Hebrew Bible: Exilic Prophets, Pt. 2

Exilic Prophets

Ezekiel and Obadiah

If you really need a topic for the paper, and you did not hear Professor Hofer's list, email me at seewc3@mail.missouri.edu.

597 BCE -- first exilic deportation from Judah

586 BCE -- the second exilic deportation from Judah

Ezekiel

      a priest who left Jerusalem for Babylonia during the first deportation

• Life in Judah--see Psalm 137
• "Rivers of Babylon" were probably the famous irrigation canals in Babylonia
• The Babylonians' request was most likely for mockery or entertainment
• The message of the song is to remember Jerusalem!
• Babylonia and Edom to be destroyed by the Lord at a later date
• Organization
• chap 1-3 -- Call of the prophet
• an inaugural vision in the Temple
• (Jeremiah's inaugural call was only auditory)
• 4-24 -- Oracles against Judah/Jerusalem, specifically, warnings of exile
• 25-32 -- Oracles against the nations
• 33-39 -- Oracles of Zion's restoration
• 40-48 -- Vision of the rebuilt ideal Temple
• Josephus, the Roman Jewish historian of the 1st century CE asserts that Ezekiel wrote two books; these are probably chap 1-24 and 25-48.
• The Call:  Ezekiel 1
• "gleaming amber":  Hashmal, means "electricity" in modern Hebrew.  The rabbis have a traditional belief that if a student actually read and understood this passage in Ezekiel, then lightning would come out of the page and strike him.
• vague use of language; similes; metaphors--difficult for Ezekiel to describe
• "chariot":  merkavah, also the name of the Hebrew artillery tank
• **this passage is important because it developed a rabbinical obsession of having a merkavah vision
• Symbolic Acts
• chap 4 -- Ezekiel lays siege to a miniature Jerusalem
• 11 -- Ezekiel lies on his side
• one side 370 days for 370 years of Israelites exile
• other side for 40 days for 40 years of Judean exile
• both numbers are not literally true
• 5 -- Ezekiel cuts and divides his hair into three parts
• sword, pestilence, and exile punishments
• much like the punishments in Leviticus 26
• (P) influence; dates to exile in Babylonia
• (D) probably dates same time but with exiles left in Jerusalem
• 18 -- **Turning point in Judaism
• the proverbs (v 1) says that children bear the iniquities of their parents
• parents were responsible for the position their children have in exile
•  Verse 3 declares that this proverb shall no longer be used!
• now the punishment is individualized
• people have individual, not only corporate responsibility
• Restoration:  Valley of Dry Bones
• chap 37
• Bones come back to life
• Where did this idea come from?
• Zoroatrians of the same period
• world's first strict monotheists
• believed that land was sacred --> dead bodies put in a valley --> birds eat the flesh --> one day, the remaining bones will be put back together and resurrect

Obadiah!

• Ezekiel's contemporary
• **stayed behind in Judah
• the exiles thought that the glory of God went with them into Babylon
• one oracle, against Edom (descendants of Esau, Jacob's brother)
• Edom was southeast of Jerusalem
• Edom is condemned for being a bad brother
• Edomites were also destroyed by the Babylonians