TOMS: Ezekiel 24-26

For an introduction to this series, click here.

Oct. 6, 2006

This passage marks the transition in Ezekiel from pronouncing judgment on Israel to pronouncing judgment on the nations around and prophesying future blessings for Israel. Chapter 24 is another statement of God's wrath against Jerusalem, but it is touched with a twinge of hope. God says that he will boil Israel in a pot until the meat and the bones and the broth are all burned up, and there will be nothing left but the pot. But the pot will be purified and will become fit for God's blessing. 

Chapter 25 is a pronouncement of God's judgment against Ammon, Moab, Edom, and Philistia.

Chapter 26 is a prediction of God's judgment against Tyre. This chapter has been well noted often about how absolutely accurate its description of the destruction of Tyre is. Without getting bogged down in all the details, these passages let us know that God has a purpose in everything. The Babylonians certainly did not know they were fulfilling Ezekiel's prophecy when they tore down the rubble of the old city of Tyre and built an earthen bridge across to the island where the new city of Tyre was, but they did leave the old city bald as a stone, just like Ezekiel predicted.

The Babylonians were just interested in a Mediterranean port when they conquered Tyre, but God was working out His plan to punish Tyre for the way they treated His people. Nothing happens by accident. I am not saying that we can know what God's plan is, because we can't without special revelation. But we can be confident that whatever is going on, if it's the war or the school shootings or whatever, they are all part of God's plan, whether it be a plan for a nation, an area, or an individual person.