Ezekiel 11:14-25
English Standard Version

Israel's New Heart and Spirit
14 And the word of the LORD came to me: 15 “Son of man, your brothers, even your brothers, your kinsmen, the whole house of Israel, all of them, are those of whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, ‘Go far from the LORD; to us this land is given for a possession.’ 16 Therefore say, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: Though I removed them far off among the nations, and though I scattered them among the countries, yet I have been a sanctuary to them for a while in the countries where they have gone.’ 17 Therefore say, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: I will gather you from the peoples and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.’ 18 And when they come there, they will remove from it all its detestable things and all its abominations. 19 And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, 20 that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. 21 But as for those whose heart goes after their detestable things and their abominations, I will bring their deeds upon their own heads, declares the Lord GOD.”

22 Then the cherubim lifted up their wings, with the wheels beside them, and the glory of the God of Israel was over them. 23 And the glory of the LORD went up from the midst of the city and stood on the mountain that is on the east side of the city. 24 And the Spirit lifted me up and brought me in the vision by the Spirit of God into Chaldea, to the exiles. Then the vision that I had seen went up from me. 25 And I told the exiles all the things that the LORD had shown me.

The LORD once again promises Ezekiel that His people who have been scattered to the nations will once again be gathered together in the Land.  Though they have not had a Temple to worship at while they have been scattered, they will once again build a dwelling place fit for a King when they return to the Land.  They will purge the Land of all of the idols that polluted their land and tear down all the high places and destroy all the altars that they made to the false gods and goddesses.  These were the things that the people thought they needed to become the people of God once again.

However, the LORD identities an even greater need within them.  These people need to be made new from the inside out.  They will never be able to be His covenant people unless He gives them a new heart and new spirit.  This sounds very "new covenant" to us who are familiar with what Jesus did, first for the Jews and also for the Gentiles.  He made it possible for all of us to be "born again" (regeneration is something else that Ezekiel will be promised later in his visions with The Valley of Dry Bones).  The LORD says His people have hearts that are currently cold, hard, and dead like stone.  Instead, He will give them a heart of flesh that is warm, softened to the hearing and doing of His Word, and alive and at work within them.  He would put His Spirit within them sot that then, and only then, they may be able to walk in His statutes (keep His Law) as He called them to do in Exodus 19 and 20.  He will be their God and they will be His people once again.

He would also remove their guilt and shame.  No longer would they be a byword to the nations.  They would not be seen as detestable and an abomination.  No longer would people wag their heads when they walked by and talk about a people that God had seemingly abandoned and cursed because they had abandoned and cursed Him.  However, this is exactly what people would do to the Son of God when they watched Him be crucified.  They would jeer and mock Him in the same way that Israel was jeered and mocked.  They would accuse Him of lying about His relationship with God and ask Jesus where His Father was in this moment and why His Father refused to save Him.  The answer was that the Father and the Son planed for the Son to represent all of His people and He would take all the suffering they deserved so that they might receive His heart and His Spirit and the blessings that only He deserved.

The LORD also promises that the wickedness of the Gentile nations, especially those who abused His people during this time that they were dispersed throughout the nations, would not go unpunished.  The day is coming when the same One who is the Savior for His people will be the Judge of those who persecuted Him and His people.

The vision finishes with the LORD bringing Ezekiel to His people living in Exile because they needed to hear these words and know that He was still with them wherever they went.  Though there was no Temple, they still needed priests like Ezekiel to minister to them in all the places they now lived.  The need was as great if not greater for them to hear the Word of the LORD now when that was all that would help them hold onto their faith and their identity as the people of God who had been displaced, but but not dispossessed (The Land would still belong to them when the LORD brought them back, it would not belong to those who tried to live in the Land while they were gone).  They were exiled, but not abandoned.  Moreover, they needed to know that the LORD had not broken His covenant with them and His goals for them were unchanged.  He was still going to save them and make them new--a people for His own possession and to the praise of His glory!

Ezekiel 11:1-13
English Standard Version

Judgment on Wicked Counselors
11 The Spirit lifted me up and brought me to the east gate of the house of the LORD, which faces east. And behold, at the entrance of the gateway there were twenty-five men. And I saw among them Jaazaniah the son of Azzur, and Pelatiah the son of Benaiah, princes of the people. 2 And he said to me, “Son of man, these are the men who devise iniquity and who give wicked counsel in this city; 3 who say, ‘The time is not near to build houses. This city is the cauldron, and we are the meat.’ 4 Therefore prophesy against them; prophesy, O son of man.”

