Ezekiel 6 Judgment Against the Land of Israel

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Judean Hills viewed from the Dead Sea by Kreecher at Russian Wikipedia – Transferred from ru.wikipedia to Commons., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4241172

Ezekiel 6

1 The word of the LORD came to me: 2 O mortal, set your face toward the mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them, 3 and say, You mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord GOD! Thus says the Lord GOD to the mountains and the hills, to the ravines and the valleys: I, I myself will bring a sword upon you, and I will destroy your high places. 4 Your altars shall become desolate, and your incense stands shall be broken; and I will throw down your slain in front of your idols. 5 I will lay the corpses of the people of Israel in front of their idols; and I will scatter your bones around your altars. 6 Wherever you live, your towns shall be waste and your high places ruined, so that your altars will be waste and ruined, your idols broken and destroyed, your incense stands cut down, and your works wiped out. 7 The slain shall fall in your midst; then you shall know that I am the LORD.

8 But I will spare some. Some of you shall escape the sword among the nations and be scattered through the countries. 9 Those of you who escape shall remember me among the nations where they are carried captive, how I was crushed by their wanton heart that turned away from me, and their wanton eyes that turned after their idols. Then they will be loathsome in their own sight for the evils that they have committed, for all their abominations. 10 And they shall know that I am the LORD; I did not threaten in vain to bring this disaster upon them.

11 Thus says the Lord GOD: Clap your hands and stamp your foot, and say, Alas for all the vile abominations of the house of Israel! For they shall fall by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence. 12 Those far off shall die of pestilence; those nearby shall fall by the sword; and any who are left and are spared shall die of famine. Thus I will spend my fury upon them. 13 And you shall know that I am the LORD, when their slain lie among their idols around their altars, on every high hill, on all the mountain tops, under every green tree, and under every leafy oak, wherever they offered pleasing odor to all their idols. 14 I will stretch out my hand against them, and make the land desolate and waste, throughout all their settlements, from the wilderness to Riblah. Then they shall know that I am the LORD.

The sign-acts of the previous two chapters have been directed against the city of Jerusalem, but now the judgment is expanded to the mountains of Israel. The city of Jerusalem, the temple, the Davidic king, and the land have all been pillars upon which the people’s false sense of security rested. Just as chapters four and five were directed against Israel, now the focus shifts to the land. In this chapter we also begin to see the reason for the fractured relationship between God and God’s people. The worship at the high places of other gods by the people has broken the LORD’s heart and led to this broken relationship.

This oracle begins with the characteristic address to the prophet as mortal (literally son of man) and then immediately proceeds to what Daniel Block calls the ‘hostile orientation formula’ (Block, 1997, p. 34) when Ezekiel is instructed to ‘set his face towards’ the mountains of Israel. It may derive from the idea that a person delivering a curse must be facing the object of cursing[1] or it may generally refer to the common practice of facing the one who you are addressing. Yet, Ezekiel’s address of the mountains of Israel from the exile in Babylon would’ve been merely directional like the Islamic practice of facing Mecca to pray. The command to set one’s face towards an place, person or object is universally used throughout the book of Ezekiel to denote the LORD’s hostility towards the object that the face is set towards.

The religious problems of the people of Judah are not concentrated only in the temple. The high places (Hebrew bamot) have existed throughout Israel’s time in the land and although there are positive references in the time prior to the construction of the temple, the majority of references are viewed from the perspective of the author of 1 and 2 Kings as a source of embarrassment once Solomon’s temple is built. Yet even Solomon constructed high places late in his reign. Josiah’s attempts to purge the nation of Israel of these high places ends with his death and the worship at these high places resumed shortly afterwards. Most of the high places noted in the scriptures are not out in the wilderness places but are in inhabited areas where the people could easily access them.

The altars, incense stands, and idols in these high places indicate the misdirected faith of the people of Israel. Altars and incense stands can be used properly in the worship of the LORD in the temple, but they can also be used in the worship of these other images for other gods. Daniel Block argues that the word often translated idols or images should be harsher:

Modern sensitivities prevent translators from rendering the expression as Ezekiel intended it to be heard, but had he been preaching today, he would probably have identified these idols with a four-letter word for excrement.[2] (Block, 1997, p. 226)

The continued presence of these high places, altars, incense stands, and idols have left the LORD brokenhearted (NRSV crushed) at the way Israel has failed to be faithful to God. Like in the Genesis narrative of the flood (Genesis 6-7) when God is sorry to have created humanity, the result is the same: God resolved to blot out (expunge) humanity in Genesis and here the towns and high places will be ruined (expunged).[3]

God’s words may be harsh in this portion of Ezekiel, but they are not without hope. There is a future for a remnant and a possibility for renewal, but the renewal will occur in a new place. For this renewal to happen the people must remember the LORD and know the LORD. When the pillars on which the peoples’ false sense of security are broken down the people will remember their God and they will loathe their previous unfaithfulness. The words of this prophecy are clearly aligned with the curses of Leviticus 26:30-33 and the consequences of disobedience long delayed have not been spoken in vain.

The God of Israel is a passionate God who desperately wants to abide among the people, but this God will not be taken for granted. The land, the temple, the city, the stable line of Davidic kings are all conditioned on loyalty to the LORD as articulated in the covenant. The painful words of the heartbroken God of the people of Israel may be difficult to hear, and the loss of the land, the death of many of the people, and the need for the remnant to begin again as strangers in a strange land must have been challenging. Yet, Ezekiel’s words do not seem to change the direction of the people until after the

[1] For example the actions of Balaam in Number 22-24.

[2] Block’s argument is based on the practice of looking at the words a new word is constructed from. If the hypothesis of Block and others is correct the images or idols are representative of ‘shitgods.’ Ezekiel is responsible for 39 or the 48 occurrences in the Hebrew Scriptures of the Hebrew word gillum which is what is translated idols or images here.

[3] The same Hebrew verb maha is used in both Genesis 6-7 and here.

