Reading for February 14th

Read Ezekiel 7.1-27 Ezekiel's prophecy of the end.
Ezekiel's three oracles draw upon the "Day of the LORD: traditions to announce the "end" of Israel (Am 5.18-20; 8.1-14; Isa 2.6-22; 13).
The "Day of the LORD" functioned originally as an announcement of God's defense of Israel, but various prophets reconfigured it as an announcement of God's punishment of Israel.
In verses 1-4 the first oracle announces the end of Israel.
End is drawn from Amos's prophecy against Bethel (Am 8.1-3), which includes the imagery of dead bodies scattered about the altar as in 6.1-7.
The four corners of the land indicates the complete destruction of the land and rehearses the four cardinal directions that underlie the symbolism of the four living creatures in ch. 1 (see Isa 11.12).
In verses 5-9 Ezekiel again employs the statement the end has come, but he shifts his language to that of the "Day of the LORD" traditions.
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Reading for February 13th

Read Ezekiel 6.11-14
Ezekiel returns to the imagery of sword, pestilence, and famine (5.1-17) to tie his oracles against Israel to the fate of Jerusalem.
Altars, on every high hill, on all the mountain tops, under every green tree, and under every leafy oak: a common formulaic description of pagan worship (Deut 12.2; 1 Kings 14.23; Jer 2.20).
The wilderness designates the Negeb desert in southern Judah, and Riblah ("Diblah" in Hebrew; the Hebrew letters "resh" and "dalet" are similar and sometimes confused) is in Syria (2 Kings 23.33).
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Reading for February 12th

Ezekiel's oracles against the land of Israel

Chs. 6-7 Ezekiel does not distinguish between Israel and Judah, but addresses the entire land and people of Israel arrayed around the Temple (Num 2; Ezek 48).

The most holy place serves as the sacred center of the Temple, the Jerusalem Temple as the sacred center of Israel, and Israel as sacred center of the world.

Read Ezekiel 6.1-14 Oracle against the mountains of Israel.

The mountains of Israel: the homeland of Israel in the hills of Samaria and Judah.

In verses 1-7 Ezekiel identifies the cause of punishment in the various altars and high places where the people worship, which compromise the sanctity of the land.

As a Zadokite priest, Ezekiel holds that legitimate worship of God must take place only in the Jerusalem Temple (Deut 12).

The scattering of dead corpses around the altars renders the land impure 

(Num 19; see also Lev 21.10-12).

The prophet employs the prophetic "proof saying," then you shall know that I am the LORD, throughout the book to identify God as the source of the prophet's words

(Ex 20.2; Lev 19.3-4; see also Ex 3.13-22; Deut 5.6).

In verses 8-10 Ezekiel relies on Isaiah's concept of a remnant of Israel (Isa 4.2-6; 10.20-23) to demonstrate God's power to destroy and punish.

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Reading for February 11th

Read Ezekiel 5.5-17
God sums up the theology of punishment that Ezekiel's symbolic actions illustrate.
Charging that Israel acts like the nations (see 1 Sam 8.4-5) by defiling the Temple, God states that the people will suffer war and exile, and will perish by pestilence, famine, and sword.
God's threat to make Israel a desolation and an object of mocking among the nations and to unleash famine, wild animals, etc., against the people recalls threats made in Jer 24.9-10
(see also Deut 28.37; 1 Kings 9.7).
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Reading for February 10th

Read Ezekiel 5.1-4
The sword or barber's razor (Isa 7.20) symbolizes the weapons on the Babylonians.
One third of the hair is burned to represent those who die when the city is burned; one third is struck with the sword to symbolize those killed around the city; and one third is scattered to symbolize those who escape only to be pursued by the Babylonians.
Some of the hair is burned once again to symbolize the suffering of the people.
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Reading for February 9th

Read Ezekiel 4.9-17
Ezekiel uses a variety of grains to demonstrate that there is insufficient grain to make an entire loaf.
Twenty shekels: About ten ounces.
One-sixth of a him: About two-thirds of a quart.
In order to demonstrate the difficult conditions of the coming siege, God commands Ezekiel to bake bread using human dung as fuel.
When he protests that this is a breach of priestly purity, God allows him to use cow's dung.
In verses 16-17 see Isa 3.1.
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Reading for February 8th

Read Ezekiel 4.1-8
Prophets perform symbolic actions to dramatize their statements and enable them to take effect
(Isa 20; Jer 13; 19).
Ezekiel builds a model of Jerusalem under siege.
The action draws upon the imagery of Jer 1.18.
The background of three hundred and ninety and forty is not entirely certain, and the Septuagint
(the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible) contains entirely different figures.
If one counts backwards from the destruction of the Temple in 587 BCE, the total of 430 years points to the time of the establishment of the united monarchy of Israel under Saul in 1017 BCE.
Counting forward 390 years from that date takes one to 627 BCE, the twelfth year of Josiah's reign, the year in which his reforms begin (2 Chr 34.3; compare 2 Kings 22.3).
Josiah failed in his attempt to reunite Israel and Judah.
The remaining 40 years accounts for the time between the beginning of Josiah's reform and the destruction of Jerusalem.
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