{"id":10802,"date":"2007-12-15T15:40:32","date_gmt":"2007-12-15T20:40:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/vardibidian\/2007\/12\/15\/10802.html"},"modified":"2018-03-12T16:57:45","modified_gmt":"2018-03-12T21:57:45","slug":"haftorah-vayigash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/2007\/12\/15\/haftorah-vayigash\/","title":{"rendered":"Haftorah Vayigash"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Now, here’s my problem with this week’s Haftorah. It’s Ezekiel 37:15<\/a>-28, which, as you can imagine, is just after Ezekiel 37:1-15. And Ezekiel 37:1-15 is the bit where Ezekiel is set down in the midst of a valley of bones, and he speaks to the dry bones, and says “Now hear the word of the Lord”, and those bones, those bones, those dry bones, those bones, those bones gonna walk around, those bones, those bones, those dry bones, now, hear the word of the Lord. And there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the toe bone connected to the foot bone, and the foot bone connected to the ankle bone, and the ankle bone connected to the leg bone, now hear the word of the Lord!
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And at that point, I’m dancing, and I’m singing, and capering and gibbering and making jazz hands and it’s pretty much all over for Torah study for a while. Seriously, I know that some Gentle Readers are partial to the wheel within a wheel a-turnin’, way in the middle of the air, but my own opinion is that the dry bones is the best song about Ezekiel’s prophecies there is and will ever be. So there. And no, Shadrach<\/i> is not about Ezekiel. And it would still lose to the Dry Bones.
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Anway, that’s not today’s reading. This is today’s reading:
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The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying, Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and [for] all the house of Israel his companions: And join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand. And when the children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not shew us what thou [meanest] by these? Say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which [is] in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, [even] with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand. And the sticks whereon thou writest shall be in thine hand before their eyes. And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land: And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all: Neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions: but I will save them out of all their dwellingplaces, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them: so shall they be my people, and I will be their God. And David my servant [shall be] king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them. And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, [even] they, and their children, and their children's children for ever: and my servant David [shall be] their prince for ever. Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore. My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And the heathen shall know that I the LORD do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore.<\/blockquote>
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I find this a troubling prophecy, and a troubling message. For one thing, I am not particularly keen on the coming of a Messiah, particularly if it means living in Israel, under a king, and observing all the statutes. I mean. On the other hand, a covenant of peace everlasting would be nice. I will add that to the extent that Judaism is Messianic, this is the sort of thing we are talking about, which is why it seems clear to us that Jesus was not<\/i> the Messiah, any more than Bar Kochba was. I don’t mean to knock Christianity here—the Christian understanding of Messiah-ness is something altogether different, and they are able to make sense of Ezekiel and other prophecies as applying to Jesus within that context. But it doesn’t seem to me that Ezekiel was expecting a Messiah who will die for the sins of the people, washing away their sins in his own blood, and who will come again<\/i> at the end of time. But I’m getting distracted again, and if I’m going to be distracted, I’d rather be singing and dancing.
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What else to say. I know, let’s hit the concordance. Ezekiel is very concerned with wrongdoing, and very specific in his language concerning them. In the Scripture, there are different terms, and it’s hard to figure out what the connotations should be. There’s the verb sinning, chatah<\/i>, with 238 occurrences in the Tanakh. The noun sin, chatta’ah<\/i>, 296 occurrences. Another form of the noun, sin, chayt<\/i>, 33 occurrences. All of these are derived from the verb that more or less means to miss, as with archery. Then there’s transgression, pe’sha<\/i>, 93 occurrences. Transgressing, pay’sha<\/i>, 41 occurrences. I’m using the most common KJV English translation here, but each Hebrew word is translated different ways in different passages. There’s iniquity, avon<\/i>, with 230 occurrences, and Ezekiel uses it a lot. Also asham<\/i>, trespass, which is generally used to refer to a particular kind of Temple offering, although Ezra uses it in the general sense of sin<\/i>. There’s also abomination, various forms of shikuts<\/i>, with 46 occurances and abomination, abomination, pigul<\/i>, with 4, and abominate, ta’ab<\/i>, with 22. And other word of profanation, pollution and defilement.
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There are 39 occurrences (if I’ve got them all) of both sin<\/i> and transgress<\/I> in a single verse, of which Ezekiel claims 4. Ezekiel also six times uses sin<\/i> and trespass<\/i> together, four times uses sin<\/i> and iniquity<\/i> together, twice uses iniquity<\/i> and transgression<\/i> together, and twice uses iniquity<\/i> and trespass<\/i> together. He doesn’t use transgress<\/i> and trespass<\/i> together (only Hosea and Ezra do that). The point here is that when, above, Ezekiel says that the united Israel will not defile themselves or transgress<\/i>, but will come out of the places where they have sinned<\/i>, he’s using the language specifically and for a purpose, although it’s a bit hard to figure out what that purpose is.
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I don’t think it’s sloppiness, and I don’t think it’s just repetition for effect, a kind of synonymia. I think—I think<\/i>—that one of the things he’s getting at is that the places where people sin (chayt) affect judgment and falling short of one’s goals, where the objects that people value affect the more active sins (pay’sha). But I’m not sure.
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Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus<\/I>,
-Vardibidian.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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