Ezekiel
The Book of Ezekiel, written by the prophetpriest Ezekiel, who lived both in Jerusalem prior to the Babylonian Exile (586 bce) and in Babylon after the Exile, and also by an editor (or editors), who belongs to a “school” of the prophet similar to that of the prophet Isaiah, has captured the attention of readers for centuries because of its vivid imagery and symbolism. The book has also attracted the attention of biblical scholars who have noticed that, although Ezekiel appears to be a singularly homogeneous composition displaying a unity unusual for such a large prophetic work, it also displays, upon careful analysis, the problem of repetitions, certain inconsistencies and contradictions, and questions raised by terminological differences. Though the book itself indicates that the prophecies of Ezekiel occurred from about 593–571 bce, some scholars—who are in a minority—have argued that the book was written during widely divergent periods, such as in the 7th century and even as late as the 2nd century bce. Most scholars, however, accept that the main body of the book came from the 6th century bce, with the inclusion of some later glosses by redactors who remained loyal to the theological traditions of their master-teacher.
Containing several literary genres, such as oracles, mythological themes, allegory, proverbs, historical narratives, folk tales, threats and promises, and lamentations, the Book of Ezekiel may be divided into three main sections: (1) prophecies against Judah and Jerusalem (chapters 1–24); (2) prophecies against foreign countries (chapters 25–32); and (3) prophecies about Israel’s future.
Ezekiel—the man and his message
The man who wrote this book—at least the main body of the work—was undoubtedly one of the leaders of Jerusalem because he was among the first group of exiles to go into captivity—those who were forced to leave their homeland about 597 bce in a deportation to Babylon on the orders of the conquering king Nebuchadrezzar. Belonging to the priestly class, perhaps of the line of Zadok, Ezekiel was a spiritual leader of his fellow exiles at Tel-abib, which was located near the river Chebar, a canal that was part of the Euphrates River irrigation system. According to his own account, Ezekiel, the priest without a temple, received the call to become a prophet during a vision “In the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day”—perhaps July 31, 593 bce, if the dating is based on the lunar calendar, though the exact meaning of “thirtieth year” remains obscure. A married man who was often consulted by elders among the exiles, Ezekiel carried out his priestly and prophetic career during two distinct periods: (1) from 593–586 bce, a date that was doubly depressing for the prophet because it was the period when his wife died and his native city was destroyed; and (2) from 586–571 bce, the date of his last oracle (chapter 29, verse 17).
The personality of the prophet shows through his oracles, visions, and narrations. Frustrated because the people would not heed his messages from Yahweh, Ezekiel often exhibited erratic behaviour. This need not mean that he was psychologically abnormal. Like many great spiritual leaders, he displayed qualities and actions that did not fall within the range of moderation, and to perform an ex post facto psychological postmortem examination on any great historical figure in the face of a paucity of necessary details may be an interesting game but is hardly scientifically respectable or accurate. To be sure, Ezekiel did engage in erratic behaviour: he ate a scroll on one occasion, lost his power of speech for a period of time, and lay down on the ground “playing war” to emphasize a point, an action that would certainly draw attention to him, which was his purpose. In spite of these peculiarities, Ezekiel was a master preacher who drew large crowds and a good administrator of his religious community of exiles. He held out hope for a temple in a new age in order to inspire a people in captivity. He also initiated a form of imagery and literature that was to have profound effects on both Judaism and Christianity all the way to the 20th century: apocalypticism (the view that God would intervene in history to save the believing remnant and that this intervention would be accompanied by dramatic, cataclysmic events).
Prophetic themes and actions
The first section of the book (chapters 1–24) contains prophecies against Judah and Jerusalem. Ezekiel’s call is recorded in chapter 1 to chapter 3, verse 15. It came in a vision of four heavenly cherubim, who appeared in a wind from the north, a cloud, and flashing fire (lightning?)—traditional symbolic elements of a theophany (manifestation of a god) in ancient Near Eastern religions. These winged hybrid throne bearers—with the faces of a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle (which became iconographic symbols of the four Gospel writers of the New Testament)—bore the throne chariot of Yahweh. The cherubim, symbolizing intelligence, strength, and—especially—mobility, had beside them four gleaming wheels, or “a wheel within a wheel” (i.e., set at right angles to each other), which further emphasized the omnimobility of the throne chariot. This vision harks back to Isaiah’s mystical experience (Isaiah, chapter 6) in which that prophet envisioned the throne of the ark, which symbolized the omnipresence of the invisible Yahweh. High above the cherubim was a firmament, or crystal platform, above which was the throne of Yahweh, who—in a “likeness as if it were of a human form”—spoke to Ezekiel. The Spirit of Yahweh entered him, and he was commissioned to preach to the people of Israel a message of doom to an apostate people. The significance of this vision is that it occurred not to a priest in the holy Temple at Jerusalem but to an exiled prophet-priest in a foreign land. The God of Israel was the God of the nations. The impact of his visionary experience so overwhelmed Ezekiel that he simply sat at Tel-abib for seven days.