Ezekiel 5 An Image of Jerusalem’s Destruction

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Jerusalem is on Fire from the Art Bible (1896)

Ezekiel 5: 1-4

1 And you, O mortal, take a sharp sword; use it as a barber’s razor and run it over your head and your beard; then take balances for weighing, and divide the hair. 2 One third of the hair you shall burn in the fire inside the city, when the days of the siege are completed; one third you shall take and strike with the sword all around the city; and one third you shall scatter to the wind, and I will unsheathe the sword after them. 3 Then you shall take from these a small number, and bind them in the skirts of your robe. 4 From these, again, you shall take some, throw them into the fire and burn them up; from there a fire will come out against all the house of Israel.

An uncomfortable prophet becomes the embodiment of an uncomfortable message. The God of Israel has transformed from being the protector of Jerusalem to being actively engaged in the scattering and death of the people of Jerusalem. This culmination of the sign-act which through lying on one side, eating a restrictive diet, constructing a model of the siege and now the shaving of the prophet’s hair by a sword has deconstructed the identity of the prophet to demonstrate the destructive forces that are being unleased on Jerusalem. Ezekiel among the prophets has the greatest concern for ritual purity in relation to the Levitical understanding of a priest. Near the end of the book of Ezekiel he will note that priests are not to shave their heads (Ezekiel 44: 20) and this follows the prohibition of shaving bald spots on their heads or shaving the edges of their beards in mourning for all priests (Leviticus 21: 5, see also Deuteronomy 14: 1 where this practice is extended to all people). As before the command of the LORD pushes Ezekiel past the boundaries of what is expected of a priest and perhaps removes him from the role of the priesthood to serve as a strange prophet with a message that embodies the LORD’s disgust at what Israel has become.

Priests were prohibited from shaving their heads, even in the act of mourning but the use of a sharp sword as the instrument may point to the experience of shaving as a mark of dishonor or humiliation as part of a military defeat. Jerusalem is facing a military catastrophe as the continued image of the siege demonstrates. Ezekiel has already been instructed to cook his food in a way that violated his understanding of faithfulness to God’s law, and yet here Ezekiel does not protest. Ezekiel has been commanded to be obedient in contrast with the people. The implication is that the prophet does shave his head and beard, weighs his hair, and divides it in thirds according to the instructions. Two thirds of the city are represented destroyed either within or outside the city by the burning or striking of the representative thirds and the remnant remains under threat of God unsheathing the sword after them. Only a small number is bound to the prophet in order to remain safe.

Ezekiel 5: 5-17

5 Thus says the Lord GOD: This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the center of the nations, with countries all around her. 6 But she has rebelled against my ordinances and my statutes, becoming more wicked than the nations and the countries all around her, rejecting my ordinances and not following my statutes. 7 Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Because you are more turbulent than the nations that are all around you, and have not followed my statutes or kept my ordinances, but have acted according to the ordinances of the nations that are all around you; 8 therefore thus says the Lord GOD: I, I myself, am coming against you; I will execute judgments among you in the sight of the nations. 9 And because of all your abominations, I will do to you what I have never yet done, and the like of which I will never do again. 10 Surely, parents shall eat their children in your midst, and children shall eat their parents; I will execute judgments on you, and any of you who survive I will scatter to every wind. 11 Therefore, as I live, says the Lord GOD, surely, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable things and with all your abominations — therefore I will cut you down; my eye will not spare, and I will have no pity. 12 One third of you shall die of pestilence or be consumed by famine among you; one third shall fall by the sword around you; and one third I will scatter to every wind and will unsheathe the sword after them.

13 My anger shall spend itself, and I will vent my fury on them and satisfy myself; and they shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken in my jealousy, when I spend my fury on them. 14 Moreover I will make you a desolation and an object of mocking among the nations around you, in the sight of all that pass by. 15 You shall be a mockery and a taunt, a warning and a horror, to the nations around you, when I execute judgments on you in anger and fury, and with furious punishments — I, the LORD, have spoken — 16 when I loose against you my deadly arrows of famine, arrows for destruction, which I will let loose to destroy you, and when I bring more and more famine upon you, and break your staff of bread. 17 I will send famine and wild animals against you, and they will rob you of your children; pestilence and bloodshed shall pass through you; and I will bring the sword upon you. I, the LORD, have spoken.

If you are making this journey with me through Ezekiel it quickly becomes uncomfortable to hear these harsh words of judgment from God directed at Jerusalem recorded in these first five chapters. This strange prophet’s declarations are unfamiliar to most people who are used to a less judgmental version of Christianity. As Katheryn Pfisterer Darr can state,

Ezekiel has a difficult time securing a place in mainstream Christianity. With a few well-known exceptions (e.g., the valley of dry bones vision in 37: 1-14), his oracles seldom make their way into lectionary readings and sermons, for they are deemed too severe, too complex, and too painful to set before our congregations and Bible study groups. And Ezekiel makes us uncomfortable—a sentiment we surely share not only with his original audience in exile, but also with two and a half millennia of his interpreters, both Jewish and Christian. Among the early rabbis, for example, we find the opinion that reading the book’s beginning and ending was too dangerous to be undertaken by anyone younger than thirty years of age. (NIB VI:1129)

This particular prophetic unit is, “one of the harshest that is delivered to the nation anywhere in Tanakh. It remains difficult to read, even as we are removed by so many generations.” (Ganzel, 2020, p. 54) Yet, even with the harshness and difficulty of reading Ezekiel I still believe it has something to teach us about a passionate God and a people who were once a treasured possession, a holy people, and a nation of priests (Exodus 19: 5-6) but now are viewed as impure and disgusting.

Jerusalem has ceased to be Zion, the home of God. Their privileged status has been forfeited at this time in their story with God, and Ezekiel is concerned with both pronouncing the change of status but also communicating the cause for this change. Throughout the first five chapters we have heard the charge that the people have rebelled against God’s statutes and ordinances. They were intended to be a witness to the righteousness of God revealed to them by the covenant. Instead, they failed to even live up to the righteousness of the nations[1] (ordinances of the nations in NRSV) and this is the root of the LORD’s anger with his people.

