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July 18, 2024
Bible Fiber: Ezekiel 18
Welcome to Bible Fiber, where we are encountering the textures and shades of the biblical tapestry through twelve Minor Prophets, two reformers, and one exile. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel, both ancient and modern. Be sure to follow Bible Fiber wherever you listen to your podcasts (like Spotify or Apple) and subscribe to our Youtube channel!
This week we are parsing Ezekiel 18, the prophet’s extended theological sermon on individual responsibility and divine justice. We can divide Ezekiel’s message into two themes. First, individuals will not face judgment for the sins committed by their ancestors, nor will God credit them for the righteousness of their ancestors (18:1-20). Second, God judges everyone based on their current faith and obedience status, not the sins of their past (18:21-32). He is willing and ready to forgive those who sincerely repent.
Individual Responsibility
The chapter begins with the refutation of a popular expression circulating among the exiles. God asked, “What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, ‘The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge’? As I live, says the Lord God, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel” (18:1-2).
If a parent picks an unripe grape, they alone should taste the sourness. The consequences should not be unfairly imposed on the children. The expression conveyed a sense of frustration among the exiles who believed that their generation was being punished for the guilt of their ancestors. The sour grapes proverb was widespread among the exiles in Tel Abib, but Jeremiah confirmed the Jerusalemites used it as well (Jer. 31:29-30).
For the third time thus far in the book, Ezekiel dismantled a popular saying in the community that both reflected and perpetuated their mistaken mindset (12:22; 16:44). Instead of seeing their own role that led to their punishment in exile, they blamed God for his unfair administration of justice. In their minds, they were innocent, but they had to suffer the consequences for their predecessors’ misdeeds. To them, Yahweh’s indiscriminate judgement was impossible to avoid. This mistaken belief left them paralyzed with inaction.
The prophet condemned their determination that nothing they did or could do would change their fate. They absolved themselves of responsibility by claiming their parents’ failures as the cause of the exile. God countered, “Know that all lives are mine; the life of the parent as well as the life of the child is mine: it is only the person who sins who shall die” (18:4). Everyone was accountable for their own personal sin. God has universal claim on the soul of every individual. He invests in the personal faithfulness of his image bearers.
Three generations
To support his refutation of the sour grapes proverb, Ezekiel presented three hypothetical scenarios, an intergenerational tale of a father, son, and grandson. When communicating through Ezekiel, God had a certain fondness for utilizing hypotheticals as teaching tools (3:18-21; 14:12-23; 18:5-18).
The first case study is of a righteous father, wholly obedient to the laws and statutes of the covenant (18:5-9). He worships Yahweh alone, refusing to take part in the idolatrous practices on Israel’s high places. He abstains from adultery and avoids sexual prohibitions. He treats others kindly, putting his neighbors’ needs before his own. He does not oppress the poor and makes sure to restore the pledges of his debtors. In biblical times, it was customary for debtors to provide collateral, like a garment, when getting a loan. The point was to assure the lender of the debtor’s repayment. However, the righteous father compassionately returned the debtor’s pledge (Ex.22:26-27).
Ezekiel then introduced a second case study: the righteous father’s wicked son. The son’s catalog of iniquities includes violence, idolatry, and seduction. He “eats upon the mountains, defiles his neighbor’s wife, oppresses the poor and needy, commits robbery, does not restore the pledge, lifts up his eyes to the idols, commits abomination, [and] takes advance or accrued interest” (18:11-13). “Eating on the mountains” is a reference to consuming sacrificial meals at the hilltop pagan shrines. Unlike his father, the son exploits the poor and takes advantage of his neighbor. He collects interest on loans and refuses to return the pledge of his debtor, two types of extortion forbidden in the Torah (Lev. 25:36-37).
The third case study is of a righteous grandson, the antithesis of his wicked father (18:14-18). After witnessing the immorality and unfaithfulness of his father, the grandson returns to the righteous ways of his grandfather, who followed God’s laws and decrees. He avoids idolatry and adultery. He gives his garment to the poor and bread to the hungry. For Ezekiel’s audience, describing a grandson who rejected his father’s wickedness in favor sounded like King Josiah. Josiah descended from the wicked King Amon and the even more wicked grandfather King Manasseh. Rather than following the ways of his immediate predecessors, Josiah returned to the righteous manner of his great-great-grandfather, King Hezekiah.
After the presentation of each case study, Ezekiel asked rhetorically about the deserved fate of the righteous versus the wicked (18:9, 13). Should the wicked son live on the merit of his righteous father? Should the grandson die as a punishment for his father’s sins?
The point of the hypothetical scenarios was to reject any claim that one generation was accountable for the sins of the previous generation. According to Yahweh’s system of justice, parents do not bestow their guilt on to their children, nor can children inherit the righteousness of their parents. Ezekiel succinctly declared, “the righteousness of the righteous shall be their own, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be their own” (18:20). The exiles did not need to despair of Yahweh’s justice, but he awaited their repentance and return.
The hypothetical scenarios offer insight into Ezekiel’s parameters for defining a righteous life. Although the selection of deeds is not at all comprehensive, they can fit into four broad categories: piety, purity, morality, and charity. The pious avoided idolatry. The pure were not adulterers. The moral did not oppress their neighbors. The charitable did not rob the poor. Christians measure a person’s righteousness through the lens of faith, but Judaism’s focus is on action. Of course, neither religion promotes one to the exclusion of the other.
In the New Testament, John the Baptist prepared the way for Jesus by preaching repentance. When the people asked John what else they should do after repenting and being baptized, he instructed them to “bear fruits worthy of repentance” (Luke 3:8). When they asked for specific deeds, he named many of the same terms of righteousness that Ezekiel used in his hypothetical scenarios (Luke 3:10-14). John told the tax collectors not to overcharge. He told the soldiers not to extort the commoners or practice injustice. To the masses, he instructed them to share their garments with the poor and their food with the hungry. God’s standards for virtue, charity, and morality have remained consistent throughout the centuries.
Righteous and wicked individuals
Establishing that sin is neither inherited nor imparted through kinship, Ezekiel shifts his thesis to the importance of repentance. To drive home his point, the prophet gave two more examples of God’s system of justice. If a wicked person persists in their rebellion, God will punish them. However, if they turn from their sin, repent, and reconcile with God, they will live (18:21). Returning to God cleans their slate, cancels their debt, and pays their ransom. Ezekiel said, “None of the transgressions that they have committed shall be remembered against them, for the righteousness that they have done they shall live” (18:22). God casts aside their sin and makes all things new.
The opposite is true as well, of course. If a righteous person turns from God and commits the same offenses as the wicked, they will die. Ezekiel said, “None of the righteous things that person has done will be remembered” (18:24). No one can bank merit at one point in their life and expect to be credited as righteous later. God entrusted us with free will. Throughout the passage, Ezekiel emphasized the importance of choice in turning toward God’s will or away.
Repentance
God does not deny that the exiles are in a difficult situation. However, he disputes the logic of their blame game. They have no right to shift responsibility from themselves to God. When Ezekiel toured Jerusalem in a vision, God clarified that the current generation of Jerusalemites were as guilty as any previous of violence, idolatry, and abominations (8:17). The first step toward restoration was for them to acknowledge their guilt and accept God’s punishment for their own sins. The second step was repentance, the gateway to forgiveness, the guarantor of God’s mercy. Genuine repentance inspires obedience and reconciliation with God.
Yahweh takes great joy in repentance, desiring that all his people turn back to him. The prophet Micah described God’s forgiveness as casting all their sin into the depths of the sea (Mic. 7:19). Ezekiel instructed his listeners that God does not delight in punishing the wicked. God stated, “Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, says the Lord God, and not rather that they should turn from their ways and live?” (18:23). His ultimate desire was for the restoration and flourishing of his people, not their punishment.
Three times in the chapter, Ezekiel breaks from his monologue and provides the reaction of his audience (18:19, 25, 29). Despite his strong rhetoric, they continually accused God of being unfair and denied his mercy. Ezekiel wrote, “Yet the house of Israel says, ‘The way of the Lord is unfair.’ O house of Israel, are my ways unfair? Is it not your ways that are unfair?” (18:29). Ezekiel took umbrage at the exiles’ accusations and challenged their distorted view of God’s constancy. It was not Yahweh’s actions that were arbitrary; he was consistent with his word since the time of Moses. The real issue was the people’s unwillingness to recognize their own sin.
Corporate Responsibility from the Old to the New Covenant
For Christians reading Ezekiel 18, we see the beginnings of a faith system that looks very close to the individual salvation plan offered by Jesus: faith paired with repentance and reform. Ezekiel’s hypothetical scenarios in both Chapters 14 and 18 reinforce the idea that each person is individually accountable for their actions before God. In Chapter 14, the righteous trio (Joel, Noah, and Daniel) could not impute their innocence to the entire community. In Chapter 18, relatives could not impart their righteousness or guilt to family members. Everyone survived or perished on their own account. That line of thinking adheres to the way we, as Christians or even modern individuals, perceive justice. Individual responsibility is our only mode of judgment.
However, it is important not to overstate Ezekiel’s stance on personal accountability. God had originally established his covenant with the entire nation of Israel. The Hebrew scriptures are replete with language about Israel’s corporate reward and punishment.
Ezekiel 18 may seem like a watershed chapter in the Old Testament, marking the instance that Israelite theology moved away from corporate solidarity and toward individual accountability. Seminary students often present Ezekiel 18 as the Old Testament hook that New Testament individualism hangs. In studying the prophets, we as Christians often encounter a progressive revelation that starts with the law and moves through the prophets, culminating in the gospel.
However, one should also hesitate in rubberstamping any exegesis that has Ezekiel contradicting himself or other parts of the Hebrew scriptures. Indeed, the proverb about sour grapes did not materialize out of thin air. The Bible often speaks in the language of generational sin and corporate guilt. When God made the covenant with Israel at Mount Sinai, he described the blessings and curses as divine consequences assigned to the nation, depending on their faithfulness. Even Ezekiel sometimes describes the exile as punishment for their accumulated sin and idolatry over the generations. Although he highlighted the role of the individual’s standing before God in Chapter 18, at several points in the text he also still referred to the “house of Israel,” a corporate term for the entire nation (18:25, 29-30). Israel’s religious ethos has and will always include ideas of corporate solidarity.
The Torah’s most well-known pronouncement on corporate solidarity occurred when God provided Israel with the Ten Commandments. God said, “I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments” (Ex. 20:5-6). On the surface, Ezekiel 18’s teaching appears to contradict Exodus. However, the Ten Commandments’ warning was to those children who continued to castoff God, like their parents. The NIV and NKJV translations describe the children as hating God. Of course, anyone knows from lived experience that if a parent abandons God and sets on a path of wickedness, the children are affected negatively. Like dropping a pebble in a pond, sin has inevitable ripple effects. Ezekiel’s case studies demonstrate every individual can choose to sustain the problem or alter their path.
In one of Moses’s speeches before the Israelites entered the promised land, he said, “Parents shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall children be put to death for their parents; only for their own crimes may persons be put to death” (Deut. 24:16). Considering those two Torah passages, Ezekiel 18’s teaching does not radically depart from the traditional view of the covenant relationship between God and the nation of Israel. What Ezekiel advanced was the already existent teachings on individual responsibility, as presented in Deuteronomy. As a prophet, he certainly developed that idea further and adamantly dispelled the notion that God punished children for the sins of their parents.
Stirring call to action
Ezekiel 18 ends with a stirring call to action. This could have been his altar call, the moment when the pianist appears on stage as heads bow. Echoing the call of Moses, Ezekiel asks his hearers to choose life over death. He preached:
O house of Israel, all of you according to your ways, says the Lord God. Repent and turn from all your transgressions; otherwise iniquity will be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord God. Turn, then, and live. (18:30-32)
The exiles do not have access to the Jerusalem temple or the sacrificial system. The traditional means for atoning sins and reconciling with God are unavailable to them. Considering the circumstances, Ezekiel’s message is even more powerful. All they must do is repent, and reform, and God will forgive them. God is not asking for any other sacrifice or payment for sin. In his message, Ezekiel urges them to obtain a new heart and spirit, knowing that God will provide it for them, as mentioned in Jeremiah and earlier in Ezekiel.
Conclusion
Ezekiel 18 weighs in on many profound questions: free will, generational sin, individual versus corporate responsibility, and divine justice. His monologue touched on all these points by simply refuting a common saying that revealed a flawed and fatalistic worldview.
Ultimately, Jesus had the last word on the misconception of generational sin. In the Gospel of John, Jesus and his disciples encountered a man who had been blind from birth (John 9:1-3). The disciples inquired about the cause of the man’s blindness, asking whether it was because of his sins or those of his parents. Jesus responded that the man’s blindness was not caused by his sins or his parents’, but it happened so that God’s works could be displayed through him.
Thank you for listening and please continue to take part in this Bible Reading Challenge. Next week, we are reading Ezekiel 19. If you like Bible Fiber and it has been helpful to you in your own journey of biblical literacy, please consider leaving a review for the podcast. It helps others find the show who are looking for extra conversations around their own devotional life.
And as always, please keep the nation of Israel in your prayers. War with Hezbollah in the North seems more inevitable each day.
For all the Biblical references each week, please see the show transcript on our blog or by signing up for our emails at www.thejerusalemconnection.us/ I do not say all the references in the podcast but they are all in the transcript.
Send me a message. I will respond. Bible Fiber is available on YouTube or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Am Israel Chai
The post Bible Fiber: Ezekiel 18 appeared first on Shelley Neese.
July 1, 2024
Bible Fiber: Ezekiel 17
Welcome to Bible Fiber, where we are encountering the textures and shades of the biblical tapestry through twelve Minor Prophets, two reformers, and one exile. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel, both ancient and modern. This week we are studying Ezekiel 17.
As an innovative prophet, Ezekiel never ran out of teaching methods, whether it was a mime, public shaving, small scale enactment of a siege, judgement speech, or a twisted fairytale. In Chapter 17, God commanded Ezekiel to compose a riddle (17:1). The riddle was supposed to expose the treachery of King Zedekiah, a favorite subject of his condemnations. He had already performed an elaborate charade portraying King Zedekiah’s botched escape from Jerusalem (12:7-14). His ever-changing communication styles hammered home similar messages. Riddles were a popular party trick in ancient times. Perhaps when he first presented the riddle, bored exiles gathered who were looking to be entertained. However, if his listeners expected amusement rather than condemnation, they had to be disappointed.
Ezekiel composed an enigmatic riddle that the exiles could not solve on their own accord. In fact, his teaching is better classified as a complex fable because the featured characters are all related to nature: two eagles, a cedar shoot, a vine, and a strong wind. Like Aesop’s fables, the two eagles exhibit human-like characteristics. The meaning was not at first clear, but Ezekiel clarified that the consequences of the eagles’ actions were a predictive prophecy.
The tale of two eagles
The chapter divides into two sections: the fable (17:3-10) and its divine interpretation (17:11-21). Ezekiel unfolded the complete fable before identifying the historical figures that the eagles, seed, and vine symbolized. A good riddler makes his listeners engage with the imaginative exercise of the story and delays the gratification of an answer. However, for our purpose in seeking understanding, I will correlate the symbols with their historical counterparts as we progress through the tale.
