Day 228: Ezekiel 4–7 | Read The Bible In A Year | Bible Study with Commentary by Dr. Manny Arango

Hey Bible nerds, this is Dr. Manny Arango. Welcome to the Bible Department podcast powered by ARMA. We are walking through the entire Bible in a year. You can go to the description or thebibledepartment.com to download a reading plan and join the journey. Family, welcome to day 228. We are in Ezekiel chapters 4 through 7 today. I'm super excited because we actually get to get into Ezekiel, the street performer. Ezekiel, like the, the, I don't know, street art dramatist. And that, that's actually fun. He's not the only prophet that does that. I don't know if you can remember, if you're a Bible nerd for real, you can remember that Jeremiah walked 700 miles in dirty underwear, and then he had to bury them. Isaiah is someone who has to walk around naked for a certain amount of time. Hosea has to marry a prostitute. So when we think prophet, don't just think about the words that they say, their lives are a part of the message, right? So Isaiah has to name his son, Mahershala Hashbaz and Mahershala Hashbaz just has to have that name for his whole life because his dad's a prophet and his prophet names him that as a, as obedience to a command of the Lord. And the name of his son is actually part of the prophetic message. So the people you marry, the names of your sons, walking around in dirty underwear, all this is part of the role in the office of a prophet and Ezekiel is no different. So in the first three chapters of Ezekiel, we're going to get visions, right? Visions that Ezekiel has had. We're going to begin to get context for the relationship that Ezekiel has with the Lord. Once we get into chapter four, literally chapter four, verse one, here we go. Now, son of man, take a block of clay, put it in front of you and draw the city of Jerusalem on it. So in chapter four alone, we're going to get multiple actions that Ezekiel has to do. Almost think street performer, think like illustrated sermon times a thousand. Now, before we even get into all the details, let me give you context. Context is actually really simple. We're in 592 BC. That's it. A lot of scholars actually think that Ezekiel is doing these street performances at the same time every single day because there is going to be a point where Ezekiel has to lie on one side of his body for 390 days and then he has to lie on the other side of his body for 40 days. And like, it's just not possible that he lied on his body for 390 days and didn't move. So a lot of scholars think, Hey, Ezekiel's in the town square from three to six. Let's see what he's up to. And actually there's clues that this is true because as you continue to go through the book, there are going to be the people of Israel, the

exiles living in Babylon are definitely going to be like, let's go see what Ezekiel is doing. So there's this sense that Ezekiel's got office hours, but it's street performance hours. And so let's look at a couple of things that Ezekiel is going to do. Okay. That's all our context. And now let's get into our nerdy nuggets. By the way, if you've done the reading, everything's going to make sense. If you haven't done the reading, it's not going to make a lot of sense. So go do the reading before we get into the text. So let's dive in. Ezekiel chapter four, we get three acted parables or street performances that are going to happen. And each one of these has a message connected to it. So the first one is going to be a model of Jerusalem. So chapter four, verse one starts out and Yahweh tells Ezekiel, take a block of clay, put it in front of you and draw the city of Jerusalem on it. So imagine, you know, if you walk into a building or if you walk into a church that's in the middle of like a building project and they've made a model, right? A model of what the new building is going to look like. That's what Ezekiel has to do, but he has to do the entire city of Jerusalem with every building. Verse two says, then lay siege to it, erect siege works against it, build a ramp up to it, set up camps against it and put battering rams around it. Then take an iron pan, place it as an iron wall between you and the city and turn your face towards it. It will be under siege and you shall besiege it. This will be a sign to the people of Israel. All right. So this is where our context is really, really helpful because this is 592 BC, exactly during the time that Ezekiel is building a model of Jerusalem and laying siege to it. Essentially the message that he's trying to communicate is that Jerusalem will fall. Jerusalem is going to get besieged by the Babylonians and the people of Israel are going to lose. People that Ezekiel's talking to are in exile in Babylon, but they all have relatives that are still in Jerusalem. Now, who's prophesying during the same exact time in Jerusalem? You guessed it, Jeremiah is prophesying during this exact same time in Jerusalem. And what is Jeremiah saying? He's saying the exact same thing that Ezekiel's saying. Hey, Jerusalem is gonna fall to the Babylonians. The Babylonians are gonna besiege the city

