Sunday, April 14

Ezechiel 12: Once again Ezechiel is charged to act out an elaborate pantomime as a message for his fellow Israelites in exile. Whereas the previous such actions, in Chapters 4-5, had to do with the destruction of Jerusalem and the sufferings of her citizens, the present instance is concerned with the experience of the coming new exile of those who still remained back home. When his fellow exiles ask him, “What are you doing? (12:9), Ezechiel responds with a stirring oracle by way of explanation. To those Jewish exiles already in Babylon who are imagining that they may soon be returning to the land of Judah, Ezechiel is stressing the point, “You think this is exile? You haven’t seen anything yet!” He emphasizes in particular the suffering of Zedechiah, the King of Judah. Ezechiel’s walking with covered face (“that you may not see the land”) is an eerie prophecy of the day when the Babylonians would gouge out the eyes of Zedechiah, so that the execution of his sons would be the last thing he saw in this world before going into exile (2 Kings 25:4-7; Jeremiah 39:4-7; 52:7-11). In verse 17 the prophet begins yet another pantomime, this one much simpler, and in verses 21-28 Ezechiel is charged to challenge two more cynical slogans popular at the time. These slogans, concerned with apparently unfulfilled prophecies, will lead into his condemnation of false prophets in the next chapter.

Monday, April 15

Ezechiel 13: This chapter has an oracle against the false prophets (13:2-16) and an oracle against false prophetesses (13:17-23). The major problem with all such folk is that they “prophesy out of their own minds” and “follow their own spirit” and “divined a lie.” Thus, grave spiritual harm befalls those who listen to their fantasies and follow their counsels. Even though a wall be just about to fall, says Ezechiel, they daub it with whitewash to make it look new and secure. Well, the whole thing is about to come down, he warns, in spite of the false hopes raised by false prophets. In his oracle against the false prophetesses, Ezechiel speaks of wrist-bands and head-bands (if these things are, indeed, what these rare Hebrew words mean), evidently the paraphernalia of their rituals and incantations. We should probably think of these women as fortune-tellers, the sort of charlatans that are still among us. The prophet’s point here is this sort of thing is not harmless; foolish individuals, who probably need sound counsel for important decisions, really do pay them heed, rather often to the harm of their souls. God will thwart the designs of these deceivers, says Ezechiel, by showing their predictions to be false.

Tuesday, April 16

Ezechiel 14: In verses 1-11, the elders who came to consult Ezechiel got more than they anticipated, for the prophet was given insight into the deeper idolatry of their hearts. These men were apparently looking for some prediction about the future, only to be told that God’s prophetic word is not truly available for the unrepentant. That is to say, the prophet’s task is not to satisfy human curiosity about future events, but to call sinners to the due consideration of their souls. Thus, instead of responding to their query about the future, Ezechiel summons them to look inside themselves, at the idolatry in their hearts, before it is too late. The second oracle in this chapter, verses 12-23, insists that the whole society, if it is unfaithful to God, will be punished as a whole. The Lord will not spare any society simply for the sake of a few just men in it, even if these latter include the likes of Noah, Daniel, and Job. While the just individuals themselves will be spared, this will have no affect on the lot of the whole, because God is fair and will give each man according to his deserts. Before God’s throne of judgment, it will not matter “who you know.” This attitude, which will be repeated throughout the Book of Ezechiel, is identical to that in the Book of Jeremiah (for instance, 15:1-4), and is a great deal tougher than we find, for instance, in Genesis 18, where the presence of five just men would have spared the destruction of Sodom.

Wednesday, April 17

Ezechiel 15: This parable of the vine wood is more reflective than ecstatic, more analytical and rational than poetic, disclosing the studious, logical aspect of Ezechiel’s thought. And the message of this parable could hardly be more straightforward or less complicated: Vines and their stocks are of no creative use unless they are still in the process of growing grapes. Once they have stopped doing that, they are useless for any constructive purpose. Unlike other kinds of wood, the vine wood cannot be used to fashion homes or furniture or even basic tools. Indeed, one cannot employ such wood to make an instrument so elementary as a wall peg on which to hang a pot in the kitchen. (The partial burn damage in verse 5 surely refers to the partial exile of Jerusalem’s citizens in 597, some five years earlier.) However, the parable proceeds, this wood can still be burned. No matter how otherwise useless, it still makes decent fuel. So, says the Lord, let Jerusalem take heed, because He has not seen any fruit on that vine for many a year. The motif of this parable should put one in mind of Jesus’ cursing of the barren fig tree in the gospels of Matthew and Mark. Both Ezechiel’s parable and Jesus’ parabolic action had to do with impending destructions of Jerusalem. Inasmuch as Jerusalem is also a mystic symbol of the soul, the moral sense of this parable is applicable on a daily basis for all of us. It is the other side of the Gospel injunction that we are to live lives that bear fruit; otherwise we are useless to God.

