Ezekiel and the Heart of Idolatry

By John N. Day

[John N. Day is Pastor, Bellewood Presbyterian Church, Bellevue, Washington.]

Tertullian opened his treatise on idolatry by declaring, “The principal crime of the human race, the highest guilt charged upon the world, the whole procuring cause of judgment, is idolatry.”[1] No portion of Scripture addresses this root issue of idolatry so repeatedly and pointedly as the hard-hitting Book of Ezekiel. This article addresses the focal points of the prophet’s discussion, as he was confronted by God and called to confront God’s exiled people on this issue.

According to the Book of Ezekiel, “idolatry is the quintessential cause of the Babylonian exile.”[2] The sin of idolatry was the primary reason for God’s judgment on Israel—whether idolatry at the high places (chap. 6), idolatry in the temple (chap. 8), or idolatry in the heart (chap. 14). Of all the sins God condemns and people commit, idolatry is the root sin, the sin that explains all the others.[3]

And this sin of idolatry is rooted in the heart. As Ezekiel 20:16 explains, “They rejected My rules… for their heart went after their idols.”[4] This key statement is issued in Ezekiel’s recounting of Israel’s past. Even at the time of their magnificent deliverance from Egypt, “none of them cast away the detestable things their eyes feasted on, nor did they forsake the idols of Egypt” (v. 8). This idolatry continued throughout Israel’s history and into the exilic period. That Ezekiel issued such a statement underscores his understanding that idolatry is a heart issue. Changed circumstances do not change an idolatrous nature; the heart remains the same unless it is changed by an act of divine grace. Even the graphically sexual allegories of covenant infidelity (chaps. 16 and 23) underscore the fact that this penchant for idolatry is seated in the heart and can be displaced only by God’s judgment and grace.

Overview of Ezekiel

The Book of Ezekiel begins with the prophet’s “conscription” to the ministry (chaps. 1–3), then moves into the hard message he was to proclaim, namely, judgment on Judah, particularly for their heart of idolatry (chaps. 4–24). This second section divides into two subsections, each introduced with a “drama.” The first subsection presents the imminent and unthinkable message that “time’s up and God’s gone!” (chaps. 4–11). The second subsection presents a varied collection of woes, twice punctuated by extended portrayals of Judah’s apostasy and idolatry as (porno-) graphic adultery. The obscene and shockingly offensive depictions are spoken in this way to arrest attention and change hardened hearts.

Ezekiel then presented a series of judgments on the nations (chaps. 25–32), for judgment extends to all; no one is exempt. All stand as sinners before God. These judgments center on Tyre, the great economic power of the world at that time, and Egypt, the great political power. The central issue of judgment for both is focused on pride, which resides in the heart (notably, chap. 28).

Chapters 33–48 then record a message of hope for God’s people. The first subsection transitions from recapitulation of present judgment (chap. 33) to the promise of eschatological salvation (chaps. 34–39). In a second subsection the book closes with the magnificent vision of the new temple, new worship, and new land (chaps. 40–48). This brings the book full circle, replacing the apparent abandonment of God’s promises with the returned and eternal presence of God. After confrontation and judgment, God’s promise remains, and in the end, grace reigns.

The Setting of Despair

The Exile was a jolt of disillusionment for God’s people. They were faced with both the trauma of “broken promises” and the trauma of “God conquered.” All the promises of God had evidently failed: the promise of land, of monarch, of temple. Now they found themselves in hopeless despair on foreign soil. But God was still God there; and His promises were still good—even better than they could ever hope or dream (as seen in the visionary end of Ezekiel regarding the temple, the monarch, and the land).

God’s people had succumbed to a perpetual danger, the peril of presuming on His grace. They thought that God’s presence in the temple was the guarantee of their security, even though their hearts were rebellious against God’s commands. But He stated clearly, “You eat flesh with the blood and lift up your eyes to your idols and shed blood; shall you then possess the land? You rely on the sword, you commit abominations, and each of you defiles his neighbor’s wife; shall you then possess the land?” (33:25–26). God’s promises are sure, but they are not received by status or “right” or descent. They are received only through a heart of faith. Membership among God’s covenant people was never enough for an Israelite; he must be circumcised in both flesh and heart (cf. 44:7, 9; Rom. 2:28–29).

