October 04, 2024 | Be God's Light
Ezekiel Shaves Head & Beard Symbolizing Fall
Scripture: Ezekiel 5(NIV)
1 “Now, son of man, take a sharp sword and use it as a barber’s razor to shave your head and your beard. Then take a set of scales and divide up the hair. 2 When the days of your siege come to an end, burn a third of the hair inside the city. Take a third and strike it with the sword all around the city. And scatter a third to the wind. For I will pursue them with drawn sword. 3 But take a few hairs and tuck them away in the folds of your garment. 4 Again, take a few of these and throw them into the fire and burn them up. A fire will spread from there to all Israel.
5 “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: This is Jerusalem, which I have set in the center of the nations, with countries all around her. 6 Yet in her wickedness she has rebelled against my laws and decrees more than the nations and countries around her. She has rejected my laws and has not followed my decrees.
7 “Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: You have been more unruly than the nations around you and have not followed my decrees or kept my laws. You have not even conformed to the standards of the nations around you.
8 “Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself am against you, Jerusalem, and I will inflict punishment on you in the sight of the nations. 9 Because of all your detestable idols, I will do to you what I have never done before and will never do again. 10 Therefore in your midst parents will eat their children, and children will eat their parents. I will inflict punishment on you and will scatter all your survivors to the winds. 11 Therefore as surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your vile images and detestable practices, I myself will shave you; I will not look on you with pity or spare you. 12 A third of your people will die of the plague or perish by famine inside you; a third will fall by the sword outside your walls; and a third I will scatter to the winds and pursue with drawn sword.
13 “Then my anger will cease and my wrath against them will subside, and I will be avenged. And when I have spent my wrath on them, they will know that I the Lord have spoken in my zeal.
14 “I will make you a ruin and a reproach among the nations around you, in the sight of all who pass by. 15 You will be a reproach and a taunt, a warning and an object of horror to the nations around you when I inflict punishment on you in anger and in wrath and with stinging rebuke. I the Lord have spoken. 16 When I shoot at you with my deadly and destructive arrows of famine, I will shoot to destroy you. I will bring more and more famine upon you and cut off your supply of food. 17 I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will leave you childless. Plague and bloodshed will sweep through you, and I will bring the sword against you. I the Lord have spoken.”
Devotional
Some of God’s prophets used words to convey God’s truth to His people. Ezekiel went beyond words, using vivid illustrations to capture attention.
Throughout the Bible, shaving the head is an act of contrition and repentance. In Acts 21:24 Paul and some others shaved their heads as purification rites to show that they were “living in obedience to the law.” In today’s reading, Ezekiel does the same, symbolizing the need for the people of God to humble themselves in repentance for their sins.
The actions he takes with his hair symbolize what is awaiting the people of Jerusalem: “A third of your people will die of the plague or perish by famine inside you; a third will fall by the sword outside your walls; and a third I will scatter to the winds and pursue with drawn sword” (v. 12). The small amount tucked in his garment symbolized the small remnant who would return from exile in the future to rebuild the fallen city.
One of the grievances the Lord had against the people of Judah was the way they treated the temple in Jerusalem. Verse 11 says, “Therefore as surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your vile images and detestable practices, I myself will shave you; I will not look on you with pity or spare you.” The people had defiled the temple and turned to false religions with temple prostitutes and other ungodly practices. How we treat God’s temple matters.
1 Corinthians 6:18-20 says, “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.” How we treat God’s temple matters.
How does today’s reading apply to your life? What is God calling you to do?
Poem
Killing The Cancer
A cancer invaded the people of God
Sin’s spread, great metastasis bleak
Prognosis is heinous
How will we survive
The treatment for cure, only worse
The strong chemotherapy courses in veins
Stripping cells, causing baldness, all sick
The stem cells of Jesus
Jump-start back to life
The treatment for cure—God’s full purse
The fire radiation burns flesh, cleansing soul
But scars and nerve limping will come
God joins in our wrestling
Through long night we strive
The great cost, redemption from curse
