Ezekiel 12

As we have noted Ezekiel’s prophecies are characterized by object lessons that make for a clear message even though he has been muted by God.  Ch. 12-19 contain several graphic images of the coming judgment on Jerusalem.  Ezekiel’s audience in Babylon needed to hear this.  Though they were removed from the land they still did not take their sin seriously.  They still doubted God would allow the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple.

The first picture (v3-7) simulates “captivity.”  Ezekiel was to pack his bags and carry them to another location in a manner like that of those going into captivity.   He was to dig through the wall, perhaps the wall of his house or the wall around his house.  The Lord God was especially speaking this against the “prince in Jerusalem”, King Zedekiah, and those around him.  The prophecy of vs.11-16 was fulfilled in detail when Zedekiah tried to escape Jerusalem.  He was captured, his eyes put out, and he was taken to Babylon where he died, though he never saw it.  (The story is recorded in 2 Kings 25.)  

The second visual aid (12:17-20) was the way Ezekiel ate and drank.  He did it with quaking, trembling and anxiety.  Thus the people would live in great fear when the cities are laid waste (barrenness that results from dryness and heat) and the land becomes desolate (barrenness that generally is tied to God’s judgment).  The latter term is oft-repeated in Ezekiel to tell what God will do with the “promised land,” the land He had given to Abraham and his descendants.  However in Ch. 35ff God will promise that the “desolate” land will again be fruitful and the people will return to it.

Notice the ways in which the people rejected the word of God.  Take warning!  First they refused to consider what God’s was saying through Ezekiel’s actions; they would not ask him the meaning (v9).  They thought perhaps that they were not accountable to God’s word if they didn’t know what it meant.  Refusal to study God’s word does not free us from its truth.

Then they floated a “proverb” that the things Ezekiel was predicting would not happen for a long time.  In other words they determined that they had lots of time to repent and need not change their ways immediately.  This is an error also seen in our time as well as throughout history.  People take God’s “slowness” as an indication that He will not judge, at least in our lifetime (2 Peter 3:9).  We think about how terrible it will be for generations after us but take no warning ourselves.  When Paul said in 2 Cor. 6:2 that “now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” he was saying that the time to respond to God’s message is when you hear it.  There is never an excuse for delayed obedience.

Let us be as the Thessalonian believers who, “when you received the word of God which you heard … you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God” (1 Thess. 2:13).