Ezekiel Bible Quotes

When the Qur’an critically evaluates the individual behavior of certain Jews, Christians, and pagans, it does so because these individuals serve as models for both what to do and not to do. Compared to the standards of harsh prophetic chastisement found in the revelations of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the Qur’an is a gentle critic—despite attempts by some translators to heighten the tension.

Ezekiel and his fellow prophets have become my heroes. They were fearless. They literalized metaphors. They turned their lives into protest pieces. They proved that, in the name of truth, sometimes you can't be afraid to take a left turn from polite society and look absurd.

In that instant, Gogolov feared death. He could feel himself falling through the dark void of space. He was flailing and terrified and utterly alone. He braced for impact, but it never came. He cried for mercy he would never see. He felt the searing heat and the demons ripping at his eyes and face with claws like razors. And then, in a terrifying flash of clarity, he realized it would never end.

The book was commonly known as the Buggre Alle This Bible. The lengthy compositor's error, if such it may be called, occurs in the book of Ezekiel, chapter 48, verse five. 2. And bye the border of Dan, fromme the east side fo the west side, a portion for Afher. 3. And by the border of Afher, fromme the east side even untoe the west side, a portion for Naphtali. 4. And by the border of Naphtali, from the east side untoe the west side, a portion for Manaffeh. 5. Buggre Alle this for a Larke. I amme sick to mye Hart of typefettinge. Master Biltonn if no Gentelmann, and Master Scagges noe more than a tighte fisted Southwarke Knobbefticke. I telle you, onne a daye laike thif Ennywone withe half and oz of Sense shoulde bee oute in the Sunneshain, ane nott Stucke here alle the liuelong daie inn thif mowldey olde By-Our-Lady Workefhoppe. @ *"Æ@;!* 6. And bye the border of Ephraim, from the east fide even untoe the west fide, a portion for Reuben.* * The Buggre Alle This Bible was also noteworthy for having twenty-seven verses in the third chapter of Genesis, instead of the more usual twenty-four. They followed verse 24, which in the King James version reads: "So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life," and read: 25 And the Lord spake unto the Angel that guarded the eastern gate, saying Where is the flaming sword which was given unto thee? 26 And the Angel said, I had it here only a moment ago, I must have put it down some where, forget my head next. 27 And the Lord did not ask him again.

3the word of the LORD came to Ezekiel  gthe priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by  bthe Chebar canal, and  hthe hand of the LORD was upon him there. The Glory of the LORD

Not that I speak from want; for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:11–13

THE ONLY HAVEN OF SAFETY IS IN THE MERCY OF GOD, AS MANIFESTED IN CHRIST, IN WHOM EVERY PART OF OUR SALVATION IS COMPLETE. John Calvin (1509-1564)       The One Year Bible Readings for today are Ezekiel 3:16-6:14; Hebrews 4:1-16; Psalm 104:24-35; and Proverbs 26:27. 3 Searching for God Give thanks to the Lord and

Few things are more important in life than repentance. It is so important that the Gospels and the Epistles and the Old Testament make clear that you don’t go to heaven without it. Ezekiel said, “Repent and turn from your transgressions” (Ezek. 18:30). John the Baptist said, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 3:2). Jesus said, “Repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). Peter said, “Repent and be baptized” (Acts 2:38). And Paul said God “commands all people everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30).

The Bible says God has no pleasure in the death of the ungodly and that He wants all to come to repentance (see Ezekiel 18:23, 32; 2 Peter 3:9). That is His will. Anything that happens differently has happened for a reason other than His will. The reality we live with is that the problems we face are often surrounded by many things that we do not yet know how to dismantle. To label something that is evil as coming from God is to credit God with evil. Instead, I keep what I call a mystery file. It is safer than attributing evil to God. The

