Ezekiel - Lesson 11

Lesson 11. Where is God when we demand Him? Yahweh's Abandonment of His Temple, Ezekiel 10, 1-22 and 11, 22-23. When we began this series on Ezekiel, I suggested that the people in this prophet's audience were deluded. We might say they were suffering from a severe case of TDS, Theological Delusion Syndrome. They were living with a doctrine of their national security that rested on four pillars. At Sinai, number one, at Sinai, Yahweh entered into covenant relationship with them that could not and would never be broken. Yahweh was their divine protector, no matter what. Two, to Abraham, Yahweh had promised that he would give the land of Canaan and to him and to his descendants as an eternal and irrevocable grant. Three, when the land had wrested from war, Yahweh had promised David that his descendants would have eternal title to the throne of Israel. God was the guarantor of the Davidic rule. And four, in fulfillment of Moses' prediction in Deuteronomy 12, 5-12, Yahweh had chosen Zion, Jerusalem, as his eternal dwelling place, which meant that the divine resident would never let any outsider invade his sacred space, and that from here he would ensure the blessing and well-being of his people. The last two pillars are closely associated, and both of them receive eloquent celebration in Psalm 132, 11-18. Yahweh swore an oath to David, a promise he will not abandon. I will set one of your descendants on your throne. If your sons keep my covenant and my covenant stipulations that I will teach them, their sons will sit on your throne forever. Because Yahweh has chosen Zion, he has desired it for his home. He declared, this is my resting place forever. I will make my home here because I have desired it. I will abundantly bless its food. I will satisfy its needy with bread. I will clothe its priests with salvation, and its faithful people will shout for joy. There I will make a horn grow for David. I have prepared a lamp for my anointed one. I will clothe his enemies with shame, but the crown he wears will be glorious. Based on the Lord's promises, Ezekiel's real audience, his fellow exiles in Babylon, and his hypothetical audience, the compatriots back in Judah, they were banking on the favor of God, symbolized by the presence of the glory in the temple. In Ezekiel 7-20, the prophet had spoken of Yahweh's beautiful ornament becoming their object of pride. Three years later, at the very moment when Nebuchadnezzar would be setting up the siege works around Jerusalem, in his last recorded message of doom for the city, and in the wake of his own wife's death, the newly widowed prophet would announce, Thus says the Lord, Yahweh, look, I will profane my sanctuary, the pride of your power, the delight of your eyes, and the passion of your soul. And your sons and your daughters, whom you left behind, shall fall by the sword. 24-21. Back home, Ezekiel's professional colleague, Jeremiah, was dealing with the same problem. In Jeremiah 7-1, the Lord told him to go and stand on the steps of the entrance to the temple compound and deliver a biting sermon to all who came to worship, and that sermon goes from chapter 7 all the way through chapter 9. But note how he began, Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. Do not trust in these deceptive words, the temple of Yahweh, the temple of Yahweh, the temple of Yahweh. Although we have no evidence in scripture or in the archaeological record of this, it is likely that in the stone above the main eastern entrance to the temple, Solomon's craftsman had engraved in big, bold letters, the temple of Yahweh, hei kol Yahweh, in Hebrew. And Jeremiah may have been parenting the people who, as they approached or as they walked by together, like cheerleaders at a football game, they shouted out their theme chant, hei kol Yahweh, hei kol Yahweh, hei kol Yahweh, three times, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. In the first testament, when we hear threefold repetitions like this, we know we are dealing with hyperbole and superlative utterance, something exceptional and special, like Isaiah heard from the seraphs before the throne of Yahweh inside this very temple a century earlier, kadosh, kadosh, kadosh, holy, holy, holy is Yahweh, the whole earth is the fullness of his glory. Except that in Jeremiah's world, the people were not praising Yahweh. They were preoccupied with the temple, their symbol of pride and security. The purpose of this entire present vision, Ezekiel 8-11, was to expose this symptom of the people's TDS, theological delusion syndrome. Those who bank on the promises of God without considering the implications are in for a surprise. Well, before we get into a systematic exposition, I must make a few additional introductory observations on this chapter. First, Ezekiel had already prepared his audience and us for what was about to happen in 9-3a, interrupting his gaze at the scene