The Mystery of Ephraim

As Ezekiel continues his visions from God, his prophecy is for the children of Israel at the endtime.

“Son of man, behold, they of the house of Israel say, ‘The vision that he seeth is for many days to come, and he prophesieth of the times that are far off’ Ezekiel 12:27

Ezekiel 7

¹ Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, — the Targum, whose origin in the Aramaic language could be traced to Ezra; expresses it as “The word of prophecy from the Lord.” If it is a prophecy from Ezra’s perspective, it was meant for the future, into the end time, our time.

Remember, the Targum, whose origin was in the Aramaic language, could be traced to Ezra speaking to the returning exiles who couldn’t understand Hebrew, but was expounded to them in a language they could understand.

² “Also, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord God unto the land of Israel: “An end! The end is come upon the four corners of the land. — the Targum says, “the punishment of the end, or the punishment determined to come upon the four winds of the earth;” this Targum version recognizes that the house of Israel, the modern-day Israelites, would be all over the face of the earth, spread over the four winds!

— in Ezekiel 6:3 the message was to the “mountains of Israel,”referring to the United States, UK and France. . . . “and to the hills, to the rivers and to the valleys;” — the hills: Ireland, Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries: Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, Finland, and Iceland; and the valleys, the low countries: Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.

— to the rivers; where during the nineteenth century, the British Royal Navy were known to “Rule the Waves;” and the United States having been plowing up and down the five oceans with her Seven Fleets since the British left the scene;

— and now “are all over the face of the earth, spread over the four winds” as the Targum says; which would include Australia, New Zealand, Canada (and perhaps South Africa?) and numerous small colonised islands around the world.

— and in this context, “the land of Israel” and “over the face of the earth” would most probably include the modern state of Israel in Palestine.

³ Now is the end come upon thee, and I will send Mine anger upon thee, and will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense upon thee all thine abominations. — and I will judge thee according to thy ways; parallel Scripture: “Because thou hast despoiled many nations, all the remnant of the people shall despoil thee” Habakkuk 2:8

⁴ And Mine eye shall not spare thee, neither will I have pity; but I will recompense thy ways upon thee, and thine abominations shall be in the midst of thee; and ye shall know that I am the Lord. — the punishments would be so great that “ye shall know who the LORD is,” to whom vengeance belongs; who takes notice of all their sinful actions, and punishes for them;

— the Targum says, “and the punishment of thine abominations shall be in the midst of thee.” Of course he is refering to the house of Israel in this instance.

⁵ “Thus saith the Lord God: An evil, an only evil, behold, is come! — the Targum says, “evil after evil, lo, it cometh.” That is, one evil after another; when one evil is gone, another comes.

⁶ An end is come, the end is come! It watcheth for thee; behold, it is come. — the repeatings of “is come” are for emphasis as these words show the eagerness and concern of the prophet’s mind; the speed and haste destruction was making, or is to come; and the great hardheartedness and stupidity of the people, which requires constant repetitions.

⁷ The morning is come unto thee, O thou that dwellest in the land; the time is come, the day of trouble is near, and not the sounding again of the mountains. — again, the repeatings of “is come” for multiple assurance that it is to come;

— the Targum says, “and there is no fleeing or escaping to the tops of the mountains.”

⁸ Now will I shortly pour out My fury upon thee, and accomplish Mine anger upon thee; and I will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense thee for all thine abominations. — very similar to verve 3 above; “and I will judge thee according to thy ways”; parallel Scripture as above: “Because thou hast despoiled many nations, all the remnant of the people shall despoil thee” Habakkuk 2:8

⁹ And Mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity. I will recompense thee according to thy ways and thine abominations that are in the midst of thee; and ye shall know that I am the Lord that smiteth.

— the Lord that smiteth; in other places it only said, “ye shall know that I am the LORD,” without saying in what respect; here this is specified “the Lord that smiteth” – they shall know that God is the One who carried out judgement “the Lord that smiteth” and that these calamities are from him.

¹⁰ “Behold the day, behold, it is come! The morning is gone forth, the rod hath blossomed, pride hath budded. — the rod hath blossomed, pride hath budded; both these phrases could be understood of Nebuchadnezzar; he was the rod, with which the Lord smote his people, as the Assyrian monarch is called the rod of his anger, Isaiah 10:5,

— the Assyrian monarch was a very proud prince, and had budded and blossomed, and so was king Nebuchadnezzar, whom God had described as “my servant” had been prepared as “the rod” for the chastisement of his people;

— the Targum says, “a ruler hath budded, a wicked one hath appeared.”