Why should men in the name of religion try to harmonize the contradictions that exist between Nature and a book? Why should philosophers be denounced for placing more reliance upon what they know than upon what they have been told? If there is a God, it is reasonably certain that he made the world, but it is by no means certain that he is the author of the bible. Why then should we not place greater confidence in Nature than in a book? And even if this God made not only the world but the book besides, it does not follow that the book is the best part of Creation, and the only part that we will be eternally punished for denying. It seems to me that it is quite as important to know something of the solar system, something of the physical history of this globe, as it is to know the adventures of Jonah or the diet of Ezekiel. (...) It seems to me that a belief in the great truths of science are fully as essential to salvation, as the creed of any church. We are taught that a man may be perfectly acceptable to God even if he denies the rotundity of the earth,(...) and yet, for failing to believe in the „scheme of salvation” another may be eternally lost.

the causes of poverty as put forth in the Bible are remarkably balanced. The Bible gives us a matrix of causes. One factor is oppression, which includes a judicial system weighted in favor of the powerful (Leviticus 19:15), or loans with excessive interest (Exodus 22:25-27), or unjustly low wages (Jeremiah 22:13; James 5:1-6). Ultimately, however, the prophets blame the rich when extremes of wealth and poverty in society appear (Amos 5:11-12; Ezekiel 22:29; Micah 2:2; Isaiah 5:8). As we have seen, a great deal of the Mosaic legislation was designed to keep the ordinary disparities between the wealthy and the poor from becoming aggravated and extreme. Therefore, whenever great disparities arose, the prophets assumed that to some degree it was the result of selfish individualism rather than concern with the common good.

Few things once seemed to me more frigid and far-fetched than those interpretations […] of the Song of Songs, which identify the Bridegroom with Christ and the bride with the Church. Indeed, as we read the frank erotic poetry of the latter and contrast it with the edifying headlines in our Bibles, it is easy to be moved to a smile, even a cynically knowing smile, as if the pious interpreters were feigning an absurd innocence. […] First, the language of nearly all great mystics, not even in a common tradition, some of them Pagan, some Islamic, most Christian, confronts us with evidence that the image of marriage, of sexual union, is not only profoundly natural but almost inevitable as a means of expressing the desired union between God and man. The very word ‘union’ has already entailed some such idea. Secondly, the god as bridegroom, his ‘holy marriage’ with the goddess, is a recurrent theme and a recurrent ritual in many forms of Paganism […] And if, as I believe, Christ, in transcending and thus abrogating, also fulfils, both Paganism and Judaism, then we may expect that He fulfils this side of it too. This, as well as all else, is to be ‘summed up’ in Him. Thirdly, the idea appears, in a slightly different form, within Judaism. For the mystics God is the Bridegroom of the individual soul. For the Pagans, the god is the bridegroom of the mother-goddess, the earth, but his union with her also makes fertile the whole tribe and its livestock, so that in a sense he is their bridegroom too. The Judaic conception is in some ways closer to the Pagan than to that of the mystics, for in it the Bride of God is the whole nation, Israel. This is worked out in one of the most moving and graphic chapters of the whole Old Testament (Ezek. 16). Finally, this is transferred in the Apocalypse from the old Israel to the new, and the Bride becomes the Church, ‘the whole blessed company of faithful people’. It is this which has, like the unworthy bride in Ezekiel, been rescued, washed, clothed, and married by God—a marriage like King Cophetua’s.

