Ezekiel -- Lesson Seven
Chapters 10 - 11
1. The doomed city. Chapter 10.
1. The appearance of God’s chariot throne (10:1).
1. This is the fourth time Ezekiel has mentioned the throne
of God.
1. It is an important thing to him as it was to John in the
book of Revelation.
2. He speaks of the likeness of the throne which lets us
know that he is aware of the visionary nature of what he is
seeing.
1. Ex. 24:10 -- And they saw the God of Israel; and there
was under his feet as it were a paved work of sapphire
stone, and as it were the very heaven for clearness.
2. Blue has often been used for royalty and heavenly
purity; perhaps that is the thrust here.
2. The man in linen and his second commission (10:2).
1. This is the servant who faithfully carried out God's
work of mercy in the last chapter.
2. He is now chosen to get coals from under the cherub and
cast them on the city that it might be burnt.
3. His obedience is evidenced from the fact that "he went
in my sight."
1. From his choosing to carry out this act of justice we
learn that justice is not despised by mercy.
2. He who was faithful in administering mercy has no
reluctance when he is asked to administer chastisement.
1. Learn: It's much easier to be the "good guy" and leave
all the unpleasant duties to someone else.
2. Mercy mustn't despise the demands of justice or else it
has ceased to be mercy.
3. The commission in execution (10:2-8).
1. The cherubim again (10:2-3).
1. Coals of fire are not always punitive (See Isa. 6:6),
but here they are clearly a sign of coming judgment.
1. Jerusalem is to suffer as Sodom suffered (Gen. 19:24).
2. The cherubim are standing by watching because they are
keenly interested in vindication of the holiness of God.
2. The glory of Jehovah and the cloud (10:4).
1. The whole inner court and the temple are filled with
dense clouds due to the presence of the glory of the Lord.
2. God often appears in a cloud; run a concordance and you
will be surprised.
3. The awesome sound of the cherubim (10:5).
1. The awesomeness of the cherubim is emphasized by the
sound of their wings that could be heard from a great
distance.
2. It was a booming sound, deep and resonant, in keeping
with the power of God which is stressed in the use of the
term "Almighty."
4. The man in linen receives the coals and leaves to
execute his commission (10:6-8).
1. He wasn't presumptuous -- he waited by one of the wheels
until the coals were given to him.
2. Mercy and judgment agree together that Jerusalem must go
under.
3. Again the obedience of the man in linen is emphasized --
he took it and went out.
5. Two lessons to be learned from this scene in the vision.
1. The judgment of God cannot be distinguished from the
glory of God.
1. The same burning coals that threaten such destruction
upon Jerusalem are the same burning coals that are a part
of the glory and purity of God's throne.
2. God's burning purity may hold either threat or promise.
2. The judgment of God marked the departure of God.
1. There is clearly a movement of the chariot-throne of God
which accelerates as the vision continues.
2. The movement of God is a part of the ominous judgment,
for the judgment of a God who is present is surely
preferable to the absence of God.
1. The absence of God is the ultimate horror.
2. This first step in God's evacuation of his temple is
forced upon him.
3. He does not want to leave; he is evicted by an evil
people.
4. The cherubim described again (10:9-22).
1. There is little new in this description (vv. 9-12 are
almost identical with 1:15-18).
1. The creatures described in ch. 1 are said to be
cherubim.
2. Repetition is for the sake of emphasis -- Ezekiel is
being told of the terror that is to come (and is thus
emboldened to speak), and we are being told that the
judgment is being carried out rationally and with
forethought.
3. The repetition delays the climax of the vision as a
whole and builds up the tension.
4. v. 14 substitutes the face of a cherub for that of an
ox.
1. The reason for the substitution is not clear.
2. Rabbinic interpreters explained that the ox face was
removed at Ezekiel's request because he associated it with
the golden calf of Exod. 32.
3. Whatever the reason he made the substitution, he tells
us that the faces he saw were the same that he saw in
chapter 1 (v. 22).
2. The Lord, who has been standing at the threshold of the
temple, now returns to his "seat" above the cherubim.
1. He is ready to leave.
2. The cherubim rise from the earth and take off.
1. This is one of the passages that says that the cherubim
are the chariot of God.
2. 1 Chronicles 28:18 -- and for the altar of incense
refined gold by weight; and gold for the pattern of the
chariot, even the cherubim, that spread out their wings,
and covered the ark of the covenant of Jehovah.
