Ezekiel 39:25, 29: (25)”Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Now will I bring the captivity of Jacob, and have mercy upon the whole house of Israel, and will be jealous for my holy name.” (29) “Neither will I hide my face anymore from them, for I have poured out my Spirit upon the house of Israel says the Lord God.”
There are a number of opinions as to why God uses the name Jacob and Israel interchangeably. The Talmud teaches that when God wants to address the masculine nature of Israel he calls them Jacob and the feminine nature he calls them Israel. Other suggestions are that he calls them Jacob when they are in disobedience and Israel when they are in prayer and worship. I suppose for the sake of these passages it seems evident that when Israel is in a state of sin or under the judgment of God they are referred to as Jacob and when they are under God’s blessing they are referred to as Israel.
The reason I coupled these verses together is because of the word captive in verse 25 and hide in verse 29. Israel is referred to as Jacob in this verse, while they were in captivity. I often wondered what God’s attitude was during the time of captivity. This would be nice to know if we should ever enter a time of captivity, perhaps I am even now in captivity. If so I would like to know what is God’s attitude toward me?
Years ago when I was a Junior High School teacher, I would often have to pull duty in detention hall. That is where a student goes when he has misbehaved and he spends a whole class hour after school sitting in a classroom doing a naughty assignment. I remember how uncomfortable I felt monitoring the detention hall as a member of the faculty. This had to be at time of correction for the students, so I could not be buddy-buddy with them. It was not an actual class so there was no teaching to be done. I was more like a prison guard, watching and making sure no one escaped. I knew many of the students as some were in my classes. Some I knew on a level where we joked and had friendly interaction on other occasions. But in detention hall I had to be different and distant. That was always difficult. No one ever gives a thought to what a teacher is going through when they monitor students who are in detention. Sometimes the teacher is suffering just as much as the student (It is after hours, you know). On top of that, this suffering of the teacher was through no fault of his own.
Do we ever stop to consider what God is going through when He has to discipline us or put us in detention or captivity? I know there are times I feel God has put me in detention hall and I kind of wonder if He doesn’t have me in his detention hall now. What is God experiencing while I am in His detention hall? For one thing he may call me by a different name. While in captivity Israel was call Jacob (one who grabs) rather than Israel (prince of God).
I remember I had one student that I really enjoyed having in class, even if he was a real rascal. In class or outside class I called him Bill. In detention hall (where he paid regular visits) I referred to him as Mr. Simmer. He hated being called by his last name and I hated doing it, but I had to. It showed my disapproval.
There is also another clue as to what God goes through when he has us in detention. We learn in Ezekiel 39:29 that He hides his face from us. The word hide is asar which is in a Hiphal form. He is caused or forced to hide his face from us. He does not do it because he wants to but in order to show us His disapproval for our actions, He is forced to hide his face from us. The word face is pani which is spelled Pei, Nun and Yod. The Pei represents the mouth and the Nun represents swimming, in the sense that you are completely surrounded by water. The Yod represents receiving knowledge from God. The word pani is often used to express the idea of God’s presences where he speaks to us while he is surrounding us with His lovingkindness. When God has us in detention, His presence is hidden from us.
It is the word hide that I find interesting. The word hide is asar. This is the same word used in verse 25 for captivity. In other words when Israel was in captivity, God’s presence was also in captivity. When Bill was in detention hall and I was the monitor, things were not very different. I was the teacher, he was the student. I still enjoyed having him as a student, I still believed in his potential, and I was still available to help him in any way I could. But in detention hall he was Mr. Simmer, not Bill. Until that clock hit a certain time, we could not joke together or have our usual friendly easy going relationship. That relationship was also in detention and I suffered as much a Bill Simmer, and it was not my fault he was in detention.
If God has you or me in detention, He is right there with you. It does not mean that He values your relationship any less. That free and easy relationship is forced into captivity due to our breaking His rules and there is a necessary time of correction. But once that time is past, usually at the point of repentance, then not only are we released from captivity but God is also released from His captivity from us. He is just as anxious for our release as we are.
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