Ezekiel - Lesson 14

Lesson 14 PACT FOR EXILE THE FATE OF THE DAVIDIC LINE EZEKIEL 12 1-16 In chapter 12 we leave the prophecies delivered in the form of a complex vision in chapters 8-11 and switch back to a dramatic performance by Ezekiel. Like we had seen in chapter 4, there we noted that these sign actions were not merely street theater performed for the entertainment of kids. Here again the prophet was deadly serious, delivering a message that struck at the heart of the exiles' theology and a fourth pillar of the people's doctrine of national security. This time it's all about God's promise to David of eternal title to the throne of Israel. And here God says, I can upset that that throne anytime I want if you are going to make that your rabbit's foot, your good luck charm. Once again the boundaries of this prophecy are clearly demarked by the word event formula, the word of Yahweh came to me saying, and then a complex version of the recognition formula at the end, verses 15-16, and they will know that I am Yahweh when I disperse them among the nations and scatter them among the lands. But I will spare a few of them from the sword, from famine and from plague, so that they may describe all their abominations among the nations to which they have come, and they will know that I am Yahweh. With respect to genre, this passage is mixed, with its opening accusation followed by the announcement of the sentence, verses 3-14, introduced with, now you human, followed by a message warning the people of the impending doom, verses 16. It shares the structure of common judgment oracles. You have the evidence, and then the verdict, and then the sentence. However, the concluding recognition formula that I just read, 15-16, gives it the flavor of a prophetic proof saying, forecasting an event whose occurrence would result in a new recognition of Yahweh by the remnant of the Israelites. But there is more. The announcement of judgment takes the form of a dramatic presentation exhibiting the classic marks of a prophetic sign action. First, there is a command to stage a performance, verses 3-6. Second, there is a report of its execution, verse 7. Third, there is an interpretation of the performance, verses 8-14. Apart from the form of the message, we should also pay attention to the way the prophecy plays with the motif of daylight and darkness, seeing and blindness. Notice especially key expressions that feed this motif. Before their eyes, that is, in their sight, appears seven times, 3a, 3b, 4a, 4b, 5, 6, 7, plus additional references to literal eyes in verses 2 and 12, to see six times, verses 2a, 2b, 3, 6, 12, 13, by daylight three times, verses 3, 4, and 7, in the evening twice, 4 and 7, at twilight twice, 6, 7, and 12. By juxtaposing words like eye, seeing, daylight, the account presents a fascinating study in perception, seeing, more than what the eyes see, and blindness. But it is also interesting in advance to observe how this prophecy would be fulfilled. On January 5th, during the ninth year of Zedekiah's reign, 587 B.C., King Nebuchadnezzar led his entire army against Jerusalem. They surrounded the city and built siege ramps against its walls. Jerusalem was kept under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah's reign. By July 14th, 586 B.C., in the eleventh year of Zedekiah's reign, the famine in the city had become very severe, and the last of the food was entirely gone. Then a section of the city wall was broken down, and all the soldiers fled. Since the city was surrounded by the Babylonians, they waited for nightfall. Then they slipped through the gate between the two walls behind the king's garden and headed toward the Jordan Valley. But the Babylonian troops chased the king and caught him on the plains of Jericho, for his men had all deserted him and scattered. They took him to the king of Babylon at Ribla, where they proclaimed judgment upon Zedekiah. They made Zedekiah watch as they slaughtered his sons. Then they gouged out Zedekiah's eyes, bound him in bronze chains, and led him away to Babylon. This is a modified version of the New Living Translation. Ezekiel's audience, who treated him as a storyteller and entertainer, as we've seen many times, would not have believed the prophet if he had predicted exactly how Zedekiah would meet his Waterloo.So the prophet teased the people with a performance that was obviously metaphoric. His antics were fascinating, if not bizarre, and their true significance catches us by surprise and probably escaped his observers until he delivered the authoritative and inspired interpretation by its author, Yahweh, in chapter 12, verses 8 to 14. This does not mean that there was no link between the prophecy and Zedekiah's eventual fate. While the pantomime reflected Yahweh's determination to eliminate him and his associates, the vague references to seeing and