The Ezekiel Guide: Soul of a Prophet

By Lynn L Ragan

Ezekiel was an ordinary man with a desperate soul, who also carried the heavy burden of being a prophet. Later in time, he would be grouped with the other great prophets of the bible. Through his 25 year ordeal of receiving visions and oracles, his main concern was providing reason, justification, and hope during a time of madness for his people

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lynn Ragan
• Release date: Dec 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9780692948637

Lynn L Ragan

Lynn is a musician, outdoors lover, cook, and scripture reader with a heavy interest in mathematics and philosophy.

Book preview

Acknowledgements

No creative effort ever happens in a vacuum.  Several people contributed towards the crafting of this book. I am grateful to each and every one who listened politely to my endless ramblings about the Ezekiel this and Ezekiel that.  I wish to express my special appreciation to my wife Shilo who endured the years of my blog posting, my research, reading through many of my posts, suggesting I convert the entire project into a book, and offering to help with proof reading and some editing.  I hope you know how much I love you and appreciate the way you support my crazy ideas.

Additionally, I would like to thank Doug Gregory for his interpretive business consultation, my sister Kathy Ragan for work on the cover art.  And I can’t forget to thank my mother Dr. Virginia Ragan for offering to do a cover to cover proof reading.

I dedicate this book to my loving family. Walk bravely under the wide skies way out in open country.

Introduction

This book is for anyone. It’s not necessarily for religious students any more than it is for non-religious folks. It definitely does not have ‘conversion’ as a core goal for its existence. Rather, the point of this book is Ezekiel: Unlocked for the regular person. Ezekiel was writing to regular people who were with him in bondage. Therefore, anyone else should be able to wrap their arms around the central concepts of his writing if given a framework that works all the way through the book.

It started as a blog, not a book writing exercise – that came later. It was just me trying hard to cast off dusty interpretations of Ezekiel’s writings, trying to find some open space (what I called open country) in order to understand why this particular prophet’s writings resonate with me. So I started reading again and keeping a log of my own observations, notes, quips and insights such as they were. One day, I had an astonishing thought about how I could apply a lens or framework to help tie all the elements of Ezekiel’s writings together into a cohesive whole.  That whole framework boils down to this idea: What if we thought about Ezekiel as a person?

It could be said that authors of fiction have an advantage over Christian based authors of commentaries or apologists.  An author of a novel makes no bones about going through the steps of identifying character traits and stipulating character motivations which lead to the actions and behaviors we read about during the course of the story.  By doing so, it lends believable consistency to the reading experience and makes the actions of the character appear to be part of a whole persona.  We often remark on how real certain characters are when we read a good book. This is because their motivations make sense and their reason for being seems authentic. Sadly, in the case of scripture, this approach is often overlooked.  An assumption is made that the reader is supposed to be passive and accept what is as what is. 

The extreme version of this is when an entire book of apocalyptic revelation is referred to as a ‘closed book’.  This is the case for one of my favorite Old Testament books: Ezekiel.  Commentary after commentary stumbles through the writings of Ezekiel. At best they present a sort of narrative play-by-play, at worst they summarize entire chapters as simply more repetition of an overly detailed and mundane collection of scriptural text that must have some further mystical meaning, esoteric reference to the future, etc.

Ezekiel is not a closed book. It is the writings that pour from the desperate soul of a man of Israel, who cared deeply for his people. He wanted more than anything for them to grasp the implications of his visions which lasted over decades of time. Ezekiel was a prophet beyond reproach, holding credentials well beyond almost any other prophet of the bible. And, his commentary on the society of his time is hauntingly appropriate in consideration of our own modern times and modern society.

So, this book is not exactly a commentary, any more than a travel guide could be considered a detailed topographical map of a historic site.  It is a guide through the Book of Ezekiel and a way for me to apply my theory of how to read Ezekiel’s writings.  I have attempted to provide a lens through which all of the pieces of the book of Ezekiel come into a harmonious whole, rather than an ad nausea collection of over zealously detailed bits.  Essentially, it is Ezekiel: Unlocked.

