Friday, April 11<\/b><\/p>\n
\nEzekiel 3: The point of eating the scroll was that the prophet should internalize God\u2019s message, assimilating it into his own being, so that he could speak God\u2019s word as his own (cf. Revelation 10:8-11). It remains one of the great images of prophetic inspiration: \u201cAll my words that I shall speak to you receive in your heart.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nThus, we believe that the teaching of the Pentateuch is not simply the word of God, but also the word of Moses. We contend that God spoke to Moses through divine inspiration, a Spirit-breathed process that included the thinking and imaginative powers of . . . Moses. Biblical Inspiration means that God’s word was filtered through\u2014digested by\u2014fermented in\u2014the mind and heart of a human author.<\/p>\n
\nRevelation comes to us, accordingly, through the inner anguish of Jeremiah, the soaring minds of John and Isaiah, the probing questions of Job and Habakkuk, the near despair of Qoheleth, the structured poetry of David, the disappointments of Jonah, the struggles of Nehemiah, the mystic raptures of Ezekiel, the slow, patient scholarship of Ezra, the careful narrative style of Mark, the historical investigations of Luke, and that pounding mill, the ponderous thinking of Paul.<\/p>\n
\nGod’s Word finds expression in inspired literature, because it first assumed flesh in human thought and imagination. This truth is indicated in that vision where Ezekiel sees God’s word on a scroll that he must eat. That is to say, God’s word always comes to us in a fermented, pre-digested form.<\/p>\n
\nThis great vision is then followed by seven days of reflection (verses 15-16), at the end of which Ezekiel is made aware of his new vocation as a watchman for God\u2019s people. Whether they heed him or not, the watchman has a divinely commissioned responsibility to give proper waning. This theme will return in Chapter 33.<\/p>\n
\nSaturday, April 12<\/b><\/p>\n
\nEzekiel 4: Here begins a sequence of symbolic actions that Ezekiel is commanded to perform, as though in pantomime, to serve as efficacious signs to his brethren in the Captivity. These actions function as prophecies too, prophecies conveyed in sign language as it were. These prophetic actions have their counterparts elsewhere in Holy Scripture, such as the symbolic names that Hosea and Isaiah gave their children, and Jesus\u2019 cursing of the fig tree.<\/p>\n
\nThe first of Ezekiel\u2019s signs, a sort of symbolic enactment of the siege of Jerusalem, involves the prophet playing like a child with building blocks, placing the various pieces into an elaborate scene, accompanied by a narrative. Children do this kind of game all the time. A solitary child, indeed, may spend hours at it, telling himself the story as he moves the little pieces around.<\/p>\n
\nThe second action, more abstract, symbolizes the punishment of Israel and Judah, the former destroyed in 722 and the latter to be destroyed in the near future.<\/p>\n
\nThe prophet\u2019s third action portrays the suffering of the siege about to come upon Jerusalem. Most significant to this prophetic priest is the ritual uncleanness that must accompany the preparation of the food and the circumstances of the people\u2019s defeat. In the few words that Ezekiel himself speaks in this chapter, we observe the intense emotional pain felt by the prophet in the enactment of these symbolic gestures.<\/p>\n
\nSunday, April 13<\/b><\/p>\n
\nEzekiel 5: This chapter begins with the fourth symbolic action imposed on Ezekiel, which signifies the various fates awaiting the citizens of Jerusalem as the siege nears its end. It is clear that only a tiny remnant of them will survive. The rest of the chapter is a stirring oracle explaining why so severe a judgment is falling on Jerusalem. It will be so grievous, the Lord says, because He expected so much more of the city that He had chosen as His dwelling place on earth.<\/p>\n
\nEzekiel, as a priest charged to minister in the temple, was deeply acquainted with the sacred worship that made Jerusalem so special. This elect place of God\u2019s presence and His proper worship have been particularly defiled by the idolatry of the populace (5:11). Whereas Jeremiah (7:1-15) had already warned the people of Jerusalem that they would not be saved by their mere possession of the temple, Ezekiel now instructs them that this possession will render their punishment all the more severe. God expects more from the one to whom He has given more, but the chosen Jerusalem has offended Him even worse than the nations that He did not choose.<\/p>\n
\nMonday, April 14<\/b><\/p>\n
\nEzekiel 6: The prophet, standing in Babylon, faces westward, the direction of Israel, to pronounce this oracle of doom. The threefold destruction predicted here (sword, famine, and pestilence) stands parallel to the three portions of Ezekiel\u2019s shaved hair and beard in the previous chapter, as does the prophecy of a remnant that will be delivered.<\/p>\n
\nWhereas Jerusalem was being addressed in Chapter 5, the present chapter pertains rather to the rural areas of Israel, the hills and valleys. The immediate listeners to this oracle, however, are those Israelites who have already been brought to captivity in Babylon. It is they who must take warning, for they will soon see God\u2019s judgment on idolatry.<\/p>\n
\nIdolatry—the worship of whatever is not the true God—is the root sin against which all the Lord\u2019s interventions in history are directed. Since idolatry always involves human bondage, the Lord\u2019s interventions are directed to deliverance from bondage. The Exodus itself set Israel free from the gods of Egypt.<\/p>\n
\nIdolatry is the sin that is about to bring about the destruction of Judah, says Ezekiel, as well as Israel not so long before; idolatry is the reason that the masses of their population were carried into exile. Indeed, idolatry is itself a form of exile, an alienation from the true God.<\/p>\n
\nTuesday, April 15<\/b><\/p>\n
\nEzekiel 7: If the Bible likens good to a seed that grows, develops, and matures, the same is likewise true of evil. Like the enemy that Jesus described as sowing tares among the wheat, Ezekiel says that is Israel is about to behold the blossoming and fruit of many years of evil sowing.<\/p>\n