¹¹ Violence is risen up into a rod of wickedness; none of them shall remain, nor of their multitude, nor of any of theirs; neither shall there be wailing for them. — neither shall there be wailing for them; the destruction would be so thorough, that there would be but few left to mourn;

— and those that were left would be struck with such a stupor and amazement at the calamity, that they would not be capable of mourning; or with such a dread of the enemy, that there would be no place for lamentation over their dead friends and relations.

¹² The time is come, the day draweth near. Let not the buyer rejoice nor the seller mourn, for wrath is upon all the multitude thereof. — for wrath is upon the whole house of modern Israelites, high and low, rich and poor, bond and free, buyer and seller; all those that are in good circumstances, and all those that are in bad ones; so that they were all upon the same level, all in the same case and condition.

¹³ For the seller shall not return to that which is sold, although they were yet alive; for the vision is touching the whole multitude thereof, which shall not return; neither shall any strengthen himself in the iniquity of his life. — for the seller shall not return to that which is sold; in the year of jubilee, because he shall be in captivity: according to the law in Leviticus 25:13, when a man had sold his possession, he returned to it again in the year of jubilee;

— but in captivity, that could be 190 or 40 years, though there would be jubilees, yet those that had sold their estates, being captives in another land, could not be returned to them.

¹⁴ “They have blown the trumpet, even to make all ready; but none goeth to the battle, for My wrath is upon all the multitude thereof. — they have blown the trumpet, as an alarm of war, and see what will be the effect of it, but they shall be dispirited, people are so enfeebled and none come forth for a fight;

— this parallels another verse: “The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle” Psalm 78:9.

¹⁵ The sword is without, and the pestilence and the famine within. He that is in the field shall die with the sword, and he that is in the city, famine and pestilence shall devour him. — the sword will come from outside their borders; war is throughout the country and pestilence and famine within the borders; together they shall destroy the whole. He who endeavours to flee from the one shall fall by another, except a small remnant.

¹⁶ But they that escape of them shall escape, and shall be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them mourning, every one for his iniquity. — so Israel, once dwelling in its peaceful valleys, shall flee from their foe to the mountains, were justly to be made the scene of its flight and shame. The plaintive note of the dove (Isa 59:11) represents the mournful repentance of Israel hereafter (Zec 12:10-12);

— a few shall escape the pestilence, famine, and sword and flee to the mountains, where they will live a very miserable and uncomfortable life; barren and desert places, where they shall find no subsistence, nor have any agreeable company and conversation, but live in solitude and distress.

— like doves, though usually frequenting the valleys, mount up to the mountains when fearing the bird-catcher (Ps 11:1); they gather together in the mountains and hide themselves in the holes of the rocks, on the sides of the valleys, from birds of prey.

¹⁷ All hands shall be feeble, and all knees shall be weak as water. — all hands shall be feeble; no strength in them, like jelly, to lay hold on weapons of war to defend themselves, or fight the enemy;

¹⁸ They shall also gird themselves with sackcloth, and horror shall cover them; and shame shall be upon all faces, and baldness upon all their heads. — no heart nor courage in them, to go forth and meet their enemy; and even afraid to lift up their voice in mourning, lest they should be heard, being pursued, and be taken.

¹⁹ They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed; their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord. They shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels, because it is the stumbling block of their iniquity. — gold and silver as being of no use to preserve them from the sword, famine and pestilence, but instead an hindrance in their flight from the enemy;

— this could also be interpreted as their idols of gold and silver, which shall be as items of contempt, to be cast away. Greed and the love for riches are their iniquity, covetousness, and idolatry, at which they stumbled, and fell into sin, and so into punishment for them.

²⁰ “As for the beauty of his ornament, he set it in majesty; but they made the images of their abominations and of their detestable things therein; therefore have I set it far from them. — the beauty of his ornament should be set in the majesty of his Temple, but man has made it an abominations and an detestable thing; hence God has distanced himself from them.

²¹ And I will give it into the hands of the strangers for a prey and to the wicked of the earth for a spoil, and they shall pollute it. — and they “the Babylonians” shall pollute it; by entering into their land and spoiling it, by pillaging and burning it.

²² My face will I turn also from them, and they shall pollute My secret place; for the robbers shall enter into it and defile it. — because of their sins, God allows the Chaldeans, the Greeks and the Romans, not only to destroy Jerusalem; but to enter God’s temple, even the holy of hollies: to deface it, plunder it, and burn it to the ground.

²³ “Make a chain, for the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence. — or “judgement of bloods,” capital crimes, such as are deserving of death, particularly murder, or shedding of innocent blood, gun violence especially in the United States today.