The Big Picture: From Abraham to Armageddon Down through the ages, the sons of Jacob have survived trials, persecution, and thousands of years in exile from their homeland. The Scriptures foretold the dispersion of the Jews and also of their regathering toward the end of the age. After a long absence from a country left in desolation, the Jews have come home to the land that God promised to Abraham: “…a land that has recovered from war, whose people were gathered from many nations to the mountains of Israel, which had long been desolate. They had been brought out from the nations, and now all of them live in safety.” (Ezekiel 38:8). The other branch of Abraham’s family—the sons of Ishmael— are the Islamic Arabs that inhabit the lands surrounding Israel. Ishmael’s descendants epitomize the spirit and temperament that the Bible predicted more than three millennia ago: “…his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers” (Genesis 16:12). The Prophet Ezekiel tells us that these same sons of Ishmael will be among the enemies who seek to destroy Israel in the end times: “And thou shalt come up against my people of Israel, as a cloud to cover the land; it shall be in the latter days, and I will bring thee against my land…” (Ezekiel 38:16). The day is soon coming when Ishmael’s descendants will unite as one: “…they receive authority for one hour as kings with the beast.” Their ultimate purpose being the fulfillment of a long-held dream: the annihilation of Israel. Muslims have been taught for centuries that the Last Day will not come until they wage a final war against the Jews and rid the world of them once and for all. They believe that only after this is accomplished will Muslims enjoy a golden age of peace, justice, and worldwide Islamic rule. However, the Bible tells us that God has other plans: Before Israel can be destroyed He is going to intervene, and bring to ruin those who seek her destruction. On that day, multitudes of Jews will realize that Jesus is Messiah, and many Muslims will realize that they have made a fateful mistake. Though most are unaware, we, today, are witnessing the fruition of seeds that were planted nearly four thousand years ago with the birth of Abraham’s sons. God promised Abraham that He would make great nations of both Isaac and Ishmael. To be sure, one would be hard pressed to argue that He did not. The Jewish and Arabic peoples have had an immeasurable impact on the world and can now be found at center stage in the arena of world politics and conflict. Thus, the history of mankind will reach its pinnacle, essentially where it began, in a region literally located at the center of the globe; more specifically, Israel and the nations that surround her.

These are the days of Elijah Declaring the Word of the Lord And these are the days of your servant Moses Righteousness being restored And though these are days of great trials Of famine and darkness and sword Still we are the voice in the desert crying Prepare ye the way of the Lord! Behold He comes! Riding on the clouds! Shining like the sun! At the trumpet call Lift your voice! It’s the year of Jubilee! And out of Zion’s hill salvation comes! And these are the days of Ezekiel The dry bones becoming as flesh And these are the days of your servant David Rebuilding a temple of praise And these are the days of the harvest The fields are as white in the world And we are the laborers in your vineyard Declaring the word of the Lord! Behold He comes! Riding on the clouds! Shining like the sun! At the trumpet call Lift your voice! It’s the year of Jubilee! And out of Zion’s hill salvation comes! There’s no God like Jehovah! There’s no God like Jehovah! There’s no God like Jehovah!   Words and Music by Robin Mark

Even if we take matrimony at its lowest, even if we regard it as no more than a sort of friendship recognised by the police. - Robert Louis Stevenson, 1850-1894 Virginibus Puerisque The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge. - Ezekiel, 18:2 The Bible

It is particularly significant that the Sabbath in the Bible has eschatological significance (Isaiah 58:13, 14; 66:23) and is a sign of deliverance (Deuteronomy 5:15; Ezekiel 20:10–12). These realities make it reasonable to think that John coined the phrase “the Lord’s day” to combine the two biblical concepts into one: to tell his readers that he was taken in vision to the eschatological day of the Lord to witness the events during the conclusion of this earth’s history (cf. Revelation 1:7) and to tell them this vision actually took place on the seventh-day Sabbath. This would fit the description of the final events in Revelation and highlight the Sabbath’s central role in the end-time drama.

... Amen. GOD Created all things seen and unseen. The True Believers in GOD believe that over a period of about 1600 years, GOD inspired 40 Holy men of GOD to write the Holy Bible. The Holy Bible is The Only Holy Book written under Divine Inspiration by about 40 Holy men of GOD over a period of about 1600 years. "In the beginning GOD created the heaven and the earth."(Genesis 1:1). GOD is a Spirit. (Genesis 1;1; John 1;1; 1 John 1:1 -7; John 4:24; John 17:1-3 etc) ABBA GOD, is Our Heavenly Father. (Matthew 6:9-13; Romans 8:15; Romans 8:15 ;Galatians 4:6;etc ) GOD Lives. GOD Exists. GOD is Real and GOD is Eternal. GOD is The Creator and He Created all things seen and unseen. GOD is a Spirit and He is Masculine. There is nothing impossible with GOD. Finite mortal minds should never try to limit the Infinite Eternal GOD. GOD is Love.( 1 John 3;1; 1 John 4:8 ; John 3:16; 2 Peter 3:9; Daniel 9:4; Deuteronomy 7:9 ;Deuteronomy 30:20; Hebrews 6:10 ; John 3:8 ; John 13:35 ; John 14:31 ; romans 6:23; 1 John 5:23 ; John 17:22-23 ; Ezekiel 36:26-27 ; Ephesians 2:4-5 ; Deuteronomy 10:12-13 ;2 Corinthians 6:17-18 ; John 3:16-18 ; Romans 5:6-8 ; Matthew 22:36-40 ; Matthew 22:36-40; 1 John 3:11-18 ; 1 John 4:7-16 ; etc ).

