Ezekiel - Lesson 10

Lesson 10 Marked for Doom or Deliverance Yahweh's Response to the Abominations of Israel Ezekiel 9 1 to 11 Then he called out in my hearing with a loud voice, Bring on the city's executioners, let each one have his weapon of destruction in his hand. Then I noticed six men coming from the direction of the upper gate that faces north, each one carrying his destructive weapon in his hand. Among them was another man dressed in linen with a scribe's kit at his hips. They entered and stopped next to the bronze altar. Now the glory of the God of Israel had risen from above the cherubs over which it had been situated and moved over to the threshold of the building. He called out to the man dressed in linen who had the scribe's kit at his hips. Take a tour of the city, Jerusalem that is, Yahweh instructed him. Mark the foreheads of those who moan and groan over all the abominations that are being perpetrated inside it with a towel. To the rest, he said in my hearing, follow him through the city and slaughter. Do not let your eyes show pity. Do not spare. Massacre everyone, old men and young men and maidens and infants and women, but do not touch anyone who has marked with the towel. You shall begin from my sanctuary. So they began with the old men who were in front of the building. Then he said to them, desecrate the building and fill the courts with the victims. Go on out. So they went out and slaughtered all over the city. While they were slaughtering, I was left by myself. I fell down on my face and I cried out, horrors, oh Lord, Yahweh, will you annihilate the entire remnant of Israel by pouring out your fury on Jerusalem? Then he answered, the iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah has reached its limit. The land has been filled with bloody crimes and the city is full of injustice for they have said Yahweh has abandoned the land. Yahweh does not see. But as for me, my eyes will not show pity. I will not spare. I will bring their conduct down on their own heads.And then the man dressed in linen with the scribe's kit at his hips reappeared, bringing back this report. I've done just as you commanded me. This is the word of the Lord. Ezekiel 9, 1 to 11 is a short but fascinating text which has engaged the imagination of interpreters, both Jewish and Christian for a long time, especially the mark that the scribe placed on the foreheads of all who sighed and groaned over the abominations being committed in Jerusalem, verses 4 and 11. We will get to that, but before we do, we have a couple of other introductory issues to talk about. In the previous session, we observed in chapter 8, Yahweh constructing his legal case against the people of Jerusalem, but he did this in visionary form. A visit by the elders of the exiled community in Ezekiel's house, 8, 1, had precipitated a spectacular vision in which the prophetic priest saw himself transported back to Jerusalem and then taken on a tour of the temple with Yahweh as his guide. The quartet of sights, foresights Ezekiel saw as Yahweh took him from station to station were horrifying. At the north entrance of the compound, the idolatrous statue that provoked the passion of Yahweh. Second, in one of the rooms that made up the outer wall of the temple compound, he saw 70 elders waving incense in the nostrils of 70 images, with Jeazaniah, the benshafan, a man he recognized presiding, 7 to 14. Three, at the entrance of the inner court, he saw women weeping the tamuz, presumably a lament for Yahweh whom they deemed to have died. Four, and at the entrance to the temple itself, 25 men prostrated to the sun, mooning Yahweh behind them inside the temple. In chapter 8, 18, we heard Yahweh declare his verdict. Guilty on all counts, therefore I will respond with fury. My eye will not pity, I will show no mercy. Though they scream in my ears with a loud voice, I will not listen. The chapter 9 opens with these words ringing in our ears. Then he called out in my hearing with a loud voice, bring on the city's executioners. Oh, really? Although Yahweh had closed his ears to the cries of the people, even if they cried out loudly right into his ears, he wouldn't listen, but this did not rob him of his voice, his mouth was open wide, bring on the city executioners. This order signaled his emotional resolve and his hardened disposition toward his own people. The cup of Judah's iniquity and the quota of tolerable abominations was brimful. Therefore, his passion had been ignited not only against the idols who had dared to steal the affections of his people, but also and especially against his own people who had abandoned him in favor of images that to him were nothing but pellets of manure. The farm we referred to animal feces as horse buns and cow pies and sheep peanuts. That's what they were worshipping. For this reason, Yahweh's eye would not pity. He would feel no compassion toward the evildoers. Bring on the executioners. Well, let's begin by looking at the agents of doom who are introduced in verses one to three. Bring on the executioners. Ezekiel must have wondered to whom and about whom he was talking. Well, the latter question would be answered immediately, but before we get there, let's reflect on what sort of