²⁴ Therefore I will bring the worst of the nations, and they shall possess their houses. I will also make the pomp of the strong to cease, and their holy places shall be defiled. — many refugees now coming across the Southern Border: Afghans, Syrians, Iraqis, Palestinians, Mexicans are now in American cities;

— would some of them or their children turn into extremists like the Chechens did an attack in Boston with further plan to travel to Times Square in New York to unleash more mayhem and bombs?

²⁵ Destruction cometh; and they shall seek peace, and there shall be none.

— a parallel Scripture in Ezekiel to add more depth:

“And say to the forest of the South: ‘Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee and every dry tree. The flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the South to the North shall be burned therein'” Ezekiel 20:47

²⁶ Mischief shall come upon mischief, and rumor shall be upon rumor. Then shall they seek a vision of the prophet, but the law shall perish from the priest and counsel from the ancients. — mischief upon mischief; loss upon loss, one sorrow on the neck of another; vision shall perish from the prophet, the law from the priest, and counselors from the ancients;

— being rejected and be threatened, the prophets wouldn’t be able to continue giving wise counsel; for the law shall perish from them. Other “wise men” and celebrated statesmen could devise foolish schemes; and in trying to avert disasters, they hasten their own ruin.

²⁷ The king shall mourn, and the prince shall be clothed with desolation, and the hands of the people of the land shall be troubled. I will do unto them according to their way, and according to their deserts will I judge them; and they shall know that I am the Lord.” — all those of the Royal houses of Europe, and their princes, all their chief rulers, shall mourn with desolation but they wouldn’t be comforted;

— the Targum says: “In their judgements will I judge them:” the same measure they have meted out to others shall be measured unto them. All these judgements are to make them know the only Lord God of this universe is fair, omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent.

Ezekiel 8

In this chapter Ezekiel was carried in vision to Jerusalem and begins a new scene of prophecy extending to the twelfth chapter in one vision. This, according to Archbishop Usher, was the sixth year of Ezekiel’s captivity.

¹ And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I sat in mine house and the elders of Judah sat before me, that the hand of the Lord God fell there upon me.

— that the hand of the Lord fell upon me; which the Targum interprets is the spirit of prophecy, which came with power upon him: it indicates the spirit of God was upon him, revealing to him the things that would soon take place;

— the “elders of Judah” could be the elders that were carried captives along with Jehoiachin; but more probably these were those that came from Jerusalem inquiring about the fate of the holy city;

— notice the “elders of Israel” also came, but they appeared later in Ezekiel 14; they, too, are inquiring about their fate;

² Then I beheld, and lo, a likeness as the appearance of fire: from the appearance of His loins even downward, fire, and from His loins even upward, as the appearance of brightness, as the color of amber. — there are many variations interchanging between fire and man among all the English versions of the Scriptures; is it the appearance of fire or is it a man?

— the Septuagint renders it, “behold the likeness of a man”; reading איש, “a man”, for אש, “fire.”

— the Targum renders both the one and the other part of the description thus, “and I saw. . . a likeness the look of fire, the look of glory, which the eye cannot see, nor is it possible to look upon it; and beneath the look of fire, and the look of glory, which the eye cannot behold, nor is it possible to contemplate it; and above, as the look of brightness.”

Hence there are many variations interchanging between fire and man among all the English versions of the Bible. Here is one great example, the Message Bible:

In the sixth year, in the sixth month and the fifth day, while I was sitting at home meeting with the leaders of Judah, it happened that the hand of my Master, God, gripped me. When I looked, I was astonished. What I saw looked like a man—from the waist down like fire and from the waist up like highly burnished bronze. He reached out what looked like a hand and grabbed me by the hair.

The Spirit swept me high in the air and carried me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the north gate of the Temple’s inside court where the image of the sex goddess that makes God so angry had been set up. Right before me was the Glory of the God of Israel, exactly like the vision I had seen out on the plain.

³ And He put forth the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of mine head; and the Spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the inner gate that looketh toward the north, where was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provoketh to jealousy.

— and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem; so it was represented to Ezekiel in a true vision, which was of God, that he was carried from Chaldea to Jerusalem; not that he really was, for he was still in Chaldea when that vision was over.

⁴ And behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, according to the vision that I saw in the plain. — is this the Shekinah? Yes, behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there; in the temple, between the cherubim, where the glory of the divine Majesty dwelt;

— the Shekinah is a visible manifestation of God on earth, whose presence is portrayed through a natural occurrence of clouds and fire. Shekinah Glory means “He caused to dwell,” referring to the divine presence of God. So this was the same Shekinah that accompanied the children of Israel in the wilderness during the Exodus.

