ezekiel 5 and 6

Read Ezekiel 5 and 6 at Bible Gateway.

The Hebrew paragraph divisions:

Eze 5:1-4 {p} The object lesson of the shaved hair: 1/3 burned, 1/3 struck with sword, 1/3 scattered
Eze 5:5-6 {s} Jerusalem, set in the midst of the nations, but she has refused YHVH’s judgments + statutes
Eze 5:7-9 {p} Because you have multiplied disobedience, I will execute judgment against you
Eze 5:10 {s} Therefore famine, I will execute judgment, those who remain scattered to the winds
Eze 5:11-17 {p} I will not pity: 1/3 shall die by famine + pestilence, 1/3 by sword, 1/3 scattered
Eze 6:1-10 {p} The mountains of Israel: I will destroy your idolatry + idolaters, yet a repentant remnant shall remain
Eze 6:11-14 {p} Because of Israel’s abominations, they shall fall by sword, famine, pestilence/ the land desolate

Eze 5 chiastic structure:

1a) Eze 5:1-5, The object lesson of the shaved hair, for I have set Jerusalem in the midst of the nations;

1a.1) Eze 5:1-4 {p} The object lesson of the shaved hair: 1/3 burned, 1/3 struck with sword, 1/3 scattered;
1a.2) Eze 5:5, This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the midst of the nations + the countries all around her;

1b) Eze 5:6-8, Theme of YHVH’s judgments refused/ YHVH’s judgment executed repeated twice for emphasis:

1b.1) Eze 5:6 {s} “She has rebelled against My judgments by doing wickedness more than the nations, and against My statutes more than the countries that are all around her; for they have refused My judgments, and they have not walked in My statutes;”
1b.2) Eze 5:7-8 “Therefore thus says the Lord God: ‘Because you have multiplied disobedience more than the nations that are all around you, have not walked in My statutes nor kept My judgments, nor even done according to the judgments of the nations that are all around you’— therefore thus says the Lord God: ‘Indeed I, even I, am against you and will execute judgments in your midst in the sight of the nations;”

1c) Eze 5:9a, I will do among you what I have never done, and the like of which I will never do again;

central axis) Eze 5:9b {p} Because of all your abominations;

2c) Eze 5:10a, Therefore fathers shall eat their sons in your midst, and sons shall eat their fathers;

2b) Eze 5:10b {s} I will execute judgments among you, and all of you who remain I will scatter to all the winds;

2a) Eze 5:11-17 {p} I will not pity: 1/3 shall die by famine + pestilence, 1/3 by sword, 1/3 scattered;

1a) Eze 5:11, ‘Therefore, as I live,’ says YHVH God, ‘surely, because of your abominations, I will not pity;’
1b) Eze 5:12, 1/3 to die by famine + pestilence; 1/3 by sword; 1/3 scattered to the winds;
1c) Eze 5:13, My anger shall be spent + they shall know that I, YHVH, have spoken it, when I have spent My fury;
central axis) Eze 5:14-15; “Moreover I will make you a waste and a reproach among the nations that are all around you, in the sight of all who pass by. So it shall be a reproach, a taunt, a lesson, and an astonishment to the nations that are all around you, when I execute judgments among you in anger and in fury and in furious rebukes;”
2c) Eze 5:15b, I, YHVH, have spoken;
2b) Eze 5:16-17a, I send against them famine + wild beasts + pestilence + blood + sword;
2a) Eze 5:17b {p} I, YHVH, have spoken.

Because YHVH set Jerusalem in the midst of the nations, to walk in His ways, to be His priesthood nation in the midst of the 70 nations who rebelled (see the Tower of Babel history and Abraham’s calling), and because as His nation they bore His name, therefore the destruction that is coming on Jerusalem will be in the sight of all the nations, and a lesson to them that surround her. The message is: this unrighteousness and these abominations are against YHVH’s glory and His name.

Because Israel and Judah refused YHVH’s judgments — His definitions of good and evil, right and wrong — to walk in them, therefore His judgment was executed upon them in the sight of the nations, because of their abominations.

In our own nation, and in the Church which is called by the name of Messiah Yeshua, let us then likewise learn the lesson of Jerusalem which her destruction preached to the nations: receive YHVH’s righteous judgments, and walk in them!