officials he had commissioned as the executioners of his sentence of doom. Notice, first of all, the executioner's title. In his report of the event, Ezekiel identified these who were summoned as the city executioners. The word is capable of a wide range of meanings to remember, to investigate, to muster, to miss, to punish, to register troops. The present context demands that we understand the full expression as a quasi-legal or professional designation for agents who are charged not necessarily to execute people, but to execute a sentence called for by a higher authority. This interpretation is confirmed by the equipment Ezekiel saw in their hands when he looked up and noticed six men coming from the upper gate. But the vagueness of the word pekudolth, executioners, had probably left the prophet wondering who or what would respond to Yahweh's appeal. Would these be plague forces, angelic beings, or human agents? In the Talmud, Shabbat 55a, Rabbi Chista identified these six agents as indignation, anger, wrath, destroyer, breaker, and annihilator, with a capital letter at the beginning of each word. Outside Israel, people would probably have expected demonic figures to appear, agents of the god of death, Mot in Canaan, Nergal in Mesopotamia. But for Ezekiel, the answer to the question, who are these executioners, it wasn't long in coming as six armed men emerged from the upper gate. Incidentally, the nearer definition of the gate as the one that faces north suggests an identification with the one named in 814. But this may also be the gate of the outer court, the one that Jotham had built, 2 Kings 1535, or the upper gate of Benjamin, which was by the house of Yahweh, where Jeremiah had been beaten and put in stocks. We can't be sure. But look at their equipment. Ezekiel used two expressions, unique expressions, for the weapons with which the executioners, with which they were armed. The first, instrument of destruction, this expression appears nowhere else in the first testament. But the second word in the phrase is closely related, that is, is closely related to destruction which we encountered earlier in 516 and will appear in chapter 9 and 21 again. Within the overall biblical storyline, the choice of the word is significant because it reminds us of the destroying agent, Mashchith, that Yahweh had used against the Egyptians at the time of the exodus. In fact, there, the destroyer himself was called Hamashchith, the destroyer. Later, when David had improperly registered and numbered his troops, Yahweh had sent his destroying envoy, same word is used, to punish David for his census of the people. But in verse 2, we see a second expression, the instrument of shattering, mapatz. This expression is also a hapax, it occurs nowhere else in scripture, but the meaning of the word is clear. It comes from a root meaning to shatter, to smash. Jeremiah 51 20 refers to a war club as a mapatz. The instrument Ezekiel saw was probably not a sword, even though the verb associated with it, to strike is commonly associated with that, it's probably just a club. Those are the executioners, and that's their armament. Then there is this priestly scribe, verse 3b. This was all the information Ezekiel gave on the six men, but then his attention was turned to a seventh man in their midst. This chap was dressed in linen, equipped with a scribe's kit. Linen was the fabric used for the dress of priests, Exodus 28 29-42, and angelic beings as in Daniel 10 5 and elsewhere.These are two classes of beings, persons, obviously directly involved in divine service. This might suggest that these were all properly commissioned temple officials, in contrast to the people we had seen in chapter 8. The man in linen was probably a priestly figure, and the executioners were probably temple guards, legitimate temple guards. This impression is reinforced by the word, use of the word, the city, which by definition referred to a place with surrounding walls and protective gates to control access. The problem in chapter 8, all kinds of people had been let into the temple who have no business being there. It's sacred space, and they have desecrated it with their presence. In this book, Ezekiel often referred to the temple compound as the city, the city of God, the city of God, the holy dwelling of Elyon, and we see this also in the Psalms.But this person's equipment, the man dressed in linen, signaled that his position in Jerusalem differed from that of the other men. On his hips, he carried a scribal kit. The word for kit is Egyptian and refers to a palette with a slot for his pen and hollowed container for ink, usually two for red and black ink, respectively. Although the linen garb, presumably white, suggests the man was a priestly official, his role in the following events, and in 10.128, may argue for an angelic figure. Jewish tradition understood the scribe as Gabriel, God's messenger, and the executioner of his will on earth. Although it's dubious, some Christians have understood the scribe as a Christ figure. In the seventeenth century, William Greenhill recognized in him the three offices of Christ. His kingly office is reflected in the fact that he's among them, among the six. His priestly office is implied