37-Lamentations 1 – Ezekiel 19
Sept. 5, 2009
We will begin our study this week with the Book of Lamentations. Last week we finished the Book of Jeremiah and God’s words to His disobedient people. This week we will study Jeremiah’s Book of Lamentations and then move on to the Book of Ezekiel. The Book of Lamentations is believed to have been dictated by the prophet Jeremiah to his scribe Baruch. The book consists of five chapters lamenting the destruction of the Jew’s beloved city of Jerusalem. One interesting fact about Lamentations is that the first four chapters follow the acrostic pattern similar to Psalm 119. This pattern was used to help the reader remember the words of the book. The book was written during the Jewish exile in Babylon. In Chapter 1 Jerusalem was written as if the city was a lonely weeping widow. The once full, vibrant city had been reduced to a ruined empty shell by her enemies. Her people had been taken away for their sin. Even the roads that led to the city that were once teeming with pilgrims traveling to the feasts were empty and desolate. Her condition was told in verse 5 “Her adversaries have become her masters, her enemies prosper; for the Lord has caused her grief because of the multitude of her transgressions; Her little ones have gone away as captives before the adversary.” The people had felt their loss and now had regret for their sin. By the end of the chapter the people had asked the Lord for relief from their enemies and restoration. Chapter 2 covers the Lord’s reason for abandoning His city and punishing His people. He was angry with His people and had withdrawn His hand of protection from them. The condition of the city and the people were not a result of the Lord’s wish for His people, but because of their unrepentant disobedience. The Lord had strengthened the enemies of His people to punish them until they would acknowledge their sin and return to Him. In Chapter 3 Jeremiah’s lament turns from the city of Jerusalem and its people, inward towards himself. Jeremiah laments his sufferings in a way that also parallels the suffering of Judah and the Jewish people. Even though Jeremiah had been chosen by the Lord to speak to His people, his life was one of suffering and hardship. Jeremiah was hated by his countrymen, beaten, and thrown into prison for much of his life of service to the Lord. Jeremiah’s life had been hard, but his hope in the Lord was revealed in verse 21-26 “This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. The Lord’s loving-kindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I have hope in Him.” The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him.It is good that he waits silently for the salvation of the Lord.” Jeremiah included others in his lament in verses 41 through 47. Instead of writing I, me, and my, in this section he wrote of our, and us. Chapter 4 is a picture of what conditions were like inside the city walls during the siege of Jerusalem. The Babylonian army had prevented supplies from entering the city, and also their trash and waste from leaving. The people were starving and living in their own trash. In verse 10 the dirge reveals that, in their distress, loving mothers boiled their own children and served them to survive. The people of Jerusalem were reduced to animals because of the Lord’s wrath on them. The last chapter of the Book of Lamentations is a prayer for mercy from the Lord by the remnant of the inhabitants of Jerusalem. They felt they had paid the price for their sin and ask the Lord to restore them, unless He had given up on them entirely and forsaken them for all time. This ends the Book of Lamentations. We will now begin to look at the Book of Ezekiel. The Book of Ezekiel was written from Babylon by a priest named Ezekiel, the son of Buzi. Ezekiel was part of the first group of Jews deported from Judah to Babylon in 597 B.C. This group also included Daniel and his three friends. Unlike the Book of Jeremiah, the Book of Ezekiel was, for the most part, written in chronological order. The Lord’s call to Ezekiel came when he was thirty years old. He was taken by Nebuchadnezzar when he was twenty five, and had settled in a town east of the city of Babylon near the Chebar River. It was here in Chapter 1 that Ezekiel describes his visit from the Lord. As I read the text I was reminded of the scene from several recent science fiction films of the alien mothership coming into Earth’s atmosphere. Ezekiel’s incredible vision of the power and majesty of God must have left him with a lasting lifelong impression of the Lord. The storm cloud contained four beings that were later identified as members of the class of angels known as the cherubim. These magnificent powerful angels are always associated with the throne of God. After this vision, Ezekiel was presented with a vision of God Himself on His throne. He fell to his face when the Lord spoke to him. In Chapter 2 the Lord told Ezekiel that he would be sent to the sons of Israel to speak to them during their exile. Ezekiel prophesied to Jerusalem about the coming final deportation of its people and it’s destruction by the Babylonians. Ezekiel did this from Babylon, being an exile himself. The Lord told Ezekiel to speak to His people Israel even if they would not listen. God then held out His hand and gave Ezekiel a scroll. The text says the scroll was covered front and back with “lamentations, mourning, and woes.” In Chapter 3 the Lord has Ezekiel take the scroll and eat it. The scroll represented the words Ezekiel was to speak to the sons of Israel for the Lord. When he ate it the scroll was sweet as honey in his mouth. The Lord told Ezekiel that the house of Israel was stubborn and obstinate, but He had also made his head as hard as theirs and that he should not be afraid. Ezekiel then went to the group of Jewish exiles near his home of Tel-abib, near the Chebar River and spoke to them God’s words for seven days. His words disturbed his listeners. At the end of the seven days the Lord came again to Ezekiel and made him a watchman over the house of Israel. He was to speak the Lord’s words again to the people. In Chapter 4 the Lord had Ezekiel perform a demonstration for Israel that must have looked like a child playing with toys. He was told to take a brick and inscribe the name Jerusalem on it. He was then to take the brick in front of the people and act as if he were laying siege to the brick as a boy would play with army men in a sandbox. He did this as a sign to Israel of the coming siege on the city of Jerusalem. Ezekiel was then told to lie on his right side for three hundred ninety days, then on his left side for an additional forty days. This represented the years first the people of Israel would be in bondage, then the people of Judah for their sinful ways. He was then tied down with ropes facing Jerusalem to represent the siege. Ezekiel then used an example of defiled bread to show the people their sin. God had Ezekiel use his