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In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the
reading of His holy word.
“Now, son of man, take a block of clay, put it in front of
you and draw the city of Jerusalem on it. Then lay siege to it: Erect siege
works against it, build a ramp up to it, set up camps against it and put
battering rams around it. Then take an iron pan, place it as an iron wall
between you and the city and turn your face toward it. It will be under siege, and
you shall besiege it. This will be a sign to the people of Israel.”
“Then lie on your left side and put the sin of the people of
Israel upon yourself. You are to bear their sin for the number of days you lie
on your side. I have assigned you the same number of days as the years of their
sin. So for 390 days you will bear the sin of the people of Israel.”
“After you have finished this, lie down again, this time on
your right side, and bear the sin of the people of Judah. I have assigned you
40 days, a day for each year. Turn your face toward the siege of Jerusalem and
with bared arm prophesy against her. I will tie you up with ropes so that you
cannot turn from one side to the other until you have finished the days of your
siege.”
“Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt;
put them in a storage jar and use them to make bread for yourself. You are to
eat it during the 390 days you lie on your side. Weigh out twenty shekels of
food to eat each day and eat it at set times. Also measure out a sixth of a hin
of water and drink it at set times. Eat the food as you would a loaf of barley
bread; bake it in the sight of the people, using human excrement for fuel.” The
Lord said, “In this way the people of Israel will eat defiled food among the
nations where I will drive them.”
Then I said, “Not so, Sovereign Lord! I have never defiled
myself. From my youth until now I have never eaten anything found dead or torn
by wild animals. No impure meat has ever entered my mouth.”
“Very well,” He said, “I will let you bake your bread over
cow dung instead of human excrement.”
He then said to me: “Son of man, I am about to cut off the
food supply in Jerusalem. The people will eat rationed food in anxiety and
drink rationed water in despair, for food and water will be scarce. They will
be appalled at the sight of each other and will waste away because of their
sin.”
“Now, son of man, take a sharp sword and use it as a
barber’s razor to shave your head and your beard. Then take a set of scales and
divide up the hair. When the days of your siege come to an end, burn a third of
the hair inside the city. Take a third and strike it with the sword all around
the city. And scatter a third to the wind. For I will pursue them with drawn
sword. But take a few hairs and tuck them away in the folds of your garment. Again,
take a few of these and throw them into the fire and burn them up. A fire will
spread from there to all Israel.”
Ezekiel 4, 5:1-4
This ends today’s
reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
Ezekiel’s calling to be the Lord’s
prophet has taken some rather unconventional turns as we have seen through the
first three chapters of the book named after him. But as we continue our study,
moving into Chapter 4 and part of Chapter 5, we find God giving His messenger
some rather unusual tasks, four to be exact. Let’s look at each.
1. Drawing on clay.
“Now,
son of man, take a block of clay, put it in front of you and draw the city of
Jerusalem on it. Then lay siege to it: Erect siege works against it, build a
ramp up to it, set up camps against it and put battering rams around it. Then
take an iron pan, place it as an iron wall between you and the city and turn
your face toward it. It will be under siege, and you shall besiege it. This
will be a sign to the people of Israel.”
It’s been said a picture is worth a
thousand words. Thus, God was asking His messenger to draw what Jerusalem will
look like under siege, a precursor of what would come when Nebuchadnezzar and
his Babylonian forces came a second time on Jerusalem, laying siege to the city
before leaving it in ruin. God told Ezekiel to make the sketch so the
Israelites would be given a sign. There would be no doubt that God ordained and
approved of the attack on His people.
2. Side lying.
“Then
lie on your left side and put the sin of the people of Israel upon yourself. You
are to bear their sin for the number of days you lie on your side. I have
assigned you the same number of days as the years of their sin. So for 390 days
you will bear the sin of the people of Israel.”
“After
you have finished this, lie down again, this time on your right side, and bear
the sin of the people of Judah. I have assigned you 40 days, a day for each
year. Turn your face toward the siege of Jerusalem and with bared arm prophesy
against her. I will tie you up with ropes so that you cannot turn from one side
to the other until you have finished the days of your siege.”
