Book of Hosea

Click here for the end of Daniel.

CHAPTER 1

Now we get to the Minor Prophets that clear out the Old Testament.  The intro tells us that Hosea was a prophet for about 20-25 years in the northern kingdom of Israel in the 8^th century BC, roughly from 750-725 BC. 

And God’s first order to Hosea is a memorable one: get yourself a whore.  Marry a prostitute who has children and marry her.  So Hosea does, a prostitute named Gomer.  The purpose is simple – Hosea is engaging in some life theater to embody his prophecies. Plenty of prophets have spoken of the relationship between the Hebrew and God like it’s a marriage.  Hosea is taking that analogy to another level.  In the marriage, the whore is the Hebrew and he has the role of God. 

It’s an inspired idea for prophecy, but sounds like a nightmarishly bad idea for a marriage.

They have three kids.  And, because the purpose is all analogy for the people, Hosea gives them names that’ll ensure they get picked on at the playground non-stop.  The eldest gets off easiest.  It’s a boy named “Jezreel” which means “God will sow.”  The next is a girl named “Not-Pitied.”  Wow, that will be a rough name to go through middle school with.  The last is a son named, “Not-My-People.”  He has it worst of all. 

CHAPTER 2

That first chapter was prose, but the entirety of the rest of Hosea will be presented in poetry form. 

This just makes clear that the relationship between God and the Hebrew is like that of Hosea and his prostitute-wife Gomer.  God gave the Hebrew so much, but she returned by sleeping around with other gods.  God became angry, and will sow his destruction.  He’ll have no pity because these are not his pity.

But eventually God has faith in the Hebrew.  They’ll come back to him, and give up their whorish ways. When that day happens, God will come back to them, and they’ll be his people again.   It’s an ugly story, but will have a happy ending.

CHAPTER 3

This is a short, five-verse chapter that largely just rehashes what we learned in Chapter 1 – Hosea purchased a prostitute for a wife, Gomer. Apparently, he purchased her for 15 pieces of silver.  He tells her to stop being a prostitute, just like the Hebrew people should quit whoring themselves out. 

Also, it’s apparently the last time we’ll see Gomer.  Hopefully this is a happy ending to their marriage and this purchasing of her is taking her out of the brothel, but it’s hard to say.

CHAPTER 4

We’re back to the God-Hebrew relationship here.  God is upset at the people for their lack of fidelity and loyalty. 

There is one spot I found especially interesting.  God says, “I will not punish your daughters for their prostitution, not your daughters-in-law for their adultery, because the men themselves consort with prostitutes.” 

This is nice. Typically lands that are patriarchal put the men in charge and blame the women for any problems of sexual infidelity.  Here, the men are the ones blamed.  After all, they’re the ones in charge, and the prostitutes are just meeting the demands of the men.  If men have the responsibility, they should accept the blame that comes with it.  Nice job of Hosea to cut through a traditional sexist double standard.

CHAPTER 5

It’s another chapter denouncing Israel.  This one specifically targets the political and religious leaders of the land.  They have caused iniquity and betrayed the Lord.  Therefore, the land is defiled.  Hosea wants them to re-commit to God – a sincere recommitment. 

CHAPTER 6

This chapter has a section that works really well for our Christians out there, as Hosea prophesizes of God: “For it is he who has torn, but he will heal us; he has struck down, but he will bind our wounds.  He will revive us after two days; on the third day he will raise us up to live in his presence.”  OK, it’s not a perfect analogy for Christ.  In the New Testament, it’s Christ that rises, whereas here it’s Christ causes the average believer to rise.  But still – you got being struck down, dead for two days, rising on the third – yeah, that does all sound familiar to Christian ears.

I wonder how it’s phrased in the Jewish Bible.  The intro here says that this is one of the most difficult Bible books to translate.  It’s hard to read and the original text is apparently corrupted.  It’s written in an unusual dialect of Hebrew.  Thus different Bibles have different interpretations of what Hosea says.  So I wonder how the Jews translate this part.  Maybe this is one of the more straightforward parts. Or maybe the Christian imagery here owes as much to the translation as to the actual text itself.

There is also a really good line here: “What can I do with you, Ephraim?  What can I do with you, Judah?  Your loyalty is like the morning mist, like the dew that disappears early.”  That’s a nice little analogy there.

CHAPTER 7

The people really suck.  They have bandits and thieves and they don’t give a damn.  And the royal court is worst of all.  They have all these conspiracies and murdered kings replaced by their murderers.  The new kings aren’t on the throne because God put them there, but just because they took it.  That is wrong.  Also, they shouldn’t pal around with pagans, like Assyria and Egypt.

CHAPTER 8

Oftentimes the prophets are seen as an advance upon the morality of old.  The religion began as a purely tribal one.  We’re the children of Israel and he’s our God, that’s that.  There was a moral component – obey God’s laws – but paying back was just doing the right offering at the tabernacle (and then the temple).  It’s the prophets that really make personal morality a central piece to being a proper follower of God.

OK, but it’s interesting in Hosea how the morality here is tied to the morality of old.  It’s less a theological revolution than reinforcement.  He isn’t focusing primarily on moral treatment of others.  He’s mostly concerned with idolatry.  To be a good Jew is to follow God, which is a call for morality, but a morality towards God more than to your fellow man. 

This chapter has a nice smackdown or idolatry, as he denounces the golden calf stationed at Samaria, and notes, “An artisan made it, it is no God at all.”  That said, the theology here is a bit beyond Leviticus.  There, all sins were to be repaid with a proper amount of sacrifice, but Hosea tells us that the Lord isn’t pleased with their sacrifices.  Well, that part of the message is a bit revolutionary.  He’s not the only one to say it, but Hosea is one of the earlier ones to say it.

