Ezekiel - Lesson 1

Hello, my name is Daniel Bloch, and I am here to introduce you to the prophet Ezekiel and to the book in the scriptures that bears his name. My assignment in this course is both enviable and unenviable. It is enviable because when we study Ezekiel, we study one of the most fascinating books in the entire canon. But it is unenviable because of the sheer size of the book. After Jeremiah, which has more than 21,000 words, Genesis, which has 20,000, Psalms, which has 19,000, with Ezekiel's 18,732 words, this is the fourth longest book in the Hebrew Bible. That's an unenviable challenge to deal with it. But it's also unenviable because textbooks on interpreting the First Testament, that's my preference, rather than saying Old Testament, what you call something matters, but I call us the First Testament. The scriptures tell us one continuous story, so we have a first and the second, or we can call that the New Testament, but it's not a new order of text. This is one story, one scripture. Well, whether by First Testament, it's unenviable because textbooks on interpreting the First Testament, whether by First Testament scholars or homileticians, offer no help in preaching Ezekiel or teaching Ezekiel. These books abound with references to Genesis and Joshua and Psalms and Isaiah and Amos and Hosea, but they rarely mention Ezekiel. Could it be that Christians have heeded the counsel of Jewish rabbis who forbade Jews under 30 from reading this book, especially the beginning and the ending? If so, we have extended the prohibition to the whole book, perhaps assuming that there would always be people under 30 in our congregations. But it has not always been this way. Origen, in the second century after Christ, composed at least 14 homilies on Ezekiel, which were translated into Latin by Jerome. Gregory the Great preached 22 homilies on Ezekiel 1 to 3, and 40 between 595 and 594. That is in the Christian era. He expressed delight in clarifying obscure texts, by this time the interpretation of the four living creatures in the opening vision as the four evangelists in the New Testament, the four gospel writers, that interpretation was well established. But he proposed that the four creatures represent all preachers of the Word. From the medieval period, Andrew of St. Victor's overriding concern in reading Ezekiel's vision was not only to recapture the picture so he could draw it like he drew the temple, but also to know what it meant for the people for whom Ezekiel recorded it. Of the Reformers, Calvin's expositions of Ezekiel are significant because they represent his last written work. Racked by pain, his emaciated body gave out though at the end of chapter 20. And when I started working on Ezekiel, I was worried that that might happen to me. But Calvin's commentary reflects the vigor of his mind and his high view of all Scripture. Modern American evangelical interest in the book tends to revolve around Ezekiel's eschatological vision, particularly the participation of Gog and Magog in the final battles and the role of the temple in it and its cult in the millennium. In my native dispensationalist world, Ezekiel was mentioned exclusively in contexts of prophecy, end-time conferences we used to call them. But this genre of ministry now seems to have been quite oblivious to the exilic prophet's lofty theology or the practical nature of his message, which these sorts of events seldom gave any attention to. So the daunting task before us is to rehabilitate this prophet and to rediscover the vitality of the book that bears his name.This challenge is much greater today than it was, say, 40 years ago. Because of, and probably rightful, increasing sensitivity to issues of gender in recent decades, many are repulsed by the image of God presented in this book, especially in chapters 16 and 23. If in the past, Christians would not read or preach the book of Ezekiel because they were perplexed by the prophet's visions or the forms of his oracles, today some cannot preach it because the book and the God portrayed in it seem irredeemably problematic.According to some interpreters, Ezekiel is devoid of any grace at all. How can we grasp and proclaim its message with authority, vitality, and clarity? I propose to answer the question with a series of propositions that together might yield a strategy for thinking about teaching and preaching Ezekiel. How can we do this to recover the book for our time? So a series of propositions follow. Proposition number one, to grasp the message of the book of Ezekiel, we need to understand the prophet, his character, ethos, his passion, pathos, and his argumentation, his logos. Well, all we know about Ezekiel we learn from the book that bears his name. Ezekiel's own name means, may God strengthen or may God toughen. Well, this may express the optimism of his parents at the time he was born, although it also provides a summary on his life. The book opens unhelpfully, anonymously, with a first-person introduction. In the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, while I was among the exiles by the Kibar Canal, the heavens were opened, and I saw a divine vision, or visions of God.The thirtieth year, the fourth month, the fifth day of the month, of what? Where on earth is this Kibar Canal? And who is this I that's talking? But helpfully, some editor has clarified the issues with a third-person explanation in verses two to