WATCHMAN TO ANCIENT ISRAEL

4. (a) Whom did Jehovah raise up to be a prophet to his own people Israel, and whom did this prophet prefigure? (b) What commission was Ezekiel given?

⁴ By his divine powers Jehovah knew beforehand that even Christendom would need to have his final warning served upon her. He knew what the history of his chosen people of pre-Christian times indicated, or foreshadowed. In the year 613 B.C.E., he raised up a Jew named Ezekiel to be a prophet to his own people. So even though he was then an exile in the land of Babylon, Ezekiel was Jehovah’s watchman to Israel. His prophesyings were carried southwest to Jerusalem in the land of Judah. What Jehovah said to Ezekiel back there is of interest to us today, for he pictured Jehovah’s anointed witnesses of today. This anointed class has acted on what Jehovah said to Ezekiel with these words: “Son of man, a watchman is what I have made you to the house of Israel, and you must hear from my mouth speech and you must warn them from me.

Ezek. 3:17,

⁶ Ezekiel’s people were the ones to whom Jehovah had earlier said by his prophet Isaiah: “‘You are my witnesses,’ is the utterance of Jehovah, ‘even my servant whom I have chosen.’” (Isa. 43:10-12) So Ezekiel pictured the organized body of Jehovah’s spirit-anointed witnesses at the present time, the spiritual Israelites. These anointed witnesses live in a time far more meaningful than Ezekiel’s day.

7. (a) What government was in peril in Ezekiel’s day, but what about today? (b) How long did Ezekiel sound the warning before the foretold destruction came?

⁷ Back there it was just the one government, the small kingdom of Judah, that was in peril. Today it is what that ancient kingdom pictured, namely, Christendom, that is imperiled, along with all her worldly associates. In fact, the entire system of things worldwide is on judgment, just as in Noah’s day it was the world that was doomed to destruction. There was more urgent need for God’s warning by Ezekiel, for Ezekiel began to sound the warning just four years before the Babylonian army invaded his homeland, or six years before they destroyed the besieged city of Jerusalem and its temple. Many inhabitants of beleaguered Jerusalem died of famine, pestilence and the sword of war. Many of the survivors were dragged off into exile to die in distant Babylon. So Ezekiel’s own generation was in danger of that calamity.

8. (a) What impending first-century destruction helps us to determine the timing of the coming world destruction by God? (b) Who sounded God’s warning then, and how important was their warning work?

⁸ How short a time we today may yet have, we can only infer from what has been happening on earth according to Bible prophecy. In Jesus’ prophecy, as recorded in Matthew, chapters 24 and 25, he warned those disciples of his who were to make up the first part of the “faithful and discreet slave” class about the destruction that was to befall Jerusalem inside their own generation. In that way he made his disciples aware of their responsibility toward the Jewish inhabitants of the province of Judea. They were in such grave danger due to the impending national calamity.