(Jacqueline E. Lapsley) Can These Bones Live

Jacqueline E.
Lapsley
Can These Bones Live?
Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die
alttestamentüche Wissenschaft
Herausgegeben von
Otto Kaiser
Band 301
W
DE
G
Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York
2000
Jacqueline E. Lapsley
Can These Bones Live?

The Problem of the Moral Self
in the Book of Ezekiel
wDE
G
Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York
2000
© Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines of the ANSI
to ensure permanence and durability.
Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahme
Lapsley, Jacqueline E.:

Can these bones live? : the problem of the moral self in the book of
Ezekiel / Jacqueline E. Lapsley. - Berlin ; New York : de Gruyter,
2000
(Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fur die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft ;
Bd. 301)
Zugl.: Princeton, NJ, Univ., Diss.
ISBN 3-11-016997-5
© Copyright 2000 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin.
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Printed in Germany
Cover design: Christopher Schneider, Berlin
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Binding: Lüderitz Sc Bauer-GmbH, Berlin
For Greg
Acknowledgments
Academic work can seem a solitary endeavor. Happily, I have discovered this to
be largely an illusion. At Emory I was especially blessed to have been among
scholars who think critically but creatively, and who seek to nurture intellectual
passions in themselves and others with integrity and with a sense of joy in
discovery. For teaching me much, challenging me often, and making graduate
school more fun than I had imagined, I thank my professors, John Hayes, Max
Miller, Gene Tucker, and Neal Walls, and classmates, Carleen Mandolfo, Tim
Sandoval, Amy Merrill Willis, and Armin Siedlecki. Graduate study has been an
excellent crucible for forging deep and lasting friendships.
I am grateful for the work of my dissertation committee: Martin Buss, for his
wide-ranging philosophical reflections, and his patience in letting me go my own
way. Timothy Jackson, for entire weekends consumed with E-mails on
philosophical matters and for his untiring energy and enthusiasm for sorting out
ethical categories, and for this project in general. Steve Kraftchick, for his
unflinching critical standards, for always asking the most difficult questions, and
for consistently having an open door and a listening ear over the years. The
generous and unfailing support of Carol Newsom, including careful and time-
consuming readings of these pages, has seen me through from beginning to end
on this project. The quality of her mind, the giftedness of her teaching, and the
generosity of her spirit are ever before me as reminders of what it is possible to
be as an intellectual, as a teacher, and as a human being.
I also want to thank Princeton Theological Seminary for making it possible
for me to work on my dissertation, including their continuing support of quality
and affordable daycare. The Biblical Department provided a warm and
encouraging welcome. I am especially grateful to Dennis Olson and Choon
Leong Seow for the loan of time-saving teaching materials, as well as to Patrick
Miller, Beverly Gaventa, and Katharine Sakenfeld for their very generous
counsel, support, and friendship. Thanks also go to Brian Alderman for help
with the Hebrew fonts, and to Bryan Bibb for his tireless formatting work.
Jim and Helen Lapsley have offered much love, encouragement, and
financial support over the years, for which I am grateful. My daughter Emma
rejuvenated my spirit daily by her presence. My greatest debt is to my beloved
husband, Greg Bezilla, who has lived through the writing of this work with
boundless grace and patience, and who has been a caring and loving spouse, as
well as a devoted father, throughout it all.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Chapter 1: Introduction 1
I. Imagining the Moral Self 1

A. The Recurring Tension 1
B. The Tension in Ezekiel 3
C. Thesis Statement 6
II. Practical Matters 8
A. Terminology 8
B. Philosophical Assumptions 11
C. Unity, Authorship, Method 12
Chapter 2: A History of Scholarship 15
I. Early Concerns 17
A. Pre-Modern Period 17
B. Divine Sovereignty and Human Duty 18
II. Individualism 19
A. Ezekiel and the Triumph of Individualism 19
B. Critique of the Individualism Hypothesis 22
C. The Larger Goal of Language of the Individual 23
III. Wrestling with the Tension 26
A. Michael Fishbane 26
B. Paul Joyce 28
C. Gordon Matties 31
IV. A New Framework 35
A. Repentance and Determinism 35
B. Repentance and Determinism:
Recent Efforts to Confront the Tensions 37
Chapter 3: Biblical Portraits of the Human Moral Self Outside of Ezekiel. . 43
I. Virtuous Moral Selfhood: The Dominant View 45

χ Table of Contents
A.Genesis 2-3T 45
Β. Jeremiah 48
II. Neutral Moral Selfhood: The Minority View 53
A. The Primeval History 54
B. Jeremiah 58
1. The Human Condition in Jeremiah 58
2. The Divine Response in Jeremiah 59
III. Summary And Conclusion 64
Chapter 4: The Shift in the Origin of Moral Selfhood from Intrinsic

in Human Beings to Gift from God 67
I. The Tension 67
II. The Language of Repentance 68
A. The Sentinel (3:16-21; 33:1-20) 68
B. Marking the Innocent (Chapter 9) 71
C. Consulting the Prophet (14:1-11) 72
D. Imputed Righteousness (14:12-23) 73
E. The Responsibility of Israel (Chapter 18) 74
III. The Language of Determinism 78
A. Revisionist Histories 78
B. The Foundling 80
C. Oholah and Oholibah 86
D. A History of Israel 91
E. The Filthy Pot 97
F. A New Heart and a New Spirit 103
IV. Conclusion 106
Chapter 5: The Shift in the Form of Moral Selfhood from Action

to Knowledge 109
I. The Knowledge of God Ill

A. The Prophetic Call Ill
1. The Initial Call: Chapters 2-5 Ill
2. The Prophet as Sign: Chapter 24 115
3. The Prophet as Model 116
4. The Post-Destruction Call: Chapter 33 118
B. The Recognition Formula 121
C. The Language of Memory 126
II. Human Self-Knowledge 129
A. Excursus on Shame 130
Table of Contents xi
Β. Shame: Memory and Self-Loathing 140

C. Shame: 2)13 and dSd 142
1. Chapter 36 142
2. The Foundling (Reprise): Chapter 16 145
3. Oholah and Ohlibah (Reprise): Chapter 23 153
4. Rhetorical Implications 156
III. Conclusion 157
Chapter 6: The Shift in the Origin and Form of Moral Selfhood and the
Portrait of Human Beings in the Restoration Chapters (Chapters 36-48). 159
I. Divine Re-Creation and the Waning of Action (Chapters 36-39) 160

