Death of Ezekiel's wife

Our English translation, "with one blow", indicates an untimely, sudden death. The Hebrew used originally, does not require such an interpretation. So it is possible that Ezekiel's wife had been ill and that her time had come. God always works everything according to his plan, so He could have foreseen a purpose in Ezekiel's wife's passing. It could also be, however, that God took Ezekiel's wife as an object lesson to the people of Israel. Life is His to give and to take away, so we cannot get frustrated when He does so. We can feel badly for Ezekiel of course, whose entire life had been a testimony to the Jews. Remember this is the same guy who had to lay on his side for over a year, shave his head and beard, and eat a scroll. The Lord had been requiring difficult things of him to demonstrate His message to the people. What was communicated in the death of Ezekiel's wife and the subsequent prohibition to mourn, was that Israel would lose her greatest treasure (the Temple), and would not be allowed to grieve because it was her own fault. While public mourning was very much a part of the Hebrew culture, hey did not mourn death due to capital punishment. The idea being that if death had been deserved, mourning was not appropriate. The "death of Israel's Temple and glory would be well-deserved and therefore not subject to the customary tradition of mourning. Ezekiel's wife deserved to be mourned, which made this a difficult command for the prophet to abide by.

Following this episode, Ezekiel apparently was restricted from delivering any more messages to his brethren until he had gotten word that the siege of Jerusalem was complete. This is known to have occurred 5 months later. The text indicates that he was to lose his voice during that time, and yet we can see from Ez. 25 that he delivered several oracles against surrounding nations. The explanation is that the Lord must have ceased to give him messages for the Jews, silencing his voice as a prophet to his people.

Tomorrow's reading: Jer. 32-33:26; Ez. 26:1-14