Monthly Archives: March 2024

Ezekiel 10 God Prepares to Leave the Temple

Ezekiel 10

¹ Then I looked, and above the dome that was over the heads of the cherubim there appeared above them something like a sapphire, in form resembling a throne. ² He said to the man clothed in linen, “Go within the wheelwork underneath the cherubim; fill your hands with burning coals from among the cherubim, and scatter them over the city.” He went in as I looked on. ³ Now the cherubim were standing on the south side of the house when the man went in; and a cloud filled the inner court. ⁴ Then the glory of the LORD rose up from the cherub to the threshold of the house; the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was full of the brightness of the glory of the LORD. ⁵ The sound of the wings of the cherubim was heard as far as the outer court, like the voice of God Almighty when he speaks.

⁶ When he commanded the man clothed in linen, “Take fire from within the wheelwork, from among the cherubim,” he went in and stood beside a wheel. ⁷ And a cherub stretched out his hand from among the cherubim to the fire that was among the cherubim, took some of it and put it into the hands of the man clothed in linen, who took it and went out. ⁸ The cherubim appeared to have the form of a human hand under their wings.

⁹ I looked, and there were four wheels beside the cherubim, one beside each cherub; and the appearance of the wheels was like gleaming beryl. ¹⁰ And as for their appearance, the four looked alike, something like a wheel within a wheel. ¹¹ When they moved, they moved in any of the four directions without veering as they moved; but in whatever direction the front wheel faced, the others followed without veering as they moved. ¹² Their entire body, their rims, their spokes, their wings, and the wheels — the wheels of the four of them — were full of eyes all around. ¹³ As for the wheels, they were called in my hearing “the wheelwork.” ¹⁴ Each one had four faces: the first face was that of the cherub, the second face was that of a human being, the third that of a lion, and the fourth that of an eagle.

¹⁵ The cherubim rose up. These were the living creatures that I saw by the river Chebar. ¹⁶ When the cherubim moved, the wheels moved beside them; and when the cherubim lifted up their wings to rise up from the earth, the wheels at their side did not veer. ¹⁷ When they stopped, the others stopped, and when they rose up, the others rose up with them; for the spirit of the living creatures was in them.

¹⁸ Then the glory of the LORD went out from the threshold of the house and stopped above the cherubim. ¹⁹ The cherubim lifted up their wings and rose up from the earth in my sight as they went out with the wheels beside them. They stopped at the entrance of the east gate of the house of the LORD; and the glory of the God of Israel was above them.

²⁰ These were the living creatures that I saw underneath the God of Israel by the river Chebar; and I knew that they were cherubim. ²¹ Each had four faces, each four wings, and underneath their wings something like human hands. ²² As for what their faces were like, they were the same faces whose appearance I had seen by the river Chebar. Each one moved straight ahead.

The four living creatures and wheels that made up the divine chariot with the divine presence of God above it that appeared in Ezekiel’s initial vision now reappear in this scene before the temple. The passage of time and the presence of the temple have now given Ezekiel a clearer understanding of the vision he sees. As Daniel Block states:

Most of the grammatical difficulties plaguing ch. 1 have been smoothed out; the abstract has become concrete; much of the analogical language has been eliminated; the sheer brilliance of the first vision has been toned down; and details that seemed out of place in ch. 1 now play a vital roles. Whereas Ezekiel’s first encounter with the heavenly throne-chariot had left the prophet struggling to describe what he saw, when the vehicle reappears more than a year later, he is able to deal with the encounter more rationally, and his description is more calculated. (Block, 1997, pp. 316-317)

The difficult to describe living creatures now realized to be cherubim and the wheels within wheels are now the wheelwork. The presence of the temple likely helped Ezekiel make the connections between the living creatures and the cherubim. The cherubim were crafted on the lid of the ark of the covenant and inside the holy of holies in the tabernacle (Exodus 25-26, 1 Kings 6) and while the statues of the cherubim and their presence on embroidery are stated they are not described beyond the wings of the cherubim touching. There is tradition of both the LORD meeting the people between the cherubim (referring to the ark of the covenant Exodus 25:22) the LORD above the cherubim (2 Kings 19:15) and the LORD who rides on the cherubim (2 Samuel 2: 2-15, Psalm 18: 1-15, Psalm 104:3). The visual imagery of the temple and song now are combined in this living throne-chariot where the presence of the LORD is above the cherubim and the wheelwork, and yet this is not a static throne but a wheeled one that the LORD rides upon.