Commissioned by Yahweh to be “a watchman for the house of Israel,” Ezekiel performed a series of symbolic acts to illustrate the impending fate of the city from which he had been banished: he placed a brick on the ground to symbolize Jerusalem’s future siege, lay down on the ground, bound himself to indicate capture, ate food first cooked on fuel composed of human feces and then animal excrement, and then cut his hair and beard. Though these acts were performed in Babylon, news of them was most likely communicated to the people of Jerusalem. Just as Jeremiah had tried to repress the false hopes that the residents of Jerusalem harboured concerning the downfall of Babylon, which had been predicted by the popular nationalistic prophet Hananiah (Jeremiah, chapter 28, verses 5–17), Ezekiel attempted to quash the ill-founded aspirations of the exiles for an immediate return to Jerusalem.
In chapters 6 and 7 Ezekiel prophesies that Jerusalem’s “altars shall become desolate,” its people will be “scattered through the countries,” and “because the land is full of bloody crimes and the city full of violence,” Yahweh “will put an end to their proud might and their holy places shall be profane.” In chapter 8 he attacked the people of Jerusalem for their idolatry, as manifest by the women sitting before the entrance to the north gate of the Temple of Yahweh weeping in cultic despair for the Mesopotamian fertility deity Tammuz’s “annual death.”
After prophesying the fall of Jerusalem in chapters 9–11 because “the guilt of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great,” Ezekiel performed other symbolic acts such as packing baggage for an emergency exile, digging a hole in his house to illustrate the fact that some will try to escape, and eating and drinking with trembling actions to show the future fear that the Jerusalemites will experience; he also attacked prophets who gave the people false hopes. “Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing. Your prophets have been like foxes among ruins, O Israel.” He tried to underline his message of urgency by relating the problem of apostasy to similar situations in Israel’s past history.
About the time that Nebuchadrezzar besieged Jerusalem, Ezekiel’s wife became ill. Though Ezekiel could mourn her impending death “but not aloud” (i.e., only by himself so that the people would notice his unusual reaction and thus receive the full impact of his prophetic message), he was not to mourn her death publicly. When he did not eat the “bread of mourners” the people asked him for an explanation. He told them, and it was a shattering exposure: Jerusalem would be destroyed “and your sons and daughters whom you left behind shall fall by the sword”; when this happens—in spite of their pining and groaning—they will know the meaning of Ezekiel’s actions.
In order to show that Yahweh was the Lord of the whole creation and of all nations, Ezekiel issued prophecies of impending disasters that would be experienced by many neighbouring Near Eastern countries. Nations that exulted in Judah’s defeat—i.e., Ammon, Moab, Edom, Philistia, and Phoenicia—would all suffer the same fate, as well as Egypt, the formerly great empire that had manoeuvred Judah into its disastrous foreign policy of opposing Babylon.
Oracles of hope
In the third section, chapters 33–48, Ezekiel proclaimed, in oracles that have become imprinted in theological discourse and folk songs, the hope that lies in the faith that God cares for his people and will restore them to a state of wholeness. As the good shepherd, God will feed his flock and will “seek the lost,” “bring back the strayed,” “bind up the crippled,” and “strengthen the weak.” He will also “set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them.” This Davidic ruler will be a nasi (prince), the term used for a leader of the tribal confederacy before the inauguration of the monarchy. In chapter 37, Ezekiel had a now-famous vision of the valley of dry bones, which refers not to resurrection from the dead but rather to the restoration of a scattered Covenant people into a single unity. To further emphasize the restoration of the scattered people of Yahweh, Ezekiel uttered the oracle of the two sticks joined together into one, which prophesied the re-unification of Israel and Judah as one nation. Chapters 38 and 39 contain a cryptic apocalyptic oracle about the invasion of an unidentified Gog of Magog. Who this Gog is has long been a matter of speculation; whoever he is, his chief characteristic is that he is the demonic person who leads the forces of evil in the final battle against the people of God. Gog and Magog have thus earned a position in apocalyptic literature over the centuries. Chapters 40–48 are a closing section in which Ezekiel has a vision of a restored Temple in Jerusalem with its form of worship reestablished and a restored Israel, with each of the ancient tribes receiving appropriate allotments. Ezekiel’s prophecies while in exile in Babylon were to have a significant influence on the religion of Judaism as it emerged from a time of reassessment of its religious beliefs and cultic acts during the Babylonian Exile (586–538 bce).