TAWG - August 9, 2024 - Ezekiel 23:22-49
August 9, 2024

Ezekiel 23:22-49

23:25-30 | Physical mutilation was sometimes used as a punishment in the ancient Near East; Ezekiel uses this gross picture to describe how the Babylonians would humiliate Jerusalem and the surrounding towns by killing thousands of their residents and sending the rest into exile into Babylon. Judah had alienated Babylon by seeking a treaty with her, then by trying to switch allegiances to Egypt.

23:31-35 | Here Ezekiel pictures Judah’s coming ruin as the forced drinking of a cup filled with drunkenness, sorrow, horror, desolation, and scorn, an image indicating the unleashing of God’s wrath (Ps. 75:8; Isa. 51:17; Lam. 4:21; Matt. 26:39). Whenever God’s people forget Him – even intentionally putting Him out of mind – the divine response is discipline.

23:38-39 | God’s people had actually sacrificed their children to pagan gods even in the temple in Jerusalem – on the Sabbath. God considered their appalling behavior even worse than the heathens because they dared to combine murderous pagan ceremonies with Hebrew religion; they “feared the LORD, yet served their own gods – according to the rituals of the nations from among whom they were carried away” (2 Kgs. 17:33).