More cheerful words from Ezekiel, with a focus on God, His character, and His Word. 
“Then my anger will cease and my wrath against them will subside, and I will be avenged. And when I have spent my wrath on them, they will know that I the Lord have spoken in my zeal” (Ezekiel 5:13-14).
- God declared Israel’s punishment was sufficient to fulfill His anger and wrath.
- When God has finished pouring out His wrath on Israel, He will be “comforted;” He will have taken revenge for Himself.1
- Ezekiel reminded his readers why he wrote God’s message.
“…they will know that I the Lord have spoken …”
- The Lord is I AM, the existence and complete essence of God.2
- The meaning of the word Ezekiel wrote as “know” includes also to perceive or experience.3
- Through all the events Ezekiel described, his readers would experience God in some way. ~
- God spoke out of not only zeal, but also jealousy.4 Both are true of God.
- God’s people belong to Him. He is jealous for them.
- God enthusiastically loves and fights for His people. He is passionate about and for them.
*When have you observed God’s jealousy and passion for His people?
*When have you experienced God in a way that helped you come to know Him better?
- In this chapter, God showed His character through His jealous and justified wrath.
- He also displays His character through His Word and deeds.
“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
“I will remember the deeds of the Lord;
yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.
I will consider all your works
and meditate on all your mighty deeds.
Your ways, God, are holy.
What god is as great as our God?
You are the God who performs miracles;
you display your power among the peoples”
(Psalm 77:11-14).
*What do we learn about God’s character from His actions?
*What do we learn about God’s character from His Word?
“I will make you a ruin and a reproach among the nations around you, in the sight of all who pass by. You will be a reproach and a taunt, a warning and an object of horror to the nations around you when I inflict punishment on you in anger and in wrath and with stinging rebuke. I the Lord have spoken. When I shoot at you with my deadly and destructive arrows of famine, I will shoot to destroy you. I will bring more and more famine upon you and cut off your supply of food. I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will leave you childless. Plague and bloodshed will sweep through you, and I will bring the sword against you. I the Lord have spoken” (Ezekiel 5:14-17).
- God wasn’t quite finished judging Israel.
- As a result of God’s punishment on them, Israel experienced consequences.
- And, it sounds as if God would rebuke and inflict wrath on Israel again.
- God’s judgment would ruin them.5
- The nations would scorn, taunt, and insult Israel.
- Israel’s strict discipline from God was intended not only to warn other nations, but also to instruct them.
- The “horror” other nations would see was Israel’s desolation and desertion by their God.6
- God’s “stinging rebuke” was intended to correct Israel’s wrong.7
- God would shoot his deadly arrows with purpose and aim to destroy Israel.
- To the previous judgments, God would add more famine, wild beasts, plague, and more bloodshed.
- Ezekiel wrote more than once about these particular judgments together (Ezekiel 14:15, 21; 16:41; 33:27)8
- In His jealousy and grief over losing His children, God would in turn leave them childless. (Amos wrote of spiritual famine, cutting off from the Word of God.)9
- Their punishment for sin would be harsh and sorrowful.
- God understood their sorrow should they choose to turn back to Him.
“‘Even now,’ declares the Lord, ‘return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.’ Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity” (Joel 2:12-13).
“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!… All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure… No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God” (1 John 3:1, 3, 9).
- God’s wrath upon them included literal famine.10
- God would completely accomplish His active punishment of Israel.
*What consequences did Israel experience as a result of sin?
*What consequences might we experience if we continue in sin?
*What do we learn about God from Israel’s punishments and judgment for sin?
Is there any hope in these verses?
- Three times, God said,
- “I the Lord have spoken.”
- If we have any doubt that God speaks, we need only read His Word.
“For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).
“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16).
- We have warnings from Israel’s history.
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4).
“‘Before me no god was formed,
nor will there be one after me.
I, even I, am the Lord,
and apart from me there is no savior.
I have revealed and saved and proclaimed—
I, and not some foreign god among you.
You are my witnesses,’ declares the Lord, ‘that I am God’” Isaiah 43:10b-12).
- God speaks through His Word even more now.
- We have the living Word, Jesus, to guide our steps each day.
*How does God speak to us through these verses in His Word?
- Warren Baker, D.R.E., Eugene Carpenter, Ph.D. The Complete WordStudy Dictionary: Old Testament. (Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2003). 723
- Ibid., 426
- Ibid., 420
- Ibid., 1000
- Ibid., 375
- Ibid., 685
- Ibid., 1217
- Ibid., 331, 1187
- Ibid., 1138
- Ibid., 1064