Ezekiel - Lesson 13

Lesson number 13. Anticipating the gospel according to Ezekiel. Opening the window to a brighter day. Ezekiel 11, 14 to 21. After a dozen presentations involving Israel's dark moral and spiritual side and the seemingly unrelenting darkness of the Mordor created by Yahweh's response, we finally reach a text that opens up the windows slightly to the shire, where the light of God's grace beams, even if just for a moment, and as a very focused beam. The opening word-event formula in verse 14, the message of Yahweh came to me saying, and the signatory formula at the end of verse 21, the declaration of the Lord Yahweh, mark the boundaries of this literary unit. Whereas verses 1 to 13 had shared with chapter 8 to 10 a concern for the corruption of Jerusalem and its consequent judgment, here the focus shifts away from Jerusalem to the exiles in Babylon with Ezekiel and the subject changes from a pronouncement of divine judgment to a message of hope through Yahweh's positive intervention. Although this text seems like a miniature version of longer oracles of hope we will hear toward the end of the book of Ezekiel, especially chapters 34 and 36 and 37, in its present location it doesn't seem to fit. It's surrounded by seemingly relentless messages of doom in chapters 4 to 24. In geology we call this an erratic. It's a boulder that gets picked up by a glacier way up north as far away as Canada's tundra and then is deposited a hundred miles south of Chicago. How did it get here? It's out of place. By its nature and constitution it's obviously out of place. That sounds like this text. Messages of hope like this belong at the end of the book, in chapters 34 to 48, where, after the prophet had heard that the city had fallen, he could look beyond the present crisis and the coming judgment to the new day when everything would be restored to normal. Critical scholars think it was picked up from there and deposited here, rather awkwardly. But Ezekiel had planted the seeds of this hopeful message earlier. The sign act involving a few hairs that Ezekiel had stashed away in the hem of his garment symbolized the remnant that would emerge from the destruction of Jerusalem and the scattering of its population. Yahweh had formally announced the prospect of a remnant who would survive the coming doom in 6, 8 to 10. And we have heard a whisper of hope in 10 too, with the purification of Jerusalem. Similar whispers will punctuate several judgment speeches later that follow in chapter 14, 11 and 14, 14 to 22, in chapter 16 at the end, and in 17, 22 to 24, and then in chapter 20, verses 40 to 44. While we must evaluate the integrity of each of these fragments on their own merits, the presence of a hopeful oracle here opens the door to positive notes in other judgment prophecies. Finally, we must emphasize that in holding out hope for restoration after the judgment, Ezekiel followed a long-standing prophetic tradition. See Hosea 2, 16 to 23, Hosea 11, 8 to 9, Isaiah 9, 6 to 7, Isaiah 11, 1 to 3, and 14, 32, and 28, 16 to 17. Although Jeremiah rejected popular declarations of hope, 14, 19 to 15, 21 of Jeremiah, he purchased a plot of land for himself in Annathoth as a sign that houses and fields and vineyards will again be bought in this land, 32, 15. In Jeremiah 29, 11, Yahweh explicitly declared that his plan was to give Judah a future and a hope, I have plans for you. But this tradition was much older, dating back to Moses, the paradigmatic prophet, and the promises built into the irrevocable and eternal covenant that Yahweh had made with Israel at Sinai after they had been rescued from slavery of Egypt. See Leviticus 26, 40 to 45, Deuteronomy 4, 27 to 31, and Deuteronomy 30, 1 to 10. Even so, the question of why this oracle was stuck in here remains. We may answer it best by examining the way it's been integrated into the present vision report from chapter 8 through 11. Structurally, the account of Ezekiel's first temple vision displays a broad chiastic pattern with 11, 14 to 21 corresponding to 8, 5, 10 to 10, 7. Both speak of the disgusting and abominable practices of the people of Jerusalem. Both raise the issue of divine alienation and distance between Yahweh and his people. Both revolve around Yahweh's sanctuary, Mikdash, see 8, 6 and 11, 16. Both contrast the judgment of the wicked, 8, 17 to 9, 2 and then 11, 21, with the deliverance promised to the remnant, 9, 2 and 4 and 11, and 11, 14 to 20. But the links between 11, 14 to 20 and 11, 1 to 3, which we studied in the previous session, they are particularly close. Generically, both are crafted as disputation addresses with obviously parallel structures. Both open with a thesis statement cast in the form of a popular quotation to be followed by a dispute and a counter-thesis. And in both, the latter two are