Also, this chapter has a famous line: “When they sow the wind, they will reap the whirlwind.”  Have we seen the “reap the whirlwind” line before?  Maybe, I can’t fully recall. But it’s a good line regardless. 

CHAPTER 9

Hosea tells people not to celebrate, because God isn’t happy with them.  We also get a sense how he’s being received by the people around him: “`The prophet is a fool, the man of the spirit is mad!’ Because your iniquity is great, great, too, is your hostility.” 

Yeah, maybe the reason the people reject Hosea is due to their sinful nature.  Then again, marrying a prostitute in an act of prophetical theater can also cause your credibility to suffer.  Think about it – while it makes an intriguing it to read, wouldn’t that cause people to wonder if this guy really is holy or just some fool?  Then, when he starts criticizing them, it’s easier for the people to dismiss Hosea.

Earlier I said his act of marrying a prostitute was an effective bit of prophetical theater.  Actually, the opposite is true.  It’s dramatic, but it’s totally counterproductive because it makes him seem like a fool.  There’s a reason why all the other prophets would criticize the Hebrew with words rather than try to embody the people’s problems in their own central life choices.

CHAPTER 10

This is more talk about how bad idolatry is.  One theme in this book: Hosea keeps saying “Ephraim” when referring to the entire northern kingdom of Israel even though it’s just 1 of the 10 tribes up there.  That’s odd.  I guess Hosea is from that tribe.

CHAPTER 11

Hosea dives into analogy here – but this time makes it just words instead of his own lifestyle.  He compares the relationship between the Lord and the Hebrew to that of a parent and child.  Yes, the Lord is unhappy with his children.  But, like any good parent, he holds out the hope that things will work out well when it’s all said and done. 

It’s nice, and has a happy ending of the Lord and the people of Ephraim being united again – but that isn’t what’ll happen.  Ephraim becomes one of the 10 lost tribes of Israel, as their people essentially move away from their religion altogether after the conquest by the Assyrians not too long after Hosea’s prophecies. 

CHAPTER 12

Israel – again usually referred to just as Ephraim – is unfaithful to the Lord and that’s bad.

CHAPTER 13

It’s more of the same.  Hosea denounces idolatry.  The only new quirk here is he essentially announces the death of Ephraim for backsliding from the Lord.  In fact, the chapter title is, “The Death of Ephraim.”

CHAPTER 14

After several dismal chapters, Hosea ends on a note of optimism, as he pleads for people to return to the Lord, and then all will be well.

Hosea saves the best for last, ending with the lines, “Who is wise enough to understand these things?  Who is intelligent enough to know them?  Straight are the paths of the Lord, and just walk in them, but sinners stumble in them.” 

That’s a really nice line to end on.  It’s one of the better parts of the Bible.  It’s short, simple – and makes sense. 

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

This is the first of 12 books of Minor Prophets that end the Old Testament.  It’s also the longest (well, Zechariah will tie it, but we won’t get more than 14 chapters until we reach the New Testament).  And while Hosea does get redundant towards the end, it certainly has its memorable parts. 

Nothing is more memorable than it’s beginning, with the prophet actually marrying a prostitute in an act of religious theater.  That couldn’t have made him very popular with the Hebrew, but it does make him stand out from the pack here.  His message is pretty one-note: respect God and follow his ways – but he has a memorable way of starting off.  He also has a great end line to conclude the book with.

It’s not a great book, but not a bad book either.

Click here for the next book, Joel.

Daniel: Chapters 7 to 14

Click here for the first part of Daniel.

CHAPTER 7

After six chapters of stories, we get six chapters of visions.  Well, they are all stories, but the first six were presented as if they were factual, whereas these are just open parables.  And they are parables more important for Christians than Jews.  Daniel is possibly the last written book of the Old Testament, and so some of the themes of when it was written were also around when Christ was alive.  Those themes include the coming of a savior and the rise of a new world, a world of peace and justice and all the like.  In fact, a lot of Daniel will later be seen as foretelling of Christ.

This is a vision of beasts.  There are four beasts out of a bad sci-fi film, each one made up of parts of different animals.  They are mutant beasts.  The fourth one is the most monstrous of all. 

Daniel asks the heavens what this vision means, and is told that they represent a series of kingdoms that will exist one after the other.  I guess they’re Babylon, Medes, Persian, and the Macedonians.  Regardless, Daniel ends the chapter very scared and deciding to keep this vision to himself.

CHAPTER 8

This vision is by a river, with a he-goat with a big horn attacking a ram.  The goat’s horn was shattered, but out of it grew four more.  Out of one of those, grew another bigger horn.  Yeah, this has some sort of symbolic meaning of some sort.  Once again, the number four is important. 

This time Daniel gets some interpretation.  The angel Gabriel comes down and tells Daniel the vision refers to the end of time.  It sounds like the end of time should come with the Greeks in power.  I guess that’s the big horn.  Or something. 

Daniel falls ill for a time after his vision, feeling desolate.  Boy, that’s not the way you want to feel after a vision of the future.

CHAPTER 9

This is another allegorical one, and its one that further confirms that this book was written during the 2^nd BC persecutions.  Daniel is looking through the writings of Jeremiah, and figures something out.  Jeremiah says that the Jews will suffer for 70 years for their sins.  Daniel figures that means 70 years worth of weeks.  Huh – what’s that mean.  Well 70 years worth of days is just 70 years.  But 70 years worth of weeks – that means each week as a day, so 490 years (7*70=490). 

How would Daniel figure this out?  The Bible doesn’t say, but it works well for the Jews of the second century BC because that means their current persecutions are still part of the repayment for those long ago sins.  Also, it would mean their problems are soon over.  So this chapter makes a lot of since if it’s written in the 2^nd century BC, but doesn’t make much sense otherwise.

