Tag Archives: Book of Ezekiel

Ezekiel 19 A Lamentation for the Princes of Israel: Violent Lions and a Lofty Branch

CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2412292

Ezekiel 19

¹ As for you, raise up a lamentation for the princes of Israel, ² and say:

What a lioness was your mother among lions! She lay down among young lions, rearing her cubs.
³ She raised up one of her cubs; he became a young lion, and he learned to catch prey; he devoured humans.
⁴ The nations sounded an alarm against him; he was caught in their pit; and they brought him with hooks to the land of Egypt.
⁵ When she saw that she was thwarted, that her hope was lost, she took another of her cubs and made him a young lion.
⁶ He prowled among the lions; he became a young lion, and he learned to catch prey; he devoured people.
⁷ And he ravaged their strongholds, and laid waste their towns; the land was appalled, and all in it, at the sound of his roaring.
⁸ The nations set upon him from the provinces all around; they spread their net over him; he was caught in their pit.
⁹ With hooks they put him in a cage, and brought him to the king of Babylon; they brought him into custody, so that his voice should be heard no more on the mountains of Israel.
¹⁰ Your mother was like a vine in a vineyard transplanted by the water, fruitful and full of branches from abundant water.
¹¹ Its strongest stem became a ruler’s scepter; it towered aloft among the thick boughs; it stood out in its height with its mass of branches.
¹² But it was plucked up in fury, cast down to the ground; the east wind dried it up; its fruit was stripped off, its strong stem was withered; the fire consumed it.
¹³ Now it is transplanted into the wilderness, into a dry and thirsty land.
¹⁴ And fire has gone out from its stem, has consumed its branches and fruit, so that there remains in it no strong stem, no scepter for ruling.

This is a lamentation, and it is used as a lamentation.

This lamentation, or dirge, utilizes well known imagery for Judah is a manner that may be both mournful and satirical. The tragic situation of the kings of Judah are portrayed metaphorically through the imagery of captured lions and uprooted vines. The difference between what could have been for these rulers if they had lived within the limits assigned to them is great. Instead, their rapacious actions and attempts to rise above the vine resulted both in their own destruction but also the destruction of the land and the people. The violent lions of this chapter are judged on their own actions, like the violent son of the previous chapter. Yet, the actions of these rulers who have been raised up have implications for the entirety of the people of Israel.

Ezekiel is commanded to raise up a qina (lamentation, NRSV) the word that brackets this pair of metaphors. A qina is a lamentation or dirge sung for the death of an individual[1] or the people.[2] Ten of the eighteen occurrences of this word occur in Ezekiel (three in this chapter). The lamentation is for the princes (nasi) of Israel. Throughout the book of Ezekiel, the prophet does not refer to the final kings in Jerusalem by the traditional term for king (melek) but instead uses this term from the tribal past of Israel. (Block, 1997, p. 598) The two images used in this lamentation share the common goal of mourning the ignoble end of the Davidic monarchy, particularly in the actions of two kings whose identity is hinted at in the imagery.

The source for the imagery and the vocabulary used in these metaphors comes from Jacob’s blessing of Judah in Genesis 49:8-12 (particularly 9-11 common vocabulary underlined although some are obscured in English).

Judah, your brothers shall praise you; your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father’s sons shall bow down before you. Judah is a lion’s whelp; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He crouches down, he stretches out like a lion, like a lioness — who dares rouse him up? The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and the obedience of the peoples is his. Binding his foal to the vine and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine, he washes his garments in wine and his robe in the blood of grapes; his eyes are darker than wine, and his teeth whiter than milk.

The lioness may be a woman (see below) but more likely she is Israel personified who lifts up one of her cubs. The young lion does what a young lion is expected to do until he devours humans. Once this lion transgresses this boundary the nations rise up against him and catch him in a pit, a traditional method of catching a lion, and bring him in ‘hooks’[3] to Egypt. The taking of the first lion to Egypt makes Jehohaz the king that the first lion represents since he is the only one of the last kings of Judah to be taken to Egypt. (2 Kings 23: 31-35). This son of Josiah only reigns three months but is viewed negatively by 2 Kings. His short but disastrous reign ends with his imprisonment and put Judah under a heavy tribute to Egypt.

The second cub raised up by the lioness follows a path identical to the first lion and then goes even farther. The Hebrew[4] indicates that he consorted with his widows (instead of ravaged their strongholds, NRSV) and extending the lion imagery this occurs in nature when a new male takes over a pride. Yet, the critical piece of the imagery is when the lion laid waste to the towns and even the land becomes appalled at this roaring and unrestrained lion. Now the nations once again lay a trap for the lion as these nations become the liberators of the mountains of Israel. This second lion is taken away to Babylon and not heard from again.

Ezekiel never decodes this parable for us and although most readers are confident in the identity of the first lion, there is disagreement whether the second lion represents Jehoiachin or Zedekiah. Both have elements that make them intriguing candidates. Jehoiachin was deported to Babylon after a brief reign. Zedekiah and Jehohaz were brothers of the same mother (Hamutal)[5] and after his rebellion Zedekiah is also taken to Babylon. My personal opinion is that Ezekiel refers to Zedekiah as the second lion who is currently ruling in Jerusalem, and who Ezekiel views negatively. Yet, there are compelling arguments for both rulers being the second lion and there is no way to determine with certainty the object of this image. The exact historical reference is not as critical as the violent actions the metaphor communicates that these princes of Israel commit which lead to the collapse of the Davidic line of kings for a modern reader. From Ezekiel’s metaphor these princes of Israel were raised up to be lions, but the problem emerges when they become violent and do damage to their own land. The nations become the means of trapping and imprisoning these beasts and freeing the land of their terror.

The vine has already been used multiple times in Ezekiel to refer to Israel[6] and this imagery is used throughout the scriptures. Here a vine is planted in a place of abundant waters and produces strong branches which become the scepters of rulers. Yet, these branches do something very out of place for a vine, it becomes conspicuous for its height and towers high above the clouds.[7] These branches with their heads in the clouds provoke the fury of a passerby and it is cast out of its fertile place, dried up by the sirocco wind (east wind), stripped of its fruit, burned by fire, and transplanted into a desert. Both images point to the princes of Israel, and here these princes who have their heads in the clouds have risen beyond what was expected for the vine they were a part of.

Ezekiel was told to lift up a lamentation and concludes by telling us what we have read is a lamentation and is used as a lamentation. Although there may be a satirical or parody element to the imagery used, it is also a tragedy in Ezekiel’s usage. Ezekiel cares deeply about both the religious and the political institutions of Judah and their impact on the people, yet in this image he is critical of their violence and the way they have kept their head in the clouds. The behavior of these princes has imperiled not only their own reigns, but the city, the temple, the people, and the land. I am reminded of Richard Lischer’s words about the characteristic emotion of the prophet:

In rereading them, one is reminded that the emotion most characteristic of the prophet is not anger but sorrow. He tells the truth but rarely in bitterness of spirit and never with contempt for the Other. His truth-telling is pervaded by a sense of tragedy. (Lischer, 2005, p. 161)

The failure of these princes is a tragedy for the people, for Ezekiel, and for God. Their own actions brought about the punishment of the nations on these kings. Yet, the sorrow is shared by the people and the prophet who also bear the consequences of the arrogance and the violence of the princes of Israel.

[1] For example, David’s mourning of Jonathan (2 Samuel 1:26) or the mourning over the man of God from Judah (1 Kings 13:30)

[2] As in the book of Lamentations.

[3] There are different suggestions for the exact meaning of ‘hooks’ (hahim). It may be manacles, or some type of barb or piercing object, or a hook in the jaws or nose. (Block, 1997, p. 601) The exact meaning is not critical to the parable since the hooks perform the functional role in the imagery of bringing this lion to Egypt.

[4] The MT (Hebrew text), most English translations follow the Targum in parallel with the following line, but I agree with Block that using the lion imagery there the Hebrew wording makes sense and there is no reason to change it. (Block, 1997, pp. 596-597)

[5] If the lioness refers to a person it could refer to Hamutal who is mother to both Jehohaz and Zedekiah. I still believe the lioness is Israel, but it is a possible reading of the metaphor.

[6] Ezekiel 15 and 17.

[7] The term ‘abotim is translated in Ezekiel 31 as clouds, but here the NRSV renders it thick boughs. The NRSV translators are probably attempting to follow the vine imagery where vines do not reach to the clouds like the tree (in Ezekiel 31) would, but that is precisely the point of the metaphor. The vine branches are doing what vine branches should not do.

Ezekiel 18 Life for the Righteous Ones

3 Replies

Grigory Mekheev, Exodus (2000) artist shared work under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0

Ezekiel 18

¹ The word of the LORD came to me: ² What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge”? ³ As I live, says the Lord GOD, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel. ⁴ Know that all lives are mine; the life of the parent as well as the life of the child is mine: it is only the person who sins that shall die.

⁵ If a man is righteous and does what is lawful and right — ⁶ if he does not eat upon the mountains or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, does not defile his neighbor’s wife or approach a woman during her menstrual period, ⁷ does not oppress anyone, but restores to the debtor his pledge, commits no robbery, gives his bread to the hungry and covers the naked with a garment, ⁸ does not take advance or accrued interest, withholds his hand from iniquity, executes true justice between contending parties, ⁹ follows my statutes, and is careful to observe my ordinances, acting faithfully — such a one is righteous; he shall surely live, says the Lord GOD.

¹⁰ If he has a son who is violent, a shedder of blood, ¹¹ who does any of these things (though his father does none of them), who eats upon the mountains, defiles his neighbor’s wife, ¹² oppresses the poor and needy, commits robbery, does not restore the pledge, lifts up his eyes to the idols, commits abomination, ¹³ takes advance or accrued interest; shall he then live? He shall not. He has done all these abominable things; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon himself.

¹⁴ But if this man has a son who sees all the sins that his father has done, considers, and does not do likewise, ¹⁵ who does not eat upon the mountains or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, does not defile his neighbor’s wife, ¹⁶ does not wrong anyone, exacts no pledge, commits no robbery, but gives his bread to the hungry and covers the naked with a garment, ¹⁷ withholds his hand from iniquity, takes no advance or accrued interest, observes my ordinances, and follows my statutes; he shall not die for his father’s iniquity; he shall surely live. ¹⁸ As for his father, because he practiced extortion, robbed his brother, and did what is not good among his people, he dies for his iniquity.

¹⁹ Yet you say, “Why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father?” When the son has done what is lawful and right, and has been careful to observe all my statutes, he shall surely live. ²⁰ The person who sins shall die. A child shall not suffer for the iniquity of a parent, nor a parent suffer for the iniquity of a child; the righteousness of the righteous shall be his own, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be his own.

²¹ But if the wicked turn away from all their sins that they have committed and keep all my statutes and do what is lawful and right, they shall surely live; they shall not die. ²² None of the transgressions that they have committed shall be remembered against them; for the righteousness that they have done they shall live. ²³ Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, says the Lord GOD, and not rather that they should turn from their ways and live? ²⁴ But when the righteous turn away from their righteousness and commit iniquity and do the same abominable things that the wicked do, shall they live? None of the righteous deeds that they have done shall be remembered; for the treachery of which they are guilty and the sin they have committed, they shall die.

