Ezekiel 22

If you refer to the suggested outline of the book of Ezekiel, you will see that these three chapters complete the second section of the book “The Fall of Jerusalem.” Ezekiel focuses on four final events: the end of the city (chap. 22), the end of the kingdom (chap. 23), the end of a delusion (24:1–14), and the end of a marriage (vv. 15–27). Chapter 24 records two heart-rending announcements from the Lord: the beginning of the siege of Jerusalem (vv. 1–2) and the death of the prophet’s wife (vv. 15–17). What a sobering way to climax Ezekiel’s many messages to the spiritually blind Jewish exiles in Babylon!

“David took the stronghold of Zion” (2 Sam. 5:7) and made Jerusalem his capital. Not only was the royal throne there but also the holy altar, for it was in Zion that God put His sanctuary. “For the Lord has chosen Zion; He has desired it for His habitation” (Ps. 132: nkjv). The Jews were proud of Mount Zion (Ps. 48) and claimed that the Lord loved Zion more than any other place (Ps. 87). But now the city of Jerusalem and the temple would be invaded by “unclean Gentiles” who were brought there by the Lord! Why would the Lord destroy His own beloved city and temple? Because His people had sinned and broken the covenant, and they were beyond remedy. Ezekiel described the true character of the “beautiful city” and named some of the sins that the people in Jerusalem were committing even while he spoke. Ezekiel had exposed the past sins of the nation, but now he brought Jerusalem into the courtroom and brought the record up-to-date.

A defiled people (vv. 1–12). The words blood or bloody are repeated seven times in this paragraph and speak of death and defilement. The prophet named two grievous sins: the shedding of innocent blood (injustice) and the worship of foreign gods (see 7:23; 9:9). The officials in Jerusalem were accepting bribes and condemning innocent people to death so that others could claim their property (Amos 5:11–17; see 1 Kings 21). These judges had no respect for God or for man made in the image of God, and yet they were supposed to be honest men who upheld the law of the Lord (Ex. 18:21–26; Deut. 16:18–20). So evil was the judicial system in Jerusalem that the Gentile nations heard about it (Ezek. 22:4–5) and reproached the name of the Lord. Jerusalem was a “city infamous [defiled] and much vexed [full of confusion]” (v. 5). But the time of their judgment was fast approaching. God had already declared the sentence, but He had not yet begun the punishment. The princes had abused their power, but God would display His power.

Idolatry, injustice, and the abuse of power are rampant in our world today, and God in His mercy is holding back His hand of judgment to give sinners opportunity to repent and be saved. Divine truth and human rights are being ignored, but “the day of the Lord will come” (2 Peter 3:10), and sinners will be judged righteously by the all-knowing Lord.

Ezekiel named some of the sins that the people were committing, and he began with the abuse of people— parents, strangers and aliens, and orphans and widows (Ezek. 22:7). The Jews were commanded to honor their fathers and mothers (Ex. 20:12), and so are believers today (Eph. 6:1–3). God even attached a special promise to this commandment—“that your days may be long upon the land”—and now the Jews were about to be exiled from their land. The law also gave special consideration to widows, orphans, and aliens (Ex. 22:21–24; 23:9–11; Lev. 19:33–34; Jer. 5:28), and this commandment contained a warning. If these needy people were abused, the Jewish wives would become widows and the Jewish children would become orphans. Disobedience is a serious thing! The church today has a ministry obligation to strangers (Matt. 25:35, 43; James 2:1–13), widows, and orphans (James 1:27; 1 Tim. 5).

After dealing with the inhumanity of the people in Jerusalem, God condemned their idolatry (Ezek. 22:8). They defiled the temple with their idols (8:5ff.) and by “worshipping God” hypocritically, not worshipping with clean hands and obedient hearts (Isa. 1:10ff.). Jeremiah told them that they had turned God’s house into “a den of robbers” (Jer. 7:11), a place where thieves run to hide after they’ve broken the law. The Jews also polluted the Sabbath by treating it like any other day. The Sabbath was a special sign between God and Israel that they were His special people (Ezek. 20:12–13, 20; Ex. 31:13–17), and to violate this law was to defy the Lord’s authority and deny Israel’s calling and ministry in the world.

