Ezekiel 4:5-6 – “I am requiring you to bear Israel’s sins for 390 days—one day for each year of their sin. After that, turn over and lie on your right side for 40 days—one day for each year of Judah’s sin.”
I knew I would get to a point at which I wondered if writing a daily devotional through Ezekiel was a good idea. Well, we’re only in chapter 4 and it’s a tough one. God has a message for Israel, and it isn’t pretty. What’s worse, Ezekiel has to act the whole thing out for over a year. (If you have ever heard of Ezekiel bread, the recipe comes from this chapter. Not so warm and fuzzy now. Let’s just say Ezekiel wasn’t going to Whole Foods to get his all natural bread…)
Israel was divided into two kingdoms: Israel in the north and Judah in the south. They had rebelled against God for a combined total of 430 years. Ezekiel is now communicating to them that they need to repent. He has to lay on one side of his body (first his left, then his right) for 430 days, eating only whole grain bread. His main objection: he wants to be able to use the standard cow dung for fuel in the cooking fire rather than God’s idea of human dung. Yeah, you read that right.
Here’s your freedom for today:
God will go to great lengths to win you back.
While this may seem like cruel and unusual punishment, particularly for poor Ezekiel, God’s heart was to get his people back. They had rebelled against him for generations, through many evil kings that had divided the kingdom and led the people astray. God wants to get his people’s attention, and he’s finding some unusual ways to do it through his prophet Ezekiel. As I’ve said already, other prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and many others you can read in the Old Testament had to carry out similar instructions. It is important for us to keep in mind that all of this is building to the coming Messiah: Jesus. The people must understand their sin before they can understand their need for a Savior.