The riddle begins, “A great eagle with great wings and long pinions, rich in plumage of many colors, came to the Lebanon. He took the top of the cedar, broke off its topmost shoot; he carried it to a land of trade, set it in a city of merchants” (17:3-4). As explained by Ezekiel, the first eagle represented King Nebuchadnezzar. Ezekiel’s description of the bird’s beauty and multicolored feathers reflected the wealth and power of the Babylonian empire. The crown of the cedar tree symbolized Jehoiachin, the Davidic king transplanted from Jerusalem to Babylon in 597 BCE, alongside Ezekiel and other Jerusalem elite (17:12). The riddle wrapped the place names in mystery. Lebanon was code for Jerusalem and Babylon was the “city of merchants.”
At 18-years-old, after reigning only three months, the Babylonian army stripped King Jehoiachin of his throne and took him captive. He survived the deportation and exile, just as the cedar shoot survived being plucked out of Lebanon. According to the biblical record, Babylon treated Jehoiachin well enough (2 Kings 25:27-30). He received an allowance and could eat at the royal table. In fact, when archaeologists excavated a trove of sixth-century clay tablets at a site near Nebuchadnezzar’s place, they found four receipts that named Jehoiachin as a recipient of generous food and oil rations. The inscriptions even gave Jehoiachin the title “king of the land of Judah,” leaving no doubt as to the correct identification.
The fable continued, “Then he took a seedling from the land, placed it in fertile soil; a plant by abundant waters, he set it like a willow twig. It sprouted and became a vine spreading out but low; its branches turned toward him; its roots remained where it stood. So, it became a vine; it brought forth branches, put forth foliage” (17:5-6). King Zedekiah, Jehoiachin’s uncle, was the “seedling from the land.” He was part of the royal line of David, but unlike Jehoiachin, the empire permitted him to stay in the “fertile soil” of Jerusalem (17:13). The gardener eagle made certain the seed had soil and water so that it sprouted and became a vine with foliage. Still, the vine never grew tall; it stayed low to the ground with a shallow root system. Indeed, Zedekiah was completely subservient to Babylon with no actual power.
If Ezekiel’s audience had paid close attention to the details of the first eagle and cedar shoot, they may have guessed the first eagle was Nebuchadnezzar. In the ancient Near East, the eagle was often a royal symbol. Because the memory of Jehoiachin’s capture was fresh, they may have easily identified Jehoiachin with the cedar branch. However, they certainly would have puzzled over the identity of the second eagle. The second eagle’s action was a prophecy of what would come.
Ezekiel explained, “There was another great eagle with great wings and much plumage. And see! This vine stretched out its roots toward him; it shot out its branches toward him from the bed where it was planted so that he might water it” (17:7). The second eagle was powerful, but to a lesser degree than the first eagle. His wings were impressive, but not the greatest; his plumage was colorful but not richly colorful. The plumage likely symbolized the empires’ military might. Whereas the first eagle was busy snatching and planting, the second eagle did not perform any actions. He was a passive bystander. The second eagle represented the Egyptian pharaoh (17:15). During Ezekiel’s day, Egypt was still a superpower, but its influence on the region waned as Babylon extended its reach.
Although the vine was secure under the patronage of the first eagle, Babylon, it stretched out its branches toward the second eagle, Egypt. The vine showed ingratitude toward the first eagle’s care by seeking the protection of the lesser eagle instead. Zedekiah was the vine and indeed, when he grew weary of the Babylonian yoke, he secretly reached out to Egypt to form an anti-Babylonian alliance.
The vine’s poor choice to abandon the gardener eagle in favor of the passive eagle led to its destruction. Perhaps at first the active eagle did not notice the vine’s re-rooting since it took place under the surface. Upon discovering the plot, the irritated grand eagle forcefully uprooted the vine, resulting in the rotting of its fruit and the withering of its leaves (17:9). When the “east wind” blew, there was nothing left to protect the vulnerable vine (17:10). Ezekiel’s “east wind” referred to a weather event in the Middle Eastern desert that kicks up so much dust that the sky can look like thick orange fog. When I lived in Beer Sheva, I once left my windows open all day and an “east wind” deposited an inch of dust all over my living room.
Historians theorize Ezekiel composed the riddle around 591 BCE, based on its placement in the book. If correct, the tale of the treacherous vine illustrated Zedekiah’s betrayal and Nebuchadnezzar’s attack on Jerusalem two years before the events occurred. Although the prophets did less future-telling than often assumed, the eagle fable was one of the predictive prophecies that built Ezekiel’s credentials as a prophet.
Divine interpretation
Ezekiel asked his audience, “do you not know what these things mean?” (17:12). He then broke down their recent history and the imminent consequences of Zedekiah’s failed leadership. God spoke through the prophet to reveal the fable’s divine interpretation without leaving it to the audience’s best guess.
Compared to Babylon and Egypt, Israel was a mere seed in the eagle’s beak. Still, Ezekiel refused to portray Zedekiah as a powerless victim caught between two superpowers. Jeremiah advised Zedekiah to submit to Babylon’s authority, and he stubbornly ignored the prophet’s counsel (Jer. 38:17-23). Instead, he played the game of realpolitik, betting on the wrong superpower, and lost. True, pharaoh and his army did not possess the same power as Babylon. The real problem, however, was Zedekiah’s lack of faith in Yahweh, the protector of Israel.
Jeremiah and Ezekiel didn’t object to the Egyptian alliance because they preferred one pagan empire over another. The Bible most often depicts Babylon as the epitome of evil, arrogance, idolatry, and cruelty. Even though Jeremiah discouraged Zedekiah’s rebellion against Babylon, Jeremiah also predicted that one day God would vindicate Jerusalem and punish Babylon for its wicked deeds (Jer. 50-51). What most irritated the prophets was that Zedekiah hardened his heart and refused to seek Yahweh in his foreign policy moves (2 Chron. 36:11-13). In the king’s panic, he put his attention on building a new political alliance when he should have been routing out Judah’s apostasy and encouraging spiritual reforms. Vacillating, he looked for rescue anywhere other than Yahweh.
Ezekiel alluded to Zedekiah’s appeal to Egypt when he said, “Pharaoh with his mighty army and great company will not help him in war” (17:15). According to 2 Kings, Zedekiah’s appeal to Egypt for horses and troops gained him nothing other than triggering Babylon’s wrath (2 Kings 25:1-7). Zedekiah had taken an oath of loyalty to Babylon in Yahweh’s name (2 Chron. 36:13). The author of 2 Kings described both Jehoiachin and Zedekiah as evil but did not offer an explanation (2 Kings 24:19). Ezekiel illuminates the historical narrative. Zedekiah’s treasonous act against Babylon mirrored his treason against Yahweh.
Zedekiah’s breach of his treaty with Babylon was foolish, but it is startling that God equated the treachery against Babylon with treachery against himself. Zedekiah’s refusal to submit to Babylon’s authority mirrored his stubborn dismissal of Yahweh’s authority. In God’s eyes, before he had ever broken his political oath, he first broke his spiritual oath. Sin stacked upon sin. Likewise, the fury that Nebuchadnezzar felt over Zedekiah’s betrayal was nothing compared to Yahweh’s wrath.
Indeed, Zedekiah’s duplicity hastened Babylon’s swift attack. When Nebuchadnezzar’s army first laid siege to Jerusalem, the Egyptian army briefly mobilized (Jer. 37:5-7). However, their intervention only made a small impact and then they retreated. While the Babylonian army built siege ramps around the city, Egypt did not lift a finger. Zedekiah had paid a heavy price for appealing to Egypt, and he gained nothing in return.
After offering the fable’s interpretation, Ezekiel asked a series of rhetorical questions about Zedekiah’s reign. The prophet asked, “can he break the covenant and yet escape?” (17:5). The answer was no. Ezekiel prophesied Zedekiah’s death in Babylon two years before the actual cascade of events occurred that lead to Zedekiah’s capture. Ezekiel wanted the people to understand beforehand that Zedekiah’s brutal death was the consequence of his own wrongheaded foreign policy, and not the fault of God.
The question arises, why did God ask Ezekiel to criticize Zedekiah’s action through a riddle rather than a traditional oracle? Riddles, like parables and allegories, disarm the audience’s bias and offer fresh perspectives. Perhaps his listeners upheld Zedekiah as their last hope to preserve the royal line of David and restore their independence. If Zedekiah was popular among the exiles, they probably saw his rebellion against Babylon as heroic rather than suicidal (2 Kings 24:20). They may have eagerly awaited the mobilization of the Egyptian army to come to Jerusalem’s rescue. If Ezekiel directly accused Zedekiah, they may have put up their guard and been too offended to listen. The coded teaching allowed them to first condemn the vine’s odd behavior before they understood the deeper meaning.
Tree of life
After Ezekiel’s fable foretold the fates of two Judean kings, he returned to the symbol of the cedar shoot. Reworking the allegory once more, he attached a promise of divine intervention for the house of David. God assured, “I myself will take a sprig from the lofty top of the cedar; I will set it out. I will break off a tender shoot from the topmost of its young twigs; I myself will transplant it on a high and lofty mountain” (17:22). Yahweh’s greatness surpasses that of any aggressive eagle, and the tender shoot would be far superior to any earthly king. When the first eagle, Babylon, had transplanted the cedar shoot, it spread its roots and survived, but the vine never grew tall or thrived. Once the shoot is planted on Mount Zion, Israel will prosper once more.
On the surface, God promised he would preserve the royal line of David. Jehoiachin was the low tree that he would make high (17:24). In Ezra and Nehemiah, we learn that Jehoiachin’s grandson, Zerubbabel, returned to Israel with the restored remnant. Ezekiel’s prophecy was fulfilled in the short-term by the edict of Cyrus, the restoration of Jerusalem, and the return of Zerubbabel from the house of David. However, Zerubbabel quickly disappeared from Israel’s story and no Davidic king ever took the throne in the Second Temple period. Jehoiachin, or his descendants, did not fulfill the lofty promise of becoming a mighty cedar tree in Zion. Ezekiel’s prophecy must have pointed to something bigger, beyond their release from captivity and return to the land.
Messianic branch language is all over the Old Testament, whether it is a vine, shoot, or branch. Isaiah spoke of the beautiful “branch of the Lord” (Isa. 4:2) and a “shoot from the stump of Jesse” (Isa. 11:1). Jeremiah prophesied, “the days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land” (Jer. 23:5). Zechariah promised the arrival of “God’s servant, the Branch” (Zech. 3:8) and named the Branch as the one appointed to rebuild the future temple (Zech. 6:12).
For Christians, we recognize Jesus as the branch. His saving work fulfilled all that was predicted about the branch. Born in the line of David, he came from the same cedar tree as Jehoiachin, and he held the promise of David’s eternal throne (2 Sam. 2:16). Jesus, the Messiah king, launched an eternal kingdom on both heaven and earth. Under his rule, Yahweh will be recognized as sovereign over all nations.
With the tall tree thriving on the highest mountain, Ezekiel described Israel as flourishing under its care and protection. He pronounced, “Under it every kind of bird will live; in the shade of its branches will nest winged creatures of every kind” (17:23). The branch, once plucked and transplanted by a bird, now shelters birds of all kinds. The Messiah king would save Israel, and thereby save the whole world through an extension of the covenant. All nations would find security in the tree’s shade.
Thank you for listening and please continue to take part in this Bible Reading Challenge. Next week, we are reading Ezekiel 18. Also, please visit our website at www.thejerusalemconnection.us and sign up for our weekly news letters with Amy’s Red Alert on Wednesdays about the modern situation in Israel and my Bible Fiber every Friday that tells Israel’s spiritual story.
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Shabbat Shalom and Am Israel Chai
The post Bible Fiber: Ezekiel 17 appeared first on Shelley Neese.
June 26, 2024
Bible Fiber: Ezekiel 17
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Welcome to Bible Fiber, where we are encountering the textures and shades of the biblical tapestry through twelve Minor Prophets, two reformers, and one exile. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel, both ancient and modern. This week we are studying Ezekiel 17.
As an innovative prophet, Ezekiel never ran out of teaching methods, whether it was a mime, public shaving, small scale enactment of a siege, judgement speech, or a twisted fairytale. In Chapter 17, God commanded Ezekiel to compose a riddle (17:1). The riddle was supposed to expose the treachery of King Zedekiah, a favorite subject of his condemnations. He had already performed an elaborate charade portraying King Zedekiah’s botched escape from Jerusalem (12:7-14). His ever-changing communication styles hammered home similar messages. Riddles were a popular party trick in ancient times. Perhaps when he first presented the riddle, bored exiles gathered who were looking to be entertained. However, if his listeners expected amusement rather than condemnation, they had to be disappointed.
Ezekiel composed an enigmatic riddle that the exiles could not solve on their own accord. In fact, his teaching is better classified as a complex fable because the featured characters are all related to nature: two eagles, a cedar shoot, a vine, and a strong wind. Like Aesop’s fables, the two eagles exhibit human-like characteristics. The meaning was not at first clear, but Ezekiel clarified that the consequences of the eagles’ actions were a predictive prophecy.
The tale of two eagles
The chapter divides into two sections: the fable (17:3-10) and its divine interpretation (17:11-21). Ezekiel unfolded the complete fable before identifying the historical figures that the eagles, seed, and vine symbolized. A good riddler makes his listeners engage with the imaginative exercise of the story and delays the gratification of an answer. However, for our purpose in seeking understanding, I will correlate the symbols with their historical counterparts as we progress through the tale.
The riddle begins, “A great eagle with great wings and long pinions, rich in plumage of many colors, came to the Lebanon. He took the top of the cedar, broke off its topmost shoot; he carried it to a land of trade, set it in a city of merchants” (17:3-4). As explained by Ezekiel, the first eagle represented King Nebuchadnezzar. Ezekiel’s description of the bird’s beauty and multicolored feathers reflected the wealth and power of the Babylonian empire. The crown of the cedar tree symbolized Jehoiachin, the Davidic king transplanted from Jerusalem to Babylon in 597 BCE, alongside Ezekiel and other Jerusalem elite (17:12). The riddle wrapped the place names in mystery. Lebanon was code for Jerusalem and Babylon was the “city of merchants.”
At 18-years-old, after reigning only three months, the Babylonian army stripped King Jehoiachin of his throne and took him captive. He survived the deportation and exile, just as the cedar shoot survived being plucked out of Lebanon. According to the biblical record, Babylon treated Jehoiachin well enough (2 Kings 25:27-30). He received an allowance and could eat at the royal table. In fact, when archaeologists excavated a trove of sixth-century clay tablets at a site near Nebuchadnezzar’s place, they found four receipts that named Jehoiachin as a recipient of generous food and oil rations. The inscriptions even gave Jehoiachin the title “king of the land of Judah,” leaving no doubt as to the correct identification.
The fable continued, “Then he took a seedling from the land, placed it in fertile soil; a plant by abundant waters, he set it like a willow twig. It sprouted and became a vine spreading out but low; its branches turned toward him; its roots remained where it stood. So, it became a vine; it brought forth branches, put forth foliage” (17:5-6). King Zedekiah, Jehoiachin’s uncle, was the “seedling from the land.” He was part of the royal line of David, but unlike Jehoiachin, the empire permitted him to stay in the “fertile soil” of Jerusalem (17:13). The gardener eagle made certain the seed had soil and water so that it sprouted and became a vine with foliage. Still, the vine never grew tall; it stayed low to the ground with a shallow root system. Indeed, Zedekiah was completely subservient to Babylon with no actual power.
