An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 169: New Temple, New Nation (Ezekiel 46-48)

Ezekiel 46-48
New Temple, New Nation.

Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version).
In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.

For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT
For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP

And now:

Ezekiel 46
“Thus saith the Lord GOD; The gate of the inner court that looketh toward the east shall be shut the six working days; but on the sabbath it shall be opened, and in the day of the new moon it shall be opened.”

This chapter deals mainly with offerings, with lots more lambs, rams and oxen being barbecued and boiled in various ways. There’s mention here of the “prince”, but I’m not seeing a whole lot of messianic prophecy here, this all seems a bit more mechanical, dealing with how the prince will interact with the offerings and the temple – which gates to go in and out of, what kinds of offerings etc. There’s also a section thrown in about inheritance, and how the prince should give his sons only his own property as inheritance and not take that of his people, which seems fair enough.

Ezekiel 47
“Then said he unto me, These waters issue out toward the east country, and go down into the desert, and go into the sea: which being brought forth into the sea, the waters shall be healed.”

In Ezekiel’s vision, waters issue from the gates of the temple, and he is told that wherever the waters flow the land will be bountiful. There’s an evident metaphor here, with the water representing the blessing of the temple, but it also seems to be a literal description of life returning to the desolate land as there’s talk of eating the fruit from trees and using the leaves as medicine.

The boundaries of the land are set, and Ezekiel is told to apportion the land between the tribes according to lot. Interestingly, any Gentiles resident in the land are to be allowed to stay but will be allotted as part of the tribe that happens to be given wherever they are currently living. This is somewhat more generous than the more genocidal tendencies expressed in the time of Joshua.

Ezekiel 48
“This is the land which ye shall divide by lot unto the tribes of Israel for inheritance, and these are their portions, saith the Lord GOD.”

The land is divided up between the tribes, and it seems like this time each tribe gets a strip running east-west across the whole country. In the middle are apportions for the Zadokite priests, used to support the temple, and the Levites (despite their disgrace) also get a piece of sanctified land, as does the prince. Within this middle section is the city, which has three gates on each wall, one each named after each of the twelve tribes. The city is to be named “The Lord is there”. I went and looked this up for a translation – “Jehovah-Shammah”, apparently.

And thus for Ezekiel. It has a lot in common with the other major prophets, with lots of death and destruction; this one felt slightly more geared towards reconciliation and rebuilding than Isaiah and Jeremiah, and with the various visions had a more supernatural element to it, so although it’s very similar in places overall the book comes across with having its own feel – Isaiah has a lot of messianic references, Jeremiah deals quite closely with the human side of being a prophet of bad news, Ezekiel has more supernatural glory, although after a visually compelling start is trails away a bit into numbers and measurements. But I am glad to have come to the end of the really long books, finally. From hereon in all the OT books are relatively short so even if they’re doom-laden it’ll feel less of a slog.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dr Simon Reads... Appendix N. Part One: Poul Anderson

Image
Dr. Simon Reads Appendix N: Introduction This is a new series that will feature sporadically, in which I explore classic fantasy and science fiction works. You will either know what I mean by “Appendix N”, or you will have no clue. In the original Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Masters Guide, Gary Gygax provided a large number of appendices, from random smells to reputed magical properties of herbs and gemstones. Appendix N was a bibliography of works that inspired him. Back in 1982 when I first got hold of this book, there were only a couple of items on there that I’d read, and only a few other authors that I’d even heard of. Many years later, after, much reading, I returned to Appendix N expecting to have added greatly to the works on there that I’d read; but actually, there were still very few. Many of the authors were obscure or out of print authors of, for want of a better expression, golden age pulp; the kind that feature in Amazing Stories and the like. Now, ...
Read more

An Atheist Explores the Qur'an Part 80: The Nineteen Guardians of Saqar (sounds cooler than it is) (Shrouded (al-Muddaththirl))

Shrouded (al-Muddaththirl) 1-56 The Nineteen Guardians of Saqar (sounds cooler than it is). Welcome to the next instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Qur’an version). In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the Qur’an, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology. For more detail, see the introductory post https://bit.ly/2ApLDy0 For the online Qur’an that I use, see here http://al-quran.info and http://quran.com Shrouded (al-Muddaththirl) 1-28 “O you wrapped up in your mantle! Rise up and warn!” Like the previous surah , Enwrapped, this one starts with God addressing the Prophet as one wrapped in a mantle. Last time, because of the emphasis on praying at night, I took this to be a reference to a literal cloak against the cold night, but here it seems to be more metaphorical. Perhaps it was always meant to be both. I think metaphorical because the Prophet is told to “ purify your cloak ” and to avoid “ i...
Read more

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: 10. Fats Domino – This is Fats (1957)

Image
  The only famous one on here is Blueberry Hill (itself a version of a song from 1940 that Domino made his own). But if you like that sound, you’ll like the rest. I don’t have much else to say about the other songs on the album. Fats (real name Antoine) is pretty much doing blues , bringing it into the rock and roll sound, but his distinctive voice really carries it , and the track The Fat Man shows off his piano playing skills as he solos, almost jazz-like, around the song . As with Little Richard’s similarly named album above, it drips exuberence , although Domino was apparently quite a shy and unassuming character. Surprised to learn that he only died in 2017.   Oh, and 10 down, so that makes me 1% of the way through this endeavour . Nearly finished....  
Read more