not seeing were no more than hints of how this might transpire. And in the end, the fulfillment shocks us and may also have shocked Ezekiel. But this did not limit the significance nor the power of the message. From the divine perspective, the anticipated course of events was clear and the manner of fulfillment predetermined. In fact, one of Ezekiel's central themes was that Yahweh was a God who speaks and who acts precisely as predicted, 1225 and 1229 and 1724. But prophets did not customarily forecast the future in detail. They usually spoke in generalities. The present text is no exception. Ezekiel achieved his announcement of the doom of the prince by the pregnant use of language, not specific prediction. The ambiguity of many expressions in the text was intentional, forcing the audience to reflect on its meaning and to consider as many applications as possible. However, only the divine interpretation and its fulfillment established which of the possibilities was correct. When we review the four theological pillars on which the Judeans base their security, the pillar that this oracle addresses is obvious. Yahweh had made an eternal covenant with David, guaranteeing him permanent and irrevocable title to the throne of Israel. Well, if the throne is eternal, that must mean that no one can ever challenge the dynasty's position. And since Yahweh had promised this, he had to guarantee the existence of the nation over which David and his descendants had been promised eternal title and rule. It's logical. So let's begin with the accusation in verses 1 and 2. The following message of Yahweh came to me, human, you are living in the midst of a rebellious household, people who have eyes to see but do not see, who have ears to hear but do not hear, because they are a rebellious house. Although this prophecy is undated, it was obviously presented to the exiles prior to the fall of Jerusalem. Yahweh, the one who addressed Ezekiel, began with a divine analysis of the spiritual condition of his audience. As the prophecy proceeds, it will be important to keep in mind verse 2, which identifies the audience as members of the exiled community, the people who have shared the prophet's fate. Although the subject concerned events in Jerusalem, its message was for the people in Babylon, here characterized as a household family in revolt, an expression we remember from the time of Ezekiel's commissioning already in 2.6 and 2.8 and then 3.9, 3.26 and 27. Their stubbornness, obduracy, is described in two precisely parallel lines, eyes they have to see but do not see, ears they have to hear but do not hear. Their sense organs aren't working. The motif of dull sensory organs was a prominent element in prophetic preaching. You see it in Isaiah 6, 9 to 10 and 43.8, Jeremiah 2.21. It recalls the psalmist's attack on idols in Psalm 115. They have mouths but don't speak, they have eyes but do not hear, they have ears but do not hear, the eyes but do not see, they have ears but do not hear, noses but do not smell, and they have hands but do not feel, they have feet but they do not walk. These people have demonstrated the truthfulness of the adage, people become like the gods they worship, Psalm 115.8. But this familiar prophetic motif introduces us to the light motif, the key motif of the passage. Unlike earlier texts that had focused on having ears but not hearing, here the issue turned out to be having eyes but not seeing. Remember Jazaniah, in the light of which the Lord says, though they scream in my ears I will not hear, it's about eyes that do not see. Ezekiel didn't explain how the exiles demonstrated their rebellion or their obtuseness. But after the hopeful word we heard in 11.14.21, the present text cautions us against an overly optimistic estimation of the spiritual condition of the exiles. Ezekiel bore witness to the fact that in their theology and character, his fellow exiles were exactly like their countrymen back home. And Yahweh hereby affirmed that they had not been selected for deportation because they were inherently better. However, he also acknowledges that so far this experience and Ezekiel's preaching had not produced any change in their fundamental disposition. The formerly upper classes and skilled laborers of Jerusalem continued to resist the will of their covenant Lord. Let's move then to the second part, Yahweh's instructions regarding the dramatic performance in verses three to six. The rhetorical strategy chosen to address the condition of the exiles was creative, to say the least, if not ridiculous. Yahweh commanded Ezekiel to perform a series of actions, each of which had portentous significance. It was a portent, a sign of something different in the future. First, Ezekiel was to pack his knapsack in preparation for a long journey. The article in question is illustrated in a series of neo-Assyrian