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Ch. 1:  Wow (Eze.1)

Ch. 2:  Now to get things going (Eze.2-4)

Ch. 3: Finally some blessed rest (Eze. 3, 2nd Chron)

Ch. 4: On overload here (Eze. 3)

Ch. 5: Yes, but how?? what? huh! (Eze. 2-4)

Ch. 6: Vision in the desert

Ch. 7:  An onerous task, lying about (Eze. 4)

Ch. 8: Now hold on just a minute (Eze. 4, Deut. 8)

Ch. 9: A little off the side (Eze. 5, Lev. 21)

Ch. 10: The high country (Eze. 6, Lev. 26)

Ch. 11: Poetic license (Eze. 7)

Ch. 12: Fraudulent piety or welcome to the masquerade (Eze. 8)

Ch. 13: Do you weep and sigh? (Eze. 9-10)

Ch. 14: Fresh embers (Eze. 10, Ex. 40)

Ch. 15: That's entitlement for ya... (Eze. 11)

Ch. 16 Slip out the back, Jack...(Eze. 12)

Ch. 17: How do you know? (Eze. 13)

Ch. 18:  Not to forget the ladies (Eze. 13)

Ch. 19: There's yet hope...(Eze. 14)

Ch. 20: The small matter of the horseman of the Apocalypse (Eze. 14)

Ch. 21: And now for a bit of gardening (Eze. 15)

Ch. 22: Time to take a breather - it's just me

Ch. 22: A long story begins (Eze. 16)

Ch. 23: What's in a verb anyways? (Eze. 16)

Ch. 23: How not to gain popularity (Eze. 16)

Ch. 24: Little gems (Eze. 16)

Ch. 25: Time for a gardening story (Eze. 17)

Ch. 26: Um, Ok, here we go....justice (Eze. 18)

Ch. 27: Being bad (Eze. 18)

Ch. 28: Goin' down singing (Eze. 19)

Ch. 29: The story moves forward (Eze. 20)

Ch. 30: Who is the hero? (Eze. 20)

Ch. 31: Beyond reproach (Eze. 20, Judges 6)

Ch. 32: Getting right down to it (Eze. 20)

Ch. 33: Sword song (Eze. 20 & 21)

Ch. 34: What's with the signpost? (Eze. 21)

Ch. 35: Betrayal to the point of losing it all (Eze. 22)

Ch. 36: Probably some parental guidance needed (Eze. 23)

Ch. 37: A heartbreaking death (Eze. 24)

Ch. 38: What comes around (Eze. 25)

Ch. 39: A trilogy of Purple (Eze. 26)

Ch. 40: Purple trilogy part II (Eze. 27)

Ch. 41: The lonely Cherub (Eze. 28)

Ch. 42: The end of a crocodile (Eze. 29)

Ch. 43: Broken arms and tough knocks (Eze. 30)

Ch. 44: Still following the money trail (Eze. 31)

Ch. 45: End of Nations (Eze. 32)

Ch. 46: Vol. II- cliff notes for a stressed out refugee (Eze. 33)

Ch. 47: Vol II - God does not keep score (Eze. 33)

Ch. 48: Last installment for chapter 33 (Eze. 33)

Ch. 49: All the shepherds have gone astray (Eze. 34)

Ch. 50: Feuds that go nowhere (Eze. 35)

Ch. 51: Whiplash (Eze. 36-39)

Ch. 52: Point of the Mountain (Eze. 36)

Ch. 53: Dem Bones - seriously - Dem bones (Eze. 37)

Ch. 54: My version of the end of the world, part I (Eze. 38 & 39)

Ch. 55: My version of the end of the world Part II (Eze. 39)

Ch. 56: Animated Fly-through of Ezekiel's temple part 1 (Eze. 40)

Ch. 57: Animated fly-thru of Ezekiel's temple part 2 (Eze. 41)

Ch. 58: Animated fly through - rooms for all the offerings (Eze. 42)

Ch. 59: The headline that never was (Eze. 43)

Ch. 60: Prose of fidelity (Eze. 44)

Ch. 61: Ezekiel 45's fairness failsafe (Eze. 45)

Ch. 62: The playground slide (Eze. 46)

Ch. 63: River of sacred justice (Eze. 47)

Ch. 64: Name of a city (Eze. 48)

Bibliography

Ch. 1:  Wow (Eze.1)

I’ve read Ezekiel many times. Though I can’t recall ever hearing someone give a full sermon from the Book of Ezekiel, he (Ezekiel) was still one of my favorite prophets from the Old Testament.  Even so, I still comfortably placed this amazing book of scripture into the ‘Boring’ category for many years.

