Ezekiel's Visionary Temple in Babylonian Context

Tova Ganzel

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9783110740998
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

Ezekiel's Visionary Temple in Babylonian Context examines evidence from Babylonian sources to better understand Ezekiel's vision of the future temple as it appears in chapters 40–48. Tova Ganzel argues that Neo-Babylonian temples provide a meaningful backdrop against which many unique features of Ezekiel's vision can and should be interpreted. In pointing to the similarities between Neo-Babylonian temples and the description in the book of Ezekiel, Ganzel demonstrates how these temples served as a context for the prophet's visions and describes the extent to which these similarities provide a further basis for broader research of the connections between Babylonia and the Bible. Ultimately, she argues the extent to which the book of Ezekiel models its temple on those of the Babylonians. Thus, this book suggests a comprehensive picture of the book of Ezekiel's worldview and to contextualize its visionary temple by comparing its vision to the actual temples surrounding the Judeans in exile.

1 Ezekiel’s Temple Vision: An Introduction

1.1 Ezekiel’s Visionary Temple

Ezekiel’s visionary temple holds a unique place within the biblical canon. As revealed in its text, Ezekiel’s persona bridges two roles – priest and prophet – at a momentous period, that of the Temple’s destruction and the exile. The visionary temple is exceptional in the prophetic literature both in its subject matter and in its detailed and methodological descriptions. The vision represents the only instance in the biblical sources in which a prophet lays out a comprehensive system of rules and regulations that are parallel to, yet different from, those set forth in the other texts.

The last nine chapters of the book of Ezekiel begin by noting the date: “In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, the fourteenth year after the city had fallen, at the beginning of the year, the tenth day of the month” (40:1). Besides the chronological date (the tenth of Nisan in the year 573 BCE), ¹ this introduction also indicates the significant dates of that period, which serve as markers for counting years: the exile of Jehoiachin and the destruction. In fact, this is the only prophecy in Ezekiel which is dated in relation to the destruction. Throughout the book, Ezekiel counts years based on the exile of Jehoiachin, which may attest to its significance as a turning point: fourteen years after the destruction of Jerusalem, its grave ramifications are seeping into the consciousness of the exiles in Babylonia. Many were exiled with Jehoiachin prior to the destruction, and therefore largely cut off from what was happening in the land of Israel. Perhaps with new exiles joining their communities in Babylonia, the community may have begun to internalize the significance of the Temple’s destruction in Jerusalem. It may be no coincidence that Ezekiel’s prophecy of a visionary temple comes once the nation has become accustomed to the reality of life in exile. In their new reality, the exiles are left uncertain about their future and their status.

To our knowledge, this prophecy may have been a lone voice, making it a prophecy of great significance. This is emphasized by the text itself: “On that very day the hand of the Lord came upon me, and He brought me there” (40:1). The prophet’s vision is of his return to the land of Israel: “He brought me, in visions of God, to the land of Israel, and He set me on an extremely high mountain on which there was a structure like of a city to the south” (40:2). The description of the place where he is set down gives no indication as to whether the prophecy is referring to somewhere within the boundaries of the city of Jerusalem or elsewhere; the descriptions of “land of Israel,” “an extremely high mountain,” “a structure like of a city,” and “to the south” are vague. Is the city Jerusalem? We are left with no answer. The question is even intensified in the following chapters, which make no explicit mention of the city’s name. Immediately upon arrival in the unnamed city, the prophet sees a man whose job is to measure, using a thread of flax and a measuring rod (40:3–4). God brings the prophet to the place where the land surveyor awaits him and emphasizes the importance of conveying the upcoming vision to all of Israel. ²

From chapter 40, the units of this distinctive vision describe the temple complex (40:1–43:12). These verses present a multitude of difficulties. At first the prophet outlines the dimensions of the wall surrounding the temple and of the eastern gate (40:5–16). The prophet then describes the dimensions of the outer courtyard and the gates (the northern gate, the southern gate, and the inner court gate; 40:17–37). The end of chapter 40 includes a description of the burnt offering, the sin offering, and the guilt offering upon tables at the entry to the northern gate, as well as the chambers of the priests who “keep the charge of the temple” and “keep the charge of the altar” (40:38–46). These priests are henceforth referred to as “the descendants of Zadok, who, out of the descendants of Levi, may approach YHWH to serve Him” (40:46). In verse 48, the prophet moves on to a description of the inner plan of the temple. He first describes the porch (40:48–49), followed by the holy of holies, the inner chamber, and the decorations on the walls (41:1–26). In the midst of this description the prophet notes the wooden altar and the table (41:22). In chapter 42, the prophet is brought to the outer courtyard, where he describes the chambers in between the outer courtyard and the inner one as well as the holy chambers (42:1–14). The chambers are meant to be places where the priests can eat the sacrificial meat and change their garments. Emphasized here is the distance between the priests (and their garments) on one hand, and the people, on the other. The people are not involved with the sacrifices in these verses, nor do they even see the priests in the garments in which they minister. This section of the temple tour concludes with a description of the perimeter of the Temple Mount and the wall around the temple (42:15–20).

