CHAPTER 1
1. Now it came about in the thirtieth year, on the fifth day of the fourth month, as I was among the exiles on the River K’var: the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of Elohim.
Thirtieth year: the age at which Y’hezq’el, as a priest (v. 3), would have begun his service in the Temple (Numbers 4:3), had he not been taken into exile and the Temple destroyed in the same month six years later. He would, however, have undoubtedly begun his priestly training there five years before he was taken to Babylon, as this began at age 20. So, since he was thus dedicated to YHWH by virtue of his birth, YHWH gave him a different task—that of prophesying about the Temple(s) to come after his time. He lived at least 22 years after he began prophesying, meaning he lived out his full term of priestly duty, which would end 20 years after this.
2. On the fifth of the month (it was the fifth year of the exile of King Yoyakhin),
Yoyakhin: A shortened version of Yehoyakhin, whose name means “YHWH establishes”. (See introduction.) He was an evil king, but was not killed by Nevukhadnetzar, but only imprisoned in Bavel. After 37 years (32 years after this account begins), he was released and treated as soon as Nevukhadnetzar’s son, Ewil-M’rodakh, succeeded him to the throne. (2 Kings 25:27ff) The historian Josephus says Yehoyakhin was treated thus because Nevukhadnetzar had not kept his promise to spare Yehudah from siege and destruction if he voluntarily surrendered.
3. the Word of YHWH came [directly] to Y’hezq’el the son of Buzi the priest, in the land of [the] Khasdim on the River K’var, and the hand of YHWH was upon him there.
Buzi means “my contempt or disrespect”. It is possible that this was not actually his father’s name, but that it was Y’hezq’el’s own epithet for the priesthood as a whole, which had let both YHWH and the people down by failing to teach the Torah and thus allowing Yehudah to arrive at the brink of destruction. He therefore feels like he is from a corrupt and defiled house. Khasdim: the Chaldeans. K’var: a river near which many Jewish exiles settled, perhaps alluded to in Psalm 137:1. It is apparently the royal river known to the Babylonians as Khabor. Its name means “far off”, from a word meaning “a great length or stretch”, “long ago”, “a long time”, or “already”, highlighting the duration of the exile and the distance from the homeland of Yehudah. It also allows this prophecy to include us, who “far down the road” are still in exile nearly 2,600 years later. Chapter 2 bears this out. Y’hezq’el lived in the town of Tel-aviv (not the same as the modern metropolis in Israel), but bearing the same hope, for its name means, in essence, new life springing forth from the ruins of a destroyed city.
4. Now as I perceived, lo and behold, a storm-wind came out of the north—a huge cloud and a fire folding in on itself, and it had a shininess to it all around and [coming] from within it, seeming like amber [in appearance] from within the fire.
North: or, hidden place. This is a scene that has not been seen for a long time, but was seen once before at Mt. Sinai. (See Ex. 20:19.) The cloud and fire allude to YHWH’s presence, especially as embodied in the pillar of cloud and fire that led the camp of Israel through the wilderness. This sets the stage for interpreting this seemingly-elusive passage. While there are deep mystical interpretations that have some validity, why doe we need a blueprint if we are already in the building? Folding in: or, flashing about. Amber: or electrum, or possibly polished metal.
5. Also from within her [came] something resembling four living [creatures], and this is what they looked like: they had a human form,
Human form: or, the likeness of Adam. The overall appearance was of a unified man. These four living creatures show up again in Revelation chapter 4.
6. but [each] one had four faces, and [each] one had four wings,
Faces: This word is always plural in Hebrew, because one’s face is always changing; everyone has at least two! Four wings: or, four corners (of a garment), the place where the tzitziyoth are hung. (Num. 15:38-39). So on one level these beings are dressed like men in regulation Israelite clothing according to Torah. (Compare v. 8.)
7. and their legs were a leg of straightness, and [the soles of] their feet were like the foot of a calf, and they sparkled like the appearance of polished brass.
Straightness: or uprightness, from the same Hebrew word as Yeshurun, the name by which YHWH calls Israel when all the tribes are assembled in unity. (Deut. 33:5) Polished: literally, lightened, i.e., made less weighty.
8. Human hands [came] from under their wings on their four quadrants, and their faces and their wings [belonged] to the four of them.
9. Their wings joined each one to her sister. They do not change direction when they move; each proceeds toward [what is directly] across from its face.
Each one to her sister: literally, “a woman to her sister”—the same phrase for the coupling of the curtains in the Tabernacle. (Ex. 26:3) The wings of the kh’ruvim atop the ark of the Covenant also joined in the same way.
10. Their faces resembled a human face, the face of a lion to the right side for the four of them, and the face of a bull on the left side for the four of them, and [all] four of them had the face of an eagle.
Human face: literally, the face of Adam. He walked with YHWH as His companion, and was the priest before YHWH for the whole earth until his fall. Lion: symbol of royalty. Bull: or ox; chapter 10 substitutes a kh’ruv (an angelic being) in this position; the account in Revelation 4 calls it a calf. It is symbolic of strength, accomplishment, and service. And the eagle is often seen in Scripture as dwelling in an invulnerable place and providing refuge to her young. Some scholars see in this a parallel of the four biographers’ descriptions of Y’shua—as the Lion of the Tribe of Yehudah (the King of Israel, as emphasized by Matithyahu), the suffering servant of Yeshayahu (as emphasized by Mark), the “Son of Man” (a term YHWH often uses for Y’hezq’el himself, as emphasized by the account by Lukas, who incidentally was a physician), and the one from above who overcomes natural limits (as emphasized by Yochanan, by far the most mystical of the accounts) and who will descend on his prey by surprise (Yirm. 49:22). But also, by tradition, the banners of the four camps of Israel (consisting of three tribes and a counterpart from the Levites) each held one of these four as the insignia on its banner. It is easy to see that the lion would correspond with Yehudah (Gen. 49:9). Efrayim is called a heifer, and ay easily be correlated with the bull. Re’uven means “look, a son”, and would thus probably parallel the human face, and that leaves Dan as the last, corresponding to the eagle. Dan is also called a lion’s whelp like Yehudah, and is by tradition the tribe from which the counterfeit Messiah, Armilus, will descend. The eagle is called an abomination in Lev. 11:13, and the counterfeit Messiah’s image is called the “abomination of desolation” (Dan. 12:11). Indeed, it is the “eagle” aspect of the true Messiah that confused many and set the stage for His being set up as an idol Himself rather than being subordinate to the Father as He so often said He was. Since Moshe was told to set up the camp of Israel around the Tabernacle according to the pattern he had seen when on Mt. Sinai (Ex. 25:9), it stands to reason that what Y’hezq’el sees in the heavenlies should bear the same imagery.
11. Both their faces and their wings extended upward. Each had two [wings that] united with one another, and two [wings] concealing their bodies.
Concealing their bodies: or, covering their backs. It appears from chapter 10, where they are seen in the context of the Temple, that these creatures are kh’ruvim, which are special guardians of what is holy (set apart, see Gen. 3:24; Ex. 25:18; 26:1; 1 Shmu’el 4:4). But the s’rafim (“burning ones”) in Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 6:2 and the living creatures in Revelation 4 have six wings. This verse can be read in that way as well if the wings in the first sentence are different from those in the second.
12. And each proceeds toward [what is directly] across from its face, and they go toward wherever there is the wind to go, but they do not change direction when they move.