\nThe scene of the coming judgment portrayed in this chapter is marked by the same cataclysmic finality that characterizes Jesus\u2019 own predictions of the fall of Jerusalem. The \u201cland\u201d of Israel cursed in this chapter is to be understood in a geographical, not just a political, sense. That is, the very earth is cursed, like the cursing of the ground in Genesis 3. Drawn from the earth himself, man pollutes that source by his accumulated sins. God\u2019s patience is immense. But because it is related to times and seasons, it is not infinite. The end has come, says Ezekiel. When God is \u201cfed up,\u201d there is nothing in this earth that can prevail against His judgment.<\/p>\n
\nWednesday, April 16<\/b><\/p>\n
\nEzekiel 8: This startling, detailed, and dramatic vision of Ezekiel occurred on September 17, 592 B.C. He is carried \u201cin the Spirit\u201d to Jerusalem to witness the abominations for which the city was to be punished with the wrath and the inevitability that we observed in the previous chapter. The material of this vision will occupy Ezekiel through Chapter 11, at the end of which he will be returned to Babylon. Prior to Jerusalem\u2019s downfall in 586 many of the prophets fellow exiles in Babylon maintained the hope of returning home soon. The purpose of this and other visions of Ezekiel was to destroy such a hope by showing it to be groundless.<\/p>\n
\nIn this vision there are four scenes, each illustrating a discrete abomination in the temple. The first scene is at the north gate of the wall that separated the outer court of the temple from the outside world (8:3-6). (Ignore and omit the word \u201cinner\u201d from verse 3, in accord with the more accurate Greek text of the Septuagint. The received Hebrew text of this chapter is notoriously corrupt.) Ezekiel finds a pagan shrine in this place, an affront to the Lord\u2019s presence in the temple.<\/p>\n
\nIn the second scene (8:7-13) he goes through the wall of a chamber adjacent to the gate, where he finds Israel\u2019s elders worshipping images of animals.<\/p>\n
\nIn the third scene (8:14f) he crosses the outer court toward the temple\u2019s inner court. Not yet entering the latter, Ezekiel beholds Israelite women crying for the death of Tammuz, a Mesopotamian god of vegetation. Even this alien cult is found in God\u2019s temple.<\/p>\n
\nFinally, in the fourth scene (8:16-18), Ezekiel enters the inner court, where he discovers sun-worshippers. Israel\u2019s idolatry is complete. These men have turned their backs to God and are giving adoration to a creature.<\/p>\n
\nThursday, April 17<\/b><\/p>\n
\nEzekiel 9: The marking of the foreheads of the Remnant is a sort of renewal of the marking of the houses of the Chosen People in Egypt on Passover night.<\/p>\n
\nThose thus marked will be spared on the day of wrath, for the simple reason that they \u201csigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in Jerusalem.\u201d Sometimes the just man is left so powerless in this world that all he can do, in the face of overwhelming evil, is \u201csigh and groan.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nNot only does the temple offer no sanctuary from the punishment; those in the temple are the first to fall, because they have defiled God\u2019s house. The divine judgment begins, then, not with the world, but with the household of God.<\/p>\n
\nThe seven heavenly figures \u2014 the scribe and the six executioners \u2014 are angelic figures representing God\u2019s just will in what is about to transpire in Jerusalem. Revelation 7 is a very good text to read with this chapter, which is surely in part its literary inspiration.<\/p>\n
\nFriday, April 18<\/b><\/p>\n
\nEzekiel 10: The wooden statues of the Cherubim, with their wings spread over the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies, were but symbols of the angels of the Presence, the heavenly Cherubim who serve to support the Throne of God.<\/p>\n
\nNow Ezekiel sees these heavenly spirits themselves, and they are identical with the Four Living Creatures that he had beheld in his inaugural vision in Chapter 1, where they bore, as here, the Cloud of the divine Presence. They will appear again, of course, in Revelation 4.<\/p>\n
\nThe burning coals from within their whirling wheels, full of the divine holiness, are destructive of those whose brows have not been marked by the angelic scribe, who also appears again in this chapter.<\/p>\n
\nBesides destroying the wicked, this divine fire purifies God\u2019s loyal servants (cf. Isaiah 6:6f). As the chapter closes, the action moves to the east gate of the temple, facing the Mount of Olives. It is at this gate that Ezekiel will receive the two oracles in Chapter 11.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Friday, April 11 Ezekiel 3: The point of eating the scroll was that the prophet should internalize God\u2019s message, assimilating it into his own being, so that he could speak God\u2019s word as his own (cf. Revelation 10:8-11). It remains one of the great images of prophetic inspiration: \u201cAll my words that I shall speak … Continue reading April 11 – April 18<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.touchstonemag.com\/daily_reflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.touchstonemag.com\/daily_reflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.touchstonemag.com\/daily_reflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.touchstonemag.com\/daily_reflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.touchstonemag.com\/daily_reflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.touchstonemag.com\/daily_reflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2432,"href":"https:\/\/www.touchstonemag.com\/daily_reflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions\/2432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.touchstonemag.com\/daily_reflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.touchstonemag.com\/daily_reflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.touchstonemag.com\/daily_reflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}