Ezekiel 9:5 - Meaning and Application

In these verses, we have, first, a command given to the destroyers to carry out their charge. They stood by the bronze altar, waiting for orders, and now those orders are given. They are to cut off and destroy all who were guilty of, or had helped with, the sins of Jerusalem, and all who did not sigh and cry over them. When God has gathered his wheat into his barn, all that remains is to burn up the chaff (Matthew 3:12).

They are told to destroy everyone, without exception. They must go through the city and strike, killing completely. They are not to make any difference between old and young, or between men and women. Neither the beauty of the young women nor the innocence of babies will protect them. This was fulfilled when many died by famine and disease, especially by the sword of the Chaldeans, as far as the soldiers carried out the judgment. At times, even such terrible work has been God’s work. But this shows how evil sin is, since it can stir the God of endless mercy to such severity.

They are also warned not to harm those who had been marked for salvation. “Do not come near anyone who has the mark,” meaning they must not even threaten or frighten them. God had promised that no harm would come near them, so the destroyers must keep away. The king of Babylon gave special orders to protect Jeremiah. Baruch and Ebed-melech were kept safe, and likely some others who were friends of Jeremiah were also spared for his sake. God had promised that it would go well with his remnant and that they would be treated kindly (Jeremiah 15:11). We have good reason to think that none of the mourning, praying remnant fell by the sword of the Chaldeans, but that God found a way to protect them all. In the last destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, the Christians were all kept safe in a city called Pella, and none of them perished with the unbelieving Jews. None of those whom God has marked for life and salvation will be lost, for God’s foundation stands sure.

They are told to begin at the sanctuary, the very place where Ezekiel had just seen such shocking desecration. They must start there because that is where the sin began that brought on these judgments. The immoral behavior of the priests poisoned the whole fountain, and all the corruption of the streams came from it. Sin in the sanctuary was especially offensive to God, so the slaughter must begin there. It was as if God were saying, “Begin there, so people may take warning when they see judgment fall on the priests and may repent and reform.” Begin there, so that the whole world may see that the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God who hates sin most in those who are nearest to him. When judgments go out, they usually begin at the house of God (1 Peter 4:17). “You only have I known,” God said, and therefore “I will punish you” (Amos 3:2).

God’s temple is a refuge for repentant sinners, but it is not a shelter for those who keep living in rebellion. Neither the holiness of the place nor the high rank of those inside it will protect them. It seems the destroyers hesitated to kill men in the temple, but God tells them not to hold back. “Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain.” They will not be taken away from the altar, as the law once required in another case (Exodus 21:14). Instead, they had tried to make themselves safe by grabbing hold of the horns of the altar, like Joab did, and so, like him, they are to die there (1 Kings 2:30, 1 Kings 2:31). There, the blood of one of God’s prophets had already been shed (Matthew 23:35), and so their blood will be shed there too. If the servants of God’s house defile it with idolatry, God may rightly allow its enemies to defile it with violence (Psalm 79:1). Yet these acts of needed justice, whatever their ceremonial effect, were really a cleansing rather than a pollution. They were the removal of evil from among them.

They are also sent out into the city. Sin goes before judgment, and judgment follows after. Though judgment begins at the house of God, it will not stop there. The holy city will be no more a protection for the wicked people than the holy house was for the wicked priests.

Second, the judgment is carried out exactly as commanded. The destroyers obeyed their orders. They began with the elders, the older men who were before the house, and killed them first. These were either the seventy elders who worshiped idols in their chambers (Ezekiel 8:12), or the twenty-five who worshiped the sun between the porch and the altar, who more naturally could be called those before the house. Those who lead others into sin may expect God’s judgments to find them first. The sins of people in the highest and most public offices call for the clearest and strongest punishment.

Then they moved on to the common people. They went out and killed in the city. Once God’s decree has gone out, there is no delay. If God begins, he will finish.