A. New Land for a New People (Chapter 36) 160
1. 36:8-12 161
2. 36:13-21 163
3. 36:22-34 164
4. 36:35-38 167
B. The Risen Bones (37:1-14) 169
C. Quietism in Chapters 38-39 171
II. The Centrality of Knowledge in Chapters 40—48 173
A. Seeing & Witnessing & Teaching 176
B. The Necessity of Shame 177
C. Ignorance as Sinful 180
III. Action as Secondary Consequence of the New Identity 180
IV. Summary and Conclusion to the Chapter 183
Chapter 7: Conclusion 185
I. Summary of the Argument 185

II. Implications for Ezekiel 187
III. Implications for Us 189
Bibliography 195
Chapter 1: Introduction
I. Imagining the Moral Self
A. T h e Recurring Tension
T h e problem o f the moral self is a perennial oñe: D o our actions determine who
we are as moral persons? O r does our moral character determine which actions
we will take? These questions have shaped in the past, and continue to shape in
the present, philosophical debate about human moral identity. Part o f the
present debate about the moral self finds expression in the distinction between
"procedural ethics" and "substantive ethics." 1 Procedural ethics emphasizes the
process o f moral reasoning, which leads to a focus on action as determinative o f
the moral self. Substantive ethics stresses the priority o f a vision o f the g o o d in
moral reasoning, and consequendy sees identity as central to the moral self
(right actions flow out of the vision o f the g o o d that forms that identity). For
several centuries now, a view of the moral self informed by proceduralist ethics
has dominated the philosophical discourse of western culture. T o this way o f
thinking, the self discovers its moral identity in the act of choosing.
This view o f the self has enjoyed a hegemonic position in western culture
until very recently. According to Charles Taylor, moderns have embraced this
view o f moral selfhood because we are inheritors o f naturalism (and Kant):
"Thinkers o f a naturalist temper, when considering ethics, naturally tend to
think in terms o f action. This temper has helped contribute to the dominance of
moral theories of obligatory action in our intellectual culture." 2 Taylor traces the
historical path by which we have come to our present understanding o f the
moral self as primarily defined by procedural ethics, while casting a critical eye
on that construction (his argument will be taken up in more detail in the
Conclusion). Taylor argues that the ancients had a more developed sense of
ethics as involving the whole self, not just specific actions. 3 Compared to the
1 The distinctions are derived from Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self. The Making of the Modem
Identity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), 85-86.
2 Taylor, Sources of the Self 81.
3 Specifically: "Practical reason was understood by the ancients substantively. T o be rational
was to have the correct vision.... But once we sideline a sense or vision of the good and
2 The Moral Self in the Book of Ezekiel
modern understanding of the role of action in ethics this is undoubtedly true.

