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Context No. 1839 of 4322 · Ezekiel

Context · Reflection

Ezekiel 1:1-9: in context

1Now in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river Chebar, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. 2In the fifth of the month, which was the fifth year of King Jehoiachin’s captivity, 3the LORD’s word came to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and the LORD’s hand was there on him. 4I looked, and behold, a stormy wind came out of the north: a great cloud, with flashing lightning, and a brightness around it, and out of the middle of it as it were glowing metal, out of the middle of the fire. 5Out of its center came the likeness of four living creatures. This was their appearance: They had the likeness of a man. 6Everyone had four faces, and each one of them had four wings. 7Their feet were straight feet. The sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf’s foot; and they sparkled like burnished bronze. 8They had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides. The four of them had their faces and their wings like this: 9Their wings were joined to one another. They didn’t turn when they went. Each one went straight forward.

Ezekiel begins his book by placing himself precisely: in the thirtieth year, among the exiles by the river Chebar, in the land of the Chaldeans. He is a displaced man, a captive far from home, far from the temple and the holy city, in a foreign land by a foreign river. And there, in exile, the heavens are opened, and he sees visions of God. The hand of the LORD comes upon him, and a great cloud of fire and living creatures unfolds before him, in the last place he might have expected to meet God.

The setting of Ezekiel's vision is as striking as the vision itself: it comes to him in exile, by a foreign river, far from the temple. For a priest like Ezekiel, God's presence was associated with the temple in Jerusalem, the holy place, the land of promise; and now he is torn from all of that, a captive in a pagan land, cut off from the sanctuary where God was to be met. It would have been easy to conclude that God had been left behind in Jerusalem, that here, in exile, God was absent and unreachable. And instead, it is precisely there, by the river Chebar in the land of the Chaldeans, that the heavens open and Ezekiel sees visions of God. God met his exile in the place of displacement. There is deep comfort in this for anyone who feels far from God, cut off, displaced, in a place where they never expected to be and where God seems absent. We can imagine that God is to be found only in certain places, certain seasons, the times of comfort or of obvious blessing, and that in our exiles, our hard displacements, our foreign rivers, he is far away. Ezekiel's vision says otherwise. God is not confined to the holy places or the good times; he meets his people in exile, opens heaven over the foreign river, comes to the displaced in the place of their displacement. Wherever we are, however far from where we would want to be, however cut off we feel, the heavens can open; God is not bound to Jerusalem. Surely the LORD is in this place, Jacob said in a lonely spot, and I did not know it. Ezekiel by the Chebar discovered the same: that God was there, in exile, and heaven could open even there. If we are in an exile of our own, a hard displacement where God seems absent, this vision assures us that he is not confined to the places we would prefer; he meets his people even by the foreign river.

Do I imagine God is to be found only in certain places or seasons, so that in my exiles and displacements, the hard places where I never expected to be, he is absent and unreachable, or can I take hope from Ezekiel, over whom the heavens opened by a foreign river in exile, that God is not confined to the holy places but meets his people even in the place of their displacement?

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