⁵ Then said He unto me, “Son of man, lift up thine eyes now the way toward the north.” So I lifted up mine eyes the way toward the north, and beheld northward at the gate of the altar this image of jealousy in the entry.

— Isaiah 14:13 indicates God’s throne is toward the north: “For thou hast said in thine heart, I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the side of the north,” and God is jealous of the numerous idols the house of Israel were ironically practicing in “Jerusalem” and “in His Sanctuary.”

⁶ He said furthermore unto me, “Son of man, seest thou what they do, even the great abominations that the house of Israel committeth here, that I should depart far off from My sanctuary? But turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations.” — God was setting the stage to reveal greater abominations that the house of Israel had committeth in His Sanctuary? That’s why he withdrew from his sanctuary? 

— this “house of Israel” would most likely be the southern house of Judah (verse 17 below) where his sanctury is placed (Jerusalem); (more at the end)

⁷ And He brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, behold, a hole in the wall.

8 Then said He unto me, “Son of man, dig now in the wall”; and when I had dug in the wall, behold, a door. — it was probable that they imitated the Egyptians in this kind of idolatry; for the Egyptians used to worship several kinds of beasts and reptiles;

— according to some accounts, a multitude of chambers were built, which had elegant paintings of all the beasts sacred in Egypt; it is not unlikely they imagined they evaded the law against setting up any image or idolatry to worship, by having them only portrayed or painted on the wall;

⁹ And He said unto me, “Go in, and behold the wicked abominations that they do here.” — and behold the wicked abominations they do here; the idolatries there committed, wicked in themselves, and abominable to God.

¹⁰ So I went in and saw; and behold, every form of creeping things and abominable beasts and all the idols of the house of Israel portrayed upon the wall round about. — every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts;

— these description of the idolatrous rites practised clearly indicates their Egyptian origin; thus even after some 700 to 800 years since Exodus, they were still enslaved in their pagan minds and thoughts.

¹¹ And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up. — seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel;

— the whole Sanhedrin, or the great court of judicature in Jerusalem, which were originally appointed in Moses’ time to be judges and officers over the people, and govern, judge and direct them according the tenets established in Exodus 18:21–22 and Deuteronomy 17:9–12;

— and today, the Sanhedrin has been reestablished and is functioning in Jerusalem.

¹² Then said He unto me, “Son of man, hast thou seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his images? For they say, ‘The Lord seeth us not. The Lord hath forsaken the earth.’” — every man in the chambers of his imagery? the Septuagint renders it, “in his hidden” or “secret chamber”;

— that is, in those chambers which belonged to the priests and Levites, on the walls they had their secret rites or mysteries performed, in imitation of the heathens; who had mysteries of their religion privately observed; to which none were admitted; as those of Osiris among the Egyptians; of Ceres with the Grecians; and of Bona Dea among the Romans.

¹³ He said also unto me, “Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do.” — more revelations; for modern days, all on records and he says, “I have seen a horrible thing in the house of Israel,” Hosea 6:10.

¹⁴ Then He brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord’S house which was toward the north; and behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz. — Tammuz, an idol of Chaldeans, is nowhere else mentioned in Scripture, but is identified only here.

¹⁵ Then said He unto me, “Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these.” — these latter wickednesses may be accounted greater, because they were acted in a more sacred place.

¹⁶ And He brought me into the inner court of the Lord’S house, and behold, at the door of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men with their backs toward the temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east; and they worshiped the sun toward the east.

— the heads of the twenty-four courses of the priesthood, led by the high priest, making up the “twenty five men” were not only worshipping the sun: they were doing so in the very temple of God, with their backs turned against the presence of God!

— the worship of heavenly bodies was against God’s will which Moses had warned the people (Deuteronomy 4:19, 17:3, whose penalty is to be stoned to death, Deuteronomy 17:5 ’till they die). These 25 men corrupted themselves by worshipping the sun; and so the Targum renders it, “and, lo, they corrupted themselves, worshipping facing the east the sun; their backs toward the temple of the Lord” — they turned their backs to the most holy place; which is the utmost contempt for God:

Moses’ warnings in Deuteronomy 17

³ And [if you] hath gone and served other gods and worshiped them, either the sun or moon or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded, ⁴ and it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it and inquired diligently, and behold, it be true and the thing certain that such abomination is wrought in Israel, ⁵ then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman who has committed that wicked thing unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones till they die. Deuteronomy 17:3-5

