CHAPTER 40
The last nine chapters of Ezekiel are one big vision, a
vision about the Hebrew once they’ve been able to return home.
It’s a vision of the temple to be constructed. It’s a huge temple; a temple so huge that no
one has ever constructed it – yet we get nine chapters of detail about it. It’s hard enough to care that much about a
building, but it’s pretty much impossible when it’s a vision of a building; not
a real one.
In his vision, Ezekiel has a guy measuring everything for
him. And, for whatever reason, his cubits
are extra long cubits. The footnotes
helpfully tell me that instead of 17.5 inches per cubit (the norm) these cubits
are 20.4 inches per.
The excessive detail then gets going. The East Gate will be 25 cubits wide – so
510 inches, which is 42.5 feet. Yeah,
that’s a mighty wide gate you got there.
We get info on other gates and other courts, and inner courts and side
rooms and all of that.
Near the end of the chapter, we get to the courtyard: 100
cubits wide by 100 cubits long. That’s
170 feet by 170 feet. Solomon’s Temple
was half of that size. To be fair, that
was really small, as the Temple was just for the Ark of the Lord, not the
masses. But it isn’t small. The block I live on is about four-tenths of
a mile, if I recall correctly. This is
a third of that. And it’s just the
courtyard in the Temple, not the entire Temple.
CHAPTER 41
More Temple porn. He
measures stuff from the interior of this building that will never be built.
CHAPTER 42
There will be chambers in the north court about the size of
Solomon’s old temple. Yeah, this is
big.
The big news – no pun intended – is the measurements for the
outer court. It’s a perfect square, 500
cubits to a side. So that means the
outer court’s walls will be 3,400 feet long.
Yeah, that’s not small. It’s
722,500 square feet. That’s a little
over 16 and half acres.
That’s small for a farm, but immense for a building. You can see why this was never actually
built, right?
CHAPTER 43
Ezekiel continues to elaborate on his mythical Temple. In his vision, the Glory of the Lord enters
the Temple. That’s nice. It would mean more if this was an actual
Temple, but oh well.
CHAPTER 44
God starts moralizing about what should happen in the
Temple. Apparently, he’s pretty cheesed
at the old priests. They let in
foreigners, “uncircumcised in heart and flesh” into God’s sanctuary. That’s an interesting phrase right
there. Noting that foreigners aren’t
supposed to be allowed in is one thing.
That’s going back to the early books of the Old Testament where the
religion was purely tribal. You were
among the in crowd based on your lineage.
But then God notes how those “uncircumcised in heart and flesh” were the
foreigners. Apparently, a foreigner who
converts all out would be allowed in.
But the foreigner must believe and get snipped. So you still have to follow the Laws of
Moses, but you don’t have to literally be a child of Israel. God then tells us that no foreigners are to
be let in again, but says; “No foreigners, uncircumcised in heart and flesh”
shall enter. So foreigners circumcised
should be let in then, I gather.
Tribalism has given way to morality as the center of the Jewish faith.
Anyhow, for letting the wrong guys into God’s house, the
Levites are banned from being priests.
This is big news. They are the
traditional priests. Instead, just one
sect of priests is OK with the Lord: the sons of Zadok. This is actually a branch of the Levites –
all priests are Levites – but this one sect is seen as fine. I’m going out on a limb here and say that
Ezekiel, himself a priest, is from the Zadok clan.
Oh, and these new priests will be given key powers, as
they’ll be the ones who oversaw cases, serving as judges. So the job won’t just be religious, but have
clear earthly power as well.
CHAPTER 45
You know how I said the Zadok priests will have earthly
power? Apparently, it’s even bigger
than it sounds, for here Ezekiel denounces the princes who oppress the
people. He doesn’t quite go so far as
to call for an end to the monarchy (there is, after all, a covenant with David)
but between what he said last chapter and what he says here, there is a clear
shifting of political power to priests.
Well, in his vision that’s how it goes. But it’s just a vision, with no real force
behind it. You can see why Ezekiel’s
vision never gets off the ground at all here.
Actually, there’s an even more obvious reason why his vision
never becomes reality, and it happens at the very top of the chapter. You know how supersized Ezekiel’s temple
was? Well, we get the full grandeur –
in all of its overblown, impractical glory – right here. Ezekiel wants some land set aside for God: a
parcel 25,000 cubits by 20,000 cubits.
Given that he’s repeatedly told us he’s using extra-size cubits, this
land he’s talking about is about 8.5 miles by 6 miles long. Yes, he was 52 square miles set aside just
for the Lord. Now that’s just too damn
much.
Oh, and he also wants land set aside for the priests. The land should be next to God’s land (of
course) and will be another 52 square miles.
That’s an awkward, impractical block of land in the middle of the
country he’s carving out. You’d have to
re-route a bunch of roads to make this happen.
CHAPTER 46
Not much to say here.
People should observe the Sabbath and ritual laws.
CHAPTER 47
Ezekiel envisions a wonderful stream going by …the Temple, I
think. Or somewhere in the Lord’s
land. Maybe the priests’ land. Look, I can’t really tell and who really
cares – it’s just a vision.
God tells Ezekiel to wade into the stream. 1,000 cubits in, and it’s up to his
ankle. Another 1,000 cubits and it’s
up to his knee. Another 1,000 cubits
and it’s up to his waist. Another 1,000
cubits and he’ll have to swim. Weird
river. How can it generate any flow
being as shallow as this? Oh, right –
fictional river. Also, an incredibly
wide fictional river. 4,000 Ezekiel-sized cubits and he’s just halfway across? This sucker must be over 2 miles across at
least. It’s to purify things, I guess.
CHAPTER 48
God also wants the land redivided among all 12 tribes. That’s an impressive achievement, given that
10 tribes are gone. Still, God gives
Ezekiel instructions on how to do it, and my footnotes inform me that what’s
described doesn’t match the physical realities of the region. Heh.
That’s not too surprising, given that this is Ezekiel.
Still, this is annoying.
The last chapters rehash the most boring parts of the Torah and now
Joshua. This book goes out not with a
bang, but with a whimper.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
I had trouble relating to Ezekiel. His prophecies are based on these weird visions that seem out of
place in the Bible. He acts in a
bizarre manner, which I guess shields him from the sort of criticism that
Jeremiah got. He’s also less
misanthropic than Jeremiah. Still, I
found Jeremiah, for all his pettiness and nastiness and ineffectualness, to be
a more understandable figure. If
Jeremiah might need some anti-depressants, Ezekiel might need some
anti-psychotics.
Ezekiel does advance the cause of morality as being central
to the religion. He does come off as a
more fully formed human than Isaiah.
But Ezekiel’s weirdness makes him probably the least of the three big
prophets for me.
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