Thursday, April 18

Ezechiel 16: This parable is more elaborate than the one in the previous chapter, showing more evidence of allegorical detail. Each, however, is an illustration of failure. A beautiful but egregiously unfaithful wife is as useless as a cut and dried vine. Several of the various details in this account of the harlot refer to specific periods and events in Israel’s history: the origins of the people, the time of the Covenant, the founding of the united kingdom and the prosperity of the Solomonic era, the division into two kingdoms. The oracle’s final part prepares the listeners for Jerusalem’s impending doom, which is to be like the earlier total destructions of Sodom and Samaria. Jerusalem, says the Lord, is more evil than either of these. At the very end, however, appears a message of hope and renewal, after Jerusalem has fallen. Even the prophets most pessimistic about Jerusalem at this time, Jeremiah and Ezechiel, never cease to trust in God’s ultimate mercy. In particular, God will not hold children responsible for the sins of their parents, a theme to be elaborated in Chapter 18.

Friday, April 19

Ezechiel 17: This allegorical riddle is concerned with the geopolitical machinations dominant in the royal court at Jerusalem during the period between 597 and 586 B.C. The first eagle in the riddle is the Emperor Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon, the second is Pharaoh Psammetichus II of Egypt. Sitting at either end of the Fertile Crescent, both Babylon and Egypt sought to make their military, economic, and political might felt throughout the region, and each of these two great powers had its friends and confederates within the Jerusalem court. The removed branch in the allegory is King Jehoiachin of Judah, deposed from his throne in 597 and transported to Babylon. The new seed in the allegory is King Zedechiah, who replaced Jehoiachin and served as a vassal of Babylon. Because of the many machinations in his court, Zedechiah’s foreign policy was marked by vacillation and instability. Unable to maintain his covenant with God, he was likewise unable to maintain his vassal covenant with Babylon. The one infidelity led to the other (17:11-19). Even though he was thriving under Babylonian suzerainty, the allegory goes on to say, he endeavored to forsake his political obligations to the political authority at the western end of the Fertile Crescent, and began to cultivate friendship with the eastern end, Egypt. And now he must pay for it. His sin consisted in seeking a purely political solution for a mainly spiritual and moral problem. This oracle ends, nonetheless, on a note of future hope for the house of David, a hope that the Christian knows is fulfilled in great David’s greater Son.

Saturday, April 20

Ezechiel 18: This is an oracle about individual responsibility. Modern ideas of individual moral responsibility often run along such lines as “You must not do anything you can’t live with.” That is to say, moral norms are established by the limits of psychological comfort. Thus, what is evil or good is determined by whether or not a person can endure having done it. Ezechiel knows nothing of such nonsense. For him individual moral responsibility means that a man must ultimately be responsible, not to his own conscience, but to the all righteous God who gave the law. Each man must respond for himself, however, not for either his progenitors or his progeny. The people at Jerusalem needed to hear such a message, because some of them contended that they were being punished for the sins of their fathers. Ezechiel is charged to set them straight on the matter. Although the social and even psychological effects of sin are handed down from one generation to the next, the moral burden is not. Each man will answer for himself and his own moral decisions. The retributive principle is always: “The soul that sins shall die.” Meanwhile, the possibility of moral change remains for each of us as long as we are alive. A bad man can become good, and a good man can become bad. Our moral fate depends on what we become, not on what we were before. The closing part of this oracle stands as a strong witness against any religious theory claiming that God is glorified even by someone’s eternal loss. No, eternal loss is a pure waste of proffered salvation. God is not glorified by anyone’s going to hell.