There is more to Ezekiel than dry, rattling bones and flaming wheels. But the prophet’s message remains constant – judgment and hope.
The reading from Ezekiel expands today’s appointed reading from the lectionary. A lectionary is a series of scripture readings, over the course of three years, that attempts to hit nearly all the gospels and epistles, and the high points of the Old Testament history and prophetic writings. As the knowledgeable editors cut and paste the readings, not everything gets included. It’s a lot like film-making. The cutting room floor is littered with great material.
I have read for you the whole of chapter 17 rather than the assigned last three verses. While those three verses are wonderfully hope-filled, they are devoid of context.
Ezekiel is one of the most imaginative and creative writers among the prophets. His imagery is vivid and sensational, his keen mind is always on target.
The chapter contains a dramatic riddle and parable depicting two eagles. Ezekiel’s hearers wouldn’t have paid much attention to what he was saying if he had flat out said what God had laid on his heart and mind. The prophet snags his hearers with images that they all can tap into and so tease the mind into conceiving fresh perspectives on reality.
The reality is that fact that the forces of Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon had swept through Judah and carried King Jehoiachin and others of the upper echelon of society into exile in Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar is depicted as the eagle with the long feathers and colorful plumage. The Judean king is the topmost branch of the cedar tree who is transported to the land of traders and the city of merchants, Babylon.
Nebuchadnezzar placed Jehoiachin’s uncle Mattaniah – renamed Zedekiah – as his puppet king on the throne in Jerusalem. As long as Zedekiah did what the Babylonian king demanded of him, Babylon would make no further intrusion in to the affairs of Judah. Zedekiah is depicted as a low-spreading vine that was doing well. That is reminiscent of an image in Ezekiel, as well as in Isaiah.
As Ezekiel tells it, another grand eagle, perhaps not quite as majestic as the first, appears on the scene. The vine – Judah – which is well cared for by the first eagle and prospering under its protection starts to hanker after the second eagle. This is Ezekiel’s way of saying that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence.
The second eagle is a new king in Egypt who is puffing himself up and gathering support for a possible go at supplanting Babylon as the reigning regional power. The vine, Zedekiah, is thinking that perhaps allying himself with the Egyptian monarch will get him a better deal than he currently has. Or so he thinks.
God then tells Ezekiel to ask three questions:
- Will it (the vine) thrive?
- Won’t he tear out its roots, strip its fruit, and cause all the leaves of its branches to wither.
- When the east wind touches it, won’t it completely wither?
The obvious and expected answer to the first question is “No.” And the answers to the second and third questions are an obvious “Yes.” Ezekiel has set up his hearers to give those answers.
The vine – Zedekiah and Judah – will not prosper trying to go after the favor of the Egyptian king rather than enjoying the graciousness of the Babylonian king, even if his favor is that of a benevolent overlord. The “he” in the second question could go two ways. The “he” could be the Egyptian king who would have no second thoughts about running roughshod over Judah in order to take on at Babylon. Or the “he” could be Nebuchadnezzar who would revoke the goodwill relationship he established with Zedekiah and come down hard on him and the whole nation, stomping them into the ground.
The third question without a doubt signifies that Babylon will destroy Judah and blot it off the map.
Again, the Lord’s word came to Ezekiel and he goes on to explain the riddle and parable. Egypt and Pharaoh won’t save Judah. Since Zedekiah had broken the oath of loyalty he had given to Nebuchadnezzar, he is done for. He can’t escape.
Then Ezekiel explains on a deeper level. The solemn pledge that Zedekiah had given wasn’t just to Nebuchadnezzar. It was God’s solemn pledge that he had scorned and God will hold him accountable. “All his elite fighters along with all his troops will fall by the sword, and those who are left will be scattered to the winds.”
Now come the words of hope and promise. God – “I” – take one of the top branches from the tall cedar and plant it on a very high and lofty mountain – Zion.
“It will grow into a mighty cedar. Birds of every kind will nest in it and find shelter in the shade of its boughs. Then all the trees in the countryside will know that I, the Lord, bring down the tall tree and raise up the lowly tree, and make the green tree wither and the dry tree bloom. I, the Lord, have spoken, and I will do it.”Ezekiel’s interpretation of his nationalistic parable has a singular perspective. Judah’s political woes can be understood only when the Babylonian imperialism is understood as the activity of the God of Israel, who judges Judah’s kings according to their faithfulness as regents for the only king, Yahweh, lord of the angel armies. Boston University Professor of Hebrew Bible Katheryn Pfisterer Darr writes:
“Ezekiel’s constant affirmations of Yahweh’s unrivaled sovereignty over history challenge ancient and modern readers alike to take with utmost seriousness the psalmist’s assertion, “The earth is the Lord’s, and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it” (Ps 24:1 NRSV). Yahweh is not indifferent to creation and its creatures. God wills that all our interactions – social, political, environmental, international – be governed by fidelity, wisdom, and an overarching commitment so to live that we participate in bringing about the kingdom of God on earth.”(1)That’s a lot of history. But without that history, the promise of the last three verses has little basis other than wishful thinking for a brighter future.
Most Christians have moved beyond the simple level of ascribing every good and every evil event to the activity of God. Of course the problem with that approach to past, present, and future is that we make up the definitions of good and evil. That isn’t to say we don’t start with the basic notions that God gives in scripture. It’s just that we embroider them to it our needs, our philosophies, our self-aggrandizing attempts to make us appear better than we are.
We can take Ezekiel’s cause and effect understanding of God’s activity too far. In a world where holocausts happen, even and still in the geographical region of our scriptures, such an approach to divine justice can be lethal.
As Ezekiel sees things, Zedekiah was misguided. He, like so many government, business, or social leaders, was caught among advisers favoring differing views about how to deal with situations which admit no easy answers. Leaders are pulled one way and then another. You don’t have to be a leader to get caught in a labyrinth of opinions from which there seems to be no easy or just exit. It happens in families, it happens in ones own thinking over a thorny problem.
Ezekiel takes seriously Zedekiah’s oath, likely sworn in Yahweh’s name as well as the names of Babylonian deities. Ezekiel does not separate political strategies from religious commitments, as if one could so compartmentalize life as to relegate God to the latter sphere while operating in the former as if God did not exist or had no place there. That’s our tendency as post-modern people, to live from our own perspectives and not give much thought at all about how God fits into things.
For the prophet Ezekiel, life is a seamless garment. God is the essential thread without which the garment has no substance or form. Our ultimate loyalty belongs with God who has given us a covenant of life like no other through Jesus Christ. Without our commitment the garments of our lives unravel.
As the lowly mustard seed can grow into a large plant to shelter birds and animals, as God can take a cedar sprig and grow it into a flourishing realm of God’s presence, so Christ can make us into new creations. Under God’s divine sovereignty “the old things have gone away, and look, new things have arrived!” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Thanks be to God.
(1) Katheryn Pfisterer Darr, “Ezekiel,” The New Interpreter’s Bible (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2001), Vol VI, p 1252.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2015 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
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