NOTES for Eze 44:1-31
The key word for understanding the whole of chapter 44 of the book of the prophet Ezekiel is reverence. The prophet has already proclaimed the promise of Israel’s cleansing, salvation and restoration. The Lord has promised that in the covenant of peace He will establish with the people, they will be given the Spirit of God, who will guide our hearts towards doing the will of the Almighty. The Messiah will be Israel’s Shepherd, leading the people along the path of life. But the prophet has also said that each person is responsible for themselves and their own moral choice, which means that human spiritual freedom is in no way infringed. That is precisely why, in the prophecy about the new Temple, the call not to repeat what led to the destruction of Solomon’s Temple is so important. The covenant of peace and the coming of the Spirit of God upon people are thus not a form of ‘brainwashing’ that automatically makes people righteous, but rather a path that the Lord opens. We can walk it only of our own free will.
In the new Temple, service to God resumes on the basis of the spiritual experience Israel has gained during the years of exile, and above all this experience requires taking God’s holiness seriously. The rules for keeping away from sinful defilement and the order of worship in the Temple must not be regarded as a human invention that can be disregarded. Before the exile, many in Israel may have thought that God did not notice minor transgressions: ‘God will not see.’ From now on, everyone knows that this is no laughing matter: God’s nearness has been revealed to the people in the most unambiguous way. Israel is called to draw near to God with joy and trembling because it knows that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is the living and true God.
The pardon that found its outcome and expression in the prophecy of the new Temple was not granted to Israel for its merits. The Lord makes His saving intervention solely for His name’s sake, solely for the sake of His mercy. Israel must therefore learn to live and stand before God with this experience of undeserved forgiveness, of salvation from the destruction it freely chose and deserved. This is far from a simple spiritual task. It takes immense trust in God to accept that we are forgiven not because there is something good about us, but solely and exclusively because God is holy. No feats of ascetic striving can win us the Creator’s mercy; He saves us only because He is good. The reverence for what is holy of which the prophet speaks in this chapter is the only possible attitude towards God, who saves people for the sake of His holiness, not theirs. Reverence, an incomprehensible blend of worship, joy and fear, will guide the people in their relationship with God.
Learning this is difficult, because it requires learning humility, trust in God and love for Him. In essence, the trembling closeness to the Unseen One spoken of by the rules of worship set out in chapter 44 is possible only as the fruit of love for God. Who can fulfil this?
From ancient times, the Church has regarded the beginning of chapter 44 as a prophecy about the Virgin of Israel, the One upon whose humility the Lord looked with favour. The words about the closed gate speak of the Virgin, the Mother of Christ: ‘This gate shall remain shut; it shall not be opened, and no one shall enter by it, for the Lord, the God of Israel, has entered by it; therefore it shall remain shut.’ She found favour with God, and Her humility and love for Him are prefigured in Ezekiel’s words about how Israel must serve God. Perhaps the final words of this chapter, that the Lord Himself will be His servants’ portion and the source of their life, may also be applied to Her.