Ezekiel frequently uses the language of purity/impurity from the law, particularly Leviticus. Ezekiel uses the terms ‘detestable things’ (Hebrew shikkutzim) and ‘abominations’ (Hebrew to’evot) for the first of more than eighty uses throughout his prophecies. Detestable things typically refer to impure creatures which are forbidden as food, but in Ezekiel they normally refer to the idolatrous practices which have defiled the temple and the people. Abominations in the law are things that is, “hateful, disgusting, or worthy of condemnation.” (Ganzel, 2020, p. 51) and throughout Ezekiel these are the items that defile the bond between husband and wife, the land, the temple, Sabbath, and even God’s name. For Ezekiel these detestable things and abominations corrupt the people, the land, and even the temple making them impure and disgusting to God. The treasured possession is polluted, the holy people are unholy, and the nation of priests have become idolatrous.

The judgment echoes the language of the curses in the law[2] as well as what is found in other prophets.[3] It also remembers the cannibalism that is reported during the siege of Samaria under Ben-Hadad as referenced in 2 Kings 6: 24-41. Ezekiel adds to the reports of eating children or other residents with the reversal of children eating parents. The stress and starvation of siege warfare can make people abandon their humanity in the struggle to survive. Yet, for Ezekiel the Babylonians are not the primary oppressors of Jerusalem. The Babylonians are merely their God’s deadly arrows of famine and destruction.

The God presented by the prophets has a surprisingly human range of emotions from passionate love to anger. Years ago, when I was working through Jeremiah I realized this was the language of a broken-hearted God. God is grieving the loss of what could have and perhaps should have been with the people. Is God reacting rationally, absolutely not, God is reacting emotionally in Ezekiel. This is a painful text which causes us to ask difficult questions. What would cause God the heartbreak which leads to this rage? What actions cause God’s people to go from treasured possessions to detestable things and abominations? How do we explain the disasters within our lives, our churches, and our society and does God have a role in those disasters? What are the ‘idols’ that we trust instead of the God we claim to worship? What are the obligations of our identity as the people of God? All challenging questions without easy answers. The prophet finds himself caught between a rebellious people and a passionate God. He occupies that uncomfortable place of faithfulness is a time a judgment. Yet, even the prophet’s faithfulness may look like disobedience to the strict ideas of purity. There are no easy answers in Ezekiel. The first half of the book leads us unrelentingly to the destruction of Jerusalem, and it is only in the second half where the hope for the surviving remnant can be voiced.

[1] Hebrew mishpat haggoyim this would be a strong condemnation from the perspective of a law observant Hebrew. The righteousness of the Gentiles would be an oxymoron to the Jewish people who viewed themselves as the bearers of God’s vision of righteousness. Ezekiel argues they would not even maintain the standard of those outside the covenant.

[2] Leviticus 26: 29, Deuteronomy 28: 53-57

[3] Isaiah 9:20-21; 49:26 (although here it refers to Israel’s enemies); Jeremiah 19:9; Zechariah 11:9

  Ezekiel 4 The Siege of Jerusalem Portrayed

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Jerusalem is on Fire from the Art Bible (1896)

Ezekiel 4

1 And you, O mortal, take a brick and set it before you. On it portray a city, Jerusalem; 2 and put siegeworks against it, and build a siege wall against it, and cast up a ramp against it; set camps also against it, and plant battering rams against it all around. 3 Then take an iron plate and place it as an iron wall between you and the city; set your face toward it, and let it be in a state of siege, and press the siege against it. This is a sign for the house of Israel.

4 Then lie on your left side, and place the punishment of the house of Israel upon it; you shall bear their punishment for the number of the days that you lie there. 5 For I assign to you a number of days, three hundred ninety days, equal to the number of the years of their punishment; and so you shall bear the punishment of the house of Israel. 6 When you have completed these, you shall lie down a second time, but on your right side, and bear the punishment of the house of Judah; forty days I assign you, one day for each year. 7 You shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem, and with your arm bared you shall prophesy against it. 8 See, I am putting cords on you so that you cannot turn from one side to the other until you have completed the days of your siege.

9 And you, take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them into one vessel, and make bread for yourself. During the number of days that you lie on your side, three hundred ninety days, you shall eat it. 10 The food that you eat shall be twenty shekels a day by weight; at fixed times you shall eat it. 11 And you shall drink water by measure, one-sixth of a hin; at fixed times you shall drink. 12 You shall eat it as a barley-cake, baking it in their sight on human dung. 13 The LORD said, “Thus shall the people of Israel eat their bread, unclean, among the nations to which I will drive them.” 14 Then I said, “Ah Lord GOD! I have never defiled myself; from my youth up until now I have never eaten what died of itself or was torn by animals, nor has carrion flesh come into my mouth.” 15 Then he said to me, “See, I will let you have cow’s dung instead of human dung, on which you may prepare your bread.”

16 Then he said to me, Mortal, I am going to break the staff of bread in Jerusalem; they shall eat bread by weight and with fearfulness; and they shall drink water by measure and in dismay. 17 Lacking bread and water, they will look at one another in dismay, and waste away under their punishment.

Ezekiel has eaten and ingested the scroll that was given to him by the LORD and now he becomes the physical embodiment of the words of lament, morning, and woe. Previous prophets have used ‘sign-acts’ to convey a message. There is a societal expectation that prophets will do strange actions to convey a symbolic meaning: whether it is Ahijah the Shilonite tearing the new garment he was wearing into twelve pieces and handing ten to Jeroboam to indicate God was handing ten tribes to Jeroboam to reign over (1 Kings 11 29-39) or Zedekiah son of Chenaanah making horns of iron[1] (1 Kings 22: 11) Elisha having King Joash strike the ground with arrows to symbolize victory (2 Kings 13: 14-19), Isaiah walking around naked and barefoot for three years (Isaiah 20. Jeremiah burying and retrieving a loincloth, breaking an earthenware jug, or wearing a yoke[2] (Jeremiah 13: 1-11; 19: 1-13; 27) Hosea’s relationship with his wife becomes an enactment of God’s relationship with Israel (Hosea 1-3) or Zechariah’s creation of a crown to put on the high priest Joshua (Zechariah 6). Yet, Ezekiel makes this type of visual prophecy a central part of his ministry to the people. ‘Sign-acts’ are a part of the modus operandi of the prophet Ezekiel as he embodies the word of God he is given. The nature and duration of the acts assumes an audience. These actions are public actions which are designed to provoke reaction, discussion, and communication.