Next, the text describes God’s glory returning to the rebuilt temple (43:1–5). These verses create an exalted sense of God’s complete presence. The transition to the next four verses – reminding that “the house of Israel and their kings must not again defile My holy name” (43:7) – is therefore sharp and unexpected. The sudden fall from lofty exaltation to the depths seems to reflect the fact that one of the conditions for the return of God’s glory to the temple is the prevention of desecration. The aim of this prophecy is to highlight the cause of the Temple’s defilement in the years in which God’s glory left the Temple and the edifice was destroyed. The cessation of such activity is a necessary condition for God dwelling in the nation’s midst forever. In the verses that follow, Ezekiel notes that they must “be ashamed of their iniquities” (43:10) and “ashamed of all they have done” (43:11). Although these are chapters devoted to the vision of the future temple, following the chapters of restoration, the text nevertheless emphasizes once again the severity of the sins that brought about the destruction of the First Temple. The conclusion of this prophecy represents the end of the rebuke to the nation in the book of Ezekiel. The prophet now returns to the plan of the temple, the command given to the prophet to make known the plan for the temple, to set it down in writing before them and present it in detail (43:10–12). But here, too, there is no precise mention of the location of the temple, which is conveyed with the rather vague expression, “on the top of the mountain.”

The next prophecy is devoted to the ceremony of purification of the altar (43:13–27) and to setting out laws relating to the temple and the sacrificial order, the temple functionaries, the Levites and priests, and the temple’s ceremony of inauguration (44:1–46:24). Some of its striking, unique features include its interior design and the near-total absence of temple vessels (the instruments for sacrifice and a number of other vessels), with the exception of the altar, as well as the new territorial allotments around the temple. In addition, the description of the sacrificial offerings in the future temple diverges from injunctions found in legal texts of Scripture, as do the roles of the temple personnel.

The final chapters conclude by depicting a spring that will issue forth from the temple and flow all the way to the Arabah (47:1–12), and by outlining the new division of the land of Israel, which is different from what is familiar from other biblical texts. These changes extend from the temple itself to the other parts of the country: the city will be shared by all the tribes of Israel, and the land will be divided among the tribes in an egalitarian manner (47:13–48:35). Finally, the book of Ezekiel closes with the words, “And the name of the city from that day on shall be, ‘YHWH Is There’” (48:35).

Ezekiel’s Temple Vision, unique within the Hebrew Bible in a number of ways, raises numerous questions. The present study does not include a systematic or comprehensive discussion of chapters 40–48 in the book of Ezekiel; it focuses primarily on the topics that we believe have significant value when discussed against the backdrop of the Babylonian milieu. In studying its distinctive features, we can learn more about its underlying motivations – but it is crucial that we view it in the proper context.

1.2 Ezekiel’s Vision through the Lens of His Milieu

Three spheres impact any thematic consideration of Ezekiel’s Temple Vision (40–48) and can lead to a more profound understanding of the vision: (a) its inner-biblical context, as seen through the prism of pentateuchal literature on one hand and prophetic literature on the other; (b) the vision’s driving theological theme; and (c) the influence of Ezekiel’s Babylonian milieu.

In this volume, we draw on the inner-biblical comparisons, mainly between these chapters and the pentateuchal literature, ³ and identify the elements in the Temple Vision that lack biblical parallels, exploring their significance against the Babylonian backdrop. Some obvious examples of the book of Ezekiel’s innovations emerge in comparing the sacrificial legislation in Ezekiel 44–45 with Numbers 28–29. Ezekiel is the sole prophetic book to include laws governing the temple service in its prophecies; some of these laws are innovations, such as the sacrificial order in the temple and laws for the priests. Ezekiel 45:21–22 cites sacrifices, like the bull sacrificed on the fourteenth day of the month, that do not exist in Numbers. It also calls for a different number of sacrifices on Passover (45:22–25) than does Numbers 28:16–22. The number of sacrifices on the Feast of Tabernacles likewise differs between Ezekiel 45:25 and Numbers 29:12–34. Further discrepancies exist regarding the Sabbath (Ezek 46:4–5 vs. Num 28:9–10), the celebration of the new month (Ezek 46:6–7 vs. Num 28:11–15), and additional offerings (Ezek 46:11 vs. Num 25:4–10). Many festival sacrifices mentioned in Numbers do not appear in Ezekiel, including those for Shavuot (Pentecost), Rosh Hashanah (the New Year), the Day of Atonement, and the Eighth [day of] Assembly.