signaled by a citation formula. Thematically, this passage also shares with 11, 1 to 13 a concern with the arrogant presumption of Jerusalem's political leaders. In verses 1 to 13, the officials had based their security on their physical presence inside the pot, Jerusalem. In verses 14 to 20, continued residents in the city provided the grounds for those who remained in the land to justify confiscating the property of the exiles. At the same time, by putting these two oracles side by side, the editor has highlighted the contrast between appearance and reality, between Yahweh's absolute writing off of those who remained in Jerusalem and the promise of renewed relationship with the exiles, between his predicted removal of the Jerusalemites for the purpose of judgment and their past removal of the exiles for their salvation, bringing them back. The previous oracle had closed with Ezekiel's cry of horror at the prospect of total elimination of the remnant of Israel ringing in Yahweh's and the reader's ears. Earlier, Yahweh had answered a similar exclamation and question concerning his intentions by strengthening his determination to judge Jerusalem for its atrocities. Look at 9, 8 to 11. The placement of the present oracle immediately after Ezekiel's outburst has the effect of a negative answer to the prophet's earlier question. No, Yahweh did not intend to annihilate the whole remnant of Israel. As he had declared more than a century earlier to Micah in 212 and more recently through Zephaniah and 313 and Jeremiah 6, 9, 31, 7, a remnant of Israel would survive. While Yahweh had given up on the current generation in Jerusalem, even those who would survive the coming destruction, he would preserve a significant remnant of his people from those already in exile. That's the point of this text. Looking farther afield, in its present position, this oracle represents the penultimate phase in a larger vision whose primary concern had been the departure of Yahweh from his temple and from the city of Jerusalem. The statement, I will be their sanctuary in the land of exile, verse 16, offers a ray of hope in the face of this dismal prospect. Yahweh may abandon his land, but he would not permanently abandon his people. Well, on the basis of formal transitional signals and content, we may propose the following outline for this oracle. Like the previous one in verses 1 to 13, we have a preamble, verse 14, a thesis, verse 15, in the form of an introduction and then the direct quotation of what the people are saying. Third, we have the refutation, verse 16, and then the counter-thesis in verses 17 to 20, which consists of the promise of a new exodus, the promise of a new land, and the promise of a new covenant, and then finally the epilogue, verse 21. So, let's look at these bit by bit. The preamble, 11, 14, following the customary opening word event formula and Yahweh's address of Ezekiel as human, son of man, the Lord announced the object of his central concern in this oracle, the exiles. They are his point of attention. Three expressions highlighted their relationship to the prophet. The emphatic duplication of the first, your brothers, your brothers, twice, stressed Ezekiel's concern for all the exiles as if they were his extended family, in contrast to the Babylonians who lived around them. The second, your kinsmen, literally men of your redemption, is less familiar. The root ga'al derives from the arena of Israelite family law. Fundamentally, the go'el was an insider, advocate, redeemer, who defended vulnerable members of the family and took responsibility for the well-being of his relatives, and in so doing, maintained the integrity and the wholeness of the clan. The first testament cites the following specific services that kinsmen redeemers offered. One, in the event of enslavement to a non-Israel, Israelite, the go'el, redeemer, would purchase a relative's freedom by paying a ransom, Leviticus 25, 47-55. Two, if patrimonial property, land, passed into the hands of someone outside the family, the redeemer would purchase it to maintain the unbreakable tie between Israelites and the allotments of land given to them, Leviticus 25, 23-34, and you have this in Ruth 4, 1-9. Three, if a man died without having fathered an heir, a responsible redeemer, go'el, would marry a near relative's widow for the purpose of preserving his lineage, Ruth 3, 6-13. Four, if a person's life was taken, the go'el would avenge the death of a near kinsman by seeking the blood of the criminal, Numbers 35, 19-28. The word ge'olah, redemption, occurs elsewhere in the prophets only in Jeremiah 32, 7-8, where Yahweh instructed Jeremiah to exercise his right of redemption, mishpat ha-go'olah, and purchase property at Anathoth as a sign of the eventual return of the Judean exiles from captivity. In our