Ezekiel 6

Ezekiel 6:1-14

Section 5 (Ezekiel 6:1-14).The sinful people in Jehovah’s hands. The word of Jehovah now comes afresh to the prophet with the distinct count in the indictment against Israel. The mountains are here specifically addressed because of their connection with the people’s idolatrous foreign worship which had its location there. The channels of water and the valleys, as dependent upon them, have a necessary place here also. In contrast with Egypt, the land of independence -watered by its river, whose sources were so far off that practically they could forget all about them -Israel’s land was a land of mountains and valleys, drinking the water of the rain of heaven, a land essentially dependent, and its dependence manifest, but a land which, as thus cast upon God, was such as He specially chose for a people that were in like manner to be dependent upon Himself, and thus to realize His gracious and continual care. Thus it was “a land that the Lord thy God careth for,” where the eyes and the heart of Jehovah were continually. It is noticeable that Shinar was, like Egypt, nourished by its rivers, and in distinct contrast with the mountains from which those who colonized it had come down. “They found,” Scripture says (what exactly suited them), “a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there.” Here, therefore, as so constantly in Scripture, the material thing is significant of the spiritual condition.

Israel’s mountains were in this way like a constant prayer to God, upon which the dews of heaven settled, and brought down the rain so continually needed. At the same time, and beautifully, these mountains were also the fortifications of the land which would derive its strength in the same way in which it preserved constantly its dependence upon and appeal to heaven. This distinguished and separated them from the nations around which had got far enough away from God to identify Him with the mere creatures of His hand. Thus Israel’s land was to be a protest against the heathenism which everywhere else prevailed, and in this way suited to be the depository of a continually growing revelation, the blessing of which is ours today. But, alas, what had Israel done? They had made these very mountains to be but heathen altars with which to insult their gracious Protector, the Source of all their blessing. Upon the tops of those mountains, the idolatrous altars that were so conspicuous there were now the sad witnesses of their own departure from Jehovah, their covenant God, who had signified Himself such in the very name which they thus insulted. They must, therefore, by judgment be made to recognize Him as the Jehovah that He was. And thus, as if the people themselves were unworthy to be addressed, the word by the prophet comes to the mountains, to the hills, to the water channels and to the valleys: “Behold, I, even I, am bringing upon you a sword.

And I will destroy your high places, and your altars shall be desolate, and your sun-pillars shall be broken, and I will cast down your slain before your altars. I will even lay the carcases of the children of Israel before their idols, and scatter your bones round about your altars.” Thus were they to prove now by experience, as bitter as God would have made it sweet to them, that He was Jehovah indeed. Yet a remnant is to be left, to be His witness on the one hand of the grace in which He would for His own sake at last fulfil His promises “a remnant,” as the apostle says, “according to the election of grace” on the other hand a remnant that must witness in sorrow and brokenness of spirit the judgment which had come in because of the abominations practised, and from which grace alone could exempt any. “Yet will I leave a remnant,” He says, “in that ye shall have some escaped from the sword among the nations, when ye shall be scattered through the countries. And they of you that escape shall remember Me among the nations whither they have been carried captives how that I have been broken with their lewd hearts which have departed from Me, and their eyes which play the harlot after their idols.” But here the judgment should have its desired effect: “And they shall loathe themselves in their own sight for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations, and they shall know that I am Jehovah.” Alas for the people, to whom God had revealed Himself after so abundant a manner, who now needed to be called back to the recognition of the blessed Person Himself who had delivered and blessed them! But, for the mass, no judgment could avail: “Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Smite with thy hand, and stamp with thy foot, and say, Alas, because of all the evil abominations of the house of Israel! for they shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence.” Nothing but a complete emptying of the land as to the living could now suffice -leaving it a mere sepulchre of their multitudinous dead, reeking with the unburied corpses which would make it desolate, “more desolate than the wilderness towards Diblath.” This last word, though there is question about it, probably means “fertility.” Such indeed should have been the condition in every way of Jehovah’s land, which was now to be so utter a desolation. In all their dwelling-places, as scattered amongst the nations, they were at last to know, without any peradventure, that their God was Jehovah.