Ezekiel 12:1-3 - You are living among a rebellious people

12:1,2

This chapter starts with God reminding Ezekiel of the nature of his task. “Son of man, you are living among a rebellious people”. As we know, Jesus most commonly referred to Himself as the “Son of man”. I’m not sure that we fully understand why. It is perhaps to reflect both His humanity (“son of man” can simply mean human) and his divinity, with reference to the one like a son of man in Daniel 7:13. Perhaps it is also a reference to Ezekiel, for the term “son of man” occurs 93 times in this book, far more often than in any other book of the Bible. So it could also be that Jesus is referring to the fact that He was “living among a rebellious people”, which is certainly true. Anyway, just a thought.

12:3

So Ezekiel is to do another dramatic demonstration of the defeat of Jerusalem, this time people going into exile. Now remember that Ezekiel was already in exile, so his enactments were for the benefit of the exile. At the same time, Jeremiah was preaching directly to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Why did God have him do this? It is at least partly because the idea that God would not let Jerusalem fall was so deeply ingrained in the minds of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and, despite their already being in exile, would still be ingrained in the minds of the exiles. They would think that something strange had happened to them, something outside of God’s plan. Likewise today people often think that it is impossible for a “God of love to send people to hell”. They needed to know that the fall of Jerusalem and the exile were indeed all part of God’s plan, a plan of judgement and salvation. We too need to understand that God sending people to hell is all too real. And just as the fall of Jerusalem was perfectly just, so God sending people to hell is perfectly just. We do not appreciate the true nature of our sin.