In The Word
Read: Ezekiel 3:22-5:17
22 Now the hand of the Lord was on me there, and He said to me, “Get up, go out to the plain, and there I will speak to you.” 23 So I got up and went out to the plain; and behold, the glory of the Lord was standing there, like the glory that I saw by the river Chebar, and I fell on my face. 24 But the Spirit entered me and set me up on my feet; and He spoke with me and said to me, “Go, shut yourself inside your house. 25 And as for you, son of man, they will put ropes around you and bind you with them so that you do not go out among them. 26 Moreover, I will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth so that you will be unable to speak and will not be a man who reprimands them, since they are a rebellious house. 27 But when I speak to you, I will open your mouth and you will say to them, ‘This is what the Lord God says:’ The one who hears, let him hear; and the one who refuses, let him refuse; for they are a rebellious house.
Siege of Jerusalem Predicted
4 “Now you, son of man, get yourself a brick, place it before you, and inscribe a city on it—Jerusalem. 2 Then lay siege against it, build a siege wall, pile up an assault ramp, set up camps, and place battering rams against it all around. 3 Then get yourself an iron plate and set it up as an iron wall between yourself and the city, and direct your face toward it so that it is under siege, and besiege it. This will be a sign to the house of Israel.
4 “Then you are to lie down on your left side and put the wrongdoing of the house of Israel on it; you shall bear their wrongdoing for the number of days that you lie on it. 5 For I have assigned you a number of days corresponding to the years of their wrongdoing, 390 days; so you shall bear the wrongdoing of the house of Israel. 6 When you have completed these days, you shall lie down a second time, but on your right side, and bear the wrongdoing of the house of Judah; I have assigned it to you for forty days, a day for each year. 7 Then you shall direct your face toward the siege of Jerusalem with your arm bared, and prophesy against it.8 Now behold, I will put ropes around you so that you cannot turn from your one side to your other until you have completed the days of your siege.
Defiled Bread
9 “But as for you, take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt, and put them in one vessel and make them into bread for yourself; you shall eat it according to the number of the days that you lie on your side, 390 days. 10 Your food which you eat shall be twenty shekels a day by weight; you shall eat it from time to time.11 The water you drink shall be a sixth of a hin by measure; you shall drink it from time to time. 12 You shall eat it as a barley cake, having baked it in their sight over human dung.” 13 Then the Lord said, “In this way the sons of Israel will eat their bread unclean among the nations where I will scatter them.” 14 But I said, “Oh, Lord God! Behold, I have never been defiled; for from my youth until now I have never eaten what died of itself or was torn by animals, nor has any unclean meat ever entered my mouth!” 15 Then He said to me, “See, I will give you cow’s dung in place of human dung, so that you may prepare your bread over it.” 16 Moreover, He said to me, “Son of man, behold, I am going to break the staff of bread in Jerusalem, and they will eat bread by weight and with anxiety, and drink water by measure and in horror, 17 because bread and water will be scarce; and they will tremble with one another and waste away in their guilt.
Jerusalem’s Desolation Foretold
5 “As for you, son of man, take a sharp sword; take and use it as a barber’s razor on your head and beard. Then take scales for weighing and divide the hair. 2 A third you shall burn in the fire at the center of the city, when the days of the siege are completed. Then you shall take a third and strike it with the sword all around the city, and a third you shall scatter to the wind; for I will unsheathe a sword behind them. 3 Take also a few hairs in number from them and bind them in the hems of your robes. 4 Take again some of them and throw them into the fire and burn them in the fire; from it a fire will spread to all the house of Israel.
5 “This is what the Lord God says: ‘This is Jerusalem; I have placed her at the center of the nations, with lands around her. 6 But she has rebelled against My ordinances more wickedly than the nations, and against My statutes more than the lands which surround her; for they have rejected My ordinances and have not walked in My statutes.’ 7 Therefore, this is what the Lord God says: ‘Because you have more turmoil than the nations that surround you and have not walked in My statutes, nor executed My ordinances, nor acted in accordance with the ordinances of the nations around you,’ 8 therefore, this is what the Lord God says: ‘Behold, I, even I, am against you, and I will execute judgments among you in the sight of the nations. 9 And because of all your abominations I will do among you what I have not done, and the like of which I will never do again. 10 Therefore, fathers will eat their sons among you, and sons will eat their fathers; for I will execute judgments on you and scatter all your remnant to every wind. 11 Therefore as I live,’ declares the Lord God, ‘Because you have defiled My sanctuary with all your detestable idols and with all your abominations, I definitely will also withdraw and My eye will have no pity, and I also will not spare. 12 A third of you will die by plague or perish by famine among you, a third will fall by the sword around you, and a third I will scatter to every wind, and I will unsheathe a sword behind them.
13 ‘Then 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. 14 Moreover, I will make you a site of ruins and a disgrace among the nations that surround you, in the sight of everyone who passes by. 15 So it will be a disgrace, an object of abuse, a warning, and an object of horror to the nations that surround you when I execute judgments against you in anger, wrath, and raging reprimands. I, the Lord, have spoken. 16 When I send against them the deadly arrows of famine which were for the destruction of those whom I will send to destroy you, then I will also intensify the famine upon you and break off your provision of bread. 17 I will send on you famine and vicious animals, and they will bereave you of children; plague and bloodshed also will pass through you, and I will bring the sword on you. I, the Lord, have spoken.’”
New American Standard Bible (NASB) Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation
Walking In The Word
With all the great and mighty visions and instructions that the prophet Ezekiel had received up to this point, you would think God was about to send him to a great congregation of people to proclaim His word to them. Instead, God ordered Ezekiel to shut himself up in his own house. God even caused Ezekiel’s tongue to cling to the top of his mouth which silenced the prophet for a divine time.
Sometimes in life, God will reveal to us a divine truth in His Word or even a strong correction for someone else in our life. In maturity, we should seek the Lord if we are to bring that correction to our neighbor or if we should just pray for them. Many times, we want to just try to fix someone without seeking God for His timing in bringing that word to them. Sometimes, the word we received that we thought was for someone else could actually be for us as well. This is a time when we should take heed to Jesus words and get the log out of our eye first, then get the speck out of another’s.
Don’t try to execute God’s plans for Him without consulting Him. We can trust Him because His ways and thoughts are higher than we can comprehend. Let us all continue to be sensitive to His Spirit and His perfect timing as well.