three. On the fifth day of the month, it was the fifth year of King Jehoiakim's exile, the word of Yahweh came directly to Ezekiel, the son of Buzi, the prophet in the land of the Chaldeans by the Kibar Canal. There the hand of Yahweh came upon him.Now, this added superscription identifies Ezekiel as the son of Buzi. He was called into priestly ministry in his thirtieth year, on 31 July 593 BC, which means his birth was in 623 BC, and it coincided with the midpoint of Josiah's reign, King Josiah, who reigned from 640 to 609 BC. He was born shortly before the discovery of the Torah in the temple, 2 Kings 22.3. Despite Josiah's efforts at reform, his untimely death in 609 BC dashed the prospects for a comprehensive political and spiritual renaissance, it dashed it to the ground.Within the next eleven years, three kings would succeed Josiah. Everyone would be judged by the Deuteronomist, that's the author of the historical books that sound like Deuteronomy. They would judge him, every king, as doing evil in the sight of Yahweh, because they revitalized the old apostate ways of Manasseh, Josiah's grandfather.In the meantime, in the land of Judah, which had been a vassal of Egypt, it fell under the control of Nebuchadnezzar. Fed up with Jehoiachin's treasonous behavior, finally, in 597 BC, Nebuchadnezzar's armies marched into Jerusalem and seized direct control. Nebuchadnezzar deported the royal family and thousands of the nation's foremost citizens, II Kings 24, 15-16, including Ezekiel.Verse 3 also specifies Ezekiel's professional office. Although some interpret the priest as a reference to Buzi, the epithet actually applies to Ezekiel himself. This is critical for understanding this prophet's role. It is true that chapters 1-3 describe Ezekiel's call to prophetic ministry, and he obviously functioned as a prophet. However, the timing of the opening vision and the call in his 30th year, 30th year of what? Well, according to Numbers 4.50, that's the year when priests were inducted into office. The pervasively priestly stamp in this book also suggests that we should view Ezekiel as the prophetic priest rather than as a priestly prophet.His 30th year, had he been home in Jerusalem, that would have been the year of his ordination. But this book portrays Ezekiel serving the exiles in Babylon who had no access to the temple and the altar service, but he was called to be their pastor and prophetic priest. Although he appears to have resisted the call at first, Ezekiel served Yahweh and his people faithfully for more than two decades. Apart from Ezekiel's professional role, we know Ezekiel for his eccentric behavior. While prophets were known often to act and speak erratically for rhetorical purposes, in Ezekiel we find a unique concentration of bizarre features. Muteness, lying bound and naked, digging holes in the walls of houses, emotional paralysis in the face of his wife's death, images of strange creatures, hearing voices and the sounds of water, his withdrawal symptoms, his fascination with feces and blood, his pornographic imagery, his imaginative understanding of Israel's past, and a lot more. These are strange features. Some attribute these features to a pathology arising from early abuse and an Oedipus complex, but this misconstrues the profundity of his message and the sensitivity of his personality in my mind. He was not a psychiatric case.His prophetic experience, his symbolic actions and oracular pronouncements derived from encounters with God that affected his entire being. What other prophets spoke of, Ezekiel suffered. As one totally possessed by the Spirit of Yahweh, called, equipped, and gripped by the hand of God, Ezekiel was a mofaith, a sign, a portent, carrying in his body the oracles he proclaimed and redefining the adage, the medium was the message. To understand the book of Ezekiel, we will need to understand the man. That's proposition one. Proposition two, to grasp the message of the book of Ezekiel, we need to understand his audience and their times. Well, we can do this in a couple of ways. We can do it by tracking the historical events of this period, and if we take a time chart, we can see that in 640 BC, Josiah became king. 627, Ezekiel is born. 626, Nebuchadnezzar wins Babylon. In 621, we have the reforms of Josiah. In 609, the death of Josiah and the accession of his son, Jehoiakim. In 605, Nebuchadnezzar becomes king in Babylon. In 604, Daniel and his friends were taken to Babylon, Daniel 1.1. In 597, we have the exile of Ezekiel, the nobility, and Jehoiakim is taken into exile as well after a three-month reign. And in 586, we have the fall of Jerusalem, 2 Kings 25. Now, the purpose of prophetic preaching, though, was not just to help us reconstruct ancient history. The purpose of prophetic preaching was to transform the audience's thinking about historical and theological realities, what was going on in their heads during this time. And so, he was concerned particularly with his audience's own spiritual condition, and prophets sought to bring about change in their dispositions and in their actions. In Ezekiel's case, we identify two audiences. One, there is the hypothetical audience, and two, the real rhetorical audiences. Many of Ezekiel's oracles are formally addressed to outsiders, hypothetical target audience, son of man, set your face toward the king of Egypt, the pharaoh, or set your face toward Tyre. Or there's a stronger