But while certainly not inheritors of naturalism (or Kant), the writers of the
Hebrew Scriptures were also deeply committed to an ethics in which action is
the central component.4 Consider the rhetorical emphasis in Deuteronomy on
choosing to obey the commandments—ethics are determined by how one
chooses to act.
I mention here the biblical (at least Hebrew Bible) and modern emphasis on
action as central to the moral self (while acknowledging they are far from
identical) because it provides a sharp contrast to the primary portrait of the
moral self that emerges from the book of Ezekiel: for Ezekiel, as I hope to
show, the self is given its identity first, and the knowledge of that identity
enables right action to follow. In other words, action for Ezekiel discloses one's
identity instead of determining that identity. Unlike Taylor (who pursues a
similar line of inquiry in regard to the self), however, Ezekiel is not a
philosopher, and he is certainly not consciously preoccupied with developing a
theory of the moral self. Rather, the book is an earnest attempt to persuade a
despairing audience to envision themselves as part of a future blessed by God,
and to that end, to embrace their role in the restoration of national life. In this
effort Ezekiel has much to say about the moral identity of human beings, which,
while seemingly incidental to his larger rhetorical purpose, is in fact essential to
his argument and goes to the heart of his vision of the future. The book of
Ezekiel testifies that the view of the self (with action at its center) that Ezekiel
had inherited from biblical tradition has begun to buckle under the pressure of
historical events. Faced with the destruction of the idea of the moral self that he
had inherited, Ezekiel works to adapt a notion of the self that will be capable of
functioning in a new context. His situation in the 6th century BCE bears some
striking similarities to our own context. The postmodern critique of the self (in
which the very idea of a "self' no longer enjoys unanimous support) constitutes
a critical historical moment in which the idea of the self requires reformulation
and rearticulation in order to maintain (or regain) its status as a useful category
of thought. The debate between procedural and substantive ethics participates
in this larger question of how to understand the self in the postmodern context.
As a result of modernism and the postmodern critique, several thinkers have
pondered the problem of the self and have suggested ways of reconstructing it
in order to overcome the difficulties posed by the postmodern context. Taylor,
for example, attempts to come at the problem by laying out how we arrived
consider it irrelevant to moral thinking, then our notion of practical reasoning has to be
procedural" (Taylor, Sources of the Self, 86).
4 Unlike philosophers of a modem stripe, of course, the ethics of the biblical writers are
embedded in their work, not consciously reflected upon in second-order discourse.
Introduction 3
historically at our understanding of the self in the first place. Ezekiel and
postmodern philosophers of a constructive bent find themselves in a similar
situation: trying to reconstruct a workable notion of the self when the previous
paradigm has begun to unravel. I do not mean to overstate the similarities. The
differences between our own postmodern context and Ezekiel's premodern one
are too numerous to outline (and, indeed, Taylor discusses many of them).
Nonetheless, the problem of how to understand the self that the very late 20th
century faces bears a striking resemblance to the problem that Israel was facing
in the 6th century BCE. It is not my intention in the chapters that follow to
attempt a dialogue between Ezekiel and postmodern philosophers. My analysis
of Ezekiel stands alone. I will, however, return to Charles Taylor's 5 discussion of
the self in the Conclusion in order to draw out in more detail how his thinking
relates to Ezekiel's struggle to reconstruct the moral self. I believe that such a
conversation would be quite fruitful, and while it is beyond the scope of this
project to establish and then maintain that conversation, I hope to point out the
places where such a discussion might begin.
B. The Tension in Ezekiel
Although the problem of the human moral self is a recurring one, history
testifies that certain cataclysmic events may provoke a heightened awareness of
perennial issues. When confronted with the challenges that emerge in the wake
of previously unimaginable historical events, core traditional assumptions about
the way the world is can face a more intense scrutiny than they otherwise might
receive. This attitude of scrutiny often develops when a tension in core
assumptions that was previously latent in the culture, and thus not perceived as
problematic or even as a tension, rises to the surface, thereby exposing the
tension as unresolved.6 Thus an apparent contradiction between ideology and
history may reveal what is in fact a contradiction within ideology itself. For
Ezekiel, a significant tension is located in the area of human identity: the
Babylonian Crisis, namely, the events of 605—586 B.C.E. in Judah, presented the
occasion for a latent cultural tension concerning human moral selfhood to
emerge as a central concern.7 This tension is discernible in the apparently
5 I choose Taylor for this purpose because he articulates the problem of the self in a
particularly comprehensive and cogent manner, but several other thinkers would be equally
interesting as conversation partners.
6 By "rising to the surface," I mean that the dynamics of the tension manifest themselves
relatively clearly in cultural artifacts of the period.
7 Referring to the Qumran text, the "Two Spirits Treatise" (1QS 3-4), Carol Newsom
observes: "Concern about political domination can be displaced onto anthropology,
contradictory ways in which human beings are depicted in the book of Ezekiel:
as capable of obedience (and thus subject to calls to repentance) on the one
hand, and as fundamentally incapable of obedience (subject to a fairly strong
determinism) on the other. The nature of human moral identity is in crisis, and
Ezekiel's conflicting portraits of human beings reflect this crisis.8
The former of these views I will term "virtuous" moral selfhood, which
assumes that human beings are capable of obedience, that is, that they are able
to know, intend and act for the good. 9 As I will suggest below in more detail,
virtuous moral selfhood is dominant in the other biblical materials from Ancient
Israel (e.g., Deuteronomic, Jeremiah). The more deterministic view I will call
"neutral" moral selfhood, which involves the capacity to make morally neutrali
decisions (from the agent's perspective) and act on them. Neutral moral
selfhood is necessary to take any action at all, but it does not presuppose any
ability to know, intend and act for the good. Thus, virtuous moral selfhood
encompasses neutral moral selfhood, but neutral moral persons do not
necessarily possess virtuous moral selfhood. A view of human beings as
possessing only neutral moral selfhood is also present to some degree in the
Hebrew Bible. Consider Proverbs 27:22, for example: "Even if you crush the
fool in a mortar with a pestle along with crushed grain, his folly will not be
d r i v e n o u t o f h i m " ( - n o r r t ò -b'j2 m a n n -]inn a i r o n a ' π κ π - η κ - ώ ί Γ ο η dk
in1?·!* vbun, Prov. 27:22). The intractable nature of folly in certain individuals
suggests that, while they are held morally accountable for their actions (the fool
is always morally accountable for his folly), fools somehow lack the ability to
choose the good. The neutral moral self can choose certain specific actions, but
s/he does not choose those actions in light of a consistent external standard
that is imbued with value (an axiological point of reference). The presence in
reshaping the structure of human character according to the dynamics of the repressed
struggle" (Carol A. Newsom, "Knowing As Doing: The Social Symbolics of Knowledge at
Qumran," Semeta 59 [1992]: 150).
8 A great deal has been written on the alleged tension between individualism and a more
corporate mentality in Ezekiel (see ch. 2). In keeping with the most recent research in this
area (e.g., see Joel S. Kaminsky, Corporate RisponHbiUty in the Hebrew Bible (JSOTSup 196;
Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995]), I do not think that Ezekiel was a proponent of
"individualism." When I speak of the "self" in the context of Ezekiel, therefore, I mean his
basic anthropology, how he thinks about human beings, all Israelite human beings, anyway.
This is unrelated to any idea of the "self" as an individual in a post-Enlightenment context.
To ask about the self is to ask how a people "define themselves as persons" (Clifford
Geertz, Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology [New York: Basic Books,
1983], 58). See also Martin J. Buss, The Prophetic Word of Hosea: A Morphological Stuify (Berlin:
Alfred Topelmann, 1969), 140.
9 The "good" is of course variable. But in the biblical materials, including Ezekiel, it denotes
torah, or more generally, doing God's will.
Introduction 5
Israelite culture of both virtuous and neutral moral selfhood as working models
for moral identity suggests the latent cultural tension mentioned above, a
tension which Ezekiel highlights, struggles with, and finally attempts to resolve.
These two apparently contradictory views seem to have coexisted in the
culture without causing enough dissonance to warrant serious attention until
Ezekiel highlighted the problem. The tension between the understandings
evident in Ezekiel reflects a wrestling with these inherited views of moral
identity at a time when the dominant view of the virtuous moral self, in
particular, seems no longer to have offered a completely adequate understanding
of human behavior and history. The catastrophic events to which Ezekiel was
witness challenged the pragmatic relevance, that is, the adequacy and coherence,
of the dominant view.10 By sharply delineating the contours of the tension
between two contradictory views, Ezekiel revealed an existing tension in cultural
assumptions about human beings. In doing so he began to shape a new vision
of the moral self in which he would incorporate elements from the inherited
traditions, but out of them would fashion something completely new.
In his presentation of the two competing perspectives, Ezekiel draws from
the traditions available to him, but not surprisingly he also shapes each portrait
of the moral self to suit his own ends so that neither is identical with its
appearance in other parts of the Bible. It would therefore be more accurate to
say that Ezekiel's two contradictory portraits of moral selfhood bear a family
resemblance to views of moral identity found elsewhere in the Bible.
Furthermore, Ezekiel does not just bring a latent tension to the surface by
juxtaposing these two views in a literary wrestling match. Rather, within and out
of the conflict between these views something different is created, a new
articulation of moral identity emerges that moves a definitive step away from the
previously dominant view of human beings as virtuous moral persons, that is, as
inherently capable of moral action. Yet ultimately Ezekiel restores virtue to
moral identity, but it is by developing the other position, by taking up the model
of human beings as neutral moral persons and transforming it, that he arrives at
a (re)construction of the moral self as capable of virtue.
10 From other biblical writings, it seems that the pervasive interpretation of the Babylonian
crisis current in Ezekiel's time dictated that the catastrophe was the deserved punishment for
corporate disobedience (whether the corporate disobedience belongs to past or present
generations is less clear, and is one of the issues in Ezekiel). It is not surprising, then, that
the nature and source of that disobedience would come under scrutiny, given the enormity
and cataclysmic quality of the devastation.
C. Thesis Statement
My central thesis is that a dual shift in the understanding of human beings as

