When Gold told Ezekiel he would kill his wife...

[Lamb]

When Gold told Ezekiel he would kill his wife...and then told him not to mourn her, was that just publicly? I mean, I mourn for people I've never even met, as well as those who are mere acquaintances. How could I not feel grief? Or am I reading it wrong and it's not grief, but public display of mourning that God meant?

 

[Frankj]

Eze 24:15-18 "Also the Word of Yahuah came unto me, saying son of A’dam, behold, I take away from you the desire of your eyes with a stroke: yet neither shall you mourn nor weep, neither shall your tears run down. Forbear to cry, make no mourning for the dead, bind the tire of your head upon you, and put on your shoes upon your feet, and cover not your lips, and eat not the bread of men. So I spoke unto the people in the morning: and at evening my woman died; and I did in the morning as I was commanded. "

My take is not that we should not morn the departed, but that God was telling him to skip the common mourning practices (tearing cloths, shaving head, wearing sackcloth, etc.) and keep his mourning private to himself since he had things he had to do publicly that couldn't be interfered with by openly mourning in public.

Just my take, nothing more.

 

[BruceLeiter]

The whole chapter describes the situation. The king of Babylon is besieging Jerusalem, will overcome it, and will take Judah into exile. God commands Ezekiel to avoid mourning outwardly, though he grieved inwardly over his wife's death. Mourning for Jerusalem's fall was also forbidden, because they brought it on themselves through their idolatry.