What is the context?
Ezekiel is told to use a sharp sword as a razor on his head and beard, then divide the hair with scales. The sign gives a visible form to what will happen to the people represented by the city.
One third is burned within the pictured city, one third struck with the sword around it, and one third scattered to the wind with a sword pursuing. The explanation later in the chapter connects these portions with plague and famine, death by the sword and scattering.
A few hairs are secured in the folds of his garment. Yet even some of these are taken out and burned. The picture includes a small number kept apart without making every escape from the first disaster a guarantee of safety from what follows.
How is this passage commonly understood?
Henry and Wesley understand the divided hair as representing the different fates of Jerusalem’s people. Burning, cutting and scattering correspond to the judgments explained in the chapter.
Both recognize the few hairs kept in the garment as a small surviving remnant. Wesley relates the further burning to later wrongdoing and unrest among those who remained. Henry stresses how few are preserved and how inadequate other refuges prove.
The focus is the severity and reach of the judgment, together with the deliberate keeping of a few. The sign prepares for the Lord’s spoken explanation.
What is our position?
We don't have a position on this passage yet. When our study reaches a conclusion the text supports, it will appear here.