To the Cedar Falls legalists, if God’s word could come that way 10,000 years ago, there was no reason to believe it couldn’t come that way now. So when Vicki decided her family would follow Old Testament law and stop eating unclean meat like pork and oysters (“The Lord says, ‘Don’t eat it’—He knows it’s got trichonomas and isn’t good for your body,” Vicki wrote to a friend), no one in the group thought she’d come about the decision from anywhere but Scripture and His divine will. There would be anywhere from four to ten people at the Weavers’ house, sometimes as often as four nights a week. Randy led the Bible study most of the time, but everyone read chapters and commented on what they might mean. Vicki was clearly the scripturalist and scholar of the group. It was as if she had memorized the whole thing, from Genesis to Revelation, Acts to Zechariah. They read only the King James Version of the Bible, because Vicki said other translations weren’t divinely inspired and were pagan-influenced. By 1981, the Old Testament books were opening up for Randy and Vicki, not as outdated stories, but as the never-ending law of the Maker. He was opening their eyes to what was happening now, in the United States, just as Hal Lindsey had foretold. The forces of evil (the Soviet Union, the U.S. government, Jewish bankers) were ready to strike at any time against American people. From Ezekiel, they read: “Son of man [Christian Americans], set thy face against Gog [the grand conspiracy] … “Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company [their Bible study group] that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them. After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword [somewhere in the American West], and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains [the Rockies] of Israel [the United States], which have been always waste [the desolate mountains of Montana? Colorado?

parallel to all other ages, not a chronological series of events. Indeed, one of the great marvels of God’s gracious activity toward us is that it occurs in real time without being prejudiced in favor of any particular age. Just because we are the latest does not mean we are the best. The effects of sin prevent any age—including ours—from being “golden,” at least in the spiritual sense. Every Christian generation learns equally the lessons of Revelation—that God is in control, that the powers of the world are minuscule when compared with God, that God is as likely to work through apparent weakness and failure as through strength and success, and that in the end God’s people will prevail. Revelation is the last book of the Bible. It reveals important truths about the end times. But it is also last in another important sense—it calls on all the hermeneutical courage, wisdom, and maturity one can muster in order to be understood properly. In many ways it serves as a graduation exercise for the NIV Application Commentary Series, an opportunity to fully apply the many lessons we have learned in the Bridging Contexts sections of previous volumes. God’s time is his, not ours. The story of God’s gracious activity on our behalf will be fulfilled in a great and glorious conclusion. But all Christians, everywhere and at all times, have equal access to the time. That access has been and is made possible by God’s message in the book of Revelation. Terry C. Muck Author’s Preface AS A NEW CHRISTIAN recently converted from atheism, I eagerly hurried through Paul’s letters, reaching Revelation as soon as possible. Once I reached it, however, I could hardly understand a word of it. I listened attentively to the first few “prophecy teachers” I heard, but even if they had not contradicted one another, over the years I watched as most of their detailed predictions failed to materialize. Perhaps six years after my conversion, as I began to read Revelation in Greek for the first time, the book came alive to me. Because I was now moving through the text more carefully, I noticed the transitions and the structure, and I realized it was probably addressing something much different from what I had first supposed. At the same time, I catalogued parallels I found between Revelation and biblical prophets like Daniel, Ezekiel, and Zechariah. I also began reading an apocalypse contemporary with Revelation, 4 Ezra (2 Esdras in the Apocrypha), to learn more about the way Revelation’s original, first-century audience may have heard its claims. Yet even in my first two years as a Christian, Revelation and other end-time passages proved a turning point for me. As a young Christian, I was immediately schooled in a particular, popular end-time view, which I respectfully swallowed (the