If Ezekiel’s audience had paid close attention to the details of the first eagle and cedar shoot, they may have guessed the first eagle was Nebuchadnezzar. In the ancient Near East, the eagle was often a royal symbol. Because the memory of Jehoiachin’s capture was fresh, they may have easily identified Jehoiachin with the cedar branch. However, they certainly would have puzzled over the identity of the second eagle. The second eagle’s action was a prophecy of what would come.
Ezekiel explained, “There was another great eagle with great wings and much plumage. And see! This vine stretched out its roots toward him; it shot out its branches toward him from the bed where it was planted so that he might water it” (17:7). The second eagle was powerful, but to a lesser degree than the first eagle. His wings were impressive, but not the greatest; his plumage was colorful but not richly colorful. The plumage likely symbolized the empires’ military might. Whereas the first eagle was busy snatching and planting, the second eagle did not perform any actions. He was a passive bystander. The second eagle represented the Egyptian pharaoh (17:15). During Ezekiel’s day, Egypt was still a superpower, but its influence on the region waned as Babylon extended its reach.
Although the vine was secure under the patronage of the first eagle, Babylon, it stretched out its branches toward the second eagle, Egypt. The vine showed ingratitude toward the first eagle’s care by seeking the protection of the lesser eagle instead. Zedekiah was the vine and indeed, when he grew weary of the Babylonian yoke, he secretly reached out to Egypt to form an anti-Babylonian alliance.
The vine’s poor choice to abandon the gardener eagle in favor of the passive eagle led to its destruction. Perhaps at first the active eagle did not notice the vine’s re-rooting since it took place under the surface. Upon discovering the plot, the irritated grand eagle forcefully uprooted the vine, resulting in the rotting of its fruit and the withering of its leaves (17:9). When the “east wind” blew, there was nothing left to protect the vulnerable vine (17:10). Ezekiel’s “east wind” referred to a weather event in the Middle Eastern desert that kicks up so much dust that the sky can look like thick orange fog. When I lived in Beer Sheva, I once left my windows open all day and an “east wind” deposited an inch of dust all over my living room.
Historians theorize Ezekiel composed the riddle around 591 BCE, based on its placement in the book. If correct, the tale of the treacherous vine illustrated Zedekiah’s betrayal and Nebuchadnezzar’s attack on Jerusalem two years before the events occurred. Although the prophets did less future-telling than often assumed, the eagle fable was one of the predictive prophecies that built Ezekiel’s credentials as a prophet.
Divine interpretation
Ezekiel asked his audience, “do you not know what these things mean?” (17:12). He then broke down their recent history and the imminent consequences of Zedekiah’s failed leadership. God spoke through the prophet to reveal the fable’s divine interpretation without leaving it to the audience’s best guess.
Compared to Babylon and Egypt, Israel was a mere seed in the eagle’s beak. Still, Ezekiel refused to portray Zedekiah as a powerless victim caught between two superpowers. Jeremiah advised Zedekiah to submit to Babylon’s authority, and he stubbornly ignored the prophet’s counsel (Jer. 38:17-23). Instead, he played the game of realpolitik, betting on the wrong superpower, and lost. True, pharaoh and his army did not possess the same power as Babylon. The real problem, however, was Zedekiah’s lack of faith in Yahweh, the protector of Israel.
Jeremiah and Ezekiel didn’t object to the Egyptian alliance because they preferred one pagan empire over another. The Bible most often depicts Babylon as the epitome of evil, arrogance, idolatry, and cruelty. Even though Jeremiah discouraged Zedekiah’s rebellion against Babylon, Jeremiah also predicted that one day God would vindicate Jerusalem and punish Babylon for its wicked deeds (Jer. 50-51). What most irritated the prophets was that Zedekiah hardened his heart and refused to seek Yahweh in his foreign policy moves (2 Chron. 36:11-13). In the king’s panic, he put his attention on building a new political alliance when he should have been routing out Judah’s apostasy and encouraging spiritual reforms. Vacillating, he looked for rescue anywhere other than Yahweh.
Ezekiel alluded to Zedekiah’s appeal to Egypt when he said, “Pharaoh with his mighty army and great company will not help him in war” (17:15). According to 2 Kings, Zedekiah’s appeal to Egypt for horses and troops gained him nothing other than triggering Babylon’s wrath (2 Kings 25:1-7). Zedekiah had taken an oath of loyalty to Babylon in Yahweh’s name (2 Chron. 36:13). The author of 2 Kings described both Jehoiachin and Zedekiah as evil but did not offer an explanation (2 Kings 24:19). Ezekiel illuminates the historical narrative. Zedekiah’s treasonous act against Babylon mirrored his treason against Yahweh.
Zedekiah’s breach of his treaty with Babylon was foolish, but it is startling that God equated the treachery against Babylon with treachery against himself. Zedekiah’s refusal to submit to Babylon’s authority mirrored his stubborn dismissal of Yahweh’s authority. In God’s eyes, before he had ever broken his political oath, he first broke his spiritual oath. Sin stacked upon sin. Likewise, the fury that Nebuchadnezzar felt over Zedekiah’s betrayal was nothing compared to Yahweh’s wrath.
Indeed, Zedekiah’s duplicity hastened Babylon’s swift attack. When Nebuchadnezzar’s army first laid siege to Jerusalem, the Egyptian army briefly mobilized (Jer. 37:5-7). However, their intervention only made a small impact and then they retreated. While the Babylonian army built siege ramps around the city, Egypt did not lift a finger. Zedekiah had paid a heavy price for appealing to Egypt, and he gained nothing in return.
After offering the fable’s interpretation, Ezekiel asked a series of rhetorical questions about Zedekiah’s reign. The prophet asked, “can he break the covenant and yet escape?” (17:5). The answer was no. Ezekiel prophesied Zedekiah’s death in Babylon two years before the actual cascade of events occurred that lead to Zedekiah’s capture. Ezekiel wanted the people to understand beforehand that Zedekiah’s brutal death was the consequence of his own wrongheaded foreign policy, and not the fault of God.
The question arises, why did God ask Ezekiel to criticize Zedekiah’s action through a riddle rather than a traditional oracle? Riddles, like parables and allegories, disarm the audience’s bias and offer fresh perspectives. Perhaps his listeners upheld Zedekiah as their last hope to preserve the royal line of David and restore their independence. If Zedekiah was popular among the exiles, they probably saw his rebellion against Babylon as heroic rather than suicidal (2 Kings 24:20). They may have eagerly awaited the mobilization of the Egyptian army to come to Jerusalem’s rescue. If Ezekiel directly accused Zedekiah, they may have put up their guard and been too offended to listen. The coded teaching allowed them to first condemn the vine’s odd behavior before they understood the deeper meaning.
Tree of life
After Ezekiel’s fable foretold the fates of two Judean kings, he returned to the symbol of the cedar shoot. Reworking the allegory once more, he attached a promise of divine intervention for the house of David. God assured, “I myself will take a sprig from the lofty top of the cedar; I will set it out. I will break off a tender shoot from the topmost of its young twigs; I myself will transplant it on a high and lofty mountain” (17:22). Yahweh’s greatness surpasses that of any aggressive eagle, and the tender shoot would be far superior to any earthly king. When the first eagle, Babylon, had transplanted the cedar shoot, it spread its roots and survived, but the vine never grew tall or thrived. Once the shoot is planted on Mount Zion, Israel will prosper once more.
On the surface, God promised he would preserve the royal line of David. Jehoiachin was the low tree that he would make high (17:24). In Ezra and Nehemiah, we learn that Jehoiachin’s grandson, Zerubbabel, returned to Israel with the restored remnant. Ezekiel’s prophecy was fulfilled in the short-term by the edict of Cyrus, the restoration of Jerusalem, and the return of Zerubbabel from the house of David. However, Zerubbabel quickly disappeared from Israel’s story and no Davidic king ever took the throne in the Second Temple period. Jehoiachin, or his descendants, did not fulfill the lofty promise of becoming a mighty cedar tree in Zion. Ezekiel’s prophecy must have pointed to something bigger, beyond their release from captivity and return to the land.
Messianic branch language is all over the Old Testament, whether it is a vine, shoot, or branch. Isaiah spoke of the beautiful “branch of the Lord” (Isa. 4:2) and a “shoot from the stump of Jesse” (Isa. 11:1). Jeremiah prophesied, “the days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land” (Jer. 23:5). Zechariah promised the arrival of “God’s servant, the Branch” (Zech. 3:8) and named the Branch as the one appointed to rebuild the future temple (Zech. 6:12).
For Christians, we recognize Jesus as the branch. His saving work fulfilled all that was predicted about the branch. Born in the line of David, he came from the same cedar tree as Jehoiachin, and he held the promise of David’s eternal throne (2 Sam. 2:16). Jesus, the Messiah king, launched an eternal kingdom on both heaven and earth. Under his rule, Yahweh will be recognized as sovereign over all nations.
With the tall tree thriving on the highest mountain, Ezekiel described Israel as flourishing under its care and protection. He pronounced, “Under it every kind of bird will live; in the shade of its branches will nest winged creatures of every kind” (17:23). The branch, once plucked and transplanted by a bird, now shelters birds of all kinds. The Messiah king would save Israel, and thereby save the whole world through an extension of the covenant. All nations would find security in the tree’s shade.
Thank you for listening and please continue to take part in this Bible Reading Challenge. Next week, we are reading Ezekiel 18. Also, please visit our website at www.thejerusalemconnection.us and sign up for our weekly news letters with Amy’s Red Alert on Wednesdays about the modern situation in Israel and my Bible Fiber every Friday that tells Israel’s spiritual story.
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Shabbat Shalom and Am Israel Chai
The post Bible Fiber: Ezekiel 17 appeared first on Shelley Neese.
June 13, 2024
Bible Fiber: Ezekiel 16:44-63
By Shelley Neese–
Welcome to Bible Fiber, where we are encountering the textures and shades of the biblical tapestry through twelve Minor Prophets, two reformers, and one exile. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel, both ancient and modern.
This week we are studying Ezekiel 16:44-63, the last third of the longest oracle in the book. Ezekiel replaced the story of the generous king and his adulterous queen with new characters and a different plotline. In the marriage metaphor, Yahweh adopted Jerusalem as an infant and betrothed her when she matured. Ezekiel’s follow-on allegory inspected other branches of Jerusalem’s family tree. Ezekiel conducted his own version of a sibling study: three sisters separated at birth all make the same mistakes and pay a similar price.
The allegory starts with Ezekiel implying that Jerusalem was the butt of a popular joke. Ezekiel wrote, “See, everyone who uses proverbs will use this proverb about you, ‘Like mother, like daughter’” (16:44). He commented that just as Jerusalem’s mother had hated her husband and children, Jerusalem also hated her husband and children (16:45). Jerusalem was repeating the immoral choices of her mother, as often happens when families get caught up in generational sin.
Big sister and little sister
Jerusalem’s neglectful mother had abandoned her in a field and left her to die, but apparently there were two other siblings who suffered from the same difficult origin. Ezekiel said, “Your big sister is Samaria, who lived with her daughters to the north of you; your little sister, who lived to the south of you, is Sodom with her daughters” (16:46).
When Ezekiel referred to Samaria as Jerusalem’s “big sister,” he did not mean older sister, but larger sister. Ezekiel likely had in mind the relative size of the two nations, not their age. Jerusalem’s foundation predated that of Samaria by a century. Still, Samaria once serviced a larger nation, the ten tribes of Israel, while Jerusalem was the capital only for the two tribes of Judah. Ezekiel referred to Sodom as the “little sister,” but God destroyed Sodom a thousand years before King David even founded Jerusalem as Judah’s capital. Sodom was certainly not the little sister in terms of age, so here too Ezekiel likely referenced the relative sizes of the sister cities.
Ezekiel laid out the geographic placement of Sodom and Samaria in relation to Jerusalem. He described Samaria as to Jerusalem’s north and Sodom to her south, positioning Jerusalem accurately in the middle. Ezekiel described Sodom and Samaria’s satellite towns as their “daughters.” Although he only used the direct names for the three big sister cities, the oracle also incorporated all their surrounding settlements.
Samaria and Sodom
Before expositing Ezekiel’s allegory, it is helpful to first rehearse the history of Sodom and Samaria as presented in the biblical record. In 880 BCE, after the evil King Omri won a power struggle for the throne, he established Samaria as his capital to solidify his authority (1 Kings 16:24). Samaria was a hilltop location in the central highlands of Israel between the territories of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. This strategic location provided several advantages, including defensive fortifications and access to trade routes. For two centuries, Samaria flourished and grew in prominence, politically and economically. Spiritually, however, Samaria rotted from the inside. The people of Samaria turned away from Yahweh worship and instead practiced idolatry, worshiping the false gods of their neighbors. Throughout the biblical narratives, especially in the books of Kings and the prophets, there are frequent condemnations of Samaria’s spiritual abominations. Despite warnings and calls for repentance from the prophets, the Northern Kingdom never repented, which eventually led to their divine judgment at the hands of the Assyrians. By the time Ezekiel ministered, well over a century had passed since Samaria’s demise. Yet, the memory of the Northern Kingdom’s decimation was still fresh to Ezekiel’s contemporaries.
Sodom was an ancient Canaanite city that preexisted the Israelite nation. By Ezekiel’s day, the story of Sodom’s downfall had reached the status of well-known lore, the perennial example of what happens when a nation’s wickedness goes too far. According to the Genesis account, the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah reached such a pitch that it struck the ear of heaven (Gen. 18:20). When God sent two angels in human form to Sodom to investigate the city’s sinfulness, the debauched citizenry tried to gang rape the visitors. Only Lot and his family emerged from the investigation looking righteous. After Lot and his daughters escaped the city, God rained down fire and brimstone, destroying the cities and all their inhabitants, including Lot’s wife. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah served as a warning of the consequences of human sinfulness. Sodom became a byword for depravity.
Why Ezekiel built an allegory comparing the fate of Jerusalem to the fall of Samaria makes sense. Samaria truly was Jerusalem’s sister city in that the twelve tribes had once made up one kingdom, under one monarchy, before they ruptured. Both the Northern and Southern Kingdoms stayed aware that they were all descendants of Jacob and part of the covenant people chosen by Yahweh.
The comparison between Jerusalem and Sodom as sister cities seems initially puzzling, especially considering Sodom’s antiquity. Also, Sodom was a Canaanite city, not a nation of blood relatives like Samaria. God destroyed Sodom long before Joshua led the Israelites into the promised land. The two nations never crossed paths other than the legendary story of God’s punishment on Sodom in their holy text. Still, it was nothing short of insulting to put Israel on par with Sodom.
Ezekiel’s allegories were anything but predictable. He frequently heaped insults on his listeners to shock them out of their spiritual apathy. Comparing the holy city of Jerusalem to Sodom was a low blow, but it was also a jarring rhetorical device to convey the seriousness of Jerusalem’s sin. His audience did not need reminding that Sodom and Samaria were object lessons of what happened to nations that did not fear God.
Identifying the most wicked sister
According to Ezekiel, Jerusalem not only followed in the path of her sisters; she was more blameworthy than Samaria and Sodom (16:47). Her wickedness surpassed that of the two long-destroyed cities. As Ezekiel inventoried Sodom’s sins, he first listed “pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease but did not aid the poor and needy” (16:49). He was likely referencing their sexual immorality when he accused Sodom of also conducting “abominable things” (16:50). It is interesting that the first offenses he highlighted were social sins. Anyone living in the modern industrialized world likely feels the discomfort of guilt when reading Ezekiel’s charge of gluttony, complacency, and oppression. I include myself among the convicted.
