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Book of Ezekiel
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The Book of Ezekiel is a book of the Hebrew Bible (of the Books of the Bible) named after the prophet Ezekiel.
Book of Ezekiel was written for the captives of the tribe of Judah living in exile in Babylon following the Siege of Jerusalem of 597 BC. Up until that exile, their custom had been to worship their God in the Temple in Jerusalem. Exile raised important theological questions. How, the Judeans asked, could they worship their God when they were now in a distant land? Was their God still available to them? Ezekiel speaks to this problem.
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The Book of Ezekiel is a book of the Hebrew Bible (of the Books of the Bible) named after the prophet Ezekiel.
Historical background
The Book of Ezekiel was written for the captives of the tribe of Judah living in exile in Babylon following the Siege of Jerusalem of 597 BC. Up until that exile, their custom had been to worship their God in the Temple in Jerusalem. Exile raised important theological questions. How, the Judeans asked, could they worship their God when they were now in a distant land? Was their God still available to them? Ezekiel speaks to this problem. He first explains that the Judean exile is a punishment for disobedience and he then offers hope to the exiles, suggesting that the exile will be reversed once they return to God.
Unlike their ancestors, who were enslaved and socially marginalized while in exile in Egypt, the Jews of Ezekiel's time were able to become part of the society they found themselves in. The Exiles were told by Jeremiah not to worship the foreign gods, but Jeremiah did tell them that they could become part of the Babylonian culture. They did this well, often being called upon by the Babylonians to complete projects using their skills as artisans.
Unlike other enemies, the Babylonians allowed the Jewish people to settle in small groups. While keeping their religious and national identities, many Jewish people did start to settle into their new environment. From building homes to opening businesses, the Jews seemed to settle into their exile land for the long haul.
This growing comfort in Babylon helps to explain why so many Jewish people decided not to return to their land. Many people would have been born in exile and would know nothing of their old land, so when the opportunity came for them to reclaim the land that was taken from them, many decided not to leave the Babylonian land they knew. This large group of people who decided to stay are known to be the oldest of the Jewish diaspora communities along with the Jews of Persia.
Biography
The Book of Ezekiel gives little detail about Ezekiel's life. In it, he is mentioned only twice by name: 1:3 and 24:24. Ezekiel is a priest, the son of Buzi (my contempt), and his name means "God will strengthen". He was one of the Israelite exiles, who settled at a place called Tel-abib, on the banks of the Chebar, "in the land of the Chaldeans." The place is thus not identical to the modern city Tel Aviv, which is, however, named after it. He was probably carried away captive with Jehoiachin (1:2; 2 Kings 24:14-16) about 597 BC.
Content
Summary
The first chapter of the Book of Ezekiel is a description of Ezekiel's visionary encounter with the Lord who appears to him upon a chariot composed of 4 living creatures each having 4 faces and calf's feet. This agglomeration is carried about by some unusual beryl colored wheels which are also described in considerable detail. Following this introduction, Ezekiel contains three distinct sections.
- Judgment on Israel - Ezekiel makes a series of denunciations against his fellow Judeans (), warning them of the certain destruction of Jerusalem, in opposition to the words of the false prophets (). The symbolic acts, by which the extremities to which Jerusalem would be reduced are described in , show his intimate acquaintance with the Levitical legislation. (See, for example, Exodus ; Deuteronomy ; Leviticus ; ; ; ; )
- Prophecies against various neighboring nations: against the Ammonites (), the Moabites (), the Edomites (), the Philistines (), Tyre and Sidon (), and against Egypt ().
- Prophecies delivered after the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar II: the triumphs of Israel and of the kingdom of God on earth (); Messianic times, and the establishment and prosperity of the kingdom of God ().
Ezekiel 20: Radical laws that were not good; charges of human sacrifice
Ezekiel 20 is noted by many biblical commentators as being perhaps the most difficult section of the Tanakh to understand. Ezekiel 20:25-26 states that God gave "statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not have life; and I defiled them through their very gifts in making them offer by fire all their first-born, that I might horrify them." A plain reading of this text has us understand that God Himself deliberately gave the Israelites commandments impossible to follow, including a commandment to kill their own first-born children in the name of God.
