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ISRAEL, GOD'S ORACLE PEOPLE

Brother John G. Gassaway

"Ezekiel 2:3 And he said unto me, Son of man, I send thee to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that hath rebelled against me: they and their fathers have transgressed against me, even unto this very day.

In the first three chapters, Ezekiel had been carried in that magnificent flying machine to see "those of the captivity" in their place at Tel-abib. This place is shown on maps as near Babylon and on the river Chebar but there may be some question about that. Other locations have been proposed closer to the Persian border and south which could have placed the exiles of Ezekiel's from Jerusalem much closer to the body of the larger group of exiles from the Northern Kingdom. At any rate, the main body of the people of Jerusalem was still in Jerusalem at the time of Ezekiel's prophecies.

This may be important; Ezekiel is made the custodian of this house of Israel." [Ezekiel 3:17]. "Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me."

Jeremiah had already been given that commission in chapter 1 of Jeremiah. Why would Ezekiel now be given the same commission? Perhaps the answer is that Jeremiah would be gone to some other part of the world to another part of the House of Israel. We will get to that. Ezekiel is being sent to give a warning to these people known to God and Ezekiel as the House of Israel. He has not gone to Jerusalem where the warning would appear to be needed if we are talking about the Jews who are in rebellion in Jerusalem against God's plan to use Nebuchadnezzar to punish them. He has gone to this place where some "captives" are said to be and they are spoken of as being "rebellious." Daniel and his few were taken to Babylon in the third year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign. They worked FOR the king, not against! Ezekiel, the learned men, artisans, and craftsmen who were in Babylon from Nebuchadnezzar's second action were not in rebellion. Jeremiah 52 places that number at 3,023 people. The third actions took eight hundred plus. (The Book of Kings places this number at one thousand.) None of these that were taken with Ezekiel were in rebellion. It is impossible to make II Kings and Jeremiah 52 match. Jeremiah probably wrote II Kings up to verse 27 of chapter 25. The captives in Babylon wrote Jeremiah 52 as the end of chapter 51 states clearly, "thus far are the words of Jeremiah." Both may be correct to a degree. Jeremiah rounded off numbers and whoever wrote the 52nd chapter of Jeremiah may have taken an actual census.

The point is that the message Ezekiel had was for a "rebellious" people but his message is not to those three to ten thousand that were either in Babylon or by the River Chebar; it was not for the truly rebellious ones in Jerusalem, but to the House of Israel! And God tells Ezekiel that they will not hear his message of warning and promise. Their old nature was rebellion and that had not changed.

Ezekiel 3:7 But the house of Israel will not hearken unto thee; for they will not hearken unto me: for all the house of Israel are impudent and hard-hearted. 9 As an adamant harder than flint have I made thy forehead: fear them not, neither be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious house.

Either we have a writer here who is totally without knowledge of what the names are of God's people going all the way back to Solomon's days, or else Ezekiel goes exactly to the people who were taken into bondage over 100 years before to the border of Assyria and Persia. Think of this. Ezekiel is living among the number of people who are in Babylon or more exactly in Tel-abib (whatever that exact number was). Why does he need a flying machine of the type in verse 13 to take a message to them? If we are talking about the Jews who are living alongside him in exile, he could have just gone out on the street and shouted his message. Anyway, they are not in rebellion. In fact ones like Daniel were proving to be very valuable to Nebuchadnezzar. The rest were artisans and craftsmen who contributed to the wealth of Babylon and denied Jerusalem the talent to build weapons of war for their defense.

We know that later Ezekiel is sent to Jerusalem and shown in a vision the condition of the Temple with the evilness of pagan gods. But for the first three chapters of Ezekiel, he or God always refers to the "House of Israel" and the "captivity." When he is taken to those of the captivity "at Tel-abib", he sat astonished among them for seven days after which God stated, "Son of man, I have made thee watchman to the house of Israel." Only some 4,600 to 10,000 souls had been taken from Jerusalem when Ezekiel and Daniel were taken along with the other artisans and young men of importance to Nebuchadnezzar. (Jeremiah 52, II Kings 25). Why would Ezekiel be astonished for seven days sitting among this little bunch that he had lived with already for so long? And he spends three chapters addressing them as the "House of Israel?" What is this contradiction?

I think it is abundantly clear that Ezekiel has been shown the millions of exiles in the land of the Assyrians. That would be astonishing since the last Ezekiel knew of anything of them, they were being marched off with hooks in their noses in chains to Assyria (as depicted on the drawings found on Assyrian clay tablets and engraved into the mountainsides of Media). Now they are a huge body of independent tribes, Saka, Massagetae, Scythians and Cimmerians who terrorize the land they occupy according to Herodotus. Instead of being slaves and then mercenaries for the Assyrians against the Persians, they turned on the Assyrians and helped bring that empire down, leaving Babylon to fill the void until the Persians could gain strength under Cyrus.