variant of this, fix your face toward the hypothetical audience. I can imagine that this involved him turning his body in the direction of where that nation might be located. These idioms reflect the common gesture of turning toward the person with whom we are talking, the one we're addressing. Although the oracles following the formula like this tend to be cast in the second person of direct address, as if he's actually talking to that hypothetical audience, it's unlikely that the purported addressee ever heard or read the pronouncements. We've got a whole package of oracles against foreign nations in chapters 25 to 32. I don't think Ezekiel ever went to Egypt or to Tyre to preach.No, these were actually composed, proclaimed with a hypothetical audience in mind, but with the real audience for the real audience before the prophet. Ezekiel's and God's real audience, this was his fellow exiles. It was their minds and their actions he thought to change.But we never see him preaching in public or to the exiles as a whole, not like other prophets. For the first eight years of his ministry, he was locked up in his house, chapter 3, 22 to 27, which meant that if people wanted to hear him, they had to come to him, and they did. On three occasions we read of the people's representatives, the elders, sitting in front of him waiting for another word from Yahweh, 8-1, 14-1, and chapter 20, verses 1 to 3, although 33, 30 to 33, suggests that ordinary people would come to his house for entertainment as well.The book paints a picture of a hardened audience, characterized as a rebellious house, with obstinate face and stubborn heart or mind. They're stubborn of forehead, obstinate in their minds and in their hearts, and they resisted messages from God. Indeed, the Lord told Ezekiel that if he had intended him to see fruit for his labors, he would have sent him to a foreign nation where people would listen to him.But the book offers no hint of any softening during Ezekiel's life, nor any indication that the fulfillment of Ezekiel's announcements of judgment on Jerusalem had any effect on his audience. Listen to 33, 21 to 22. The Lord says to Ezekiel, as for you human, your countrymen are, they're talking about you near the walls and in the doorways of the houses.Each person proposes to his fellow as follows, come and hear what the message is that issues forth from Yahweh. So my people come to you in droves, and they sit before you. They hear your words, but they refuse to act on them, because they act only with lust in their mouths, and their hearts pursue nothing but ill-gotten wealth.Look, to them, you are like a singer of sensual songs with a beautiful voice and a fine musical touch. They hear your words, but they refuse to comply with them. But when it comes, and come it certainly will, then they will know that a prophet has been in their midst.Ezekiel's audience's hardness played a significant role in determining the content and shape of the proclamation. The people's rebellious actions, particularly idolatry, read chapter 14, 1 to 11. These provided the most obvious sign of their hardened condition, but their dispositions toward Yahweh was actually ambivalent. On the one hand, they were embittered and cynical towards him for having betrayed them, and him having let Nebuchadnezzar's armies enter Jerusalem in 597 and drag them off into exile where they are now. But on the other hand, they're angry with God on the one hand, but on the other hand, they continue to bank on the Lord's covenant commitments to them. Until the news came that Jerusalem had fallen, they staked their security on Yahweh's eternal covenant promises. Four of them, and we'll have more to say about this later. He had promised to grant the land of Canaan to Abraham and his descendants as an eternal possession. Two, he had promised he had given Israel an irrevocable covenant at Sinai.Three, his promise to David and his descendants of eternal title to the throne of Israel, 2 Samuel 7. And four, his election of Jerusalem, Zion, as his eternal residence. These are the four promises on which they banked. Every promise in the book is mine.Every chapter, every verse, every line, all the blessings of his love divine, every promise in the book is mine, mine, mine. That was their theme song. But their sense of security in Yahweh was delusional.They forgot that enjoyment of covenant blessings was contingent upon grateful and wholehearted obedience to the covenant Lord and engagement in his mission to which he had called them. Until 586 BC, Ezekiel's rhetorical aim would be to destroy this false sense of security by demolishing the pillars on which it was based. However, once news came to him that the city had fallen, his goal would change, and he would rebuild the structures, for these were, in fact, eternal promises.That's proposition two. Know the audience. Proposition three, to grasp the message of Ezekiel, we need to understand the nature and structure of the book. Now, this book displays several features that set it apart from other prophetic books. First, if we can get past the first chapter, and this is often the problem for most people, they read that first chapter and they put the book down and say, I don't get it. But if we can ever get past the first chapter, we discover this book to be the most intentionally structured of all the prophetic books. It consists of 48 chapters divided evenly into two major