Week #48 - Ezekiel 38-48 & Psalm 107-119
Week # 48 Study Page
Ezekiel 38-48
Psalm 107-119
Suggested Daily Reading Breakdown
Sunday: Ezekiel 38-40
Monday: Ezekiel Ezekiel 41-44
Tuesday: Ezekiel 45-48
Wednesday: Psalm 107-109
Thursday: Psalm 110-114
Friday: Psalm 115-118
Saturday: Psalm 119
Degree of Difficulty: 6 out of 10. This is an average reading by word count, even though it contains the longest chapter in the Bible. We have 11 chapters of Ezekiel left to read; the first two of them will sound like the previous 37, but the last nine chapters of Ezekiel sound less like prophecy, and more like the second half of Exodus. Before we can be done with Ezekiel we’ll have to navigate these 9 chapters of temple measurements, repeated ceremonial laws from the Pentateuch, and one last chapter on how the promised land will be divided. Keep your eyes moving across the page when you get there and you’ll be on the other side of it in no time. Then we’ll go backwards in our Bible to begin the fifth and longest book of Psalms, where we’ll read through both the shortest (117) and the longest (119) chapters in the Bible. Psalm 119 is the longest book in the bible because it has 22 different reflections on God’s Word/Law, one for each of the letters in the Hebrew alphabet. Give yourself some time to settle in and read through it. Wouldn’t it be a shame to rush through a chapter dedicated entirely to delighting in God’s Word?
Quick Note: Ezekiel is writing long after the fall of the northern kingdom of “Israel” and they (that particular kingdom) are mostly left out his literature. Ezekiel will frequently be using “Israel” and “Israelites” to refer to all of God’s chosen people, instead of using it to refer exclusively to the northern kingdom as elsewhere in the Old Testament.
About the Book(s)
Ezekiel
Date of Authorship: We can use the historical information in 1:2 to date the call of Ezekiel to 593 BC. The last historical marker that we have is in the introduction to Ezekiel’s vision of the restored Jerusalem (40:1) which can be pinpointed to April 28th, 573 BC. The only historical marker in this weeks reading is April 28th 573 BC (Ezekiel 40:1). This last section of Ezekiel is being delivered twelve years after chapters 33-39, and thirteen years after the destruction of Jerusalem.
Author: Ezekiel was a priest who was exiled in the second small (~10,000) batch of prisoners taken by the Babylonians in 597 BC. Ezekiel was exiled together with the Israelite king Jehoiachin, the grandson of Josiah. Ezekiel’s career happens away from the promised land. He is prophesying from Babylon where he is a prisoner.
Historical Setting: This week’s reading takes place after the fall of Jerusalem at the hand of the Babylonians. Most of our reading is delivered more than a decade after the Temple has been demolished. Ezekiel’s role as a prophet has shifted from being the final announcer of God’s coming judgment to being the messenger of hope and future restoration to the exiles in Babylon.
Purpose: Ezekiel is commissioned to bring charges against Judah for violating their covenant with God before the arrival of God’s Judgment. In service to that role, Ezekiel is explaining God’s anger and justice while remarking upon the utter unfaithfulness of His people. But that is just one pole of Ezekiel’s message. Ezekiel is also a deliver of hope. God uses Ezekiel to tell his people that there will be restoration on the other side of Judgment, because God’s faithfulness will not fail them.
PSALMS
About: "Psalm" is a translation of the Hebrew word mizmor, which is is a technical term for a song sung to the accompaniment of musical instruments. The book of psalms or the "Psalter" came into being over a period of centuries. It is a collection of songs / prayers which are sung / spoken to God. The Psalter is divided into five books, each ending in a doxology. This week's reading will cover all of book 5. Psalms is the only book of the Bible that we're not reading straight through.
As You Read Notes:
Ezekiel 38:2:Gog and Magog
We have already read Ezekiel prophesying against nations like Egypt, Phoenicia, and Edom. He did so as Jerusalem was under siege by the Babylonian army as a way of assuring the Israelite exiles that their enemies would too face God’s judgment. Ezekiel has one more other-nation prophecy here at the beginning of this week’s reading - this one concerns Gog and Magog. However, there are a number of unique things about this section of Ezekiel. The prophecy against Gog and Magog comes in the middle of the “apocalyptic” section of Ezekiel, when Ezekiel has turned his attention to the promise of restoration for God’s exiled people. Furthermore Gog and Magog is really hard to identify both as a people who enact the things which Ezekiel prophecies, and then simply as the names of any kingdoms which existed in the time of Ezekiel.
This is a representation of where most commentators would locate Magog and many of the other places listed in Ezekiel 38 & 39 - a sort of “best guess” map
The identification of Gog has perplexed commentators for centuries. The most likely explanation is that the name is a derivative of Gyges, who was a Lydian king mentioned in Assyrian and Greek sources. In the former he is call Gugu and he rules over mat Gugu, which is Akkadian for the “land of Gugu.” His reign, however, is fifty or more years prior to the time of Ezekiel, so some have argued that the name became a dynastic title used by his royal descendants (the same way that Omri became a dynastic name for the nation of Israel). The king of Lydia at the time of Ezekiel is Alyattes. There is no evidence that lydia ever threatened Judah, but the Lydians were involved in a serious war against Cyaxanes and the Medes in 585. Magog is likely a Hebrew form of Akkadian Mat Gugu “the land of Gog” which the Jewish historian Josephus identified as Lydia in western Anatolia (Modern-day Turkey). The association of Gog and Magog with western Anatolia is reinforced by the mention of Meschech and Tubal also in verse two which were well-known Anatolian kingdoms conquered by Sargon II of Assyria. (IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament, 722).