But how could the people persist in these sins and not be judged by the courts? Because the courts were run by wicked men who had no desire to acquit the innocent or punish the guilty. The rich were set free and the poor were exploited. People accepted bribes and agreed to slander innocent people (Ezek. 22:9, 12), forgetting that the law prohibited slander and false witness (Ex. 20:16; 23:1–3, 6–8; Deut. 16:19; 27:25). According to the law, if someone were accused of a capital crime, at least two witnesses had to testify, and these witnesses would be the first to cast stones at the convicted guilty party (Num. 35:30–31; Deut. 17:6–7; 19:15).

In my years of pastoral experience, I have seen local churches torn apart by slander and false witness, in spite of the clear teaching in the New Testament about integrity in bearing witness (1 Tim. 5:19; Matt. 18:16; 2 Cor. 13:1). It’s a sobering thought that liars as well as murderers will have a place in the lake of fire and will not enter the heavenly city (Rev. 21:8, 27).

In Ezekiel 22:9b–11, God targeted the immorality of the Jewish people, starting with their participation in the unspeakably filthy “worship” at the pagan shrines. The tragedy is that these idolatrous men brought their immorality home with them! Sons had intercourse with their own mothers or stepmothers, fathers with daughters-in-law, and brothers with sisters or half-sisters! (See Lev. 18:6ff.; 20:10ff.) Men were committing adultery with a neighbor’s wife or with women having their monthly period (Ezek. 18:6; Lev. 18:19; 20:18).

How easy it is for us today to pass judgment on God’s ancient people, but what about God’s contemporary people? Sexual sins in the church and in so-called Christian homes have ripped churches and families apart, and many churches close their eyes to these offenses. Pornography—in print, on video, and on the Internet—is a common thing these days, and it’s getting more and more daring on television. Unmarried people living together, “trial marriages,” “gay marriages,” and even “mate-swapping” have shown up in evangelical churches, and when faithful pastors have attempted to deal with such sin, they were told to mind their own business. The offenders simply left and starting attending other churches where they could live as they pleased. As Ruth Bell Graham said, “If God doesn’t judge America, He will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.”

“The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil” (1 Tim. 6: nkjv), so we aren’t surprised that the businesspeople in Jerusalem were charging exorbitant interest on loans and were practicing extortion rather than business (Ezek. 22:12). The Jews could charge interest to outsiders, but not to their own people (Ex. 22:25–27; Lev. 19:13; 25:35–38; Deut. 23:19–20), and they were to be fair in all their business dealings. The world’s motto “Business is business” must never replace our Lord’s commandment, “Give, and it will be given to you” (Luke 6: niv).

Why were God’s chosen people living such wicked lives? Because they had forgotten the Lord (Ezek. 22:12), a sin that Moses had commanded them to avoid (Deut. 4:9, 23; 6:10–12; 32:18). They were admonished to remember their slavery in Egypt and God’s grace in redeeming them (5:15; 15:15; 16:12; 24:18), and also remember the Lord their God (8:18). People who forget God gradually become their own god and begin to disobey God’s Word, mistreat other people, and take God’s gifts for granted. The prophet Jeremiah in Jerusalem was accusing the people of the same sin (Jer. 3:21).

A doomed people (vv. 13–22). God strikes His hands in angry response to the sins of His people (6:11; 21:14, 17), and He announces that a day of reckoning is coming. The people of Jerusalem had the resolution to persist in their sins, in spite of God’s warnings, but would they have the will and courage to endure God’s day of judgment? His first act of judgment would be dispersion (22:13–16); the people would be exiled to Babylon and others scattered to the surrounding nations (vv. 15–16), some of which had already occurred. The people should have known this judgment was coming, because in His covenant, God had promised this kind of judgment (Lev. 26:27–39; Deut. 28:64–68). The Jewish people wanted to worship the gods of the Gentiles, so why not live with the Gentiles and learn how to do it? God would humiliate His people before the eyes of the Gentiles and through this experience bring His people back to Himself.