sections, Oracles of Woe for Judah and Jerusalem, chapters 1 to 24, and then Oracles of Weal, well-being for Judah and Jerusalem, chapter 25 to 48. I call these two sections the bad news, Ezekiel's message of bad news and Ezekiel's message of good news. Well, if we diagram the structure of the book, we find there is remarkable symmetry with his messages of judgment against Israel, 24 chapters, and then messages of hope for Israel, another 24 chapters, amazing symmetry. Within these sections, there is further evidence of deliberate planning. The form and structure of the collection of Oracles against the foreign nations especially, they're obviously governed by the number seven. Seven nations are addressed, Ammon, Moab, Edom, Philistia, Tyre, Sidon, and Egypt, seven nations. Not only do we have seven nations here, but we've got two sections with the first consisting of 10 mini-oracles addressing seven targets. They are incorporated into the first half, and in the second half of this section from 25 to 32, seven oracles against Egypt and their pharaoh. They're preserved in 29, 1 to 32.This is all signaled by the sevenfold occurrences of what I call the word event formula. The word of the Lord came to me saying seven times, and seven date notices break up the oracles. This happened at this time.But there is more. On the basis of the Hebrew verse division, we should really count words, but that takes more time than I have. But if you go by the verse division, these indirect oracles of hope for Israel but doom for the nations divide into two virtually equal parts, oracles of judgment against the six, 25 to 28, 23, and oracles of judgment against Egypt, 29, 1 to 32, 32.They are both made up of 97 verses, but the significance of these oracles against the nations is highlighted by 28, 24 to 26, placed precisely at the midpoint like a seesaw or a teeter-totter, we used to call it. It functions as the fulcrum on which the surrounding oracles are balanced. So you have 10 oracles of judgment on the seven targets, the small nations, 25 to 28, 23, seven oracles of judgment upon Egypt, 29, 1 to the end of chapter 32, and in between you have words of hope for Israel.He goes off track or off target, and he pauses to remind us what's happening theologically. Moshe Greenberg noticed some time ago that the individual oracles themselves, I mean this pattern of halving, h-a-l-v-i-n-g, dividing sections into halves, this feature also extends to individual oracles. It's most striking in the oracle against Gog, which consists of two panels, chapter 38 and 39.The first is 365 words. The second is 357 words. It's a remarkable symmetry. Although the word event formula in 38.1 serves as a general heading for both chapters, the intentionality of this division is confirmed by a remarkable correspondence between the respective introductions to each part, 38.2 to 4a and then 39.1 to 2a. These structural features suggest the book is the product of deliberate design, reflecting concern for precision that many believe characterized priestly scribes. And here we have a diagram of the way the panel A and panel B in the Gog-Magog oracle works.You've got eight frames, four in the first and four in the second. Remarkable balance. The second distinctive feature of the book for which preachers and teachers should be especially grateful is its clear demarcation of literary units. I feel so sorry for Jeremiah scholars. When I read the book of Jeremiah, I cannot tell where one prophecy begins and ends and then another one begins. But in Ezekiel, these are absolutely clearly demarcated. They're usually signaled by the word event formula, the word of Yahweh happened to me saying. It's as if that word that comes from God to him is a brick that hits him. Variations of that one occur 50 times in the book at the beginning of an oracle.This formula perceives the divine word as an almost objective concrete reality that emanates from Yahweh and confronts the prophet. The boundaries between oracles are seldom blurred. That's a second feature. A third distinctive feature of the book is the care with which many of the oracles are dated. This is which 30th year, whose 30th year, but that's clarified in 1, 2 to 3. Apart from that one, there are 14 oracles that are introduced by date notices that tend to be variations of a stereotypical pattern that we find, for instance, in chapter 8 verse 1. It happened in the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the day of the month, and there you'll have a day given. We've got a whole bunch of these. Although a special clustering is evident in the collection of oracles against Egypt, 29, 1 to 32, these date notices are distributed throughout the book, providing a clear chronological and historical framework for Ezekiel's ministry. The first date notices signal in chapter 1 verse 1 where you have a reference to the call of Ezekiel. Interestingly, they are not necessarily in chronological order. Thanks to the work of archaeologists and epigraphists who have deciphered ancient texts, we can now date many of these precisely according to our own calendar. For instance, we know that he was called on July 31, 593. That's the date of his call, and his last oracle happened on April 26, 571. That's a long time to be preaching to a hardened audience. But this interest in chronological precision, why does he date these notes? It seems to reflect Ezekiel's awareness of the