‘Then I said to them, “The word of Yahweh came to me saying, Speak to the house of Israel, ‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh, Behold I will profane my sanctuary, the pride of your power, the desire of your eyes, the yearning of your soul, and your sons and your daughters whom you have left behind will fall by the sword, and you will do as I have done, you will not cover your lips nor eat the bread of men, and your headgear shall be on your heads, and your shoes on your feet. You shall not mourn nor weep, but you will pine away in your iniquity, and moan one towards another. Thus shall Ezekiel be a sign to you. According to all that he has done, so shall you do. When this comes, then you will know that I am the Lord Yahweh.' ” '
The sign is explained. His dying wife represents the sanctuary of God in Jerusalem which will also be suddenly destroyed, and it will be in such circumstances that mourning and weeping will not be appropriate. Indeed men are not to weep for it, in spite of what it means to them, because it is fitting that it be destroyed. God will profane it because it has already been profaned. Thus must they recognise this and not weep for it, but rather they must mourn for their own sins which have brought it all about.
‘My sanctuary, the pride of your power, the desire of your eyes, the yearning of your soul.' The significance of the sanctuary to the exiled, and to all Israel, is brought out. It was their pride and joy when they were at their most powerful, it was the place to which their eyes turned in longing, it was the place their soul yearned for. But it was to be so no more, for it had become a defiled sanctuary, a place where many gods were worshipped. And yet it had been and should have been His!
And they were not to mourn for it, nor for their sons and daughters who would be slain by the sword, rather were they to mourn for their sins which have brought it about. Their moanings must be because of their iniquities, not because of the lost temple and the destruction of Jerusalem and its inhabitants.
We probably cannot even begin to conceive what the temple in Jerusalem meant to the people of Israel. It depicted all their past, it was their present, it represented all their hopes for the future. It was the one thing that stood firm in an uncertain world, the one ‘guarantee' of such a future. It was the one permanency when all else was changing. But although they had clung to the temple of Yahweh, they had not clung to Yahweh, they had allowed Him to be submerged under a multiplicity of gods. And so now the temple was to go. And they were not to mourn for it. (But as Ezekiel will later point out, it will be replaced by a new temple, a better temple, a pure temple from which will come out the River of God - chapter 47 - clearly a symbolic picture. This would be a heavenly temple).
‘But you will pine away in your iniquity, and moan one towards another.' There would be mourning, but it would not be for the temple, it would be for themselves. The future held a period of rethinking, in which their eyes would not be turned on a building which was no longer significant, but on the void that it left and the sinfulness of their own souls. And hopefully they would turn fully to Yahweh.
‘Thus shall Ezekiel be a sign to you. According to all that he has done, so shall you do. When this comes, then you will know that I am the Lord Yahweh.'
So Ezekiel, and his reaction to his wife's death, was to be a sign to them of what was to be, and an example to be followed. Interestingly this is the first time that God has spoken of him as ‘Ezekiel' which brings out the importance of this moment. The reference to himself in the third person also brings out how much Ezekiel desired simply to be seen as the mouthpiece of Yahweh.
All this would reveal that God was really what He had always shown Himself to be, the supreme Lord, the Lord Yahweh, the One Who is what He is, the One Who will be what He will be, the One Who will cause to be what He causes to be.