The second judgment would be fire (Ezek. 22:17–22), the destruction of their beloved city and temple. The prophet pictured a smelting furnace with different kinds of metals in it, and the dross (slag) being removed. That dross represented the people of Jerusalem who thought they were “the best” because they hadn’t gone into exile. The image of the furnace is a familiar one in Scripture. Israel’s suffering in Egypt was a furnace experience that helped to form the nation and prepare them for the exodus (Deut. 4:20; 1 Kings 8:31; Jer. 11:4). But now, God’s furnace was Jerusalem, and the fire would be divine judgment for the sins of the people (Isa. 1:21–26; 31:9; Jer. 6:27–30). Two key words in this passage are “melt” and “gather.” The people had gathered in Jerusalem for safety, but it was the Lord who gathered them so He could melt them in His furnace as He poured His fury upon them. This same image will be discussed in Ezekiel 24:1–14.

A debased people (vv. 23–27). Ezekiel pointed the finger of accusation at the princes (vv. 25, 27), the priests (v. 26), the false prophets (v. 28), and the people of the land (v. 29), and each segment of society is found guilty. The princes were acting like animals, lions and wolves, hungry for their prey. Sin always debases people and turns them into beasts (Ps. 32:9; Prov. 7:21–23; 2 Peter 2:18–22), even into worse than beasts! These men abused their power and destroyed innocent people just to acquire more wealth. They manufactured poor widows by murdering innocent men and stealing their wealth.

You would think that the priests would have upheld the law and protested the evil deeds of the rulers, but instead they broke God’s law (Jer. 32:32; Lam. 4:13). These men were given the sacred calling of explaining God’s holy law (Mal. 2:6–8) so that the people could live holy lives and make a difference between holy things and common things (Ezek. 44:23; Lev. 10:10; 11:47; 20:25). But instead of teaching the law, the priests violated the law; and when others broke the law, the priests looked the other way. It was a situation not unlike that of Eli and his sons in the days of young Samuel (1 Sam. 2:12ff.).

The people of the land (Ezek. 22:29) were the prominent land-owning citizens (12:19), often officers in the army, and they fell right in line with the princes and priests. They oppressed the poor when they should have aided them, and took advantage of the strangers instead of welcoming them and helping them. But everything they gained by their violence and abuse of power, they would lose when the day of judgment arrived.

A deceitful people (v. 28). Along with the priests, the false prophets supported the evil political regime and encouraged the common people with lies. Instead of exposing sin, they whitewashed it! (See 13:10–16; Jer. 6:14; 8:11; 23:16–22.) They announced that God would never allow His Holy City and temple to be trampled by the heathen, but that is exactly what the Lord planned to do. The false prophets manufactured lies and the people gladly believed them.

A disappointing people (vv. 30–31). God searched among His people for one person in authority who would stand in the gap so that the enemy wouldn’t penetrate the wall and invade the city, but He found none. Of course, the prophet Jeremiah was in Jerusalem, but he was a man with no authority who was rejected by the politicians, priests, and false prophets. Jeremiah himself had scoured the city, looking for a godly man (Jer. 5:1–6), but his quest was a failure. The prophet Isaiah failed in a similar search (Isa. 51:18; 59:16). The Lord promised to spare Sodom and Gomorrah if He found ten righteous men in the city (Gen. 18:23–33), and He would have spared Jerusalem for one righteous man.

The Lord is still seeking men and women who will take their stand for the moral law of God, stand in the gap at the wall, and confront the enemy with God’s help. As you read history, you meet godly men and women who had the courage to resist the popular evils of their day and dare to expose the breaks in the wall and seek to mend them. The Lord is looking for intercessors (Isa. 59:1–4, 16) who will cry out to God for mercy and for a return to holiness. Surely the Lord must be disappointed that His people have time for everything except intercessory prayer.