Ezekiel chose not to list the offenses of Samaria, probably because they were already familiar to his audience. Ezekiel claimed Jerusalem was twice as wicked as Samaria (16:51). Such a charge must have rocked the Judahite exiles’ understanding of their status before Yahweh. By their estimate, Samaria abandoned the Davidic kingship, Levitical priestly line, and refused to acknowledge Jerusalem as the proper place of Yahweh worship. All the divinely appointed systems that God setup, Samaria overlooked in favor of idolatry. Therefore, it made sense to the Judahites that God would reject them. Or at least that is how they interpreted Jerusalem’s continued survival and Samaria’s destruction.
Ezekiel told his audience that because Jerusalem had increased its abominations, her guilt outweighed that of Samaria and Sodom. In fact, Jerusalem’s corruption made the sister cities appear righteous by comparison. He said, “You have committed more abominations than they and have made your sisters appear righteous by all the abominations that you have committed” (16:51).
This is Ezekiel’s version of putting salt in the wound. In typical prophetic style, he reiterated three more times in a row that Jerusalem was worse than her sisters (16:51-52). Ezekiel may have repeated his points because his listeners protested the idea that they were as debauched like Sodom or as idolatrous as Samaria. Because the Jerusalemites thought of themselves as the more pious city, Ezekiel’s assessment seemed preposterous. Surely, his audience pushed back.
In exile, the Judeans likely comforted themselves with the justification that even if they had been punished, they were not as bad as other godless nations. However, what Ezekiel implied was that God’s justice required that Jerusalem suffer a punishment even worse than Sodom and Samaria.
What Ezekiel showed through allegory was that God did not see Jerusalem as she saw herself. In God’s eyes, Sodom, Samaria, and Jerusalem had all been guilty of spiritual abominations. Both Jerusalem and Samaria reneged on the covenant.
God’s justice would not be evenhanded if he punished two wicked sisters and not the other. God extinguished Sodom with fire and brimstone. According to the prophet Hosea, the Assyrians invaded the city by sword, dashing the children to the ground and ripping the pregnant woman open (Hos. 13:16). Those two fates portended the coming devastation of Jerusalem.
Turn to hope
Ezekiel’s judgement speech intended to evoke shame and repentance among the exiles. In their warped understanding, God had failed them, but Ezekiel clarified it was the other way around. He explained, “I will deal with you as you have done, you who have despised the oath, breaking the covenant” (16:59). Judah betrayed her covenant with Yahweh, which Ezekiel presented as a marriage contract.
God had no choice but to punish her for her adultery. After humbling his audience and thoroughly rebuking their pride, he could change his message of doom to one of hope. When Jerusalem recognized her iniquity, her shame quieted her pride, and she realized she had no reason to be prideful. Shame was part of the process of teaching Israel how deserving she really was of her punishment. She had fallen so far from the covenant ideal.
The Christian path to redemption also insists that we fully recognize the darkness and enormity of our sin. The apostle Paul preached, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). We can only appreciate the importance of God’s rescue plan for us if we also see the hopelessness of our sin.
Ezekiel eventually reassured the exiles that restoration was still possible. The catch was that Jerusalem would share the process of restoration with her sisters, Sodom and Samaria. When the time arrived, God would redeem all three together. Ezekiel prophesied, “I will restore their fortunes, the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters and the fortunes of Samaria and her daughters, and I will restore your own fortunes along with theirs” (16:53). Not even Sodom’s and Samaria’s restoration was impossible for God.
For two centuries, the prophets had many times spoken of the restoration of Samaria alongside Judah. God promised one day to bring back the dispersed exiles from all over. However, Sodom became a newly incorporated part of the vision of Israel’s future. Like Jerusalem and Samaria, God said he would return the city to its “former state” (16:55). Some believe that God intended to restore the desolate land of Sodom, not the actual nation. Another theory is that he did not mean he would bring back the literal Sodom. Instead, Sodom represented God’s expanding covenant to other nations. If that is the right interpretation, Christians can read ourselves into the story. If the new covenant is so wide that it even redeems and includes Sodom, there is certainly room for us.
Judgement would not be God’s last act or the final chapter in Israel’s story. Just as Yahweh had sent the rainbow after the flood as a sign of his promise, he told Ezekiel that he would establish a new and everlasting covenant (16:60). Ezekiel prophesied, “I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord, in order that you may remember and be confounded and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I forgive you all that you have done, says the Lord God” (16:62-63). The prophet Jeremiah, almost at the same time as Ezekiel, also prophesied the launch of a new and unbreakable covenant (Jer. 31:32).
Jerusalem had taken for granted its protected status as the city that Yahweh founded (Isa. 14:32). One way to humble those who feel entitled is to welcome in the formerly excluded. Samaria had been Judah’s former enemy, and now God was reabsorbing her into the eternal covenant. No city merited God’s rescue. Redemption sprang only from God’s great mercy.
Wedding feast
Ezekiel’s allegory of the redemption of three unrighteous sisters calls to my mind Jesus’s parable of the wedding feast. In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus used the imagery of a wedding banquet to explain how God chose who he invited into his eternal kingdom. Jesus described a king who prepared a grand banquet for his son’s wedding. He sent out invitations to many guests, but those initially invited refused to come. They were the religious elite who prioritized their own agendas over the divine invitation. In response to their rejection, the king extended his invitation to everyone, regardless of status. His servants announced the feast out in the streets and gathered them all in the banquet hall.
When the king entered the feast, he noticed a guest who was not wearing wedding clothes. Wedding clothes were a symbol of righteousness. Despite being invited to the feast, this guest had not put on the righteousness that came from faith in Christ. The king ordered his servants to cast him into outer darkness. Jesus concluded the parable by stating, “For many are invited, but few are chosen” (Matt. 22:14). Through this parable, Jesus illustrated how the kingdom of heaven was open to all, regardless of social status or background, but he emphasized the importance of responding to God’s invitation with faith and a full commitment to righteous living.
Conclusion
Thank you for listening and please continue to take part in this Bible Reading Challenge. Next week, we are reading Ezekiel 17.
And please keep the nation of Israel in your prayers. Ezekiel was also a hostage living in exile and what better prophet to read and study as we empathize with the Jews who are once again living their nightmare.
For all the Biblical references each week, please see the show transcript on our blog or by signing up for our emails at www.thejerusalemconnection.us/ I do not say all the references in the podcast but they are all in the transcript.
Send me a message. I will respond. Bible Fiber is available on YouTube or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Shabbat Shalom
The post Bible Fiber: Ezekiel 16:44-63 appeared first on Shelley Neese.
June 6, 2024
Bible Fiber: Ezekiel 16:1-43
By Shelley Neese
Bible Fiber is available on Youtube or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Click here for Apple Podcasts or Spotify
Welcome to Bible Fiber, where we are encountering the textures and shades of the biblical tapestry through twelve Minor Prophets, two reformers, and one exile. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel, both ancient and modern.
This week we are studying Ezekiel 16, the longest chapter in the book by far. Ezekiel’s extended allegory is 63 verses, which makes this one chapter longer than the books of Obadiah, Jonah, Nahum, Malachi, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, and Haggai. Because of this, we will divide Ezekiel 16 into two parts. This week, we focus on the initial 43 verses, which are reflective. In the next episode, we will study the last 20 verses which look to Israel’s future.
Hosea
Ezekiel 16 presents a parable using marital terminology to explain the broken covenant relationship between God and his people. His exilic audience was already familiar with the marriage metaphor. Several centuries earlier, God had commissioned the prophet Hosea to marry the promiscuous Gomer as a symbol of the Northern Kingdom’s infidelity (Hos. 2:3-15). Hosea and Gomer’s marriage was a living parable. Just as Hosea endured heartache from his wayward wife, Israel snubbed God’s love. Yet, Hosea’s love for Gomer was unfailing, just as God’s love for Israel remained steadfast.
Hosea’s real-life marriage may have inspired Ezekiel’s marriage parable. However, in typical Ezekiel fashion, the prophet amplified and stretched the teaching to its furthest and most disturbing extreme. While Hosea’s wife, Gomer, was an adulterer, the woman Ezekiel depicted was a nymphomaniac.
If Spotify listed Ezekiel 16, they would mark it as “explicit” for language and theme. For this reason, you’ve probably never heard these chapters preached on a Sunday morning. English translations have tried to soften the more pornographic descriptions in the text, but fully masking the chapter’s crudeness would require a complete alteration of its content.
As a rhetorical strategy, Ezekiel used graphic language to shock his audience. His retelling of Israel’s history was a lewd expose, but the intent was to foster empathy for the faithful husband betrayed by his wanton wife. This way, Israel could witness the ugliness of their sin through the same lens as Yahweh. The audience was supposed to be shocked by their rebellion against God, not Ezekiel’s impropriety.
Acting as God’s mouthpiece, Ezekiel let the rage overtake him. Recall that prior to this parable, Ezekiel was a carefully guarded priest. He had never even once eaten unclean food (4:14). Although preaching hard truths was part of his calling, the filth that came out of his own mouth must have surprised even him.
Origin Story
Ezekiel 16 begins with a critical look at Israel’s humble origins. He presented a revised version of their history that focused on their pagan roots as a nation and the pre-Israelite population in Jerusalem. Addressing Jerusalem, he said, “Your origin and your birth were in the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite” (16:3). In his retelling, Israel was born of pagan parents because they occupied Jerusalem for hundreds of years before David conquered the city from the Jebusites (2 Sam. 5:6-9).
Israel’s lore usually begins with God’s election of Abraham from all the people on earth and his promise to Abraham that his descendants would make a great nation. Ezekiel disrupted this shared narrative that bound Israel together by pushing the origin point back to a more unflattering start. The pre-Israelite city had a pagan foundation, and the nation of Israel was born from a mixed pagan ancestry. Through this satirical retelling, he pulled the rug out from under their patriotic ideals and insulted their self-perception. He wanted them to stop being overconfident in their current position with Yahweh based on their past.
Israel’s selling card was not that they were racially distinct from neighboring groups. Nor did Israel accomplish anything exceptional—culturally or architecturally—that distinguished them from their pagan neighbors. God did not choose them because of their patronage or because they merited his favor. He chose them to be his own because of his good grace.
From abandoned infant to royal queen
Ezekiel retold the entire biography of Israel’s election and subsequent rebellion against Yahweh in a manner that most certainly caught his audience off guard. In the allegory, he cast Israel as a helpless orphan girl scorned from birth. Her absentee parents denied her any of the normal care given to a newborn to protect her health. They left her naval chord uncut and did not cleanse or swaddle her (16:4). Abandoned in a field, the unwanted and unnamed child wallowed in her own blood and amniotic fluids. Ezekiel states, “you were abhorred on the day you were born” (16:5).
A passerby, representing Yahweh, took pity on the struggling infant. He claimed her when no one else would, rescuing her from the brink of death. Yahweh narrates, “I passed by you and saw you flailing about in your blood. As you lay in your blood, I said to you, ‘Live! and grow up like a plant of the field” (16:6-7). By his command, Yahweh spoke life into her, rescuing her with a beautiful act of compassion.
When the orphan girl grew to a marriageable age, her savior married her in another act of selfless love. In the biblical period, parents normally arranged marriages for their children. Because of her ignoble birth, she was at a disadvantage. Yahweh claimed her as his wife by spreading his cloak over her, a marriage ritual that also occurred in the book of Ruth (Ruth 3:8-9). Yahweh said, “I pledged myself to you and entered into a covenant with you” (16:8).
Yahweh did everything for his new wife that her parents denied her on the day of her birth. He washed her with water and anointed her with oil (16:9). Yahweh extravagantly cared for his wife, showering her with resources. She had clothes made of embroidered fabrics and sandals of fine leather (16:10). She wore gold and silver jewelry on her neck, arms, ears, and nose. He even placed a crown on her head, the first sign that her benefactor-turned-husband was also a king (16:13). Even her daily diet was made up of lavish foods.
Ezekiel’s unwanted orphan child rose to the status of queen. This rags-to-riches plotline is common to so many other fairy tales, like an ancient Near Eastern version of Cinderella. A poor and unloved girl grabs the attention of a royal, and her fortune changes. The snag in Ezekiel’s fairy tale is that the girl was entirely undeserving. Although she grew in beauty and stature, it was only surface changes. The gifts did not increase her interior strength or transform her for the better. Once her station in life improved, she betrayed the king even though he was the one responsible for her rise.
From queen to prostitute
Instead of demonstrating her gratitude to her husband, she used her splendor to seduce other lovers. Ezekiel said, “You trusted in your beauty and prostituted yourself because of your fame and lavished your prostitutions on any passerby” (16:5). Every gift that Yahweh generously provided his wife was abused to betray him, the giver. Ezekiel illustrated how much Israel had lost touch with all God had done for her throughout history. One by one, she exploited the provisions from her husband to seduce new lovers. Her superior garments decorated the “high places,” wording that alluded to Judah’s proliferation of idolatrous shrines on hilltops (16:16). Shamelessly, Judah no longer even tried to hide her pursuit of other gods from Yahweh. She melted down her jewelry and reshaped it into male idols (16:17). She offered her food, incense, and oil as sacrifices to false gods (16:19).
Worst of all, she took her children, the children she shared with her husband, and sacrificed them as food for the idols (16:20-22). As Yahweh’s indictment against his adulterous wife built, this was the climax of her list of misdeeds, the most revolting act of treachery. 2 Kings attests that, at least during the reigns of the heathen kings Ahaz and Manasseh, the Israelites sacrificed their children to the pagan god Molech (2 Kings 16:3; 21:6). This horrific act defied God’s laws laid out in the Torah (Lev. 18:21; 20:1-5). Yahweh was clear that he hated child sacrifice, and any such deviation permanently desecrated the land (Deut. 12:31; Ps. 106:38).
Israel’s advancement from orphan to queen was Yahweh’s doing. Yet, she spurned his love and disavowed her royal status. Although he withheld nothing from her, she repaid him with heartache. God attributed her disloyalty to her self-selective memory; she forgot the days of her youth (16:22, 43).
Yahweh did not charge his wife, Israel, with a one-off affair. She was a serial cheater. Ezekiel even clarified that the queen did not prostitute herself out of hunger or poverty (16:31). Yahweh had already spoiled her with every resource she could need. Difficult circumstances did not force her into a life of prostitution. She wasn’t the victim or a prostitute for hire. She was the one bribing men to be her lovers, not vice versa (16:34).
Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon as lovers
Not every component of Ezekiel’s message is symbolic. By naming the three major historical empires in the ancient Near East, the political meaning becomes clear. Ezekiel’s focus on spiritual adultery shifts to Israel’s lack of political allegiance. Rather than trusting solely in Yahweh, Israel pursued the protection of other nations. God had pledged to provide for Israel’s security, but she solicited treaties and formed alliances with stronger nations.
Yahweh accused his wife of “multiplying” her prostitutions by going after Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon (16:25). The theme of adultery continued to explain the motivations behind Israel’s political maneuverings. She tried to lure neighboring nations into bed with her. At every public square and street corner, she sat on a platform and grotesquely exposed herself to passersby. The prophet lacks any sense of decorum when describing the insatiability of her sexual appetite (16:28). Even the Philistines—hardly champions of virtuous living—were offended by Jerusalem’s lusty overtures (16:27).
