Fear No Fear

(All scripture from Lexham English Bible, Copyright 2012 Logos Bible Software)

God came to Ezekiel in the ninth year, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month and told him to mark the day as the very day Nebuchadnezzar started his siege of Jerusalem (confirmed by Jeremiah 39:1 and 2 Kings 25:1). There was no way Ezekiel could know this. This was the Lord. God told him that Jerusalem was a pot set on a fire. It was happening NOW. The destruction would be severe. It would be a bloody city. They would be consumed. According to their deeds, they would be judged.

The Lord also told Ezekiel that his wife was going to die. He was not to mourn or cry or let tears drip down his face. He was to only sigh in silence and not do ANY of the traditional mourning practices. Ezekiel told the people in the morning, and that evening his wife was dead. And he did NOT do what people normally did. Everyone asked him why? Why the odd behaviour? Why? Ezekiel told them. God was judging Jerusalem (literally as they spoke) because of Judah and Jerusalem’s sins. And like God, Ezekiel was not mourning the death. Because they had chosen it. They had ignored the warnings. They would die and it would not be SAD, but JUST. Those that escaped would come and tell the exiles exactly that. Because it was spoken before they could know about it, they would hear the description and know that it was God who did this.

Chapter 25 of Ezekiel marks a change. The first twenty-four chapters were about Judah and their impending (and then arriving) judgment. Now the Lord starts to speak to Ezekiel about the nations and people around Israel and Judah. The Ammonites were first. They had been joyful at Israel’s fall. Full of glee when the people of God turned from Him. They had rejoiced when the Temple was defiled and destroyed. Because of that, the Ammonites would be wiped out. They would be conquered and turned to dust and would know that God did it. The Moabites had pointed to Judah and said ‘they are just like everyone else’. They too had celebrated. They would be cleared away. They, like the Ammonites, would be given as a possession to the Babylonians. Moab would also know it was God who did this. Edom was next. They had taken vengeance against Judah, greatly offending the Lord who had not told them they could. They would be defeated and subjugated by Israel (which happened under the reign of the Maccabees). And the cities of the Philistines were last (they never had a nation, but a series of city-states). They also had dealt vengefully toward the people of God. They had a spiteful heart and sought to destroy because of old hatreds (when they had been conquered by Israel hundreds of years before because they had rejected the Lord and His mercy in bringing them to Canaan – Amos 9:7). Because of that the Lord will stretch out His hand and destroy them. The Cherethites would be killed. The seacoast would be destroyed. His furious rebukes would leave NO doubt that He was God and HE was bringing this about. Why are we sure these people celebrated and rejoiced? The Ammonites had ALWAYS rejoiced at the misfortunes of Israel. Moab, Edom, and Philistia had all joined with Nebuchadnezzar in his assault on Jerusalem. They were ALL very much against the people of God.

“Son of man, because Tyre said concerning Jerusalem, ‘Ah! The gates of the peoples are broken; it has swung open to me; I shall be filled, for it lies in ruins!’” (Ezekiel 26:2)

Tyre was located to the north of Israel in the same region as the city of Sidon. Tyre were merchants. They were THRILLED that Israel and Judah had fallen because they assumed that they would get all the commerce that had gone to the Jews. But the Lord would not let celebration against His people stand (a good lesson for EVERYONE). He would bring them low and lay them waste. What an attitude change from hundreds of years previous when the king of Tyre was a good friend of King David. The Lord would destroy their walls, ruin their villages, bring the north against them (first with Nebuchadnezzar, later the Greeks) and totally deliver them into his hands. This seemed TOTALLY impossible (the capital was on an island a half mile offshore), but it came to pass. And the world shook when it happened. If TYRE wasn’t safe, NO ONE was safe. [Nebuchadnezzar conquered Tyre, but it wasn’t until Alexander the Great built a causeway out to the island that they were totally destroyed.]

Summary

Key Players: God, Ezekiel

Key Verse(s): Ezekiel 24:1-5, 18-24; 25:1-4, 8-11, 12-13, 14-17; 26:1-6, 19-21