And he cried in mine ears with a loud voice, saying, Draw near, ye that have charge of the city, and every man [with] his destroying weapon in his hand.
Ezekiel 8 walked the prophet through room after room of idol worship inside God's own temple. Chapter 9 opens with God's answer — a loud cry calling armed men forward — but who are the men He calls?
The summons does not come out of nowhere. What the prophet had been shown in the previous chapter settled the matter:
The elders worshipped the sun, and the women wept for Tammuz. This brought God's fixed determination to execute unsparing judgment against their corruption and violence. To do so was essential to satisfy the righteous claims of a holy God. The testimony to His name also had to be purged of the virus of rebellious false worship. Left unchecked, that worship had the power to destroy any testimony to the truth of God in this world.
The cry is God's own, and Ezekiel is let in on what God is about to do:
Ezekiel is now given the privilege of being told what the Lord is about to do, and of being the messenger and recorder of God's intentions. Chapter 9 opens with God crying out to the responsible representatives — the heavenly watchmen over the city of Jerusalem — to draw near. He is deeply and supremely moved by the condition of His people, and in particular Jerusalem. Are our hearts moved about the spiritual state around us, and among those who claim to be identified with God's chosen centre?
The call sets a planned operation in motion, and one group is kept out of it from the start:
Chapter 9 gives us God's preparations and plan for executing judgment on everyone in Jerusalem, except the remnant He has reserved… The judgment still comes from the north. The angelic executioners stand beside the bronze altar, which expresses what God requires and His judgment on the earth. The glory leaves its usual place. Jerusalem is given over to the vengeance of Jehovah.
The armed figures who step forward are not soldiers of any nation. Scripture shows this kind of work elsewhere too:
The Bible often shows angels at work, carrying out a judgment on God's behalf that separates one person from another. Matthew 13:41, Matthew 16:27 and 2 Thessalonians 1:7-8 show this clearly. As you go through the book of Revelation, you will see angels serve in this way constantly. Here the angels are spoken of as six men. Each is to have a slaughter weapon in his hand. In history, the agents of this judgment would be the coming Chaldeans. But the prophecy is written so that the reader sees the disaster coming directly from God. How solemn it is when God sets His face against the place where His name lived.
Nothing was happening in Jerusalem's streets on the day Ezekiel saw this:
We are not to look at this as a judgment actually taking place at the time of the prophet's vision. It is no doubt what is really carried out by the Chaldeans afterwards. For the purpose of the vision there is no need to draw that distinction. In fact, the thought pressed on us here is the very thing that the arrival of Nebuchadnezzar's army might hide from many. The judgment is as direct from God as if the Chaldeans were not in question at all.
Called forward with weapons in hand, the six do not strike at once.
The angels wait before they carry out holy and righteous judgment. Grace held back the blow of God's anger until those who had separated themselves from evil could be marked out and identified.
When the blow falls, it starts at the point of greatest privilege:
Judgment must begin at the house of God. It always begins there. The greater the privilege, the greater the responsibility. Being outwardly near to God while the heart is far away only invites judgment more.
The city these men are called against felt safe, and the reason shows how far it had fallen:
The mass showed their moral state of depravity by saying, "The LORD has forsaken the land, and the LORD does not see." Because He had not judged their sin they concluded that He was indifferent to it. Fatal mistake!
- Cause — Sun worship and idol rites inside God's own temple closed the case. Verse 1 carries out a sentence already passed; it is not a sudden mood.
- Call — God Himself cries out to the heavenly watchmen over the city. He is moved, not detached, about the state of His people.
- Carriers — Commentators read the six armed men as angels. An army would do the visible work in history, but the blow comes as directly from God as if no army existed.
- Check — They come with weapons in hand, yet they wait. Grace holds back the blow until God marks out those who have separated themselves from the evil.
- Complacency — The city mistook God's patience for indifference. That pause was the calm before this summons, and the mistake was fatal.
