Ezekiel: Chapters 1 to 7

Click here for the previous entry, the Book of Baruch:

CHAPTER 1

The last big ass book of the Old Testament begins in rather spectacular fashion.  We’re with Ezekiel, a priest taken to Babylon after the loss of independence (but before the full destruction of Jerusalem) and the word of the Lord comes to him.

Well, the Bible says it’s the word of the Lord, but its really more the vision of the Lord.  For a vision is just what Ezekiel gets.  Something trippy, psychedelic, and completely unlike anything we’ve seen so far in the Bible.

Ezekiel is standing there when a great storm wind arose, and out of it came a big cloud, with a creature coming out of it.  It was a multi-headed beast, with four faces on each head.  Each beast had a human head, an ox head, a lion head, and an eagle head.  Oh, and it had hooves like a bull.  Some wheels came out with it and all the creatures moved together, always in the same direction.

What.  The.  Fuck? 

We’ve had a bunch of prophets so far, but you rarely ever get visions.  Jacob had his vision of a ladder – but wait, that was a dream.  You almost never get actual visions.  God is too disembodied, too removed from nature to make him a God of visionaries.  In that regard, Ezekiel truly is an original.  With the multiple heads, it sounds more like a long lost Hindu god, with their multiple limbs sometimes. 

The creature approaches Ezekiel, and that’s where our intro chapter ends. OK, it has my attention.

CHAPTER 2

A voice speaks from the creature to command Ezekiel into his calling as prophet.  He thus becomes the first person called to prophecy outside the Promised Land since the very early days. 

The message is pretty generic here (it’s a short chapter – 10 verses).  But essentially, Ezekiel is to tell everyone God’s ways, and don’t worry if they don’t sound receptive to the message.

CHAPTER 3

Ezekiel is given a scroll.  It’s a scroll for him to eat.  Wait – what?  A scroll to eat?  This creature doesn’t quite understand how scrolls work, now does he?  The point is to digest the information on the scroll – literally and figuratively – and then Ezekiel will be able to tell people God’s ways.  It’s an interesting idea, but it just sounds odd.  Eat a scroll?  He’s God – couldn’t he put the message in some bread or something?  Where are fortune cookies when you need them?

Ezekiel is given more information on his mission.  He is to be a guide and warner to the people.  If he warns them against evil and they do evil anyway, then that’s on them and they’ll be punished by God, but Ezekiel won’t.  But if he doesn’t warn them from evil and they do it, then it’s on Ezekiel.  So talk, dummy.  On the other hand, he can also guide people to salvation and if he does that he and they will both be rewarded.  So he sounds sunnier than Jeremiah.  It sounds like a reasonable offer God is making. It’s surely a better deal than the one Jeremiah had, where he had to keep haranguing people until they wanted to kill him and no good came to anyone for it.

The chapter ends on an odd note, as God says Ezekiel should be mute – unless, that is, God tells him something to say.  I can see how that would make his prophecies more effective, but that would be quite the cost to never be able to speak your own thoughts.

That ends the opening chapters where we get Ezekiel’s calling.  We get nothing like this in Isaiah or Jeremiah.  Isaiah just has prophecies to begin with – he’s much less clear as an individual than Jeremiah or Ezekiel.  Jeremiah has a wee bit of biographical info, but by the second chapter he’s in his first tirade, calling people a bunch of lust-fueled camels. 

What do we know of Ezekiel?  Well, I guess he’s our visual learner.  He learns by digesting info when backed up by spectacular images.  He’s more like a Native American prophet, in that he has these wild visions of supernatural creatures.  Personally, I have trouble relating to Ezekiel.  As you might expect form someone reading the Bible, I’m bookish, and the other guys are about words.  Ezekiel doesn’t quite fit in like that.

CHAPTER 4

Now that Ezekiel has gotten his message, its time to start spreading it. This is a crucial time, too, for back in the Promised Land, Jerusalem is under siege. 

Ezekiel’s first public act of prophecy is performance art.  God instructs him to take a clay tablet and draw the city of Jerusalem on it.  Then Ezekiel is to face it lying on his left side fro a year.  Then he will face it while lying on his right side for 40 days.  While laying on his left side, Ezekiel is to take the guilt of Israel upon himself – to be the scapegoat from the Torah, essentially.

If nothing else, this is a lot less confrontational than what Jeremiah did.  And by first trying to take the sins upon himself, he’ll come off better among him neighbors than Jeremiah ever did.  Personally, I just find it weird.  Jeremiah can be a jerk, but you knew what he meant when he called you a lusty camel.  Ezekiel?  A guy lying on his side facing a clay tablet – that’s something a little too avant-garde for my tastes.

It gets more interesting, though.  Yeah, I guess interesting is one word for it.  God tells Ezekiel to eat barley cake with a special topping – human excrement.  No joke, God tells Ezekiel to eat shit.  Again, if I’m a passerby seeing it, I’m not going to get the point.  I’m going to be revolted.  It’s supposed to represent something about the people of Jerusalem.  Whatever it is, it doesn’t sound very good.  Because – duh – it’s shit he’ll be eating.

Ezekiel protests to God that this is too much, and Ezekiel wins a minor victory.  God says if shit is too much, that’s fine – eat cow manure instead.  Um… as minor victories go, that’s pretty damn minor all right.  He’s still eating shit.  And I still don’t quite get how it’ll help him spread God’s word.  If nothing else, it’ll make his breath much worse.

CHAPTER 5

God gives Ezekiel a new bit of performance art prophecy.  He’s to take a sharp sword and shave his head and beard.  Really?  If I’m Ezekiel, at a certain point in time I’ve got to be wondering if God is just joking with me. 

What would the people by Ezekiel think when they see this?  Many, like Ezekiel, are priests are know the old scrolls.  God has never told his prophets to shave with a sword.  He’s never had them lie on their sides for a year.  Or become mute.  And certainly not eat shit.  I’m flatly amazed he had any credibility with people.  A guy eating cow shit and shaving with a sword says he’s hearing the Lord’s voices, and maybe you assume he’s nuts.  But he had credibility.  The era must help him gain credibility.  They are cut off from the Holy Land, the Temple, cast adrift – and here’s a guy saying God talks to him.  Sure, let’s see what he says.

God has Ezekiel engage in some symbolic destruction of Jerusalem to represent how his people will be thrown to the winds or destroyed, and all that.  In it’s own way, this is more effective than all Jeremiah’s tirades.  It’s less personal when it’s a clay tablet.

We finally get away from performance art to words of the Lord.  It’s standard stuff.  God is punishing the Jews for their misbehavior.  Yeah, so we’ve heard.

CHAPTER 6

This is just 14 verses of typical stuff.  God is cheesed and so everyone will be punished.  Many will die and the people will be scattered.

While I have trouble wrapping my mind around Ezekiel’s odd behaviors, at least it’s original.  His prophecies are rather routine stuff at this point.  He’s foretelling the destruction of Jerusalem, and we’ve just read the Book of Jeremiah on that very thing.

CHAPTER 7

This chapter has the header, “The End Has Come” and it’s exactly what you’d expect.  It’s a lot like what Jeremiah said about Jerusalem, but without the personal malice and deep-seated anger thrown in.  Ezekiel sounds a lot more mournful that Jeremiah ever did, as he proclaims, “An end! The end comes to the four corners of the land!”  Still, the people have it coming and God is right. 

Click here for the next bit of Ezekiel.