Oh, and there is really good news, too.  Once the 70 years of weeks are up, happy days will be here again.  “Everlasting justice will be introduced, vision of prophesy ratified, and a holy of holies will be anointed.”  Yeah, Christians sure can make use of this when the time comes. 

CHAPTER 10

Daniel gets another vision – of, “a man” – who can either be Christ of the angel Gabriel again, depending on your beliefs. 

There really isn’t much to say of it.  The angel appears, and only Daniel can see it.  Others can apparently feel its presence and are afraid and leave.  Daniel is terrified and falls to his face in fright.  However, he’s given words of comfort.  That’s a nice thought.  After the first two visions leaving Daniel feeling horrible, now you get two in a row that end up positive notes.

CHAPTER 11

This is a long, tedious chapter.  It’s another prophecy.  It’s about a bunch of kings and kingdoms rising and falling and ….it’s a litany of dead kings history, except none of these are real kings.  We barely here about any of them, too – none are named.  It’s annoying.  The point is things will suck for the Hebrew.

CHAPTER 12

God gives a final vision to Daniel.  There will come a time when a great prince named Michael will arise.  Then, the dead will rise from the grave.  Some will gain eternal life.  Others will have “everlasting disgrace.” 

God doesn’t go into much detail, but there will be an end of times thing, though.  But you can see beliefs that’ll influence the New Testament in what I just wrote.  Anyhow, God tells Daniel to write this down and seal it in the book.

CHAPTER 13

The last pair of chapters is an addendum to Daniel. 

This chapter tells us a story of Susanna.  She’s a fox married to a rich and respected Hebrew man (not that he has anything to do with the story) in Babylon.  One day she’s walking through the garden and two Hebrew elders see her and fall into lust.  They don’t tell each other how they feel, though.  They’re ashamed.  But not ashamed enough for they both leave to go home for lunch – only to both double back and come to the same spot.  Heh.  This scene can be played for comedy, as they blunder back into each other.

They admit to each other that they have the hots for Susanna, and this is where the comedy elements goes goodbye.  They make plans to have her.  They wait until her servants leave and close the garden gate behind them.  The elders run up to her and make her an offer they feel she can’t refuse: lay with us or we’ll both report you as a slut to the council and you’ll be executed.  After all, there are two of them, and they are respected elders.  She weighs her options and decides its better to die pure then live defiled.  Then she screams.

People here, but our two bad guys have a story already worked up.  They caught her with a young man.  The young man got away, but she didn’t.  Thus Susanna is sentenced to death.  Before the sentence can be carried out, she prays to God to help her, and God hears her prayer.

He sends the Holy Spirit to, “a young boy named Daniel.”  Hey – remember Daniel?  This story is in the Book of Daniel and in verse 45 we run into Daniel.  Or at least we run into a Daniel.  Chapter 1 said he was carried off to Babylon as a young man.  Here, the Hebrew are in Babylon and Daniel is a young boy, not a young man. 

Eh, but it’s the same Daniel; just a story by a different author that doesn’t fit into the main narrative.  Anyhow, this young boy berates the people for sending her off to death so easily.  He demands a fuller investigation and despite being a young boy, everyone listens.

Daniel takes charge and leads the investigation.  How old is he really?  He does a good job.  He interrogates the two old men separately.  What kind of tree where you guy beneath?  “A mastic tree.” “Under an oak” BUSTED!  So Susanna is freed and the two men are put to death. 

(Y’know, though these guys are lying, it’s always possible for someone to forget which tree he was standing under.  It’s still a bit nasty here).  The story concludes that this is how Daniel first gained a solid reputation among the people.

Yeah, this is clearly a fictional story.  Daniel was already a big name, so they made up this origins story after the fact.  But as noted already, it doesn’t really fit with the rest of the story cycles. 

CHAPTER 14

Daniel is like a Paul Bunyon.  He’s a mythical figure with all of these stories made up about him.  This chapter actually has two stories.

The first one is about Daniel and a Babylonian idol called Bel.  Everyday some food is laid out before the idol, and every night it disappears.  The king tells Daniel how great this god is and how everyone should bow to it.  Daniel laughs.  Yeah, that’s not very well mannered of you, Daniel.  He laughs and tells the king that it’s an idol, not a god. 

The king is enraged (no surprise) and threatens to have Daniel killed.  They decide to test it instead.  The door to the temple will be sealed at night.  If the food is still there in the morning, Daniel is safe and the priests will die.  If it’s gone, bye-bye Daniel.  The priests aren’t worried because there is a secret entrance.  So they go through it with their wives and kids and eat up. 

The next morning the king and Daniel come back and note the door’s seal is unbroken.  They go inside – no food!  But Daniel isn’t fazed at all.  In fact, he starts laughing.  Look, king – footprints!  All over the place – footprints of men, women, and kids!  So the priest has them all executed, along with their wives and children.  Yikes! 

It seems like this would be a good place for a chapter break, but instead a totally different story completes this chapter.  There is a dragon that the king’s men serve all the time.  Daniel says he can kill it without sword or club.  He does by feeding it food that causes it to burst.  (So – indigestion?)

The people of Babylon are pissed.  He’s caused the destruction of their favorite idol, the death of 70 priests, and now the killing of this dragon.  Fuck this guy Daniel. (And really, there is no reason for Daniel to kill the dragon.  The people worshipped it as a living god we’re told, but while it’s not a god, it is a living thing and the Bible mostly opposes idols, not living things.  You don’t have to kill living things, just wait for them to do). 

Anyhow, the people force the king to kill Daniel.  Weak hold on the populace?  Maybe Daniel shouldn’t have worked so hard to antagonize people.  He didn’t need to laugh at the temple early in the chapter (no one made him worship at it) and he didn’t need to kill the dragon.  He’s initiating all the confrontations, and now it’s caused so much backlash that his protector can’t protect him anymore.

