Hebrew Bible and Christian Scriptures

In Ezekiel 36, God accuses the people of the dispersion of having profaned his name among the nations.  What is interesting is the reason for this accusation.  Far from being a commentary on the people’s actions among the nations, it actually refers to the nations’ reaction to the Israelites.  The nations say, “These are the people of the LORD, and yet they had to go out of his land.” (36:20)  With this in mind, it seems that the people have been involved in a passive profaning – their very presence profanes God’s name regardless of their personal or even corporate piety.

Which leads to an interesting question: Why are they among the nations in the first place?  According to Ezekiel and the other prophets, this is because God has chosen to punish them in this way.  Does this not make God himself responsible for the reaction of the nations to the diaspora?  Moreover, can the people really be blamed for their existence in foreign lands?

To an extent the answer to that question is yes.  The people sinned against God and therefore called this punishment down on themselves.  It should also be noted, however, that God is painted as choosing, even orchestrating, this punishment for them.  In this light, God is responsible for the nations’ reaction because of his choice of punishment.

So why should the people be charged with profaning God’s name simply for bearing the brunt of his punishment?  My gut says that they shouldn’t, though this is less than an orthodox answer.  I can’t get away from the idea that God put himself in a bad place by orchestrating the punishment he chose and then blamed the Israelites for the consequences of his chosen punishment.

All of this is further complicated by God’s motivation in working on Israel’s behalf.  It is not for their sake, but his own.  He will repair his reputation by delivering them.  It seems that God is either setting himself up for a new exodus or was surprised by the reaction of the nations to his punishment.  Whatever the case, I find it odd that God should accuse the people when they had no choice in the nature of his punishment.

We’ve talked about intrinsic and extrinsic faith in many of the books that we have read thus far.  This has been a special topic among the prophets because of the difficulty of their callings and how their callings mirror our own.  In reading Ezekiel, this theme has once again come to my attention, especially in regard to the death of his wife.  Just before her death, the LORD speaks to Ezekiel with these words:

“Son of man, behold, I am about to take the delight of your eyes away from you at a stroke; yet you shall not mourn or weep, nor shall your tears run down.  Sigh, but not aloud, make no mourning for the dead.  Bind on your turban, and put your shoes on your feet; do not cover your lips, nor eat the bread of men.” (24:16-17)

Ezekiel’s wife died shortly after, and it is clear that all of this was meant to be a sign to the people.  When it comes down to it, I’m really not sure how to take such a passage.  To an extent, I can see how the prophet/minister’s family can be a sign to the people.  On the other hand, I know that I wouldn’t handle things well if God caused my wife to die (is kill to strong a word?).  It is amazing to see Ezekiel take all of this in stride.  It seems that his understanding of his vocation is intrinsic to the extreme.  Perhaps we can applaud him for this, but perhaps we should also wonder at his lack of emotion.

Turning attention to God, this to me shows that being a prophet is not an enviable position, for God seems to at times use his prophets ruthlessly.  Not only are they in danger for their message, but God himself claims their entire person – even their entire family – for his purposes.  And he does what he likes with a seeming disregard for the prophet himself.  I enjoy the idea of a prophet for God and God for the prophet, but the picture painted in this chapter strikes me as a prophet for God and God for his own purposes.  I do not wish to downplay that God is indeed God and can therefore act as he wishes, but this story does not sit well with me.

In reading Ezekiel, I noticed a strong similarity with Jeremiah.  Notice the common theme in the verses below:

I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God. – Ezekiel 11:19-21

“The time is coming,” declares the LORD,
“when I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah…

“This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
after that time,” declares the LORD.
“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people… – Jeremiah 31:31 & 33

As can be seen, both passages seem to focus on a kind of interior change.  In Ezekiel, God gives the people a heart of flesh.  In Jeremiah, he puts his law in their minds and writes it on their hearts.  The result of the actions in both of these verses is that the people will be able to keep their part of the covenant and will share a special relationship with God.

The question now comes, how do we read these texts together?  Do we allow Jeremiah to shed light on Ezekiel or visa versa?  If the former, we might move with a New Testament interpretation of Jeremiah’s New Covenant as being brought about by the work of Christ.  Ezekiel’s similar speech would therefore point to the same new reality in Christ.  If we take the latter course of allowing Ezekiel to shed light on Jeremiah, however, we might come up with a very different interpretation.  I’ll pursue this line of thought below.