monumental reliefs that portray captives being led away in procession with large bags slung over their shoulders. These packs were made of durable cloth or skin and loaded with as many bare essentials necessities for surviving the long trek as they could salvage from the ruins of a conquered city. Since his own experience of exile was relatively recent, Ezekiel probably still had some of the required items in on hand, including the knapsack. Perhaps some of his fellow exiles had kept their bags and their contents in storage anticipating an early return to Jerusalem, so let's not even unpack our bags. Second, Ezekiel was to carry his bag out of his house. Apparently he set it down outside the doorway in view of the people, since verses 3 to 4a stress that these actions were to be performed during the daytime in their sight. We can only speculate how the people responded to these actions, which really were quite ambiguous. What did they mean? Who knows? Since the text speaks explicitly of going off into exile, the people could have interpreted these actions positively. If Ezekiel's house represents their confinement, then the knapsack must symbolize their imminent return, their packing to go home, in which case this is a call to them to repack their bags and get ready to leave for Jerusalem. However, the last clause of verse 3 suggests that this was definitely not the message Ezekiel was intending to deliver. Because they were rebellious and blind, the hope was that they would see, not only observe with their physical eyes, but also grasp the significance of his actions with their minds. That's real seeing. Third, in the evening Ezekiel was to go outside his house and begin digging a hole in the wall, verses 4b to 5. To us the actions seem very strange, but the picture is realistic, since Babylonian houses were typically constructed of sun-dried mud bricks. Most scholars interpret this action to represent the desperate efforts of the people back in Jerusalem or Zedekiah and his entourage to escape from the invading army. However, this confuses the image of a voluntary flight with that of a forced exile. Escapees normally flee through existing gateways. They don't have time to dig escape routes through the fortifications, which were often massive. Furthermore, if in this drama Ezekiel represented the king or his subjects trying to flee from the city, he should have dug the hole in the wall from the inside out, in which case the people would not have been able to see him at work until he was almost through. But Yahweh explicitly instructed the prophet to go inside the house, and then while the people watch, to dig a hole through the wall. Now Ezekiel seems to have shifted roles. He no longer represented the people inside the city, but the enemy, the Babylonians. They were the ones who would eventually create a breach in Jerusalem's fortifications, Jeremiah 39.2. Fourth, at twilight, Ezekiel was to carry the knapsack out of the house, verse 6. Verse 5 had prepared us for this by noting that the hole was to be used for this purpose. But how could this be, since the knapsack was already outside? The narrative is obviously telescoped. Presumably, if we want to reconstruct what's happening, once Ezekiel had dug a hole in the wall large enough for him to crawl through, he stopped, picked up his knapsack, and returned it to the house. Well, at twilight, when it was still light enough for his spectators to observe his actions, he was to take his knapsack out once more, though this time not through the door, as in verses 3-4, but through the hole. The text doesn't say where Ezekiel took the bag of provisions, but we can only imagine him walking off into the gathering darkness out of the people's vision. The atmosphere created by the sequence, by day, in the evening, at twilight, is foreboding. The darkness of night is at hand. However, verse 6b adds one more detail. Ezekiel was to emerge through the hole in the wall with his face covered. This probably meant simply being blindfolded or hooded, which the audience probably interpreted either as a gesture of intense grief, 2 Samuel 15.30 or 19.5, or shame, Jeremiah 14.3 and 4. But the text gives the reason. It was to prevent Ezekiel from seeing the ground. To learn what that meant, we will need to wait until verse 12. Yahweh's instructions regarding the sign-act conclude with a brief comment on its significance, or more precisely, the meaning of the prophet, since in this performance Ezekiel himself was apportent amo faith. He is the sign. In this dramatic performance, the prophet functioned as a living image of God's judgment and the people's fate. The medium had indeed become the message. Verse 7. Ezekiel reports his compliance with the Lord's instructions. In this book, Ezekiel rarely reports that he does what the Lord commanded him to do, in this case, perform a