For most of their history Judah’s king and people had been dominated by idolatry, though not always in allegiance to Baal himself (or his ilk). Yet they continued to face real and pernicious idolatries—power and pride, selfishness and greed (“their heart is set on their gain,” Ezek. 33:31). Whatever a person places before obedience to God, whatever one desires above God, becomes an idol. As God declared as the first of His commands, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exod. 20:3).

Thus Ezekiel was commissioned to address both spiritual disillusionment and hardened rebellion, to reconstruct religion’s fundamentals as an internal work of grace and a life of faith, and to confront and prepare hearts for their promised return.

The Exile was also a jolt of disillusionment for Ezekiel. He is introduced “among the exiles” (Ezek. 1:1) as “Ezekiel the priest” (v. 3). Then after his initial confrontation with the glory of God, he was back among the exiles, embittered and overwhelmed (3:14–15). Though a priest, he had no place to serve. And he was a less-than-eager conscript, for the Spirit had to lift him, and God’s hand rested heavy on him (e.g., 3:14).

When God began to confront His stubborn people through His “toughened” prophet,[5] He began with a revelation of Himself (1:4–28). God appeared to His defeated people—in the heart of the enemy camp! And He appeared in a somewhat typical “storm-and-fire” theophany, a heavenly throne-chariot, reminiscent of the ark of the covenant. God’s people needed (and continue to need) a renewed vision of God—majestic and mysterious, terribly transcendent and yet profoundly near. God was still the Sovereign in Babylon; and He is still the God of His people, with promises to make and to keep, promises of judgment for sin, and yet promises of hope and grace.

The Heart of the Matter

Crucial chiasm

This root issue of idolatry comes to its focus and first climax in chapters 8–11, which form an artful and powerful literary unit. As Block observes, “The editor of Ezekiel’s prophecies evidently intended 8:1–11:25 to be treated as a single composition. The boundaries of this literary unit are set by a formal introduction (8:1–4) and a corresponding conclusion (11:22–25). The major themes [of this introduction and conclusion] seem to have been deliberately arranged in an artistic chiastic order.”[6]

This unit opens with Ezekiel among the exiles, his transportation to Jerusalem by the Holy Spirit in visions of God, and the appearance of the glory of God. Then it closes in reverse order: the glory of God, Ezekiel’s return to Chaldea by the Spirit, and his report to the exiles about his vision. Moreover, inside this frame the larger section itself is fashioned as a chiasm.

A. Introduction (8:1–4)

B. Abomination issue: problem (8:5–18)

C. Judgment on land and leadership (chap. 9)

D. Abandonment of God’s temple by His glory (chap. 10)

C.´ Judgment on land and leadership (11:1–13)

B.´ Abomination issue: solution (11:14–21)

A.´ Conclusion (11:22–25)

In the center of the chiasm is the departure of God’s glory (chap. 10).[7] This is the key moment, the staggering event. In a frightening reversal of imagery God mounted the cherubim not to deliver His people but to abandon them (10:18–19). This departure was immediately surrounded by the exercise of God’s judgment, centering on the apostate leadership (chaps. 9 and 11a).[8] Points B and B´ address the issue of abomination: abominations in the temple that justify—even necessitate—God’s abandonment of the temple (8:6), which in turn speaks to the need for divine regeneration (chap. 8 and 11:16–21). This latter half of chapter 11 has been appropriately styled “the gospel according to Ezekiel.”[9] Here the heart is seen as the seat of idolatry, and thus there is the need for a divine “heart transplant.” God said, “And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. But as for those whose heart goes after their detestable things and their abominations, I will bring their deeds upon their own heads, declares the Lord Yahweh” (11:19–21).

This hope is then repeated and elaborated on in 36:25–28. Notably this requisite “one heart” (i.e., not a divided heart) contrasts with those whose “heart” went after their abominations. This underscores the fundamental issue, as expressed in the phrase “the heart of the matter is the matter of the heart.”

