It was to be the vision of the slaughter, but first, there would be a few people that God would save. He asked the angel to pass throughout the city and mark those who did not give in to evil but rather groaned and sighed over the detestable practices committed in it (Ezek 9:4). These would be the ones that God would set apart for himself and not decree disaster.

But the rest? He ordered the release of the executioner angels. They were to kill everyone—men, women, children. Every one.

Why?

“The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is extremely great; the land is full of bloodshed, and the city full of perversity…I will bring their actions down on their own heads” (v. 9-10).

This is where it gets hard. We can see why God would bring judgment upon the adults, but the children? What wrong have they committed?

It’s very, very rare that God has brought judgment in such a way that it included the children, but it did happen on occasion. There are no easy answers.

And this is exactly what Babylon did:

“ He brought up against them the king of the Babylonians, who killed their young men with the sword in the sanctuary, and did not spare young men or young women, the elderly or the infirm. God gave them all into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar” (2 Chr 36:17).

On God’s side he did warn them. Repeatedly and frequently that this would happen. But they did not respond. He warned them as forcibly as he could, be he honored their free will.

So was their death and the death of their children God’s fault or their own? If you are recklessly driving a car off road with your family and someone warns you repeatedly to stop as there is a cliff in that area, and you ignore that warning, whose fault is it when the car goes over the cliff with your family in it? When there’s been ample warning many times and frantic attempts to stop your path? And you were driving off the road?

On the other hand I see something to aspire to in this chapter. The ones who did not compromise. They did not give in to evil but there was a righteous grieving. An agony of the soul about the distress of the land. God saw them and honored them.

It’s important too that we do not cave to the evils of our times. We mourn them, grieve them and warn people. But we do not compromise the truth as we so often even among God’s people.

There are always those who do not compromise. Let’s be in their company.