Ezekiel - Lesson 31

Lesson 31, giving Nebuchadnezzar and Ezekiel their due, a laborer is worthy of his hire. Ezekiel 29, 17 to 21. Here's the text. In the twenty-seventh year, in the first month, on the first day of the month, the following message of Yahweh came to me. Human, Nebuchadnezzar had his army. Render a great service. The king of Babylon, concerning Tyre. Every head is worn bald, every shoulder is rubbed bare, but he and his armies did not receive compensation from Tyre, corresponding to the service that he rendered against her. Therefore, thus has the Lord Yahweh declared, look, I am giving the land of Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, and he will carry off her wealth and he will take her spoil and he will seize her loot and she will be compensation for his army. As his reward for which he served me, I have given the land of Egypt to him because they were working for me. The declaration of the Lord Yahweh. On that day, I will cause a horn to sprout for the house of Israel, and to you I will grant an opening of the mouth in their midst. Then they will know that I am Yahweh. The text for this lesson takes up only five verses. It is the shortest of Ezekiel's oracles against Egypt and one of the shortest in the whole book. Unlike most of his prophecies, here Ezekiel did not identify an addressee, which raises the question, who was Yahweh's intended audience for this prophecy? And why is there no command to Ezekiel to declare this message publicly? Did this mean this revelation was intended primarily for the prophet's own consumption? Could it be that Ezekiel was struggling over the fact that his earlier oracle against Tyre had not been fulfilled as he had expected? The concluding statement, on that day I will grant you an opening of the mouth in their midst, suggests this oracle was significant for him personally. On the other hand, perhaps his fellow exiles had complained to him that the rock on which Tyre sat had not been wiped clean. It had seemed from chapters 26 to 28, delivered some 15 years earlier, that Yahweh had predicted indeed called Nebuchadnezzar to destroy Tyre totally. Well this would not happen for another 250 years until Alexander the Great conquered Tyre, tore down all its buildings and massacred the population that had been left to defend it. Tyre had not been wiped out as these prophecies seemed to envision when they were delivered shortly after the fugitive had arrived in Babylon from Judah and announced that Jerusalem had fallen to the Babylonians, chapter 33, verse 21. On the surface, the present oracle, 29, 17 to 21, seems to deal with the problem this created for the exiles, who had heard Ezekiel declare the end of Tyre almost 14 years earlier. But it may also have created problems for the prophet and for his credibility among the exiles. After all, the test of a true prophet was, do his predictions come true? It appears that Yahweh had promised so much and delivered so little. And of course, for interpreters today, the relationship between these two oracles, chapters 26 and this oracle, pose huge problems. They often cite this text as Exhibit A of evidence for Yahweh's powerlessness to fulfill his word. Some commend the prophet for honestly admitting that a prediction from Yahweh had not been fulfilled and illustrating what Yahweh does when that happens, Walter Zimmerle. Others argue that if historical events do not match the prediction, then God revises his messages and rewrites them to suit a new reality. To Robert Carroll, this prophecy proves that the prophets were aware that their predictions often went unfulfilled. In fact, some suggest that if a prophecy matches the events of which it speaks, this must be an ex-eventu utterance. That is, the prophecy was given after the event happened and made to look like a prophecy. An oracle composed after the event but made to look like a prediction. Even we evangelicals must admit that some events do not match prophets' predictions. Of course, Jonah's simple five-word pronouncement to the inhabitants of Nineveh is an obvious example. Jonah declares, 40 more days and Nineveh will be overthrown, literally turned upside down, Jonah 3.4. Now because Jonah hated the Ninevites, his first response to being God's messenger to that Assyrian city was to run away from God and from his commission. But after Yahweh had disciplined him for his dereliction of prophetic duty, he recommissioned him to go to the same city. And then when Yahweh declared to him the message he was supposed to deliver, Jonah must have thought, 40 days and Nineveh will be turned upside down. He said, that's a prophecy I can preach. Indeed, after he completed his tour of the town and had proclaimed its imminent destruction outside the city at the hotel where he was staying, he waited expectantly for the fire to fall from heaven. But the fire never fell. Yahweh changed his mind about the doom he had predicted and did not destroy Nineveh. Jonah was furious. I