22:6 and 7 - These are just some of the signs of the corruption that is running rampant in Israel. Their leaders care nothing for human life, there is no respect for parents/authority, foreigners are abused and taken advantage of, and the widows and orphans are forgotten and oppressed. The people have become so wicked that they will take advantage of anyone for personal gain. I see signs of these kind of attitudes in our own country (personal gain at any cost to anybody)...what can you do to live in opposition to this way?
22:8-12 - The people of God not only profane the temple of the Lord, they profane their own bodies with perversion of every kind. Christians must remember that we are temples of the Holy Spirit of God and must do everything we can to fight for purity. Don't drag the Spirit of God dwelling within you into perversion.
22:20 - Metals of different types are brought together and melted so that they can form a stronger metal. To make sure that the metal is as pure as possible, the dross (Or imperfections like dirt and grime) are removed as they float to the top of the molten mixture. All that remains will be pure metal. That is what God is doing with His people...His judgement has a point. He is putting His people through the fire so that the dross will be removed and only the pure will remain.
22:27 and 28 - Once again we get a picture of the leadership of Israel: blood-thirsty, power-hungry princes and religious leaders who whitewash everything the people do and tell the princes what they want to hear. We must not allow ourselves to be corrupted by the power that has been made available to us - whether we are church leaders, parents, bosses at work...we must remember that it is not about us and that everything we have been given is from God.
22:30 and 31 - Am I a man to stand in the gap as described here? Are you a person that will stand in the gap? Stand against the prevailing beliefs of our culture and remain faithful to God? God give me the strength to make my stand with you...no mater what the odds...no matter what the opposition...no matter what the temptation...God help me to stand in the gap.
23:4 - The two daughters described here are the Northern and Southern Kingdoms of Israel. The chosen people of God split into two nations when they chose to follow opposing kings. The northern kingdom followed the false religions of the people around them, were eventually destroyed by the Assyrians and populated by people from all over the Assyrian empire. These people intermarried with the Jews in northern Israel and they became Samaria. A people that the southern Jews considered to be half-breed and not Jewish at all.
23:5 - The northern kingdom rejected God and sought "lovers" from other cultures around them. They worshipped false gods and broke their covenant vows with the Lord. We see as their history is played out in this chapter (In the form of a prostitute), that they were never truly satisfied and ended up finding only destruction after their rebellion against God.
23:11 - The southern kingdom is the one that is always seem as the more faithful of the two. The prophets of the OT are mainly men that prophesied to the southern kingdoms and these were the people that remained the true nation of Israel. Yet here, we are told that they become even more vile than the other kingdom. Why is that? Because even after they see the northern kingdom utterly destroyed because of their refusal to maintain their relationship with God...the people of Judah follow in their footsteps and become religious adulterers.
23:19 - Okay this is a little graphic and gross, but lets just deal with it. Using the prostitution analogy, Ezekiel is saying that the prostitute Judah is longing for her days in Egypt where the men were hung like donkeys and their emissions (i.e. flood/ejaculate) was like that of horses. Ewwww! And I am sorry that is a bit graphic, but that is what the passage is talking about. Why on earth does Ezekiel say this? Well, he is trying to make a really strong point with the people. The men of Egypt are not even described as humans, they are described using animal terms, so it is a fantasy. The people of Judah are remembering back to their time in Egypt (Probably forgetting about the whole slavery thing)...but thinking about the power, the possibilities, the strength of the nation of Egypt. They are living in a "grass is always greener" fantasy world that is totally unrealistic. They are longing for something that was never really even there...longing for satisfaction from false gods, which does not even exist. They are fooling themselves, turning away from God yet again and heaping judgment on their own heads.
23:27-30 and 49 - This whole analogy has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with idolatry and false worship. They have rejected their creator God - the God who just happened to make them into the chosen people that they are - for the "popular" beliefs and gods of the cultures around them. It is the ultimate betrayal and the shattering of the sacred covenant and they will pay dearly for it. Good thing believers nowadays have no problem rejecting the siren song of false cultural beliefs around us, right?
24:7ff - In this analogy, all the choicest and best ingredients are put into the pot. Though the meat looks really good on the outside, it is corrupt and vile on the inside and no amount of cooking will get rid of the vileness. The only option is for the fire to be cranked up and all of the soup to be utterly burned away until the corruption is destroyed. Pretty self-explanatory right?
24:16 - This seems so cruel. Ezekiel is one of the few faithful people in Israel and God is going to allow his wife to die! Does God not have the power to save her? Of course He does. So is it God that actually kills Ezekiel's wife? Some would say that by allowing her to die, He is killing her, but I see this passage in a different light. Remember the passage from Job 2:10 that says, "Shall we receive good from God and then not receive bad?" We can't just have it one way...God never promises us that everything is going to be perfect and easy...but we do know from His character that He is working through the corruption and sin of this world to bring about His will. God uses the evil of death (In this case the death of Ezekiel's wife) to bring about good
24:21ff - So what is the analogy? Just as Ezekiel's wife was his pride and joy...the light of his eyes, the temple in Jerusalem is the pride of the Jewish people. The temple is their crown jewel...it is the place of worship...it is the center of community and life in Judah...and it is going to be utterly destroyed. God is going to allow His own holy temple to be profaned because of the idolatry and betrayal of His people. And God would not allow Ezekiel to publicly mourn (Which is not to say that Ezekiel could not privately mourn) because it was going to be a picture of what would happen to the Jews when the temple was destroyed. They will be so crushed...so confused by the lose of worship, community, connection with God that the temple represents that they will become numb. They will be unable to publicly mourn, because it would shut down the entire nation.
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