significance of the events of which he is a part. Israel's history as a nation had known it had come to an end. God must start over. But the date notices, 14 of them, also have an authenticating function. As he edits his oracles, and I naively assume Ezekiel edited his own work, all of the notes are, the word of the Lord came to me, saying. In Jeremiah, that formula will be, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, third person, saying. But in Ezekiel, it's all autobiographical. As he edits his oracles, Ezekiel marks the evidence, documenting the fact that the Lord had given his word long in advance of the events, and even though no one had paid any attention, his word would be fulfilled. Then they will know that a prophet has been in their midst. These notes invite readers of every age to acknowledge the veracity, the truthfulness, and the power of the divine word, and to recognize in Ezekiel a very true prophet of Yahweh. A fourth feature, unlike any other prophetic books, the consistently autobiographical first-person cast of Ezekiel's oracles creates the impression of private memoirs. As we already noted, the I form is abandoned in favor of the third form only in 1, 2 to 3, which I think some other editor put in after the whole collection had been produced, to clarify the riddle for readers who will encounter all of those in this collection of prophecies. Although the oracles are presented in autobiographical narrative style, rarely did the prophet actually admit the reader into his mind. He recorded his reaction to what God was telling him only six times, venting revulsion at what he saw or acknowledging the incomprehensibility of the Lord's actions. We have these, 4, 14, 9, 8, 11, 13, 21, 5, 24, 20, and 37, 3. But in spite of the autobiographical form, we wonder if the real Ezekiel is ever exposed. What we see is a man totally under the control of the Spirit of Yahweh. Only what God says and does matters.Proposition 4. To grasp the message of Ezekiel, we need to understand the message that Ezekiel intended to proclaim. Now, there's a difference between that and the message we want to get. No, we must grasp what he was trying to proclaim. Ezekiel's proclamations represented direct responses to the people's theological delusions. Economically and socially, the Judean exiles flourished in Babylon. Probably thanks to the intervention of Daniel, they were settled as a community in favorable circumstances at a place called Tel Aviv near the river Kibar, Ezekiel 1, 1 and 3, 15.There, they were able to maintain their own ethnic identity and social cohesion. They were not slaves, as they had been in Egypt. Although they were humiliated by their deportation, in exile they flourished so that when Cyrus issued his decree in 539 BC, permitting Judeans to return to Jerusalem, most stayed away. They didn't go home. They were doing quite well, thank you. But the crises to which Ezekiel responded were not social or economic. They were theological. The first half of the book consists of oracles of judgment deliberately aimed at demolishing the pillars on which the exile's security rested. The theological system, as we've already intimated, we can represent as one big house of pride based on these four pillars. God has made an irrevocable promise to the Israelites of a covenant that will never be broken. He's promised the land forever. He's promised Zion as his seat of occupation, and he's promised David title to the throne forever. Most of the pronouncements address one or more of these four pillars on which their security rested. But once the city had fallen, his tactic changed. Thereafter, he systematically reconstructed those four pillars, demonstrating that the Lord's promises were indeed eternal.The judgment could not be the last word. As we go through these oracles in the book of Ezekiel, we will try to relate them intentionally to the respective pillars that they are addressed. That's the key to grasping the significance of the book. While Ezekiel's preaching was firmly grounded in the scriptures and in the traditions of Israel, the goal of his preaching was to change people's thinking about Yahweh and their dispositions toward themselves. The universalism of Isaiah stands in sharpest contrast to the parochialism of Ezekiel. From beginning to end, the God who confronts the reader in this book was the God of Israel, not only passionate about his relationship with his people, but willing to stake his reputation on their fate and fortune. What people are saying about Israel, about Judah, about God's people, is a reflection on God himself. He did indeed sit on his throne in the heavens as cosmic king, and his rule extended to the corners of the earth. We see that in chapter 1. He shows up in Babylon. But his chosen residence is in Jerusalem, in the land of Canaan, among his own people. Even in the exercise of his sovereignty over the nations, his agenda was focused on Israel. To Ezekiel, Nebuchadnezzar's place in history was determined by his role as wielder of the divine sword directed against Judah and Jerusalem. We'll hear that in chapter 21. He was the protector of the remnant whom he brought to Babylon, so that when the Holocaust was over, a population and a descendant of David will have survived. Babylon proved to be as safe, where while the house and the city are burning, this handful of people are preserved. While the oracles against the nations