What is the context?
The Lord identifies the pictured city: it is Jerusalem, set among the nations with countries surrounding her. Her place and the ordinances she received make the contrast with her conduct especially sharp.
She has rejected His statutes and acted more wickedly than the surrounding nations. The charge is not ignorance of what the Lord required, but refusal to walk in what He had given.
The Lord declares that He Himself is against Jerusalem and will execute judgment in the sight of those nations. The threatened famine is so dreadful that parents and children will turn upon one another for food. Scattering follows the collapse of the city.
The sanctuary’s defilement with idols is named as a cause of His withdrawing favor. The three portions of hair are then explained: a third die by plague or famine within the city, a third by the sword outside, and a third are scattered with a sword pursuing.
How is this passage commonly understood?
Wesley emphasizes Jerusalem’s intended place as a source of light among the nations and the contradiction between that calling and her conduct. Possessing God’s statutes has not produced obedience.
Henry stresses the gravity of the sentence and applies the warning to people and churches who assume that a religious identity will shield them while they reject God’s ways.
Both understand the passage as a judgment in which privilege increases responsibility. The sanctuary does not provide a shelter for the very practices that defile it.
Where does this fit in God's plan?
Romans 2:17–24 develops the same concern about receiving God’s law while dishonoring Him through disobedience. Paul asks whether those who teach others also teach themselves, and connects the contradiction with God’s name being dishonored among Gentiles.
A further parallel appears in Luke 19:41–44. Jesus weeps over Jerusalem and warns of enemies surrounding and bringing it down, because it did not recognize the time of God’s visitation.
These passages do not explicitly quote Ezekiel 5. They show the continuing connection between revelation, responsibility and judgment. Jesus’ tears also show how seriously the coming loss is to be regarded, rather than making another’s suffering an occasion for pride.
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.