moral persons occurs in Ezekiel: a shift in both the origin and the form of human
moral selfhood. The origin of moral selfhood in the "virtuous moral self'
paradigm that predominates in the Hebrew Bible is within human beings
themselves. Thus in much of the Bible human beings are assumed to be
inherently capable of making moral choices and engaging in moral actions. In
Ezekiel, the dominance of that view is challenged by the repeated depictions of
human beings as inherently incapable of virtuous moral action (in these passages
they are only "neutral" moral persons). When in Ezekiel human beings are
described as capable of choosing and acting for the good, it is frequently
because they have received that capacity as a free and prior gift from God. Thus
the origin of moral selfhood shifts from existing inherently in human beings to
existing in God as a potential gift to humanity.
This shift presents itself in the tension between the language of repentance
and the language of determinism in the book. In the language of repentance, the
capacity of humans to discern and perform morally is implicitly acknowledged
and often explicitly appealed to in exhortation. A number of texts reveal this,
including 3:16-21, 14:12-23, ch. 18, and 33:1-20. These texts offer fervent
appeals to the moral judgment of the people; they are assumed to be virtuous
moral persons. Yet, as I will argue in ch. 4, the vigorous reassertion of the
dominant view in fact signals a questioning of its present validity. For alongside
of this language of repentance occur repeated diverse and forceful articulations
of an anthropological determinism. These texts question the assumption that
human beings are inherently capable of choosing the good. In short, they suggest
that virtuous moral selfhood does not have its origin in human beings. Some of
the most important passages to present the moral identity of the people as
verging on the neutral instead of the virtuous are the prophetic commissionings
(chs. 2, 33:30-33), chs. 16, 20, and 23 (revisionist history), and 24:11-13 (the
corroded pot). The shift away from locating moral capacity within humans
inherently and toward placing it within the purview of God's action is then
suggested by the divine gift of the new heart and spirit (e.g., 11:19; 36:26), as
well as in the new creation language in chs. 36—37.
But the form of this divine gift of moral identity does not look exactly like
what is considered inherent in human beings in virtuous moral selfhood, where
the form centers on action. To be a virtuous moral self in much of the Hebrew
Bible is to act rightly, obeying laws and doing commandments. But in much of
Ezekiel, action recedes as the primary element in moral identity; rather, the
moral selfhood given by God focuses on knowledge (knowledge of God and
knowledge of self) as its primary element, with moral action flowing out of that
Introduction 7
knowledge as an important, but derivative consequence. This knowledge can be

broadly divided into two types: the people's knowledge of G o d and their
knowledge of themselves. Ezekiel's presentation of the prophetic call, the
recognition formula ("you/they shall know that I am Yahweh"), and the
language of memory testify to the importance of the knowledge of God. Self-
knowledge, on the other' hand, is expressed primarily by the language of
memory (again) and of shame. O n e result of this shift in the form of moral
identity is a portrait of human beings (especially in the "salvation" chapters 36—
48) whose primary function is to watch and to witness, not to do and to act.
This dual shift in the origin and form of moral selfhood is not so definitive in
Ezekiel that the previously dominant view, which placed moral identity within
human beings and stressed action, disappears. O n the contrary, the prevalent
view is vigorously reasserted at various points in the book, thus constituting the
tension outlined above. That the tension appears so prominently suggests that
this new vision of moral selfhood with its shift in origin and form is just
beginning to be worked out; it does not therefore represent a complete shift,
but rather a movement toward a new way of thinking about human beings.
In sum, the depictions of human moral identity in Ezekiel may be broadly
classified into three types. In the virtuous moral self the origin of morality
resides within human beings, and the form it takes is action (the dominant view
in the HB). For the neutral moral self it is difficult to speak of either origin or
form because this type is not characterized by moral decision-making of any
kind (moral f r o m the agent's perspective—on the divine perspective of the
neutral moral selfs actions see below). Nonetheless a deterministic perspective
can easily accompany this view. The representations of neutral moral selfhood
in Ezekiel appear to be the direct result of Ezekiel's reflections on human
morality in light of the catastrophe of the exile. From the unmitigated disaster of
the Babylonian incursion, and the history that led up to it, it appears that people
are incapable of acting for the good. Hence neutral moral selfhood, seen from
exile, would seem to constitute a more accurate description of the human
condition than virtuous moral selfhood. Yet this poses its own problems, since
neutral moral selfhood is not a workable model in the theistic worldview of the
Bible. Most of the Hebrew Bible is predicated on the idea of a dynamic
relationship between Yahweh and Israel, and neutral moral selfhood precludes
the possibility of such a relationship (the lack of an external standard of value
cripples the neutral moral self in this regard). And so, finally, Ezekiel fashions a
third way out of these two paradigms: he begins with the apparent truth of
neutral moral selfhood, namely that human beings do not possess any inherent
moral ability to discern the good, and he constructs a new model in which
human beings are endowed with a moral identity given by G o d whose central
component is knowledge, not action.
The shift discernible in Ezekiel is not one that can be charted
chronologically, however. The two previously existing paradigms, virtuous and

neutral (Ezekiel draws both from the traditions available to him), appear in
interspersed passages up through ch. 33. So the shift cannot be plotted in a
linear fashion. Rather these two paradigms spar with one another like boxers
dancing around each other in the ring—first one asserting itself, then the other
claiming dominance etc. Yet in the last third of the book a third model emerges.
Ezekiel takes elements of the two competing paradigms and shapes a new vision
of human moral identity that can function in the brave new world he imagines.
What we see, then, are the first, rather tentative steps, in a logical, but not
necessarily chronological, move from one way of thinking toward another.
II. Practical Matters
A. Terminology
For the purposes of this discussion, I am understanding the general term

"moral selfhood" as the ability to choose to act one way or another, while being
held morally accountable by others (in the Bible usually by God) for the choice.
When considered in light of the passages in Ezekiel where human ability or
inability to think and choose and act is central, this very basic definition serves
very well to bring the underlying issues into better focus, without distorting the
meaning of the text. The terms "virtuous" and "neutral" moral selfhood, already
introduced above, distinguish respectively, on the one hand, between an
understanding of the human moral self as inherently capable of making
reasoned choices and of freely acting based on those choices in accordance with
the good, and, on the other hand, an understanding of the human moral self as
capable of action in general, but as inherently incapable of choosing and acting
for the good. These terms are loosely derived from an Augustinian distinction
between "mere freedom of choice (liberum arbitrìunì) [and] the more holistic
notion of good disposition, candor, and personal integrity {libertas). Freedom of
choice (a.k.a. liberty of indifference) refers exclusively to the will and says
nothing about the ends to which free choice is put, while überlas is a more
normative notion in which the whole person (rather than just the will)
flourishes." 11 While obviously prone to anachronism, these terms nonetheless
11 Timothy P. Jackson, "Restoring the Moral Lexicon: Ethics from Abomination to