Ezekiel mentions 87 times specifically the "House of Israel." He only mentions the "house of Judah" eight times! Jeremiah mentions the House of Israel 19 times and the House of Judah, 11 times. Isaiah mentions the House of Israel 4 times and the House of Judah, two times. The House of Israel is spoken of more AFTER they have been taken out of the land that before!

An even more amazing thing develops. Ezekiel has to carry out the first of several acts, (similitudes or what the rabbis call "Midrash") acts that would have landed him in a nut ward in a straight jacket in today's world. In chapter 4, Ezekiel is told to do something as a sign for the House of Israel; he is to lie on his left side 390 days for the iniquity of the house of Israel. Then he is to turn on his right side and lie there for 40 days for the iniquity of the house of JUDAH. Somehow Ezekiel is to understand that there was a difference and that the house of Israel was still on God's list, even though they were "scattered among the countries" (Ezekiel 11:16). But God stated He will be a "as a little sanctuary in the countries where they shall come." He refers to these people as kindred of Ezekiel and as the "whole House of Israel." Ezekiel had dealt with them in the first three chapters but afterward, he gets a visit from some "elders of Israel" in Ezekiel 14:1. Apparently they had "gotten the word" from Ezekiel earlier and now were back for more word. Upon consulting with God, Ezekiel gives them the words from God in the following 22 verses before turning to Jerusalem and God's anger at them. God's word for these "elders" was not terribly encouraging! Remember, there are none left of the House of Israel in the Holy land at this time and Jerusalem is under tribute to Babylon. And Ezekiel knows the difference in the elders of Israel and the elders of Judah for he meets with the elders of Judah in Ezekiel 8:1 and mentions them by that name and he met with these elders of Judah in his "own house."

What is the difference in the "whole house" and just the House of Israel? They definitely are not those of Jerusalem who are still left behind in Jerusalem, waiting the day of the final destruction of that city and carrying off of nearly every one to Babylon who were left alive. The ones who are the "whole house" are spoken of as the ones, "unto whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, Get you far from the LORD: unto us is this land given in possession." (Ezekiel 11:15). These people can not be the 5000 plus or minus who had been carried off by Nebuchadnezzar in the two actions that took first Daniel and the artisans and in the second, Ezekiel. Who are they? The "whole House of Israel," while including Jews taken in the last siege of the Assyrians when all of Israel except Jerusalem fell to the Assyrians and all taken off to bondage, included the northern tribes, are the ones we refer to as the "lost tribes."

Ezekiel had a message for them although God tells him they will not hear him. Afterwards, Ezekiel turns to Jerusalem and carries out the strange actions to warn them of the coming destruction by breaking holes in the walls of his house, carrying out the furniture of his house while being blindfolded. And by the way, in this siege and again in 70 AD, the prophecy of "eating your children" in fact occurred according to the history of Josephus. God does not speak lightly when He gives warnings. It is an exact warning of what would happen acted out as a "Midrash" with the final fall of Jerusalem, her walls, the removal of all the furniture of the Temple, the blinding of Zedekiah and carrying him off to Babylon. Chapter 11 is written after Ezekiel's Midrash referring to the coming years of punishment done in chapter four, and it is in verses 24 and 25 of chapter 11 that Ezekiel is taken to those of the "captivity" in the land of Chaldea. He turns immediately back to the future of Jerusalem. (Note that Jerusalem had not been taken captive at this time, only the 4600 that were in one place, Babylon, not scattered). Here in this chapter he refers to the House of Israel as if there was a House of Israel still in Jerusalem helping the rebellious king (prince) there. In this instance, God is considering the whole group as Israel in Jerusalem in the way He speaks of "MY people Israel" elsewhere. Below, Ezekiel speaks of a house of Israel that has seen his Midrash of the coming destruction of Jerusalem and they ask him what he is doing.

Ezekiel 12:9 Son of man hath not the house of Israel, the rebellious house, said unto thee, what doest thou? 10 Say thou unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; this burden concerneth the prince in Jerusalem, and all the house of Israel that are among them. 11 Say, I am your sign: like as I have done, so shall it be done unto them: they shall remove and go into captivity. 14 And I will scatter toward every wind all that are about him to help him, and all his bands; and I will draw out the sword after them.