— also, Days of the Week Names: “Sunday” is the Sun’s day and “Monday” is the Moon’s day. “Tuesday” is Tiw’s day; Tiw is an Anglo-Saxon god of war. “Wednesday” comes from Woden, the Anglo-Saxon king of the gods; in Saxon the name is Wodnesdaeg. “Thursday” is Thursdaeg, Thor’s day; Thor is a Norse god of thunder, lightning and storms. “Friday” is Frigedaeg, Frigga’s day; Frigg is a Norse goddess of home, marriage and fertility. “Saturday” is Saeterndaeg, Saturn’s day; Saturn is an ancient Roman god of fun and feasting;

— Months of the Year Names: January (derived from the Latin Januarius) is to honor their Roman gods Janus; and March, named for Mars, is the Roman mighty god of war; February is derived from the Februa festival or its eponymous februa (“purifications, expiatory offerings”); April relates to what the Romans called the month Aprilis; from a word meaning “to open” and further back from Aphrodite, the Greek name for the goddess of love. May – named for Maia, is the Roman goddess of spring and growth;

— June is a name attributed to Juno, the female mighty wife of Jupiter in Roman mythology. She is also called the “Queen of Heaven” and “Queen of Mighty Ones.” July is to honor Julius Caesar; the Roman Senate named it “Julius” in honor of Roman emperor Julius Caesar. August honor Julius Caesar’s successor, the emperor Augustus; and the months September, October, November, and December are archaic adjectives derived from the ordinal numbers 7 to 10;

— today, more than 98.5 percent of Christians are honoring the SUN by observing SUNday worship. They have “their backs toward the temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east; and they worshiped the SUN toward the east; whose penalty is to be stoned to death – ’till they die.

— also, following the SUN-worshipping Samaritans, most Church of God Communities are showing their contempt for God by having their “wavesheaf offering” and Pentecost on a SUNday; always on a SUNday. And these are supposedly in God’s Sanctuary, but God says He is a jealous God, so these pretentious Christians could be spewed out of His mouth! A death penalty – ’till they die!

¹⁷ Then He said unto me, “Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? For they have filled the land with violence and have returned to provoke Me to anger; and lo, they put the branch to their nose. — blood, murders and various form of killings and gun violence in our societies today;

— this “house of Judah” would be the second “house of Israel” in verse 6 above (more at the end).

¹⁸ Therefore will I also deal in fury. Mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity; and though they cry in Mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them.” — yet will God not hear them; as they turned their backs on him, God will turn a deaf ear to them, and not regard their cries;

— the Targum says, “they shall pray before me, with a great voice, and I will not receive their prayer.”

~~chap8&14end;19&36beg~~

The house of Israel verses the house of Judah

Although Isaiah 8:14 refers to “both houses of Israel” or the “two houses of Israel” it implies the single house of Jacob, the full twelve tribes.

But Jacob was given a new name, Israel, in which the full house of Israel as in Ezekiel 20:40, the twelve tribes are all included. And after King Solomon, the single house of Jacob or now call Israel was broken into two, the kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of Judah.

Hence, the names of the two houses are separated, namely the 10-tribes “house of Israel” and the 2-tribes “house of Judah.” Further, the “two houses of Israel” in Isaiah 8:14 is redefined as “the house of Jacob” in Isaiah 8:17.

State it in another way in more details, the word “Israel” has four (or even five) possible meanings:

(1) Israel in place of Jacob, since the angel gave Jacob a new name, Israel;

(2) the children of Israel, or all the house of Israel as in Ezekiel 20:40 in the sense of all the progeny of Jacob, all twelve tribes; sometimes expressed as the “whole house of Israel;”

(3) the “two houses of Israel” in Isaiah 8:14 or “both houses of Israel” would mean the ‘first’ house of Israel as the house of 10-tribes Israel; and the ‘second’ house of Israel as the 2-tribes house of Judah;

(4) the ‘second’ house of Israel as the 2-tribes house of Judah; this happened during Rehoboam reign when the kingdom was broken into the house of Israel (north) and the house of Judah (south); in this context, the house of Israel could be the 2-tribes Israel as in Ezekiel 8:6,11,12 and Matthew 15:24;

(5) Israel, the modern state of Israel, established in 1917 by the Balfour declaration and gained independence in 1948.

In understanding prophecies, the second and third meanings are mostly in use; the fourth very rarely. Still, it may seem confusing, but one should be able to separate the two by sounding out the context.

~ by Joel Huan on October 19, 2022.

Posted in Ezekiel