#1133 Ezekiel 7 From Pride To A Weak Bladder

 

Moreover the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 2 “And you, son of man, thus says the Lord God to the land of Israel:

‘An end! The end has come upon the four corners of the land.

3 Now the end has come upon you,

And I will send My anger against you;

I will judge you according to your ways,

And I will repay you for all your abominations.

4 My eye will not spare you,

Nor will I have pity;

But I will repay your ways,

And your abominations will be in your midst;

Then you shall know that I am the Lord!’

5 “Thus says the Lord God:

‘A disaster, a singular disaster;

Behold, it has come!

6 An end has come,

The end has come;

It has dawned for you;

Behold, it has come!

7 Doom has come to you, you who dwell in the land;

The time has come,

A day of trouble is near,

And not of rejoicing in the mountains.

8 Now upon you I will soon pour out My fury,

And spend My anger upon you;

I will judge you according to your ways,

And I will repay you for all your abominations.

9 ‘My eye will not spare,

Nor will I have pity;

I will repay you according to your ways,

And your abominations will be in your midst.

Then you shall know that I am the Lord who strikes.

10 ‘Behold, the day!

Behold, it has come!

Doom has gone out;

The rod has blossomed,

Pride has budded.

11 Violence has risen up into a rod of wickedness;

None of them shall remain,

None of their multitude,

None of them;

Nor shall there be wailing for them.

12 The time has come,

The day draws near.

‘Let not the buyer rejoice,

Nor the seller mourn,

For wrath is on their whole multitude.

13 For the seller shall not return to what has been sold,

Though he may still be alive;

For the vision concerns the whole multitude,

And it shall not turn back;

No one will strengthen himself

Who lives in iniquity.

14 ‘They have blown the trumpet and made everyone ready,

But no one goes to battle;

For My wrath is on all their multitude.

15 The sword is outside,

And the pestilence and famine within.

Whoever is in the field

Will die by the sword;

And whoever is in the city,

Famine and pestilence will devour him.

16 ‘Those who survive will escape and be on the mountains

Like doves of the valleys,

All of them mourning,

Each for his iniquity.

17 Every hand will be feeble,

And every knee will be as weak as water.

18 They will also be girded with sackcloth;

Horror will cover them;

Shame will be on every face,

Baldness on all their heads.

19 ‘They will throw their silver into the streets,

And their gold will be like refuse;

Their silver and their gold will not be able to deliver them

In the day of the wrath of the Lord;

They will not satisfy their souls,

Nor fill their stomachs,

Because it became their stumbling block of iniquity.

20 ‘As for the beauty of his ornaments,

He set it in majesty;

But they made from it

The images of their abominations—

Their detestable things;

Therefore I have made it

Like refuse to them.

21 I will give it as plunder

Into the hands of strangers,

And to the wicked of the earth as spoil;

And they shall defile it.

22 I will turn My face from them,

And they will defile My secret place;

For robbers shall enter it and defile it.

23 ‘Make a chain,

For the land is filled with crimes of blood,

And the city is full of violence.

24 Therefore I will bring the worst of the Gentiles,

And they will possess their houses;

I will cause the pomp of the strong to cease,

And their holy places shall be defiled.

25 Destruction comes;

They will seek peace, but there shall be none.

26 Disaster will come upon disaster,

And rumor will be upon rumor.

Then they will seek a vision from a prophet;

But the law will perish from the priest,

And counsel from the elders.

27 ‘The king will mourn,

The prince will be clothed with desolation,

And the hands of the common people will tremble.

I will do to them according to their way,

And according to what they deserve I will judge them;

Then they shall know that I am the Lord!’ ” Ezekiel 7 NKJV

Ezekiel 7 Judgement on Israel

1-4. Thus says the Lord God to the land of Israel - Ezekiel is a messenger, whatever he hears from God has to be delivered, sometimes in word and at other times in dramatic imagery.

Now the end has come upon you - This is imminent, close, I am trying to rouse you from your sleep, the enemy is outside the door! The rest of Israel has already been taken, every corner of the land, now this last stronghold, Jerusalem, her time has come. Quit hoping in her, that because the temple is there, that she is the city of David, for these things will not save her. God hates what they have done in His house, and His presence is departing. God's presence will enter a later version of the temple, a temple that comes after the return of the exiles, and is then renovated under King Herod the Great, and look at His response to what is taking place there then.

44They will level you to the ground—you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.” 45Then Jesus entered the temple courts and began to drive out those who were selling there. 46He declared to them, “It is written: ‘My house will be a house of prayer.’ But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’ ”… Luke 19: 44-46

And your abominations will be in your midst - Those things they thought they did in secret will come to light. Those sins they committed against God He will have recommitted to them. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, I will repay saith the Lord. He will uncover their nakedness, so that the inside of the cup is as much on display as the outside. Why do you cry that others come and defile the temple for days when you have done it for decades?

