Week 27 Ezekiel
Ezekiel’s been exiled to Babylon but from there he makes prophetic forecasts about Zedekiah and the soon-to-come destruction of Jerusalem. Ezekiel predicts several things…
Zedekiah will escape Jerusalem at night through a hole in the wall…
He’ll take only what he can carry…
He’ll cover his face…
The Lord will capture him…
He’ll be taken to Babylon but he won’t see Babylon…
He’ll never get home – he’ll die in Babylon.
The story of what actually happened are told back in 2 Kings. It says that once the walls were breached…
The soldiers planned a breakout for Zedekiah…
They waited for nightfall and sneaked through a gate between two walls…
They lit out for the Jordan Valley…
The Babylonians chased them…
Zedekiah was caught & captured & sentenced…
His sons were killed and he was blinded & shipped off to Babylon.
I can see that there isn’t a perfect correspondence between Ezekiel’s forecast and the story in Kings (for example did Zedekiah escape through a gate or through a hole in the wall? Did the Lord or the Babylonians capture him?) But mostly the descriptions are pretty close. Close enough that I’d say Ezekiel’s forecast was accurate.
Some readers figure that prophecies can’t happen and that the only reason Ezekiel’s prophecy was pretty accurate was because he made it after Jerusalem was captured.
So a bible-reader needs to think about that and make a decision about it.
Note: references from Ezekiel 12:12-16 & 2 Kings 25:1-7