by his linen clothing. His prophetic office is demonstrated by the incorn at his side. However, this messianic interpretation may have a pre-Christian roots. In a document discovered at Qumran, dating a couple of years before Christ, we find the following interesting commentary. Those who keep the commandments and the ordinances are the poor of the flock. These will escape in the time of the visitation, and those who are left shall be delivered to the sword when the Messiah of Aaron and Israel comes. It will be as it was at the time of the first visitation, as he said, by the hand of Ezekiel to make a mark upon the foreheads of those who sigh and groan. But those who were left were handed over to the sword, which wreaked the vengeance of the covenant. This is from a Qumran text from about the second century or maybe first century B.C. These seven men proceeded into the court, and they stopped in front of the bronze altar. This was probably the altar originally built by Solomon, 1 Kings 8, 16, which Ahaz had relocated to the northeast corner of the temple to make room for his own pagan altar in its place. Those are the kinds of abominations that had been happening in the temple. At this point, Ezekiel's attention shifted from the men in the court to the sight of the glory of the God of Israel, and we have a parenthetical comment that interrupts what is going on. We'll take a closer look at it in the next lesson. But for now, let's get back to the drama involving these seven men after the interruption. In verses 3b to 7, we have the commissioning of the agents of doom. From where he was standing, presumably at the entrance to the temple itself, think of 8, 16, Ezekiel overheard Yahweh, the God of Israel, giving orders to these seven men. He reversed the order in which the commissions were declared, beginning with a man dressed in linen and then turning to the other six armed men. What about the man dressed in linen's commission, verses 3b to 4? The narrative involving the executioners resumes in verses 3b, with Yahweh issuing a charge to his agents of divine administration. Based on 10.2, where the scribe dressed in linen took coals of fire from beneath the heavenly chariot and sprinkled them over the city, which virtually all translations render as scattered, as I did in my commentary, most translations present him as an agent who executed the sentence following the presentation of the case against the people in chapter 7. But as we will see, that role will be played by the executioners, not by the man dressed in linen. Based on the figure's linen garments, the innocuous instrument in his hand, and his actual commission, he looks more like an agent of salvation than of doom, and he goes and he marks the forehead of those who deserved to be saved. We'll have more on that in the next session. But the charge for the scribe dressed in linen catches us by surprise. He was to scour the city for signs of repentance. My translation, those who moan and groan, tries to preserve the rhyme and assonance of the Hebrew here. In 21.11-12, the first word, to moan, refers to moaning as a symptom of a broken heart and intense grief over impending doom, ne'enach. In 24.17, Ezekiel will express his own grief over the death of his wife with ne'enach. In this instance, the scribe was to search for individuals who were displaying a similar emotion over all the abominations being perpetrated in Jerusalem, that is, people who looked upon these evils from God's perspective. They would recognize the incongruity between prevailing practices and the standards of the covenant Lord. Are there anybody? The scribe was to mark the foreheads of those who exhibited this response with a tau. The Hebrew command translates literally, and you shall tau the tau, or mark with a mark. Now, the tau is the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet. In modern pronunciation, it's rendered as the tav. In the archaic cursive script, it had the shape of an X or a cross off on its side, a form that remained essentially unchanged from the early stages of the evolution of the alphabet until the adoption of the Aramaic square script. It's preserved to this day in Western scripts as the T, cross your Ts. Written on foreheads, the most visible part of the body, this tau would serve as the distinguishing mark separating the righteous from the wicked. Like the blood on the doorposts of the Israelites' houses on the night of the Passover when the destroyer would come, and like the scarlet cord in Rahab's window, Joshua 2, it was the sign of hope. The Septuagint here has the word semion. It's a sign. In the past, many have seen the tau as a precursor to, if not actually, the sign of the cross. The roots of this interpretation go back to the first century BC. That's before Christ, before the cross. The Psalm of Solomon 15 contemplates the divergent fates of the wicked and the righteous in the day of the Lord's judgment. In verses 6 to 9 of the Psalm of Solomon, we hear clear allusions to Ezekiel's tau. For the mark of God, its Greek text, semion, sign, is upon the righteous for salvation. Famine and sword and death shall be far from the righteous, for they shall flee, retreat from the pious as those pursued by war. But they shall pursue sinners and overtake them. Those who act lawlessly shall not escape the judgment of the Lord. They shall be overtaken by those who experienced in war, for the mark of destruction is on their forehead. The mark of the righteous was undoubtedly the tau, but the nature of the wicked in that text is not indicated. The Talmud, Shabbat 55a, answers the latter issue like this. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Gabriel, Go and set a tau of ink upon the foreheads of the righteous, that the destroying angels may have no power over them, and the tau of blood upon the foreheads of the wicked, that the destroying angels may have power over them. That's the Jewish interpretation. In view of the extensive links between Exodus 12, the Passover, and Ezekiel 9, especially the identification of those to be spared by means of a sign, early Jewish commentators on Ezekiel 9 quite naturally referred to the blood of the Passover lamb as the mark of salvation. When the Christian church fathers began to link the mark of Ezekiel and the blood of the Passover lamb to the cross and the blood of Christ, Jews reversed their positions. They changed their minds. The earliest Christian allusions to Ezekiel 9 is found in Revelation 7, 2-3, which describes the sealing of the 144,000, but the links are actually weak. Given the shape of the tau, it's an X, and the Christocentric hermeneutic of the church fathers, it was perhaps inevitable that they should seize on Ezekiel's sign as a symbol of the cross. Recording the results of his investigation of the Jews' understanding of the tau, Origen, whose dates are about 183 to 253 A.D., he, Origen, wrote, Upon inquiring of the Jews whether they can relate to me any traditional teaching regarding the tau, I heard the following. One of them said that in the order of the Hebrew letters, the tau is the last of the 22 consonantal sounds. The last consonant is therefore taken as proof of the perfection of those who, because of their virtue, moan and groan over the sinners among the people and suffer together with the transgressors. Another said that the tau symbolizes the observers of the law, since the law, which is called Torah by the Jews, begins its name with the consonant tau, it is a symbol of those who live according to the law. A third Jew, one of those who believe in Christ, said the form of the tau in the old Hebrew script resembles the cross, and it predicts the mark which is to be placed on the foreheads of the Christians. That's Origen. Tertullian, a little later, just a few years, the second to third century church father, wrote of the apostles and the faithful being signed and sealed as follows. The Lord said to me, Pass through the midst of the gate in the midst of Jerusalem, and set the mark tau on the foreheads of the men. For the same letter tau of the Greeks, which is our T, has the appearance of the cross, which he foresaw we should have on our foreheads in the true and Catholic Jerusalem. And since all these are found in use with you also, the sign on the foreheads and the sacraments of the churches and the pureness of the sacrifices, you ought at once to break forth and affirm that it was for you, Christ, that the creator spirit prophesied. This interpretation received considerable popular support to this day. Already in the 17th century, Greenhill took his cue from the Septuagint. The sign was no corporeal sign, as if the Lord had made some impression on their foreheads, whereby to distinguish them from the others. For this was a vision, not to be taken really, but in a spiritual sense. The Lord Christ took special notice of these and did distinguish them by special providence from those who were to perish in the destruction of the city. He did not go up and down from house to house and set a mark on their foreheads. He applied his blood and merits and sealed them by his spirit. Not that they were not washed in the blood of Christ before, but now there was a new and special evidence of it. So much William Greenhill. Now, as I said, this interpretation is still widespread today, but we need to take a closer look at what's actually happening here. The placement of the towel on the foreheads recalls the sign of Cain, which was intended to protect him from those who would seek to kill him, Genesis 4.15. However, in ancient custom, the towel was not a sign of a cross, but it was a sort of a brand, a mark of ownership. In Job 31.35, the towel represented a shorthand symbol for his signature. Job says he's so frustrated with God by the time we get to chapter 31, all that I had won to hear me. Here is my towel, signature. Let the Almighty answer me. Oh, that I had the indictment written by my adversary. Well, this is what the vision had provide Ezekiel and the exiles in chapter eight. That was the indictment of Jerusalem. The towel as a mark of a signature. Well, even today we do this. When we are signing forms, the secretary will mark the place where our signature is indeed with an X, which looks like the ancient towel. But the significance of the mark on these people's foreheads here is still not clear. It probably represented Yahweh's signature, that is, his claim on those who were citizens of the true kingdom