Very different in nature is the verbal map presented at the end of the Book of Ezekiel. Chapter 48 envisages a future land of Israel, restored after the successive destructions of the northern kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians and the southern kingdom of Judah by the Babylonians, and the subsequent exile. The land is arranged in a highly stylized fashion.

Adam Clarke (1762–1832) was a respected Wesleyan/Methodist pastor, biblical scholar, and commentator whom I’ve referenced many times over the past years. Adam Clarke actually mentioned “dragons” several times in his Bible commentary. However, in Ezekiel 29:39 he clarifies what he really means by “dragon,” saying: The great dragon hattannim should here be translated crocodile, as that is a real animal, and numerous in the Nile; whereas the dragon is wholly fabulous. The original signifies any large animal.

John 15 is the most significant passage in the New Testament for understanding the analogy of the vine and the relationship between Israel and the church. When Jesus says “I am the vine” he is making a very provocative statement. In the Old Testament, Israel is described as the vine (see for example, Jeremiah 11:16; Ezekiel 15:1-8; 17:1-10; Hosea 10:1-2; 14:6).

Where should this leave us? In gratitude. True, we seldom if ever think of it – of the horror and pain the Lord’s servants endured in order to be the vehicles through whom his word is passed on to us in the Scriptures. We sit comfortably at our desks or tables with a companionable mug of coffee, read the prophets, and scarcely think of how Daniel was physically and emotionally wiped out or Ezekiel plunged into a mental morass of anguish and anger (Ezek. 3:14–15) – in short, of how much the word of God cost them.

The Justice of a Righteous God EZEKIEL 18:1-32

By the river on its bank, on one side and on the other, will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither and their fruit will not fail. They will bear every month because their water flows from the sanctuary, and their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing.” Ezekiel 47:12

Today, people try to rank the gravity of sins; they think that homosexuals, thieves, and murderers are greater sinners than liars or gossips. But in the eyes of the Lord, all these sins have the same weight and the same pay. The Bible tells us, "The wages of sin is death" "the soul that sins will die." (Romans 6:23) (Ezekiel 18:20) My friends and brothers, I invite you now to accept Jesus' invitation. Jesus is extending His hand of mercy to you if you repent. The Word of the Lord tells us that the one that changes his ways and repents will be given mercy. It is much better to believe now, than to wait and find out the hard way later. God bless you.

The Scripture presents seven compound titles of God, each describing God in terms of our needs: YHWH-jireh, the Lord will provide (Genesis 22); YHWH-rapha, the Lord that healeth (Exodus 15); YHWH-shalom, the Lord our Peace ( Judges 6); YHWH-tsidkenu, the Lord our Righteousness ( Jeremiah 23); YHWH-shammah, the Lord ever-present (Ezekiel 48); YHWH-nissi, the Lord our Banner (Exodus 17); and YHWH-raah, the Lord our Shepherd (Psalm 23). These describe God’s seven-fold completeness for each of us.

But does the Bible itself support Ryrie’s claim? Certainly some Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled literally in the New Testament. Some of those Old Testament prophecies were equally clearly understood in a literal manner prior to their fulfillment. Thus, Herod could be advised by the chief priests and teachers of the law where to go looking for the Christ child on the basis of Micah 5:2 (Matt. 2:4–5). However, other prophecies from the Old Testament were fulfilled in a way that would have been completely unexpected to preceding generations, even though they too were fulfilled in a literal way. What first-century B.C. prophecy conference would have been clearly predicting the birth of Messiah from a virgin on the basis of Isaiah 7:14? Or his crucifixion on the basis of Psalm 22? Or his physical resurrection on the basis of Psalm 16? These texts are clearly viewed by the New Testament as messianic prophecies that were literally fulfilled, yet they were only seen to be such with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight after their fulfillment in Christ, not before.