15Again and again the LORD, the God of their fathers, sent word to His people through His messengers because He had compassion on them and on His dwelling place. 16But they mocked the messengers of God, despising His words and scoffing at His prophets, until the wrath of the LORD against His people was stirred up beyond remedy. 17So He brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who put their young men to the sword in the sanctuary, sparing neither young men nor young women, neither elderly nor infirm. God gave them all into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar,… 2 Chronicles 36: 15-17

…17For My eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from My face, and their guilt is not concealed from My eyes. 18And I will first repay them double their iniquity and their sin, because they have defiled My land with the carcasses of their detestable idols, and they have filled My inheritance with their abominations.” 19O LORD, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in the day of distress, the nations will come to You from the ends of the earth, and they will say, “Our fathers inherited nothing but lies, worthless idols of no benefit at all.… Jeremiah 16: 17-19

14And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. 15So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination of desolation,’ described by the prophet Daniel (let the reader understand), 16then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.… Matthew 24: 14-16

5-9. A disaster, a singular disaster - God is unique in this, that men would cringe at the idea of that which they call their own being outed, and would do everything in their power to cover it up. What will the nations say? This people served Yahweh, but look at what it got them, they are captives of those that practice what their Scriptures condemn. It is the beauty of God that He is consistent to His attributes regardless what men may think of Him, so jealous is He over His holiness, for the truth, that His justice and His love are inseparable. Both the justice of God and the love of God meet at the cross, where I hide in the mercy of God, made possible by the Son of God. The temple did not save them, and though God called it His house, He had it torn down. He would rather be despised and rejected then pretend that His people had a righteousness that they did not. He would rather have the nations laugh, then keep the tares forever amongst His wheat.

Unique (singular, unheard of) disaster" where "unique" is the Hebrew word echad which means one, i.e. a cardinal number in contrast to more than one. Echad can mean only, i.e. one of a unique class or kind, and thus a distinctive disaster in the present context. It can also mean one time, once, i.e. a single occurrence and in some contexts to the exclusion of all other occurrences (but not so in regard to the destruction of Jerusalem which which be devastated again in 70AD by the Romans and in the "great tribulation" by the antichrist). - Precept Austin

…12this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Behold, I am bringing such calamity upon Jerusalem and Judah that the news will reverberate in the ears of all who hear it. 13I will stretch out over Jerusalem the measuring line used against Samaria and the plumb line used against the house of Ahab, and I will wipe out Jerusalem as one wipes out a bowl— wiping it and turning it upside down. 14So I will forsake the remnant of My inheritance and deliver them into the hands of their enemies. And they will become plunder and spoil to all their enemies,… 2 Kings 21: 12-14

10-13. The rod has blossomed - Aaron's rod blossomed to show that he was set apart by God for His work as high priest, but the rod here has blossomed in the fullness of pride, which signifies the time of judgment is near. We reap what we sow.

…2He who walks in uprightness fears the LORD, but the one who is devious in his ways despises Him. 3The proud speech of a fool brings a rod to his back, but the lips of the wise protect them. 4Where there are no oxen, the manger is empty, but an abundant harvest comes through the strength of the ox.… Proverbs 14: 2-4

Though he may still be alive - They have lost the rights they had under the Theocracy, where what is sold is returned to the seller in the year of Jubilee. The buyer would not enjoy his purchase either, for it all falls under the new empire.

“In a grim parody of the ancient laws of Jubilee, the prophet declares that patrimonial property that has been lost to the family will not return; the year of Jubilee will be canceled.” (Block)

14-18. Like doves of the valleys - There is a dove here we use to hunt, called a Mourning Dove, and it makes a sound very distinct from song birds. 

Each for his iniquity - It is the song of repentance, blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted.

Every knee will be as weak as water - The same who before waved the rod of pride, as if it were anything to hold up.

“There is a vivid account of the panic that will follow. The RSV’s ‘all knees [are] weak as water’ means ‘all knees will run water’: a euphemism for the loss of bladder control in moments of terror.” (Vawter and Hoppe)

19. Their gold will be like refuse - But wait, was this not our confidence, yet who wants to carry coins when there is no bread?

…23But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! 24No one can serve two masters: Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. 25Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?… Matthew 6: 23-25

20-22. He set it in majesty - Israel was given a land of milk and honey, of natural resources, superior law and knowledge. God gave them the temple, the priesthood, and much that they could have used to magnify Him, the Giver, yet they worshiped the gifts. Now thieves will sack the temple.

For the land is filled with crimes of blood - They had not sought out justice against the murderer, they had murdered their own young as we do today, and they killed the prophets that God sent to them. It was as the time before the flood, now it is so in Israel, filled with violence. Violent men take what they worship by force, the thief comes to steal, to kill and to destroy. They were guilty and now they would reap the same at the hands of Babylon.

I will cause the pomp of the strong to cease - Pride comes before a fall. 

Then they will seek a vision from a prophet - They are in a hard way, for they did not listen to the prophets God sent, and the ones they did listen to had all been wrong. Now many of God's true prophets were the blood spoken of before. You wouldn't hear when He was speaking, now this is a horrible justice - silence.

18Then some said, “Come, let us make plans against Jeremiah, for the law will never be lost to the priest, nor counsel to the wise, nor an oracle to the prophet. Come, let us denounce him and pay no heed to any of his words.” 19Attend to me, O LORD. Hear what my accusers are saying!… Jeremiah 18: 18-19

…38Look, your house is left to you desolate. 39For I tell you that you will not see Me again until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.’” Matthew 23: 38-39

The king will mourn, the prince will be clothed with desolation - 

“In the eyes of Ezekiel, the king was Jehoiachin (1:2) and the prince was Zedekiah. Though Zedekiah was the last king of Judah, the prophet didn’t recognize his reign but considered him only a prince (12:10, 12).” (Wiersbe)