Today's reading offers us a parable of Ezekiel whose meaning concerns the difficult relations that developed between Judea, which was a vassal of Babylonia, and Egypt. By the time the sermon quoted here was delivered, the prophet was already living in Babylon, although...
Today's reading offers us a parable of Ezekiel whose meaning concerns the difficult relations that developed between Judea, which was a vassal of Babylonia, and Egypt (vv. 11–15). By the time the sermon quoted here was delivered, the prophet was already living in Babylon, although Jerusalem had not yet been destroyed, as it would be later.
Ezekiel found himself in Babylon with the first group of Jerusalem's deported inhabitants in 589 BC. The city was then taken by the Babylonians, but was not completely destroyed. A Babylonian garrison and a local administration loyal to the new authorities were left there. Two years later, however, in 587 BC, a revolt broke out in the city, organized with support from Egypt, which was then at war with Babylonia. But as Ezekiel had warned (v. 17), Egypt was unable to provide the rebels with substantial aid. The revolt was suppressed, and the city and the Temple were razed to the ground, as was customary in those days when dealing with rebellious cities.
Like the other prophet Jeremiah, who was a direct witness and involuntary participant in these events (Jer. ch. 52), Ezekiel repeatedly warned that the rebels' plans were not destined to succeed and that the revolt would end in defeat and great bloodshed (vv. 18–21). Such a position must probably have seemed collaborationist and unworthy of a patriot to many people.
Ezekiel understood what many others, including the leaders of the anti-Babylonian revolt, did not. He understood that history could not be turned back. The success of the revolt could mean only one thing: a return to the past, to the state of the people and the country which had, in fact, led to the catastrophe. But God did not need a restoration; He did not want His people to return to their former life. He needed to lead the people forward, through repentance and conversion towards spiritual renewal, without which a return to the land of their fathers and the restoration of the city and the Temple would have had no spiritual meaning.
But this was not easy to understand, for the popular religious consciousness of the pre-exilic era was by no means inclined either to repentance or to reflection in general. On the contrary, shortly before the city's fall in 589 BC, attitudes of complacency and self-satisfaction prevailed there, heavily infused with a distinctive religiously coloured nationalism which many mistook for Yahwism. And God, of course, could not allow His people to return to such a state. He intended to lead them forward, towards spiritual renewal, even against the wishes of those who wanted to turn back.