The actions as commanded by the LORD would take over the prophet’s life for over a year. As Ellen Davis writes, “The prophet so consumed the divine word that finally his life…was important only to illustrate it might well claim to speak for YHWH.” (Davis, 1989, p. 70) Ezekiel is going to feel the pain of his people in his body as he prefigures the action of the siege, the length of exile, and the meager rations that those remaining in Jerusalem will encounter. His strange actions will be observed by his fellow exiles, but they will ultimately be communicated through family, social, political, and religious networks to those in Judah. Although he is already in exile in Babylon and will not endure the siege like those in Jerusalem his actions will embody the pain that is coming upon the people as a result of their hardheaded and hard-hearted ways of resisting the LORD’s covenant.

Ezekiel and Jeremiah both are attempting to deconstruct the “four pillars upon which Judah’s (false) sense of security was built.” (Block, 1997, p. 162) Jeremiah was working among those still in Judah as Ezekiel began his work among the exiles. The four pillars centered on the LORD the God of Israel’s covenant with Israel, God’s commitment to the land, God’s commitment to Jerusalem and the temple, and finally God’s promises to David. The covenant that the LORD entered into with the people at Sinai provided divine protection but included the obligation of faithfulness to the commands and ordinances of the covenant. Although there is an understanding of God being the creator of the heavens and the earth there was also the expectation of their God as the sovereign tied to a specific land and having an interest in defending the territory of Israel. Frequently the Israelites used the framework of the surrounding nations view of their ‘territorial deities’ to shape their imagination of their LORD. Jerusalem and the temple were viewed as special because they were the place that was a residence for the name of God, and the turning away of Sennacherib and the Assyrian threat during the time of King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah had reinforced this belief of “Zion’s inviolability.” (Block, 1997, p. 163) Lastly there was the covenant with David in 2 Samuel 7 where the LORD would guarantee the Davidic dynasty. The message both Jeremiah and Ezekiel received demonstrated the fallacy of the trust the people placed on God’s protection of the people, the land, the city/temple, and the king because the people did not attend to the commandments and ordinances that were a part of the covenant. Due to the disobedience and rebellion of the people their LORD was oriented against them and was allowing the punishment to fall first on his prophet and then on the people.

Ezekiel’s sign-act begins with taking a presumably wet slate or brick of clay and inscribing a visual representation of Jerusalem upon it. Archeologists have unearthed similar tablets and bricks depicting other cities in this region of Babylon. (NIB VI: 1143) Then this representation of Jerusalem is placed under siege by building a siege wall to isolate the city, setting up ramps (most cities are built on hills and surrounded by walls thus requiring ramps to assault) encamping a representative army around it and placing battering rams around the city. Siege in the ancient world worked in a double fashion, it isolated the city from sources of food, water, supplies, and reinforcements and it actively worked to destroy the walls that protected the city and to hasten the end of the siege. The iron griddle or iron plate separates the prophet from the city, but also may indicate God’s separation from the city. The prophet can demonstrate the siege but is powerless to prevent its happening.

The prophet is then called to bear the iniquity or punishment of the people of Israel and Judah for a number of days representing the years of punishment. Ezekiel’s act of bearing the iniquities of the people does not serve an atoning function like the scapegoat on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16: 21) but instead becomes a demonstration of the consequence of the long-endured stubbornness of the people. The three hundred ninety days (representing three hundred ninety years) of punishment for Israel presents several questions for an interpreter: who is represented by Israel, when are the three hundred ninety years of disobedience and when does the judgment of Israel begin? Israel (Samaria) and Judah separated in 922 and Assyria conquers Northern Israel in 721 BCE (a period of two hundred years) so one may question if the Israel here refers to Samaria or some unified vision of Israel which includes Judah. Perhaps Samaria’s disobedience has continued until this time and that would bring it closer to the period of three hundred ninety years. 1 Kings would indicate from its perspective the northern kingdom of Israel was disobedient to the LORD from its foundation with no ruler who did what was right in the eyes of the LORD. This three hundred ninety years may also harken back to Israel’s history in Egypt and its eventual liberation, and Ezekiel may be imagining a new exodus event in the people’s future. The forty days of Judah is easier to relate to the experience of exile in Babylon, but it also follows the pattern of Israel’s history when the people wandered in the wilderness for forty years for their disobedience.

According to the number of days in which you spied out the land, forty days, for every day a year, you shall bear your iniquity, forty years, and you shall know my displeasure. Number 14: 34

The action of laying on the right side for three hundred ninety days bound in cords and then a further forty days on the left side sounds impossible to accomplish, but Ezekiel is physically putting his body on the line as an image for the people. It is worth remembering that at the end of the previous chapter Ezekiel We are not given the complete details of how the prophet enacted this, but this repeated action would attract curiosity from the exiles and would probably be communicated to the residents of Judah.

During this extended embodiment of Judah’s punishment, the prophet is on a highly restricted diet: roughly six hundred fifty grams of water a day and about one thousand calories of a bread-like cake. This is a nutrient and calorie poor diet which probably gave the prophet little energy to do anything beyond lying around in the warm climate of Babylon. This siege diet which represents “scraping the bottom of each of the storage barrels.” (Block, 1997, p. 184) creates a cake that a third century experiment recorded by the Babylonian Talmud (Erubin 81a) demonstrated that a dog would refuse. (NIB VI: 1148) Yet the only thing the prophet resists is the command to bake the cake over human excrement. This may go back to the provisions in Deuteronomy that required the people to bury their excrement outside the camp. (Deuteronomy 23: 12-13) This request for God to amend his command is the first time the prophet speaks in the book, and God grants the request to allow cow chips to be used instead. Other than this request it appears that Ezekiel obediently embodies God’s commands. He becomes a visual representation of the words of God and an image of a suffering servant bearing the punishment of his people.

