The captives in Babylon thought it was a short term situation. Ezekiel was sent to let them know there would be no Jerusalem to go home to.
Chapter 4 begins a new section in the book. Now that we know who Ezekiel is and who the Lord is, it's time for Ezekiel to start his mission.
The people of Israel who had been captured were still being deceived. Their prophets and priests and leaders were all sunshine and roses in their outlook. Don't worry, we're going home soon. The prophet Jeremiah had already prophesied that it would be 70 years and none of the people believed it. God had always forgiven them and things shook out ok in the past.
This was not the message of Ezekiel.
I watched an interview the other day between Michael Knowles, one of the Daily Wire show hosts. He is Catholic and well read, so it's always interesting to hear his take and how it compares to mine, as a protestant. But his day, he was interviewing a progressive Christian man, a universalist, who had just written a book making the case that there was no hell. He thought that no one could really love, as long as they also feared. So the only way to love God and man was if they gave up a notion of and fear of hell. Then we'd all be free to love and the world would be perfect today. It was fairly enraging to listen to him. He was soft spoken, like a Mr. Rogers impersonator, and he was also all sunshine and roses. It made me feel like Knowles was talking to CS Lewis' Uncle Screwtape. Knowles did an excellent job offering specific Scriptures to counter every point, which mostly came down to, "my mommy and daddy made me afraid of hell and I want to be a good person without worrying about that."
My point is, humans are susceptible to the message that we can have God's protection and provision as long we want it, on our own terms. We can take for granted His love and believe that God's love is His biggest and strongest trait. Hoping He reserves the Old Testament judgy God traits for those we don't care for.
Heaven is real and heaven is now.
Hell is real and it the destination already chosen for any who want to live without God today.
Jerusalem is about to fall and we all better be ready.
To the text:
In verse 1, God instructs Ezekiel to get a brick and inscribe the city name of Jerusalem on it. Then Ezekiel was to make a diorama around the brick of siege wall, ramp, enemy encampment and an iron wall to show that Jerusalem was in a dire, impossible situation.
Next, Ezekiel was to lie on his left side for 390 days with the iniquity of the northern kingdom on him; then on his right side for 40 days with the iniquity of the southern kingdom on him. It sounds like the number of days in debatable; but to me, it tells me that the entire time God was being longsuffering toward His sinful people, HE was bearing their iniquity somehow. I don't know if that was part of Jesus' suffering on the cross as well; or if it was in some other way; but that iniquity wasn't just evaporated in the vapor. God suffered for those years. And now Ezekiel is demonstrating that. Because after those days were served, Ezekiel was to stretch out his hand against the besieged Jerusalem diorama and prophesy against it. God said he would put ropes on Ezekiel so he couldn't turn over.
The Ryrie footnote claims that Ezekiel only lied on his side during the day while he was prophesying. That makes sense, but isn't how the text reads to me.
Verse 9 starts a new paragraph. Ezekiel learned that his demonstration to the people was about to be very unpleasant fro him and a dire prophesy for the people.
Ezekiel was to make a course bread, using mixed grains and only eat a little bit per day, same with water–very limited. And then came the really bad news. Ezekiel was to use dung as the fuel to make the bread. He has remained ritually clean and pleaded with God not to make him defile himself. He was allowed to use human dung in lieu of cow dung.
But the picture was clear—life in Jerusalem was about to be very unclean, unpleasant, and filled with hunger and thirst. Those Babylonian captives would be wise not to hope in a future that included the besieged Jerusalem.
We should never take for granted any of our gifts from God, but especially when we are living outside His will and instructions. Poor Ezekiel did his best to display this in the most concrete manner.
In te commentaries, Wiersbe points out the tragedy that the Promise Land was supposed to be the land of milk and honey. They had houses they didn't build, vineyards they didn't plant or foster; and food they didn't earn. And now they would have very little. they would even eat their children—as we learn from Jeremiah. Feast to famine. No wonder they were rooting for the false prophets. However, understanding their impulse shouldn't keep us from being warned by their choices.
Amen.