Lawrence Boadt continues his commentary
on this unusual and fascinating book….
We cannot be sure that Ezekiel himself
had a hand in arranging his oracles in this exact way, but if he did not do it
personally, it must have been done very soon after his death. The plan is very
carefully modeled on the Book of Joshua which tells of the holy war for
possession of the promised land. So, too, Ezekiel first preaches against the
people’s sins in order to purify them for the battle; then he denounces the
power of the foreign nations and rids the holy land of its enemies; lastly, he
portions out the land to the tribes of Israel.
Beyond this basic outline, several
oracles have dates connected with them so that we can follow the progress of
the prophet’s thought. This is especially true of the oracles in chapters 25-32,
almost all of which are dated to the period of greatest crisis just before the
final fall of Jerusalem in 586 and 585 B. C. They give such a clear picture of
the times that there is no need to doubt that many of these oracles came
directly from the prophet’s own hands.
Ezekiel’s style is also unique. It is
elaborate and favors long oracles with many repetitions and literary allegories
and images. Unlike the shorter and more direct words of an Amos or Hosea or
Isaiah, Ezekiel creates very dramatic picture stories, in which he uses other
people’s words, or a favorite proverb, or even pagan myths about the gods, to
get his point across. Examples of this are the allegory of the two eagles in
chapter 17, the great mythical cedar tree in chapter 31, or his description of
Egypt as the great sea monster Leviathan in chapters 29 and 32. He describes
the city of Tyre as a great ship sinking with all its cargo, and compares the
two kingdoms of Israel and Judah to two sisters who choose to live as
prostitutes (chapters 16 and 23).
Another striking feature in Ezekiel is
his use of symbolic actions and visions. He draws diagrams on a brick to show
how the city will be taken (chapter 4), he cuts his beard into three parts and
burns one part, chops up another, and throws the rest to the wind to show what
will happen to the city (chapter 5), and he puts on a backpack and breaks
through the walls of his own house to imitate the attempts people will make to
escape during the coming siege by Babylon (chapter 12). He not only has the
vision of Yahweh in his chariot in chapters 1-3 but another vision of the
divine angels marking off the city of Jerusalem for destruction in chapter 8, a
vision of the priests performing pagan worship in the temple itself in the same
chapter, and a vision of God’s glory leaving the city in chapter 11 and its
return again in chapter 43. He sees a famous vision of dead bones that come to
life in chapter 37. Through the symbolic actions and the visions the prophet
conveys the seriousness of his message and also shows the continuity of God’s
care—he can be seen guiding and controlling both the punishment and the
restoration as different stages of his plan.
When all these aspects are considered
closely, the Book of Ezekiel has a great deal more unity than most other
prophetic books, even those much shorter, and confirms the earlier remark that
Ezekiel himself is responsible for a good part of its order. This is just the
opposite of the Book of Jeremiah, which was edited and arranged long after his
death by others.
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