text, men of your redemption refers to the circle of relatives to whom Ezekiel would have looked in times of need, and who under the present circumstances should have guaranteed the security of his property in Jerusalem during his absence. It seems, though, that Ezekiel's entire clan had been dragged off into exile, and somebody else was living in their property. When Yahweh referred to all the exiles as the whole household of Israel, he portrayed them as a clan, an extended family. Ezekiel was one member. However, the use of all these expressions, kinship expressions, is ironic. Although the exiles include many of the prophets' blood relatives, the book presents Ezekiel as a man totally alienated from his fellow Judeans. There were few, if any, with whom he felt a spiritual kinship. Yes, they would come to his house for prophecies, but they weren't interested in him. They wanted a word from God. They didn't want small talk or even dinner together. At the same time, the broader expression, the whole household of Israel, highlights the scope of Yahweh's concern. The only people worthy of the name Israel were in exile. There's the irony. We'll see this when we get into this text. He could no longer apply the name to those left behind in Jerusalem. If the exiles were the focus of his attention, the key issue in this disputation was a word of their relatives back home claiming the rights to the exiles' property. The quotation cited in verse 15b reflects the Jerusalemites' arrogant and illusory perspective. Their continued residence in the homeland obviously and definitively proved their most favored status with Yahweh. To the people back home, the exile of Ezekiel and his kinsfolk was clear proof that God had rejected them. That's why they are on foreign, alien, unclean soil. The exiles in Babylon are the ones whom God has rejected. Well, let's go then to the thesis. As another disputation addresses, here the prophet presented the Jerusalemites' thesis in the form of a quotation that was circulating among the people. They're saying, they are far from Yahweh. It is ours. The land has been given to us as a possession. This statement has three parts in verse 15. The first, they are far away from Yahweh, interprets the plight of the exiles theologically. They're not saying they are far from us. No, they're far from Yahweh. Instead of expressing grief over the deportation of their countrymen with comments like, they're far from us, the statement picks up the motif of divine alienation, first introduced in 8.6, explicitly expressed in 8.12 and 9.9, and implied in the staged departure of Yahweh from the temple as portrayed in the broader vision. But the people have given the estrangement a perverse twist. God was not the one who was alienated. It was the exiles in the minds of the people back in Jerusalem. Because the exiles have been expelled from the land, obviously they were also far away from Yahweh. The link to God depends upon your tie to the land. Underlying this comment was the notion that access to Yahweh depended upon physical presence in Yahweh's land. This notion had a long history in Israel. As early as the period of the conquest, popular opinion had it that the favor of Yahweh was somehow connected with Terra Sancta, the Holy Land, defined as the region between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. This was formally and concretely recognized by the altar the men of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh built on the banks of the Jordan after the battles of conquest under Joshua were finished, and before they crossed over to their allotted territories east of the river. This is Joshua 22. The claim of these two and a half tribes to the territory outside of the officially delineated borders of the promised land created a dilemma, a theological dilemma. They feared that it would not be long before the westerners, those on the other side of the Jordan, would exploit the barrier represented by the river, theologically, to expel them from the sacral community. Therefore, they constructed a memorial altar as a permanent reminder of their kinship with the cis-Jordanian tribes. Evidently, absence from the land could lead to a denial of access to Yahweh. That's what they feared. We see how seriously non-Israelites believed in this connection between land and deity, between territory and deity. It's reflected in the story of Naaman. Remember Naaman? After Elijah's God had healed the Aramean general of his leprosy of some sort, he was determined to continue his relationship with the God of this land. Therefore, he requested permission to take two mule loads of Israelite soil back to Damascus with him. It's curious, but in his mind, connection to Yahweh, the God of Israel, depended on him having this little bit of dirt from that