We move on to our third prophet in this line, Ezekiel ben-Buzi, an exiled priest living in Babylon. In terms of era, he overlapped with Jeremiah’s final years, and Torah scholars figure his prophetic period ran from roughly 593 to 571 BCE (Jeremiah’s period ended in 586 BCE). So the storyline picks up, echoing his predecessor, with warnings against Judah and Jerusalem, the moves on to warnings against foreign nations (didn’t we just do this whole thing, ad nauseum?), though, then moves into prophecies of hope for the salvation and future of Israel and the Jews. The book is arranged as a series of six visions that came to Ezekiel over this 22 year period. There is some contention as to whether the book was written as a record of his prophecies, or as someone’s fanciful reinterpretation of them to make for better reading. Apparently, too, Ezekiel’s visions will later become a big part of the Christian book, Revelations. Should I one day move on to a read-through of the “New Testament”, it will be interesting to see the reinterpretations.
- There is little preamble, other than that this first vision appeared to Ezekiel “in the 30th year”. It’s not specified 30th year of what, though it is noted that this is just the 5th year of exile, so one might assume that it’s Ezekiel’s 30th year. What follows is a detailed description of four winged demi-humans, with four faces each (human, lion, ox, eagle), a single leg ending in a calf’s foot, some sort of spinning wheel, and a gleaming figure of flame on a throne above them. Ezekiel assumes the figure is God and prostrates himself on the ground.
- The figure of flame tells Ezekiel to go to the people of Israel in exile and announce his… prophet-hood. Also to resist their attempts to subvert him in his mission. Then the figure hands him a scroll covered with the litany of God’s (well, Ezekiel is assuming this is God whom he’s speaking to) complaints.
- The flaming figure tells Ezekiel to eat the scroll he’s just been handed. Ezekiel does, it tastes like honey. Then God (he finally identifies himself) tells him to go to the Jews and warn them to turn back from their wicked ways (or not start them in the first place). Not because he expects they’ll listen, but so later he can say, “I sent Ezekiel to warn you and you didn’t listen”. Then one of the winged figures whisks Ezekiel away to an exiled community to start his work.
- This feels like some form of torture. God tells Ezekiel to go to Jerusalem, set himself up in front of the city on a brick platform with iron shielding, and lay on his left side for 390 days, followed by laying on his right side for 40 days, all while bound with cords. During that time he is to only eat this horrific sounding multigrain and legume bread baked over cow shit; and drink water. During that time he will be unable to speak. At the end, God will give him a message to repeat to the citizens of Jerusalem.
- Once the 430 days of fasting and lying about are done, Ezekiel is instructed to have his head and beard, cover his head with scales, and then announce to the people of Jerusalem that God is going to destroy a third of the city by fire, a third by sword, and a third by famine and pestilence. Within the last category, he asserts that cannibalize will arise, and parents will eat their children and children will eat their parents, and why couldn’t you Jews just have followed the rules and avoided all this?
- God continues his litany of woe. Specifically, he decries against those who worshipped at the altars of other gods, offering up sacrifices and incense, when those things are rightfully his, and his alone. He reiterates that all those who participated in such activities, and all those who stood by and let it happen, will be put to death by pestilence, sword, or famine. And then, the few who are left, will, of course, bow to him and him alone. Some gods just can’t take a little competition.
- Doom! Horror! Calamity! God’s on a roll here.
- Apparently not convinced by everything he’s said that Ezekiel has gotten the message, God appears to him as yet another fiery being (fire from the waist down, glowing amber body above), picks him up by hair, and walks him through the abominations that he sees within Jerusalem. “See, see, look there, don’t you see how wicked they are and why I have to kill them all?” You know something’s off when the supposed deity of the universe is trying to pre-justify slaughtering vast swathes of humanity to his own prophet.
- God has Ezekiel call forth a team of seven righteous men from among the Jews in exile. One is a learned and pious scribe, the others are executioners. And he commands them to march through the streets of Jerusalem, with the scribe marking the foreheads of those who are also righteous, and the executioners slaughtering anyone not marked. Seems like it puts an awful lot of trust, responsibility, and power in the hands of one randomly selected scribe.
