Ezekiel chapter 13

vs 13

Oh, that's quite wrathful. God has often used plagues, weather patterns and various natural disasters to voice his displeasure. That doesn't mean we should view every hailstorm as displeasure of God against those who park their cars outside though, but when he says, "I will send it and you will suffer," that's a good sign it's wrathful.

vs 14

Now, is there going to be actual hail and wind, or is that just a description of the Babylonian armies tearing down the city walls? Either way, Jerusalem is not going to be a very pleasant place to live, and for the prophets who constructed what I still think is a metaphorical wall of ignorance (which can interestingly still be torn down just as effectively by Babylonian soldiers) it's going to be deadly.

vs 15

God hates this wall. He hates that the problem has been whitewashed over instead of dealt with at the source. And people are going to die because of that - both because the problem wasn't dealt with, and because God is angry.

vs 16

The wall of prophecy will fall, and kill the prophets, and God will show just how little peace Jerusalem is in for.

vs 17

Now we're having a go at prophetesses too.

vs 18

Why does the verse break here? Bad monks!

Ooookay, this sounds like they are doing more than prophetessing. Magic charms are obviously anti-God, because God is not fond of magic. The hair veil things sounds almost prostitutory, but it might mean something else.

Whatever it means, the idea is that these women have taken part in leading God's people astray. And God is punishing the people for being led astray. His rhetorical question is letting these leaders of strayness know that he has a special treat for them. A doom sort of treat.

vs 19

See, this would seem to indicate to me that the hair thing was more a mark of divination or something. Prostitutes never really raked in bucketloads of cash either historically, but it sounds more like they have been involved in some sort of speaking and judging practice. Quite possibly people were coming to them and saying, "Is this person guilty? Use your magic to find out," and they were making stuff up and people were dying for it. Now, I'll point out here that God's laws don't allow you to kill people for much. So if they were killing people over arguments on land or property or stuff, then they weren't obeying God's laws, and this might be one of the things that God is upset about when he talks about the violence they have committed. Funny, when you look at it through the eyes of an 8th century BC person, God's laws really are quite soft and fuzzy.

vs 20

Yup - God is definitely upset with magic here. And no doubt God will set his people free from it by spanking them so hard they never even consider picking up a magic charm again.

vs 21

All these people who have taken power and influence away from God and his laws are going to come crashing down. God's revolution is coming, and these people will be the first against the wall.

vs 22

God really sees this whole divining practice as totally evil. If they had been offering godly wisdom to settle grievances or give people advice, or if they had sought answers from God and not just made stuff up, then he'd have been fine with it. See here, though, the anger God really has is that their practices have led to wickedness being in ascendancy, and righteousness being stumbled.

vs 23

And he did. Divination was never a huge problem for Israel again, just like idolatry wasn't - a few twists and turns aside, anyway.