Liberation," Soundings: An interdisäpänary journal 76 (1993): 498. Cf. Augustine, On Free Choice
of the Will (trans. Anna S. Benjamin, L. H. Hackstaff; Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1964), 22,
128.
Introduction 9
seem to fit, at least for heuristic purposes, the kinds of moral identity articulated
in Ezekiel.
It is crucial with respect to the "neutral" model, which Ezekiel usually evokes
with deterministic language, to underscore that though they are, at the deepest
level, not free to choose and act for the good, nonetheless human beings are still
moral persons, that is, they are still held accountable for their choices and
actions: nowhere in the HB are humans depicted as dumb wood, not to be held
responsible for their decisions. This poses a logical problem for the modern
reader. How can people be held accountable for not acting for the good, when
they are incapable of knowing, intending, or acting for the good? The key to this
conundrum is in recognizing that it is in some sense our problem, that is, a
problem created by the difference between our post-Enlightenment intellectual
framework and Ezekiel's premodern one. An important example of this clash of
worldviews, and one that pertains to the simultaneity of accountability and
determinism mentioned above, concerns the modern distinction between the
ethical, the aesthetic, and the scientific. In Ezekiel's intellectual framework,
certain distinctions are made among the ethical, the aesthetic, and the
theological (this last parallels the scientific for us), but these categories are
nonetheless indivisible in a way that they are not for us. In a discussion of
"abomination" in the Hebrew Bible, Timothy Jackson illustrates this point:
The theological reading of "abominable" ... reflects the classical unity of the true, the good,
and the beautiful. Biblical "abominations" range from what is false (lying) to what is
malicious (injustice) to what is putrid (tainted meat) not because use of the term is
unprincipled but because its principle is premodern. It is not that no distinction has yet been
drawn between empirical, moral, and aesthetic judgments—m the Hebrew Bible, the Ten
Commandments are clearly demarcated from the Holiness Code—but that these judgments
are still related systematically in terms of the will of God or the created order of the universe.
Error, evil, and ugliness are not quite synonymous, but they are equally contrary to divine
purposes and thus "off omens" symptomatic of one another. 12
In the priestly tradition, not only are the modern distinctions between ethical
and ritual violations largely irrelevant, but significant attention is given to
unintentional and unwitting violations. All types of transgressions, whether or
not the perpetrator is aware of them or could have avoided them, impinge on
the sanctity of the sanctuary and sacrifices must be offered to restore it to a state
of holiness.13 Where the categories of the ethical, aesthetic, ritual, and theological
are seen as unified within the divinely ordered universe, it is entirely possible to
be held accountable for actions that are not in keeping with that order,
regardless of whether one could have acted otherwise. Thus the actions of even
12 Jackson, "Moral Lexicon," 497.

13 Jacob Milgrom provides extended discussion of moral identity in the priestly material, and of
unconscious and unintended violations in particular, in Leviticus 1-16: A New Translation with
Introduction and Commentary (New York: Doubleday, 1991), esp. 333-34, 361-63, 369-73.
the neutral moral self are always morally fraught, even t h o u g h , in an i m p o r t a n t

way, the agent of those actions was incapable of making " m o r a l " decisions. T h e
logical p r o b l e m is thus distinctly our logical p r o b l e m . T h e text offers a different
way of looking at moral identity and responsibility, o n e w h i c h gestures toward
the limits of our o w n framework.
S o m e possible areas of c o n f u s i o n need to be addressed. First, a clear
distinction m u s t b e established and maintained between t h e capaaty f o r moral
decision-making and the question o f the will. In this dissertation t h e focus will
be o n the capacity o r incapacity of the people to orient themselves to the g o o d .
In general, I will n o t entertain the p r o b l e m of the will (here I m u s t n o t e this
divergence f r o m Augustine's discussion—his focus is the will). T h e incapacity
of people t o orient themselves to the g o o d is a p r o b l e m o f f u n d a m e n t a l moral
equipment; it is a flaw at the m o s t basic level of the moral self. A p r o b l e m of the
will, o n the o t h e r hand, is already a step f u r t h e r along in moral decision-
m a k i n g — t h a t is, failure to c o n f o r m one's will to the g o o d assumes that, while
o n e has chosen w i t h o u t regard f o r the g o o d in this instance, it is possible to do
so. So the possibility of choice is a reality in questions of the will. Refusal to
orient one's will to do the right thing constitutes a failure in the p r o p e r use of
one's moral equipment, n o t a defect in the equipment itself. An example may
illustrate the difference: if I k n o w h o w to build a chair o u t o f w o o d , b u t I refuse
to d o so (out of laziness o r whatever), it is by action of m y will that I refuse to
p e r f o r m the task. B u t if I d o n o t build the chair because I d o n o t k n o w h o w to
d o so, it is n o t a failure o f the will. Rather, the failure occurs at a m o r e
f u n d a m e n t a l level—I a m n o t equipped with t h e basic knowledge required f o r
the task. M o s t o f the people's recalcitrance in the Bible is attributed to their
perverse will—they k n o w w h a t they should do, but they d o n o t d o it. Ezekiel,
however, begins to suspect, based o n his evaluation of the past, that they in fact
d o n o t possess t h e right moral equipment to exercise the moral will at all.
So far I have suggested that, outside of the chapters w h e r e virtuous moral
selfhood implicitly i n f o r m s t h e view of humanity (as in chs. 3 , 1 4 , 1 8 , 33), action
n o longer f o r m s the primary substance o f h u m a n moral identity in Ezekiel,
having been p u s h e d aside by knowledge. O n c e Yahweh has acted, with the
result that the people gain knowledge of G o d and of themselves, the text is
largely silent o n the role o f h u m a n action in the future; people are n o t described
as doing m u c h of anything o n c e Yahweh has decisively acted. B u t does that m e a n
there is n o place f o r action in the new m o d e l of the self? Indeed, it is difficult if
n o t impossible to imagine an understanding of the h u m a n moral self that does
n o t involve action at s o m e level. Action, therefore, does n o t recede entirely
f r o m moral identity in Ezekiel either. It appears, f o r example, in t h e " n e w heart,
new spirit" language of chapters 11 and 36. A f t e r the new heart of flesh and the
new spirit aré installed, Yahweh proclaims, "I will make it so that you follow my
statutes and keep m y ordinances and d o t h e m " (36:26—27; cf. 11:19—20). T h e
Introduction 11
new self, empowered by the divinely given heart and spirit, will act rightly, but
that action is secondary, a consequence of the newly constituted self (see also
37:24, after the dry bones have been revivified). Thus action retains its function
in the moral self, but it does not enjoy pride of place in this new construction of
human moral identity. Right actions are treated almost as an afterthought,
because their performance relies exclusively on getting the right knowledge in
place; they emerge as an apparently natural consequence of an accurate sense of
God and self.
B. Philosophical Assumptions
My thesis concerning the shift in moral identity in Ezekiel is reliant upon

