By James Tissot (1836-1902), French painter – http://www.gci.org/files/images/jt/TissEzek.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15355521

Ezekiel 14: 1-11

¹ Certain elders of Israel came to me and sat down before me. ² And the word of the LORD came to me: ³ 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? ⁴ Therefore speak to them, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Any of those of the house of Israel who take their idols into their hearts and place their iniquity as a stumbling block before them, and yet come to the prophet — I the LORD will answer those who come with the multitude of their idols, ⁵ in order that I may take hold of the hearts of the house of Israel, all of whom are estranged from me through their idols.

⁶ Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: Repent and turn away from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations. ⁷ For any of those of the house of Israel, or of the aliens who reside in Israel, who separate themselves from me, taking their idols into their hearts and placing their iniquity as a stumbling block before them, and yet come to a prophet to inquire of me by him, I the LORD will answer them myself. ⁸ I will set my face against them; I will make them a sign and a byword and cut them off from the midst of my people; and you shall know that I am the LORD.

⁹ If a prophet is deceived and speaks a word, I, the LORD, have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand against him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel. ¹⁰ And they shall bear their punishment — the punishment of the inquirer and the punishment of the prophet shall be the same — ¹¹ so that the house of Israel may no longer go astray from me, nor defile themselves any more with all their transgressions. Then they shall be my people, and I will be their God, says the Lord GOD.

Elders from among the exiles again approach Ezekiel and sit down before him. These elders, the text informs us, are coming to Ezekiel to consult the LORD, but the text also indicates that these elders who are seeking the LORD’s guidance have been unfaithful to their God. Ezekiel is brought into the LORD’s musings about how to respond to these elders who approach the prophet of the Lord GOD while still taking idols into their heart. The LORD’s deepest desire is for repentance among the people and so the LORD responds to these elders even though he views their divided loyalties as making their corrupted hearts unwilling to hear and repent.

As Daniel Block notes the parallels between the text dealing with these elders who have idols on their heart and the persistent problems of idolatry leading to the judgment in Jerusalem in Ezekiel 8:1-11:25 are numerous. (Block, 1997, pp. 422-423) The shared problem of idolatry both in Judea and in exile leads to a common response from God. The initial portion of the chapter lets us overhear Ezekiel being invited into God’s musings about how to respond to the elders’ approach to Ezekiel for consultation. The idolatry of the elders in God’s view would be enough reason to deny these elders a hearing and to only respond to any appeals with silence, but despite the repeated experience of Israel not hearing and responding to the words God imparts through the prophets, God still desires to take hold of their hearts and wrest their allegiance away from these idols they hold close.

These elders likely worshipped the LORD the God of Israel alongside other gods. This was a recurring problem in the story of Israel. The first commandment indicates that the people are to have no other gods before the LORD. Most modern readers would understand the first commandment to point to a practice of giving one’s sole allegiance to the LORD, but the practices reflected in the telling of Israel’s story point to multiple times where the LORD was one among several options that the people worshipped. They may have considered their practices faithful by putting the LORD in the first but not exclusive position, but continuation of the Ten Commandments and the witness of the prophets make clear that the expectation of the God of Israel is exclusive devotion rather than being a first among many for the people.

The LORD desires the people to repent and turn their hearts to their God. The LORD answers in hope that they may turn, but continuing in these idolatrous practices will not go unpunished. Even those in exile are not exempt from further judgment. There is a window into a hopeful future where the people no longer go astray from their God or defile themselves with breaking the commandments of God, but at this point it remains a hopeful future for those who emerge from this time of judgment. There will be those who persist in their unfaithfulness and they will at least be excluded from the community of the faithful (although in the context of Ezekiel being cut off from the community may also include death) but there is a window for a remnant.

The deceived prophets who speak brings up a difficult set of reflections upon Ezekiel’s view of God. As mentioned in my reflection, A Split in the Identity of God, in the prophets there is an all-encompassing view of God being responsible for everything, and so even false prophets are reflected on in light of God being responsible for their activity. There are narratives where there are deceived prophets[1]and whether this deception is a test for the leaders to determine if they will remain faithful, they are still uncomfortable passages. Here the prophet who is deceived and the people who are deceived are both punished, but later generations of faith would be uncomfortable with a God who deceives. For example, Martin Luther when talking about the Ten Commandments would state:

It is true that God tempts no one, but we ask in this prayer that God would preserve and keep us, so that the devil, the world and our flesh may not deceive us or mislead us into false belief, despair, and other great and shameful sins, and that, although we may be attacked by them, we may finally prevail and gain the victory. (Luther, 1978, p. 38)

Yet, Luther and all Christians shaped by the New Testament cosmology where the deceiving forces are now forces actively aligned against God, while in Ezekiel God is still the all-encompassing cause for all that the people of God encounter.

