Ezekiel

Ezekiel: The Prophet of the Transition

Ezekiel was a priest before he became a prophet (Ezek. 1:1).  He had bizarre visionary experiences, he acted out many of his messages to the people instead of delivering them orally, and he had a delight for precise detail.  He had been taken to Babylon in the deportation of 597 B.C.E.  At that time, he was still a priest.  In 593 B.C.E., he experienced a call to be a prophet.  He was a prophet for the next twenty years or so.  All his ministry was among the exiles in Babylon.

He had two goals:

1. He was trying to prepare the people for the inevitable fall of Jerusalem.

2. He was trying to put a damper on the false hopes for an immediate return to Palestine.

However, once Jerusalem fell in 587 or 586 B.C.E., Ezekiel became a prophet of hope, trying to prepare the people for their return to the land.  He laid out a blueprint for a restored Temple and worship system.

The Book

It falls naturally into three major divisions:

1.  Chapters 1 to 24 -- oracles against Jerusalem

2.  Chapters 25 to 32 -- oracles against foreign nations

3.  Chapters 33 to 48 -- oracles of restoration

There are four visions which are spread throughout the book:

1.  A first-person account of his initial encounter with God while he was living by the river Chebar in Babylon.  This vision serves as Ezekiel’s call narrative.  The creatures of the vision had four faces, four wings, and the legs of bovine animals with hooves like calves (1:5-7).  Under the wings were human arms and hands.  The faces were those of an eagle, an ox, a lion, and a man.  Their wings permitted them to fly in any direction without turning around.  In addition, fire was in the midst of the creatures.  The creatures were accompanied by wheels arranged somewhat like a gyroscope.  It was a wheel within a wheel.  In other words, there were two wheels, one of which was arranged at a 90 degree angle from the other.  There were eyes that decorated the rims of the wheels.

Above the creatures and the wheels were symbols of all living creation at the service of the LORD.  Ezekiel also saw a vision of the LORD sitting on a throne.  He saw the LORD from the waist down.  The upper part of the body was obscured by fire.

2.  Ezekiel is transported from Babylon to the temple in Jerusalem.  In Jerusalem he witnesses a sequence of events culminating with the departure of God's glory from the temple.  God's departure makes way for the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. 

3.  The "valley of the dry bones" depicts the scattered bones of Israel's defeated army.  Seeing a long valley littered with human bones, Ezekiel hears a voice ask, "Son of man, can those bones live?"  Ezekiel is commanded to preach to the bones.  Miraculously, the fragmented skeletons reassemble themselves and are again clothed in flesh.  The Lord directs the winds to breathe life into them, and their resurrection is complete.  The point of this oracle was to continue to express the idea that the Jews would be restored.  The nation that was dead and scattered, like the bones, would be brought alive again by the LORD'S action.

4.  The prophet's preview of the reconstructed temple after the end of the exile. (Chapters 40-48)  Ezekiel describes the rebuilt Temple room by room and court by court, giving exact measurements and dimensions.  (Ezekiel 43:1-6.)  Ezekiel has completed his prophetic task, the temple is restored, and God's glory returns to dwell in the reconstructed temple in Jerusalem.  This offers a concrete hope to the Jewish exiles in Babylon.

A portrayer of the LORD'S judgment

Ezekiel, more than any other prophet, was the master of symbolic action.  Rather than describing with words the LORD'S impending judgment, he acted out what was about to happen.  As part of this phase of his ministry, he was to remain silent until the LORD told him to speak.

1.  He enthusiastically played war. (4:1-3)  Using a large sun-dried brick as a symbol for Jerusalem, he set up miniature camps and siege lines around it, built dirt ramps up to it, and made miniature battering rams as if to knock down the imaginary walls.  He took a small piece of iron to make a movable shield such as was used by attacking armies as they tried to get near city walls to attack them.

2.  Ezekiel ate a papyrus scroll that tasted as sweet as honey.  This was to symbolize the receiving of the LORD’S message of lamentation, mourning, and woe.  He would enjoy speaking the LORD'S message.