Proceeds: literally, walks. Wind: or spirit. Being led by the Spirit, as the camp of Israel followed the cloud, they have no need to repent and change direction. The s’rafim of Yeshayahu 6 cover their faces. Perhaps these wings acted like the blinders used on a horse that keep it focused only on the path it is called to follow—“looking neither to the right nor the left”. (Compare 2 Chron. 34:2; Prov. 4:24ff.) It appears they would go in the direction one of the faces was looking, and which direction depends on what is in season according to the “four winds from the four ends of the heaven” (37:9; Yirmeyahu 49:36; Daniel 7:2 et al). Each is magnified in a different season, as there is a time for everything to be a delight to heaven. (Eccles. 3) What is forward to one face seems backward to another, unless we have the perspective of all four. One day mercy is the right tool for the job, while on another day, judgment will best accomplish YHWH’s will. If we put our hands to the plow and look back, we cannot till a straight furrow. We need to focus on the path YHWH is putting in front of us today rather than what it may be tomorrow. Today the prevailing wind is the Spirit of Eliyahu—the restoration of all things. (Mat. 17:11) If we follow this, we will walk straightly (v. 7).
13. Now to describe the living [creatures], their appearance was like burning coals of fire, resembling [something] like torches. It [kept] moving about between the living [creatures] and brightening the fire, and lightning proceeded from the fire.
14. And the living [creatures] rush and return like the resemblance of a flash [of lightning].
15. When I was watching the living [creatures], lo and behold, [there was] one [chariot] wheel on the land beside the living [creatures] for the four of its faces.
Though the term “chariot” as such never appears in Y’hezq’el in a figurative sense, Ecclesiasticus 49:8 describes Y’hezq’el’s visions as “the chariots of the kh’ruvim”. “Chariot mysticism”, a theosophical sect, considers this passage the key to all the mysteries of creation. But it can be understood on a much more down-to-earth level. The Hebraic calendar is one of cycles more than it is linear. The three pilgrimage festivals are called “three feet” in Ex. 23:14. The Hebrew word for the sacred festivals actually means “to dance in a circle”. The kh’ruvim keep us out of the Garden of Eden with fiery swords, but it is also time that keeps the Garden (the Kingdom) hidden from us at present. Thus these living creatures and the wheel of time are indeed counterparts. The only way to get back to the Garden is to “fight fire with fire” by getting onto the cycle of YHWH’s calendar, acting when it says to act, and following it out to its fulfillment.
16. The appearance of the wheels and their form resembled a [precious stone from] Tarshish, and the four of them had one [and the same] fashion, and their constitution appeared as if the wheel would be inside the [other] wheel.
Form: workmanship, structure, framework, makeup. Tarshish stone: often thought to be a beryl, but possibly chrysolite, jasper, or another yellow-colored stone. Wheel inside the other wheel: The Sabbath cycle is a wheel within the annual cycle of festival seasons. But also, while the civil year began at creation on Yom T’ruah (also known as Rosh haShanah, the “beginning of the year”), YHWH said that for Israel, the year would begin at the new moon preceding Passover. (Ex. 12:2) But there are indeed parallels between the two cycles. On the tenth of the Israelite calendar, the lamb is selected for inspection; on the tenth day of the creation calendar, we search our own souls to find out where we need to repent. On the fifteenth day of each, a seven-day festival (actually including an eighth day tacked onto one end or the other) begins.
17. When they moved, they went on the four of their quadrants; they do not change direction when they move
18. And their rims were so high that they were frightening to them, and the rims belonging to the four of them were full of eyes all around.
These wheels ringed with eyes appear in the Revelation 4 account as well. They seem far removed from our everyday thoughts, but the Word of YHWH is not beyond our reach. (Deut. 30:11-16) The interpretation of these visions does not need to be sensational. The eyes may simply mean there is something to see no matter where we are on the calendar. The calendar cycle came from the Torah, which rested beneath the wings of the earthly representations of these kh’ruvim. All the things YHWH gave us to do on earth were meant to teach us about the Kingdom, and we learn about each aspect of the Kingdom best when it is in season.
19. When the living [creatures] moved, the wheels moved beside them, and when the living [creatures] lifted up from upon the land, the wheels were lifted up [as well].
They move in perfect harmony, operating as one unit like a school of fish.
20. On whichever there would be a wind to move, [that is] where they went; the wind to move and the wheels were lifted up corresponding to them, because the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.
21. When [the first] moved, [the others] moved; when [the former] stood still, [the latter] stood still, and when they were lifted up from upon the land, the wheels were lifted up along with them, because the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.
22. And what the expanse above the heads of the living creature resembled was the awesome crystalline ice, spread out over their heads from above,
23. and below the expanse their wings were level, each [straight] toward her sister; each had two forming a [protective] covering this [side], and each had two forming a covering on that [side] of the bodies.
24. And I began to hear the sound of their wings; [it was] like the sound of many waters—like the voice of Shaddai! When they moved, the roaring sound was like the noise of an [army] encampment; when they stopped, they let their wings relax.
Roaring: or, rushing. Relax: or, drop.
25. Then there was a sound from above the expanse that was over their heads when they stood still and let their wings relax.
26. And upward from the expanse that was above their heads, like the appearance of a sapphire stone, was something resembling a throne, and on the thing that looked like a throne was [one that] resembled a man when viewed from above.
A man: Heb., Adam. Appearance…resembled…looked like: all terminology of comparison and allegory, not literal physical entities, though they are very real.
27. Then I began to see what seemed like amber [in appearance], looking like fire [making] a house for it on every side from what appeared to be His hips upward, and from what appeared to be His hips downward, I perceived what looked like fire, with brightness all around Him.
A house for it: literally, a house for her. This reminds us of the Messiah’s betrothal statement that He was going to prepare a place to which He would bring us back—the very same imagery used in the ancient Hebrew weddings. YHWH’s bride is called the New Yerushalayim (Rev. 21;5), around which YHWH Himself will be a wall of fire. (Z’kharyah 2:5)
28. As the bow that typically appears in the cloud on a rainy day, that is what the brightness all around [Him] looked like. This is what the resemblance of YHWH’s splendor looked like. When I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard a voice speak:
A rainbow is refracted light—the same imagery used in Hebrew mysticism of the image of YHWH in man that was shattered at Adam’s sin, and which Y’shua is restoring through us. (Compare Rev. 4:3)The resemblance of YHWH’s splendor: though it is not worded in exactly the same way in the LXX, Hebrews 1:3 appears to be an allusion to this through synonymous terms: “He (Y’shua) being the radiance of His splendor and the express image of His essence”—since no one can see YHWH, but Y’shua makes Him known. (Yochanan 1:18)
CHAPTER 2
1. And He said to me, “Son of Adam, stand up on your feet and I will speak to you.”
2. And the wind came upon me when He spoke, and he stood me up on my feet, and I heard [Him] speaking to me.
3. And He told me, “Son of Adam, I am sending you to the sons of Israel—to the rebellious ‘Gentiles’ who have rebelled against Me—they and their fathers have been in revolt against Me to this [very] day,
Though Yehudah is the only part of Israel still intact as a nation, he addresses the Northern Kingdom, which left YHWH over a century earlier, preferring to become “Gentiles” instead. Y’shua is the Son of Adam in the fullest sense, and the very same task was assigned to Him. (Yeshayahu 49:6; Mat. 15:24) Revolt: in Hebrew, the term refers to rebellion in a specific sense—directed against authority. In this chapter alone He repeats the charge of rebellion seven times, so this is foremost in His mind.
4. “and the sons are stubborn-faced and hard-hearted. I am sending you to them, and you must tell them, ‘This is what Adonai YHWH says.’
