Sunday after Pekudei
Sunday after Pekudei
Weekday Reading
Ezekiel chapter 3 & 4
Eze 3:1 He said to me, Son of man, eat that which you find; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Yisra’el.
This is not the only time in scripture a scroll is eaten by a prophet.
Rev 10:8 The voice which I [Yochanan] heard from heaven, again speaking with me, said, “Go, take the book which is open in the hand of the angel who stands on the sea and on the land.”
Rev 10:9 I went to the angel, telling him to give me the little book. He said to me, “Take it, and eat it up. It will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey.”
Rev 10:10 I took the little book out of the angel’s hand, and ate it up. It was as sweet as honey in my mouth. When I had eaten it, my stomach was made bitter.
Rev 10:11 They told me, “You must prophesy again over many peoples, nations, languages, and kings.”
Ezekiel, continued:
Eze 3:2 So I opened my mouth, and he caused me to eat the scroll.
Eze 3:3 He said to me, Son of man, cause your belly to eat, and fill your bowels with this scroll that I give you. Then did I eat it; and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness.
Eze 3:4 He said to me, Son of man, go, get you to the house of Yisra’el, and speak with my words to them.
Eze 3:5 For you are not sent to a people of a strange speech and of a hard language, but to the house of Yisra’el;
Eze 3:6 not to many peoples of a strange speech and of a hard language, whose words you can not understand. Surely, if I sent you to them, they would listen to you.
Eze 3:7 But the house of Yisra’el will not listen to you; for they will not listen to me: for all the house of Yisra’el are of hard forehead and of a stiff heart.
Eze 3:8 Behold, I have made your face hard against their faces, and your forehead hard against their foreheads.
Eze 3:9 As an adamant harder than flint have I made your forehead: don’t be afraid of them, neither be dismayed at their looks, though they are a rebellious house.
Eze 3:10 Moreover he said to me, Son of man, all my words that I shall speak to you receive in your heart, and hear with your ears.
Eze 3:11 Go, get you to them of the captivity, to the children of your people, and speak to them, and tell them, Thus says Adonai YHWH; whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear.
The messages of Ezekiel are to Elohim’s people in the Diaspora, the “lost” ten tribes and those Jews and Believers who have not made Aliyah.
Ezekiel, continued:
Eze 3:12 Then the Spirit lifted me up, and I heard behind me the voice of a great rushing, [saying], Blessed be the glory of YHWH from his place.
Eze 3:13 [I heard] the noise of the wings of the living creatures as they touched one another, and the noise of the wheels beside them, even the noise of a great rushing.
Eze 3:14 So the Spirit lifted me up, and took me away; and I went in bitterness, in the heat of my spirit; and the hand of YHWH was strong on me.
Ezekiel here shows the same amazing gift of the Spirit that Elijah and Philip were able to experience – miraculously vanishing from one place and appearing somewhere else.
Ezekiel, continued:
Eze 3:15 Then I came to them of the captivity at Tel-Aviv, that lived by the river Kevar, and to where they lived; and I sat there overwhelmed among them seven days.
Eze 3:16 It happened at the end of seven days, that the word of YHWH came to me, saying,
Eze 3:17 Son of man, I have made you a watchman to the house of Yisra’el: therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me.
Eze 3:18 When I tell the wicked, You shall surely die; and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at your hand.
Eze 3:19 Yet if you warn the wicked, and he doesn’t turn from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul.
We are obligated to warn people of their impending judgment. If we refuse to do so, then we are in part responsible for their failure to repent – and nowhere is this more true than in our own households and own families.
Ezekiel, continued:
Eze 3:20 Again, when a righteous man does turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die: because you have not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteous deeds which he has done shall not be remembered; but his blood will I require at your hand.
We see from this verse and others that there is no such thing as “once saved, always saved.” That is a myth of replacement theology. If you continue to live in sin, that is, continue to violate Torah, your “salvation” is worth nothing – it is nothing, in fact. Faith without works is dead. Dead faith saves no one.
Ezekiel, continued:
Eze 3:21 Nevertheless if you warn the righteous man, that the righteous not sin, and he does not sin, he shall surely live, because he took warning; and you have delivered your soul.
We must repent from our violations of Torah – all of them. It’s not a buffet. We don’t get to pick which commandments we will choose to obey. Any violation of Torah is sin – all are equal in weight. The wages of sin – any sin – is death. The reason there is only one penalty, death, is because in reality there is only one sin, disobedience.
Ezekiel, continued:
Eze 3:22 The hand of YHWH was there on me; and he said to me, Arise, go forth into the plain, and I will there talk with you.
Eze 3:23 Then I arose, and went forth into the plain: and behold, the glory of YHWH stood there, as the glory which I saw by the river Kevar; and I fell on my face.