In addition, we have those who, while recognizing the Bible as a revelation from God, blunt its message by applying it to a time other than our own. This may take the form of an eschatologically overworked imagination, which pushes the significance of the Bible into the future. On this approach, the Bible is seen as a source book for end-times prophecies rather than a message that speaks to us in our everyday life.

is very clear from the Biblical text that God did not forget to mention who the enemies of Israel will be in the last days, yet people are looking for a coalition of European nations to form the beast kingdom of the Antichrist. These are general prophecies concerning the nations that God will destroy for mistreating Israel and Judah (the Jews) in the last days. We also saw in a previous chapter that when the stone that destroys the image of Daniel 2 comes from heaven representing God’s kingdom, it destroys the gold (Babylon – Iraq ), the silver (Persia – Iran), the brass (Seleucid and Ptolemaic Grecia – Syria and Egypt) and the Iron and the clay TOGETHER. All these nations are ‘’round about’’ Israel as referred to in Ezekiel 28, Zechariah 12 and Joel 3.  There are dozens of very specific prophecies concerning the nations that God will destroy when he comes to save Israel from her enemies. These nations are mentioned by name in all of the prophets and they are Middle Eastern and North African nations, not European.

the God of the Hebrew Bible is not in the business of demanding belief in some fixed body of propositions. The biblical God is portrayed as revealing his truths and unleashing his deeds in response to man’s search for truth. He even longs for man’s questioning and seeking. Indeed, his preference for human beings who seek and question is such as to have given rise to an entire tradition of biblical figures questioning God’s decrees, conducting disputations with God, and at times even changing God’s mind – including Abraham’s argument with God over the justice of destroying Sodom; a series of occasions in which Moses challenges God’s intentions to destroy Israel; Gideon’s questioning whether God has not abandoned Israel; David’s anger over what he sees as God’s unjust killing of one of his men; and the arguments of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Havakuk, Jonah, and Job questioning God’s justice.60 In all of these cases, man is shown as able to challenge God’s decrees and yet have the respect of God as a consequence.

The ultimate problem with the approach to the Bible that reads Ezekiel 38–39 alongside the morning newspaper in an attempt to correlate the events described in the two documents is that it assumes that unless we are living in the end times, these passages have nothing to say to us. In fact, whether or not these happen to be the final days of God’s plan for the world, Ezekiel 38–39 addresses believers with a powerful message of hope. As

Perhaps few Old Testament passages have seen so many attempts to interpret them in the light of current events as Ezekiel 38–39. This is hardly a new phenomenon. The church father Ambrose, writing in the late fourth century, confidently identified Gog as the Goths.14 In the seventh century, Gog and Magog were the Arab armies that threatened the Holy Land.15 By the thirteenth century, Gog had become a cipher for the Mongol hordes from the East.16 William Greenhill, writing in the seventeenth century, records the opinion of some contemporaries who identified Gog as the Roman emperor, the Pope, or the Turks.17 In the nineteenth century, against the background of the tensions in Asia Minor that culminated in the Crimean War, Wilhelm Gesenius identified Rosh as Russia.18 This view was subsequently popularized by the Scofield Reference Bible, along with the idea taken from other sources that “Meshech” and “Tubal” are the Russian cities of Moscow and Tobolsk.19 During the First World War, Arno Gaebelein argued that Gomer was Germany.20 More recently, in response to the rise of Communism, these ideas have become the staples of popular dispensational end-times literature, to which has in some cases been added the contemporary threat of the Red Chinese, usually identified as “the kings from the East” in Revelation 16:12.

All change begins with a change of mind the Bible calls repentance. Repentance is detecting and destroying the rationalizations that led to me checking the sinful choice box in the first place. Repentance is what every biblical prophet was calling for because that is where a man begins to move from depravity to quality. Read the Old Testament and you’ll notice the nonstop echo of calls for repentance. Ezekiel announced, “Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, declares the Lord GOD. Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin.