reflect his universal sovereignty, the rise and fall of foreign powers have historical significance for Ezekiel, primarily as events affecting the fate of Yahweh's people. Gog and his hordes, the archetypical enemies of Israel, gathered from the four corners of the earth are puppets brought in by Yahweh himself to prove his enduring commitment to his people. By eliminating them, Gog and Magog and his allies, he magnifies himself, God does. God makes himself known. God sets his glory among the nations. He was indeed concerned that the whole world recognize his person and his presence in their affairs, but his agenda was always focused on Israel. Ezekiel's vision of restored Israel had little room for non-Israelites, but only at the end there's a reference to the sojourner in your midst must identify with one of the tribes if he wants to participate in God's grand new design for Israel. Space constraints preclude us from discussing other theological themes, but we can summarize some of these. First, although Ezekiel avoided the expression, holy one of Israel, the opening vision and the visions of the temple in chapters 8 to 11 and 40 to 46 declare his transcendent holiness and cosmic sovereignty, the holiness of Israel. So, watch the holiness of God in Israel. Second theme, Yahweh was the gracious covenant-making and covenant-keeping God of Israel. Yes, both judgment and restoration oracles were covered in the covenantal warnings, Leviticus 26 and 28, but they could not be the last word.Third, more than any other prophet, Ezekiel was a prophet of the Spirit, but he not only spoke of the power of the Spirit, he embodied the Spirit's power in his own person. And finally, despite the morbid tone of much of Ezekiel's preaching, God is on the side of life, not death. Not only does Ezekiel have a remarkably extensive vocabulary of death, the God who speaks through him has at his disposal a wide range of death-dealing agents.I will send famine, wild animals, pestilence, bloodshed, sword, fire. But through his breath, through his Spirit, he brings to life those that have languished under the curse. That's chapter 37.If Ezekiel's God was glorious in his transcendence and in his imminence, his vision of his own people was realistic and sober. His people prided themselves on descent from Abraham, and they banked on the permanence of the triangular covenant relationship involving Yahweh, his people, and the land. But Ezekiel painted a picture of persistent rebellion from the beginning of the nation's history to the present. In his revisionist histories, he recalled the abominations of the past. This is chapter 16, 20, and 23. But his view of the people's present was no better. You are just like your ancestors, he keeps saying. Although his countrymen complained about being punished for sins committed by their predecessors, chapter 18, Ezekiel responded that every generation stands before the divine judge on its own merits or demerits. No innocent person was punished for the sins of the fathers.But however wicked God's people have been, and however horrendous the judgment based on the covenant curses, so certain was Ezekiel's vision of restoration based on the covenant promises. Indeed, Ezekiel envisioned a future when the covenantal triangle that was demolished by the judgment will be completely restored, the pillars of Israel's security would be reconstructed. The Lord himself will guarantee the nation's peace and security with the agency of David the shepherd whom he installs over his people.But the restoration presupposes a fundamental transformation of the people themselves as Yahweh removes their heart of stone and replaces it with a heart of flesh, finally responsive to his will and resulting in unreserved obedience. Proposition 4, the message of Ezekiel. Proposition 5, to grasp the message of the book of Ezekiel, we need to understand Ezekiel's rhetorical and homiletical strategy.Now, rhetoric involves communicative strategies employed to break down resistance to the message in the audience and to render the message persuasive. According to classical definitions, rhetoric involved five elements, each of which was relevant for understanding Ezekiel. The first element of rhetoric is what they call invention, the introduction, the discovery of relevant materials. What are you going to talk about? Well, where did Ezekiel get his information for his proclamations? Well, he received his speeches directly from God by divine inspiration, although consistently in response to the circumstances facing the prophet. I noted earlier that Ezekiel's preaching was firmly grounded in the scriptures and firmly grounded in the traditions of Israel. This is most evident in the links between his pronouncements of judgment and covenant curses of Leviticus 26 and, to a lesser extent, Deuteronomy 28. When he talks about the end of Jerusalem, it's precisely in the terms of what God had predicted long ago. But his vision of Israel's restoration in 34, 25 to 30, and the covenant blessings in Leviticus 26, the correlation between Ezekiel 34 and Leviticus 26 is remarkable. Israel will finally be restored according to God's ancient word, I am Yahweh, I have spoken, I fulfill my words. But sometimes Ezekiel's pronouncements went against the grain of Israel's tradition. As in his identification of Jerusalem's ancestry in the Amorites and Hittites in chapter 16, he says, he opens up with, your father