This week we are studying Ezekiel 15.
For the first fourteen chapters, Ezekiel’s divine dispatches included overpowering visions and bizarre sign-acts. In Chapter 15, he switched his method of communicating, choosing instead to reinforce the message through a series of six parables and metaphors (Ezek. 15-19). The other worldly theme of a throne chariot motored by winged and wheeled composite creatures faded out. In its place, Ezekiel relied on realistic scenes from nature and homelife that would be familiar to every ancient person. He likened Israel to a useless vine, an unfaithful wife, and an abandoned infant. He compared Jerusalem’s political alliances to two battling eagles and her last kings to captured lions. Each parable points to the impending destruction of Jerusalem and the awful fate of the city’s residents. If Jewish mysticism holds that only mature initiated mystics should ponder Ezekiel’s throne chariot, the compilation of Ezekiel’s word pictures is the opposite. The parables and their explanations are accessible to all.
This week we are studying Ezekiel 15.
For the first fourteen chapters, Ezekiel’s divine dispatches included overpowering visions and bizarre sign-acts. In Chapter 15, he switched his method of communicating, choosing instead to reinforce the message through a series of six parables and metaphors (Ezek. 15-19). The other worldly theme of a throne chariot motored by winged and wheeled composite creatures faded out. In its place, Ezekiel relied on realistic scenes from nature and homelife that would be familiar to every ancient person. He likened Israel to a useless vine, an unfaithful wife, and an abandoned infant. He compared Jerusalem’s political alliances to two battling eagles and her last kings to captured lions. Each parable points to the impending destruction of Jerusalem and the awful fate of the city’s residents. If Jewish mysticism holds that only mature initiated mystics should ponder Ezekiel’s throne chariot, the compilation of Ezekiel’s word pictures is the opposite. The parables and their explanations are accessible to all.