5 And the Spirit of the LORD fell upon me, and he said to me, “Say, Thus says the LORD: So you think, O house of Israel. For I know the things that come into your mind. 6 You have multiplied your slain in this city and have filled its streets with the slain. 7 Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Your slain whom you have laid in the midst of it, they are the meat, and this city is the cauldron, but you shall be brought out of the midst of it. 8 You have feared the sword, and I will bring the sword upon you, declares the Lord GOD. 9 And I will bring you out of the midst of it, and give you into the hands of foreigners, and execute judgments upon you. 10 You shall fall by the sword. I will judge you at the border of Israel, and you shall know that I am the LORD. 11 This city shall not be your cauldron, nor shall you be the meat in the midst of it. I will judge you at the border of Israel, 12 and you shall know that I am the LORD. For you have not walked in my statutes, nor obeyed my rules, but have acted according to the rules of the nations that are around you.”

13 And it came to pass, while I was prophesying, that Pelatiah the son of Benaiah died. Then I fell down on my face and cried out with a loud voice and said, “Ah, Lord GOD! Will you make a full end of the remnant of Israel?”

The main gate to the Temple faced east (the sunrise) and the Altar of the LORD (the Bronze Altar) was there as this is where the people came to make atonement for their sin and to receive reconciliation with each other through the blood of the sacrifices that were offered there.  They also offered their other tithes and offerings there on that altar in worship to the LORD.

It is there that the LORD directed Ezekiel to proclaim judgment against the leaders of the people.  They gave bad council to the people and told them to do the opposite of what the LORD wanted them to do.  For this reason, the LORD is going to judge them.

So many people were dying that they could not bury all of them, but the LORD is upset with the way that the people littered the streets with dead bodies and lived among them.  They did not even try to bury people with dignity or to try to keep the streets clean.  Though the false prophets claimed that everyone was going to die and they didn't need to prepare for the future, the LORD tells Ezekiel to tell the people that some of them will be taken out of the city alive and that a future generation will return to the city.  They would do good to build with that future generation in mind.  Though they will not experience the blessings of their planting and building, others one day will.  If they are only thinking of themselves, they will not plant or build because they know they will die or be taken captive, but if they are selfless, they will think beyond themselves to the future generations and will continue to do the hard work of building and planting to make it better for future generations.

The people of Israel and Judah will not be completely destroyed.  However, the people will be judged severely for their rebellion and their idolatry.  Only a small remnant of the people will survive, but none of people will be cut off from the covenant (including a covenant of descendants and land) that was made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  The LORD is faithful to keep His covenant with His people

Ezekiel 10
English Standard Version

The Glory of the LORD Leaves the Temple
10 Then I looked, and behold, on the expanse that was over the heads of the cherubim there appeared above them something like a sapphire, in appearance like a throne. 2 And he said to the man clothed in linen, “Go in among the whirling wheels underneath the cherubim. Fill your hands with burning coals from between the cherubim, and scatter them over the city.”

And he went in before my eyes. 3 Now the cherubim were standing on the south side of the house, when the man went in, and a cloud filled the inner court. 4 And the glory of the LORD went up from the cherub to the threshold of the house, and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was filled with the brightness of the glory of the LORD. 5 And the sound of the wings of the cherubim was heard as far as the outer court, like the voice of God Almighty when he speaks.

6 And when he commanded the man clothed in linen, “Take fire from between the whirling wheels, from between the cherubim,” he went in and stood beside a wheel. 7 And a cherub stretched out his hand from between the cherubim to the fire that was between the cherubim, and took some of it and put it into the hands of the man clothed in linen, who took it and went out. 8 The cherubim appeared to have the form of a human hand under their wings.

9 And I looked, and behold, there were four wheels beside the cherubim, one beside each cherub, and the appearance of the wheels was like sparkling beryl. 10 And as for their appearance, the four had the same likeness, as if a wheel were within a wheel. 11 When they went, they went in any of their four directions without turning as they went, but in whatever direction the front wheel faced, the others followed without turning as they went. 12 And their whole body, their rims, and their spokes, their wings, and the wheels were full of eyes all around—the wheels that the four of them had. 13 As for the wheels, they were called in my hearing “the whirling wheels.” 14 And every one had four faces: the first face was the face of the cherub, and the second face was a human face, and the third the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle.