of the executioners and the man in linen in verses 1 and 2. The prophetic priest had noticed an extraordinary sight. Oh, the cherubs were stationed to the right side of the house when the man entered, and the cloud had filled the inner court. But this was only the first stage of a divine drama that would play out while the people on the ground played out their roles. Second, this chapter divides into two sections, that is chapter 10, both of which are introduced with, Then I looked, and behold, that's ESV 10-1 and 10-9. However, within each segment, we notice the interruption of the narrative with parenthetical comments. With this alternation, Ezekiel has interwoven again two or three themes and made them into this tapestry. Ezekiel 10-1-8 portrays Jerusalem's imminent disaster from two levels, the real judgment of the city and the sparing of the righteous, symbolized by the actions of the man dressed in on one hand, and the theological drama reflected in the vision of the movement of the divine glory from the most holy place to the threshold of the temple where the chariot stood on the other hand. Ezekiel 10-3-5 repeat and expand on 9-3a. By the time we get to verse 9, the city and the temple had been destroyed, and all that remained was the divine glory, which now embarked on a second phase of its journey, whereas in phase one, the glory had moved independently from above the cherubs inside the holy of holies to the cherubic taxi waiting at the threshold of the temple. That's verses 3-5. In verses 15a and 18-19, Ezekiel saw the chariot rise with the divine rider and move over to the eastern gate of the outer wall. Ezekiel described the movement of the last phase of this heavenly taxi in 11-22 right at the end as he watched it head off to the east over the Mount of Olives and out of sight. The pseudo-prophecy of the paganized worshipers in chapter 8, Yahweh doesn't see. Yahweh has abandoned the land.It has just been fulfilled. Well, I shall deal with these three topics separately, beginning with the purification of Jerusalem in verses 1-2 and 6-7, then the commentary Ezekiel offered on the heavenly chariot, verses 9-14 and 15b-17, and finally the movements of the glory at the end. Through this experience, Ezekiel discovered why his inaugural vision in chapter 1 had come to him with such overwhelming brilliance and fiery form. In addition to bringing the glory of Yahweh down to him, the heavenly chariot had returned to Jerusalem with a cause of purification after the judgment for the city, and would depart, bearing the glory out of the temple and disappear in the eastern sky. Let's look then at the sequel to the execution of the sentence on the city of Jerusalem, verses 1-2 and 5-8. Fill your hands with fiery coals from the cherubs, and sprinkle them over the city. So he went in, as I watched. Then verse 6, When he had commanded the man dressed in linen, Take fire from among the castors, from among the cherubs, he had gone out and stood next to the wheel. The cherub extended his hand from underneath the cherubs to the fire that was above the cherubs. He picked up some fire and placed it in the hands of the man dressed in linen, who took it and went out. The cherubs appeared to have the form of a human hand underneath their wings. What in the world is going on here? Well, the principal feature of this segment of this chapter were familiar to Ezekiel from the inaugural vision. He recognized the sapphire platform, the throne, and the creatures over which it rested. Remarkably, 13 months after that earlier vision, Ezekiel had a name for everything. That which he had vaguely called the living beings, hachayoth in chapter 1, now he recognized them as cherubs, keruvim. Trust me, these were not baby-faced creatures like we see in medieval art. They bore a closer resemblance to the winged monsters of Mesopotamian iconographic and glyptic art. Nowhere else in the first testament are cherubs portrayed like this, though they reappear in the New Testament revelation for 7 to 8. The prophetic priest must have been familiar with Israelite hymnic tradition that sang of Yahweh, the triumphant divine warrior riding on flying cherubs. 2 Samuel 22 to 15 and Psalm 18 to Psalm 104-3 as well. But Israel's traditional image of cherubs was represented by decorations in the temple, particularly the protective cherubs over the ark of the covenant. Those cherubs had one apparently human head, not four. Ezekiel's had the head of an eagle, a bull, a lion, and a human, and they had two wings, not six. So these are different. They were stationary, and they were lifeless, not living, and extremely mobile like these. But they bore an invisible throne, unlike this visible one, at least to Ezekiel. These differences probably explain why Ezekiel had not recognized them 13 months earlier. Furthermore, who would have expected a visit from the Lord of heaven and earth in Babylon, of all places, on