This brings us to the fourth layer of context which demands that we determine the overall focus of the book, the central message, if you will. In order to arrive at that central message, we may begin by giving attention to significant words or phrases. These may be repeated numerous times, or they may simply be used in such a way as to point clearly to important themes.
The reader is exhorted to really seek to digest the deep significance of these terms and phrases.
glory-
This English word is used eighteen times in the book in referring to the glory of God. If we fail to sustain a clear sense that the glory of God is foundational to His eternal redemptive purposes, we will become as apathetic as the Hebrew people had become. It is one thing to talk about the glory of God, and quite another thing to genuinely live for it to be fully manifested through us and our lives.
Thus saith the LORD God-
This exact phrase is used one hundred sixty-two times in the entire Old Testament. Of these, 122 are here in Ezekiel! Clearly, far more than any other OT prophet or writer, Ezekiel emphasizes that his message is the exact message the LORD God gave to him for Israel. Men that pose as messengers of God in our day would do well to give no other message than the Truth as God Himself has given it.
whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear-
This phrase is used three times in the first three chapters, during God’s commissioning of Ezekiel for his work among the Hebrew people in captivity. God was well aware of the stubborn pseudo-religious double-mindedness of His own people. Just because a person is a faithful attender of church meetings does not necessarily mean that person is not holding back his/her heart from God’s Truth as the Hebrew people did.
rebellious-
This word is used seventeen times in Ezekiel, and only nineteen times in the rest of the Old Testament. All seventeen times in Ezekiel the word is used by God to describe His own people, Israel! Ezekiel was quite outspoken about the rebelliousness of the Hebrew people. They would have done well to remember the LORD’s statement through the prophet nearly 500 years earlier: “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.”[1]
abomination(s)-
The English word “abomination” (with its derivatives in singular or plural form) occurs one hundred seventeen times in the KJV, all in the Old Testament. Of these, forty-one[2] occurrences are in the prophecy of Ezekiel. Thus, it is clear that through the ministry of Ezekiel God chose to emphatically identify the horrifying depths to which His own people had fallen through their idolatry and all of the terrible things that accompanied it.[3]
[1] 1 Samuel 15:23.
[2] More than 1/3 of the total occurrences in the Bible.
[3] Please see Appendix A for a brief further delineation of the usage of this term in Ezekiel.