So Daniel goes to the lion’s den.  Whoever wrote this story isn’t very original.  The way Daniel escapes is original.  God tells the prophet Habakkuk – he shows up in a future Bible book – and tells him to save Daniel.  Go to Babylon and give food for the lions to eat instead of him.  But God, Habakkuk protests, I’ve never been to Babylon and have no idea where this stuff is.  Heh.  That’s a good point.  So God takes him by the hair (ow!) and personally delivers him to outside the den, where he puts some food in, so the lions will eat it instead of Daniel.  Then Habakkuk immediately is transported back to his own town.

Weird story.  Anyhow, the result is just like last time.  The king flips around and throws Daniel’s enemies in the lion’s den. Thus ends the Book of Daniel.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

There are some memorable stories here, but the whole is less than the sum of its parts.  The kings all are made of cardboard, and the dangers are a bit repetitive.  You get a definite since of the persecution the Jews went through in the 2^nd century BC in these retro-placed stories set in Babylon.  These stories work best if taken as allegories.  (They really don’t work at all if you take them literally). 

Yeah, a lot of the same problems can be made of the Genesis stories, but 1) those were better written, and 2) the logical errors are more forgivable there when looked at in context.  The Bible begins with a largely mythical world and then becomes gradually more realistic.  This is just unrealistic in a way that’s entirely out of place with the Bible’s own logic. 

Daniel isn’t a bad book, but like I said – it’s less than the sum of its parts.  It’s too disjointed.  

Click here for the next book: Hosea. 

Daniel: Chapters 1 to 6

Click here for the end of Ezekiel.

CHAPTER 1

OK, it’s the Book of Daniel.  This is a weird one in how to classify.  In this Bible, it’s listed with the prophets.  It’s the same way in the Protestant Bible.  But not the Jewish Bible – they put it towards the end with Esther.

And this isn’t a book of prophecy.  Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel were primarily a bunch of prophecies to the Jewish people.  But not this.  Instead, this book focuses on stories.  The stories focus on Daniel, of course.  Supposedly, he lived during the Babylonian Captivity.  But the best evidence is that it came later.

This is something called apocalyptic literature, something that gained popularity around 200 BC and stayed popular with Jews and Christians through Medieval times.  The opening notes to the book tell me this.  It was likely written during the persecutions by Antiochus IV, which were recounted in the Maccabbees books.  The opening notes say the importance of Daniel isn’t its historical accuracy, but how it inspired people to hold onto their faith.  Fair enough.

This first chapter tells us that Daniel was among the Hebrew first carried off to Babylon when the Captivity when it began.  That’s a sign this story is made up, because later on – even later on in this chapter – Daniel will still be in Babylon when the Captivity is nearing his end.  Yeah, he’s not living that long, people. 

At any rate, when Daniel first comes to town, the king wants some noble-born Hebrew to sit at his table and eat with him.  For a devout Child of Israel like Daniel, this is terrible news.  How can he keep kosher while at the dinner table?  He and three likeminded believers – Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah – have a plan.  They convince the chamberlain overseeing them to give them vegetables and water only.  They eat just that and retain their health, so the king doesn’t notice that they’re not eating un-kosher meat.  In fact, we’re told that they look even healthier than the other Hebrew.  Hey vegetarians – this is the official Bible story for you guys!  The Bible indicates it’s the healthy way to go.

At any rate, because they keep kosher, God gives them wisdom.  They become the greatest interpreters of dreams in all the land.  The king thinks they are worth 10 times as much as any of his other wise men.  So chapter ends with our being told that Daniel was still living in the court of the king when Cyrus became head of Persia.  Yeah, that’s far too long a time period.  (Added bonus: the author here doesn’t indicate the king or anyone else died, which is clearly off the mark).

CHAPTER 2

This was apparently written by another author altogether.  Either that or our author really has trouble with story telling.  Last chapter ended with Daniel and friends given a special place among the wise men, but when this chapter begins, that’s not the case at all.  Daniel is, at best, just another wise man.  The king doesn’t seem aware of him.  He doesn’t hold him in any special place.  Then again, the king doesn’t seem to put much interest in any of his wise men, as we’ll see.

The king had a bad dream.  Damn those night terrors.  And he demands his wise men interpret for him.  What is this dream?  Well, apparently he never tells them.  Yeah, I think that’ll get in the way of interpretation, if you don’t let people know what they’re interpreting.  It would be like trying to examine inkblot tests – if you couldn’t see the cards.

The wise men ask to be told what the dreams were, and the king becomes irate.  He accuses them of playing for time and the idiot king raises the odds: tell me what my dreams mean or I’ll have the wise men killed.  All of them.  You’ve got to be kidding me!  Things like this are just further confirmation that the story is fiction.  This is the dumbest king since the dolt from Esther.  So capricious.  So pointless.  Such an idiot.

Anyhow, Daniel hears about it. Now, based on Chapter 1, you’d think that he’d be the go-to guy for the king, but he’s just a guy.  Anyway, Daniel prays to God for help and then goes to the king, saying he can interpret the dream.  It doesn’t seem like he and the king have ever met, so again – either the writer of Chapter 2 is different from the guy who did Chapter 1, or he’s an incompetent storyteller.

First, Daniel tells the king what his dream is.  Up until this point, I figured that the author was hiding the dream from us for dramatic effect.  Instead of the king telling his wise men the dream and then telling Daniel his dream, the author decided to avoid the needless repetition.  No, apparently that wasn’t it.  The king never tells anyone his dream. 

But Daniel nails it.  The dream is a little confusing.  There is a wonderful statue.  And then a piece of rock becomes a statue without a hand hewing it.  And the new stature – made out of various metals – destroys the old one. 

