Ezekiel 7--The Day of the Wrath of the LORD

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.”

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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.