Like the book of Isaiah, the book of Ezekiel is hard to follow and I'm pretty sure it's not helped by trying to read it in the KJV as opposed to a more modern version. Right away in chapter 1, there are unfathomable descriptions of Ezekiel's vision of God, involving wheels within wheels and a 4-headed monster – almost as if to demonstrate how language breaks down when it attempts to describe a divine manifestation so incomprehensible and mystifying. Dante does a much better job when describing a similar vision near the end of the Divine Comedy, when the pilgrim meets Beatrice.
On a more basic level, it's also unclear where Ezekiel is located at times, with references to Jerusalem as well as Babylon. What we can gather from the book though is that Ezekiel was among the Judeans deported to Babylon, and the first 11 chapters are devoted to the idea of the divine presence abandoning Jerusalem. There's the sense of an upending of the natural order of things – "Therefore the fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of thee, and the sons shall eat their fathers" (5:5) – and a furious God about to inflict merciless retribution on his people: "Destruction cometh; and they shall seek peace, and there shall be none" (7:25).
After cataloguing the sins of the nation of Israel, such as the heresy of worshipping the sun to the east (8:16), God unleashes carnage and spares no one – "Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women" (9:6). Now I'm nearing the end of the Old Testament, I have to confess that these passages about Israel's constant sinning and God's brutal revenge have been the least edifying; not only am I sick of hearing the same old story, I also find the gory details – such as the annihilation of young children here – pretty distasteful.
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| Ezekiel, by Michelangelo |
Breaking the Book of Ezekiel down into five sections, the second part (chapters 12-24) deals broadly with the prophet's criticisms of the rebellious house of Israel. In chapter 13, Ezekiel's complaints about false prophets takes on an almost postmodern dimension – after all, how does the lay person decide where the truth lies? – but nonetheless he shows no sympathy for the way that the people of Jerusalem continually fail to distinguish the true prophets from the fake ones. As a punishment for their errant ways, Ezekiel outlines in 14:21 how four "sore judgments” (famine, the sword, pestilence and the “noisome beast”) will befall Israel, leaving just a purged "remnant" population out of which a new, more virtuous community will grow. This process is referred to figuratively in one of the book's many poetic parables:
And all the trees of the field shall know
that I the Lord have brought down the high tree,
have exalted the low tree, have dried up the green tree,
and have made the dry tree to flourish (17:24)
Chapter 16 confused me a little, with how it seems to suggest that Sodom was no worse a city of sin that most others and that homosexuality wasn't its crime – "Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness" (16:49) – while throughout there's something xenophobic about Ezekiel's naming Jerusalem a "harlot" for the way its people have had sexual relations with people from other cities in Assyria and Egypt. Occasionally, Ezekiel delves into theology, such as the line, "The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son" (18:20), which reveals a more liberal view of human nature, in the way it judges people on their actions not their background. By the end of the second section, we're given a vision of the future in which the scattered Jews will be restored to God on his "holy mountain” (20:40), but for now the house of Israel is still described as “dross” (22:18).
In the third section (chapters 25-32), Ezekiel voices his oracles against foreign nations – there are similar such passages in Isaiah and Jeremiah, making it a feature of the major prophetical books – with Tyrus (once in Phoenicia, now modern-day Tyre in Lebanon) the first target, with God telling the inhabitants the music will soon be over, "I will cause the noise of thy songs to cease; and the sound of thy harps shall be no more heard" (26:13). Chapter 27 is full of names of exotic places that Tyre has traded with, making it sound like the Venice of the ancient world – interestingly, Ezekiel's prophecy of Tyre's demise didn't later come true (is he then a false prophet?). Another nation on Ezekiel's radar is Egypt, with the Pharaoh a particular target of anger and referred to as the “great dragon” (29:3). In chapter 31, he's also described as a proud tree that has grown too tall, so God promises to cast the Pharaoh down to hell (31:16), presumably after he's fulfilled his threats to break the Pharaoh's arms and leave his carcass out for wild beasts to feed on.
The Book of Ezekiel's fourth section (chapters 33-39) deals with general prophecies about the present and the future, with Ezekiel described as the "watchman" of Israel (33:7) and David as the nation's historical shepherd (34:23). There's a promise of cleansing and renewal for the people of Israel – "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh" (36:26). This is followed by the very famous valley of dry bones parable, detailing the resurrection of a "great army" of skeletons from their graves, a symbol of the future restoration of the house of Israel. The lines are extraordinary for their poetic power and vision, and have been hugely influential on popular culture, notably the song Dem Bones (which appears in one of my favourite British TV shows, The Singing Detective):
Following this, there are various apocalyptic visions detailing the demise of various nations, including those targeted at the mythical figure of Gog in the land of Magog, as well as Persia, Ethiopia and Libya (38:5). In chapters 38 and 39, Ezekiel's prophecy about the coming of a new Jerusalem starts to extend beyond the living and the dead, to all of creation:
So that the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the heaven,
and the beasts of the field, and all creeping things that creep upon the earth,
and all the men that are upon the face of the earth, shall shake at my presence,
and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the steep places shall fall,
and every wall shall fall to the ground (38:20)
In the final section of the Book of Ezekiel (40-48), we're given a very detailed vision of how the temple of Jerusalem will be rebuilt (which took me back to the highly specific instructions for the building of the tabernacle in the Book of Leviticus). The best way to conceptualise Ezekiel's vision for the new Jerusalem temple (as detailed in chapters 40-43) is one of the 3D videos lovingly created online, such as the one below:
In chapter 45, there's mention of a “prince” – which some Christian scholars have viewed as Christ – who will rule over this future city. At the end of the book, the city is given the name of “the Lord is there” (48:35), or Jehovah-Shammah. As part of this new start for Israel, the land will again be divided up among the 12 tribes, as detailed in chapters 47 and 48. This new covenant involves another wonderful prophetic vision of waters flowing from the temple into the land and dividing it into east, west, north and south.
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