The Lord is There

What a great name we have this week. We see Yahweh Shammah, The Lord is There, in Ezekiel.

To set the stage:

Ezekiel was taken to Babylon along with the other captives deported from Jerusalem to Babylon in 597 BC. He was 25 years old – the age when Levitical priests could begin serving in the Temple. How disappointed he must have been. He’d waited to serve in the temple his whole life only to lose the opportunity forever.

But, oh, what an adventure awaited him.

Five years later, in his thirtieth year when he would have been ordained, God called him to prophesy. Don’t you love that? It’s as if God said, “You’re not going to serve in the Temple, but you’re still my guy. I’m ordaining you for special service.”

If you’ve never studied Ezekiel, it’s an amazing book filled with adventure, intrigue, crazy visions, and prophecy.

Among other things, Ezekiel became a sort of “boots on the ground” foreign correspondent for the exiles. God gave him visions of what was happening back in Jerusalem. Awful things. Unthinkable acts. Abominations committed IN THE TEMPLE!

God had promised to dwell among his people with his Spirit hovering over the Mercy Seat in the Most Holy Place. But no more. Ezekiel saw God’s glory move to the threshold of the temple. Then follows one of the most tragic verses in the Bible.

Then the glory of the LORD departed from the threshold of the temple and stood over the cherubim.

When the cherubim departed, they lifted their wings and rose up from the ground in my sight with the wheels beside them; and they stood still at the entrance of the east gate of the LORD’S house, and the glory of the God of Israel hovered over them.

Ezekiel 10:18-19

Then the glory left. Yahweh had it up to here with Judea’s rebellion. Don’t you know the Spirit was grieved as he hovered at the entrance of the east gate of the Temple?

The stage was set for the destruction of Jerusalem.

But all was not lost. Ezekiel 11 lays out God’s plan for restoration. He would watch over his remnant where he had scattered them, and then he would restore them to their land. What a promise!

¹⁶ Therefore say, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “Though I had removed them far away among the nations and though I had scattered them among the countries, yet I was a sanctuary for them a little while in the countries where they had gone.”’ ¹⁷ Therefore say, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “I will gather you from the peoples and assemble you out of the countries among which you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.”’ ¹⁸ When they come there, they will remove all its detestable things and all its abominations from it. ¹⁹ And I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them. And I will take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, ²⁰ that they may walk in My statutes and keep My ordinances and do them. Then they will be My people, and I shall be their God. – Ezekiel 11:16-20

So when will these promises finally be fulfilled? And what do they have to do with this week’s name?

The last few chapters of Ezekiel deal with eschatology, the study of the last things: the regathering, the war with Gog of Magog, and the coming Millennial Kingdom, the literal 1,000 year reign of Jesus on earth. I won’t try to cover it in a blog post. In a nutshell, Israel gets a do-over. During the Millennium, Israel’s living in the land with David as the prince. The prince? But he’s the king, right? Wild.

But here’s the best part:

“The city shall be eighteen thousand cubits all around; and the name of the city from that day shall be, The LORD is there.’” (Yahweh Shammah) – Ezekiel 48:35

David’s the Prince because King Jesus will be on the throne. He will be there, dwelling with his people.

This blog series is inspired by Ann Spangler’s Praying the Names of God for 52 Weeks. 

-image credits:  biblepics.co All verses from the NASB