Chapter 14
Some elders come to consult with God through Ezekiel. These elders have "taken idols into their hearts". They truly worship the idols. So God says they are impertinent to even ask while they worship idols. So His message is for them to repent. He does not answer their inquiries. Further, God says any idol worshiper with the gall to try and consult God "will be cut off". God knows their inquiries of Him are insincere, because in their hearts, their idols are at the top of the hierarchy. Even if a prophet answers them, it will be because God deceived that prophet.
2024 - This verse:
5 that I may lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel, who are all estranged from me through their idols. [Eze 14:5 ESV]. It seems to me that this is the huge problem that had "isolated" first Israel and then Judah from God. They were idolators. To them God was just "another god", among all the idols that they were worshiping. They did not consider that their idols couldn't breath or talk, they didn't read their Bibles and see that God did things in the world that were undeniably not the results of chance, and they didn't see that the things that they asked of their gold and silver idols were never fulfilled with anything more than could be accounted for by chance. They were not willing to elevate God above all their other gods. When they come back from Babylon, that will never be the case again. Israel never again had an "idol worship" problem. Not to this day. And neither to we! We do not have our own household gods, nor churches built with statues of Jupiter or Poseidon. We don't do any of that anymore. And I know there are places in the NT that say anything we put ahead of God is an idol, even today, but that is a metaphorical argument. I do not believe that anyone today "prays" to their money, their boat, or their football team. We may pray FOR these things, but we do not pray TO these things. THAT IS A KEY DIFFERENCE!!! God makes it clear that idolatry is something he just "removed" from Judah, and I think he removed it from mankind, during the 70 years in Babylonian captivity. God chose to take that "competitor" out of the race. It is a unique thing, done with respect to idolatry only, and it won't be seen again until the 70th week when the MoL sets up the statue to be worshiped. And perhaps this right here is why that will happen.
2024 - Is "putting the stumbling block of your iniquity before your face" setting up an idol in your own house? Is that what these elders had done, much like in the vision of the temple?
2022 - This verse:
8 And I will set my face against that man; I will make him a sign and a byword and cut him off from the midst of my people, and you shall know that I am the LORD. [Eze 14:8 ESV]
The point here, I think, is that if these hypocritical elders, carrying out their "obligation" to consult a prophet of God, do so while their loyalty is still to some idol, it won't be through the prophet that God responds. He will turn on them Himself, he will destroy their reputations, their families and their prosperity. This will show that it is only God who is God, and it will surely show the hypocrisy of the one who sought out a prophet for advice. Further, any prophet who pretends to give an answer from God to one of these evil men, will share in the fate of that hypocrite.
So, in light of the last thought above on chapter 13, we get this. Even in captivity, the exiles have brought their idols, and they continue to worship these idols while being told their captivity will be short. So there is this complete disconnect between why they are even there and what they need to do to get home. They are holding on to the reasons for their exile in the first place. How ridiculous a state they are in! Does this also go back to the whitewashed wall? The false prophets are telling them that idolatry - the crumbling wall - is not a problem, when in fact this wall is THE problem. Really need to be careful if putting that on FB. It turns out there is FAR MORE to that analogy than I initially though.
This verse:
10 And they shall bear their punishment--the punishment of the prophet and the punishment of the inquirer shall be alike-- [Eze 14:10 ESV] The idea is that God is going to remove both those who inquire of false prophets while worshiping idols, and also the false prophets themselves who behave as if this is no problem at all to try and inquire of God while worshiping idols. This is truly polytheistic. Israel has reverted to polytheism! Just like Egypt, where they came from, just like Ammon and Edom and so on, and all the nations that were driven out before them! It is not "just" idolatry in putting some other god before God, it is that they are equating ALL of their gods as being on the same plane as the God, and trying to hedge all their bets! And the false prophets are participating and encouraging this, which covers up the real root of the whole problem that Israel has. This is why they had no problem worshiping creeping things, the heavens, and the sun right there in the temple itself. They have gone so far into polytheism that they think this is almost a necessary thing, to make sure no gods are left unworshiped, lest it bring bad luck on all!!! This was the ultimate in idolatry. They were equating wood and stone and metal with the creator of wood and stone and metal. They hadn't just turned against God, they had made all gods equal with him.
