Ezekiel 20:46
Son of man, set thy face toward the south, and drop thy word toward the south, and prophesy against the forest of the south field; Son of man, set thy face toward the south, and drop thy word toward the south, and prophesy against the forest of the south field;
The opening portion of Ezekiel, chapters 1 to 24, gives prophetic warning before the destruction of Jerusalem and is occupied with correction, denunciation and reproof. The first twenty chapters belong to the time when Ezekiel served as God's mouthpiece among the captives in Babylonia by the river Chebar while Jeremiah prophesied in Jerusalem. Read with chapters 20 to 22, the passage teaches that sin must be forgiven or it will be consumed.
The chapter speaks of the Sabbath six times, and Ezekiel is one of only two books in the rest of the Old Testament that speak of the Sabbath, the other being Amos. It shows the importance of the Sabbath and reveals God as Sanctifier and Redeemer. The Sabbath is the sign of the living God and the seal of His law, the only one of the ten commandments that points out who made the law. It is a sign between God and Israel forever, where Israel means the people of God in every age. Because God Himself is one of the parties, forever lasts as long as He and His people exist, so God's people will commemorate His creation of heaven and earth by observing the Sabbath to all eternity, including in the new earth.
The chapter explains that Israel rejected God's laws and turned to idolatry, so God gave them over to the consequences of their own desires. The prophecy recounts the steps that led Israel into exile, showing that the people's idolatry and desecration of the Sabbath brought their troubles and dispersion. When the Jewish church turned from the Sabbath to pagan times, Jerusalem was destroyed in consequence. Disobedience to the Sabbath brings dreadful curses.
The verse belongs to the Dark Ages of the Jewish church, a time of apostasy in idolatry in which the faithful were persecuted and which was followed by the captivity of the Jews, paralleling the Dark Ages of the Christian era when the apostate church persecuted and slew the conscientious. The forest of the south field is a symbol of the supremacy of Gentile rule over Israel. The image of an unquenchable fire consuming the forest of the south shows a fire that cannot be stopped before it has completely consumed what it burns, proving that the wicked are ultimately destroyed rather than kept alive in endless punishment.