While Ezekiel does indeed seem to be speaking of an interior change, there may be an argument against such a literal reading of his prophecy.  This is seen in the verse directly after the Ezekiel passage quoted above, which states, “But as for those whose hearts are devoted to their vile images and detestable idols, I will bring down on their own heads what they have done, declares the Sovereign LORD.” (11:21)  This statement shows at the very least that God is not planning to work an interior change in all the members of Israel.  Instead, punishment will fall on idol worshipers.  Moving in the same line of thought, should idol worshipers be punished and thereby removed from Israel, who is left?  The answer: those who have been true to God.  God’s could therefore be seen as giving the Israelites “an undivided heart” and a “new spirit” through the removal of those Israelites who served as dividers of the community and polluters of the communal spirit by their idol worship.  Far from referring to an interior work of transformation, Ezekiel may actually be alluding to an external purging!

This concept of external purging is revisited in Ezekiel 20.  In vv 32-38 of this chapter, God is depicted as judging the Israelites as they reenter the land of promise.  The verses of import to this argument read thus: “I will take note of you, declares the Sovereign LORD.  I will take not of you as you pass under my rod, and I will bring you into the bond of covenant.  I will purge you of those who revolt and rebel against me.  Although I will bring them out of the land where they are living, yet the will not enter the land of Israel.  Then you will know that I am the LORD.” (vv 37-38, emphasis mine)  The result of such a purging?  A group of Israelites completely true to God will enter the land unencumbered by those who might lead them astray.

In all of this, I argue that perhaps Ezekiel’s “heart of flesh” refers not to an internal work done in individual Israelites, but rather an outward work of purging carried out in the community at large.  The heart and spirit therefore become corporate metaphors, and the prophecy has direct relevance for the returning exiles.  The last statement strengthens this argument, for it does not depict God’s punishment and grace as events divided by history.  Rather, God’s punishment functions within his grace as he purges the people by it and brings them into covenant with himself.

Now back to Jeremiah’s new covenant, which also employs interior imagery.  In light of the above discussion of Ezekiel, can Jeremiah be read in a similar way?  Can we move from individual works of grace to a corporate work of purging that has direct relevance to Jeremiah’s audience?  I do not find such an argument to be overly far-fetched, though it would require more thought and attention than can be given here.  In the end, if Ezekiel is allowed to shed light on Jeremiah, we might end up with a very different conception of the New Covenant than that of the traditional view.  This does not downplay the importance of the New Testament witness.  Rather, it simply points to a New Testament re-appropriation of an Old Testament prophecy that deserves attention in its own right.

I have argued in a previous post entitled “The Call of Isaiah: Sarcasm or Fatalism” that God’s instruction to Isaiah in that prophet’s call narrative is laced throughout with divine sarcasm rather than a fatalistic divine decree.  In reading through Ezekiel, I believe that I have found further support for this argument.  Ezekiel 12:1 reads like this:

“Son of man, you are living among a rebellious people.  They have eyes to see but do not see and ears to hear but do not hear, for they are a rebellious people.” 12:1

In this verse we find an echo of the language used in Isaiah’s call.  The people have eyes to see and ears to hear but neither see nor hear (in Isaiah they neither perceive nor understand).  What is important to note in this instance is that the people are given this description not because of any divine prerogative, but because of their own rebellious nature.  This was the gist of my argument in my former post (that God was commenting sarcastically on the already rebellious nature of the people), and it may be significant that another prophet offers a similar interpretation to the same phrase.

The above argument carries further weight if one allows that Ezekiel is in some way borrowing from the Isaiah tradition.  The seems possible since he prophesies after Isaiah and therefore may have had access to Isaiah’s message.  If this is the case, then Ezekiel would be borrowing the language of hearing and seeing but leaving the sarcasm behind.  In doing so, he may have shed important light on Isaiah 6 being sarcastic commentary rather than divine decree.

I once heard a sermon that spoke of the radically inclusive view of the post-exilic community found in Isaiah 56.  The thrust of this passage can be found in v. 8:

The Sovereign LORD declares—
he who gathers the exiles of Israel:
“I will gather still others to them
besides those already gathered.”

