Continuing the thread of Ezekiel, started in Ezekiel and the Glory of the Lord, I will try to follow in the footsteps of this prophet and consider what happened to him about 20 years later.
Ezekiel 40,1-6
1 In the five and twentieth year of our captivity, in the beginning of the year, the tenth day of the month, the fourteenth year after the city was destroyed: in the selfsame day the hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me thither.
2 In the visions of God he brought me into the land of Israel, and set me upon a very high mountain: upon which there was as the building of a city, bending towards the south.
3 And he brought me in thither, and behold a man, whose appearance was like the appearance of brass, with a line of flax in his hand, and a measuring reed in his hand, and he stood in the gate.
4 And this man said to me: Son of man, see with thy eyes, and hear with thy ears, and set thy heart upon all that I shall shew thee: for thou art brought hither that they may be shewn to thee: declare all that thou seest, to the house of Israel.
5 And behold there was a wall on the outside of the house round about, and in the man’s hand a measuring reed of six cubits and a handbreadth: and he measured the breadth of the building one reed, and the height one reed.
6 And he came to the gate that looked toward the east, and he went up the steps thereof: and he measured the breadth of the threshold of the gate one reed, that is, one threshold was one reed broad;
From the above fragment it can be concluded that:
a. The glory of the Lord, already known from previous experiences, took Ezekiel to another land, perhaps it was not Israel, much less Jerusalem. Ezekiel had probably been in Jerusalem many times before Jerusalem was conquered by King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon, so he knew the city and the first temple built by Solomon.
b. To the place where Ezekiel was taken there was a city on the mountainside and within the city a temple which Ezekiel did not know.
c. The “man made of brass” (or bronze, depending on the translation of the Bible into English) suggests that he was:
– brown skin color
– brown overalls covering the entire body.
In this case, I am leaning towards brown (bronze) skin color, which may suggest a race of people living in South and Central America.
This man told Ezekiel to remember everything he saw, according to the Book of Ezekiel chapters 44-48, and these were the external and internal dimensions of the entire temple, all buildings and walls, including the Most Holy Tabernacle. I omit the descriptions of the rituals that priests are supposed to perform, ranging from ritual oblutions, through wearing special robes that are to be changed each time they leave the temple, to the ritual slaughter of animals for sacrificial purposes.
The purpose of this was the need to convey to his compatriots everything that Ezekiel saw and had to remember, in order to probably build the same temple in their areas.
Chapter 43, 1-6 also deserves closer citation:
1 And he brought me to the gate that looked towards the east.
2 And behold the glory of the God of Israel came in by the way of the east: and his voice was like the noise of many waters, and the earth shone with his majesty.
3 And I saw the vision according to the appearance which I had seen when he came to destroy the city: and the appearance was according to the vision which I had seen by the river Chobar: and I fell upon my face.
4 And the majesty of the Lord went into the temple by the way of the gate that looked to the east.
5 And the spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court: and behold the house was filled with the glory of the Lord.
6 And I heard one speaking to me out of the house, and the man that stood by me,
Ezekiel once again sees a samilar object, called the glory of the Lord, that he saw on the river Chebar, but NOT THE SAME. “The vision was equal to that which I saw…” – equal, identical, similar, but not the same. There is a suspicion here that what Ezekiel saw and called the glory of the Lord could have been a flying device very similar to the previous one. For us, modern people, it is completely natural that devices are produced in factories and look the SAME.
That’s it about the Biblical messages about the prophet Ezekiel. I won’t try to interpret them further, I’ll leave it to you.
In the next post I will try to approach the topic of Ezekiel again, but from a technical perspective.