Ezekiel used the language of the covenant to challenge the four pillars that the people of Jerusalem have placed their misguided belief in their safety from the Babylonians or any other invasion. The language of ‘the staff of bread’ echoes the language of Leviticus 26:26 where the result of disobedience results in a situation where bread is doled out by weight and those who eat are not satisfied. Ezekiel’s diet would put him in a significant caloric deficit until the end of his ordeal. The upcoming siege of Jerusalem will be an experience of extreme hunger and starvation for many in Jerusalem and they, like the prophet who is embodying this dark future, will waste away as the days crawl on and the food dries up.

[1] Zedekiah was a false prophet, but he illustrates the cultural expectations of a prophet.

[2] Hananiah breaking of Jeremiah’s yoke was also a ‘sign-act’ even though performed by a false prophet.

Ezekiel 3 A Consumed Word, A Commissioned Sentinel, and a Prophet Silenced

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Poole, Paul Falconer; Sketch for ‘Vision of Ezekiel’; Tate; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/sketch-for-vision-of-ezekiel-201293

Ezekiel 3: 1-15

1 He said to me, O mortal, eat what is offered to you; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel. 2 So I opened my mouth, and he gave me the scroll to eat. 3 He said to me, Mortal, eat this scroll that I give you and fill your stomach with it. Then I ate it; and in my mouth it was as sweet as honey.

4 He said to me: Mortal, go to the house of Israel and speak my very words to them. 5 For you are not sent to a people of obscure speech and difficult language, but to the house of Israel — 6 not to many peoples of obscure speech and difficult language, whose words you cannot understand. Surely, if I sent you to them, they would listen to you. 7 But the house of Israel will not listen to you, for they are not willing to listen to me; because all the house of Israel have a hard forehead and a stubborn heart. 8 See, I have made your face hard against their faces, and your forehead hard against their foreheads. 9 Like the hardest stone, harder than flint, I have made your forehead; do not fear them or be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house. 10 He said to me: Mortal, all my words that I shall speak to you receive in your heart and hear with your ears; 11 then go to the exiles, to your people, and speak to them. Say to them, “Thus says the Lord GOD”; whether they hear or refuse to hear.

12 Then the spirit lifted me up, and as the glory of the LORD rose from its place, I heard behind me the sound of loud rumbling; 13 it was the sound of the wings of the living creatures brushing against one another, and the sound of the wheels beside them, that sounded like a loud rumbling. 14 The spirit lifted me up and bore me away; I went in bitterness in the heat of my spirit, the hand of the LORD being strong upon me. 15 I came to the exiles at Tel-abib, who lived by the river Chebar. And I sat there among them, stunned, for seven days.

Throughout this introduction to the book of Ezekiel there are continuous reminders to the prophet that he is to be obedient. In contrast to the stubborn and rebellious nature of the people Ezekiel is almost passive in his response to this call, but that may not be from resistance as some commentaries suggest but instead a desire to be careful. Ezekiel’s call is to be faithful and to embody exactly the words that the LORD entrusts to him to the people. Ezekiel’s God is very precise with the commands and words for Ezekiel and silence is a more faithful response than adding anything to the words he receives.

At the end of the previous chapter Ezekiel is commanded to eat what is given to him and then the scroll is presented, now he is commanded to eat the scroll twice. Repetition is a common feature of Ezekiel’s prophecies, and it does not indicate any reluctancy on the prophet’s part, instead when he is commanded to eat the scroll he opens his mouth, and it is given to him to eat. Once the scroll is given, or perhaps already in his mouth, the second command to eat it and fill his stomach with it comes. This comes almost as an encouragement as the prophet is in the process of consuming the words of God and ingesting them. The words of God being ‘sweeter than honey’ also occur in two of the psalms that meditate on God’s law: Psalm 19:11 and Psalm 119: 103 and Revelation will echo this motif when John receives a scroll from an angel and ingests it in Revelation 10: 9-10.

The obedient prophet who receives and ingests the words of God is now sent to a people in exile but still in rebellion against their God. Although there are probably people from many nations who speak many languages in the region where Ezekiel and the exiles are placed by Babylon, Ezekiel’s focus is only on the house of Israel. God warns Ezekiel that he will be resisted as a bearer of the word of God because the people have repeatedly rejected their God. To enable the prophet to faithfully become the message for this stubborn people he will have to embody the meaning of his name Ezekiel, God hardens. His will be hardheaded like the hardest stone[1] even harder than flint. Ezekiel’s forehead of stone will come against the hard foreheads and hard hearts of the people of Israel.

Once again Ezekiel is lifted up by the ruach (spirit/wind) as the glory of the LORD departs. Now instead of focusing on the overwhelming visual scene the descriptions are primarily auditory. This is appropriate since the focus of Ezekiel is not about dwelling on the glory of God but upon the message he is given to carry. The focus has moved from the approach of the LORD to the call of the prophet as a bearer of the word. Ezekiel is not in control, instead he, like the living creatures, is animated by the spirit that lifts him up and bears him away.[2] By the time he arrives among the exiles at Tel-abib the sweetness of the scroll has been transformed into bitterness and heat in his spirit. If the consummation of the words of the scroll of God and the animation by the ruach of God were not enough to emphasize the prophet’s dependence upon the LORD for his words and actions, we are now informed that the hand of God is also strong upon him. He returns to the river Chebar a man overwhelmed by the divine presence and sits in a stunned silence for a week.

Daniel Block reads this week as a time where Ezekiel resists God’s call and he seems to believe the prophet is, “socially ostracized, physical exhausted, and emotionally disturbed.” (Block, 1997, p. 138) but I think this is reading too much into the scene. As we will see in future scenes, Ezekiel may not go out among the exiles, but he is actively sought out by the elders. Block will later comment on psychologists having a field day with Ezekiel (Block, 1997, p. 152) but perhaps instead of Ezekiel being emotionally disturbed he is in a period of grieving. He has been commanded to ingest a message of “lamentation, mourning and woe” for the house of Israel that he is to bear. Perhaps like Job’s friends he is sitting shiva, but now instead of mourning a friend he is mourning the disasters that await his people.

