Jerusalem Falls & Ezekiel Speaks

“on that day a fugitive will come to you to report to you the news. On that day your mouth will be opened to the fugitive, and you shall speak and be no longer mute. So you will be a sign to them, and they will know that I am the Lord.”
‭‭Ezekiel‬ ‭24‬:‭26‬-‭27‬ ‭ESV‬‬

“In the twelfth year of our exile, in the tenth month, on the fifth day of the month, a fugitive from Jerusalem came to me and said, “The city has been struck down.” Now the hand of the Lord had been upon me the evening before the fugitive came; and he had opened my mouth by the time the man came to me in the morning, so my mouth was opened, and I was no longer mute.”
‭‭Ezekiel‬ ‭33‬:‭21‬-‭22‬ ‭ESV‬‬

It’s easy to forget that for 12 years Ezekiel has been mute. We read about him speaking at times and we can forget that unless the LORD opened his mouth, he couldn’t speak. Many of the prophetic sign-acts that he performed did not require speaking.

In this chapter Ezekiel is reminded of his call as a watchman to warn of the coming judgment.

🤔 Question.

Yes?

🤔 How is Ezekiel supposed to warn the people in Jerusalem if he’s in Babylon and the city has already fallen?

I don’t think this specific warning is for Jerusalem. It seems to be targeted at the exiles who are coming to Ezekiel’s door to listen for a word from Yahweh.

SIDE NOTE

The digital world has highjacked our brains. We want things to be a 1 or a 0. We live in an alphabet soup of acronyms because it takes too long to actually spell out words and phrases.

Because of this, we tend to think that The Fall of Jerusalem happened on one day and that was it. We want it short and simple. But life generally isn’t like that.

Judah collapsed in slow motion over a period of nearly 20 YEARS, from 605-856BC. Nebuchadnezzar came against the land multiple times in a series of threats, deportations, and a final siege. The “70 Year Captivity” was a little grey getting started. Did it begin with the first deportation or the second? Or maybe it began when the walls of Jerusalem were breached? Or perhaps after the final king Zedekiah was killed?

It’s not a straightforward as we would like.

Back to the question of who Ezekiel was warning…

Just because the exiles are living in Babylon doesn’t mean that the period of judgment is over. Many Most of them are still clinging to idols and have not yet repented.

This judgement is unfolding over many years. In fact, the “fugitive” who arrives to tell Ezekiel that the city had fallen, was probably in-route for at 3-4 months. The trip of 850-900 miles usually took a caravan about 4 months. It’s possible that a fugitive in a hurry could’ve made the journey faster but we need to try to get our head into the pace of the ancient world when we read this. Everything was not instant then as it is now.

THE WATCHMAN’S MESSAGE

“Now as for you, son of man, say to the house of Israel, ‘This is what you have said: “Surely our offenses and our sins are upon us, and we are rotting away in them; how then can we survive?” ’ Say to them, ‘As I live!’ declares the Lord God, ‘I take no pleasure at all in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then should you die, house of Israel?’”
‭‭Ezekiel‬ ‭33‬:‭10‬-‭11‬ ‭NASB2020‬‬

There are 2 parts to this OT Altar Call:

1. Sin is bad. You are a sinner. Sinners die.
2. God is good. Stop sinning and live.

The exiles have gotten stuck on step 1. And they have misunderstood the heart of Yahweh because they don’t really know Him.

😐 That bit about “knowing the LORD” sure comes up a lot in this book.

Yes. I think the repetition is helping drive the point across.

And the exiles aren’t the only ones who don’t really understand who Yahweh is; (and consequently, who they are supposed to be.) The few Judeans left hiding out in their bunkers back in Israel have realized that their nation is gone. And they’re wondering, “What do we do now?”

“Son of man, the inhabitants of these waste places in the land of Israel keep saying, ‘Abraham was only one man, yet he got possession of the land; but we are many; the land is surely given us to possess.’”
‭‭Ezekiel‬ ‭33‬:‭24‬ ‭ESV‬‬

They have the nerve to compare themselves to Abraham.

👳🏻‍♂️ “Hey, if Father Abraham could be a pioneer and start from scratch, so can we!”

Abraham was helped and favored by God because he trusted the LORD and obeyed. These guys? Not so much…

“Therefore say to them, Thus says the Lord God: You eat flesh with the blood and lift up your eyes to your idols and shed blood; shall you then possess the land? You rely on the sword, you commit abominations, and each of you defiles his neighbor’s wife; shall you then possess the land?”
‭‭Ezekiel‬ ‭33‬:‭25‬-‭26‬ ‭ESV‬‬

They aren’t even doing the most basic human-decency-level of moral laws commanded to the Gentiles, (see Gen. 9:4-6 and Acts 15:19-20, 28-29). And they have the nerve to think they can boot-strap their way back into a nation.

God isn’t going to help them like He helped Abraham. Instead, He is going to wipe them out in judgment. And as far as I can tell, it was Ezekiel’s job to write a letter telling them so.

So the Exiles are stuck on step 1 – sin is bad. They recognize they have “issues.” But like so many of us today, instead of recognizing our “issues” as SIN and repenting of it, this is what they’re doing…

“As for you, son of man, your people who talk together about you by the walls and at the doors of the houses say to one another, each to his brother, ‘Come, and hear what the word is that comes from the Lord.’ And they come to you as people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear what you say but they will not do it; for with lustful talk in their mouths they act; their heart is set on their gain.”
‭‭Ezekiel‬ ‭33‬:‭30‬-‭31‬ ‭ESV‬‬

I wonder if James thought of Ezekiel when he wrote this:

“Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.”
‭‭James‬ ‭1‬:‭21‬-‭25‬ ‭ESV‬‬

As long as they were sitting in Ezekiel’s yard on a lawn chair, listening to the word of the LORD, they could see, “Yup, I’m a mess!” But then they would go home to pot roast and the ball game and immediately forget they needed to repent.

The flock of Israel is scattered and foolish. And Yahweh is fed up with the men who were supposed to be their shepherds. In the next chapter, He’s gonna let ‘em have it.