knew this would happen, he said. That’s why I fled to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious God, compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in unfailing love, chesed, and you back off from punishing those who deserve your judgment. Jonah, in his mind, is continuing, in Exodus 32, you said you would destroy Israel, but you didn't do it. And here, you said you would destroy Nineveh. This is a different order. Of course, we must recognize the rhetorical intention of statements like this. While on the surface they sound absolute, 40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown, the very fact that Yahweh issued the warning was an act of grace. In effect, by giving the warning, he was inviting the people of Nineveh to respond so that he would not need to carry out the threat. See the last verse of the book. Now in our time, when the Israelis threaten to respond to terrorist attacks from Gaza, they regularly send advance warnings that they are coming. They tell them which buildings are their targets, and they call on civilians, children, women, and older people to leave those places that represent obvious targets for their missiles. This is an act of mercy. However, the prophecy in Ezekiel 26 was quite different from these. The cases I cited of Jonah and the Israelites after the golden calf in Exodus 32, these involved messages delivered directly to the targeted victims of Yahweh's fury, Nineveh, or their representative, Moses. It was understood that the execution of the threat was contingent upon the people's reaction. In the case of the Israelites at Sinai, God withdrew the threat because of the prayer of a righteous intercessor. As James wrote in James 5.16, Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective, NRSV. In the case of Jonah and the Ninevites, when they heard the warning, All the inhabitants of Nineveh, from the king on his throne to the cows in the barn, they all repented of their sin and donned sackcloth. Hear the king's decree. Let every person and all the livestock fast and wear sackcloth, and let them call out urgently to God. Let all turn from their evil way and from the violence they are committing. Who knows? God may turn around and change his mind, Necham, and stifle his fierce anger, so that we may not perish. And when God saw their reaction, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster He said He would do to them, and He did not do it. These threats were contingent. The point in publicizing them was to evoke a change in the human behavior of the recipient of the judgment, which would result in a change in God's action. Not that God is capricious or arbitrary or inconsistent or weak-willed, but precisely because He is constant in His character, gracious, compassionate, abounding in faithfulness and chesed. However, Ezekiel 26 sounds nothing like this. This oracle was not intended for the target of Yahweh's fury. Ezekiel didn't deliver it to the people of Tyre and then end with the words we heard in 18 to 21 to 22. Now, if the wicked person turns away from all his sin that he has committed and observes all my statutes and practices justice and righteousness, he shall surely live. He shall not die. None of his rebellious acts that he has perpetrated will be charged against him. On account of his righteousness that he has practiced, he shall live. We don't find that at the end of chapter 26, that oracle against Tyre. Or, 18, 30 to 32. Repent and turn away from all your rebellious actions so that iniquity does not become a stumbling block for you. Throw off all your rebellious actions that you have committed and create a new heart and a new spirit for yourselves. Why should you die, O house of Israel? I find no pleasure in anyone's death, the declaration of the Lord Yahweh. So turn around and live. In 26.3, Yahweh had opened. Look, I am against you, O Tyre. But that was a rhetorical device. Tyre was not Ezekiel's real audience. He was talking to his fellow exiles, reminding them of Yahweh's involvement in what was going on internationally and that Nebuchadnezzar was his agent anticipated in the curses of the covenant in Deuteronomy 28. He was the eagle swooping in from the north to execute judgment on his own people. This was intended neither as a warning to Tyre nor as an encouragement to Nebuchadnezzar. I doubt whether Nebuchadnezzar ever heard this oracle. Unlike the situation in Nineveh, even though Ezekiel lived in Babylon, it's doubtful this prophecy ever reached the Babylonian king or his armies. Indeed, I now need to correct my own comments in my commentary on Ezekiel, written 30 years ago and published in 1998. I am now convinced that this text is not about unfulfilled prophecy or about Yahweh's need to revise his prophecies in the light of the way things actually turn out. My friend Maggie O'Dell has rightly observed that if it were, it would open up quite differently. It would open up with human. What is this proverb that you