was an Amorite and your mother was a Hittite. Really? I thought our father was Abraham and our mother was Sarah. No, he changes the story, and then he talks about about twisting the history for his own rhetorical purposes. He also speaks of ordinances by God that are not good and that do not yield life, which runs counter precisely to Deuteronomy, which says, they're the key to life in the Torah, there is life. And there are times when he will refer to Genesis 49.10, for some of us, one of our favorite early messianic texts, the scepter shall not depart from Judah until he comes to whom the judgment belongs. And I'm sure that in Ezekiel's day, there were people taking that text as proof that David is forever on the throne of Israel. But Ezekiel turns that around in chapter 20 and 21, he turns it around to the person to whom God gives the judgment is Nebuchadnezzar. It's a shocker. He's obviously not doing, writing a grammatical, historical, exegetical paper on Genesis chapter 49. He's doing something else. He's preaching.Second, the arrangement. The organization of the material into sound, structural form. When you read Ezekiel's oracles with both eyes open, it's remarkable how logical they are. Like the proclamations of other prophets, his pronouncements were crafted according to well-known literary and rhetorical convention. Based on form-critical considerations alone, his work incorporates a variety of forms. You've got vision reports, dramatic sign acts, disputation speeches, parables and riddles, all kinds of things going on. He deliberately crafts, or we should say God deliberately crafts these oracles with those principles in mind. How you structure your argumentation is important for rhetoric. Third, style. This is the appropriate manner for communicating on a given occasion. Ezekiel's daring style is widely recognized. In chapter 16 alone, we find shocking imagery, rare vocabulary, obscure forms and usages, anomalous grammatical forms. It's a strange passage. The Lord had warned the prophet at the outset that he is dealing with a hardened audience, so he pulls no punches in trying to break down their resistance. The abhorrence with which he viewed the syncretistic ways of Ezekiel's country folk is referred to in strong sexual and fecal language, which translators tend to soften to accommodate the sensitivities of modern readers. In fact, no other prophet presses the margins of literary propriety as severely as Ezekiel. His favorite word for idols is gilulim, which means sheep feces. That's what they're worshiping. Shocking, but you never find that in your translations. Four, memory. What guidance does the prophet give us to make things memorable? Well, there are lots of things. His penchant for using seven, his having texts into two panels, his use of shocking imagery. You don't forget that. Five, delivery. This involves the techniques employed in actually making the speech. For all Yahweh's commands to speak and to act on only four occasions, does he actually report what he does? He says, and I did as I was commanded. I brought out my baggage by day as baggage for exile, and in the evening I dug through the wall with my own hands. I brought out my baggage at dust, carrying it on my shoulder in their sight. That's Ezekiel 12.7. The Lord's instructions concerning the sign act involving two sticks in chapter 37 verses 16 to 23. They anticipate the people asking for clarification and then prescribe Ezekiel's answer. But all of this is contained within the speech. The text doesn't say he performed the act, let alone interpreted it. Ezekiel 21 verse 5, actually in English translation 20 verse 49. And in 3330, they suggest that the audience's responses varied between annoyance and being entertained by Ezekiel's performances. In order to understand the book of Ezekiel, you need to understand his rhetorical strategies. And then proposition six, to communicate the message of the book of Ezekiel, we need to plan carefully. Now, I'm assuming that we want to communicate it. Well, how are you going to study the book of Ezekiel in practically speaking, when you're dealing with a Bible study group or whatever else? If a person devoted a sermon to each literary unit in Ezekiel, preaching through the book would take two years. While some congregations would tolerate this strategy for the gospel of Mark or Paul's epistle to the Romans, none would have the patience for this kind of series on Ezekiel, trust me. But how then do we proceed? First, a series on Ezekiel must recognize the pervasive ignorance of Christians with reference to the first Testament as a whole, and this book in particular. People will not recognize the immediate relevance of such a series because they're totally ignorant of the book, and they will need a lot of practical guidance along the way. In reality, though, once we get beyond the first chapter, the book of Ezekiel was no more difficult than Isaiah or Jeremiah or Hosea. And with sound pedagogical wisdom, we must, we may, move from what little people know to the unknown. So, start with familiar texts and work out from there. Unless congregations already have great confidence in their pastors, no series on Ezekiel should last longer than 25 or 30 weeks. For some, that would be too long. But there should be enough theological and literary variety in this book to sustain interest this long. Through our preaching and teaching, we should inspire