and the city walls are gonna cave in. Nebuchadnezzar is gonna march in, he's gonna burn Jerusalem to the ground and he's gonna totally level the temple. While Jeremiah is saying these things in Jerusalem, false prophets are rising up and those false prophets are saying, nope, God's glory is in the temple. This city will never fall. Even though we're wicked, even though we're idolatrous, even though we're sinful, we've got the glory of God. They're treating the glory of God with superstition. This is where religion can start to turn into superstition. This is where people begin to believe, yeah, I can live however I want, but as long as I go to church on Sunday, it's almost like God becomes my good luck charm. And so the people are like, nah, as long as we got the temple, we're good. False prophets are then writing letters to the exiles, okay? Very much like everyone who's Ukrainian has family members who live in Russia and vice versa, okay? This is very the same thing. People that live in Jerusalem all have relatives that are in exile in Babylon. So false prophets from Jerusalem are telling the people that are in Babylon, hey, the deportation is not gonna last forever. Exile is not gonna last forever.

Yahweh is gonna bring you guys back. It's all gonna be good. And Ezekiel and Jeremiah are both saying, no. Actually, I got a vision from the Lord. He told me to build a model of Jerusalem. He told me to lay siege to it and destroy it because this ain't gonna be over soon. The every prophet who's prophesying that it's all gonna turn around for good. It's gonna be okay. They are not actually hearing from God, but it is the people who are unpopular who are actually prophesying doom, disaster and destruction who are indeed hearing from the Lord. We get context for this in Jeremiah chapter 29 because Jeremiah chapter 29, Jeremiah who's living in Jerusalem writes a letter to the exiles who are in Babylon. And what does he tell them? He says, plant gardens, build houses, marry off your children, plant, like actually dig roots in the city because you ain't coming home no time soon. Enough with the optimism that's not actually from God. God is going to judge you and chastise you and discipline you because of your idolatry. So that's the first kind of street performance that Ezekiel has to do. He has to build a big, huge model of Jerusalem in the quarters, in the refugee camp

that the exiles are living in. And then he has to lay siege to it and destroy it. Second, he has to spend 390 days on one side of his body and then 40 days on the other side of his body. And honestly, I don't say this a lot but in these episodes, this is a total mystery. Nobody really knows what the 390 days correlate to or what the 40 days correlate to. It is a total mystery. Scholars are duped and stumped. And I've got tons of commentaries in here and I've tried my hardest to try to figure out what do these 390 days signify and what do these 40 days signify? And honestly, it's pretty difficult and nobody has a conclusive answer. All right, next. Okay, this is funny. I almost stopped at Trader Joe's and got some Ezekiel bread because Ezekiel bread is based on Ezekiel chapter four. Okay, here's the irony. The irony about the bread that Ezekiel has to make and eat. So Ezekiel's got to make and eat this bread. It's funny that you can actually buy this stuff in grocery stores today because it's advertised as being like healthy, whole grain, biblically based bread. But that misses the entire point of the prophetic act of the street performance. That misses the whole point.

The act is meant to be one of suffering and hardship. So the siege, laying on one side, then laying on the other side. And in the book of Ezekiel, he has to cook this bread over a pile of dung. Okay, so he has to cook the bread over poop. We're not doing that at Trader Joe's. Okay, so I mean, this is great marketing. They're getting everybody to buy this Ezekiel bread, but it's fascinating because the actual Ezekiel bread from the Bible is cooked over poop. Anywho, the bread is made from the scraps of stuff that's left over. It is a, we haven't got time to prepare real bread. So throw everything. together just to make food. That's the kind of bread this is. This isn't a beneficial healthy meal or a beneficial healthy bread. It's bread made in haste in terrible conditions when you only have tiny scraps of different food left in your house. It's the kind of bread that refugees eat and a refugee can't. That is what Ezekiel is symbolizing. He's saying buckle up because we're going to be in exile for a long time and we're going to be suffering for a long time. Now what do we know from history that Ezekiel is prophesying in 592 BC? Well guess what's going to happen in 586 BC? Everything that Ezekiel and Jeremiah for that part for that you know Jeremiah and Ezekiel everything that they're prophesying is actually going to happen right around 586 BC. Nebuchadnezzar is going to march into Jerusalem and he's going to do all of the things that Ezekiel is saying would happen but because he doesn't have good news or optimistic news nobody wants to hear what he has to say. That kind of wraps up Ezekiel chapter 4. Ezekiel chapter 5 he's got a shave with a sword that's fascinating. So Ezekiel again imagine street performer okay so he's built this model city he's torn it down he's gone out there and laid on one side probably for a couple hours every day for 390 days and then for 40 days and then he's baked this bread made from scraps but he's baking it over over human feces which is absolutely disgusting

