V. EZEKIEL.
1. The great importance of Ezekiel for the fur- ther development of the religion of Israel, as we have sketched it at the close of the preceding section, could not be recognized until the depend- ence of the Priests’ Code upon his programme for the future (Ezk 40-48) was placed beyond doubt. As long as it was held possible that he, the priest, occupied the leisure of the Exile in constructing fantastic variations on the priestly legislation which had already been long in existence, nothing could be made of his book, or at least of the clos- ing parts of it. Nay, it was possible, as we see from the Talmud, even to dispute whether the Book of Ezekiel was entitled to ‘a place at all in the canon of the Old Testament. But quite a different judgment has to be formed if Ezk 40-48 is to be regarded as a bold sketch of the future form of the State and the cultus. Then the ‘priest in prophet’s clothing’ is all at once transformed into the pioneering genius, the real creator of Judaism in the narrower sense, the religion of the Law, which is the subsequent form of the religion of Israel. Not asif on that account the name of prophet is to be denied him altogether. On the contrary, we shall see immediately that in every particular he attaches himself to his predecessors— to Jeremiah in particular—and that he frequently assumes their ideas as self-evident. But with all this it remains true that, for the realizing of God's plans with Israel and of the demands and the promises of the earlier prophets, he looks to the establishment of a priestly State, whose chief aim shall be the conserving of the holiness of God. This last idea is Ezekiel’s own, and through it he acquired an extraordinary influence on succeeding
ages.
“Q, The truth that Ezekiel simply takes for granted the religious notions of his predecessors, holds good in quite a remarkable way of his conception of God. The zeal with which he constantly insists upon his two main themes—the euilt of the people and the way to its removal—scarcely gives him any occasion for specific declarations regarding the being and attributes of God. Indeed, if one were to judge merely by appearances, Ezekiel’s detailed coer: tion of the ploae (a2) of Jahweh as His sensible form of manifestation (12° 43, ef. above, p. 639°f.), and of the temple as the place of God’s throne and the place of the soles of His feet (437), might seem a return to long superseded material conceptions of the Godhead. But it is inconceivable that to Ezekiel the ‘glory’ of Jahweh which dwells in the temple should be wholly identical with His essential being. He himself inveighs (8) against the silly delusion of those who had been left in Judah, that ‘Jahweh sees us not, Jahweh hath forsaken the land.’ But, above all, it is note- worthy how Ezekiel handles the attitude of Jahweh to the heathen peoples hostile to Israel. Scarcely anywhere * do we find an indication of the reasons for this attitude, or a rejection of false notions,
* It is, in any case, one of the very isolated exceptions, when in 2916 it is put forward as one result of the judgment upon Egypt that this country shall be no more a source of confidence for Israel.
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702 RELIGION OF ISRAEL
RELIGION OF ISRAEL
except the very frequently recurring formula, ‘that they may know that I am Jahweh’ (so four times over in the oracle against Edom in ch. 35). This is as much as to say, ‘that My absolute omnipo- tence, My absolute sovereignty over all peoples of the earth, My inviolable holiness, may be brought to their consciousness.’ Nay, in view of 362%, it looks quite as if Jahweh’s only reason for resolving upon the restoration of Israel was that their con- tinuing in exile gave occasion for blasphemies on the part of the heathen, and the consequent dis- honouring of His holy name.
3. The thought of the election of the people and of the benefits bestowed upon them by Jahweh appears only in the striking allegory contained in 16%. 108. | where there is clearly dependence upon the ideas of Deuteronomy, and the inference is silently implied of the immensity of the debt of gratitude which the Divine goodness imposes upon Israel. The ethical demands of Jahweh, collected in a sort of canon in Ezk 18°* (cf. also 22°), partly agree verbatim with those of the pre-exilic prophets, but are partly intermingled already with allusions to specifically religious or, more precisely, ritual obligations (regard to what is sacred to Jahweh, Sabbath observance, refraining from sacrifice upon the high places, etc.). In his view of the moral responsibility of the individual, Ezekiel attaches himself entirely to the teaching of Jeremiah. Like the latter (cf. Jer 31%), he opposes the delusion that Jahweh makes the children suffer innocently for the sins of the fathers (182%) ; on the contrary, ‘he that sinneth, he shall die’ (v.2). But the general rule expressed in this last saying does not exclude the efficacy of timely repentance: Jahweh wills not the death of the sinner, but that he should turn and live (v.22 334). Therefore He takes measures even for the warning of the ungodly by the prophets, and the latter are held fully respon- sible if they neglect this duty (31”*- 33).