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Purity language is employed metaphorically throughout Ezekiel. Jerusalem has been utterly
defiled and there are all sorts of images that inspire revulsion in these chapters.
So destruction is the only possible remedy. There are metaphors of *** promiscuity
throughout the book. God's destruction of Israel is figured as the abuse doled out by
an insanely jealous husband who is violent, and the images are disturbing, they're haunting,
they're quite nightmarish. Ezekiel also engages in various dramatic signs--prophetic
signs or actions--to convey his message. It's something that we've seen in some of the other
prophets, but his are so bizarre and so extreme sometimes, that he was accused of insanity.
He cooks his food over a fire of human excrement as a symbol of the fact that those besieged
by Nebuchadnezzar will be forced to eat unclean food. He doesn't mourn when his wife dies
in order to illustrate the fact that Yahweh will not mourn the loss of His temple.
He binds himself in ropes; he lies on his left side 390 days to symbolize the 390 years
of exile of Israel, and then he lies on his right side for 40 days to symbolize the length
of Judah's captivity, which he says will be 40years. Neither of these terms of captivity
turn out to be correct. Finally, he shaves his beard and his hair and he burns a third
of it, he strikes a third of it with his sword, and he scatters a third of it to the winds.
He just keeps a few hairs bound up in his robe. This is to symbolize the destruction
of a third of the people by pestilence and famine, a third of the people by violence,
and the exile of a third to Babylon; only a few will God allow to escape.
Ezekiel makes it clear that those who ignore the warnings are doomed. Those who heed will
be spared, and in this, he sounds the theme of individual responsibility that is so characteristic
of Ezekiel. I want you to listen to the following passage and compare it to, or think about,
other verses or terms in the Torah that you've studied that may relate to the same topic.
How is he modifying those earlier ideas? This is all from chapter 18, various verses
throughout: The word of the Lord came to me: What do you
mean by quoting this proverb upon the soil of Israel, "Parents eat sour grapes and their
children's teeth are blunted"? As I live--declares the Lord GOD--this proverb shall no longer
be current among you in Israel. Consider, all lives are Mine; the life of the parent
and the life of the child are both Mine. The person who sins, only he shall die.
…
A child shall not share the burden of a parent's guilt, nor shall a parent share the burden
of a child's guilt; the righteousness of the righteous shall be accounted to him alone,
and the wickedness of the wicked shall be account to him alone.
Moreover, if the wicked one repents of all the sins that he committed and keeps all My
laws and does what is just and right, he shall live; he shall not die.
…
Is it My desire that a wicked person shall die?--says the Lord GOD. It is rather that
he shall turn back from his ways and live. So, too, if a righteous person turns away
from his righteousness and does wrong, practicing the very abominations that the wicked person
practiced, shall he live? None of the righteous deeds that he did shall be remembered; because
of the treachery he has practiced and the sins he has committed--because of these, he
shall die.
…
Be assured, O House of Israel, I will judge each one of you according to his ways --declares
the LORD GOD. Repent and turn back from all your transgressions; let them not be a stumbling
block of guilt for you. Cast away all the transgressions by which you have offended,
and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit, that you may not die, O House of Israel. For
it is not My desire that anyone shall die--declares the Lord GOD. Repent, therefore, and live!"
It's an important Torah idea that Ezekiel is rejecting or contradicting here. And that's
the Torah principle of collective or even intergenerational punishment. It's found most
famously in the Second Commandment, the declaration that God punishes children for the sins of
their fathers unto the fourth generation.