his sacred chariot? But now that he had had more than a year to think about it, and when this theophany occurred, where it belonged, inside the temple, it fits here. He knew exactly what he saw. He's not struggling for words anymore. These cherubs were the living heavenly realities that the static sculptures in the inner sanctum could only symbolize. They have come to earth from the heavenly throne room to transport the glory, the visible sign of God's presence, out of his earthly dwelling place. They were not merely some genus of winged creatures borrowed from Babylonian art. The living reality had come to relieve the static replica of its burden, the glory of the Lord. With his new appreciation, he justifiably applied the designation of the static images, cherubs, to these living visionary creatures now. Verse 1 simply announces the appearance of the throne chariot without any reference to its function. But the prophet filled in these missing details in verses 3 and 5 when he narrated a series of dramatic events. First, the chariot was parked on the right, that is, the north side of the temple. This location was probably determined by the presence of the provocative statue of passion at the north gate, and perhaps because the northern gate was associated with the executioners, as we saw in 9.2. Second, the cloud filled the inner court, not to be confused with a storm cloud of 1.4. The article on ha'anan, the cloud, points to the familiar cloud associated with a shekinah glory that had filled the house of Yahweh built by Solomon when the ark of the covenant had been placed in the inner sanctum, 1 Kings 8.10-12. Third, the glory rose from its permanent position above the cherub in the holy of holies, the inner sanctum, and moved to the threshold of the temple. Since verse 4a echoes 9.3a, this statement functions as a flashback to that same event. Four, the temple was filled with the cloud, and the brilliance of the glory filled the whole court. Five, the sound of the cherub's wings reverberated throughout the temple complex, creating an impression of restlessness and eagerness. These creatures want to be off like our horse at the end of a day when we hitched her to our buggy for the ride home from King George School number 2792 up in Saskatchewan. The horses were eager to head home, and they could hardly wait to get going. In the meantime, images of divine glory here merged with images of the man dressed in linen. Who else would have access to this heavenly dune buggy but a priestly figure? In verse 2, Yahweh commanded the man to go in among the whirling wheels, fetch some of the fiery coals from between the cherubs, and sprinkle them over the city. As he had done with living beings versus cherubs, Ezekiel now recognized that he had had what he had referred to as turning things, ufanim, do we think in terms of gyroscopes? In chapter 1, they were actually casters, and now he has a word for them, galgal, casters. It's a more specific designation. But verse 6 suggests that he heard Yahweh himself use this word. In 23-24 and 26-18, this word will refer to the wheels of an ordinary chariot. Here, it's the wheels of the heavenly chariot. Well, you may also remember the reference to the fiery coals in the opening vision in 1-13, where Ezekiel noticed fiery coals, but at that point, we had no idea what they represented. Now we learn the shocking truth. The wheeled vehicle serves more than one function. To be sure, its primary task was to transport the throne of God and God himself, but it had also become the bearer of what I used to think was a symbol of judgment, but I now am convinced it was a symbol of hope. Given texts like Deuteronomy 4-24 and 9-3-4, where along with elkanah, impassioned ale, Yahweh also bore the title eishokalah, consuming fire, on first impulse we may interpret his appearance as Jerusalem's enemy who burned them up because they had gone after other gods, as illustrated in chapter 8. I used to associate the scattering of the coals over the city as a vivid picture of the city's spiritual and ultimate material fate burning up at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, although this text involves a visionary prediction of a future event. II Kings 25-9 describes the moment that scene was literally fulfilled. On the seventh day of the fifth month in the ninth year of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzaradan, commander of the imperial guard and official of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. He set fire to the temple of Yahweh, the royal palace, and all the houses of Jerusalem, every important building he burned down. This holocaust has been confirmed archaeologically in stratum 10 of the city of David excavations, which has been excavated by Yigal Shilov, so we got many marks of burning in 586. I used to think this was an image of judgment. However, thanks to a careful analysis of this passage