have circulating in the land of Egypt? Time passes and every vision fails, prophecy fails, as we have it in 1222, or a conclusion something like this.But when this happens, and happen it certainly will, then they will know that a prophet has been in their midst, 3333. Rather, this prophecy is about Yahweh's fidelity and reliability as a commissioning authority. Will he be true to Nebuchadnezzar, his agent on the ground, with respect to Judah, verses 18-20? And will he be true to Ezekiel, his mouthpiece among the exiles, verse 21? The oracle structure is simple, yielding a simple outline. Preamble, 29-17. Second, Nebuchadnezzar's place in Yahweh's agenda, 29-18-20. And then a concluding apologia for the prophet, verse 21. So, here the preamble. In the 27th year, in the first month, on the first day of the month, the following message of Yahweh came to me. According to this opening date notice, Ezekiel received this oracle from Yahweh on New Year's Day, in the 27th year of Jehoiakim's and his own exile, that is April 26, 571 B.C. Really? In the city of Babylon, this was the Akitu festival day, when the people joined the gods in celebrating the kingship of Marduk. It's New Year's Day. They had huge processions and rituals in his honor, climaxing with the whole city shouting, Marduk is king! Marduk is king! Marduk is king! According to this date notice, this oracle came 14 years after Ezekiel's last oracle against Egypt, that we hear in 32-17, which was March 18, 585 B.C. And two years after the long concluding temple and territory vision, chapters 40-48, see 40 verse 1, where you have another date notice. Ezekiel didn't report what triggered this, the last words we hear from Ezekiel. It is his last oracle. He doesn't report what had triggered this one. But it may have been the news report in Babylon that Nebuchadnezzar had lifted his siege of Tyre. Josephus, a Jewish historian contemporary with the apostles in the New Testament, reports that Nebuchadnezzar had besieged Tyre for 13 years, when a certain Itobal, Ethbaal, was king of Tyre in Contrappion 1.20. And also he repeats this in Antiquities 10.11. Josephus tells us he got his information on Babylonian history from several sources, Menander of Ephesus and Berossus, a priest of Baal Marduk in Babylon, who wrote a history of Babylon, Babyloniaca, in Greek, the 3rd century B.C., after Alexander the Great. Now, if the Babylonian lifting of the siege triggered this oracle, say about 573 to 572, that would mean that the siege began about 586 to 585 B.C., immediately after the fall of Jerusalem. That great achievement, the fall of Jerusalem, may have inspired Nebuchadnezzar to move northwest to the coast and claim the prize that the Assyrians had been unable to seize a couple of generations earlier. But in the end, he gave up and headed for home. Well, this preamble introduces us to Nebuchadnezzar's place in Yahweh's agenda, verses 18 to 20. These verses deal with the significance of Nebuchadnezzar's apparent failure, apparent italicized, describing first the incredible effort he had expended in trying to take down Tyre, verse 18, and then Yahweh's reaction to the Babylonian king's disappointment, verses 19 to 20.In these verses, we get a glimpse into the significance of Nebuchadnezzar for Yahweh's game plan for this part of the world in the 6th century B.C. But we also get a glimpse into Yahweh's heart, and what we find there is extraordinary. These verses divide into two parts. First, Yahweh's recognition of Nebuchadnezzar's diligent service against Tyre. And it's interesting that now when he is talking about Nebuchadnezzar, he uses the spelling of the name that is more honoring to Nebuchadnezzar with an N. Nebuchadrezzar. That's his real name. So that's the first part, verse 18, and then Yahweh's promised compensation for Nebuchadnezzar's labors, verses 19 to 20. However, I propose here to focus on the relationship between Yahweh and Nebuchadnezzar as reflected in these three verses. What can we say about the relationship between these two persons, characters, Yahweh and Nebuchadnezzar? First, Yahweh twice identified Nebuchadnezzar by his true name and title. I note at the outset of this series on the oracles against the nations that we know the Babylonian name, the Babylonian king, as Nebuchadnezzar. However, Yahweh respectfully used a form that is closer to his real name, Nebuchadnezzar, that is, Nebuchadrezzar, meaning, O Nebuchadnezzar, protect my offspring. The name reflects a concern for legacy. Yahweh used the closer form of his name as if he knew the man. Second, Yahweh explicitly identified Nebuchadnezzar and his armies as his agent. In the last clause of verse 20, Yahweh grounded the present prophecy with, because they were working for me, Asher Asuli. Yahweh had commissioned him and his armies to do his dirty work of punishing his people for their history of unfaithfulness and rebellion. We might have expected Yahweh to say, because they were serving me, but instead he uses a different verb. He says, they were acting for me. Third, Yahweh was emphatic that Nebuchadnezzar had indeed acted on his behalf as his servant. Although he hadn't used the word to serve at the end of verse 20, where we expected it, the Hebrew root, avvav, appears five times in this text. Although for English stylistic reasons, translations, including my own, rarely use the word serve consistently in this context. Here is a more wooden rendering of what we actually have. Human. Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had his army serve with great service against Tyre. Every head is worn bald and every shoulder rubbed bare. Still neither he nor his army received compensation from Tyre for the service he served against her and his reward for which he served. As his reward for which he served, I have given him the land of Egypt because they were acting on my behalf. And then the verb changes. Why this emphasis on service? Because the Babylonian king and his army were fulfilling this assignment on Yahweh's behalf. Fourth, Yahweh recognized that Nebuchadnezzar's service had involved an extremely significant agenda which involved eliminating Tyre as an obstacle who stood in his, that is, Yahweh's way. In verse 18 he used the expression great service, usually translated hard labor. That great service was to fulfill his covenant threats against Judah which had meant attacking Tyre who stood in his way. This probably explains why, after 13 years of besieging Tyre, Yahweh permitted Nebuchadnezzar to lift the siege of Tyre because his primary objective, bringing down Judah, had already been achieved and Tyre was no longer a hindrance to that goal. Yahweh's broader agenda had not been jeopardized by lifting the siege and Babylon's position as Yahweh's agent would be secure for the 40 years required in chapter 4. Fifth, Yahweh recognized that Nebuchadnezzar and the armies under him had worked extremely hard for him. Verse 18 provides an image of how hard they had worked. Every head was worn bald and every shoulder rubbed bare. Maggie O'Dell interprets the baldness and rare shoulders as symptoms of aging, that is, these were in effect badges of honor for the long service, his yoke of service they had rendered for Yahweh, the suzerain who had commissioned them. But I think we need to interpret it more concretely. Some suggest bald head and bare shoulders refer to the chafing effects of helmets and armor. However, because the Babylonian strategies described in chapter 26 had involved a siege rather than a pitched battle, it is preferable to think in terms of the back-breaking work involved in carrying out a siege. Before the age of bulldozers and other earth-moving equipment, the huge amounts of dirt required to construct siege mounds and ramps all had to be carried out by hand or on the backs of donkeys. Assyrian kings have left us images, statues of themselves holding, carrying a basket of earth and building materials, presumably soil. However, closer to Ezekiel's time, Nabopolassar had described his engagement of his son Nebuchadnezzar. Nabopolassar was Nebuchadnezzar's father. He described his engagement of Nebuchadnezzar in a building project like this. I bowed my neck to the god Marduk. He's not a devotee of Yahweh. Marduk is his lord. Marduk, my lord, rolled up my garment, the ceremonial attire of my royal majesty, and carried mud bricks and mud on my head. I had baskets made from gold and silver, and I made Nebuchadnezzar, my firstborn child, the beloved of my heart, carry with my workmen mud that was mixed with wine, oil, and crushed aromatics. I made Nabu Shuma Lishir, his Talimu brother, a child who is my own offspring, his younger brother, my favorite, take up the hoe and the spade. I imposed on him a gold and silver basket and gave him as a gift to the god Marduk, my lord. Tyrian resistance to Nebuchadnezzar had provoked the oracles against Tyre, and the divinely appointed agent of punishment for Judah had labored for 13 years to capture the island fortress, Josephus. But in the end, Nebuchadnezzar withdrew without having captured the island, let alone having totally devastated the island city, as envisioned in Ezekiel 26. The circumstances surrounding the lifting of the siege are not clear. It seems that Baal II finally bowed to Babylonian pressure, accepting vassal status under Nebuchadnezzar, thereby eliminating the need for any further action against Tyre. The Tyrians have been subdued. The Tyrians will hardly have realized the theological or prophetic ramifications of the Babylonian withdrawal of the siege. But from the divine perspective, their submission to Babylon meant he was resigned to the will and plan of Yahweh. Now Yahweh was free to suspend the threats that he had pronounced upon the city and would await a later tidal wave to complete the job and indeed delayed the fuller fulfillment of the oracle for 250 years until the time of Alexander the Great of Greece. An interesting