an idol, sadly, to bring some type of unity between our mind, our affections, our will, and our conscience. But an idol can only produce fragmentation of soul, dis-integration. It can't produce wholeness. Note that biblical salvation is described in places as being made complete, or whole (Col 2:10; 1 Thess 5:23-24). An idol is a very deceptive tool of Satan to actually mangle and mutilate the soul by producing disintegration, despite whatever temporary pleasures might be involved in pursuing sin. For God has placed eternity in the heart of man—therefore, we could never rest in ultimate worship and reliance on anything created, anything finite (Eccles
3:11).
Comments are from The Bible Knowledge Commentary, Walvoord and Zuck, Eds.