Siege Announced to Ezekiel - Ezekiel 24:1-27
I googled an image for "mourning a wife" and got this picture of Alonzo Mourning's wife. I needed to smile. Thank you, Lord.
The word of the Lord came to me: "Son of man, with one blow I am about to take away from you the delight of your eyes. Yet do not lament or weep or shed any tears. Groan quietly; do not mourn for the dead.... "So I spoke to the people in the morning, and in the evening my wife died. The next morning I did as I had been commanded.
The editor of the Daily Bible offers this commentary: "Perhaps Ezekiel's wife was dying in any event, and God simply used her death as a way of bringing an important message." Daily Bible, p. 1072
Nice try. God makes sure that Ezekiel and we know that He is responsible, that "I am about to take away from you the delight of your eyes." I must confess this is a difficult passage for me. God uses the death of Ezekiel's wife as a sign of Jerusalem's fall. And, yes, he doesn't require of Ezekiel anything that He doesn't endure Himself with the death of His son. But isn't that different? Because God sees and knows the whole story, intimately, and so there must be comfort in the knowledge of the victory and salvation. It's a comfort and knowledge we can't ever obtain in this world.
It's hard for me. God who knows the number of the hairs on our head (getting easier to know on mine) and who values the lives of the widow and orphan and alien takes from Ezekiel the delight of his eyes. He takes the life a woman to make a point.
I'm certain in the next life this may very well seem inconsequential and just a minor inconvenience compared to the eternity of joy and blessing we will know. But that's then and this is now. And right now I struggle what this verse says to me about our God.
Lord knows.
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