"Then you shall know that I am the Lord." This is Ezekiel's chorus, the book's faithful and terrible refrain. Beginning with chapter six, after Ezekiel's first rush of vision-journey, calling, and performative prophecy, nearly every prophecy or "word of the Lord" ends with "Then you/they shall know that I am the Lord." The phrase occurs over 60 times in Ezekiel (Peterson). For better and for worse, knowledge (da'at) of the Lord (YHWH) is the ultimate result of God's word and action. With and within the moral-justice and religious lessons that God teaches, this one seed is planted and replanted.
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Is your holy city being sacked by the mighty Nebuchadnezzar? Are its strongholds toppling? Its people cut down? Its children scattered?
Then you shall know that I am the Lord.
Is the land itself heaving and cracking? The sky darkening in shame and misery? The deep escaping? The fire quickly consuming?
Then you shall know that I am the Lord.
Are your neighbors mocking you? Plundering your riches? Defaming your king? Despising your religion?
Then you shall know that I am the Lord.
Are your enemies falling into the pit they dug? Is your enemy's enemy on the rise? Did a bigger fish just swallow the fish that swallowed you?
Then you shall know that I am the Lord.
Are you experiencing forgiveness? Do you have a fresh spirit and a newborn heart? Have your tears of mourning turned to shouts of deliverance?
Then you shall know that I am the Lord.
Is a new age dawning? A reign of peace on its way? A river flowing out of holiness and into all the world?
Then you shall know that I am the Lord.
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Who is Ezekiel?
Ezekiel son of Buzi was a priest from the southern kingdom of Judah. My Bible notes say he was probably a Zadokite priest, because that is a specific priestly group who's faithfulness Ezekiel praises in its later chapters (Peterson). Ezekiel's final vision contrasts the Zadokites’ loyalty to YHWH with the fickle idolatry of the "Levites,” although the Zadokites are technically also descendants of Levi. However, based on Ezekiel's individual suffering (early exile, death of his wife, sorrow) and extreme prophetic demands (laying on side for months with little to eat and drink, long periods of muteness, cutting off hair, etc), you could argue that he was more likely in the "bad" group, the Levites, than the "good" group, the Zadokites. Perhaps there are other reasons Ezekiel is presumed to be Zadokite.
In any case, he was taken to Nippur, or near there, by the Chaldeans/Babylonians in the first round of exile in 597 B.C.E, along with the King Jehoiachin, other politico-religious leaders, and skilled workers. Jehoiachin surrendered Jerusalem, and Nebuchadnezzar then set up a new king, Zedekiah, who's later push for independence brought Babylon's full wrath back onto the city. In 587 the Temple was destroyed and a larger group from Judah was deported.
So, at the beginning of this book, Ezekiel is a priest who has lost his home, his country, and the tangible practices of his religion. By the end of the book, he has lost his wife, perhaps much of his dignity and sanity, and he's lost the knowledge that the Temple, the "delight" of God's eye and His preferred footstool, still exists.
Did he or a scribe listening to him write this book? Who knows, right? The book is certainly well written, architecturally sound, finished and consistent.
Is there a prophetic style?
The only prophetic book I've read straight through more than once is Isaiah, and I guess some of the shorter ones like Joel. But I think I've read and listened to the "classical" Biblical prophets enough to have a slight feel for them, their style and rhythm. I know I'm reading in translation, but it feels like standing in the ocean up to my waist, in the surf and waves. The waves crest and trough, regular but irregular, predictable but always surprising, sometimes breaking upon me, sometimes gently lifting me off my feet.
Reading and studying Ezekiel has not felt like that. There's much more prose than poetry. Certain sections, notably the prophecies against the nations, break into a familiar prophetic canter, but overall the book reads less aurally and more visually. There's an intellectual, heady, mind-over-body (or out-of-body) character to the book, which is a bizarre thing to say, considering how Ezekiel often has to embody his prophecy.
The only definition of a prophet that really sticks in my head is "someone who conveys a 'word' from God." Abraham Heschel and Walter Brueggeman primarily highlight the poetic-sympathetic awareness and style of Biblical prophets, and they lift it up as a key to the meaning of prophecy in general. But Ezekiel pushes that definition, perhaps transgresses it.
For example, in his visions, he clearly brackets their beginning and ending as visions, and he's careful to say that what he sees is "something like" a wheel within a wheel or looks "like" burnished bronze. He doesn't dare say that he's seen or encountered the here-and-now glory of YHWH. Yet, despite his descriptive caution about the Glory of the Lord, he is extremely sharp and precise in his spacial and geographical language. In his initial vision he is very careful to describe where things are in relation to other things ("over," "under," "next to," etc.). The prophecies against other nations are filled to the brim with place names and fascinating geographical references. In his ultimate vision of the new temple, his spirit guide measures every nook and cranny and commands him to remember all the various cubits!
In his prophecies there are no seamless shiftings between his words and God's words like you might find in other Biblical prophets. Whenever Ezekiel speaks it is clearly demarcated. In fact there are only a handful of his personal words in this book, mostly words of dismay or petition. Exclamations like, "Ah Lord God! Will you destroy all...?" The times Ezekiel appears as a character, very little of his "character" or personality shines through.
It is paradoxical, and perhaps misleading, that you can read Amos or Isaiah and feel like you get to know them, as a personal voice or tradition, even though they speak words almost exclusively "from the Lord." Ezekiel, on the other hand, because he so clearly labels his voice vis-a-vis God's voice, and describes his prophetic performances from a distance, seems much more hidden, unavailable, even though he doesn't speak any more or less in the name of the Lord than Amos or Isaiah. If prophets' prophecies reveal their personal spirits as much as God's message -- and I think they do -- then I should "get to know" Ezekiel as well as I get to know Isaiah or Amos.
