(11) Has the Glory Departed?

If you've ever moved, you've experienced the melancholy of walking through an empty home. Bare walls once held family pictures. The dining room, where so many family meals were shared, is like an empty shell. The house echoes with the emptiness of a hollow cave.

The scene in Ezekiel 10 reveals the emptiness of God's house, his temple, as he prepares to move out. An empty house hardly feels like a home. Likewise, Ezekiel 10 teaches us that religious experiences without a vibrant walk with God are meaningless. Walking through your empty home is a surreal emotional experience. God intends Ezekiel 10 to have a similar effect.

Ezekiel 8–11 records a vision that Ezekiel sees of Jerusalem, while he and others are exiled in Babylon. In chapter 8 God showed Ezekiel the wickedness that took place in Jerusalem and how Israel's sins had provoked God's jealousy for his own glory. In chapter 9 God unleashed fierce judgment against Jerusalem while sparing the elect who sighed and cried over the peoples' sin. In chapter 10, God purifies his temple with fire and prepares to move out of his house.