Home

For Teaching

Ezekiel 12: What the Passage Says

101 claims across 28 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Ezekiel 12 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

The LORD tells Ezekiel to act out a scene for the exiles: pack baggage in daylight, dig through a wall, and carry his load out at dusk with his face covered. When the people ask what it means, he explains that this is what will happen to the prince in Jerusalem and to the people with him, who will be captured, scattered, and taken to Babylon. Ezekiel is then told to eat and drink while shaking with fear, as a picture of the dread coming on Jerusalem. Finally, God answers two sayings the people repeat, that visions never come true and that Ezekiel's visions are about the distant future, by declaring that his words will be carried out without delay.

Claim by Claim

  1. 12:1
    • The word of the LORD came to Ezekiel.
    • The word came saying something that follows.
  2. 12:2
    • God addressed the prophet as son of man.
    • God said the prophet dwells in the midst of a rebellious house.
    • God said they have eyes to see.
    • God said they do not see.
    • God said they have ears to hear.
    • God said they do not hear.
    • God said the reason is that they are a rebellious house.
  3. 12:3
    • God addressed the prophet as son of man.
    • God commanded him to prepare for himself baggage for exile.
    • God commanded him to go into exile by day in their sight.
    • God commanded him to go into exile from his place to another place in their sight.
    • God said perhaps they will see.
    • God said they are a rebellious house.
  4. 12:4
    • God commanded him to bring out his baggage by day in their sight, as baggage for exile.
    • God commanded him to go out in the evening in their sight.
    • God said he should go out like those who go out into exile.
  5. 12:5
    • God commanded him to dig through the wall in their sight.
    • God commanded him to carry his belongings out through the hole.
  6. 12:6
    • God commanded him to lift the baggage on his shoulder in their sight.
    • God commanded him to carry it out in the dark.
    • God commanded him to cover his face.
    • God said the purpose was that he not see the land.
    • God said He had made him a sign to the house of Israel.
  7. 12:7
    • Ezekiel did as he was commanded.
    • Ezekiel brought out his baggage by day as baggage for exile.
    • In the evening Ezekiel dug through the wall with his hand.
    • Ezekiel brought his belongings out in the dark.
    • Ezekiel carried them on his shoulder in their sight.
  8. 12:8
    • In the morning the word of the LORD came to Ezekiel.
    • The word came saying something that follows.
  9. 12:9
    • God addressed the prophet as son of man.
    • God asked whether the house of Israel, the rebellious house, had said to him, 'What are you doing?'
  10. 12:10
    • God commanded him to say to them what follows.
    • The Lord GOD said this burden concerns the prince in Jerusalem.
    • The Lord GOD said the burden concerns all the house of Israel who are among them.
  11. 12:11
    • God commanded him to say, 'I am your sign.'
    • God said that as he had done, so it would be done to them.
    • God said they would go into exile, into captivity.
  12. 12:12
    • God said the prince who is among them will lift his baggage on his shoulder in the dark and go out.
    • God said they will dig through the wall to bring him out through it.
    • God said he will cover his face.
    • God said the reason is that he will not see the land with his eye.
  13. 12:13
    • God said He will spread His net over him.
    • God said he will be caught in God's snare.
    • God said He will bring him to Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans.
    • God said he will not see that land.
    • God said he will die there.
  14. 12:14
    • God said He will scatter to every wind all who are around him to help him.
    • God said He will scatter all his troops.
    • God said He will draw out a sword after them.
  15. 12:15
    • God said they will know that He is the LORD.
    • God said this will happen when He scatters them among the nations.
    • God said He will disperse them in the countries.
  16. 12:16
    • God said He will leave a few men of them from the sword, the famine, and the plague.
    • God said the purpose is that they may recount all their abominations among the nations where they come.
    • God said they will know that He is the LORD.
  17. 12:17
    • The word of the LORD came to Ezekiel.
    • The word came saying something that follows.
  18. 12:18
    • God addressed the prophet as son of man.
    • God commanded him to eat his bread with trembling.
    • God commanded him to drink his water with shaking and with anxiety.
  19. 12:19
    • God commanded him to say to the people of the land what follows.
    • The Lord GOD spoke concerning the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the land of Israel.
    • God said they will eat their bread with anxiety.
    • God said they will drink their water in horror.
    • God said the purpose is that her land be stripped of all that fills it.
    • God said this is because of the violence of all who dwell in it.
  20. 12:20
    • God said the inhabited cities will be laid waste.
    • God said the land will become desolate.
    • God said they will know that He is the LORD.
  21. 12:21
    • The word of the LORD came to Ezekiel.
    • The word came saying something that follows.
  22. 12:22
    • God addressed the prophet as son of man.
    • God asked what this proverb is that they have concerning the land of Israel.
    • The proverb says the days are prolonged.
    • The proverb says every vision perishes.
  23. 12:23
    • God commanded him to tell them what follows.
    • The Lord GOD said He will make this proverb cease.
    • The Lord GOD said they will no longer use it as a proverb in Israel.
    • God commanded him to say to them that the days are at hand.
    • God commanded him to say that the matter of every vision is at hand.
  24. 12:24
    • God said there will no longer be any false vision within the house of Israel.
    • God said there will no longer be any flattering divination within the house of Israel.
  25. 12:25
    • God said He is the LORD.
    • God said He will speak.
    • God said the word He speaks will be done.
    • God said it will no longer be delayed.
    • God said that in their days, addressing the rebellious house, He will speak a word and perform it.
    • This is declared by the Lord GOD.
  26. 12:26
    • The word of the LORD came to Ezekiel.
    • The word came saying something that follows.
  27. 12:27
    • God addressed the prophet as son of man.
    • God said the house of Israel is saying something.
    • They say the vision that he sees is for many days off.
    • They say he prophesies of times that are far off.
  28. 12:28
    • God commanded him to say to them what follows.
    • The Lord GOD said none of His words will be delayed any longer.
    • The Lord GOD said the word He speaks will be done.
    • This is declared by the Lord GOD.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