by John Goldingay just recently, I've changed my mind about the significance of these coals of fire for several reasons. First, interpreting the coals as symbols of judgment contradicts the earlier positive function of the priestly figure dressed in linen. How can he be a positive figure marking the heads of those who are going to be saved on the one hand and then be the symbol of judgment on the other? Priests aren't involved in those kinds of activities. In 9224, Yahweh had commanded him to go through the city and mark the foreheads of those who moaned and groaned over the abominations perpetrated in the city so that they would survive the slaughter and be exempt from the judgment. Principle number one. Number two. Second, it seems that Yahweh deliberately chose the verb zarak to describe his commission, go and sprinkle them over the cities. While this word may be used sometimes of scattering, Isaiah 28, 25, of its more than 30 occurrences, the overwhelming majority involve ritual sprinkling of blood or water associated with purification, sacrifice, and expiation. A third factor. While fire is often an agent of divine wrath, it is also associated with altar and temple, especially on the Day of Atonement, which involved coals of fire and the sprinkling of blood in the purification rituals. We witness the link between coals of fire and purification and fire that was from the altar fire in Isaiah 6, 5, where one of the seraphim took a burning coal from the altar and touched the prophet's mouth and then announced forgiveness. It's a positive one. And fourth, as we have noted, dressed in linen and armed with ink and a writing instrument, this figure looks like a priestly figure rather than an executor of judgment, who we now learn to have appeared with a commission to be fulfilled ultimately after the judgment had transpired. It is chapter 9 that is the judgment. Chapter 10 is after the judgment. If this interpretation is right, even as Yahweh was announcing his own abandonment of the temple by means of the chariot, the sprinkling of coals of fire over the city offered hope for Jerusalem beyond the judgment. With this enigmatic image, Ezekiel laid the foundation for the ultimate restoration of sacred space. It had to be purified, and these coals of fire were sprinkled on it, not to destroy it, it had already been destroyed, but to sanctify it. Yahweh's return, we will notice the proof of this when we get to chapters 40 to 48, the vision of Yahweh's return. Now the place has been completely sanctified and is ready to receive the glory again. Well, the narrative of the man dressed in linen resumes in 6 to 8 by repeating the command in verse 2 and reporting the man's response. As he entered the heavenly chariot, one of the cherubs extended his own hand, picked up a coals, and handed it to the man. I try to imagine what that must have liked. Did he have oven gloves or whatever? He put them in the hands of the man, and then he exited from the vehicle. The sketchiness of the account makes it difficult to visualize the sequence of events. In what sense did the man enter between the casters and exit after he had received the coals? And where was he when he took up his position next to the caster? And which of the cherubs reached in his hand and handed him the coals? Well, most importantly, what did the man do with them? Unlike 9-11, the man dressed in linen did not return and announce that he had carried out his commission. However, in the meantime, the riddle of the cherubs' hands in the inaugural vision, chapter 1, had been solved. Whereas no significance had been attached to them in one age, now Ezekiel and the reader have learned that among other functions, these hands could be used like robot arms to retrieve coals from the midst of the vehicle. The heat in the heart of the chariot would surely have been too intense for the man dressed in linen to reach in for the coals for himself. Well, that's the first part. What can we say about Ezekiel's commentary on the chariot wheels, verses 9-17? The opening, Then I looked, and see, signals the beginning of the second phase of this vision account. Following the reference to the winged cherubs in verse 8, Ezekiel offered an extended excursus on the heavenly vehicle. In addition to satisfying our curiosity as readers about the appearance of this chariot, this description highlights the role it will play in the coming events. The report follows the general contours of the parallel text in chapter 1 with several significant modifications. Verse 12 is particularly confusing as images of wheels seem to merge with images of chariots, and the problem is not helped by the retrospective pronouns on their flesh, their backs. Well, whose flesh, whose back? And are the wheels of the previous paragraph now transformed into some kind of angelic figures with four faces and body parts? The whole thing is still quite confusing. Are the