Ezekiel 8 Devotional

The Room Behind the Wall

““Son of man,” He said to me, “do you see what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the darkness, each at the shrine of his own idol? For they are saying, ‘The LORD does not see us; the LORD has forsaken the land.’””Ezekiel 8:12 (BSB)

Sitting in his house with the elders of Judah, Ezekiel is taken by the hair and carried in visions of God to the temple in Jerusalem (8:1-3). An idol stands at the north gate (8:5). Behind a hole in the wall is a hidden room carved with creatures and idols, where seventy elders burn incense in the dark (8:7-11). Women weep for Tammuz, and about twenty-five men turn their backs on the temple to bow to the sun (8:14-16).

The elders explain their secrecy: they believe the LORD does not see them and has abandoned the land (8:12). The vision answers them: God sees everything, even behind the wall. Hebrews says nothing in creation is hidden from him (Hebrews 4:13), a hard truth for anyone with a hidden room. Yet the same letter invites us to draw near to his throne of grace, confident of finding mercy (Hebrews 4:16). Being fully seen by God is not the end of hope. It is where honest confession and real mercy can begin.

To think about: Is there a hidden room in your life that you have been acting as though God cannot see, and what would it look like to open it to him?