I was reading early this morning with my friend Matthew Henry, the great Bible commentator of seventeenth century England. Matthew and I have read so much together over the years that I call him my friend. I hope he won’t mind.
Today, we were reading in Ezekiel Chapter 22 of the deserved and approaching destruction of Jerusalem, God’s Holy City. The city, the capitol of the promised land, and the chosen people who had strayed from their God.
In Chapter 22, the prophet Ezekiel is asked to state clearly what could be considered a bill of indictment against these people, it a list of some of the things they have done and are legally accountable for.
We like things to be legal, don’t we? The law, that’s our protection against oppressors and oppression. The law and the leaders will stand up for us, the ordinary folk. After all that’s the way our Founding Fathers intended wasn’t it? It’s a nice plan when it works.
It had ceased to work back in Ezekiel’s day and seemingly has ceased to work in our nation in our time.
It was difficult to discern as I read first Ezekiel’s words and then my friend’s commentary, whether the two of them were speaking of ancient and truly despicable Israel or of our country today and our capitol.
In verse 4 Ezekiel states, “Thou art become guilty in thy blood that thou hast shed; and hast defiled thyself in thine idols which thou hast made; and thou hast caused thy days to draw near, and art come even unto thy years: therefore have I made thee a reproach unto the heathen, and a mocking to all countries.”
God’s chosen people were no longer the “shining city on the hill” that God had intended them to be, and as President Reagan had so eloquently described our great nation at a time when it was closer to the truth. The people worshipped, but not God. We also worship…but not God.
Matthew continues in his indictment He (Ezekiel) is to find Jerusalem guilty of many heinous crimes here enumerated in the long bill of indictment, and it is “billa vera — a true bill…” This is to be the truth.
The first one: “1. Murder: The city sheds blood, not only in the suburbs, where the strangers dwell, but in the midst of it, where, one would think, the magistrates would, if any where, be vigilant. Even there people were murdered either in duels or by secret assassinations and poisonings, or in the courts of justice under colour of law, and there was no care taken to discover and punish the murderers according to the law, no, nor so much as the ceremony used to expiate an uncertain murder and so the guilt and pollution remains upon the city.”
Matthew continues, “The princes of Israel, who should have been the protectors of injured innocence, every one were to their power to shed blood. They thirsted for it, and delighted in it, and whoever came within their power were sure to feel it; whoever lay at their mercy were sure to find none.”
We have many in our day who rightfully and legally seek mercy at the hands of government but find none. Is my friend Matthew ahead of his time?
And then the second, “(2.) There were those who carried tales to shed blood. They told lies of men to the princes, to whom they knew it would be pleasing, to incense them against them; or they betrayed what passed in private conversation, to make mischief among neighbours, and set them together by the ears, to bite, and devour, and worry one another, even to death.”
Remind you of anything?
How about the third, “(3.) There were those who took gifts to shed blood (v. 12), who would be hired with money to swear a man out of his life, or, if they were upon a jury, would be bribed to find an innocent man guilty.”
Straight from today’s news, is it not?
All these things and more were said of the people of ancient Jerusalem before judgment was to fall upon them.
And then Matthew speaks of us, “That abundance of quiet, harmless, good people were made away with, whereby, as the guilt of the city was increased, so the number of those that should have stood in the gap to turn away the wrath of God was diminished.”
This was said of ancient Jerusalem just prior to her judgment and destruction.
What will become of us when we do the same?
Those prophets packed a punch and Ezekiel was a very bold truthteller. The truths haven’t changed event though multiple generations have come and gone. As we sometimes say, “Same person, different face.” I think we can see ourselves in the words of the prophets very easily. The question is whether we’ll listen… Thanks for sharing.
Yes… Thank you, Crystal