wheels transformed into a special class of angels, a theme that would become very important in later Jewish Merkava mysticism? Whereas in 118 had restricted the eye-stones, remember? That is, decorative gemstones, to the wheels of the thrown chariot, now they cover their rims and their back. The image seems bizarre to us, but we must remember that this is a visionary experience, and the surrealistic features may overwhelm realism. Furthermore, it seems more natural to apply the flesh, the backs, the hands, the heads, and the wings to the cherubs themselves rather than the wheels previously mentioned in verse 9, which is grammatically possible. But as we saw in chapter 1, analogs to these cherubs covered with eyes from head to toe are found in some Egyptian Bess figures, divine figures, whose entire bodies were decorated with gemstones. The description of the cherubs' faces in verse 14 differs significantly from the earlier account. In 110, it had ascribed four different faces to each of the cherubs. The plain reading of Hebrew now points to four identical faces for each cherub, with each cherub having a different set. And whereas 110 had followed a human, lion, bull, eagle sequence, 1014 has them cherub, human, lion, eagle. What's missing? Cherub human. The bull raises the question, why was the bull replaced by a cherub? Whatever that means. We can only speculate. A Babylonian Talmud tradition theorizes that since the bull was associated with the golden calf incident at Sinai, Exodus 32, it was a symbol of Israelite sin. Or Jeroboam's calves at Bethel and Dan, 1 Kings 12. Other rabbis speculate that Ezekiel implored Yahweh for mercy to which God responded by changing the bull into a cherub. But this doesn't answer the second question. How shall we understand this cherub's face? What's the difference between a cherub and a human face? The rabbis resolved this problem by assuming that the difference was a matter of size. The creatures of chapter 1 had large human faces, while the cherub here had the small face of a boy. Well, I wonder if we see later influence of cherubic angels with angels and, you know, baby faces and whatever else. Having linked this vision with his inaugural vision 13 months earlier in verse 15, except for the reference to cherubs rather than living beings, verses 16 to 17 are almost identical with what we saw in 121 and need no further comment except that. Once again, the mobility of the chariot and its creatures highlights Yahweh's independence. When Nebuchadnezzar's men would enter the temple, they would head straight for the Holy of Holies where they hoped to find the statue of Yahweh, and they would drag it out. But they would be totally disappointed in this case. There would be no image of Yahweh. There never had been one either. But there would not even be the glory as its replacement, for that would have been already transported out. He could not march in, drag out the image, and triumphantly parade up and down the streets of Babylon or Jerusalem first, taunting the god of this place and praising his own god Marduk for giving the victory, or take the image of Yahweh to Babylon and parade it through the streets of his own capital, declaring thereby that Marduk is king, Marduk is king, Marduk is king. No, no, no, no. Yahweh had left before Nebuchadnezzar's troops got there, and he had done so on his own terms and by his own timing. The Lord is in full control. He is still enthroned, and he is the living God who can do whatever he wants. Finally, we have Yahweh's departure from the temple, verses 3 to 5, then a brief note in verse 15 and 11, 22 to 23. Now the cherubs were stationed to the right side of the house when the man entered, and the cloud had filled the inner court. Then the glory of the Lord lifted up from above the cherub and moved over the threshold of the house. The house filled with the cloud, and the court was filled with radiance of the glory of Yahweh. Verse 5, now the sound of the cherub's wings was heard as far away as the outer court. It was like the voice of El Shaddai when he speaks. Then verse 15, then the cherubs rose. They were the same creatures I had seen by the Kibar Canal. And verse 18, then the glory moved away from the threshold of the house and paused above the cherubs. The cherubs raised their wings and rose up from the ground before my very eyes with the wheels beside them. They paused at the entrance of the east gate of the house of Yahweh with the glory of the God of Israel hovering over them. Then verse 22 of 11, chapter 11, then with the wheels beside them and the glory of the God of Israel hovering over them, the cherubs raised their wings and the glory of Yahweh ascended from the midst of the city and stopped on the mountain east of the city. Having concluded the descriptive aside concerning the chariot and its cherubic bearers, the primary narrative resumes with the announcement in verse 18 to 