Chapter 5
Ezekiel to cut his hair and beard. Specific things for each third - burn one, strike one with a sword, scatter one to the wind. Just a few to be bound into his robe.
vs 7 starts with therefore and has 4 reasons for what is coming. Vs 8 also begins w/ therefore. "I, even I, am against you."
2024 - I think it is clear in vss 1-5 that this prophecy is "near", that alone, at this point. It may be that this whole chapter is about God's wrath that was directed at Judah and Jerusalem leading up to this final siege, and that is this specific prophecy that continues unabated even today.
2022 - This is a little long, but there's a lot in it also:
7 Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Because you are more turbulent than the nations that are all around you, and have not walked in my statutes or obeyed my rules, and have not even acted according to the rules of the nations that are all around you, 8 therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, even I, am against you. And I will execute judgments in your midst in the sight of the nations. [Eze 5:7-8 ESV]
The phrase that catches my attention is "...and have not even acted according to the rules of the nations..." Jerusalem was so corrupt that instead of being a bright spot on a dark wall, they were in fact the darker spot. God's own, with rules able to bring them to near perfection, have chosen instead to reject ALL of those, and to be even more morally corrupt than the pagan heathen pits that surround them. Hard even to understand how this could happen. The penalty for this is a sort of public demolition of their nation. All will know that defying the God of Israel - even if it is Israel that is doing the defying - will have dire consequences.
vs 9 "...I will do with you what I have never yet done, and the like of which I will never do again." So what is coming to Judah and Jerusalem is as unprecedented as Noah's flood, and like the flood, it will never be repeated. vs 10: "Therefore, fathers shall eat their sons..., and sons shall eat their fathers." Another therefore. How many in this chapter? vs 11 has another. Then God explains the signs w/ the hair. In Jerusalem, during and after the siege, 1/3 will die of pestilence and famine, 1/3 will die by the sword, and 1/3 will be scattered to the wind.
2025 - Vs 11 is the interpretation of the three signs, so that there is no mistake.
2024 - The listing of what is about to happen, that has never before happened, begins in the next verse. It is so horrible that maybe it is the sum total of what has never been done. Here is that verse:
10 Therefore fathers shall eat their sons in your midst, and sons shall eat their fathers. And I will execute judgments on you, and any of you who survive I will scatter to all the winds. [Eze 5:10 ESV]. This speaks to the coming siege leading to full on starvation within the city of Jerusalem, and to the cannibalism that will characterize the residents. I have read some commentaries on the Roman siege in 70 AD, and most say that cannibalism didn't happen...or if it did it was more in the form of isolated incidents than widespread. We have seen a verse before - might have been in Jeremiah, where mother's were going to boil their babies. Maybe the simplest answer to "what had never happened before nor will ever happen again" is this cannibalism. Here is one from Lamentations:
20 Look, O LORD, and see! With whom have you dealt thus? Should women eat the fruit of their womb, the children of their tender care? Should priest and prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord? [Lam 2:20 ESV];
Here is the verse where God told them, all the way back in Deuteronomy, that this would be one of the costs of disobedience. They had been warned:
53 And you shall eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and daughters, whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies shall distress you. 54 The man who is the most tender and refined among you will begrudge food to his brother, to the wife he embraces, and to the last of the children whom he has left, 55 so that he will not give to any of them any of the flesh of his children whom he is eating, because he has nothing else left, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in all your towns. 56 The most tender and refined woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because she is so delicate and tender, will begrudge to the husband she embraces, to her son and to her daughter, 57 her afterbirth that comes out from between her feet and her children whom she bears, because lacking everything she will eat them secretly, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in your towns. [Deu 28:53-57 ESV]
2022 - Never done before, never again. We know that the Jerusalem of 70 AD suffers almost exactly the same fate as the one of 586 BC. So perhaps an aspect of God's wrath here is the double punishment. He had never done that before. There is no indication that it will ever happen again. I would also add that the blinding and deafening of Israel that follows 70 AD (or just exactly when did this part start?) is another unique aspect of what God is doing.
2022 - This verse:
12 A third part of you shall die of pestilence and be consumed with famine in your midst; a third part shall fall by the sword all around you; and a third part I will scatter to all the winds and will unsheathe the sword after them. [Eze 5:12 ESV].
The very last phrase...unsheathe the sword after them. Even the scattered Jews would not be allowed to get comfortable in their new location. Even there they could expect the sword to come after them. Look how this plays to Nazi Germany, to Russia after the fall of the Czars. They have always been, and to this day are still, pursued with intent to kill. This curse, pronounced in Ezekiel's day, is still in full force and effect.
2024 - That last phrase, from way back in 586 BC, I believe is the curse still in effect toward the Jews. God is against them, so trouble follows after them where ever they go.
2025 - But maybe not. There is also this verse: 13 'Thus My anger will be spent and I will satisfy My wrath on them, and I will be appeased; then they will know that I, the LORD, have spoken in My zeal when I have spent My wrath upon them. [Eze 5:13 NASB95] But...even though this seems to imply that the fall of Jerusalem is the end of God's wrath, it doesn't technically say that. Look at all those verbs, as in the NASB:
"will be spent" Qal sequential perfect
"will satisfy" Hiphil sequential perfect
"will be appeased" Hithpael sequential perfect
"they will know" Qal sequential perfect
"have spoken" Piel perfect
"I have spent" Piel infinitive construct
So...I am not linguist, but this looks to me like God speaks, in the perfect tense, and then all these other things come about as consequences. All these other things are going to happen, but I do not believe any of these verbs can be interpreted with respect to time. There is no past present or future here. This is a package that contains things that will happen, but we don't have any idea of when they end. We know only that they will end. So in that sense, even though Jerusalem fell in 586 BC and again in 70 AD, I think we must conclude that God's wrath is not yet satisfied, not yet appeased, for the abominations described here. The best evidence for this - the proof text if you will - is that Israel is still the object of hatred from so very many, indeed almost from the entire world. They struggle daily for their existence, they have no peace, no security, no singing. So when it says "Thus My anger will be spent..." it is telling us that this is going to go on and on and on, until God is appeased for these many sins.
2022 - Last phrase of last verse of Chapter 5:
17 ...I am the LORD; I have spoken." [Eze 5:17 ESV]. I wonder what this looks like in Hebrew? How many words are needed for the 7 required in English?
Well..it isn't really one for one as I'd thought it might be. It is sort of just two words, "Jehovah dabar" is the transliteration. It looks like this in Hebrew:
יְהוָה דִּבַּֽרְתִּי׃
This reads from right to left. Word on the right is Jehovah.
Wish I was "gifted and talented" in languages. But I am not. Moving on.
2024 - Here is that whole verse:
17 I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will rob you of your children. Pestilence and blood shall pass through you, and I will bring the sword upon you. I am the LORD; I have spoken." [Eze 5:17 ESV]. So here we see all four named against Judah at this time. I had noticed that the beasts were left out wrt Judah in both Isaiah and Jeremiah - at least the ones I caught - and that maybe that meant the ruin of Judah was not permanent like that of Israel. Then I started seeing these references to Israel and Judah separately in the prophecies of restoration - as in Israel's fate is not permanent, and now I see the beasts in reference to the fall of Judah, making the differences between the demise of Israel and Judah pretty minimal. It might be an interesting study to go back and actually itemize the references to beasts as a tool in God's destruction of nations.