land. Well, that's what we've got going here. The present citation continues with, it's ours. The land has been given to us as a possession. Not only were Ezekiel's fellow exiles bankrupted spiritually, no access to Yahweh, they had also lost out materially. The absence of an antecedent for it in it belongs to us, and the ambiguity of the statement created the impression of an oft-repeated slogan. They knew what they were talking about, but we who read this text wonder, what's the it? The third part clarifies the ambiguity. The land has been given to us as our possession. It's no longer theirs. The passive verb raises the question, who gave it? By whom? No doubt they understood this as a divine passive. God has given it to us, obviously. This provided the theological rationale for those who remained in the territory of Israel to repudiate all claims of the exiles to the land and promote themselves as the true heirs of the ancient patriarchal promises as you have it, for example, in Exodus 6, 8. Although the preamble had suggested that Ezekiel had learned of these developments back home by direct revelation, Ezekiel, have you heard what the people are saying? Yahweh informed him of what the Jerusalemites were saying. This thesis statement probably confirmed what he and his country folk had been learning through the regular channels of communication. This rejection by their compatriots and relatives back home must have devastated the morale of the exiles, as if being forcefully carried off by the enemy was not enough. Their own people had betrayed them. Many of the exiles had undoubtedly drawn similar conclusions from their expulsion from the land themselves. After all, from God's perspective, the exile was punishment for their persistent rebellion against him. But they will also have interpreted their fate as a sign of Yahweh's betrayal and used their alienation from him as a pretext for evil. But they did not need the rejection from their kinsfolk in Jerusalem. Ironically, it was the Jerusalemites back home who were alienating themselves from Yahweh by their daily conduct and their arrogant claims. In verse 16, we have the refutation, but Yahweh would have none of this. Therefore say, thus has the Lord Yahweh declared, I have indeed driven them away among the nations, and I have indeed scattered them among the countries. Nevertheless, I have become their sanctuary in small measure in the lands to which they have come. God's rebuttal of the Jerusalemites' cynical claims consists of two parts. First, by means of two emphatic parallel lines, he affirmed his involvement in the expulsion of the exiles from their homeland. No doubt the people back home would have applauded this announcement. But second, he challenged their theories concerning the nature of the divine-human territorial relations. They should not interpret the exiles' expulsion from the land of Israel by definition as alienation from himself. The last statement is radical and revolutionary in several respects. On the one hand, God personalized the place of worship. He would personally become a sanctuary, mikdash, to the exiles. You never find any statement like this anywhere else in the First Testament. The closest analog we have is in the New Testament, where Jesus applied the term temple to himself, John 2, 19-22. And he predicted to the Samaritan woman of a time when true worship will occur, not in Jerusalem nor on Mount Gerizim, but in spirit and in truth. In the ancient world, sanctuaries were normally understood as cult sites at buildings rendered sacred by the presence of the deity, the God. Here, Yahweh promised to be for the exiles what the temple used to be for them in Jerusalem. But on the other hand, he changed the locus of worship, promising to be with the exiles on foreign soil, the unclean land, 413, to which they had been banished. But the content of this statement and the channel through which it reached the exiles are remarkable. Ezekiel himself was heir to the tradition in which the notions of sanctuary, sacred space, were at the heart of Israel's spiritual self-consciousness. In their minds, the temple was a visible sign of Yahweh's presence among them and a symbol of their status as the people of Yahweh. Now this prophet, who was a Levite, and whose clan's interests were vested in defending the centrality of the temple in Jerusalem, now this Levite announced the possibility of relationship with Yahweh apart from the temple. Perhaps it was this attachment to the tradition that led Yahweh to qualify the promise. In the expression mikdash ma'at, which I have rendered a sanctuary in small measure, that second word ma'at obviously functions as a minimizing modifier. But what does it mean? Small, limited, modest, temporary? We could interpret it adjectivally, that is, I will be a little