I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezekiel 17-19.

Ezekiel gave a parable directed against King Zedekiah.  In the parable Ezekiel suggests that Jerusalem and Judah were beginning to prosper with King Zedekiah ruling as a vassal to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, who had placed King Zedekiah on the throne.  Despite this turn in their fortunes, King Zedekiah and the elites of Jerusalem turned to Egypt to escape their vassalage to Babylon.  I just realized that I am going to take a detour into a history lesson here.  Under Zedekiah’s father, King Josiah, Jerusalem and Judah had prospered by allying with Babylon against the weakening Assyrian Empire.  This prosperity came to an end when King Josiah was killed trying to take on Egypt’s army without the aid of his allies, who were busy elsewhere at the time.  Eventually, the Babylonians put Zedekiah on the throne to end the Egyptian attempt to use Judah to extend their influence into the middle of the trade routes.  Zedekiah, and his advisers, thought that he could gain independence by playing Egypt off against Babylon.  

There are some important political lessons here, but there is also some spiritual lessons as well.  First, the political lesson: the leaders of Judah thought that, because Egypt was the weaker power, they could gain more concessions from them in exchange for their allegiance than they could from Babylon.  They were probably correct.  Their mistake was that Egypt lacked the will, and perhaps the power, to aid them against Babylon.  Now, the spiritual lesson: the people of Judah thought that they could navigate their way through the vagaries of life without paying any attention to God.  They thought that they could control things.  Instead of seeking God’s guidance and aid, they sought the guidance and aid of Egypt.  If the people of Jerusalem and Judah had faithfully followed God, and part of that would have meant keeping their oaths to Babylon, God would have guided them to independence and, perhaps, power.

After that parable, Ezekiel addresses another issue, actually tow related issues.  First, Ezekiel  speaks about the issue of prejudice against people because of who their parents were and what their parents did.  There was a parable which was used to justify holding a parent’s sins against their children.  Ezekiel’s response to this was, God will judge people for their sins, not us.  And God says that He will judge people according to their actions, not that of their parents.  If God will not hold the sins of the parents against their children, then neither should we.  More importantly, we can choose to be different from our parents.  If they were terrible evil people, we do not have to be.  We can choose not to do the same as they did.  If we do good we do not have to suffer all our lives for the evil which our parents did.  Of course, the other side of that is true.  If our parents were wonderful people, we still have to choose to do good things.  Our parents’ goodness does not give us a pass to do evil.

Second, Ezekiel tells us that God will judge people based on what they are doing now, not on what they did many years ago.  This means that we can change.  If we repent of doing wrong and begin doing good, we will reap the rewards of doing good.  On the other hand, if we cease doing good and start doing evil, we will reap the punishments for evil.  Further, We should follow God’s lead in how we judge people.  If someone did terrible things in the past, but no longer does them but instead does good things, we should treat them according to the good things they do now, not the terrible things they used to do.  On the other hand, if someone used to do wonderful, generous, kind things that does not mean we should overlook their current behavior.  There is one final point about how we should treat people.  We are not God, so we do not know what is going on in people’s hearts.  So, we should always give people the benefit of the doubt and show them God’s love.