The message of Ezekiel 7...Wow, Whoa! How do I describe this to best convey the idea in this chapter? Slowly, painfully deliberate and methodical. We see the Lord’s announcement of the end to Ezekiel (through Ezekiel) to the four corners of the land or all of Israel. God was about to vent His wrath on His stiff-necked people. They would receive in turn what they had earned. Reaping the punishment in proportion to the evil they’d sown which means a lot of punishment. Although the end was coming this should be seen as a warning sign from a loving and merciful God and this fact is often overlooked in situations like this by both those being punished as evidenced by their reactions in the Bible and by us the reader.
Yes, God was about to devastate the land but at least he warned them through His watchman Ezekiel. The truth is this is more an excellent example of additional forbearance and grace then it is an image of a wrathful and angry God. God could’ve just snapped his fingers (figuratively) and Israel would’ve been turned into a smoking heap. He didn’t do that. Like a parent that waits until the very last measure of patience and warning has been exhausted…God stays his hand in an attempt to get his children to recognize the mistake they have made themselves. This would not be the case for the Israelites.
Once God crosses that “line”, anger vents in a torrent. Doom. The covenant had been violated every which way to Sunday and there was a price to be paid for these violations. No celebrations, only panic. And God’s anger would not abate until it had been exhausted or until his justice had been satisfied. No one would be spared some type of detrimental effect of the coming judgment. Material wealth: GONE. The multitude: GONE. Physical strength: GONE. Out goes prosperity, in comes famine and plague. Those outside the walls of the city will be cut down by the sword, those inside the city would be felled by pestilence.
We begin to see a change in the graphic nature of the language of destruction by verses 10 through 21. It becomes more graphic, intense and vivid in description. They will mourn in sackcloth and their “horror will overwhelm them”. Money will mean nothing to them because their lives will mean nothing. How can gold or silver have value when you are dying or dead? Starvation, filthy, plundered, sick, death, dying...days of Hell on earth were coming for Israel. They had been warned. Key phrases or ideas that are recurrent in this unit are: “the land (people)”, “an end” and “it is/has come”. As a reader we feel boxed it. It is inevitable, doom is upon us. There is no escape from God’s wrath because there is no escape from an omnipresent God. There is nothing worse than to be a “sinner in the hands of an angry God” (Jonathan Edwards). We will see this again in the End Times when Christ returns and the sixth seal is opened. People will attempt in vain to hide in the caves and mountains saying "Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb!”
This unit’s structure is of Hebrew poetry more akin to a lamentation. The descriptions of the approaching destruction and doom (that I tried to recreate in my review of Chapter 7 above) are constructed in heavily loaded forward pushing phrases as if you are (like the Israelites) on an unstoppable death march of doom. Your destruction is imminent and unavoidable and it will be horrific (keep marching!). You understand as the reader that when you reach the end of this chapter it will be like looking at a mangled body in a car wreck and your morbid fascination compels you to continue to read. Each dreadful description builds upon the last like hammer blows drive a nail into wood until it disappears (Eichrodt 101). This is one of the most powerful pieces of Scripture that I have read and interpreted recently.
Eichrodt, Walther. "Chapter 7.1-27: The End." Ezekiel: A Commentary (Old Testament Library). Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1970. 101. Print.
Wiersbe, Warren. "Death of A Great City." Bible Exposition Commentary: Old Testament: The Prophets (Bible Knowledge). Acambaro: Victor, 2003. 176-177. Print.
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