sanctuary for them, comparable to a little help that we find in Daniel 11.24. However, we could also interpret the expression adverbially, either temporarily, for a little while, some translations do this, hinting at the exile's limited duration, or qualitatively, to a limited extent. My translation, in small measure, tries to preserve the ambiguity, suggesting that while Yahweh's offer of his presence to the exiles would be a magnificent grace, they would not experience him either to the same degree or on as permanent a basis as his people had to this point. But even with this qualification, Yahweh's statement rebuts the Jerusalemite claims head on. Not only had God affirmed his commitment to the exiles, but by minimizing the role of the temple in Jerusalem, he had also undermined their exclusive claims to his favor. And with this, their rights to the exile's property. The timing of this statement and the location of this oracle are crucial. So long as Yahweh's remained in the temple, it would have been anachronistic. However, according to chapter 10, the glory had already departed from the sanctuary, removing its sanctity and rendering this building profane, common, ordinary, like any other. Ezekiel offered no clues on how the exiles might have experienced the Lord's presence among them. But his own encounters, beginning with his inaugural vision, proved concretely the truthfulness of his declaration. The Counter Thesis, 11, 17 to 20. Having rebuffed the arrogant claims of the Jerusalemites, Yahweh addressed the exiles in Babylon directly. He spoke to them. His word was for them. It's cast in two parts, a series of promises and a short, hortatory warning. The divine promises in verses 17 infuse this disputation with the flavor of a salvation oracle, which is why I have titled this text, Anticipating the Gospel According to Ezekiel. As such, it juxtaposes a reminder of past judgment of the exiles, verse 16, with assurances of future deliverance, verses 17 to 20. The temporary switch from the third to the second person in verse 17 reminds readers that, although the temple vision as a whole and the present disputation to this point had been concerned primarily with the situation in Jerusalem, despite that, Ezekiel's fellow exiles were his primary audience. However, in verse 18, Yahweh resumed his refutational style, speaking of the exiles in the third person. Viewed as a whole, Yahweh's Counter Thesis provided a remarkably comprehensive summary of the nature and effects of Israel's ultimate restoration. Now we hear for the first time that the exiles' deliverance will involve much more than merely reversing the effects of the judgment. It will mean undoing their past, including the causes that had brought on the judgment, and the establishment of an entirely new order. The promises also stress that, just as the judgment had been the work of Yahweh himself, so the deliverance would be the result of his own direct intervention on their behalf. Verses 17 to 20 announce three fundamental changes in Israel's relationship with their land and with their God. The order the prophet hears them from Yahweh is both logical and chronological. First, it begins with the new exodus. Verse 17, the first step in Israel's renewal is the restoration of the ruptured territory-people relationship. This will involve two stages, mustering the dispersed exiles and bringing them back to their homeland. Yahweh described the gathering of the exiles by means of two semantically parallel lines intentionally constructed to mirror the reminder of the judgment in verse 16. I drove them out among the nations, and I scattered them among the lands. That's 11.16. 11.17. I will gather you from the peoples. I will assemble you from the lands. It's the reverse, the mirror image. We will hear echoes of this declaration many times in Ezekiel's oracles of deliverance later in the book. Chapter 20, verse 34 and 41, 34, verse 13, 36, 24, and 39, 27. A third colon line completes the process with a head-on refutation of the claims of the Jerusalemites and in terms reminiscent of the promise to the patriarchs, Genesis 15, 18, and the granting of the land to Israel under Joshua in 1.2 of Joshua. Yahweh announced that after he had regathered the people, he will grant to them the land of Israel, so the people-territory tie is renewed. Second, the new land. It's a new exodus followed by a new reference to a new land. Verse 18, when they arrived there, they will remove all its detestable and abominable things from it. Like the territory that the Israelites had once wrested from the Canaanites, you see this in Deuteronomy all over the place, the land to which the Lord would bring the regathered exiles had become a polluted land, defiled by centuries of detestable and abominable conduct, but not by pagans. No, it