²⁵ Yet you say, “The way of the Lord is unfair.” Hear now, O house of Israel: Is my way unfair? Is it not your ways that are unfair? ²⁶ When the righteous turn away from their righteousness and commit iniquity, they shall die for it; for the iniquity that they have committed they shall die. ²⁷ Again, when the wicked turn away from the wickedness they have committed and do what is lawful and right, they shall save their life. ²⁸ Because they considered and turned away from all the transgressions that they had committed, they shall surely live; they shall not die. ²⁹ Yet the house of Israel says, “The way of the Lord is unfair.” O house of Israel, are my ways unfair? Is it not your ways that are unfair?

³⁰ Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, all of you according to your ways, says the Lord GOD. Repent and turn from all your transgressions; otherwise iniquity will be your ruin. ³¹ Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? ³² For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord GOD. Turn, then, and live.

The eighteenth chapter of Ezekiel is one of the portions of Ezekiel that does get utilized in the readings of churches that follow the lectionary, particularly the first four verses combined with verses twenty-five through thirty-two. Many readers of the particular Ezekiel text have found the prophet advocating for an individualistic spirituality of responsibility, ignoring the corporate influence present throughout other portions of the book. In Ezekiel’s context where the destruction that comes in the aftermath of King Zedekiah’s rebellion against King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon appears imminent for those still in Jerusalem, the actions of individuals may seem futile. If society is going to be judged as wicked or bearing the sins of previous generations a malaise can set in where living according to the covenant seems pointless.

The theme of individuals attempting to live righteously in an unrighteous time is not new to Ezekiel. In Ezekiel 9 a scribal figure is sent out into the city of Jerusalem to mark the righteous and preserve them from judgment and in Ezekiel 14: 12-20 the themes of this chapter are prefigured when even Noah, Daniel, and Job can only save themselves by their righteousness. Here the prophet takes central ideas from the law (torah) and wrestles with the tradition. As Ellen Davis states,

Ezekiel appears primarily in conversation with the tradition. Like a creative archivist, he desires not only to preserve the treasures of the past but also to make them available and meaningful for the present. Even his disputation speeches are aimed as much at the tradition as at the people, purging it of its useless elements (12,22-28, 18.2-4) and correcting disastrous interpretations (33. 24-29. (Davis, 1989, p. 62)

The proverb spoken by the people about parents eating unripe grapes and the children’s teeth being blunted (or set on edge)[1] is also found in Jeremiah 31: 29-30 and both prophets answer in identical ways. Unlike Jeremiah, Ezekiel proceeds into a much longer discussion of the implications of righteousness and unrighteousness from a perspective of the law.

The proverb seems to derive from language of the second commandment:

You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. Exodus 20:4-6; Deuteronomy 5: 8-10

This people attempting to make sense of the impending destruction probably understood that they were bearing the judgment of previous generations and that they were powerless in their actions to change the course of events for the nation or for their own lives. Yet, throughout this chapter the LORD’s response is that the life of the parent and child belongs to the LORD and the LORD will judge each by their actions. The word translated life throughout is the Hebrew nephesh which is not the Greek idea of soul (which English translations sometimes render it) but is that which is the essence of life. As Daniel Block helpfully states,

“life” is not merely the absence of judgment, any more than šālôm, “peace,” is simply the absence of war. Ezekiel holds out life in all its fullness and blessing to the righteous person, even for those who are exiles in Babylon. (Block, 1997, p. 574)

This promise of life for the righteous is not merely survival. Like Moses in Deuteronomy, Ezekiel holds out before the people a choice between a way that leads of condemnation and death and a way that leads to life. Yet, one of the crucial differences within Ezekiel is there is a provision for the righteous surviving in the midst of an unrighteous people.

To wrestle with this multigenerational judgment outline in the commandment Ezekiel goes to another portion of Deuteronomy:

Parents shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall children be put to death for their parents; only for their own crimes may persons be put to death. Deuteronomy 24: 16

This portion of the law meant to restrain human judgments is now applied to God’s working with humanity. On one hand this is a surprising use of the law of interpersonal judgments in the relationship between God and the people. On the other hand, the justice of God is expected to be at least as fair as the justice of humanity. Now this pattern is examined over three hypothetical generations.

The first generation is a prototypical righteous man according to the law. Eating on the mountains was probably associated with the worship of the idols.[2] Defiling a neighbor’s wife would violate the commandment on adultery. Ezekiel shares the Levitical view of menstruation in particular (and blood in general) causing uncleanness. (Leviticus 18:19) The concerns for the proper economic treatment of the neighbor: not oppressing, restoring the pledge, not robbing, giving food and clothing to the needy, not taking interest, and living in justice are present throughout the law (for example Deuteronomy 24:6-22) and this is the pattern of a wise and righteous life. Ezekiel is following both the pattern of the law and wisdom literature which differentiate between wise choices that lead to life and foolish choices that lead to death.

The wise father has an unwise son who does all the things the father does not do in addition to being violent. The violations of idolatry, the neighbor’s household, and economic justice all are characteristics of an unrighteous life that leads to death. These are the type of people Ezekiel was informed he would have to warn at the Chebar River. (Ezekiel 2:17-21) Yet the sins of the father do not dictate the life of the child. When a third generation sees the folly of their parents and returns to the way of righteousness they are promised life.

Ezekiel and Jeremiah engaged in the deconstruction of a Zion theology which focused on Jerusalem, the temple, the Davidic king, and the land as central symbols of the LORD’s relationship with Israel. Yet, the reorganization of faith without these central symbols was challenging and probably involved multiple attempts to reconstruct faith in the aftermath of disaster. The Deuteronomic history attempts to understand the destruction of Jerusalem and the loss of the land in terms of this multigenerational pattern of unfaithfulness, and this attempt to make sense of their world probably brought comfort to the people attempting to reorganize their life and faith as exiles in a strange land. In verse nineteen there appears to be resistance to Ezekiel’s message of a path forward for individuals who are righteous and a return to the way of thinking behind the proverb. The rhetorical question “should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father?” may seem strange to our individualistic mindset but it may have brought some comfort for people attempting to understand the time they were navigating. Blaming their situation on their ancestors also allowed the current generation to avoid an examination of their own practices. If God’s justice was unjust to them, but fair over the course of the generations, then they only had to wait for God’s wrath to pass and endure. Yet, Ezekiel is calling them to a path of examination in light of the covenant expectations. Ezekiel clings to the pattern of Deuteronomy 24:16 and presses forward with his claims that God’s ways are just.

The actions of individuals will not turn away the armies of Babylon from the walls of Jerusalem or save the temple, nor will they save the lives of the entire people. Ezekiel is committed to the idea of God delivering the righteous individuals from this situation and providing for them in the time of exile. Yet, the provision of God is dependent upon the actions of the individual in this portion of Ezekiel, and people are called to choose the way of life. Surprisingly, they are called to get for themselves a new heart and a new spirit, an action that will be God’s work in other parts of Ezekiel. Yet, the LORD as presented here is not a God who wants judgment, but who desires the people of Israel to individually and collectively adopt the practices of righteousness that will lead them to life.

Sometimes modern believers can break apart two ideas that ancient people had no problem holding together. I was formed by the Lutheran tradition of Christianity where there is a heavy focus on God’s gracious action and a discomfort with anything that seems to be legalistic or require a person to work out their own salvation. Other traditions focus exclusively on a person’s actions to be in a right relationship with God. Individual responsibility is a heavy focus of our modern age while corporate responsibility is often obscured. Ezekiel, like most authors of scripture, hold both God’s action and personal responsibility together as well as individual and corporate responsibility. At some points they may lift up one aspect, while at others they will lift up another. Sometimes multiple aspects can appear together baffling modern theological systems like Philippians 2: 2-13

Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Ezekiel can appeal to the people to get a new heart and new spirit here, and then can point to God’s action to place a new heart and new spirit in the people. (Ezekiel 11:19, 36:26) Sometimes people need to hear, in Luther’s terms, law that causes them to take responsibility for their own actions and sometimes they need gospel to give them hope in their hopelessness of God’s actions. Ezekiel attempts to get his hearers to claim their own agency in how they live their life despite the destruction occurring around them. There is promise that if they persist in righteousness they individually can find life even if their society corporately is choosing unrighteousness and death. In all this Ezekiel want to demonstrate the justice of God in a way that highlights many previous themes in the prophet’s imagery.

[1] The Hebrew qaha is a rarely used word and outside of this proverb is only used in Ecclesiastes 10:10 for iron being blunt. (Block, 1997, p. 558)

[2] Again, Ezekiel’s derogatory term gillum which Block and others argue means something like “shit gods.” See comments in Ezekiel 6.

Ezekiel 17 A Parable of Two Great Eagles, Two Trees, and a Fickle Vine

4 Replies

Golden Eagle Feathers (Aquila chrysaetos). Détail. Spécimen captif. Sud de la France from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Accipitridae_feathers#/media/File:Aquila_chrysaetos_02_wing.jpg Shared under CC 3.0

Ezekiel 17

¹ The word of the LORD came to me: ² O mortal, propound a riddle, and speak an allegory to the house of Israel. ³ Say: Thus says the Lord GOD: A great eagle, with great wings and long pinions, rich in plumage of many colors, came to the Lebanon. He took the top of the cedar, ⁴ broke off its topmost shoot; He carried it to a land of trade, set it in a city of merchants. ⁵ Then he took a seed from the land, placed it in fertile soil; a plant by abundant waters, he set it like a willow twig. ⁶ It sprouted and became a vine spreading out, but low; its branches turned toward him, its roots remained where it stood. So it became a vine; it brought forth branches, put forth foliage.

⁷ There was another great eagle, with great wings and much plumage. And see! This vine stretched out its roots toward him; it shot out its branches toward him, so that he might water it. From the bed where it was planted ⁸ it was transplanted to good soil by abundant waters, so that it might produce branches and bear fruit and become a noble vine. ⁹ Say: Thus says the Lord GOD: Will it prosper? Will he not pull up its roots, cause its fruit to rot and wither, its fresh sprouting leaves to fade? No strong arm or mighty army will be needed to pull it from its roots. ¹⁰ When it is transplanted, will it thrive? When the east wind strikes it, will it not utterly wither, wither on the bed where it grew?

¹¹ Then the word of the LORD came to me: ¹² Say now to the rebellious house: Do you not know what these things mean? Tell them: The king of Babylon came to Jerusalem, took its king and its officials, and brought them back with him to Babylon. ¹³ He took one of the royal offspring and made a covenant with him, putting him under oath (he had taken away the chief men of the land), ¹⁴ so that the kingdom might be humble and not lift itself up, and that by keeping his covenant it might stand. ¹⁵ But he rebelled against him by sending ambassadors to Egypt, in order that they might give him horses and a large army. Will he succeed? Can one escape who does such things? Can he break the covenant and yet escape? ¹⁶ As I live, says the Lord GOD, surely in the place where the king resides who made him king, whose oath he despised, and whose covenant with him he broke — in Babylon he shall die. ¹⁷ Pharaoh with his mighty army and great company will not help him in war, when ramps are cast up and siege walls built to cut off many lives. ¹⁸ Because he despised the oath and broke the covenant, because he gave his hand and yet did all these things, he shall not escape. ¹⁹ Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: As I live, I will surely return upon his head my oath that he despised, and my covenant that he broke. ²⁰ I will spread my net over him, and he shall be caught in my snare; I will bring him to Babylon and enter into judgment with him there for the treason he has committed against me. ²¹ All the pick of his troops shall fall by the sword, and the survivors shall be scattered to every wind; and you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken.

