Ezekiel 9:7-11 - I have done as you commaned

9:7,8

“Defile the temple”. Why should God defile the temple? The people, especially the priests, had defiled the temple with their idolatry. The temple would now be defiled with the bodies of the dead. So the executioners begin their grim task of slaughter. This is a pictorial representation of the Babylonian siege and conquest of Jerusalem. Ezekiel is not a passive observer of all this. He falls down crying at the horror of the slaughter, and calls upon the Lord, asking if God is going to destroy the entire remnant. Hell is a terrible thing, but the true horror is not so much that hell exists, but that we deserve to go there. Our sin has a destructive effect on creation.

9:9-11

The Lord replied to Ezekiel that the reason for the terrible judgement was that the sin of Israel and Judah was “exceedingly great”. Note also that the land was “full of bloodshed and the city full of injustice”. Idol worship does not travel alone, but leads to all sorts of things. We might think why get so upset about idol worship? But things did not stop at idol worship. They thought that the Lord had abandoned the land and did not see what they got up to. This is much the same as the modern way of expressing this by saying God does not exist. People think that there is no judge. So the Lord refuse to look on them with pity, and will “bring down on their own heads what they have done”. The judgement and wrath is entirely justified. At this point the writing man returns, he has marked the heads of all the righteous.