CHAPTER XI

EZEKIEL

IN the death of the state of Judah it might seem to the onlooker that the battle for a purer Yahweh religion had been lost. But while the disintegration in Palestine was for the time complete, there was a spot far in the East where the ideas to which the prophets had given expression were cherished. This was the district in Babylonia where the exiles, carried away in 597, were settled. These exiles seem to have had some sort of civil organisation of their own. They were permitted to build houses, to plant gardens, and to consult each other concerning their common interests. At first their cohesion was secured by the hope of an early return, a hope which was fostered by prophets of their own as well as by messages from Jerusalem. When this hope was rudely shattered by the fall of their beloved city they were still united by the bond of religion. Their faith in Yahweh was, at least in the case of the more earnest, strengthened by the fact that the words of the prophets had been fulfilled.

The most drastic expression of Yahweh's threats was, as we have seen, that contained in the book of Deuteronomy. For the future of Judaism it was an important fact that by the fulfilment of these threats this book was more firmly fixed in the regard of the exiles. Other thoughts expressed in it were calculated to appeal to them. The strange customs of the people among whom they found themselves living would justify Deuteronomy's condemnation of all heathenism. Not less important was the assertion that Yahweh had made Israel his own by a deliberate act of

choice. His truth and righteousness, emphasised by the calamity which had fallen, gave ground for believing that he would not refuse to hear the prayer of the penitent who should turn to him with all their heart. The soil was thus prepared by Deuteronomy for the establishment of a new type of religion, and the man to cultivate the soil was not lacking.

This man was Ezekiel, to us one of the least sympathetic of the Old Testament characters. We Occidentals of the twentieth century find it difficult to understand his exaggerated visions, his fits of silence, and his grotesque actions. Yet he was only the complete example of a man possessed by the prophetic ideal. His visions differ from those of the other prophets only in their pitiless distinctness of detail; his actions only carry out to logical sequence the belief that the prophet's actions are a part of his message. The point in which he differed from his predecessors is due to the influence of Deuteronomy. What he receives from Yahweh is a book (Ezek. 2: 8 to 3:3). In a sense we may call him the first of the scribes, the exponent of a written revelation. And since he was of priestly birth and training, it is clear that the ritual element in Deuteronomy is the one that most distinctly appealed to him. The priestly ideal, embodied in the word sanctity, was already emphasised by the Deuteronomist. Ezekiel reveals his own point of view when he protests his own scrupulosity in the matter of ritual cleanliness (4:14). From this point of view we must interpret his work.

Ezekiel most distinctly influenced his people by his plans for the future. But before these could be fully appreciated. the prophet had a destructive work to do. This was to rid the exiles of many cherished notions. The prophetic ideal had never really impressed the great mass of the people. By Ezekiel it was so firmly held that he demanded a complete break with the past. Not that he had ceased to be an Israelite; the God whom he worshipped was the ancestral God, Yahweh, who in the most literal sense had taken up

his dwelling at the centre of the earth-in Jerusalem: "In the midst of the nations I have set her [Jerusalem] and round about her are the lands" (5: 5)-such is the declaration of Yahweh himself. Temporarily the temple was abandoned, because it had been too much polluted for Yahweh to remain there; but it was his chosen dwelling-place, and he would surely return thither.1 In the first period of his preaching the prophet uttered the most sweeping condemnations of Israel's past; if the people continued to walk in the ways in which the fathers had walked they were sure to perish.

The prophet's attitude toward foreign nations is that of the narrowest patriot. This might be supposed to come from the bitterness which the misfortunes of Judah had produced. But this would be an incomplete statement. Ezekiel desired not so much to see vengeance wreaked upon the oppressor as to see his God vindicated from the aspersions which the heathen were casting upon him. The fall of Jerusalem seemed to prove that Yahweh was too weak to protect his own city and his own temple. Ezekiel knew that he was the omnipotent one, and that the future must prove this to the heathen themselves. Yahweh himself declares that the result of his judgments will be to make them know that he is Yahweh (22 16 and elsewhere). Justice requires the fall of Jerusalem, but it requires also the punishment of the gentiles.

