Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me. An introductory brief description, in enigma, of the destruction by fire and sword detailed more explicitly in Ezekiel 21:1-32.
Verse 46. Set thy face toward the south ... south ... south - three different Hebrew words, to express the certainty of the divine displeasure resting on the region specified. The third term х negeb (H5045)] is from a root meaning dry, referring to the sun's heat in the south; representing the burning judgments of God on the southern parts of Judea, of which Jerusalem was the capital.
Set thy face - determinately. The prophets used to turn themselves toward those who were to be the subjects of their prophecies.
Drop thy word - as the rain, which flows in a continuous stream, sometimes gently (Deuteronomy 32:2), sometimes violently (Amos 7:16; Micah 2:6, margin), as here.
The forest of the south field - the densely populated country of Judea; trees representing people.
Verse 47. Behold, I will kindle a fire - every kind of judgment (Ezekiel 19:12; Ezekiel 21:3, "my sword;" Jeremiah 21:14).
It shall devour every green tree ... and every dry - fit and unfit materials for fuel alike; "the righteous and the wicked," as explained in Ezekiel 21:3-4; Luke 23:31. Implying the unsparing universality of the judgment.
The flaming flame - one continued and unextinguished flame. 'The glowing flame' (Fairbairn).
All faces - all persons; here the metaphor is merged in the reality.
Verse 49. Ah Lord God! they say of me, Doth he not speak parables? Ezekiel complains that by this parabolic form of prophecy he only makes himself and it a jest to his countrymen. God therefore in Ezekiel 21:1-32 permits him to express the same prophecy more plainly.
Remarks:
(1) Though God saith, as to His people, "I will yet for this be inquired of" (Ezekiel 36:37), still, in the case of those whose hearts are deliberately hardened against doing His will. He refuses to be inquired of (Ezekiel 20:3). Instead of instruction in the theoretical knowledge of His ways, such sinners need stern reproof and judicial conviction of the sins of both themselves and their fathers (Ezekiel 20:4). There are times of judgment as well as times of mercy. When the latter are come to a close, judgment must begin.
(2) God did great things for Israel in five periods of their history, and yet in all five they grievously rebelled against Him: first, in Egypt, then in the wilderness, then on the borders of Canaan, when a new generation had arisen, then in Canaan, the good and pleasant land, and lastly, in the times of the prophet. How sad it is that the history of the visible Church is almost nothing else than an account of God's mercies abused and slighted, and His long-suffering tried to the uttermost with ever new provocations! (3) In Egypt God revealed Himself to His people as the faithful, covenant-keeping Yahweh, fulfilling His promises to their forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in undertaking to deliver Israel out of the house of their bondage, and in spying out for them the choicest of countries, Canaan - "the land of desire," "the glory of all lands" - as their home and resting-place (Ezekiel 20:6). But as privileges and responsibilities go together, God required of them to "cast away every man the abominations of his eyes" and to "forsake the idols of Egypt" (Ezekiel 20:7-8). This reasonable command, which was designed for their own good, the perverse people disregarded. The wrath of God was therefore kindled against them; but from a regard to His everlasting covenant, and the glory of His great name, lest it should be polluted before the pagan, He still spared them. The same history is virtually re-enacted in the case of the visible Church. Delivered out of the bondage of Judaism and paganism, through the blood of Christ's everlasting covenant, and having the glorious promise of the heavenly Canaan the land of desire, the rest that remaineth for the people of God-and having this only obligation laid on her, to give up the works of Satan, pride, and malice, the pomps and vanities of this wicked world, and all the sinful lusts of the flesh, she has sadly forgotten her high calling, and has in all ages and denominations in a great measure conformed to the Egyptian spirit, aims, and fashions of the world.
(4) In the wilderness, at Sinai, God formally gave His people His statutes (Ezekiel 20:11), and re-instituted His Sabbaths (Ezekiel 20:12) to be "a sign between Him and His people," at once a badge of their separation from the surrounding world and dedication to Him, and at the same time a mean of their "sanctifications." Yet even in the wilderness, where their very existence for a day was a miracle of God's bounty, they, with monstrous and unnatural ingratitude, turned upon the hand that fed them, and "despised God's judgments," in the doing of which in faith they might have found the means of the outward expression of spiritual life (Ezekiel 20:13): but their heart was at fault, and went after their idols. The result was, God swore in His wrath that none of that generation, except Caleb and Joshua, should enter into His rest (Ezekiel 20:15; Psalms 95:11). Let us remember that the observance or non-observance of the Sabbath has in all times and places been a thermometer to measure the degree of religions warmth or coldness of the professing worshippers of God. Wherever it and the other ordinances of God are either slighted altogether, or not obeyed in the inner spirituality of God's requirement, it is a plain proof that the "heart" (Ezekiel 20:16) is as yet given to the world and self, and not to God. In such a state there can be no entrance for the sinner into the heavenly land flowing with milk and honey (Ezekiel 20:15), to which the penitent believer is so graciously invited (Isaiah 55:1).
