Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Ezekiel belonged to the priestly family and prophesied among the captives of Israel between about 595 and 574, beginning and closing his work just a little later than Jeremiah. Before his prophetic work began he was shown God's glory in wonderful visions to impress God's great majesty upon him, because one who has once gotten a sight of God does not fear the face of man. This was done so that he would not fear to meet the sinners among his own people with such a word from the Lord.
The verse introduces one of his awful messages of warning and reproof to the sinners among his own people, a condemnation of the sins of Jerusalem and its judgment. Spoken to the captives in Babylon, it recounts the sins that led to Israel's dispersion. Together with chapters 20-22, the message identifies idolatry and Sabbath desecration as causes of their troubles.
The chapter returns to the subject of gaps in God's law and the failure to repair them, identifying the breach as violating the Sabbath. It declares that God sought someone to stand in the gap and repair it but found none. It declares that the priests of Israel had been carried away by pagan apostasy to violate God's law and profane His Sabbath day. Paganism as the first division of Babylon led prominent men of Israel into false worship, with sun-worship setting up Sunday as its worship day in place of the Sabbath of Jehovah in complete rivalry to God's true system.
The Sabbath breaking condemned there is moral failure, not merely ceremonial failure. The word of the Lord introduced here speaks to the professed people of God in the last days, the same time and people addressed in Isaiah 30:8-11, Ezekiel 13, and Jeremiah 6:9-19.
Ezekiel belonged to the priestly family and prophesied among the captives of Israel between about 595 and 574, beginning and closing his work just a little later than Jeremiah. Before his prophetic work began he was shown God's glory in wonderful visions to impress God's great majesty upon him, because one who has once gotten a sight of God does not fear the face of man. This was done so that he would not fear to meet the sinners among his own people with such a word from the Lord.
The verse introduces one of his awful messages of warning and reproof to the sinners among his own people, a condemnation of the sins of Jerusalem and its judgment. Spoken to the captives in Babylon, it recounts the sins that led to Israel's dispersion. Together with chapters 20-22, the message identifies idolatry and Sabbath desecration as causes of their troubles.
The chapter returns to the subject of gaps in God's law and the failure to repair them, identifying the breach as violating the Sabbath. It declares that God sought someone to stand in the gap and repair it but found none. It declares that the priests of Israel had been carried away by pagan apostasy to violate God's law and profane His Sabbath day. Paganism as the first division of Babylon led prominent men of Israel into false worship, with sun-worship setting up Sunday as its worship day in place of the Sabbath of Jehovah in complete rivalry to God's true system.
The Sabbath breaking condemned there is moral failure, not merely ceremonial failure. The word of the Lord introduced here speaks to the professed people of God in the last days, the same time and people addressed in Isaiah 30:8-11, Ezekiel 13, and Jeremiah 6:9-19.