Ezekiel gives a detailed description of the vision which convinced him of his prophetic mission, and in it we discover the influence of ancient Israelite tradition. What he saw was a mighty cloud interfused with fire, in which as it drew nearer he discovered four living creatures, each with four faces and four wings. Beneath them were four wheels, and in the middle space an altar-fire. Above was a throne, and

1It is probably not without significance that Ezekiel nowhere uses the Deuteronomic phrase concerning Yahweh's making his name dwell in the temple. He thought too realistically to be satisfied with such a statement.

on it a human form of supernal brightness, which he discovered to be Yahweh himself. The whole is called by the prophet the glory of Yahweh (1:28). The thunder-cloud, in which the earliest Israelite belief saw the chariot of Yahweh, seems to furnish the basis for this vision. The composite figures which appear in it are the cherubim which guarded the ark in the temple of Solomon. The altar-fire is that of the temple itself. The originality of the prophet is to be found not in the details of the vision but in the use which he makes of them. The cherubim are transformed into supporters of the throne; the altar is made movable that it may accompany Yahweh in his wanderings. The wheels are to show that Yahweh is not bound to a single spot, but can move freely to all quarters of the earth. Since the temple is to be destroyed Yahweh is about to leave it and take up his residence in the mountain of the gods in the far north, whence he will visit his faithful exiles at intervals until the temple is rebuilt, when he will return there as of old.

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The celestial vision so fills Ezekiel's heart that he never reflects on the heathen divinities, and never inquires whether they have any reality. His only allusion to them is in passages which tell of Israel's idolatry. Here they are called 'abominations," or "sticks."1 Yahweh, however, is conceived of as highly anthropomorphic. In fact, he shows human passion in a marked degree in the very thing which Ezekiel has most at heart, that is, his anger at the sins of his people and his determination to vindicate his own reputation. Trespass on the sanctity of Yahweh is not only disobedience to the divine law; it is insult to the divine majesty. This is what arouses the anger of the divinity both against Israel and against the other nations. The detailed statement may be cited: "On the day that I chose Israel and swore to the offspring of the house of Jacob, and made myself known to them in the land of Egypt, saying: I am Yahweh your God-on that day I swore to them that I would bring them out of the land of Egypt to a land flowing with milk and honey, 1 Gillulim; the meaning of the word is not quite certain.

the glory of all lands. I said to them: Cast away every one the abomination of his eyes; defile not yourselves with the idols of the land of Egypt; I am Yahweh your God. But they rebelled against me and would not hear me; they did not cast away the abominations of their eyes, nor forsake the idols of Egypt. Then I resolved to pour out my fury upon them and accomplish my anger upon them in the land of Egypt; but I dealt with them for my name's sake, lest it should be profaned in the eyes of the nations in the midst of which they were, and in whose sight I had made known to them my purpose to bring them forth from the land of Egypt. I brought them forth from the land of Egypt and brought them into the wilderness" (20: 5-10). The passage goes on to show that the same thing had been repeated, first in the wilderness, but also in the land of Canaan. In every case the people had been unfaithful and had served other gods. In each particular case of unfaithfulness, also, Yahweh had been moved to destroy them, but had reflected for his name's sake and had spared them.

From this chapter we see that Ezekiel condemned the whole past history of Israel. In fact, as has been said by another, it was he who taught the people to misunderstand this history. To the earlier prophets the wilderness wandering was a time of harmony between God and the people (Hosea 11:1-3; Jer. 2:2f.), and the defection had begun only after the entrance into Canaan. But in the view of Ezekiel idolatry had begun in Egypt, and Yahweh would have been justified in destroying the people at the very beginning. This is undoubtedly the result of his reflection on the sinfulness of his contemporaries, for he finds no terms strong enough to describe the state of things in the Jerusalem of his own day. His vision takes him to the sinful city, and he sets forth in detail what he sees there. The parable of the adulterous wife, first used by Hosea, is adopted by Ezekiel and carried out in detail, and the parable is repeated in such form as to indict the two sister nations (16 and 23). The figure of the vine, used by the older prophets, is also taken