The opening chapters of the book of the prophet Ezekiel strike the reader's soul with the finality of the severe judgment passed on Jerusalem...
The opening chapters of the book of the prophet Ezekiel strike the reader's soul with the finality of the severe judgment passed on Jerusalem and the chosen people. The prophet speaks of the enormity of sin and of people's responsibility for it, and nothing can counter the force of his words. God's righteousness is such that all conscious, deliberate resistance to the Creator's will is destructive. This cannot be passed over in silence, and there is nowhere to hide from the hand of the Almighty. However fierce and inexorable His wrath may be, the events of history show that He is the sole Lord of Israel and of the whole universe.
At the beginning of chapter 6, the prophecy of retribution for sin reaches its logical conclusion. Through the prophet, the Lord now addresses not only the inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judea, but the very natural world of the Holy Land. He commands Ezekiel to prophesy to the mountains and hills, the valleys and ravines, that they will all be laid waste because of their inhabitants' idolatry. We immediately recall the Creator's terrible words to Adam after he sinned, recorded in Genesis: ‘cursed is the ground because of you’ (Gen. 3:17).
Six centuries later, the apostle Paul would add to this thought, saying that ‘creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but by the will of the one who subjected it,... the whole creation groans and suffers together to this day...’ (Rom. 8:19–22). The entire created world bears the fruits of human sin and shares humanity's responsibility for its actions. This is the other side of humanity's dominion over the world entrusted to it by God. Human moral decay, as it spreads, ultimately leads to the physical decay of the created world as well; the ecological disasters of our own time can serve as unmistakable illustrations of this.
But... After the prophecy of the land's devastation, a new dimension emerges in the prophet's bitter words. Everything that has been said about retribution is true, but it does not encompass the whole truth about God. He is not one to be satisfied with retribution alone. From verse 8 of chapter 6 onward, alongside denunciation and judgment, there appears a word of astonishing hope.
Once again, as He had said to other prophets, the Lord announces a remnant of Israel: those who will survive and be saved. Three verses contain the whole substance of biblical asceticism and the discipline of repentance. The remnant, in the prophet's words, consists of those whose hearts will be broken, who will loathe themselves for the evil they have done and, as a result, remember God. It would be wrong to say that some are predestined to belong to this remnant while others are predestined to perish. The great question is whether there will be any who turn to God in repentance. Some thirty years earlier, the prophet Jeremiah had spoken bitterly of the people's inability to repent: ‘Can an Ethiopian change his skin, or a leopard its spots? Can you, then, do good, accustomed as you are to doing evil?’ (Jer. 13:23). And the great, unexpected revelation is that God, who sees the future, speaks with certainty of a remnant that will be found and preserved.
Strictly speaking, this alone gives meaning to the destruction of Jerusalem and, more broadly, to all the catastrophes in humanity's spiritual history: that ‘among the nations you will have some who escape the sword... and those of you who escape among the nations will remember Me’ (Ezek. 6:8–9). Through Ezekiel, the Lord tells captive Israel that its relationship with God will change, and that this will serve to renew and save people. We hear the words ‘and you will know that I am the Lord’, repeated twice at the end of chapter 6, as a threat absorbed since childhood: ‘I'll show you... you'll learn not to misbehave.’ But God Himself and the prophet Ezekiel give them an entirely different meaning. To understand this, we need to compare them with the words of the prophets of the eighth century BC. The prophet Hosea says of the people's fate: ‘The Lord has a case against the inhabitants of this land, because there is no truth, no mercy, and no knowledge of God in the land... My people will be destroyed for lack of knowledge’ (Hos. 4:1–6). The same prophet Hosea proclaims a revelation about God of exceptional importance, which the Lord Jesus Christ would later recall: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and knowledge of God more than burnt offerings’ (Hos. 6:6; Mt. 9:13). And the prophet Isaiah, speaking of Christ, the shoot from the root of Jesse, says: ‘The Spirit of the Lord will rest upon Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and godliness...’ (Isa. 11:2). Thus, at the end of chapter 6, the prophet Ezekiel says that the remnant of Israel will turn to God in repentance and know Him as God Himself desires.
6 A threatening of the destruction of Israel for their idolatry, Eze 6:1-7.
A promise of the gracious return of a remnant, Eze 6:8-10.
Directions to lament the sins and calamities of Israel, Eze 6:11-14.
6:2 The mountains - The inhabitants of the mountains, who were secure in their fastnesses.
6:3 Rivers - To those who dwell by river sides, or in the valleys.High places - The places of your idolatrous worship.
6:4 Cast down - Before the altars of your idols, which you fly to for refuge.
6:5 And - Thus the idols were upbraided with their inability to help their worshippers, and the idolaters, with the folly of trusting in them.
6:6 Your works - All your costly work for your idols.
6:8 Remnant - It is the Lord that preserves a remnant, the enemies rage would destroy all.
6:9 Shall remember - So as to turn unto me. Broken - I am much grieved. Whorish heart - Idolatrous hearts depart from God, as an adulterous wife departs from her husband. Loath - With a mixture of grief towards God, of indignation against themselves, and abhorrence of the offence.
6:10 In vain - Either without cause, the sufferers gave him just cause to pronounce that evil; or without effect. Their sins where the cause, and their destruction is the effect of their sufferings.
6:11 Smite - To shew thy wonder, indignation, sorrow, and pity, for their sins and sufferings.
6:12 Far off - Either by flight, or captivity.Shall fall - Who dwell near to Jerusalem, or would retire to it, when the Babylonians approach.
6:14 Wilderness - The horrid wilderness of Moab. Therein the fiery serpents so much annoyed Israel. Accordingly the land of Canaan is at this day one of the most desolate countries in the world.