The Day of Disaster
The Lord sends a prophetic message on the day that Jerusalem is
officially besieged. Ezekiel is to take
a pot and cook all the choice cuts of meat within it. He is also told to put all the bones within
the pot. All of the choice elements for
good rich nutrition go into the pot.
Then Ezekiel is to boil the contents.
The symbol should be clear.
The chosen portions – the highly desired portions – are trapped in the
pot and cooked. The chosen people – the highly
desired inheritance of Abraham – are trapped in Jerusalem and they will come
into judgment. All of that which had
great opportunity to provide spiritual nourishment to the nations goes into the
pot so that it can be tried by fire.
However, when we get to verses 6 – 14 we realize that something is
wrong with the pot. There is something
corrupt in the pot. The word used in
verse 6 can mean anything from “rust” to a more generic “corrosion.” In other words, as the meat is being cooked,
there is a scum of corrosion that floats to the surface. It spoils the cooked meat. It spoils the whole contents of the pot. It can’t be hidden any longer. As the fire comes, the scum rises to the top
of the water. Symbolically, we can see
that what God is saying is that as the judgment gets tighter and tighter upon
Jerusalem their corruption will become more and more evident.
I really like this imagery.
I’ve had times in my life where things have completely fallen apart
because of sinful behavior. The wheels
fell off, so to speak. Looking back on
those times, I can tell that the spiral into sin was rooted in some seemingly
innocent behavior. I didn’t realize how
bad it potentially could be. But as the
spiral grew worse and I grew closer to God’s rebuke, the more visible my
sinfulness became to me. It became clearer
to me not only that I need to repent but also of what I need to repent.
Judgment on the City Itself
Notice that it is not only the contents of the pot that are judged
but also the pot itself. Ezekiel is told
to increase the logs so that the fire is truly hot. The meat is to burn. The bones are to burn. Now, that is a hot fire. But it doesn’t stop there. The fire is to be hot enough that when the
pot sits empty upon the fire its impurities will be consumed. The pot itself will be melted. This is a symbol for not only the captivity
of the Hebrew people under Babylon but also the destruction of the city. Because of the sinfulness of the people, the
city itself will be destroyed.
The Death of Ezekiel’s Wife
Now we begin a very difficult section of scripture. It is difficult because spiritually I
understand completely what God is doing here.
I get it fully and completely.
But as a human being the emotional and psychological effects upon
Ezekiel must have been heavy indeed.
This is what it means to be a prophet of God. It means being obedient to God even in the
face of the death of your wife. Even
when the death of your wife is a part of God’s plan, being a prophet of God
implies obedience and submission to Him.
His plan is always better than our desire. Being a prophet of God means that a person lives
out that truth out more than any other truth in life.
That is far more difficult than it sounds. It is easy to get angry at God at the death
of a loved one. It would be easier to be
angry with God when God comes and says, “I’m taking her for a purpose.” God is declaring that in this case He is the
cause of the death of Ezekiel’s delight.
Yet God tells Ezekiel to shed no tear, to not mourn, and to not
weep. For the life of me, I cannot
imagine the struggle that this portion of scripture brought about in
Ezekiel. I give Ezekiel – and ultimately
God – credit not only for living through it, but for rising up to it.
Of course, this action has a deeply symbolic component. The people will be shocked and stunned when
Jerusalem does fall to the Babylonians.
They will all be affected, and no sign of public grief will be able to
adequately express what everyone will be feeling at that time. Certainly this sign is a symbol to the people
of how they will feel when Jerusalem is finally captured by the Babylonian
siege.
However, I think there is another side to this. Remember that the Hebrew people are
considered to be spiritually married to God.
All God’s people share this status.
What God has seen over the past 400 years of history prior to the fall
of Jerusalem is the steady death of His spiritual bride. In a way, Ezekiel is being allowed to get a
taste of what God has felt for 400 years.
Sure, it is not a taste that any of us would desire to get. We’d all want the happy taste of being
God. We’d all want the power and
authority to do things like calling down fire from heaven. But in truth I would guess that rejection and
tasting spiritual death is a far more common experience that God has with
respect to what His creation offers Him.
I think that I will approach worship this week with a different
perspective having read this chapter and pondered it from the perspective of
Ezekiel and then of God.
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