certain philosophical assumptions about how Ezekiel understands moral
selfhood. It will be useful to examine at least one of those assumptions before
turning to Ezekiel. The tension I alluded to above is most obvious in the
juxtaposition of two statements in Ezekiel: "Get yourselves a new heart and a
new spirit" (18:31) and "A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put
within you" (36:26). I am assuming, with regard to the former exhortation (and
similar statements), that Ezekiel believes the people to be capable of changing
their behavior and attitudes such that they are able to effect a kind of self-
transformation. This assumes, in the Kantian formulation, that "ought implies
can." In other words: "what is morally appropriate to do in a given situation
must be that which is entirely within our power to produce or bring about in
that situation."14 The virtuous moral selfhood of the Hebrew Bible (and of parts
of Ezekiel, such as 18:31 cited above) adheres more or less to this view (see
chapter 3). Kant and the HB share an emphasis on moral obligation. Ezekiel,
(and other HB texts), differs from the Kantian view, however, in his
understanding of moral accountability (as discussed above): for Ezekiel, it is not
only that which we choose for which we can be assessed and held accountable
morally.
Yet this Kantian view is not the only possible way of thinking about moral
identity, and several philosophers have criticized Kant on this point. A brief
excursus into that discussion will help us to see if my assumption of "ought
implies can" with regard to Ezekiel should stand. Lawrence Blum argues that it
is not just actions that reflect on us morally, but also feelings, inclinations, and
emotions. He sees the dichotomy between reason and feelings as the source of
14 Lawrence A. Blum, Friendship, Altruism and Morality (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,
1980), 170.
an unfortunate tendency to view reason as the sole province of morality.15

Charles Taylor echoes this complaint when he notes that morality in
contemporary discussions is solely concerned with "what it is right to do rather
than with what it is good to be."16 There is a great deal to be said for the
argument to include dimensions of human experience outside actions in moral
assessment, but I do not believe that it accurately reflects Ezekiel's view in those
places in the book where he urges the people to act. Certainly when Ezekiel
urges the people to "get a new heart" he is not referring simply to a change in
behavior. On the contrary, a change in every aspect of one's being, a
fundamental transformation of one's orientation to existence is in view (and this
would necessarily include emotions, inclinations, etc.). Nonetheless, for Ezekiel
that change in one's orientation to existence must manifest itself in changed
actions (here I am speaking only of those passages in Ezekiel which reflect the
HB's dominant view of virtuous moral selfhood, e.g., chs. 3, 14, 18, 33). The
crucial question for Ezekiel in these passages is: Do one's actions conform to
torah? Attitudes and emotions are important, but only in so far as they manifest
themselves in actions. In sum, then, in those places where Ezekiel is working
out of the dominant paradigm of the virtuous moral self, he assumes that the
people are in fact capable of changing their behavior, but they have chosen not
to do so.17 Elsewhere in Ezekiel (e.g., in 36:26 above), however, I will argue that
Ezekiel's views on moral identity share considerable ground with Blum and
Taylor, among others, in that they all seek to envision a broader, more holistic
understanding of moral selfhood by shifting the focus away from action alone.
C. Unity, Authorship, Method
In general, I will address only a few of the many redactional questions

surrounding the book as a whole, because I believe that the book displays an
15 Blum, Friendship, 169-173. Richard Brandt also offers a critique of the Kantian view, albeit
from a different angle. Brandt offers his critique based on an assumption of ethical
determinism, (albeit not a hard determinism), which is not the case with the virtuous moral
self of the Bible. Secondly, Brandt does not claim a universal application for his thesis: "So,
unless we are contradicting ourselves when we say that people ought to keep all their
promises, we must be using 'morally ought,' sometimes, in a sense that does not entail 'can'"
(Richard B. Brandt, Ethical Theory: The Problems of Normative and Critical Ethics [Englewood
Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1959], 517 [emphasis added on "sometimes"]).
16 Taylor, Sources of the Self 79. Taylor's views will be taken up again in the Conclusion.
17 Pace Buss, who suggests that the crucial role of divine speech and the direct address of torah
in the Bible form such an "uncompromising claim" that the people "cannot draw upon
outside resources as a way of meeting the imperative" (Buss, "The Language of the Divine
"I," The Journal of Bible and Religion 29 [1961]: 105).
Introduction 13
overall coherence in its structure and themes that supports a "holistic" approach
to its interpretation. Thus I am interested in the problem of human moral
identity as it emerges from the book as a whole, and not in anything that might
be ascribed only to the prophet Ezekiel or any other putative redactional layer.18
While I assume that the book came together more or less in its present form
sometime before the Restoration (c. 520), such an assumption is not absolutely
crucial to my overall argument. The book reflects an overall coherence (as I
mentioned above), but it is also characterized by an apparent lack of
organization with regard to the details. The sequence of some chapters has no
discernible organizing principle. The reason for this gap in the macro- and
micro- structure of the book is not self-evident, but I would tentatively suggest
that it is related to the problem of human moral identity, which, I believe, is one
of the major issues driving the book. 19 The tension between conflicting portraits
of human beings pervades the book as a whole and consumes considerable
textual energy, which may suggest why the structure is a bit disordered: a battle
of sorts is being waged. Because this battle is largely unconscious, Ezekiel is not
in complete control of how it gets played out, and thus, like an analysand's
dreams, it may appear somewhat chaotic.20
While I will engage some theoretical issues where they may better illumine
the text, my approach to Ezekiel is largely exegetical, and while I offer new
interpretations of several passages, for some passages I do not. The reason is
simple: my goal is to trace the outlines of a larger struggle over moral identity,
and to discern the ways in which it is both problematized and refashioned.
While my mode of reading is not methodologically complex from this
perspective, one aspect of my approach to these texts should be expressed at
the outset because it can lead to confusion. Frequently the material most
significant for Ezekiel's view of moral identity uses highly metaphorical
language. I therefore intend to read these metaphorical passages for the implicit
assumptions that undergird the way in which the metaphors function. Thus my
goal is to tease out what Ezekiel expresses both consciously and unconsciously
about human beings through his use of metaphorical language.
Chapter 2 will sketch the history of interpretation of the tension in Ezekiel,
18 I am using the name "Ezekiel" as shorthand for the writers of the book of Ezekiel.
Furthermore, I frequently use the language of active agency (e.g., "Ezekiel highlighted,"
"Ezekiel revealed," etc.), but by this I do not mean to impute conscious motives to the
writers (the nature of the agency of the writers is a separate question from the one I propose
to address).
19 Others being how to account theologically for the destruction of the Temple and the
justification of Yahweh in light of that event.
20 I am not suggesting that the problem is Ezekiel's as an individual. Rather, the problem is
corporate and affects exilic Israelite society as a whole.
with a particular emphasis on the modern period. The apparent contradictions

