See-Saw
Now it came about in the thirtieth year, on the fifth day of the fourth month, while I was by the river Chebar among the exiles, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God. Ezekiel 1:1 NASB
Visons – We might have a deeper appreciation for Ezekiel’s experience of God if we realized that the verb rāʾâ is the root of both the act of seeing and what is seen (marʾâ, in this case, the plural marʾot). Perhaps we could stretch the language a bit and say, “I saw the seeings.” This particular use of rāʾâ is crucial in prophetic writings. “A name for the nābîʾ(prophet) is rōʾeh (seer) suggesting that the act of seeing God’s message (by dreams or visions) was so important that the spokesman (nābîʾ) might be called one who sees (divine things), that is, a “seer” . . .[1]
The “seer” came with a message from God to men. How he “saw” is far less important than what he saw. Notice Robert Culver’s comment:
Of special importance is that rāʾâ is employed far more than any other word for the act of an authentic prophet in receiving oracles from God. This is suggested first in the basic text, Num 12:6. God’s part in revelation is denominated a marʾâ (vision), a noun derived from rāʾâ, as also in ten other texts (Gen 46:2; I Sam 3:15; Ezk 1:1; 8:3; 40:2; 43:3; Dan 10:7–8, 16). See also marʾeh. More importantly, rāʾâ is used many times in the major and minor prophets in this precise manner: Isa 6:1; Jer 1:11, 12, 13; Ezk 1:1, 4, 15, 27, 28; 2:9; 8:2, 6, 7, 10, 15; 10:1, 9; 11:1. The synonym ḥāzâ (q.v.) is used in the same sense.[2]
Ask yourself if you’ve spent more time trying to understand how this happens than what is communicated. Maybe our typical doctrine of inspiration isn’t quite so necessary after all. Along comes a seer. We don’t know how he happened to “see,” but we do hear what he claims to have seen. We listen. Sometime later (years, perhaps) we discover that what he said isn’t quite what we know to be the case. What do we think about the seer’s message now? Kaufmann writes:
. . . there is a distinct rift between prophecy and reality which attests to a faithful transmission. The Judean exile lasted more than the forty years of 4:6; the exiles of 586 did not die by the sword (5:2, 12, etc.); Zedekiah was condemned in Riblah, not Babylon (17:20); Tyre was not destroyed (chaps. 26-28); Nebuchadnezzar did not destroy Egypt, nor were the Egyptians exiled and restored after forty years (29:8 ff.); ‘the horn of the house of Israel’ did not sprout either at the time of Egypt’s conquest (29:21) or at any other occasion in Egypt’s history. Especially glaring is the rift between chapters 40-48 and the reality of Second Temple times. The cultic code of 40-48 is for a clerical establishment supported by an independent Davidic king such as did not exist in postexilic times. Jerusalem as there described never existed. The twelve tribes never returned; those who did, did not settle according to the prescriptions of Ezekiel. Neither was the temple rebuilt along his lines, nor were non-Zadokite priests made Levites, nor were the Nethinim removed from temple service. Ezekiel depicts himself as in charge of the inauguration of the new altar (43:18 ff.), and in 45:18 ff. he is commanded to purify the sanctuary. This is in accord with his vision that the redemption would come at the end of forty years of Jehoiachin’s exile while he was yet alive—as it did not. The laws of chapters 40-48 contradict the Torah in so many ways as to have recommended to the later Rabbis withdrawing the book from public use. And yet later generations did not venture to alter a single passage to harmonize these divergences. This is perhaps the most telling evidence against the common notion that prophetic writings remained for centuries in a fluid state.[3]
“Ezekiel has seen things that never happened; this is the key to the understanding of the rest of his visions.”[4]
Does that disturb you? Should it? Kaufmann concludes: “What Ezekiel really sees are shadows out of the past.”[5]
The imaginative seer—is he also a worthy prophet? His visions have been retained in Scripture because the people believed them to have divine origin, even if they did not align with historical reality. Or maybe they were never intended to align. Maybe Ezekiel sees something that we cannot, and because we think prophecy must be predictive, we judge the vision according to its references to our history. But maybe it was never about our history at all. Maybe “seeing” something from God is beyond history.
Topical Index: rāʾâ, to see, marʾot, visions, prophecy, Ezekiel 1:1
[1] Culver, R. D. (1999). 2095 רָאָה. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 823). Chicago: Moody Press.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Yehezkel Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel, p. 429.
[4] Ibid., p. 430.
[5] Ibid., p. 430.