And behold, six men came from the way of the upper gate, which is turned toward the north, and every man [with] his slaughter weapon in his hand; and in the midst of them, one man clothed with linen, with a writer's ink-horn by his side; and they went in, and stood beside the brazen altar.
Ezekiel is still watching the vision that began in chapter 8, which showed him idolatry inside the temple itself. Now the executioners arrive. Six men carry weapons. One more carries no weapon at all — only linen clothing and a writing case.
Their direction is not random, and neither is their number.
The six men that answer this summons come from the north, and this, as we know, was the route the Chaldean armies took when they invaded. The number six speaks, as always, of divine sovereignty over evil. This, sadly, is now to be shown in judgment. Yet for that very reason the judgment must also be discriminating. The man in linen shows this: "with them was a man clothed in linen, with a writing case at his waist" [the older translation reads "in the midst of them"]. Here is something that speaks of peace in the middle of everything hostile.
They look like soldiers. One commentator names what they really are, and finds the same scene in Revelation.
The six men mentioned are angels, into whose hands the city is given. God uses angels in judgments past and future. (See Matt. 13:41; 16:27; 2 Thess. 1:7-8.) The book of Revelation also gives angels a prominent place. There is a striking correspondence between this chapter and Revelation 7:1-3. Those who sigh and weep make up the remnant who have no sympathy with the abominations. They are marked for preservation.
Commentators differ on who he is. One of them admits it, and points to what his clothing recalls.
In this verse we meet a man with a writer's inkhorn, who is also an angel. Perhaps he is a seventh angel, but to some commentators he is one of the six. He wears fine linen, like the robe the priest wore on the great day of atonement in Leviticus 16:4, 23. His existence reminds me that in the middle of judgment God will remember mercy. This is wonderful grace displayed alongside holiness.
Another writer goes further than "angel."
Who is He? Evidently more than an angel. That he is a supernatural being is clear. He held the place of pre-eminence among the other angels (chapter 9:2-4). This angel is the Angel of the Lord, the same who appeared to the patriarchs, to Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Manoah, and to others. It is the Son of God in the garb of an angel.
His clothing and his pen each say something — one about God, one about the people He is looking for.
Notice here the wonderful grace coming in alongside divine holiness. The glory takes its first step to withdraw from that temple where God put His name. His honour cannot stand where He is dishonoured; He will not stay where His glory is given to others. But here is a man clothed with white linen, a picture of the holiness of God. He carries the inkhorn to make the record about everyone. And He says: before I seal the doom of that accursed place, look for those who are the remnant that love and honour Me.
The delay between their arrival and the blow has a purpose.
The angels wait before they carry out holy and righteous judgment. Grace held back the blow of divine indignation until those who had separated themselves from evil could be shown and identified.
Of all the places in the temple courts, they stop at the bronze altar — the altar of sacrifice — and at that moment the glory of God begins to move.
The judgment is still from the north; the angelic executioners stand beside the bronze altar, the expression of divine requirement and judgment on the earth. The glory leaves its usual seat. Jerusalem is given over to the vengeance of Jehovah.
- Summons — Six men come from the north, the invaders' road. Their number speaks of God's sovereignty over evil.
- Servants — They are angels. God has used angels to carry out judgment before, and He will again.
- Seventh — One man among them carries linen and a pen, not a weapon. Commentators differ: some call him an angel, some the Son of God Himself.
- Stay — The weapons wait while the pen works. Grace holds back the blow until those who grieve over the evil stand out.
- Stand — They halt at the bronze altar. Reject the one way of propitiation and none is left; that altar points on to the cross.
And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon it was, to the threshold of the house; and he called to the man clothed with linen, who had the writer's ink-horn by his side;
In chapter 8 God walked Ezekiel through a temple full of hidden idolatry, and now His glory leaves the cherub and moves to the doorway. The verse holds two things at once: God is leaving His house, and He stops in the doorway to have His own people marked.