²² Thus says the Lord GOD: I myself will take a sprig from the lofty top of a cedar; I will set it out. I will break off a tender one from the topmost of its young twigs; I myself will plant it on a high and lofty mountain. ²³ On the mountain height of Israel I will plant it, in order that it may produce boughs and bear fruit, and become a noble cedar. Under it every kind of bird will live; in the shade of its branches will nest winged creatures of every kind. ²⁴ All the trees of the field shall know that I am the LORD. I bring low the high tree, I make high the low tree; I dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish. I the LORD have spoken; I will accomplish it.

This riddle and parable (NRSV riddle and allegory) incorporates several commonly used images in the Hebrew scriptures: eagles, vines, cedar trees, and even the east wind. The initial ten verses tell the riddle and parable that could be interpreted in several ways based on how the imagery had been used throughout scriptures. The riddle and parable is followed by the interpretation of the imagery for the hearers but then the chapter ends with a surprising image of hope and reversal. There is a parallelism in the form that begins with the announcement of what the prophet is to declare (riddle and parable) and then proceeds to a parable with two eagles, two plants, fable and interpretation, a message of doom and a coda of hope. (Block, 1997, p. 525)

The initial image is of a magnificent golden eagle, and the description of the wings and pinions enhance the image of this bird. The imagery of an eagle has been used as an image for the LORD’s protections of Israel as in Deuteronomy 32:11, “As an eagle stirs up its nest, and hovers over its young; as it spreads its wings, takes them up, and bears them aloft on its pinions,” Yet, the image of an eagle has also been used in the judgment of Israel by a foreign nation, for example Deuteronomy 28: 49, “The LORD will bring a nation from far away, from the end of the earth, to swoop down on you like an eagle, a nation whose language you do not understand,“ The interpretation of the image points to the second usage, where the magnificent eagle is the king of Babylon and this eagle taking the top of the cedar tree is the removal of king Jehoiachin (along with the elite of the people) and transplants them in Babylon (the city of merchants).

The land where the seed is planted is a good place for the vine to flourish. There is a transition from the great tree to a vine and this probably indicates the reduction of Israel by Babylon when Jeconiah and the elite are removed and the much weaker remnant under Zedekiah. Zedekiah owes his crown and allegiance to King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon but is still in a place where his reign and the people can prosper. According to the image the seed can grow into a vine in this fertile soil. Initially this vine grows towards the magnificent eagle that harvested it from Lebanon and planted it in the fertile soil of Israel,[1] but the vine proves to be a fickle vine. When another great eagle (but lesser than the magnificent eagle) appears, the vine turns towards this new eagle in the hope that it will water it. The second bird is passive, but the vine has turned away from the first to the second. The image is fluid: vines emerging from the harvest of a cedar tree, vines orienting themselves towards eagles instead of the sun, but it does manage to integrate two horticultural images commonly used for Israel-the vine and the tree. The transformation of the tree to the vine also sets up the expectation for the wilting under the hot sirocco (east wind) which in combination with a worm killed Jonah’s gourd (Jonah 4:8).

The questions at the end of the image have expected answers for the hearers. Will the vine prosper? No, it will not. Will he not pull up its roots? The expectation is that the first eagle will do precisely that. When it is transplanted will it thrive, or will it wither in the bed? This fickle vine that reached towards the wrong eagle when the first eagle provided good soil and abundant water does not have a hopeful future in this initial image. Like the worthless vine of Ezekiel 15, the ungrateful vine in this image is good for nothing but burning.

The second eagle in the imagery refers to Egypt and the imagery points to the actions of King Zedekiah and others in the region to form an alliance with Egypt against Babylon. This may point to the events that Jeremiah wears a yoke to represent to the representatives of Edom, Moab, Ammon, and Tyre who are meeting with King Zedekiah as reference in Jeremiah 27. Both Jeremiah and Ezekiel attempt to communicate to the leaders that they should bear the yoke of Babylon, but as the image here indicates, the vine reaches towards Egypt in this regional power struggle. Yet, Egypt fails to help in the war and Babylon responds to the rebellion in force. Both Jeremiah and Ezekiel maintain the unpopular position that God was working through Babylon to judge Israel and that continued resistance to Babylon was resistance to God’s work. The soldiers[2]of the king Zedekiah will fall before the forces of King Nebuchadrezzar. The events which Ezekiel has pointed to throughout the initial sixteen chapters now see the critical event which will set the judgment executed through Babylon in motion.

Yet, the chapter ends with an image of hope where a transplanted sprig grows into a great tree. Isaiah used the image of a shoot coming out of the dead stump of Jesse (Isaiah 11:1) and here there is a similar image of hope where from a humble sprig a noble cedar emerges. Yet here the image is not about the reemergence of a Davidic ruler but about the reemergence of the nation of Israel. Ezekiel plugs into the widespread ancient image of ‘the cosmic tree’ which brings life to the world. Yet, the primary actor in this final section is not Babylon but the LORD who plants and lifts up the mighty tree from the humble origins. The LORD can bring down the great trees, dry up the trees filled with life, or bring new life into a dried-up tree and bring up the trees overshadowed by the great trees. The unfaithful vine being dried up by the east wind does not preclude the LORD from taking a shoot and remaking it into something both strong and lifegiving.

[1] My initial reading of this led me to link the vine to the exiles in Babylon, but the more I reflect on the imagery the more clear it is that Ezekiel’s image points to the remnant in Judah.

[2] The word could also mean fugitives.

Ezekiel 16 Jerusalem as an Unfaithful Bride

8 Replies

Apophysis-Betrayal (1footonthedawn at deviantart.com)

Ezekiel 16:1-14 Jerusalem as an Abandoned, Rescued, and Claimed Woman

¹ The word of the LORD came to me: ² Mortal, make known to Jerusalem her abominations, ³ and say, Thus says the Lord GOD to Jerusalem: Your origin and your birth were in the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite, and your mother a Hittite. ⁴ As for your birth, on the day you were born your navel cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to cleanse you, nor rubbed with salt, nor wrapped in cloths. ⁵ No eye pitied you, to do any of these things for you out of compassion for you; but you were thrown out in the open field, for you were abhorred on the day you were born.

⁶ I passed by you, and saw you flailing about in your blood. As you lay in your blood, I said to you, “Live! ⁷ and grow up like a plant of the field.” You grew up and became tall and arrived at full womanhood; your breasts were formed, and your hair had grown; yet you were naked and bare.

⁸ I passed by you again and looked on you; you were at the age for love. I spread the edge of my cloak over you, and covered your nakedness: I pledged myself to you and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord GOD, and you became mine. ⁹ Then I bathed you with water and washed off the blood from you, and anointed you with oil. ¹⁰ I clothed you with embroidered cloth and with sandals of fine leather; I bound you in fine linen and covered you with rich fabric. ¹¹ I adorned you with ornaments: I put bracelets on your arms, a chain on your neck, ¹² a ring on your nose, earrings in your ears, and a beautiful crown upon your head. ¹³ You were adorned with gold and silver, while your clothing was of fine linen, rich fabric, and embroidered cloth. You had choice flour and honey and oil for food. You grew exceedingly beautiful, fit to be a queen. ¹⁴ Your fame spread among the nations on account of your beauty, for it was perfect because of my splendor that I had bestowed on you, says the Lord GOD.

The sixteenth chapter of Ezekiel is an extended metaphor utilizing the feminine imagery commonly used for cities in the ancient world and in the bible and extending it in a provocative manner to portray Jerusalem as an unfaithful partner of the LORD. Ezekiel is not the first prophet to utilize this type of imagery for the people of God, both Hosea in the eighth century BCE (Hosea 2) and Ezekiel’s older contemporary Jeremiah (Jeremiah 2, 3) both utilize a similar metaphor for the people of God as a whole. Yet, Ezekiel now focuses the imagery on Jerusalem and presses the metaphor in some even more shocking ways. Many recent Christians may not be familiar with these images since they are unlikely to be utilized in worship and the images are uncomfortable and even offensive. This imagery is still shocking 2,500 years later, but Ezekiel’s ministry was to a people who no longer see and hear. The explicit language of Ezekiel’s prophecy is memorable, especially in the Hebrew which is more graphic than most English translations.

Many modern Christians would prefer to ignore the imagery here and in Hosea and Jeremiah where the image of an adulterous spouse is used as a metaphor for the broken relationship between God and Israel. I can understand why many women and men would be uncomfortable in the rage directed at the metaphorical woman in these passages, but as I wrote about when I reflected on Jeremiah chapters two and three approaching this image made me reflect on the brokenhearted God that the prophet encounters. There is always danger of overgeneralizing one’s own experience but when I reflected on the language of Jeremiah in 2013 I recognized some of the pain, anger, and brokenness that I felt in 2009-2010 when the infidelity of a marital partner and her abandonment of the relationship caused similar feelings to emerge. Did I act upon that anger, no I did not, but even if in the quiet of my own room or in the hearing of a counselor I needed a place to express that hurt so that it did not explode inside of me. Before we discuss the difficulties of the imagery we also need to examine what the metaphor expresses about the betrayal that the LORD experiences and the way it causes emotional pain for the God of Israel.[1]

The prophets are called to stand between the wounded God and the wounding people. Ezekiel in this extended image utilizes the cultural practices of personifying cities and nations a female. As Katheryn Pfister Darr states:

Within Hebrew Scripture, they appear in a variety of female roles—e.g., daughters (Isa 1:8, Lam 2:18); wives (Ezekiel 16 and 23); mothers (Isai 49:14-18); and widows (Lam 1:1). These and other metaphorical depictions of cities draw upon certain (culture specific) stereotypical associations with women (e.g., barrenness and fertility; maternal devotion, nurture, and compassion; objects of familial and conjugal love; bereavement and mourning) in order to present them not as inanimate repositories of stone and mortar, but as characters in the story of Yahweh’s dealings with the world, and more specifically, with the people of Israel. (NIB VI:1222)

As a character in the story of the LORD’s dealings with the earth, Ezekiel recasts Israel’s history in a scandalous way: scandalous in the city’s origins, in the city’s reaction to the rescue and riches bestowed upon it, in the judgment of the city, and eventually in the grace shown to the city and her sisters.

