Daily Bible Reading: Ezekiel 34-36 and Revelation 4-5

Ezekiel 34  – Ezekiel prophesies against the shepherds [leaders spiritual and temporal] of Israel’s people who “feed themselves” instead of feeding their flocks. They have failed to make the weak stronger; they have not cared for the sick or wounded sheep. So they have scattered and have become prey for wild animals. The shepherds will be called to account, but also the Lord will not rely on them any more. He says, “I am going to look after my flock myself and keep all of it in view . . . I myself will show them where to rest . . .I shall look for the lost one, bring back the stray, bandage the wounded and make the weak strong. I shall watch over the fat and healthy. I shall be a true shepherd to them” (34:11-16).

           

As for his sheep, the Lord shall judge between them. This is the language Jesus is drawing on when he speaks of separating the sheep from the goats in Matthew 25. And then it goes on to say, “I mean to raise up one shepherd, my servant David, and to put him in charge of them and he will pasture them; he will pasture them and be their shepherd. I, Yahweh, will be their God, and my servant David shall be their ruler” (34:23). Remember that Ezekiel is prophesying in the 6^th c. BC, long after David’s time.

This has to be some of the most important Old Testament language in terms of understanding the mission of Jesus and the significance his disciples saw in his presence among them. David was long gone from Israel’s history, but the promise made by God to David’s “House” in 2 Samuel 7 is invoked here as a reminder that the Messiah would be of this same House.

Ezekiel 35 – This prophesy against the mountains of Seir or Edom precedes a similar oracle concerning the mountains of Israel, mountains that Edom tried to take over along with all of Palestine after 587. The Lord will devastate Edom for things they have done and said about Israel, for slandering Yahweh and rejoicing when Israel was reduced to ashes.

Ezekiel 36 – This oracle is to the mountains of Israel and according to the footnote was likely issued after 587. In this moment of complete desolation Yahweh affirms his eternal commitment to his people. He says to the mountains of Israel that they will again grow trees and branches that bear fruit for God’s people who will one day return to their lands. God will multiply the population living on the mountains and will raise the cities up once again. He will make them even more prosperous than they were before.

People of the House of Israel defiled the land with their conduct (killing babies, worshipping idols) and they have offended God by their conduct in captivity as well, but He will bring them back and cleanse them:

            I shall give you a new heart,

            and put a new spirit in you;

            I shall remove the heart of stone from your bodies

            and give you a heart of flesh instead.

            I shall put my spirit in you

            and make you keep my laws,

            and sincerely respect my observances.

            You will live in the land, which I gave your ancestors;

            You shall be my people,

            And I will be your God (36:24-28).

Revelation 4 – A series of prophetic visions follow here: He has a vision of the door of heaven opening and a voice like a trumpet saying, “’Come up here: I will show you what is to come in the future.’” He sees “the One” seated on a throne in heaven” (4:3). It is not an anthropomorphic vision but one of gems and sparkling rainbows and such.

The central throne is surrounded by 24 thrones for the 24 elders who sit in white robes. There are seven flaming lamps between God and the circle of elders. They represent the seven “spirits of God” or angels of his presence.

Before the throne, there are also four creatures with many eyes – a lion (majesty), a bull (strength), a man (wisdom) and an eagle (flight) – each of which has six wings. And there is a sea of glass that looks like crystal between the prophet and the central image.

The note says that from the time of Irenaeus, the four creatures have been seen as representing the gospel writers. The image in Ezekiel is similar in some ways but also unique. There are no wheels here by each animal and the animals in Ezekiel are “of human form” with only four wings – two touching the wings of the next “animal” and two covering it. The vision in Ezekiel 10 is also quite different though some similarities can be found.

The four never stopped singing “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God, the Almighty; he was, he is and his is to come’” (4:8), and the twenty-four elders honor the Lord for “He” “made all the universe and it was only by [His] will that everything was made and exists’” (4:11).

Revelation 5 – There is a scroll in God’s right hand written on front and back and sealed with seven seals that cannot be opened by anyone – there is no one worthy. This makes John cry, but an elder reassures him that the “Lion of the tribe of Judah has triumphed” and will be able to open them (5:5).

The Lamb before the throne has seven horns (strength) and seven eyes (omniscience). Everyone is prostrate before him. “You were sacrificed with your blood. You bought men for God of every race, language, people and nation and made them a line of kings and priests, to serve our God and to rule the world”(5:9). Everything that lives praises him.