The man clothed in linen is commanded to go into the wheelwork and take fire from it. In Isaiah 6: 6 a burning coal was taken from the altar to purify the prophet Isaiah, and although there are priestly echoes in this passage the implication here is that the coals are to burn the city. The word for scatter (Hebrew zaraq) is used in Leviticus 3 for the act of dashing blood on the altar for offerings of well-being. Yet, the action here is similar to the seventh seal in Revelation 8:1-5 where the fire from the altar is thrown upon the earth. The man who sealed those who moaned and groaned over the state of Israel, now becomes an agent of destruction. This man receives the burning coals from the cherubim depart to fulfill his instructions.

As I mentioned after discussing the living creatures/cherubim, wheelwork, and the heavenly throne-chariot in chapter 1, it is easy to become drawn to the images and miss the message. The imagery of the divine presence and the throne chariot indicate the movement of the LORD of Israel away from the temple. The actions of the executioners in the previous chapter and the man in linen with fire from the wheelwork in this chapter are communicating the judgment of the LORD upon the city of Jerusalem. The movement of the God of Israel has been deliberate throughout the past two chapters, only moving as far as the entrance of the east gate of the temple, but the overall direction is clear. God is leaving the building and in the next chapter the presence of God will leave the city.

Ezekiel 9 The Sealing of the Righteous and the Judgment of the City

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Ancient Egyptian Scribe’s Palette By Staff or representatives of Harrogate Museums and Arts service – Commons:Licensing., CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38347984

Ezekiel 9

¹ Then he cried in my hearing with a loud voice, saying, “Draw near, you executioners of the city, each with his destroying weapon in his hand.” ² And six men came from the direction of the upper gate, which faces north, each with his weapon for slaughter in his hand; among them was a man clothed in linen, with a writing case at his side. They went in and stood beside the bronze altar.

³ Now the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the cherub on which it rested to the threshold of the house. The LORD called to the man clothed in linen, who had the writing case at his side; ⁴ and said to him, “Go through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of those who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it.” ⁵ To the others he said in my hearing, “Pass through the city after him, and kill; your eye shall not spare, and you shall show no pity. ⁶ Cut down old men, young men and young women, little children and women, but touch no one who has the mark. And begin at my sanctuary.” So they began with the elders who were in front of the house. ⁷ Then he said to them, “Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain. Go!” So they went out and killed in the city. ⁸ While they were killing, and I was left alone, I fell prostrate on my face and cried out, “Ah Lord GOD! will you destroy all who remain of Israel as you pour out your wrath upon Jerusalem?” ⁹ He said to me, “The guilt of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great; the land is full of bloodshed and the city full of perversity; for they say, ‘The LORD has forsaken the land, and the LORD does not see.’ ¹⁰ As for me, my eye will not spare, nor will I have pity, but I will bring down their deeds upon their heads.”

¹¹ Then the man clothed in linen, with the writing case at his side, brought back word, saying, “I have done as you commanded me.”

The idolatrous actions of the people in the previous chapter have defiled the temple of the LORD. In the previous chapters we have seen judgment declared upon the city of Jerusalem, the land, and now the temple. Ezekiel has been the obedient prophet who enacts predominantly in signs what he sees and records. Here the prophet sees the judgment of God embodied in these six men with weapons for slaughter and a scribal/priestly figure with a writing case. The glory of God has come out from the holy of holies and gives the instructions to these agents of destruction to execute God’s justice upon the rebellious occupants of the city of Jerusalem.

