Ezekiel 7:1 - Meaning and Application

Here is a clear warning of the destruction of the land of Israel, which was now rushing toward them fast. God, through the prophet, not only sends the warning, but repeats it in the same words to show that the judgment is sure, near, and deeply felt by the prophet. He also wants them to feel it, but they are deaf, dull, and untouched by it.

When a town is on fire, people do not look for polished language or clever phrasing. They cry out in the streets with a loud and sorrowful voice, “Fire! Fire!” In the same way, the prophet cries, “An end! An end! It has come, it has come; look, it has come.” Whoever has ears to hear should listen.

An end has come, the end has come (Ezekiel 7:2), and again (Ezekiel 7:3, Ezekiel 7:6). Now the end has come upon you. It is the end that all their sin was leading to, the end God had warned them about again and again when he asked through his prophets, “What will you do in the end of all this?” It is the end toward which all the earlier judgments had been moving, as means to complete their ruin. It is also the end of their national state, the final destruction of the nation, just as the flood was the end of all flesh (Genesis 6:13).

They had hoped their troubles would soon be over. But God says, “Yes, an end has come, but a miserable one, not the end you expected.” The godly remnant among them had a different promise, one of good future hope (Jeremiah 29:11). This is the end Moses wanted them to think about (Deuteronomy 32:29), and because Jerusalem did not remember it, she fell in a shocking way (Lamentations 1:9). This end took a long time to arrive, but now it has come. Though the ruin of sinners comes slowly, it comes surely. It has come, and it is ready to meet them.

This may also point ahead to the later destruction of that nation by the Romans, of which the Chaldean judgment was only a first example. And it points even farther to the final destruction of the world of the wicked. The end of all things is near, and Jerusalem’s last end was a picture of the end of the world (Matthew 24:3). Oh, that we could all see the end of time as near, and our own end even nearer, so that we may make sure of a happy outcome in the end of the days! (Daniel 12:13)

This end comes upon the four corners of the land. Since the ruin is final, it will also be complete. No part of the land will escape, not even the most distant part. That is what will happen in the destruction of the world, for all these things will be dissolved. It is also what will happen in the destruction of sinners, for none can avoid it. Oh, that the wickedness of the wicked would come to an end before it brings them to their end!

An evil, and only evil, has come, look, it has come (Ezekiel 7:5). Sin is an evil, and the only evil in the deepest sense, since it has no good in it and is the worst of all evils. But here the words refer to the evil of trouble. It is one evil, and that one will be enough to complete the nation’s ruin. No more is needed to finish the work. This one will make an utter end, and trouble will not need to rise a second time (Nahum 1:9).

It is also an evil without example or equal, an evil that stands alone. You cannot point to another case like it. For the unrepentant, it is an only evil, because it hardens their hearts and stirs up their corrupt desires. But others receive it differently, because God’s grace makes it useful to them. They were sent into Babylon for their good (Jeremiah 24:5). The wicked drink the bitter dregs of the cup, while the righteous find it mixed with mercy (Psalm 75:8). The same suffering is either only bitter, or partly good, depending on how we respond to it and use it.

But when the end, the end, comes upon the wicked world, then an evil, an only evil, comes upon it, and not before. The worst troubles in this life still have some relief mixed in. But the pains of the damned are an evil, an only evil.

The time has come, the set time, for this only evil and this full end. God has an appointed time for all his purposes, and at the right time they will be carried out. This is especially true of his judgment on wicked people and his just repayment to them according to what they deserve, the day when his righteous judgment will be revealed. He sees that day coming, whether we see it or not.

They are told this again and again (Ezekiel 7:10): the long-delayed day has finally arrived. The time has come, the day is near, the day of trouble is near (Ezekiel 7:7, Ezekiel 7:12). Even if threatened judgments are delayed for a long time, they are not canceled. The time for carrying them out will come. God’s patience may put them off, but only honest repentance and a changed life can turn them away.

The morning has come to you (Ezekiel 7:7), and again, the morning has gone out (Ezekiel 7:10). The day of trouble is dawning, and the day of destruction has already begun. Morning brings hidden things into the light. They thought their secret sins would never be exposed, but now they will be. In those days, criminals were often executed in the morning, and such a morning of judgment is now coming on them, a day of trouble for sinners, the year of their punishment.

See how dull these people were. Even though their destruction had already begun, they still did not realize it, and had to be told again and again. The day of trouble, real trouble, is near, and not just the echo of trouble, not a mere report or rumor. They wanted to think it was only a groundless guess, as if the enemy were only the shadow of the mountains, as Zebul said to Gaal (Judges 9:36), and as if the news they heard were only an empty sound bouncing off the hills. No, the trouble is real, and they would soon find it out.

All of this comes from God’s wrath, and now it comes without the mercy that sometimes softened such judgments. This is the source from which all these disasters flow, and this is the bitterness that makes the suffering so hard. God says, “I will send my anger against you.” Notice that God rules over his anger. It does not break out unless he allows it, and it does not strike anyone except by his command.

The statement grows stronger: “Now I will soon pour out my fury on you in full measure, and finish my anger upon you” (Ezekiel 7:8). That means he will carry out every purpose of his wrath and bring all its results to completion. This wrath does not fall on just a few as examples. It comes upon the whole crowd of them (Ezekiel 7:12, Ezekiel 7:14). The whole nation has become a vessel of wrath, fit for destruction.

God sometimes remembers mercy even in anger, but now he says, “My eye will not spare you, and I will have no pity” (Ezekiel 7:4, Ezekiel 7:9). Those who made light of mercy when it was offered will receive judgment without mercy.