Another item of literary and theological interest is the manner in which Ezekiel was given a divinely guided “tour of the temple” in four stages, marking the increase and fullness of Judah’s abominations. These involve breaking the first two commandments: “You shall have no other gods before me,” and “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness… [to] bow down to them or serve them, for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God” (Exod. 20:3–5).

The first stage relates to bringing a representation of the pagan world into God’s own precincts. This was the first step of compromise (Ezek. 8:5–6). In the second stage the elders of Israel and their beastly idols were hidden in the darkness. This was the secrecy of a double life (vv. 7–13). Especially notable is “Jaazaniah, the son of Shaphan”—Shaphan was the godly secretary during Josiah’s reformation (cf. 2 Kings 22). Third, women were weeping for Tammuz, engaging in the Babylonian form of the pagan myth (Ezek. 8:14–15). This was a sad act of replacement—turning not to their God but to the “god” of their overlord. In the fourth stage the princes of the people (cf. 11:1) were in the very place of pardon (the altar), bowing toward the sun, exchanging the glory of God for a far lesser glory, trading the Creator for the created (8:16–17; cf. Rom. 1:20–23). This was an act of patent rejection; the people literally turned their backs on God to face the sun. Thus in spite of God’s manifest deliverances and persistent calls to repentance and warnings of judgment, and in spite of reforms instituted by Hezekiah and Josiah, the hearts of God’s people still embraced pagan beliefs and practices.

This fullness of abomination was answered by a “matched abandonment,” for the glory of God departed from the temple in four stages. The first step was small and almost tentative—to the threshold of the temple (Ezek. 9:3). Second, God’s glory moved to the threshold again, ready to mount (10:4). Third, it went to the entrance at the east gate (vv. 18–19). Fourth, it went to the mountain east of Jerusalem (11:22–23).[10] This singularly unthinkable event was the communal realization of that against which David prayed, out of his horrid sin: “Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me” (Ps. 51:11). It is a solemn reminder to God’s people in every age to turn from a heart of rebellion to a heart of repentance.

Idols in the Heart

This idolatry was not only external—the worship of images of metal, wood, and stone. It was fundamentally, as God now explained (chap. 14), an issue of the heart. Humanity’s root problem is internalized idolatry. And God’s own people are no exception.

When the elders of Israel went once again to Ezekiel for a word from the Lord, Yahweh responded with a pointed observation. “These men have taken their idols into their hearts [or, ‘erected their idols in their hearts’], and set the stumbling block of their iniquity before their faces” (14:3, echoed in vv. 4 and 7). This followed God’s denunciation on the false prophets and prophetesses in chapter 13, in which Ezekiel exposed the marks of the charlatan who declared “all is well” in sin, motivated by money and power.

In chapters 8–11 the issue of idolatry was “there and them.” In chapter 14 it is “here and us.” The previous passage addressed the scourge of externalized idolatry. The exiles lived far from those abominations in the temple. But they could never escape the scourge of internalized idolatry, the abominations in the heart (cf. 11:18–21). Evidently there was an established practice of hypocrisy. People were outwardly practicing religion, but their hearts were elsewhere, on their “stumbling blocks of iniquity.” Their geographical location had been forcibly changed, but their disposition had not. People today need to ask themselves, “What idols are we ‘hiding’ in hypocrisy? What sins are we setting up and stumbling over? What rival loves do we embrace?”

Three times Yahweh mentioned these idols in the heart (14:3, 4, 7). And after each reference He responded. First, He asked, “Should I answer?” (14:3). Sin separates from God (v. 7a), and holding onto sin while (ostensibly) seeking God invites divine silence. Second, He said, in essence, “I will answer—but not the way you intend” (vv. 4–5). Rather than a word of comfort to their hearts in their covert and egregious idolatry of the heart, His purpose was to “seize” their hearts. Third, He said, “I will answer—but not the way you want” (14:7–8); for He answered in judgment. His words, “I will set my face against” (v. 8), is the ironic and ominous conclusion to the repeated “they set before their faces” (vv. 3, 4, 7). But that is not God’s final answer. Still there was hope; the call always comes, “Repent!” (v. 6). That is, “Turn away your faces from all your abominations.” This is a dramatic portrayal of repentance: turning from sin and to God. And in the end God will do what they could not do. He will fulfill His promise “that they may be my people, and I may be their God” (v. 11).[11]

