0 Ezekiel : Absurdity

Ezekiel : Absurdity (85)

  1. Ezekiel experiences what some say is the first recorded UFO sighting. 1:4
  2. Ezekiel sees creatures that have four faces (human, lion, ox, and eagle), four wings, and straight feet with calf's soles. Well, maybe he'll feel better in the morning.1:5-10
  3. When Ezekiel saw God's loins ("the glory of the Lord"), which were on fire, he fell on his face. 1:27
  4. "And when I saw it, I fell upon my face." 1:28
  5. After Ezekiel saw God's loins ("the glory of the Lord"), he fell on his face. (1:27-28) Then God tells him to stand up and get ready to tell the Israelites how awful they are. 2:1-7
  6. But first, God wants Ezekiel to eat a scroll. And sure enough, a detached hand shows up from out of nowhere with a scroll for Ezekiel to eat. 2:8-9
  7. God tells Ezekiel to eat a scroll and to "fill his bowels" with it. He does, and finds it to be as sweet as honey. 2:9, 3:1-3
  8. After Ezekiel eats the scroll, God sends him off to preach to the Israelites, though God knows they won't listen to him. 3:4-7
  9. A spirit takes Ezekiel to places where he hears voices, wings, wheels, and whatnot. 3:12-14
  10. "Behold, the glory of the Lord stood there ... and I fell on my face." 3:23
  11. The spirit (of God?) enters Ezekiel, ties him up, and makes his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth so that he could no longer speak. 3:24-26
  12. God tells Ezekiel to make a clay model of Jerusalem, complete with a fort, camp, and battering ram, and an iron pan for a wall around the city. Ezekiel's clay model and iron pan will be a sign to everyone in Israel. 4:1-3
  13. God makes Ezekiel lay on his right side for 390 days, and then on his left side for another 40 days. "And thou shalt not turn thee from one side to another, till thou hast ended the days." 4:4-8
  14. God tells Ezekiel to eat barley cakes that are made with "the dung that cometh out of man." (Yum!) 4:12
  15. God tells Ezekiel to shave his head and beard, divide the cut hair into thirds, burn one portion, smite the second portion about with a knife, and scatter the third in the wind, except for a few strands that Ezekiel is supposed to put in his skirt and then burn later in a fire. 5:1-3
  16. "Thus saith the Lord GOD to the mountains, and to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys; Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword upon you." 6:3
  17. God tells Ezekiel to clap his hands and stamp his feet while saying, "they shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence." 6:11
  18. Ezekiel proclaims that the world (which is flat and has four corners) is ending. 7:2, 6
  19. Ezekiel gets to see God's loins again. (See 1:27 for the first time.) 8:2
  20. God sent down a detached hand that grabbed Ezekiel's hair and raised him up between heaven and earth. 8:3
  21. God brings Ezekiel to a hole in the wall and tells him to dig. So Ezekiel digs and finds a door. Ezekiel looks through the door and sees all kinds of abominable bugs and animals, along with some pictures of other gods. 8:7-10
  22. God screams in Ezekiel's ears, telling him to round up the six angels ("men") that are going to do God's dirty work. 9:1-2
  23. "While they were slaying them ... I fell on my face." 9:8
  24. A sapphire stone that looked like a throne appears in the firmament, and a man clothed with linen is told by God to scatter coals over the city. 10:1-2
  25. The glory of the Lord filled a house with a clouldlike brightness and the beating of angel wings sounded just like God's voice. 10:4-5
  26. A human hand appears under the wings of the cherubim, each of which has its own wheel, or a wheel within a wheel, or whatever. 10:8-10
  27. Ezekiel's wheels and angels are covered with eyes; God screams at the wheels, saying, "O wheel"; and every angel has four faces, those of an angel, man, lion, and eagle. 10:12-14
  28. When the show was over, the glory of the Lord, the cherubim (with detached human hands under their wings), and the wheels took off, after hanging out over the house for a while. 10:18-19
  29. A spirit lifts up Ezekiel and transports him to the Lord's house, where he sees 25 men. God tells Ezekiel that he doesn't like these guys because they said things like, "It is not near; let us build houses: this city is the caldron and we be the flesh." 11:1-3
  30. So the spirit of the Lord falls on Ezekiel and tells him to to prophesy against them. 11:4-5
  31. "Then fell I down upon my face." 11:13
  32. After promising to kill the 24 remaining men, the cherubim, wheels, and glory of the Lord left Jerusalem and hovered over a mountain. Then the spirit transported Ezekiel to Chaldea (Babylon). 11:22-24
  33. God tells Ezekiel to move his stuff. He tells him to move it in the daylight; to dig through a wall with his hand and carry his stuff out; and to move his stuff in the twilight, with his face covered so he can't see the ground. So that's what he did. 12:3-7
  34. After Ezekiel moved his stuff, God asked if anyone asked him what he was doing? If they do ask, God told him to say that they will soon be moving their stuff, too, when God forces them into captivity. 12:9-12
  35. God has Ezekiel do another clever demonstration: eat and drink carefully while shaking. That way, when the people see him doing that, they will know that God is going to starve them to death, which will teach them that God is the Lord. 12:18-20
  36. God changes some proverbs. 12:22-28
  37. "Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel that prophesy." 13:2
  38. God gets mad at a wall and destroys it, along with those who worked on it. 13:14-15
  39. "Woe to the woman that sew pillows ... Behold, I am against your pillows." (God likes neither woman nor pillows.) 13:18-21
  40. God's riddle/parable 17:2-24
  41. God doesn't like this proverb: "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge." 18:2-3
  42. "All souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine." 18:4
  43. "Ye say, The way of the LORD is not equal."
    Even the Israelites recognized the injustice of "God's laws" more than 2500 years ago. 18:25, 29