15 And the cherubim mounted up. These were the living creatures that I saw by the Chebar canal. 16 And when the cherubim went, the wheels went beside them. And when the cherubim lifted up their wings to mount up from the earth, the wheels did not turn from beside them. 17 When they stood still, these stood still, and when they mounted up, these mounted up with them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in them.

18 Then the glory of the LORD went out from the threshold of the house, and stood over the cherubim. 19 And the cherubim lifted up their wings and mounted up from the earth before my eyes as they went out, with the wheels beside them. And they stood at the entrance of the east gate of the house of the LORD, and the glory of the God of Israel was over them.

20 These were the living creatures that I saw underneath the God of Israel by the Chebar canal; and I knew that they were cherubim. 21 Each had four faces, and each four wings, and underneath their wings the likeness of human hands. 22 And as for the likeness of their faces, they were the same faces whose appearance I had seen by the Chebar canal. Each one of them went straight forward.

This is one of the more significant events in the book of Ezekiel and many mischaracterize this as the LORD abandoning HIs people, but that is not what is going on here.  Remember that when the people of Israel wandered in the wilderness, the glory of the LORD in the form of a pillar of cloud and pillar of fire would go with them and lead them wherever they were to go, but He would go ahead of them.  The LORD lived among His people in a temporary dwelling (a tent) called The Tabernacle, and it wasn't until the time of King Solomon that the LORD resided "permanently" in the Temple.  Now the people are about to be exiled from the Land, and their pagan mindset would tell them that the gods are attached to the Land and that if they leave the Land, they are going to leave God behind too.

Notice that God has not changed, even though His people have changed.  Ezekiel sees the LORD in the same way that He first revealed Himself.  Part of that vision was that the LORD and His throne (and all of heaven with it) moved wherever the LORD willed.  He was not fixed in one place.  Once again, we will see the glory of the LORD depart from His fixed location at the Temple and will go ahead of His people as the go into Exile.  He is not abandoning them but going with them into their place of Exile.  "I will never leave you or forsake you" and "The LORD your God will be will you wherever you go" were promises they could count on and are promises we can count on.  The LORD did not abandon HIs people, but the Temple no longer reflected His glory and majesty because it had been desecrated.  It was no longer a place suitable for HIs people or the nations to gather and worship Him or learn about His covenant.  The LORD still resides with His people who are in "exile" today through the work of the Holy Spirit.  We don't have to live in the Land and be close to a Temple to be near the LORD because He now dwells within His people who are the Temple of the Holy Spirit (that's something from the New Testament that should not be superimposed here, but I think this event points forward to the greater truth that the LORD dwells among His people and does not abandon them).

Ezekiel 9
English Standard Version

Idolaters Killed
9 Then he cried in my ears with a loud voice, saying, “Bring near the executioners of the city, each with his destroying weapon in his hand.” 2 And behold, six men came from the direction of the upper gate, which faces north, each with his weapon for slaughter in his hand, and with them was a man clothed in linen, with a writing case at his waist. And they went in and stood beside the bronze altar.

3 Now the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the cherub on which it rested to the threshold of the house. And he called to the man clothed in linen, who had the writing case at his waist. 4 And the LORD said to him, “Pass through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it.” 5 And to the others he said in my hearing, “Pass through the city after him, and strike. Your eye shall not spare, and you shall show no pity. 6 Kill old men outright, young men and maidens, little children and women, but touch no one on whom is the mark. And begin at my sanctuary.” So they began with the elders who were before the house. 7 Then he said to them, “Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain. Go out.” So they went out and struck in the city. 8 And while they were striking, and I was left alone, I fell upon my face, and cried, “Ah, Lord GOD! Will you destroy all the remnant of Israel in the outpouring of your wrath on Jerusalem?”

9 Then he said to me, “The guilt of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great. The land is full of blood, and the city full of injustice. For they say, ‘The LORD has forsaken the land, and the LORD does not see.’ 10 As for me, my eye will not spare, nor will I have pity; I will bring their deeds upon their heads.”

11 And behold, the man clothed in linen, with the writing case at his waist, brought back word, saying, “I have done as you commanded me.”