In vs 12 begins the mention of "...though Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, they could only save themselves..." Once God's wrath is in full vent, even the most faithful of men cannot intervene for the rest. They can only extricate themselves. This is sort of an explanation of what happens when a nation crosses the line. This is the difference between punishment for the sake of correction and the electric chair. They have used up all their chances to be corrected. And note that v2 12 uses "a land" to describe this. It does not say this is how it works with "a man". What is in view is God's dealing with nations.
2020 - Here is an interesting inference:
13 "Son of man, when a land sins against me by acting faithlessly, and I stretch out my hand against it and break its supply of bread and send famine upon it, and cut off from it man and beast, [Eze 14:13 ESV]
This verse does not say "...when Israel sins...", but is a generalized statement of God's actions against ANY faithless nation. ANY nation receives famine and isolation. Further, EVERY PERSON in that nation - even the faithful few who remain - will be subject to God's outstretched hand. In such a nation, the good will suffer right along with the wicked. Here it is, in so many words, applicable to the United States of American, in 2022.
Possible FB post?
It goes on with examples of what God could and might do to such a land. Wild beasts, sword, pestilence. All, equally, will suffer.
This verse:
21 "For thus says the Lord GOD: How much more when I send upon Jerusalem my four disastrous acts of judgment, sword, famine, wild beasts, and pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast! [Eze 14:21 ESV]
Four acts of judgement - sword, famine, wild beasts, pestilence. We should see all four of these in the Revelation also then. A good study to find and categorize those judgements by this criteria.
2022 - Four things to look for.
2023 Addendum - They do show up in Revelation. Tagged same as here.
2025 - Think about the Cherubim, as first described here in Ezekiel:.
10 As for the likeness of their faces, each had a human face. The four had the face of a lion on the right side, the four had the face of an ox on the left side, and the four had the face of an eagle. [Eze 1:10 ESV]
So human, lion, ox, eagle. Ox instead of Cherub in this first description.
14 And every one had four faces: the first face was the face of the cherub, and the second face was a human face, and the third the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle. [Eze 10:14 ESV]
So Cherub, human, lion, eagle.
Now how do sword, famine, wild beasts, and pestilence fit in here? Do they directly correlate?
In context, Chapter 1 is a vision of what is going on in heaven. It is a "throne room" kind of scene. Chapter 10, in context, is telling us about the destruction of Jerusalem itself. So do the four faces in Chapter 10 correlate directly to the four disastrous acts of judgment? Let's try it and see:
Cherub - Pestilence. Or famine, based on the change from Ox to Cherub?
Lion - Wild beasts. There are many verses where people in the Bible are killed by, or must deal with, lions in the wild.
Human - Pestilence
Eagle - Sword
Doesn't seem to work.
What about in Revelation?
7 the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight. [Rev 4:7 ESV].
Lion, Ox, Man, Eagle. So like Eze 1, not 10.
Ox is surely famine.
Lion is surely wild beasts.
Man seems certain to be sword, which leaves
Eagle to be pestilence.
I am not sure why Eagle, or Eagle in flight, would be pestilence, but the others all make sense.
Two other eagles are referenced in Revelation:
13 Then I looked, and I heard an eagle crying with a loud voice as it flew directly overhead, "Woe, woe, woe to those who dwell on the earth, at the blasts of the other trumpets that the three angels are about to blow!" [Rev 8:13 ESV]. Eagle as prophet, as herald, as announcer. None of the three woes can be classified as pestilence though, so it does not work here.
14 But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time. [Rev 12:14 ESV]. Doesn't work as pestilence here either.
