Women In The Bible Series: Ezekiel's Wife – He's Gone Nuts!
Lesson Eight: Ezekiel's Wife – He's Gone Nuts!
Lesson Seven: Ruth: In A Strange Land | Lesson Six: Hagar: A Woman Scorned | Lesson Five: A Shulamite: The Beloved | Lesson Four: Wisdom: A Woman Called By This Name | Lesson Three: Zipporah: Married to the Ministry | Lesson Two: Tamar: Overcoming Your Past | Lesson One: Leah: The Unloved
Hello ladies, and welcome to my blog! This year I am going to write a series called Women of the Bible, where I will explore the lives of some of the Bible’s most notable female characters. I believe every woman’s story can be found in God’s Word – and those stories can bring hope and encouragement. I will touch on some serious topics such as rape, suicide and jealousy, along with some lighter ones such as love, righteousness and more. Together, we can discover what the Lord is speaking to His beautiful bride.
Before we begin, I also want to thank you for joining me throughout last year’s series on Church Decorum. If you like what you read, send me comments and let me know – it encourages me to keep writing!
Taking this journey together,
First Lady Vivian Pruitte
***
Looking out, she sees them long before they arrive at her tent. “Here they come running to get me again,” she sighs aloud.
“You’ve got to come and see what he’s doing now!” the two women from the town exclaim in unison. They pull her by the hand and lead her to the spectacle.
“Maybe it’s not as bad as before,” she thinks to herself as she runs along, trying to catch her breath. As they turn the corner, she finds her husband tied down to a cot in the middle of the square.
“This is more than I can stand!” Hot flames engulf her face as she averts her eyes from the many stares – aimed at both herself and her husband. “Dear God, I stood by and watched him play with toy soldiers, like he was in a second childhood. I’ve seen him cook food in animal feces – and actually eat it – when we had enough fuel at home.” She could hear the whispers now; the snide remarks and chuckles were almost too much for her to bear.
“What should I do?” she questioned within herself. “Is this like before, when he was in a trance and would not talk no matter how many times I questioned him? He stopped talking for days on end, as if his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth!”
Momentarily, she catches his eye and silently pleads with him to return to normal. A moment later, he shifts his gaze. With a heavy sigh, she resolutely turns back and heads for home. “He had always been a fine husband to me. I understood that he had duties as a priest when I married him, but ever since we were captured and brought to this foreign land he has been a different man.” She was tired of being fodder for gossip among the women in town because of his eccentricity. Finding him tied to this cot has now convinced her – he’s gone nuts.
***
Every woman dreams of marrying a man that is devoted, loves, and only has eyes for her. The Bible calls Ezekiel’s wife the apple of Ezekiel’s eye, indicating that he sincerely loved his wife. Before they married, she knew that his job would make some demands on his time and she probably believed she was prepared to handle those demands. But this was more than she or anyone could’ve expected.
Day in and day out, Ezekiel’s wife had to watch her husband “become another person;” different from the one she married. Never would she have thought that he would change so drastically. I would not be surprised if she cried silent tears at night because of the despair she felt over her husband. To be honest, if the Bible had not revealed what God was doing in Ezekiel’s life, today we would have labeled him with some form of mental illness. Can you imagine what Ezekiel’s wife must have been going through?
Ezekiel’s wife probably wanted to scream and say at the top of her lungs, “I know it looks like he’s nuts, but he says the Lord is asking him to do these peculiar things!” Did she believe it herself? I’ve also always wondered why God took Ezekiel’s wife. Did He do it as an object lesson to demonstrate to Israel the pain God felt in losing Israel’s affections towards Him? Or did He do it to spare her from seeing the hardships her husband had to endure?
While we know that Ezekiel was under the Lord’s control and direction at all times, it may not be as easy for us to recognize when the Lord asks our loved one to make a sacrifice which may seem crazy to others and even us. This is when we need to be prayerful and trust that the Lord is leading our loved one and not just think he is going nuts.
Thank you Mother Pruitte, yours words always seem to to lift my spirits just at the right time.