Ezekiel then sees a vision of the LORD's wrath being poured out on Jerusalem, starting with the destruction and desecration of the Temple.  Before it begins, there is a man dressed in white linen (seemingly an angel or maybe the angel of the LORD) who is to go around the city and mark anyone who is grieved in their heart by the wickedness and idolatry.  This mark will be a mark of protection, as only these righteous few will survive this judgment.

Old and young, rich and poor, male and female alike will all perish in the judgment.  There will be no distinction between them.  It would seem that the other six "men" are probably also angelic beings responsible for making sure that the wicked perish and the righteous are not harmed.  Matthew Henry notes that the LORD only sent two angels to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns of the valley, but sent six to destroy Jerusalem as a show of force and a sign of just how wicked they were.  As I said when we started studying this book, I'm not going to try to make too much out of the numbers or symbolism.  I believe Ezekiel wrote down what he saw and it is clear from his reaction that it appeared as if the whole city was going to be destroyed (very few people were marked for protection).

The judgment started with the house of the LORD (with the priests and then the elders of people) and went out from there.  This is in alignment with what 1 Peter 4:17 says of the coming judgment, "17 For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?."  The priests and elders who were the spiritual and civil leaders of the people where not spared and the judgment started with them.  So it will be in the last days when people will come to "church" and be led into worship of the beast (the Antichrist) by those claiming that they are leading people into truth and light, but they are leading them into falsehood and darkness.  So too with the political leaders who ally themselves with the kingdom of darkness and make themselves enemies of the LORD and His Kingdom.  All people of all nations who are not marked by the angels God sends out to protect those who belong to Him will be swallowed up the judgment of the Great Tribulation that is to come that this incident foreshadows.  (See Revelation 7:1-8 where 144,000 witnesses from the Twelve Tribes will be marked to be kept safe during the plagues and judgments of the Great Tribulation).  The parallels here are undeniable (though that does not mean they are speaking of the same event.  It may simply mean that God is in the habit of saving His remnant for coming judgment just like He did with Noah and his family, Lot and His family, and will one day do again for the 144,000 that He chooses to protect from the Antichrist, Satan, and the world).

No one deserved to be saved, but the LORD is good and saves a remnant unto Himself for His glory. These that were saved were faithful to the LORD and did not give themselves to idols were grieved by the worship that was given to the other gods and the moral decay that was going on around them.  They would be the best to help raise up a new generation of people in a far-away land full of idols and wickedness that would remain righteous and teach the next generation to stay true to the LORD and His covenant.  Not all in Exile would remain faithful (we see that just a fraction of them did), but do you imagine any of these idolaters would have refused to bow down to the king of Babylon's gold statue or would have continued to pray when the king of the Medes and Persians ordered that no one could pray to any god for a month other than the king?  God saved righteous men, women and children (like Daniel and his three friends) because the story of Jerusalem and its people does not end here. 

Ezekiel 8
English Standard Version

Abominations in the Temple
8 In the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I sat in my house, with the elders of Judah sitting before me, the hand of the Lord GOD fell upon me there. 2 Then I looked, and behold, a form that had the appearance of a man. Below what appeared to be his waist was fire, and above his waist was something like the appearance of brightness, like gleaming metal. 3 He put out the form of a hand and took me by a lock of my head, and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and brought me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the gateway of the inner court that faces north, where was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy. 4 And behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, like the vision that I saw in the valley.

5 Then he said to me, “Son of man, lift up your eyes now toward the north.” So I lifted up my eyes toward the north, and behold, north of the altar gate, in the entrance, was this image of jealousy. 6 And he said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they are doing, the great abominations that the house of Israel are committing here, to drive me far from my sanctuary? But you will see still greater abominations.”

7 And he brought me to the entrance of the court, and when I looked, behold, there was a hole in the wall. 8 Then he said to me, “Son of man, dig in the wall.” So I dug in the wall, and behold, there was an entrance. 9 And he said to me, “Go in, and see the vile abominations that they are committing here.” 10 So I went in and saw. And there, engraved on the wall all around, was every form of creeping things and loathsome beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel. 11 And before them stood seventy men of the elders of the house of Israel, with Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan standing among them. Each had his censer in his hand, and the smoke of the cloud of incense went up. 12 Then he said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each in his room of pictures? For they say, ‘The LORD does not see us, the LORD has forsaken the land.’” 13 He said also to me, “You will see still greater abominations that they commit.”