All this is just punishment for their sins, the result of their own foolish choices. The point is made strongly here so they would learn to agree that God is right in all he brings on them. God never sends his anger without wisdom and justice. So he says, “I will judge you according to your ways” (Ezekiel 7:3). He will examine their conduct, compare it with his law, and then repay them according to what they deserve (Ezekiel 7:4).

Even in the harshest judgments, God only gives people back their own way of life. In a sense, they are beaten with their own rod. When God settles accounts with a sinful people, he brings every offense into view. He says he will repay them for all their disgusting sins (Ezekiel 7:3). Their guilt will be exposed and shown to be hateful (Psalm 36:2). What was hidden before will now be brought into the open and seen to have been at the center of their lives (Ezekiel 7:4). Their own sin will become disgusting to them. This is like the “abomination of desolation,” the terrible defilement that leads to ruin (Matthew 24:15).

Or the meaning may be that the punishments for their sins will be in their midst, touching them at the heart (Jeremiah 4:18). For that reason, God will not spare or pity them. Even while he is repaying their ways to them, they keep sinning in their distress. Their disgusting sins are still in their hearts, welcomed and protected there. This is repeated again in Ezekiel 7:8 and Ezekiel 7:9, “I will judge you, I will repay you.”

Two sins are named in particular as reasons for these judgments: pride and oppression. God will bring them low, because they have lifted themselves up. The rod of suffering has blossomed, but pride was the bud that came first (Ezekiel 7:10). What first grows in sin will later bloom in judgment. The pride of Judah and Jerusalem showed itself in every class of people, like buds appearing on a tree in spring.

Their enemies will treat them harshly, because they have treated one another harshly (Ezekiel 7:11). Violence has grown into a rod of wickedness. That means their cruelty toward each other has been supported and protected by the power of the rulers. The rod of government had become a rod of evil, and violence had become open and bold. “I saw under the sun that in the place of judgment, wickedness was there” (Ecclesiastes 3:16; Isaiah 5:7). Whatever good comes from God’s judgments, our sin is always the root of them.

There will be no escape from these judgments, and no barrier strong enough to stop them. They will cover everyone and leave no remedy. Death in its many forms will rule both in the city and in the country, both inside and outside the walls (Ezekiel 7:15). Men will be safe nowhere. Whoever is in the field will die by the sword, since every field will become a battlefield. Whoever is in the city, even in the holy city, will not find safety there. Famine and plague will destroy him. Sin had spread through both city and country, so destruction will also reach both.

None of those marked for death will escape. “There shall none of them remain.” None of the proud oppressors who harmed their poor neighbors with their rod of wickedness will be left. All of them will be swept away by the coming ruin (Ezekiel 7:11). None of the mob they stirred up to do evil, and none of their own families, will remain. No root or branch will be left. This crowd, this mob, will especially feel divine judgment, for wrath is on the whole multitude (Ezekiel 7:12, Ezekiel 7:14), and the vision concerns the whole crowd (Ezekiel 7:13). The judgment will carry them away in large numbers, and they will not be able to save themselves or their leaders. When God sends judgment with authority, no crowd can overpower it. Even if people join together, the wicked will still not go unpunished.

Those who die will not be mourned (Ezekiel 7:11). There will be no wailing for them, because there will be no one left to mourn them except people who are soon to follow them. Times will be so terrible that people will more likely envy the dead than grieve for them. They will count the dead fortunate, because they have been taken away from seeing and sharing in such ruin (Jeremiah 16:4, Jeremiah 16:5).

They will also be unable to resist. The decree has gone out, and the vision about them will not be canceled (Ezekiel 7:13). God will not take it back, and they cannot defeat it. It will fully do what he sent it to do. God’s word always comes to pass. So, first, no individual can stand against God by relying on a life of sin. It is useless for sinners to keep defying God and his judgments as they once did. No one ever hardened his heart against God and then prospered. Those who strengthen themselves in wickedness will find that they are not only weakening themselves, but ruining themselves (Psalm 52:7).

Second, the crowd cannot resist the flood of these judgments or push it back (Ezekiel 7:14). They blow the trumpet to gather their soldiers and stir them up. They think they are ready for battle, but it is all useless. No one steps forward, or if they do, they have no courage to face the enemy. If God is against us, no one can truly be for us in a way that helps.

They will also have no hope that their prosperity will return to support them in their trouble. They will have to give it up as lost. So the buyer should not rejoice because he is getting richer, and the seller should not grieve because he is losing property and becoming poorer (Ezekiel 7:12). This shows how empty the things of this world are. In hard times, when we need them most, we may care least about them. Those who have sold have less to lose, and those who have bought have only added to their worries and fears. Since this world is passing away, those who buy should live as if they do not fully possess what they have, because they do not know how soon they may lose it (1 Corinthians 7:29-31).

It is also said, “The seller will not return to what he sold at the year of jubilee” (Ezekiel 7:13). Even if he escapes the sword and disease and lives until that year, he will still not get his land back. The reason is that no inherited property will be enjoyed there until the seventy years are completed. After that, people will return to their possessions and take back what is theirs.

Jeremiah, trusting this promise, bought his uncle’s field around this time. Yet, as he had been told, the buyer did not rejoice but grieved (Jeremiah 32:25).

God will also make himself known in all this. “You will know that I am the Lord” (Ezekiel 7:4), “that I am the Lord who strikes” (Ezekiel 7:9). People look only at secondary causes and think Nebuchadnezzar is the one striking them, but they will be made to see that he is only the rod in God’s hand. It is the hand of the Lord that wounds them, and who can measure the force of that hand? Those who would not know that it was the Lord who dealt well with them will be made to know that it is the Lord who strikes them, because in one way or another, he will be recognized.