Ezekiel 12

When the sons of Asaph wanted to describe the city of Jerusalem, they wrote, “Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion on the sides of the north, the city of the great King” (Ps. 48: nkjv). The Babylonian Talmud says, “Of the ten measures of beauty that came down to the world, Jerusalem took nine” (Kidushin 49b), and, “Whoever has not seen Jerusalem in its splendor has never seen a lovely city” (Succah 51b). Of modern Jerusalem, Samuel Heilman wrote, “It is a place in which people actually live; it is a place that lives in them.” One of the Jewish exiles in Babylonian wrote: “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her skill! If I do not remember you, let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth—if I do not exalt Jerusalem above my chief joy” (Ps. 137:5–6 nkjv). When Jewish families around the world celebrate Passover, they conclude the meal with, “Next year in Jerusalem!”

The Jewish exiles wouldn’t be happy with the three messages Ezekiel would bring them from the Lord, for he was going to announce the destruction of Jerusalem and the ravaging of the Promised Land. It was bad enough that the Jews were exiles in a pagan land, but to be told that they would have no city to return to was more than they could bear. No wonder they preferred the encouraging messages of the false prophets.

In his Notes on the State of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.” During the siege of Jerusalem (606–586 BC), error had the support of government and religious leaders, and most of the Jewish exiles in Babylon agreed with them. “We will never give in to the Babylonian army!” was the cry of the Jewish people in Jerusalem. “The Lord will never allow the Gentiles to destroy His Holy City or defile His holy temple!” One dissenting voice in Jerusalem was Jeremiah; in Babylon it was Ezekiel. Both in his “action sermons” and his oral messages, Ezekiel warned the people that they were trusting in illusions. No matter what the officials, the false prophets, and the people said, the city and the nation were doomed. In these chapters, Ezekiel exposes the errors that brought the nation to ruin.

When the Lord called Ezekiel, He warned him that he would be ministering to a rebellious people (2:3–8) who were spiritually blind and deaf (12:2). In order to understand God’s truth, we must be obedient to God’s will (John 7:17; Ps. 25:8–10), but Israel was far from being obedient. Years before, Isaiah spoke to people who were spiritually blind and deaf (Isa. 6:9–10), and that was the kind of people Jeremiah was preaching to in Jerusalem (Jer. 5:21). When our Lord was here on earth, many of the people were spiritually blind and deaf (Matt. 13:13–14), and so were the people who heard Paul (Acts 28:26–28). In order to get the attention of the exiles and excite their interest, Ezekiel performed two “action sermons” and after each one gave a message from the Lord.

The leaders cannot escape (vv. 1–16). The Lord instructed Ezekiel to play the part of a fugitive escaping from a besieged city. Part of his activity occurred in the daytime and part at twilight, and the curious but perplexed Jewish exiles watched his strange actions. First, Ezekiel prepared a knapsack with essentials for a journey and took it outside in the daylight and hid it somewhere away from his house. Then he returned to the house and that evening dug through one of its walls, probably from the outside since the people could see him work. Houses were constructed of sun-dried bricks, so digging through the wall wasn’t a problem. After that, he retrieved his knapsack, went into the house, and climbed out through the hole, while his face was covered and his eyes were fixed on the ground. As the people watched, they asked, “What is he doing?”

Packing the knapsack and leaving it at a distance from his house conveyed the message that the leaders in Jerusalem were planning to flee for their lives. Digging through the wall from outside the house pictured the Babylonian army’s assault on the walls of Jerusalem. That evening, when Ezekiel climbed out of the house through the hole, the knapsack on his back, he depicted the Jewish leaders secretly trying to flee from the city to save their lives. History tells us that King Zedekiah, his officers, and his army escaped from Jerusalem exactly that way, but they were pursued by the Babylonians and captured (2 Kings 25:1–7; Jer. 52:4–11). The Babylonians killed the king’s sons and officers before his very eyes, put out Zedekiah’s eyes, and took him prisoner to Babylon, where he died.

