Lawrence Boadt provides this
introduction to the book of Ezekiel in his book, Reading the Old Testament….
The most remarkable individual during
Israel’s period of exile was the prophet Ezekiel. The opening lines of his book
tell us that he was called in the fifth year of the exile, i.e., 593 B. C., at
a Jewish settlement on the Chebar (Kebar) River, one of the great canals that
brought water from the Euphrates to irrigate the lands around Babylon. He was,
like Jeremiah, both a priest and a prophet, although he shows distinct
differences from Jeremiah by making more use of his priestly training in his
message. On the other hand, many of his oracles are clearly influenced by, and
drawn from the work of, his older contemporary Jeremiah. He spoke with a great
deal of freedom and seemed to have been very well informed about what was going
on back in Jerusalem, sometimes describing scenes in the temple and city that
are just like eyewitness accounts. We know that Jeremiah wrote letters to the
exiles, and Ezekiel himself mentions messengers who traveled back and forth (Ez
33), so it is most likely that he received word through travelers and used this
plus a first-hand knowledge of the temple from the days before he was exiled.
But some scholars are so impressed at how vivid his knowledge of Jerusalem is
(in chapter 8, for example) that they doubt he could have been anywhere else
than in Jerusalem during the last days of Judah.
One reason that they believe this stems
from the personality of the prophet as it is described for us in his book.
Ezekiel shows strong tendencies toward psychic powers and an older style of
prophetic behavior which includes dreams, trances, ecstasy and fantastic
visions. He speaks of the hand of the Lord lifting him up and transporting him
places, or of the spirit of the Lord moving him. He does symbolic actions which
seem impossible for an ordinary person, such as lying on his side for three
hundred and ninety days (chapter 4) or not speaking for long periods (chapter
24). Because of these kinds of behavior, many commentators have called Ezekiel
a psychotic person, or at least highly neurotic. But they miss an important
factor by doing popular psychoanalysis on the prophet. All of his actions and
visions draw on very old traditional language used by prophets in earlier
centuries. Elijah and Elisha stories often refer to the work of the spirit of
God or of the hand of the Lord. Visions and ecstasy are recorded for prophets
in the days of both Samuel and Elijah. Many of his own words of warning and
judgment are borrowed from the old curses attached to treaties, or from
covenant ceremonies of one type or another.
In short, Ezekiel was not crazy, he was
very skillfully trying to recreate a
sense of trust that God still worked as he always had, and that he still
spoke with as much authority and power as he always had. This was no easy task
for Ezekiel. The people had seen—and were suffering themselves because of
it—how empty and false were most of the comforting words of hope that prophets
had spoken to them. It was true that Jeremiah had given warning, but what about
the others? Hananiah of Jeremiah 28 and countless more spoke only of the coming
victory of God—and never of defeat. Ezekiel sought to restore to prophecy some
trust and some leadership for the exiles.
Ezekiel was the first prophet to preach
to the people without either the temple or the promised land to show God’s
presence. For this reason, the story of his call to be a prophet has an even
more important place to play in his book than does that of Jeremiah. In one of
the greatest scenes in the Old Testament, Ezekiel describes the appearance of
God in majesty upon a chariot throne. The vision of God’s holiness and terrible
power overwhelms the prophet, and his description is full of color and shape
and motion as he tries to capture the experience. The whole vision takes three
chapters to complete, and Jewish tradition has considered it so full of
mystical meaning that a person is not allowed to study it until he or she is a
mature thirty years old. It shares many qualities with the call of Isaiah in
Isaiah 6. God is the Holy One, not like us, but Lord of the world before whom
we bow down in humble acceptance of his will. As did Isaiah, Ezekiel eagerly
accepts what God sends him, and like Isaiah it turns out to be a message
written on a scroll that reads “Lamentation and wailing and woe” (Ez 2:10). God
sends him to “a nation of rebels, who have rebelled against me to this very
day” (Ez 2:3). “Hard of face and stubborn of heart are they to whom I send you”
(Ez 2:4). Just as God made Jeremiah a wall of iron and brass against the whole
land (Jer 1:18), so God makes Ezekiel’s “face hard against their faces, and
your forehead hard against their foreheads; like stone harder than flint I have
made your forehead” (Ez 3:8-9).
It was not a commission designed to
make Ezekiel any more popular than Jeremiah had been. As the vision ended he
went away in “bitterness of spirit, for the hand of the Lord was heavy upon
him” (Ez 3:14). Finally, after seven days of shocked meditation, God spoke to
him a second time and told him that his role was to be the watchman over
Israel. Just as Jeremiah was to have been a “watching tree” (the almond vision
of Jeremiah 1:11-12), and Habakkuk had stood in his watchtower (Hb 2:1), so
Ezekiel had to sound a warning when he saw what God was about to do. This
concept of the prophet’s task stands at the heart of Ezekiel’s thought. He
repeats it, not only in chapter 3 when he warns of danger and disaster ahead,
but again in chapter 33 when he offers words of hope and future restoration.
But he must speak whether anyone listens or not. He has his duty and the people
have theirs. If the people fail to hear, that will be their problem, but if he
fails to preach, the responsibility will be his.
Boadt also provides this outline of the
book….
Chapters 1-24: Oracles against Judah
and Jerusalem before 586 B. C.
Chapters 25-32: Oracles against foreign
nations
Chapters 33-48: Oracles of hope and
restoration for Judah
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