Scripture Daily

Context No. 1138 of 4322 · Ezekiel

Context · Reflection

Ezekiel 22:23-31: in context

23The LORD’s word came to me, saying, 24“Son of man, tell her, ‘You are a land that is not cleansed nor rained on in the day of indignation.’ 25There is a conspiracy of her prophets within it, like a roaring lion ravening the prey. They have devoured souls. They take treasure and precious things. They have made many widows within it. 26Her priests have done violence to my law and have profaned my holy things. They have made no distinction between the holy and the common, neither have they caused men to discern between the unclean and the clean, and have hidden their eyes from my Sabbaths. So I am profaned among them. 27Her princes within it are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood and to destroy souls, that they may get dishonest gain. 28Her prophets have plastered for them with whitewash, seeing false visions, and divining lies to them, saying, ‘The Lord GOD says,’ when the LORD has not spoken. 29The people of the land have used oppression and exercised robbery. Yes, they have troubled the poor and needy, and have oppressed the foreigner wrongfully. 30“I sought for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I would not destroy it; but I found no one. 31Therefore I have poured out my indignation on them. I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath. I have brought their own way on their heads,” says the Lord GOD.

God gives Ezekiel a sweeping indictment of every level of a corrupt society. The prophets are like a roaring lion tearing prey; the priests have profaned holy things and blurred the line between clean and unclean; the princes are like wolves shedding blood for dishonest gain; the false prophets whitewash it all with lies, saying thus says the Lord GOD when he has not spoken; and the people oppress the poor and the foreigner. And then the devastating line: I sought for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I would not destroy it, but I found none.

The image at the center is haunting: I looked for someone to stand in the gap, and found no one. God pictures the nation's sin as a broken-down wall, and its judgment as an enemy about to pour through the breach, and he says he was looking for one person who would stand in that gap, an intercessor, someone to plead for the land and turn back the ruin, and there was no one. It is one of the sobering statements in the prophets, because it means God wanted to relent, was searching for a reason to spare, looking for a single person to stand between the people and their doom, and could not find one. The tragedy is not only the corruption of the prophets and priests and princes; it is that not one person would take up the burden of intercession. This is the calling that fell empty. And it points to the one who did stand in the gap, who did make himself the intercessor between a guilty people and the judgment they deserved, standing in the breach with his own body. But the question echoes to us: will we be the ones who stand in the gap for others, who plead and intercede when God is looking for someone to do it.

When God looks for someone to stand in the gap and intercede for others, for a family, a community, a nation, does he find me willing to take up that burden, or empty like the land he searched?

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