Ezekiel 8

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This week we are studying Ezekiel 8, the prophet’s second visionary experience. Ezekiel had been living in exile for five years without any updates about the situation in Jerusalem. One day, toward the end of his 430-day stint of lying on his side, he envisioned a messenger of God, fiery like gleaming amber, picking him up by his hair and supernaturally transporting him to Jerusalem. Out of all the prophets, Ezekiel may be the best at delivering a well-crafted hook.

In describing his transport, Ezekiel said, “the spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and brought me in visions of God to Jerusalem” (8:3). In my imagination, Ezekiel traveled the thousand miles from Babylon to Jerusalem in the same manner the characters traveled in Madeline L’Engle’s science-fiction book The Wrinkle in Time. In the book, Meg Murray, the main character, moved between places and eras by “tessering,” wrinkling the fabric of space-time. Ezekiel was reluctant to “tesser” which is why his divine guide had to grab hold of his hair. Again, this is all in my head where literature sometimes colors the Bible’s missing details and tessering is L’Engle’s made-up verb. According to the biblical text, Ezekiel’s body remained in Babylon, but his mind had a full sensory experience in Jerusalem.

Ezekiel noted that the vision occurred “in the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month” (8:1). Ezekiel used the sixth year of King Jehoiachin’s reign as his reference point, even though Jehoiachin was exiled in Babylon alongside him and not actually ruling over anything. (There is a lot more to say about King Jehoiachin, but I am going to save that for the episode on Ezekiel 17.) Ezekiel’s date works out to 18 September 592 BCE. According to his precise chronology, the Jerusalem vision occurred fourteen months after he first saw an apparition of God’s throne chariot by the Chebar River and accepted his call to the prophetic office.

According to the text, a delegation of elders was with Ezekiel in his home when he had the visionary experience. They were likely lay leaders who came to Ezekiel seeking an oracle from the Lord. Despite the excesses of his sign-acts, the people recognized him as a prophet. Perhaps they inquired about Jerusalem and the fate of their compatriots, or they came because his elaborate sign-acts were a sight to behold.

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