of God. From fragments of pots that archaeologists have found all over the land of Israel, we know that by this time ownership was more commonly expressed without Lamed and the letter L plus the name of the owner. In Isaiah 44.5, those who claim to be the property of Yahweh have their hands stamped with L plus the four letters of God's name belonging to Yahweh. Apparently, just as the Israelites had done for the household of Rahab, whose house was marked by the scarlet cord, when they slaughtered the population of Jericho in the coming conflagration in Jerusalem, Yahweh would in fact spare the righteous. We see his grace shining through to those who moan and groan over the evil in the country. This was God's signature. He claimed them as his own, and therefore they would be spared. Well, let's look at verses 5 to 7, the commission of the executioners. Verses 5 and 6 report the instructions that Ezekiel overheard Yahweh deliver to the executioners. They were to follow the scribe through the city and slaughter everyone whom he did not mark. The order highlights the thoroughness with which they were to conduct their business. First, the no pity formula, do not let your eyes show pity, do not show mercy. This forbade them from letting sentiment override the charge to execute the sentence. They were to execute the population. In fact, their disposition was to mirror that of God himself, who said, I will not spare my eye, will not pity. Second, they were to slay to the point of destruction, annihilation, masheth. Third, their victims were to include old men, youths, maidens in their prime, infants, women. These categories omitted from this list are as significant as the entries. Yahweh did not name strong men or men of war, presumably because they would already have borne the brunt of the slaughter in battle. Instead, Yahweh singled out the defenseless, the frail, the innocent, those who seek refuge behind a city's walls in a time of crisis. This command makes this whole enterprise sound like what the Israelites were supposed to do with the Canaanites in the book of Joshua. But now they will learn that if Israelites insist on acting like Canaanites, Yahweh will treat them like Canaanites. Fourth, Yahweh instructed the executioners to begin their massacre at my sanctuary. The issue here was not that people would seek asylum and protection in the temple, like Adonijah in 1 Kings 1 50-51. Rather, the issue was that the temple, Yahweh's own residence, was the place where Israelite apostasy and defiance were most visibly expressed. We saw this in chapter 8. Consequently, the temple itself must suffer from the violence of the executioners. The holy place was to be desecrated and defiled by being filled with corpses and blood. The same sentence that Yahweh had pronounced upon the pagan, cultic installations in chapter 6, he now directed to his own residence. Not only had the abominations already defiled the entire temple complex, with the imminent departure of the glory, the sanctity of the house of Yahweh would be completely neutralized in any case. It becomes just a box once God is gone. This probably explains why Yahweh shifted from speaking about my sanctuary, Mikdashi, my holy place, in verse 6, to simply the building in verses 6d to 7a. Once Yahweh leaves this place, it's no more than a box. In verses 8 to 11, we have the responses to the commissions. First of all, verse 8, the response of the executioners. Yahweh's commissioned executioners responded immediately. Even before he had finished giving his orders, they began attacking the old men in front of the temple. But who were these old men? Ezekiel had three possible candidates. The senior citizens, referred to in verse 6, the 70 civic officials, the elders involved in the abominations in the dark room, or the 25 sun-worshiping elders—the word means elder means old man—prostrating themselves at the front of the temple. But then the oppositional expression, the men, the elders, is probably a general designation for all participants in the cultic abominations in the Lord's own temple. The response of the man dressed in linen. Verse 11. The text doesn't tell us whether this scribe discovered any persons in this city who grieved over its sinful condition. In verse 11, he returned and simply announced that he had carried out the divine order of searching for candidates for the Tao. Because this is rhetoric, and all this is part of Ezekiel's vision, not everything needs to conform to the reality on the ground. It's a vision. However, had he taken a literal tour of the city, he would surely have encountered Jeremiah. He's living there in the city, and his associates Baruch, Sariah, the Ethiopian who had rescued Jeremiah. Though Jeremiah himself complained about the lack of friends, he did have a few. They were righteous. We should compare the man dressed in linen's actions with a futile search for any righteous that Jeremiah talks about in chapter 5 of Jeremiah. But here, I'm sure Jeremiah would have been one of those persons. But it's a vision. Run to and fro through the streets. Look and take note. Search for squares, Jeremiah wrote, to see if you can find a man, one who does justice and seeks truth, that I may pardon her. Her, the