The Fire of the Lord

This week we resume reading at the end of Ezekiel 20, since chapter breaks are human, not necessarily divine. Ezekiel proclaimed a prophecy toward Israel’s south, identified by Baker as the general region of the Negev. We’ve seen in previous readings how God used multiple words to express similar concepts and add emphasis.

Read Ezekiel 20:45-49.

• God instructed Ezekiel to preach and prophesy against the south.
• God emphasized the fire of the Lord that would consume Israel with at least seven words that relate to burning and flames.
• God would set fire to those people and consume them.
• No one would be able to quench the blazing flame.
• The burning fire was a “metaphor for God’s coming judgments” and destruction “with military might under the symbol of a flame.”¹
• In other words, fire here is active, literal, and symbolic.

Isaiah wrote years before Ezekiel about the fire of the Lord,

• See, the Name of the Lord comes from afar, with burning anger and dense clouds of smoke; his lips are full of wrath, and his tongue is a consuming fire (Isaiah 30:27).
• Ezekiel recorded God’s variation on the theme: Everyone will see that I the Lord have kindled it.
• The people thought Ezekiel was speaking in proverbs and parables; stories that didn’t really happen used to make a point.

1. Why do you think God reworded His theme here?
2. Why might the people have believed Ezekiel spoke only in parables?
3. What is your impression and understanding of the fire of the Lord as described in Scripture?

Read Ezekiel 21:2-4

• God told Ezekiel to preach not only against the people, but also against the holy, sacred place.
• God told Ezekiel to set his face against Jerusalem to preach against the sanctuary. Earlier in Ezekiel, we read the Lord departed His temple because Israel defiled it with detestable practices.
• The Lord would use His sword to cut off the righteous as well as the wicked.
• The word for “draw” is the same word Ezekiel used to write about captivity and Israel going forth into exile.²
• The word Ezekiel used for “cut off” was sometimes used in the context of a covenant.³

God declared again the righteous would be caught in judgment.

• “For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: How much worse will it be when I send against Jerusalem my four dreadful judgments—sword and famine and wild beasts and plague—to kill its men and their animals! Yet there will be some survivors—sons and daughters who will be brought out of it. They will come to you, and when you see their conduct and their actions, you will be consoled regarding the disaster I have brought on Jerusalem—every disaster I have brought on it” (Ezekiel 14:21-22).

4. Why do you think the Lord included the righteous in His judgments against Israel?
5. How do you interpret Ezekiel’s use of the same word for God’s drawn sword and Israel’s exile and captivity?

Read Ezekiel 21:5.

• Not only would God’s people know that He is the Lord, but everyone would know He is Sovereign Lord over all.
• Then all people will know that I the Lord have done this.

God’s recurring theme in Ezekiel is to bring glory to Himself.

• “God’s goal is His own glory, and God’s glory is God Himself. He wants and intends to magnify His great name.”⁴
• For from Him and through Him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen. (Romans 11:36)

6. How does this passage demonstrate to all nations that God is the Sovereign Lord of all?
7. How do we participate in God’s purposes to bring glory to Himself?
   

Read Ezekiel 21:6-7.

• God instructed Ezekiel to mourn and grieve with his fellow Israelites.
• Again in these verses we read multiple words to emphasize a single concept: Ezekiel’s grief over God’s judgment.
• His grief would be extreme, bitter, evidenced by a wounded spirit, strife, and grave disappointment due to the coming defeat of Jerusalem.⁵
• “God’s righteous prophets groan over the rebellion of God’s people.”⁶
• Ezekiel’s broken heart was “used in reference to the coming exile, in which it would seem as if Israel had been cut off from the covenant of God, although God, being faithful and true, would provide a remnant or a branch of David. It was also used as the reason for distress and sorrow. … God would give the Israelites over to those they hated.”⁷
• Their hearts would melt, which might remind readers of the previous emphasis on the fire of the Lord.
• God used the imagery of fire to refer to His divine Presence, purification, judgment, and sacrifice.
• Their strength and courage would completely fail them.
• Know this will indeed happen, said the Lord.

8. How does God’s refining fire melt and break down our stubborn hearts?
9. Why is it significant that the Lord declared this “will surely take place?”

There’s a lot in chapter 21, so even the first half I had to separate into two parts! We’ll continue reading next week. Meanwhile, I found a great word study rabbit trail I’d like to explore separately through Ezekiel. Look for it as a devotion whenever I’m able to study and write it.

1. Warren Baker, D.R.E., Eugene Carpenter, Ph.D. The Complete WordStudy Dictionary: Old Testament. (Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2003) 1144
2. Ibid., 462
3. Ibid., 528
4. Edmund T. Welch. “Who Are We? Needs, Longings, and the Image of God in Man.” The Journal of Biblical Counseling. Vol. 13 Number 1 Fall 1994. 31
5. Baker, 670
6. Ibid., 76
7. Ibid., 1098