Now that I think about it, there is one aspect of his personality that seems to rise to the surface. His prophecies and visions incorporate that priestly sensitivity most typically expressed in distinctions between the holy and profane. Ezekiel is named as a priest from the beginning, so you might assume priestly concerns take center stage. But temple impropriety, while it is certainly listed among the people’s sins, is not really center stage. The main protests of God concern idolatry and injustice, much like the other prophetic books. Nevertheless, the book has something of a pervasive, archetypal priestliness, or weirdness. I'm not really sure what I'm referring to or what example I could give to support this claim. Maybe it has to do with the clear spatial lines, as well as his prophetic acts.
His prophetic acts are so outlandish, and yet so miniature, like a giant bishop in bulbous robes and high hat celebrating mass with little bitty wafers and a golden chalice. I can just imagine Ezekiel lying on his side, in the middle of each day for over a year, in full view of the exiles and their oppressors, with his besieged brick nearby, completely silent except for whenever the word of the Lord comes to him.
Or there goes Ezekiel silently carrying his exile baggage to and fro, clearly performing but unable to talk about it until the word of the Lord shows up. Or here is Ezekiel, stone-faced, shaving his head in public, dividing up his hair, meticulously weighing it into thirds, burning some of it inside Nippur's city walls, scattering some of it to the wind, binding some to the skirt of his robe, burning some more of it. Or worst of all, there is Ezekiel, after his wife dies, not allowed to unbind his turban, not allowed to weep or moan, not allowed to take off his sandals or cover his upper lip or eat the bread of mourning. This combination of drama and restraint seems particularly priest-like to me, somehow.
The only time he fully breaks character, he does so in the most stereotypical priestly way: when God tells him to bake his barley-cake over a fire of human-dung, he cries out in dismay, "Ah Lord God! I have never defiled myself..."; and the Lord relents and allows him to use cow-dung instead. Would that he had so vigorously protested God's later word - "with one blow I am about to take away from you the delight of your eyes" [i.e., kill his wife]!
Admittedly, when I think of biblical prophecy, I think of poetry; I think of wolves lying down with lambs; I think of non-rational language and excessive meaning, sharp turns from life to death and back to life; I think of Elijah calling down fire or Jeremiah weeping or Amos thundering about justice. Reading Ezekiel has forced me to expand my feelings and ideas about prophecy. If there is a biblical prophetic style, then Ezekiel, like a prophet would I suppose, keeps us from pinning it down or boxing it in.
How is Ezekiel's message relevant today?
In preparation for this paper I read a powerful book, The Religion of the Landless: The Social Context of the Babylonian Exile, by Daniel Smith-Christopher. In it Smith-Christopher shows how the Bible and modern day issues might talk to each other, back and forth, when using the language of sociology.
Christopher shines light on the Biblical exile by using sociological data about more recently exiled or forcefully detained people groups - Bikini islanders removed during WW2, Japanese-Americans imprisoned during WW2, enslaved Africans in America, and the Black South Africans forced into "Bantustans," rural villages, during Apartheid. He selects four generalizations about these groups' exile experiences and shows how they may have applied to the Judaeans in Babylon.
Structural Adaptation
In exile people groups often have to re-group or re-order, but in a way that preserves some sort of continuity. For example, the Japanese-Americans developed very strong ties and support systems within their cell blocks. Some immediate and extended families were able to stay together, others were separated, but in either case, they were able to develop new fictive kinship relations. In a similar way, Christopher argues, the Jewish exiles had to expand and rework their bet'ab - house of father, an extended family - systems to create larger unit groups of kinship, not necessarily blood-related. By the time they returned to Judah, the bet'ab had become bet'abot (plural) and more like the pre-exilic mishpehot (clan).
Leadership
Christopher also explains that exiled groups typically suffer a specific leadership dilemma and conflict - direct violent resistance versus indirect adaptive resistance. He uses this dilemma to frame the conflict between Jeremiah - who advocated that the exiles seek the shalom of the city to which they've been exiled - versus Hananiah - who prophesied a quick overturn of exile and return to the homeland.
Rituals of Resistance
Much like the structural adaptations that are necessary during exile, rituals may organically adapt or refocus for exiled peoples. Christopher argues that the harsh prohibition against marrying foreigners just after the return from exile -- going so far as to force divorces and break up families -- was a continuation and response from exile. In essence, Christopher speculates that the exiles stressed the importance of sticking together to maintain their identity and religion, and that this continued during the early days of post-exile Judah.
New Heroes
Exiled groups also tend to develop new heroes, says Christopher, or emphasize slightly different stories about their heroes. The “diaspora hero” is more often successful through cleverness and piety within the context of the “enemy” or oppressor (Esther, Joseph, Daniel) than through military success. Other common diaspora hero types are the satirical fool, who can’t win but can at least make fun of the oppressor, and the messiah, who miraculously saves the day and flips the script.
What message does Ezekiel have for me?
I think I’m still struggling with what I started with, “Then you shall know that I am the Lord.” How can that be the answer or end result of everything? It reminds me of Job, who never really gets an answer to his questions. Instead he receives a visit from God, “knowledge of the Lord,” which overwhelms him and reshapes his experience.
Is it possible that all my experiences are God-directed toward God? That bad, good, happy, sad, all my life can lead me to “know that God is the Lord?” What help is that? May it be so, that even scrolls full of words of woe, when fed to us by God, in some weird and hidden way can taste sweet as honey.
