Ezekiel 5:16-17

“When I shall send on them the hurtful arrows of famine, which are for destruction, which I will send to destroy you, and I will increase the famine on you and will break your staff of bread, and I will send on you famine and evil beasts, and they will bereave you, and pestilence and blood will pass through you, and I will bring the sword on you. I, Yahweh, have spoken it.”

The desolations were now spelled out. Firstly famine. This would be like hurtful arrows (Deuteronomy 32:23), arriving suddenly, destroying men when no one was near. And the famine would increase and get worse, and the provisions on which they had leant for so long would be taken from them. They would no longer have anything to depend on.

And, as was inevitable with such famine, starving evil beasts would seek human flesh in order to survive, resulting in many bereavements, and pestilence and blood would follow on people starved of nourishment. Note the combination of ‘pestilence and blood'. The two words in Hebrew are an alliteration, ‘deber wa dam'. Elsewhere ‘blood' often signifies pestilence. Then on top of this will come the sword. Men of violence would take advantage of the weakness resulting from their parlous state. And all this would come on them because Yahweh had allowed it. It is Yahweh Who says so.

Famine, wild beasts, pestilence, sword, these types of the judgment of God are fairly common in Scripture. See especially ‘God's four sore judgments' (Ezekiel 14:21); ‘God's seven times more plagues' (Leviticus 26:21); see also Deuteronomy 32:23; Revelation 6:8. They are His ‘reward' for covenant unfaithfulness.

Throughout this passage we are made aware of Ezekiel's profound sense of the holiness of God, of the awfulness and sublimity of the divine King, of the greatness of His glory, accentuated by his great vision, and of his awareness of the sacredness and authority of the Law, the divine instruction, so that all disobedience totally outraged him. It may be that we live in the age of mercy and abundant salvation, but we need to be aware that God has not changed. He still hates sin just as bitterly.