In Ezekiel 40, Ezekiel is brought in vision to a place where
there is a city framed, and a man with a line and measuring reed (or rod, which
is the ancient equivalent of a tapemeasure) takes him all over the city and
measures everything in it. At the beginning the man says to
Ezekiel:
Son of man, behold with thine eyes, and hear with thine ears, and set thine heart upon all that I shall shew thee; for to the intent that I might shew them unto thee art thou brought hither: declare all that thou seest to the house of Israel. (Ezekiel 40:4)
And then the measuring commences. The man measures the height and breadth of the building, the
threshold of the gate, the little chambers, the porches, the posts, etc. If you want to read it all, you can go
look at Ezekiel 40. There is so much measuring and
describing that readers eyes begin to glaze over and we naturally begin to
wonder, “Why is he telling us all of this?” Why not just show Ezekiel the city without measuring
it? What are we to learn from all
of these measurements?
Measuring implies great precision. It seems to me that this is supposed to teach us that the
Lord can be incredibly precise in giving visions and prophecy. This city and temple are to be built
sometime and it was measured out in Ezekiel’s vision so that it can be
recognized and checked when the time comes. (How that checking will happen, I don’t know because I have
a hard time getting a mental picture of everything and how it fits just by
reading Ezekiel’s writing, but I trust that the time will come when it will be
recognized.) This is to teach us
that the Lord does know the end from
the beginning, and when prophecies come to pass, they are not loose analogs,
but exactly fulfilled.
The man’s instructions to Ezekiel also show us how we are to
respond to precise prophecy. “Set
thine heart upon all that I shall show thee.” If we set our hearts on wanting to help fulfill purposes and
prophecies from the Lord, we will be united with the Lord and can work with
Him.
Further, this vision (and the vision in the chapters
following) were given 14 years after the destruction of Jerusalem and the
carrying captive of the inhabitants into Babylon. The vision was undoubtedly given as a means of encouraging
the Jews to lift up their hearts, to encourage them to repent and prepare
spiritually for it, and to show them their captivity would not continue
forever. I think the Lord intended
to cite the Jews’ minds forward so they could live in joyful anticipation.
Today let’s remember the prophecies we can anticipate fulfillment of in the future—the gospel going to
countries who haven’t heard it yet, the construction of the New Jerusalem, the
Second Coming of Christ.
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