The visions begin.
1.1.2026
My NASB95 Ryrie Study Bible divides most of Ezekiel into various types of prophesies, except chapters 1-3 which cover Ezekiel's calling.
- Chapters 4-24 are prophesies against Judah and Jerusalem through symbols, sermons, vision, signs, messages, and parables.
- Chapters 25-32 are prophesies against foreign nations.
- Chapters 33-39 are prophesies regarding Israel's restoration.
- Chapters 40-48 are prophesies regarding Israel and the Millennial Kingdom.
I probably should covered that in the book introduction, but sometimes those outlines don't mean much until you're into the book itself.
So, we are in the chapters specific to Judah and Jerusalem. Again, these messages are about Judah and Jerusalem, but they are for the captives in Babylon. (And for us, of course.) We've read about the prophesies Ezekiel shared through symbolic actions and performance and we've read the sermons. Today we begin Chapters 8-11 in which Ezekiel shares his prophesies through visions.
Chapter 8
A little over a year after Ezekiel was called, he was sitting in his house meeting with Judah's elders. God's hand fell on Ezekiel and he saw a vision of someone who appeared like a man with fire from his waist down and the brightness of glowing metal from his waist up.
And He stretched out the form of a hand and caught me by a lock of my head; and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the north gate of the inner court, where the seat of the idol of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy, was located. Ezekiel 8:3
Notice that the "He" is capitalized. Meaning the translator of the text determined that the He was God. God grabbed Ezekiel by a lock of his hair and transported him to the Temple in Jerusalem. In the Temple was an idol. That idol actually provoked jealousy. So for those who think a dead idols crafted by the hands of man are harmless–keep in mind, we do not have an understanding of how the spiritual realm works. When we allow idols in our life, even if we think we control them, they may be provoking horrible things into our live, like jealousy. Think very carefully about about what you allow into the Temple of God–which is your body.
In verse 4 we learn that the shekinah glory of the Lord was also in the Temple, just as Ezekiel had seen during his calling.
Then the Lord spoke to Ezekiel and tells him to look up and north to the jealousy idol. The Lord points out this abomination in His Temple so that Ezekiel can understand how bad it has gotten back in Jerusalem. (Ezekiel is in Babylon with the others taken captive.)
Next Ezekiel is transported to the entrance of the court to a hole in the wall. Ezekiel is commanded to dig through the hole and finds a room filled with the wicked abominations of animal and insect deities. Unclean and detestable creatures and other idols carved on the wall all around. Even more detestable than the idols, 70 elders of the house of Israel were standing before these idols and insects and beast and worshiping with gifts in incense.
I don't want this to slip by. This is important. Even Ahab and Jezebel worshiped ONE other god. And even the perverts in Babylon, and eventually Rome in the New Testament, had a handful of specific gods for specific things, like rain or sun. But 70 elders of the house of Israel are worshiping "every form of creeping thing, beasts, and detestable thing. 70! Not one rogue priest, not four pervert golf buddies; but seventy leaders. A cult. A wicked, degenerate cult had taken over leadership of the house of Israel. They weren't just desperately praying to another god for rain or for victory; they were worshiping all things. In a secret room, so they knew what they were doing was wrong.
This should shock our conscience. This is a cabal.
Can you imagine how this looked through the eyes of God. The one, true, and living God proved Himself over and over to these people. He showed them love and prosperity and victory and provision and defense and on and on to infinite gifts and blessings. And these dudes, in their elitism and perversion decide to start a cult inside the Temple where the Lord meets them.
I cannot get my mind around this. I know it happens today. I know it happens inside churches, let alone governments and private clubs. But it's all still beyond my comprehension. I am wicked. I have done things that I still can't believe that it was me, but I was there and it was definitely me. And I still can't comprehend this. I can even find a road to empathy for significantly wicked people like Ahab, or even Jezebel. But I cannot comprehend this. I can even understand the selfish, wicked, and fearful hearts of the Jewish leaders that denied Jesus as the Messiah that they should have been expecting. But I cannot comprehend how this happened.
Where is the fear of the Lord?
Where is their conscience?