I think that this prophecy of Ezekiel is a teaching tool of hope employed by the prophet. Ezekiel makes clear that the prophesied conflict and demise of Gog is something that will occur after* Israel is restored to the promised land (38:8, 11, 14). By including this prophecy here, Ezekiel is showing the exiles that God is already thinking about and planning their new life in the restored Promised Land, to which they will soon return. This prophecy is a means of emphasizing the certainty of God’s promise to restore His people to their land.
Ezekiel 40-48: Ezekiel’s Temple
Most of the final nine chapters of Ezekiel are a description of Ezekiel’s vision of a temple. There are many similarities to the temple that Ezekiel describes and the temples of Solomon and Herod, for instance. the dimensions for the holy room and the great hall described in 41:13-14 are identical to both of these versions. However neither of the temple versions which have actually been constructed match what Ezekiel describes here. I think that it is best to understand Ezekiel’s description of the temple as apocalyptic. It was a revelation given to Ezekiel meant to portray the spiritual reality of the promised and coming restored relationship between God and His chosen people. Understood this way, Ezekiel’s prophecy may extend further beyond the second temple, to a description of the messianic age
We have observed how the book of Ezekiel is related to apocalyptic literature. If one views this passage in that way, chapters 40-48 predict in highly symbolic terms the Messianic age. The proponents of the position insist that the prophecy must remain anchored in history and not lifted above it. Further, some future realities transcend the ability of human language to describe them, so the familiar and fundamental realities of Israel’s life became the basis for representing the indescribable. It seems that, because the prophecy demand the historical fulfillment, and because the literature is so characteristically apocalyptic, we must insist that the prophecy is fulfilled in part by the historical reconstruction of the Temple in 520-516. Yet to restrict the meaning of these chapters to the historical is to ignore the supernatural elements. So although the restoration led by Zerubbabel, Haggai, and Zechariah fulfilled the prophecy in one respect (the Temple was rebuilt), in another respect they did no more to exhaust its full meaning than did the historical return from exile to deplete Isaiah’s program of restoration (e.g. Isaiah. 35, 40, 43 - frequently cited messianic passages in the New Testament). The prophecy calls for both the historical and the eschatological, for as A.B. Davidson says, there is “so much of earth, so much of heaven” in it. (C Hassell Bullock, An Introduction to the Old Testament: Prophetic Books 304).
Ezekiel 47:1-12: The River From the Temple
One clearly allegorical aspect of Ezekiel’s Temple vision is the River which is described here as flowing from the threshold of the Temple, reaching significant depth, and then dumping into the Dead Sea. Ezekiel’s vision is so fantastic that this river is able to make the Dead Sea fresh (47:8). The Dead Sea is 1,300 feet below sea level, the lowest point on earth. ans has a high mineral content resulting from the fact that it has no outlet. The Dead sea maintains a salinity of 26-35% compared to 18% for the Great Salt Lake in Utah, and 3.5% for the average ocean salinity. This prophecy can be confidently read as reaching to the messianic age when life springs forth from Jerusalem and God’s blessings overflow from the temple to refresh and awaken a lost world. This imagery of a life-giving river is returned to in the final chapter of the Bible:
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal,flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. (Revelation 22:1-2)
PSALM 107: POST-EXILIC WORSHIP
We’ve been reading about the Babylonian exile of God’s people for three weeks in the Book of Ezekiel. It is fitting that our first Psalm after having turned back is a reflection on God’s restoration of His people from exile. This particular Psalm is full of Babylonian imagery and worships the God who gathered the exiles and remains faithful forever. Many commentators date the entire fifth book of Psalms as a post-exilic compilation, reflecting the worship of the restored Israel.
PSALM 118: AN EMBARRASSMENT OF MESSIANIC RICHES
Psalm 118 is a really fun Psalm, not just because it is sandwiched between the shortest and longest chapters of the Bible, but because it is referenced by New Testament authors 12 (twelve!) times, just edging out Psalm 110 as their favorite. Two passages in this Psalm are at the center of attention in the New Testament:
The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone; (Psalm 118:22)
This passage is mentioned five times in the New Testament where Christ becomes the fulfillment of this “cornerstone” which was rejected by Men, but anointed by God.
Israelite Iron Age architectural design made increasing use of cut-stone masonry over the rough boulders and rubble construction of earlier periods. In order to provide stability and to bind two adjoining walls together, a finely shaped block of stone was inserted that became the cornerstone. It would have been a larger stone than those normally used, and its insertion often required special effort or rituals. Its large, smooth surface was a natural place for inscribing religious slogans, the name of the architect or king responsible and the date of construction. (IVP BBC:OT)
Lord, save us! (literally “Hosanna”)
Lord, grant us success!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
From the house of the Lord we bless you. (Psalm 118: 25-26)
This is the verse shouted by the people of Jerusalem who were welcoming Jesus in the Triumphal Entry (Palm Sunday). This passage is inextricably connected to the revolutionary triumphalism of verses 5-14, and this is why the Israelites were shouting it upon Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem.