Ezekiel was just finishing 430 days of lying on his left and then his right side in front of a clay model of Jerusalem under siege when God told him to shave his head and beard and weigh the hair so he could divide it into three equal parts.

The prophet burned the first third of his hair in a fire inside the city where he lived. Next, he took a third of his hair and went around the city chopping it up with a sword. He threw the final third into the wind and watched it blow away, reserving just a small handful to tuck into his robe. Of that handful, he took a few strands of hair and burned them in a fire.

Publicly burning and chopping up his hair, and letting it blow away in the wind, surely caught the attention of the Israelites. They were primed to hear what the Lord had to say next.

Punishment by Thirds

Ezekiel’s three bundles of hair represented three ways God was going to punish the people who remained in Jerusalem. These were the people who had steadfastly resisted all of God’s warnings. They could have escaped the coming disaster by surrendering to Babylon, but they wouldn’t do it. And while they remained in Jerusalem they continued their detestable practices and sins in defiance of God. The Lord had never seen anything like it on the earth.

“This is what the Sovereign Lord says: This is Jerusalem, which I have set in the center of the nations, with countries all around her. Yet in her wickedness she has rebelled against my laws and decrees more than the nations and countries around her. She has rejected my laws and has not followed my decrees . . . Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself am against you, Jerusalem, and I will inflict punishment on you in the sight of the nations . . . I will do to you what I have never done before and will never do again.” Ezekiel 5:5-9

God’s actions against Jerusalem were going to come in three ways.

“A third of your people will die of the plague or perish by famine inside you; a third will fall by the sword outside your walls; and a third I will scatter to the winds and pursue with a drawn sword. Then my anger will cease and my wrath against them will subside, and I will be avenged. And when I have spent my wrath on them, they will know that I the Lord have spoken in my zeal.” Ezekiel 5:12-13

The Wrath of God

The people who remained in Jerusalem had chosen God’s wrath over humbling themselves under his mercy. This included King Zedekiah who continued the sins of the kings who came before him, but also the common people who lived under his rule. Jeremiah had gone throughout the city imploring people to surrender to Babylon and go into exile rather than wait for the destruction of their city. Now, for those who ignored Jeremiah, it was too late.

“The word of the Lord came to me: ‘Son of man, this is what the Sovereign Lord says to the land of Israel: The end! The end has come upon the four corners of the land! The end is now upon you, and I will unleash my anger against you. I will judge you according to your conduct and repay you for all your detestable practices. I will not look on you with pity; I will not spare you. I will surely repay you for your conduct and for the detestable practices among you. Then you will know the I am the Lord.’” Ezekiel 7:1-4

A Rare Experience

Only rarely in Scripture was God willing to unleash his wrath upon the earth. In the thousands of years of historical narrative we have read, there have only been a few times that God punished his people. Most of the time he simply lived with them and spoke to them.

While Israel was journeying in the wilderness, before they entered the Promised Land God sent plagues a few times to discipline them, but when Moses prayed, God stopped the plagues. He revealed his displeasure toward his people in very limited ways – until the time that we are reading about now. Now the time for intercession and limited response was over. God’s wrath was going to fall fully on Jerusalem.

“This is what the Sovereign Lord says: ‘Disaster! Unheard-of disaster! See, it comes! The end has come! It has roused itself against you. See, it comes! Doom has come upon you, upon you who dwell in the land. The time has come! The day is near! There is panic, not joy, on the mountains. I am about to pour out my wrath on you and spend my anger on you. I will judge you according to your conduct and repay you for your detestable practices.” Ezekiel 7:5-8

While it is terrible to read about God’s wrath against his own people, it’s also fair warning to anyone who thinks God doesn’t deal sin. The Bible is very clear: God rewards each person according to his or her deeds. His patience is long and his mercy is vast, but his wrath is swift and his punishment is thorough when it finally comes.

Idolatry in the Temple

A couple of years after his call to be a prophet, Ezekiel had his own house and elders of Judah came to spend time with him. They accepted him as a prophet and they wanted to know what God had to say about Jerusalem. The Lord accommodated them by sweeping Ezekiel into a stunning vision that revealed the reasons for his actions against the city and its people.

In the vision a fiery man grabbed Ezekiel by the hair and carried him up and away to the temple in Jerusalem. Ezekiel saw the glory of God again, as he had seen it before on the Babylonian plain and from the vision God directed him to look at what was happening in the temple.

At the north entrance near the altar stood an idol that made God burn with jealousy because his people worshiped it instead of him.

“And he said to me, ‘Son of man, do you see what they are doing – the utterly detestable things the Israelites are doing here, things that will drive me far from my sanctuary? But you will see things that are even more detestable.’” Ezekiel 8:6

The vision shifted to the wall of the courtyard and Ezekiel saw a hole in it. He dug into the hole and uncovered a room full of symbols of idolatry and uncleanness, with seventy elders of Israel practicing idolatrous worship. They thought they were doing this in secret, but God saw them.

“He said to me, ‘Son of man, have you seen what the elders of Israel are doing in the darkness, each at the shrine of his own idol? They say, ‘The Lord does not see us; the Lord has forsaken the land.’ Ezekiel 8:12

The Lord had forsaken the land, but he was coming back soon, and his reward was in his hand.

The Death of the Idolators

Ezekiel saw the beginning of death and destruction in Jerusalem in his vision. God had forces to carry out his commands and they were going to kill everyone who persisted in rebellion against him.

Yet, God’s mercy was still in effect, too. He saw the people in Jerusalem who mourned over sin and idolatry and wanted no part of it. They weren’t taken to Babylon in the exile, perhaps because they didn’t meet Nebuchadnezzar’s choosy standards. The Babylonians left behind the poorest of the poor, but these lowly people were among the godliest of the Israelites.

God equipped a man with a writing kit and instructed him to mark the foreheads of everyone who grieved over Israel’s sins. The killers followed behind him, killing everyone who didn’t receive the mark of grace.

The slaughter began and God told the executioners to defile the temple by filling its courts with the dead. Ezekiel was overcome by what he saw.

“I fell facedown, crying out, ‘Alas, Sovereign Lord! Are you going to destroy the entire remnant of Israel in this outpouring of your wrath on Jerusalem?’” Ezekiel 9:8

“He answered me, ‘The sin of the people of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great; the land is full of bloodshed and the city is full of injustice . . . I will bring down on their own heads what they have done.’” Ezekiel 9:9-10

Like the bundles of Ezekiel’s hair that were burned, chopped up, and thrown to the wind, the people of Jerusalem went to their destruction. But like the handful of hair tucked safely into Ezekiel’s robe, the faithful in Jerusalem survived.