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Tuesday 4 August 2009

Ezekiel 10

Ezekiel is about to receive a vision of the glory of the Lord departing from the temple. It is difficult for us to appreciate how terrible a thing this must have been for Ezekiel, for the temple was central to the very identity of Jerusalem. Ezekiel is given visions to reinforce the reality and seriousness of what God is about to do. As an aside, people sometimes dismiss visions as some sort of wish fulfilment. Sometimes this may well be the case, but here with Ezekiel there is no way that his prophecies and visions are wish fulfilment, if anything they are his worst nightmare.

The man who had marked the righteous is now told to scatter burning coals over the city. In Isaiah's vision the burning coals took away Isaiah's guilt.

Verses 9-17 repeat much of what Ezekiel had seen in earlier visions. The Lord is using a repeated vision to emphasise that the message is from Him.

Then the glory of the Lord departs from the temple.

It is interesting that the linen man was an instrument of deliverance in Ezekiel 9, but an instrument of judgement here. Jesus came to bring salvation, but will come again in judgement.

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