In the first seven chapters of
Ezekiel, God through him had made it explicitly clear His intention to deal
with the house of Israel. Although He was dealing with Judah, He referred to
them as the house of Israel. In referring to them as the house of Israel, God
was not talking particularly about the Northern Kingdom of Israel but Israel as
a whole. For though Israel was divided into two kingdoms after Solomon, God
still regarded them as one people of His. The Assyrians were used to deal with
the people of the Northern Kingdom and Babylon was the instrument God used to
deal with Judah, the Southern Kingdom.
Ezekiel 8-11 is the description of another series of visions. It is actually one singular vision. In Ezekiel 8:1, we are told that while the prophet was in his house, the elders of Judah in exile visited him. Dating this event as happening on “the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month,” would mean that this event happened approximately one and a half years after the first vision that he had. A simple calculation would tell us that the timing of this vision overlapped with the timing of the 430 days of dramatized message. Hence, it would not be unreasonable to say that his dramatized message of lying down was not done around the clock for him. There were periods of break to enable him to accept visitors.
During the elders' visit, He was also visited by the Lord. The hand of the Lord fell upon him, and he was given a vision of the manifestation of God. He knew it was from God because what saw had some similarities with what he saw in the earlier chapters. In Ezekiel 8:2, he describes the manifestation of God as “a form that had the appearance of a man.” Going on he said, “Below what appeared to be his waist was fire, and above his waist was something like the appearance of brightness, like gleaming metal.”
As he caught sight of the glory of God, he felt transported to Jerusalem by the Spirit. He felt the Spirit taking a lock of his hair and lifted him between earth and heaven and left him near the north gate of the inner court of the temple. This was to say that he was in a trance-like state. Where he was left was probably familiar to him. He had been there many times in the past. Prior to Josiah’s reform on the throne was an idol of jealousy which had provoked God to jealousy. Here Ezekiel also saw the presence of the glory of God, one that was similar to what he saw in the valley in chapter 1.
Here's a lesson: Whenever we stray, it is because we have allowed something to come between us and Him. Anything we worship apart from Him will inevitably put Him at bay. When we allow any idols to take His place in our lives, we will slowly but surely make Him less important to us. That’s why He will have to deal with our slightest inclination to detach ourselves from Him. He loves and cares for us too much to let us remain in what He knows will destroy us. So, He guards over us zealously and keeps engineering situations to get us to where we can receive His best for us. Some of the processes can be painful but are needful. Let us be sure to respond rightly to His gracious overtures.
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