However, something about the way the Book of Ezekiel was written called it all back to mind and I decided to read it again. So, while in the process of re-reading of Ezekiel yet again, I had made it all the way to Chapter 8 before I realized that I needed to go back and read the very first sentence again. The funny thing about the first sentence is it is usually the sentence that almost never gets read when you’re scanning through a book of the Bible looking for a specific passage or certain verse…and it absolutely never gets read during a sermon. So after plumbing through chapter 4 several times, and then reading on to chapter 8, I resolved to go back and read verse 1 of chapter 1 and look at it closely. Wow, I am glad that I did.

For anyone daring enough to wade into the mysterious and swift moving waters of Ezekiel’s prophetic writings, it must be kept firmly in mind that Ezekiel was an experienced minister after the manner of the traditional professional priesthood of the people of Israel. When the book of Ezekiel begins, Ezekiel himself was dealing with life as an exile in Babylon.  The very first verse shows how the rest of the book is Ezekiel’s way of dealing with something that shattered his organized world.

He packs four important things into the very first sentence for us which lets us know that this is a real person (eg. Authentic human being) penning these chapters.

1) Exactly what date – to the day. None of this …oh it was in the spring time or ten years ago, I think I had a dream…. Instead, Ezekiel states his experience was during a specific year, month, and day. What ever happened made a specific impression on him.

2) Where was he? He was with his people in exile. Not fasting away on some mountain (been there, done that). He was among the captive outcasts of Israel. He shared their distress – he was hip deep in it.

3) Ezekiel says that ‘….the heavens opened That is quite a statement.  Certainly it is much stronger than I heard a voice, or my impression of God’s intent or my feeling". Nothing so understated. God knew he needed to blow this guy’s socks off to get his attention. From Ezekiel’s reaction we see that this was way off the scale of normal, nothing he would expect, being of your average priestly family. Witnessing the heavens open was as unthinkable as going behind the veil in the Holy of Holies in the former Jerusalem temple. Your average Priest just didn’t do something like that.

4) And finally, Ezekiel states …and I saw visions of God. Simple. To the point. Cuts right through it all and rings of sincerity because it is so simple. It is also the very core of witness which is: I saw, so now I tell.

That’s authenticity, and it’s all in one sentence. After all, authenticity is a hallmark characteristic of all the Major Prophets.    Ezekiel’s prophetic writing is consistent, in that manner, with all the other Major Prophets, which further adds to his credibility.

Ch. 2: Now to get things going (Eze.2-4)

We are now dealing with a transition from Ezekiel encountering whole new concepts about God at a personal level into his new role of watchman for Israel and to the immediate tasks at hand. All of this discussion relates to Ezekiel Chapter 2 all the way through the beginning of chapter 4 of the book of Ezekiel. By way of explanation, the next couple of chapters will be a series of recurring passes through Ezekiel 2-4, picking out various parallel items of note.

To begin with, we start with our guy face down on the plain or open desert country – literally face down.  It must have been overwhelming for Ezekiel to come face to face with the Glory of God and to be taught whole new concepts in a religion Ezekiel thought he knew pretty well to begin with.

We are told that the Spirit came in, the Spirit raised him up, and then the Spirit spoke to him.  That is an interesting progression of perception and so vastly different from the get well quick and everything will be fixed for you right now mentality of some subsections of modern Christian programming.  I’m speaking about the type of belief subset where a person experiences an inconvenience, makes a bland statement about general belief or maybe says a quick formula prayer, cleverly seizes an opportunity to overcome the inconvenience and then states that God must be blessing me today.