Then Daniel gives the interpretation.  The statute is you, your highness.  And the other metals are three other kingdoms.  This part I found confusing.   I know what happens.  Persia will take over Babylon.  But here Daniel talks of three other kingdoms, so I’m a bit lost.  And the new kingdom that succeeds will fall apart from within, but that’s not what happened to Persia at all. So I don’t know what to make of it. 

Well, the king knows what to make of it.  He falls down “and worshipped Daniel and ordered sacrifice and incense offered to him.”  He then says, “Truly your God is the God of gods and Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries.”  Yeah.  Sure.  Sure he said all of this.  I don’t buy that much at all.  As a reward, Daniel’s friends are made administrators of provinces while Daniel gets to stay at the court. 

Chapter 2 and Chapter 1 must be written by two different sources.  They both serve the same purpose – they get Daniel and his friends in privileged positions.  You don’t need both stories doing it.  In fact, it’s confusing to have them side-by-side.  But they work better on their own. 

CHAPTER 3

This is one of the longest chapters in the Bible – an even 100 verses. 

It’s an odd story in that Daniel doesn’t show up at all, even though it’s the longer chapter in the relatively short book bearing his name.  It’s also a fairly famous story – it’s the story of the furnace.

At the end of Chapter 2, Daniel’s friends have been made governors of the land. Here, we begin with news that the Persian emperor has decided to build a giant statue – 60 cubits tall.  That’s about 90.  (It goes without saying that there is no record or evidence at all of any such a massive statue outside of the Bible.  So yeah, fake story). 

He has special plans for his big statue.  He’ll have all manner of noise blow from any/all available musical instruments.  When that happens, all should bow down before this fictional statue.  We all know who won’t do this, right?

Right – the Jews.  More specifically, Daniel’s three friends.  Despite the fact that failing to bow down to the statue will result in being thrown in the furnace, they won’t abandon their God.  Given the theme of persecution and the unreality of the plot, it’s no wonder people thing these stories come from the 2^nd century BC persecutions. 

Well, the three are taken before the emperor and told that bow down before the one the emperor serves or you’re going to get what you deserve.  They have an amazing calm response: throw us in the furnace then.  If our God can save us, he will.  This is a sign of tremendous faith, and also rather impractical.  Hey, good, pious people get killed to.  The laws of physics typically hold.  Well, except here, of course.

They are thrown in the furnace.  It’s blowing so hot that it actually kills the king’s servants who throw them in.  Bummer.  But they walk around the furnace, with Azariah giving a long prayer to God.  The short version: God is awesome, wonderful and all manner of perfect.  We Jews rebelled against you, but please help us now. 

So God sends an angel down to save them.  It sure wouldn’t be much of a story if they all died right there.  God sends an angel down to keep them safe.  The flames go outside the furnace, while those inside are nice and safe.  This causes a second long prayer to God – call it the “Bless the Lord” poem, as almost all of its 39 verses say either “Bless the Lord” or “Blessed are you” – with you being God. 

The king finds out that the guys are just chilling in the furnace.  The report to him contains one very strange moment.  He’s told there are four guys in the furnace – the three guys cast in, and a fourth, who, “looks like a son of God.”  Well, now. I think we can all guess what the Christian interpretation of this verse is.  Yup, it’s Jesus Christ.  That said, there is a perfectly handy interpretation for Jews – it’s the angel previously noted. 

Well, the three guys walk out of the fire, all fine.  Their clothes aren’t even singed.  So the Babylonian king immediately changes his position – yes, again – and has the God of the Jews given priority. 

So far, the king has changed his position seemingly once per chapter.  This is getting silly.  It’s like Esther where the king is so poorly written that he’s just annoying. 

CHAPTER 4

The chapter is called “Nebuchandnezzar’s Madness.”  (With a name like that, you can see why I keep referring to him simply as “the king” right?) So the king is mad?  Yeah, that would at least explain his utter capriciousness.  But the problem is that he’s a real historical figure, and claiming he’s mad – well, I’ve already done enough to point out how these stories are fictional written centuries after the fact. 

The king has a dream of a giant tree cut down and wants to know what it means.  Enter Daniel.  Ah, finally it looks like the king knows a character before he chapter begins!  Daniel interprets it simply: the tree is the king.  In the dream the tree is cut down but a stump will remain.  This means the king will be thrust into the wilderness, where he’ll stay for seven years living like an animal, devoid of his senses.  But the stump means his kingdom will still be there, and the king will return to his senses once he’s learned his lesson from God. 

So, yeah – that’s what happens in the rest of the chapter.  The interesting part is what causes the king’s downfall.  He looks upon all of his majesty and splendor and declares that he’s the reason it’s all so great.  Big no-no.  No sooner have those words left his lips when a voice rings out from the heavens decreeing he’ll lose his kingship, and be sent into the wilderness to live like a beast.  And – WHAM! – just like that, he’s in the wilderness living like a beast. 

A few things about this. First, God doesn’t do things like that at this point in the Bible.  He rarely intervenes that directly.  He did early on, sure, but not since then.  Even when his chosen people defy him, he doesn’t act personally. He sends the Assyrians and Babylonians.  Second, God doesn’t get this involved with non-Hebrew.  Someone from outside his tribe defies him?  Well, that’s just par for the course, now isn’t it?  None of the other kings believe in him.  That’s what makes Jews special.  Actually, if you combine this with the increased emphasis on ethics, you can see some proto-origins of Christianity. For now all – not just the children of Israel – should follow God’s words.  And following God’s words doesn’t just mean give ritual sacrifice, but act in a proper manner to your fellow men.

Anyhow, the king recovers and pledges loyalty to God.  Yes, he pledges loyalty again. (No, he never did in reality).