19 of the second phase of this stage departure. The prophet watched as the glory rose from the threshold, moved to the spot where the throne chariot was parked, came to rest above the cherubs, and then with their divine cargo safely in place, the cherubs lifted off and taxied to the east gate of the temple, presumably the gate of the outer court. And all the while, the prophet was able to observe the glory of the God of Israel hovering over the cherubs waiting for its final ride. It is significant that since 816 where Ezekiel had referred to the temple of the house of Yahweh, Beth Yahweh, the use of the simpler designation, simply the house in the intervening narratives reflects Yahweh's growing alienation from the temple. Defiled by the abominations described in chapter 8, desecrated by the slaughter of 9-7, it had for all practical purposes ceased to be his residence. The expression, house of Yahweh, will occur one more time in 11-1, but the departure of the glory will signal the end of a relationship that had existed for almost four centuries since the days of Solomon, since the glory had moved in from the tabernacle to the temple at the dedication of this building. Finally, after putting up with this rebellious lot, the divine king will have abandoned his residence. But interestingly, he didn't abandon his throne. He didn't get off the throne. He remained enthroned, only it's a portable throne he can rule from any place in the universe. Verses 20-22 of chapter 11 offer the most explicit examples of resumptive exposition in this book. Earlier, he often mentions a topic and then he just drops it, and then he'll come back later and fill in the blanks.Here, in verse 15b, Ezekiel had interrupted the description of the throne chariot with a brief announcement. The cherubs he saw in the temple courtyard were the same he had observed by the Qebekonel, but now the prophet returned to the correlation of these visions. Yes, these were the same creatures that he saw there, four faces, four wings, beneath them the forms of hands identical to the ones in verse 22. He affirmed this was the same chariot, the creatures, but they had taken on a new significance. With this realization, his inaugural vision took on added significance. The chariot served not only as a vehicle to proclaim Yahweh's glory and Yahweh's sovereignty at the time of his call, but it also now represented the means whereby he would abandon the temple. In so doing, he declared visually the termination of his special relationship with Jerusalem and his covenant people. Yes, Yahweh will have abandoned his land and his people. Ezekiel delayed recounting the final phase of the glory's journey until the end of chapter 11, where it stops on the mountain east of the city, which we now know to be Mount of Olives. After the intervening disputations with his hypothetical audience in Jerusalem, chapter 11, which will be part of our next two lessons, whoever put these chapters together brings us back to the principal issue at the end of 11, Yahweh's abandonment of his temple, and that meant his abandonment of his people. The prophet's gage returned to the celestial throne chariot. He had last observed it parked at the east gate of the inner court of the temple. The verbal correspondence between 1122 and 1019 suggests an intentional resumption of that episode. The flight of the chariot and its heavenly passenger to the mountain east of the city marked the final stage in the itinerary of what Ezekiel would see. One might have expected one more episode with the divine glory leaving the Mount of Olives and disappearing over the eastern horizon, but the way the vision account ends reflects its primary concern. The departure is from the temple. Even so, to a person inside the city, the Mount of Olives represents that eastern horizon. He's gone. Ezekiel provided no further information about the travels of the chariot or its ultimate destination anywhere. The chariot doesn't appear in the chapters at the end of the book. The glory does, but not the chariot. Would the glory have been headed for Babylon in fulfillment of Yahweh's promise to be a limited sanctuary for the exiles as we'll see in the next chapter, thereby offering them the same assurance that Ezekiel had received at the time of his call and his ordination when the glory comes to him? This seems unlikely given the exile's current spiritual condition. We should rather imagine the throne chariot conveying the glory back to its real and eternal abode in the heavens. While Ezekiel offered no confirmation of this interpretation, later traditions seem to assume this, including Daniel's vision of the Ancient of Days in Daniel 7, 9 to 10 and 13 to 14, and John's vision of the enthroned Lord in Revelation 4, 1 to 11. Both texts locate the chariot in the heavens. What was important for Ezekiel and should have been for his audience was the fact that Ezekiel had seen the glory leave the temple and head off in an easterly direction several years before the catastrophe struck. 