The move is short in distance and huge in meaning. God's presence leaves the seat He had chosen, while the armed men take their place beside the altar.
The judgment still comes from the north. The angels who carry it out stand beside the bronze altar. That altar expresses what God requires, and His judgment on the earth. The glory leaves its usual seat. Jerusalem is given over to the vengeance of the Lord.
Nothing forced God out except the state of the house itself. "Ichabod" was the name given long ago, when the glory left Israel. The same word hangs over this moment.
The glory is departing; its first step away is made. It is on the threshold, an "Ichabod" in the making (1 Sam. 4:21). God cannot dwell where His character is compromised and His glory is given to another. His honour will not dwell where He is dishonoured. Yet it is as if God is reluctant to leave, even though there is so much there that dishonours Him. How He longs for His people to be in right relationship with Himself and to enjoy fellowship... It is as if God waits. He sends His messenger out to see how many in that city love Him and care for His interests.
This verse is not the whole exit. It is the first stop on a route Ezekiel traces across several chapters.
Ezekiel gives us the sad history of the glory's departure. In righteousness the Lord felt He had to leave His house. Ezek. 9:3; Ezek. 10:4, 18; Ezek. 11:23 describe the stages of its departure, as if God was most reluctant to give up His people... Hear the word of the Lord: "I will return again to my place, until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face, and in their distress earnestly seek me" (Hosea 5:15).
He does not hand the work to others and step back. The One in the doorway both directs the judgment and marks those He spares.
He stands on the threshold of His house. He fills it with His glory in judgment now, as He once filled it with glory in blessing... The cherubim and the dreadful wheels, alive with energy and full of eyes, could have done it all. But the Lord leads the prophet to see for himself the many detestable sins and idolatries by which they defiled His sanctuary. No doubt His rule over events worked in power to carry out His judgment. But it was the Lord of the defiled house who stood on the threshold Himself. He directed the judgment of the city Himself. He Himself had a mark put on the godly, to keep them safe as the judgment rushed in.
The first order given from the threshold is not to kill but to write. The word behind "mark" carries a meaning of its own.
The word for "mark" here is the one that names the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the tau, which in the writing of that time was a cross... The judgment is judgment on behalf of the altar. Put another way, it must come because the propitiation of the altar is no more. How significant, then! Those whom the judgment spares are exactly those the altar itself marks for mercy — marked by the sign of the cross, as the Christian heart at once reads it... Here, then, is the sinner's shield at all times, the only hope of escape where all are sinners.
The pause in the doorway shows holiness and love at the same moment. One writer sees here a picture of Jesus.
The glory passes back and forth between the threshold of the house and the wings of the cherubim. The threshold still connected it with the temple; the cherubim were waiting to carry it away... The holiness that had to leave could not cool the love that would gladly have stayed, if it could. What a shadow of the Jesus of the Gospels this is!... the glory will linger on the threshold, and Jesus will weep as He turns His back on the city. Nor will the glory seek any other place on the earth.
- Throne — the glory rises from the cherub, the seat God Himself chose. He leaves only because His people gave His glory to another.
- Threshold — He stops in the doorway. The slow, staged exit (9:3; 10:4, 18; 11:23) shows a God reluctant to go, waiting for His people to seek His face.
- Mark — His first command from that doorway is mercy. He sends a man with a writing case to mark the faithful before any blow falls.
- Personal — the cherubim could have done it all. Instead the Lord of the defiled house directs both the judgment and the sparing Himself.
- Rest — the glory will settle nowhere else on earth. The One who weeps as He turns away is the one hope of those He marks.
and Jehovah said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that are done in the midst thereof.
God shows Ezekiel a city so corrupt that He calls executioners to it. Yet before a single blow falls, one man goes ahead with an ink-horn to mark a few people — and the mark goes on those who weep, not those who achieve.
(Note: where the older translation used here reads "sigh and cry," the ESV reads "sigh and groan over all the abominations.")
