In today’s reading I had trouble reading past the end of chapter 24.  I was struck by the story of the death of Ezekiel’s wife.  I never knew that the Lord took her as a means of teaching the people.  I’m blown away by Ezekiel.  I don’t think I could have been as faithful to the Lord.  Beginning in verse 15 we find out that the Lord tells Ezekiel that He is going to take the life of his wife (the delight of Ezekiel’s eyes).  One morning Ezekiel goes out to preach and that night he comes back home to find his wife dead.  What’s more, her life was taken to help teach the Israelites through the way Ezekiel responded to her death.

From our human perspective I know that sometimes we see God’s hand at work in the trials of our lives and see how one bad think ended up being used for good – but this is a little hard to understand.  Ezekiel is told before hand that his wife would be killed and taken by the Lord and there’s no record of Ezekiel questioning God about it.  It just happens.  I love the Lord and serve Him with my whole life, but I would have some big questions if it were me in that situation.

Just when you think you’ve seen it all in scripture…you read today’s section.  I don’t believe I’ve ever studied Ezekiel chapter 23 in a Bible study or ever heard it mentioned in a sermon.  It may be the same reason why you don’t hear much about Song of Solomon.  There’s not enough room in today’s blog to quote the entire chapter, but it’s a must read.

Imagine the word of the Lord coming to  Ezekiel and being there to hear him preach a sermon that compared Jerusalem and Samaria to two sister prostitutes.  God doesn’t beat around the bush in this passage.  He is clear and very graphic about his total disgust with how the people were behaving.  Check it out sometime.