- The four cherubs from the first chapter are back, apparently on their Segways, and this time they’re carrying burning coals, which the scribe from the previous chapter is given. Then there’s quite the description of them wheeling about, hither, thither, and yon, and ending up in front of the gates of Jerusalem, presumably with said scribe in tow.
- So, Ezekiel, cherubs, and some sort of floaty sapphire being (apparently we’ve abandoned the fire image) are all in front of the gates of Jerusalem, and twenty-five of the leaders of the people are assembled there. Ezekiel repeats all the various warnings, they opine that God is out to destroy all the Jews, Ezekiel says no, just the wicked ones, the rest will have God’s support, as long as they follow his rules. Then the floaty sapphire thing… floats away.
- Well, this would be a change. God assures Ezekiel, in a long-winded, and therefore ironic speech, that whatever he says will happen, will happen, and instantly. All I can think is, you’ve spent the last eleven pages describing what’s going to happen, along with dragged out time-frames, and none of it has happened yet. If you’re going to do it, do it, stop talking about what you’re going to do.
- After all these threats about what he’s going to do to the wicked folk of Jerusalem, God turns his attention to false prophets. I have to admit, I expected him to go into full rampage mode. But, bizarrely, he doesn’t, instead just threatening to tear down their false altars and rip away their followers, leaving them without anyone to prophecy or preach to. Seems a bit… tame. Maybe in tomorrow’s chapter he’ll go further.
- God decides to rail on a bit about “fetishes”. He’s not talking 50 Shades kind of stuff, but inanimate objects that people use as the focus of their prayers. To other gods, of course. That’s why he’s railing about them. We do learn that he has a special place in his heart for Noah, Daniel, and Job, whom he asserts that even if he destroyed all the rest of human life on the planet, he would leave the three of them untouched. Of course, they’re all dead already, so, it’s kind of moot.
- Wicked Jerusalem-ites are… wicked… must be destroyed. Soon. When, like, I get to the end of my ranting about how bad they are….
- Ezekiel’s really getting an earful as God winds up. I feel like he’s heading towards some sort of conclusion as he first besmirches the parentage of the wicked folk of Jerusalem, and then calls them all a bunch of wanton whores. And he gets really descriptive about their insatiable lusts and perversions.
- God’s still going strong – today it’s “they didn’t follow my rules, so I don’t have to keep my word to them”. One of the missing components in all of this ranting about the Israelites not keeping their pact with God is that most of them never agreed to it in the first place, other than by association with generations long in the past.
- Finally, God takes a breath and offers some hope. Among a summation of all of the previous wrongs that he has listed, he notes that if someone has avoided committing any and all of those, he will spare them. But, he’s quite clear – any and all – even one mistake, and it’s all over. In answer to, one guesses, Ezekiel’s query, he also notes that a father is not responsible for a son’s sins, and vice versa – each person is responsible for their own, and only their own, actions, even if they know about another’s sins and do nothing to stop them.
- God is now lamenting rather than ranting. Using allegory, he compares the kings of Israel and Judea to lions and the people to vines, and more or less weepy over his beer, sings a dirge (and states that he’s singing a dirge) over the capture of the lions and the uprooting of the vines. Somewhere in here it seems forgotten that the capturing and uprooting was directed by him.
- A bunch of elders come to Ezekiel and want to know why death and destruction is coming to them. God tells Ezekiel he’s tired of talking to them, remind them that they agreed to the Terms & Conditions, that he’s been sending prophets warning of what’s coming, including Ezekiel himself, for years, and they’ve paid no attention, and not changed their ways, and this is where it’s all led to.
- Really, like previous prophets, I could pretty much just come up with a catch phrase of doom and gloom for God and repeat it for every chapter. Twenty previous ones in this, and he’s still railing at Ezekiel and telling him to tell the various people that he’s angry at that he’s angry at them and is coming to destroy them. If I didn’t know how much death and destruction he causes in the bible, I’d say he’s just trash-talking.
- Blah, blah, blah. Seriously, it’s just more of the same, with God listing off another array of things he’s pissed off about – today, many of them of a sexual nature. Nothing to see here, move along.
