What is the context?
Ezekiel must express distress with his hands, feet and voice over the people’s abominations and the coming sword, famine and plague. The warning is to be delivered with visible and audible force.
The different dangers reach those far away, those nearby and those remaining under siege. Distance or another chosen refuge does not make the announced judgment disappear.
The bodies lying among the idols will expose the failure of worship on the hills, under green trees and around the altars. The Lord’s outstretched hand leaves the land desolate.
The repeated ending brings the purpose into focus: they will know that He is the Lord. The chapter has moved from the destruction of false worship, through the promise to preserve some, to a final declaration that His word will be made known.
How is this passage commonly understood?
Henry and Wesley read the gestures as an expression of sorrow, indignation and compassion over sin and its consequences. They do not treat the scene as a celebration of suffering.
Both emphasize the reach of the judgment and the failure of the refuges on which the people depended. Henry also urges compassion toward people facing the ruin their wrongdoing brings.
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.