I received a gift I've been wanting for a while - an ESV (English Standard Version, I think?) study Bible! I know, I know, totally nerdy. Thanks Mom and Dad!
I grew up with NIV (New International Version). Memorizing it and reading it. So it's really nice to have the same ideas expressed in different words - they seem new. Plus, with the notes, I can read hard passages and understand them! So of course I started in Ezekiel. I've read the book before, but all I know is that he was a prophet. I've been reading a chapter a day, very slowly, reading all the notes like a good Christian girl (but not looking up all the cross references - that would take WAYY too long!) and I am really enjoying myself!
So lucky you get to read the interesting parts of Ezekiel in a condensed version, which I am appropriately calling Zeke. I am calling this series Zeke: The Grand List of Things I Didn't Know
1. (Ezekiel 1-3) The first few chapters of Ezekiel and the first few chapters of Revelation are interchangeable! Okay, not completely, and the only reason I found the similarities is because we are going through Revelation in church. But here are two people in the Bible who firsthand described the same scene! Sure, they used slightly different words because there aren't really words to accurately describe what they were seeing.
ESV notes mention the constant use of the phrase "as it were," means "like." Ezekiel says this 18 times in his description, showing just how hard it is for him to describe the vision he's seeing! I'm sure he would be disgusted with the pathetic translated description here, because I read it and say "Yeah, that sounds really weird, do the sci fi authors know about this?" But Ezekiel saw something so amazing and awesome and cool and terrifying he couldn't put it into words. So that's how I should read it.
2. (Ezekiel 3:1-3)God doesn't assume Ezekiel will just do what he tells him to do, which is spread the message of doom and gloom. First he tests him by saying, "Eat something I'm going to give you" without telling him what it is. He obeys, and to his relief it isn't something nasty - it's a scroll with words on it, which tastes like honey.
3. (Ezekiel 3:4)Communion connection! Ezekiel eats the "words" God gave him, and God says, "Now you're ready to spread these 'words' to the people." The word "word" in the Bible is also used to refer to Jesus himself - aka word of God incarnate (in the flesh). So when Christians eat bread and say "this is the body of Christ" they are symbolically eating God's word - for two purposes, I think. First, to symbolize that Christ dwells within us,, and second, to equip us so we can spread the eaten "word" just like Ezekiel did!
4. (Ezekiel 3:5-7) This has to be the worst job in the Bible. We're afraid God will "send us to Africa" - but God pointed out, Africa would actually have listened to the message and Ezekiel's neighbors wouldn't. Yet that's his job, to go and warn people that God already knows won't repent. So go and support your local missionaries as well as the foreign ones because they sometimes feel like they're fighting a losing battle. It might not be because of them. It might be because God has sent them to talk to people who won't listen.
5. (Ezekiel 3:16-21) I thought Ezekiel was privileged to be God's voice to the people. But nope, God says, "If someone dies for his sin and you didn't warn him that he would die, then you will die too." On one hand God will protect him from the wrath of the people (see verse 8, "I have made your face as hard as their faces). On the other hand Ezekiel will be completely exposed to the wrath of God if he disobeys.
Remember that Jonah didn't want the Ninevites to repent? God is saying, "Ezekiel, if you let your bias against these people get in your way - if you decide they deserve to die and you don't warn them - then you deserve to die too." That shakes me. I see people digging their own graves, and sometimes I think they are "too far gone" for redemption. If they die and I haven't warned them, can I have a clean conscience? I don't think so.
6. (Ezekiel 4:1-8) Can I just say one more time, this has to be the worst job in the Bible. First God wants Ezekiel to build a mini-Jerusalem and show what it looks like under siege. Fair enough. But then he wants him to lie on his left side for 390 days and his right side for 40 days, to symbolize bearing the sin of Israel and Judah. Painful. And just when you say "Wow, how will he have the self-restraint to do something like that?" God says "Don't worry, I'll tie you down so you can't move at all." Oh, thanks. (By the way, the notes say that perhaps it wasn't for 390 days straight; maybe it was a set amount of time per day or something. We don't really know. Still, it had to be miserable.)
7. (Ezekiel 4:9-17) I know I've read this before, but I honestly didn't remember this was in the Bible until the day. God commanded Ezekiel (a priest) to cook his food on human dung. Ezekiel was fine with everything - being tied by God on one side for over a year, eating and drinking next to nothing, being killed if he didn't warn the people - but he drew the line at eating anything cooked on something so gross. It was kind of God to let him cook it on animal dung instead (apparently that was common), but it doesn't subtract from the message: That's how disgusted God felt with their burnt offerings - as if they were offering him their own poop.