sign-action. But here he broke that pattern, beginning with a stereotypical announcement, I did just as I had been commanded, and then summarizing his performance in terse, autobiographical style. In broad daylight, I took out my exile's pack. In the evening, I dug a hole in the wall with my hands. At twilight, with my knapsack over my shoulder, I made my exit while the exiles watched. The only element missing is a reference to covering his head. But like the police reports we hear when they summarize their early understanding of the sequence of events in a crime scene or after an accident, the prophet provided us readers and hearers of this account with a timeline for his actions. Verse 8-14. The fact that Yahweh's interpretation takes up the largest portion of this passage highlights his words as the center of gravity with the original audience in mind. Apart from verse 8, which establishes the context for the interpretation, the remainder of this oracle is taken up entirely by Yahweh's voice as he interpreted the sign-actions for the prophet, prescribing the very words Ezekiel was to use before the audience. Whereas in verse 8, the prophet declared his fulfillment of Yahweh's instructions regarding the sign-action, he did not report at the end that he had spoken as Yahweh had dictated. He said he'd acted as Yahweh had told him, but he doesn't report that he spoke as Yahweh dictated. The interpretation consists of several discrete parts. First, you have the audience's request for an interpretation. Verse 9. Ezekiel's bizarre performance obviously achieved its first objective, to arouse the curiosity of the spectators. They must have concluded that this knapsack referred to some sort of journey, but why and what was the destination? Was he simply dramatizing their own experiences in 597, or was he announcing that it was going to be reversed, we're going home from Babylon? Curiously, the next morning, Yahweh began by informing the prophet of the question the people in his audience were asking, as if the prophet hadn't heard them himself. It seems he had performed the entire drama in stubborn silence. By refusing to answer questions from the audience, Ezekiel had heightened their interest. But he also remained true to his commission. He would speak only when he received authorization from Yahweh. Remember chapter 3, the end of the call narrative. Apparently, Ezekiel had sent the onlookers home to retire for the night, puzzling over the meaning of his bizarre performance. The question the people were asking, what in the world are you doing? It was more than a demand to know what he was doing. That their eyes had seen, plainly enough, they knew what he was doing. At issue was the significance of the actions. What is the point of what you are doing? You have references like this in 2419 and 3718. But the question itself demonstrated that his dramatic rhetorical strategy was working. However, the exiles' mental obtuseness and spiritual recalcitrance prevented them from grasping its meaning. They had eyes, but they could not see. They didn't have a clue. The prophet's response, verses 10 to 14. In 10a, Yahweh instructed the prophet to interpret the dramatization for the people. However, this would not be Ezekiel's own interpretation. Since Ezekiel had not written the script, he was in no position to make that up. Accordingly, what followed was cast as a divine speech which Ezekiel was to pass on to his audience verbatim. The interpretation divides into two parts. The first, focused on the fate of the folks in Jerusalem based on their own experience, verses 10b to 12, and the second, 13 to 14, highlighted the direct involvement of Yahweh. The interpretation begins on an uncertain foot with the opening words, this burden. In the prophets, the word masa often means oracle, the verbal burden that the Lord gives to the prophet to deliver. But the expression reflects the gravitas of the prophet's assignment and the weight of the oracles they proclaimed. Accordingly, most translations of the first sentence is something like, this oracle concerns the prince in Jerusalem. However, it seems more likely that the burden was something that needed to be transported out of the city, which on first sight seemed to refer to the knapsack Ezekiel had carried out of his house and which was the nearest and most natural antecedent to this burden, the knapsack. However, in a surprising move, the Lord opened the interpretation by explicitly identifying the burden is Zedekiah the prince. This interpretation is required by the grammar and reinforced by the fact that Ezekiel never identified his prophecies as an oracle, a burden. He never used that word in that sense. In a dramatic shift of roles, Zedekiah was the burden who needed to be removed from Jerusalem. But notice how Ezekiel referred to Zedekiah. In this book, he never identified