DAY 6: 31-Days Journey in Faith through the Book of Ezekiel

A Sword Against Jerusalem:

This book contains the prophecies attributed to the prophet/priestEzekiel, and is one of the Prophetic Books.This chapter contains the prophecies using the division of the prophet's shaved hair as a sign, showing God's judgment upon Jerusalem, by pestilence, by famine, by the sword, and by dispersion.

"And you, son of man, take a sharp sword, take it as a barber’s razor, and pass it over your head and your beard; then take scales to weigh and divide the hair. You shall burn with fire one-third in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are finished; then you shall take one-third and strike around it with the sword, and one-third you shall scatter in the wind: I will draw out a sword after them. You shall also take a small number of them and bind them in the edge of your garment.Then take some of them again and throw them into the midst of the fire, and burn them in the fire. From there a fire will go out into all the house of Israel" Ezekiel 5:1-4 (NKJV).

"Therefore, as I live,’ says the Lord God, ‘surely, because you have defiled My sanctuary with all your detestable things and with all your abominations, therefore I will also diminish you; My eye will not spare, nor will I have any pity. One-third of you shall die of the pestilence, and be consumed with famine in your midst; and one-third shall fall by the sword all around you; and I will scatter another third to all the winds, and I will draw out a sword after them" Ezekiel 5:11-12 (NKJV).

"So it shall be a reproach, a taunt, a lesson, and an astonishment to the nations that are all around you, when I execute judgments among you in anger and in fury and in furious rebukes. I, the Lord, have spoken. When I send against them the terrible arrows of famine which shall be for destruction, which I will send to destroy you, I will increase the famine upon you and cut off your supply of bread. So I will send against you famine and wild beasts, and they will bereave you. Pestilence and blood shall pass through you, and I will bring the sword against you. I, the Lord, have spoken" Ezekiel 5:15-17 (NKJV).

A sword isn’t usually used to cut hair – swords are used in battle. Because this acted-out prophecy concerned the judgment the army of Nebuchadnezzar would bring upon Jerusalem, a sword was appropriate. Although the word was used for various kinds of cutting instruments, in Ezekiel it always refers to a military weapon, which, with one possible exception, is the sword. You are to burn a third of it in the city when the days of the siege have ended; you are to take a third and slash it with the sword all around the city; and you are to scatter a third to the wind, for I will draw a sword to chase after them.

The hair then had to be weighed and divided and separated into three parts. The weighing indicated that Jerusalem had been weighed and had been found wanting (compare Proverbs 21:2; Daniel 5:27). Then one third he had to burn in the midst of his model city, a third part he had to smite with a sword round about the city, chopping them in pieces, and a third part had to be scattered to the wind. This was to take place once he had finished his days of depicting the period of the siege. This signified that one third of the inhabitants of Jerusalem would die in the siege through pestilence and famine, one third in the fighting round about and that one third would be scattered among the nations. But even these latter would still be subject to further judgments from God. ‘I will draw out a sword after them’. They would be constantly harried, and many would die because of their evil ways.

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.

The siege is described again in chapter 6.