“Thus says the Lord GOD: This is Jerusalem. I have set her in the center of the nations, with countries all around her.
A siege is closing in on Jerusalem, and God names the city and the place He gave her. He sets one city's fall in front of the whole world, and the reason lies in where He put her.
A City Placed by God
Israel's place on the map was no accident. One writer traces it back to the scattering of the nations at Babel, long before Israel existed as a people.
W. W. FeredayGod had His eye on the land, and He shaped His purposes around it before Israel was a nation at all... At the scattering of Babel, God settled each people exactly where His ways would need them once Israel appeared. God Himself drew the first map of the world, with the land and people of Israel as His centre.
Set There for a Testimony
God gave the central place for a reason. The nations around had turned their backs on Him, and this one city held what none of them had.
Numerical Bible NotesBut for what purpose had God set them in this place of privilege? They alone in all the earth received God's revelations. Right among the nations, it should have been their work to keep up a testimony for God among people who had turned their backs on Him. That testimony could speak to every heart that sought God in the lands around... God therefore had to make their judgment as unique as their sin had been.
Because God's house stood there, the city should have drawn the nations in, or at least left them without excuse. The outcome was the reverse.
J. N. DarbyShe should have been a testimony among the nations. The house of Jehovah should have drawn them in, or at least held them answerable by a true testimony to the God who lived there. Instead her people went further in wickedness than the idol-worshipping nations. So God would carry out His judgments on her in the sight of all the nations — a just repayment for her sins.
Why the Sin Weighed So Much
The higher the place, the heavier the guilt of the sin done there.
William KellyIsrael held a high and central position among the peoples and lands around, and Jerusalem above all. That is what made their rebellion and idolatry so serious. God could no longer overlook it or spare them.
From Witness to Warning
The city did teach the nations something — but not what she was set there to teach.
W. T. P. WolstonEzekiel 4 shows the coming siege of Jerusalem and the famine there. In Ezekiel 5 Jehovah says He "had set her in the center of the nations, with countries all around her" to give a true testimony to Himself. She fell far short of that. Her "wickedness more than the nations round about her" called for His severe judgment, a just repayment for her sins. So instead of being a witness to Him she would be "a reproach and a taunt, an instruction and an astonishment to the nations round about."
The Principle Behind It
Public standing is a gift and a weight at once.
The Bible TreasuryBut responsibility, great and heavy, belongs also to the place of witness-bearing. Privilege and responsibility go together... A people's shared standing, and the liability that comes with it, never had a fuller illustration than Israel. As a people they were blessed; as a people they were responsible. They were Jehovah's chosen people. In a world where every other nation worshipped idols, they were His only witness.
The Word That Still Stands
Judgment took the city's honour, but not God's word about her place.
J T MawsonShe fell because of her sin, and just as surely she will rise in the mercy and the glory of the Lord. He will fulfil His word to her: "This is Jerusalem. I have set her in the center of the nations, with countries all around her."
Summary
- Placed — God fixed the map of the nations with this land at the centre before Israel was ever a nation.
- Purposed — God gave that central place so every seeking heart in the lands around could see a testimony to Him.
- Perverted — the city outdid the idol-worshipping nations in wickedness, betraying the trust at the very point of her advantage.
- Punished — judgment fell in the sight of the nations, and the intended witness became a warning instead.
- Preserved — the word that set her there still stands, and one writer rests her coming restoration on it.