Because they lacked faith in Yahweh, the Israelites repeatedly appealed to foreign armies for protection. Assyria was a historical enemy and no longer a threat to Jerusalem in the sixth century BCE. Instead, Egypt and Babylon were the two major powers battling for control of Jerusalem. After the Babylonian invasion that resulted in Ezekiel’s exile, Jerusalem sought a military alliance with Egypt as their only chance to fend off another Babylonian attack. Like Ezekiel, the prophet Jeremiah inveighed against Jerusalem’s courtship of foreign empires. Jeremiah warned that reliance on Egypt for help would ultimately be futile (Jeremiah 2:36-37, 37:5-10). He was right, of course, and the Babylonians decimated Jerusalem in 586 BCE.
When Ezekiel described the queen paying off her lovers for sexual favors, he was likely referring to the times Judah and Israel had to pay tribute to their neighbors for political protection (2 Kings 16:8). Yahweh’s fundamental problem with Jerusalem’s political alliances was that every time they sought the favor of another kingdom, they appealed to that kingdom’s patron deity. When God transported Ezekiel to Jerusalem, he observed the apostate worshipers imitating Egyptian and Babylonian religious practices (8:12-16).
Punishment
As the indictment against Jerusalem gained momentum, Ezekiel pushed the boundaries of decency even further. He wanted his audience to empathize with Yahweh’s agony and understand God’s sense of betrayal. God’s generosity towards Israel was immense, but just as a scorned husband has limits, so did God.
After listing the excesses of her adultery in a long and frustrated outburst, God pronounced judgement on his adulterous wife (16:35-36). He was divorcing her. In the divorce proceedings, he would humiliate her just as she had humiliated him (16:37). No one would come to her defense or object to her punishment.
Israel’s laws considered adultery a capital offense. The prescribed punishment involved public stripping and stoning (Lev. 20:10-12; Deut. 22:22). In Ezekiel 16, a mob of her lovers gathered to administer the stoning, but they went even further and cut her to pieces with their swords (16:40). The lovers were also the agents of her death. In a frenzy of violence, they plundered every beautiful object Yahweh had given her. Without God and the protections of their mutual covenant, she returned to her original state: bloodied, naked, and alone (16:39).
After the violent episode, Yahweh’s wrath was spent. He said, “So I will satisfy my fury on you, and my jealousy shall turn away from you; I will be calm and will be angry no longer” (16:42).
Yahweh had intended for his chosen nation to represent him well, like a noble queen brings honor to the royal household. His hope was that the nations would be drawn to him by the example of his bride, Israel. However, the adulterous queen turned Yahweh’s name into a mockery. Like the allegory, Israel sullied the king’s reputation and brought him no glory. Rather than becoming a source of pride, she was a thing of shame.
Conclusion
Without God’s intervention, we as Christians would be like the baby in the field, destined to die in our own sin. He did not leave us for dead but came to rescue us.
The allegory is not only relevant to Israel and her past. As Christians, we must also take caution not to abuse the gifts Jesus has freely given to us. In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he described the Church as the bride of Christ, and may even have been alluding to Ezekiel’s parable and God’s sacrificial love. Paul exhorted, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless” (Eph. 5:25-27).
Does our confidence come from our gifts and resources, or does it come from our identity in Christ? Every accusation laid out against the queen rings true for our own situation. The root problem of her perverse behavior was that she forgot the mercy and kindness of Yahweh. As the bride of Christ, we are also at risk of spiritual amnesia, losing all memory of his sacrifice. We cannot forget our own origin story. We must allow ourselves to be transformed daily by God’s lavish love.
Thank you for listening and please continue to take part in this Bible Reading Challenge. Next week, we are reading the rest of Ezekiel 16.
And please keep the nation of Israel in your prayers. As we constantly pray for the Israeli hostages in Gaza, I find that Ezekiel, an Israelite also living in exile, is the ideal prophet to read and study.
For all the Biblical references each week, please see the show transcript on our blog or by signing up for our emails at www.thejerusalemconnection.us/ I do not say all the references in the podcast but they are all in the transcript.
Send me a message. I will respond. Bible Fiber is available on YouTube or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Shabbat Shalom
Ezekiel’s hearers likely remembered that King Ahaz once formed an alliance with Assyria to counter the threat from the alliance of Arameans and the Northern Kingdom (2 Kings 16:7-9).
The post Bible Fiber: Ezekiel 16:1-43 appeared first on Shelley Neese.
May 22, 2024
Bible Fiber: Ezekiel 15
Check out Bible Fiber on Youtube wherever you listen to your podcasts (like Apple or Spotify)!
Welcome to Bible Fiber, where we are encountering the textures and shades of the biblical tapestry through twelve Minor Prophets, two reformers, and one exile. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel, both ancient and modern. This week we are studying Ezekiel 15.
For the first fourteen chapters, Ezekiel’s divine dispatches included overpowering visions and bizarre sign-acts. In Chapter 15, he switched his method of communicating, choosing instead to reinforce the message through a series of six parables and metaphors (Ezek. 15-19). The other worldly theme of a throne chariot motored by winged and wheeled composite creatures faded out. In its place, Ezekiel relied on realistic scenes from nature and homelife that would be familiar to every ancient person. He likened Israel to a useless vine, an unfaithful wife, and an abandoned infant. He compared Jerusalem’s political alliances to two battling eagles and her last kings to captured lions. Each parable points to the impending destruction of Jerusalem and the awful fate of the city’s residents. If Jewish mysticism holds that only mature initiated mystics should ponder Ezekiel’s throne chariot, the compilation of Ezekiel’s word pictures is the opposite. The parables and their explanations are accessible to all.
Ezekiel’s first and shortest metaphorical passage is about a useless wild vine in the woods. God asked Ezekiel, “How does the wood of the vine surpass all other wood, the vine branch that is among the trees of the forest? Is wood taken from it to make anything? Does one take a peg from it on which to hang any object?” (15:2-3).
Although Ezekiel did not specify his audience, he presumably shared the oracle with the exiles in his company. God wanted them to ponder the utility of a fruitless vine growing wild in the forest. In their lived experience, they had surely never seen a vine branch with more strength than a rooted tree. A vine, apart from its production of fruit, has little worth. For example, a carpenter would not use a flimsy vine as building material. A vine is not even sturdy enough to craft a peg for wall hanging; it would sag under the slightest weight. In fact, Ezekiel specified that he was not even describing a vine, but rather a vine branch. In Hebrew, gefen means vine and zemora refers to a fallen or pruned branch. The vine branch is even less useful than the vine itself.
Vine imagery
In likening Israel to a vine, Ezekiel was alluding to a well-developed metaphor in Hebrew tradition. In Genesis, before the patriarch Jacob died, he bestowed his blessing and parting words to each of his sons. Jacob described Joseph, his resilient loyal son, as a fruitful vine near a spring with branches growing over the garden walls (Gen. 49:22).
The Psalms include an elaborate vine metaphor describing Israel’s election and placement in the promised land. God is compared to a master gardener who transplanted his choice vine from Egypt to his royal garden (Ps. 80:8-11). In preparation for the vine’s planting, God cleared the ground so the vine could take root and fill the land with branches and shoots. The Psalmist prophesied that one day God would rebuke his people and allow the garden wall to be broken down with its fruit exposed to wild animals and passersby (Ps. 80:14-16).
The prophet Jeremiah described Israel as a “choice vine from the purest stock” that deteriorated into a wild vine of no value (Jer. 2:21). Hosea tweaked the metaphor to imply that as the vine of Israel increased, so did their idolatry and sin (Hos. 10:1). In Isaiah’s Song of the Vineyard, the prophet portrayed Israel as God’s beloved “vineyard on a very fertile hill” (Isa. 5:1-7). In anticipation of the vineyard’s abundant yield, God built a watchtower to protect the harvest and hewed a wine vat. Unexpectedly, the vine yielded nothing but rotten grapes. According to God’s original garden design, the vine of Israel was meant to abide in God by carrying out his commandments and building a loving and just society based on his design. Instead, their complacency and idolatry prohibited their spiritual fruitfulness.
Charred vine branch
Ezekiel extended Isaiah’s vine metaphor to its natural conclusion. In Isaiah, the corrupted vine only produced sour grapes, but at least it produced something. Ezekiel’s vine was nothing but pruned branches littering the forest floor. To devalue the vine branches even further, Ezekiel described the branches as burned on both ends and charred in the middle. He rhetorically asked, “When the fire has consumed both ends of it and the middle of it is charred, is it useful for anything? (15:4).
Once Ezekiel’s rhetorical questions had the audience agreeing with the obvious truth that a charred vine branch is utterly useless, he revealed the spiritual significance of his message. Parables differ from allegory in that they start with an obvious surface meaning and then include the narrator’s own interpretation. God declared through his prophet, “Like the wood of the vine among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so I will give the inhabitants of Jerusalem” (15:6).
If God is the vinedresser, no one could fault him for pruning the unproductive vine branches and tossing them into the fire. Vinedressers pruned their gardens once in the winter and once in the summer. If a branch did not produce quality fruit, they would cut and discard it or bundle it as kindling wood. The vine branches—which Ezekiel describes as the inhabitants of Jerusalem—failed to fulfill their purpose to exemplify a covenant relationship with the one true God.
Historical footing
Ezekiel’s explanation of the fate of the vine paralleled Jerusalem’s actual history. He cautioned, “although they escape from the fire, the fire shall still consume them” (15:7). In 605 and 597 BCE, the Babylonian army attacked Jerusalem and deported its elite citizens. The attacks were likely what Ezekiel had in mind when describing their escape from the fire. When he prophesied a coming fire that would succeed in consuming them, he was looking to the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE. On that day, God vowed to unleash his wrath upon the city, bringing total devastation and destruction (15:8).
Ezekiel clarified that even though some vine branches would escape the fire, it was not a result of Yahweh’s rescue but a lucky escape (15:7). At some point, God would throw them back into the fire. In the previous chapter, Ezekiel made it clear that not all escapees from Jerusalem should be considered the remnant (14:22-23). If interested, go back and hear Ezekiel 14 for his thoughts on the escapees’ behavior.
Jesus’s vine
The Bible’s vine imagery did not start with Ezekiel, and it did not end with him. Jesus was certainly no stranger to the power of parables as an effective communication method. Prophetic parables often coaxed the hearers into agreement until they realized they were condemning themselves.
In the New Testament, Jesus used the vine metaphor to encapsulate the entire gospel message. Jesus described God as the vinedresser, but he cast himself as the true vine of Israel. With Jesus standing in as the true vine, he created a new path for followers of God to bear fruit. By relying on Jesus Christ, the true vine, believers can achieve what had before seemed impossible. In calling his disciples to a fruit-bearing life, Jesus explained:
He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. (John 15:1-8)
That is all for Ezekiel’s shortest parable. For the next several chapters, Ezekiel continues to teach in parables to clarify and justify the divine position. Parables are one way of giving Yahweh’s side of the story. He tried every means of communication to disrupt their naïve belief that Jerusalem was on the verge of resurgence and the covenant was unbreakable. Get ready for next week. Ezekiel 16 is the longest single oracle in the book, and it is also uncomfortably explicit in its comparison of Israel to an adulterous woman.
Thank you for listening and please continue to take part in this Bible Reading Challenge. If you would like the transcript of the podcast with all the biblical references, go to our blog and sign up for our weekly newsletter. We just added a free downloadable goodie on our website to anyone who signs up so go to www.thejerusalemconnection.us and check it out. Don’t forget to rate Bible Fiber wherever you listen to your podcasts. It helps people find the show.
Until next week, Shabbat Shalom and Am Israel Chai!
The post Bible Fiber: Ezekiel 15 appeared first on Shelley Neese.
May 1, 2024
Bible Fiber: Ezekiel 14
By Shelley Neese-
Check out Bible Fiber on Youtube or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Welcome to Bible Fiber, where we are encountering the textures and shades of the biblical tapestry through twelve Minor Prophets, two reformers, and one exile. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel, both ancient and modern.
Our sponsor of today’s episode is Jim Werner who has kindly dedicated his sponsorship to my family. As many of you know we are a military family and like lots of other military families this month, we found out we have orders to move again which means there has been some tears mixed with silver linings. So thank you Jim! You probably did not even know how timely your dedicated sponsorship message really was!
This week we are studying Ezekiel 14. The chapter begins by introducing Ezekiel’s company. He recorded, “certain elders of Israel came to me and sat down before me” (14:1). Perhaps it was the same delegation of elders that waited in Ezekiel’s home while the divine spirit transported him to Jerusalem (8:1).
Tel Abib, the refugee encampment where Ezekiel lived with the rest of the exiles, likely had an abundance of leaders. According to Nebuchadnezzar’s policy, the first captives the Babylonians deported were Jerusalem’s political, religious, and cultural elite. Although they had no political independence once in Babylon, the captives must have transferred some of their social order from Jerusalem to the refugee encampment as they made paltry attempts at self-governance.
Ezekiel did not reveal the purpose of the elders’ inquiry. Given his response, however, they must have been seeking a divine word about the duration of their exile. Rather than answering them directly, Ezekiel addressed a crucial issue underlying their question. The elders had divided hearts. Despite seeking an oracle from the Lord, they were not sincere in their devotion to the one true God. For the second time, Ezekiel reminded the Israelites that God could read their minds, and he knew the secrets of their hearts (11:5; 14:4). There was no sense in keeping up the charade. Even if they refrained from idolatrous practices, they possessed idolatrous hearts.
While Ezekiel sat with the delegation of elders, he received two oracles from the Lord. In the first oracle, God addressed only Ezekiel. He said, “Mortal, these men have taken their idols into their hearts and placed their iniquity as a stumbling block before them; shall I let myself be consulted by them?” (14:3). The intimate dialogue between the divine and his prophet expresses God’s frustration with the elders’ inquiry. They had no right to seek a word from him when they withheld their total devotion. God questioned whether the delegation even deserved a response. Addressing the elders in his company, Ezekiel repeated what God had told him about their idolatrous hearts and sinful stumbling blocks. Ezekiel relayed God desired to “take hold of the hearts of the house of Israel, all of whom are estranged from me through their idols” (14:5).
Misunderstood prophets
In our modern era, people often treat prophetic books as texts that they should mine for secrets of the end times. Ezekiel 14 reveals that even in the prophet’s own day, his contemporaries misunderstood the purpose of the prophetic office. They treated the prophets like favorable fortune tellers. Yet the true prophet’s primary concern was with the moral, ethical, and spiritual problems of the present. Very little of their overall message was predictive of the future.
When Ezekiel had first kept company with the delegation of elders in Chapter 8, he witnessed blatant idolatry occurring in the Jerusalem temple. In his vision, they bowed to the sun, burned incense to idols, and built pagan statues. Alternatively, the exiles in Tel Abib abstained from overt idolatry, but they were guilty of internalizing their idolatry. Yahweh commanded, “Repent and turn away from your idols, and turn away your faces from all your abominations” (14:6). Perhaps they longed for their Canaanite idols in Jerusalem, or they admired the Babylonian gods and goddesses all around them. Either way, idolatry had corrupted their hearts and divided their loyalties. Because they were so desperate for security, they sought the gods of other nations who seemed to do a better job keeping their devotees from being captured and expelled.
What God makes clear is that they had no right to expect an answer from him until they repented and returned to him with wholehearted devotion. Exclusive devotion to the Lord was the foundation of the entire covenant. Yahweh warned that if they continued to inquire of his prophets while they pursued false gods and divided their loyalty, he would make an example of their wavering faith. They would be “a sign and a byword” (14:8). Their punishment—excommunication or even death—was in accordance with their offense. Bystanders would see the consequence of their unfaithfulness and take caution.