own body as an example again in Chapter 5 to show the people. He was told to cut off his hair and beard with a sharp sword as a razor, then divide the hair into three parts. Using the hair Ezekiel was to describe the Lord’s judgement on Jerusalem and its people. The Lord spoke to Ezekiel in Chapter 6 about the people’s sin in their worship of idols. The people were going to experience God’s wrath upon them for their sin. Then, in Chapter 7, the people were told they would be punished for their wickedness. At the end of the chapter the Lord said that foreigners would plunder and profane His temple. In Chapter 8 when Ezekiel sat down with the elders of Judah in his house, he was visited by a vision of the Lord. During these visions Ezekiel was given a different view of events than were given to other men. God wanted Ezekiel to see things the way He saw them. Ezekiel was taken in the vision to Jerusalem and shown the abominations that were carved inside God’s house. Ezekiel wrote in verse 10-11 “So I entered and looked, and behold, every form of creeping things and beasts and detestable things, with all the idols of the house of Israel, were carved on the wall all around. Standing in front of them were seventy elders of the house of Israel, with Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan standing among them, each man with his censer in his hand and the fragrance of the cloud of incense rising.” He was then taken to the inner court of the temple where twenty men had their backs to God and were worshipping the sun. Chapter 9 is a vision of executioners going through the city of Jerusalem to prepare for destruction. There was a man clothed in linen that carried a writing case to mark the foreheads of those who did not worship the idols of the people. The executioners then went through the city and slaughtered all who did not bear the mark. In Chapter 10 Ezekiel had a vision similar to the one he had during his call to service in Chapter 1. This time the cherubim were in the temple and were preparing to depart with the Lord away from His designated place on Earth. The Lord promised His people that He would dwell with them as long as they obeyed His ways. His Glory was leaving the temple because his longsuffering with His people was at an end. The people were about to lose the presence of their God with them for a very long time. Ezekiel was told by the Lord in Chapter 11 to prophesy against the evil rulers of Jerusalem. Ezekiel was in Babylon, but the Spirit of the Lord brought him to Jerusalem to speak the Lord’s words against His people. Ezekiel told the men of the city that they would be brought out and judged. In the end of the chapter the Lord promised restoration to the people. He said in verse 19-20 “And I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them. And I will take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh,that they may walk in My statutes and keep My ordinances and do them. Then they will be My people, and I shall be their God.” In Chapter 12 the Lord had Ezekiel act out another illustration before the people. The illustration was to prepare the remainder of the house of Israel for exile. The text shows the illustration was done with Ezekiel using some packed baggage as if he were going on a journey. This was done as a sign to the people of Israel from the Lord. The Lord had Ezekiel prophesy against false prophets in Chapter 13. He said that they had misled the people in verse 10 by saying “Peace!’ when there is no peace.” These false prophets would also be subject to God’s anger for their sin. Then, in Chapter 14, the elders of the city that were worshipping idols were also condemned. The Lord said He would not spare the city. The Lord mentioned in verse 14 “even though these three men, Noah, Daniel and Job were in its midst, by their own righteousness they could only deliver themselves,” declares the Lord God.” In Chapter 15 Jerusalem was compared to a useless vine that has been charred black in a fire. Then, in Chapter 16, God talked about Jerusalem as if the city was a human woman. The Lord spoke of the cities origin from the Amorites, Hittites, and Canaanites, and how He cleaned her up and made her His own. The city was made beautiful and famous under the Lord’s care, but it turned from Him and went after its fame to other gods. The city and its people had turned from the one who had made it and placed itself under judgement. The Lord though, remembered His covenant with His people long ago and promised forgiveness. In Chapter 17 the Lord had Ezekiel speak a parable to the people. The parable was the story of two eagles and a vine. The first eagle was a great bird that went to Lebanon and plucked off the top new twigs from large cedar tree. The eagle dropped the twigs in the middle of a city of merchants, and then planted some of the seeds from the land near the source of abundant water. The seeds grew into a vine which grew branches and became strong. The second eagle came and the vine reached its branches toward the bird. The Lord then asked if the vine could remain strong and not be pulled up by its roots. The parable illustrated Nebuchadnezzar, Egypt, and Zedekiah. Nebuchadnezzar was represented by the first eagle that took the king of Judah, represented by the twig, to Babylon, but left some people and installed Zedekiah as king. Zedekiah was the vine which looked towards the second eagle, Egypt, for help against Nebuchadnezzar. Zedekiah was doomed to failure because the Lord wanted His people exiled in Babylon. The end of the chapter reveals the Lord, in the future will pluck His own king from the house of David and install Him to prosper on His throne. This future king is God’s own Son, Jesus. In Chapter 18 the Lord had Ezekiel set the people straight about a saying that had been spoken by the people. This saying is verse 2b “The fathers eat the sour grapes,
But the children’s teeth are set on edge’?” The people believed they were being punished for the sins of their fathers. God had Ezekiel tell them the proverb could no longer be used. Each man would die for his own sin, not the sin of anyone else. In the rest of the chapter the Lord reveals how He deals with each individual. He declares in verse 30-32 “Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, each according to his conduct,” declares the Lord God. “Repent and turn away from all your transgressions, so that iniquity may not become a stumbling block to you.“Cast away from you all your transgressions which you have committed and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! For why will you die O house of Israel?“For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies,” declares the Lord God. “Therefore, repent and live.” We will end this week with Chapter 19. This chapter is a short lament over the princes of Israel. Ezekiel was addressing the men who were king over Judah during his life as a prophet of God. We will continue next week, in the Book of Ezekiel.