Ezekiel 7:16 - Meaning and Application

We have already considered the fate of those who were cut down. Now we come to those who had a chance to escape the danger. Some of them would get away (Ezekiel 7:16), but what good would that do? It would be as if they died once, instead of living a miserable life and dying a thousand deaths. They would escape only like Cain, the first murderer, who became a restless wanderer, afraid that anyone he met might kill him.

They would have no peace or comfort in their own minds. They would live in constant fear and grief, because they would carry guilty consciences with them wherever they went. A guilty conscience makes a person heavy to himself. They would be lonely and deeply sad. They would not stay in cities or places where people gathered, but would hide away on the mountains, ashamed of the low condition they had fallen into and avoiding other people.

They would also be sorrowful all the time. Those under God’s displeasure have good reason to mourn, and God can humble even those who once lived boldly and carelessly. People who once thought of themselves as strong, fearless lions among the hills would become like timid doves in the valleys. They would tremble at the slightest alarm, ready to run even when no one chased them. They are all mourning, not with godly sorrow that leads to repentance, but with worldly sorrow that leads to death. Each one mourns for his own sin, because he sees that his wickedness has brought these troubles on him. They will have to admit not only the nation’s guilt, but also what each one added to it.

Sin always brings sorrow, sooner or later. If people will not repent of their sin, they may justly be left to waste away in it. If they will not mourn over sin because it offends God, they will be made to mourn over it because it becomes their shame and ruin. They will grieve at last, when body and strength are gone, and then say, “How I hated instruction!” (Proverbs 5:11, 12)

They will also lose all their strength, both body and mind (Ezekiel 7:17). Every hand will grow weak, so they will not be able to fight or defend themselves. Every knee will be as weak as water, so they will not be able to flee or stand firm. Their whole strength will collapse. This should teach the strong not to boast in their strength, because God can quickly take it away.

They will also lose all hope and give themselves over to despair (Ezekiel 7:18). They will have nothing left to lift their spirits. Their outward appearance will show their inward misery. They will put on sackcloth, the rough clothing worn in grief, because they no longer expect to wear good clothes again. Horror, shame, and baldness will cover them, all signs of desperate sorrow (Isaiah 17:11). Those who would not be kept from sin by fear and shame will be punished by fear and shame. That is the disgrace sin ends in.

They will gain no benefit from their wealth and riches, but will be utterly disgusted with them (Ezekiel 7:19). These people had once had silver, gold, money, plate, jewels, and other valuable goods. In times of trouble, they had expected these things to help them. They thought their wealth would be a strong city for them. They thought they could bribe enemies, buy friends, ransom their lives, and never lack bread as long as they had money. They believed money would answer everything. But it will fail them completely.

Their wealth had already been a trap in their days of prosperity. They set their hearts on it and trusted in it. Their eager chase after riches led them into sin, and their full enjoyment of riches hardened them in sin. So wealth became the stumbling block of their iniquity, the thing that caused them to fall and kept them from returning to God. Many people have been ruined by their wealth. Getting the world has cost them their souls. Wealth can make people proud, careless, greedy, harsh, and pleasure-loving. What could have helped their devotion to God, if used rightly, becomes their ruin when abused.

Now, in their trouble, their gold and silver cannot save them from God’s judgments. They cannot deliver them on the day of the Lord’s wrath. They cannot satisfy his justice or turn aside his anger. Riches do not help on the day of wrath (Proverbs 11:4). Wealth cannot place people so high that God’s judgments cannot reach them, or make them so strong that judgment cannot overcome them. A day is coming when it will be plain that money can do nothing to rescue a person. What good were the rich man’s full barns when his soul was demanded of him, or the other rich man’s purple clothes and fine food when he could not get even a drop of water in hell to cool his tongue? Money offers no defense against death, and no relief in the misery of the damned.

Their gold and silver also cannot give them any comfort in their suffering. They cannot fill their stomachs. When there is no bread left in the city, and none can be bought for love or money, riches cannot satisfy hunger or provide even one meal. We can do better without mines of gold than without fields of grain. The fruits of the earth, which can be gathered from its surface, are far greater blessings to people than treasures that must be dug out with so much difficulty and danger. If God gives us daily bread, we have reason to be thankful, even if we have no silver or gold.

Their wealth also cannot satisfy their souls or give them any inward comfort. The riches of this world do not contain what the soul truly wants, and they cannot satisfy it in a day of distress. Whoever loves silver will not be satisfied with silver, and certainly not when he loses it.

Their gold and silver will be thrown into the streets, either by the enemy’s hands or by their own. The invaders will have more plunder than they can carry, so silver will be treated as worthless and tossed aside. Gold, which is more valuable, may be taken to Babylon. Or the people themselves may throw away their gold and silver because it only slows their escape, makes them easier targets, or angers them because all their saving and hoarding has done them no good.

This is a clear picture of how the world passes away, along with the cravings it feeds (1 John 2:17). A time may come when worldly people grow tired of their wealth, just as they now cling to it. Then the ones with the least may be in the safest position.

God’s temple will also fail to protect them (Ezekiel 7:20-22). They had boasted in it and expected it to keep them safe (Jeremiah 7:4; Micah 3:11), but their trust in it will collapse. God had greatly honored that nation by placing his sanctuary among them. Ezekiel calls it “the beauty of his ornament,” that holy and beautiful house where their fathers praised God (Isaiah 64:11). It was beautiful because it was holy, and it was richly decorated with gold and gifts. God set it in splendor, and everything about it was designed to make it glorious, so Israel would be respected among its neighbors. He built his sanctuary like a great palace (Psalm 78:69). From the beginning, it was a glorious throne (Jeremiah 17:12).

But they had greatly dishonored God by defiling his sanctuary. They set up images of their false gods there, in open competition with the true God. The text calls these their abominations and detestable things, because that is what they were to God, and what they should have been to the people too. Putting them in God’s temple was a shocking insult. So God says he will remove the temple far from them, meaning they will be driven away from it and lose both its services and its blessing.

God’s commands and the privileges of belonging to his people will rightly be taken away from those who despise and defile them. And they will not only be kept away from the temple, but the temple itself will share in the common ruin (Ezekiel 7:21). The Chaldeans, the Babylonian invaders, are strangers who have no respect for it, and wicked people who have no love for it. They will seize it as loot, along with all its ornaments and treasures. They will make no distinction between the temple and any other spoil.

This was a grief to the faithful in Zion, who complained most about the wicked things the enemy did in the sanctuary (Psalm 74:3). Yet it was also the punishment of the sinners in Zion. They had profaned the temple with false gods, so God allowed it to be profaned by foreign nations. He turned his face away from those who did the deed, as if he did not see them or their sins, and away from those who prayed against it, as if he did not hear them or their prayers. Let the soldiers do what they will, even if they enter the holy of holies like thieves. Let them strip it and defile it. Its protection has gone, and then all its glory is gone too.

Those who will not live under the power of godliness are not fit to be honored with the outward form of it.