Ezekiel observes the scene from a position near the bronze altar originally dedicated by Solomon (1 Kings 8: 64) and moved from a central position before the entrance to the holy of holies to a north facing position under King Ahaz (2 Kings 16: 14). Looking towards the north he sees the approach of these six men with weapons of destruction and the man in linen cloth with a writing case. The men bearing ‘instruments or weapons of destruction’ are those who will execute the sentence. The approach from the north is consistent with the direction a threat from Babylon would approach Jerusalem. Linen was the fabric used for priests and one of the functions of the priestly caste was to be scribes.[1] Now this man in linen is instructed to go throughout the city and mark with a taw[2] those who moan and groan over the abominations done in the city. This mark functions like the blood on the lintels and doorposts in Exodus 12:7 or the scarlet cord on Rahab’s house in Joshua 2: 21. This scribe is to seek out those who see the actions perpetrated in the city through the LORD’s perspective and who see the incongruity between the idolatrous actions of many and the covenantal expectations of the people of God.

There is a chilling echo between this story and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 18-19. When Abraham intercedes for Sodom hoping that ten righteous persons might be found and the city not be destroyed on their behalf, God grants Abraham’s request (after an extended bargaining period by Abraham) but when the angels investigate the depravity of Solomon they remove only Lot’s family. Again, this somewhat angelic figure goes through the city to mark those saved from destruction before the destroyers proceed through the city bringing death. Ezekiel who until this point has been obedient, only protesting an action he felt would defile him (Ezekiel 4:14) now falls prostrate before the LORD and intercedes for the people. Yet, throughout the first half of Ezekiel it has become clear that it is too late for this intercession. Prophets, stand between God and the people. These individuals charged with announcing God’s judgment also love and care for this people, city, and temple. Jeremiah when he is commanded not to intercede for the people (Jeremiah 7: 16) still continues to intercede for the people, and here Ezekiel does as well. This is the fate of those called to be prophets, they are people caught between the God whom they are obedient to and the people who have broken God’s heart.

Any hope for a remnant of Jerusalem rests with those still faithful enough to bemoan the state of Jerusalem and the temple. The destroyers are tasked with the elimination of all those unmarked regardless of age or gender. One key group not included in the list are strong men and men of war. (Block, 1997, p. 308) It is possible as Daniel Block suggests that these warriors and able-bodied men are eliminated in the military struggle against Babylon’s forces, but the parallel of old men and young men may also form an inclusive group from the old to the young. Those considered defenseless and frail, those normally under the protection of God from the strong, are included in this list because they too cannot be considered innocent by their participation in these idolatrous actions. From the point of view of Ezekiel, the defilement of idolatry has made even these vulnerable ones guilty, and they remain unmarked and selected for destruction.

The previous chapters have been dominated by visual activities, whether indescribable sites seen by the prophets or sign acts done by the prophet for others to see. Chapter nine is primarily aural. We do not follow the scribal figure or the destroyers through the city, we merely hear their summons, their instructions, Ezekiel’s intercession, the LORD’s response, and the scribal figure’s report that he has completed the LORD’s task. Yet, the instructions are dark enough to convey the gravity of the situation. The killing begins with those at the sanctuary and now the Jerusalem temple is treated like the idolatrous shrines in the high places which are destroyed. The ritualistic defilement of these unholy places is now shared by this place which was once considered holy. The actions of those in Jerusalem have made the temple no better than a high place.

This action by the scribal figure in this chapter is echoed in the sealing of the 144,000 in Revelation 7: 1-8. Although there are differences in the two visions: in Revelation both the sealer and destroyers are angels and it is a seal placed on the righteous rather than a mark, the resonance between both images is strong. In Revelation, the action is expanded to a cosmic scale, rather than the judgment upon the temple and Jerusalem here. In Revelation there are many who are sealed (a total of 144,000) but here the implication is that few are marked, and the prophet interprets this destruction as a disaster which could bring about the end of Israel.

