Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible recap.

Yesterday we left off with Ezekiel in the midst of a vision of Jerusalem where he saw

all the evil done by the elders and the people.

Today that vision continues with God calling for their debts.

God summons the executioners who are almost certainly angels and has them come to the temple.

The text describes them as men, but as we've already discussed, angels always appear as men.

There are seven of these men and six of them serve the purpose of slaughter,

while the other one has a different role.

He's dressed in linen and he's got his tool belt on.

But his tools are a riding kit, which in that day would have included an ink jar, a pin,

and the case itself which served as a hard surface to ride on.

His job is to go around Jerusalem marking the people who were grieved over the evil there,

because those are the ones God says he's going to spare.

By the way, the word Mark here is the Hebrew word Tav.

It's the last letter of the Jewish alphabet, and in this time period of Hebrew writing,

it would have looked like either a cross or an X.

We'll link to a resource in the show notes in case you want to see how the letter has changed over the years.

This scene may have reminded you of the Passover,

where those whose doorways were marked with blood, which also would have been in the shape of a cross,

were saved while the rest encountered the death of the firstborn.

Or maybe it reminded you of the mark of the beast from the book of Revelation,

except the opposite, obviously.

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