{"id":74288,"date":"2020-05-05T10:50:27","date_gmt":"2020-05-05T07:50:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=74288"},"modified":"2020-05-05T10:50:27","modified_gmt":"2020-05-05T07:50:27","slug":"challenging-god-in-the-peoples-defense-ezekiels-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/challenging-god-in-the-peoples-defense-ezekiels-failure\/","title":{"rendered":"Challenging God In The People\u2019s Defense: Ezekiel\u2019s Failure"},"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":"74288","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":38322,"related_cahpter":"474","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"He was no Abraham or Moses, nor even Ezekiel\u00a0\r\n\r\n","content":"

This chapter climaxes in God\u2019s exasperated search for an antidote against the destructive consequences of His anger. After surveying the governing classes of Israelite society for leadership, be they spiritual\/moral (prophets – v.25; 28), cultic (priests – v.26), or political (officials – v.27), the search fails. God\u2019s \u2018search\u2019 demands an individual to \u201crepair the wall, or stand in the breach, before Me in behalf of this land that I might not destroy it.\u201d (v.30). Previously Ezekiel accused false \u201cdegenerate prophets\u201d of failure to provide this very strategy for they \u201cdid not enter the breaches and repair the walls for the House of Israel.\u201d (13:5) What kind of action does this metaphor uniquely call for? And why doesn\u2019t Ezekiel, himself qualify?<\/span><\/p>\n

God announced unleashing indiscriminate destruction which \u201cwipes out both the righteous and the wicked\u201d (21:8-9), directly contravening God\u2019s self-proclaimed rejection of collective punishment, \u201cthe righteousness of the righteous shall be accounted to him alone and the wickedness of the wicked to him alone\u201d (18:20). Though the breached wall is commonly understood as Israel\u2019s corrupt behaviour needing corrective guidance, it is far more radical in intent. Since God initiates punishment, it is God who has breached the city\u2019s walls and is about to wreak total destruction. The \u201cbreach\u201d is God\u2019s own betrayal of justice, of the \u2018wall\u2019 which should protect the innocent but now exposes them to the same fate as the guilty. The people need an Abraham who first challenged God on this very principle protesting God\u2019s intent to annihilate the innocent and the guilty of Sodom (Gen 18:25). Yet there was no Abraham to be found.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, the metaphor demands more to rescue Israel, requiring both a \u201crepair\u201d of the wall and actually becoming part of the wall by \u201cstanding in the breach.\u201d Abraham mounted a repair of God\u2019s breach, offering a moral standard of individual culpability for God to consider instead of collective punishment. However, \u201cstanding in the breach\u201d requires the self-sacrifice that would place oneself as a barrier between the enemy and the people. The Bible singles out only Moses as having \u201cstood in the breach\u201d against God\u2019s destructive wrath (Ps. 106:23) referencing his confronting God at the Golden Calf episode, personally placing himself on the line. He rejected God\u2019s offer of a glorious future to replace the annihilated community (Deut. 9:14) and posed an ultimatum: either forgive the people or \u201cerase me from the record\u201d (Exod. 32:32). Yet, there was no Moses to be found.<\/span><\/p>\n

What of Ezekiel? When commissioned to prophesy the very message that endorsed collective punishment, in one of his extremely rare personal reactions Ezekiel fears \u201cthey will say of me \u2018He is just a maker of parables\u2019\u201d (21:5) Rather than challenge God in the mold of Abraham and Moses he was concerned only about his reputation, of being perceived a mere poet rather than the more prestigious prophet. There was no Ezekiel to be found!\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Image: Moses and Abraham, stained glass, Sir Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898), dedicated in 1907, St Mary the Virgin, Merton Park, in southwest London, photo by: Jacqueline Banerjee. 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