This week we are studying Ezekiel 7. On last week’s episode, our prophet-in-exile addressed the mountains of Israel from the plains of Babylon. In the two episodes before that, Ezekiel spoke to the city of Jerusalem. This week, he expands his message to all “the land of Israel” in a highly evocative sermon (7:1).

We are only seven chapters into Ezekiel, but the message is starting to feel like the reverse of the classic folktale of Chicken Little. In the folktale, after an acorn falls on Chicken Little’s head, he falsely determines that the sky must be falling. He spreads the news to all his animal friends, like Lucky Ducky and Henny Penny, and total hysteria ensues in the community.

Ezekiel had the opposite experience. He knew the proverbial sky was falling and it was not the result of naivety or a misunderstanding of gravity. As God reveals the inevitable devastation of Jerusalem, the panicked tone in Ezekiel’s prophecies ratchets up. However, unlike Chicken Little, the Israelites did not take his warnings seriously.