Our study of Ezekiel draws to the end with this set of generalizations about the role of Ezekiel as a symbol.
Tenth Symbol: The Quaking Eater
Also in chapter 12 is another symbol to demonstrate in the person of Ezekiel a further manifestation of the coming horrors. Ezekiel is commanded to tremble as he eats his food and shudder as he drinks his water. It is not clear whether Ezekiel will feign this trembling and shuddering or if his own distress will be manifest as he tries to go about daily life. It is clear, however, that the symbol is a prefiguring of the mental distress that the coming violence would make a part of their lives in the near future (verses 17-20.)
Perhaps some insight can be gained from the subsequent verses (verses 21-28.). Perhaps Ezekiel's holy fear is contrasted with the two apparently prevalent attitudes toward his prophecies. First was the people's staunch belief that prophecies would not amount to anything in the real world. The second belief was that the prophecies were valid, but didn't apply to the present hearers but rather to the distant future.
“¢ A person called to be a symbol must not expect that his or her feelings of urgency will be shared by the hearers of the message. Even those who believe a message may be valid may conclude that there's no hurry to obey it.
“¢ A symbol must accept the hard-to-swallow fact that God may strike unrepentant people in very basic ways: in mental distress that makes daily necessities like eating and drinking a chore.
“¢ Two mental attitudes are mentioned here. One is anxiety and the other is despair (v. 20.) Anxiety is the agitated state in which options are turned over and over in the mind without any comfort or apparent resolution. Despair, on the other hand, is a sinking into a morass where no options seem on the horizon. However, God intends these emotions not just to punish the unrepentant, but as a way of reforming their minds so that they will be able to see that their own sin has brought all this about (v. 20, see also 7:27.) Anxiety and despair, says God, will lead to acknowledging that He is Lord.
EZEKIEL PART FIVE
Eleventh Symbol: the Groaner of Grief
Several chapters of teaching, parables and warnings intercede before the next call to Ezekiel to humble himself and become a visual aid to his people in exile. In chapter 21, Ezekiel is called to an action that is commanded eight times of him, to “set his face against” something, in this case, against Jerusalem and specifically the sanctuary which God has abandoned. (The other examples of him setting his face occur in 13:17, 20:46, 25:2, 28:21, 29:2, 35:2, and 38:2.) Along with that, Ezekiel is to “drop his word” (also in Deuteronomy 32:2, Amos 7:16–translated in newer translations as “speak against.” However, the image of a prophetic word falling precipitously from his lips is a powerful one that loses a little by being translated “speak against.”)
Then Ezekiel is called to perform an action that is midway between pantomime and speech. He is commanded to groan, or sigh deeply, with his heart broken and filled with grief. The message he bears– one so horrendous that that it will cause physical collapse and mental and emotional breakdown in its hearers — will first affect Ezekiel.
Ezekiel's actions are intended by God to be noticed by people, and to be questioned. When his hearers understand the despair he feels, God hopes, they will understand and not want to be similarly affected. But in one thing, God is unflinchingly determined: these things will happen.
“¢ A desire “to be broken by the things that break the heart of God” is a mark of the godly. Sometimes that grief must be displayed openly so that one's motivations for actions that others might regard as “extreme” may be necessary.
“¢ Participation in the kind of groaning here is a participation in the heart of God. There are two manifestations of that kind of emotion, one from the Old Testament and one from the New that show us this. In Genesis 6:6 there is a word that is translated in the KJV as “repented” to show the great grief of God over the sin of His created beings. The root of this word is that of deep exhaling or sighing with great emotion, and newer translations use other words to express His profound grief at man's sin. A second example of this kind of profound emotion is found in Romans 8:27, where we learn that the Spirit, who helps us in our weakness and inability to live, participates in our suffering by groans that cannot be uttered. We might therefore generalize that just as Ezekiel groaned in empathy with the heart of God, so a person called to be a symbol may feel this kind of wordless and inexpressible grief. But a New Testament believer has an ally that others do not: a Holy Spirit who is called alongside him or her to groan along, and to carry our wordless requests to the Father.
“¢ One motivation to carry through with the Gospel message to unbelievers and to sinning believers would be an internal assurance that God's messages of punishment for the wicked will not be turned away. While we may temporarily take our eyes off a coming judgment, an entire angelic army and its spirit horses strain at the bridle waiting to be unleashed upon those who oppose their King. When God calls us to groan at coming judgment, it is to keep us focused enough that we do not look away or excuse idolatry.
Twelfth Symbol: The Strikers of Hands
The people of Judah were trusting in the scepter of Judah, but God has appointed a sword that “despises every such stick” (21:10). God reveals that this sword is a weapon of slaughter against His people, sharpened and polished for its task.
To show the people the dismay that will overtake them, Ezekiel is called to both beat his breast (verse12) and then to strike his hands together (verse 14). The striking action is to foreshadow the action of this appointed sword, but also to participate in the actions of God who Himself will strike His hands together to signal the end of His wrath.
In this symbol we see the poignancy of the way that God is mentally involving Ezekiel in the coming catastrophe. In his body, in his mind and his emotions, God is calling him to participate in one of Deity's most disturbing attributes: that of the meting out of judgment against evil.
“¢ We as Christians may blithely read 2 Peter 1:4 about the great and precious promises given by God and the privilege of sharing in His divine nature and miss the fact that God has made not only promises of blessings to believers, but also promises of destruction to those who oppose Him and persecute His beloved ones. He calls on us to actually share (koinoia– the same word for sharing used of fellowship throughout the New Testament) in His own nature. Peter tells us that the basis for such sharing is the fact that we have escaped the world's corruption. If we are to share in His nature, sometimes it may be that one called to be a symbol may also be called to share not only in goodwill but also in another aspect of His nature, the aspect of justice against wickedness– in such a way as Ezekiel did.
“¢ God must surely have loved Ezekiel for his submission to such emotionally taxing requests. Certainly God treated him more harshly on earth than He did many of the wicked who lived rich lives and then died. We might generalize from this that emotional turmoil over the fate of the wicked is something that God often engenders and in fact requires from those who preach to hardened hearts. Such an emotional state might look to others like the antithesis of peace that Christ promised. Someone who is called to be a symbol must be able not only to defend his or her distress over sin, but even more importantly, must be willing to let God use him or her however He may wish to convict the wicked of sin. Just as we are called to be ready to give an answer to everyone wh
o asks a reason for the hope within us, we must be willing to give an answer for our urgency and distress over the condition of the wicked. We can do this with confidence, for God will surely one day make a distinction between the righteous and the wicked.
