Reflections on an angry God

Sermon on Ezekiel 5:1-17

During the Warring States Period of China, there occurred an unfortunate incident.[1] An ambassador of the kingdom of Chu was killed when passing through the kingdom of Song. So in retaliation, Chu attacked Song, and laid siege to Song’s capital for half a year. However, the food in Chu’s army was running out, and they were contemplating leaving. So the king of Chu sent his general ZiFan to check out the situation at Song before retreating. The Song general HuaYuan took the opportunity to meet ZiFan. ZiFan asked him, “How’s the situation in your kingdom?” HuaYuan replied frankly, “Bad.” ZiFan asked “How bad?” HuaYuan replied “易子而食之，析骸而炊之.” This means that those alive are swapping their children to be eaten as food, and they are breaking up skeletons to be burnt as fire wood. ZiFan was impressed with his honesty. He then convinced his king to retreat as they had intended.

The story you have heard is the origin of the idiom 易子而食 (swapping children as food). It is usually used in Chinese literature to describe situations of extreme desperation, often in cases of war and famine. We find the Jewish equivalent in today’s passage.
8 “Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I myself am against you, Jerusalem, and I will inflict punishment on you in the sight of the nations. 9 Because of all your detestable idols, I will do to you what I have never done before and will never do again. 10 Therefore in your midst parents will eat their children, and children will eat their parents.
Later on the LORD continued to say,
16 When I shoot at you with my deadly and destructive arrows of famine, I will shoot to destroy you. I will bring more and more famine upon you and cut off your supply of food. 17 I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will leave you childless.

In last week’s sermon, we heard about the siege. The preceding passage mentioned food rationing and using dung as fuel. But we don’t appreciate the full extent of the impending tragedy until the passage today. The final result of a siege is usually a famine. And the lowest point of a famine is when it ends with cannibalism. I’m sure many of you will cringe in the descriptive account of such a grotesque situation. “Parents will eat their children, and children will eat their parents”. What kind of a book is Ezekiel that records such terrifying prophecies? Imagine my horror when I found out that other prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah also spoke of the scenario of parents eating their children during the siege.[2] In our comfortable and safe environment, it is hard for us to imagine a situation where something like that can happen. Yet such a prophecy actually occurred as Jeremiah recalled in Lamentations 4:  9 Those killed by the sword are better off than those who die of famine; racked with hunger, they waste away for lack of food from the field.  10 With their own hands compassionate women have cooked their own children, who became their food when my people were destroyed.  11 The LORD has given full vent to his wrath; he has poured out his fierce anger.

We cannot turn away from this fact. Such horrors did happen. The siege of Jerusalem is a part of the history of the Jews, just as it is also a part of our bible. But there is a more horrifying and inescapable truth, the prophets also witness that God is directly responsible for what happened. Not only did he cause it to happen, he even wants everybody to know that he IS the cause. 13 “Then my anger will cease and my wrath against them will subside, and I will be avenged. And when I have spent my wrath on them, they will know that I the LORD have spoken in my zeal. 15 You will be a reproach and a taunt, a warning and an object of horror to the nations around you when I inflict punishment on you in anger and in wrath and with stinging rebuke. I the LORD have spoken. The same phrase is repeated a third time in verse 17 “I the LORD have spoken”. The phrase means one thing: I am saying this now so that when it happens, you all will know that I am the one causing it.

And what the LORD had spoken of was a horrible judgment dramatically expressed by Ezekiel’s shave. Jews of the past don’t shave their hair or beard, especially the priesthood. It is forbidden by law in Leviticus 19: 27 “‘Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard. Yet Ezekiel dramatically shaved off all his hair and beard with a sword. The bald and shaven Ezekiel illustrates the complete destruction of all the people in Jerusalem. A third of this hair he would burn to symbolize those who would die during the siege. The horror of cannibalism during the famine would be during this first stage. Then, when the city is penetrated by the enemies, many would be slaughtered as they attempt to run away. This is symbolized by the chopping of a third of Ezekiel’s hair with his sword. Ezekiel would strike this bunch of hair with the sword all around the city. Onlookers can imagine all those that would be killed as the enemies run around the city slashing and butchering with their swords. God himself is doing the killing, verse 2 says “For I will pursue them with drawn sword.” The final third of the hair would be scattered into the wind. As all the hair is blown and dispersed, Ezekiel’s audience can see the remaining people of God vanishing before their eyes. Can you gather all the hair scattered by the wind? They have been blown away. The people of God would be removed like Ezekiel’s hair before their very eyes. Yet God says this is what I have spoken. I want everybody to know that I am the one who did this. This is the image of God when he is angry.

The message of today’s passage is simple enough. The Israelites have sinned greatly. Their sins even surpassed their neighbours who worship other gods. We will look at their sins in detail in future sermons. God is angry. And God punished them severely. I hope I have adequately described the degree of punishment God is inflicting on the Israelites. It is very harsh. The famine, the cannibalism, the mass slaughter and the scattering of a defeated people, none of these can be easy to swallow. The message is simple. But can you accept it? I suspect that many of us, just like the original listeners of Ezekiel, cannot accept this message. We cannot reconcile such an image of God with the God we know.

