Book of Ezekiel: Chapter 24
Chapter 24 of Ezekiel has two significant events occur. First is that the siege upon Jerusalem by the Babylonians begins. The second is that Ezekiel loses his beloved wife.
The siege upon Jerusalem is told to the exiled Israelites by Ezekiel. He uses a metaphor of a cooking pot to describe the horrors. The cooking pot is Jerusalem and the people inside are the “choice meat.”But instead of God taking great care to bring out the best of the ingredients, He instead reigns down His judgment upon them. The meat is decimated by the high and constant flames boiling away the stew inside.
The last portion of Ezekiel 24 can be difficult. In it, God proclaims to Ezekiel that He will kill Ezekiel’s beloved wife. But instead of following through with the traditional mourning methods accomplished by the Israelites, God makes Ezekiel do the opposite. Traditionally, mourning of a death was accompanied by removing of one’s head cover, loud lamentations, and removing one’s sandals. God instructed Ezekiel to mourn in complete silence. This silent mourning was a way for God to illuminate how the Isrealites were going to mourn over the loss of Jerusalem.
Both the cooking pot metaphor and Ezekiel’s silent mourning say something about how God wants the Israelites to change. In the cooking pot metaphor, the Israelites were the “choice meats.”Unfortunately, they believed that the choice meats would be cared for rather than destroyed. Ezekiel’s silent mourning displayed that God did not want the Israelites to mourn with their typical loud and showy ways. Instead, God wants them to silently focus on the devastation that their sins brought upon their people.
These messages can teach us something about ourselves in our current society. We shouldn’t feel that because we are Christians we can be complacent. We also shouldn’t be showy and loud when it comes to lamenting to God. Instead we must be diligent in not letting sin cause us to become lazy in our faith and we should also try to bring our lamentations to God on a personal level.
Key Verse:
“… What sorrow awaits Jerusalem, the city of murderers!She is a cooking pot whose corruption can’t be cleaned out. Take the meat out in random order, for no piece is better than another.” ~ Ezekiel 24:6
Questions to ponder:
- In what other biblical stories has God tested the faith of a person by taking away their loved ones?
- How does one serve God as completely as Ezekiel did?