This “heart idolatry,” as Zimmerli calls it, is “half-hearted piety, which prays for help from God before it is ready to give him his rightful place.”[12] These people had experienced God’s judgment and wanted His salvation, and so they eagerly came to Ezekiel to hear a word from God, expecting consolation. Yet they were not willing to relinquish their old patterns of thought and practice and submit to God. “The judgement had not completely broken their old nature, with the old trust in powers other than God, just as men always resist letting go the past completely, with all its particular helps. Who really wants to die completely?”[13]

That is why half-heartedness is a template of idolatry. When someone wants to embrace both (cf. 11:19, 21), it invariably leads to whole-scale apostasy. This is seen early in Judah’s kings; their not following Yahweh with a whole heart is said to be evil (1 Kings 14:22; 15:3). Instructively Jesus’ great and first commandment is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37 [italics added], citing Deut. 6:5). This is why Josiah was “the good king” par excellence. “Before him there was no king like him, who turned to Yahweh with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the Law of Moses, nor did any like him arise after him” (2 Kings 23:25, italics added). This is also why Jesus said that people cannot serve both God and “stuff” (Matt. 6:24); and that “whoever loves father or mother [etc.] more than me is not worthy of me” (10:37). These are all “whole heart” statements. “Half a heart” is a heart filled with idols.

As stated earlier, idolatry is basically a matter of the heart, and it is a temptation for God’s people in every age. Idolatry is not just “there and then”; it is just as much “here and now.” Idolatry is seen not just in such obvious substitutes as Asherah or Tammuz. It is just as likely to manifest itself in such things as greed and people-pleasing, selfishness, and power. Whatever commands one’s allegiance is his idol. Whatever one places before obedience to God or whatever one desires above God is an idol. Even something that begins good and noble can become an idol. For example the bronze serpent, that symbol of God’s deliverance of the Israelites, became transformed into Nehushtan, and so Hezekiah had to destroy it (2 Kings 18:4). This is why Calvin stated so blatantly, “Man’s nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols.”[14] This inclination toward idolatry is the most basic expression of the sinful nature.

One manifestation of this heart-idolatry was driven home to the present writer when a young woman came into the church seeking God with tears. The root issue of her conflict—wanting a relationship with God and yet feeling so distant from Him—turned out to be a different relationship. She was living with her boyfriend and was unwilling to give up the “security” of her sin to turn to the Lord in faith. This was her idol. What began as a temptation and then became a pattern of sin was now her idol, and idols of the heart are extremely tenacious. But the power of God’s grace is stronger still. For many men this issue arises in the use of pornography. As Powlinson asks, “Has something or someone besides Jesus the Christ taken title to your heart’s trust, preoccupation, loyalty, service, fear and delight? It is a question bearing on the immediate motivation for one’s behavior, thoughts, and feelings. In the Bible’s conceptualization, the motivation question is the lordship question. Who or what ‘rules’ my behavior, the Lord or a substitute?”[15]

That is why the apostle Paul stated so forthrightly that covetousness is idolatry (Col. 3:5; cf. Eph. 5:5), and why he counseled the rich not “to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God” (1 Tim. 6:17). Although such covetousness or greed is the only thing the New Testament clearly defines as idolatry, idolatry is not limited to greed. As the apostle John wrote, idolatry is anything that becomes a rival love, a rival god: “the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions” (1 John 2:16). This echoes Ezekiel’s charge, “Cast away the detestable things your eyes feast on, every one of you, and do not defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt” (Ezek. 20:7), and his laments, “For their heart went after their idols… and their eyes were set on their fathers’ idols” (vv. 16, 24). Notably the climactic last line of 1 John, which at first seems odd and out of place, commands, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21). Evidently “idols” here means anything that takes away from one’s first love—of God, of Christ, and of other believers. This would include the manifestation of man-pleasing, sadly expressed in John 12:42–43. “Many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.”

