Chapter 22
God details the reasons for what is coming to Jerusalem:
3 You shall say, Thus says the Lord GOD: A city that sheds blood in her midst, so that her time may come, and that makes idols to defile herself! 4 You have become guilty by the blood that you have shed, and defiled by the idols that you have made, and you have brought your days near, the appointed time of your years has come. Therefore I have made you a reproach to the nations, and a mockery to all the countries. [Eze 22:3-4 ESV]
2023 - What is meant by sheds blood? Note that in vs 3, both blood and idols are mentioned. Is this about blood sacrifices to idols in a kind of "mockery" of the sacrificial system God set up for Himself? Is God angry that blood that should have been shed for him is being shed on behalf of wood, stone, and metal? Or is this really about human blood? About rampant murder throughout the land? If this last, how much unborn blood are we shedding in the US. And look what it portends: "...that her time may come..."!
This could be a reference to the blood of those sacrificed to idols. It could be that the rich were getting away with murdering the poor. MSB has much to say here. "Judicial murder" is one he mentions. They used a corrupt government to kill. Child sacrifice is mentioned, and so is their rebellion against Babylon. MSB goes on to say that vss 4-13 mention 17 specific kinds of sin, and then more are listed in vss 25-29. The only restraint on the sins of Judah were its ability to get so much sinning done. Murder seemed to be a very popular sin. So I will read on...
vss 6-12 list some truly awful things that were apparently going on, yet did not revolt the population to the point of demanding action. It is difficult to imagine a place where such things were not actionable. Rape and incest seem to have been a daily thing, as was extortion of immigrants, neighbors, and so on. This again sounds like the "switch" in Romans 1 has been flipped. No sense of common decency remains in Jerusalem. I note that homosexuality has not been mentioned at all to this point...
God asks if their courage can endure the wrath He is bringing on them. He says they will be scattered to the nations, and that He will "...consume your uncleanness out of you..." God says that by this, they will know that He is God.
2026 - This verse:
4 You have become guilty by the blood that you have shed, and defiled by the idols that you have made, and you have brought your days near, the appointed time of your years has come. Therefore I have made you a reproach to the nations, and a mockery to all the countries. [Eze 22:4 ESV].
Blood makes you guilty. Idols defile you. They were doing harm to others - not just stealing. Crime was rampant. There's a long list coming of the crimes that were going uncondemned and justice didn't exist. And the idols walled them off from the one thing that might fix the guilt - the forgiveness of God. But they were too busy with their idols for Him to hear them.
Possible FB post...Abortion, Anti-ICE, defund the police, let the criminals go. In our day ideology is being worshiped as were idols in Ezekiel's time.
2023 - "scattered to the nations". That word "scattered" is used 14 times in Ezekiel in the sense of scattering the people of Israel/Judah among the nations, that is, pushed out to live in other nations than their own. Lamentations uses it once. It first shows up, as I read it, in Jeremiah 30. I submit that it has not stopped. Anti-semitism is alive and well in 2023, and Jews are oppressed, persecuted, and "deported" still. They are being scattered from the places to which they had already been scattered. This is what the holocaust was about. Too many Jews concentrated in Germany, Poland, and Russia. They could not be allowed to reach "critical mass" lest some claim that the return was upon us. Now, though, AFTER WWII, Israel is a nation, and the constant immigration to that new country may well be the beginnings of the re-gathering promised in Ezekiel......wait wait wait....this continuing scattering would mean that the double punishment is still not over. That while AD 70 was a bold punctuation it was not the end. So when does it end then? At the sealing of the 144,000? Or did the re-establishment of Israel technically end the double punishment, since at that time the return to Israel began? How interesting...
Vs 17 starts a new section, a new prophecy. Here, God says all Israel has become dross to him, as dross of silver. He uses metaphor and says that He will gather the remainder of Israel into Jerusalem as if gathering tin, bronze, silver ore and so on into one place. Then He will blow on them, fire as the refiner's fire, and melt them down. By this, they will know that He is the Lord.
vs 23 starts another section:
First the priests dereliction of their responsibility is detailed. They make widows, they do not distinguish between clean and unclean, nor do they teach the people the difference. They ignore the sabbaths, profaning God among them. Also the princes - Kings and leaders? - these destroy lives to get dishonest gain. The prophets too have told lies and given false prophecies, saying it is from God when God has not spoken. The people themselves practice extortion and take advantage of immigrants and sojourners.
Amidst all this evil, all this debauchery, all this abandonment of any principles of common decency, God looked for a man to stand in the gap. One to stand in the gap so God would be turned from destruction. In vs 30b, "...but I found none."
2022 - This verse:
30 And I sought for a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the breach before me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found none. [Eze 22:30 ESV]
In vs 30, God looked for A man, just one, to build up the wall and stand in the breach on behalf of the land. It would only have taken one. Keep in mind that we are well into the waves of conquest and the three phases of taking captives to Babylon. The city is already a vassal state under Zedekiah. Even so, that final devastation and burning in 586 BC might still have been avoided, if one man could be found.
There is a FB post here. No matter how far we may think the US has fallen, no matter how ungodly we have become, one person can still halt the progression, perhaps even turn it back to more godly times. Be that person!
Next verse, the last in the chapter, begins with "Therefore..."
31 Therefore I have poured out my indignation upon them. I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath. I have returned their way upon their heads, declares the Lord GOD." [Eze 22:31]
2025 - At this point, it is good to remember that Ezekiel is writing this book from Chebar, in Babylon, and he is in captivity there. He was taken in one of the early conquests of Jerusalem that did not result in the complete destruction of that city. This wrath he is describing is about the final fall - 586 BC - when the whole place gets burned to the ground, the wall is destroyed, and the city is left helpless and in ruins. Even after the first two conquests, the two waves of people taken into slavery, STILL this city was shedding innocent blood and worshiping idols instead of turning back to God. They've proven, to all the nations, that they are a fickle and headstrong people, a rebellious house, and the onlookers are amazed not they are falling, but that they cannot seem to see that it is all their own fault.