Monday, August 13, 2012

Ezekiel's calling as prophet (1-4)


Ezekiel lived among the exiles of Babylon near the Kebar River, which is in modern-day Syria.  

One day, the heavens open up and he has visions of 4-faced winged creatures with a wheeled apparatus.  He also sees the presence of God.

God commands him to do some pretty weird stuff.  God tells Ezekiel to lie on his left side for 390 days and his right side for 40 days, each symbolizing the years that Israel and Judah rebelled against God, respectively.  God tells him to prepare the requisite food and water for this and make a public spectacle of this.  God actually tells him to use human dung to cook his own food (publicly).  Ezekiel talks God out of this last directive as it would defile Ezekiel.  God then allows Ezekiel to cook with cow dung instead.  Phew.

So, we have two contemporary prophets, Jeremiah in Jerusalem and Ezekiel among the exiles.  We also have Daniel in Babylon, but I would not call him a prophet.  At this point, he was a dream interpreter.

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