Daily Devotions
Ezekiel
"To the house of Israel"
Text: Ezekiel 3:5
SENT TO THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL
Ezekiel was one of the many who had been exiled to Babylon from Judah. The exiled people were still addressed as “the house of Israel”.
“For you are not sent to a people of unfamiliar speech and of hard language,
but to the house of Israel,
not to many people of unfamiliar speech and of hard language,
whose words you cannot understand.
Surely, had I sent you to them, they would have listened to you.”
Ezekiel 3:5-6
1. The house of Israel.
a) Technically the Northern Kingdom of Israel was no more.
b) Israel had been conquered by the Assyrians in 722 BC.
c) Judah was finally conquered in 586 BC by the Babylonians.
d) The phrase “House of Israel”.
i) It was not a political term here.
ii) It described the people ethnically.
iii) They were often called “the children of Israel” in the past.
iv) Since Israel became a kingdom, it was called “the house of Israel”.
2. Ministry to the house of Israel explained.
a) Ezekiel was not sent to minister to the Babylonians.
b) The Babylonian language:
i) Unfamiliar speech
ii) Hard language
c) The house of Israel continued to be separate from the Babylonians.
3. If God had sent Ezekiel to them.
a) They would have listened.
b) They would have been responsive to the Word of God.
4. Resistant and stubborn.
a) The house of Israel will resist and reject Ezekiel’s ministry.
b) They will continue in their stubborn ways.
c) This was what God warned Ezekiel to expect as he begins his ministry.