Today's Scripture Reading (June 13, 2023): Ezekiel 5
My grandkids have taught me how to play "Minecraft"
with them on my PlayStation. Of course, depending on the grandchild, we play
with the monsters either turned on or off. One of my grandsons prefers to fight
the monsters that come out at night, and I have to admit that I probably like
that as well. I also want to have to find and mine the different resources I
need in the game rather than just getting them from an in-game menu on demand.
Of the monsters, at least in the version I am
playing, are two different kinds of giant spiders. The standard kind are
dangerous, but you can usually defeat them with a sword fairly easily. But in
the various spaces underground are "cave spiders." The difference is
that if a spider bites you, it will lower your health, but you can still fight
and win. On the other hand, a cave spider is filled with poison, which keeps
making your avatar sick even long after the cave spider has been dispatched.
And whether you survive the battle depends on how much health you had in the
first place and how many times the cave spider bit you.
Ezekiel imagines famine and disease that will be
inflicted on Israel to be the "deadly and destructive arrows" of God.
They are literally "terrible arrows" that have been dipped in poison
and keep making you sick long after the arrow has been removed from your flesh.
You won't need to be repeatedly hit with these arrows, their sickness will be
inside you, and it will stay there until your body fights off the poison, or
more likely, you die.
During the life of David, there was an incident where
David had a fight with Saul and a disagreement with Jonathan over how
significant that fight might have been. At that time, David went into hiding,
and Jonathan returned to deal with his father. The pair had devised a secret signal that would indicate the subsequent actions.
After the meeting, Jonathan would come out and fire an arrow. If the arrow fell
short of the target, everything was okay. But if it went long, then David's
assessment had been correct, and Jonathan's Dad was a threat to David's life.
After the meeting, Jonathan went out as agreed and fired the arrow long. It
missed the mark and was intended to warn David that the time had come for him
to leave the King's presence.
But this time, the arrows of God were not fired as a
warning. They were poison arrows that would hurt the people. But it was their sin
that had brought them to this moment in time.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 6
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