14 Then he brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the house of the LORD and behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz. 15 Then he said to me, “Have you seen this, O son of man? You will see still greater abominations than these.”

16 And he brought me into the inner court of the house of the LORD. And behold, at the entrance of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men, with their backs to the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east, worshiping the sun toward the east. 17 Then he said to me, “Have you seen this, O son of man? Is it too light a thing for the house of Judah to commit the abominations that they commit here, that they should fill the land with violence and provoke me still further to anger? Behold, they put the branch to their nose. 18 Therefore I will act in wrath. My eye will not spare, nor will I have pity. And though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them.”

Ezekiel was sitting in his house with the elders of the people of Judah when the LORD gave him another vision.  The LORD appeared to Ezekiel much like He did the first time with the form of a man, but with fire in the lower half of His "body" and bright light for the upper-half of His "body."  He led Ezekiel to the heavenly realm where Ezekiel could see through space and time and could see the spiritual dimension of things as well.

First, the LORD had Ezekiel look at how they had desecrated Jerusalem and the Temple with idols.  Even the LORD's altar had been displaced in favor of an altar to a false god.  Even though these abominations looked awful, the LORD promised Ezekiel that he would see visions of even worse abominations.  Because of these things, the LORD was provoked to anger and His wrath was kindled against His people because they had tried to push Him out of every area of their lives--even the place called His house.

Then the LORD showed Ezekiel all the vile and wicked things that the elders of the people (the very people that he was meeting with in his house) had been doing in secret.  They are pictured as all the unclean animals and idols, but the text seems to indicate that these are sins of their hearts and minds.  They think that no one can see them because they think only the LORD can see what is done in their hearts and minds, but they imagine that He has abandoned them and they are free to sin without His knowledge.  They even went as far as imagining themselves to be priests of their own making like in Korah's rebellion (notice how they are offering incense that is unauthorized--only the high priest is to do that to make atonement for the people).  Ab bad as this is, the LORD promises Ezekiel that he will see even worse things.  Ezekiel is beginning to understand why the LORD must judge the people so severely.

The LORD then shows Ezekiel a woman at the north gate crying for the false god Tammuz (probably because the idols were destroyed during the Babylonian conquest).  They are mourning the loss of their idols, but they never mourned over the loss of their relationship with the one true God.  They are so attached to this lie.  This is an even greater evil to see the hearts of the common people wedded to false gods and idols.

Then, the LORD finally took Ezekiel inside the gates of the Temple.  The gate faced towards the east on purpose so that each new day would shine light on the Bronze Altar and on the sanctuary, yet the men gathered there have their backs turned to the altar and the sanctuary and are gathered there to worship the sun.  Like it is said in Romans 1, they worship the creation rather than the Creator.  The LORD explains that it is because of their heart condition that the Land is filled with all kinds of bloodshed and violence.  Their hearts are so hard and their consciences so numb that it is going to take a heavy hand of correction to get their attention.  The LORD loves them and that is why He is disciplining them so harshly.  The devil would love to see the LORD just destroy His people so that His covenant of redemption would go unfulfilled (Messiah would never come to take care of the sin issue), but the LORD cares too much about saving His people to let them become like the Gentile nations.  Some serious pruning needs to be done to get rid of the part of the vine that is diseased and dead, but it is for the sake of trying to save the part of the vine that still remains healthy.

Ezekiel 7
English Standard Version

The Day of the Wrath of the LORD
7 The word of the LORD came to me: 2 “And you, O son of man, thus says the Lord GOD to the land of Israel: An end! The end has come upon the four corners of the land. 3 Now the end is upon you, and I will send my anger upon you; I will judge you according to your ways, and I will punish you for all your abominations. 4 And my eye will not spare you, nor will I have pity, but I will punish you for your ways, while your abominations are in your midst. Then you will know that I am the LORD.

5 “Thus says the Lord GOD: Disaster after disaster! Behold, it comes. 6 An end has come; the end has come; it has awakened against you. Behold, it comes. 7 Your doom has come to you, O inhabitant of the land. The time has come; the day is near, a day of tumult, and not of joyful shouting on the mountains. 8 Now I will soon pour out my wrath upon you, and spend my anger against you, and judge you according to your ways, and I will punish you for all your abominations. 9 And my eye will not spare, nor will I have pity. I will punish you according to your ways, while your abominations are in your midst. Then you will know that I am the LORD, who strikes.