CHAPTER 5

Each chapter is something of a self-contained story, and this one is not only a famous story, but it gives us an oft-used phrase: the writing on the wall.  The old king is dead and his easier-to-spell son Beshazzar is king.  (Note: in reality there were several other kings between that one and the other, but no matter),

Anyhow, Jr. is having a party and he decides to use some of the bling taken from the temple in Jerusalem.  Big mistake.  During the party, a mysterious hand – God’s hand, apparently – writes some strange things on the wall. The king freaks and wants to know what it means.  None of his wise men can figure it out. Man, these wise men really suck every time, don’t they?

Naturally, they turn to Daniel. Actually, it doesn’t sound like the new king has any idea who Daniel is, despite the importance he’s had over the years.  I guess he wasn’t that close to his dad.  But never mind that.  I mustn’t take this too literally, or I’ll have to point out that Daniel would have to be 100+ years old to make this story work.

Daniel interprets the words: MENE TEKEL PERES – you have been weighed and found wanting by the Medes and Persians. (Note: the Bible often calls the Persian empire the Medes and Persian empire, never mind that Persia has already taken over Medes).  Oh, and we’re told that later that night the king is killed, I guess by the Persians.  Gee, really shouldn’t have dined with all the Jerusalem bling.  (Also, maybe you spend a small amount of effort on city defenses!)

Oh, one little thing on the side I like.  The king offers great rewards for whoever read the writing.  Daniel says, forget your reward, keep it yourself.  They give him the reward anyway.  Hee!  And that’s nice of the king, but why would he reward Daniel for such an epically depressing interpretation?  For that matter – how would he know it’s the right interpretation – until it’s too late? 

CHAPTER 6

This is the last of the Daniel stories.  The rest are just visions and addendums. 

By now, the Persians are in charge.  Please remember that when Chapter 1 began, Daniel was a young adult and among the first people led off to Babylon in the captivity.  So yeah, he’s over 100 years old now.  Anyhow, he’s made a minister, and naturally he’s the best minister.  Naturally.

The others are jealous and figure out a way to screw him over.  They have a king sign a decree that no one can make, “a petition to anyone, divine or human” except to the king for 30 days.  If they do, they’ll be immediately executed, no appeal.  By petition, they apparently include any sort of prayer.  That’s how they’ll get Daniel.

You see, as a pious young Jew, Daniel makes sure to pray three times a day, bowing in the direction of Jerusalem.  Wait – he does what exactly?  Doesn’t that sound like some proto-Islam to you? In fact, Mohammad first had his followers pray towards Jerusalem as well.  Interesting.

Well, the evil minister have Daniel now.  The king learns about it, and is horrified.  He likes Daniel!  But, the evil ministers tell him, you signed the decree and “under the law of the Medes and Persians every royal prohibition or decree is irrevocable.”  Oh come on.  That’s a silly plot point if ever I heard one.  That’s not even making sense.  Why can’t a king grant a pardon?  Why does the king act like such a helpless flunky of his ministers? 

For that matter, why did the king sign this decree in the first place?  Didn’t he see this coming? He reminds me of the king from Esther – a complete mental midget who is clay in the hands of his ministers.  Yeesh. 

For that matter, what’s the end game of the ministers?  OK, they can kill Daniel – but then what? They’ll have a king upset at them for maneuvering him into unwontedly killing his favorite minister.  That isn’t really a good place for the other ministers to be in, now is it? 

Well, Daniel’s punishment is a trip to the lion’s den.  And we can figure out what happens, right?  It’s a retelling of the furnace story, only this time the animals are the danger, not the heat.  Daniel is saved and walks right out, saved by an angel.

So – in a pattern a bit too familiar at this point.  The king backtracks and sides with the persecuted Jew.   He orders his evil ministers thrown to the lion’s den (actually, this might’ve happened either way if you think about for the reasons given two paragraphs ago).  Oh, and they’re wives and children go with them.  Wait – what? BOOO!  That’s terrible.  You’re killing innocent women and children here!  BOOOO!!

Click here for the rest of Daniel.

Daniel main page

Chapters 1 to 6
Chapters 7 to 14

Ezekiel: Chapters 40 to 48

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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. 

Click here for the beginning of the Book of Daniel.

Ezekiel: Chapters 33 to 39

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CHAPTER 33

This just rehashes some points.  First we get some basics about being a prophet that we heard back in Chapter 3.  After that, Ezekiel reminds us of his main moral message, which he already covered in Chapter 18. 

This isn’t a bad chapter, but it doesn’t really add anything.

CHAPTER 34

The Bible has plenty of talk about shepherds, but there is nothing like this shepherd talk in Chapter 34 of Ezekiel.  Typically, shepherds are there to serve as positive metaphors: God is a shepherd and the people are his flock.  But here we’re told, “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel.  Prophesy and say to them: To the shepherds thus says the Lord God: Woe to the shepherds!”  Woe to the shepherds?  That’s not a commonly found phrase in the Bible.

The shepherds here aren’t God (obviously) but the earthly rulers of the Hebrew.  And they suck.  They suck because they don’t engage in ethical behavior.  They don’t aid the weak nor heal the sick, and instead look after themselves.  This is another Bible passage that wouldn’t like the Ryan budget.   It’s a peon to morality, a morality based on treated those on bottom of society with as much care and respect as you can manage.  Confucius would approve of this.

Since the leaders aren’t doing that, God has it in for them, saying, “Was it not enough for you to graze on the best pasture, that you had to trample the rest of your pastures with your hooves?  Or to drink the clearest water, that you had to pollute the rest with your hooves?  Thus my flock had to graze on what your hooves had trampled and drink what your hooves had polluted.”  The leaders have used their power to attack the masses instead of help them. 

CHAPTER 35

We get another chapter attacking Edom.  This is a weirdly placed chapter, as all the other attacks upon people came a bit ago.  Edom has angered God for gloating so much as Israel for her final collapse.  Duly noted.