Ezekiel’s words and actions did not bring about change among those in Jerusalem and Judah. His words clearly have gained some interest among the elders in exile with him, but Ezekiel’s commission is to declare what is given and he is not responsible for its reception. This time of judgment by God upon the unfaithfulness of the people are difficult to read and they were distressing for the people in Ezekiel’s time to hear. In the traumatic aftermath of the destruction of Jerusalem and the remnants exile in Babylon they provided an answer to the question of why this event occurred. Even though the prophet intercedes for the people he communicates that the actions of God are justified because “the guilt of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great; the land is full of bloodshed and the city full of perversity.” Perhaps we, like Abraham, might want the LORD to save the city on behalf of some small representative group of the righteous who moan and groan over the abominations practiced in the city, but the God who Ezekiel transmits to us indicates that the judgment long delayed is finally occurring.

[1] The evolution of the English word clerk comes from the clerical work performed by clergy since for much of history the clergy were among the elites who could read and write.

[2] The last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, similar in appearance and sound to the English T.

Review of Animal Farm by George Orwell

Ezekiel 8 The Corruption of the Temple and the People

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James Tissot, Solomon Decicates the Temple (1896-1902)

Ezekiel 8

¹ In the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I sat in my house, with the elders of Judah sitting before me, the hand of the Lord GOD fell upon me there. ² I looked, and there was a figure that looked like a human being; below what appeared to be its loins it was fire, and above the loins it was like the appearance of brightness, like gleaming amber. ³ It stretched out the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of my head; and the spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven, and brought me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the gateway of the inner court that faces north, to the seat of the image of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy. ⁴ And the glory of the God of Israel was there, like the vision that I had seen in the valley.

⁵ Then God said to me, “O mortal, lift up your eyes now in the direction of the north.” So I lifted up my eyes toward the north, and there, north of the altar gate, in the entrance, was this image of jealousy. ⁶ He said to me, “Mortal, do you see what they are doing, the great abominations that the house of Israel are committing here, to drive me far from my sanctuary? Yet you will see still greater abominations.”

⁷ And he brought me to the entrance of the court; I looked, and there was a hole in the wall. ⁸ Then he said to me, “Mortal, dig through the wall”; and when I dug through the wall, there was an entrance. ⁹ He said to me, “Go in, and see the vile abominations that they are committing here.” ¹⁰ So I went in and looked; there, portrayed on the wall all around, were all kinds of creeping things, and loathsome animals, and all the idols of the house of Israel. ¹¹ Before them stood seventy of the elders of the house of Israel, with Jaazaniah son of Shaphan standing among them. Each had his censer in his hand, and the fragrant cloud of incense was ascending.¹² Then he said to me, “Mortal, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each in his room of images? For they say, ‘The LORD does not see us, the LORD has forsaken the land.'” ¹³ He said also to me, “You will see still greater abominations that they are committing.”

¹⁴ Then he brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the house of the LORD; women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz. ¹⁵ Then he said to me, “Have you seen this, O mortal? You will see still greater abominations than these.”

¹⁶ And he brought me into the inner court of the house of the LORD; there, at the entrance of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men, with their backs to the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east, prostrating themselves to the sun toward the east. ¹⁷ Then he said to me, “Have you seen this, O mortal? Is it not bad enough that the house of Judah commits the abominations done here? Must they fill the land with violence, and provoke my anger still further? See, they are putting the branch to their nose! ¹⁸ Therefore I will act in wrath; my eye will not spare, nor will I have pity; and though they cry in my hearing with a loud voice, I will not listen to them.”

Ezekiel’s prophecies as reported in the book of Ezekiel have been directed first at Jerusalem, then at the land of Judah, and now the next two chapters orient on the temple and prepare us for the departure of the LORD’s presence from the temple. Ezekiel from his exile in Babylon is transported by God to view the actions of idolatry which have aroused the LORD’s passion so violently. During this time where the prophet is given a look within the walls of the temple the LORD shows four different examples of idolatrous practices among the people which cause the God of Israel disgust. These syncretistic[1] practices by themselves are enough, in the book of Ezekiel’s view, to justify God’s anger. The anger of God is increased by the way the infection of idolatrous worship is leading to practices of violence which further provoke God.