There are many problems with such a text:
(A) Elsewhere in the Book of Ezekiel God condemns all such actions as evil and unlawful. Why would Ezekiel write these two sentences which contradict the rest of his own book?
(B) This section contradicts all other texts of the Hebrew Bible.
(C) There is no extra-Biblical tradition, even within Judaism's oral law, that such commandments from God ever existed.
First, in Ezekiel 16, Ezekiel has God condemn acts of human sacrifice:
- And you took your sons and your daughters, whom you had borne to me, and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your harlotries so small a matter that you slaughtered my children and delivered them up as an offering by fire to them? (Ezek. 16:20-21)
This section is in line with other sections of the Hebrew Bible, which note instances of sacrifice, and condemn them as evil.
However, a few sentences later the text reverses course, and states:
- Moreover I gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not have life; and I defiled them through their very gifts in making them offer by fire all their first-born, that I might horrify them; I did it that they might know that I am the LORD. (Ezek. 20:25-26)
The text of the Book of Ezekiel, 20:30-31, reverses course again and states that when the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness after the Exodus from Egypt, some sacrificed their sons by fire, an act which God strongly condemns.
- Will you defile yourselves after the manner of your fathers and go astray after their detestable things? When you offer your gifts and sacrifice your sons by fire, you defile yourselves with all your idols to this day. And shall I be inquired of by you, O house of Israel? As I live, says the Lord GOD, I will not be inquired of by you. (Ezek. 20:30-31)
How are readers to understand these exceedingly difficult verses? They are difficult because of the plain contradictions, and the immoral connotations of God's claims in 20:25-26. Over the last two millennia both Jewish and Christian Bible commentators have come up with a variety of interpretations, and in the last century and a half modern, academic Bible scholars have come up with their own ideas on how to understand the text. The most recent innovation is the use of modern, academic scholarship within and by segments of the religious Jewish community, and the religious Christian community.
Views of religious Jewish commentators
- Perhaps the most common understanding of these verses comes from the medieval Bible commentator Rashi. He holds that since the Israelites eventually made a choice to not observe the Torah's commandments, God allowed their evil impulse to disobey the law to predominate over their impulse to follow the law, thus leading to evil actions.
- Writing in Ezekiel, from the Soncino Bible commentary series, Rabbi S. Fisch writes "Rashi's explanation seems to come nearer to the Biblical doctrine which ascribes to God the inevitable consequence of man's choice of action. Thus God is said to have hardened Pharaoh's heart where the intention is that He let the king harden his heart. See on the phrase "I am the Lord have enticed that prophet" (xiv.9)
- Ezekiel, by Rabbi S. Fisch, Edited by Rev. Dr. A. Cohen, The Soncino Press, London, 1960
- Some religious Jewish Bible commentators believe that the "statutes that were not good" refer to foreign, non-Israelite laws that the exiled Israelites were forced into following. This is the view of David Kimchi, and of David Altschuler in his Metzudat David (18th century).
- Some hold that the text of the book is not perfect, and has small lacunae. Lower textual criticism of the text of the Hebrew Bible - to varying extents - is allowable within classical Judaism, and in all modern forms of Judaism today (Orthodox, Conservative and Reform. An example of this point of view can be found in the writings of Rabbi Meir Loeb Malbi, known as the Malbim. Professor Hyam Maccoby writes that a translation based on the Malbim's commentary would run like this:
23. I too swore to them in the wilderness to scatter them among the nations and to spread them among the lands -
24. Because they did not perform my judgments and despised my statutes and profaned my sabbaths and their eyes were set on the idols of their ancestors,
25. (for they said that) I had even given them statutes that were not good and judgments by which they could not live,
26. And that I had defiled them in their offerings (by commanding them) to sacrifice the firstborn (of animals only) - so as to devastate them, so that they may know that I am the Lord.
