Commentary - Ezekiel 9:3-7

Bird's-eye view

In this terrifying chapter, the prophet Ezekiel is shown a vision of God’s decisive, discriminating judgment upon the city of Jerusalem. The preceding chapter detailed the grotesque idolatries being practiced right within the Temple courts, and this chapter is God's righteous response. The vision is a formal act of a covenant lawsuit reaching its final verdict and sentence. God is not an absentee landlord; He sees the abominations and He acts. The central action involves two groups: a man clothed in linen with a scribe's case, tasked with marking a faithful remnant, and six executioners armed with shattering weapons, commanded to slaughter the unmarked. This is not an indiscriminate rampage. It is a meticulous, holy separation of the sheep from the goats before the destruction. The glory of God, which is the central character in this drama, has moved from its place in the Holy of Holies to the threshold of the Temple, overseeing the entire operation. The judgment is severe, total, and, most chillingly, it begins at the house of God itself, with the elders who had led the people into apostasy. This is a foundational passage for understanding the nature of God's holiness, His protection of His own, and the principle that judgment begins with the people of God.

This vision is a preview of what would happen historically when the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem, but its principles are timeless. It finds its ultimate antitype in the judgment that fell upon Jerusalem in A.D. 70, a theme that echoes throughout the New Testament. The marking of the faithful is a precursor to the sealing of the saints in the book of Revelation, and the slaughter of the idolaters is a stark reminder that there is no safety in nominal religion or proximity to holy things when the heart is corrupt.

Outline

Context In Ezekiel

Ezekiel 8 sets the stage for the horror of chapter 9. In that chapter, Ezekiel is transported in a vision from his exile in Babylon back to Jerusalem, where he is given a guided tour of the Temple's desecration. He sees the "image of jealousy" at the north gate, the elders secretly worshipping creeping things in a dark room, women weeping for the pagan god Tammuz, and men with their backs to the altar of Yahweh, worshipping the sun. The entire religious establishment, from the elders down, is rotten to the core. God's question to Ezekiel is rhetorical and dripping with holy fury: "Is it a trivial thing to the house of Judah to commit the abominations which they commit here?" (Ezek 8:17). The vision of chapter 9 is the direct and necessary consequence of the apostasy of chapter 8. God is not going to tolerate such high-handed rebellion in His own house. The judgment is not random; it is the specific, targeted result of covenant infidelity. This section (chapters 8-11) forms a unit describing the departure of the glory of God from the Temple, which is the ultimate curse. The slaughter in chapter 9 is the judicial outworking of that departure.

Key Issues

The Departure of the King

One of the most profound and terrible things happening in this section of Ezekiel is the movement of God's glory. We modern evangelicals tend to think of God's presence as a warm feeling in our hearts, something ethereal and personal. But for Israel, the glory of God was a tangible, visible, localized reality dwelling between the cherubim in the Holy of Holies. It was the sign of God's covenant presence, the guarantee of their status as His people. For that glory to move was an earth-shattering event. Here, the glory moves from its throne to the threshold, the doorway of the temple. The King is coming out of His throne room. But He is not coming out to greet His people; He is coming out to superintend their execution. He is leaving His house because His house has become a brothel. This is the ultimate horror: not the Babylonian swords, but the departure of God Himself. When God leaves, all that is left is the judgment His presence was holding back. This is why the central issue is never our circumstances, but always our fidelity to the covenant. Is the glory of God with us, or has it moved to the threshold?

Verse by Verse Commentary

3 Then the glory of the God of Israel went up from the cherub on which it had been, to the threshold of the house of Yahweh. And He called to the man clothed in linen at whose loins was the scribe’s case.

The action begins with this solemn, dreadful movement. The glory of God, the brilliant manifestation of His presence, lifts off from the mercy seat, its proper place. This is an act of self-eviction. God is abandoning His sanctuary. He moves to the threshold, the entrance, from which He can oversee the entire operation. From this new command post, He summons His agent. This is not one of the six executioners, but a seventh figure, distinct in his dress and function. He is clothed in linen, the attire of a priest or a high angelic being, signifying purity and holiness. At his side is a scribe's inkhorn, the tool of a court official. He is here to take names, to make a list, to mark the documents. This is a legal proceeding. Before the sentence is carried out, the court clerk is called to ensure the records are straight.

4 Yahweh said to him, “Go through the midst of the city, even through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations which are being done in its midst.”