and all of these things are to symbolize just how bad the suffering is going to be and how upset Yahweh is at the idolatry of his people that this is how he has to punish them and now he's got a shave with a sword this is another street performance and this time Ezekiel is told to shave his beard and his head with a sword he burns a third of the hair in the model city in Jerusalem he chops up another third with the sword and then scatters the final third to the winds so he takes a third of the hair burns it up takes another third of the hair and chops it up with a sword takes another third of the hair and scatters it in the wind what does that symbolize these represent the people who are gonna die as Jerusalem is burned okay that's the first third the second third represent the people of Israel who will die by the sword and the third represent the people who would get exiled to the four winds of the earth the sword is dramatic but it would give the impression of war and destruction and violence to his audience the people are already in exile and they just do not believe they don't believe that things are going to get worse that it's almost like a child who doesn't believe their parent is probably going to beat them they don't believe that punishment is actually real and Yahweh is sending people like Ezekiel and Jeremiah to tell the people actually the best thing you could do is surrender to Babylon don't fight back don't rebel Babylon is God's instrument of discipline to chastise you because God disciplines those he loves and so yes exile is difficult yes the season that we're in is very hard but it's gonna get worse and it's because God is disciplining us because of our idolatry and because of our injustice okay Ezekiel chapter 6 Ezekiel is going to have to prophesy to the land of Israel itself and here he specifically speaks to the mountains of Israel uh if you're not familiar with the Bible you could kind of be wondering why is he prophesying to mountains this is speaking about the high places that existed on those mountains places of worship where the people had either worshiped Yahweh against his wishes because remember the only place you can worship Yahweh is the temple so there are people who are going we don't want to go all the way to the temple we want to worship wherever we want to worship because idolatry is not just worshiping the wrong God but it's worshiping God the way you want to worship God and please don't get me started on this because a whole bunch of people who are like but this is my favorite song and it's like ah yeah or my favorite worship leader is not leading worship so i couldn't get into the presence oh okay got it so worship is about you you made it about you so that's idolatry Ezekiel is saying uh so he's prophesying against the mountains uh not only were people worshiping

on the mountains uh because they wanted to worship Yahweh their own way they were also worshiping on the mountains because they were worshiping pagan gods and goddesses deities like El, Asherah, Baal, Asherah, Ishtar and others these places had been banned but kept on returning in fact in kings the kings of judah are graded uh if you've been like walking through the bible with us for a long time On time, you can remember back in 1st and 2nd Kings, every single king gets a grade on whether they were evil, good, or very good. If they were evil, that means they set up high places on the mountains to worship foreign gods. If they were good, that means that they didn't get rid of the high places, but they didn't use the high places. And if they were very good kings, that means they destroyed the high places. Josiah had been one of those who destroyed the high places. Remember the last five kings of Judah, Josiah, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah. Josiah leads a massive revival with tons of reform, and he had been one of those very good kings that got rid of the high places. But after his death, it appears that all the high places returned. And we'll get back into that when we get into our timeless truth at the end of the episode. Family, the wait is over. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos is out now and available everywhere books are sold.

Literally today, I walked into a Barnes and Noble and I signed a bunch of copies at a physical location. So you can grab this book at a physical Barnes and Noble, or you can go to a Books A Million, or Amazon, or anywhere books are sold and grab a copy. If you enjoy reading the Bible from an ancient perspective, if you understand that the beauty of scripture is actually knowing it in context, then you'll love this book. And if there's any chaos in your personal life, I think that reading the Bible from an ancient perspective can actually help to crush the chaos in your life. I think this book is gonna be a New York Times bestseller. I really do. I think we wrote a good one. I think you should get a copy today. All right, back to the episode. Now let's go to Ezekiel chapter seven. Trying to give you a nerdy nugget for every single chapter. Ezekiel chapter seven, Ezekiel is gonna declare and prophesy the end of Jerusalem. This section ends with a clear message. The end is coming for Jerusalem. Yahweh's face would turn away from his home and so it would fall. This would be expanded in the next great vision that Ezekiel sees. And we'll probably get into that maybe tomorrow's episode or the day after that. Because Ezekiel chapter one