him by name, and he never dignified him with the title King Melech. The prophet was not totally opposed to using Melech. You have it in 727, 1712, 3724. But apparently, because of the history of abusive reigns by descendants of David and especially the infidelity of the current member of that line, Zedekiah, c. 34, 1-10, Ezekiel would not dignify this man by calling him either by name, Zedekiah, or by title, the king. By preferring to identify them as prince, nasi, not Melech, nasi, he reduced David's descendants to the status of the tribal chieftains of earlier times in the days of the judges. In so doing, he also recognized that none of Judah's last kings had any real power. All of them were vassals of foreign emperors, whom he frequently would call king, king of Babylon, king of Egypt, other kings, king of Tyre, but he wouldn't call his own kings king. This also explains why, when Ezekiel inserted a date notice as in 1-1 or 8-1, he never spoke about the fifth year of King Zedekiah. That's how he should have done it. Events were dated according to the year of the king's reign, in this case, Zedekiah's fifth year. This would have been the year of Zedekiah, well, in 1, the fifth year of King Zedekiah, but he dated events according to the year of Jehoiakim's exile, not King Zedekiah's accession. The year of Jehoiakim's exile, this would have been the year of Zedekiah's accession to the throne. In any case, in Judah's waning years for Ezekiel, there was only one true king over Israel, and that was Yahweh himself. Ezekiel's disposition towards Zedekiah reminds me of the denial produced in 2016, which I watched on the plane on the way to Australia, incidentally to teach a course on Ezekiel and Adelaide. This movie, based on Deborah Libstadt's book, History on Trial, My Day in the Court with a Holocaust Denier, Harper, 2006, it involved the principals Richard Rampton, played by Tom Wilkinson, the lead barrister in the case of David Irving, played by Timothy Spall, and then, on the other hand, the anti-Semite Holocaust denier. Against Deborah Libstadt, Rachel Weisz, whom he charged with libel for criticizing his work, during the court proceedings, Rampton never looked Irving, who was the anti-Semite Holocaust denier, the prosecutor, never looked David Irving in the eye, not once. And in the end, when asked to explain his seemingly rude behavior, he said, it's my way of showing what I think of him. And in the closing scene, when the verdict was announced, Irving had, in fact, deliberately falsified evidence to support his case against the Holocaust and in defense of Hitler, he refused to shake Irving's hand or look at him. This is how Ezekiel treated Zedekiah in the book of Ezekiel. He cast his fate in all sorts of metaphors, but he never named him. Instead of dating events according to the accession, his accession, year 598 BC, he grounded all his date notices in terms of Jehoiakim's and his own exile. By announcing at the outset, the prince is the burden, Ezekiel thrust Zedekiah into the foreground of the interpretation, but he wouldn't name him. But the prince was not alone in the knapsack. The entire house of Israel was also inside it. Hence, a part of the burden that Yahweh and Jerusalem needed to dispose of. If this dramatic performance concerned primarily the king, that is the prince, Ezekiel's audience needed to know that as the prince goes, so goes the princedom, the nation of Judah. This meant that the capture of Zedekiah symbolized the captivity of the nation. The king and his people were baggage that must be removed from the house. Since that was the case, then the prophet himself represented God, who as we will see in verse 13, deliberately laid a snare for his victim. We saw this sort of alternation of roles between Yahweh and the instrument of judgment earlier in chapter 4. Here, in verse 11, Ezekiel's focus shifted from Jerusalem to the exile situation. Specifically, the prophet's function in this sign action. Announce, I am your sign, just as I have done, so it will be done to you, done to them, into exile, into captivity, they will go. Ezekiel's opening statement may have led his audience to conclude that they didn't need to worry about anything in the message. But on the authority of the divine word, the prophet was to announce that he was important for them. Watch me, listen to me, this is for you. His dramatizations may have portrayed events about to happen in Jerusalem far away, but now he challenged the exiles to reflect on the implications of those events for themselves. We'll see this again in chapter 24, 22, and 24. Having issued the warning, Ezekiel's attention returned to Jerusalem. The way he had manipulated the knapsack depicted the treatment the city's inhabitants would receive. With the passive, so it shall be done to them, and the plural. The prophet did not identify the