Monday 06 February 2023

Psalm 134

Background

I hope you’re ready for the beginning of a journey through the Book of Ezekiel this week as at times it may feel a bumpy ride – but if you persevere it could be a great adventure! 

Ezekiel’s visions in this coming week occur after the first exile of inhabitants of Judah to Babylon in 597 BC. Ezekiel is one of those taken. However, at this time, Jerusalem and the Temple were still intact. That final destruction was still to come. 

It was a cataclysmic event in the lives of the people of Judah, suggesting God had abandoned them. Ezekiel used this moment as the defining date to calculate all other events. While it is unclear whether Ezekiel was a priest, or whether his father was, it explains his focus on ritual, purity and worship in the Temple. 

As you read through the visions to come, it is important to see them as having the quality of a dream. If you ever wake up in the morning remembering your dream, the details don’t always make sense and they don’t always flow cohesively. Ezekiel repeatedly talks of ‘something like’, never adequately being able to describe what he saw. 

What this initial vision does do is give credence to Ezekiel’s message later in the book. For a prophet’s words to be taken seriously, they had to be tested. Part of that testing was whether they could articulate an encounter with the divine. We can read something similar in Isaiah (6:1-8).  

The part of the vision contained in today’s reading depicts four living creatures, each with four wings. The number four may point to completeness, as Ezekiel will elsewhere refer to the four corners of the earth, to describe its totality. There are similar images of four-winged creatures found elsewhere in the region of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (roughly modern-day Iraq, the location of Babylon); but also multi-winged creatures are found elsewhere in Scripture, including in Revelation (4:6-8). The faces of the various animals are also the same as in Revelation and may point to what was considered the noblest of all animals and birds. 

At its heart, the vision attempts to articulate an awesome encounter with God, when words and images just aren’t sufficient. 

To Ponder: 

• Has there been an encounter with God in your life, or have you heard about someone else’s, when words don’t do it justice? What helped you or them to express it? 
• We often talk about the intimacy of God, but how can we be more open to the awesomeness of God? 
• Have you ever woken from a dream, and wondered whether it had a meaning? What did you do about it? 

Prayer

Awesome God, we take a moment to just sit in silence in your presence, because words are not enough. Amen.