October 14, 2020: Day 53 – Ezekiel 1

We find ourselves in a new book of the Bible, and the final book for this 100 Day Challenge.  Ezekiel means in Hebrew: “God strengthens”  Think about that as you begin reading this book, because some have seen it as somewhat problematic in that it is not a simple narrative with stories that astound us.  It is much more metaphorical with many examples which had meaning in the centuries in which it was written, but those meanings may have eclipsed their utilities to us now these many years later.  Ezekiel is considered the last of the three major prophets, with the others being Isaiah and Jeremiah (which we just saw).  

Some background on Ezekiel.  He was a refuge living in the camps of Babylon.  Once again, just like Jeremiah, he is writing in the midst of the Babylonian captivity, but at the time later than Jeremiah was living.  Let’s look at chapter 1

We find the calling of Ezekiel who describes himself as a priest, the son of Buzi as he was in the land of the Chaldeans (remember we said earlier that the term Chaldean is synonymous with the term Babylonian).  Babylon was in the north of Israel.  Below you will find a map which I had shared with you before.  It is important to see it and understand the different countries that are represented there.  

This creature which is depicted may not make any sense to you, but let’s try to figure some of its features out.  There is a sense that these creatures depict those who are part of God’s heavenly reign.  They each had faces of living creatures and the creatures are that of a human being, a lion, an ox, an eagle.  See if these figures below rings a bell.  Each of these is in a corner of the basilica in St. Peters in Rome and they represent the four Gospels.  The lion represents Mark, the person represents Matthew, the ox represents Luke and the eagle represents John.