The prophet is instructed to make Jerusalem’s abominations[2] known to her and then begins with a shocking birth narrative. Jerusalem’s origins are traced back to an Amorite father and Hittite mother who abandon their child leaving her laying uncared for in the afterbirth to die a rapid death. Instead of tracing the heritage back to Abraham and Sarah, Moses and Aaron, or even David who made the city his capital, this image utilizes up a polemical tone where the parents are Canaanites who represent the people that the Israelites were to have driven out. Although technically Jerusalem when it was conquered belonged to the Jebusites,[3] we have a child born to, in the eyes of the Jewish hearers, questionable parentage. In addition, the text highlights four expected actions on the arrival of a newborn: cutting the umbilical cord, bathing the infant in clean water, massaging it with a solution of salt, and wrapping it in swaddling bands. (Block, 1997, p. 475)

The parents of this child abandon it to the elements to die, and an infant without care and protection will not last long in the world. The LORD in passing by takes notice of this abandoned child and claims it. This rejected child of questionable parents is now claimed by the LORD and where once death was certain, now the LORD commands life. The narrative does not allow for any passage of time for this infant to transform into a mature young woman. The transformation between powerless infant and a woman with fully formed breast and pubic hair occurs between two occurrences of the LORD passing by. The Hebrew way of telling stories often leave gaps, and the growth, nurturing and development of this woman are unimportant to the image in the ancient imagination, although would be fascinating in our world of child psychology and adolescent development.

Nakedness was untroubling for an infant, but now with a fully developed woman has a different overtone. The LORD extends the wings of his garment over this now mature Jerusalem, a symbolic act we see Boaz do in Ruth 3:9 and enters into a covenant with the personified Jerusalem. The washing off of blood could be the original blood for this image (if there is no passage of time) or could be the menstrual blood or the bleeding after initial intercourse but now this clothed, cleaned, and oiled young woman is brought under the protective relationship of the LORD. The embroidered cloth and fine leather sandals are the clothing of a noble, but they are also the same materials used in the construction of the tabernacle.[4] The choice flour, oil and honey are also used in the offerings of the tabernacle and temple as is the gold and silver. This young woman is adorned like a queen or a priestess and is beautiful in her fine raiment and jewelry. As Daniel Block states, “this remarkable rags-to-riches story ends with an extremely important reminder: Jerusalem’s beauty was not innate—it was a gift, graciously bestowed.” (Block, 1997, p. 485)

Ezekiel 16: 15-34 The Betrayal of the Gifts of God

¹⁵ But you trusted in your beauty, and played the whore because of your fame, and lavished your whorings on any passer-by. ¹⁶ You took some of your garments, and made for yourself colorful shrines, and on them played the whore; nothing like this has ever been or ever shall be. ¹⁷ You also took your beautiful jewels of my gold and my silver that I had given you, and made for yourself male images, and with them played the whore; ¹⁸ and you took your embroidered garments to cover them, and set my oil and my incense before them. ¹⁹ Also my bread that I gave you — I fed you with choice flour and oil and honey — you set it before them as a pleasing odor; and so it was, says the Lord GOD. ²⁰ You took your sons and your daughters, whom you had borne to me, and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. As if your whorings were not enough! ²¹ You slaughtered my children and delivered them up as an offering to them. ²² And in all your abominations and your whorings you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, flailing about in your blood.

²³ After all your wickedness (woe, woe to you! says the Lord GOD), ²⁴ you built yourself a platform and made yourself a lofty place in every square; ²⁵ at the head of every street you built your lofty place and prostituted your beauty, offering yourself to every passer-by, and multiplying your whoring. ²⁶ You played the whore with the Egyptians, your lustful neighbors, multiplying your whoring, to provoke me to anger. ²⁷ Therefore I stretched out my hand against you, reduced your rations, and gave you up to the will of your enemies, the daughters of the Philistines, who were ashamed of your lewd behavior. ²⁸ You played the whore with the Assyrians, because you were insatiable; you played the whore with them, and still you were not satisfied. ²⁹ You multiplied your whoring with Chaldea, the land of merchants; and even with this you were not satisfied.

³⁰ How sick is your heart, says the Lord GOD, that you did all these things, the deeds of a brazen whore; ³¹ building your platform at the head of every street, and making your lofty place in every square! Yet you were not like a whore, because you scorned payment. ³² Adulterous wife, who receives strangers instead of her husband! ³³ Gifts are given to all whores; but you gave your gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come to you from all around for your whorings. ³⁴ So you were different from other women in your whorings: no one solicited you to play the whore; and you gave payment, while no payment was given to you; you were different.

It is important to acknowledge that there are important differences between marriage in the ancient world and marriage in our current culture. Marriage in the United States in 2024 is primarily an emotional relationship with financial implications. People get married primarily for romantic reasons, and although anyone who goes through a divorce will discover the financial implications of dissolving a romantic relationship (and financial stress can be a reason that a divorce is asked for) most modern people view marriage through a romantic lens. In the ancient world, and until recently in historical terms, marriage was primarily an economic transaction which could have emotional and romantic overtones. Julia Galumbush compares marriage in ancient Israel to the suzerain/vassal treaty relationship:

Israelite marriage was, like vassaldom, a relationship of mutual obligations between two parties, one (the husband) superior and the other (the wife) inferior in terms of their legal status. As in a treaty agreement, the husband was required to protect the wife…and the wife was to obey the husband, and to refrain from sexual relationships with other men. The husband, like the suzerain was free of any such obligation of exclusivity. (NIB VI: 1223)

One can hear echoes of this type of relationship for example in the household codes of Ephesians 5:22-6:1 and Colossians 3:18-4:1, as well as the language of Ezekiel. A wife ‘loves’ a husband by being ‘obedient’ to them. There may be more to marriage than obedience in the ancient world, but this was the building block. The danger of an unfaithful woman was to pass the family inheritance to an illegitimate heir and to bring dishonor (a powerful force in the ancient world) upon the husband.

The gifts of the LORD graciously bestowed on Jerusalem have now been utilized in the practice of idolatry (metaphorically described as infidelity). They use the gifts of the LORD to ‘clothe’ and ‘feed’ the idols made from the provided gold and silver. If using the gifts that the LORD clothed his bride with to make and service both shrines and idols, the personified city practices the same disregard for children that her parents showed to her. The children which were dedicated to the LORD are now sacrificed. This may indicate the child sacrifice that the bible attributes to the worship of Molech[5] or the practices of injustice that failed to care for the vulnerable children of the LORD. Jerusalem who has been rescued from death and clothed and cared for by the LORD has misused the clothing, wealth, and food provided for her and delivers her own children to death.

The prostitution to idols extended to the image of prostitution oneself to the surrounding nations. Although this metaphorical recasting of Jerusalem’s history may not link any specific incidences of unfaithfulness with Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon (Chaldea) there are multiple instances of Judea negotiating relationships for protection and trade with each of these powers. The language in English is tidied up in the NRSV.[6] The imagery of a sexually unfulfilled woman continuing to seek new partners and even paying her partners rather than receiving payment while refusing her husband has led the reader to expect the husband to act against the wife who has misused his gifts, killed his children, and brought shame upon his household.

Ezekiel 16: 35-43a The Punishment of the Adulterous Bride

³⁵ Therefore, O whore, hear the word of the LORD: ³⁶ Thus says the Lord GOD, Because your lust was poured out and your nakedness uncovered in your whoring with your lovers, and because of all your abominable idols, and because of the blood of your children that you gave to them, ³⁷ therefore, I will gather all your lovers, with whom you took pleasure, all those you loved and all those you hated; I will gather them against you from all around, and will uncover your nakedness to them, so that they may see all your nakedness. ³⁸ I will judge you as women who commit adultery and shed blood are judged, and bring blood upon you in wrath and jealousy. ³⁹ I will deliver you into their hands, and they shall throw down your platform and break down your lofty places; they shall strip you of your clothes and take your beautiful objects and leave you naked and bare. ⁴⁰ They shall bring up a mob against you, and they shall stone you and cut you to pieces with their swords. ⁴¹ They shall burn your houses and execute judgments on you in the sight of many women; I will stop you from playing the whore, and you shall also make no more payments. ⁴² So I will satisfy my fury on you, and my jealousy shall turn away from you; I will be calm, and will be angry no longer. ⁴³ Because you have not remembered the days of your youth, but have enraged me with all these things; therefore, I have returned your deeds upon your head, says the Lord GOD.

The metaphor now moves from the adulterous activity (as a metaphor for idolatry) of Jerusalem to the consequences of that activity. The four offenses that caused this response from the LORD are summarized as: (1) your lust was poured out[7] (2) your nakedness was uncovered (3) because of all your abominable idols, and (4) because of the blood of your children that you gave to them. This metaphorical woman who has been richly clothed, given gold and silver jewelry, and well fed now is exposed without her finery. The public act of stripping is an action that occurs multiple times this metaphor of an adulterous bride is used in the prophets[8] and was likely among the practiced punishments of an adulterous woman by her husband. The public act may have indicated a withdrawal of support (a reversal of the action of covering the bride with one’s garment as indicated above). As Daniel Block mentioned, Jerusalem’s beauty was not inherent but bestowed upon it by the gracious clothing and provision of God. Now with that clothing and provision removed this metaphorical woman is not only shamed but is undesirable by her former lovers. They are the ones who perpetrate the physical violence in this image, not the scorned husband. The husband merely removes his protection and provision. The character of her former lovers is revealed when they steal from her and execute violence upon her.

The imagery is culturally specific to the practice of marriage in ancient Israel. Although a spouse in our context may want to humiliate their unfaithful partner that action is not done in this manner. Yet, within this understanding of relationships in the ancient world the image is of a God who as a husband has poured out his love (in the form of protection, rescuing from death, and provision), entered into a covenant with her and pledges Godself to her, lavishes on her benefits which are fit for a princess only to see these benefits used to promote an idolatrous lifestyle. God has loved intensely, acted graciously for a woman who was unloved by her parents, and when that grace has been treated with contempt responds jealously. Yet, at the end of this section we see a moment when the anger for the contempt that God has endured has passed and there is a hope for a future beyond the judgment. Like in Jeremiah, we will see that this moment of shame is not the end of the story and God looks to a future of reconciliation and return.

Ezekiel 16: 43b-52 The Three Wicked Sisters

Have you not committed lewdness beyond all your abominations? ⁴⁴ See, everyone who uses proverbs will use this proverb about you, “Like mother, like daughter.” ⁴⁵ You are the daughter of your mother, who loathed her husband and her children; and you are the sister of your sisters, who loathed their husbands and their children. Your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite. ⁴⁶ Your elder sister is Samaria, who lived with her daughters to the north of you; and your younger sister, who lived to the south of you, is Sodom with her daughters. ⁴⁷ You not only followed their ways, and acted according to their abominations; within a very little time you were more corrupt than they in all your ways. ⁴⁸ As I live, says the Lord GOD, your sister Sodom and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done. ⁴⁹ This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. ⁵⁰ They were haughty, and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it. ⁵¹ Samaria has not committed half your sins; you have committed more abominations than they, and have made your sisters appear righteous by all the abominations that you have committed. ⁵² Bear your disgrace, you also, for you have brought about for your sisters a more favorable judgment; because of your sins in which you acted more abominably than they, they are more in the right than you. So be ashamed, you also, and bear your disgrace, for you have made your sisters appear righteous.