3. Psalm 18:10 -- And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly;
Yea, he soared upon the wings of the wind.
3. This move to the east gate anticipated the departure
from the temple complex and from the city that follows in
11:22-23.
1. God withdraws from unholy worship.
2. We cannot come before the Lord at any time and in any
manner that we choose.
2. Political and moral corruption -- the vision of the
pollution of the temple that began in chapter 8 concludes
with a final view of judgment, a glimmer of hope, and the
departure of God from his sanctuary, the city, and the
land. Chapter 11.
1. Treason against God taught by the leaders (11:1-4).
1. The leaders in rebellion (11:1).
1. The cherubim carried Jehovah to the east gate (10:19).
2. The Spirit now carries Ezekiel there, where he saw
twenty-five leaders of the nation, two of whom were
sufficiently prominent to name -- Jaazaniah and Pelatiah.
We know nothing of them, apart from their existence, other
than what is revealed by Ezekiel.
1. One commentator reported that archeological discoveries
in the city of David have yielded over 250 clay seals used
on official documents from the period just prior to the
fall of Jerusalem.
2. They were preserved because they were burned when the
building in which they were housed was destroyed, probably
in the destruction of 586 BC.
3. The names of both Jaazaniah and Pelatiah appeared in
this archive of seals of royal officials.
4. In addition to these, the name Jeremiah and the seal of
Jeremiah's scribe, Baruch, the son of Neriah, were found.
2. Their rebellion pointed out (11:2).
1. They have gone down in God's eternal record as men who
plotted treason against God.
2. They are leaders in Israel, but their leading is away
from and in opposition to God.
3. God will not hold such leaders guiltless.
1. They were devisers of iniquity.
2. They took pains to plan it all out.
3. Their rebellion defined (11:3).
1. Possible meanings of their advice.
1. They are asking the people to pay no attention to people
like Jeremiah who urged submission to the Babylonians.
1. Jeremiah taught the people at home and in captivity that
submission to Babylon was not only the way to salvation --
it was the will of God (see, e.g., Jer. 29:4ff.
2. In ch. 17 God condemns Zedekiah for not remaining
submissive to Nebuchadnezzar.
3. In essence, they were saying this is not a time to build
houses, the city is cooking and we are the meal, fortify
against the Babylonians. (Compare vv. 7, 11, and ch.
21:21.)
2. ASV footnote -- the time is near to build houses -- the
false leaders are urging the people to despise the words of
a Babylonian invasion, but it is difficult to harmonize
this view with the city as a caldron.
4. Their rebellion to be denounced (11:4).
2. Moral wickedness outlined and punishment announced
(11:5-13).
1. Murder and oppression denounced (11:5-7).
1. Not only have they said it, God knows what they have
been thinking.
2. The leaders are murderers; the city is a caldron, but
flesh in it is the people whom they have slain.
3. They will not be permitted to die in the city; they
cannot point to their assessment of things as being even
partly correct.
2. The threat and the irony (11:8-11).
1. What they had feared and sought to fortify against, God
would bring upon them.
2. They would not die peacefully with loved ones around
them; strangers will stand around and enjoy the torture
before the dying.
3. It is bad enough to die in torture, it is even worse
when one dies without God and faces the future torment of
judgment.
3. The justice of the punishment proclaimed (11:12).
1. Their wickedness consisted in doing the things of the
nations round about.
2. Ch. 5:7 says that they didn't do the things of the
nations round about.
3. Ezek. 16:47 resolves the apparent conflict -- Yet hast
thou not walked in their ways, nor done after their
abominations; but, as if that were a very little thing,
thou wast more corrupt than they in all thy ways.
4. The death of Pelatiah and another protest from the
prophet (11:13).
1. As the vision proceeded, Pelatiah drops dead.
2. Ezekiel protests to the Lord as he has done before
(9:8); his love for his people shines through once more.
3. The self righteous denounced and the remnant assured
(11:14-21).
1. The self-righteousness of the Judeans (11:14-15).
1. The only thing that the false prophets (in Judea and
Babylon) all agreed on was that Ezekiel and Jeremiah were
both liars.
2. They each had their own school of thought and rejected
that of the other.
1. Those in Jerusalem espoused the position that those
already taken into captivity got what they deserved.
2. Another, set forth here, is their self-righteousness.
1. This corruption is often more destructive than any
other.
2. It is not easy to tear people away from their
self-righteousness.
