Unwept Bereavement: Or, a Great Soul in a Great Sorrow
Ezekiel 24:15-27
Also the word of the LORD came to me, saying,…


Individual characteristics are as marked and distinctive in the new life of the soul as they are in the old life of sin. While the graft draws its sap from the parent stock, it yields its own kind of fruit. Thus in the Christian life — it is the same spirit working variously in and through the mental trend, temperament, and educational attainments of the agent. Ezekiel is manifestly the spiritual dramatist of the prophetic order. He speaks in action, and voices by signs the stern purposes of his God. He is a seer in symbols, The touching incidents recorded in the chapter before us is marked by dramatic representation of Divine truth. First the "pot," from which parable he utters the terrible "Woe to the bloody city." Here, in his suppressed and even crushed grief over his deceased wife, "the desire of his eyes" taken away from him "with a stroke," is the picture in miniature of the unwept desolation of Jerusalem. In the painful experience of the prophet we have a great soul under a great trial.

I. THE WOMAN — THE WIFE. "At eve my wife died." To the pure and noble and thoughtful, no sorrow can be greater. Where the wife is what God intended she should be, the helpmeet of man, the loss here stated is without a parallel. "At eve my wife died": not my crops were blasted, or my cattle killed or taken away, but my wife, the best part of myself, the light of life's darkest hour; the one that buoys up the man when all others throw on heavier burdens to press him down. My wife! What dreadful significance! What fulness of meaning! Many a man has been lifted to the highest places, and has been transported into fullest conditions, by the wisdom, piety, and thoughtfulness of a good wife. Young men sinking into debt, danger, and degradation have lifted up their heads above every flood when they have taken the float of a good wife — thus proving that "scanty fare for one will often make a royal feast for two." There are thousands in the Church today, or in heaven, who would certainly have made shipwreck of faith but for the firmer trust and steadier piety of a devoted wife — when the strong man has been weakened by the hard struggle of life, the weak woman, strong by devotion and radiant hope, has held him up in her heaven-derived might, till the man has regained his strength. The prophet is here called to pass through a most painful experience, and the terms used are touching. His wife is spoken of as the "desire of his eyes," and the "taking away" is to be done with a stroke. Not a gradual fading away of the life and love, with all the touching farewells and hopes of future meeting which characterise a death bed, but by one fell stroke the desire of the eye, the joy of the heart, the flower of the garden, the sun of the home, the star of earth's hope, shall be taken from him. The Lord frequently brings judgment near the heart, that He may plant His mercy in the heart. He kills for the purpose of making alive. The desire of the heart is often taken, that the heart may desire a Diviner portion. Note the time. At "eve," not in the morning ere work began, nor at night when the weaknesses of old age had rendered life a burden and death a release. But at "eve," after the toil but before the rest. Work accomplished, but not enjoyed. How like this now. Many a good wife who has toiled and struggled and denied her own needy appetite for the sake of husband and family, has lived just long enough to drag the household to the top of the hill; and when an easy plain way appeared in view, and a season of rest gilded the sky, she has fallen dead — not with the weight of years, so much as with the burden of hard work and heavy care.

II. THE MAN — THE HUSBAND. The sublime self-possession, the equanimity of the prophet, the forgetfulness of a loss so great and a sorrow so deep, seem altogether beyond the range of common men, and can only be viewed in the light of a purpose as mysterious as it is beneficent. The Lord apprised him of his loss, but forbade the assumption of those signs of grief which characterise the obsequies of oriental countries. "Forbear to cry." Revised Version renders it — "Sigh, but not loud." The margin reads — "Be silent." Grief in the heart cannot be wholly quenched; it would be against nature to expect such a thing; but those extravagant signs of it were what the Lord corn, rounds the prophet against. This wonderful state of soul under an affliction so bitter may seem to some both unnatural and sinful. It win be a sufficient reply, perhaps, to say that exceptional circumstances defy ordinary modes of interpretation. We act wisely as we suspend judgment upon individual actions in the abstract, and consider them in the fight of surrounding circumstances and Divine purposes. We are now in the presence of a great soul whose vast proportions defy all the narrow measurements of popular conventionalism, and is a standing reproof to those mere appearances of grief and simulations of sorrow, and those extravagant habiliments of mourning, which are too often deeper than the grief they are supposed to represent. The full beauty and the whole worth of the Ezekiel conduct expresses itself in one word, "Obedience." To blame the prophet for what he did is to blame the Almighty who commanded it. It was at the bidding of the great God that he bare with such magnanimity so tremendous a loss. "He that ruleth his own spirit is better than he that taketh a city" (Proverbs 16:32). The man who can hold in check, and keep in obedience to the high behests of heaven, all the powers, passions, and tender susceptibilities of the soul, has reached an altitude far beyond the level of common mortals. Look at this grand old prophet whose wild eye flings off the tear, and decks itself with the full blaze of the day of God. There he stands in the attitude of strength, dressed for action, and not muffled for lamentation. If, then, you can attribute the prophet's spirit and conduct to weakness or inhumanity, it must be because we view the same things from different standpoints. I confess that, personally, I am awed into littleness in presence of a soul so great. To my mind, the whole thing is explained, and, the mystery cleared up, in the doctrine of a future life. Deny this, and death is an unmitigated sorrow and an irretrievable loss, without a ray to relieve the darkness or a prospect to cheer the soul.

(M. Brokenshire.)



Parallel Verses
KJV: Also the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

WEB: Also the word of Yahweh came to me, saying,




The Stroke of Death Under the Direction of God
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