Theological Commentary: Click Here
Ezekiel 5
gives us a very easy analogy. Ezekiel is
to shave his head. Part of his hair gets
burned. Another third gets struck by the
sword. The final third gets scattered
all around. Clearly, God is making a
demonstration of what will happen. The
Babylonians came, laid siege to the city.
Many people starved to death.
Many other people died when the siege was taken to the field of
battle. Those who were left alive were scattered
all throughout the Babylonian Empire and despised as captive slaves. It’s a straightforward analogy if there ever
is one.
The key to
this chapter isn’t in understanding what is happening. The key is understanding why it is happening. That’s why God spend more than two-thirds of
the chapter explaining the motivation for the analogy and only a small percent
on of the chapter on the actual analogy.
Why are the
Hebrew people judged? They are judged
because they are rebellious. They are judged
because they insist on doing things their own way. They are judged because they were given every
advantage and set among a large number of people to whom they could be an
example and instead the people abandoned God and become like the people among
whom they were set. God makes a point. Abandon Him and He will allow you to exercise
your free will.
There is another
interesting dynamic, though. This
analogy is so simple. In fact, this is
an analogy that we hear in Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and Joel, and Hosea, and many
other prophets. It isn’t like Ezekiel
was the only person who was proclaiming this message. Prophet after prophet came in warning. The people didn’t want to listen. Here we learn another lesson. It’s very much along the lines of leading
horses to water but being unable to make them drink. God can send truth into our midst again and
again. But He won’t make us obey. He gives us the choice to obey or continue in
our own rebellion and reap the consequences of our choice.
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