  44. A lamentable lion lament 19:1-9
  45. "Thy mother is like a vine in thy blood ... This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation." 19:10-14
  46. God threatens three times to kill all the Israelites for disobeying him, but after thinking about it a bit, he decided not to. 20:8, 13, 21
  47. "Ah Lord GOD! they say of me, Doth he not speak parables?" (Roughly translated, "Is he fucking crazy?") 20:49
  48. Two sisters were guilty of "committing whoredoms" by pressing their breasts and bruising "the teats of their virginity." As a punishment, one sister's nakedness was discovered, her children were taken from her, and she was killed by the sword. And the fate of the surviving sister was even worse: Her nose and ears were cut off, she was made to "pluck off" her own breasts, and then after being raped and mutilated, she is stoned to death. 23:1-49
  49. God will kill everyone that claps his hands or stamps his feet "against the land of Israel." When he's done with the killing everyone will know that he is the Lord. 25:6-7
  50. Nebuchadrezzar, "king of kings" -- so that's who that movie is about! 26:7
  51. "They ... shall cast up dust upon their heads, they shall wallow themselves in the ashes." 27:29-30
  52. "They shall make themselves utterly bald for thee, and gird them with sackcloth." 27:31
  53. Watch out or God will make you "die the deaths of the uncircumcised," which is, no doubt, a most unpleasant death. 28:10
  54. "Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers."
    This is the only clearly symbolic use of "dragon" in the Bible. 29:3
  55. "The day of the LORD is near ... it shall be the time of the heathen." 30:3
  56. "And they shall know that I am the LORD, when I have set a fire in Egypt." (The Divine Pyromaniac) 30:8, 30:14, 30:16
  57. Ezekiel begins by telling us what day it is. It's the 13th year, 4th month, and 5th day. But the 13th year etc. of what exactly? 1:1, 8:1, 20:1, 24:1, 26:1, 29:1, 29:17, 30:20, 31:1, 32:1, 32:17
  58. When God is getting ready to kill people with the sword, it's the watchman's duty to warn them about it by blowing a trumpet. If the people hear the trumpet but don't "take warning," then God will kill the people but not the watchman. But if the watchman doesn't blow the trumpet when he sees God coming, then God will kill the people and the watchman. 33:2-6
  59. God tells Ezekiel that he is the watchman. So the usual watchman rules apply to him. 33:7-9
  60. At God's request, Ezekiel prophesies to the mountains. 36:1-14
  61. Ezekiel brings dry bones to life to make "an exceeding great army." 37:7-10
  62. "Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel." 37:12
  63. God shows Ezekiel how to join two sticks together. 37:15-17
  64. "And David my servant shall be king over them."
    How's that supposed to happen? David had been dead (if he ever lived) for more than 400 years when these words were written. 37:24
  65. Gog and Magaog 38:2-20
  66. God will get so angry that his fury will come up in his face so that even the fish, birds, beasts, and bugs will shake when they see him. God will throw a tantrum, toppling every wall and mountain. 38:18-20
  67. "Son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog." 39:1
  68. The Israelites spend seven yearts burning Gog's weapons. 39:9
  69. After spending seven years burning the weapons of Gog's soldiers, the Israelites spend another seven years burying the dead bodies. 39:11-12
  70. The hand of the Lord takes Ezekiel on a trip to Israel and sets him on a mountain top, where a brass man measures a building with a rod. (I'd skip this chapter unless you are interested in the dimensions of the brass man's imaginary building.) 40:1-49
  71. The brass man provides more exciting measurements of Ezekiel's imaginary temple. (I'd skip it, if I were you.) 41:1-22
  72. The brass man takes even more measurements of Ezekiel's imaginary buildings. 42:2-20
  73. We get to take a little break from building dimensions to learn about God. His glory can fill a house and cause people to fall on their faces, his voice sounds like "many waters," and the soles of his feet will dwell with Israel forever. 43:2-7
  74. "I fell upon my face." 43:3
  75. But the dimension break is over. God himself (in all this glory) takes over the measurements from the bronze man, telling us all about the fashion, form, law, and the dimensions of the house. 43:10-17
  76. The gate is shut because God entered by it. The only other person that can use the gate is the prince who eats bread in front of God. 44:2-3
  77. "Behold, the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD: and I fell upon my face." 44:4
  78. Don't bring any strangers or people with uncircumcised hearts or flesh to God's sanctuary when offering him fat and blood. 44:7-9
  79. Priests must wear linen when they are in the sanctuary. No wool is permitted. And whatever they wear, it must not cause them to sweat. God hates sweat! 44:17-18
  80. More of God's holy dimensions 45:1-6
  81. God hates the metric system. 45:11-14
  82. The prince (whoever he is) is the only other person that can enter through God's gate. (See 44:2.) 46:2
  83. "When the people of the land shall come before the LORD in the solemn feasts, he that entereth in by the way of the north gate to worship shall go out by the way of the south gate; and he that entereth by the way of the south gate shall go forth by the way of the north gate." 46:9
  84. Water starts to flow from under the door of the house. At first it was just a trickle, but soon it got up to the ankles, knees, and finally the loins. The bronze man measured it to be a thousand cubits and it became too deep for wading anymore. The water that got to the ocean would be healed, but not the marshes, "they will be given to salt." 47:1-11
  85. In the exciting conclusion of the book of Ezekiel, we learn who is going to get what and what the city is going to be named. I'm not going to spoil it for you, though. You have to read it yourself. 48:8-35

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