But the book of Ezekiel’s innovations go beyond the realm of sacrifices. They also include the transfer of cultic responsibilities from the Levites to Zadokite priests (44:9–16) and the exegesis of earlier pentateuchal material to support an envisioned new order. ⁴ To this end, we take for granted the author’s familiarity with priestly literature and identify stylistic-contextual links between the book’s prophecies and this literature. ⁵

Another striking example is the leadership of the people by the nasi. The term nasi is found when the title melekh – king – could have been used instead. The term melekh is employed in the book to refer to the kings of Israel in the past and the kings of the other nations in the present, but Ezekiel’s text deliberately uses the title nasi for the future leader of Israel in chapters 40–48.

Finally, a new division of the land of Israel is evident in Ezekiel’s Temple Vision: as noted above, the land is divided among the tribes in an egalitarian manner (47:13–48:35).

Scholars do not give a standard explanation for Ezekiel’s many divergences from the details of pentateuchal law. One suggestion is that these divergences form part of a wider array of changes in, inter alia, the order of leadership and the temple building, whose collective goal is to prevent a recurrence of the tragic departure of the divine presence, the temple’s destruction, and the people’s exile. ⁶

Emerging from this is that the unit’s driving theological force is the intense desire to safeguard the sanctity of the future temple, thereby precluding it from sharing the First Temple’s fate. ⁷ Any study of Ezekiel’s theological stance cannot ignore its difficult, crisis-ridden historical context: the aftermath of the destruction of the Temple and the concomitant theological crises of Judean life without a temple. The inner-biblical comparison reveals the book of Ezekiel’s explicit, pointed emphasis on erecting barriers between the deity and humans in order to preserve sanctity, as reflected by the book’s polarities of holy and profane, pure and defiled. These overarching themes in Ezekiel receive treatment that has similarities to, but also differs from, both the priestly literature and the Deuteronomistic literature on which Ezekiel relies. ⁸ Accordingly, this thematic examination of Ezekiel aims both to draw a broad picture of its distinctive theological approach to various aspects of the crisis, and to determine in what ways the text’s method of dealing with the crisis was unique and contrary to alternative conceptions expressed elsewhere in Scripture. We will suggest that Ezekiel charted an individual path, grounded in its overriding concern with preserving the sanctity of the future temple.

Current research ascribes growing importance to examining the extent to which Ezekiel’s temple and theocentric worldview were influenced by the Babylonian milieu. It also highlights the range of possible reactions to the rich Babylonian cultic practices, which differed fundamentally from those with which the Judean exiles were familiar – from adoption of the surrounding culture to the erection of barriers. However, any such examination must take into account the impossibility of determining just how familiar the book’s author was with the inner workings of the Babylonian institutions.

The book of Ezekiel’s visionary temple belongs to a broader “program of restoration.” This program draws on ancient Israelite traditions, which can be understood without reference to contemporary Mesopotamia. ⁹ Nevertheless, the book of Ezekiel describes the temple itself in ways that diverge from descriptions of temples elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible. These divergences, could, of course, be the product of the author’s view; we will never know exactly how he arrived at his vision. ¹⁰ In highlighting the similarities between Babylonian temples and the description in the book of Ezekiel, we propose that the former served as a context for, rather than influence upon, the latter. Even if we may never know the book of Ezekiel’s sources, we can posit that Babylonian temples offer us a meaningful context in which to situate some of the unique features of Ezekiel’s description of the temple.

Bearing these fundamental assumptions in mind, this historically contextualized analysis pays special attention to two dimensions. First, the extent to which biblical traditions influenced Ezekiel’s visionary temple plan is considered. By identifying the similarities and differences between Ezekiel’s cultic orientation and that set forth in the priestly texts, and by considering the diverse forms of relationships to pentateuchal traditions as well as Ezekiel’s exegetical techniques, we examine the extent to which the Temple Vision was innovative in its conceptions. Second, Ezekiel’s theology is compared to the Babylonian cultural and ritual context; we can thus identify the lexicon used to describe the visionary temple as similar to or stemming from the lexicon of Babylonian temples. We attempt to evaluate when this reflects an attempt to emulate the surrounding culture and to what extent it reflects an attempt to set the God of...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• 1 Ezekiel’s Temple Vision: An Introduction
• 2 Studying the Book of Ezekiel in Its Babylonian Context
• 3 The Language of the Temple Vision
• 4 Ezekiel’s Temple Compound and the World of Babylonian Temples
• 5 Officials’ Roles in the Temple Vision
• 6 First-Month Temple Rituals in Ezekiel’s Vision
• 7 Conclusion
• Abbreviations of Periodicals, Reference Works, and Series
• Index of Sources
• Index of Modern Authors
• Subject Index