kind of leaves with a cliffhanger because Ezekiel is wondering, wait a second, why am I seeing the glory of the Lord here in Babylon? The glory of the Lord belongs in the temple in Jerusalem. But what we are gonna see once we get to like Ezekiel chapter eight, nine, 10 and 11 is that the glory of God left the temple in Jerusalem because Yahweh could not stand the idolatry of his people any longer. And so he leaves the group chat and his glory leaves Jerusalem and actually goes out into Babylon with his people who are in exile. But more on that probably tomorrow or even the next day. All right, so just to recap, Ezekiel chapter four, we're gonna get three acted parables. Think street performances. These parables, the first is a model of Jerusalem. The second is laying on 390 days on one side, four days on the other side. And the third is the bread that we have now branded as Ezekiel's bread is that Trader Joe's. Ezekiel chapter five is about shaving with the sword. A third of the hair is gonna be burned. A third of the hair is gonna get scattered to the wind. And a third of the hair is gonna get cut up with the sword representing the fate of the people who refuse to repent.

Ezekiel chapter six, Ezekiel is gonna prophesy against the mountains, against the high places, against the places where the people have been unfaithful to Yahweh and worshiped other gods. And then Ezekiel chapter seven is a prophecy concerning the end of Jerusalem. And what is our Talmud's truth for the day? Is I wanna give you this phrase, complete repentance and total victory. That in the New Testament, we actually get this teaching from Jesus pretty clearly. He says, if a house is wiped clean, let's say somebody's possessed by a demonic spirit, they receive an exorcism and the spirit leaves them. That demon goes off into arid places and then thinks to themselves, oh, let me go back to the house that I just came from. And if that person hasn't replaced the demonic spirit with something else, then that spirit will come back to the house, find it empty and take up residence in that person again. And you can see this exact same principle find its way in the Old Testament because these high places of idolatry, the people of Israel built these Asherah poles in these. monuments to Baal up on the mountains all over Israel. And Josiah the king comes through and he completely demolishes all of it, but he didn't replace it with proper worship. And the key is not just getting rid of idols, but replacing those idols with something positive, something godly,

something healthy, something good. And so, so many people, they focus on removal, but not replacing. And if you don't actually replace, what happens is that idolatrous spirit or that demonic spirit comes back to your home and it sees it empty and it takes up residence again. And what does Jesus say in the New Testament? The condition of the person is worse after they receive deliverance than they were before. This is exactly true. After Josiah, idolatry skyrockets in Jerusalem. How is it that idolatry could skyrocket after you had a king who totally removed all the idolatry? It's because the people didn't focus on complete repentance and total victory. Complete repentance and total victory is centered around not just removing that which is bad, but replacing that which is negative with something that is godly and good and positive. And so maybe you're in a process in your own life right now where you're removing certain things from your life. Can I help you? Don't just remove things from your life. Replace. This is true with habits. Don't just remove bad habits. Replace bad habits with godly habits and godly disciplines. Paul gives this exact same encouragement in the New Testament. He says, all of you who used to steal with your hands, I want you to go get jobs with your hands and do something positive with your hands. All those of you who used to gossip with your mouth, don't just stop gossiping. Start evangelizing with that same mouth. Don't just remove the idols. Replace idols with something that's active. Don't just play defense. Actually play offense. Put some points on the board. That's not just true for the people of Ezekiel's day. That is true for you. That's true for me. That is our timeless truth for the day. All right, tomorrow we got day 229. We're going to be in Ezekiel chapters 8, 9, 10, and 11. I'm actually really excited because we are going to see the glory of God depart from the temple and go off and meet his people in exile. I can't wait to see you right here as we continue our trek through the book of Ezekiel. If you're on a streak, I'm proud of you. Even if you're not on a streak, I love you. So glad that we're doing this together. I'll see you right here tomorrow. Love you. Peace. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department podcast. If this episode was helpful, how about you leave a comment, share with a friend, and subscribe so that you never miss an episode. To learn more about the show, head to thebibledepartment.com. We'll see you right back here tomorrow.