Though she is a rebellious wife, He has had too much history with Israel; though He has punished her and kicked her out, He has a very hard time letting her go. He sends messengers to her to tell her that if she just gets rid of her rebellious attitude, she can return and they can make some headway in their relationship again. The rest of the book is the remedy for this problem. Israel’s stubbornness served Yaaqov well when dealing with Esau and Lavan, but it must be put away when dealing with YHWH. The immediate application for us is to examine where this tendency may still remain in us, for it is an innate characteristic of Israelites.
5. “And they—whether they will listen or whether they will fail to (because a rebellious house they are)—and they will know that a prophet has been among them.
Whether they listen…or fail to: or, if they will listen and if they will stop. He does not guarantee that they will respond correctly to his message.
6. “And you, son of Adam, do not be afraid of them or of their words. Do not be afraid, though there are briers and stinging thorns with you, and you are sitting among scorpions. Do not be afraid of their words, and do not go to pieces because of their faces, though a rebellious house they are.
Scorpions: alt., scourges or knotted whips.
7. “But you must speak My words to them, whether they will listen or whether they will fail to (because rebellious they are).
8. “But you, son of Adam, listen to what I am saying to you. Do not be rebellious like the house of rebellion. Part your mouth and eat what I am giving you.”
9. When I [began to] look, sure enough, a hand was extended toward me, and in it, lo and behold, there was a rolled-up document.
10. Then he spread it out in front of me, and it was written on—front and back—and recorded on it were dirges, tales of woe, and lamentation-songs.
CHAPTER 3
1. Then he told me, “Son of Adam, eat whatever you find. Eat this scroll, then go and speak to the House of Israel.”
You find: One finds what he searches for. (Mat. 7:7) To speak to the House of Israel today will also be futile unless we first study Torah in depth.
2. So I opened my mouth and He started feeding the scroll to me.
3. And He said to me, “Son of Adam, make your hollow [belly] consume, and fill your inward parts with this scroll that I am giving you.” So I ate, and it was like honey to my mouth for sweetness.
This scroll: David also described YHWH’s words as sweeter than honey. (Psalm 119:11) But it may specifically refer to the instructions for building the Dwelling Place which YHWH wrote on the two tablets of stone, and over which Moshe wrote all the commandments of the Torah. They hold the blueprint for building a unified community. To my mouth: where the Torah is meant to be. (Deut. 30:14)
4. Then He told me, “Son of Adam, go, approach the House of Israel, and speak to them with My words,
5. “because you are not sent to a people of unfathomable lip or difficult tongue; to the House of Israel,
He was being sent to people who seemed to be Gentiles, but He reminded them that they were relatives of his who still apparently spoke at least a dialect or corrupted form of Hebrew.
6. “not to many peoples of unfathomable lip or difficult tongue, whose words you cannot comprehend; if I had sent you to them instead, they would have listened to you.
Y’shua said the same about Yehudah in His parable of the tenants (Mat. 21:43) and noted that Tzur and Tzidon, S’dom and Ghamorah would have responded more quickly than the cities where He did teach. (Luke 9:12-13)
7. “But the House of Israel will not consent to listen to you, because they are not willing to listen to Me, since the whole House of Israel are hard of forehead and obstinate of heart.
Whole House of Israel: possibly including Yehudah as well, or emphasizing the totality of the Northern Kingdom’s rejection of His ways. This continued until after Y’shua came, so that they had lost their knowledge of Hebrew and forgotten their identity as Israel.
8. “Look! I have made your face strong to correspond with their faces, and your forehead strong to parallel their foreheads.
Forehead: where the Torah is to be bound (Ex 13;16) and where a mark was placed on those who mourn Israel’s slide into paganism (9:4) and, correspondingly, where those who follow the counterfeit Messiah are marked. (Rev. 14:9) Therefore the forehead of the Man YHWH is building and the forehead of the “man” (really only an image) that Nevukhadnetzar, Persia, Greece, Rome, and her successors have been putting together. (Dan. 2:31ff) Do we allow it to have the harder head?
9. “I have set your forehead as a sharp stone firmer than flint. Do not be afraid of them and do not go to pieces because of their faces, though a rebellious house they are.”
10. Then he told me, “Son of Adam, all My words which I will speak to you, receive into your heart, and listen with your ears.
Listen: to not only be prepared by YHWH’s word, but also to pay attention so that he could hear the commotion of Israel in unity (vv. 12-13) and thus know what the Kingdom sounds like—a unique motivation for Y’hezq’el to follow his mission through to its completion.
11. “Then go, approach the exiles, the descendants of your people, and speak [intensely] to them, telling them, ‘This is what Adonai YHWH says’, whether they will listen or whether they will fail to.”
12. Then a wind lifted me up, and I heard behind me [the] sound of a great commotion, [saying], “May the authority of YHWH be blessed from out of His place!”
Wind: or spirit. He was conveyed to a higher plane. Blessed: to have the knees bent toward. This phrase has been incorporated into Israel’s morning prayers “on earth as it is in heaven”.
13. then [I heard] the sound of the living [creatures]’ wings brushing against each other and the sound of the wheels [moving] in tandem with them, along with [the] noise of [the] great commotion.
Wings: again, this is also the term for the extremities of a garment on which the tzitziyoth are hung to remind Israelites to carry out YHWH’s commandments. (Numbers 15:38-39) Brushing against: literally, kissing. This is a picture of all the tribes of Israel living in unity. Great commotion: as at Mt. Sinai and the Shavuoth after Y’shua’s resurrection, when there was another infilling of the Spirit. (Acts 2)
14. Then the wind picked me up and carried me away, and I went bitterly in the hot displeasure of my spirit, but the hand of YHWH was firm over me.
Compare Rev. 10:9-10, where Yochananan also eats a scroll and it is bitter in his belly after being sweet in his mouth. Yonah was bitter when he saw the Assyrians repenting in a way Israel was not repenting. Likewise, after seeing this vision of what is to be and what Israel could be like, Y’hezq’el had the present state of his people to deal with, in sharp contrast with it. He may have known that it would not be fulfilled in his own lifetime. (1 Cor. 10:11)
15. So I approached the exiles at Tel-Aviv—those living toward the River K’var, and as they were sitting there, I also sat there seven days, showing [how] appalled [I was].
Compare Psalm 137. The exiles from Yehudah still painfully remembered that they were in exile, and could not be joyful; the Northern Kingdom had probably forgotten a generation or two before this that they were far from home.
16. Then at the end of [the] seven days, what took place is that YHWH’s word came to me to say,
17. “Son of Adam, I have appointed you as a watchman for the House of Israel, so listen to the word from My mouth and shine a warning light for them from Me.
Watchman: literally, one who is on the lookout.
18. “When I say to the one who is guilty, ‘You will certainly die’ but you do not warn him or say [anything] to shine the light to warn the guilty from his wicked way so his life can be spared, he, the guilty one, will die in his guilt, but I will demand his blood from your hand.
Y’shua echoed that the one who does not know he is doing wrong will be less accountable than those who knew better, and would receive a lighter punishment. (Luke 12:48)
19. “But if you do shine a light to warn the guilty, but he does not turn away from his guilt or his habitual wickedness, he will die in his guilt, but you [yourself will] have rescued your soul.
20. “And if the righteous one turns away from his [practice of] what is right and commits injustice, and I set an occasion for stumbling in front of him, he will die in his sin if you have not warned him, and what he has done right will not be remembered, but I will demand his blood from your hand.