These weren't frat boys or pagans or young, uneducated masses that got swept up in a dumb game. These were ELDERS. Older, educated religious leaders. How? I know the enemy targeted them, met them in their own weaknesses, and led them to this through cunning and millennia of experience corrupting us, but where was the fear of the Lord. King Josiah was just a generation earlier. I really am dumbfounded by how bad this had gotten.
I can only imagine what Ezekiel was feeling in the presence of the shekinah glory of the Lord in the actual Temple and watching this. I'm queasy just thinking about it.
This one image alone redefines my understanding of God's patience, grace, and longsuffering. Ezekiel got this one glimpse of this atrocity to the Lord. But the Lord sees all of this in every heart all of the time. That is truly unimaginable.
God is great.
He is merciful and holy. We cannot understand His thoughts or His ways.
1.3.26
Then, in verse 12 God asks Ezekiel if he understands what he is seeing and gives Ezekiel insight into the elders' thinking: "God cannot see us.", "God has forsaken the land."
This makes it worse, in my mind. They know who God is. They refer to Him in the singular. And instead of pursuing Him and asking what they have done to be in this situation, they chase after and worship other creatures. This logic doesn't make sense. This isn't a confused ten-year-old. These are trained representatives of the Lord.
How we must hurt His heart everyday. Chasing our own way. I still do things that I know aren't good for me. And I have my reasons. And those reasons are as dumb as the reasons given by these elders.
Oh, dear Lord. Here's verse 13 presented without further comment:
And He said to me, “Yet you will see still greater abominations which they are committing.” Ezekiel 8:13
Buckle up, cowboys.
God takes Ezekiel to another gate to find women weeping for a Babylonian god of the underworld.
Great job, ladies. Way to show why Paul didn't want us teaching. The elders hid in secret room, while the women just lay it out their in public with full emotions flying. Way to represent!
Then God again asks Ezekiel if he sees what's happening and then promises even further abominations.
So we started at the north gate of the inner court and he looks north to the alter gate. Then to the entrance of the court where we find a hole in the wall. Then the entrance to the gate of the Lord's house, to the north. Now in verse 16, we're moving to the inner court of the Lord's house, at the entrance of the Temple. We find another 25 men stretched out with their backs to the Temple and worshiping the sun.
It's bad enough to be a sun worshiper, but to go to the Lord's Temple, actively turn your back on it in order to worship the sun? Again, it's an active acknowledgement that you know who THE God is and you want to PUBLICLY forsake Him for an object you see in the sky. Such treachery. It's not apathy or unbelief; it's war. It's publicly proclaiming your rejection of the One true and living God–who had done so much for these people.
It's just beyond heartbreaking.
After years of reading the various prophets proclaim judgment on these people, never has it been so personally obvious and offensive to behold their treachery and wickedness. And then I remember this is also a snapshot of what people would see if God gave them a tour around in my heart.
1.4.26
I don't completely understand what God means in verse 17. I'll be interested to read the commentaries:
He said to me, “Do you see this, son of man? Is it too light a thing for the house of Judah to commit the abominations which they have committed here, that they have filled the land with violence and provoked Me repeatedly? For behold, they are putting the twig to their nose. Ezekiel 8:17
I read verse 17 in a few other translations and I think the first part is a rhetorical question that is making the point: "It's bad enough they are doing these faith-based abomination here at the Temple, add these sins to the violence and other other sins in the land and no one needs to wonder why My wrath has been stirred up." (I still don't have a picture of the twig or branch to the nose.)
The Lord concludes this tour of abominations by assuring Ezekiel that He will deal with them in wrath. And He will have no pity at what he sees or hears from them when the wrath comes.
Chapter 9
God's longsuffering has ended. With Ezekiel's tour complete, as a witness to why God is done with Jerusalem and Judah, judgment is complete and the wrath begins:
Then He cried out in my hearing with a loud voice saying, “Draw near, O executioners of the city, each with his destroying weapon in his hand.” Ezekiel 9:1
I get freaked out by thunder and lightening. I cannot imagine what God's angry, loud voice sounds like.
Behold, six men came from the direction of the upper gate which faces north, each with his shattering weapon in his hand; and among them was a certain man clothed in linen with a writing case at his loins. And they went in and stood beside the bronze altar. Ezekiel 9:2
This is very interesting. I was expecting a "release the kracken" sort of scene with fire and brimstone reigning down on everyone's heads; but we get six men, including a man in linen with a pen.
