Day 59 - Ezekiel saw the wheel

Lamentations -
I took no notes on Lamentations - a poetic expression of the afflicted people and city of Jerusalem

Ezekiel - timeline time!

• Ezekiel is a young (20s? 30s) man chosen to prophesy to captive Jews in Babylon. He uses references to the rule of king Jehoiachin to reference his receipt of the prophecies from God. Jehoiachin ruled only 3 months in Jerusalem, but "ruled" in Babylon under confinement for 36 more years until Nebuchadnezzar's successor freed him.
• Meanwhile, back in Jerusalem, Zedekiah was the puppet king of Nebuchadnezzar, so the Jews had two kings simultaneously.
• Ezekiel was a contemporary of Jeremiah, but on the back end of the kings rule. It looks like he was part of the second of three waves of captives taken to Babylon. Daniel would have been in the first wave (Ezekiel refers to him a couple of times). The third wave is when the temple is burned, and Ezekiel warns the Jews of this. Those Ezekiel prophesied to (captives in Babylon) were probably thinking "we've been carted away, what more could happen?" and Ezekiel filled them in that much more could and would happen.
• Did you try to visualize the four 4-winged, 4-headed creatures with the wheels from the vision Ezekiel had in chapter 1. I tried, but I don't get the wheel part.
• Why does God repeatedly use the phrase "son of man," which is also used for Jesus, to address Ezekiel?
• Ezekiel was a one man freak show given some really weird object lessons to carry out to further explain God's prophecies. Lie on your left side for 390 days (for Israel's iniquity), on your right side 40 days for Judah's iniquity (right side again! is this because Judah is the kingdom through which the messiah would come? - chosen, choice, preferred = right side?)
• God controlled Ezekiel's body (4:8) and his tongue (3:26, 27). This reminds me of the Steve Martin movie "All of Me" with Lily Tomlin. That's a funny movie.
• While lying on one of the two sides, Ezekiel is given some specific eating and cooking instructions. He's supposed to cook his food with his own body waste as fuel. Jeremiah says he can't do that (against some type of Levitical rules I'm assuming) and God lets him substitute cow dung.
• The final siege against Jerusalem is portrayed in chapter 4 through another object lesson with a clay tablet. Ezekiel shaves his head and scatters or burns the hair to signify what will happen to those who remain in the city of Jerusalem.
• Chapter 8 - 14 months later, his hair has grown back (8:3) and the detailed description of the abominations of idolatry that has and is (and will? who knows with these visions if they are past, present, future or a combination) going on in Jerusalem.