This is how the LORD described himself. Exodus 34: 6 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness. This was how he was described in the Psalms: Psalm 103: 8 The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. (also 86:15; 145:8) This is how a Christian should behave: James 1:  19 My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20 because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. We have a right to be puzzled by Ezekiel’s message. God says “I am slow to anger”, the psalmists say “The LORD is slow to anger”, the apostles say “we should be slow to anger”, yet here Ezekiel says “The LORD is doing all these because he is angry”? What happened to the “slow to anger”? What happened to the compassion and the mercy? Can God be angry in this way?

The answer is yes he can, and yes he must. God can be angry in this way. He is indeed slow to anger. But this only describes his patience and his forbearance. And there is a limit to his patience. We should count to ten when we are angry, but God has already counted to a million. He sent his prophets. He sent minor punishments like bad harvest to warn them. He even had one siege before this final siege to display his seriousness. Yet Israel continues to sin. The LORD is slow to anger. But he is not forbidden to anger. There is no contradiction. God can be angry in this way. Furthermore, he must be angry in this way. Not only can he be angry, he must be relentless in his anger. He must do this because of the sanctity of his covenant, the covenant between him and Israel. Allow me to elaborate on this.

When the Israelites were rescued from slavery in Egypt and before they entered the promised land in Canaan, they established a covenant with God. This covenant is reaffirmed in Joshua after they had conquered the promised land. This covenant comes in the form of the book of Deuteronomy. In this covenant, it states their relationship. YHWH will be their God and they will be his people. There are laws that they have to follow. If they live as the people of God, they will be blessed as the people of God. But if they do not, then the covenant stipulates the curses that will follow. Ezekiel’s message may seem like a horrific thing for God to do. But upon deeper understanding, we come to see that God must honor his end of the covenant, and do what he must do. Deuteronomy 28 states the blessings of following the covenant. But it also describes the penalty of breaking it.

Deuteronomy 28: 53 Because of the suffering that your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the LORD your God has given you. 54 Even the most gentle and sensitive man among you will have no compassion on his own brother or the wife he loves or his surviving children, 55 and he will not give to one of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating. It will be all he has left because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of all your cities. 56 The most gentle and sensitive woman among you—so sensitive and gentle that she would not venture to touch the ground with the sole of her foot—will begrudge the husband she loves and her own son or daughter 57 the afterbirth from her womb and the children she bears. For in her dire need she intends to eat them secretly because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of your cities.

The horrific curse is there in the covenant and it was materialised in the siege. Because of the pain and the cruelty, some of us may still protest. Yes, it is in the agreement. Yes, it is the fault of the repeatedly unrepentant Israelites. Yes, God had given them ample warnings. But at the very end, couldn’t God look away? It seems unacceptable that God would link himself to such punishments. Yet he says he is directly and personally responsible. My personal reflection is God cannot look away. To do that would be to give up his people. If he refuses to carry out the curses, then the covenant is worthless. His people will forever be imprisoned by sin. God must be willing to go to the most extreme, if it is what it takes to bring his people back to him. Is it worthwhile? In the midst of all the horrific prophecy, you might have missed verse “3 But take a few hairs and tuck them away in the folds of your garment.” Most of the hair would be destroyed. But there will be a remnant preserved by God. Jerusalem is destroyed. But at Babylon, Ezekiel is speaking to a group of exiled people away from Jerusalem. Hopefully some will listen and repent. They must experience the anger of God and remember the covenant with him. Those that do will be restored. From the ashes of a fallen nation, God builds his kingdom once again.

[1] 宋人及楚人平, 宣公十五年, 公羊传:
外平不书，此何以书？大其平乎己也。何大乎其平乎己？
　　庄王围宋，军有七日之粮尔；尽此不胜，将去而归尔。于是使司马子反乘堙而窥宋城，宋华元亦乘堙而出见之。司马子反曰：「子之国如何？」华元曰：「惫矣！」曰：「何如？」曰：「易子而食之，析骸而炊之。」司马子反曰：「嘻！甚矣惫！虽然，吾闻之也，围者柑马而秣之，使肥者应客，是何子之情也？」华元曰：「吾闻之，君子见人之厄，则矜之；小人见人之厄，则幸之。吾见子之君子也，是以告情于子也。」司马子反曰：「诺，勉之矣！吾军亦有七日之粮尔，尽此不胜，将去而归尔。」揖而去之。
　　反于庄王。庄王曰：「何如？」司马子反曰：「惫矣！」曰：「何如？」曰：「易子而食之，析骸而炊之。」庄王曰：「嘻！甚矣惫！虽然，吾今取此，然后而归尔。」司马子反曰：「不可，臣已告之矣，军有七日之粮尔。」庄王怒曰：「吾使子往视之，子曷为告之。」司马子反曰：「以区区之宋，犹有不欺人之臣，可以楚而无乎？是以告之也。」庄王曰：「诺，舍而止。虽然，吾犹取此，然后归尔。」司马子反曰：「然则君请处于此，臣请归尔。」庄王曰：「子去我而归，吾孰与处于此？吾亦从子而归尔。」引师而去之。
　　故君子大其平乎己也。此皆大夫也。其称人何？贬。曷为贬？平者在下也。
[2] Isaiah 9:18-20; 49:46; Jer. 19:9; Zech. 11:9