CHAPTER 36

This is a positive prophecy – one promising rejuvenation for the Hebrew.  It’s a little weird, as much of it is specifically directed at the mountains of Israel.  Not the people, the land itself.  Oh.  Okay.  It’s Ezekiel, you expect a bit of weirdness from this one. 

CHAPTER 37

Now for one of the more famous moments in the prophet books in the Bible.  In fact, this one even inspired a famous song: 

Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones

Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones

Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones

Hear the word of the Lord!

Well the toe bone’s connected to the foot bone

The foot bone’s connected to the leg bone

The leg bone’s connected to the knee bone…

God takes Ezekiel to a dry barren place where there are bones lying around.  Dry bones, of course.  God asks Ezekiel if they can be made to live again, and Ezekiel then defers to God, saying only He knows that for sure.

Good answer.  God that commands Ezekiel to prophesize to the bones – “Hear the word of the Lord!” and has them assemble.  Then muscle and tissue form.  Then skin covers them.  And before you know it, an army of people has risen from the dry bones.  Then God commands Ezekiel to prophesize them to breath – and they do! 

Hear the word of the Lord! – indeed!

It’s a vision.  This isn’t real.  There isn’t an army of people who rise up.  We never hear of them again.  But it sure is a memorable vision. 

CHAPTER 38

This begins a new series of prophecies – about a mysterious enemy called Gog from a placed called Magog.  There is no place and there are no people.  It looks to be set in the future.  The name probably shouldn’t be taken too literally.  Anyhow, they are the bad guys.  Gog will attack but God will oppose Gog.

CHAPTER 39

More Gog and Magog.  They sound like a bad comedy team when you put it like that. 

Anyhow, they’ll lose, leading to maybe the most disgusting prophecy of victory in the Bible: “Say to the birds of every kind and to every wild beast: Assemble! Come from all sides for the sacrifice I am making for you, a great slaughter on the mountains of Israel.  You shall eat flesh and drink blood!  You shall eat the flesh of warriors and drink the blood of the princes of the earth: rams, lambs, and goats, bulls, and fatlings from Bashan, all of them.  From the sacrifice I slaughtered for you, you shall eat fat until you are sated and drink blood until you are drunk.”

When I first read that, I missed that God was talking to birds and beasts and it sounded like an invitation to cannibalism.  It isn’t, but it’s still grizzly that we’re focusing on how animals and birds will eat the rotting corpses of all the dead bodies. 

Click here for the end of Ezekiel.

Ezekiel: Chapters 24 to 32

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CHAPTER 24

Ezekiel breaks out another one of his analogies.  It’s about a pot.  A stew is being made in it, but the pot represents Jerusalem and it’ll be cooked until all its impurities melt away.  Something like that. 

Anyhow, Jerusalem is about to fall, and God does something rather severe to Ezekiel.  He wants Ezekiel to be a model for other Hebrew on how to act when Jerusalem falls.  God doesn’t want people to mourn when that happens.  So, to let Ezekiel provide behavior for others to model in advance, God says, “I am taking away from you the delight of your eyes” – his wife.  Yeah, Ezekiel becomes a widower.

And that’s when he must not mourn for her.  He must not go through the normal mourning rituals.  It fits with Ezekiel’s tradition of performance art prophecy, but it’s a deeply sad on. 

Sure enough, Jerusalem does fall, but it happens off stage.  This is the last chapter before Jerusalem falls, but the actual act itself isn’t discussed.  I assume its fall helps Ezekiel’s stature.  Ezekiel has been telling people it would happen for 20 chapters or so now, but now it’s an accomplished fact.  So the weird mute guy who eats cow poo, has a thing for Egyptian penises, and has weird visions – he’s been proven to be a true prophet.  The Bible doesn’t tell us his stature has gone up among his brethren, but it must have risen notably. 

And with his new stature, Ezekiel has some advice: don’t mourn.  Don’t enter into mourning, for this is God’s doing.  God is the one telling Ezekiel not to mourn, of course.

Oh, and God finally gives Ezekiel a break.  He’s sure earned one after his wife’s untimely death.  Shortly after Ezekiel became a prophet, about 10 years and 20 chapters ago, God made Ezekiel to take a vow of muteness.  He could only talk when giving out the Lord’s prophecies to the people. Now God finally let’s Ezekiel speak on his own. If nothing else, this should help Ezekiel become a respected member of the community. 

CHAPTER 25

Now for the beginning of a very different batch of Ezekiel chapters.  This section is his prophecies against foreign nations.  All the big prophets have a section like this – Isaiah, Jeremiah, and now Ezekiel.  It’s not as out of place here as it was with Jeremiah, but it does feel like something wandering in from another prophet.

This is a series of short, standard curses.  In 17 verses, Ezekiel dispatches Ammon, Moab, Edom, and the Philistines – all the main neighbors of the old lost kingdom.  It’s weird – they’re denounced for taking their vengeance upon Judah, and for that they’ll be destroyed by God – but we just had a bunch of chapters about how God will take his vengeance on Judah.  So God will punish the neighboring nations for treating Judah like he did.  I guess they were out of line.  Their motivations were wrong.  God takes out vengeance because they acted poorly and didn’t worship him enough.  The others guys are just out for loot.

Oh, and we stumble into one of the great intersections between the Bible and pop culture.  Sort of.  Even seen Pulp Fiction?  Well, at the beginning of the movie, when Samuel L. Jackson wastes the one kid, he quotes his favorite Bible passage: Ezekiel, chapter 25, verse 17. 

Here is what Samuel L. Jackson says:

"The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the
tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you!”