586 was still a few years down the road. It would not reappear until 20 years later when, in a marvelous vision of Israel's hopeful future, the nation's history would be reversed and the glory would return from the direction in which it had left. Chapter 43, verses 1 to 5. One more little element, the epilogue to the temple vision, 11, 24 to 25. Then, with the wheels beside them and the glory of the God of Israel hovering over them, the cherubs raised the wings. They landed east of the city. They moved out of the city. Verse 24. At the same time, in a vision inspired by the Spirit of God, the Spirit picked me up and wafted me back to Chaldea, to the exiles, after the vision that I had been observing had left me. I reported to the exiles everything Yahweh had revealed to me. The departure of the glory from the city signaled the end of the theophany that had begun in chapter 8, verse 2. The statement, the vision left me, lowered the curtain on the visionary drama. The construction of verse 24 is awkward, but logically the sequence of events would have been something like this. In a vision inspired by the Spirit of God, the prophetic priest saw himself picked up by the Spirit and brought back to his house in exile, back to his reality. Having announced his return in both senses, we can only imagine what the elder sitting in front of him might have been thinking. What is happening to this guy? Obviously, they were still there since the prophet said that he shared the whole thing with the exiles, presumably via the elders who were sitting before him. The text gives us no clues about their response. Well, Ezekiel's first temple vision is profound not only for the vision of God it proclaims, but also for its analysis of the human soul. But what relevance do this bizarre character's trances and his message have for us today? Well, previously from chapter 8 we learned that the failure of misdirected worship, any worship that does not let God be God on God's own terms, but replaces him with alternative idols is false worship and nothing more than a pile of manure in God's eyes. In the last presentation, chapter 9, we saw that false worship leads to false morality, where people presume to define the character of God. They also tend to redefine their own ethical standards, like with a stroke of a pen authorizing abortionists to take the life of a child in the womb into the ninth month. How did we get here? But let's not stop there. How about the self-centered culture we have created? We train and educate our children as if the world revolves around them, and then wonder why, when they grow up, they are totally self-absorbed, graceless, and lacking a heart for others. We've already noted that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an angry God. The image of judgment portrayed in chapter 9 is offensive to modern readers, but that's because they do not understand the privileged position the Lord has granted his people. By grace, God had rescued them from bondage, but what had they done? They spat in his face, went after other gods, and then, in a moment of crisis, they shook their fists in his face when he did not rescue them from their enemies. When they demanded his presence, he didn't show up. We can only understand the violence of God if we have first drunk deeply of his grace. But there is a warning in this for us. We cannot expect God to bail us out of every unpleasant circumstance if we abandon him and his calling in favor of our own wills and agendas. In this presentation, we have seen that when God abandons his people, they lose all right to his favor and protection. From Ezekiel's perspective, the turning point in Israel's history came not with the accession of Zedekiah or even the Babylonian capture of Jerusalem, but with the departure of the glory of the king of heaven from his temple. According to Ezekiel's vision, historical events are indeed reflections of realities determined in the heavenly plane, and nothing has changed. According to Paul, the primary battles are still spiritual, and they are still waged in the heavenlies, Ephesians 6, 10-20. Once Yahweh had decreed the fall of the city and had departed from his temple, neither human strength nor angelic force could defend the city against his agent, the invader. Ezekiel 10 reinforces the notion that the Lord God remains sovereign over his own destiny. When Yahweh left the temple, he didn't leave chained down in General Nebuchadnezzar Radan's wagon. No foreign invader would parade his image through the streets in triumph. Yahweh abandoned the temple by his own decision, for his own reasons, in his own time, by his own means. But only the eyes of faith will recognize that the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians was not a sign of Yahweh's demise. Only the eyes of