What is amazing is to see who is gathered.  To foreigners who “bind themselves to the LORD,” God promises in v. 7:

these I will bring to my holy mountain
and give them joy in my house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar;
for my house will be called
a house of prayer for all nations.”

More surprising is the promise in v. 5 to the eunuchs who do the same:

to them I will give within my temple and its walls
a memorial and a name
better than sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name
that will not be cut off.

Accepting foreigners is already pushing the limits, but (according to my limited knowledge) such a promise to eunuchs must have been downright scandalous!  By these texts, Isaiah paints a picture of a radically inclusive community.

While the pastor’s explanation of the above passages was interesting, equally interesting was his throw away line that not everyone agreed with this view of how to define the post-exilic community.  He mentioned Ezra and Nehemiah as examples of those who painted contradictory pictures.  Having now read these books, I understand what he meant.  While Isaiah is radically inclusive, Ezra and Nehemiah are radically exclusive (for more on this, see my previous post titled “The Sectarian Divide”).  We therefore seem to have a case of canonical infighting as different authors/traditions call for radically different approaches to the same situation.  Furthermore, it is obvious that this debate did not remain in the realm of theory.  Rather, it was played out on the ground as the exiles returned, and the Ezra/Nehemiah view won out.

Here’s my quandary regarding this issue: how do we as students of the Bible approach such infighting?  I, for instance, resonate strongly with Isaiah’s view while finding that of Ezra/Nehemiah to be troublesome if not outright repugnant!  Am I to somehow hold both views in tension, or is it in my purview to choose one over the other?  What should be our response to contradictory voices in our scriptures?

It is striking from my individualistic understanding of reality to see how God views and treats the people of Israel as a corporate unit.  This corporate identity came to the fore in Ezekiel 4 when the prophet bore the sin of the house of Israel by lying on his side for 390 days.  While the whole story is interesting, I was especially interested to note that the 390 days represented 390 years of sin.  Ezekiel is bearing the sin of multiple generations.  Moreover, in the following chapters, it seems that all of this sin is coming to bear on the current generation, meaning that they will bear the punishment both for their own sin and also for that of their parents.  Corporate identity seems to overshadow individual merit (whether good or bad) and ends in destruction. At the same time, however, Ezekiel 9 points to personal responsibility as God orders the executions of people who either practice or are ambivalent toward the detestable practices of Jerusalem.  These executions extend even to children!  But they do not extend to the entire population.  Rather, those who “grieve and lament” this state of affairs are to be spared.  This passage therefore rejects corporate guilt and punishment, for living in wayward Jerusalem does not necessarily identify one with its sin.  Instead, lamentation, even silent lamentation it would seem, speaks to the innocence of certain parties who are spared the punishment. We therefore see two themes at play – corporate and individual gilt and punishment.  Does one eclipse the other, or do they stand in tension?  Perhaps this all simply points to the intricacies of life, for we are all guilty of corporate sin while also being personally responsible for our own.  I suppose the same could be said in regard to innocence…

We have spoken in class several times about the call of Isaiah – a call to a ministry of frustration, to a people who do not hear or see.  This has led to discussions about our own callings.  Do we follow God for extrinsic or intrinsic reasons?  What about when our people fail to see and hear?  I would now like to broaden the discussion to the people themselves.  Is it a foregone conclusion that the people to whom Isaiah is called will fail to hear him?  If so, why?  Is it because God has somehow predestined their response?  The following blog will explore these questions.  The passage at hand reads thus:

And he said, “Go, and say to this people:

“‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand;keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’  Make the heart of this people dull,
and their ears heavy,
and blind their eyes;
lest they see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears,
and understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed.” (Isaiah 6:9-10, ESV)

As I read the above text, I can’t help but note the sarcasm in God’s tone.  After all, he is basically giving Isaiah the text for his first sermon: tell the people, “Keep hearing, but do not understand.  Keep on seeing, but do not perceive.”  This could be read as a divine mandate from God to the people, but this such a reading seems a bit ridiculous (why call a prophet to command people to be obstinate?).  Instead, it seems more plausible that God is supplying Isaiah with a prophetic message for the people that is to delivered by means of sarcasm and hyperbole.  If we were to recast these words in a more positive and straightforward light, they might read like this: “You have opportunity to hear, yet you do not understand.  You have opportunity to see, but you do not perceive.  Quit it!”  Far from being a prophetic oracle, I would argue that the first part of this message is actually based on Israel’s track record.  Despite having the law, despite having the prophets, the people have gone in wrong directions.  In this sense, they have indeed heard and seen without understanding or perceiving.  This message to the people is not a fatalistic command; it is a hyperbolic statement meant to jar them from their complacency.