needed to be fumigated from the problems that the Israelites had created here, all their smelly business. This time, the Israelites themselves had caused the pollution, whereas Yahweh promised to deliver his people himself. He assigned responsibility for ridding the land of its contamination to the people. When they arrive, they will remove all its detestable and abominable things in it, so that's an interesting development here of that one. New exodus, new land, new covenant. Verse 19 to 20, then I will give them a single heart and a new spirit I will place within them. I will remove the stony heart from their body and give to them a heart of flesh, so they may follow my ordinances and keep my stipulations, that is, put them into practice. Then they will become my people, and I will become their God. Although these verses open with a promise of a heart-mind transplant, the syntactical construction makes it clear that the true goal is the reconstitution of Yahweh's covenant with his people. But the prerequisite for such an event is a fundamental reconstitution of the people. You can't legislate renewal. The form of Ezekiel's statement suggests that the oracles of Yahweh, his contemporary in Jerusalem, had reached him by now in Babylon. In a context similar to Ezekiel's present announcement of restoration, his senior, the older prophet Jeremiah had declared, I will give them a single heart and a single way to fear me all the days, Jeremiah 32-39. See also Jeremiah 24-7, I will give them a heart to know that I am Yahweh. And 31-33, I will put my Torah within them, and on their hearts I will write it. Now Ezekiel's exposition of Jeremiah's words begins with two chiastically parallel comments on the single heart motif. I will give to them a single heart and a new spirit I will put in them. Notice I will give, the verb is first, a single heart, a new spirit I will put in them, A-B-B-A pattern. As is often the case in Ezekiel here, lev, heart, designates the locus of the moral will, one's inner being, but also it's the mental place. Ezekiel had previously described Yahweh's distress over the Israel's promiscuous hearts, which had turned away from him, 6-9. The prophet would describe the problem with the exiles' hearts more explicitly in 14-3. These men have erected their idols of excrement, Gelulim, on their hearts, and in 20-16, their hearts have pursued the idols of excrement. But here Yahweh declared his intention ultimately to instill in his people a singleness of heart that was demonstrated in focused and exclusive devotion to him. The antithesis of a single heart, lev echad, one heart, was insincerity, duplicity, the possession of two hearts, or a double heart, or a heart that is divided into two parts, one devoted to Yahweh and the other one devoted to some other gods perhaps. But a singularly devoted heart was what Moses had called for in the Shema in Deuteronomy 6, 4-5. Here, O Israel, our Yahweh is our God, Yahweh alone, and you shall demonstrate love for Yahweh your God with your whole inner being, the word is lev, heart, mind, and with your entire person, your nefesh, and then finally with all your resources. In 1 Chronicles, the narrator describes David's loyal followers as those who assisted him with undivided heart, they have no heart and heart, literally, they don't have two hearts in them, and as men of a perfect heart, levav shalem, a perfect heart. 2 In the second line, ruach, spirit, this functions as a correlative to lev, that is, the locus of the moral will, though in the light of its usage in verse 5, it could be the seat of thought that is in mind, namely, the mind, this is probably it, I've mentioned before, biblical Hebrew has no word for brain. As in 1831 where Ezekiel will call upon the people to make for themselves a new heart, lev chadash, and a new spirit, ruach chadashah, the issue here was clearly anthropological transformation from the inside out. This differs slightly from 36, 36 to 7, where a new spirit merges with my spirit, that is Yahweh's own dynamic power. Ezekiel expanded on Jeremiah's words further by describing the renewal in terms of a heart transplant, the expression, I will remove the stony heart, lev ha-evan, concretizes the disposition of the Israelites previously described as hard-hearted, chizkei lev, 2-4, stiff-hearted, keshei lev, in 3-7. The only solution for people like this is radical surgery, the removal of the fossilized organ and its replacement with a sensitive and responsive heart, a heart of flesh. In verse 20, Yahweh defined the goal of this operation. Faithfulness to Yahweh expressed in wholehearted obedience to his covenant, as in 5-6-7, the ordinances and the stipulations represent the totality of the divine will as laid out in detail in the terms of the covenant in Exodus and Leviticus and in