That is worlds different from Ezekiel’s experience of being pushed to the end of his strength and endurance to where his brain overloads and he collapses.  And then, right there, at that point, the Spirit comes in.  Why?   Because there is room for the Spirit of God now. Ezekiel is empty and has become a possible sacred vessel for the Holy Spirit.  Vessel, not a possessed mannequin, a vessel – big difference.

At this point, Ezekiel has seen his visions.  He has heard the Word of righteousness, judgment, and warning. He has so much to tell. Ezekiel must have been bursting at the seams to get started.  Except for one thing…

God’s first task to Ezekiel is to go lock himself in his house and not say a word.  Not only that, he will be bound with ropes, probably by his own people so that he will not be able to openly share what he has seen.  Those in religious authority over the community would have good reason to fear a new voice, for there is much power to be held when people live in fear and are looking for some kind of direction.

For that matter, this isn’t exactly news.  Ask any new minister wanting to try a fresh approach and you will hear the same thing. There are always walls of resistance immediately built.  Colleagues will begin to say things like, You can’t say that, it’s not the way we do things around here, I know you want to change things, but maybe you should listen to wiser heads, or This is not the mainstream message we’ve always worked with. etc.  You know the drill.   Jesus faced this, Moses faced this, Jeremiah faced this, and John the Baptist definitely faced this.  This type of resistance was nothing new and God was telling Ezekiel that the same would happen to him.

Not to worry, the timing was all in God’s favor anyway.  Let the community bind Ezekiel to prevent him from rocking the boat. And if those same people wanted to preview Ezekiel’s message first – and in private – God would bind up Ezekiel’s mouth.  In other words, God was assuring Ezekiel that He would speak when He was good and ready to speak, and not until all his current judgments had been completed on Jerusalem’s sorry state of affairs. The corollary message is that this version of God who traveled with his people, even into captivity, was not an on-demand oracle giver. 

God had a message for the people, something that could bring a change in thinking.  This message had begun with Jeremiah.  It was a message that would challenge the status quo of the established clergy, an order who was wholly focused on the supposed glory days of the Temple.

Ezekiel must have been reflecting on the story of Moses’ inability to talk and being bound and brought before Pharaoh.  How absurd it must have seemed to him, that the role of Egypt in his nation’s past was being fulfilled by his own people right then and there.  This must have crystallized the belief of Ezekiel that God was right about the timing of any messaging.

And that brings us to the first sign.  Now most of the prophets that we read about in the Old Testament had a format of writing down their visions, sometimes in prose, and sometimes in poetry/song. In any event, there was the customary presentation of the message, the pronouncement in the courts of the rulers of Israel, etc.

Ezekiel’s case is different.  He is told to get a clay tablet and draw a picture of Israel on it so that he can symbolically lay siege to the city and portray the actuality of Israel’s total isolation – of being completely cut off.  Now, how do you draw a picture of a city on a 6×9 clay tablet so that anyone can tell what it is?   If you think about tourist maps, the kind you get in most coastal towns, city areas are always represented by some kind of landmark.  San Francisco is always represented by the Golden Gate Bridge and that Pyramid sky scraper. I imagine that Ezekiel represented Jerusalem by its pinnacle landmark, the Temple – the very place that has God so upset – the place that epitomizes the very corruption of faith which caused this whole mess in the first place.

In a way, it kind of reminds me of some other forms of representational imagery used in religious circumstances.  For instance, Navajo tribal elders will spend days creating a beautiful sand painting which contains images that lead tribal members to meditate on specific elements of their faith.  Those images are the focus until the end of the ceremony at which time, the painting is destroyed and the sands cast to the wind.

Same thing going on here with Ezekiel.  It is on this image of Jerusalem that he will focus his attention for over one year of time.  I imagine it was quite the conversation piece for anyone who stopped by to visit.  And if you think about it, the warning for the coming events did last for well over a year. It’s not as if God was acting like some sleeping giant who suddenly came to life in anger and inexplicably destroyed Jerusalem.  This had been coming on for a good long time and Jerusalem had been warned many times over by a God who