3.  A third action involved the mixing of various grains, beans, and peas to make flour for bread. (4:9-17)  Under ordinary circumstances, such a thing was not done; but when a siege was on, one ate anything available.  He was commanded to cook the food over dried human manure.  But this was too much for Ezekiel's priestly instincts.  When he pleaded for an exception, the LORD permitted using dried cow manure for the cooking fires.  All this demonstrated the extreme conditions that existed during the siege of Jerusalem.

4.  Ezekiel was commanded to lie on his side for 390 days as a sign of the length of Israel's punishment.  For Judah's punishment, he was to lie on his side for 40 days. (4:4-8)  While each day was to indicate a years exile, the significance of the numbers is not explained further.  The period of 390 years may simply indicate that Israel's exile would go on indefinitely; forty years would seem to indicate for Ezekiel the completion of the LORD'S time.  When things were right, the exiles would return.

5.   The prophet got a lesson in humility when he was told to cut his hair like a captive of war. (5:1-17)  Then he took the hair from his shaved head and divided it into three parts. One-third was burned, one-third was chopped to pieces with the sword, and one-third was scattered to the wind.  A few hairs are left clinging to his garments.  This demonstration is to inform the people that:

One-third of them will die of pestilence or famine.  One-third will die by violence.  The remaining third will become captives in Babylon.  The few hairs that he keeps represent those whom God will allow to escape.  Although the LORD had made Jerusalem the center of the universe, she was doomed (5:5).

6.  He was told that his wife would die, and that when she did, instead of following the usual customs of mourning and grieving he was to act as if nothing had happened (24:15-18).  This was the most difficult action of all.  After his wife's death, the people asked the reason for his strange and unconventional behavior.  He told them that the news of Jerusalem's fall would soon reach them.  When it did, they were to take no special note of it.  Instead, they were to go on with life as usual.  As Ezekiel had done when his wife died, so they were to do when Jerusalem died (24:19-24).  His actions are intended to illustrate that the Lord will not mourn the loss of his polluted Temple (4:9-17; 24:15-27).

The Lord's Abandonment of Jerusalem

Like Jeremiah, Ezekiel realized that God did not need a material shrine in which to house his presence, nor would he protect a sanctuary that had been contaminated.  With God's departure from the Temple, he could be with his people anywhere, including idolatrous Babylon.

A New Theological Feature

One of the new features of Ezekiel’s theology was his doctrine of individual responsibility.  The dominant view in Israel was the idea of corporate responsibility.  In this view, the emphasis was on the group rather than the individual.  Out of it grew the concept that a child could suffer for the parent's sins or vice versa.  This was expressed in a common proverb:

"The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge."

It was also enshrined in the law in Exodus 20:5, in which it says that the children would be punished "for the iniquity of the parents, to the third and the fourth generation."  Now things had changed.  The new rule was this:

"The person who sins shall die" (18:1-4).

Now that the nation is gone, each new generation has responsibility for its own fate.  The sinner will still be punished, but not for the wrongdoing of others.

The Future Israel

The prophet's visions come full circle, from seeing the Lord deserting the doomed sanctuary to seeing the Lord's "glory" returning to a greater Temple.  The idealized new Temple was to be administered not by the Levites, but by descendants of the priest Zadok, whose name means "righteous."  Levites may serve as attendants, but only Zadokites are to enjoy full priestly authority.  Special lands were to be set aside for the LORD, including the area around the Temple (45:1-6). 

After listing regulations and liturgical details of Temple worship, Ezekiel describes a lifegiving stream of water coming from beneath the sanctuary.  This is a fitting symbol of the spiritual cleansing that God will provide at his restored sanctuary.  For Ezekiel in his idealized vision of the restored land, the "LORD in his holy Temple" would be the source of life for a land and a people who had been to the grave of exile, but had returned from the dead.  Even the Dead Sea would come alive in that time (47:1-12).

Ezekiel as Spiritual Father

Ezekiel was a priest as well as a prophet.  Thus, he emphasizes the necessity of practicing Jewish rites, customs, holiday and dietary observances, and communal worship even in exile.  He realized that the exiles' moral behavior and strict adherence to ceremonial requirements would ensure their national and religious survival.  With this emphasis, Ezekiel became the spiritual progenitor of later Judaism.  His work served as a bridge between the pre-Exilic religion of Israel and later Judaism.