THE YEAR-DAY THEORY   We have mentioned that William Miller did not use the literal method of interpretation. He presumed that various days in the Bible represented years. The Bible does, in certain contexts, use days to represent years (Numbers 14:34, Ezekiel 4:6), but we have no right to assume that days in a prophecy are symbolic. For example, Jesus predicted how long He would be in the heart of the earth after His death (Matthew 12:40). When properly understood, this prophecy was exactly fulfilled. Although there is some controversy concerning the exact day Jesus was crucified, no reasonable person believes that these three days and three nights symbolized years. The prediction concerning the forty years of wandering in the wilderness (Numbers 14:33) was likewise literally fulfilled. Therefore, "days" refer to literal, future days in the Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelation. However, it is interesting that the historicist interpreters sometimes had some astonishing results.

Several sins in the Holiness Code of Leviticus are described as abominations, but only this one is singled out by itself as an abomination. The use of to‘ebah in Ezekiel, with reference to Sodom’s sin, is an echo of Leviticus 18 and 20. Sodom’s sins were many: pride, social injustice, and pursuing homosexual behavior.

Both prophets are faced with the same problem — the presence of child sacrifice understood as obedience to a sacred decree — and both want the same solution — that child sacrifice should stop, and that God should no longer be associated with such things. Yet they have recourse to entirely different strategies of interpretation to get the same result: one holds to a proto-Marcionite “wrong god” solution, the other holds to a proto-fundamentalist “same God, serious mental gymnastics” solution. Yet what is interesting is that, had you been an ordinary, traditional observant Israelite or Judaean of the period, you would have assumed that God wanted child sacrifice, and that both Ezekiel and Jeremiah, each in their own sweet way, were the ancient equivalents of the leader writers of the Guardian newspaper. In other words: dangerously secularizing proto-atheists who are not God-fearing people at all. Good, straightforward God-fearing people will have known right away that religion is a serious business, and it involves sacrificing children. “If you don’t go along with sacrificing children, then you can’t really be serious about respecting God.” So, let’s remember that over time it turned out that the word of God was being spoken by these prophets, the very ones who would have appeared to be insufficiently religious to their contemporaries. In other words, in the Bible, it is the dangerous secularizers who win out in the end.

Wow, nanobot infestations? And you thought bed bugs were nasty!

Here we must take a step back once more, because it is not as well known as it ought to be that in the world of second-Temple Judaism there was a strong sense, not just that Israel’s fortunes needed to change, but that Israel’s God needed to come back to his people, to the Temple. Ezekiel had described the divine glory leaving Jerusalem, and had prophesied that it would return to a rebuilt Temple, but nobody ever said they’d seen it happen. There is no scene anywhere in the literature of the period to correspond to Exodus 40, where the divine glory fills the newly constructed tabernacle, or 1 Kings 8, where the same thing happens to Solomon’s Temple.

For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone," declares the Lord God; "So turn, and live. --Ezekiel 18:32, Bible, ESVj

The Bible is the voice of God in print—the Spirit’s breath written down in such a way that we can take it in and live by it. Which is why whenever you separate the Word of God from a relationship with God, it may not have the life-giving effect of the Spirit on you that you hoped it would. You need a relationship with God for His words to take life in you. You want the living Word to be connected to the written Word so that the breath of God’s Spirit can bring life into your dryness, circumstances, situations, and environment (Ezekiel 37:1-14). The Spirit is the oxygen tank that secures our survival in the waters of a wicked world.

Many Bible scholars hold that the purpose of the Fourth Jewish Temple (Ezekiel 40–45) will be to serve as a memorial to the holiness of God. It will apparently be a teaching center to instruct men about proper worship during Christ’s millennial reign on earth. Because the bloodline of humanity will still be tainted by the original sin from the Fall in the Garden of Eden, people born during the thousand-year reign of Christ will have to be redeemed from sin if they are to go to Heaven. The Temple will, in part, be in place to remind everyone of the substitutionary death of Jesus on the cross, as the “Lamb of God,” more than two thousand years earlier.

