Contemplative Bible Reading

Ezekiel 29:17-21 (New Living Translation)

17 On April 26, the first day of the new year, during the twenty-seventh year of King Jehoiachin’s captivity, this message came to me from the Lord: 18 “Son of man, the army of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon fought so hard against Tyre that the warriors’ heads were rubbed bare and their shoulders were raw and blistered. Yet Nebuchadnezzar and his army won no plunder to compensate them for all their work. 19 Therefore, this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will give the land of Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. He will carry off its wealth, plundering everything it has so he can pay his army. 20 Yes, I have given him the land of Egypt as a reward for his work, says the Sovereign Lord, because he was working for me when he destroyed Tyre.

This is odd. The LORD tells the prophet Ezekiel that King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon was working for the LORD when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Tyre. There was no looting on that occasion. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and his troops were disappointed. Still, they had done the LORD’s work, so now, the LORD would pay them for their work. They payment was that the LORD gave Egypt to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.

I doubt that King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, his troops, and certainly not the people of Egypt understood this payment-for-services-rendered arrangement. With the hindsight of history and the prophet’s records, it sort of makes sense to me now.

Fast forward to today: who is working for the LORD in the world? What services are they rendering? How is the LORD paying them?

It is easy to write that King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, Tyre, Egypt, and all the other stuff were ancient history and that the LORD no longer works in these ways. I, however, have not found the verses in the Bible that indicate that the LORD no longer works on earth in ways we don’t understand. I do find verses that indicate the LORD’s ways are far beyond my ways.

Sometimes it seems that all this would be easier to understand if the LORD weren’t so much bigger than me.