(5) Even the succeeding generation proved to be no better than the one that through rebellion fell in the wilderness (Ezekiel 20:18-21). Not warned by the awful example of their fathers, the children walked in their steps, and so incurred similar punishment. Then it was that God threatened to scatter and disperse the apostate nation among the Gentiles (Ezekiel 20:23). And forasmuch as "their eyes were after their 'fathers' idols" (Ezekiel 20:24), instead of regaling God's statutes, which were for their own good, He, in righteous retribution, gave them up to their fathers' statutes, which were not for their good, but which first spiritually corrupted, and then destroyed them (Ezekiel 20:25).
It is fatal to the soul to follow the traditions of the fathers, as Rome would have us to do, in that which, according to the revealed and written statutes of God, is "not good" God makes the apostate's sin his punishment. Them who pollute His Sabbaths He pollutes in their own gifts (Ezekiel 20:26), judicially giving them up to their own corrupting and self-destroying delusions. Thus at last, and when too late, they will "know" Yahweh as an avenging Judge, since they refused to know Him as a loving Father and, Friend (Ezekiel 20:26).
(6) Settled at length in Canaan, "yet" even still the people visually blasphemed and insulted God. (Ezekiel 20:27). Their very offerings were a "provocation" (Ezekiel 20:28), because they were offered on high places, and in a manner they were offered on high places, and in a manner utterly at variance with God's express command that in the temple at Jerusalem alone should sacrifices be presented to Him (Ezekiel 20:29-30). Will-worship, and a religion of men's own devising, is full measure of guilt by burning to death their sons in honour of the the ruin of millions.
(7) The generation of Ezekiel's times filled up the idol Moloch (Ezekiel 20:31). Their thought and design in these pagan usages was, they wished to avoid the reproach of singularity, and not to be taunted by their pagan neighbours as worshipping an invisible God (Ezekiel 20:32). How many there are who compromise their religion for the sake of conciliating the favour of the world, who would be decided in the denial of worldly lusts, were it not that they fear to be thought singular, loving the praise of men more than the praise of God!
(8) How strikingly the truth of Revelation is established by the present state of the Jews, dispersed in all lands, yet distinct from all; not, like all other intermingled races, amalgamating with those in whose country they dwell, as it would be natural to expect, and as they themselves wished ("We will be as the families of the countries," Ezekiel 20:32), but kept definitely separate! Why is this? Simply because God said it almost two thousand four hundred years ago and therefore it is so.
(9) Mercy is finally in store for Israel after the long discipline of ages has worked its designed effect. God counts the people as still His own (Ezekiel 20:37, note) by virtue of His everlasting covenant. He will re-assert His claim to them, and make them to pass by a second exodus into "the wilderness of the peoples" (Hebrew), with a view to ultimately restoring them, after He has "pleaded with them here, and brought them under the bond of His covenant" (Ezekiel 20:35-37). The rebels shall be purged out by awful judgments (Daniel 12:1), and the elect remnant, as the nucleus of the new nation, shall be saved (Ezekiel 20:8; Zechariah 13:8-9; Zechariah 14:2-3). God will regard as rebels all who offer Him a divided allegiance and a divided hears (Ezekiel 20:39). We cannot serve idols and serve the Lord at one and the same time. Even an open denial of God-awful and fatal as it must be if it continues-is a less dangerous state than that of hypocritical formalism: for the former does not deceive men as the latter does.
The openly irreligious may at some time be reclaimed when the Word of God is brought to bear on him; but what shall reclaim to God the man who, within hearing of the Word of God, affects to worship Him, while all the while his heart is given to self and worldly idols? But the elect remnant God will finally "accept in the mountain of the height of Israel." There, when they have been received back into God's favour through the marvelous and unlooked-for grace of God (Ezekiel 20:43; Ezekiel 16:63), true repentance shall be worked in the elect nation by the Holy Spirit, while on the one hand they remember with loathing their own past ways, and while on the other hand they see and feel the gracious work of God in their behalf, to the praise of the glory of His grace, so contrary to all that they could have looked for. Nothing but the gratuitous goodness of God experimentally known by the sinner can produce repentance in its fullest sense. The believer is melted into sorrow for sin, and his stubborn heart is overcome by the marvelous kindness of God. Let not this instructive history be as a dark and unintelligible "parable to us (Ezekiel 20:40); but let us seek to have the true circumcision of heart, and to be of the spiritual Israel of God, that we may share in the coming blessedness of those who shall inherit the heavenly Canaan!