Ezekiel 33:21-29

C. The Fall of Jerusalem and Further Prophecies
33:21-29
TRANSLATION

(21) And it came to pass in the twelfth year of our captivity, the tenth month, the fifth day of the month, the fugitive from Jerusalem came, saying, the city has been smitten! (22) Now the hand of the LORD was upon me in the evening, before the fugitive came; and He had opened my mouth until he came unto me in the morning; and my mouth was opened, and I was no more dumb. (23) Then the word of the LORD came, saying, (24) Son of man, those who are living in these waste places in the land of Israel are saying, Abraham was one man, but he inherited the land; but we are many; the land has been given to us for a possession. (25) Therefore say unto them, Thus says the Lord GOD: You eat along with blood, and you lift up your eyes unto your idols, and you shed blood; and shall you possess the land? (26) You stand upon your sword, and you do abominations, and each of you defiles the wife of his neighbor; and shall you possess the land? (27) Thus you shall say unto them: Thus says the Lord GOD: As I live, surely the ones who are in the waste places shall fall by the sword, and the ones who are upon the open field I have given to the beasts to be devoured, and the ones who are in the fortresses and in the caves shall die of the pestilence. (28) And I will make the land desolate and waste, and the pride of her strength shall cease; and the mountains of Israel shall be desolate so that no one will pass through. (29) And they will know that I am the LORD when I make the land a desolation and a waste, because of all their abominations which they have done.

COMMENTS

In the twelfth year of the captivity of Jehoiachin a fugitive from Jerusalem arrived in Babylon with the sad news that Jerusalem had fallen (Ezekiel 33:21). The city fell in the fourth month of the eleventh year of the captivity. i.e., Tammuz 587 B.C. (Jeremiah 39:2). It would appear that some eighteen months elapsed between the event and the report of it among the captives.[455] On the evening before the arrival of the messenger, the silence imposed upon the prophet was removed as predicted in Ezekiel 24:26 f. Ezekiel was now vindicated as a true prophet. He was now authorized to open his mouth in a new series of utterances designed to prepare the captives for the future restoration (Ezekiel 33:22).

[455] Some scholars believe that a different system of counting years was employed by the Jews in Babylon, The difference between tenth month of the twelfth year in the Babylonian system, and the fourth month of the eleventh year in the Judaean system would actually be only six months.

Again Ezekiel received revelation from the Lord (Ezekiel 33:23), and it pertained to those pitiful survivors who remained among the ruins of Judah under the governorship of Gedaliah. Once the initial shock of seeing their homeland ravished had passed, that ragtag band began to imagine that they were the favored of the Lord. They apparently believed that they would form the nucleus of a new nation. They consoled themselves by the thought that originally Canaan had been given to a solitary individual, the patriarch Abraham. But how much greater their claim to that land! They were many, and they were actually occupying that land. They would be able to recoup their loses and rebuild that land in no time (Ezekiel 33:24).

Even the fall of Jerusalem did not cure the Jews of their rebellious conduct. The hopes of those few survivors to rebuild Judah was doomed to failure so long as they persisted in the very crimes which caused God to destroy their city in the first place, They openly violated the dietary regulations of the Mosaic Law by eating meat from which the blood had not been properly drained (cf. Leviticus 3:17; Leviticus 17:10). Furthermore, they lifted up their eyes in prayer to idols and persisted in child sacrifice (Ezekiel 33:25). They stood upon the sword lived by violence and worked abomination, i.e., participated in immoral pagan practices. Apparently adultery was quite common among these people (Ezekiel 33:26).

Further disaster awaited those ungodly survivors who inhabited the ruins of Judah. They would yet face the sword of divine judgment as wielded by the Babylonians or their agents. Beasts of the field would devour those who might escape the sword. Those holed up in caves and other natural strongholds would face the pestilence which resulted from overcrowding, and lack of food and sanitation (Ezekiel 33:27).

Those sinful survivors of Jerusalem's fall would not be the ones to rebuild Judah. God would make that land so desolate that no one would even want to make a trip through it. Then the stubborn pride of her power, i.e., pride in her position as a favored nation, would cease (Ezekiel 33:28). Then they would recognize that the God from whom they expected deliverance had actually brought desolation to their land because of their idolatrous abominations (Ezekiel 33:29).