Scripture Daily

Context No. 504 of 4322 · Ezekiel

Context · Reflection

Ezekiel 39:17-24: in context

17“You, son of man, the Lord GOD says: ‘Speak to the birds of every sort, and to every animal of the field, “Assemble yourselves, and come; gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice on the mountains of Israel, that you may eat meat and drink blood. 18You shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bulls, all of them fatlings of Bashan. 19You shall eat fat until you are full, and drink blood until you are drunk, of my sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you. 20You shall be filled at my table with horses and charioteers, with mighty men, and with all men of war,” says the Lord GOD.’ 21“I will set my glory among the nations. Then all the nations will see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid on them. 22So the house of Israel will know that I am the LORD their God, from that day and forward. 23The nations will know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity, because they trespassed against me, and I hid my face from them; so I gave them into the hand of their adversaries, and they all fell by the sword. 24I did to them according to their uncleanness and according to their transgressions. I hid my face from them.

This is a grim and unsettling passage. After the defeat of a great invading army, God summons the birds and wild beasts to a gruesome feast, telling them to gorge on the flesh of the mighty and drink the blood of princes, the fallen warriors and their horses spread across the mountains like a sacrifice laid out for scavengers. It is the humbling of the mighty taken to its most graphic end: the great men of war, the ones who inspired terror, end as carrion. But then God explains what all of it means, and the explanation reaches back to something more personal than the battlefield. The nations will know, he says, that Israel went into captivity for their iniquity, because they trespassed against me, so I hid my face from them.

That phrase, I hid my face from them, is the one to sit with. Twice God says it. The exile, the defeat, the long sense of being handed over to their enemies, all of it is summed up as God hiding his face, withdrawing the felt nearness of his presence, and God ties that hiding directly to their turning away from him. It is an honest and sobering picture. There are seasons when God's face feels hidden, when the sense of his presence that once steadied me seems simply gone, and while that is not always the result of my own sin, this passage will not let me pretend it never is. Sometimes the hiddenness is connected to a turning away I have not been honest about.

And yet notice where the whole oracle is going. God hides his face, but the stated purpose runs beyond the hiding: that Israel and the nations will know that I am the LORD, and, a few verses on, that he will restore them and never hide his face again. The hidden face is real, and it is serious, but it is not the last word. When God's presence feels withdrawn from me and the old nearness is gone, can I be honest enough to ask whether I have turned from him somewhere, and can I trust that even a hidden face is meant, in the end, to bring me back to knowing he is the LORD?

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