Deuteronomy. Since verse 19 expands on Jeremiah's notion of a single heart, lev echad, we may interpret verse 20 as an exposition of his single way, derech echad, single course, single path. You don't go off in two directions on this road. If you come to a fork in the road, take it. Well, which one? You don't do both. Here Ezekiel expressed his full agreement with Jeremiah's earlier declaration. The possession of Yahweh's Torah is no proof of true religion. It's not enough to have the law, nor guarantee of divine favor. It must be lived, embodied Torah. Ezekiel will speak frequently of walking in his ordinances, keeping his stipulations, and doing them, that is, putting them into practice. Once Yahweh had performed his miraculous heart transplant, the ancient ideal for Israel would finally be realized. Yahweh's good news for the exiles reached a climax in the second half of verse 20 with a formal announcement of the Lord's renewal of his covenant with his people. Then they will become my people, and I will become their God. The term for covenant is missing here. We'll see that in 34, 30 to 31. But in this declaration, for the first time in the book, we hear what is generally known as the covenant formula. This formula involves ancient legal terminology, specifically the marriage ceremony, and expresses the relationship of commitment and intimacy. Its prominence in both Ezekiel and Jeremiah was based on a long history, beginning with Yahweh's commitment to be the God of Abraham. I will be your God and the God of your descendants, Genesis 17, 7 to 8. Yahweh's commitment to the patriarchs provided the grounds for his rescue of the Israelites from Egypt, and the formalization of the covenant on Mount Sinai, where in this marriage ceremony, God said, I will be your God, and you will be my people. And the people responded, we will be your people, and you will be our God. This is the covenant formula. I will be your God, and you will be my people. Ezekiel would develop the theme more fully in 20, verses 5 to 8. Indeed, this formula, which reverberates like a refrain throughout the entire first testament and into the new, represents one of the unifying themes of the entire biblical revelation. Although the nations of the ancient Near East thought they enjoyed a special relationship with their respective deities, Yahweh's covenant relationship with Israel was unparalleled. There's nothing like this anywhere in the ancient literature. Indeed, Yahweh's primary interest has always been in the nation, not the land. This was unique. Outside Israel, deities were generally perceived primarily as gods of territories, and secondarily as the gods of whoever lived in their territory. They were real estate magnets. But Israel's God had entered into a covenant relationship with his people first, and then the gift of land was a demonstration of that covenant, not the prerequisite to it. In verse 21, we come to the epilogue. This oracle concludes with a pastoral warning to the exiles not to take Yahweh's promised benefits for granted. He says, but for those whose heart is committed to their detestable and abominable things, I will bring their conduct down upon their own heads, the declaration of the Lord Yahweh. There's that signature formula again, the declaration. It's God's oral stamp, or Ezekiel's oral stamp of this as God's word. Well, the first half of verse 21 is a problem. Whom did Yahweh have in mind when he spoke of those whose heart is toward their detestable things, and whose heart goes after their abominable practice? Within the broader context, the formulation seems to summarize the charges laid against Jerusalemites in chapter 8, in which case Yahweh's and Ezekiel's attention had returned to those whose quotation he had refuted in the first place, that is, the people in Jerusalem. However, coming immediately after the announcement of the new covenant, it was undoubtedly intended primarily for Ezekiel's immediate audience, represented by the elders still sitting before him. The prophet hereby reminded his fellow exiles of their continued peril before Yahweh, and the contingent nature of that renewed relationship. The prophet's banished countrymen may not expect to inherit the blessings of covenant relationship automatically, nor simply because they were exiles. They too must abandon their abominable ways which they had brought with them from their homeland in the first place. Lest Yahweh bring their conduct down upon their own heads, an expression that echoes 910. With a concluding signatory formula, the declaration of the Lord Yahweh, Ezekiel stamped his disputation address with Yahweh's verbal signature. His word stood as firm witness against those who would claim erroneously to be his special people, but would refuse to live according to that status. Well, we may all