EZEKIEL 1-24

Ezekiel 1-24

Ezekiel 1-24

Introduction

The Book of Ezekiel is named after the prophet, who used oracles and visions to accuse the community, call it to repentance and reveal the fortunes of the people who would return to Jerusalem and reestablish the cult and the temple. Christians commonly used the Septuagint version, although translations by Aquila and Symmachus were also known. Jerome translated the Hebrew text into Latin in 392-393. Prior to Origen, no Christian undertook the difficult task of composing a full commentary on this complex prophetic book. Origen wrote his commentary on the book in Caesarea and followed it with a series of homilies on key passages. Origen's commentary is essentially lost, but Jerome translated large portions of the homilies in the early fifth century and incorporated them into his own Commentary in Ezekiel. In the east, the only full commentary on Ezekiel that survived is of Theodoret of Cyrus (436). He refers to commentaries written by Apollinaris of Laodicea, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Polychronius of Apamea. Apart from a few fragments in catenae, all of these have been lost. This sparsely reflects Ezekiel's size and complexity more than its perceived importance and relevance (Bullock, 1986).

The book is quoted frequently in a wide spectrum of early Christian texts from the end of the New Testament period, and the surviving commentaries display the importance of the prophecy for various apologetic and theological claims (Blenkinsopp, 1996).

Discussion

The Christian interpretation of Ezekiel is developed around three main themes: the nature of God and Christ as revealed through the throne-vision of Chapters 1 and 10; the promises of redemption and restoration, especially in Chapters 36 and 37, and the related theme of the events at the end of the age (i.e. references to Gog and Magog in Chapter 38); and judgment on Jewish life and rituals. From an early time, the throne-vision was the source for the description of theophany in Jewish and Christian literature. Interpreters were led to questions about the nature of God and the relationship between God and Christ.

The book begins by demonstrating that communication between God and a human being is still possible, even although the house of Israel may be too stubborn to hear. It ends (40-8) with a vision of remarkably different character: no longer the obscurity of what can barely be uttered, but the clarity of a blueprint for a restored Jerusalem, and a working sanctuary, and priestly arrangements within twelve restored tribes, and a stream issuing from near the holy mountain and strong enough to sweeten the Dead Sea - all of this culminating in the naming of the city in the last words of the book: 'Yahweh will be there' - implying that the deity can still be met (Block, 1997).

The message of the book has two points of view: on the one side, the awful totality of divine judgment; and on the other, that God meant his people to survive it. The whole book is in fact an elaborate 'theodicy', or justification of the ...