Ezekiel will become one hardened by God. He will be both the medium and the message which he “digested, internalized, incorporated, embodied, and lived.” (Block, 1997, p. 131) He becomes like the living creatures, animated by the spirit of God and a visible part of God’s often unseen movements. Words that were once sweet on the tongue will lead him on a path to bitterness and heat of spirit as he carries them with the hand of the LORD heavy upon him to a rebellious people of hard foreheads and hard hearts. Ezekiel may be strange to many Christians, but he is not a madman. The prophet is given a difficult task where obedience to the divine word is the only possible choice as the spirit moves him and the hand of the LORD rests upon him.

Ezekiel 3: 16-21

16 At the end of seven days, the word of the LORD came to me: 17 Mortal, I have made you a sentinel for the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. 18 If I say to the wicked, “You shall surely die,” and you give them no warning, or speak to warn the wicked from their wicked way, in order to save their life, those wicked persons shall die for their iniquity; but their blood I will require at your hand. 19 But if you warn the wicked, and they do not turn from their wickedness, or from their wicked way, they shall die for their iniquity; but you will have saved your life. 20 Again, if the righteous turn from their righteousness and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before them, they shall die; because you have not warned them, they shall die for their sin, and their righteous deeds that they have done shall not be remembered; but their blood I will require at your hand. 21 If, however, you warn the righteous not to sin, and they do not sin, they shall surely live, because they took warning; and you will have saved your life.

This rearticulation of Ezekiel’s role as a sentinel to the people of Israel echoes a similar passage in Ezekiel 33. The word for sentinel in Hebrew (sopeh) comes from the shofar (trumpet/horn) which the watcher would blow. Ezekiel’s warning to the wicked and even the righteous may not be heeded, but he is under an obligation to sound the alarm announcing God’s judgment regardless. Both Hosea and Jeremiah[3] have performed this role of sounding a trumpet in the land or acting as a sentinel before and even if the people do not heed the trumpet call. Yet the prophet’s calling is to raise the alarm even if the people ignore the sound.

The wicked and the righteous are a common polarity used throughout wisdom literature, and Ezekiel who likely grew up schooled to be a priest was likely familiar with this way of engaging the world. Ezekiel uses the term wicked (rasa) more than any prophetic book, but the character of God is to desire repentance even among the wicked. The prophet is not to judge the worthiness of the recipients of God’s alarm but to raise the sound that they may hear. Even those who were once righteous but who commit iniquity are not exempt from God’s judgment. The ‘stumbling block’ (miksol) is “not an occasion for sin but a cause of downfall and ruin.” (NIB VI: 1135) As Katheryn Pfisterer Darr states about Ezekiel’s task,

His life depends solely on his performance of the task; it does not hang on the people’s response. Lives may be saved as a result of his warning. But Ezekiel is not told to hold that possibility before his audience. (NIB VI: 1135)

Like his older contemporary Jeremiah[4] he is charged with bearing an unpopular message to a resistant people. Yet, as mentioned above the prophet is not in control. The words are not his words, he is animated by a spirit not his own, and God’s hand will be upon him. Any unfaithfulness of Ezekiel will not save the wicked or righteous, but they will endanger the prophet.

Ezekiel 3: 22-27

22 Then the hand of the LORD was upon me there; and he said to me, Rise up, go out into the valley, and there I will speak with you.23 So I rose up and went out into the valley; and the glory of the LORD stood there, like the glory that I had seen by the river Chebar; and I fell on my face. 24 The spirit entered into me, and set me on my feet; and he spoke with me and said to me: Go, shut yourself inside your house. 25 As for you, mortal, cords shall be placed on you, and you shall be bound with them, so that you cannot go out among the people; 26 and I will make your tongue cling to the roof of your mouth, so that you shall be speechless and unable to reprove them; for they are a rebellious house. 27 But when I speak with you, I will open your mouth, and you shall say to them, “Thus says the Lord GOD”; let those who will hear, hear; and let those who refuse to hear, refuse; for they are a rebellious house.

The binding and silencing of the prophet immediately after commissioning the prophet to be a sentinel and sound the trumpet for the wicked and lapsed righteous may at first seem contradictory and in the past many have argued that the previous section was an insertion which echoed Ezekiel 33. Yet, throughout these initial chapters of Ezekiel it has been clear that the prophet is not in control Once again the prophet is summoned to a meeting with God and it is made abundantly clear that when he shares a message with the people it will be coming from God through the prophet and will not be the prophet’s own words. The prophet will become the unmoving and unspeaking scroll awaiting the time when the LORD will release the tongue of the messenger.

The glory of the LORD appears once again to the prophet as he is compelled by the hand of the LORD to go into the valley. Ezekiel has yet to speak and now he is told he will be bound with cords and his tongue will cling to his mouth until God gives him a world to speak. It is unclear whether it is the exiles or the LORD who bind the prophet in his home and place him under a form of house arrest, but it is clear that it is God who is the agent silencing the tongue of the prophet. Yet, the public later in the book will seek the prophet out, so he is not socially ostracized. Throughout the remainder of the book there is no hint of the prophet engaging in a normal life among the exiles and when they do approach him it is in his house.

The tongue which clings to the roof of Ezekiel’s mouth may serve a second purpose which English translations do not capture. The word the NRSV translates as ‘reprove’ is the Hebrew mokiah whose meaning has been heavily debated within the context of Ezekiel. Katheryn Pfister Darr, following M. B. Dick, argues for the meaning of this being an arbiter instead of a reprover,

Ezekiel cannot perform the arbiter’s role, it precludes any possibility of his participation in a formal hearing in which both parties—Yahweh and Israel—might have their say. (NIB VI:1138)

If this is the correct interpretation, then God no longer wants the prophet to advocate for the people. The LORD is done listening. As with the scroll there is no room to add in the prophets’ words, God’s judgment is set. The prophet is to be the faithful articulator of these words when they are given. God is the primary actor; the prophet is merely the medium through which God is acting. His life is not his own, instead it is bound to go only where the spirit and the hand of God move him and speak only when God’s words pass his released tongue.

