Beginning in Ezekiel 6 is a phrase that will recur some fifty-six times throughout the rest of the book. Each time, God promises to act in some grand way – though not always in a pleasing way – and the result of God’s actions is that His people come to “know that I am the Lord.”
There are at least three ways you can take it, and all will be right:
First, that this God is the only God there is. It will become obvious in chapter eight that Israel does not seem to know this.
Second, that this God is supremely powerful.
Third, in comparison with all pretenders, He alone has power.
Have you noticed the enormity of God’s planned retribution against His own people? He will withdraw His favor, kill two-thirds of them, and scatter the rest. Plague and bloodshed will be their lot and they will watch their children die before their eyes. The bodies of the dead will pile up around the idols and in their centers of worship as a testament to the inability of those gods to save or bless.
And all that is just in chapters five and six.
In chapter seven, another concept occurs that appears more in Ezekiel than any other Bible book, and more in chapter seven than in any other. It is the concept of justifiable retribution. Israel deserves the punishment she receives. It’s all due to her “conduct.”
The God we worship is truly the only God there is. Denial of Him does not make Him irrelevant. And one way or another, He has determined that He will be recognized and honored, one way or another, sooner or later. For Israel, and for us, it is “do or die.” We are all in God’s hands. It is a serious place to be, and there’s no place else to go.