in Ezekiel have been viewed through a number of lenses, each of which adds to
our understanding of the problem, but also leaves something significant out of
the discussion. How moral selfhood appears in the HB outside of Ezekiel will
be taken up in Chapter 3. Two basic paradigms emerge: the dominant one
emphasizes the human ability to act morally, while a minority view questions
that ability. The shift in the origin of moral selfhood—from existing intrinsically
in human beings to existing only potentially as a gift from God—is the subject
of Chapter 4. Here the juxtaposition of the language of repentance and the
language of determinism will be considered. The discussion in Chapter 5 will
focus on the shift in the form of moral selfhood from an emphasis on action to
an emphasis on knowledge, which for Ezekiel is divided into two categories:
knowledge of God and knowledge of self. In Chapter 6 we will examine the
shift in the origin and form of moral selfhood as it appears in the last quarter of
the book—the "salvation" chapters. And finally, the Conclusion will draw out
some implications of this study for reading Ezekiel, and for pondering our own
postmodern situation, where the identity of the self is once again open to
widespread critique, and subsequent reconstruction.
Chapter 2: A History Of Scholarship
Many persons who have perplexed themselves with metaphysical speculations relating to
human inability, have sadly stumbled at the call here given to the Jews to make to themselves
a new heart and a new spirit Strictly speaking, however, it is nothing more than a declaration
of the duty of sinners to be otherwise minded towards God and holiness than they are. It
does not require them to create within themselves any new faculties—that were a physical
impossibility; but to exercise in the right direction the faculties with which, as moral and
responsible agents, their Maker has endowed them. 1
Thus does the nineteenth century scholar Ebenezer Henderson account for the
tension between the declaration in Ezekiel 11:19 (cf. 36:26) that Yahweh will
give the people a new heart and a new spirit, and the exhortation in 18:31 for
the people to fashion these items for themselves. The tension evoked by the
juxtaposition of these passages raises some questions for Ezekiel's
anthropology, as well as his theology—can the people transform themselves, or
does this lie solely within the divine prerogative? Is repentance a real possibility,
or not? Scholars have noted these tensions concerning human moral identity in
Ezekiel with varying degrees of concern. The example from Ezekiel mentioned
above is just one of the most obvious ways in which various passages in Ezekiel,
when juxtaposed, expose tensions in the prophet's thinking. In comparing
chapters 3, 14, 18, 33 with chapters 16, 20, and 23 as well as with chapters 11
and 36, one is confronted with multiple explicit and implicit inconsistencies in
the portraits of humans beings, and in the nature of human-divine relations. In
the chapters which follow this one, I will explore many of these inconsistencies.
The goal in this chapter is simply to sketch an outline of how these tensions
have been addressed in the history of interpretation of Ezekiel.
The ways in which these inconsistencies have been articulated and
formulated by scholars have varied considerably, however. Early in the history
of interpretation, the problem does not seem to have much concerned readers
of Ezekiel. By the seventeenth century, however, the most obvious tension
(between 11:19/36:26 and 18:31) begins to find acknowledgment. The problem
this poses for theology and anthropology is usually quickly defused, however,
often by an appeal to the witness of Scripture as a whole. This phase of
interpretation, which focuses on the relationship between divine initiative and
l Ebenezer Henderson, The Book of the Prophet Ezekiel (Andover: Warren F. Draper, 1870), 100.
human responsibility, lasts well into the nineteenth century. Interestingly, after a
long period in which a completely different way of framing the tension will
dominate (i.e., the individual vs. the collective), the most recent phase of
scholarship returns to this same question of divine initiative and human
responsibility, albeit in a rather different way.
For much of this century the tensions, sometimes considered contradictions,
have been identified as a conflict over human responsibility, and specifically, a
conflict between individual and corporate human responsibility. Driving this
approach to the tension is an explicit concern for the nature of divine
retribution, and the concomitant issue of divine justice. Approaching the
inconsistencies in Ezekiel in this way led early on to an emphasis on Ezekiel's
concern for individual responsibility. In recent years this view has been
criticized, primarily because it reveals much about the preoccupation of scholars
with individual responsibility, without making a convincing argument that
Ezekiel is particularly concerned with that issue. It is striking to note, however,
that even those who find fault in the argument for Ezekiel's particular concern
for the individual often continue to frame the question in terms of individual
versus corporate responsibility, and are often explicitly concerned with issues of
divine retribution and justice. So the driving question remains, even for these
critics of the individualism hypothesis (the idea that Ezekiel developed a
"doctrine of individual responsibility"), at what level (individual or corporate)
are human beings responsible for their actions?
Not long ago, scholars started to think about the apparent oppositions in the
text somewhat differently, seeing them as reflecting a tension between
repentance and determinism. They ask not at what level people are responsible,
but rather are they responsible at alB Are they capable of taking responsibility
for their actions, and thus capable of repentance, or are they subject to a fairly
strong determinism, and thus not capable of repentance? For those who
consider the tensions in Ezekiel from this perspective, underlying questions of
theodicy and divine retribution frequently continue to shape the scholarly
discussion. Framing the principal tension as one between repentance and
determinism marks a helpful shift in the history of scholarship, and will guide
this study as well, yet I hope that by not addressing the questions of theodicy in
the text (which have been extensively discussed elsewhere), and favoring a more
distinctly anthropological focus, certain features of Ezekiel's thought that have
been obscured will emerge.
A History of Scholarship 17
I. Early Concerns
A. Pre-Modern Period
The problem we are addressing does not appear to have concerned the early
Christian interpreters to any discernible degree.2 In general, most of the focal
chapters of this study (chs. 3, 14, 16, 18, 20, 23 etc.) did not attract their
exegetical attention, and the most obvious tension (between 18:31 and
11:19/36:26) went largely unremarked. Origen expends considerable energy on
Ezekiel 16, however, exploring its extreme view of human sinfulness. But he
appears unperturbed by the tensions between it and other chapters.3 He is more
interested in ch. 16 than in ch. 18, for example, which would at a later époque
become the focus of so much scrutiny regarding the "doctrine of individual
responsibility." Theodoret of Cyrrhus also devoted considerable ink to ch. 16,
for reasons similar to Origen's. Theodoret, however, does reflect on the
problem of moral responsibility in Ezekiel.4 While not positing a tension,
Theodoret does bring to the fore Ezekiel's rebuttal of imputed righteousness
(esp. in ch. 14), though he polemically concludes from this that the Jews must
not rely on their past history with God, but on their present attitude.5
The rabbis were also concerned with ch. 16, though not for how it reveals
theological truths about human guilt and depravity, but rather for how it
defames and dishonors Jerusalem. 6 The positive Christian interest in this chapter
is thus matched by a corresponding negative Jewish interest. Like their early
2 This sketch of the history of interpretation makes no claim to comprehensiveness, especially

