Yet again Ezekiel is called on to act out his message. The message is about the people still back in Jerusalem, but it is given for the sake of his fellow exiles. What Ezekiel is called to do is to act out the fate of king Zedekiah back in Jerusalem. It happened exactly as Ezekiel prophesied. Zedekiah was captured as he tried to escape Jerusalem through the wall by night in disguise. He was subsequently blinded so that he never saw the place of his captivity. What benefit did this prophecy hold for the people already in exile? The people went into exile because they refused to listen to God as he spoke to them through his prophets. God was foretelling these things through Ezekiel so that the exiles would understand what was happening, why it was happening and, most of all, that it was God speaking to them. They needed to start listening to God. And it turned out that many among the remnant of Judah in exile eventually did just that. There were many for whom the exile in Babylon was an effective wakeup call and these people began to tune in to God’s voice. Those from the school of the prophets among them, disciples of Isaiah and Jeremiah, began to reiterate the things that these prophets had spoken and it reshaped the lives of these people in exile. Sometimes it is only in the darkest of places that we begin to see the light. Does God need to lead you to a darker place so that you will see the light?
Spend some time in stillness reflecting on what God may be saying to you today.
Read Ezekiel 12