Before the image moves to reconciliation a final surprising comparison is added. Jerusalem’s family tree is now expanded to show her two sisters. Samaria is an expected choice with the common history of Northern Israel (Samaria) and Judea (Jerusalem) who were once one nation of Israel. Yet, the surprising and offensive potion of this image, to the hearers in Jerusalem, is the inclusion of Sodom as a sister of Israel. Sodom is viewed within scripture as synonymous with injustice and wickedness[9] and Samaria was also viewed, from the perspective of Judea, as a nation which was judged for its idolatrous practices[10]. In Ezekiel 14: 12-20 the imagery of Abraham’s request to spare Sodom for the sake of ten righteous men[11] hangs over the statement that even the presence of three individual who epitomize righteousness would not be able to save the community or even their own families. Jerusalem has moved farther from righteousness and more towards wickedness than even irredeemable Sodom. Sodom’s practices of wickedness as recorded here are specifically that they had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. In this image Jerusalem has also had an excess of the best food and clothing, was given a life of ease, but in her pride did not acknowledge the gracious source of all her gifts. Jerusalem, Samaria, and Sodom were all given much, and yet in all their giftedness they did not understand that in a covenantal relationship when one is given much there is also the expectation of loyalty and faithfulness.

In a just world any reconciliation of Jerusalem must also involve a reconciliation with Sodom and Samaria who, in this metaphor, are less wicked than she. Jerusalem in a surprising way is now a part of God’s gracious action beyond the people of Judea. Yet, the proper response of the woman Jerusalem would be one of shame: she has been brought from death to life, from poverty to riches, from being unlovable to loved by the creator of the cosmos and she has thrown it all away. There is no reconciliation without an acknowledgment of her unfaithfulness and the consequences of those actions. The riches, provision, and protection are for a time removed, Jerusalem is brought lower than Sodom and Samaria. Yet, even in the judgment there we move towards an image of hope.

Ezekiel 16: 53-63 A Restoration of Fortunes

⁵³ I will restore their fortunes, the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters and the fortunes of Samaria and her daughters, and I will restore your own fortunes along with theirs, ⁵⁴ in order that you may bear your disgrace and be ashamed of all that you have done, becoming a consolation to them. ⁵⁵ As for your sisters, Sodom and her daughters shall return to their former state, Samaria and her daughters shall return to their former state, and you and your daughters shall return to your former state. ⁵⁶ Was not your sister Sodom a byword in your mouth in the day of your pride, ⁵⁷ before your wickedness was uncovered? Now you are a mockery to the daughters of Aram and all her neighbors, and to the daughters of the Philistines, those all around who despise you. ⁵⁸ You must bear the penalty of your lewdness and your abominations, says the LORD.

⁵⁹ Yes, thus says the Lord GOD: I will deal with you as you have done, you who have despised the oath, breaking the covenant; ⁶⁰ yet I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish with you an everlasting covenant. ⁶¹ Then you will remember your ways, and be ashamed when I take your sisters, both your elder and your younger, and give them to you as daughters, but not on account of my covenant with you. ⁶² I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the LORD, ⁶³ in order that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I forgive you all that you have done, says the Lord GOD.

The story of Israel began with God delivering them from their sojourn in Egypt, bringing them out of their slavery, guiding them and providing for them through the wilderness, and gifting them a new home in the promised land. Jerusalem may have broken their covenant with God, but the term covenant in the scriptures is a rich bond that often transcends expectations. God has bound Godself to Israel (both Samaria and Jerusalem) in a way that moves beyond the betrayal. As we see later in Ezekiel and in the later portions of Isaiah the post-exilic future of Israel will be conceived of in language evoking an new Exodus. As Ellen Davis can state:

Israel is brought to recognize YHWH through the same kind of restorative acts by which it was first constituted as a nation. These stir Israel’s memory and sense of shame at its own deeds, and the contrast between its deserving and what YHWH has done leads to a deeper understanding of this God before whom Israel stands for judgment and blessing. (Davis, 1989, p. 115)

Jerusalem long considered itself superior to its metaphorical sisters Samaria and Sodom. Yet, now she stands humiliated before not only her sisters but her longtime opponents the daughters of Aram and the daughters of the Philistines. They have fallen from their state of grace, despised their oath and broken the covenant, yet their unfaithfulness is only overcome by their God’s faithfulness. They hope for reconciliation for themselves but never imagined sharing their restoration with Sodom and Samaria. The prophet has deployed this imagery of the adulterous wife in a way that points to both the curses of disobedience to the covenant but also to the promises of renewal beyond the punishment.[12] As I discussed when reflecting on Jeremiah 3, God transcends the normal expectations where a wife who dishonors the relationship is unable to return. God refuses to give up on Jerusalem, Samaria, and in this image apparently even Sodom.[13]

To modern readers with a different view of women and marriage than the ancient world these words, especially with Ezekiel’s graphic wording, can be offensive. Ezekiel 16 is unlikely to make it into the preaching or teaching of many churches precisely because it is uncomfortable. When I began this project of looking deeply at scripture, particularly the parts of scripture rarely utilized in the teaching and preaching of the church, I knew passages like this would be difficult to wrestle with, but I also trusted there was wisdom to be gained by wrestling with these uncomfortable portions of scripture. Many of the insights I gained from wrestling with Jeremiah eleven years ago apply here as well. Ezekiel has portrayed a broken-hearted God and nowhere is that clearer than when he utilizes this relational imagery. Utilizing the imagery of love in the cultural expectations of ancient Israel God has gone far beyond the expectations of a faithful husband only to be met with the callous contempt of his rescued and treasured bride. Yet, the LORD remains unable to give up on the relationship. Beyond the shame and the pain there is a reconciliation and a new beginning. It is a new beginning that is bound to the original covenant, but it is also something new. It involves forgiveness because the actions of Jerusalem caused both shame and pain to the LORD. If we were to write this metaphor for our time we would do it differently and we should remain, at a minimum, uncomfortable with images that include violence and shaming of women. Yet, we also need to acknowledge that the metaphor was designed to cause the people of Jerusalem to feel guilt, acknowledge their unfaithfulness, and understand their upcoming exile as God’s judgment upon them. The image was offensive in its time as well and was designed to be remembered by a nation who stopped seeing and listening. The fact that this extremely long image was preserved within the prophesies of Ezekiel testifies to its impact. Otherwise, this extended image, longer half of the books in the minor prophets, would have not been continually copied in a world where physical copies required hand copying the text.

[1] Many people are not used to talking about God feeling emotions and have been raised with philosophical view of God as the ‘unmoved mover’ but this is not the picture of God presented in the scriptures. The LORD as described in the scriptures is a passionate (or jealous) God who is vulnerable to the actions of God’s people.

[2] The root t’b which is translated abomination here occurs eleven times in this chapter. (NIB VI: 1226)

[3] Joshua 18:28; Judges 19: 10-11; 1 Chronicles 11: 4-5

[4] Fine leather and embroidered cloth appear throughout the instructions for the Tabernacle in Exodus 26-28 and the construction in Exodus 36, 38-39.

[5] Leviticus 18: 21; 20:2-5; 2 Kings 23:10; Jeremiah 32:35

[6] For example, the Egyptians, your lustful neighbors would be more literally translated the Egyptians, your neighbors with huge organs. This image is expanded in an even more graphic way in 23:20.

[7] The Hebrew points to “feminine genital distillation produced at sexual arousal.” (Block, 1997, p. 500)

[8] Jeremiah 13:22, Hosea 2:9-10.

[9] In addition to the narrative of Genesis 18-19 see also Deuteronomy 29:23; Isaiah 1:9-10; 3:9; 13:19; Jeremiah 23:14; 49:18; 50:40; Lamentations 4:6; Amos 4:11; Zephaniah 2:9.

[10] From the split of Israel after the death of Solomon there is immediate and continual prophetic condemnation of the practices in Northern Israel (Samaria) beginning in 1 Kings 13 through Israel being carried captive into Assyria in 2 Kings 17.

[11] Genesis 18:16-33.

[12] See Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 27-28 for blessings and curses which underly this imagery.

[13] Daniel Block questions whether the restoration of Sodom is a rhetorical device or whether to take the prophecy at face value. (Block, 1997, p. 513)

Ezekiel 15 The Unfruitful Vine

3 Replies

By Giancarlo Dessì – self-made (from archive of Istituto Professionale Statale per l’Agricoltura e l’Ambiente “Cettolini” di Cagliari), CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3859575

Ezekiel 15

¹ The word of the LORD came to me: ² O mortal, how does the wood of the vine surpass all other wood — the vine branch that is among the trees of the forest?

³ Is wood taken from it to make anything? Does one take a peg from it on which to hang any object?

⁴ It is put in the fire for fuel; when the fire has consumed both ends of it and the middle of it is charred, is it useful for anything?

⁵ When it was whole it was used for nothing; how much less — when the fire has consumed it, and it is charred — can it ever be used for anything!

⁶ Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Like the wood of the vine among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so I will give up the inhabitants of Jerusalem. ⁷ I will set my face against them; although they escape from the fire, the fire shall still consume them; and you shall know that I am the LORD, when I set my face against them. ⁸ And I will make the land desolate, because they have acted faithlessly, says the Lord GOD.

One of the frequently used images in scripture as an allegory for Israel is the grapevine or the vineyard. In Psalm 80 Israel is the vine brought out of Egypt that God clears a place for, and it grows to fill the land under God’s protection, until God removes the walls that protect it from the wild animals (Psalm 80: 8-13). Isaiah’s parable of the unfruitful vineyard tells of a vineyard on a fertile hill that God does everything for, and it produces wild grapes where it should have yielded cultivated grapes (Isaiah 5: 1-7). Jeremiah uses similar imagery when he states:

Yet I planted you as a choice vine, from the purest stock. How then did you turn degenerate and become a wild vine? Jeremiah 2: 21 [1]

According to Tova Ganzel Ezekiel uses allegories and metaphors more often than any other prophet. (Ganzel, 2020, p. 130) Ezekiel takes the familiar allegorical image of the grapevine or the vineyard and uses it in a unique way. Grapevines are useful for the production of grapes, and that is the focal point of most of the uses of the grapevine in the scriptures. Here Ezekiel assumes the vine is unfruitful and asks is it good for anything else?

The initial statement from the LORD is translated in the NRSV (and most other translations) as a comparative statement between the wood of the vine and the wood of the other trees, but in Hebrew it is not a comparison. Daniel Block translates this, “What becomes of the wood of the grapevine?” (Block, 1997, p. 453) The wood of the vine is not strong enough to build anything, even a peg. If it does not produce fruit it is only suitable for burning and once it is burned it is even less valuable. Allegorically if Israel is unfruitful and unusable before undergoing judgment, how much less useful is it once it has undergone these trials. The allegory is made specific once the interpretation of the image is given in verses six through eight. Jerusalem is an unproductive vine that is only good for the fire and therefore the LORD will set God’s face against them and make the land desolate because the vine is fruitless. The divine act of choosing Israel and placing it in the promised land is no replacement for Israel being fruitful in the place where they have been planted.