Idolatry as Adultery

Through Ezekiel God not only revealed just how deeply seated idolatry is; He also revealed how deeply wrong it is. The steady penchant for idolatry is nothing less than flagrant adultery. This fact shows how God feels about idolatries against Him, who is the believers’ faithful Lover and covenant Husband. God lamented, “How I have been broken over their whoring heart that has departed from me and over their eyes that go whoring after their idols” (Ezek. 6:9). He became quite graphic in the horrid and whorish allegories in chapters 16 and 23.

Why did He speak in such a shocking way? It is because of the nature of the covenant relationship between God and Israel. Given the abject stubbornness of this “rebellious house,” severe measures were needed to get across the severity of what they were doing and what this meant to God. He depicted Israel’s long-standing penchant for “spiritual adultery” by means of analogy to a brazen and insatiable whore, at times even obscene (characteristically muted in the translations). Chapter 16 in particular is a poignant picture of tender love returned with brazen betrayal (see vv. 1–14, 15–34), a portrait of amazing grace and appalling disgrace. Following this is God’s graphic and harsh judgment (vv. 35–52), and yet in the end there is hope (vv. 53–63). Amazingly the chapter begins and ends with references to God’s grace.

This deep hurt and disgust is expressed in the sexually explicit descriptions of Judah’s harlotry, notably, playing the whore with her male images (v. 17), spreading her legs to every passerby (v. 25), lustfully remembering her days in Egypt—the place of her slavery and from which she was delivered—“whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose issue was like that of horses” (23:20). She was a nymphomaniacal whore, to the extreme; she turned everywhere—from Egypt to Assyria to Chaldea (16:26–29)—except to God. She was not even like an ordinary prostitute, who receives payment for her favors. She was actually married and well provided for (vv. 32–33)! “She commits adultery not because

Yahweh has failed her but for the thrill of it.”[16] This depiction of lust shows that at its core idolatry is an internal issue, a matter of the heart. “You trusted”—not in your Husband, but rather—“in your beauty” (v. 15). Thus the issue in temptation is not alliances as such but reliances (where one turns in trust) and the inclinations of the heart (where one is drawn).

In these allegories of adultery God exposed Judah’s idolatries. They were combining true religion with the prevailing religious ideas and practices of the cultures around them. For security they trusted in political alliances rather than in God. They were motivated by material affluence and were characterized by moral decadence.

This speaks to believers today too. God’s people in every age need to ask themselves these questions: “How often and in what areas do we abandon God in action, attitude, and affection? Do we compromise our morals for our own desires or for a better standing in the world? Are we captivated by the Giver or the gifts? Are we motivated by the pursuit of wealth and the desire to be comfortable, or by the pursuit of God and the desire to be Christlike? Are we prone to trust in the worldly alliances we make, or do we look to God as our Sovereign? How freely do we conform to prevailing religious ideas and pressures of our culture?”

The Promise of Hope

Divine solution

Ezekiel 36:24–28 gives God’s answer to Judah’s hopelessness and inability—the promise of regathering, internal cleansing, divine “heart surgery,” Spirit empowering, and covenant relationship. “I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes and be careful to obey My rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.”

This sequence of return, regeneration, and renewal is an enlarged echo of the initial promise given in 11:18–20. In 36:25–27 Ezekiel presented three images of Israel’s yet-future spiritual life. The first image is that of cleansing by water. This is the fulfillment of various ritual washings and sprinklings, which depict cleansing from sin and salvation from uncleanness (vv. 33, 29). The second image is that of a new heart: the exchange of a heart of stone for a heart of flesh. The third image is this new spirit, which is the regenerating and indwelling Spirit of God Himself, who gives God’s people the ability to obey (v. 27). The closing statement in verse 28 is the covenant formula in its simplest form. It defines the saving relationship between God and His people, both in time and for eternity (e.g., Gen. 17:7; Lev. 26:11–12; Rev. 21:3). It is also a formula that forms the backbone of hope in the Book of Ezekiel (11:20; 14:11; 34:30–31; 36:28; 37:23, 27).

