Sermon Tone Analysis

Summary

The words of Ezekiel 14-15 were addressed to Jewish elders in Babylon who had come to Ezekiel for a word from the Lord.

Knowing they were still idol worshippers in their hearts, God refused to give them comfort.

Instead he lowered the boom: Jerusalem’s judgment was certain.

God’s case is presented in language drawn from Leviticus 26, which had foreshadowed Israel’s apostasy and expulsion from the land.

This meeting focuses on this vocabulary and a special interpretive problem of Ezekiel 14.

We will hit this interpretive problem next week.

Introduction\Spiritual Adultery

All right.

Ezekiel 14 and 15 today; two chapters.

Most of this is going to be chapter 14 because 15 is a really, really short chapter.

That's why we're going to group it in with this one, because 16 is a longer chapter.

We're going to be parking in different places [in chapter 16].

Again, that's the one that has a lot of the explicit language in it.

And for good reason.

People are probably familiar with the whole idea (like in the book of James) where spiritual adultery is compared with physical/sexual adultery, marital adultery.

That comes from somewhere.

That metaphor is very much a part of the Old Testament, and it never gets more detailed and explicit than in Ezekiel 16.

That's where we're going to be headed after this, so we're going to gobble up these two chapters and it will be our episode for the day.

But most of all, what we'll do here is chapter 14 just because of the length.

Now if you recall from the last episode, chapters 12 through 24 sort of constitute its own section.

Specifically, that section is about having to address objections and denials.

We had sort of a mix last time—a few more sign acts and then Ezekiel started to be directed by God to address some of the things that were being thrown at him or lies that were being told to the people that should have been listening to Ezekiel.

We're going to get more of that here in chapter 14.

As far as the immediate context, here's a short quotation from Taylor's commentary.

He writes:

These words were addressed to a particular group of elders who were sitting at Ezekiel’s feet (cf.

8:1; 20:1).

They had come presumably in the hope of hearing some oracle about the length of their exile or giving news of affairs at home in Jerusalem.

The oracle was given, but it was not what they expected.

Or, of course, what they wanted.

So in this chapter here (14), our attention is going to again be focused on what's happening in Babylon, as far as the exile.

We saw that last time, where Ezekiel was supposed to get his baggage together as into exile in the sight of everyone, then dig through the wall of his house in the sight of everyone.

Both audiences are in view: what's going on in Babylon and what's going on in Jerusalem, as far as the impending doom.

But the focus here is a little bit more on some of the problems that are arising right where Ezekiel is at.

And so that's why chapter 14 begins the way it does.

In verse 1 here, this is what Taylor is referring to:

So it's very localized.

Now Block also makes the observation of this whole chapter that there's a lot of vocabulary (we're not going to drill down in all the places we could drill down as far as the Hebrew words here)… Block notes that there are a lot of lemmas, or vocabulary, in this chapter that comes from the Holiness Code.

If you remember back to our series in Leviticus, the Holiness Code was Leviticus 17 through 26.

So this chapter (Ezekiel 14) is going to have links back to that stuff.

And that's because what's in view here is Ezekiel Instead of offering encouragement, Block writes:

Instead of offering encouragement, Ezekiel calls on the entire nation to repent of their syncretistic religious commitments or face the certain judgment of the covenant Lord.

[ Because the covenant with Yahweh has been violated.]

Yahweh has a capital case against them, and his judgment is sure.

So if you remember back to Leviticus, especially Leviticus 26, we had all these ideas about the way God wants people to live.

A lot of that was associated with not being an idolater, not being a pagan, not being someone who worships other gods.

And then chapter 26 was sort of this climax in Leviticus where, "If you do these things, I'm going to be your God, you will be my people, and life will be wonderful.

But if you don't, (God was very clear) I will drive you from this land."

And that's why Ezekiel is connecting back into Leviticus—the Holiness Code, and in particular, we're going to see a few places where Leviticus 26 again comes into view.

And that's because Ezekiel is living in the circumstances that Leviticus 26 described.

The people have gone off into idolatry.

They are apostate.

And they have been (and will be even more) driven from the land.

So that whole idea is going to be very clear in Ezekiel 14.

It would be especially clear to leadership—especially spiritual leadership—who you would think would have more familiarity with the Torah than the average Israelite.

And, of course, Leviticus is part of that, and the Holiness Code.

So let's jump into the passage.

We've already read verse 1, but we'll read it again.

Ezekiel 14 : 1-5

Let's just stop there with the first five verses.

This idea of taking idols into their hearts and setting the stumbling block of their iniquity (in other words, these idols) before their faces.

What these phrases mean is, "Look, you're bowing down to other gods.

You set the idol in front of you.

The only reason you'd do that is to make offerings to it, to worship it.

And when you do that, that tells us where your heart is.

That tells us what you really believe.

That tells God who you are aligning your innermost being with, and it isn't him.

It isn't Yahweh of Israel.

It's other gods."

And so God says, "Really?

They're coming to you..." (He's talking about the elders of Israel coming to Ezekiel and sitting in front of him.)

And God has them pegged.

He's telling Ezekiel, "They're idolaters.

They follow other gods.

So now we get to watch them come to you to consult me about what's going to happen."

And look at what he says:

He says, "If this is what you're doing (you're coming to the prophet), I'll answer you.

I'll answer you with the multitude of your idols.

I'm going to direct your attention back to what you're really doing and who you really worship.

And then what I say to you is going to make sense because what I'm going to say to you is just bad news.

You're not going to get encouragement.

You're not going to get some promise that I'm going to relent.

You're going to get punished.

The people back in Jerusalem are going to get punished, and if you're here in Babylon and you're rejecting even here... You're in exile!

If you still can't get this straight, you're not going to return to the land, you're going to die here."

That's the message that we're going to see in this chapter, Ezekiel 14: 6-11.

Let's pick up with verse 6.

We'll stop there.

That language comes right out of Ezekiel 26.

"Be my people; I will be their God."

So the only way this relationship is going to be restored is to do what is going to happen: to clean the land, clean house.

This is not a comforting, positive message.

Let's just go back and pick up a few things.

We've had this reference to the elders of the house of Israel coming to Ezekiel and sitting before him, and then we get this assessment.

God says, "Yeah, these guys ("these men," verse 3) have taken their idols into their hearts and set the stumbling block of their iniquity before their faces."

God knows instantly what they're really about and who they're really aligned with.

Now this expression, "the stumbling block of their iniquity," is peculiar to Ezekiel.

This is a phrase he uses.

You won't really find it anywhere else.

He uses it in chapter 7, chapter 14 a few times (where we're at here), we're going to see it again in chapter 18, and later on in chapter 44.