In our world we often use the language of rights without the discussion of responsibilities. Within both the Jewish and Christian worldview election (rights and benefits) are always connected with covenant responsibilities (obedience to God and one’s responsibilities towards one’s neighbors and the vulnerable in society). The fiber that the people of faith are made of, to use Ezekiel’s imagery, are not useful if they are fruitless, whether they are the original vine or the later grafts onto the vine.

[1] See also Hosea 9:10, 10:1; Ezekiel 19: 10-14.

Ezekiel 13 Against the False Prophets

2 Replies

Window on a whitewashed wall, Djerba, Tunisia By LBM1948 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=113677551

Ezekiel 13

Ezekiel 13: 1-16 Proclamation Against Male False Prophets

¹ The word of the LORD came to me: ² Mortal, prophesy against the prophets of Israel who are prophesying; say to those who prophesy out of their own imagination: “Hear the word of the LORD!” ³ Thus says the Lord GOD, Alas for the senseless prophets who follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing! ⁴ Your prophets have been like jackals among ruins, O Israel. ⁵ You have not gone up into the breaches, or repaired a wall for the house of Israel, so that it might stand in battle on the day of the LORD. ⁶ They have envisioned falsehood and lying divination; they say, “Says the LORD,” when the LORD has not sent them, and yet they wait for the fulfillment of their word! ⁷ Have you not seen a false vision or uttered a lying divination, when you have said, “Says the LORD,” even though I did not speak?

⁸ Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Because you have uttered falsehood and envisioned lies, I am against you, says the Lord GOD. ⁹ My hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and utter lying divinations; they shall not be in the council of my people, nor be enrolled in the register of the house of Israel, nor shall they enter the land of Israel; and you shall know that I am the Lord GOD. ¹⁰ Because, in truth, because they have misled my people, saying, “Peace,” when there is no peace; and because, when the people build a wall, these prophets smear whitewash on it. ¹¹ Say to those who smear whitewash on it that it shall fall. There will be a deluge of rain, great hailstones will fall, and a stormy wind will break out. ¹² When the wall falls, will it not be said to you, “Where is the whitewash you smeared on it?” ¹³ Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: In my wrath I will make a stormy wind break out, and in my anger there shall be a deluge of rain, and hailstones in wrath to destroy it. ¹⁴ I will break down the wall that you have smeared with whitewash, and bring it to the ground, so that its foundation will be laid bare; when it falls, you shall perish within it; and you shall know that I am the LORD. ¹⁵ Thus I will spend my wrath upon the wall, and upon those who have smeared it with whitewash; and I will say to you, The wall is no more, nor those who smeared it — ¹⁶ the prophets of Israel who prophesied concerning Jerusalem and saw visions of peace for it, when there was no peace, says the Lord GOD.

The authentic prophets of God already have difficult roles when they are given an unpopular message of judgement to deliver to the people of God, and their role is made significantly more challenging when false prophets appear delivering a message of peace when there is no peace. Although there are significant differences between the society and worldview of Ezekiel’s time and our own, both times struggle to separate truth from opinion. In our own time different news sources present a completely different version of reality based on the political narrative the network holds. Likewise, a person can go to different congregations and receive drastically different interpretations of faith, some that would be unrecognizable as Christianity’s traditional beliefs.[1] As quote attributed the former senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan says, “Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts.” But when the facts in question are competing divine messages from God how are the people to discern the true prophet from the foolish and senseless prophets who have seen nothing and speak from their own spirit?

From our canonical standpoint we know that Ezekiel is the true prophet bearing the word of the LORD while his opponents are those who have envisioned falsehood and lying divination. Yet, in this time where Ezekiel and Jeremiah were declaring the judgment upon the temple, Jerusalem, the land, and the Davidic line of kings other prophets gave reasonable sounding reassurances of peace because of the covenant status of the people, the temple, the Davidic king, the land, and the favored position of Jerusalem with God. Jerusalem had been spared once before from the Assyrians, and these popular prophets proclaimed that deliverance would come once again. The guidance in Deuteronomy only allows a prophet’s truth to be evaluated in retrospect:

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. Deuteronomy 18: 21-22

Yet, Deuteronomy also indicates that the prophet who either speaks in the name of another god or the prophet who speaks a word that the LORD has not given them will die. (Deuteronomy 18: 20) Here the LORD declares, through Ezekiel, the judgment of these foolish prophets who have spoken what they have not heard and declared what they have not seen.

Although the NRSV declares the prophets as senseless, the Hebrew word (nabal) is normally translated foolish. As Daniel Block describes this word:

The adjective nābāl is used in wisdom literature of a special kind of fool: one who is arrogant (Prov. 30:32), crude of speech (Prov. 1:17), spiritually and morally obtuse (Job 2:10), a scoundrel (Job 30:8). In the Psalms the nābāl denies (14:1; 53:2 [End. 1]) and blasphemes God (74:22). (Block, 1997, p. 400)

Syrian Jackal (Canis aureus syriacus) in Tel Aviv By Jan Ebr – https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/114837596, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=116759612

These foolish prophets have not received a divine vision, unlike Ezekiel, and are following their own human spirit rather than being directed by the spirit of God. These prophets are like jackals who inhabit the ruins of foreign cities in Isaiah[2] and in the ruins of Jerusalem in Micah 1:8. These foolish prophets rather than building up and defending the people have helped to bring about their downfall. The true prophet should have stood in the breach or helped to repair the wall literally or metaphorically. Instead, they stood in a position of privilege inside the city and away from the danger of conflict on the wall during the siege. Yet, instead of reinforcing the divine message or recalling people to the covenant they have resisted the true prophets like Ezekiel, and provided the illusion of peace where there was no peace.

The problem with these foolish prophets is not that they proclaim a message of peace, Ezekiel will later proclaim a message of peace and hope, but that they are not sent from God, and they do not understand the time. It is unclear whether these prophets are in Jerusalem or being encountered by Ezekiel in exile, although it is clear that Jeremiah encountered prophets who declared peace in contrast to his message of Babylon’s impending invasion and God’s judgment:

For from the least of them to the greatest of them, everyone is greedy for gain; and from prophet to priest, everyone deals falsely. They have treated the wound of my people carelessly, saying, “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace. Jeremiah 6:13-14 [3]

These prophets have provided cosmetic treatments to cover up the flaws in the walls that will not endure the storm to come. These false prophets have contributed to a future where Jerusalem will have her foundations laid bare like Samaria[4] was by the Assyrians. These prophets have contributed to a cover up of the flaws in Jerusalem and have contributed to the fall of the city.

The judgment on these foolish prophets is to revoke their place among the people. Not only will they lose their place in the council of the people, but they will also be removed from the register of Israel and be exiles from the land. Like the jackals they were compared to earlier, they will be the castoffs living among the ruins and not fit to cohabitate with the rest of society. They may be popular at the moment, but history will remember Ezekiel and Jeremiah. The countless false prophets will lose their place in society and history.

One final note before proceeding to the next section which deals with women who are distracting from Ezekiel and other true prophets, is that although most interpreters assume these prophets are acting in the name of the LORD, and the ones mentioned above do seem to be referencing the God of Israel, a large part of the judgment upon Israel is due to their unfaithfulness both to the covenant but also their worship of other gods. It is clear that there were multiple gods worshipped in various ways throughout Judah at this time, and many probably considered this pluralistic worship alongside the worship of the LORD acceptable. There may have been prophets speaking and declaring on behalf of other (false) gods and with the unpopular nature of the harsh messages of Jeremiah and Ezekiel it made these alternative messages even more palatable.

Ezekiel 13: 17-23 Proclamation Against Female False Prophets

¹⁷ As for you, mortal, set your face against the daughters of your people, who prophesy out of their own imagination; prophesy against them ¹⁸ and say, Thus says the Lord GOD: Woe to the women who sew bands on all wrists, and make veils for the heads of persons of every height, in the hunt for human lives! Will you hunt down lives among my people, and maintain your own lives? ¹⁹ You have profaned me among my people for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread, putting to death persons who should not die and keeping alive persons who should not live, by your lies to my people, who listen to lies.

²⁰ Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: I am against your bands with which you hunt lives; I will tear them from your arms, and let the lives go free, the lives that you hunt down like birds. ²¹ I will tear off your veils, and save my people from your hands; they shall no longer be prey in your hands; and you shall know that I am the LORD. ²² Because you have disheartened the righteous falsely, although I have not disheartened them, and you have encouraged the wicked not to turn from their wicked way and save their lives; ²³ therefore you shall no longer see false visions or practice divination; I will save my people from your hand. Then you will know that I am the LORD.

The target of Ezekiel in the second half of this condemnation of false prophets is against ‘the daughters of your people’ who like the male prophets speak from their own heart/imagination.[5] These women, who Ezekiel does not call prophets (although they are prophesying) are sewing something on peoples’ arms and making something for peoples’ heads. Any reconstruction of this scene involves speculation since the references are too obscure to give us an accurate picture of what Ezekiel is protesting against, although it would have been clear in his time. It is not even clear whether these women are in Jerusalem/Judea or in exile with Ezekiel (or perhaps both). Although the law has clear prohibitions against divination and augury as practiced in the surrounding culture[6] it is also likely that these practices did occur among the people at this time of crisis. When a crisis arises people often seek certainty and there will always be those who are vulnerable to those who promise protection or control.

One interpretation of the actions of these women is that they are creating bands and phylacteries, veils, or amulets that have the divine name upon them as a ward against evil times. Although this practice would bear the name of the LORD, it would be utilizing the name of God in a way that other nations invoke their deities. This context would make sense of the statement that these women ‘have profaned me’ and the barley and bread is their payment for these articles of clothing. It is also possible that these bands and veils/amulets may be utilizing other entities as a form of protection. From Ezekiel’s view these women are not prophets and are not only snake oil salespeople, but their practices have actively caused the innocent to die and the wicked to prosper. Their actions represent the opposite of Ezekiel’s call in Ezekiel 3: 16-21 where Ezekiel is responsible to confront the wicked to get them to turn from their ways. Now these daughters of Israel by the lies they tell, and the people who listen to their lies are enabling those who should not live to live, while those who should not die are dying.

There are women prophets in the story of Israel and there are women who resist the ways of the LORD. Although it is possible that as Katheryn Pfister Darr suspects, “that Ezekiel has, in effect, “demonized” these women unfairly.” (NIB VI: 1203)[7] I am less suspicious than she is in her interpretation here. Women have been demonized by men in positions of authority and the line between magic and authority was murkier in the past, but like the male prophets in the first half of the chapter the issue is not that they are prophesying-it is that they were not sent by God and their actions are furthering the injustice in the society.

[1] I would include Christian nationalism and the prosperity gospel among these common belief systems that are alien to traditional Christian theology, although they have emerged at various points throughout history.

[2] Isaiah 13:22, 34:13

[4] Echoing the language of Micah 1:6.

[5] The word in Hebrew is “inner mind or heart” rather than the more modern concept of imagination. In verse three the male prophets are led by their own ruach (spirit, wind, breath).