God's glory starts to move away from the temple. The moment that seals the city's doom also begins a search for His own people.
Notice here the wonderful grace coming in alongside divine holiness. The glory takes its first step to withdraw from that temple where God's name was put. His honour cannot stand where He is dishonoured; He will not stay where His glory is given to others. But here is a man clothed in white linen, a picture of the holiness of God, with the ink-horn to make the record about everyone; and He says, before I seal the doom of that accursed place, look for those who are the remnant that love and honour Me.
One writer hears reluctance in that pause:
Yet it is as if God is reluctant to leave, even if there is so much there that dishonours Him. How He longs for His people to be in right relation with Himself and to enjoy fellowship. "How can I give you up? ... my compassion grows warm and tender" (Hosea 11:8).
God's test here is not what these men organised or achieved. It is what broke their hearts.
What would be the best thing for the faithful to do to give them a distinguishing feature? It was not simply that they had avoided what the others did. It was not that they had a plan to counter the evil. It was not even that they had used all their influence against idolatry. It was their sighing and weeping for the abominations that God would own and mark. I am sure that some speak about the failure and the worldliness, the compromise and the inconsistency, but how many will weep over it? There is no room for a fault-finding spirit; if I have any love for Christ and His church, I must pray for it.
But what if the grief can change nothing?
The remnant who lament over the abominations are marked on their foreheads. It pleases God that any should mourn over the evil connected with His name, even though they cannot put it right.
The word for "mark" hides a picture.
The word for "mark" here is the one that names the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the tau, which in the writing of that time was a cross. Who can miss the meaning of this? The judgment comes on behalf of the altar. To put it another way, it comes because the propitiation of the altar is no more. How significant, then, that those whom the judgment spares are just those marked for mercy by the altar itself — by the sign of the cross, as the Christian heart at once interprets it. Here, then, is the sinner's shield at all times, the only hope of escape where all are sinners.
What does the mark actually do?
In Ezekiel 9:4 we see that before the Lord brought in judgment, He secured for Himself those who owned their sin and were humbled because of it. The judgment was terrible, as God's judgment on the unbelieving and the sinner will also be. But verse 6 is explicit: "But touch no one on whom is the mark." Read the "mark" alongside the sealing of the twelve tribes of Israel in Revelation 7, and we see that those who are sealed or marked are immune from the judgment of God; no judgment for them.
One writer connects that sighing with a deeper sorrow in the Gospel:
In an earlier day of apostasy, grief over the waywardness of their people marked out the Lord's faithful servants. They stood out as those "who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it" (Ezekiel 9:4). Here in the Gospel the veil over the Master's inner feelings lifts for a moment. We catch a glimpse of His loyal zeal for God and His deep longing over the guilty people.
Does this belong only to Ezekiel's day?
Those who sigh and weep make up the remnant who have no sympathy with the abominations. They are marked for preservation. So a remnant was kept then. We may well remember that now, in the professing church, in the middle of the apostasy, there is also a faithful remnant who sigh and cry.
- Cause. God's glory moves toward the door. He will not stay where His glory is given to another. Judgment starts with holiness, not anger.
- Search. The ink-horn goes before the sword. God looks for those who still love Him, and the test is tears, not tactics.
- Mark. The word is the Hebrew letter tau, written back then as a cross. The altar signs this mercy, and it is the sinner's only shield.
- Shelter. The mark binds the executioners. Whoever carries it goes free, as in the sealing of Revelation 7.
- Echo. The grief God marks is grief He shares. It sounds again in the Master's longing over a guilty people, and it still marks a faithful few today.
And to the others he said in my hearing, Go after him through the city, and smite let not your eye spare, neither have pity.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
Slay utterly the old man, the young man, and the maiden, and little children, and women; but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the elders who were before the house.