Eze 3:24 Then the Spirit entered into me, and set me on my feet; and he spoke with me, and said to me, Go, shut yourself within your house.
Eze 3:25 But you, son of man, behold, they shall lay bands on you, and shall bind you with them, and you shall not go out among them:
Eze 3:26 and I will make your tongue cleave to the roof of your mouth, that you shall be mute, and shall not be to them a reprover; for they are a rebellious house.
Eze 3:27 But when I speak with you, I will open your mouth, and you shall tell them, Thus says Adonai YHWH: He who hears, let him hear; and he who forbears, let him forbear: for they are a rebellious house.
We all have free will. Yes, Elohim knows what you will choose to do, but that is not the same as making you do it. Free will is built into the quantum structure of the universe. Either you will repent or not, as you choose. You have no one to blame but yourself.
Ezekiel, continued:
Eze 4:1 You also, son of man, take a tile, and lay it before you, and portray on it a city, even Yerushalayim:
Eze 4:2 and lay siege against it, and build forts against it, and cast up a mound against it; set camps also against it, and plant battering rams against it round about.
Eze 4:3 Take for yourself an iron pan, and set it for a wall of iron between you and the city: and set your face toward it, and it shall be besieged, and you shall lay siege against it. This shall be a sign to the house of Yisra’el.
Eze 4:4 Moreover lie you on your left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Yisra’el on it; [according to] the number of the days that you shall lie on it, you shall bear their iniquity.
Eze 4:5 For I have appointed the years of their iniquity to be to you a number of days, even three hundred ninety days: so shall you bear the iniquity of the house of Yisra’el.
Here we see the “year for a day” principle. Days on Elohim’s calendar are representative of years in our lives. A prime example of this can be observed in the 7 days from Tishri 3rd to Tishri 9th, the Days of Tribulation. They are one week on Elohim’s calendar, between Rosh HaShanah and the Parousia until Yom Kippur and the Second Advent – representing 7 years of earthly time.
Ezekiel, continued:
Eze 4:6 Again, when you have accomplished these, you shall lie on your right side, and shall bear the iniquity of the house of Yehudah: forty days, each day for a year, have I appointed it to you.
Eze 4:7 You shall set your face toward the siege of Yerushalayim, with your arm uncovered; and you shall prophesy against it.
Eze 4:8 Behold, I lay bands on you, and you shall not turn you from one side to the other, until you have accomplished the days of your siege.
This is meant to be a sort of “living art” exhibition by Ezekiel to cause the people to be curious and wonder at his strange actions.
Ezekiel, continued:
Eze 4:9 Take for yourself also wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and spelt, and put them in one vessel, and make you bread of it; [according to] the number of the days that you shall lie on your side, even three hundred ninety days, shall you eat of it.
This is the recipe for “Ezekiel bread,” which is sold in many health food stores.
Ezekiel, continued:
Eze 4:10 Your food which you shall eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day: from time to time shall you eat it.
Eze 4:11 You shall drink water by measure, the sixth part of a hin: from time to time shall you drink.
These are severely restricted rations – near starvation levels of food. Ezekiel would have looked anorexic after completing this regimen. It is meant to scare the observers.
Ezekiel, continued:
Eze 4:12 You shall eat it as barley cakes, and you shall bake it in their sight with dung that comes out of man.
Eze 4:13 YHWH said, Even thus shall the children of Yisra’el eat their bread unclean, among the nations where I will drive them.
They will have little else available for cooking and heating than their own dung, since all animals in the city would have been eaten long before the end of the siege. And on their journey to exile, they would not have the luxury of stopping along the way.
Ezekiel, continued:
Eze 4:14 Then said I, Ah Adonai YHWH! behold, my soul has not been polluted; for from my youth up even until now have I not eaten of that which dies of itself, or is torn of animals; neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth.
Ezekiel complains that he should not have to make himself ritually unclean for that long period of time, that he has never violated Torah commandments for food or cleanliness.
Ezekiel, continued:
Eze 4:15 Then he said to me, Behold, I have given you cow’s dung for man’s dung, and you shall prepare your bread thereon.
Eze 4:16 Moreover he said to me, Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Yerushalayim: and they shall eat bread by weight, and with fearfulness; and they shall drink water by measure, and in dismay:
Eze 4:17 that they may want bread and water, and be dismayed one with another, and pine away in their iniquity.
Elohim wants to make it crystal clear to them that the punishment for their disobedience is going to be this way. Word of Ezekiel’s strange “living art” exhibit would certainly get around - people would come for miles to see him, no doubt. He’s be quite a spectacle. And yet, we know that people came away from his demonstration largely unimpressed. Few if any repented.
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