12:1
Where the King James prints LORD in capitals it is standing in for the personal name of God in Hebrew, written with four consonants (YHWH). Jewish readers did not say the name aloud, and translators have followed that custom by substituting "the LORD."
12:2
"Son of man" is a Hebrew idiom meaning simply "human being" or "mortal." It is how God addresses Ezekiel throughout this book, more than ninety times; it is a form of address, not a title of honor.
12:3
Ezekiel is himself living in Babylonia, among the Judeans deported in 597 BC, while Jerusalem still stands and still has a king. He is told to act out, in front of those fellow exiles, a second deportation still to come. Prophets sometimes delivered a message by performing it in public like a piece of street theater; the point was that onlookers would ask what it meant (see verse 9).
12:4
The "stuff for removing" is an exile's baggage: the single bundle a deportee could carry. Assyria and Babylon routinely marched conquered populations hundreds of miles to resettle them elsewhere, which is what "going into captivity" means here, not imprisonment, but forced relocation.
12:5
House walls were mud brick, soft enough to break through by hand. Leaving through a hole in the wall rather than the door is the behavior of someone escaping a city under siege, when the gates are watched or blocked.
12:6
"A sign" here means a person whose actions are themselves the message, an acted-out warning that bystanders are meant to interpret. The covered face is left unexplained in the Hebrew and can be read either way: so that he is not recognized, or so that he cannot look at the land he is leaving.
12:7
"Digged" is the old way of writing "dug."
12:10
"Lord GOD" translates a double Hebrew title, Adonai YHWH, roughly "Sovereign LORD." The King James "burden" is an old technical term for a prophetic oracle, particularly one announcing disaster. "The prince in Jerusalem" is Zedekiah, whom Babylon had installed as its vassal ruler; Ezekiel pointedly calls him "prince" (Hebrew nasi, chief or leader) rather than king.
12:11
Calling Ezekiel a "sign" means his acted-out move was a living picture of what was about to happen to them.
12:13
Net and snare are hunting images: the equipment used to bring down a trapped animal. The apparent riddle (brought to Babylon but never seeing it, yet dying there) matches the account in 2 Kings 25:4-7, where Zedekiah escapes Jerusalem by night, is captured, and is blinded before being carried to Babylon. "Chaldeans" were a people of southern Mesopotamia whose dynasty then ruled Babylon; in this period the word is used interchangeably with "Babylonians."
12:14
"Scatter toward every wind" is an idiom meaning to disperse in all four compass directions, with no group left together. To "draw out the sword after them" is to unsheathe a weapon and pursue: they are not merely let go, they are hunted.
12:15
"They shall know that I am the LORD" is Ezekiel's signature line, repeated dozens of times across the book. It is a formula about recognition: once the event happens, no one will be able to mistake who is behind it.
12:16
"Abominations" translates a Hebrew word for what is detestable or repellent, used especially of idol worship and the rituals that went with it; the King James "heathen" simply means the other nations. The Hebrew of the last clause says only "they shall know," and it is not clear whether "they" is the surviving exiles or the nations who hear their account.
12:18
Another acted-out message, this one performed by manner rather than movement: bread and water are the standard pair meaning a person's entire food and drink, and eating them shaking with fear is how people eat under siege, when food is rationed out and no one knows whether there will be more.
12:19
"The people of the land" is normally a set phrase for the ordinary landholding citizens of Judah. Here Ezekiel is speaking to the exiles around him in Babylonia about those still living back in Jerusalem.
12:22
A "proverb" (Hebrew mashal) is a popular saying that circulates as a stock phrase, the way a catchphrase does. "Vision" is the ordinary term for a message a prophet receives, whether or not anything is actually seen; the saying means that prophecies keep being announced and nothing ever comes of them.
12:24
"Vain" means empty or worthless. "Divination" covers any technique for reading the future by ritual means, such as casting lots, shaking arrows, or examining the liver of a sacrificed animal; Israelite law banned it, and people used it anyway. "Flattering" divination is the kind that tells the person paying for it what he wants to hear.

Read Ezekiel 12