agent of deportation, but he invited the audience to reflect on who that might be. He withheld the answer until verse 13. What he affirmed in no uncertain terms was that the people back home faced the same fate that Ezekiel and his fellow exiles had experienced, actually only worse. The events of 597 BC would be repeated, in fact, exaggerated. However, in verse 12, Ezekiel returned to the real focus of God's interest, the prince. Here's verse 12. As for the prince, focus on him who is in their midst. On his shoulder he will carry it. At twilight he will take it out. They will burrow through the wall to bring him out through it. He will cover his face because it is with his eye that he will not see the land. Now, not everything is clear in the Hebrew here, but this verse gives audience three significant bits of information about the prince. First, Zedekiah will pack his own exile knapsack and leave Jerusalem at twilight. Here the prince is no longer identified with the knapsack, but he is the one who manipulates the knapsack. You can do this when you play play at your message like this. The image is that of a king trying to escape the triumphant army under cover of darkness, taking with him what few belongings he could carry. See Jeremiah 39.4 and 59.7. But the statement was ironical. The prince, the one lifted up, that's what the word means, the promoted one, shall carry, you saw from the same verb, the burden on his shoulders. Second, in the meantime, the invading army would breach the wall and capture the king. Third, the king would leave with his face covered, preventing him from seeing the land. Here the key issue was not that he covered his eyes, but he did not see. That's the point. Covering his face was a symbolic act, portraying the permanence of the exile to come. Neither the king nor his people included metonymically with him would ever see their native soil again. In verses 13 and 14, we observe another important shift in the interpretation of the sign action. Here's another dimension. Look who's talking. I will spread my net over him, and he will be caught in my snare. Then I will bring him to Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans. Now he will not see it. There he will die. All those around him, his forces and his troops, I will scatter to every wind, and I will unsheathe my sword after them. From here on, Ezekiel focused his hearer's attention on the divine hand at work in bringing about Zedekiah's demise. Indeed, we now learn that the prince's real enemy would not be Nebuchadnezzar, but Yahweh himself. Yahweh described his coming actions in three phases. First, Yahweh would capture Zedekiah like a hunter captures prey. He will spread out his net and capture him in his trap. Nets were used to catch all kinds of prey, fish, birds and land creatures. In future oracles, Ezekiel himself will talk about capturing lions and sea monsters with the net. To capture land animals, the net would often be spread over a pit into which the creatures would be lured, Isaiah 42.22, or spread out on the ground, and then when birdseed or other sort of bait is deposited in the middle, they would bring the net over him. In Ezekiel 99, the parallel expression metzudah, from to hunt, refers to a trap that people set to capture lions. Ezekiel was not the first to portray Yahweh as a hunter in search of human prey, especially the kind that have violated his covenant. You have this in Isaiah 8.14 and 28.13, in Hosea 7.12, Jeremiah 48.42-43, Lamentations 1.13. Nor was the image of an angered deity often a hunting trip unique to Hebrew writers. In a revelatory letter, a letter recording revelation from Mari on the Euphrates River, Dagan announced, Dagan is the god in Mari, I am going to gather him, that is the man of Eshnunah, into a net which holds fast. I will put an end to his city and his property, which from ancient times has not been destroyed. This is from almost a thousand years before Ezekiel. Second, Yahweh would bring the prince of Babylon, the prince to Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans. This is the first time we hear the name Babylon in the book. Like other city-states, the name refers primarily to the city, but it is also extended to the whole territory ruled by the king of this town, hence the added title, the land of the Chaldeans, a reference to the alien ethnic group that had emerged as the ruling class in Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar's family line were not native in Babylon. They had come from higher up northwest, higher up on the Euphrates, down the Euphrates River to Babylon, and they simply took over everywhere. They became the upper crust, the political powers here. This is the land of the Chaldeans, a reference to him with his roots back there. Ezekiel followed up the prediction of Zedekiah's deportation with two additional elements, he