Ezekiel sees a vision of judgment on Jerusalem. The killing does not begin in the streets. It begins at the temple, and the first to die are the men closest to God's house. Why does God strike His own sanctuary first? And what is the mark that spares a man?
The order to start at the sanctuary is not a one-off. Commentators read it as a fixed rule, tied to the privilege those people enjoyed:
Judgment must begin at the house of God. It always begins there. The greater the privilege, the greater the responsibility. Being outwardly near to God while the heart is far away only invites judgment all the more.
The reason lies in what God is, not merely in what Israel had done. A comparison drawn from ordinary life makes the point:
God judges everything by His own nature. He wants everything to match that nature. No honest and honourable man would want the wicked near him, always in front of him. God certainly would not. And in what is nearest to Him, He must above all want everything to match His nature and His holiness — all that He is. I would want everything around me clean enough not to disgrace me. But in my own house I must have the cleanness I want for myself. So judgment must begin at the house of God... No grace, no privilege, changes the nature of God.
The verse ends with the killing beginning at the elders in front of the house. Their age and office gave them no shelter:
God always takes light and privilege into account when He judges. The elders who had privilege also carried the deepest responsibility. Their age does not excuse them; it makes their stain darker. The killing began at the elders, because the fullest responsibility rests with the men who should be examples and moral leaders among God's people. The evil had spread from the top downwards, so the judgment would follow the same path.
These were not fringe offenders. The leaders themselves ran the idolatry inside the temple:
Sadly, they were the ones promoting the idolatry and wickedness carried out in the temple of the Lord. They were not there as men whose clothing spoke of the blood that cleanses. Instead they corrupted God's holy standard and defiled Israel, leading the people to abandon God completely. So if judgment is to fall, it must begin with the house of God.
The order sweeps across every age — old men, young men, women, children. One clause holds it back: the killers must not touch anyone who carries the mark. That exception shows what kind of judgment this is:
God's stern justice demands full punishment. The angels must strike without mercy. How this necessary command must have grieved God's heart, since He does not want the death of a sinner. But as the righteous Judge, He will not let the righteous die with the wicked. Judgment always separates one from the other. He makes the godly known, and He will spare them.
The Hebrew word for the mark carries a message of its own:
The word for "mark" here is the name of the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the tau, which in the writing of that day was shaped like a cross... The judgment comes on behalf of the altar. To put it another way, it comes because the propitiation of the altar is no more. How striking, then, that the people the judgment spares are the very ones marked for mercy by the altar itself, that is, by the sign of the cross... Here, then, is the sinner's shield at all times, the only hope of escape where all are sinners.
Nothing impressive singled out the spared. Grief over what dishonoured God marked them out:
But here is a man dressed in white linen, a picture of the holiness of God, carrying a writing case to make a record of everyone. And He says: before I seal the doom of that cursed place, look for the remnant who love and honour Me. But how are they known? By their bright cheerfulness? By something that makes them a remarkable people? While everyone around them turns away from God, He has a people marked out by their sighing and crying over the vile things being done.
One writer carries the same pattern forward to the Christian today:
The men carrying out the judgment stood by "the bronze altar" — the place of sacrifice. God told them to touch no one on whom is the mark. This illustrates what 1 Peter 4 says. The righteous are saved, though only with difficulty, because of the false religious profession all around them. Christ has borne their judgment. At "the brazen altar" — the Cross in type — He once suffered for their sins and brought them to God. Moreover, they have "the mark" — the Spirit of God.
- Nearness. Closeness to God is the greatest privilege and the heaviest responsibility. Being near Him while the heart is far away only brings judgment sooner.
- Nature. God starts at His own house because He judges by what He is, and no privilege alters His nature.
- Leaders. The elders die first because the corruption began at the top, so the judgment follows the same route down.
- Mark. The one thing that stops the sword is a mark whose very letter was a cross — mercy from the altar, the sinner's only shield.
- Mourners. Those marked were known by nothing but their sighing over evil; grief that matches God's grief is what He recognises and spares.