- Okay, now God’s getting personal. He spends the entire chapter raging against two sisters, Oholah and Oholibah, who are prostitutes, or maybe just lustful women, as they actively pursue the various fit noblemen and soldiers in their splendid dress and uniforms, described in rather lurid terms by God, to the point that I was starting to feel a tad lustful myself. Then he describes the manner they will be put to death by the same men they lusted after. Methinks someone got turned down for a “date”.
- Today’s chapter is a long metaphor of basically putting fire under a cauldron of all the people of Jerusalem, bringing them to a boil, letting the scum rise to the top, skimming off the scum, and being left with the good stuff when the boiling is done. You can kind of see how that all applies to the last 23 chapters. There’s also something about never growing a mustache that seems gratuitous and out of place, and might well be a personal aversion on Ezekiel’s part.
- Well, finally, God is moving on… sort of. Now that he’s exhausted himself destroying Jerusalem and its wicked inhabitants and restoring its glory with those who are left, he has to get rid of all those around the area who aren’t his chosen people, and were the bad influences in the first place. One wonders why he didn’t start there.
- God’s ire is directed at the people of Tyre today, whom he swears utter destruction and casting down into “The Pit”, and all at the hands of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, whom is apparently still a tool in God’s arsenal. I have to admit, I’m awaiting the inevitable turn of events when Nebuchadnezzar is no longer useful, and it’s his turn to take a fall. It apparently happens in Daniel 4.
- God’s still on Tyre today, gloating over the impending destruction of all the luxury and beauty that their city-state has. Really pretty petty.
- He’s still on Tyre, with his attention turned to the city-state’s rulers. God notes that he set them up to be the best, gave them every opportunity to become part of his grand plan (including, apparently, that their direct ancestors were among the many people in the Garden of Eden – which brings into question the entire Adam and Eve were the only ones story), and instead they developed into arrogant, self-important, wanton folk. He asks whether they’ll be so full of themselves when they’re in The Pit and facing death.
- Having thoroughly trash-talked Tyre, God now turns his attention to Egypt and the Pharaoh. Basically a repeat of page 26, with national substitutions.
- Why is this not, now, a surprise? Still on Egypt, God basically repeats… hey, page 27, substituting in the rulers and nobles of Egypt for those of Tyre. I wonder if tomorrow will be a similar repeat of page… 28!
- Yup, there it is, a repeat of page 28, focused on Egypt’s Pharaoh, just like he focused on Tyre’s king. Some lovely poetry bringing in the cedars of Lebanon at least provides some imagined visual stimulation.
- Oh, God really has it in for Pharaoh, he’s giving him a fourth page detailing his downfall. Today’s focus is on the delivery of his spirit to Sheol, more or less Hell, where he will find himself among the now fallen rulers of Tyre, Edom, Sidonia, Meshech, Tubal, Elam, and Assyria. He enjoins Ezekiel to sing Pharaoh a dirge on the topic.
- God tells Ezekiel that he’s been appointed as the watchman for the House of Israel. That’s to say, he’s the one to give them warning when they’ve strayed from the path of righteousness and give them the chance to get back on it and mend their ways. But, he opines, they won’t listen, they’ll think of you as just a teller of tales, and only when destruction actually arrives will they realize that you were a prophet. No pressure and all that.
- God goes into a litany about self-absorbed, self-important shepherds and how they’ve forgotten to tend to their flock, and how he’s going to rescue the sheep from the shepherds. Metaphor much?
- Even God’s getting tired of his own litanies, as today he turns his sights on Mount Seir and the kingdom of Edom – what amounts to modern day Jordan. Proving that there’s little new under the sun, he trash talks them for harboring an innate and deep-seated hatred towards Jews and Israel, for no apparent reason, and for which, he’s going to do to them everything they planned to do to Israel.
- Today’s page is pretty much the justification for the modern state of Israel, biblically. God asserts that now that the Jews have been cleansed of their wicked folk, and their surrounding neighbors are to be forever subject to ruin, Israel will be resettled by the Jews returning to their rightful homeland, and will prosper. He also promises to protect them from their surrounding neighbors – forever – we’re waiting….