shall not see it, and there he will die. How Ezekiel's audience interpreted these statements, we can only guess. Would he not see the destination of his captivity because he had died on the way? Compare Moses, please, with Yahweh in Deuteronomy 3, 22 to 23 to 28, where he begged God to let him cross the Jordan so he could see the land, and in this case, he meant experience the land. Moses could see it from where he was standing. In fact, at the end of the book of Deuteronomy, the Lord says, go up Mount Nebo and look at the whole land. I'll show the whole business to you. He could see it in that sense, but what he meant was he wanted to sense it close up firsthand, touch the soil, pick the fruit, feel the breeze, smell the new land. This is home. Well, God actually did let him see it from the top of Mount Nebo in Moab. Ezekiel's audience would have had no clue about the way this prediction would literally be fulfilled, and this is reported in 2 Kings 25, 6 to 7. They took Zedekiah the king to Babylon at Riblah where they pronounced judgment upon him. They made Zedekiah watch as they slaughtered his sons. Then they gouged out Zedekiah's eyes, bound him in bronze chains, and led him to Babylon. What we read about here in 2 Kings 25, 6 to 7 is well documented in ancient Near Eastern sources. An 8th century B.C. palace relief of Sargon II from Assyria depicts an official gouging out the captive's eyes with a lance. Blinding is cited among the curses for covenant violation in several treaty texts. It was a common practice to treat your captives this way. Yahweh's interpretation of Ezekiel's sign act was extraordinary. Although the statement was vague, with hindsight, pun intended, the prophets seemed to have predicted that Zedekiah would be captured and blinded. Remember, cover his eyes with either a hanker or a scarf or something or a hood? That was a reference to his eventual blinding. Nobody would have made that connection. This interpretation would not have crossed the people's minds or even the prophets. But we must look to the immediate context to determine what Ezekiel and his audience might have made of this. Normally, the meaning of now it he will not see would depend upon the nearest antecedent for the pronoun it, which is the land of the Chaldeans. But if it is the land, the ground referred to in verses 6 and 12, then there is no prediction here of his blinding, and what we read in II Kings 25 is not actually connected to this text. Indeed, Ezekiel appears to have deliberately framed his announcement of Zedekiah's fate after Jeremiah's prediction at the end of Jehoahaz in Jeremiah 22, 10 to 12. Do not weep for him, Jeremiah writes, who is dead, nor grieve for him, but weep bitterly for him who goes away, for he shall return no more to see his native land. For thus says Yahweh concerning Shalom, Jehoahaz, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned instead of Josiah his father, and who went away from this place, he shall return here no more. But in the place where they have carried him captive, there he shall die, and he shall never see this land again. Both of Ezekiel's statements, he shall not see it, the land, and there he shall die, reaffirmed the irrevocability of the king's exile. In the process, he also pronounced the ultimate ignominy on this acknowledged rebel against earthly and divine authority, death on an unclean soil. Amos talks about that in Amos 7, 17. Third, Yahweh would scatter and annihilate all who surround the king, verse 14. Zedekiah's supporters are called his aides and his vassals, and all his troops. The first expression could include his foreign allies, including perhaps Pharaoh Hophra of Egypt, to whom they were always looking for help, whose help Judah may have sought in this instance as well. However, paired with his troops, it probably referred primarily to his own men. By scattering and unleashing his sword against these forces, Yahweh promised to remove all the props supporting Zedekiah's precarious throne. It's over for the throne. What's the goal of the judgment? 12, 15 to 16. And they will know that I am Yahweh when I disperse them among the nations and scatter them among the lands. But I will spare a few of them from the sword, from famine and from plagues, so that they may describe all their abominations among the nations to which they have come. And they will know that I am Yahweh. Now we learn that Yahweh's intention of having Ezekiel deliver this message, it is, the goal was that the Judeans' recognition of Yahweh's character and person would finally be realized. The opening accusation, 12, 1 to 2, explains the need for such an elaborate statement, the rebellious character of Judah expressed by fundamental spiritual obtuseness. They're dullards. When Yahweh has completed his dispersal of Judah's population among the nations, they will