They were discovered at Lachish (Tell ed-Duweir) among the ruins of a small guard room just outside the city gate.
Then a few years later three inscribed potsherds were also found at the site, and like the others, they contained names and lists from the period just before the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C.
Do you remember the saying, Disappointments are God’s appointments? That’s true for every child of God, though it’s hard to remember when disappointments land on our doorstep.
Ezekiel was a young man who faced life-altering disappointments. He’d prepared all his life to serve as a temple priest, but before his service began he was deported and exiled from Judah – of thousands displaced by Babylon in 597 B.C.
We can’t imagine the young man’s distress; but at the beginning of the book heaven opened and Ezekiel saw visions of the glory of God.
And God in His glory appointed Ezekiel to prophetic service. Rather than being a priest in Jerusalem, he became a prophet to the expatriates in Babylon, and this book is the record of his life and ministry.
Ezekiel’s visions and verses are timeless – the opening vision of:
- The wheels within the wheels,
- The glory of God departing the temple,
- The Valley of Dry Bones,
- Gog and Magog, and
- The restored temple given in the final chapters of the book.
Only the visions of Daniel and John equal the intensity of those in Ezekiel.
They mesmerize us to this day, and the message of Ezekiel adds tremendously to our understanding of the present and future.
For God’s children, disappointments truly are His appointments; and you can count on it: If one door closes, it’s because God intends to open another.
Key Thought:
God has a vision for our future, even when it appears we’ve been exiled in a land of failure.
Key Verse:
“And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them” (Eze 36:27).
Key Action:
We must speak God’s words to our generation, whether they hear or whether they refuse (see Eze 2:7).