Ezekiel 16-17

[wolfpurplemoon]

God sees Jerusalem as a woman who turned to prostitution. But the sort of prostitute who can only attract clients if she pays them.

He'll put a stop to the prostitution by getting a mob to stone the figurative woman to death and hack her to pieces. That'll put a stop to that.

I don't think that a sprig from the top of a cedar will grow if planted in the ground, it certainly wouldn't turn into a vine if it did grow. I also don't think that eagles are much inclined toward gardening or that trees grow on the top of mountains. Um, did I miss the point of the parable?

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Who is God?

[shelka73.livejournal.com]

Who is God?

I started reading the Old Testament, and had to ask myself this question over and over again when I came to a point that I didn't understand. It is my personal relationship with Him that helps me to understand what has been written. The better I get to know Him, the more I am able to understand about who He is and His actions.

The God that I know is my loving Father. He is LOVE itself. I am His and He is mine. When anything sounds strange or contrary to that, I go back to Him, and ask Him to reveal to me a better understanding of what is going on at this time.

God as a Father has to discipline and protect His children. He will do whatever it takes to help them to be the best that they can be. The issue is that our own personal free-will gets in the way of so much.

Who do we trust to care for us? Who do we trust to lead us and show us the way? Who is the one who can protect us from our enemies? Surely, there isn't any man or woman on this earth who can do a perfect job.

What made David such a great king for Israel wasn't that he was perfect, but rather that he had a close and personal relationship with God. David learned that with great power comes great responsibility. He learned that his selfish actions and personal fears could cause harm and have an effect on the people he was leading. He learned how to listen and wait and have faith in God's timing in order bring success not only for himself, but for God and Israel.

Yet even with all the wonderful blessings that God gave His chosen people, His children, the Bible reveals that they would become complacent, and self-focused. They would start to rely on themselves and their own ways. They would stop coming to God, and consulting him, and thanking Him (or remembering that He was responsible) for the protection that He showed them came from Him.

Because of His tremendous love for His children, he always offered mercy for them. He would tell them often that if only they would turn from their evil and self-destructive ways, He could and would help them. He hurt so bad as he watched all that they did. He warned them of the destruction that they faced. He was angry that Israel, would seek protection from and give affection to other countries, kings, and gods, that proved time and time again to take from and give nothing to her. He couldn't bear to watch her self-destruction. It angered and pained him that she would seek such inferior relationships from areas that would take and imprison, and gods that were no more than hunks of metal or pieces of wood.

As Our Father, God knows exactly what we need. He desires to provide it for us. If a child is told over and over again not to touch the hot stove, a parent may first warn and yell at him, then grab his hand and slap so that child may associate the hot stove with pain without being burnt, but if the child is persistent enough, the child may still be insistent on touching that hot stove. In this case, the child may touch, and quickly pull back with minor or injuries, or go full force toward the flame and come away seriously hurt. The pain and suffering that the child experiences in not the will of the parent. The parent's desire is for the child to be protected and not have to suffer the pain, it is the will of the child to continue to pursue the dangerous act that is in front of him. God's point over and over again is that obedience to Him, because He does know better, will always have good results in the end, and disobedience will result in the opposite.

If you get to know God for who He is, then the perspective of the Old Testament can change for you. Just as knowing about you is different than knowing who you are, so is the difference in knowing God and having a personal relationship with Him.

At the very least, when reading these passages, try to see it from the perspective of a Loving Father. I know that it may seem possible, but maybe this will help you to understand the purpose and reasoning behind what is written.

[zteccc.livejournal.com]

God gives Ezekiel a story that compares the city of Jerusalem (and by extension its people) to a promiscuous woman. In the story, God cares for Jerusalem when it was young and gave it blessings, wealth, etc. As Jerusalem became established and wealthy, it turned away from God and looked to other nations (and their traditions/idols) to appease its desires. The imagery is of someone who wants so much to be liked, that they sacrifice all of their principles and ideals to that end instead of being content with the love that they already had at home. This is a fair parallel for the history of Jerusalem from the time of the covenant until the time that it was destroyed by the Babylonians. The punishment that is decreed is that God will allow the neighboring nations, the ones that Jerusalem tried to appease by adopting their rules instead of keeping to the covenant, to overrun Jerusalem and take possession of all of its goods until it is just a wasteland. This is effectively what happened 4-5 years later.
Of course a city is not a woman, so hacking her apart really just means dividing the land. Eventually God is going to restore Jerusalem and Ezekiel prophecies that when this occurs Jerusalem (and its people) won't do what it did before (this occurred at the end of the Babylonian captivity).

Another story is told with imagery of eagles and a vine. Imagery is just that, it isn't to be taken literally (e.g. eagles don't plant), but the parallel of the eagles are beings of great power (kings). The cedar branch is left in a city of a nation of merchants (this is likely king Jehoiachin being taken to Babylon). The vine (planted as a seed from Israel) represents the king of Jerusalem (Zedekiah at that time) who was set up as king after Nebuchadnezzar took Jehoiachin to Babylon. Zedekiah owed his kingship to Nebuchadnezzar, but chose to turn towards the Egyptians for an alliance, breaking his treaty with Nebuchadnezzar. Zedekiah's death in Babylon is prophesied.
The last part of Chapter 17 likely refers to Jesus, the tree that produces large fruit, that all kinds of birds (all nations) will find shelter under.

[william harshaw (from livejournal.com)]

When I was young my mother had a washing machine that had ringers she always had to tell me not to touch but I had to learn.the hard way it cough my finger one day and ribbed the skin off I learned the hard way even today I can be hardheaded alnd not listen to God when he tells me not to or to do something. Praise god for his patients with me and thank you Jesus for your sacrifice of life that I might have life