One of my favourite film scenes is from Pulp Fiction. Samuel L Jackson plays a gangster about to kill some minor characters. Before he opens fire, and at the end of a wonderful piece of dialogue, he quotes the bible, and he quotes from the book of Ezekiel, a paraphrase of Ezekiel 25:17. Apologies to those who read the bible aloud in their churches every Sunday, but I’m sorry, Samuel knows how to quote the bible. (here)
© Pulp Fiction (Miramax) Image Wikipedia
Rhetoric of a prophet
The first part of Ezekiel is full what I call good solid, run of the mill, classic prophet talk. It is all about what will happen and how, when it does, those who it happens to will know that there is a God. It involves vivid imagery that is more poetry than prose. We have pictures of bones coming to life and some pretty psychedelic beasts and wheels. If you’re after some weird and wonderful language then Ezekiel is the prophet for you. That said things aren’t looking too good for those he is talking to.
All change please
And then he drops the Samuel L Jackson approach. Having said things are looking gloomy he does the other classic prophet party piece and says that one day things will be better. The end of the book is all about a new Temple, the previous one having been pulled apart when the nation of Judah fell. Whereas the first part of the book read like a Pentecostal preacher the final part of the book sounds more like a builder’s brief; we have dimensions and definitions.
If it wasn’t for the change of styles Ezekiel could possibly be my favourite OT prophetic book. Although I’m wondering what that says about me. Do I really prefer the disaster predictions rather than the rosy future? Ezekiel is the final major prophet on my journey through the bible and as I’m a little behind in these reviews I’d best leave this here and get going.
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