Ezekiel 4

CHAPTERS 4 AND 5THEME: Judgment of Jerusalem; sign of the prophet shaving his hairIn chapters 4 and 5 Ezekiel is going to use certain signs and act out certain parables before the people. At this time Jerusalem was not yet destroyed, and the false prophets were telling the people of Israel that they were going to have peace. They were saying that the Jews already in Babylonian captivity would return to their land shortly, but Ezekiel is going to confirm the word of Jeremiah, who had told them they would not be going back and that Jerusalem would be destroyed. G. K. Chesterton writing in the early twentieth century said, “This is the age of pacifism, but it is not the age of peace.” Throughout history man has engaged in fifteen thousand wars and he has signed some eight thousand peace treaties; yet during five or six thousand years of history he has never enjoyed more than two to three hundred years of true peace. Man is a warlike creature, whether he likes to think so or not. Paul wrote in 1Th_5:3, “For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.” May I say to you, there is only one Prince of Peace, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Ezekiel 4:1

JUDGMENT OF JERUSALEMEzekiel is going to show these people that there is not going to be any peace and that Jerusalem is going to be destroyed. “A tile” in that day meant a brick. This was their writing material; the Babylonians used clay bricks on which they kept their records. Many, many of these bricks have been found, and they have writing upon them. They are almost square, about fourteen by twelve inches in size. What Ezekiel was to do was to draw the city of Jerusalem on the brick (I do not know just how he did it), and then he was to break the brick to show that the city was going to be destroyed.

Ezekiel 4:3

Now Ezekiel was to take an iron pan and put it between himself and this picture of Jerusalem which he had made to show that God had put a wall between Himself and the city of Jerusalem. The destruction of the city was inevitable; it could not be stopped. What a tremendous way in which to bring God’s message to these people! The sign of the tile portrayed the siege of Jerusalem. The second sign of the pan showed the hardships of divine judgment, that the people were to go through terrible suffering. A third sign describes additional punishments to come upon Jerusalem. It is the sign of the defiled bread:

Ezekiel 4:9

These instructions would be overwhelming to most of us, but they were especially difficult for Ezekiel to follow because he was a priest and had never eaten anything unclean:

Ezekiel 4:14

However, this was to be a sign from the Lord of the famine the people would experience at the time of the destruction of the city of Jerusalem. Despite the continued promises of the false prophets, the city and the people were going to be lost. These various signs described the horrors that were to come.