21. “But if you have warned the righteous man, so that one who does right will not miss the target, and he does not do wrong, he will live [and] thrive because he is warned, and you [will] have rescued your soul.
22. Then YHWH’s hand was upon me there, and He told me, “Get up and go out toward the plain, and there I will speak with you.”
Plain: or, cleft, valley, split-open place.
23. So I got up and went out toward the plain, and sure enough, there stood the splendor of YHWH like the splendor that I had seen on the River K’var, and I fell on my face.
24. Then the Spirit came into me and made me stand up on my feet, and spoke with me. What He told me was, “Come, close yourself off within your house,
Your house: The sad commentary was that Yehudah had only been in exile for five years, yet they had settled down in Babylon already as if it were a place to become comfortable, rather than living in tents, ready to return to Israel as soon as the door opened. Granted, Yirmeyahu had said the exile would be seventy years, but people like Daniel kept close track of the time. Today, when our exile is again drawing to a close (see chapter 4), we have laid deep foundations as well, forgetting that we are in exile. We must not allow ourselves to be nailed down by other commitments, so that we will not miss the opening when it does come.
25. “but [as for] you, son of Adam, look! They will put ropes on you and tie you up with them, so that you may not go out among them.
26. “And I will make your tongue stick to your palate, and you will be muted, so that they will have no man to correct them, though a rebellious house they are.
Correct: rebuke, reprove, chasten, judge, or convince. He was commanded to do this, but then YHWH silenced Him for a time, because did not intend to equally allow everyone to repent. YHWH selected which people would be allowed to hear (just as Y’shua spoke in parables to veil His message from those who would abuse it, Mat. 13:13):
27. “But when I speak with you, I will open your mouth, and you will tell them, ‘This is what Adonai YHWH says.’ Whoever can hear, let him listen, and whoever fails to, let him fail to, because a house of rebellion they are.”
Whoever can hear, let him listen: or, the one who hears will hear. Compare Rev. 2:7, 11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13, 22; 22:11.
CHAPTER 4
1. “Now you, son of Adam, take for yourself a brick, and set it in front of you, and engrave on it [the] city—that is, Yerushalayim.
Brick: or tile, clay tablet.
2. “Then lay out a siege entrenchment against it, and build a siege-wall against it, and pour a ramp up to it, and set up an army encampment against it, and set battering rams against it on every side.
Imagine how much attention it would attract to see this dignified priest being a “fool for YHWH” by“building sand castles” and “playing with toy soldiers”! YHWH often asks us to do the things we are least inclined to do, as when He asked Avraham, the prince of hospitality and the champion of monotheism, to sacrifice his own son. (Gen. 22) This strengthens us in the areas we are weakest. But here YHWH simply needed someone to communicate His message. At this time, though to some extent a “has-been”, Yerushalayim was still full of opulence, basking in the afterglow of its golden age, when it attracted visitors from every nation to see the Temple, gardens, zoos, and scientific museums King Shlomo (Solomon) had built. To think of it as ready to be destroyed was unthinkable to those who thought YHWH would never insult His Temple and His Land like that. But a siege had already been attempted in the days of King Hizqiyahu, and now that Yehudah had been weakened by its split with the Northern Kingdom, Ashur (Assyria), which had been suppressed by David and his successors, was looking for an opening to take revenge—and its strength had reached critical mass.
3. “Then you take for yourself an iron cooking-pan and place it [as] a wall of iron between yourself and the city, and set your face firmly toward it. Then it will be under siege, and you must treat it as an adversary. This is a warning-sign to the House of Israel.
Wall of iron: For centuries, the House of Israel would be unable to see Yerushalayim as its capitol; this was not the case for Yehudah. Later it would see Rome as its headquarters, and consider Yerushalayim a backwater. Even before our exile, Yerushalayim lost its attraction for us as we turned toward the deities of the nations we were allied with, often against Yehudah, and built alternative worship sites, even though the Temple itself was technically not in Yehudah’s territory, but Binyamin’s. Now the House of Israel would have no place to come home to, even if they wanted to, during the time this punishment was in force. But they had already been gone from the Land for 130 years, so it is more likely that this sign is for the time the House of Israel is reading this prophecy—today, when this wall of iron is finally rusting away.
4. “Then you lie down on your left side and determine the punishment of the House of Israel on account of its [perversion]. The number of days that you lie on it, you will increase their punishment.
5. “Now I have designated for you the years of their punishment by the total number of days: up [to] 390 days you must raise Israel’s punishment.
Thus the length of time determined as the Northern Kingdom’s punishment was 390 years. So why has it never returned from exile? Two punishments had been assigned to the House of Israel from which they needed redeeming, symbolized by the names of Hoshea's sons. (Hos. 1) The first was “no mercy”, and the second was “not being a people”. But He also said, “In the place where it was said to them, “You are not My people”, they shall be called “Sons of the Living Elohim.” (Hos. 1:10) Can you think of any people from every nation, kindred, tribe, and people, who describe themselves as redeemed and are called “sons of Elohim”? (Hint: Yochanan/John 1:12; 1 Yoch. 3:2) Whomever fits this description is where we will find Ephraim today. Paul said all of creation was eager for the time when it would be revealed who these "sons of Elohim" are. (Rom. 8:19) Remember the prodigal’s father, who had one son still at home, looking expectantly for his other son to return? Judah was still safe at home then, but though Yahweh had forsaken Ephraim “for a moment”, His heart longed to have His "firstborn" back! So He says, "Declare it to the far-off coastlands that He who scattered Israel will regather him and watch over him like a shepherd.”(Yirmeyahu/Jer.. 31:10) He said, I will send for many fishermen, and they will fish them out...for My eyes are on all their journeyings..." (Yirm. 16:16) But first, He said, He would repay double for their sins. I.e., He would double their sentence. That brings us to 780 years. From the first overthrow by Assyria in 734 B.C.E., that comes out to 46 C.E., or if we count from the final overthrow in 722, then 58 C.E.—either way, right about the time Paul was saying, “I’m turning to the Gentiles!” But where did he look for those “Gentiles”? In synagogues! So these were people already feeling the call back to the covenant. Before long, the Apostles were raving about how many were "returning to Yahweh from among the Gentiles". So why is there not a Northern Kingdom today? Because there were two sentences running concurrently for Ephraim. The first ran out soon after Y’shua’s day. Individuals from Ephraim began responding to Him, and Hoshea's judgment of "no pity" was no longer in effect. But Leviticus 26 also says that if they would not repent, He’d increase their punishment seven times. Hoshea's other sentence--that of “not being a people”—a unified ethnic group recognizable as a nation--lasted 2,730 years from the time Assyria took Israel into exile, and it was not up until right around 1996—or possibly 2008. Either way, we’re right in the thick of that time! That's why the blinders are only now being removed from our eyes.
6. “Then when you have finished them, lie down a second time, on your right side, and you will increase the House of Yehudah’s punishment [as far as] forty days—[in each case] I have made a day stand for a year to you.