faith recognize that by voluntarily abandoning his temple, he had delivered his people over to the enemy. When I really reflect on this thought, I cannot help but think of Jesus and the way he went to the cross. Whether they be the Jewish religious leaders or Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, or the Roman soldiers, or all those who mocked him as he stood before them, dressed in purple and wearing a crown of thorns, to be sure. I am sure that when his enemies sentenced him to death, they thought they had won a huge victory over this blasphemer, this fake messiah, this rabble-rouser. Away with him, away with him, they cried. Crucify him. We have no king but Caesar. But have you ever noticed how deliberately and carefully, if ironically, John presented Jesus as the one who was completely in charge? Jesus went to the cross in his own time, on his own terms. Have you noticed all the references in the narrative of the Passion Week to his total control of every scene? Six days before the Passover, he defended Mary, the brother of Lazarus, by talking about her anointing his feet as if it was preparation for his burial. That's John 12. When Jesus' disciples had informed him that some Greeks wanted to see him, he replied, the hour hasn't come for the Son of Man to be glorified. He knew what time it was, 1223. A short time later, he declared, if I be lifted up, an obvious allusion to his coming crucifixion, I will draw all men to myself, 1232. Or, before the feast of the Passover, knowing that his hour had come to depart from the world, Jesus gathered his disciples for one last farewell conversation, 131. His speeches that followed are laced with comments declaring his awareness of what was about to happen, and of his own free will, he walked right into it. In 17.1, he prayed, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that he may glorify you. 18.4, Jesus, knowing all things that were coming upon him, went out to meet Judas and his band of brigands. 18.9-24, in his conversation with Caiaphas, he was completely in charge. 18.36-37, his confidence in what was happening to him made Pilate look foolish, and his statement in John 19.11 clinches it. You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from heaven above. Therefore, the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin. Had the Babylonians witnessed the departure of the glory of God from the temple, they would surely have crowed in triumph, like those who crucified Jesus. But guess what? Just as the glory of Yahweh exercised perfect freedom in leaving the people, so Jesus exercised perfect freedom in departing from this world. And guess what else? No one could keep Yahweh away from his temple. When he was ready, he would return, and no one could keep Jesus away either. Three days later, he was back. The events that look to the eyes of unbelief like total capitulation are carefully staged and prepare the way for total triumph. Every New Year's Day during the celebrations associated with the Akitu festival, Babylon was drowned with the noise of revelers chanting, Marduk is king, Marduk is king, Marduk is king. Oh yeah? His kingship was short-lived. As soon as Nebuchadnezzar and his successors had achieved Yahweh's mission for them, they were gone to be replaced by the Persians. Who was in charge of these events? Only Yahweh. And my friends, it's still that way. Despite what we may think about events that seem to be spiraling out of control, the Lord is still enthroned in the heavens. He comes and goes as he pleases, and none can stop him. And God the Father has handed authority over the cosmos to his Son. Hallelujah. From chapter 10, we learn finally that God is not tied to any place or any shrine. He has indeed chosen Mount Zion as the site for his name to dwell, and he planted his glory there in the temple as a visible sign of his presence. But he'll never be boxed in a house built by human hands. His true abode is in the heavens. For humans, to define spirituality in terms of proximity to his house, that's a delusion. It's part of the delusion syndrome. Wherever his people are, there he is. At the same time, we must emphasize that while human rejection may cause him to leave his earthly palace, he remains enthroned in the heavens from where he is able to respond to all who call upon him. And what about the significance of the man dressed in linen, this mysterious figure who keeps coming back to my mind, and him sprinkling the city with purifying coals of fire? This is cast as a riddle, but when we connect the dots, we learn that this was a gracious announcement that, as Moses had predicted centuries earlier, the judgment of Israel would not be the last chapter in their history. There was indeed a rainbow associated with these dark clouds. We leave the fuller development of this motif to Ezekiel as his prophecies continue, and with a remarkable hint in the very next chapter.