What is the meaning of Ezekiel 23:47? The mob will stone them Ezekiel pictures a public execution, the form of capital punishment required for adultery in Israel (Leviticus 20:10; Deuteronomy 22:23-24). • The “mob” represents the very nations with whom Samaria and Jerusalem committed spiritual adultery—Assyria first, Babylon finally (Ezekiel 23:22-24). • Stoning signals that God’s judgment is not random violence; it satisfies the legal penalty for unfaithfulness (Ezekiel 16:38-40). • The scene warns that idolatry always invites the lawful wrath of a holy God (James 4:4; Hebrews 10:28-29). and cut them down with their swords. After the legal sentence comes the military strike. Assyrian and Babylonian armies literally cut down cities and people (2 Chronicles 36:17; Ezekiel 23:25). • Sword judgment fulfills earlier prophecies: “I will bring a sword against you” (Ezekiel 5:17). • What stoning began, the sword completes—showing that divine justice can employ multiple instruments (Jeremiah 25:9). • The imagery also anticipates the finality of Christ’s return when He “strikes down the nations” with the sword from His mouth (Revelation 19:15). They will kill their sons and daughters Extinction of offspring ends the family line, the severest blow to a nation’s future (Lamentations 2:21; Ezekiel 9:6). • God had warned, “Your fathers ate sour grapes…children’s teeth are set on edge” (Jeremiah 31:29-30); now the children suffer because the parents persisted in sin. • This fulfills covenant curses: “Your children will be given to another nation” (Deuteronomy 28:32). • It emphasizes that sin’s reach is generational unless broken by repentance (Exodus 34:7). and burn down their houses. Finally the invaders destroy every place of security (2 Kings 25:9; Jeremiah 52:13). • Fire wipes out the symbols of prosperity gained through unfaithfulness (Ezekiel 16:41). • Burned houses leave no comfort to return to—mirroring how sin leaves nothing but ashes (Isaiah 64:11). • The loss anticipates the purifying fire that will test every work (1 Corinthians 3:13). summary Ezekiel 23:47 delivers a four-fold picture of judgment—stoning, sword, slaughter of offspring, and burning—each grounded in God’s righteous law and executed through foreign armies. Literally fulfilled in Samaria’s fall to Assyria and Jerusalem’s fall to Babylon, the verse stands as a sober reminder: spiritual adultery invites complete devastation. Yet by revealing the cost of unfaithfulness, God urges His people toward wholehearted devotion, promising restoration to all who repent and cling to Him alone. |
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