“Take
wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them in a storage
jar and use them to make bread for yourself. You are to eat it during the 390
days you lie on your side. Weigh out twenty shekels of food to eat each day and
eat it at set times. Also measure out a sixth of a hin of water and drink it at
set times. Eat the food as you would a loaf of barley bread; bake it in the
sight of the people, using human excrement for fuel.” The Lord said, “In this
way the people of Israel will eat defiled food among the nations where I will
drive them.”
Then
I said, “Not so, Sovereign Lord! I have never defiled myself. From my youth
until now I have never eaten anything found dead or torn by wild animals. No
impure meat has ever entered my mouth.”
“Very
well,” He said, “I will let you bake your bread over cow dung instead of human
excrement.”
He
then said to me: “Son of man, I am about to cut off the food supply in
Jerusalem. The people will eat rationed food in anxiety and drink rationed
water in despair, for food and water will be scarce. They will be appalled at
the sight of each other and will waste away because of their sin.”
How extensive were the sins of the
Israelites?
How about 390 years extensive. That’s a
long time to show disobedience toward a God who hates disobedience and serves
as a testament to the Lord’s patience. For He could have punished His people
long before He did but He wanted to give them every possible opportunity to
turn from their wicked ways and commit to getting right with Him.
Unfortunately they failed to do that and
so Ezekiel got to lie on his left side for 390 days, one day for every year the
Israelites had sinned. While lying every day for so long, Ezekiel was bearing
the sins of the people of Israel and he would nourish himself with rations of
bread and water as he fulfilled God’s wishes, bread that God allowed him to
bake on cow dung vice human excrement so Ezekiel would not have to defile
himself. It wasn’t how the bread was cooked that mattered the most. Rather it
was the symbology that the people of Israel would be cut off from supplies and
have to ration their food and water because both would be scarce. Scripture
tells us that the people would “be appalled at the sight of each other”
and would “waste away because of their sin.”
So for 390 days, God’s prophet would lie
on his left side. But then what? Would the Lord allow him to get back to some
sense of normalcy?
Not exactly.
For as we continue to look at our
scripture passage, we find the Lord simply telling Ezekiel to roll over, this
time onto his right side for 40 days, a day for every year the people of Judah
sinned. He was to turn his face toward the clay drawing of the besieged
Jerusalem and keep his eyes upon it, an act that represented how resolute the
Babylonians would be in carrying out their attack on Jerusalem.
3. Shave and a haircut.
“Now, son of man,
take a sharp sword and use it as a barber’s razor to shave your head and your
beard. Then take a set of scales and divide up the hair. When the days of your
siege come to an end, burn a third of the hair inside the city. Take a third
and strike it with the sword all around the city. And scatter a third to the
wind. For I will pursue them with drawn sword. But take a few hairs and tuck
them away in the folds of your garment. Again, take a few of these and throw
them into the fire and burn them up. A fire will spread from there to all
Israel.”
First, Ezekiel would have to shave his
head and beard, a symbol of God’s complete rejection of His people. Next, the
hair was divided up into three parts and each third was treated in a certain
fashion to represent what would happen to Jerusalem and its people.
Burning the hair would symbolize the
burning of Jerusalem, an act that would leave the city in ruins.
Striking the hair with the sword would
represent the number of people who would be slain by the sword at the hands of
the Babylonians.
And throwing some of the hair into the
wind would end up being akin to the people of Jerusalem being whisked away into
seventy years of captivity.
Drawing on clay. Lying on his side for
first 390 and then 40 days. Cutting off all his hair and following God’s
direction with each third of it.
All unusual tasks given to Ezekiel by God
but they were as important as any of the verbal messages that the prophet would
later be asked to share. As we go forth every day to do the will of the Lord,
we should be prepared to do whatever God asks us to do to accomplish the
purposes He wants to accomplish, no matter how strange His assignments might
seem.
Amen
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel
might be blessed by it.
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