Ezekiel 5, Siege, part 2

I now have a granddaughter who is a hair stylist. Yesterday she came over and cut my hair, her grandmother’s hair, and her aunt’s hair. Needless to say we had some vacuuming to do afterward. Yahweh is still using Ezekiel to model what the siege against Jerusalem will be like, and cut hair figures into it.

1 “Now, son of man, take a sharp sword and use it as a barber’s razor to shave your head and your beard. Then take a set of scales and divide up the hair. 2 When the days of your siege come to an end, burn a third of the hair inside the city. Take a third and strike it with the sword all around the city. And scatter a third to the wind. For I will pursue them with drawn sword. 3 But take a few hairs and tuck them away in the folds of your garment. 4 Again, take a few of these and throw them into the fire and burn them up. A fire will spread from there to all Israel.

5 “This is what the Sovereign Yahweh says: This is Jerusalem, which I have set in the center of the nations, with countries all around her. 6 Yet in her wickedness she has rebelled against my laws and decrees more than the nations and countries around her. She has rejected my laws and has not followed my decrees.

Without doubt Israel is in the center of the nations, with Egypt to the south, Ammon, Moab and Edom to the east, and Assyria and Babylon to the north. At times she has allied herself with one against the other. Israel was to be a light to the nations but she has become more rebellious than any of them.

7 “Therefore this is what the Sovereign Yahweh says: You have been more unruly than the nations around you and have not followed my decrees or kept my laws. You have not even conformed to the standards of the nations around you.

8 “Therefore this is what the Sovereign Yahweh says: I myself am against you, Jerusalem, and I will inflict punishment on you in the sight of the nations. 9 Because of all your detestable idols, I will do to you what I have never done before and will never do again. 10 Therefore in your midst parents will eat their children, and children will eat their parents. I will inflict punishment on you and will scatter all your survivors to the winds. 11 Therefore as surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Yahweh, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your vile images and detestable practices, I myself will shave you; I will not look on you with pity or spare you. 12 A third of your people will die of the plague or perish by famine inside you; a third will fall by the sword outside your walls; and a third I will scatter to the winds and pursue with drawn sword.

Yahweh’s judgment will be one of a kind. The siege of Jerusalem will lead to famine and cannibalism, and eventually disbursement for the survivors. And though God still loves His people, He will not relent from this punishment.

13 “Then my anger will cease and my wrath against them will subside, and I will be avenged. And when I have spent my wrath on them, they will know that I Yahweh have spoken in my zeal.

The goal is to bring Israel back to knowing and worshiping Yahweh truly. God is also sending a message to the nations around Israel (“that the Lord is holy and will hold people accountable for their deeds”, Grace and Truth Study Bible), as He says next.

14 “I will make you a ruin and a reproach among the nations around you, in the sight of all who pass by. 15 You will be a reproach and a taunt, a warning and an object of horror to the nations around you when I inflict punishment on you in anger and in wrath and with stinging rebuke. I Yahweh have spoken. 16 When I shoot at you with my deadly and destructive arrows of famine, I will shoot to destroy you. I will bring more and more famine upon you and cut off your supply of food. 17 I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will leave you childless. Plague and bloodshed will sweep through you, and I will bring the sword against you. I Yahweh have spoken.” (Ezekiel 5)

It is astonishing, in one sense, that though Israel has failed to consistently keep covenant with Yahweh for now over 700 years (there have been some periods of brightness, but too many dark periods), God has withheld judgment. He is so patient, so willing to let His people come to their senses. But there is an end to patience, when justice requires wrath. Israel has reached that end.