relationship between Nebuchadnezzar and Yahweh. But sixth, Yahweh recognized that Nebuchadnezzar personally had not been rewarded sufficiently for his efforts. Still, neither he nor his army has received appropriate compensation from Tyre for the service he rendered against her. Most translations read something like has received anything, ESV, NRSV, or they've received no compensation, CSV, or no reward, NIV, or no return, the Jewish Tanakh version. But this reflects interpreters' faulty focus on the status of the prophecy rather than the relationship between Nebuchadnezzar and Yahweh. In the Hebrew text, we find no word for no or any. And we know that Nebuchadnezzar did indeed get significant return for his efforts. He owned old Tyre, which was larger than the island city. This was the mainland part of which we spoke in chapter 26. He owned all the region up and down the coast and the Tyrians did submit to him, demonstrating their vassal status and his overlordship by paying tribute, which jingled in Nebuchadnezzar's pockets all the way back to Babylon. Modern readers may interpret the present prophecy as an admission of failure, but Ezekiel did not say he received no compensation. However, this need not mean that Nebuchadnezzar was happy with what he achieved. Of course he was disappointed. To him, this will have been a far cry from having conquered the city and confiscated all the precious loot stored in its royal and temple treasuries. From across the 700-meter waterway, Nebuchadnezzar could see the magnificent palaces on the island with a temple of Melchart, the lord of Tyre, at the top. In verse 18b, we see that Yahweh himself recognized a problem, for which he proposed his answer in verses 19-20. Yahweh acknowledged the pressure the king had placed on his army, but for him, God, this was a personal matter of integrity in his relationship with his servant, not with his prophecy. Normally, the word sakkar refers to payment a person receives for services rendered on another's behalf. Mercenaries receive payment, skilled workers receive payment, advisors and prophets hired to curse an enemy receive payment, Deuteronomy 23.5. Yahweh's use of this word here suggests Nebuchadnezzar was serving as the agent of a third party. The portrayal of Yahweh as a superior who had engaged mercenaries to carry out his agenda is remarkable enough. However, since Nebuchadnezzar had worked so hard in pursuit of Yahweh's agenda, of course, not knowing that he was Yahweh's agent, Yahweh felt morally obligated to compensate the Babylonian better for all his work. But how shall we interpret this? Is Yahweh really this concerned about material compensation for mortals engaged in his service? Did Ezekiel really believe that Yahweh had incurred a debt to the pagan king of Babylon? And where is Isaiah's vision of Yahweh of hosts who leads the stars in martial array and has power to dispose of rulers and nations with a mere breath, and they're gone? Does he not have full freedom to deal with humans as he wants without being subject to earthly standards of equity and economic justice? The primary issue here cannot be failed prophecy. Yahweh is always true to his word. After all, in the earlier prophecy, we heard him declare, I am Yahweh, I have spoken. And four times in the book, he declares the significance of that statement. I am Yahweh, I have spoken, I act accordingly. 1724, 2214, 3636, and 3714. Here the issue is not the non-fulfillment of his word, but compensation which Yahweh himself raises. As my friend Ian Dugan observes in a review of my commentary on this passage, which forced me to rethink what I had said, he says, only if God's word is decisive and can be unfailingly counted upon do these words have any value. Otherwise, God is revealed to be like a poor parent who threatens repeated chastisement upon his children but cannot be counted upon to follow through. In Ezekiel 12, 25, however, the Lord explicitly declares that he will fulfill exactly what he says and soon. Well, so much from Ian Dugan. Since that is the case, perhaps we should go back and ask what Yahweh had actually said in chapter 26 and what actually happened in history. We begin with Ezekiel 26, 3-6. Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh declared, I am against you, O Tyre, as the sea hurls its waves, so I will hurl against you many nations. They will destroy the walls of Tyre and tear down her towers. I will scrape her soil off her and transform her into a bare rock.She will be a place where nets are spread in the midst of the sea, for I have spoken. She will become plunder for the nations while her daughters who are on the mainland will be slaughtered with a sword. Then they will know that I am Yahweh. Well, with the benefit of 14 years of hindsight after that prophecy, several features of that opening stand out. First, Yahweh announced the fundamental issue. His opposition is to Tyre.I am against you, O Tyre. His primary concern there was neither