acknowledge him. But there is more. In an unexpected turn, Yahweh held out a glimmer of hope. A triad of agents, divine agents, sword, famine, and plague would take their horrendous toll, but Yahweh would personally intervene to rescue a remnant, anshe mispar, innumerable body of men. You can count them. They're not innumerable. The expression denotes a limited group whose members are few enough to count, in contrast to the promised innumerable host of the patriarch's descendants, without number. The statement made no allowance for any personal merit behind God's preserving action. Indeed, the opposite was the case. The Lord spared those few that survived, not to build the future on them, but that they might publicly acknowledge their abominable past. This acknowledgment would serve two purposes. Yahweh will be vindicated for his harsh treatment of the people, and the people will demonstrate that the problem described in the accusation had been answered. They will not only recognize the character of Yahweh, they will acknowledge their own sin. We deserved it. And the people into whose lands they will come will hear them confess their sins, and they will understand Yahweh better themselves. Well, what practical and theological lessons do we learn from Ezekiel's bizarre sign action? I can think of several. First, the danger of spiritual atrophy, simply wearing out, is greatest for those with the richest spiritual tradition. Those who have no ears nor eyes may be forgiven if they are oblivious to reality. But the Israelites had both ears and eyes. In the face of God's lavish expressions of covenant grace and patience, their refusal to hear and their refusal to see had not only dulled their senses further, but also for the people who persisted in their rebellion and their stubbornness, sooner or later the door of divine mercy would slam shut. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Second, however one treats other writings, in the study of the word of God, the primacy of authorial intent must take precedence over all human hermeneutical principles. In speech act theory, we are introduced to three big words, locution. These are the words that speakers use to make a point. Illocution, this refers to the point speakers are trying to make. And then perlocution, this is the point that people get from what the speaker says. Here the prophet has employed bizarre nonverbal actions. That's the locution. The sign action is the speech. But what's the illocution? What's the point? And of course, to people who are counting on the presence of a Davidic king on the throne of Israel as their guarantee of well-being, Ezekiel declared, this hope is groundless. He had demolished one of the four principle pillars of Israel's fundamental theology. And what was the perlocution? What did Ezekiel's audience make of this? The fact that they asked, what are you doing, verse 9, suggests they were not sure the interpretation they had in their heads was correct. But what did they actually do with Ezekiel's locution? At the end of a long prophecy in 2049, exasperated, the prophet burst out, aha, Adonai Yahweh, everyone is saying of me, he only talks in riddles and nothing is more he is nothing more than a storyteller. And in 33, 30 to 32, we read this already in an earlier session, Ezekiel offered a longer description of how his people responded to his ministry in their midst. They came to his house in droves and they sat before him as if they were the Lord's people. They loved to hear him talk. He was like your crooner, your favorite American idol, your singer of sensual songs with a beautiful voice and a fine musical touch. They love your music, but they don't give a rip about the content of your song. That's the problem. That's the perlocution. Like Ezekiel's audience, we are often tempted to interpret the word of God the way we prefer. We adjust divine revelation to suit our desires rather than letting it shape us. By clever rationalization, we transform messages of reproof and correction into illusory promises of hope. But God's word must be understood on his terms, not ours. In the end, it is the point the speaker is trying to make that determines your fate, not the point you make of what the speaker has said. Third, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, the Lord remains sovereign over history. In the face of calamity, we may despair that he has abdicated his throne, but his hand is present even in the direst of circumstances. The goal of his discipline, as well as his benefactions, his blessings, is that all may acknowledge their sinfulness, confess his righteousness, and submit to his gracious leadership. If only we would do that when we hear the word of God. This is the challenge for us, to accept it as his word with his meaning that he intended for us. That's what Ezekiel gave his audience in this case.