Here is the task of the man in linen. He is to go on a mission of identification. His job is to find the true remnant within the apostate city. And how are they identified? Not by their political party, not by their doctrinal precision on every point, but by their visceral, heart-felt reaction to the sin around them. They sigh and groan. This is not the grumbling of malcontents, but the grief of the godly. Their hearts break over the things that break God's heart. They are sickened by the idolatry, the injustice, the casual rebellion that has saturated Jerusalem. This grief is the evidence of a soft heart, a heart in tune with God's Spirit. And for this, they are to receive a mark on their foreheads. The ancient Hebrew letter for Tau was a cross, an X. They are marked for deliverance. This is a divine seal of ownership and protection, a precursor to the sealing of the 144,000 in Revelation 7 before the judgments are unleashed there. God always knows His own, and He marks them out before the calamity falls.

5 But to the others He said in my hearing, “Go through the city after him and strike; do not let your eye have pity and do not spare.

The command now shifts to the six executioners. Their task is simple and brutal. They are to follow the scribe, and wherever they do not see the mark, they are to kill. The language is absolute. There is to be no pity, no sparing. This is not a time for sentimentality. The time for mercy has passed; this is the time for wrath. God's patience, which is long, has its limits. When a people hardens itself in rebellion, especially under the guise of religion, the judgment that comes is terrifyingly severe. The command to not let their eye have pity is a reversal of the covenant blessing which calls for God's eye to be upon His people for good.

6 Kill to utter destruction old men, chosen men, virgins, little ones, and women, but do not touch any man on whom is the mark; and you shall start from My sanctuary.” So they started with the elders who were before the house.

The scope of the judgment is total. It cuts across all demographic lines: age, gender, and social standing. The "chosen men" likely refers to the young men in their prime. This is corporate judgment. The sin was corporate, and so the sword falls corporately. But even within this sweeping destruction, the discrimination is precise: do not touch any man on whom is the mark. God's seal is a perfect protection. Then comes the most shocking command of all: start from My sanctuary. Judgment begins at the house of God (1 Pet 4:17). The place that should have been the source of holiness for the nation had become the epicenter of its corruption, and so it will be the epicenter of the judgment. The executioners obey immediately, starting with the seventy elders who were caught red-handed in chapter 8, worshipping idols "before the house." Leadership carries a heavier responsibility, and so it receives the first and heaviest blow.

7 And He said to them, “Defile the house and fill the courts with the slain. Go out!” Thus they went out and struck down the people in the city.

The final command is one of ultimate desecration. The Temple, which was to be kept meticulously pure, is now to be intentionally defiled with dead bodies. This is a graphic demonstration that God has utterly rejected this place. Its holiness was derivative, dependent on His presence and the covenant faithfulness of His people. With both of those gone, it is just a building, and God commands His agents to treat it like a slaughterhouse. The slain priests and elders are to be piled up in the courts as a final testimony to their sin. Having polluted it with their idols, God will now pollute it with their corpses. The command "Go out!" unleashes the executioners from the Temple complex into the wider city, and the general slaughter begins. The holy city has become the city of destruction.

Application

It is a great temptation for us to read a passage like this and relegate it to the dusty past of the Old Testament, thinking that our God, the God of the New Covenant, is somehow tamer. This is a profound mistake. The God of Ezekiel is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and He is unchanging in His holiness and His hatred of sin. The principles here are therefore directly applicable to the church today. The apostle Peter tells us plainly that "the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God" (1 Pet 4:17). The church is God's sanctuary today.

We must therefore ask ourselves, what are the abominations being committed in our midst? We may not be bowing to sun gods in the sanctuary, but do we not have our own sophisticated idolatries? Do we worship at the altars of success, relevance, political power, or therapeutic comfort? And what is our reaction to this? Are we those who sigh and groan, who are genuinely grieved by the worldliness, the compromise, and the lack of fear of God in the modern church? Or have we made our peace with it? Have we become so accustomed to the low-grade apostasy that it no longer troubles our spirits?

This passage teaches us that God makes a sharp distinction. There are the marked and the unmarked. The marked are not the perfect, but they are the penitent. They are those whose hearts are aligned with God's heart, who love what He loves and hate what He hates. This is the only safe place to be. Our security does not lie in our church membership, our denominational affiliation, or our external religious activities. Our security lies in that divine mark, placed on us by the Spirit, which identifies us as those who grieve over sin and look to Christ alone for righteousness. Let us then pray for soft hearts, for eyes to see the abominations in our own lives and in the church, and for the grace to be found among those who sigh and groan, marked for life in the midst of a world marked for judgment.