feminine refers to the city. Though they say, as Yahweh lives, yet they swear falsely. O Yahweh, do not your eyes look for truth. You have struck them down, but they felt no anguish. You have consumed them, but they refused to take correction. They have made their faces harder than rock. They have refused to repent. Then I said, these are only the poor, and they have no sense, for they do not know the way of Yahweh, the justice of God. I will go to the great and will speak to them, for they know the way of Yahweh, the justice of their God. But they all alike had broken the yoke. They had burst the bonds. Therefore a lion from the forest shall strike them down. A wolf from the desert shall devastate them. A leopard is watching their cities. Everyone who goes out of them shall be torn in pieces, because their transgressions are many, their apostasies are great. That's Jeremiah looking for somebody righteous. In Ezekiel's report, Yahweh had totally subordinated the possibility of exemption from the judgment for the righteous to the thoroughness with the punishment was to be inflicted on the wicked. That's what got his attention. The vision emphasized that all who were guilty would be slain. For the wicked, there is no more hope. But then, what does Ezekiel say about this? While they were slaughtering, I found myself alone. I fell down on my face, and I cried, horrors, oh Lord, Adonai Yahweh, will you annihilate the entire remnant of Israel by pouring out your fury on Jerusalem? Ezekiel's sudden verbal outburst and his imploring of prostration in verse 8 interrupted the narrative and demonstrated that this is how he interpreted this element of the vision. He recognized his isolation. I'm alone. I'm all by myself. And he asked Yahweh whether he really intended to wipe everybody out in this genocidal massacre until no one was left. His reference to the remnant of Israel acknowledges that the population of Judah and Jerusalem represented all that's left of the once great nation. Through a series of disasters at the hands of foreign invaders, the once great nation had been brought to the verge of extinction. The loss of Galilee and the Transjordan and the deportation of its populations in 733 BC, then the fall of Samaria and with it the end of the northern kingdom in 722 BC, and the conquest of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar, his deportation of the upper classes in 598 and 97, all that remained was a small, rump state centered in Jerusalem. And now Ezekiel feared that this outpouring of divine wrath would signal the total end. But look at the Lord's response in verses 9 to 10. He answered Ezekiel's question in the affirmative, verses 9 and 10. He justified his fury by citing four causes of provocation. One, the extent of the people's iniquity, it was extremely great. Two, the violence, the bloodshed had filled the land. Three, injustice filled the city. And four, the people rationalized their behavior by blaming Yahweh, whom they accused of abandoning his land and no longer looking out for them. On the surface, the last charge, expressed in the form of a quotation, appears to be simply a repetition of the people's rationalization we heard in 812. However, by reversing the parallel lines, he subtly shifts the emphasis and binds the two cornerstones of the prophecy, accusation and announcement of judgment together. Furthermore, whereas the people's comment in day 812 had cited Yahweh's oblivion, Yahweh doesn't see, and his departure as a justification for all kinds of cultic abominations, here they rationalized moral and ethical crimes. In response to this evil, Yahweh reiterated the irrevocability of his decision with a no-pity formula, my eye will not spare, I will show no pity. He would no longer look with pity on the people. But the case was closed. Yahweh had determined to bring the people down on their own heads. He would not change his mind. He had written 586 on the calendar. Indeed, the return of the scribe, who announced that he carried out his commission in full, signaled the issue's closure. Jerusalem was doomed, no more questions to be asked. Well, let's reflect on this passage. The primary focus of this phase of the vision is clearly on the punishment of the wicked. The command to the scribe to remark the righteous serves as a foil to highlight several features of the imminent outpouring of divine wrath. First, it affirmed the justice of God, both in his judgment of his wicked and his willingness not to punish the righteous with the wicked. If the people will be slaughtered, and they will, this will happen because Yahweh has found them guilty, either by deed or association. In our own experience, the righteous often get caught in the crossfire of the disasters that are happening around them because of sin. This also happened in ancient times. Think of Daniel and his three associates, who stood out as paragons of covenant virtue in a foreign context after they were taken hostage to Babylon. Apparently, unlike Ezekiel's initial complicit hardness, this fate was not Daniel's or his friend's fault. These experiences had come to them because they were part of a rebellious humanity. However, in the end, like Josiah, they would go to their