Ezekiel 22:1 - Meaning and Application

In these verses, the prophet, by a commission from heaven, takes his seat as a judge, and Jerusalem stands like a prisoner before the court. If prophets were set over other nations, they were much more over God’s own nation (Jeremiah 1:10). Ezekiel is authorized to judge the bloody city, the city full of bloodshed. Jerusalem gets that name not only because she was guilty of murder, but because her whole life was soaked in serious sin, sins that polluted her like blood and deserved blood in return.

A judge’s task is to prove the charges and then pronounce sentence. Ezekiel is to do both here. He must show Jerusalem all her disgusting sins (Ezekiel 22:2), so that God will be shown right in the judgments he brings on her. Let us look at the crimes she is charged with, and every one of them is very serious.

First is murder. The city shed blood, not only in the outskirts where strangers lived, but right in the middle of it, where the leaders should have been especially watchful. People were murdered through duels, secret attacks, poisonings, or even in court under the cover of law. No one took care to find the murderers and punish them as the law required (Genesis 9:6), nor was even the rite used to clear uncertain murder carried out (Deuteronomy 21:1). So the guilt and stain of blood stayed on the city. “You have become guilty by the blood you shed” (Ezekiel 22:4).

This crime gets special attention because it seems to have been Jerusalem’s great sin, the one that filled up her measure of guilt. It is called the sin the Lord would not pardon (2 Kings 24:4). The princes of Israel, who should have protected innocent people, instead used their power to shed blood (Ezekiel 22:6). They craved it and enjoyed it, and anyone who came under their control could expect no mercy. There were also people who carried stories to cause bloodshed (Ezekiel 22:9). They spread lies about men to the princes, knowing those lies would please them, or they betrayed private talk to stir up trouble between neighbors. They set people against each other so they would bite, devour, and destroy one another, even to death.

People who spread harmful stories and sow discord among brothers will answer for all the harm that follows, just as one who starts a fire is responsible for the damage it causes. There were also those who took gifts to shed blood (Ezekiel 22:12). They could be paid to swear away a man’s life, or, if they sat on a jury, they could be bribed to declare an innocent man guilty. When so much bloody cruelty was done in Jerusalem, we can rightly conclude two things. First, people’s consciences had become deeply corrupt, and their hearts were hard. Second, many quiet, harmless, good people were put to death, which increased the city’s guilt and reduced the number of those who might have stood in the gap and turned away God’s wrath.

Second is idolatry. “She makes idols against herself to destroy herself” (Ezekiel 22:3). Again, “You have defiled yourself with the idols you made” (Ezekiel 22:4). Those who make idols for themselves end up making them against themselves, because idolaters deceive themselves and prepare their own destruction. Along with that, they pollute themselves and become hateful in the eyes of the holy and jealous God. Their minds and consciences are also defiled, so that nothing seems pure to them. Even those who did not make idols themselves were guilty when they ate at the high places (Ezekiel 22:9), joining in idol worship and fellowship with idolaters.

Third is disobedience to parents. “In you children have treated father and mother with contempt” (Ezekiel 22:7). They mocked them, cursed them, and refused to obey them. This showed more than ordinary corruption in both nature and behavior, and it pointed to a heart ready for every kind of disorder (Isaiah 3:5). Those who treat their parents lightly are on the road to every evil. God had given wise laws to support parental authority, but no one took care to enforce them. Later, the Pharisees even taught children, under the excuse of Corban, to neglect their parents and refuse to support them (Matthew 15:5).

Fourth is oppression and extortion. To enrich themselves, they wronged the poor (Ezekiel 22:7). They dealt with the stranger through oppression and deceit, taking advantage of his need and of his ignorance of the country’s laws and customs. In Jerusalem, which should have been a refuge for the oppressed, they vexed the fatherless and widows with unfair demands, harsh investigations, or costly lawsuits, where power won over justice. “You have taken interest and profit” (Ezekiel 22:12), not just a few people among them, but the city itself had done it. The public money, which should have gone to public charity, was lent out for profit and extortion. They greedily gained from their neighbors by violence and wrong. It is right for neighbors to gain from one another in fair trade, but greedy people do not stay within the bounds of fairness.

Fifth is contempt for the Sabbath and other holy things. This usually goes along with the other sins named here (Ezekiel 22:8). “You have despised my holy things,” that is, the holy words and holy ordinances God gave them. The worship God appointed seemed too plain and too ordinary to them, so they despised it and grew fond of pagan customs instead. Immorality and dishonesty usually go together with contempt for religion and for the worship of God. “You have profaned my Sabbaths.” Jerusalem did not show the Sabbath holiness one would expect in the holy city. Breaking the Sabbath opens the door to every kind of sin, and many people have found it helped bring about their ruin more than anything else.

Sixth is uncleanness and every kind of sexual sin, the fruits of those vile desires to which God, in righteous judgment, gives people over when he punishes them for idolatry and for dishonoring what is holy.

Jerusalem had once been known for purity, but now they openly committed lewdness, that is, shameless sexual sin (Ezekiel 22:9). In one of the worst cases, a man lived with his father’s wife, which was like uncovering his father’s nakedness (Ezekiel 22:10). Paul says such a sin should be spoken of with the deepest disgust among Christians (1 Corinthians 5:1), and Moses made it a capital crime (Leviticus 20:11). The proper time to hold back and refrain had been ignored (Ecclesiastes 3:6), and they even humiliated the one who should have been kept separate from such pollution.