The next morning, in the message that followed the “action sermon,” Ezekiel predicted that these events would occur. He also announced that though Zedekiah would be taken to Babylon, he would not see it (Ezek. 12:13; Jer. 52:11). How could such a thing happen? It was very simple: the Babylonians gouged out his eyes and Zedekiah couldn’t see anything! But it wasn’t the Babylonian army that captured the king of Judah and his officers; it was God’s “net” that caught them. Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian army didn’t win because of their own skill; they were God’s instruments to defeat the people of Judah and Jerusalem (Jer. 27:1–22). Jeremiah had admonished Zedekiah to surrender to the Babylonians (38:14ff.), but the king didn’t have the faith to trust God’s Word and obey it. Had he humbled himself and surrendered, the city, the temple, and the lives of the people would have been spared.

Not only would the Jewish officials be slain and their king humiliated, but the people in Jerusalem who survived the siege would be scattered abroad, and some of them would be taken to Babylon (Ezek. 12:14–16). Again, this would be the work of God—“I shall scatter them”—and not because these surviving Jews had been especially holy. Quite the opposite was true: the Lord allowed the survivors to go to Babylon as witnesses that their evil deeds deserved the punishment that God had sent to the nation. This will come up again in 14:22–23.

The people will live in terror (vv. 17–28). The prophet’s second “action sermon” probably took place the next day when it was time for his meal. Perhaps some of the Jews were in the house with him, or what’s more likely, he ate the meal outside and continued the fugitive image. He ate his bread and drank his water— a frugal meal—while shaking and trembling as if in fear. He was illustrating the tragic condition of the people in Jerusalem during the Babylonian siege. They would have very little food and would eat it with fear and trembling because it might well be their last meal. Their plight would be the fulfillment of the Lord’s promise in 4:16–17. Anxiety, worry, fear, and consternation would grip the people as the fall of the city became more imminent.

The theme of Ezekiel’s message (12:21–28) was the certainty and the nearness of God’s judgment on Jerusalem and the land of Judah. The people were quoting a proverb that may have been devised by the false prophets to humiliate Ezekiel: “The days drag on and every vision comes to nothing and is not fulfilled” (v. 22 ab). In other words, “Ezekiel tells us about all his visions, but nothing ever happens. Why worry? His prophecies will come to nothing!” The Jews had said a similar thing to Isaiah (Isa. 5:19), and people today say this about the return of Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3). People can predict the weather, but they don’t discern “the signs of the times” (Matt. 16:3).

The Lord gave His servant a new proverb to share with the exiles: “The days are near when every vision will be fulfilled” (Ezek. 12: niv). Because Ezekiel’s prophecies had not been fulfilled immediately, the people were paying more attention to the false prophets than to the true word of God. The visions of the false prophets were false and misleading, and they delivered only the soothing and encouraging words that the people wanted to hear (Jer. 28—29). The Lord made it clear that there would be no more “delays” and that His word would be fulfilled. He had said to Jeremiah, “I am watching over My word to perform it” (1: nasb), and He told Isaiah that His word always fulfilled the purposes for which it was sent (Isa. 55:8–11). God’s Word has its appointed time and will never fail (Hab. 2:3).

Among the exiles, one part said that Ezekiel’s words would never be fulfilled, but another group said, “Yes, they will be fulfilled, but not in our time. We don’t have to worry about what will happen because it will take place a long time from now” (paraphrase of Ezek. 12:27). Their interpretation was wrong and so was their selfish attitude. Even if the Lord did delay His judgments, how could the Jewish people be content with the present, knowing that a future generation would be wiped out and the Holy City and temple destroyed? They were like King Hezekiah when Isaiah rebuked him for his pride and warned him that Babylon would conquer Judah: “At least there will peace and truth in my days” (Isa. 39: nkjv).

The Lord made it clear that Ezekiel’s words would be fulfilled very soon. “The word which I have spoken shall be done” (Ezek. 12:28). Six years later, the Babylonian army breached the walls of Jerusalem, and Ezekiel’s predictions came true. How tragic it is when people deliberately ignore or reject the dependable Word of God and put their faith in the empty but soothing words of false religious leaders! It reminds me of a story that came out of World War II. A group of soldiers asked their new chaplain if he believed in hell, and he laughed and said that he didn’t. The men said, “Well, sir, if there isn’t a hell, then we don’t need you. But if there is a hell, then you’re leading us astray—and that’s worse!” There is no substitute for God’s Word.