More than anything, however, God awaited their return and wanted to restore his people on the right path. His punishments never lacked purpose. If they turned their hearts back to him, and no longer defiled themselves with their transgressions, God promised, “they shall be my people, and I will be their God” (14:11). The remnant would comprise all those who repented and purified their hearts.
False prophets
The previous chapter dealt with the plague of false prophets. It is likely that once the elders heard a positive oracle from imposter prophets, they hoped Ezekiel would second the optimistic message. Surely, their incessant need for reassurance kept the false prophets in business. As a result, Ezekiel 14 returns to the popularity of the false prophets in exile (14:9-11).
A brief declaration in the passage gets a lot of theological attention because in it, Yahweh appears to take responsibility for purposefully deceiving the false prophets. God declared, “If a prophet is deceived and speaks a word, I, the Lord, have deceived that prophet” (14:9). On the surface, the declaration does not accord with God’s constancy and trustworthiness. It was one thing for God to allow false prophecy, but quite another for him to instigate the deception. However, God knew false prophets would deliver deceptions, whether they heard from the Lord. If they wanted lies, God apparently, sometimes, gave them lies.
On at least one occasion in the Old Testament, God directly misled false prophets as part of his plan to execute divine judgment. In 1 Kings, the evil King Ahab refused to hear out the true prophets like Micaiah. Therefore, God sent a spirit of deception on the false prophets so that they would deliver lying oracle to King Ahab, encouraging him to go into battle (1 Kings 22:23). Sure enough, the evil king disguised himself and joined the battle against the Arameans, and an arrow mortally wounded him.
In the rest of Ezekiel’s oracle against false prophets, the emphasis shifts to God’s retribution against both the fraudulent prophets and those who sought their guidance. To God, both parties were guilty of leading the house of Israel astray and, therefore, both parties deserved the same punishment. Ezekiel declared, “the punishment of the inquirer and the punishment of the prophet shall be the same” (14:10).
Hypothetical scenario
The second half of Ezekiel 14 switches gears and introduces a fourfold oracle illustrating the consequences of rebellion and the role of the righteous during the coming judgment (14:12-23). Using courtroom language, Ezekiel conveyed a hypothetical scenario about “a land” that sinned against him (14:12). With his characteristic use of repetition, Ezekiel recites the same framework with each associated curse. The nation’s spiritual infidelity caused God’s harsh response. First, they would suffer from famine (14:13) and then wild animals (14:15). The other agents of death included sword (14:17), pestilence, and bloodshed (14:19). Ezekiel’s list of punishments was not arbitrary; he drew from the warnings and promises already laid out in the Torah.
Ezekiel’s language was indebted to the exhortation of Moses in Leviticus 26, the moment in Israel’s history when God had decreed that if they ruptured his covenant and ignored his commands, he would send famine, beasts, sword, and plague (Lev. 26:22-26). God embedded both blessings and curses into the covenant as potential consequences of rebellion or obedience.
Although the text does not give the background to the passage, it is reasonable to infer that the elders opposed Ezekiel’s position that the judgment was irrevocable. Perhaps it was these same family heads who had been with Ezekiel when he envisioned the man in linen going through the desperate crowds in Jerusalem, marking the foreheads of the righteous remnant (9:4). They held onto the hope that by having enough righteous people in Jerusalem, they could save the entire city. Most likely, they had friends and family who remained in Jerusalem who they figured God would deem righteous. Would God cancel his judgment for the sake of their relatives?
Twice in the past, when God readied his punishing hand, righteous leaders intervened on behalf of the people to negotiate with God to lessen his wrath. At Sinai, Moses invoked the patriarchs to stay God’s hand (Gen. 18:23). Abraham pleaded with God on behalf of the few righteous people in Sodom to spare the city (Gen. 18:22-23). The elders in exile hoped that perhaps once again God would withhold his wrath for the sake of even a few. However, Ezekiel’s job was not to intervene on behalf of the exiles or the Jerusalemites. Because God is just, he would spare the righteous, but only them. No one would get to ride their coattails.
Ezekiel responded, “Even if Noah, Daniel, and Job, these three, were in it, they would save only their own lives by their righteousness” (14:14). These three figures were paragons of righteousness. Yet, God says that even if they were present in the sinful land, he would not reverse his judgment for the sake of the three. Their righteousness would only protect themselves, not the entire community.
Noah was the only blameless person on earth at his time (Gen. 6:9-12). Job was so virtuous that even Satan took notice (Job 1:1, 8). Neither Noah nor Job were Israelites; they preceded the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants. Yet, their stories of perseverance carried on in Israel’s faith tradition.
Although, in their day, wickedness surrounded Noah and Job, they exemplified loyalty to the one true God. Everything and everyone surrounding them was destroyed, but both Noah and Job’s lives were preserved. The presentation of two timeless heroes makes sense, given the case that the elders tried to make about the saints vicariously saving the sinners. Of the three righteous men, only the identification of Daniel is debatable.
Identifying Daniel
Of course, the first Daniel to consider as a candidate is the biblical Daniel. Daniel and Ezekiel were contemporary prophets and fellow exiles. While Ezekiel ministered to the exiles in Tel Abib, Daniel ministered in Babylon, the heart of the empire. However, Daniel was among the first wave of deportees in 605 BCE (Dan. 1:1-6). By the time of Ezekiel’s first vision at the River Chebar, Daniel had been in Babylon for fifteen years. Since the Babylonians captured him during his adolescence, he was likely younger than Ezekiel. As the book of Daniel attests, he was a role model Israelite in exile. He received favor and attention from the Babylonian king, but his loyalty to Yahweh remained undivided.
Although fifteen years seems a short time for Daniel’s reputation for righteousness to reach such heights, perhaps news of his miracles inspired the exiles in Tel Abib. The exiles may have already considered Daniel a hero of the faith during his own lifetime. If so, Ezekiel’s choice of Daniel made sense. His point was that not even Daniel, the most righteous of the exiles, could save Jerusalem from judgment.
However, if Ezekiel was referring to the biblical Daniel, he spelled his name slightly different. Rather than Danyael, the Hebrew long form, Ezekiel spelled it as Dan’el, the short form. Incidentally, when archaeologists found a cache of literature in the ancient city of Ugarit, they found evidence of a legendary Syrian king named Dan’el. According to the epic, which dates to 1400 BCE, Dan’el was a wise and righteous king, a model of virtue and justice. Dan’el protected the orphans and widows, a priority for righteous biblical leaders as well. Some biblical historians suggest that Ezekiel might have been referring to King Dan’el, a legend that was surely familiar to anyone in the ancient Near East. Israelites were not immune to their neighbor’s history and traditions. The theory goes that Ezekiel included the bygone pagan king as an example of virtue in a time and place full of vice.
However, plenty of scholars have a hard time believing that Ezekiel would have picked a pagan king as an exemplar of righteousness. In the whole of Ezekiel’s prophecies, he is always black and white, never gray, about the evils of idolatry and pagan influence. Biblical prophets were not in the habit of referring to any Gentile outsider as a spiritual role model, even if that individual had led an upright life in other ways.
Despite the existence of an ancient Dan’el, the biblical Daniel still seems a more likely candidate. It is certainly possible that Ezekiel and his fellow exiles heard of the miracles and wonders associated with the brave prophet. It is easy to imagine the Tel Abib exiles praying for Daniel as he represented them in Babylon, the seat of the crown. Rumors must have trickled down of his many deeds. They likely heard how he successfully interpreted Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, even when none of the royal wise men could fathom its meaning (Dan. 2). Surely word spread when Daniel survived the lion’s den (Dan. 6). It is easy to envision the exiles rejoicing over the news of Daniel’s three friends enduring the fiery furnace (Dan. 3). Given this background, it is understandable that even in his own lifetime, Daniel achieved popular status in the Israelite Hall of fame. Ezekiel listed Israel’s earliest heroes, Noah and Job, with one of their most recent, Daniel. If we only consider their life and spiritual achievements, rather than their time, Daniel is an excellent addition to the trio.
Whatever the identity of Daniel, or Dan’el, the point of Ezekiel’s prophecy was that even if three giants of the faith were in Jerusalem, nothing could remove the collective guilt of the city. God would not grant a full pardon on behalf of a handful of righteous individuals.
Escapees
Once Ezekiel establishes that the righteous will be pardoned and the unrighteous punished, he explains that some of Jerusalem’s inhabitants will narrowly escape on their own. Those escapees must not be confused with the prophesied remnant. Ezekiel said, “there will be some survivors—sons and daughters who will be brought ought of it” (14:22). God did not rescue these survivors according to their own merit; they escaped the scourge. When the new wave of exiles arrived at Tel Abib after Jerusalem’s fall, they would serve as witnesses to Jerusalem’s last days. Despite experiencing the severity of God’s wrath, they remained unrepentant and unreformed. The escapees’ impious lifestyle would shock the older generation of exiles. Only at that point would the elders understand the justice of Yahweh’s judgment.
Conclusion
Ezekiel included in his call for repentance and return all “the aliens who reside in Israel” (14:7). Besides the native Israelites, God longed for the return of the Gentile proselytes living in their midst. All Israelites and all Gentiles who claimed to follow Yahweh had to recommit wholeheartedly to him.
For my Christian listeners, I hope you can see yourselves in this callout. Noone can hold idols in one hand and God in the other. Yahweh requires total allegiance. Outward obedience—attending church, maintaining daily devotionals, and keeping gratitude journals—does not overcome inward indifference toward God. I know in my life, it does not take much to hinder my pursuit of God or distract my attention. It is easier to accomplish spiritual tasks than it is to do the work of internal examination.
Thank you for listening and please continue to take part in this Bible Reading Challenge. Join us next week in studying Ezekiel 15. Also, one more thing. If you like Bible Fiber and it has been helpful to you in your own journey of biblical literacy, please leave a review for the podcast on Apple podcasts or Spotify, or wherever you listen. It helps others find the show.
And please keep the nation of Israel and the hostages in your prayers.
For all the Biblical references each week, please see the show transcript on our blog or by signing up for our emails at www.thejerusalemconnection.us/ I do not say all the references in the podcast but they are all in the transcript.
Send me a message. I will respond. Bible Fiber is available on YouTube or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Am Israel Chai
The post Bible Fiber: Ezekiel 14 appeared first on Shelley Neese.
April 24, 2024
Bible Fiber: Ezekiel 13
Check Bible Fiber out wherever you listen to podcasts!
Welcome to Bible Fiber, where we are encountering the textures and shades of the biblical tapestry through twelve Minor Prophets, two reformers, and one exile. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel, both ancient and modern. Before I start, I want to thank our good friends Paul and Arlene Samuels for sponsoring today’s episode. Paul and Arlene are the authors of Mental Health Meltdown: Illuminating the Voices of Bipolar and other Mental Illnesses. Their book is coming out this summer.
This week we are studying Ezekiel 13. At the end of Chapter 12, last week, we discovered Ezekiel had resisters among his peers in Tel Abib. They rejected him as a doomsayer and doubted if his prophecies would materialize (12:28). In the next two chapters, we discover Ezekiel was not only up against cynics dismissive of his prophecies. He also faced counterfeit prophets who actively contradicted him with oracles of their own (12:11-14:11). While Ezekiel pronounced the coming judgment, they spoke of the coming deliverance. He preached repentance, and they encouraged patience.
To all those guilty of propagating falsehoods, God had a strongly worded dispatch: “Alas for the senseless prophets who follow their own spirit and have seen nothing” (13:3).
History of false prophets
According to the laws of Moses, the covenant people could not engage in occult practices (Deut. 18:10-11). 18:10-11). They were to execute any diviners, sorcerers, or false prophets spreading lies in the community (Ex. 22:18). Yet, the biblical narrative reveals that Israel did not punish false prophecy as instructed. In Kings and Chronicles, Israel’s leaders were far too often tempted to go outside the Israelite faith in search of supernatural guidance. For example, after King Saul supposedly expelled all the spiritists from Israel, he hypocritically consulted the witch of Endor to conjure the spirit of Saul (1 Sam. 28). King Manasseh consulted mediums, practiced divination, and even sacrificed his own son as part of the occult (2 Kings 21:6). King Ahab and Queen Jezebel endorsed the prophets of Baal over the prophets of Yahweh (1 Kings 18:19-20). (Thank goodness for Elijah’s challenge to the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, which proved Ahab and Jezebel were betting on the wrong pony.)
Starting in the eighth century BCE, a crucial period in the history of the Northern and Southern Kingdoms, false prophets multiplied alongside the amplification of true prophets. The true prophets warned that if the Kingdom of Israel did not engage in dramatic covenant renewal and revival, it faced obliteration. The false prophets approved of the status quo. As the people endured internal fights over the throne and external threats from Assyria, the Israelites had to choose between the true prophets and self-appointed prophets.
What all the false prophets had in common was their immediate message of reassurance. According to them, Jerusalem was going to be fine, and nothing would come of the foreign threats. The prophet Micah accused the diviners of lying to the people to console them (Mic. 3:7). The prophet Isaiah said the people preferred the pleasant and soothing messages of the false prophets, even if they were illusory (Isa. 30:10). The false prophets appealed to the community’s wealth and appetite, as opposed to petitioning their conscience.
In the sixth century BCE, right before the fall of Jerusalem, the masters of deception preyed on the vulnerable Judahites, promising Jerusalem was impenetrable. During Jeremiah’s decades-long ministry, he confronted many a counterfeit prophet. While the Babylonian threat grew stronger, the false prophets provided deceptive messages that attempted to nullify Jeremiah’s warnings. Jeremiah’s warnings proved right when he stated that the lies of the false prophets would only result in the nation’s defeat and exile (Jer. 27:10). While Jeremiah confronted the false prophets in Jerusalem, the job of confronting the deceivers in exile fell to Ezekiel.
According to Ezekiel’s narrative, the initial waves of deportations from Jerusalem to Babylon must have included imposter prophets. Even in exile, they continued to offer false hope that they were on the cusp of returning to a secure Jerusalem.
Three metaphors
In a sarcastic tone, Ezekiel ridiculed the origins of the prophets’ oracles. They prophesied “out of their own imaginations” and “follow their own spirit” (13:2,3). They acted as if their own inspiration or opinion was a divine revelation. In fact, nothing they uttered was a genuine message from Yahweh.
Three times, Ezekiel used metaphors and similes to illustrate the false prophets’ ulterior motives and criticize their methods. All three metaphors illustrated the perilous consequences of the imposters’ actions. They were diverting the people from genuine repentance by sowing seeds of false hope.
He likened the prophets to jackals, opportunistic scavengers who scoured the ruins looking for prey (13:4). Like animals, they had no concern for their victims. The charlatans withheld hard truths from their audience because they wanted to be favored. By being the bearers of good news, instead of bad, they attracted followers who they then exploited for personal gain.
In his second analogy, Ezekiel compared the false prophets to lazy builders. He declared, “You have not gone up into the breaches or repaired a wall for the house of Israel” (13:5). If they truly cared about the spiritual climate of Jerusalem, they would work to restore the people to Yahweh. Instead, they let society rot from moral decay and did nothing to rebuild Judah’s spiritual defenses. As a result, the people did not prepare themselves to withstand the coming judgment.