[6] Leviticus 20:6, Deuteronomy 18: 10-14

[7] Referencing Nancy R. Bowen, “The Daughters of Your People: Female Prophets in Ezekiel 13: 17-23,” JBL 118 (199) 420.

Ezekiel 12 Judgment on the Leaders and People of Jerusalem

2 Replies

New, unlaid mudbricks in the Jordan Valley, West Bank Palestine, (2011) By Whiteghost.ink – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16303999

Ezekiel 12

Ezekiel 12: 1-16 Zedekiah’s End Enacted

¹ The word of the LORD came to me: ² Mortal, you are living in the midst of a rebellious house, who have eyes to see but do not see, who have ears to hear but do not hear; ³ for they are a rebellious house. Therefore, mortal, prepare for yourself an exile’s baggage, and go into exile by day in their sight; you shall go like an exile from your place to another place in their sight. Perhaps they will understand, though they are a rebellious house. ⁴ You shall bring out your baggage by day in their sight, as baggage for exile; and you shall go out yourself at evening in their sight, as those do who go into exile. ⁵ Dig through the wall in their sight, and carry the baggage through it. ⁶ In their sight you shall lift the baggage on your shoulder, and carry it out in the dark; you shall cover your face, so that you may not see the land; for I have made you a sign for the house of Israel.

⁷ I did just as I was commanded. I brought out my baggage by day, as baggage for exile, and in the evening I dug through the wall with my own hands; I brought it out in the dark, carrying it on my shoulder in their sight.

⁸ In the morning the word of the LORD came to me: ⁹ Mortal, has not the house of Israel, the rebellious house, said to you, “What are you doing?” ¹⁰ Say to them, “Thus says the Lord GOD: This oracle concerns the prince in Jerusalem and all the house of Israel in it.” ¹¹ Say, “I am a sign for you: as I have done, so shall it be done to them; they shall go into exile, into captivity.” ¹² And the prince who is among them shall lift his baggage on his shoulder in the dark, and shall go out; he shall dig through the wall and carry it through; he shall cover his face, so that he may not see the land with his eyes. ¹³ I will spread my net over him, and he shall be caught in my snare; and I will bring him to Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans, yet he shall not see it; and he shall die there. ¹⁴ I will scatter to every wind all who are around him, his helpers and all his troops; and I will unsheathe the sword behind them. ¹⁵ And they shall know that I am the LORD, when I disperse them among the nations and scatter them through the countries. ¹⁶ But I will let a few of them escape from the sword, from famine and pestilence, so that they may tell of all their abominations among the nations where they go; then they shall know that I am the LORD.

Ezekiel’s sign-acts are designed, by the nature of their strangeness, to garner attention. In a world before internet influencers who attempt to draw attention to themselves for fame and money, prophets like Ezekiel did outlandish and sometimes destructive acts to call attention to a message God wants the people to talk about and share. Especially for a message which will need to be transmitted (in a world without telephones, new reports, or even a newspaper or regular mail) from the exiles in Babylon to the people of Jerusalem requires it to be memorable and significant. Ezekiel’s action of preparing an exile’s baggage, digging a hole in the wall of his house, entering the house with the baggage through the hole he created and then exiting at night by the same whole leaves his curious neighbors seeking an explanation for these actions, an explanation that he communicates from the LORD.

Throughout the passage the contrast between sight and the lack of sight, light, and darkness, “presents a fascinating study in perception and blindness.” (Block, 1997, p. 365) Christian readers will be familiar with Jesus using identical language to Ezekiel’s description of Israel as those “who have eyes to see but do not see, who have ears to hear but do not hear.” This type of language occurs multiple times in the prophets and the psalms. Ezekiel’s older contemporary Jeremiah says in Jerusalem:

Hear this, O foolish and senseless people. Who have eyes, but do not see, who have ears, but do not hear. (Jeremiah 5:21)[1]

And in the psalmist’s protest against idols:

Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell. Psalm 115: 4-6

Like Isaiah and Jeremiah, Ezekiel’s message attempts to reach people who are blind and deaf to the implications of these divine messages. Yet Ezekiel’s actions are audacious enough to attract the curiosity of his fellow exiles even if they do not lead to repentance. As stated when Ezekiel is called, when these audacious sign-acts and words come to fruition the people will know that a prophet has been among them whether they hear or refuse to hear. (Ezekiel 2:5)

Ezekiel prepares his exile’s baggage[2] and visibly places it on they outside of his house and then proceeds to dig a hole in the wall of his house.[3] The exiles may have interpreted his actions positively as an end to their exile and a return to their homes in Judah. Yet, Ezekiel’s actions of preparing his baggage, digging through the wall, placing his baggage on the inside, and then departing through the hole in the wall at night will be interpreted the next morning for those who are curious enough to see the prophet’s action and hear its interpretation.

The interpretation involves the people still in Jerusalem and in particular king Zedekiah. Zedekiah is never named in Ezekiel and is referred to here as prince (Hebrew navi) rather than king (Hebrew melek). Zedekiah is the target of prophecy for the first time in Ezekiel. Prior to this Ezekiel only referred to the exile of King Jehoichin and the elders acting unfaithfully in Jerusalem. The temple, the city of Jerusalem and the land have all received judgment, but now the appointed leader in Jerusalem is singled out. The prophet Jeremiah had extensive interactions with Zedekiah in Jerusalem (Jeremiah 32-34, 37-38) and narrates the ending of Zedekiah twice in the book of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 39, 52). 2 Kings shares an identical description of Zedekiah’s end:

Then a breach was made in the city wall; the king with all the soldiers fled by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, by the king’s garden, though the Chaldeans were all around the city. They went in the direction of the Arabah. But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king, and overtook him in the plains of Jericho; all his army was scattered, deserting him. Then they captured the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah, who passed sentence on him. They slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, then put out the eyes of Zedekiah; they bound him in fetters and took him to Babylon. 2 Kings 25: 4-7

The actions of Jeremiah foreshadow the actions of Zedekiah fleeing Jerusalem through a hole in the wall with the sword following him. Ezekiel’s prophecy indicates that the LORD is the one casting his net and setting a snare for Zedekiah and Babylon is merely the instrument.[4] The king does leave by a hole in the wall, is quickly captured, and then is taken to Babylon blinded. As the prophet indicates he is taken to Babylon, but he does not see it.

We live in an age where even many biblical scholars are skeptical of prophecy as prediction. Many scholars of the historical critical and source criticism school view prophesies which foretell later events as “prophecy after the fact” which are included in the compilation of the words of the prophets which may have occurred at a later date. This idea would have been foreign to the early readers of scripture who viewed the prophet as one who receives and transmits divine oracles in both word and action. The prophets’ predictions normally speak in generalities, but it is expected (as we will see in the resistance in the remainder of the chapter) that prophets would communicate coming events. Blinding captives was a widespread practice among the Babylonians, but believability based on common practices is not necessary for a prophet. A true prophet was a person who received a message or insight from God whose knowledge is not limited to the present and whose actions may include the actions through another nation as an instrument of God’s judgment or salvation.

Ezekiel 12: 17-20 Portraying a Traumatized People

¹⁷ The word of the LORD came to me: ¹⁸ Mortal, eat your bread with quaking, and drink your water with trembling and with fearfulness; ¹⁹ and say to the people of the land, Thus says the Lord GOD concerning the inhabitants of Jerusalem in the land of Israel: They shall eat their bread with fearfulness, and drink their water in dismay, because their land shall be stripped of all it contains, on account of the violence of all those who live in it. ²⁰ The inhabited cities shall be laid waste, and the land shall become a desolation; and you shall know that I am the LORD.

In the next visual picture, the prophet demonstrates the traumatic nature of the events for those impacted by the LORD’s judgment of Jerusalem. One of the symptoms of prolonged stress and trauma is uncontrollable shaking, and in the public act of eating and drinking[5] and again the sign must be memorable enough to be communicated from Ezekiel’s position in exile to the remnant in Jerusalem. The judgment of the LORD echoes the covenant curses of Leviticus 26:43:

For the land shall be deserted by them, and enjoy its sabbath year by lying desolate without them while they make amends for their iniquity, because they dared to spurn my ordinances, and abhorred my statutes.[6]

Within Hebrew thought there is a connection between the people and the land, and the disobedience of the people has a negative impact on the land. In Leviticus the land is given a sabbath to recover from the damage incurred by the unfaithfulness of the people, but in Ezekiel the focus is on the impact on the people who will bear the fearful consequences of violence committed in the land.

Ezekiel 12: 21-28 The Time of Judgment is At Hand

²¹ The word of the LORD came to me: ²² Mortal, what is this proverb of yours about the land of Israel, which says, “The days are prolonged, and every vision comes to nothing”? ²³ Tell them therefore, “Thus says the Lord GOD: I will put an end to this proverb, and they shall use it no more as a proverb in Israel.” But say to them, The days are near, and the fulfillment of every vision. ²⁴ For there shall no longer be any false vision or flattering divination within the house of Israel. ²⁵ But I the LORD will speak the word that I speak, and it will be fulfilled. It will no longer be delayed; but in your days, O rebellious house, I will speak the word and fulfill it, says the Lord GOD.

²⁶ The word of the LORD came to me: ²⁷ Mortal, the house of Israel is saying, “The vision that he sees is for many years ahead; he prophesies for distant times.” ²⁸ Therefore say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: None of my words will be delayed any longer, but the word that I speak will be fulfilled, says the Lord GOD.

Although the God presented throughout the book of Ezekiel is a God whose judgment will not be delayed much longer, the character of the God of Israel throughout scripture is a God who desires repentance. The patience of God in continuing to send prophets to warn the people of the consequences of their actions has continued to meet resistance from a people who no longer hear or see. The two proverbs that the LORD responds to in this final portion of the chapter speak to the belief among the speakers that the visions of the prophets come to nothing or they are for distant times. Unfortunately, what these proverb speakers fail to realize is that the time of judgment being delayed is closing and they will soon see these prophecies of doom fulfilled.

Throughout the bible, the patience of God has allowed an opportunity for the wicked to turn from their ways. This patience often has a cost for the righteous, the society, and as mentioned above even the land and God’s costly patience is not infinite. Prophets throughout the bible have encountered rejection[7] as well as dealing with false prophets[8] who often echoed royal or popular desires. The combination of divine patience and conflicting message made it difficult for the population to take the challenging message of Jeremiah and Ezekiel as seriously as they merited. This combination of factors has led to the illusion that God’s judgment will either not come or will be delayed for a future generation to deal with. Ezekiel attempts to communicate with a people who no longer listen with the urgency of the prophecy he has received.

[1] Similar language is used in Isaiah 6:9-10, 43: 8.

[2] Literally “container of exile.” Probably a sort of knapsack to carry the essentials for a long journey. This would be familiar to the exiles who prepared similar baggage for their journey from Jerusalem to Babylon.

[3] The Hebrew qir used here is the word for the wall of a house. Homa is the Hebrew word for a defensive wall. The act of digging through the wall is reasonable because most structures in Babylon used bricks made from dried mud. (Block, 1997, p. 370)

[4] The same claim will be advanced with nearly identical wording in Ezekiel 17: 20.