Daily Bible Reading: 1 Kings 18 and Luke 2:1-20

1 Kings 18 – Three years after the drought begins, the Lord sends Elijah to Ahab.  Now Ahab’s man in care of the palace is Obadiah, a man who reveres the Lord greatly; he has hidden 100 of the Lord’s prophets in a cave to protect them from Jezebel, who wants to kill them.

Ahab goes off with Obadiah in search of grass to sustain his horses and mules; they go off in different directions to look.  Obadiah meets Elijah and recognizes him. and tells him to go and report to Ahab that Elijah has come to see him. Ahab has been looking for Elijah everywhere and demanding oaths from people where he has looked swearing that Elijah is not in their kingdom. Obadiah is afraid that if he goes and reports that he has found Elijah, Elijah will get himself carried off somewhere by the Lord and Obadiah will be left looking like a liar.  Elijah promises Obadiah that this will not happen. The Jerusalem Bible note indicates these sudden disappearing acts were always part of the story of Elijah.

                 

When Ahab sees Elijah, they dispute over which one of them is the one who has brought the drought on to Israel.  Elijah tells Ahab to assemble all Israel before him at Mt. Carmel and bring with him 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah.  He does, and Elijah addresses them: “How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him” (18:21). He orders that two bulls be brought, slaughtered and cut into pieces; the 850 prophets will take one and Elijah [the only remaining prophet of the one Lord God] the other.  Each will call on the name of his god and the god who answers with fire will be declared “God” (18:24). They agree.  The prophets of Baal go first; they call on their god all day.  Elijah mocks them when they get no response.  They slash themselves with swords and lances but still “there was no voice, no answer, and no response” (18:29).

Then it is Elijah’s turn.  He takes 12 stones (for the number of tribes) and sets about rebuilding the damaged altar of the Lord (18:30); he digs a trench around it “large enough = to hold about four gallons of water” (18:32) and places wood on the altar and pieces of a bull on top of the wood. He has them pour water on the offering, so much that it runs down around the altar and fills the trench around the altar. Then he addresses the Lord: “Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and you have turned their hearts back” (18:37).  Fire comes down and consumes the offering, and the altar beneath it. “When the people saw this, they threw themselves on the ground and exclaimed, ‘The Lord is God, the Lord alone is God!’” (18:39).

To end it, Elijah then orders the prophets seized and brought down to the wadi Kishon where Elijah kills them. Jerusalem Bible says they “suffer the fate of the conquered in the warfare of the times.”

                 

Then Ahab is told to go eat and drink, that he, Elijah, hears the roar of rain approaching.  Elijah goes on top of Mt. Carmel to wait. He sends his servant seven times to go and look out towards the sea.  The seventh time, they see a little cloud rising out of the sea.  Soon there is a heavy rain.  Ahab rides off in his chariot to Jezreel, but Elijah beats him there, running to the gates of the town.

Luke 2:1-20 – The Emperor Augustus orders a census to be taken, during the reign of Quirinius, governor of Syria. Joseph must return from Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem, the town where those in the house of David must register.  Brown (Introduction to the New Testament) points out that there are historical problems with the narrative here. “There never was a census of the whole Empire under Augustus (but a number of local censuses), and the census of Judea (not of Galilee) under Quirinius, the governor of Syria, took place in AD 6-7, probably at least ten years too late for the birth of Jesus. The best explanation is that, although Luke likes to set his Christian drama in the context of well-known events from antiquity, sometimes he does so inaccurately” (233). “The events Luke will describe actually took place in a small town in Palestine, but by calling Bethlehem the city of David and setting them in a Roman census Luke symbolizes the importance of those events for the royal heritage of Israel and ultimately for the world Empire” (233).

Mary, Joseph’s “intended” (they are engaged) is pregnant.  While they are there she gives birth in a barn “because there was no place for them in the inn” (2:7).

Shepherds in the area experience the presence of an angel who announces to birth to them—“good news of great joy for all the people” (2:11).  The Messiah is born.  They will find him “wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger” (2:12). When the angels (heavenly host) leave, the shepherds go into Bethlehem to see what the Lord has made known to them. When they saw him, “they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed. . .” (2:17-18). Far from starting the narrative with admonitions of secrecy, here we have a great and joyous announcement from heaven to all who live on earth. There is no secret here of “who” it is who is born. It is made known to both the lowly (here shepherds) and the great (in Matthew, magi).

I cannot help here but bring up one of my favorite Quaker references to one of the passages here – William Penn’s use of the inn in 2:7. In his great book No Cross, No Crown he says “You, like the inn of old, have been full of guests; your affections have entertained other lovers; there has been no room for your savior in your soul. Therefore, salvation has not yet come into your house, though it has come to your door and you have long claimed it.”