April 19, 2005

Reading through the Bible in one Year: Judges 6:36-8:35; Luke 10:17-37

Weekly Memory Verse: Ezekiel 2:4-5

Good Afternoon Brothers and Sisters,

Ezekiel 4 (NASB95)
¹ “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, raise up a ramp, pitch 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 you and the city, and set your face toward it so that it is under siege, and besiege it. This is a sign to the house of Israel. ⁴ “As for you, lie down on your left side and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel on it; you shall bear their iniquity 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 iniquity, three hundred and ninety days; thus you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. ⁶ “When you have completed these, you shall lie down a second time, but on your right side and bear the iniquity of the house of Judah; I have assigned it to you for forty days, a day for each year. ⁷ “Then you shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem with your arm bared and prophesy against it. ⁸ “Now behold, I will put ropes on you so that you cannot turn from one side to the other until you have completed the days of your siege. ⁹ “But as for you, take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet and spelt, 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, three hundred and ninety 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 the sixth part 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, “Thus will the sons of Israel eat their bread unclean among the nations where I will banish them.” ¹⁴ But I said, “Ah, 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 beasts, 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 over which you will prepare your bread.” 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 be appalled with one another and waste away in their iniquity.^[1]

God instructs Ezekiel to do some weird things in this chapter.  I wonder how many of us would be willing to follow the instructions that God had given him.  The very first verse is interesting because God used that later as an illustration to the disciples later in Matthew 24:

Matthew 24:1-2 (NASB95)
¹ Jesus came out from the temple and was going away when His disciples came up to point out the temple buildings to Him. ² And He said to them, “Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here will be left upon another, which will not be torn down.” ^[2]

Although the city was not destroyed in 70 AD, the temple was.  God constantly tried to draw Jerusalem to him, but they were constantly rebelling against the leading of God.  The "brick" in the sense of Ezekiel was not the brick of the building sort, but rather a writing brick, which was a clay writing tablet which Ezekiel was to draw a picture of Jerusalem.  Then when he placed the iron plate against it, the prophecy was perfectly clear.  It was a seige ramp leaning against the city of Jerusalem, the battering rams were probably placed strategically in the positions of the gates. 

Try to picture the scene for a moment; Ezekiel was known to be a prophet of God, because his dad was a prophet.  When he did the radical moves that God instructed him, he had to draw attention.  I would wager that after a few days, people considered him to be nuts though.  He stayed on his side for an entire year outside the city.  Imagine, he spent 390 days on his side, that wasn't enough though, after that, he spent another forty days onthe other side.  How did this play out in prophecy though? 

Sieges were extremely difficult times.  They lasted for extremely long times, the idea was to take a fortified city and build a blockade around it so that nothing could come in or go out.  Jerusalem was ingeniously built to withstand extremely long sieges due to the deep wells and water caverns that were constructed under the hard rock under the city.  Some of those wells are still in place today.  The problem was not with the water though; it was actually with the food supply.  Jerusalem was prepared with plenty of water, but not enough food to withstand for long.  Siege works were either ramps built to enable the enemy to breech the gates, or they were earthen works built around the city that would give archers the opportunity to shoot over the wall from a higher vantage point.  The city was not just under siege, it became a target the had virtually no safety within the city walls.  The illustration did not stop at that point though, Ezekiel was to build fortifications around the city and to besiege it.  He may have used toy soldiers or whatever, the implication was clear.  Remember also that God had promised to take his voice for a while.  One other interesting point regarding the prophecy, the "iron plate" was specifically a griddle used for baking bread.  This symbolized that hunger would be the greatest tool that would defeat Jerusalem.  Some feel that this iron plate symbolized that God placed a barrier between Himself and Jerusalem so that He could not hear their prayers.

2 Kings 25:1-3 (NASB95)
¹ Now in the ninth year of his reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, camped against it and built a siege wall all around it. ² So the city was under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. ³ On the ninth day of the fourth month the famine was so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land.

Jeremiah 52:1-6 (NASB95)
¹ Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. ² He did evil in the sight of the Lord like all that Jehoiakim had done. ³ For through the anger of the Lord this came about in Jerusalem and Judah until He cast them out from His presence. And Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon. ⁴ Now it came about in the ninth year of his reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, camped against it and built a siege wall all around it. ⁵ So the city was under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. ⁶ On the ninth day of the fourth month the famine was so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land.

Isaiah 59:1-2 (NASB95)
¹ Behold, the Lord’s hand is not so short That it cannot save; Nor is His ear so dull That it cannot hear. ² But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.

Lamentations 3:41-44 (NASB95)
⁴¹ We lift up our heart and hands Toward God in heaven; ⁴² We have transgressed and rebelled, You have not pardoned. ⁴³ You have covered Yourself with anger And pursued us; You have slain and have not spared. ⁴⁴ You have covered Yourself with a cloud So that no prayer can pass through. ^[3]

Ezekiel probably did not remain on his right or left side for the entire time because God gave him permission to get up for tasks outlined later in the chapter.  It is thought that he spent certain times during the day in that position so that it would draw the most attention.  There were translation problems that existed in part of this passage that leaves the meaning a little bit obscure.  Some think that the numbers symbolized the length of time that the Jews would be under Gentile domination starting with the Babylonian empire.  Others feel that the captivity was referring to years already spent in captivity, this view would not make much sense in the realm of prophecy though, why go through so much effort to emphasize the past?  The numbers don't match up good for any situation unless there is a translation problem that was difficult to understand.  It is also noted that the translators of the Septuagint had difficulty translating the passage.  I drew most of this information from "The Bible Knowledge Commentary". 

Now take the bread that he made for himself, it was made out of foods that normally were not used for bread.  Also consider that the portion for each day equaled about 8 ounces of food for each day.  The water was also equal to two thirds of a quart of water.  This indicated the extreme famine that they would be under. The rationing of the food was similar to what it would actually be like if a person were in a city that was under siege. 

God wanted him to cook his bread over human dung.  Imagine that!  Yet God allowed him to change that to cow manure.   It is interesting that the prophet was willing to go through torture, but could not stand to be defiled by cooking over human dung.  There wasn't a law against this, only a law that said that it must be buried with a shovel.  From the for what it's worth department, when the settlers were traveling across the deserts of America, it was common to take a sheet and nail it under their wagons.  As the women and children walked beside the wagon on their westbound trip they would pick up the dried cow pies and toss them on the sheet to use as fuel to cook their food.  This was actually a common fuel for food in the holy land.  The reason for this was the same as the settlers, fuel for fires was scarce.

When you read about how that Ezekiel was abhorred by the idea of eating unclean food, it gives us a picture as to the way that he approached life.  Ezekiel did not just call for holiness, he lived the life of holiness.  He was not only a prophet, but one who lived out the life that he claimed to be living.  As we continue our study through Ezekiel, I hope that each of you are encouraged to hold to holiness, and to be willing to pay the price to live the righteous life. 

I am going to close here, any comments are welcomed.  I want to re-iterate, I drew most of my material today from "the Bible Knowledge Commentary" and the "New American Commentary."

Father, as we consider Your word today, inspire each of us and cause us to be determined to cling desperately to Your word, determining in our hearts to follow it completely.

In Him,

Joe Turner