[5] Eating in the ancient world was normally a communal activity not a private one, and the LORD using this as a prophetic sign act implies an audience to observe the sign act.

[6] A similar stripping of the land will occur in 32:15 (referring to Egypt) and 33:28(referring to Judah). Zechariah 7:10 uses the image of a desolated land in a similar way, while Jeremiah uses the image of a desolate land as the place where God will in the future will know joy and prosperity (Jeremiah 33:10) as he narrates a hopeful future after the exile.

[7] For example, the man of God from Judah (1 Kings 13) the prophets killed by Jezebel (1 Kings 18:4) and later the threat to Elijah (1 Kings 19) Zechariah (2 Chronicles 24: 20-22)

[8] The prophets may have been aligned with other gods like the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18 or simply proclaim a message that did not come from the God of Israel like Hananiah in Jeremiah 28.

Ezekiel 11 Judgment on Jerusalem and Hope for the Exiles

4 Replies

A smaller pithos, probably not semi-subterranean, as the decorative bands cover the entire body. There is a rope decoration around the neck; however, the body features distributed fasteners for handling via a rope harness. From Knossos, Crete 2004 Shared by CC 2.5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pithos#/media/File:Aardewerk_knossos.JPG

Ezekiel 11: 1-13 The Judgment of the Jerusalem Leaders

¹ The spirit lifted me up and brought me to the east gate of the house of the LORD, which faces east. There, at the entrance of the gateway, were twenty-five men; among them I saw Jaazaniah son of Azzur, and Pelatiah son of Benaiah, officials of the people. ² He said to me, “Mortal, these are the men who devise iniquity and who give wicked counsel in this city; ³ they say, ‘The time is not near to build houses; this city is the pot, and we are the meat.’ ⁴ Therefore prophesy against them; prophesy, O mortal.”

⁵ Then the spirit of the LORD fell upon me, and he said to me, “Say, Thus says the LORD: This is what you think, O house of Israel; I know the things that come into your mind. ⁶ You have killed many in this city, and have filled its streets with the slain. ⁷ Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: The slain whom you have placed within it are the meat, and this city is the pot; but you shall be taken out of it. ⁸ You have feared the sword; and I will bring the sword upon you, says the Lord GOD. ⁹ I will take you out of it and give you over to the hands of foreigners, and execute judgments upon you. ¹⁰ You shall fall by the sword; I will judge you at the border of Israel. And you shall know that I am the LORD. ¹¹ This city shall not be your pot, and you shall not be the meat inside it; I will judge you at the border of Israel. ¹² Then you shall know that I am the LORD, whose statutes you have not followed, and whose ordinances you have not kept, but you have acted according to the ordinances of the nations that are around you.”

¹³ Now, while I was prophesying, Pelatiah son of Benaiah died. Then I fell down on my face, cried with a loud voice, and said, “Ah Lord GOD! will you make a full end of the remnant of Israel?”

In George Orwell’s famous short story Animal Farm the new leadership of the fictional farm ruled over by the animals quickly devolves as the pigs adopt the role of leaders. Napolean and the rest of the pigs soon take over the farmer’s house as their home and office. Instead of being compatriots who uphold the principles of animalism in the book, they become new masters willing to sell other animals for profit. Proverbs warns of the dangers of a dramatic change in leadership in its own manner:

Under three things the earth trembles; under four it cannot bear up: a slave when he becomes king, and a fool when glutted with food; an unloved woman when she gets a husband, and a maid when she succeeds her mistress. Proverbs 30: 21-23

The situation in Jerusalem that Ezekiel is visiting in this spiritual vision shows us the twenty-five men who are the new leaders in Jerusalem now that many of the leaders, priests, and counselors have been exiled to Babylon. Jaazaniah and Pelatiah and the remaining leaders who exercise authority in the absence of the exiles view themselves as safe within the city walls. In their view God’s judgment has fallen upon the exiles and they are now outside the pot, while they are the prime cuts left on the inside. To use a different metaphor, the city is now their oyster and they mean to extract the pearl of great price for their own profit.

When we think of the pot as a metaphor, it often is a place of difficulty rather than safety since pots are primarily used as instruments of cooking in modern kitchens. The image in Ezekiel is likely viewing the pot as a sealed vessel used for the storage of meat and other items, like the pithos in the image above, rather than primarily a vessel for cooking. (NIB VI: 1186) With the city walls functioning as the metaphorical pot that will keep the meat (these officials) safe they have run the city as ‘false shepherds’ as Ezekiel will later describe in Ezekiel 34: 1-10. The officials’ comments that “the time is not near to build houses” may indicate that building materials are needed to secure the city walls, but another insidious possibility is that these new officials are appropriating the property and wealth of the exiles and exploiting their new power to confiscate the property of the vulnerable within the city, as verse six seems to indicate. In the LORD’s view their actions have been death dealing to the very people they were entrusted to protect. They used their apparent safety and the power vacuum to enrich themselves at the expense of others, but their safety was an illusion.

God reverses their metaphor; they were the meat safe in the pot but now God has determined they are the spoiled portion that needs to be removed from the pot. These officials were probably exempted by their position from serving in the conflict around the walls, but now God promises to take them outside the walls and to expose them to the sword they have previously avoided. Like the pigs in Animal Farm who end the story indistinguishable from the surrounding farmers, these officials have acted like the nations around Israel. They have not cared for the vulnerable in the city, nor the exiles from their own people. As the prophet Micah would declare of leaders in his time, they became the butchers of the people:

And I said: Listen, you heads of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel! Should you not know justice?—you who hate the good and love the evil, who tear the skin off my people, and the flesh off their bones; who eat the flesh of my people, flay their skin off them, break their bones into pieces, and chop them up like meat in a kettle, life flesh in a cauldron. Micah 3: 1-3

Throughout these chapters God has declared judgment upon the temple, the city, and the nation because of their unwillingness to live according to the way of God’s covenant. These leaders may have escaped the effects of the famine and conflict temporarily, but now they too will experience the consequences of their unjust actions while they were leading the people. Pelatiah, whose name means YHWH reserves a remnant, dies while Ezekiel is prophesying. Ezekiel protests to God that God is making a full end to the remnant of Israel.[1] Ezekiel’s protest results one of the first windows of hope in the book of Ezekiel.

Ezekiel 11: 14-21 Hope for the Exiles

¹⁴ Then the word of the LORD came to me: ¹⁵ Mortal, your kinsfolk, your own kin, your fellow exiles, the whole house of Israel, all of them, are those of whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, “They have gone far from the LORD; to us this land is given for a possession.” ¹⁶ Therefore say: Thus says the Lord GOD: Though I removed them far away among the nations, and though I scattered them among the countries, yet I have been a sanctuary to them for a little while in the countries where they have gone. ¹⁷ Therefore say: Thus says the Lord GOD: I will gather you from the peoples, and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel. ¹⁸ When they come there, they will remove from it all its detestable things and all its abominations. ¹⁹ I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them; I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, ²⁰ so that they may follow my statutes and keep my ordinances and obey them. Then they shall be my people, and I will be their God. ²¹ But as for those whose heart goes after their detestable things and their abominations, I will bring their deeds upon their own heads, says the Lord GOD.

Ezekiel is the first prophet to a people in exile, and it is to the exiles that this vision of hope is imparted. The people of Jerusalem may have viewed the exiles as those removed far from the LORD, but the LORD imparts through the prophet that these are the ones who the hopeful future will come through. Although they have been removed from the physical presence of the temple, now the LORD promises to be their sanctuary in this time of exile. As Psalm 90, attributed to Moses, declares about the LORD, “Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.” (Psalm 90:1) Their exile will not be forever, and they will be regathered by their God and returned to the land. There have been little windows into hope in the previous texts (Ezekiel 5:3, 6: 8-10) but those slivers of hope were surrounded by seas of darkness. In a further reversal, although the LORD has given up on those dwelling in Jerusalem, the remnant of the people is already in exile. The LORD will not abandon the land of Israel or the people.

This is the first time that Ezekiel will utilize the image of a ‘heart’ transplant: replacing a stony heart with a fleshy one. The heart in Hebrew thought is the organ of will, not emotions, so perhaps this is as much about a fleshy mind as a fleshy heart. Yet, Ezekiel will diagnose the problem with Israel as a heart problem, and only by replacing the sick and hard heart can there be a new life that is responsive to the LORD’s covenant and ordinances. This people of obedient and fleshy hearts will return and purify the land from the idols and detestable things that are present during this time. This renewed land and renewed people allow for the reestablishment of the covenant as the rearticulation of the covenant formula indicates: “Then they shall be my people, and I will be their God.” As the prophet Jeremiah could state in a similar manner:

I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me for all time, for their own good and the good of their children after them. I will make an everlasting covenant with them, never to draw back from doing good to them, and I will put the fear of me in their hearts, so that they may not turn from me. I will rejoice in doing good to them, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and soul. (Jeremiah 32: 39-41)

Yet, for any who would not embrace this new future with a new heart and new faithfulness, their wicked deeds will not be exempted from the judgment Ezekiel proclaims.

Ezekiel 11: 22-25 The End of the Vision

²² Then the cherubim lifted up their wings, with the wheels beside them; and the glory of the God of Israel was above them. ²³ And the glory of the LORD ascended from the middle of the city, and stopped on the mountain east of the city. ²⁴ The spirit lifted me up and brought me in a vision by the spirit of God into Chaldea, to the exiles. Then the vision that I had seen left me. ²⁵ And I told the exiles all the things that the LORD had shown me.

The LORD has left Jerusalem. Ezekiel never sees the glory of God move further than the mountains east of the city, although it has appeared to him in his exile in Babylon. Daniel and Revelation will assume that the presence of God is in heaven, but for Ezekiel God’s presence stops here and the vision ends with Ezekiel being returned to the exiles. Now the prophet shares this vision, both its terror and its hope, with these exiles, presumably starting with the elders of Judah who were seated in his house when the vision began.

Ezekiel has seen in this vision a people who worship other gods, but also a people whose misdirected worship has caused them to be an unjust society. The officials leading both the civic and religious life of Jerusalem have done violence to the city. Jerusalem as it stands is irredeemable in the LORD’s eyes, and it will require beginning fresh with a remnant already in exile. During this exile the LORD will be their sanctuary, will put a new and willing heart within them. I am reminded of the words of Psalm 51:

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and sustain in me a willing spirit. Psalm 51: 10-12

Yet, Psalm 51 is a prayer for individual renewal while Ezekiel’s vision is the recreation of a covenant people from the remnant in exile in Babylon whose clean hearts will lead to a clean land.

[1] Most English translations make this a question, but in Hebrew there is no interrogative. Rather than a question, Ezekiel is here protesting the perceived totality of God’s judgment on Israel. (NIB VI: 1187)

Ezekiel 10 God Prepares to Leave the Temple

6 Replies

Augsburger Wunderzeichenbuch — folio 15? „Vision des Hesekiel“

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 8 The Corruption of the Temple and the People

5 Replies

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).

Sign of the Rose

Searchings: Sacred and Secular