Ezekiel 36 figured prominently in the background of the discussion between Jesus and Nicodemus, especially Jesus’ words about “water and the Spirit and new birth from above.” As Jesus said, “Israel’s teacher” certainly ought to have known that this activity of the Spirit is necessary for entrance into the kingdom of God (John 3:3, 5, 10). Ezekiel’s words are another reminder that the solution to society’s ills and problems is not education or economics or even morality. Sin calls for a divine heart transplant, for only God can give spiritual life.

Eschatological schema

Ezekiel 34 and 36–37 depict the salvation of Israel, returned to the land, united under the kingship of the Davidic Messiah, with showers of blessing, the dwelling of God, and the fulfillment of the covenant promise, “You shall be my people, and I will be your God” (36:28). But this blissful state is twice interrupted—first, by the destruction of Edom (chap. 35), the biblical code for the (near) enemies of God and His people (cf. Isa. 34; 63:1–6); and second (after a long period of peace and safety)[17] by the great eschatological battle against Gog and Magog[18] (Ezek. 38–39), the biblical code for the (far) enemies of God and His people. After God’s victory over this final foe Israel will enjoy her temple (40:1–43:12) and worship (43:13–46:24), and land (chaps. 47–48).[19] All those promises previously forfeited by stubborn sin will be renewed, enlarged, and enhanced by an even greater grace, closing with the climactic and resounding final words, “Yahweh is there!” (48:35). Revelation 19–22 presents a similar pattern: the arrival of the Messiah, the destruction of God’s enemies, the messianic reign, the eschatological battle, the blessings of the eternal state.[20]

Conclusion

Ezekiel, perhaps more than any other prophet, forcefully exposed idolatry as the root problem of the heart. For God’s people, faith had become largely externalized. But the “unthinkable” Exile forced the issue when God confronted and conscripted Ezekiel to deliver His message of both bitter judgment and sweet hope. Although the location of God’s people had been forcibly changed, their disposition had not; for idolatry is fundamentally a matter of the heart. This root problem of “internalized idolatry” carries forward from the Old Testament into the New, and thus Ezekiel’s message is relevant to God’s people in every age.