Nebuchadnezzar nor establishing a test concerning the efficacy of prophecy. Two, the opening line of the prophecy is pregnantly ambiguous, as prophecy often is. As the sea hurls its waves, so I will hurl against you many nations. Really? When we looked at this text earlier, I illustrated the metaphor with images of the tsunami that hit Indonesia just before Christmas in 2004, as if it were a one-off event. But waves are constantly lapping against the shores. And in any case, tidal waves and storm surges can hit in the same place twice or three times or more. Furthermore, in Yahweh's interpretation of the metaphor, he spoke specifically of hurling many nations against Tyre. This could refer to the troops from all over the empire in Nebuchadnezzar's army, except that Ezekiel always interprets Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon as a single entity. In Ezekiel 31, 11, he will be quite explicit. I will give it, Pharaoh, and his hordes as a gigantic tree into the hand of a mighty one of the nations. The one. He shall surely deal with it as its wickedness deserves. I have cast it out. By speaking of many nations, the Lord, who gave this oracle, opened the door to additional invasions like stages of fulfillment, with Nebuchadnezzar being the first. We know that when Cyrus the Persian and Cambyses, his successor, took over Nebuchadnezzar's empire, they exercised full control over Phoenicia. They taxed their merchants. They required tribute from the rulers of Tyre. In his famous cylinder celebrating the conquest of Babylon in 539, Cyrus reported, All the kings of the entire world, from the upper to the lower sea, all the kings of the Westland, brought their tributes and kissed my feet in Babylon. But it would be left to Alexander in 332 B.C. to fulfill Yahweh's detailed prediction as described in Ezekiel 26, 7-14, which ends with, I will put an end to the noise of your songs, so the sound of the lyre will no longer be heard. I will transform you into a bare rock. She will be a place where they spread out nets, never to be rebuilt, for I am Yahweh, I have spoken. He hadn't said in 26, he would do that particularly, specifically with Nebuchadnezzar, and exclusively with Nebuchadnezzar. Notice who is the subject of all of these predictions. Yahweh, not Nebuchadnezzar. The pronouns are first-person, representing the speaker, not an outside agent. But what do we make of the extra-biblical evidence for Nebuchadnezzar's effect on Tyre? Well, here's a summary of the facts. As I already noted, according to Josephus, Nebuchadnezzar besieged Tyre for 13 years, which involved his total conquest of old Tyre and his limitation of shipping around the island. Their freedom was curtailed. Second, by the time Nebuchadnezzar withdrew the siege, Tyre was not destroyed as predicted, yet, but her economy was destroyed, and her political independence was over. The king of Tyre had become a vassal of Nebuchadnezzar. That was achieved. Three, a prism from Nebuchadnezzar's own court in Babylon mentions 126 men from Tyre being held in Babylon, along with Jehoiakin. Interestingly, the Judean king is in that list as well. Suggesting that from Tyre, he had taken hostages, like he did with Daniel and his three friends in 605 B.C. or 4, and then the exiles that he took in 598. Four, another Nebuchadnezzar prism inscription, 7834, dated to the time of Nebuchadnezzar, definitely after 598.It includes the king of Tyre among the list of foreign rulers and dignitaries held in Babylon, like Jehoiakin. Five, Tyre would never again, after Nebuchadnezzar's work, exercise significant independent political influence in the world, let alone interfere with the divine agenda, as they had done until the coming of Nebuchadnezzar. That aspect of Yahweh's goal expressed in this oracle had been fully fulfilled. Six, prophecy often implicitly involves staged fulfillment. The events prophets foresaw were often like a range of mountains off in the distance. People who have driven across the prairies of Canada on the Trans-Canada Highway discover that about the time they get to Calgary, they can see the Rocky Mountains, which look like a single line on the horizon. But once they get to Banff, they realize that this is just one range. When they reached the pass over that range, in the distance they saw another range, and then another, and then another, as they drove westward. But all of these ranges are included in the single epithet, the Rocky Mountains. Prophets and psalmists of Israel tended to view the coming of the Messiah as a single event. Only after Jesus had come and left do we recognize a second phase that we still anticipate. The Messiah will return, and we are to live in the light of his return. Well, this is how we should understand this prophecy. Nebuchadnezzar had fulfilled Yahweh's immediate goal of removing Tyre as a gadfly in the implementation of his agenda, but the entitlements of that agenda trail on for two and a half centuries. In 1 Timothy 