Week 45 - Ezekiel 25-28, Revelation 16 (Nov. 5-11)

Notes

EZEKIEL 25:1: THE AMMONITES

The Ammonites kick off an 8-chapter-long (25-32) section where Ezekiel prophecies against Israel’s neighbors which will occupy all of our OT reading this week.

All but chapter 32 of this section is spoken by Ezekiel while Jerusalem lay under siege by the Babylonian army. See the map provided here to locate each of the kingdoms spoken against and many of the cities referenced here by Ezekiel. This section bears many similarities to Ezekiel’s contemporary prophet, Jeremiah’s, words in Jeremiah 46-49, and Isaiah 15-23 from more than a century earlier.

The Ammonites were Judah’s neighbor to the northeast. They had also (like Judah) allied with Egypt against Babylonian rule. The campaign that Nebuchadnezzar conducted to punish Judah also had the destruction of Rabbah (capital of Ammon) as a goal, but Jerusalem was attacked first (21:20). While Jerusalem was put to siege, the Ammonites taunted the kingdom of Judah (21:28). Ezekiel prophecies occupation and destruction for Ammon. This sentence is delivered in 582 BC (five years after the fall of Jerusalem) also at the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, resulting in widespread devastation of the area.

EZEKIEL 26:3: TYRE

Tyre receives a lengthy treatment in the book of Ezekiel. Tyre (& Sidon) is the capital city of the nation of Phoenicia. This was the home of Jezebel, Ahab’s wicked wife, and the widow of Zarephath. Interestingly, Jesus visits this region in Luke 10 and Mark 7. After Egypt’s defeat in 605 BC, Tyre was the main foe of Babylon in western Asia. An island-city (& corresponding coastal city) renowned for its maritime trade, it stood out from the coast approximately six hundred yards from the mainland. The Babylonians laid siege to Tyre for thirteen years, from 586 to 573 BC ending with the household of the Tyrian ruler being deported to Babylon.

EZEKIEL 28:11-19: SATAN?

…17 Your heart became proud
    on account of your beauty,
and you corrupted your wisdom
    because of your splendor.
So I threw you to the earth;
    I made a spectacle of you before kings….

From early on in Church history there has been an interpretive tradition understanding this passage as an account of the fall of Satan. Though this same type of interpretation in Isaiah 14 was fervently denied by well-respected exegetes such as John Calvin (who bluntly ridiculed it) among others, it has persisted into modern times. From a background standpoint, it must be noted that Satan is never portrayed as either being a cherub (28:16) or being with the cherub in the garden in any passage of Scripture. Furthermore, Israel’s understanding of Satan was far more limited than that found in the New Testament. Even in Job, Satan is not a personal name but a function. “Satan” does not become identified as the personal name of the chief of demons in Jewish literature until about the second century BC, and he does not take up his position as the source and cause of all evil until the unfolding of Christian doctrine. Consequently, the Israelites could not have understood this passage in this way (as referring to the fall of Satan), and no New Testament passage offers a basis for departing from the Israelite understanding of it. In the context, it is a metaphorical description of the high stewardship entrusted to the wealthy and successful prince of Tyre (as significant a s the cherub’s role in the garden). Rather than treating this sacred trust with reverence and awe, he exploited it to his own benefit - as if the cherub guarding the garden had opened a roadside fruit stand. He was therefore discharged from his position, relieved of his trust and publicly humiliated

(IVP Bible Background Commentary:OT, 715)

Revelation 16: The Bowls of Wrath

The wrath of the creator God consists of two things, principally. First, he allows human wickedness to work itself out, to reap its own destruction. Second, he steps in more directly to stop it, to call 'time' on it, when it's got out of hand. If we knew our business, we would thank God for both of these, even though both can appear harsh. They need to be. If they were any less than harsh, the wickedness in question would merely pause, furrow its brow for a moment, and then carry on as before. What we see here, in the first four plagues, is a mixture of both types of 'wrath.’

We remind ourselves yet once more that this is deeply and powerfully symbolic language. This is obvious when it comes to angels pouring ‘bowls of wrath' this way and that, but people often forget the lesson when they read the symbolic consequences. The point at issue in these first four plagues is fairly simple. God will allow natural elements themselves (earth, sea, rivers and sun) to pass judgment on the human beings who have so grievously abused their position as God's image-bearers within creation. They are supposed to be looking after God's world, and caring for one another as fellow humans. But God will call the natural elements themselves to turn on them and judge them for their wickedness.

These judgments are total. Before, with the seals and the trumpets, only a part of the world was harmed or destroyed (remember, again, that all this is symbolic), sending a warning signal to those who need to repent. Here that note is absent, This time, everything in the sea dies. All the rivers turn to blood (again, John is drawing on the plagues of Egypt). There is no more space for repentance. These plagues are the beginning of that long process, which will end in chapter 20, by which God will rid his beautiful world, first (in this chapter) of those who have assisted in its destruction and decay, then (in chapters 17 and 18) of the great imperial systems that have set up massive structures of injustice, and finally (chapters 19 and 20) of the dark powers that lie behind those systems them-selves, ending (as in 1 Corinthians 15.26-28) with Death and Hades themselves.

NT Wright, Revelation for Everyone, 142

Revelation 16: “Armageddon”

What then about Mount Megiddo' (the word in the original is Harmagedon (“har” means mountain), sometimes spelled without the initial 'H’)?

Literally it is a place, some way inland from Mount Carmel in the north of Palestine, where several major battles took place in ancient times, and though no 'Mount Megiddo' as such is known in ancient Israel the area was a well-known battlefield, and the town of Megiddo was close to mountains where, in prophetic symbolism, such conflicts might occur. It would, in any case, be most unusual for John suddenly to use a place name literally, and we should not suppose he has done so here. His point is simply that all the powers of evil must be brought to one place, so that they can be dealt with there.

This is why the three frogs are allowed to perform their deceits. We should no more try to locate John's Mount Megiddo on a map than we should try to produce an exact sequential chronology of all the events he describes, here and in the rest of the book.

And then the seventh bowl. Into the 'air' it goes - the space between heaven and earth, the sphere of spirits and powers and ideas and influences. And this will finish it all. This brings the whole work to completion. As in 8:5 and 11:19, which likewise round off a sequence of judgments, the collision between heaven and earth results in thunder, lightning and earthquakes.

(Remember, once more, that this is symbolic!) As in Zechariah 12, where Jerusalem is split apart by an earthquake, 'the great city (Rome?)’ is split into three, and the other cities collapse as well, like Jericho before the trumpets of Joshua. Islands flee away, mountains disappear.

John's hearers would have no difficulty in getting the point. This is not the collapse of the physical earth. This is the only way to describe the collapse of the entire social and political system on the earth. Terrible things will happen in human society, for which the only fitting metaphor will be earthquakes and huge hailstones. God will allow the lie at the heart of pagan society, like a crack in the earth's crust, finally to be exposed. The tectonic plates of different idolatrous human systems will move against one another one more time, and nothing will ever be the same again.

NT Wright, Revelation for Everyone, 148