Ezekiel 7

When the sons of Asaph wanted to describe the city of Jerusalem, they wrote, “Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion on the sides of the north, the city of the great King” (Ps. 48: nkjv). The Babylonian Talmud says, “Of the ten measures of beauty that came down to the world, Jerusalem took nine” (Kidushin 49b), and, “Whoever has not seen Jerusalem in its splendor has never seen a lovely city” (Succah 51b). Of modern Jerusalem, Samuel Heilman wrote, “It is a place in which people actually live; it is a place that lives in them.” One of the Jewish exiles in Babylonian wrote: “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her skill! If I do not remember you, let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth—if I do not exalt Jerusalem above my chief joy” (Ps. 137:5–6 nkjv). When Jewish families around the world celebrate Passover, they conclude the meal with, “Next year in Jerusalem!”

The Jewish exiles wouldn’t be happy with the three messages Ezekiel would bring them from the Lord, for he was going to announce the destruction of Jerusalem and the ravaging of the Promised Land. It was bad enough that the Jews were exiles in a pagan land, but to be told that they would have no city to return to was more than they could bear. No wonder they preferred the encouraging messages of the false prophets.

The nation of Israel was blessed with a gracious Lord to worship and love, a fruitful land to enjoy, and a holy law to obey. Their love for the Lord and their obedience to His law would determine how much blessing He could entrust to them in the land. These were the terms of the covenant, and the Jewish people knew them well. The generation that first entered the land obeyed God’s covenant, as did the succeeding generation, but the third generation provoked the Lord, broke their “marriage vows,” and prostituted themselves to idols (Judg. 2:10–13). They disobeyed the law, defied their Lord, and defiled the land, and the Lord would not accept that kind of conduct. First, He punished them in their land by permitting seven enemy nations to occupy the land and oppress the people, as recorded in the book of Judges. But each time God delivered Israel from their oppressors, the Jews eventually returned to the worship of idols; so He finally took them away from the land, some through death and others through exile in Babylon. It’s a tragic story, but it reminds us that the Lord is serious about His covenant and our obedience.

Disaster announced (vv. 1–9). In this second spoken message, the key phrases are “the land,” “an end,” and “it is come.” The land is personified in this message, and Ezekiel speaks to it and announces that disaster is about to fall. The judgment was certain because the prophet announced “It is come!” at least nine times in verses 1–12. He was a faithful watchman, warning the people that the Babylonian army was coming from the north to invade the land, rob it, and ruin it. Babylon was God’s weapon through which He would unleash His anger, judge Israel’s abominable behavior, and repay them for their disobedience. In previous chastisements, the Lord had shown pity and spared His people, but this judgment would be different. They had defiled His land with their sins, and the only way the land could be cleansed was by punishing the people for their sins.

In verses 7 and 10, the KJV has the phrase “the morning is come,” but both the NKJV and the NIV translate it “doom has come.” The Hebrew word means “to plait, to braid,” such as braiding a garland of flowers for the head, and it’s translated “diadem” in Isaiah 28:5. How do the translators get either “morning” or “doom” out of this word? Probably from the image of “that which comes around,” for a braided garland is the result of the weaving of flowers into a circle. “Morning” is that which comes around, day after day, and the doom of the Israelites had “come around.” They had “woven” their own shameful crown of sin, when they could have worn a diadem of glory to the Lord.

The disaster pictured (vv. 10–21). Always the master of vivid language to help the people “see” the truth, Ezekiel painted four word pictures to arouse their interest and perhaps reach their hearts. The first is the budding rod (vv. 10–11), an image from nature. God had been longsuffering as His people disobeyed His law and defied His prophets, but now their sins had “ripened,” and the nation would have to reap what they sowed. In their pride, they had cultivated a false confidence that the Lord would never allow His people to be exiled or His temple destroyed, but their sin had now “matured” and both were now about to happen. Isaiah had used a similar image when describing the Assyrian invasion of the land (Isa. 10:5), only he saw the invaders as the “rod” in His hand. If that’s the image Ezekiel had in mind, then the rod is Nebuchadnezzar, and the “blossoming” means that the time was ripe for God to punish the people. Violence in the land had grown into a rod of wickedness, and the people’s sins would find them out.

The second picture is taken from the business world (Ezek. 7:12–13), with the Jewish “Year of Jubilee” as the background (Lev. 25). Every seventh year was set apart as a sabbatic year, during which the land lay fallow and debts were cancelled (vv. 1–7; Deut. 15:1–6). After seven of these sabbatic years, the fiftieth year was set apart as a Year of Jubilee, when the land lay fallow, debts were cancelled, servants were set free, and the land was returned to the original owners. The price of a parcel of land was determined by the number of years until the Year of Jubilee and the amount of crops that could be harvested during that time. If a poor man sold his land or himself to be a servant, he knew the land would be returned to his family in the Year of Jubilee and he would be set free.

