the Fourth Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Day by Day Devotional - Year 4 of 5
Ezekiel 36:1-15
Among the neighbours of Israel, Edom (Idumase) was particularly guilty (v. 5). The whole of Ch. 35 is a prophecy against these descendants of Esau. In all their wicked gloating, they intended to take advantage of Israel’s desolation to take possession of it’s territory (Ezekiel 35:10). But the LORD was there and He was watching. Had He not declared before the birth of Jacob and Esau, "the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger" (Genesis 25:23)? And He will never go back on His word.
Edom had laughed at the "ancient high places" (the everlasting hills), so called by God Himself in Joseph’s two blessings (v. 2; Genesis 49:26; Deuteronomy 33:15). These mountains and hills had "borne the shame of the heathen" (v. 6) in that, according to pagan custom, the ungodly people had set up shrines on them from the time of Solomon (1 Kings 11:7). It will please the LORD to fill them with fruit (cf. Psalms 72:16). Like the unbelievers of former times, their enemies said of this land that it ate up its inhabitants (v. 13; Numbers 13:32). But God will no longer allow the nations to insult and to heap scorn upon the inheritance of His people; they will no more be "taken up in the lips of talkers, and an infamy of the people" (v. 3).