Third, we see the prophet’s prayer for some relief in the judgment, and for a delay for a few. While they were killing people and I was left, Ezekiel says, I fell on my face. Notice how deeply he felt God’s mercy toward him in being spared when so many around him were destroyed. Thousands fell on his right and left, and yet the destruction did not come near him. He looked on this as pure mercy, not as something he had earned himself. Even the best saints must admit they live by sparing mercy, or they would be consumed. When devastating judgments are abroad, and crowds are falling, it is a great mercy if our lives are given back to us as plunder from the enemy, for we could justly have died with those who died.

He also used that mercy well. He understood that he had been left so he might stand in the gap and turn away God’s anger. We should think the same way. If we are spared, it is so we may do good where God has placed us, and especially so we may do good by prayer. Ezekiel did not rejoice over the slaughter. His flesh trembled with fear of God, as David’s did (Psalm 119:120). He fell on his face and cried out, not because he feared for himself, since he was one of those marked for safety, but because he felt compassion for his fellow human beings.

Those who sigh and cry over the sins of sinners cannot help sighing and crying over their troubles too. Yet the day is coming when all that grief will be fully swallowed up in this one joy, that God is honored. Then those who now fall on their faces and cry, “Ah, Lord God,” will lift up their heads and sing, “Hallelujah” (Revelation 19:1, Revelation 19:3).

The prophet humbly pleads with God, asking whether he will destroy all the rest of Israel, so that only the few who were marked will remain. Will the people of God be destroyed, completely destroyed? If only a few are left, will they also be cut off, even though they could have become the seed of another generation? And will the God of Israel become their destroyer? Will he now destroy Israel, when he has so often protected and delivered them? Will he pour out his wrath on Jerusalem in such a way that the whole country is ruined as well? Surely, the prophet says, he will not.

We should notice this. Even while we admit that God is righteous, we still have permission to plead with him about his judgments (Jeremiah 12:1).

Fourth, God refuses the prophet’s request to soften the judgment, and he explains why in doing so (Ezekiel 9:9, Ezekiel 9:10). Nothing could be said to lessen the seriousness of this sin. God was willing to show mercy, as far as the prophet could ask. He always is willing to show mercy. But here the case will not allow it. Mercy cannot be given without harming justice, and it is not right for one part of God’s glory to be defended by lowering another. It is not pleasing to the Almighty to destroy, especially to destroy Israel. But their sins were so open and so serious that letting the sinners go on would amount to ignoring their sin.

The guilt of the house of Judah and Israel was very great. They could not be allowed to keep living that way. The land was full of innocent blood, and when people turned to the city courts for help, the cure was as bad as the disease. The city was full of twisting justice. And the same unbelieving, irreverent idea that had supported their idolatry also supported their wrongdoing, as in Ezekiel 8:12. They said, “The Lord has left the earth. He has handed it over to us. He will not get involved. He does not see what we do, or if he does, he will not call us to account.”

How can people expect mercy from God when they openly challenge his justice? No one can defend such crimes while the sinner excuses himself with a claim like that. So nothing can be done to reduce the sentence (Ezekiel 9:10). God says, “As for me, my eye will not spare, and I will have no pity. I have put up with them as long as such shameless sinners should be put up with. Now I will repay them for what they have done.”

Sinners fall and perish under the weight of their own sins. It is their own way, the way they chose instead of God’s way, and the way they kept following in stubborn rejection of God’s word, that comes back on their heads. Great evil justifies great severity. God is ready to justify himself, as he does here to the prophet, because he will be shown right when he judges.

Fifth, the man dressed in linen reports back on the writ of protection that was given to guard those who mourned in Zion (Ezekiel 9:11). He gave an account of what he had done in carrying out his commission. He had found all who mourned in secret over the sins of the land and who spoke out against them with public witness, and he had marked them on the forehead. “Lord, I have done as you commanded me.”

We do not read that the men sent to destroy reported the ruin they had brought, but the one appointed to protect did report his work. That was because it would be more pleasing to God and to the prophet to hear of those who were saved than of those who were lost. Or this report was made now because the work was finished, while the work of destruction would take time, and when that was completed, its report could be made too.

See how faithful Christ is to the trust given to him. Is he commanded to secure eternal life for the chosen remnant? He has done what he was commanded to do. Of all those you have given me, I have lost none.