Ezekiel, the son of man, is being asked to sacrifice a lot to embody God's message as his wife--the delight of his eyes--is taken from him. Before you rush to accuse God of being cruel, let us not miss the parallel to God’s delight of his eye: his temple that represented his relationship with his people, his people themselves who have turned away from him, and most significantly, his only begotten Son… 

Jesus drinks from the cup of God’s wrath and judgment on the sinners’ behalf and takes away our guilt and shame. This is what God did. He didn’t just ask Ezekiel to do this and watched from the sidelines at a distance; he was going through the same pain—no a much, much greater pain—as he witnessed the delight of his eyes being nailed to the cross so that we would be forgiven of our sins; that our debt that we owed for the penalty of our sins would be paid in full.

God wasn’t bluffing about judging sin, but he was equally not bluffing about his promise to restore his people. When redemption seemed impossible, he gave us his only begotten Son, Jesus. The sign of Ezekiel points to Jesus. Ezekiel had been given the noble and honourable task of pointing billions of people throughout history to see the sacrifice of the true and better Son of Man who gave his life for our salvation.

Yes, it must have been brutal and utterly devastating to serve faithfully as God’s prophet in this moment, but he knew that God’s heart was equally broken and desirous of his people to be redeemed through his own sacrifice. Praise God. Praise him; he is worthy of all glory.