5.8, Paul declared, for the scripture says, you shall not muzzle an ox that treads your grain. And the laborer deserves his wages. This is the issue the present prophecy addressed. To that end, Yahweh announced the settlement of that matter with two statements declaring Egypt as Nebuchadnezzar's well-earned compensation prize. In verse 20, Yahweh specified the payment concretely as the wealth, the spoil, and booty, the normal prizes of conquest, the plundered treasures of defeated cities. Some of this loot could have been Tyrian treasure that had been shipped to Egypt for safekeeping during the siege, but the text emphasizes that Nebuchadnezzar was being handed the land of Egypt and its treasures. However, the king was not to hoard these for himself, but distribute them among his troops as well. This prophecy envisions Nebuchadnezzar launching a military campaign into Egypt. While external evidence for such a campaign is scant, a fragmentary cuneiform text refers to Nebuchadnezzar's 37th year, 568 BC, when the king of Babylon marched against Egypt, Mitzir, that is, within three years of this prophecy, which came in 571. The occasion for the invasion is unclear, but the reference to Amasis suggests he reigned as co-regent of Hophra in Hophra's last years. Such a civil war had broken out in Egypt in 570 BC, Herodotus, Histories 2, 161-62. That ended with the death of Hophra and the succession of Amasis. Nebuchadnezzar may have timed his invasion to take advantage of these troubled political conditions in Egypt. Yahweh obviously kept this word as well. Well, let's turn then to the concluding apologia. Yahweh's agenda for Ezekiel in verse 21. Instead of concluding the oracle with a signatory formula, the declaration of the Lord Yahweh, Yahweh appended an apologia declaring the significance of this oracle for Ezekiel's audience and the prophet himself. Verse 21 consists of two parts. First, Yahweh announced that he would cause a horn, keren, to sprout, samach, from the house of Israel. Because keren is used in several different metaphors, this statement is actually ambiguous. Literally, the noun denotes an animal's horn and is often used synonymously with shofar, the instrument made from an animal's horn. Though shofar usually refers more specifically to a ram's or an ibex horn. Because horns are the focus of bovines and caprovines' power, animals like deer, keren often functions figuratively for strength. Since horn may also connote arrogance, haughtiness, the scriptures talk of humiliation as the hewing off of the horns, gadan keren, Lamentations 2, 3, and elsewhere. By this interpretation, Yahweh offered hope to the exiles. If Yahweh had not forgotten his debt to Nebuchadnezzar, neither had he forgotten his ancient covenant commitments and promises to Israel. But the issue has another side. The mixed metaphor, samach keren, which combines a botanical imagery, samach, to sprout, a horn will sprout, and an animal motif. Do horns actually sprout like plants? Well, this recalls Psalm 132, 17, the only other place where this occurs in all of scripture. There I will make a horn to sprout for David. I have prepared a lamp for my anointed. Really? This text, our text, provides the basis for the long-standing messianic interpretation of our text here in Ezekiel. We have this in the rabbinic work Sanhedrin 98a. Most scholars reject the messianic interpretation here, but several pronouncements in Ezekiel were obviously messianic. We'll see this in 3424 and 3724. In fact, in 1722, that text links the figure to a tree that sprouts and grows into a Weltenbaum. A reference to a Davidic descendant at this point is no more surprising than the presence of the verse itself. Remarkably, this, the latest recorded statement we have from the prophet Ezekiel, came within two years after his grand eschatological vision in chapters 40 to 48. But who would that sprout be? Jehoiachin is certainly the key here. Nebuchadnezzar had taken him to Babylon, but in the providence of God, Babylon functioned as a safe for the dynasty. While Jerusalem burned and the last branch in Jerusalem was executed, that is, the last member of the Davidic house, this twig was safe in the king's palace far away. In the first year of his successor, Evel Merodach, Emel Marduk, the first year of his reign, 562 BC, he released Jehoiachin from captivity, elevated him above all the other captives, and invited him to eat at his table the rest of his life. From him and his grandson Zerubbabel, the horn will sprout, and he shows up in Matthew 1, 12 to 13 in the genealogy of Jesus. The second part of verse 21 relates to the prophet personally. Yahweh promised to give Ezekiel openness of mouth among his countrymen. On first sight, we might relate this to the prophet's previous dumbness, 326 to 27. He was to speak only when God gave him a word. But that problem had been resolved long ago. We will read about it in 33, 21 to 22, but the events of 33, 21, and 22 happened long before