Day 243 (Ezekiel 16-17) - Year 8

**Tara-Leigh Cobble** (0:01)
Hey, Bible readers, I'm Tara-Leigh Cobble, and I'm your host for The Bible Recap.
Today in chapter 16, God tells Ezekiel an extended metaphor about his relationship with Israel. And while the overall point of the metaphor is clear, every commentary I read cautioned against getting into the weeds with this metaphor, simply because every comparison breaks down at some level. So we'll just look at it through the lens of regular glasses, not a microscope, because that's how most metaphors and parables are intended to be received. So here's what we're looking at. Israel is an abandoned orphan, unloved and left to die. But then someone, the king of the universe, by the way, rescues this orphan and nurses her back to health.
He uses 19 verbs to describe all he does for the orphan when he rescues her.
I passed by you, I saw you, I said to you, live. I made you flourish. I spread the corner of my garment over you. I covered your nakedness. I made my vow to you. I entered into a covenant with you. I bathed you with water. I washed off your blood. I anointed you with oil. I clothed you with embroidered cloth. I shod you with fine leather. I wrapped you in fine linen. I covered you with silk. I adorned you with garments. I put bracelets on your wrists and a chain on your neck. I put a ring on your nose and earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. I bestowed splendor on you.
But eventually, she loves the king's gifts more than the king himself. And because of his care for her, she's beautiful. So she trusts in her beauty to get her whatever she wants. She uses all the king's gifts to lure in other lovers. She makes idols out of them. And in a devastating turn of events, she forgets that she was once the helpless child who was rescued, and she ends up sacrificing her own children.
Her idolatry becomes unsatisfying, but instead of turning away from it, she dives in deeper. Idolatry always demands more, making us needier and more frantic and insecure. She goes from being a prostitute who receives gifts from her lovers to one who is so desperate for love and security that she gives them gifts to keep them around. In verse 41, God says he's about to put a stop to it all. His judgment for her sins will bring them to a screeching halt.
He says her sins are even worse than those of Sodom and Gomorrah. And notice what God says was the root of Sodom's big problem. We tend to only pay attention to how their problem manifested in one specific way. But as always, God gets down to the heart of the issue. So what was the heart of Sodom's issue? In verses 49-50, God says, Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom. She and her daughters had pride, excess of food and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty and did an abomination before me, so I removed them. God addresses their other sins elsewhere in Scripture, like in Genesis 19 and Jude 1-7, and He doesn't ignore their sexual sin here either. He addresses the abomination they did. But He attaches their actions to their attitudes, to their pride and arrogance. God is always digging deeper. And of course, that pride and arrogance manifested in other areas besides their sexual sin. And God points those out here too. He had given them so much, but they lived in luxury without caring for the poor and needy. And in the midst of all this, God says Jerusalem is worse than Sodom, and He promises to punish her for her sin, a punishment that looks a lot like death. But He still promises to restore her fortunes in the future. In chapter 17, we read a parable. That would normally call for glasses, but let's put down our glasses and pull out some binoculars, because this one's about a bird.
God says a big eagle, who is King Nebbe of Babylon, plucks up a shoot, like a tiny vine, and drops it down again, and it grows into a tall vine. The shoot is King Chin. The one who surrendered to King Nebbe was captured and then provided for all the days of his life. We read that story in 2 Kings 24 and 25, so we can see how the imagery fits. The eagle plucking up a shoot, then dropping it down and having it grow tall.
Then King Nebbe does a little more gardening, planting King Zedekiah and Judah to handle things. But unlike the first vine King Chen, King Zedekiah reaches out to a different eagle, Egypt, who happens to be flying overhead. King Zedekiah is hoping to be plucked up and transplanted, but instead he'll just wither and die. Egypt is not God's appointed eagle. God promised all of this a long time ago. He sent Jeremiah to warn the kings of Judah to surrender to Babylon if they wanted to survive. It sounds completely illogical, but it was his plan. And only King Chen followed the plan, albeit probably out of fear, not surrender. Everyone else looked for a different escape route than the one God commanded, and they got what God promised, judgment and exile. But God kept his promise to bless too. King Chen thrived, even amidst half-hearted obedience, because God is merciful.