But what about the rest of the passage?  Notice what God tells Isaiah to do: make the people’s hearts dull (literally fat), ears heavy, and eyes blind.  Once again, this may be read in a fatalistic since – Isaiah is God’s instrument to harden the people’s hearts.  But in reality, how can a preacher make people dull?  Is there something intrinsic to Isaiah’s message or style that will bring about such a result?  Or could it be that God is once again employing sarcasm, once again referencing their attitude in the past?  In effect, he would here be saying, “I’m sending you to preach, but it won’t do any good.  The more you preach the more they’ll tune you out.”  Therefore, Isaiah will make their hearts fat, their ears heavy, and their eyes blind, because he is faithful in preaching an ignored message.  He will over and over give the people a chance to hear the truth about themselves, thereby making their hearts fat and ears heavy, but they will not listen.  Indeed, the people will indite themselves by failing to heed his word.

Then come the last phrases, which sound a lot like God is sending Isaiah for the specific purpose that the people should not repent.  This can once again be read fatalistically, but it can also once again be read sarcastically.  Let’s take a moment to think about this.  Does God really need to send a prophet to ensure the people’s lack of repentance?  They are already headed in the wrong direction.  Are they really in danger of repenting in their current state.  It would seem that the “desired effect” would come about just fine without Isaiah’s ministry.  Then why send Isaiah?  The same reason for sending the other prophets – to pronounce judgment on the people and encourage them to get right with God.  Yet the people will not heed this message, as is proven by their track record.  They will therefore refuse healing not because of anything intrinsic to Isaiah’s message, but rather because of their rejection of that message.  God once again employs sarcasm to highlight the deficiency of the people.  In the end, we might paraphrase God as saying something like this:

Preach to the people, but they won’t listen.  Preach until you’re blue in the face, but they will reject you.  And as they do, they will become more and more dull.  Preach even though the people’s obstinance will keep them from being healed.

All  of this seems to me to be a kind of commentary on Israel’s response to the prophets.  Instead of being converted, they become more set in their ways and dull.  In this passage, sarcasm is used to get this message across – God sends Isaiah to turn the people, but they will ultimately reject his message, thereby forfeiting a chance for healing.  The point is not that God is purposefully making the people dull.  The point is that they already are dull and that even sending a prophet won’t change this state of affairs.  He will preach to convert them, but in fact the exact opposite will come about.  They will reject him and in doing so will call judgment down on themselves.  In all of this, God offers a commentary on the state of affairs into which he is sending Isaiah, and things aren’t good.

Maybe I’m too frightened of fatalism in the above argument, but I’ve tried to offer a viable alternative.  In the end, I don’t see the sense in sending a prophet to make a dull people duller.  I do, however, see a realism that understands that even sending a prophet very well might not ignite the needed repentance.  And I see frustrated sarcasm being employed to paint this state of affairs in stark terms.  In the use of such sarcastic language, the irony is caught – God is sending a prophet to turn the people, but they will give the opposite response.

While completing Information Literacy Project 2, I came across a very interesting article by Walter Brueggemann.  In this article, Brueggemann uses Jeremiah 30:12-17 as a kind of case study to display the shift in critical method.  The text at hand is quoted below:

¹²“For thus says the LORD: Your hurt is incurable,
and your wound is grievous.
¹³There is none to uphold your cause,
no medicine for your wound,
no healing for you.
¹⁴ All your lovers have forgotten you;
they care nothing for you;
for I have dealt you the blow of an enemy,
the punishment of a merciless foe,
because your guilt is great,
because your sins are flagrant.
¹⁵ Why do you cry out over your hurt?
Your pain is incurable.
Because your guilt is great,
because your sins are flagrant,
I have done these things to you.
¹⁶ Therefore all who devour you shall be devoured,
and all your foes, every one of them, shall go into captivity;
those who plunder you shall be plundered,
and all who prey on you I will make a prey.
¹⁷ For I will restore health to you,
and your wounds I will heal,
declares the LORD,because they have called you an outcast:
‘It is Zion, for whom no one cares!’