Great, Old Testament quote of vengeance, isn’t it?  Yeah, well, it’s actually a Quentin Tarantino thing.  It’s a greatly modified version of what the Bible says in verses 15-17 in Ezekiel, the section on the Philistines.  Here are the actual words (with number to mark when the new verses begin):

“(15) Thus says the Lord God: Because the Philistines acted vengefully and exacted vengeance with intentional malice, destroying with undying hostility, (16) therefore thus says the Lord God: See!  I am stretching out my hand against the Philistines, and I will cut of the Cheerhites and wipe out the remnant on the seacoast.  (17) Thus I will execute great acts of vengeance upon them, punishing them furiously.  Then they shall know that I am the Lord, when I wreak my vengeance on them.” 

Basically, Tarantino modified verse 17, and then added on a new first half to it.  His quote is too long for one verse. 

So there’s that.

CHAPTER 26

Now for the main cursing: Tyre.  Looking it up, Lyre is a big port city in what’s now Lebanon.  And I have no idea what Tyre has done to deserve the venom Ezekiel preaches against it, but preach against it he does.  Folk, after blowing throw Ammon, Moab, Edom, and the Philistines in 17 verses, Ezekiel spends nearly three full chapters on Tyre.  Yeah, I don’t really get that, but nevertheless, there you go.

The actual curses themselves are pretty generic.  We’ve already seen plenty of similar statements in previous Bible books so it’s all just same old same old. 

CHAPTER 27

Actually, Ezekiel gets a little original here.  He compares Tyre to a ship.  It’s a rich ship with all this wealth and bling.  He spends half of the chapter going over all the trade goods that go to-and-fro from Tyre.  If anyone is really interested in the Eastern Mediterranean trade networks circa 600 BC, then this is the chapter for you.

Anyhow, after going on about Tyre’s wealth for so long, Ezekiel turns in the second half.  The wind will turn and shatter this ship, destroying it.  They’ll be destroyed and be no more.

CHAPTER 28

The first 19 verses here continue the curses on Tyre.  That’s 76 verses in all – this after barely four verses for the foursome back in Chapter 25. 

This doesn’t really remind me of Ezekiel very much.  First, it’s poetry.  Almost all of Ezekiel is in prose, but these sections typically aren’t.  Second, I’m extra suspicious after previous chapters.  Isaiah clearly was a compilation of multiple prophets – either that or the guy lived 200 years.  And Jeremiah’s prophecies against other nations were totally out of character.  It’s like there was an attempt to clean up some of these prophets after the fact.  Jeremiah may have hated people, but at least even he’d come out against the right enemy nations.  That makes him more palatable.  Ezekiel might be a weirdo, but at least he’s a weirdo who opposes our enemies, too.

Too be fair, this could be true.  I find the placement of theses prophecies in both Jeremiah and Ezekiel interesting.  In both places they come right after the fall of Jerusalem.  Hey, it’s easy to say it’s coming, but that doesn’t make its fall any less traumatic.  And that experience can rally you to your people – and thus against your enemies.  That can explain these prophecies in both Jeremiah and Ezekiel.  (In Isaiah, the prophecies are more in character; just spread out over too many years).

Yeah, they could be real prophecies from Jeremiah and Ezekiel.  But my hunch is they’re not. 

CHAPTER 29

It turns out the Tyre isn’t the only nation Ezekiel really has a problem with.  There is also Egypt.  This one goes after Egypt – and not for the last time in this section. 

It’s mostly standard stuff.  God is against the Pharaoh. Egypt will be made a desolate wasteland.  Look, it’s really hard to pay attention to this stuff, because it’s been said so many times before. 

But I’m glad I was able to pay attention, because halfway through, the chapter takes an unexpected turn.  We’re told, “But thus says the Lord God: At the end of forty years I will gather the Egyptians from among the peoples where they are scattered.  I will restore Egypt’s fortunes, bringing them back to the land of Pathros, the land of their origin.” 

Wait – what?  This is new.  Well, sure we’ve heard things like this before, but never about the Egyptians.  It’s only been about the Hebrew.  It’s like God forgot who is chosen people are or something.  He’s redeeming the former enslavers of the Children of Israel!  The hell?

Well, it’s not all good news.  He’ll let them come back, but they’ll be, “lower than any other kingdom, no longer able to set itself above the nations.” Oh, so they’ll be restored – but only to a lowly status.  Still, that earlier part sure gave me a start.

Oh, and there is a prophecy about Babylon at the end.  It’s notable for having the latest timestamp of any Ezekiel prophesy: April 26, 571 BC.  His first prophecy came in July 593. 

CHAPTER 30

It’s more denouncing of Egypt.  Actually, while reading this, I noticed something was missing.  It’s not something that would be missing from most prophets, but this isn’t just any old prophet.  This is Ezekiel.  And he’s always had one notable hang-up when it came to Egyptians and it isn’t here: penises.  Where’s all the penis talk, Ezekiel?  In 16:26 and 23:20 Ezekiel goes out of his way to not only bring up Egyptian penises, but tell us how big they are.  But in all these curses – nothing like that.

Well, maybe.  Here’s the best you can get: “The pillars of Egypt shall fall, and its proud strength sink.”  Huh huh. Heh.  Huh.  Hey Beavis, the Bible says Egypt’s pillars shall fall! 

CHAPTER 31

Ezekiel makes an allegory between the pharaoh and a tree.  God says he made a great tree, a big tree, a beautiful tree.  But then the tree became arrogant and prideful.  (sigh) So true – haven’t we all that experience with trees? 

So God had the tree whacked and sent to Sheol.  Trees in hell?  Sure, why not – trees in hell!  Oh, in the last line, Ezekiel tells us that the tree is you, pharaoh.  Yeah, we figured.  But that analogy made less sense in the execution that you’d like, Ezekiel.

CHAPTER 32

Its yet another chapters denouncing the pharaoh and all Egypt.  Short version: they’ll get theirs, and it’ll be because they’ve angered God.

Click here for the next part of Ezekiel.