The beginning of this oracle fixes the date of this vision precisely: September 18, 592 BCE (by our calendar), fourteen months after the inaugural vision. This is close to the number of days that Ezekiel is instructed to lie on his right and left side (if this occurs immediately after the initial vision) outlined in Ezekiel 4: 4-8. Yet, even in this short time the prophet’s actions have attracted the notice of the elders in exile with Ezekiel and they sit before Ezekiel. Perhaps they have come to Ezekiel seeking an oracle or they are watching the performance of his sign act of lying on his side, but during this time when the elders are present Ezekiel is transported to Jerusalem. There is no indication of what the elders perceive during this event, whether they perceive Ezekiel having a prophetic episode or whether they see him lifted up and transported. The description of the LORD’s appearance does not have the divine chariot that is described in the first two chapters and only focuses on the image of the humanlike but divinely bright character who lifts the prophet up. One reason the chariot may not be present is that God is picking Ezekiel up in Babylon and transporting him to the place where the LORD’s presence is supposed to rest in Jerusalem. The prophet is taken by a lock of hair, but the spirit at the same time is lifting the prophet up so it is plausible that the experience is not one of being lifted by one’s hair, but instead of being carefully picked up by what can be described as the hand of God and the spirit of God simultaneously. Yet, the method of divine transportation is merely the prelude to the vital imagery of idolatry that God desires the prophet to see and communicate.

Ezekiel is transported to the altar gate of the temple to see the ‘image of jealousy’ which has clearly aroused the LORD’s passionate anger. I am not certain whether Ezekiel is standing near the entrance to the holy of holies, where the ark of the covenant resides and where God’s presence is expected to rest, or whether he is perhaps between the holy place and the vestibule, nearer to where the altar would be, but the presence of a statue to a different god within the temple complex would have been a shocking abomination to this prophet concerned with the holiness of the temple.

The description of the abominations in Ezekiel 8 parallel the pattern of prohibitions laid out in Deuteronomy 4: 15-20:

¹⁵ Since you saw no form when the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire, take care and watch yourselves closely, ¹⁶ so that you do not act corruptly by making an idol for yourselves, in the form of any figure — the likeness of male or female, ¹⁷ the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, ¹⁸ the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth.¹⁹ And when you look up to the heavens and see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, do not be led astray and bow down to them and serve them, things that the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples everywhere under heaven. ²⁰ But the LORD has taken you and brought you out of the iron-smelter, out of Egypt, to become a people of his very own possession, as you are now.

This image of jealousy is likely one of the Canaanite gods that continually work their ways into the practices of the people of Israel and Judah and the Canaanite gods often appear as figures or male of female likeness as prohibited in Deuteronomy 4:16. King Manasseh of Judah placed a carved image of Asherah within the house of the LORD (2 Kings 21:7) but Josiah destroyed this idol during his reforms (2 Kings 23:6). Yet, Josiah’s reforms did not endure long after his death in battle and it is possible that a later king or individual had the audacity to place another image like Manasseh’s Asherah within the temple. It is also possible that with the physical transportation of the prophet to the temple that there is a temporal transportation to this time when the statue of Asherah existed within the temple grounds. While the temporal transportation is possible with God, and there is an element where we are seeing a compilation of offenses that may not all be occurring simultaneously, it is also likely that the people of Judah continued to revert to syncretistic practices of worshiping other gods alongside the LORD that are continually indicated in the Deuteronomic history.[2]