Maccoby continues "The four verses form one sentence, with a parenthesis from the beginning of v. 23 to the middle of v. 26. The phrase `so as to devastate them', in v. 26 takes up the threat to scatter and spread them in v. 23. Three lacunae are posited. The first, in v. 25, puts the problematic words, `I had given them statutes that were not good and judgments by which they could not live' into the mouths of the erring Israelites.... The two lacunae in v. 26, however, are more necessary to the sense proposed. This verse represents the Israelites as reproving God for depriving them of the sanctity and purity they would have acquired by sacrificing their firstborn sons. By confining sacrifice of the firstborn to animals, in the Torah law about `womb-openers' (Exodus 13: 12), God has left the Israelites in a state of impurity."
- Statutes That Were Not Good (Ezekiel 20:25-26): Traditional Interpretations, The Journal of the Society for Textual Reasoning, Vol.8, 1999, Hyam Maccoby, University of Leeds
- Non-Orthodox Jewish commentators accept the results of higher textual criticism of the Torah. As such, they hold that the religion of the Israelites did not develop all at once, but rather developed over time. This allows them to postulate more than one reason for these verses. In The Jewish Study Bible, (Ed. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler) mention two possibilities: (A) God never gave such laws, but some Israelites misinterpreted the Bible, or (B) one early form of the Israelite religion actually allowed child sacrifice of the first-born (but note that these commentators do not say that this was actually God's will.)
Since the people disobeyed God's good laws, He gave them bad laws instead, exemplified by child sacrifice. Whether this is the way that some Israelites interpreted Exod. 22.28; 34.19, and whether at an early point in Israelite religion sacrifice of the first-born was regularly practiced, is unclear. It seems, however, that some believed God approved of child sacrifice (Deut. 12.29; Jer. 7.31; 19.5; 32.25). The notion that God misled the people so that He could condemn them for it is found in 14.9. (p.1078)
The Jewish Study Bible, Ed. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, Oxford University Press, 2004)
Views of religious Christian commentators
A Roman Catholic Bible with commentary, the Douay-Rheims Bible, holds that the "statutes that were not good" refer to foreign, non-Israelite laws that the exiled Israelites were forced into following. (As noted above, this is also the view of some Jewish commentators, e.g. David Kimchi and David Altschuler.)
- 25. Therefore I also gave them statutes that were not good, and judgments, in which they shall not live.
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Statutes that were not good, etc... Viz., the laws and ordinances of their enemies; or those imposes upon them by that cruel tyrant the devil, to whose power they were delivered up for their sins.
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Many Christians have believed that their God indeed commanded the Israelites to engage in human sacrifice of their first-born children. While such a belief would seem to condemn the very same God that Christians themselves worship, this claim was nonetheless made in order to make the Torah, the source of law for the Jews, appear evil, thus forcing people to view a later revelation, the Christian New Testament, as being the only true and ethical understanding of the Bible.
- 'I gave them statutes that were not good, and ordinances by which they could not have life.' This text was much used in the Christian Adversus Judaeos literature to prove that the Mosaic law was intrinsically evil, given only as a punishment, and not expressing the true and final will of God (William Nicholls, Christian Antisemitism, p. 216; see Rosemary Ruether, Faith and Fratricide, p. 153ff.). Even more damaging was the use of the following verse by Enlightenment antisemites (Voltaire, D'Holbach) and later followers to argue that the Hebrew Bible advocates human sacrifice (`Molochism').
Statues That Were Not Good (Ezekiel 20:25-26): Traditional Interpretations, Hyam Maccoby, The Journal of the Society for Textual Reasoning, Vol.8, 1999, University of Leeds
Views of modern, academic commentators
Others hold the view that this passage was mistranslated as the Hebrew Masoretic text doesn't even include the word "fire" as is often used in common Translations. The Septuagint translation of the Old Testament into Greek in the 3rd century B.C. translates it differently: "25 So I gave them commandments that were not good, and ordinances in which they should not live. 26 And I will defile them by their own decrees, when I pass through upon every one that opens the womb, that I may destroy them." This oldest of translations doesn't present any contradiction with the rest of Scripture.
Ezekiel's resurrection of the dead
Ezekiel's greatest miracle consisted in his resurrection of the dead, which is recounted in Ezek. xxxvii. There are different traditions as to the fate of these men, both before and after their resurrection, and as to the time at which it happened.