First of all, we need to keep a close eye on the man in linen. That's how Jesus is sometimes interpreted in other visions, such as in Daniel 10 and 12 and Revelations 1. Second, the "writing case" is alos translated as scribal inkhorn, which was a portable inkwell inside a horn so that a traveling scribe to capture important information–such as preparing a legal document.
When my human longsuffering runs out, I turn to rage and spew anger and emotion. God, in His divine perfection brought Ezekiel as a witness and an official to keep legal records. This courtroom imagery is common among the prophets. God is just and He is keeping records. That is super interesting to me.
Verse 3 is very important. It is the first phase in a heartbreaking series of steps the Lord takes out of the Temple and eventually Jerusalem. I'll revisit this as He moves. But I just want to reflect on what it took to bring Him into the people. The people were supposed to have God as their King when they entered the Promised Land in the book of Joshua. They no longer needed Moses or Joshua. they were home and could be led by God. But they tried to use His Ark of the Covenant like a magic battering ram and they tried leading themselves. Eventually they called for a king, because haven't God wasn't "as good as" having a king, like all the other cool-kid nations. After much toil and trouble they finally get King David who has a burning passion to bring the glory of God back to the people. David, through much trial and error begins the process of building the Temple and Solomon gets it down. Down comes God to be amidst His people. And now, He's leaving with no fanfare, no acknowledgment, and a binding legal document being prepared by the man in linen.
Truly one of the most melancholy, heartbreaking, and scary scenes that unfolds in the Bible.
So, verse 3 starts with the shekinah glory of the Lord lifting up from the cherub statue situated of the Mercy Seat, in the Holy of Holies. He's leaving the place He would come each year to forgive the sins of the people. At the end of verse 3, He calls out to the man in linen with the scribal inkhorn.
In verse 4 He commands the man in linen to go through the city and mark all of the people who are sighing or groaning against all of the abomination seen in chapter 8. There were still those who knew that God would be unpleased by the abominations and were trying to express it. These people were to be marked to be spared. Does this sound familiar? A similar system was used right before the Exodus. An additional interesting fact from the Ryrie Study Bible footnote is that the mark was to be the symbol for the last letter of the ancient Hebrew alphabet. Care to guess what that ancient letter, taw, looked like?
Two. Crossed. Sticks.
The man in linen was to put a cross of the forehead of those to be spared. For the original Passover, the command was: "...take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses." So also two crossed sticks, although in a different configuration.
The Bible is so cool. 40 authors; 66 books, and we still see God's consistency throughout. He is called faithful and true.
Once the man in linen made his mark on those to be spared, in verse 5, God commands the men to go through the city and strike everyone else. No pity. Do not spare. Start at the Temple and strike everyone, no age or gender exclusions. So the 70 elders went down first. Fill the Temple courts with the slain, which will defile it.
As they were striking the people and I alone was left, I fell on my face and cried out saying, “Alas, Lord God! Are You destroying the whole remnant of Israel by pouring out Your wrath on Jerusalem?” Ezekiel 9:8
I can't totally tell, but is this saying that no one got the mark? Only Ezekiel was left? There were captives in Babylon, and the poor from around Jerusalem that Jeremiah was left with, but this seems to indicate that there weren't any remaining in Jerusalem who found the abominations offensive. Maybe I'm reading too much into the wording.
In verse 9, God reiterates why this slaughter has happened to this degree. And in verse 10 He reiterates that He has no pity. They earned this severe treatment.
The chapter closes out in verse 11 with the man in linen returning and reporting back that he did what was commanded.
One more thought I had about the possibility that no one was marked by the man in linen is the idea Christians tell each other, Jesus would have come and died for your iniquity even if you were the only one to accept Him. that seems hard to believe. But this seems like evidence of that concept. God is just no matter how many or few are involved. He is a personal God.
It also emphasizes how blessed the captives were, such as Daniel and his friends. It seems like such a horrible thing, but staying in Jerusalem would have been so much worse.
Wow. That's quite a vision. Ezekiel is giving Jeremiah a run for his money as my new favorite prophet.
The vision continues in Chapter 10.