Whirlwinds

Catching up on posts …

August 28, 2025

This would be a good week to read about whirlwinds, since the last 24 hours feels like one, which is why this reading reached you a day later than usual. Add to the whirlwind a website migration.

After the parenthetical prophecy against Edom, the Lord returned his focus to Israel. God invited Israel to look back on the judgment they received. Ezekiel wrote the same words again to describe their experience:

The land had been left desolate, destroyed, wasted, empty, and ruined by God’s judgment.1

God had forsaken and abandoned the land and his people.2

Enemies devoured and destroyed Israel.3

Ezekiel used repetition for emphasis in this chapter:

… hear the word of the Lord … (vs. 1)

… This is what the Sovereign Lord says … (vs. 2)

… This is what the Sovereign Lord says … (vs. 3)

… hear the word of the Sovereign Lord … (vs. 4)

… This is what the Sovereign Lord says … (vs. 4)

… this is what the Sovereign Lord says … (vs. 5)

… This is what the Sovereign Lord says … (vs. 6)

… Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says … (vs.7)

Read Ezekiel 36:1-7.

  • Israel’s enemies had ravaged the land and claimed it as their possession.
  • The Lord spoke to Israel’s desolate ruins and deserted, plundered, and ridiculed towns.
  • God spoke a word of hope for Israel.
  • In his burning zeal, God would “accomplish his purpose as an instrument of wrath in judgment.”4
  • God was against Edom and the rest of the nations:

*they seized God’s land as a possession

*they harbored malice in their hearts

*they plundered Israel’s pastureland

  • Therefore, the Lord said he would repay the nations and in turn they would suffer scorn.

What might Ezekiel have intended to emphasize through his repeated phrases?

How do you interpret God’s word of hope for Israel?

 Read Ezekiel 36:8-15.

  • The Lord made promises to Israel.
  • The land would produce branches and fruit for God’s people, who would soon return home.
  • God would look with favor on the land and renew it.
  • The ruins would be rebuilt and the towns inhabited again.
  • God would (re)settle his people in the land and make them prosper more than before.
  • Then they would know I AM the Lord.
  • The Lord’s people would possess and dwell in his land.
  • Israel would receive again the land as their inheritance.
  • The Lord didn’t specify when this renewal would happen—when Israel returned from captivity or at a later point in time.
  • God punished the land when he judged Israel.
  • He caused the land to consume and devour its people.
  • God had bereaved Israel of children as punishment for their rebellion.5
  • Now, in this hopeful word, nations would no longer taunt or scorn Israel.

How would God’s actions show Israel I AM is the Lord?

Ezekiel used repetition to emphasize God’s word. Throughout this chapter, we read a description of Israel’s shame and disgrace.

The other nations spoke maliciously against Israel and slandered them.

They had suffered scorn at the hands of the nations.

What is significant about Israel’s scorn and disgrace?

Read Ezekiel 36:16-21.

  • The Lord reminded Israel they defiled their own land with their wicked ways.
  • He poured out wrath on the land and the people in judgment.
  • He reminded them their judgment came as a result of their violent, idolatrous practices.
  • When God judged them for their sinful actions, he scattered them among the nations.
  • Still, Israel did not change her behavior, and the people continued to profane the Lord’s name wherever they went.
  • All the nations recognized the Lord drove Israel from the land.
  • God did all this to protect and guard his holy name.

Why do you think Israel continued to profane the Lord’s name even in other lands?

How did these events show the nations God’s intent and hand at work?

Read Ezekiel 36:22-25.

  • God spoke the promises in this chapter in order to declare his holy name among all the nations.
  • His people profaned his holy name, but the Lord would show the holiness of his great name.
  • “Through his judgments on Israel, God proved his name is holy.”6
  • The word Ezekiel wrote means sanctify, or set apart to be holy.
  • His name is great and has significance.
  • Then the nations will know I AM the Lord.
  • He would show his holiness to all people.
  • God would gather Israel back to their own land.
  • At some point in the future, God would make his people clean and pure from all their filthiness and idols.
  • “Let them praise your great and awesome name—he is holy” (Psalm 99:3).

How did the Lord protect and guard his holy name?

How can we guard his holy name today?

Finally, we reach a favorite passage in Ezekiel: God’s promise of the Holy Spirit.

Read Ezekiel 36:26-32.

  • God promised to bless his people:
  • He would give them a new heart.
  • He would put in them a new spirit so his people would follow his decrees and laws.7
  • God’s judgments are “legal decisions … to be followed by his people.”8
  • Not only would they keep God’s statutes and laws, they would walk in them, guarding their hearts to hold in the good.

“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Proverbs 4:23).

  • He would remove their heart of stone.
  • He would give them a heart of flesh.
  • He would put in them His Spirit.
  • Israel would live in their promised land.
  • You will be my people and I will be your God.
  • The Lord would save and deliver them from their uncleanness.
  • As the Lord said through the prophet Jeremiah,

“I will cleanse them from all the sin they have committed against me and will forgive all their sins of rebellion against me” (Jeremiah 33:8).

  • Their uncleanness included filthiness, evil, iniquity, guilt, and punishment.
  • The Lord would renew his people and their land with blessing.
  • When they saw God’s hand at work, they would remember, ponder, and think about all their wicked ways.
  • Ezekiel used the word “evil” as well as another word that means “good” with the word
  • They would loathe their sins with self-disgust.
  • This is the work of repentance: not only to confess, but to despise the sin and turn toward righteousness.
  • The Lord cautioned Israel: be ashamed and disgraced (two different words) because of your sin.

Throughout this passage, the Lord had Ezekiel write half a dozen different words to describe Israel’s shame, disgrace, and the scorn, malice, and humiliation they received at the hands of other nations.

How would you describe the relationship between God’s gift of a new heart and a new spirit?

What does remembering our sin and repentance look like for us today?

How can we guard our hearts to help us follow God’s ways?

Read Ezekiel 36:33-38.

  • God would accomplish the cleansing and the resettling at the same time.
  • The desolate land would be renewed.
  • Those who pass through would acknowledge the change: what was laid waste has become like the garden of Eden.
  • What was desolate, destroyed ruins is fortified and inhabited.
  • The nations would know that I AM rebuilt what was destroyed and renewed what was desolate.
  • The Lord has spoken and these things will
  • He would hear Israel’s plea and make them prosper and multiply.
  • Then they will know I AM the Lord.

Why do you think Ezekiel compared God’s renewal of the land to the garden of Eden?

Why did God say Israel and the nations would know I AM is the Lord?

We worship the Lord and his great name.

 

  1. Warren Baker, D.R.E., Eugene Carpenter, Ph.D. The Complete WordStudy Dictionary: Old Testament. (Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2003), 374-375
  2. Ibid., 819
  3. Ibid., 1087
  4. Ibid., 1000-1001
  5. 5.Ibid., 1138
  1. Ibid., 981
  2. Ibid., 1040
  3. Ibid., 687-688

 

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