Notes

1. Tertullian, “On Idolatry,” in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976), 3.61.
2. John F. Kutsko, Between Heaven and Earth: Divine Presence and Absence in the Book of Ezekiel, Biblical and Judaic Studies from the University of California, San Diego (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2000), 25.
3. See Andrew Mein, Ezekiel and the Ethics of the Exile, Oxford Theological Monographs, ed. J. Day et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 109.
4. All Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Standard Bible Society), 2001 (with the one exception that in this article the divine name is rendered “Yahweh”).
5. The name “Ezekiel” means “God toughens or strengthens.” Chapters 2–3 record how God “toughened” Ezekiel so that he might deliver God’s tough word to this tough crowd.
6. Daniel I. Block, The Book of Ezekiel: Chapters 1–24, New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 272.
7. This departure is centered in chapter 10, although this theme is woven throughout the book. There are four stages of “greater departure” from the temple (9:3; 10:4, 18–19; 11:22–23), corresponding to the four stages of “greater abomination” in the temple (8:5–6, 7–13, 14–15, 16–17). God’s glory is first presented in chapter 1 and returns in 43:1–5, thus framing the book as a whole. Also in 10:18–19 and 11:22–23 the unthinkable happened—God’s glory left; and in 43:1–5 the unbelievable happened—the glory returned.
8. For, as the Scriptures reveal, judgment begins at the household of God (1 Pet. 4:17), and the leaders “lead” in judgment (cf. Ezek. 9:6, “begin at My sanctuary. .. with the elders,” and 11:1, “princes of the people”). Some, however, whose hearts are His, are “marked” for survival. As an ironic echo of Passover, this mark of protection (9:4, 6) is placed on people who will be spared the judgment of God. Here, however, it is not God’s people in general but only the penitent who will be spared the impending plagues. The mark of protection on the forehead was on those who were truly His, as evidenced by their grieving over the abominations. The mark thus signified both ownership and allegiance, both seated in the heart and expressed in daily life.
9. Block, The Book of Ezekiel: Chapters 1–24, 341.
10. It is not coincidental that Jesus Christ, who is both the true Temple and the Glory of God (John 1:14; 2:19–22), ascended to heaven from this mountain (Acts 1:9–12) and will return to this place (Zech. 14:4). And after He pronounced destruction on Jerusalem for her stubborn unbelief, He moved from the temple to the mountain east of Jerusalem (Matt. 23:37–24:3).
11. Notably this intensely gracious and wondrously intimate relationship comes through judgment. This hope is seen after God’s announcements of judgment on their sins.
12. Walther Zimmerli, Ezekiel, trans. Ronald E. Clements, ed. Frank Moore Cross et al. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 1:309.
13. Ibid.
14. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 1.11.8.
15. David Powlison, “Idols in the Heart and ‘Vanity Fair,’ ” Journal of Biblical Counseling 13 (1995): 35. Duguid remarks on the modern fascination with soap operas: “What makes these soap operas so fascinating to people is the fact that these characters have no restraints on the expression of their idolatries. Why do they fall into bed with one another so easily? It is because their feelings of lust have become an idolatry, an idolatry that says that nothing in the world is of comparable significance to meeting the demands of these feelings right now. God’s law, which forbids immorality and adultery, is considered by them a matter of relatively insignificant weight. Why do they murder one another at the drop of a hat? It is because their feelings of jealousy and anger have become an idolatry that says, ‘Feed me or I will make your life miserable!’ Why do they lie and cheat and steal? It is because their covetous hearts have fastened onto an idol that they must have, regardless of the consequences. These are idolaters who live out the full scope of their idolatries” (Iain M. Duguid, Ezekiel [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999], 139).
16. Raymond C. Ortlund Jr., Whoredom: God’s Unfaithful Wife in Biblical Theology, New Studies in Biblical Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 113.
17. Ezekiel 38:8–9, 14–16 states that Gog and his hordes will advance “after many days” and “in the latter years” against God’s people, who will have long been “dwelling securely.” The sequence in Ezekiel 37–39 may be compared to that in Revelation 20: resurrection, reign, and war (after a long time of peace).
18. This war between God and Gog is the great and final battle. There is a direct literary allusion to this “Gog and Magog” in Revelation 20:8, and a veiled allusion in 19:17–21 (cf. Ezek. 39:17–20). Ezekiel called the enemy Gog of the land of Magog (38:2), but he also referred separately to both Gog and Magog (39:6) as God’s foe.
19. Much of the imagery of the apostle John’s vision of the new heavens and new earth in Revelation 21–22 is drawn from Ezekiel 47–48.
20. The Book of Revelation includes four discrete visions, structurally demarcating the major units in the book, introduced by a call typically to “come” and a description of being transported “in the Spirit” (1:9–11; 4:1–2; 17:1–3; 21:9–10; framed by a prologue and epilogue, 1:1–8; 22:6–21). The third vision is in two parts, the second of which (19:11–21:8) concerns the coming of Christ. This section is distinctly woven together by the repetition of certain literary phrases that bind it in a certain sequence. First, heading each minor section (19:11–21; 20:1–10; 20:11–15; 21:1–8), and punctuated throughout, is the phrase “Then I saw” (καὶ εἶδον)—not simply “and” (καὶ) (contra G. K. Beale The Book of Revelation, New International Greek Testament Commentary [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999], 974–76). This strongly indicates both a literary tie and a sequential flow (19:11, 17, 19; 20:1, 4, 11–12; 21:1). Such a flow argues against the suggestion that the section begun in 20:1 recapitulates Christ’s first advent and speaks of the church age. Second, closing each minor section is the pointed repetition of the reference to the lake of fire. Again, this serves to bind this second portion of the third vision into a seamless literary, theological, and temporal whole. First to be so judged are the beast and the false prophet (19:20); then the devil (20:10); after that death and hades, along with the nonelect (20:14–15); and finally all the wicked (21:8).