Since the House of Israel has long been gone from the proximity of Jerusalem, this verse is most interesting. It has always been the habit of kings to hire foreign warriors to guard their palaces to avoid a coup de tat by having a personal army. I think this may be an explanation of the reference to house of Israel. The ones about Zedekiah to act as his palace guards were of the House of Israel, who had worked as mercenaries in war for over a hundred years.

From all of this I deduce that Ezekiel spent time with the captives of the northern tribes and perhaps that is why he sat "astonished for seven days", to see the large number of them in their place to the north of Babylon, just to the south of Lake Van beyond the river Gozan and the cities of the Medes, Halah and Habor. [2nd Kings 17:6; 18:11; 1st Chronicles 5:26] Here they were now totally independent of any foreign or local governments and had probably migrated over large parts of southern Persia close to Babylon. They remained a fierce war-like people who for the most part had forgotten their old roots to the God of Israel, Yahweh. There may have been a few Jews of the Aaronic priesthood among them but it is obvious they were not practicing. They had stopped that LONG BEFORE they were removed from the land over one hundred years earlier. The stories of Elijah, Ahab and Jezebel tell us that. Yet there was this group known as "elders" who came to Ezekiel to obtain a word from God. Ezekiel asked God and he was told what to say and also that the leaders would not listen anyway. That was apparently Ezekiel's last contact with them though he still remained their "watchman." I see nowhere in the Bible where God took that burden from him. [Ezekiel 3:16]. The third crossroad is found in II Samuel 7 where Israel is promised a "new place" other than where they were in David's days. The fourth crossroad and completely overlooked crossroad in God's promises to Abraham is found in Ezekiel 21. God had promised an enduring dynasty through Solomon in II Samuel 7. That dynasty was to survive whatever happened to Judah as long as the stars and the moon were in the heavens. God stated He would punish Solomon but for David's sake He would not take away Solomon's House or dynasty. Ezekiel explains how that happens in spite of the slaughter of all of the royal line through Solomon and Josiah via Zedekiah and his sons and the cursing of the remaining male line of Jehoiakim including the sole survivor in Babylon, Jehoiachin, who is spoken of as "king of Judah" in Jeremiah 52:31. It is important to notice that Jeremiah DID NOT WRITE THAT as the concluding lines of chapter 51 states, "thus far are the words of Jeremiah." Chapter 52 was written by those in Babylon at a time when they sought to reestablish the kingly line of Judah. Jehoiachin could not be the king of Judah as result of the blood curse of Jeremiah 36:30, 31. An important point of this curse is that it was to the MALE line. We will make use of that later.

Jeremiah 36:30 Therefore thus saith the LORD of Jehoiakim king of Judah; He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David: and his dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost. 31 And I will punish him and his seed and his servants for their iniquity; and I will bring upon them, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and upon the men of Judah, all the evil that I have pronounced against them; but they hearkened not.

Notice and remember later that God said the punishment was for the MEN OF JUDAH. Now women were killed in the attack on Jerusalem just the same as men but there was something special about the women who were seed of the king. So how would God be true to His word if NO heir of Solomon is left to carry on that line of kings of Judah through Solomon? First, let us look at these interesting verses in Ezekiel 21:25-27.

Ezekiel 21:25 And thou, profane wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come, when iniquity shall have an end, 26 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Remove the diadem, and take off the crown: this shall not be the same: exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high. 27 I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it: and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him.

Ezekiel is speaking directly to Zedekiah here. He is telling us that someone else is to be moved into the "high" position as king over Israel (Judah), exalting someone who is considered "lower" than the line of Solomon to Zedekiah and at the same time abasing the one who is currently high, Zedekiah. The only way this can be resolved is to go back to the sons of Judah. God could keep His promise via Jacob to Judah through a line of kings who were descendants of Zerah. But that would not keep the promise to David who was of the line through Pharez. The overlooked fact that seems to "jump out" at us is that there was something very important to Jeremiah and his care for the "daughters of the king." [Jeremiah 41:10; 43:6] They would be the only remaining line of Josiah or Zedekiah who were not either dead or cursed. That they were entitled to that position is made clear by God, Himself, when Moses [27:7, 8] makes the point clear. The women whose husbands and other male kin had been killed or had died were to receive the inheritance in the land in their place. That included any inheritance including the right to the throne of David.

Numbers 27:7 the daughters of Zelophehad speak right: thou shalt surely give them a possession of an inheritance among their father's brethren; and thou shalt cause the inheritance of their father to pass unto them. 8 And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, if a man die, and have no son, then ye shall cause his inheritance to pass unto his daughter.

To be continued: The Daughters Of The King.