SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/19/2015
9:50 PM
My Worship Time Focus: The Bones Broken
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ezekiel 30:20-26
Message of the
verses: “20 In the eleventh year, in
the first month, on the seventh of the month, the word of the LORD came to me
saying, 21 "Son of man, I have broken the arm of Pharaoh
king of Egypt; and, behold, it has not been bound up for healing or
wrapped with a bandage, that it may be strong to hold the sword. 22 "Therefore thus says the Lord GOD, ’Behold, I am
against Pharaoh king of Egypt and will break his arms, both the strong and the broken; and I
will make the sword fall from his hand. 23 ’I will scatter the Egyptians among
the nations and disperse them among the lands. 24 ’For I will strengthen the
arms of the king of Babylon and put My sword in his hand; and I will break the arms of
Pharaoh, so that he will groan before him with the groanings of a
wounded man. 25 ’Thus I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, but
the arms of Pharaoh will fall. Then they will know that I am the LORD, when I put My sword into
the hand of the king of Babylon and he stretches it out against the land of
Egypt. 26 ’When I scatter the Egyptians among the nations and disperse them
among the lands, then they
will know that I am the LORD.’"”
First we want to know the date of this oracle that
Ezekiel is giving to the exiles who are in the land of Babylon. April 29, 587 BC which is about 16 months
before the nation of Judah will fall into the hands of the Babylonians. The arm is a symbol of power and we see in
this section that the Lord says that He will break the arm of Pharaoh king of
Egypt two times.
Dr. Wiersbe points out that the first breaking of his arm
was at Carchemish in 605 BC, which is when Pharaoh Necho was defeated by
Nebuchadnezzar and this is seen in 2 Kings 24:7 and also in Jeremiah 46:2. Unfortunately for the kingdom of Judah this
is where the godly king Josiah was slain.
We learned when we were studying this account that he had no business
neither teaming up with Egypt nor even going to battle with them. Next Dr. Wiersbe points out that the second
breaking of Egypt’s kings arm happened when Pharaoh Hophra tried to help Judah
when Nebuchadnezzar attacked Jerusalem and this is seen in Jeremiah 37:5 and
following. Now that Egypt had both arms
broken they were done for because they could no longer hold a sword. Dr. Wiersbe points out that Pharaoh Hophra
had a second title “The Strong-Armed,” and people don’t think that God has a
sense of humor.
Not at the same time the Lord was breaking the arm of
Pharoah king of Egypt He was making the arm of Babylon stronger, and we also
see that the Lord has some familiar words to say to both the exiles and to
Egypt “Then they will know that I am LORD.”
When Israel was in Egypt the Pharaoh had a difficult time in recognizing
that the God of the Hebrew people was the God of all the universe, perhaps they
will learn that lesson now with two broken arms.
Lord willing we will begin
chapter 31 in our next SD from the book of Ezekiel.
3/19/2015 10:10 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment