BACKGROUND
Ezekiel 20:45-49
"Toward the South" refers to Jerusalem and Judah. "The southland" is the Negev in the southern portion of Palestine near the border with Edom (Joshua 15:21). Kadesh Barnea and Beersheba are major settlements there and are mentioned quite a few times in the first year of the Bible Book Club. It gets very little rainfall with few sources of water. Maybe it had forests at that time. In this prophecy, God would devastate its forest by fire from south to north.
Ezekiel complained here that the people were not listening and thought he was just telling confusing riddles.
Ezekiel 21
The people refused to understand Ezekiel's parable. So, he gave them three messages that expanded on the parable. The "fire" is changed to "sword" and "Negev" is changed to Judah and Jerusalem.
The three messages are:
1) The sword of the Lord (21:1-7)
It was coming, and it would extend from south to north, and they better be ready.
2) The sword sharpened (21:8-17)
This is a poetic song of judgment in three stanzas with two interludes focusing on "the rod." The sword was sharpened and ready for slaughter, but Israel despised the rod (chastisement) of the Lord and all advice given to them. Therefore, they would receive the sword.
3) The sword of Nebuchadnezzar (21:18-27)
The sword was given via God's instrument for judgment for Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon.
In 589 B.C., both Judah and Ammon conspired against Babylon (Jeremiah 27:3). Tyre was also seeking independence. Ezekiel prophesied that Babylon's king would march in to stop the rebellion. He would come to a fork in the road and decide which nation he would destroy first. He did this by casting lots with arrows (like drawing straws), consulting idols, or examining the liver (a liver of a sacrificed animal was examined for makings and shape and studied by soothsayers). God would work through these pagan ways to point Nebuchadnezzar to Jerusalem because of His judgment on His people.
Jerusalem would be destroyed because it was defiled. According to Numbers 31:22 and 23, defiled objects were to go through fire to be purified. God's judgment was for purification so that His people would return to Him. He was not trying to inflict pain for the pleasure of it but to bring about repentance from His people.
There is another message directed specifically toward Ammon in 21:28-31. After Jerusalem fell, Ammon organized the assassination of Gedaliah, the appointed governor of Judah (Jeremiah 40:13-41:10) so that Babylon's sword would continue to be pointed at Jerusalem rather than Ammon. But God would hand them over to "people of the East" (25:4) who were nomadic invaders. Stay tuned for a summary of their final end in the background for Ezekiel 25.
REFLECTION
God did not want to inflict pain for the fun of it. He was calling them to repent. Here is the meaning behind the Old Testament word:
It is the twelfth most frequently used verb in the ot, appearing just over 1050 times. With very few exceptions šûb is restricted to the Qal and Hiphil stems. It appears most often in Jeremiah (111 times) followed by Psalms (seventy-one times), Genesis (sixty-eight times), Ezekiel (sixty-two times), I Kings (sixty-two times), II Chronicles (sixty-one times), II Kings (fifty-five times), Isaiah (fifty-one times).
. . . Better than any other verb it combines in itself the two requisites of repentance: to turn from evil and to turn to the good [emphasis mine].
The third important use of šûb in the Qal, and theologically the most crucial, is in passages dealing with the covenant community’s return to God (in the sense of repentance), or turning away from evil (in the sense of renouncing and disowning sin), or turning away from God (in the sense of becoming apostate). In such contexts šûb in the Qal is used 129 times. By contrast, in the Hiphil šûb is used only eleven times when discussing the divine-human relationship. “turn back (Qal imperative) and ‘let yourself be turned from your idols’ (Hiphil) from your idols” (Ezk 14:6). (Harris, R. L., Harris, R. L., Archer, G. L., & Waltke, B. K. Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, p. 909)APPLICATION
Is God speaking to you about any areas of repentance today?
Ezekiel 21:1-17 used a visual picture of the sword to teach His people His truth. See if you can name the other pictures He gives in the book of Ezekiel:
4:1-2
4:3-8
4:9-17
5:1-17
12:1-7
21:1-17
22:18-31
24:1-14
24:15-27
37:15-17
PRAYER
Lord, help us to return to You with all our hearts. Amen.
1 comment:
When I hear the word "repentance," it feels negative, but repentance brings rest and freedom. I do like repentance in the context of God's love and where I have seen him working. That is why I like the Examen. Maybe I will add that here.
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