What about here? 15 So the LORD sent a pestilence on Israel from the morning until the appointed time. And there died of the people from Dan to Beersheba 70,000 men. 16 And when the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, the LORD relented from the calamity and said to the angel who was working destruction among the people, "It is enough; now stay your hand." And the angel of the LORD was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. [2Sa 24:15-16 ESV]. This says the pestilence was distributed by an angel. Doesn't say what kind of angel. A more literal translation would say "And the messenger of the LORD..." One sent, this time sent with the message of pestilence in the land. So we can tie the cherub to pestilence in that group of four. If we lock that in, we have this possibility:
Cherub - Pestilence
Lion - Wild Beast
Human - Sword
Eagle - Famine
Nope. That doesn't look right either. So either they do not correlate at all, and I am trying to "force" something that isn't there, or I am just not smart enough - yet - to see the representations correctly. Rev 4 does not say four faces, but 4 separate creatures, though each has a face that corresponds to the faces in Eze 1. You would expect that since both are descriptions of the throne of God.
God's wrath administered by angels, by wild animals, by other nations, and by...what??? Eagle is a big problem for me. I don't see how it can correlate with any of these ideas.
Another idea: 16 Make yourselves bald and cut off your hair, for the children of your delight; make yourselves as bald as the eagle, for they shall go from you into exile. [Mic 1:16 ESV]. BLB says the word used for eagle in Eze can also mean vulture, and I think this verse from Micah bears that out. Vultures have no feathers on their heads. They are bald. So while the KJV translates this word "eagle" 26 times, and NEVER translates it vulture...it might better be understood here as vulture. How does that help? Vultures eat what has already died. In a famine, people die, all over the place, and the vultures clean up the mess. But if we go there...we have a vulture at the throne of God, which does not sit very well. The only way to make this work is to see the eagle as a sometime scavenger of creatures - man and beast - that die of starvation, out in the wilderness, or during a siege, or something like that. That's the only way I can get there. And now, after a LONG time on this, I will just read through the rest of this, and the NT chapter also. Out of time.
But...these:
37 And they said to him, "Where, Lord?" He said to them, "Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather." [Luk 17:37 ESV]
17 Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and with a loud voice he called to all the birds that fly directly overhead, "Come, gather for the great supper of God, [Rev 19:17 ESV]
21 And the rest were slain by the sword that came from the mouth of him who was sitting on the horse, and all the birds were gorged with their flesh. [Rev 19:21 ESV]
The words translated "vultures" and "birds" are different than the word for eagle...but Rev is in Greek...so hard to say it is the same. In both of these verses from Rev, the birds/vultures/eagles are going to eat the bodies of those killed in war. I believe both of these are about Armageddon. So...should Eagle be sword, and then that would make human correlate to famine? Right now it seems so...but I have as much trouble having humans associated with famine as I do associating eagles with it. But the textual indications right now, today, say that Eagles are probably vultures, and they are about death in war. But you still have those who eat dead bodies at the throne of God. Seems too unclean for that to be right. Ahh...it is not really about the eating, it is about metaphor. Eagles gathering above a battleground, knowing what is to come. In that sense, I can get behind this interpretation. Which leaves me with a different problem now - how do humans correspond to famine?
2025 later...The lion can represent a King, or royalty. Cherub is angels. Man is...man. Eagle is what?
2024 - This is a really good description of the way God's "four disastrous acts of judgment will work". Famine in vss 13-14, beasts are in 15-16, sword in 17-18, pestilence in 19-20. Are they always in this order? Are they therefore sent in this order, or is it more random. All at once but building in intensity. Have he any biblical example of the beasts running amuck. In 15-16 we see that the beasts are "passing through", they ravage and make desolate, so that none can pass through because of the beasts. This is how they operate. Rabies comes to mind, or something like it. Or a removal of the innate fear of man that was put into animals after the flood. So they realized they were bigger than us, stronger, and with more acute senses, making us easy prey. This reads as though a geographic area would be affected - in this case Judah and Jerusalem were in mind. In Revelation, perhaps it is the whole world. I just don't know that we have ever seen this part of the four disastrous acts.