The second abomination that the LORD wants the prophet to see involves the elders offering incense to their rooms of images. The prophet is shown a recess or hiding place (NRSV hole) in the wall that the prophet is instructed to dig through.[3] The excavation of this hiding place takes Ezekiel into a secret room where seventy elders including Jaazaniah son of Shaphan are conducting their secretive incense offerings before walls decorated with images in a way prohibited by Deuteronomy 4:17-18. In addition to the misplaced actions of offering incense before the creeping things and loathsome animals is the reality that it is the elders and not the priests who are conducting this offering. The images may be like the walls in Egyptian burial chambers or the Ishtar gate in Babylon, but it also may indicate the conglomeration of personal shrines that are in the households of the elders of Israel. The presence of seventy elders echoes the presence of seventy elders in Exodus 24: 9-18 and Number 11:16-30 where the elders are gathered to share in Moses in the burden of leading the people. In contrast these seventy elders, distinct from the elders gathered around Ezekiel in exile, are one of the causes of the condemnation of the people. If Jaazaniah son of Shaphan, the recognized and named elder, is a son of the Shaphan mentioned in 2 Kings 22, a court official involved in the reforms of Josiah, then as Kathyrn Pfister Darr indicates, “the presence of this elder within the secret chamber signaled not only the failure of the reform (of Josiah), but also the ubiquity of Israelite idolatry.” (NIB VI: 1176) The elders may state that the LORD does not see them and that the LORD has forsaken the land, but the prophet is shown that the LORD does see and wants the prophet to see as well. These secretive mysterious rituals being conducted in the dark have been unearthed by the prophets excavation, and what they conducted in darkness has now been brought into the light.

Detail from the Ishtar Gate (Reconstruction in Berlin’s Pergamon Museum)

The third abomination the prophet sees is the practice of women weeping for Tammuz. Tammuz is not mentioned elsewhere in scripture, but we do know about this practice comes from existing inscriptions from the surrounding region. Tammuz is a Sumerian myth involving the decent of Tammuz into the underworld and then rebirth corresponding to the agricultural seasons. If this practice is corresponding to the practices of the surrounding culture, then the timing would be off for this lament to be given during September (the time of the vision) but as mentioned above there is likely some element of temporal transport along with the physical transport to highlight multiple practices that the LORD finds offensive.

The final transport takes the prophet to the temple again where twenty-five men have turned their backs on the LORD to bow down to the rising sun. This again follows the prohibitions of Deuteronomy 4:19 against bowing down to the sun, moon, or any astral body. These practices are seemingly present in every portion of society in Judah: within the temple, practiced by the elders, by women and by men. The temple has not prevented the spiritual deterioration of the people because the temple itself has been corrupted by the ‘image of jealousy’ and the practices of the elders, the women, and the men within the temple compound.

Yet, the idolatrous acts of worship have also corrupted the way of life of the people of Judah. Although the idolatrous worship is enough, the people have gone further and committed acts of violence (Hebrew hamas).[4] Rimon Kasher explains the meaning of the Hebrew word hamas as:

Ĥamas is violent social injustice… The expression occurs in the story of the Flood, so what we have here is more than merely a hint of the punishment that awaits Judah. What the verse means is that God’s anger towards Israel arises not only from their religious abominations, but also from their sins in the moral and social sphere. (Ganzel, 2020, p. 76)

The idolatrous and violent actions of the people have grieved God’s heart like the story of the flood, and now Judah has put the branch to the God’s nose. The enigmatic phrase ‘sticking the branch up my nose’ has been described by interpreters as everything from a phallic symbol to the actions involved in the worship of one of the indicated idols, or simply an insulting gesture, but as Daniel Block indicates it is used to describe how the LORD feels his subjects have treated him disrespectfully. (Block, 1997, p. 299) This place that was to be a place reserved for the worship of the LORD and honoring the divine name has become transformed into a place where idolatrous practices obscure the worship of their God and have caused God to feel disgust towards the temple and those who are misusing it.

[1] Syncretism is the merging or combining of various religious practices. The theology of the Hebrew Scriptures is continually opposed to syncretism but it also narrates numerous instances of syncretic practice throughout the story of Israel and Judah.

[2] The Deuteronomic history, so called by scholars because the theological perspective echoes the book of Deuteronomy, includes the books Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, and 1 & 2 Kings.

[3] As Katheryn Pfister Darr notes if there was already a hole in the wall why would God command the prophet to dig a hole. (NIB VI:1175)

[4] The Hebrew word hamas is not the root of the Palestinian group Hamas. The Hamas currently involved in the Hamas-Israel conflict derives its name from an acronym of Harakata al-Muqawama al-Islamiya (translated as Islamic resistance Movement).