[1] Modern people may know that the hardest stone is a diamond, but as Daniel Block points out there is no reference to diamonds before 480 BCE almost a century later than Ezekiel is written. The Hebrew word samir here likely refers emery which would be the hardest known rock at the time. (Block, 1997, p. 129)

[2] This is similar to the way the Spirit in the gospel of Mark ‘drove’ (Greek ekballo, cast out or throw out) Jesus into the wilderness.

[3] Hosea 9:8, Jeremiah 4: 5, 19, 21; 6: 1, 17; 51:27

[4] As Daniel Block notes (assuming that the thirtieth year at the beginning of Ezekiel reflects his age) Jeremiah would begin his ministry about the time Ezekiel was born. (Block, 1997, p. 148) It is likely that Ezekiel may have grown up knowing Jeremiah’s voice or message and both prophets share the challenging job of dismantling the theology that had grown up around Jerusalem, the temple, and the Davidic kings. Both were probably never popular but proved to be essential voices to make sense of the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by Babylon.

Ezekiel 2 A Prophet’s Call and a Message to be Consumed

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Russian icon of the Prophet Ezekiel holding a scroll with his prophecy and pointing to the “closed gate” (18th century, Iconostasis of Kizhi monastery, Russia)

Ezekiel 2

1 He said to me: O mortal, stand up on your feet, and I will speak with you.2 And when he spoke to me, a spirit entered into me and set me on my feet; and I heard him speaking to me.3 He said to me, Mortal, I am sending you to the people of Israel, to a nation of rebels who have rebelled against me; they and their ancestors have transgressed against me to this very day.4 The descendants are impudent and stubborn. I am sending you to them, and you shall say to them, “Thus says the Lord GOD.” 5 Whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house), they shall know that there has been a prophet among them.6 And you, O mortal, do not be afraid of them, and do not be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns surround you and you live among scorpions; do not be afraid of their words, and do not be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house. 7 You shall speak my words to them, whether they hear or refuse to hear; for they are a rebellious house.

8 But you, mortal, hear what I say to you; do not be rebellious like that rebellious house; open your mouth and eat what I give you. 9 I looked, and a hand was stretched out to me, and a written scroll was in it. 10 He spread it before me; it had writing on the front and on the back, and written on it were words of lamentation and mourning and woe.

The narration of Ezekiel’s encounter with the LORD the God of Israel continues with this calling of the prophet as a messenger from the God of Israel to God’s rebellious people. In the midst of the bright and visually overwhelming living creatures, wheels, crystal dome, throne, and the fiery appearance of the LORD in a human like form combined with the sound like thunder and mighty waters the prophet has assumed the proper position of a mortal in the presence of the divine, prostrate on the ground. Ezekiel’s response reflects the practice of ancient royal courts where those summoned would prostrate themselves before the sovereign until they were commanded to rise when the sovereign is ready to address them. Ezekiel is cognizant of the distinction between himself as a mortal servant of the LORD and the overwhelming and powerful divine one who addresses him.

Ezekiel is referred to throughout the book as ‘son of man’ (Hebrew ben-adam, NRSV ‘mortal’). This is the primary way the prophet is addressed throughout the book, and it occurs ninety-three times. Adam in Hebrew is the general word for ‘man’ or ‘human’ and while Ezekiel is both a son of Adam, and a son of man, the NRSV and other translations that render this as ‘mortal’ do capture the way the term distinguishes Ezekiel from the LORD who is addressing him. This ‘son of man’ terminology will be used in a very different way in the book of Daniel (Daniel 7:13) and in the gospels by Jesus as a figure who is commissioned to come from heaven, but here it is a very mortal prophet who finds himself before the throne of God in a foreign land being commissioned as an emissary of God’s word to the people of Israel.

Ezekiel was a passive observer of the approach of the divine chariot in the previous chapter, and remains a passive if obedient vessel throughout this chapter of commissioning. When commanded to rise and stand on his feet, a ruach (spirit, wind, breath) enters into him and places him on his feet enabling the prophet to stand in the overpowering presence of the divine. It could be that a breath of God enters into the prophet, or a spirit of God, or a wind that lifts the prophet upon his feet, and the flexibility of the Hebrew allows for all of these senses to be true simultaneously. Yet, the action begins with the word and the ruach of the God of Israel who speaks and lifts up this son of man.

Ezekiel is commissioned to go to the people of Israel. Israel now refers to what remains of the people of Israel and Judah in the aftermath of the Assyrian dispersion of the Northern Kingdom of Israel (or Samaria), the portions of Judah still in the land around Jerusalem as well as the Judeans in exile in Babylon (where Ezekiel finds himself). It is likely that in the aftermath of the Northern Kingdom’s and Judah’s brief renaissance under Josiah that there was a reclamation of the identity of the people as the people of Israel as well as aspirations of reclaiming these lands that once belonged to the northern tribes. Yet this people of Israel at the time of Ezekiel is a nation (Hebrew goy) of rebels. The Hebrew word goy is normally used in a pejorative sense, the nations (or Gentiles) are the goyim. As Daniel Block highlights:

When the word is used of this nation, it tends to carry a pejorative sense, highlighting Israel’s indistinguishability from other nations and Yahweh’s rejection of Israel. Apart from faith in and fidelity to Yahweh, Israel is just another “heathen” nation. (Block, 1997, p. 118)

The nation of Israel is impudent (literally hard of face) and stubborn (literally hard of heart). Their external actions and the internal state of their heart and mind.[1] Later in Ezekiel 36:26 the remedy to this hardness of heart will be God’s action of placing within the people a ‘heart of flesh.’ For now, Ezekiel is warned that he is going to a people who have set their face and their will against their God and who continue in this rebellion. The people of Israel have become a house of rebellion and the renaming of Israel in this way recalls the way the eighth century BCE prophets Amos and Hosea renamed Bethel (house of God) to Beth-aven (house of iniquity). [2]

Ezekiel’s commission is not dependent on convincing this hard faced and hard-hearted people, but in faithfully delivering the messages that the LORD God hands on to him. When the words Ezekiel delivers come to pass the people will realize they have had a prophet in their midst. The prophets whose words are recorded in scripture were probably not well received as they delivered words of lamentation, mourning, and woe in their time, and it is only afterwards when their words proved true and the words of the prophets made sense of the experience of the people that they were accepted. Yet, within Deuteronomy, this is the only way to recognize a true prophet.