How is the condition of our heart altered? No more important question can be asked in psychology—or philosophy. The biblical answer is clear. The heart is changed through a relationship with Jesus Christ. Christian theology ultimately focuses on that relationship, which is available to all who trust in Christ. According to the Bible, there is no other way in which the heart and the human person can be significantly changed. In the Old Testament, only a personal relationship with the Lord, the covenant God, could cause a life to change. David asked God to work in his heart: “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Ps. 51:10); “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts” (Ps. 139:23). In the Book of Ezekiel, God’s role in renewing the human heart is stressed: “I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God” (Ezek. 11:19–20).

More than two thousand years later, one of the abominations God showed the prophet Ezekiel was women at the entrance of the north gate of the Temple weeping for Dumuzi, called Tammuz in the Bible.

one like a son of man. In Aramaic and Hebrew the phrase “son of man” is simply a common expression to describe someone or something as human or humanlike. In Ezekiel, God often addresses the prophet as “son of man” to emphasize his humanness (e.g., Eze 2:6). coming with the clouds of heaven. In ancient Near Eastern literature clouds are often associated with the appearances of deities. In the OT it is Yahweh, the God of Israel, who rides on the clouds as his chariot (Ps 104:3; Isa 19:1). In Canaanite mythology Baal, the son of El, is described as “rider/charioteer of the clouds.” After doing battle with, and defeating, Yamm/Sea, Baal is promised an everlasting kingdom and eternal dominion. Some scholars see echoes of this story in Da 7:9–14. Others argue for a background in Mesopotamian cosmic conflict myths (such as the creation epic Enuma Elish and the Myth of Anzu), which depict a deity (Marduk and Ninurta, respectively) defeating the representative of chaos (Tiamat and Anzu, respectively) and regaining authority and dominion for the gods and for himself. Daniel’s vision has no conflict between the “one like a son of man” and the beasts. The interpretation in vv. 17–27, however, makes it clear that the “one like a son of man” in some way represents “the holy people of the Most High” (vv. 18, 22), who are in conflict with the “little horn” that arises out of the fourth beast (v. 8).

In one of his essays William Placher comments on a time when the theological use of the Bible presupposed a deep knowledge of what the Bible says.1 The example he serves up is from the final pages of Calvin’s Institutes, where the Reformer thinks through the issue of what Christians should do if they find themselves under a wicked ruler. Placher notes that Calvin reflects on Daniel and Ezekiel regarding the need to obey even bad rulers; he weighs the command to serve the king of Babylon in Jeremiah 27. He quotes from the Psalms, and he cites Isaiah to the effect that the faithful are urged to trust in God to overcome the unrighteous. On the other hand, he evenhandedly notes episodes in Exodus and Judges “where people serve God by overthrowing the evil rulers,” and texts in 1 Kings and Hosea where God’s people are criticized for being obedient to wicked kings. He cites Peter’s conclusion before Gamaliel, according to Acts: “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). From these and other biblical passages, he proceeds to weave nuanced conclusions. We should disobey what governement mandates if it violates our religious obligations. By contrast, Christians should not normally go around starting revolutions. But those who are in positions of authority should deploy that authority to deal with those who exploit others. Even violent revolutionaries may in mysterious ways perform the will of God, though of course they may be called to judgment on account of their evil. Placher then comments: My point is not to defend all of Calvin’s conclusions, or even all of his method, but simply to illustrate how immersion in biblical texts can produce a very complex way of reflecting within a framework of biblical authority, compared to which most contemporary examples look pretty simple-minded. We can’t “appeal to the Bible” in a way that’s either helpful or faithful without beginning to do theology. Theology begins to put together a way of looking as a Christian at the world in all its variety, a language that we share as Christians and that provides a context rich enough for discussing the complexities of our lives. Absent such a shared framework, we can quote passages at each other, but the only contexts in which we can operate come from the discourses of politics and popular culture.2