There is a clear distinction made between the punishment of the two houses. Yehudah’s exile was only now about to begin—only a few years after Y’hezq’elgave this prophecy, in 586 B.C.E. And some came back to Yerushalayim as soon as possible and rebuilt it and the Temple. (See Ezra and Nekhemyah.) But many others remained in Babylon since they were respected and even honored there. The version of the Talmud considered most authoritative was not the one written in Israel, but the one compiled in Babylon, meaning that the greatest scholars were still there, though they were free to return to the Land. The same is true in our day when the right of return is again in effect. Yirmeyahu set the sentence of this exile at 70 years (Yirm.29:10) So if we count the ten additional years Y’hezq’el and some other exiles were there, we have the doubled sentence of 80 years. (See note on v. 5.) Yehudah’s sentence was not immediately multiplied by seven, as threatened in Lev. 26 to 280 years. But some 586 years later, in A.D. 70, we see Yehudah being exiled again. But there was no return 200 years later. Yehudah did not return until 1948—a full 1878 years later! Could it be that because of Yehudah’s general rejection of Y’shua, it was ultiplied seven times again? This seems to be the case, for seven times 280 is 1,960, which, when the originally-fulfilled 80 years is subtracted, is 1880—only two years different, which is explained by the errors that are known to have been made in determining the incumbent Gregorian calendar.
7. “So set your face firmly toward the siege of Yerushalayim with your arm laid bare, and you must prophesy against it.
8. “In fact, I will even put chains on you so that you cannot turn from one of your sides to your [other] side until you have completed the days of your siege.
9. “Then you take for yourself wheat, barley, split thick beans, lentils, millet, and spelt, and put them in one container, and make them into bread for yourself. For the total number of days that you lie on your side—390 days—you will eat them.
Spelt: or rye.
10. “And you shall eat the food that you eat by ration—20 sheqels per day; you must eat it at a set time [each day].
A set time: probably the times of the daily offerings in the Temple, considering that Y’hezq’el was a priest.
11. “You will also drink carefully-measured out water—one-sixth of a hin; you must drink at a set time [each day].
A sixth of a hin is about one liter or a quart. When food is rationed out, we are considered to be in a famine. But still there was food and water, even if in short supply. The real famine, Amos tells us (8:11), is of hearing the words of YHWH. Again, His word has been available all along, but those who controlled it fed it to us only in measured amounts, tickling our ears with this to keep us from hearing the rest. The bread we were given kept us alive but was not enough to accomplish YHWH’s goal of the restoration of both houses of Israel. The providential juxtaposition of the last verse of Judges (21:25) with the first verse of Ruth shows us that what causes this famine is everyone doing what is right in his own eyes because there is no king in Israel. When Yehudah and Israel again choose the same king from the House of David (34:23), the famine will be over forever.
12. “An you must eat a cake of barley when you have baked it in their sight with excrement that comes out of a man.”
13. And YHWH said, “In the same way, the descendants of Israel will eat their defiled bread in the nations into which I will banish them.”
Defiled bread—which is not true bread--is what we did eat for so long, producing more waste. This bread, by its recipe, turns out to be essentially a laxative, for the pseudo-bread we were eating only made us foul ourselves more and more.
14. So I said, “Alas, O Master YHWH! Look, my soul has never been defiled, nor have I eaten a carcass [of an animal that died of natural causes] or was torn [by wild beasts] since my youth until now, nor has [any] abominable meat entered my mouth!
YHWH also set the same type of analogy in front of Kefa (Acts 10), though since it mattered to him, He did not actually require him to eat of the unclean beasts which He used in the vision to change his attitude toward unclean men YHWH had cleansed. He allows Y’hezq’el the same:
15. So He told me, “Here, I have permitted you [to use] cow manure instead of human excrement, and you may prepare your bread over it.”
YHWH’s first order appears to have been to cook the bread right among the balls of human excrement; now He permits Y’hezq’el to only symbolically carry out a picture of what, if Israel continues in rebellion, will instead be the real thing.
16. Then He told me, “Son of Adam, indeed I am breaking the staff of bread in Yerushalayim, and they will eat bread by ration and with anxiety, and they will drink water by carefully measuring it out and with great dread,
17. “on account of their lacking bread and water, so they will each be in dread of his brother and [they] will waste away in consequence of their guilt."
CHAPTER 5
1. “But you, son of Adam, take for yourself a sharp dagger and take a barber’s razor for yourself, and pass it over your head and your beard, and procure for yourself balance-scales for weighing out, and divide the [hairs] into portions:
2. “One third you must burn up in a flame within the city as the days of the siege are [nearing their] completion, and one third you must take an beat about [from] every direction with a sword, and one third you must scatter to the wind, and I will draw out a sword after them.
3. “But take from there a few in number, and enclose them in the corners of your [garments],
Corners: where the tzitziyoth are worn (Num. 15:38) to remind us to keep YHWH’s commandments. Those enclosed in these corners would thus represent those who do remember YHWH’s commandments.
4. “and from them, again, take some of them and throw them into the middle of the fire, and light them ablaze in the fire. From it will come forth a fire toward the whole House of Israel.”
This may mean yet another punishment even of the faithful remnant, or it may refer to those who are purified in advance of the rest, whose light spreads to the whole remnant—depending on how well we do our part.
5. This is what the Master YHWH says: “This is Yerushalayim; I have placed her in the midst of the nations, and the lands are all around her,
Thus, aside from the prohibition against marring the edges of one’s beard in Lev. 19:27, another reason an Israelite should not shave his beard or head hair is that his hairs represent the citizens of Yerushalayim.
6. “yet she has wrongly rebelled against My legal procedures more than the Gentiles, and [against] My prescribed customs than the lands that are around her on every side, because they have rejected My legal procedures and have not walked in My prescribed customs.
She: the city of Yerushalayim seen as a unified bride for YHWH.
7. “Therefore this is what the Master YHWH says: ‘Because you have made more noise than the nations that are all around you, and have not walked in My prescribed customs nor carried out My legal procedures, and have not even done [as well at] the legal procedures as the nations around you--
8. “‘for this reason, this is what YHWH says: “Behold, I--I Myself--am against you, and will execute just rulings among you in the sight of the Gentiles,
9. “‘“and I will do with you something I have never done [before] and that I will never do the likes of [again], on account of all the disgusting things you [are doing].
10. “‘“Because of [them], fathers among you will eat sons and sons will eat their fathers, and I will execute judgments against you, and I will scatter all that remain of you to every [one of the] winds.
The son is meant to be the father’s greatest delight, and the father is the son’s primary authority. The spirit of Eliyahu (“YHWH is my Elohim”) that is being sent forth in our day is setting the order back in place of teaching the heritage we once spit on to sons who accept it and carry it on. (Mal. 4:5)
11. “‘“Therefore, as I live,” declares the Master YHWH, “if I do not withdraw as well on account of your defiling My sanctuary with all of your detestable filth and with all of your disgusting [idols]—and My eye will not have pity, and I will not spare [you].
If I do not… : one common Hebrew format for swearing an oath.
12. “‘“A third among you will die by the plague, and they will be finished off by the famine, and the [next] third will fall by the sword from every side of you, and the [final] third I will intensely scatter to every wind, and I will draw out a sword behind them.
I.e., to impel them to keep running further from His holy place.
13. “‘“When My anger is spent, I will make My rage settle upon them; thus I will console Myself, and they will know that I, YHWH, have spoken in My jealousy when I have exhausted all My fury on them.
14. “‘“And I will make you a wasteland and an object of scorn among the nations that are all around you [and] in the eyes of all who pass by.
Little more than a century ago, Mark Twain summed this up well after visiting the Land of Israel: “Not even a chicken could scratch out a living there!” Thanks be to YHWH, that wrath is now spent and life is returning to that once-desolate Land.
15. “‘“And it will become a reproach and an object of taunting—an example and an astonishing horror for the nations round about you, when I execute judgments in anger and in rage with heated chastisement.” I, YHWH, have spoken!
An example: as a deterrent with the connotation of teaching others not to do the same.