The third metaphor is the most elaborate. Ezekiel compares the prophets’ lies to whitewash applied to a flimsy wall, or a poorly constructed house (13:10-15). The wall represents all of Israel, a crumbling edifice. Like a thin layer of plaster, the prophets’ widespread deceptions provide a temporary cover-up for defects but offer no support to the wall’s underlying structure. The plastered walls cannot withstand the slightest resistance. Yahweh warned, “I will break down the wall that you have smeared with whitewash and bring it to the ground, so that its foundation will be laid bare” (13:14). Ezekiel symbolized Yahweh’s intense wrath as a violent storm. God warned, “in my anger there shall be a deluge of rain and hailstones in wrath to destroy it” (13:13). The walls—like the prophets’ lies—did not stand a chance of surviving any of Yahweh’s impending punishments. The deception of the faulty wall built by the prophets and the consequences of the people’s rebellion that the false prophets attempted to conceal will soon be exposed.
In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus told a parable remarkably like Ezekiel’s metaphor about plastered walls (Matt. 7:24-27). Jesus described a wise builder who built his house on a solid foundation and a foolish builder who built his house on sand. When heavy rains and wind tested the foundations of the two homes, only the house on solid foundation survived. The parable underscores the significance of having a solid foundation of faith in Christ. Faith in Jesus provides a secure basis for facing the challenges and uncertainties of life.
Forging God’s signature
Prophets who claimed to receive direct instruction from God led astray the nation. They spoke of oracles that they did not hear from God and described visions that they never saw. They used the same prophetic trademark as Ezekiel and other true prophets. After they made a pronouncement, they claimed “says the Lord,” as if borrowing the prophetic formula automatically made the oracle authentic (13:6). Surely, the proliferation of “thus says the Lord” made it difficult for the people to distinguish between truth and falsehood when both claimed divine approval. Ezekiel accused the imposters of forging God’s signature, attaching Yahweh’s name to their deceptions.
It is possible that the false prophets believed that by declaring God’s will, they could manipulate the divine will. Ezekiel describes them as waiting for fulfillment of their prophecies, as if they could speak their future into existence (13:6). In the Yahwistic religion, falsely claiming to speak for God was playing with fire, and there were dire consequences. God declared, “Because you have uttered falsehood and envisioned lies, I am against you” (13:8).
Yahweh was going to expel the prophets from the nation of Israel (13:9). When the time came for Israel’s return to the promised land, he would prohibit the false prophets from reentering. Ezekiel declared, they will not be “enrolled in the register of the house of Israel” (13:9). Nothing about their existence or their teaching would make it into Israel’s records. That prophecy has proven true as we possess the books of the prophets of Israel, who may not have received recognition in their own day, but we acknowledge them as truth tellers in our day.
True prophets, like Ezekiel, followed Yahweh’s prompting only. Their authority originated from God. False prophets spoke from the delusions of their own mind, but attributed it to God. A true prophet subjugated himself or herself to the divine will. False prophets gratified themselves. According to Ezekiel, the problem with the false prophets was that the deception they trafficked created a bogus sense of security. They preached peace when there was no peace (13:10). They told the people what they wanted to hear, rather than what they needed to hear. As a result, the people turned to the illegitimate prophets instead of God. They craved words of flattering comfort rather than stern correction.
Rejection of God’s prophets was equivalent to rejection of God. The prophet’s words were genuine because God was genuine. When the people doubted Ezekiel and Jeremiah, they were challenging the trustworthiness of God, a dangerous position.
Witches and sorcerers
After his condemnation of the false male prophets, Ezekiel turns his attention to the female imposters. The passage sheds light on another flaw in Israel’s religious ecosystem. Not only male prophets gained influence over the Israelites. Female sorcerers made their mark as well and were doing their own damage.
Ezekiel had addressed the male counterfeits as “prophets of Israel,” giving them the honorific title of prophets, even if they were faulty (13:1). However, when Ezekiel addressed the female guild, he did not use the title prophet but a word equivalent to sorceress or witch. Their described activities also aligned closer with witchcraft than pronouncing oracles.
Righteous females gained admission into the prophetic class in biblical times. There are at least three named prophetesses who served as the Lord’s mouthpieces. Miriam, the sister of Moses, was the first Israelite prophetess named in the Torah (Ex. 15:20-21). In the book of Judges, Deborah, the prophetess, played a critical role in a military victory over the Canaanites (Judg. 4-5). During the reign of King Josiah, the prophetess Huldah affirmed the divine nature of the rediscovered scroll in the temple (2 Kings 22:14-20). Because female true prophets were part of Israel’s story, it is not surprising that female false prophets existed as well.
Like their male counterparts, the sorcerers were guilty of “prophesy out of their own imaginations” (13:17). Although the details of their methods are obscure, they seem to be guilty of some kind of black magic that involved wristbands and veils with amulets. Ezekiel said, “Woe to the women who sew bands on all wrists and make veils for the heads of persons of every height, in the hunt for lives!” (13:18). The mention of height suggests that the veils extended from the head to the floor. The wristbands must have been a binding mechanism. Perhaps they picked up this distinct brand of sorcery in exile in Babylon, where divination was commonplace. In the ancient Near East, they looked for divine guidance everywhere: stars, animal entrails, smoke patterns, dreams, etc. Yahweh added, “you have profaned me,” which hints that the women invoked his name during their cultic divinations (13:19). Like their male counterparts, they too tried to manipulate Yahweh.
As punishment for their wickedness and lies, God warned he will tear off their bands and remove the veils so that the Israelites who they “hunt down like birds” will “no longer be prey in your hands” (13: 20,21). Yahweh’s intervention will void their spells and block the dark forces. Interestingly, his punishment of the sorceresses was not nearly as grave as the male prophets. The male prophets were to be excommunicated from the nation and permanently exiled from the land. They only deprived the witches of their equipment and banned them from further activities. People would no longer esteem them after they lost their powers, which meant they would also no longer receive their payment of barley and bread (13:19).
Modern day
Ezekiel 13 serves as a cautionary tale for all of us today. Even in modern times, false prophets and diviners seduce weak believers away from the one true God. They are the latest variety of white-plastered walls with crumbling foundations. Just like the exiles, we also need reminders of the dangers of spiritual deceivers, whether it is the health-and-wealth preacher on television, the latest fad book on the end times, or the fortune teller on the street corner. Not everyone who claims to speak for God is speaking for God. We should only trust those who remain faithful to his word—and do not take interpretive liberties with his word.
As believers, we have a responsibility to resist the seductions of flattering words or the practices of the occult in whatever guise they present themselves. Like Ezekiel, we must condemn illusory visions and deceptive words that cloak our need for repentance when we are disobedient. Our only assurance of withstanding the coming storms in life is if we, like the wise man in Jesus’s parable, have built our house on a solid foundation of rock.
Thank you for listening and please continue to take part in this Bible Reading Challenge. Join us next week in studying Ezekiel 14.
Also, one more thing. If you like Bible Fiber and it has been helpful to you in your own journey of biblical literacy, please consider leaving a review for the podcast so that others will find it. I have never asked for reviews before but I do get weekly emails from listeners so I know you are out there and it would be really helpful for the show.
And please keep the nation of Israel in your prayers. Thursday morning, I heard the unbelievable news that Hersh, the Israeli-American hostage in Gaza, is alive. In Hamas’s manipulated video, we can tell that Hersh’s injured arm was amputated from the elbow. But he is alive after not knowing anything about his wellbeing for 201 days. I am praying for a miracle this Passover season. Please God, Let your people come out of captivity in a miraculous way that the whole earth must acknowledge.
Send me a message at srn@tjci.org. I will respond. Bible Fiber is available on YouTube or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
The post Bible Fiber: Ezekiel 13 appeared first on Shelley Neese.
April 17, 2024
Bible Fiber: Ezekiel 12
By Shelley Neese
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Welcome to Bible Fiber, where we are encountering the textures and shades of the biblical tapestry through twelve Minor Prophets, two reformers, and one exile. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel, both ancient and modern.
In last week’s episode, Ezekiel offered encouragement and comfort to the exiles, who worried that they were excluded from God’s plans for the nation of Israel. Surprisingly, Ezekiel identified them as the prophesied remnant. To help them chart a fresh course, God promised to gift them a new heart made of flesh (11:19). Instead of rejoicing over the good news, Chapter 12 reveals that a contingent of exiles rejected Ezekiel as a divine messenger. His oracles and sign-acts, no matter how forceful and dramatic, were unsuccessful in getting through. Despite Ezekiel’s best efforts, they remained stonyhearted. God warned Ezekiel, “Mortal, you are living in the midst of a rebellious house who have eyes to see but do not see, who have ears to hear but do not hear” (12:2).
Other prophets, like Isaiah and Jeremiah, used this same terminology to describe the epidemic of spiritual indifference in their time (Isa. 26:11; Jer. 5:21). Jesus, six hundred years later, also described how his teaching failed to affect those with deadened senses. Jesus used parables to reveal the purpose of his mission, recognizing that only those with perceptive eyes and attentive ears would understand his teachings (Matt. 13:13-15). For those listeners who were spiritually awake, the parables revealed “the secrets of the kingdom of God” (Luke 8:10). Like Jesus, Ezekiel hoped his message broke through to the seeing and hearing remnant, even if the spiritually blind and deaf rejected it.
To get the attention of his fellow exiles, Ezekiel once again performed divinely scripted theatrics. Why did God command Ezekiel to conduct so many sign-acts? Despite the prophet’s eccentricity, there is solid scientific support for his teaching methods. This semester, I am taking a graduate course on expository teaching, and I have learned a lot about appealing to both sides of the student’s brain. Ezekiel’s oracles and disputation speeches appealed to the left hemisphere of the brain, where we process reason and logic. Ezekiel’s sign-acts reinforced the message by appealing to the right hemisphere, the one associated with emotions and creativity. Like Ezekiel, trained preachers try to appeal to the left side of the brain and the right side of the brain at different points in their sermons. Preachers might not lay siege to a miniature Jerusalem, but they have their own versions of visual aids with videos and dramas. The hope of anyone teaching God’s word is that at least one teaching method will strike the right chord to trigger conviction and prompt action.
God commanded Ezekiel to pack a knapsack and “go like an exile from your place to another place in their sight” (12:3). To all those encamped in Tel Abib, the exile’s knapsack was a familiar sight. Five years prior, they hastily packed their own knapsacks with the bare necessities like bread, water, a bowl, and a sleep mat. At first, Ezekiel’s spectators likely assumed he was reenacting their own thousand-mile journey from Jerusalem to Babylon. The optimists in the group may have misread the context clues and even thought he was imitating the exiles’ return to Jerusalem. Only through his later interpretation did they learn he was imitating the departure of Jerusalem’s remaining inhabitants. In previous sign-acts, he had portrayed Jerusalem’s siege and the Babylonian attack, but this time he mimicked their deportation.
After making a show of walking around with his knapsack prop, God instructed Ezekiel to wait until the evening for the next scene. The dramatic pause increased the suspense and allowed time for a larger crowd to gather around Ezekiel’s home. Seven times within seven verses, God emphasized the need for the dramatization to be conducted “in their sight.” Ezekiel was not miming the deportation for his own benefit!
Once it was dark, God told the prophet, “Dig through the wall in their sight, and carry the baggage through it” (12:5). The Hebrew word used for wall shows Ezekiel burrowed through the mud-brick wall in his own home and not a large protective wall. Ezekiel had to spend a considerable amount of time and effort to make a hole big enough for him to crawl through it. Once he crawled through the hole, God told him to hoist the knapsack over his shoulder and walk into the darkness. Curiously, God also instructed Ezekiel to cover his face so that he would not see the land as he exited (12:6). Darkness was not enough; the prophet needed to be blind.
If Ezekiel’s sign-act was a Broadway play, God was the director, orchestrating the stage lighting and the audience cues. Ezekiel was the method actor going for the Tony Award. After the curtain closed, Ezekiel let the meaning of his charade simmer overnight in the minds of his spectators. The next morning, the exiles came to him with their questions and only then did God allow the often-mute prophet to verbalize his actions (12:9).
Ezekiel explained, “This oracle concerns the prince in Jerusalem and all the house of Israel in it” (12:10). Until now, Ezekiel has not mentioned King Zedekiah, the current occupant of the throne in Jerusalem. He only hinted at his lack of respect for Zedekiah by not using his regnal year as the reference point for his dating. Ezekiel purposefully referred to Zedekiah as a prince, instead of a king, as a sign of his disapproval. To Ezekiel, Zedekiah’s brother King Jehoiachin, who was living in exile, was the last legitimate king on Jerusalem’s throne. The Babylonians appointed Zedekiah as Nebuchadnezzar’s puppet king. Besides being a Babylonian plant, Zedekiah also did evil in the sight of the Lord. By the Chronicler’s assessment, Zedekiah had “stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the Lord” (2 Chron. 36:12). In Chapter 17 and 19, the prophet explains with more granularity all of Zedekiah’s wrongdoing, but in Chapter 12, he focuses on Zedekiah’s punishment.
Ezekiel prophesied, “And the prince who is among them shall lift his baggage on his shoulder in the dark and shall go out; he shall dig through the wall and carry it through; he shall cover his face so that he may not see the land with his eyes” (12:12). Within five years, Ezekiel’s oracle was fulfilled exactly as he had described. Jeremiah and 2 Kings both relay the story of Zedekiah’s attempt to escape Jerusalem during the Babylonian siege (Jer. 39:1-7; 2 Kings 25:1-7). Under the cover of darkness, Zedekiah and his attendants snuck out of Jerusalem through a breach in the city wall. Before they even got to Jericho, the Babylonian army captured them. The army brought Zedekiah before Nebuchadnezzar in Riblah, a military center in modern-day Lebanon. As punishment for Zedekiah’s betrayal, the Babylonians executed his two sons in front of him. Then they gouged out the king’s eyes and brought him to Babylon in bronze chains. Blinding captives was a relatively common practice in the ancient Near East, especially one as high profile as Zedekiah.
Ezekiel made interpreting his sign-act much easier on future Bible scholars because he identified Zedekiah as his subject. Burrowing through the wall and escaping through a hole into the darkness, all foreshadowed Zedekiah’s botched escape plan. The only area of debate is whether Ezekiel portended the blinding of the king when he said, “he shall cover his face so that he may not see the land with his eyes” (12:12). The ambiguous statement might describe Zedekiah’s shame as he cowardly abandoned his people to suffer through the siege on their own. However, if Ezekiel’s prophecy was a prediction of Zedekiah’s blinding, it is a remarkably precise detail to know in advance, even for a credentialed prophet.
God clarified that despite the awfulness of Zedekiah’s fate, he allowed for the king’s punishment at the hands of the Babylonians. It was the Lord who caught Zedekiah in his snare and chased him out of the land with a sword. He said, “I will spread my net over him, and he shall be caught in my snare, and I will bring him to Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans, yet he shall not see it, and he shall die there” (12:13). Zedekiah paid a heavy price for his wickedness. During his reign, he asked Jeremiah to inquire of the Lord on behalf of the kingdom but never once heeded the prophet’s advice (Jer. 27:1-22; 38:14-28). When Ezekiel said the prince would be deported but would not actually see the land of the Chaldeans, he might have been alluding a second time to Zedekiah’s blinding. Zedekiah never saw again, period, and he did not survive the exile.