The last several verses hold up those who will "survive" the fall of Jerusalem as examples that the exiles will want to follow. These that come out of the wrath of God against Jerusalem will be those who had it right - the ones sealed earlier by the one with the writing pouch who gave the truly penitent a mark showing they were chosen for survival. When these exiles arrive in Babylon, after the fall of Jerusalem, they will be the kind of people that God wants preserved. They will have God alone in their hearts, and they will worship only Him though they have seen the worst of His wrath poured out first hand. This ties in with the 144,000 in Revelation possibly. They too are sealed and they will go through Trib and Great Trib as witnesses, and they will be protected through all that is thrown against them, and on the other side, in the Millennial, it is these that we will look to as examples of what God wants in a people to call His own.
This fall of Jerusalem is a microcosm of the wrath that will be visited on the whole world. To try and interpret Revelation without looking at what is said here to the early exiles about what is still to come is going to come up really short of the truth. I wouldn't want to take the interpretation too awfully far, but could the early exiles be those who come out of trib....no. Because the early exiles in Ezekiel are still polytheistic. They are not "survivors" of persecution. They are too stiff necked to even see what the punishment is for. This whole idea is sort of summed up in this last verse of 14:
23 They will console you, when you see their ways and their deeds, and you shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it, declares the Lord GOD." [Eze 14:23 ESV] The idea is that the reasons for God's wrath will be made apparent by the "quality" of those who live through it. They will be the most faithful. This also answers the question about whether good men sometimes suffer wrath right along with the wicked. This says that they do. The righteous marked for survival would have been just as frightened of dying and for their families safety as the wicked that end up actually dead. They would have experienced the knock of the soldiers, they would have watched their homes looted, perhaps watched far worse things as the Babylonian's ransacked the city. Their faith would have carried them through all this. They would have felt God's hand on them, keeping them...or not...but their faith would have kept them moving forward. In the same way, God will preserve a remnant of Israel through Trib and Great Trib, and they will be examples to the world of true, unwavering faith in the face of the greatest persecution the world has ever seen.
2024 - Well...are the two paragraphs above interpreted correctly? Those that come out afterwards will have a consoling effect on those in Chebar. Look at the wording in vs 23:
23 They will console you, when you see their ways and their deeds, and you shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it, declares the Lord GOD." [Eze 14:23 ESV]. We could read this two very different ways. First, the survivors could come out still behaving as all the people were BEFORE the four disastrous acts, and those who were taken as slaves and have repented of their wrongs while in captivity will see just how heinous were the inhabitants of Judah before God did this, and with this repentant perspective understand why God did the things he did - as we in heaven will understand at that time why hell is deserved by those who are there . OR, will it be those who remained to endure and survive the four disastrous acts who are the repentant ones and the change in them will be an example to those captured and taken away of the result God was looking for in his wrath? I think - this year - that the first is far more likely. Those who remain won't change, just as none change in Revelation during the final pouring out of God's wrath. The second is unlikely because when God gets to wrath, he is no longer trying to reform anyone. This is out and out punishment of those who had not, do not, and will never repent. There is only one possibility for them, just as there is only one for those who take the mark in Revelation. We can see a tie if the ones who bring consolation in Ezekiel correspond to the church members who survive trib up until the rapture. Those who go through a time of tribulation that has never been before and never will be again (Matt 24), which I believe comes BEFORE the rapture. The ones who survive that time and are still faithful will be great examples of faithfulness...but for whom? I just don't think we can make things correlate if we look at the survivors as good examples, instead of as bad ones.
2024 - Possible confirmation of the idea that these survivors will be seen for what they were - very bad people deserving everything they got - in this verse:
6 Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Like the wood of the vine among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so have I given up the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 7 And I will set my face against them. Though they escape from the fire, the fire shall yet consume them, and you will know that I am the LORD, when I set my face against them. [Eze 15:6-7 ESV] Those in Jerusalem were beyond any useful purpose. All they were good for was the fire. And even if they escape the fire, their final end is the same. They are for the fire, and the fire is for them.