10 “Behold, the day! Behold, it comes! Your doom has come; the rod has blossomed; pride has budded. 11 Violence has grown up into a rod of wickedness. None of them shall remain, nor their abundance, nor their wealth; neither shall there be preeminence among them. 12 The time has come; the day has arrived. Let not the buyer rejoice, nor the seller mourn, for wrath is upon all their multitude. 13 For the seller shall not return to what he has sold, while they live. For the vision concerns all their multitude; it shall not turn back; and because of his iniquity, none can maintain his life.

14 “They have blown the trumpet and made everything ready, but none goes to battle, for my wrath is upon all their multitude. 15 The sword is without; pestilence and famine are within. He who is in the field dies by the sword, and him who is in the city famine and pestilence devour. 16 And if any survivors escape, they will be on the mountains, like doves of the valleys, all of them moaning, each one over his iniquity. 17 All hands are feeble, and all knees turn to water. 18 They put on sackcloth, and horror covers them. Shame is on all faces, and baldness on all their heads. 19 They cast their silver into the streets, and their gold is like an unclean thing. Their silver and gold are not able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD. They cannot satisfy their hunger or fill their stomachs with it. For it was the stumbling block of their iniquity. 20 His beautiful ornament they used for pride, and they made their abominable images and their detestable things of it. Therefore I make it an unclean thing to them. 21 And I will give it into the hands of foreigners for prey, and to the wicked of the earth for spoil, and they shall profane it. 22 I will turn my face from them, and they shall profane my treasured place. Robbers shall enter and profane it.

23 “Forge a chain! For the land is full of bloody crimes and the city is full of violence. 24 I will bring the worst of the nations to take possession of their houses. I will put an end to the pride of the strong, and their holy places shall be profaned. 25 When anguish comes, they will seek peace, but there shall be none. 26 Disaster comes upon disaster; rumor follows rumor. They seek a vision from the prophet, while the law perishes from the priest and counsel from the elders. 27 The king mourns, the prince is wrapped in despair, and the hands of the people of the land are paralyzed by terror. According to their way I will do to them, and according to their judgments I will judge them, and they shall know that I am the LORD.”

The LORD is about to pour out His wrath on Land (the land of Israel).  Often in prophecy, Israel is called "the land" and the Gentile nations around her are called "the sea."  I think that's the case here as the LORD is speaking specifically to His people Israel about their idolatry and how He will destroy the Land that has been cursed by idolatry while the idols are still in their midst.  He will punish them for their rebellion and we've been seeing for a while now that this punishment will come by way of war, pestilence, famine, plague, and even attacks by wild animals.

The LORD will not spare the rich or powerful among the people, and there will no longer be rich or powerful people among them.  They have reaped what they sowed and it is time for the bill come due.  Their doom and destruction is sure.  Yet, He will not completely destroy them, though it will feel like He has.  A nation of several million will be reduced to a few thousand.  Though Jerusalem used to be at a crossroads for all kinds of merchants and traders, they will no longer come that way.

The people have sounded the trumpet to go to war, but the LORD is not with them in this battle.  In fact, He is fighting against them.  It is not so much that He is for their enemy, but in this moment, He uses their enemy to accomplish His purposes.  (Recall in the book of Joshua where Joshua asks the Captain of the LORD's Army "Are you for us or for our enemy?" and He simply answers, "No!"  The question is "Who is on the LORD's side?" as the old hymn is titled.)

​They have identified themselves with the pagan gods and made themselves look like the pagans.  They are resisting and disobeying God at every turn and ignoring the world He sends through His prophets--even impassioning them and threatening them with death.  They think they are safe because of the Temple, but that too will be destroyed.  Because of their wickedness, the LORD will turn His face away (His favor) and He will spew them out of the Land to the nations that they want to be so much like.  They will live among the Gentiles, yet God will be faithful to preserve them because He is not finished with them.