- God tells Ezekiel to inscribe two staffs, one with Israel/Judah, the other with Ephraim, to represent the Jews who remained in Israel and those scattered by diaspora or invasion. Then he’s to bind the sticks together, and God will restore the fallen to life, and re-create Israel as a whole, mended nation, of the two groups of Jews (Sephardim and Ashkenazim, in modern parlance), which will never be split again. It might be time for Israeli politicians and other leaders to focus on that, as opposed to divisive policies.
- Whoops! Here I thought we were moving on from trashing the enemy states one by one, and were on to the whole reboot of Israel as the Jewish homeland. But, God apparently forgot about the land of Magog and its ruler, Gog, and associated city states around it. Historians tend to place Magog in sort of northern Iran, bordering on “Eurasia” – so maybe overlapping into where Azerbaijan and Georgia are (Russia is sometimes considered a part of it). Gog and Magog later became part of Welsh folklore as the giant Gogmagog.
- God is still on about Gog and Magog, and assures Ezekiel that their destruction will be so complete, so vast, that the captured weapons from their fall will be sufficient to supply firewood for seven years, and that the bodies will be so numerous that it will take seven months to gather them all, at which point God will gather all the wild beasts and birds to feast upon the carrion for… oh, nope, here I thought we were on a theme and maybe it would be “for seven weeks”, but no, he just wants them to eat the bodies and go.
- Oh thank God, pun intended, the litany of destruction is done. We’re 40 pages in, and finally Ezekiel has another of his visions. He finds himself in front of a mockup of the Temple, atop a heavenly mountain. There’s a copper man in front of the gate, holding a linen rope and a measuring rod. The man takes him on a tour of the facilities, measuring each wall, gate, window, door, and other architectural feature, and reciting off the measurements for Ezekiel to keep track of. Couldn’t just give him a blueprint?
- The copper man continues guiding Ezekiel through different wings of the Temple, measuring and expounding on details as they go. I get the feeling this is going to continue for a couple of pages as they enter each section of the buildings and courtyards and surrounding grounds.
- Yup, he’s still going. The copper man is now measuring out the northern chambers and the inner sanctum, and discussing what they’ll be used for. All of which, Ezekiel is duly noting down.
- The copper man ends his measuring at the East Gate, where he and Ezekiel find God waiting to enter. They all go into the inner sanctum where God describes how he wants the sacrificial altar to look, including measurements, and describes how the sacrifices will be performed to consecrate the altar when it’s built. He charges Ezekiel with taking his list of measurements back to the people of Jerusalem and telling them to build the Temple to his specifications.
- God now points the east gate through which he’d entered and intones that this gate must remain shut forever, because only he can use it. Then he launches into a litany about all the various requirements for who is sanctified enough to enter the Temple, to perform various functions, to sit, to stand, to eat…. All stuff we’ve seen detailed out in earlier tractates, just here, it’s straight from the horse’s mouth… in a dream vision, remember.
- God continues… tell the people who are going to build the Temple all the details, including how the land around it is to be apportioned. Tithe, do good, don’t cheat people, and, celebrate Passover. Interesting that Passover, or Pesach, is the one holiday singled out here. Maybe we’ll get to more on the next page.
- Back to the east gate, God re-emphasizes that only he can use the outer gate, while all others enter via either the north or south, and, they must exit by the opposite one from which they entered. However, there is the east portal into the Sanctuary, which the High Priest uses to go in and offer sacrifices. People can gather there and worship, but only the High Priest can enter, and it must be during daylight hours. Then God gives a recipe for the roast lamb dish that he really likes.
- God defines the boundaries of Israel based on magical water flow from beneath the Temple, and the points to which it flows. A different meaning for “from the river to the sea”….
- We end the book of Ezekiel with God detailing the measurements of the surrounding farms and pasturelands and designating who the various tribal neighbors are and what their rights are (not many), and who gets fed from the food produced on those lands (mostly the priests and the people who help make the Temple and its surrounds function). He ends by naming the city “The Lord is There”, in Hebrew, Jehovah-Shammah… which evolved into Jerusalem.