Rabbinic views on the resurrection of the dead
Jewish Bible commentators have been greatly divided on the interpretation of this section, and fall into two categories. One group believes that this event actually took place, while another group believes that Ezekiel was actually recording one of his prophetic visions.
In the former group, some rabbinic Jewish sources say that the resurrected men were godless people who had committed sins. Other rabbinic sources say that they were those Ephraimites who tried to escape from Egypt before Moses, and perished in the attempt. Some state that after Nebuchadnezzar had carried the youths of Judah to Babylon, he had them executed and their bodies mutilated, because their beauty had entranced the Babylonian women, and that it was these youths whom Ezekiel called back to life.
In the rabbinic midrash literature, it is written that the miracle was performed on the same day on which the three men were cast into the fiery furnace; namely, on Shabbat and Yom Kippur, (Cant. Rabbah vii. 9). Nebuchadnezzar, who had made a drinking-cup from the skull of a murdered Jew, was greatly astonished when, at the moment that the three men were cast into the furnace, the bodies of the dead boys moved, and, striking him in the face, cried out: "The companion of these three men revives the dead!" (see a Karaite distortion of this episode in Judah Hadasi's "Eshkol ha-Kofer," 45b, at foot; 134a, end of the section). When the boys awakened from death, they rose up and joined in a song of praise to God for the miracle vouchsafed to them; later, they went to the land of Israel, where they married and reared children.
However, as early as the second century, however, some authorities declared this resurrection of the dead was a prophetic vision: see the opinion regarded by Maimonides in his Guide for the Perplexed, II:46) This view has been adopted by his followers as the only rational explanation of the Biblical passage.
According to Walther Zimmerli, the number twenty-five is of cardinal importance in Ezekiel's Temple Vision (in the Bible, Ezekiel chapters 40-48).
In the construction there appears the figure twenty-five and its multiples: the gate (inside measurement) is twenty-five cubits wide; its length (outside measurement) is fifty cubits; a hundred cubits is the distance from gate to gate; the inner court is a hundred cubits square; so that the total measurement of the temple area, as the measurement in 42:15-20 makes quite explicit, is five hundred square cubits. This system of measurement is still effective in the undoubtedly later description of the allocation of land in chapter 48 in the measurement of the terumah [consecrated area] in the narrower sense (48:20) at twenty-five thousand cubits by twenty-five thousand. But that is not all. The measurement of the steps of the ascent at the level of the sanctuary begins with the figure seven, which is again significance here (40:22, 26). The inner court is reached by eight steps (40:31, 34, 37), while the level of the temple building is reached by a further ten steps (40:49, emended text). Thus the measurement of the steps forming the ascent as a whole again comes to the figure twenty-five. From this point of view one cannot suppress the question whether the figure in the date in 40:1, the twenty-fifth year, is not also to be evaluated in this context of numerical stylization. [Source: Ezekiel 2 by Walther Zimmerli (Philadelphia:Fortress Press, 1983 English Translation), p. 344].
Relation to other books in the Hebrew Bible
It is generally agreed that the Book of Ezekiel refers to the Torah (e.g., Ezek. 27; 28:13; 31:8; 36:11, 34; 47:13, etc.) quite often, and shows on a number of occasions that its author is familiar with the writings of Hosea (Ezek. 37:22), Isaiah (Ezek. 8:12; 29:6), and especially with those of Jeremiah, (Jeremiah 24:7, 9; 48:37).
According to religious traditionalists, Ezekiel 14:14 refers to the Daniel described in the Biblical Book of Daniel, fourteen years after Daniel's deportation from Jerusalem, and Ezekiel 28:3 mentions this Daniel again as being 'pre-eminent in wisdom'. In support of this interpretation, traditionalists note that the name Daniel appears in the Book of Ezekiel immediately after the names of Noah and Job, two other major Biblical characters.
Some non-traditionalist commentators disagree, noting that a "Daniel" also appears in ancient Ugaritic texts, that Daniel isn't specifically described as a contemporary (indeed, the phrase "Noah, Daniel and Job" implies otherwise), and that the Book of Daniel is widely regarded by modern scholars as having been written centuries later.
