Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 26:2 (Jun 1983)
Article: A Theology Of Ezekiel: God’s Name And Israel’s History
Author: Alex Luc

JETS 26:2 (June 1983) p. 137

A Theology Of Ezekiel: God’s Name And
Israel’s History

Alex Luc*

To understand history is not only the concern of professional historians. As D. H. Fischer has indicated, “nobody thinks historically all the time, but everybody thinks historically much of the time. Each day, every rational being on this planet asks questions about things that actually happened.”1 The search for meaning behind the observable facts of life is itself an act of historical thinking. How a person understands history can tell us much about his world view—and, in the case of a believer, his conception of God. The prophet Ezekiel had great interest in history. This is evident in his careful dating of his prophecies and in his several outlines of Israel’s history.

Ezekiel lived at a time when Babylonian power and influence had threatened the survival of the people of Israel and their faith, and he himself was exiled to Babylon in 597 B.C. Israel had been taught to believe that Yahweh alone had ultimate control of all human events,2 but this tradition was now being challenged by the reality of the exile: History seemed to be under Babylonian power. We can understand this better if we seriously take into account the context of Israel, which witnessed the presence of the nations’ competing religions. The victories of a people were the victories of their god(s). Thus to Ezekiel the exile was not a political but a theological problem.

A major teaching in the priestly circle where Ezekiel came from was the holiness of God, in which Yahweh’s name and glory played a significant role.3 For Ezekiel, however, Yahweh’s name was more important than his glory. The departure and return of God’s glory marked the two crucial stages of Israel’s history (chaps. 10; 43). But these two movements of God’s glory were only the results of his decision to punish and to restore the people, while his decision was based on his concern for his name. Thus we see that God’s name played a more important role in Ezekiel’s thought. The exile had caused God’s name to be despised “among the nations,” and God explicitly admitted that he had concern for his name (36:20–21).

The Judahite crisis, which involved the center of Yahweh’s worship (Jerusalem), had indeed put God’s reputation on trial not only in the eyes of the nations

*Alex Luc is assistant professor of Old Testament at Columbia Graduate School of Bible and Missions in South Carolina.