They treated sin with alarming ease. They committed lewdness with a neighbor’s wife, a daughter-in-law, or even a sister (Ezekiel 22:11). Why would God not punish such things? The answer is that forgetfulness of God lay at the root of all this evil (Ezekiel 22:12). God says, “You have forgotten me, or you would not have done this.” Sinners do what angers God because they forget who he is, where they came from, how they depend on him, and what they owe him. They also forget how precious his favor is, which they are making themselves unfit for, and how terrible his wrath is, which they are bringing on themselves. Those who twist their lives out of shape forget the Lord their God (Jeremiah 3:21).

Now God is to pronounce sentence on Jerusalem for these crimes. First, she must know that she has filled up the measure of her guilt, and her sins now demand quick judgment. Her time has come near, and her days are drawing to a close (Ezekiel 22:3). She has reached full age for punishment, like an heir who has come of age and is ready to receive his inheritance (Ezekiel 22:4). God would have borne with them longer, but they had become so bold in sin that he could no longer, in honor, give them more time. Abused patience will finally grow tired of waiting. When sinners become, as Solomon says, “overmuch wicked,” they die before their time and cut short their reprieve (Ecclesiastes 7:17).

Second, she must know that she has exposed herself, and so God has justly exposed her to the shame and mockery of the nations around her (Ezekiel 22:4). “I have made you a reproach to the nations,” God says. This includes the nations near Jerusalem, who saw her turning away from God, and those farther away, who would still hear enough to take notice (Ezekiel 22:5). They would all mock her. When people reproached Jerusalem for clinging to God, that was her honor, and she could trust God to remove that shame. But now that others laugh at her for rebelling against God, she must lie down in disgrace and admit, “The Lord is righteous.” People mock Jerusalem both because her sins were public and shameful, and because her punishment was severe. She is deeply troubled and angry over her suffering. Those who complain most bitterly about their troubles often give others more reason to laugh at them.

Third, God is greatly displeased with her wickedness, and he will testify against it (Ezekiel 22:13). He says, “I have struck my hand against your dishonest gain.” By his prophets and by his providence, God showed his anger from heaven against their sin. He condemned their ungodliness and wrongdoing, including their oppression, even though they profited from it, and their murders, the blood that was in their midst. God has made it plain enough that he is angry with the evil ways of his people. Before he lays his hand on the sinner, he first strikes his hand against the sin, so no one can say he gave no warning. This is a strong reason to hate dishonest gain, especially profit made by oppression, and to refuse bribes, because God himself shows contempt for such sins (Isaiah 33:15).

Fourth, though Jerusalem was proud and confident, she was no match for God’s judgments (Ezekiel 22:14). The destruction she deserved would surely come. God says, “I the Lord have spoken it, and I will do it.” The one who keeps his promises will also keep his warnings, because he is not like a human being who changes his mind. Jerusalem seems to have thought she could resist God and stand under his judgment. She had even challenged the day of the Lord (Isaiah 5:19). But God answers that she cannot possibly succeed: “Can your heart endure, or can your hands be strong, in the days when I deal with you?” She thought she was dealing with human enemies only, but she would learn that she had fallen into the hands of the living God.

There is a day coming when God will deal with sinners, a day of visitation. Sometimes he deals with people to lead them to repentance, and no one can resist the power of conviction when he works that way. At other times he deals with them to bring them to ruin. He deals with sinners in this life through severe judgments, but the days of eternity are especially the days when God will deal with them, when the full bowls of his wrath are poured out without mixture. God’s anger against sinners will be both unbearable and impossible to resist. No heart will be strong enough to endure it. Damned sinners cannot forget their pain or despise it, and they have nothing to support themselves through it. No hand will be strong enough to turn aside God’s blows or break the chains that bind sinners for the day of wrath. Who can know the power of God’s anger?

Fifth, because Jerusalem had walked in the way of the nations and learned their ways, she would have plenty of what they offered (Ezekiel 22:15). God would not only send her among the nations after taking her from her own land, but he would scatter her among them and spread her through the countries, where strangers would abuse and insult her. Since her filth and her filthy people remained in her, despite all the ways God had tried to cleanse her, he would use his judgments to burn out that uncleanness. He would destroy those who were beyond cure and reform those who were willing to change.

Sixth, God had disowned Jerusalem and cast her off. He had once been her inheritance and her portion, but now he says, “You will take your inheritance in yourself” (Ezekiel 22:16). In other words, “Shift for yourself. Make the best of things on your own, because I will no longer take care of you.” Those who give themselves over to their own lusts will justly be left to what those lusts can pay them. Those who insist on being their own masters should expect no comfort or happiness except what their own hands can supply, and that will prove a miserable portion. “They have their reward. You in your lifetime received your good things.”

These words mean the same thing as this: “You will take your inheritance in yourself, and then, when it is too late, you will admit before the nations that I am the Lord, who alone is enough for my people.” The point is clear. People who have lost their share in God learn, often too late, how precious that share really was.