After Ezekiel’s first one-man drama, God told the prophet to perform a shorter sign-act. His earlier sign-act represented the royal household’s fate and the next pointed to the destiny of all Jerusalem’s inhabitants. He commanded the prophet, “Mortal, eat your bread with quaking and drink your water with trembling and with fearfulness” (12:18). Although he addressed the exiles in his midst, his performance represented the events that would soon enough take place in Jerusalem. The short vignette seems better situated as part of Ezekiel’s enactment of the siege of Jerusalem when he laid on his side eating unsavory bread and limited water intake (4:9-17). God expected Ezekiel to endure a siege diet and mimic a hand tremor while consuming his small portion of food and water. The point of Ezekiel’s charade was to exhibit how basic actions, like eating and drinking, would be impossible as the Babylonian army closed in, and panic overtook the city. The people’s anxiety level would be so high that they could not stop their hands from shaking.
Why did God allow for such terrible and brutal punishment? Ezekiel’s answer was always the same: “they shall know that I am the Lord” (12:15). Because generations of Israelites had laid aside the covenant and ignored the prophets, they had no choice but to recognize God’s sovereignty in his ultimate act of judgment. God awaited a truly humble remnant to repent, confess their sins among the nations, and return to him (12:16). That was the goal. After facing God’s wrath head-on, they would finally accept his rescue.
Ezekiel rarely gave the reaction of his audience after an oracle or sign-act. However, after these two performances, Ezekiel described the problematic mood that took over the encampment. Their cynicism was best reflected in a pithy saying that circulated like a viral meme. The proverb said, “The days are prolonged, and every vision comes to nothing” (12:22). For years, God’s prophets warned the Babylonians would destroy Jerusalem. Jeremiah and Ezekiel beat the drum of impending doom, but to their hearers, their threat was empty. The Israelites were sick of their negativity. As time passed and Jerusalem still stood, the doubters claimed, “every vision comes to nothing.” Why should they believe in unvalidated prophecies?
Not all the exiles resisted Ezekiel or questioned his trustworthiness. Plenty of exiles believed Ezekiel had a direct encounter with God and spoke the truth, but they did not see his warnings as applying to them. They declared, “the vision that he sees is for many years ahead; he prophesies for distant times” (12:26). The viewpoint that gained traction in their community was that Ezekiel’s prophecies applied to the distant future, not the immediate. Therefore, they were safe to ignore his oracles.
God had an answer for the naysayers. He will put an end to the cynicism. Not only will Jeremiah and Ezekiel’s prophecies come true, but God promised that “the days are near and the fulfillment of every vision” (12:23). The delay of judgment had passed. The punishment would happen in their days, in fact, within five years (12:25). This very generation would witness the fulfillment of every prophetic utterance.
False prophecy versus authentic prophecy is a theme that will continue throughout the next two chapters (12:21-14:11). The true prophets were on the cusp of being vindicated, and the false prophets were going to be cut off forever. But in the days of Ezekiel, imposters came out of the woodwork. Next week, we will learn all about the false prophets.
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April 11, 2024
Bible Fiber: Ezekiel 11
By Shelley Neese
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Welcome to Bible Fiber, where we are encountering the textures and shades of the biblical tapestry through twelve Minor Prophets, two reformers, and one exile. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel, both ancient and modern.
This week we are studying Ezekiel 11, the concluding sequence in Ezekiel’s multi-part vision, and his last message before the glory of the Lord departed Jerusalem. So far, the prophet has taken a tour of the temple’s abominations, observed a squad of executioners on a killing spree, and watched the man in linen drop fiery coals on Jerusalem. The last episode ended with the Lord mounting his throne chariot to depart the temple complex, but his glory paused over the east gate. Chapter 11 opens with the divine spirit depositing Ezekiel at the east gate where the throne chariot still hovered (11:1).
25 naïve officials
Ezekiel spotted 25 of Jerusalem’s political officials gathered in the temple court. Two of the officials he recognized by name, Jaazaniah and Pelatiah. Both names were common in Jerusalem at the beginning of the sixth century BCE, but nothing is known about these figures outside this reference. Still, Ezekiel must have been surprised to spot old acquittances from his life before exile.
By way of introduction, the divine spirit told Ezekiel, “Mortal, these are the men who devise iniquity and who give wicked counsel in this city” (11:2). Most commentaries agree that these 25 men were not the same group who worshipped the sun in an earlier scene (8:3). The 25 sun worshippers seemed to be an assembly of priests, and these 25 are described as political figures. Also, God accused these officials of corruption and poor ethics, but not idolatry.
Ezekiel overheard the men say, “the time is not near to build houses” (11:3). At least, that is how the NRSV translates Verse 3, but the Hebrew is too obscure to translate with certainty. If the officials paused construction, like the NRSV translation suggests, it was likely because they confiscated the property of the deportees now stuck in Babylon. No newly built houses were necessary, as there were ample abandoned ones to repossess.
The NIV translates the quote as an affirmative statement, instead of a negative. It reads, “haven’t our houses been recently rebuilt?” (11:3). If the 25 men were applauding their newly built houses, it was because they went on a building spree based on the naïve assumption that Jerusalem’s future was secure.
Regardless of the exact translation, God called the political figures’ counsel wicked because they were leading the people into the wrong mindset. They dismissed the Babylonian threat and carried on as usual with peacetime activities, blissfully unaware that they were on the brink of war.
Apparently, the officials were also going around boasting, “this city is the pot, and we are the meat” (11:3). The metaphor is awkward, but they were claiming that Jerusalem, with its walls and fortifications, was like an iron cauldron that would protect the occupants from outside enemies. The officials pompously saw themselves as the choice cuts of meat nestled inside the cauldron. In their opinion, they were the best Jerusalem offered, the worthiest of protection.
The officials’ misplaced confidence angered God because they were supposed to be in a state of repentance. Only the sincerest revival had a chance of stopping the Babylonian attack. Instead, they felt perfectly at ease with their situation. While they praised Jerusalem as impenetrable, they did not realize that God’s glory was exiting the city. They were blinded by their own complacency and busy congratulating themselves for surviving the two Babylonian deportations.
God twice commanded Ezekiel to prophesy against the leaders: “prophesy against them; prophesy, O mortal” (11:4). In Hebrew, when the biblical authors wanted to emphasize a point, they repeated it. In English, we add “er” or “est” to a word for inflection. Something is bigger or biggest. In Hebrew, if something is bigger, the biblical writer states it twice. It is “big, big” or “gadol, gadol.” So, when God twice commanded Ezekiel to prophecy, the prophet understood the command as a forceful imperative.
Speaking through the prophet, God warned the leaders of Israel that he could read their minds (11:5). God—who always knows the secrets of our hearts—differentiated between what they publicly told the people and their greedy interior motives.
As far as God was concerned, their corruption equated to violence and murder in Jerusalem; they had “filled its streets with the slain” (11:5). God reversed their own metaphor. They were not the choice meat in the cauldron, as they claimed. That role belonged to their innocent victims whom they butchered (11:7). Continuing the theme of meat, God, acting as the butcher, threatened he would cut them up with a sword (11:8). He would them over to strangers, a euphemism for the Babylonian army (11:9). Also, the city of Jerusalem was not the guarantor of the people’s protection; that role belonged to God. God warned, “this city shall not be your pot” (11:11).
Identifying the remnant
Ezekiel, like all true prophets, never described a coming punishment without also explaining the divine reasoning behind the punishment. Ezekiel uttered, “I am the Lord, whose statues you have not followed and whose ordinances you have not kept, but you have acted according to the ordinances of the nations that are around you” (11:12). As soon as he offered this definitive reproof of Israel’s leaders, Pelatiah, one of the two officials who Ezekiel had recognized, dropped dead. If Ezekiel’s vision was happening in real-time, Pelatiah might have died that very moment while the prophet was in exile but envisioning events in Jerusalem. In response, Ezekiel fell down crying and pleaded with God not to obliterate the whole remnant (11:13).
Pelatiah’s death triggered a mournful response from Ezekiel for probably two reasons. First, it is difficult to process tragedy on a mass scale, and much easier to wrap our heads around individual stories. Ezekiel had recognized Pelatiah, possibly as temple personnel or a member of the royal house. He knew his story and therefore his death felt personal. Second, Ezekiel must have taken his death as a sign that the destruction had begun. Yahweh’s wrath startled him. Even though he had been the megaphone preaching the divine judgement and salvation of a remnant, he equated Pelatiah’s death with Israel’s total elimination.
This was the second time, thus far, that Ezekiel broke down in tears, trying to intercede on behalf of the remnant (8:8; 11:13). The first time, in Chapter 8, God seemed to avoid the question and did not answer Ezekiel. The second time God stopped his oracle of judgment and offered Ezekiel a message of reassurance (11:14-21). In a lengthy hope-filled speech, God revealed surprising news: Ezekiel’s fellow exiles made up the future remnant of Israel.
Apparently, when the Babylonian army deported Ezekiel and thousands of other Judeans in 597 BCE, a new class of officials arose in Jerusalem to fill the power vacuum. Nebuchadnezzar had carted off the upper class, the royal household, temple personnel, and skilled laborers. Those who remained were mostly the poor and unskilled. However, within only a few years, they became the new elite and profited nicely from the power shift. Ezekiel’s vision made apparent that the formerly oppressed became the oppressor. Lacking compassion for their exiled brethren, they ruled over Jerusalem with their own systems of corruption and oppressive behaviors.
The events in Chapter 11, Ezekiel’s concluding vision in his divine tour of Jerusalem, must have occurred before the executioners began their murderous spree. Otherwise, it makes no sense for the Jerusalem officials to feel so confident. Although the last four chapters were part of one vision sequence leading up to the full departure of God’s glory from the city, not every scene was reported in sequence. Since it was a dream-like vision, Ezekiel’s visionary episodes were not bound by reason or chronology.
Knowing the circumstances of the previous visions, the concluding vision is ironic. Everything that the Jerusalemites believed to be true was the exact opposite of their reality. The 25 leaders of Jerusalem assumed their protection from the Babylonian deportation was a sign that God favored them. They saw themselves as the anticipated remnant and felt certain of their survival. As they judged the historical events, the exiles displeased God, so he banished them, allowing for the true believers to take hold of the reins. In fact, the Jerusalem officials had it backwards. They were the ones blindly tumbling toward their own destruction. The exiles who had been thrown out of Jerusalem were safe, and those inside Jerusalem who felt secure were doomed. By concluding that the deportees deserved God’s judgment, they justified their confiscation of the ancestral property, defying the Torah’s land laws (Lev. 25:10). They claimed, “to us this land is given for a possession” (11:15).
God set the record straight about the exiles. He stated, “Though I removed them far away among the nations and though I scattered them among the countries, yet I have been a sanctuary to them for a little while in the countries where they have gone” (11:16). This was a revelation! The exiles encamped in Babylon believed that without access to Yahweh’s temple, they had no way to atone for their sins. Without a way to ritually purify, they assumed they were too contaminated to approach God. Yet, God promised that he sanctuaried among them in their captivity; he extended himself to them and abided with them in exile. The idea that God could not be confined to a temple was especially poignant coming from Ezekiel. As a priest, he was prophesying himself out of a profession!
When reading the concluding vision, it is important to remember that Ezekiel addressed one people group in his vision, the Jerusalem officials. Yet, his immediate audience was his fellow exiles in Babylon. It was a circuitous way to deliver a message. He essentially was reporting back to the exiles the word on the streets in Jerusalem, a place he visited in spirit but not in body.
The exiles were clueless as to how their compatriots in Jerusalem fared and how they interpreted their banishment. They took news in whatever form they could get it. Like any refugee, they were desperate for updates about their homes and their land. God intended for Ezekiel’s direct reproof of the prideful Jerusalem officials to be an indirect comfort to the disillusioned exiles.
Ezekiel prophesied a coming day when the exiles would return to their homeland. With the definitive prophetic stamp, “Thus says the Lord God,” the prophet promised, “I will gather you from the peoples and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel” (11:17). God was going to perform a second Exodus. By a miracle that only he could orchestrate, he would initiate their return. Like the period of wilderness wandering, the decades they spent in exile was their chance to rely only on God.
Heart of flesh
However, there is an important difference between Joshua’s conquest of Canaan and the returnees’ reclamation of their land. God tasked Joshua with cleansing the land of the idolatry of the nations. When the remnant returned to Israel after their period of exile was over, they had to purge the land of all the abominations (11:18). They were just as guilty as the former Canaanites of contaminating God’s territory.
The Israelites, from the beginning of the covenant on Mount Sinai, were caught in a cycle of rebellion, punishment, and renewal. To empower them to do better, God promised to give them a new heart. Ezekiel said, “I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh” (11:19). No longer would they divide their loyalty between Yahweh and the pagan gods. The relationship between God and man would gain permanency. To Ezekiel, Yahweh reiterated the classic covenant formula first promised to Abraham: “they shall be my people, and I will be their God” (11:20).
With the conclusion of the Jerusalem vision, Yahweh on his throne chariot “ascended from the middle of the city and stopped on the mountains east of the city” (11:23). The departure of his glory was complete. This was the disconcerting message to the Jews still living in Jerusalem. If they assumed their safety and wellbeing was based on the assurance of God’s presence, their protection was gone.
Ezekiel did not give the chariot’s full flight path or destination, only that it stopped on the mountain east of the city, the Mount of Olives. Perhaps God returned to the heavenly abode, or he went to Babylon where he promised to sanctuary among the exiles. Jewish tradition holds that the chariot hovered above the Mount of Olives for three years, prepared to return to Jerusalem if the people repented. If you have ever been to the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, it offers the best perch to see the entire city and contemplate its past and future. The resurrected Jesus also ascended into heaven from the Mount of Olives (Acts 1:9-12).
As for the prophet, the spirit returned him to his home among the exiles in Babylon. Ezekiel stated, “Then the vision that I had seen left me” (11:24). If the Jerusalem vision had been a movie, this was the moment that the director lifted the clapstick and called “cut.”
When Ezekiel returned to his regular consciousness, the same elders were present who had been with him in his home when the vision first began. Likely, the vision transpired in a day, temporarily taking over his mind but with no obvious effect on his body. Ezekiel told the elders everything that God showed him in the vision (11:25). Their reaction to the news was left unsaid.
With this concluding vision, Yahweh declared his omnipresence and showed that unlike the local patron deities, he was not attached to any one place. Stories of gods abandoning their temples was a popular theme in the laments of the ancient Near East. For example, the Cyrus Cylinder described the Babylonian god Marduk abandoning his temple, out of frustration with the people, before the Persians overtook the city in 539 BCE. When an invading army attacked a Sumerian or Assyrian city, the most convenient explanation was often that the patron deity had departed from its temple and left the city vulnerable. That’s how they rationalized defeat without undermining their religion or political leadership. Because their gods were localized, they thought they only had power in the lands associated with their devotees.
Of course, their gods were movable idols that had to be deposited and removed from temple sanctuaries. The prophet Isaiah described the idols as a weighty burden that the captives had to carry with them into exile (Isa. 46:1-2). Yahweh did not require human hands to install or remove his presence. He abdicated his throne in Jerusalem, but he had a greater throne in heaven. He left Jerusalem of his own initiative and free accord, and he would one day return just the same. The divine abandonment was not permanent. The second half of Ezekiel promised the return of the divine presence. If Ezekiel’s lowest low was the departure, his highest high will be the return of God’s glory.
Thank you for listening and please continue to take part in this Bible Reading Challenge. Next week we are reading Ezekiel 12.
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