You may say to yourself, “How can we recognize a word that the LORD has not spoken?” If a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD but the thing does not take place or prove true, it is a word that the LORD has not spoken. The prophet has spoken presumptuously; do not be frightened by it. Deuteronomy 18: 21-22

It is only once a prophet’s words prove true that the people can recognize a true prophet has been in their midst, but they are still accountable for their response to these prophets who speak in the name of the LORD.

Ezekiel’s words will not be popular among the exiles or the remnant in Jerusalem and the only protection the prophet has will come from the God who sends him. The briers, thorns, and scorpions which surround the prophet are symbols of the prophet’s protection. Many scholars view the ‘scorpions’ introduced with the ‘briars and thorns’ as a mixed metaphor and wonder if the ‘scorpions’ refers to a ‘scorpion plant’ of thorny appearance or stinging quality. (Block, 1997, p. 121) But Katheryn Pfister Darr points to two incantations in Maqlȗ, a Babylonian series of rituals for warding off the effects of sorcery:

I am the spike of a thornbush; you cannot step on me! I am the stinger of a scorpion; you cannot touch me. Maqlȗ III. 153-154 (NIB VI: 1123)

Even though it may mix plant and animal imagery, the poetic sense of the prophets is elastic enough to encompass two elements like this to point to the divine protection which surrounds this prophet who delivers an unpleasant word to a rebellious people. This mortal who bears the divine word is not to be afraid of mortal words of looks.[3] The people have already rejected the LORD who sends the prophet, so the prophet should not expect a receptive audience for the words he is called to bear.

The elaborate description of the approach of the divine presence and the commissioning of this son of man to carry the message to the rebellious house of Israel have prepared us to approach the message itself. As mentioned above Ezekiel has been a passive recipient of the vision and this calling, but he (unlike Israel) has not actively resisted the LORD’s instructions. But immediately before receiving this message he is to bear, Ezekiel is warned not to be infected by the disease which the people he is sent to have, a refusal to listen and obey. The prophet Jeremiah received the word of God when the words were placed in his mouth:

Then the LORD put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the LORD said to me, “Now I have put my words in your mouth.” Jeremiah 1:9

Yet, for Ezekiel the words are written on a scroll he is given to eat. Katheryn Pfister Darr humorously remarks, “Yahweh’s touch bestows divine words that Jeremiah must proclaim. Yet one does not surmise that God literally stuffs words down his throat.” (NIB VI: 1124) But that is what will happen to the passive prophet who will soon open his mouth to receive that which is normally inedible. The scroll is full of writing, front and back, and there is no place to add or any ability for the prophet to modify the text of lamentation, mourning, woe.[4]

With the presented scroll something has changed in the nature of prophecy. Instead of a personal address by God the prophet is given a scroll to consume, and as Walther Zimmerli can state “It has become a book.” (NIB VI: 1125) The prophet who will be given this scroll to consume will become the written prophecy, and it is likely that many of Ezekiel’s recorded words may have been distributed in primarily written form. Ezekiel is a prophet in a new situation and time, he is separated from the temple and Jerusalem and charged with ministering to a people divided between Jerusalem and exile. Like the apostle Paul in the early Christian church many of his messages will have to be in a written form to minister to these two dispersed communities. Due to the identity of those taken into exile, being the notables of the land, there was probably a higher concentration of literate individuals. Yet, even messages that were directed to the remnant in Jerusalem would be primarily addressed to the priestly and ruling remnant in Jerusalem. I’m indebted to Ellen Davis for these reflections on the character of Ezekiel in her study of Ezekiel as a prophet navigating a new location by utilizing, “a style of prophecy which the immediate audience selected for him by Nebuchadnezzar’s army was especially qualified to understand, if not appreciate.” (Davis, 1989, p. 44) Writing is both a solution to communicating with a separated community, but now this prophet who will become the embodiment of the scroll he consumes will also recreate the content of the scroll he consumes as a written text that can remain a witness for a generation which can understand Ezekiel’s position as a prophet bearing God’s word who is finally ready to receive this word. As Ellen Davis can insightfully state, “Preserved as a text, God’s word is no longer frustrated by the intransigence of any generation; it can wait until such time as it may be heard.” (Davis, 1989, p. 61)

[1] In Hebrew though the heart is the organ of will and decision, not emotion. When someone’s heart is set on something it means they have set their will on gaining or following something. In Hebrew the emotions are the realm of the stomach and guts.

[2] See Amos 5:5-6 where the prophet still uses Bethel but condemns the injustice of the place and Hosea 4:15, 5:8, 10:5 where the name is intentionally changed. This can be confusing since Beth-aven also refers to a different location in Joshua 7:2; 18:12 and 1 Samuel 13:5; 14:23

[3] The idea of ‘looks’ from the people may refer to the idea of cursing a person with an ‘evil eye’. Words, rituals, and actions had a different significance in ancient cultures than we often grant them today, and a word or evil eye or other ‘looks’ were looked upon in ancient societies as powerful things.

[4] The three Hebrew words behind lamentation, mourning, and woe are qina “lament, dirge” which is often associated with funerals, hegeh an onomatopoeic expression of moaning and groaning, and hi which is only used here in scripture and may be another onomatopoeic expression for a cry of pain. (Block, 1997, p. 125)