Ezekiel 7 A Three Alarm Crisis

Ezekiel 7

The word of the LORD came to me: ² You, O mortal, thus says the Lord GOD to the land of Israel:

An end! The end has come upon the four corners of the land.
³ Now the end is upon you, I will let loose my anger upon you; I will judge you according to your ways, I will punish you for all your abominations.
⁴ My eye will not spare you, I will have no pity. I will punish you for your ways, while your abominations are among you. Then you shall know that I am the LORD.
⁵ Thus says the Lord GOD: Disaster after disaster! See, it comes.
⁶ An end has come, the end has come. It has awakened against you; see, it comes!
⁷ Your doom has come to you, O inhabitant of the land. The time has come, the day is near — of tumult, not of reveling on the mountains.
⁸ Soon now I will pour out my wrath upon you; I will spend my anger against you. I will judge you according to your ways, and punish you for all your abominations.
⁹ My eye will not spare; I will have no pity. I will punish you according to your ways, while your abominations are among you. Then you shall know that it is I the LORD who strike.
¹⁰ See, the day! See, it comes! Your doom has gone out. The rod has blossomed, pride has budded.
¹¹ Violence has grown into a rod of wickedness. None of them shall remain, not their abundance, not their wealth; no pre-eminence among them.
¹² The time has come, the day draws near; let not the buyer rejoice, nor the seller mourn, for wrath is upon all their multitude.
¹³ For the sellers shall not return to what has been sold as long as they remain alive. For the vision concerns all their multitude; it shall not be revoked. Because of their iniquity, they cannot maintain their lives.
¹⁴ They have blown the horn and made everything ready; but no one goes to battle, for my wrath is upon all their multitude.
¹⁵ The sword is outside, pestilence and famine are inside; those in the field die by the sword; those in the city — famine and pestilence devour them.
¹⁶ If any survivors escape, they shall be found on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them moaning over their iniquity.
¹⁷ All hands shall grow feeble, all knees turn to water.
¹⁸ They shall put on sackcloth, horror shall cover them. Shame shall be on all faces, baldness on all their heads.
¹⁹ They shall fling their silver into the streets, their gold shall be treated as unclean.
Their silver and gold cannot save them on the day of the wrath of the LORD. They shall not satisfy their hunger or fill their stomachs with it. For it was the stumbling block of their iniquity. ²⁰ From their beautiful ornament, in which they took pride, they made their abominable images, their detestable things; therefore I will make of it an unclean thing to them.
²¹ I will hand it over to strangers as booty, to the wicked of the earth as plunder; they shall profane it.
²² I will avert my face from them, so that they may profane my treasured place; the violent shall enter it, they shall profane it.
²³ Make a chain! For the land is full of bloody crimes; the city is full of violence.
²⁴ I will bring the worst of the nations to take possession of their houses. I will put an end to the arrogance of the strong, and their holy places shall be profaned.
²⁵ When anguish comes, they will seek peace, but there shall be none.
²⁶ Disaster comes upon disaster, rumor follows rumor; they shall keep seeking a vision from the prophet; instruction shall perish from the priest, and counsel from the elders.

²⁷ The king shall mourn, the prince shall be wrapped in despair, and the hands of the people of the land shall tremble. According to their way I will deal with them; according to their own judgments I will judge them. And they shall know that I am the LORD.

My father was a firefighter when I was growing up, and the number of alarms would determine the number of trucks that would be sent to a reported fire. Larger disasters required more trucks and firefighters available to fight the fire or rescue trapped people and they would attempt to dispatch the appropriate response for the situation. The structure of chapter seven sounds three distinct alarms for this disaster which is coming upon the land of Israel and threatens not only Jerusalem, but all the towns of Judea with survivors having to flee to the mountains in powerlessness and humiliation. Yet, for the people hearing these three alarms from the prophet there are no rescuers to deliver them.

