Talk:Ezek 3:15-24:27

Ezek 20:25-26

Jake, I think this is a good, difficult question. I'm inclined to read it in a rather Pauline manner (with an emphasis on verse 26): God gave Israel many commandments which were tedious to keep in order to humble them.

This would make verse 26 rather striking: by commanding Israel to offer sacrifices, and to offer their firstborn to God, the one offering the gift recognizes his own guiltiness in terms of committing violence (even while--esp. while!--fulfilling God's commandments).

I really need to study Ezekiel more, though--I really don't how this reading would fit into Ezekiel's larger context. --RobertC 21:30, 21 December 2007 (CET)

Interestingly what you are labeling the "Pauline" view is what Calvin argues against (see link under related links). I think Ezek 20:39 supports the reading which says that these "not good statutes" aren't the law of Moses but instead things which the people have replaced (or mixed) the law of Moses with. Just as in v 39, God says "go worship all the bad idols" he is saying here "I left you to your own statutes." This of course brings up the question of what it means that God ascribes to himself responsibility in the Old Testament for things which we want to re-interpret (in some sense correctly) as not being his responsibility but ours. I'm thinking specifically of the cases where God hardens pharoah's heart. --Matthew Faulconer 08:39, 24 December 2007 (CET)

20:31-35: Rod/Jordan

Document, I like the insight here. It occurs to me as I read your exegesis there that "passing under the rod" might well be equated with passing through the Jordan river. If the "face to face" experience of verse 35 is equated in verse 36 with the Sinai experience of the Israelites, then to enter the encampment is to pass into the holy land, just as the Israelites under Joshua. The bond of the covenant, then, might well be the settling of the land again, the Abrahamic covenant promise of inheriting the earth and all its abundance.

What is really curious, then, is that you tie all of this to the veil. The veil is often figured as a river (2 Ne 31 is an amazing example where baptism in the river Jordan specifically is called the "gate"), just as is death (a veil in and of itself). I had never looked before at the "rod" as an image of the veil, of the river, of baptism as the gate, etc. I wonder if other references to rods in the OT have such a connotation. It would be worth looking at. --Joe Spencer 14:27, 12 Oct 2006 (UTC)

I think there is an important allusion to tithing also. I remember in Leviticus somewhere a passage talking about the tithed sheep passing under the rod (or something like that—I think I may've posted something in Isaiah about this; in Isaiah at least, I think the rod and staff are significantly related to the "remnant of Israel" which can also be thought of as a tithe (which probably also has veil significance, though I can't think of why offhand...). --RobertC 19:41, 12 Oct 2006 (UTC)