Ezekiel 14: 12-23

¹² The word of the LORD came to me: ¹³ Mortal, when a land sins against me by acting faithlessly, and I stretch out my hand against it, and break its staff of bread and send famine upon it, and cut off from it human beings and animals, ¹⁴ even if Noah, Daniel, and Job, these three, were in it, they would save only their own lives by their righteousness, says the Lord GOD. ¹⁵ If I send wild animals through the land to ravage it, so that it is made desolate, and no one may pass through because of the animals; ¹⁶ even if these three men were in it, as I live, says the Lord GOD, they would save neither sons nor daughters; they alone would be saved, but the land would be desolate. ¹⁷ Or if I bring a sword upon that land and say, ‘Let a sword pass through the land,’ and I cut off human beings and animals from it; ¹⁸ though these three men were in it, as I live, says the Lord GOD, they would save neither sons nor daughters, but they alone would be saved. ¹⁹ Or if I send a pestilence into that land, and pour out my wrath upon it with blood, to cut off humans and animals from it; ²⁰ even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, as I live, says the Lord GOD, they would save neither son nor daughter; they would save only their own lives by their righteousness.

²¹ For thus says the Lord GOD: How much more when I send upon Jerusalem my four deadly acts of judgment, sword, famine, wild animals, and pestilence, to cut off humans and animals from it! ²² Yet, survivors shall be left in it, sons and daughters who will be brought out; they will come out to you. When you see their ways and their deeds, you will be consoled for the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem, for all that I have brought upon it. ²³ They shall console you, when you see their ways and their deeds; and you shall know that it was not without cause that I did all that I have done in it, says the Lord GOD.

A second message comes to Ezekiel which addresses the land. I have reflected on the connection between the people of God and the land in The Connection Between Humanity and the Earth in Scripture, and here the land sins against God as a consequence of the unfaithfulness of the people. Now humans and animals are cut off from the land, leaving it a desolate ruin. Even if there were multiple paragons of righteousness present among the people they could not reverse the judgment coming upon the land as a whole. The righteous, like those ‘moaning and groaning’ over the state of Jerusalem in Ezekiel 9: 4-6 will be set apart, but they cannot save others by their righteousness in this declaration.

Abraham intercedes with God on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah asking if God will sweep away the righteous with the unrighteous. Abraham starts with asking God to spare the city on behalf of fifty righteous and eventually bargains God down to ten righteous being all that is required to save the city. (Genesis 18: 22-33) Yet, on encountering Sodom the LORD only spares Abraham’s relative Lot and his family. The comparison in this story paints the land of Judah as more unredeemable than Sodom, since the presence of three of the most righteous people wouldn’t even be able to redeem their own family, but only themselves. God is determined to send these four agents of judgment: famine, wild beasts, sword, and pestilence against the land yet surprisingly survivors will emerge. There is a hope beyond judgment and there will be a remnant to rebuild the covenant people.

Job by Leon Bonnat (1880)

There is some debate around the person Daniel among the righteous named in this passage. Noah (Genesis 6-9) and Job are both biblical figures from the distant past who are both acclaimed as righteous men who stand out in their generations. Noah is before the people of Israel are constituted but as one saved from an unrighteous generation he could be a symbol for hope. Job is from the land of Uz as reflected in the poetic book of Job who goes through a time of extreme testing and remains faithful to God. Scholars believe the book of Daniel to be written much later than the book of Ezekiel and this has led some scholars to believe that the person referred to here must be Dan’el the grandfather of Methuselah and may have a tradition of being a wise judge in Phoenician and north Canaanite tradition. (Block, 1997, p. 448) Yet, the book of Daniel relates the story of Daniel who would be a younger contemporary of Ezekiel in the exile in Babylon and many of the early stories in the book occur during the reign of Nebuchadrezzar. It is plausible that Daniel, even at this early stage, has become a symbol of what faithfulness to God in the midst of the Babylonian empire looked like.

The unfaithfulness of the people of Judah has wounded the land and brought about their own devastation. Yet, the Lord GOD will save some even with the faithlessness of the people and the land. In Ezekiel’s view the action of the LORD is justified even if harsh. Yet, even within the wrath expressed in Ezekiel there is a space of grace that prevents the people from being completely destroyed by the famine, wild bests, sword, and pestilence that is unleashed upon the land.

[1] 1 Kings 13 where the man of God from Judah who speaks out against the altar at Bethel and then an old prophet at Bethel deceives this man of God by declaring that an angel of the LORD has given him a message and 1 Kings 22 where Micaiah talks about a spirit who with the LORD’s permission deceives the prophets of King Ahab.