Ezekiel 5--Jerusalem Will Be Destroyed

Ezekiel 5
English Standard Version

Jerusalem Will Be Destroyed
5 “And you, O son of man, take a sharp sword. Use it as a barber's razor and pass it over your head and your beard. Then take balances for weighing and divide the hair. 2 A third part you shall burn in the fire in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are completed. And a third part you shall take and strike with the sword all around the city. And a third part you shall scatter to the wind, and I will unsheathe the sword after them. 3 And you shall take from these a small number and bind them in the skirts of your robe. 4 And of these again you shall take some and cast them into the midst of the fire and burn them in the fire. From there a fire will come out into all the house of Israel.

5 “Thus says the Lord GOG: This is Jerusalem. I have set her in the center of the nations, with countries all around her. 6 And she has rebelled against my rules by doing wickedness more than the nations, and against my statutes more than the countries all around her; for they have rejected my rules and have not walked in my statutes. 7 Therefore thus says the Lord GOG: Because you are more turbulent than the nations that are all around you, and have not walked in my statutes or obeyed my rules, and have not even acted according to the rules of the nations that are all around you, 8 therefore thus says the Lord GOG: Behold, I, even I, am against you. And I will execute judgments in your midst in the sight of the nations. 9 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. 10 Therefore fathers shall eat their sons in your midst, and sons shall eat their fathers. And I will execute judgments on you, and any of you who survive I will scatter to all the winds. 11 Therefore, as I live, declares the Lord GOD, surely, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable things and with all your abominations, therefore I will withdraw. My eye will not spare, and I will have no pity. 12 A third part of you shall die of pestilence and be consumed with famine in your midst; a third part shall fall by the sword all around you; and a third part I will scatter to all the winds and will unsheathe the sword after them.

13 “Thus shall my anger spend itself, and I will vent my fury upon them and satisfy myself. And they shall know that I am the LORD—that I have spoken in my jealousy—when I spend my fury upon them. 14 Moreover, I will make you a desolation and an object of reproach among the nations all around you and in the sight of all who pass by. 15 You shall be a reproach and a taunt, a warning and a horror, to the nations all around you, when I execute judgments on you in anger and fury, and with furious rebukes—I am the LORD; I have spoken— 16 when I send against you the deadly arrows of famine, arrows for destruction, which I will send to destroy you, and when I bring more and more famine upon you and break your supply of bread. 17 I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will rob you of your children. Pestilence and blood shall pass through you, and I will bring the sword upon you. I am the LORD; I have spoken.”

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Ezekiel was to shave his head and his beard with a sharp sword (not the typical tool used for shaving, nor was it normal to shave yourself clean-shaven if you were married, nor to shave your head, as that is what the pagan priests did).  He was then supposed to take call the hair and divide it into three equal portions with a balance.  One third of it, he is to burn in the fire in the midst of Jerusalem once the days of the siege were completed.  The second third he was to spread around the city and strike it with the sword.  The final third was to be scattered to the wind.  Some of what was cast to the wind would not blow away.  He would take this remnant and bind it to the skirt of his priestly garments.  Not everyone pictured in that remnant would survive though.  The LORD still wanted him to take a part of that remnant and burn it in the fire.  Only then would the picture of the small amount of people from the house of Israel that would survive this judgment be visible.  No one tries to count the number of hairs on someone's head and face.  They are too numerous if a person has a full head of hair like Ezekiel probably did here.  Yet, nearly all of it was destroyed with only a small remnant surviving, and even that small remnant was not totally safe as some of them would still die in the judgment.  A very small remnant would survive.

The picture is of the people that lived in Jerusalem.  Almost everyone that had been living there before the exile would die.  They were the seat of rebellion and their kings, priests and prophets that were all meant to protect the people instead led the people into judgment.  They had been given special revelation from the LORD in both the Law and the Prophets and they ignored both.  The LORD calls them more turbulent than the nations around them, and for this reason, he will be against them.  He will use the nations around them to judge them now (though not destroy them) and he will deal with the other nations around them later..  It will be as if one-third of the people die of plague, pestilence and famine in the midst of the city, another third die by the sword while trying to escape the judgment or fight against the judgment that the LORD commanded them to surrender to, and the final third will be scattered to the wind--many of them never to return.  Only the smallest fraction of the original occupants will return one day (in the days of Nehemiah and Ezekiel) and it will bittersweet for them as they will be excited to see the city and Temple rebuilt, but they will be a pale shadow of what they originally were.

The LORD does this because of His righteous jealousy.  He will not let his covenant people Israel whore after other gods (see the book of Hosea).  The bad apples need to be destroyed before they ruin even the good remnant.  Once all the famine and plague and pestilence and battle are done, the LORD is going to remove the protections of the covenant and let the wild animals come in and attack the people.  It will be obvious that the LORD has turned against them and has shown favor to their enemies.  He will allow people to taunt, jeer, and disparage them in ever way.  Yet, one day, when the taunts and jeers are turned towards Him, saying that He was neither strong enough, nor good enough to defend His people, then He will act for the sake of His own Name.  For His own Name's sake, He could not let the wickedness of Israel go unpunished or allow His Holy Temple to continue to be desecrated by idols, but He is also the Savior and Redeemer of His Holy Remnant, and He could not let the world forget that either.  This was the people that was chosen to represent Him to the whole world, to take His Word to the world, to proclaim His covenant love and invite others to experience it.  He also chose them to be the one through Him His only begotten Son would come into this world to save not just these people (His own people), but the whole world.  Out of this time of terrible pain and suffering is going to come the greatest salvation that no man could ever imagine.