Ezekiel 5:1-17
1 And thou, son of man, take thee a sharp knife, take thee a barber's razor, and cause it to pass upon thine head and upon thy beard: then take thee balances to weigh, and divide the hair.
2 Thou shalt burn with fire a third part in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled: and thou shalt take a third part, and smite about it with a knife: and a third part thou shalt scatter in the wind; and I will draw out a sword after them.
3 Thou shalt also take thereof a few in number, and bind them in thy skirts.a
4 Then take of them again, and cast them into the midst of the fire, and burn them in the fire; for thereof shall a fire come forth into all the house of Israel.
5 Thus saith the Lord GOD; This is Jerusalem: I have set it in the midst of the nations and countries that are round about her.
6 And she hath changed my judgments into wickedness more than the nations, and my statutes more than the countries that are round about her: for they have refused my judgments and my statutes, they have not walked in them.
7 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because ye multiplied more than the nations that are round about you, and have not walked in my statutes, neither have kept my judgments, neither have done according to the judgments of the nations that are round about you;
8 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I, even I, am against thee, and will execute judgments in the midst of thee in the sight of the nations.
9 And I will do in thee that which I have not done, and whereunto I will not do any more the like, because of all thine abominations.
10 Therefore the fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of thee, and the sons shall eat their fathers; and I will execute judgments in thee, and the whole remnant of thee will I scatter into all the winds.
11 Wherefore, as I live, saith the Lord GOD; Surely, because thou hast defiled my sanctuary with all thy detestable things, and with all thine abominations, therefore will I also diminish thee; neither shall mine eye spare, neither will I have any pity.
12 A third part of thee shall die with the pestilence, and with famine shall they be consumed in the midst of thee: and a third part shall fall by the sword round about thee; and I will scatter a third part into all the winds, and I will draw out a sword after them.
13 Thus shall mine anger be accomplished, and I will cause my fury to rest upon them, and I will be comforted: and they shall know that I the LORD have spoken it in my zeal, when I have accomplished my fury in them.
14 Moreover I will make thee waste, and a reproach among the nations that are round about thee, in the sight of all that pass by.
15 So it shall be a reproach and a taunt, an instruction and an astonishment unto the nations that are round about thee, when I shall execute judgments in thee in anger and in fury and in furious rebukes. I the LORD have spoken it.
16 When I shall send upon them the evil arrows of famine, which shall be for their destruction, and which I will send to destroy you: and I will increase the famine upon you, and will break your staff of bread:
17 So will I send upon you famine and evil beasts, and they shall bereave thee; and pestilence and blood shall pass through thee; and I will bring the sword upon thee. I the LORD have spoken it.
Ezekiel 5:1. Son of man, take thee a sharp knife a barber's razor. Clip thy hair, and shave thy beard. Then divide and subdivide the hair into twenty four parts, and take eight parts, precisely the third, and burn the hair within thy beautiful configuration or model-city. Cut the second portion in pieces, to designate the slaughter of the people by sword and famine. Scatter the third part in the wind, towards Egypt and the southern nations, after whom I will send the sword of the Chaldean, as stated in the latter Chapter s of Jeremiah.
Ezekiel 5:3. Thou shalt also take of the hairs a few in number sewed in the hem of thy toga, and carry them about, and burn the others, to portend the wanderings of the few remaining ten tribes, pursued by incessant calamities.
Ezekiel 5:5. This is Jerusalem. I have set it in the midst of the nations. A city chosen of God, a city favoured above all with the victories of David, with the glorious peace of Solomon, and whose fame reached to the ends of the earth. It was grace that raised Jerusalem to glory; it was sin that covered her with shame. Pale and bloody was the wane of her moon.
Ezekiel 5:7. Because ye multiplied more than the nations. The increase of the Hebrew population was great in Egypt; it was equally so in the time of David, and during the reign of Solomon. Reliance may therefore be placed in the characteristic blessings of the covenant, and all the promises of the everliving and faithful God.
Ezekiel 5:10. The fathers shall eat the sons. This is noted in Jeremiah 19:9, and Lamentations 4:10. The hands of delicate women boiled their sons for meat. St. Jerome states, that the siege under the Romans was more severe than the siege under the Chaldeans. In these awful extremities the words of Moses were fulfilled. Deuteronomy 28:53.
REFLECTIONS.
The Lord is now lenient to christian ministers. We are not building models of sieges, nor baking our bread under hedges with dried dung. We are not lying like the devotees of India in doleful postures of penance. Ours, being halcyon days, let them be days of holiness, and of the most vigorous exertions in the ministry; and the more so, as we do not know how soon a cloud may over-spread our sun. Alas, we do but little for souls, compared with the battles and labours of the Hebrew prophets.
The Israelites, planted in the midst of the nations, and more blessed than they, are reproached as the most ungrateful of the humankind for apostasy. Is not this a voice to Britain? Alas, our auditories are crowded with backsliders. And as a nation, what are our mercies? The finest of countries, ranges of mountains full of mines and streams, of which the manufactories have taken possession, as of a soil congenial to their growth. Of the seas we have the controul, of commerce we take the lead, in colonies we abound. Our bankers and merchants, countless in number, are princes. Our manufacturers keep their equipage, while the poor are pressed, if not severely.
But what are our returns? In what respects is our moral character better than our continental neighbours? We surpass them in pride; in atheism we tread on their heels. In profanations, desecrations of the sabbath, and blasphemy, we excel. Our streets are crowded with harlots; our general character wanes to effeminacy, and to degeneracy in every form. If Jerusalem, once boasted by the prophets as the glory of the whole earth, was given up to fire and sword, what can the wicked expect! Oh let me run to duty, and like the ancient prophets, obtain a reprieve for our country.