3. Often it is not a man's acknowledged weaknesses that
draw him away from the Lord.
4. Often it is his strengths that lead him to feel
independent and self-sufficient.
2. The righteous remnant assured (11:16-20).
1. It is true that God has sent the present captives away
from Jerusalem and the sanctuary, but here he assures them
that he will be a sanctuary to them.
1. What a swap -- a temple in the middle of perversion for
the living God himself; the Judeans had the bricks and
mortar, but the captives had the Lord himself.
2. We are not to conclude that there will be no wicked ones
when the promises are fulfilled; v. 21 makes it clear that
there will be.
3. V. 18 does not speak of all the people, but of those who
have the heart to put away detestable things.
2. V. 19 makes clear that it is God who gives the new heart
and the new spirit.
1. Jer. 31:33-34 -- 33But this is the covenant that I will
make with the house of Israel after those days, saith
Jehovah: I will put my law in their inward parts, and in
their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and
they shall be my people: 34and they shall teach no more
every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying,
Know Jehovah; for they shall all know me, from the least of
them unto the greatest of them, saith Jehovah: for I will
forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no
more.
2. Jer. 24:7 -- 7And I will give them a heart to know me,
that I am Jehovah: and they shall be my people, and I will
be their God; for they shall return unto me with their
whole heart.
3. Jer. 29:13-14 -- 13And ye shall seek me, and find me,
when ye shall search for me with all your heart. 14And I
will be found of you, saith Jehovah, and I will turn again
your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations,
and from all the places wither I have driven you, saith
Jehovah; and I will bring you again unto the place whence I
caused you to be carried away captive.
4. Here the stress is on the divine initiative.
5. Ch. 18:30-32 makes it clear that human cooperation is
involved -- 30Therefore I will judge you, O house of
Israel, every one according to his ways, saith the Lord
Jehovah. Return ye, and turn yourselves from all your
transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin. 31Cast
away from you all your transgressions, wherein ye have
transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit:
for why will ye die, O house of Israel? 32For I have no
pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord
Jehovah: wherefore turn yourselves, and live.
6. The fact that God makes the first move toward his sinful
creatures is taught throughout the scripture -- 2 Cor.
5:17ff; Rom. 5:6ff; 1 Jo. 4:19.
7. God is the one who initiates moral reformation.
1. Phillipians 2:12-13 -- 12So then, my beloved, even as ye
have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now
much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with
fear and trembling; 13for it is God who worketh in you both
to will and to work, for his good pleasure.
2. Hebrews 13:20-21 -- 20Now the God of peace, who brought
again from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep with
the blood of an eternal covenant, even our Lord Jesus,
21make you perfect in every good thing to do his will,
working in us that which is well-pleasing in his sight,
through Jesus Christ; to whom be the glory for ever and
ever. Amen.
3. Will God give the fish water and the bird air, and not
equip his children to wage war against the destroyer of the
soul?
8. Perhaps the new spirit and the new heart are different,
but it may be two ways of looking at the same thing.
1. In any event, God will take the stony heart from them
and make them reachable.
2. John 6:44-45 -- 44No man can come to me, except the
Father that sent me draw him: and I will raise him up in
the last day. 45It is written in the prophets, And they
shall all be taught of God. Every one that hath heard from
the Father, and hath learned, cometh unto me.
3. God still does the drawing, but through the teaching of
the word.
1. The scripture knows nothing of Calvinism's limited
atonement and irresistible grace.
2. The scripture knows of God's calling all men, but it
knows nothing of his calling some with a calling that will
not enable them to come, while calling others with a
calling that they cannot resist. Matt. 23:37; John 5:40.
4. Because of the hardness of the hearts of God's
creatures, the wonder is not that so few are saved, but
that so many are.
3. The impenitent threatened (11:21).
3. The Lord leaves the city and the vision ends (11:22-25).
1. Away from the temple and away from the city the Lord
moves out.
2. God endures so much for so long but finally, because
justice demands it, brings judgment to those whom he loves.
3. Ezekiel is “brought back” to Babylon (11:24).
1. He has seen all there is to see of Judea -- the land he
loves and misses.
2. He is taken back to Babylon and tells us that the vision
ended.
4. Ezekiel tells what he saw and heard (11:25).
1. He spoke and did not hold his peace.
2. He spoke only what the Lord told him to speak.
3. He told all that the Lord had told him and not just some
of the favorable things, e.g., the marking or sealing of
the righteous.