Before dealing with the alarms that we encounter in Ezekiel 7, I want to take a moment to recall the character of the LORD as articulated in Exodus 34:

⁵ The LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name, “The LORD.” ⁶ The LORD passed before him, and proclaimed,

“The LORD, the LORD,
a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
⁷ keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
yet by no means clearing the guilty,
but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children
and the children’s children,
to the third and the fourth generation.”

The elements of this list, sometimes called the thirteen attributes of God, are critical to understanding the character of the God of Israel. Within this identity is a God who is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness who forgives, but there is also the caution that God will not clear the guilty. Ezekiel understands that God has been slow to anger, has continually sought to show Israel steadfast love and faithfulness but Israel has responded with disobedience for generations. Israel has failed, within the prophecies of Ezekiel, to be a light to the nations and now God will no longer clear the guilty who are continuing to corrupt the people of God and to violate God’s covenant.

The first alarm occurs in the first four verses of the chapter when Ezekiel is to declare the end for the land and the people. This is similar to the language of Amos 8:2 where the LORD declares an end for the people of Samaria:

The end has come upon my people Israel; I will never pass them by again.

Amos declared to the northern kingdom that their grace period was running out, and now Ezekiel from exile warns the people of Judah that their grace period has also expired. In the past God may have overlooked their failures to live according to the covenant but now the curses in the law are being enacted. (Block, 1997, p. 249)

A second alarm resounds in verses five through nine. The flow is broken by indicating God speaks a second time at the beginning of verse five. Six words describe the impact of the curse which the people’s continued disobedience have awakened: disaster, end, doom, the time, the day, and the tumult. The language is similar to Zephaniah 1: 14-16, and it is possible that Ezekiel may have been familiar with this prophet from forty to fifty years earlier. Regardless of the similarities, the announcement of this alarm does not give any chance for return, for the time when the wrath of God will unfold upon the nation will be soon. The punishment is for the purpose of removing the abominations from among the people and they will realize that this is the action of their God in response to their long running disobedience.

The final alarm begins in verse ten as many of the words that described the impact of the curse are now repeated along with additional descriptions. The arrival of the day and doom twists the imagery of the budding rod which declared Aaron as God’s chosen high priest (Numbers 17) into a rod of violence and wickedness. In the time where this rod is blooming the normal actions of buying and selling have become meaningless for the land and the marketplace have all been invaded and there is no expectation of returning to one’s home. A sentinel sounds the horn to alert the people to defend their homes, but no one prepares to fight. Conflict destroys those outside the city while famine and sickness ravage those behind the walls. The only refuge is the mountains where the people wail over their fate. Their panic is so complete that their hands have become weak, and they even lose control over their bladders[1]. There is no buying oneself out of this situation and gold and silver are thrown away as unclean[2] things. God has turned away and the worst of the nations comes to put an end to the disobedience of the people. No one can change the unfolding of this curse. The visions of the prophets fail, the priest no longer have instruction (torah) to give, the elders have no counsel, the king mourns, and the princes are without hope. Every corner of the land is stricken by this long-delayed judgment and in the end the people will know the LORD.

These words were hard to hear when they were first spoken or read, and they are difficult today. Many Christians want the God of steadfast love and faithfulness but do not want a God who judges them if they are the ones guilty of disobedience. Many modern people have an agnostic view of God, where God will neither do good or ill. For the prophets this would be the definition of foolishness. There is always a risk when a people focus on the grace of God that the sense of awe and wonder becomes diminished, and both cynicism and self determination replace obedience and respect. The patience of God in the past for Judah has led to complacency among the people in Ezekiel’s time. These words of Ezekiel point to a process of undoing the pillars that the people of Israel’s false security rested upon. In the end the prophecy of Ezekiel envisions a people who once again know the LORD and whose abominations and idols have been removed.

[1] The NRSV’s all knees turn to water is misleading. The imagery here is losing control of the bladder in a state of panic, or crudely pissing oneself in fear. (NIB VI: 1167)

[2] The Hebrew nidda denotes bodily secretions, especially menstrual blood which was considered a source of uncleanness in the Levitical ideas of purity. (NIB VI: 1167)

Sign of the Rose

Searchings: Sacred and Secular