Study notes
The people of Judah were not the only ones with stubborn hearts who resisted the prophet's message (Ezekiel 11:19). The exiles living with Ezekiel were also rebellious. They refused to see their wrongdoings and ignored his message, just like those who remained in Judah.
This section brings together different prophecies and sign acts. A sign act is a symbolic action that a prophet performs to show God’s message.
These prophecies and actions all share one main message. They announce God’s judgment against Jerusalem and its leaders because of their sin.
Ezekiel continued sharing God’s messages of judgement among the Jews in Babylon. His actions of prophecy included packing bags for a trip and trembling while eating. He groaned and beat his chest and also drew a map for the king of Babylon. He didn’t cry when his wife died even though he loved her.
Some messages he spoke clearly to the people. He gave a short account of the entire history of Israel. He spoke against men and women who were false prophets. He spoke against elders who asked God for advice even while they worshipped false gods. Some people accused God of being unfair. They said that God punished them for sins they hadn’t committed. Those sins had been committed by their parents and their people from long ago. Ezekiel explained that God always and only ever does what is fair. God holds each person responsible for their own choices.
Ezekiel sang a sad song about Israel’s princes. Then he spoke clearly about King Zedekiah as an unholy and evil prince. Some Jews said that the judgement Ezekiel announced wouldn’t come for a very long time. They didn’t believe that God would allow Jerusalem to be destroyed. They didn’t believe that they deserved to be judged in this way. They didn’t think that they had lived in evil ways that had to be stopped. And they trusted that other nations would save Jerusalem from the Babylonian armies. God said that the time had come for him to act. This made it clear that no one could stop his judgement from coming.
Ezekiel shared some of God’s messages as poems and others as stories. In these stories God compared his people to different things. He compared them to a useless vine that was burnt in a fire. He compared them to a vine that grew the wrong way. He compared them to the scum left behind when metals are burnt to make silver. They were like meat in a pot that would be cooked over a hot fire. These were ways to describe the sins of the southern kingdom.
God compared his people to a baby girl that God rescued from the desert. But she grew up to be an unfaithful wife to God. God described Jerusalem and Samaria as two sisters who belonged to God. But they acted like prostitutes. These stories don’t mean that God had sex with anyone. God used marriage as a way to talk about being faithful and committed.
God had committed himself to being the Israelites’ God for ever. He had done this in the Mount Sinai covenant. The Israelites had committed to faithfully following the Law of Moses. The most important part of that was to worship and serve God only. But the people of the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom hadn’t done that. They didn’t trust God to give them peace, rest and safety. Instead they trusted the governments of nations like Assyria, Egypt and Babylon to protect them.
They followed the practices of the nations around them. They worshipped the false gods of other nations. This led them to treat needy people badly. It led them to want more and more wealth. It led them to sacrifice children to false gods. All of these things went against God’s laws. These were ways that God’s people had been unfaithful to him.
Ezekiel was to dig a hole through the wall to sneak out of a besieged city without being noticed, similar to what Zedekiah later tried to do (2 Kings 25:4).
King Zedekiah could not foresee the coming judgment. He would not see the land he was leaving or the land of the Babylonians. This prophecy came true when the Babylonians captured Zedekiah as he fled from besieged Jerusalem. They forced him to watch as they tortured his sons to death, then they blinded him (2 Kings 25:1–7).
This terrible end for Judah’s last king did not happen only because Babylon wanted to expand its empire. More importantly, the Lord himself planned to judge the king.
The few unhappy survivors confessed their terrible sins to their captors. They did not do this out of repentance, but because they recognized that the Lord had judged them fairly.
Ezekiel trembled and shook while he ate and drank. This was a sign act, a symbolic action that showed God’s message.
His shaking showed the fear and anxiety of the people living in Jerusalem and Judah. They would see that destruction was coming and that they could not escape it.
Later, the exiles would hear that their homeland had been destroyed. Then they would understand something important. They were not rejected by God. Instead, they were the ones who had escaped his complete judgment (see Jeremiah 24:1–8).
The messages in this section address the issue of true and false prophecy.
Ezekiel’s hearers did not want to listen to the message of the prophets. They were unwilling to accept what God was saying.
Because of this, they created a proverb. A proverb is a short saying that expresses a common belief. This proverb showed their doubt and disbelief.
The people did not believe the message from God (Ezekiel 12:22). So the Lord gave them a new proverb.
He used words that were similar to their saying. But he gave those words a different and opposite meaning.
The people responded with a second proverb, and again the Lord refuted them. What the Lord had threatened, he would do.
Verse notes: Adapted by Mission Mutual (Aquifer Open Study Notes) from Tyndale Open Study Notes © 2023 Tyndale House Publishers. CC BY-SA 4.0. Section notes: Biblica Study Notes © 2023 Biblica, Inc. CC BY-SA 4.0, via BibleAquifer. About the sources