God will oppose His people who have become proud and will use the vilest of nations at the time to do so.  All of their altars and high places will be torn down, as will the Temple of the LORD.  This is not the only time this will happen in the history of the Jewish people.  You may be thinking of 70 A.D. when the Romans are allowed to come in and destroy the Temple and scatter the Jews to the four corners of the earth.  The devil will think that he can corrupt the Jews again in the last days and get the LORD to allow the nations to rise up against them and that the LORD will desert them, but, in the very end, the LORD will destroy the ungodly and will preserve those who are called by His Name.  We know this passage cannot talk about the final day of wrath, because in that day all of the people of God will be saved.  We know that the Land will be reborn and the people of God will be reborn as well.  Though this looks like the death of both the Land and the People, it is not their death, but it is a time of cleansing for both of them.

The LORD will treat them exactly how He promised in the Law.  Just because the people have chosen not to live under the Law does not mean that they are not subject to its judgments.  We don't have to recognize God's authority for Him to have authority over us.  He told the people what would happen to them when they followed this path in the book of Deuteronomy.  They swore they would never let this happen.  Yet, here they are exactly where He said their sin would take them, and He is forced to respond according to the punishments that He promised.  Yet, even in those judgments, there is hope.  Another one like Moses, a Mediator of a better covenant would one day come and restore them.  We await the second coming for Christ now when everything He promised will be fulfilled.

Ezekiel 6
English Standard Version

Judgment Against Idolatry
6 The word of the LORD came to me: 2 “Son of man, set your face toward the mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them, 3 and say, You mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord GOD! Thus says the Lord GOD to the mountains and the hills, to the ravines and the valleys: Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword upon you, and I will destroy your high places. 4 Your altars shall become desolate, and your incense altars shall be broken, and I will cast down your slain before your idols. 5 And I will lay the dead bodies of the people of Israel before their idols, and I will scatter your bones around your altars. 6 Wherever you dwell, the cities shall be waste and the high places ruined, so that your altars will be waste and ruined, your idols broken and destroyed, your incense altars cut down, and your works wiped out. 7 And the slain shall fall in your midst, and you shall know that I am the LORD.

8 “Yet I will leave some of you alive. When you have among the nations some who escape the sword, and when you are scattered through the countries, 9 then those of you who escape will remember me among the nations where they are carried captive, how I have been broken over their whoring heart that has departed from me and over their eyes that go whoring after their idols. And they will be loathsome in their own sight for the evils that they have committed, for all their abominations. 10 And they shall know that I am the LORD. I have not said in vain that I would do this evil to them.”

11 Thus says the Lord GOD: “Clap your hands and stamp your foot and say, Alas, because of all the evil abominations of the house of Israel, for they shall fall by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence. 12 He who is far off shall die of pestilence, and he who is near shall fall by the sword, and he who is left and is preserved shall die of famine. Thus I will spend my fury upon them. 13 And you shall know that I am the LORD, when their slain lie among their idols around their altars, on every high hill, on all the mountaintops, under every green tree, and under every leafy oak, wherever they offered pleasing aroma to all their idols. 14 And I will stretch out my hand against them and make the land desolate and waste, in all their dwelling places, from the wilderness to Riblah. Then they will know that I am the LORD.”

The LORD tells Ezekiel to prophecy against the mountains, hills and all the high places that were set up as places of worship to the false gods.  Their altars will be torn down and they will be desecrated with the bones of the dead people of Israel who would fight to try to save them, but would die trying.  These idols would be unable to save them from the LORD's wrath so that the people of Israel and all the other nations would know that the LORD alone is God.

As we mentioned last time, a small remnant would be left alive and taken captive.  They would be exiled to far away lands.  The LORD would use this time of exile to punish them for all the evil they did against Him and to raise up a new generation that would follow after Him.  This is much like the forty years of wandering in the wilderness when the first generation rebelled against the LORD and could not enter, so the LORD judged them by sending them into the wilderness to wander until all of that first generation died (with the exceptions of Joshua and Caleb).

See how the LORD's purpose in all of this is so that the people will know that He is the LORD.  They have forgotten who He is and that He is not only the one that blesses the righteous, but He judges the wicked.  They have abused the grace of God, and it is time for His unruly children to be disciplined.  The LORD will prove to them that they have no need for idols or high places to worship false gods and perform all kinds of sin.  Because of the idolatry of the Land, the whole Land is cursed and will become desolate, but it will one day be reborn so that everyone will know that He is the LORD.