Day 241. Ezekiel 10-13

Today's reading is still part of the dream-vision that begins with chapter 8. In yesterday's reading the Lord tells the prophet, "Mortal, do you see what they are doing, the great abominations that the house of Israel are committing here [in Jerusalem], to drive me far from my sanctuary" (8:6). In today's reading the glory of the LORD actually does depart, leaving the city and its temple to destruction and profanation.
Our reading begins with another "throne-vision"—a vision of the sapphire throne surmounting the dome of heaven placed over the heads of cherubim riding upon a sort of celestial chariot. (You might think of it as a story of history-machine, powered by the will of God.) From the throne God addresses "the man clothed in linen"—in chapter 9 he was the one who is sent into Jerusalem to mark the foreheads of the righteous who grieve over the city's abominations--he is told to "go within the wheelwork [under the chariot] underneath the cherubim, fill [his] hand with burning coals from among the cherubim, and scatter them over the city" (10:2), symbolically kindling it.
The chariot-throne is "parked" on the south side of the temple, and the courts of the temple are filled with "the brightness of the glory of the LORD" (10:4). And we are given another description the vehicle "full of eyes all around" (10:12), and the cherubim with their faces like a cherub, a human being, a lion, and an eagle (10:14). (In later church iconology these come to represent the four evangelists.) The chariot-throne now moves to "the entrance of the east gate of the house of the LORD" (10:19)—this was the main ceremonial gate of the temple, and it had not been profaned as the north gate had been with "the image of jealousy" (8:3-5). (It is by this gate that the glory of the LORD will return to the temple in Ezekiel 43:4-5.)
There at the "east gate of the house of the LORD" (11:1)—I know this gate-business is confusing-- the prophet is shown twenty-five eminent men, "officials of the people"—other translations call them "princes"—secular leaders within the community. Some of them are named and would be known to Ezekiel's first hearers. They are counseling that all the city's resources should to be poured into its defensive walls and fortifications—"the city is the pot, and we are the meat" (11:3), they say. It is a witticism, but it infuriates the LORD because of the cynical pragmatism it represents. Again the spirit of the LORD falls upon the prophet—who, you remember, in body is still far away in Mesopotamia-- and commands him to say that there is no defense in the walls of the Jerusalem—the people "will be taken out of it" (11:7) and judged "at the border of Israel" (11:10).
But the LORD promises that those like Ezekiel who have already been taken out of the city into exile and "removed far away among the nations" (11:16), will one day be gathered "from the peoples." He will "assemble [them] of out of the countries where [they] have been scattered, and [he] will give [them] the land of Israel" (11:17). And when they do at last return, the LORD "will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them." The LORD will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, so they may follow [his] statutes and keep his ordinances and obey them. Then "they shall be [his] people, and [he] will be their God" (11:20). And once the exiles are assured it will return, the chariot-throne, bearing the glory of God leaves Jerusalem and goes to "the mountain east of the city" (11:23). The city and its inhabitants are at the mercy of the Babylonian army. Then the LORD spirits Ezekiel back to
his fellow exiles in Chaldea, to whom he reports all that the Lord has shown him.
One of the things that makes the Book of Ezekiel unique and interesting are the quaint and rather humorous visual parables he is instructed to act out for the benefit of his fellow exiles. This time the word of the LORD comes to him commanding him to pack "an exile's baggage" in the presence of the exile community and move "to another place in their sight" (12:3). He is to dig through the wall, and carry his baggage through it out into the dark as if he were escaping. In this way he acts out King Zedekiah's attempt to escape Jerusalem during the last hours of the siege. The fleeing king is caught by the Babylonians, brought before their king and blinded. In his mime the prophet foretells how Zedekiah will be brought to Babylon, "yet he will not see it; and he shall die there" (12:13).
The prophet is then told to "eat [his] bread with quaking, and drink [his]water with trembling and with fearfulness" (12:17), miming the fear and dismay of the inhabitants of Jerusalem in a desolated and ruined land. The doom of Jerusalem is coming soon, the LORD tells him. A cynical proverb current in Jerusalem at the time—"The days are prolonged, and every vision comes to nothing"—will no longer be spoken because the "days are near" for "the fulfillment of every vision" (12:23). The people of Israel think that these visions of destruction will only materialize in the distant future—or not at all. But God says, "None of my words will be delayed any longer" (12:28). The dreaded future is now.
Finally the prophet is called to "prophesy against" those prophets in Israel who speak "out of their own imagination" (13:2) and "follow their own spirit" (13:3) rather than heeding the spirit of the LORD, which in fact they have not heard. They have misled the people by prophesying "'peace,' when there is no peace" (13:10); when the people build a wall "these prophets smear whitewash on it." But the Lord is sending such a storm as will not only wash away the whitewash but knock down the wall with its fury. And those self-ordained prophets will perish the collapse of their illusions (13:14).
Furthermore, the female prophets who "sew bands on all wrists, and make veils for the heads of persons of every height, in the hunt for human lives" (13:18) are condemned. "Will you hunt down lives among my people, and maintain your own lives?" the LORD asks. Apparently these female "prophets" were practicing divination or perhaps functioning as mediums to communicate with the spirits of the dead—practices explicitly forbidden by the Law of Moses. Though the fees these "wise women" charged was apparently small—"handfuls of barley" and "pieces of bread" (13:19)—they have done great harm—they have "disheartened the righteous" and "encouraged the wicked not to turn from their wicked way and save their lives" (13:22). For that reason the LORD will put an end to their divination and their hokum and save his people from con artists and charlatans.