Against the Land
The next two chapters are not visions from God but rather
prophetic messages to be delivered by Ezekiel from the mouth of God. God is the author of these words. That much is not strange to hear. What is strange to hear is that the subject
of this prophetic message is the land.
God tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the mountains, the ravines, and the
valleys.
This needs to be understood in light of the religious climate of
the Promised Land. When the Hebrew
people took the land, God told them that they were to worship only at the
location of the tabernacle. When David
took Jerusalem, he brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem and worship
began to take place there. When Solomon
became king, he was permitted by God to build a stone temple for God so that
worship would happen only in Jerusalem in place of the worship at the
tabernacle. {Aside: this doesn’t mean that religious places didn’t exist. Synagogues were places to go for religious
instruction and dialogue. But when you
wanted to worship God – especially in a sacrificial or festival environment –
you did go to Jerusalem.}
However, when the Hebrew people took over the Promised Land they
were unable to drive out all of the Canaanites.
Slowly and surely the Canaanite worship practices came into practice. Then there was Solomon, who had far too many
political marriages. Each of those wives
brought the religious framework of their home country with them. Soon after the temple in Jerusalem is
completed the whole of the land is actually being infiltrated with the worship
of all kinds of foreign gods.
Each of these foreign gods had a worship place that was
special. Many holy places for foreign
gods were at the tops of mountains or hills.
Others were in the valleys. Some
were in glades of trees. Some were
beside rivers. My point in all of this
is that it is not soon after Solomon builds the temple in Jerusalem that the
whole of the Promised Land is awash with small worship centers to foreign gods.
Soon these worship centers grow larger and more powerful. Before too long the Hebrew people are
offering up child sacrifices to gods like Molech and Asherah. The people’s hearts and minds abandoned God
as the people turned to their worship practices in the land.
To bring this all back to Ezekiel, this is why God tells Ezekiel
to face the mountains of the land and prophesy against them. It isn’t the land that is so offensive; it is
the people’s use of the land to worship foreign gods that is particularly
offensive. This is why in verse 6
Ezekiel is told by God that the high places will be torn down and the altars
will be laid waste. This is why we hear
about the places of incense being cut down while the idols are being destroyed.
We can see that this chapter is fundamentally about the apostasy
of the Hebrew people with respect to God prior to the fall of Jerusalem. God does not like the fact that He has been
abandoned. He does not like that the
covenant that He made with the people was being violated by the people.
Mercy
However, this is not just a chapter on judgment. There are a few verses of mercy that are to
be found in the midst of the judgment.
God tells the people who are worshipping in these false areas that that
some of them will be spared.
I can’t help but wonder as I read this why it is that God would
spare them. After all, He has to know
humanity. When apostasy and heresy is
allowed to exist, it will grow and spread.
Idolatry is like kudzu. If you
give it time to take root, it’ll eventually swallow everything whole. So what is God doing by allowing some of
these things to remain?
I really think that there are two dynamics at work. First, it is a display of mercy. It is God’s character to be merciful. That’s a good thing. Because if it wasn’t in God’s character to be
merciful then we would all be in trouble.
For who among us could find salvation ever without the mercy of God?
The second thing that is at work in this is a demonstration of
repentance and glory-giving. When these
people who are worshipping in the false places are scattered into the nations
God says that they will remember God and they will consider themselves
loathsome. They will be disgusted by how
far they had fallen. And then they will
remember God and give praise to Him for His mercy. People will know that He is Lord through both
His judgment and His mercy.
Repeating the Judgment
As we move to the last few verses in this chapter, we discover
that much of the content of these verses are repeated from the verses that
opened the chapter. You know what they say about repetition. People repeat the things that are really
important. God wants the people to know
why they are being dragged into captivity.
God wants the people to know exactly where it is that the wheels fell
off and the Hebrew people went astray.
It started with their idolatry.
Funny thing. It usually
does.
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