Relation to the New Testament
It is generally agreed that the closing visions of the Book of Ezekiel are referred to in the book of Revelation, in the Christian New Testament.
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Other references to this book are also found in the New Testament.
(Compare Epistle to the ; ; .)
Important dates
The Book of Ezekiel can be dated based on the links it records between the rule of King Jehoiachin (King of Jerusalem) and the other events that the book describes. According to this system, Ezekiel was originally written in the 22 year period between 593 to 571 BC. The following table lists events in Ezekiel with their dates.
Dates of Book of Ezekiel | Event | Verse Reference | Date |
|---|
| Chariot Vision (Merkabah) | | April 5, 593 BC. | | Call to be a Watchman | | June 13, 593 | | Temple Vision | | August 23, 592 | | Discourse with Elders | | July 19, 591 | | Second Siege of Jerusalem | | December 22, 589 | | Judgment on Tyre | | March 30, 587 | | Judgment on Egypt | | December 13, 588 | | Judgment on Egypt | | March 3, 571 | | Judgment on Egypt | | April 5, 587 | | Judgment on Egypt | | May 28, 587 | | Lament over Pharaoh | | February 18, 586 | | Lament over Egypt | | April 2, 586 | | Fall of Jerusalem | | December 13, 586 | | New Temple Vision | | September 26, 573 |
On the fifth day of the fourth month in the thirtieth year of his exile (5 Tammuz, 593 BC), he said he beheld on the banks of the Chebar the glory of God, who consecrated him as a prophet. The latest date in his book is the first day of the first month in the twenty-seventh year of his exile (1 Nisan, 571 BC); consequently, his prophecies extended over twenty-two years.
The elders of the exiles repeatedly visited him to obtain a divine oracle (chapters 8, 14, 20). He exerted no permanent influence upon his contemporaries, however, whom he repeatedly calls the "rebellious house" (2:5, 6, 8; 3:9, 26, 27; and elsewhere), complaining that although they flock in great numbers to hear him they regard his discourse as a sort of aesthetic amusement, and fail to act in accordance with his words (33:30-33). If the enigmatical date, "the thirtieth year" (1:1), be understood to apply to the age of the prophet, Ezekiel was born exactly at the time of the reform in the ritual introduced by Josiah. Concerning his death nothing is known.
He had a house in the place of his exile, Tel-Abib, where he lost his wife, in the ninth year of his exile, by some sudden and unforeseen stroke (Ezek. 8:1; 24:18).
His ministry extended over twenty-six years 597 - 571 BC (29:17), during part of which he was contemporary with Jeremiah, and probably also with Obadiah. According to tradition, he would also have been contemporary with Daniel (however, Daniel is regarded by some as being written much later, with Ezekiel's references to "Daniel" being seen as references to an ancient Ugaritic hero of that name, not a contemporary). The time and manner of his death are unknown. His reputed tomb is pointed out in the neighbourhood of Hilla or ancient Babylon, at a place called Al Kifl.
After being led away by the Babylonians on May 29, 597, Ezekiel, along with the other Israelites, was resettled in Babylon. Ezekiel himself lived in his own home in exile at Tel-abib near Chebar canal, which was near Nippur in Babylonia.
Secular and academic views
Authorship
In 1924, Gustav Hoelscher questioned the authorship of Ezekiel, challenging the conventional wisdom that the book was written by one person and expresses one train of thought and style, and arguing instead that 1,103 of the verses in Ezekiel were added at a later date.
Since then, the academic community has been split into a number of different camps over the authorship of the book. W. Zimmerli proposes that Ezekiel's original message was influenced by a later school that added a deeper understanding to the prophecies. Other groups, like the one led by M. Greenberg, still tend to see the majority of the work of the book done by Ezekiel himself.
Traditionally, the book of Ezekiel is thought to have been written in the 500s BCE during the Babylonian exile of the southern Israelite kingdom, Judah. This date is confirmed to some extent in that the author of the book of Ezekiel appears to use a dating system which was only used in the 500s BCE..
See also
External links
Book of Ezekiel a book by Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag : a complete commentary by Stephen Barkley
On-line translations
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