16. “‘When I shoot the injurious arrows of famine at them, which will ruin them, which is why I will send them to destroy you, and I will bring more famine on you, and break for you the staff of bread.
This famine may have been the result of cumulative weather changes that the polar shift of 701 B.C.E. (at the time of Hizqiyahu’s sundial incident) brought on the Land, giving it a climate more like southern California than northern, as it had been prior to that. (Ref. Donald Patten, Catastrophism and the Old Testamant, Pacific Meridien, 1988.)
17. “‘Then I will send upon you [another] famine and injurious beasts, and they will bereave you [of your children], and a plague and blood will pass through [among] you, and I will bring a sword over you.’ I, YHWH, have spoken.”
Beasts: possibly an allusion to the ones in Daniel 7 and Rev. 13-17, as well as literal vicious wild animals, for they would bereave Israel by making her sons indistinguishable from those in the nations in which they forgot they were in exile. Blood: i.e., death, for the root word means “to render silent”, as when all of someone’s blood is shed.
CHAPTER 6
1. Now it came about that the Word of YHWH came to me, saying,
2. “Son of Adam, set your face against the mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them,
3. “and say, ‘Mountains of Israel, listen to the word of the Master YHWH!’ This is what the Master YHWH says to the mountains and to the hills, to the runoff-channels and to the valleys: ‘Watch Me [as] I bring a sword upon you, and I will do away with your cultic platforms,
4. “‘and your altars will be devastated, and your pillars of idolatry broken down, and I will make your mortally wounded fall down in front of your rolling idols.
Pillars of idolatry: from the word for “heat”, because they were usually phallic symbols or because they were used for sun-worship. A vestige of these today is found in church steeples under which people worship on the sun’s day.
5. “‘Then I will lay the corpses of the sons of Israel in front of their rolling-idols, and I will scatter your bones around your altars.
6. “‘In all the places where you dwell, the cities will be laid waste, and the cultic places will become ruins, so that your altars may become desolations and suffer damage, your rolling idols broken down and removed, and your pillars of idolatry chopped down so that your masterpieces may be obliterated.
Suffer damage: or, be held guilty. Masterpieces: or works of art, accomplishments, in which we tend to place our security.
7. “‘Then the mortally wounded will fall in your midst, and you will know that I am YHWH.
8. “‘Yet I will let there be a remnant when you have some that escape the sword among the Gentiles when you are scattered among the lands.
9. “‘And those of you who escape will remember Me among the nations in which they have been taken captive, as I was crushed with their unfaithful heart that has turned away from [being] about Me and with their eyes that play the prostitute after their rolling idols, and they will be show revulsion on their faces toward the evil things that they have done for all the disgusting things they [have].
Among the nations: This specifies that we must still be out among the nations when we bring YHWH back to mind. This is beginning to take place! Show revulsion on their faces: or, be repulsed by their own faces, i.e., beardless, not looking like Israelites anymore. Crushed: or broken (hearted), for He is a jilted lover. Unfaithful: i.e., adulterous.
10. “‘Then they will know that I am YHWH; it is not without purpose that I have threatened to do them this injury.’
Not without purpose: or, not in vain, not without cause, not for nothing. I.e., His plan that underlies this would prove successful. It would have the effect He intends. What a firm basis for optimism!
11. “This is what YHWH says: ‘Strike with your palm and stomp with your foot, and say, “Alas for all the evil, disgusting things [belonging to] the House of Israel, who will fall by the sword, by the famine, or by the plague!
Strike…stomp: He is to essentially rant and rave—throw a tantrum or “pitch a fit”! What could get the people’s attention more effectively? Ephraim’s response would eventually be similar but in a positive vein. (Yirmeyahu/ Jeremiah 31:19)
12. “‘“Whoever is far away will die by the plague, and whoever is nearby will fall by the sword, and whoever is left alive and is preserved from danger will die by the famine, and I will exhaust My heated rage on them.
13. “‘“Then you will know that I am YHWH, when it turns out that their mortally wounded are among their rolling idols on every side of their altars to every hill that is raised up, on all the mountaintops and under every flourishing tree and every mighty oak with dense foliage—[any] place where they gave all their rolling idols a soothing aroma.
Mortally wounded: When we look back to the places we used to worship, all we will see is death. Once YHWH calls us onward, we do not need to have anything to do with the places where people do such things. If it does not seem that such practices take place today, do even minimal research into the history of Christmas trees—the remnant of this practice of bringing gifts under ever-green trees. Hill that is raised up: i.e., made higher still by pillar or platform devoted to idol worship. Soothing aroma: of the fat of animals burned by fire, but with the connotation of perfuming themselves for their illicit lovers.
14. “‘“I will extend My hand against them and turn the Land into a wasteland, even more desolate than the uncultivated land at Diblath, wherever they live. Then they will know that I am YHWH.”’”
Extend My hand: or simply, turn My hand.
CHAPTER 7
1. Now it came about that the Word of YHWH came to me, saying,
2. “Now [as for] you, son of Adam, this is what the Master YHWH says to the ground of Israel: ‘A [chopped-off] end! The end has come upon the four corners of the Land!
The ends being cut off of four corners is, of course, reminiscent of the reminders to keep YHWH’s commandments being taken away from the extremities of our garments (Num. 15:38-39). The word for corners here is indeed the one used for the extremities of the garment, and really means “wings”, suggesting the removal of YHWH’s protection over us as well. But it also corresponds with Y’hezq’el’s cutting off the extremities of his beard and the hair at the sides of his head (contrast the norm in Lev. 19:27)—which represents leaving the four corners unguarded, and thus leaving the “gates” vulnerable to enemies. Often we see the Land suffering for the people’s sin.
3. “‘Now is the end upon you, and I will send out My anger on you, and will judge you according to your habits, and will put all your disgusting things on top of you.
They want these things that make YHWH sick to be close to them, so He says He will dump them right on their heads, so to speak.
4. “‘And My eye will not have pity upon you, nor will I spare, but I will give you over to your ways and your disgusting things will be right among you, and you will know that I am YHWH.’”
5. This is what the Master YHWH says: “A disaster! A singular disaster! Look! It has arrived!
Singular disaster: or, certain injury, only calamity.
6. “An end has come! The end has come! It has abruptly awakened toward you. Here—it has arrived!
7. “Your turn to get up early has come to you, O inhabitant of the Land! The time has come! The day of noisy disturbance is near, and [I] don’t [mean] the grape-stomping shout of the mountains.
Noisy disturbance: It is confusing enough to hear loud noises before dawn, but He is making t clear that this is not a joyful commotion.
8. “Now—soon—I will pour out My rage on you and bring My anger at you to completion, and I will judge you according to your habits, and will put all your disgusting things on top of you.
9. “And My eye will not have pity upon you, nor will I spare, but I will give you over to your ways and your disgusting things will be right among you, and you will know that [it is] I, YHWH, [who am] causing you to be struck down.
10. “Here it is the day! Indeed it has arrived! Your turn to get up early has left: the branch has put forth blossoms; presumptuous pride has broken out [into bloom].
There is an edge of “I told you it was coming” in His voice. He will only put up with us in mercy for so long; seventy times seven is still a finite number. They have filled their cup, and now must drink it. Aharon’s rod blossomed in order to stop the pride of those who would presume to take his position (Num. 17), but this shows that we did not learn from it; that pride has not been done away with. So YHWH will beat them with it.
11. “Violence has risen up into a wicked rod [of authority]. Not from them, and not from their clamoring multitude, and not from their bustling, and no distinction among them!