breathe a sigh of relief that we finally heard a prophecy from Ezekiel that offers good news. That is encouraging. We have finally heard gospel. But this is a gospel not only for the original audience. It is also a glorious gospel for us. We need to retrace our steps and review what lessons on life and relationship with God and God himself this passage holds that has permanent and eternal value for believers in Jesus, who is the embodiment of the Yahweh who had been speaking to Ezekiel and who hereby offered the exiles such hope. What lessons? Well, first, like the disputation in verses 1 to 13, this speech affirms that those who occupy positions of power must beware of the tendency of power to corrupt. As we noted in the previous lesson, the vacuum left by Nebuchadnezzar's banishment of Jerusalem's ruling class had provided many from the lower classes and strata opportunity to rise for leadership. But like the pigs headed by Napoleon in George Orwell's animal farm, this new class of nobility had become tyrannical in their performance of their duties and in their neighborly relationships. In addition to brutalizing their fellow residents, verses 6 and 7, they greedily appropriated the property of those who had already been deprived of their freedom and their dignity in exile. This reminds me of a motto my roommate in Bible college way back shortly after the earth cooled he had on above his desk, never hit a man when he's down, kick him, it's easier. That's what these guys back in Jerusalem were doing, and in so doing they violated both the common mores of humanity and the divine laws concerning the inviolability of patrimonial holdings in Israel. Think of Ahab and Naboth, the affair in 1 Kings 21. But this oracle declares that those who are guilty of such arrogance and abuse and greed will face rejection by God. Second, this passage teaches us once more that there have always been two Israels, physical Israel represented by the descendants of Abraham, and spiritual Israel who actually had the faith of Abraham, which included non-descendants of Jacob like Caleb. The true Israel is recognizable not by external marks such as circumcision, keeping kosher food laws, observing Sabbath as defined by the Pharisees, and scrupulous observance of ritual purification laws, or the possession of the Torah, the law, or by their presence in the holy land near the temple. Rather, the mark of true Israel is willing obedience to the covenant Lord grounded in full-bodied and wholehearted fear of God, commitment to walking in his ways demonstrated in love for God and undivided allegiance to and service of God. True spirituality is not expressed by claiming the promises of God and or parroting theological dogma. Those who lay the greatest stock in these externals may be the ones whom God rejects. For the true Israelite, the claim to covenant relationship with God is matched by genuine piety and compassion for others, especially those who have been marginalized. God's praise is directed toward those who demonstrate faith by hatred of evil, fidelity toward good, and charity toward others. Third, spiritual renewal is achieved not by human effort but by a transforming act of God. Education, economic development, and the renovation of political structures may ameliorate the symptoms of a fallen humanity somewhat, but they cannot solve the fundamental human problem, a heart that is hard and disposed against God. But by his grace, God offers his covenant to sinners, transforms their inner beings, and sets them on a new course to pursue a life of faith, compassion, morality, and justice as established in his revealed will. Fourth, this oracle serves as a powerful witness to God's covenant faithfulness. His promises to restore the nation of Israel to her land and to renew his covenant are based on the irrevocability of the promises made to the fathers long ago. And a marriage entered into at Sinai, the eternal covenant of peace that we'll talk about in Ezekiel 36, is not really new but a renewal of the old covenant. Nor was Jeremiah's new covenant, Berith Hadash, new in its essence or in its effects, but it was new in its holistic interiorization of religion in Israel as a nation, in contrast to previous interiorization in the hearts of only a few. Israel's infidelity had absolved God of all beneficent covenantal obligations to this generation and would have justified his allowing the nation to be lost in the conglomerate population of the empire of Babylon. But the ancient covenant curses had held out hope for the nation of a new act of grace after judgment, Leviticus 26. Now, even before Yahweh had emptied his cup of wrath, he sent those who had been betrayed by their countrymen a promissory note of restoration. For those who walk with God, there is always light at the end of the tunnel.