hearers to dare to read obscure texts and provide guidance in reading those. Second, in the selection of texts for a teaching series on Ezekiel, we should consider several principles. One, include texts with which people are moderately familiar. Two, include texts from every part of the book, not simply the good news texts of chapter 34, where we find, the wonderful pastoral text, chapter 34, the Lord is the shepherd of his people, or 36, the heart transplant, or 37, those are familiar texts, that's the resurrection chapter. No, let's go beyond that. Go everywhere in the book. Three, include texts representing a variety of literary and rhetorical forms.Deal with texts that are arguments against what people are saying. We call those disputation speeches. Deal with synax. Deal with this powerful image. Tire is a boat in chapter 27, a magnificent oracle and very creatively done. Fourth, include judgment and restoration texts that deal with each of the four pillars that we've already mentioned and will mention over again. The basis of security, how are the Israelites using them, chapters 1 to 24, and what does God say about their restoration in the final chapters. And five, be sure that every sermon, every lesson, every teaching situation offers grace to the congregation. Not all texts in the book include notes of grace, but they all assume Israel's past experience of grace, or they anticipate a work of future grace. Third, prepare the people well for the series and for individual presentations. Invite people to read aloud repeatedly the text to be considered the following Sunday or Wednesday or Thursday evening whenever you do your study, and then introduce them to related texts, providing helpful notes, explanations, and diagrams for them. Four, carefully analyze the specific passage selected as the base of this week's lesson. Now, we want shortcuts, so we quickly go to a study Bible that has notes in the bottom, and that becomes all that we do. But no, we need to hear the voice of God, not the voice of commentators. Marinate in each text that you have chosen for analysis or study with your group that week.Marinate it. Live in it. Read it in four or five different translations. Try and work on the structure. What are the big ideas that are being communicated here? And ask yourself, why does Ezekiel say things this way? And when we do that, we will start to get his point. Five, in the delivery, let the people hear the voice of God. We have a tendency to substitute, to elevate our own comments on Scripture above the Scriptures themselves. Let them hear the voice of God. Don't just read a verse here or there, selected verses, and then develop a theology of the passage. Remind the people often that sermon texts have come to them complete, and then read the whole expositorily with clarity, appropriate emotion, and emphasis. When we were doing chapter 16, 68 or 69 verses, it's a long chapter, I read the whole thing on the first day that we dealt with this one. People need to hear the whole thing, not just a petal from this flower. They need to see the flower. And finally, make appropriate application. Recognize that Ezekiel was not preaching evangelistically to the world. He was not trying to win outsiders to Yahwism. He was preaching to his own people, those who claim to be the people of God. Herein lies the relevance of his message for our time. Israel was called to be a light to the nations, to embody righteousness, to declare by her well-being the glory and the grace of her Redeemer and covenant Lord. In so doing, she was to play a paradigmatic role, representing to all the nations and all the peoples the treasure of divine grace, and responding to that grace with righteous living. Israel was called to bear his name with honor. The message of this prophetic priest was addressed to people who had besmirched the reputation of God, first by their unrighteous living, and then second by being sent off into exile as punishment from God for their unfaithfulness. Underlying Ezekiel's preaching was a profound theology that was continuous with theology of the whole scripture, First Testament and New Testament. Our task as teachers is to establish that theology, that theology, and translate that theology, not establish our own theology, no, the prophet's theology, translate it into forms that are understandable and relevant in our context, and always by asking in each text, what does it tell us about God? What does this passage tell us about the world and society in general? What does it tell us about the human condition? Ezekiel has a lot to say about that one. The nature of sin, the destiny of humankind, and four, the ways of God. What are the ways that God relates to creation in general, and human beings in particular? And finally, think about an appropriate ethical and spiritual response to God's work of grace in our lives, analogous to what Ezekiel was talking about for his audience. As we work our way through the book, we will regularly pause to reflect on these questions. We will not have time to examine every text unit, so we must be selective. As we proceed, I will select representatives of each genre of prophetic speech and demonstrate how they work rhetorically, while also highlighting the theology that arises from each text. This has been a long introduction, but now let's get ready for the ride as we open up the book in the next section to Ezekiel's call.