Idolatry the reason for coming judgment
6
And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 6:1 In Ezek 5:5-17 God speaks of punishment coming on Jerusalem. In this chapter He speaks of judgments about to fall on the whole land of Israel.⚜
2 📚“Son of man, set your face toward the mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them, 3 📚and say, ‘You mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God: Thus says the Lord God to the mountains, and to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys: See, I, I myself, will bring a sword on you, and I will destroy your high places 📖. 4 📚And your altars will be desolate, and your images will be broken. And I will throw your slain people down in front of your idols. 5 📚And I will lay the dead bodies of the children of Israel in front of their idols, and I will scatter your bones around your altars. 6 📚In all the places you live, the cities will be laid waste, and the high places will be desolate, so that your altars will be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols will be broken and come to an end, and your images will be cut down, and your works will be abolished. 7 📚And the slain will fall in your midst, and you will know that I am the LORD.
8 📚“Yet I will leave a remnant, so that you may have some who will escape the sword among the nations, when you are scattered through the countries. 9 📚And those of you who escape will remember me among the nations where they are led away as captives, because I am heartbroken over their adulterous heart which departed from me, and over their eyes which go after their idols, prostituting themselves. And they will loathe themselves because of the evils which they have committed in all their abominations. 10 📚And they will know that I am the LORD, and that I have not said in vain that I would bring this disaster on them.
6:8-10 God often spoke through Isaiah concerning a remnant (Isa 1:9; 10:20-22; 11:11, 16; 37:31-32; 46:3). In this way one of God’s purposes in bringing disaster on Judah would be fulfilled – the exiles would remember God (Jer 29:11-14). They would understand in some measure how they had grieved Him by their idolatry and adulterous behavior. And they would loathe themselves – an attitude that accompanies deep conviction of sin and true repentance (Job 42:6).⚜
11 📚“Thus says the Lord God: Strike with your hand, and stamp with your foot, and say, ‘Alas for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel!’ For they will fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the plague.
6:11 Ezekiel’s actions could make a deeper impression on the people than mere words could do.⚜
12 📚He who is far off will die from the plague, and he who is near will fall by the sword, and he who remains and is besieged will die from the famine. Thus I will spend my fury 📖 on them. 13 📚Then you will know that I am the LORD, when their slain people are among their idols around their altars, on every high hill, on the tops of all the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick oak, the places where they offered fragrant incense to all their idols.
6:13 Throughout the Bible the one true God reveals His utter hatred of false worship and idolatry (Ex 20:4-6).⚜
14 📚So I will stretch out my hand 📖 on them, and make the land desolate, yes, more desolate than the wilderness toward Diblath, in every place they live; and they will know that I am the LORD”.
6:4-14 God would personally see to it that their false worship would be ended. Observe “I will throw” (v 4), “my hand” (v 14). Then is God heartless and cruel? Not at all (Lam 3:22, 32, 33). He has infinite love and compassion. But this will not mean that the guilty will be spared (Ex 34:6-7). There would be great destruction and misery, but out of it all would come great good – the people who escaped would learn an invaluable lesson (vs 7,10,13,14). Israel’s need to recognize Jehovah and His deeds is a central theme in the whole book of Ezekiel, mentioned more than 50 times.⚜