Violence…rod: It is as if terrorists have now taken over the government. Not from them: or, none of them. There is a Hebrew word play on the similarities of the sounds in the last sentence: Lo mehem v’lo mehamonam v’lo mehemehem v’lo noah bahem. No distinction among them: or, no [one] among them [will be] eminent.
12. “The time has come; the day has reached you. Do not let the buyer be glad or the seller mourn [to himself], because hot fury is [coming] toward all her clamoring multitude.
13. “The vendor will not return to [his] wares, though still among the living, because [the] vision is to the whole clamoring multitude. He will not return, and each one [will remain] in his guilt; he will not have a firm hold on his life.
14. “They have blown the trumpet-blast to get everything ready, but there is no one going to battle, because My hot fury is [coming] toward all her clamoring multitude.
15. “The sword is outside, and the plague and famine are inside the house. Whoever is in the field will die by the sword, and whoever is in the city, the famine and plague will devour.
16. “But when fugitives among them slip away to safety, they will all be in a commotion on the mountains like doves of the gorges, each in his own guilt.
Mountains: here, probably the idolatrous worship-sites—counterfeits of the mountain where YHWH appointed as “a place for His Name”. If they are not part of the remnant wrapped up in the corners of YHWH’s garment, the punishment will still catch up with them even if they escaped once.
17. “All the hands will go slack and all knees will be fluid [like] water.
Be fluid like water: or, have water flowing off them, i.e., they will wet themselves due to the painful realization of their situation. In any case, there is no strength in the part of the body designed to express worship; they are either forced to buckle before those they had chosen to worship in the days of grace, or that YHWH is simply not granting them repentance, for this is merely “jailhouse religion”, and He does not have to honor that. The whole camp has been permeated by their perversion, so a price must be paid.
18. “They will also put on burlap sacks, and intense shuddering will overwhelm them, and shame will be on all faces and baldness on all their heads.
These are all mourning rituals, for whether or not they admit they are wrong, they are still losing everything. But no amount of whining will let them get away without paying the price. YHWH even has a tone of making fun of them here, since their pride needs to be disciplined out of them.
19. “They will throw their silver [out] into the streets and their gold will become off limits [to them]; their silver and gold will be unable to bring them deliverance on the day of the overflowing of YHWH’s [rage]. They will not make their souls satisfied, nor will they fill their bellies, because their perversion has become a cause for stumbling.
They seem to be fasting since it was their physical desires that had tempted them to sin, and the silver and gold had also allured them away from YHWH. Off limits: or, no longer attractive, as this is the word used of a woman who must remain separated from her husband during her menstrual period.
20. “Though [as] the most prominent decoration of His ornaments He had appointed [it] to [be exalted in] excellence, they used it to make images of their detestable abominations. Therefore I have made it off limits to them.
It: i.e., the gold and silver, which was meant to decorate YHWH’s Temple as His bride’s jewelry, but was instead offered to His rivals, their pagan lovers. In our day the truth that YHWH has condescended to grant us has again been twisted to say we no longer need to obey His commandments, and though those who subscribe to this view think they are on a mountaintop, in His eyes they are deep in a sewer pit. They have taken what He meant for one purpose and have found a way to make it benefit self instead.
21. “I will even give it over into the hands of the foreigner as spoils, and to the wicked of the earth as plunder, and they will desecrate it.
22. “And I will turn My face away from them, and they will pollute My hidden treasure-store, when those who break through come in and profane it.
23. “Make the chain, because the Land is full of bloody court proceedings, and the city is full of violence!
The chain: to carry them away as slaves, though they are noblemen. They were to be sitting in right judgment, but did not, so they must be disgraced and have their status lowered, and probably be mistreated as well.
24. “And I will bring the injurious ones of the Gentiles, and they will take possession of their houses, and I will cause the arrogance of bullies to cease, and the places they treat as sacred will be defiled.
Bullies: the Hebrew term connotes those who roughly push others around for the sake of their greed. They would be “out-bullied” by the “injurious” Gentiles who do not even have the vestiges of scruples about hurting others that those who grew up in Israel would still have to some extent, despite their wandering from the Covenant. The places they treat as sacred: not YHWH’s holy places, but their own.
25. “Anguish is coming! They will search for peace, but there [will be] none.
Anguish: from a word meaning “to roll up”, i.e., curl up or double over because of the pain.
26. “Engulfing disaster upon engulfing disaster will come, and there will come to be report after report, and they will seek out a vision from a prophet, but the Torah will be lost to the priest and [when they consult] the elders [they will be unable to give sound] advice.
The priests are those who are to teach the Torah to the rest of Israel (Mal. 2:7), so if the Torah is lost to them, it is lost to us all.
27. “The king will make a lament for himself and the leader will be clothed with devastation, and the hands of the people of the Land will be nervous. From their own habits I will deal with them, and with their own legal procedures I will judge them. Then they will know that I am YHWH.”
CHAPTER 8
1. Now it came about in the sixth year on the fifth of the sixth month, [as] I [was] sitting in my house with the elders of Yehudah sitting in front of me, that the hand of the Master YHWH fell upon me there.
2. And as I looked, there it was—a resemblance that looked like fire, from what appeared to be His hips extending downward, fire—and from his hips on upward, like the shining of flowing molten metal in appearance.
Revelation 1:13-15 echoes this and shows that this personage is indeed Y’shua.
3. Then He extended a hand, figuratively, and grabbed me by a lock of my head, and a wind lifted me up between the earth and the skies, and brought me to Yerushalayim in a mighty spectacle, to the entryway of the inner gate that faces northward, where the statue of zeal to acquire [possessions] was situated.
A lock: the same Hebrew word for the regulation fringe or tassel that an Israelite is to wear on his garment to remind him to keep YHWH’s commandments. (Num. 15:38-39) It may refer to the traditional locks men of Yehudah wear to “embellish the command” given in Lev. 19:27. Wind: or spirit. Statue of zeal to acquire: or, image that makes its [the Temple’s] owner jealous. This was a common idiom for Ishtar, the Babylonian goddess from which the term Easter is derived. This will be an important fact to keep in mind throughout this and the next chapter. It also reminds us of the golden calf, which Aharon said was an image of YHWH (thus giving the calf credit for what YHWH had done), and which Moshe ground up and made the people drink like the water that was a test of the faithfulness of a jealous husband’s wife. (Numbers 5) A calf is one of the highest offerings, and thus represents wealth. Mammon (Hebrew for wealth) still makes YHWH jealous, as does giving anything else credit for what He has done. Even “Jesus” is given the credit for things that the Father really accomplished. Thus a crucifix makes YHWH jealous. Vine’s Expository Dictionary admits that the cross as typically depicted was derived from a Chaldean symbol for Tammuz (see v. 14), being the most ancient way to write its initial letter, tau. The apostate third-century Church received pagans into its fold to increase its prestige, and allowed them to retain such pagan symbolism—another thing YHWH has against the House of Israel. Between heaven and earth: where the spiritual Yerushalayim, of which the physical is a shadow (Heb. 8:5; 9:23), is located, according to this verse.
4. But, lo and behold, the splendor of the Elohim of Israel was there, like the phenomenon I had seen on the plain.
Splendor: in Hebrew, this means the “weightiness” of His dignified presence which commands respect and honor. How could this coexist side by side with the idol that was set up there (v. 3)?
5. And He told me, “Son of Adam, please lift up your eyes [in] a northward direction.” So I lifted my eyes [in] a northward direction, and lo and behold, from the north to the gate of the altar [was] this “statue of zeal” in the entryway!