With the Babylonian invasion imminent, the price of land would certainly drop and wealthy people could quickly increase their holdings, but there was no guarantee that they would hold what they purchased. Furthermore, the seller couldn’t be sure that he would get his land back when the Year of Jubilee arrived. Jeremiah had told the captives that they would be in Babylon for seventy years (Jer. 29:10), so they would spend their sabbatic years and the next Year of Jubilee in captivity—if they were alive. The vision of coming judgment would “not be reversed” (Ezek. 7: niv); instead, the whole economic pattern would be reversed. Had the Jews obeyed God’s law, the slaves would have been freed and the ownership of the land would have been protected, but now the surviving Jews would be enslaved and their land taken from them. The people had not obeyed the laws concerning the sabbaths for the land, so the Lord took the land from them until those sabbaths were fulfilled (2 Chron. 36:14–21). What we selfishly keep for ourselves, we eventually lose; but what we give to the Lord, we keep forever.

The third picture is that of the watchman (Ezek. 7:14–15). God had made Ezekiel a watchman (3:17–21), and it was his responsibility to warn the people when danger was at hand. If an enemy army approached, the watchmen on the walls would blow their trumpets and summon the soldiers to man their posts and protect the city. But it was futile for the watchmen in Jerusalem to blow their trumpets because there was no Jewish army available and any resistance was futile. If the soldiers went outside the city into the country, they would be slain by the swords of the Babylonian army; and if the warriors stayed inside the city, they would die from famine and pestilence. Why risk your life in such a hopeless cause?

In his fourth picture, Ezekiel compared the fugitives who escape to mourning doves (7:16–18), frightened and alone in the mountains. It is from this group that the Lord would form His remnant, so they were important to Him. Instead of rejoicing at their escape, these people were mourning over their sins (Isa. 59:11), wearing sackcloth and shaving their heads in sorrow and repentance, a fulfillment of Ezekiel’s prophecy in Ezekiel 6:9–10. They will be too weak and frightened to fight the enemy; all they can do is throw themselves on the mercy of the Lord. (Ezek. People throwing away their valuables 7:19–21) is the fifth and final picture. During the final years of the kingdom of Judah, the rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer, with the rich robbing the poor without any interference from the courts. The prophets thundered against this evil, but the leaders would not listen. The refugees couldn’t carry their wealth as they fled from Jerusalem, so they treated it like garbage and threw it into the streets. You can’t eat money, and what good is money when there’s no food to buy in the city? Furthermore, there wouldn’t be any places to purchase supplies as the people fled to the mountains. Their gold and silver were only excess baggage that would slow them down, and their idols were even more worthless. In a time of crisis, we quickly learn what’s valuable and important to life. The lust for wealth lured them into sin, and their sins brought about judgment. The Babylonian soldiers took the wealth of the Jews as loot, along with their expensive idols; this was God’s payment to Babylon for their services in chastening Israel.

The disruption from the disaster (vv. 22–27). First, there would be no help from the religious leaders, neither the prophets nor the priests (v. 26); and the holy temple would be defiled and destroyed. The Jews had depended on the temple to save them, for surely God wouldn’t permit His beautiful house to be ruined by pagan soldiers (Jer. 7:1–5). But the temple had become a den of thieves (v. 11), and the Lord was no longer pleased with the sacrifices the people offered there (Isa. 1:11–20). God would allow pagans to pollute His treasured place. The priests could give no encouragement from the Word of God because the people had broken the covenant and were outside the place of blessing. The false prophets could see no vision because they had rejected the truth.

Not only would there be religious chaos, but the political system would fall apart (Ezek. 7:27). In the eyes of Ezekiel, the king was Jehoiachin (1:2) and the prince was Zedekiah. Though Zedekiah was the last king of Judah, the prophet didn’t recognize his reign but considered him only a prince (12:10, 12). The leadership in Judah began to collapse when the kings refused to listen to Jeremiah’s messages from the Lord, admonishing them to surrender to Babylon and thus save the city and the temple. Whenever leaders of the Jewish nation depended on politics rather than the prophetic word, they gradually moved into compromise and confusion (Isa. 8:20). Judah sought alliances with Egypt and tried to negotiate a way to peace (Ezek. 7:25), but the Lord had determined that His people should be chastened, and no political power can overrule the sovereign will of God.

“The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; He makes the plans of the peoples of no effect. The counsel of the Lord stands forever; the plans of His heart to all generations” (Ps. 33:10–11 nkjv).