Scripture Daily

Context No. 1634 of 4322 · Ezekiel

Context · Reflection

Ezekiel 4:6-17: in context

6“Again, when you have accomplished these, you shall lie on your right side, and shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah. I have appointed forty days, each day for a year, to you. 7You shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem, with your arm uncovered; and you shall prophesy against it. 8Behold, I put ropes on you, and you shall not turn yourself from one side to the other, until you have accomplished the days of your siege. 9“Take for yourself also wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt, and put them in one vessel. Make bread of it. According to the number of the days that you will lie on your side, even three hundred ninety days, you shall eat of it. 10Your food which you shall eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day. From time to time you shall eat it. 11You shall drink water by measure, the sixth part of a hin. From time to time you shall drink. 12You shall eat it as barley cakes, and you shall bake it in their sight with dung that comes out of man.” 13The LORD said, “Even thus will the children of Israel eat their bread unclean, among the nations where I will drive them.” 14Then I said, “Ah Lord GOD! Behold, my soul has not been polluted; for from my youth up even until now I have not eaten of that which dies of itself, or is torn of animals. No abominable meat has come into my mouth!” 15Then he said to me, “Behold, I have given you cow’s dung for man’s dung, and you shall prepare your bread on it.” 16Moreover he said to me, “Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem. They will eat bread by weight, and with fearfulness. They will drink water by measure, and in dismay; 17that they may lack bread and water, be dismayed one with another, and pine away in their iniquity.

God commands Ezekiel to enact the coming siege of Jerusalem in his own body: to lie on his side for a set number of days, bearing the people's iniquity, to eat carefully weighed rations of bread and measured water, picturing the famine of the siege, and to bake the bread over human dung, an image of defilement. At this last command Ezekiel objects: Ah, Lord GOD, I have never defiled myself; from my youth I have never eaten anything unclean. And God accommodates him: I will let you use cow's dung instead of human dung.

The exchange between Ezekiel and God is striking. God has commanded the prophet to do something that troubles his conscience, to prepare food in a way that would defile him, violating a purity he had kept all his life. And Ezekiel does not simply comply, nor does he refuse outright; he objects honestly, telling God plainly that this troubles him, that he has never defiled himself, that the command is hard for him to bear. And God, hearing the honest objection, accommodates it, allowing cow's dung instead of human, meeting the prophet's tender conscience partway. There is something worth noticing in God's response. He was not rigid or unyielding toward Ezekiel's genuine scruple; he heard the honest objection and adjusted, making a concession to the conscience of his servant. This does not mean God bends to every complaint, or that we can argue our way out of hard obedience. But it does show a God who hears our honest objections, who is not offended by a genuine scruple honestly voiced, and who can be gracious and accommodating where a real matter of conscience is at stake. There is encouragement in that for how we bring our difficulties to God. Ezekiel did not suppress his objection or pretend he was fine; he told God honestly that this was hard for him, and God met him with grace. When something God seems to be asking troubles our conscience or feels impossible to bear, we can bring the honest objection to him, as Ezekiel did, and find that he hears, and is often more gracious and accommodating than we feared.

When something God seems to ask troubles my conscience or feels impossible to bear, do I bring the honest objection to him, as Ezekiel did, rather than suppressing it or pretending I am fine, and can I trust that he hears our honest scruples and is often more gracious than I feared?

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