this oracle was pronounced. Furthermore, Yahweh used a strange expression, to you I will grant opening of the mouth in their midst. Why didn't he simply say, I will open your mouth, as in 24, 27? Well, the present expression occurs elsewhere only in Ezekiel 16, 63. We might associate this expression with Akkadian, literally, the opening of the mouth, which referred to a special ritual performed in consecrating sacred images. Whereas in chapter 16, idolatry had been a central issue and Jerusalem's closed mouth would stop her from accusing Yahweh, her covenant partner, of abandoning her. Or hear the idiom, speaks, or an idiom applied to a human being as the authenticated image of and spokesperson for God. The present issue concerns Yahweh's commitment to his commissioned agent. He had fulfilled his commitment to Nebuchadnezzar by paying him what he deserved for his service to the divine agenda. But his opening of Ezekiel's mouth confirmed his authorization of Ezekiel as his spokesman on the one hand, but it also confirmed his fidelity to the word that he had commanded Ezekiel to speak. Ironically, the statement shows up at the very end of Ezekiel's tenure as prophet, at least as far as the record is concerned. This was his last recorded prophecy. But we will hear more on this issue in chapter 33. When Egypt has been delivered to Nebuchadnezzar and when the horn has sprouted, not only will Ezekiel's status as true prophet be reconfirmed as it had been when news of Jerusalem's fall reached the exiles, but also then Israel will recognize Yahweh. Then you will know that I am Yahweh. After all, that was Yahweh's principal goal. As always, we end this study by asking what lessons Ezekiel 29, 17 to 21 hold for us in the 21st century. Well, first, Yahweh's use of human agents is neither callous nor arbitrary. His engagement of humans for the achievement of the divine agenda is a common theme in the prophets. This oracle reminds us that Yahweh's employment of such agents was intentional and considerate. His servants may despair, feeling the only rewards for their toil are grief and pain. As the servant expressed it in Isaiah 49, 4, But God is sensitive to the feelings of his agents. He does not merely call them to do his dirty work and then discard them like some disposable styrofoam food container that we use so often in COVID-19 times. Whether or not the agents realize it, God leaves no accounts unsettled. Those who labor faithfully in the Lord's service will hear his well done. Second, God keeps his word. This oracle was not only about God settling accounts with humans, the mystery of divine providence and the question of God's faithfulness to his word is a greater concern than the reward of human agents, especially to those who serve as his spokespersons. In Ezekiel's audience, there were literalists who, even though they accepted the empty pronouncements of false prophets, they demanded 100% literal fulfillment for Ezekiel's predictions now. Well, this oracle is not about Yahweh changing his mind about tire, but about reassuring the prophet and us, his hearers, readers, that he is Yahweh. He has spoken. He keeps his word. Third, prophetic proclamation is about persuasion and revealing Yahweh to one's hearers. Even as they had become cynical about divine integrity and the integrity of the true prophet in their midst, the exiles in Ezekiel's audience had overlooked the primary function of his preaching to persuade them to repent of their sins and acknowledge Yahweh and to submit to his claims on their lives. Prophetic proclamation is more than fortune-telling. It is rhetorically charged, exuberant, passionate, hyperbolic communication of divine truth, using whatever means possible and necessary to evoke an appropriate response in the audience. But preoccupation with the fulfillment of predictions tends to deafen our deafened hearers to the primary message of God as his agent in any age. The enigmas of providence and human history may challenge the observer's faith, but we who hear the word are warned not to respond with the cynicism and skepticism of unbelief. Finally, in addition to reaffirming Yahweh's sovereignty over historical affairs, this prophecy also declares God's personal concerns for those he engages as his mouthpieces, agents of that sort. It's possible that even Ezekiel struggled with a disconnection between his previous oracle, chapter 26, and Nebuchadnezzar's lifting of the siege from Tyre, perhaps even raising doubts about his role in Yahweh's service. But it is reassuring for messengers of God to read an oracle like this, concluding with a personal word for the prophet. Nebuchadnezzar was not the only one who would discover his compensation in the generosity of God. The prophet, too, may rest in the knowledge that his cause is in the Lord's hands, Isaiah 49.4. The knowledge of his presence and the promise of his self-revelation liberate his messengers to confident and cheerful proclamation of his truth.