This proves to be a remarkable passage in that it moves from Israel’s having an incurable hurt inflicted by God himself to God’s statement that “your wounds I will heal.”  Brueggemann moves to treat this oddity from the vantage point of “the newer literary criticism,” which finds the change in tone to be a purposeful move.  He pursues this line by upholding the importance of v 17b, which he takes as a causative statement.  ”Yahweh is moved to a wholly new action toward Israel by the contemptuous speech of the nations…”  This moves allows him to argue that the cause of Yahweh’s change of heart is two fold: First, Yahweh is working against the pride of the nations, who “seem to think they have put Israel in such a situation.”  Second, “Yahweh finds [his own speech about Israel] intolerable on the lips of anybody else, as the nations in ν 17.”  Both of these explanations make Yahweh’s new attitude dependent on the speech of the nations.  In all of this, it is the same God who first tears down and who then builds up, thereby allowing the text to be read as a unity.

Brueggemann explains the above treatment as a shift from the “older literary criticism,” which “follows the general practice of resolving any substantive incongruity in the text by positing a redactional move.”  This view argues that vv 16 -17 are a later addition to the original work of vv 12-15.

I must now say that I am glad to see such a shift taking place, for I believe that Brueggemann’s “newer literary criticism” does a better job of dealing with the text than the older alternative.  Indeed, I believe that the newer approach entails a greater respect for the biblical authors/redactors, for it takes them seriously in their final form rather than explaining away seeming incongruities in the text by positing later redaction.  Indeed, I question the very helpfulness of the latter approach.  After all, how am I helped in dealing with the final form of the text by cutting it into segments and theoretically assigning those elements to different time periods?  Though such an argument is interesting, I wonder how much it helps in actually understanding the text.  This is seen in the blindness of the older criticism to Brueggemann’s persuasive argument for intentional unity based on v 17.  Moreover, in its explaining away of the difficulty of the text, the older approach misses the layers of irony and the greater theological thrust.  Even more disturbing in my mind is the older approach’s tendency to treat the biblical author/redactors like novices doing a bad job of changing the meaning of older texts.  Brueggemann’s treatment allows that the text was always a whole.  Even if one wants to argue for redaction, though, this can be done with great respect for the intelligence of the redactor, a point which the older criticism seems to have missed.

All of this is to say that I am glad for the shift in method that is taking place.  As Brueggemann notes, “Texts may not be assessed any longer ‘from the outside,’ according to our critical control, but must be appreciated for their fullness, filled as they are with irony, subdety, incongruity.  Such fresh critical method opens up ways to observe something creative and interior about the character of God, a theological point mostly denied in the older “reasonable” method.”  Indeed, the newer method seems to be opening doors to allow the text to once again speak instead of being swallowed in theory.

Brueggemann’s article info:
Brueggemann, Walter. “The ‘Uncared For’ Now Cared For (Jer 30:12-17): A Methodological Consideration.” Journal of Biblical Literature 104 no. 3 (1985): 419-428.

Let’s take a moment to think on all those sermons that ridicule the Greek gods, those anthropomorphic beings that play chess with human lives.  Now lets celebrate that the Christian God is nothing like that.

But wait…

“Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them. The LORD said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the LORD and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? ¹⁰Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD.” -Job 1:6-12

In this passage, God seems to have some kind of debate going on with Satan, though the nature of the debate is not stated.  In order to bolster his case, God offers up Job as an example of a god-fearing individual.  When Satan offers his counter argument, God basically gives him free reign to do anything to Job except kill him.  All to win an argument?  I thought that God didn’t play chess with human life for his own purposes.

For the reasons above, I find Job to be an extremely problematic book.  What are we to do with a God who trivializes human life in this manner?  This conundrum is furthered when one considers the massive loss of life that the story represents in a culture that did not believe in the after life.  How many people will God allow to die to make his point?  And to what extent must Job suffer?  Rather than offering a tenable answer to the question of theodicy, I can’t help but think that the book of Job actually furthers the problem.

Suffice it to say that I struggle greatly with God as he is pictured in Job.  I’m simply not sure what to do with a God who would trivialize human life in this manner.