6. And He said to me, “Son of Adam, do you see what they are doing—the tremendously disgusting things that the House of Israel is doing here, [making Me] distance [Myself] from being over My sanctuary?”
Here: Remember that the Northern Kingdom has been exiled for some 130 years and has not been using the literal Temple in Yerushalayim. So figuratively, in the place where they supposedly worship YHWH, the Northern Kingdom is actually worshipping idols. In the latter days, what could this apply to but the Body of Messiah, which is called the Temple of YHWH which houses the Spirit of Holiness (1 Cor. 3:16), but now has much paganism in it?
7. Then He brought me to where the courtyard opens out, and lo and behold, [there was] a single hole in the wall.
8. Then He told me, “Son of Adam, please dig into the wall.” So I dug into the wall, and sure enough, there was a single opening.
Mithras (the Roman army’s version of Tammuz/Nimrod, derived from Persia—see v. 14) was worshipped in caves, especially on December 24-25, so here we find a cave built into the Temple of YHWH as an expression of what later became “Christmas”. So add this to the list of what YHWH has against the Northern Kingdom.
9. And He told me, “Son of Adam, go in and see the hurtful, disgusting things that they are doing here.”
10. So I went in and looked, and lo and behold, every form of creeping thing and detestable beast and all the rolling idols of the House of Israel were [depicted by] engravings on the wall all around on every side.
11. Then seventy men from among the elders of the House of Israel, with Ya’azanyahu the son of Shafan standing among them, were standing in front of them, each with his censer in his hand, and an abundant [odiferous] cloud of incense was ascending.
Seventy men: suggesting the House of Israel’s dispersion into all 70 biblical nations. (See Gen. 10.) Ya’azanyahu means “YHWH lends His ear.” It was a common name during this era (2 Kings 25:23; Yirmeyahu 35:3). This one was a prominent leader. (11:1) His father’s name, Shafan, means “coney/hyrax/rock badger”, linked with the hare in Deut. 14:27 among the unclean beasts that chew the cud but do not have a divided hoof—i.e.,, they meditate on Scripture, but do not walk the walk. Since this is all in the context of Ishtar worship (v. 3), the connection with the hare suggests a possible allusion to the predecessor of the “Easter bunny”. In any case, his name suggests YHWH listening to an unclean beast, so this Ya’azanyahu’s name, though itself honorable, is an insult to YHWH.
12. And He said to me, “Son of Adam, have you seen what the elders of the House of Israel are doing in the dark—[each] man in the chambers of his own masterpiece? Because they are saying, ‘There is no YHWH paying attention to us, because YHWH has abandoned the Land.’”
Chambers of his masterpiece: or showpiece; alt., the innermost places of his imagination.
13. Then He told me, “Go back yet again; you will see greater abominations that they are performing.”
14. And He brought me to where the gate of the House of YHWH which is toward the north opened out, and lo and behold, the women were bewailing Tammuz there!
Bewailing Tammuz: a common practice originating when, after the execution of Nimrod the rebel against YHWH who founded Babylon, his widow, Semiramis, proclaimed his son Tammuz to be his reincarnation (hence the mother-and-infant images carried over so identically into the Roman church), and was called “the embodiment of Nimrod”. I.e., he was the “son who is his father”—essentially what the Church says about “Jesus”, at least in practice. His widow/mother went to the underworld to beg to have him back, and was told that he would come back for at least part of every year if everything on earth could be persuaded to weep for him. It must therefore have been a religion with many missionaries. Since YHWH does not want us to have the names of pagan deities on our lips (Psalm 16:4), we should not use this Babylonian name for the fourth month, during which it began, since that is when the land begins to dry up after the rains cease (roughly equivalent to the Roman July; in the West this was practiced in the spring, and lasted forty days; thus, it is the origin of the practice known today as Lent). Semiramis was worshipped as the earth-goddess, and Tammuz was said to have risen into the sky and become the sun. Thus worshipping on the Day of the Sun is also related to this ancient mystery religion.
15. And He said to me, “Have you discerned, son of Adam? Go back yet again; you will see greater abominations than these!”
16. And He brought me into the courtyard of the House of YHWH, and, lo and behold, and the entryway to the Temple of YHWH, between the binding-place and the altar, [there were] about 25 men with their backs toward the Temple of YHWH and their faces eastward, and they were bowing themselves eastward, to the sun!
In the West we do face eastward to pray, because that is toward the Temple (compare Daniel 6:10; 1 Kings 8:38-42; 2 Chron. 6:34), but they were right in front of the Temple and yet had their backs to it—something never allowed during the Second Temple period, since it was a slap in YHWH’s face. Sun-worship in many forms has carried over into the Church, though it is obscured by more innocuous practices like honoring Y’shua’s resurrection. So they were having none other than an “Easter sunrise service”! So this practice is another thing for which YHWH finds the House of Israel guilty. Binding-place: where the animals were tied to be ritually slaughtered; or simply, porch. Only the priests were allowed there. Joel 2:15 tells us that this location is where they should weep and cry out to YHWH lest His chosen heritage become a reproach—not weep for Tammuz! Once a year, on Yom Kippur, a bull was offered up at this site.
17. And He said to me, “Have you perceived, son of Adam? Is it any less significant for the House of Yehudah than to do the disgusting things that they are doing here? Because they have filled the Land with violence, and have come back to vex Me! Look! They are even stretching out the trimmed branch toward their nose!
Now He turns back to Yehudah and says, “What you are doing is just as bad as what your brothers have been doing!” Yehudah has the duty to redeem his brother Efrayim, but Judaism has accumulated much superstition as well. Stretching out the trimmed branch: another common practice when mourning for Tammuz, whose name appears to mean “sprout of life” and was considered by the Sumerians to be the deity of food or vegetation. Nimrod was called the “Branch of Kush”, so the generic branch became a symbol of him as well. It is also easy to see the connection between the “trimming” of the branch and the “trimming” of the Christmas tree.
18. “So I, too, will act with [venomous] rage. My eye will not have pity, nor will I spare; though they call out in My ears [with a] loud voice, I will not listen to them.”
INTRODUCTION: Y’hezq’el’s name means “Elohim strengthens”. His activities began five years after Yehoyakhin, the second last king of Yehudah, was carried into exile in Bavel (Babylon) in the eighth year of his reign (597 B.C.E.) by Nevukhadnetzar and replaced by a puppet ruler (2 Kings 24), Tzidqiyahu, who ruled for eleven years until, because of his rebellion, Nevukahdnetzar besieged and took Yerushalayim and destroyed the Temple (586 B.C.E.)—six years after this account begins and two years after he began the siege (the same day Y’hezq’el’s wife died, 24:1). Thus he prophesied while the Temple still stood, though its days were numbered. However, his target audience was the Northern Kingdom (2:3), which had been exiled 130 years earlier (722 B.C.E.). Y’hezq’el was from a priestly family, exiled along with the choicest people of the land (2 Kings 24:14-16), and thus apparently from an important priestly family. Based on 44:15-16, he is thought to have been Tzadoqite, and may have been named for the Y’hezq’el who was among the heads of the priestly orders as chosen by David. (1 Chron. 24:16) The book was included in the Hebrew “canon” as listed by Ben Sira in the second century B.C.E. (Ecclesiasticus 49:8) It speaks of YHWH’s plans to restore His people despite their horrendous rebellion.
THE WRITINGS OF THE PROPHET
Y'hezq'El (Ezekiel)
