Don't Know Much About the Bible - Kenneth C. Davis [107]
* Who is Gog and where is Magog?
* What happened to Jonah’s whale?
The events that fall between 586 and 516—the destruction of Jerusalem, the Exile, Return, and reconstruction of the Temple—all combine to mark a crucial point in the history of the Jews and the Bible, just as the Civil War does in American history. Everything that came before and after can only be viewed in light of these turning points. Since much of the Hebrew scriptures reached their present state after this period of turmoil and uncertainty, everything in these books has to be viewed against the backdrop of this turmoil.
For the Jews, the stark realization was that the Kingdom of God—an empire that would reign supreme on earth—was not the kingdom they were going to get. As time went by, and generations of Jews began to spread abroad in the great Diaspora, or dispersion, that reality became more pronounced. The sense that everything had changed forever was reflected in the voices and words of the prophets who lived and preached during and after the Exile in Babylon. These prophets increasingly spoke of a future day of the Lord, a day of judgment, a future messianic time, when God would ultimately rule the world. A few politically minded, militaristic Jewish firebrands took that to mean a warrior-king like David would rise up to make Israel great once more, and there were sporadic nationalistic movements over the next few centuries. Other Jews would come to believe the fulfillment of their prophecies had come through Jesus, and these Jews became the first Christians. Other faithful Jews still wait for the words of the prophets to be realized.
THE POST-EXILE PROPHETS
PROPHET
DATE (BCE)/Place
Ezekiel
597-563; Babylonian Exile
Haggai
520; Jerusalem in the post-Exilic period
Zechariah
520-518; Jerusalem in the post-Exilic period
Malachi
460-450; Jerusalem after the Temple is rebuilt
Obadiah
460-400
Joel
350
Jonah
Jonah lived c. 750; the book of Jonah is written c. 350
• Ezekeil
“O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.”
(Ezek. 37:4 KJV)
The prophet Ezekiel, whose wife had died during the last siege of Jerusalem, was among the Jewish captives deported to Babylon in 597 BCE, before the fall of Jerusalem and destruction of the Temple, making him the first of the prophets to live outside the Promised Land. His role as prophet and priest dates from about 592, when he symbolically swallowed a scroll and received his call to prophesy “among the exiles by the river Chebar”—thought to be a canal near Babylon. Ezekiel’s familiarity with Temple rites and the unholy forms of worship that had been introduced into the Temple indicate that he may have been a priest before the Exile. His prophecies fall into three general phases. He is a harsh prophet of doom and destruction before the fall of Jerusalem; a comforter to the exiled community after the fall; and lawmaker and designer of the form and structure of the restored Temple and Jewish worship following the Return to Jerusalem.
In strictly literary terms, Ezekiel was one of the greatest individual writers in the Bible. He was a rich stylist, and the most famous sections of his book are dreamlike, mystical visions of God, filled with terrifying imagery, threats, and violence. His early prophecies include stinging, graphic denunciations of the behavior of the Israelites. He singles out for specific condemnation the practices permitted in the Temple, including the worship of other gods, such as the Mesopotamian agricultural deity Tammuz, who supposedly died each year and then returned, bringing new crops. Ezekiel mentions the continuing practice of human sacrifice as well. His description of life during the siege before Jerusalem’s capture suggests that the people in the city were probably forced to resort to cannibalism.
In one of his sharpest denunciations of the people of Israel, Ezekiel describes, in euphemistically sexual language, how God had treated Israel like a lover:
“I passed by you again and looked on you; you were at the age for love.