graves in peace knowing that they had the favor of Yahweh. When I read this text, I wonder if this vision will not have reminded Ezekiel of Habakkuk 2, 1 to 4, where, in the face of impending Babylonian invasion, his recent prophetic predecessor had declared, I will take my stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts. I will look and see what he will say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint. Then the Lord replied, Write down the revelation, put it in force, activate it on tablets, so that the herald may run with it. For the revelation awaits an appointed time. It speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it lingers, wait for it. It will certainly come and will not delay. See, the enemy is puffed up, his desires are not upright, but the righteous person will live by his faithfulness. The author of Hebrews reinforced this interpretation. Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, he wrote, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what is promised. For yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay. But my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure on him. But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls. Hebrews 10, 35 to 39. In our text, those who were marked for exemption were not merely those who desisted from evil, but those who were actively wicked, they were the actively unrighteous, while the actively righteous were the ones spared. They were marked for exemption from the judgment. Second, in keeping with the magnitude of the crimes, this text emphasizes the thoroughness of the divine judgment. This was divine justice at work. Although righteousness and holiness are not contagious, the defilement of evil is. This is why Yahweh had said, you shall not worship any other gods, for Yahweh your God is an impassioned God, who visits the sins of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation. This Decalogue command was addressed to fathers to remind them that they were responsible for the spiritual well-being of everyone in their households. So, if you build an idol in this house, it contaminates everybody. This probably explains the prominence of the elders in the visions of chapters 8 and 9. They have led the community into evil, and now that all the wicked are in Yahweh's crosshairs, including women and children, the young men and women in their prime, along with the elderly, the whole box of apples was rotten. Ezekiel would have more to say on this in chapter 18. In every generation, children can break out of the paradigm of their parents. However, in this case, like the Canaanites 700 years earlier, Jerusalem and Judah were rotten to the core, and when the Lord marked the wicked for judgment, there was no escape. Though we perpetrate our evils in the dark room, and though we convince ourselves that God does not see, or even that God does not exist, neither his existence nor his behavior is determined by our convictions, which may be seriously deluded. If I ask you, how many legs does a horse have, what will you say? Well, normally we'd say, normally they have four legs. But if I say, if you count the tail as a leg, then how many legs does the horse have? And what would you say? Well, if you say five, you are wrong. Just because you call the tail a leg doesn't make it a leg. The reality is not affected by what we call things. The same is true theologically. Just because you say, the Lord doesn't see me, doesn't mean that the Lord doesn't see you. Our statements about God do not determine what he is like. Similarly, saying, the Lord has abandoned us, doesn't mean that he is not here. We may often feel like he's far away, and therefore become depressed because he doesn't care about us, or we become smug and think we can do whatever we want. Ezekiel lived in that kind of deluded world. The purpose of this vision was to wake up the exiles. The fate of the folks back home had been sealed, signed, decreed. However, this did not mean that the people in Babylon could carry on like they did when Nebuchadnezzar had taken them captive. For us, this text is both sobering and hopeful. If we live in sin, we can be assured that God will bring our evil back upon our heads. On the other hand, if we live righteously, if we moan and groan over the evils of our world, especially among those who call themselves the people of God, but if we moan and groan, our future is secure. We may be confident that one day we will hear the Lord's, well done, good and faithful servant enter into the joyful celebration of the Lord your God has prepared for you. When peace like a river attends my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll, whatever my lot you have taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul. Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, let this blessed assurance control that Christ has regarded my helpless estate and has shed his own blood for my soul. For me, be it Christ, be it Christ, hence to live, if Jordan above me shall roll, no pang shall be mine, for in death as in life thou wilt whisper thy peace to my soul. Peace in troubled times, security in God to those who moan and groan over the evils of our time. May the Lord give us that peace.