{"id":73417,"date":"2020-04-17T16:32:33","date_gmt":"2020-04-17T13:32:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=73417"},"modified":"2020-04-17T16:32:33","modified_gmt":"2020-04-17T13:32:33","slug":"god-begins-a-long-drawn-out-retreat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/god-begins-a-long-drawn-out-retreat\/","title":{"rendered":"God Begins A Long Drawn-Out Retreat"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[],"acf":{"old_id":"73417","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":34250,"related_cahpter":"461","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Furious justice amidst hints of divine pain at the destruction\r\n\r\n","content":"

This chapter is short but powerful in its portrayal of divine retribution. The story begins in chapter 8 with the prophet\u2019s tour (\u201cin visions of God\u201d \u2013 verse 3) of the people\u2019s sins \u2013 <\/span>Look over here, son of Man! And here! Do you see their abominations? Oh, if you could only see what they do in private!<\/span><\/i> \u2013 a tour that culminates in 8:18 with a vengeful, unforgiving declaration: \u201cI also will act with fury; I will show no pity or compassion; though they call in My ears with a great voice, I will not listen to them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Metzudat David offers a fairly shocking paraphrase: \u201cJust as they behave improperly, thus I will behave with anger, improperly, for I will show no pity.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

God himself will behave improperly? As if we didn\u2019t already think the situation was harsh.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, after thus resolving to ignore the \u2018loud cries in His ears,\u2019 God Himself \u201ccalled in my [Ezekiel\u2019s] ears with a great voice\u201d (9:1). He directs this call towards His agents of destruction, but ensures Ezekiel hears it as an echo of the previous verse; the similarity in wording between the verses seems too much to be coincidental.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps the underlying message to His prophet is that even as God proclaims the harshest of divine retributions, even improper in its unabated wrath \u2013 His own cries echo those of His people.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps when He declares He will not listen to their cries, He is (in anthropomorphic terms) \u2018steeling\u2019 Himself against His own cries as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

For though He has committed to the destruction of His city, His Temple, and many of His people \u2013 the Tanach never portrays Him as happy about it.<\/span><\/p>\n

As those agents of destruction are told to wipe out all inhabitants of the city (except those marked as having expressed distress over their fellows\u2019 sins), the divine Presence retreats, moving \u201cfrom the cherub on which it had rested to the platform of the House\u201d (9:3). According to Lamentations Rabbah (Petichta 25), this was actually the second step; the first is described in chapter 10, along with several others, and other steps may be found elsewhere in Scripture \u2013 totaling ten stages of divine retreat.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why so many? Why does it take God so long to leave His Temple? Naturally, because He\u2019s not happy about it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The midrash points out that God\u2019s third step, described in 10:18, mixes up directions: the verse says the divine presence \u201cwent out from the threshold of the house\u201d to the cherubs \u2013 but from threshold to cherubs is inward! Rabbi Acha explains with an analogy to a human king who leaves his palace in anger \u2013 but is immediately drawn back, kissing the walls and pillars, crying and wishing his beloved palace well.<\/span><\/p>\n

Beneath the improperly vengeful surface in chapter 9, the midrash sees hints of divine pain at the destruction justice requires. He\u2019ll do it, but He\u2019s not happy about it.<\/span><\/p>\n

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