Our focus this week is on Ezekiel 24, the dramatic climax of the book. Until now, Ezekiel’s message has served as an ongoing alarm for Jerusalem’s impending punishment. For five years, Ezekiel used every strategy in his prophetic playbook to communicate his message: oracles, visions, sign-acts, riddles, parables, songs, rhetorical questions, history lessons, and laments. By cataloguing Jerusalem’s sins, he established the city’s guilt and validated the need for divine intervention. Yahweh’s patience had run its course. 

Judgement day fell on January 15, 588 BCE. Ezekiel received an oracle from the Lord at the same moment that Nebuchadnezzar’s army closed in on Jerusalem’s walls. 

Chapter 24 also tells the tragic story of the death of Ezekiel's wife, and God's command that Ezekiel not publicly mourn her. 

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