Awesome, right?!
I grew up with NIV (New International Version). Memorizing it and reading it. So it's really nice to have the same ideas expressed in different words - they seem new. Plus, with the notes, I can read hard passages and understand them! So of course I started in Ezekiel. I've read the book before, but all I know is that he was a prophet. I've been reading a chapter a day, very slowly, reading all the notes like a good Christian girl (but not looking up all the cross references - that would take WAYY too long!) and I am really enjoying myself!
So lucky you get to read the interesting parts of Ezekiel in a condensed version, which I am appropriately calling Zeke. I am calling this series Zeke: The Grand List of Things I Didn't Know
1. (Ezekiel 1-3) The first few chapters of Ezekiel and the first few chapters of Revelation are interchangeable! Okay, not completely, and the only reason I found the similarities is because we are going through Revelation in church. But here are two people in the Bible who firsthand described the same scene! Sure, they used slightly different words because there aren't really words to accurately describe what they were seeing.
ESV notes mention the constant use of the phrase "as it were," means "like." Ezekiel says this 18 times in his description, showing just how hard it is for him to describe the vision he's seeing! I'm sure he would be disgusted with the pathetic translated description here, because I read it and say "Yeah, that sounds really weird, do the sci fi authors know about this?" But Ezekiel saw something so amazing and awesome and cool and terrifying he couldn't put it into words. So that's how I should read it.
2. (Ezekiel 3:1-3)God doesn't assume Ezekiel will just do what he tells him to do, which is spread the message of doom and gloom. First he tests him by saying, "Eat something I'm going to give you" without telling him what it is. He obeys, and to his relief it isn't something nasty - it's a scroll with words on it, which tastes like honey.
3. (Ezekiel 3:4)Communion connection! Ezekiel eats the "words" God gave him, and God says, "Now you're ready to spread these 'words' to the people." The word "word" in the Bible is also used to refer to Jesus himself - aka word of God incarnate (in the flesh). So when Christians eat bread and say "this is the body of Christ" they are symbolically eating God's word - for two purposes, I think. First, to symbolize that Christ dwells within us,, and second, to equip us so we can spread the eaten "word" just like Ezekiel did!
4. (Ezekiel 3:5-7) This has to be the worst job in the Bible. We're afraid God will "send us to Africa" - but God pointed out, Africa would actually have listened to the message and Ezekiel's neighbors wouldn't. Yet that's his job, to go and warn people that God already knows won't repent. So go and support your local missionaries as well as the foreign ones because they sometimes feel like they're fighting a losing battle. It might not be because of them. It might be because God has sent them to talk to people who won't listen.
5. (Ezekiel 3:16-21) I thought Ezekiel was privileged to be God's voice to the people. But nope, God says, "If someone dies for his sin and you didn't warn him that he would die, then you will die too." On one hand God will protect him from the wrath of the people (see verse 8, "I have made your face as hard as their faces). On the other hand Ezekiel will be completely exposed to the wrath of God if he disobeys.
Remember that Jonah didn't want the Ninevites to repent? God is saying, "Ezekiel, if you let your bias against these people get in your way - if you decide they deserve to die and you don't warn them - then you deserve to die too." That shakes me. I see people digging their own graves, and sometimes I think they are "too far gone" for redemption. If they die and I haven't warned them, can I have a clean conscience? I don't think so.
6. (Ezekiel 4:1-8) Can I just say one more time, this has to be the worst job in the Bible. First God wants Ezekiel to build a mini-Jerusalem and show what it looks like under siege. Fair enough. But then he wants him to lie on his left side for 390 days and his right side for 40 days, to symbolize bearing the sin of Israel and Judah. Painful. And just when you say "Wow, how will he have the self-restraint to do something like that?" God says "Don't worry, I'll tie you down so you can't move at all." Oh, thanks. (By the way, the notes say that perhaps it wasn't for 390 days straight; maybe it was a set amount of time per day or something. We don't really know. Still, it had to be miserable.)
7. (Ezekiel 4:9-17) I know I've read this before, but I honestly didn't remember this was in the Bible until the day. God commanded Ezekiel (a priest) to cook his food on human dung. Ezekiel was fine with everything - being tied by God on one side for over a year, eating and drinking next to nothing, being killed if he didn't warn the people - but he drew the line at eating anything cooked on something so gross. It was kind of God to let him cook it on animal dung instead (apparently that was common), but it doesn't subtract from the message: That's how disgusted God felt with their burnt offerings - as if they were offering him their own poop.
Awesome, right?!
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