075. I. The Prophet And His Prophecies

I THE PROPHET AND HIS PROPHECIES A recent writer has said that the prophet Ezekiel has “the most interesting personality in the great group of prophets.” He certainly deserves the place among the prophets of highest rank which has been given him. Yet this is not due to our intimate knowledge of his personal history. As in the case of his predecessors, Isaiah and Jeremiah, we do not know the circumstances of his early career nor of his death; it is from the events and utterances of his active life that we must form our conception of the man. His ministry opened in the fifth year of Jehoiakin’s exile (592–3) and continued over twenty years, until the middle of the period of captivity. He describes himself as the son of Buzi (Ezekiel 1:3) and a member of the aristocratic priestly caste in Judah. According to Josephus he was carried away from the home-land while only a youth; but many incidental facts indicate that this was mere conjecture on the part of the Jewish historian. The elders in the Babylonian community came to him at his own house for counsel; he even refers to the period of youth (Ezekiel 4:14) as somewhat distant. Adding to these the indications of broad culture and of a careful mastery of civil and ritual law and of the historical and prophetic writings of his people, we are led to the conclusion that he was a man of considerable maturity, and that it was partially for that reason that his words carried great weight in the exiled society. In one important characteristic Ezekiel was more prophet than priest; he was a growing man, a student of life as it unfolded before him. His published sermons are a rich storehouse of the ideas of the age—geographical, historical, legal, ethical, and religious. He even learned much from his Babylonian surroundings of which he made use in planning for the future development of his own people. In many ways, however, he differed from the prophets who preceded him. During the first five years of his ministry he seems, at first glance, to direct his gaze almost wholly toward his native land and its approaching fate, ignoring the community of which he was a part, and failing to exercise the leadership characteristic of the true prophet. But we note, on closer inspection, that he was a prophet in order that he might be a pastor. His declarations regarding guilty Israel were intended to affect the thought and the action of his own community even more than of the men of Judah. His faithful presentations of God’s attitude toward Israel was the true enlightening cause of the passive submission of the exiles to their lot and of their gradual participation in the opportunities afforded by Babylonia.

Ezekiel’s early training as a member of the order of the priesthood is indicated, not only by the breadth of his culture and by his personal refinement, but also by his respect for priests as a class in the community and particularly by the prominent place which he assigns to them in the future development of his nation (Ezekiel 44). His training also suggests the reason why he promptly recognized the necessity of a more exact and far-reaching legal organization of the future state which was so well wrought out by him in the closing chapters of the book. Hence in many ways he was rarely fitted for the much-needed task of anchoring the old ethical standards by new ritual requirements. The strength and depth of Ezekiel’s nature are best revealed, however, by a detailed study of his writings. While his wide acquaintance with the earlier prophets and his particular indebtedness to his immediate predecessor and teacher Jeremiah are very apparent, he was his own master in every way. There is a distinct individuality in his methods as well as in his words. When he sought to make a deep impression upon his neighbors, his messages of judgment against guilty Israel were often prefaced and supported by acted parables of the most impressive sort (Ezekiel 4, 5, 12). His surveys of past history were effectively presented in elaborate allegories, which could not be forgotten. His hopes for the future took the form of striking visions (Ezekiel 37-48), which served as standing texts for stirring descriptions of the life that was to be. The book of Ezekiel is readily divided into two great sections, the first twenty-four chapters being devoted to the teachings and actions of the prophet prior to the destruction of Jerusalem. These two divisions of the book have been happily characterized as respectively destructive and constructive. In the latter half of the book a threefold arrangement is noticeable: chapters 25–32, a collection of predictions against various nations; chapters 33–39, a collection of comforting messages to Ezekiel’s fellow exiles; and chapters 40–48, the vision of the reconstructed city and sanctuary. This regularity of arrangement exhibits the elaboration, symmetry, and artistic character of the book as a whole. The arrangement, as in the case of other prophetic collections, appears to have been made primarily on a topical rather than chronological basis. This is particularly obvious in the last half of the book. In general, however, the order is also that of original production. The prophetic book of Ezekiel has, without much doubt, come down to us substantially as Ezekiel or some one of his disciples arranged it. Its literary defects, no less than its merits, are of a kind which a man of priestly training would produce. The style, though stately and polished, is often prosaic and full of mannerisms. Ezekiel has no such poetic soul as Isaiah, although he makes frequent use of figures of speech (Ezekiel 15, 19, 26, etc.), is fond of plays upon words, and revels in imagery of every description. There is, nevertheless, an element of formalism in the prophet’s attitude which is fatal to the choicest lyric productiveness. The book of Ezekiel is to be judged, not by its artistic arrangement, nor by its beauty of detail, but by its breadth of outlook, by its grasp of the true relation between the divine and the human, by its presentation of the possibilities of the future to his disheartened countrymen, and by its inspiring assurances that the times, far from being out of joint, were being directed by Jehovah, and that the Jewish race, by its very misfortunes, was making progress toward the goal ever present to the divine mind.