in the earlier periods. Origen, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, and Calvin are chosen as representative
figures of their period.
3 Within Ezekiel, Origen devotes more of his homilies to ch. 16 than to any other chapter. He
does not treat ch. 18 or any of the other relevant chapters in any length (Origen, Homelies sur
Ezechiel [Sources Chrétiennes 352; Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1989], 212-347,183).
4 Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Patrologia Graeca (vol. 81; ed. J. -P. Migne; Paris: 1864), 924. See also
Godfrey W. Ashby, Theodoret of Cyrrhus as Exegete of the Old Testament (Grahamstown: Rhodes
University, 1972), 131-33.
5 Origen makes this interpretive move as well.
6 David Halperin cites some of the talmudic evidence: '"It once happened that someone read
[in synagogue the passage beginning] declare to Jerusalem her abominations [Ezekiel 16:2]
when R. Eliezer was present. He said to him: "Why don't you go declare the abominations
of your mother?'" (Γ. Meg. 3[4]:34; parallels in PT Meg. 4:12, 75c, and BT Meg. 25b). R.
Eliezer, it should be said, was not famous for his courtesy or tact"' (David Halperin, The
Faces of the Chanot: Early Jewish Responses to Ezekiel's Vision [Tubingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Siebeck),
1988], 21 η. 15). For an extended treatment, see Gerhard Bodendorfer, Das Drama des Bundes:
Ezechiel 16 in Rabbinischer Perspektive (Freiburg: Herder, 1997).
Christian counterparts, however, ch. 18 was of little interest to Jewish

interpreters. Instead, they principally concentrated on the problematic nature of
Ezekiel's inaugural vision, the discrepancies between Mosaic law and that found
in Ezekiel, as well as the salacious character of chs. 16 and 23. For the rabbis the
central question regarding the book of Ezekiel was how to cope with the
problems it posed for orthodoxy, as the Talmud famously records: Hananiah b.
Hezekiah uses 300 measures of oil in a tremendous effort to reconcile Ezekiel
with the rest of the law.7
B. Divine Sovereignty and Human Duty
Despite the 1300 years that separate them, Calvin shares with Origen and
Theodoret a particular interest in ch. 16. And like them, he is not especially
exercised by any potential tensions emerging out of ch. 18 or any other of the
chapters under discussion here. Not surprisingly, Calvin sees in 11:19 a
confirmation of the necessity of divine grace for all human transformation,
whereas 18:31 simply urges the appropriate attitude of repentance in the face of
this irresistible grace.8 Writing a century later than Calvin, William Greenhill
engages in a lengthy discussion of 11:19 and its implications for theology and
anthropology, at one point noting that one might cite 18:31 as evidence
controverting the unilateral work of God attested in 11:19. Greenhill answers:
"Such phrases in Scripture import not liberty and power in man to do such
things, but show his duty, and misery that he cannot do them." Thus while
following in his forebear Calvin's interpretation, Greenhill marks a shift from
Calvin in that he explicitly notes that a potential tension exists between
11:19/36:26 and 18:31.' The acknowledgment of the tension continues to
characterize discussion of these texts throughout the nineteenth century.
Readers tended to "resolve" the tension, however, by appeal to the relationship
between irreproachable divine sovereignty and the misery of the human
condition. Patrick Fairbairn, writing in 1851, explicitly notes the tension
between 11:19 and 18:31, and asks rhetorically: "Does not such a call [in 18:31]
but seem to mock men's impotence, or to beget in them false expectations? By
7 Found in BT Shab 13b. Cf. BT Hag. 13a; BT Men. 45a. Bodendorfer seems to believe that
one of these problems in need of reconciling was Ezekiel's emphasis on the "personlichen
Verantwortung des Einzelnen in Ez 18," and he cites bShab 14b (i.e., BT Shab 14b) in
support of this idea. It is not clear to me how the passage suggests such a reading.
8 John Calvin, Commentaries on the First Twenty Chapters of the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel (2 vols.;
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948), 1.372; 2.260-61.
9 William Greenhill, An Exposition of Ezekiel (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1994; orig.
pub. in 5 vols. 1645-1667), 277.
no means. It was rather intended to set before them what was necessary to
rectify their state in so strong and startling a manner, that from the very height
of the requirement they would despair of themselves, and betake to the
promised grace of God."10
But the emphasis on divine initiative in human transformation was not
limited to those of a Reformed background. Ernst Hengstenberg (a Lutheran) is
representative of those who see the transformation of the human heart as
effected by God alone, but who also leave some room for human initiative.
Only God can make a new heart, but "it does not come, unless the human will
move to meet it."11 Thus 18:31 suggests that although the majority of the work
of renewal comes from God, people must adopt an attitude of receptivity to
that work. Hengstenberg invokes the thrust of Scripture as a whole as the
standard against which 18:31 was to be understood; this was a common
interpretative move with regard to this passage in the nineteenth century. The
OT and NT together were seen as providing overwhelming evidence against any
notion emanating from Ezekiel 18:31 that people might be capable of renewing
their own moral lives. In sum, the Protestant scholarship of this period noted a
tension in Ezekiel's language, but was hardly perturbed by it, preferring to
understand it as a reflection of a broader truth within Protestant theology.
II. Individualism
A. Ezekiel and the Triumph of Individualism
Until very recently many scholars saw Ezekiel as the prophet who made the
decisive turn away from corporate responsibility to exalt the responsibility of the
individual before God. This view of Ezekiel's role in the evolution of
individualism fit well into a larger developmental framework for understanding
ancient Israelite religion and ethics that arose in the nineteenth century and
continued to dominate well into the twentieth. According to this view the
events (beginning after 621) surrounding the Exile provided the right conditions
for individualism to flourish.12 The history of the developmental view in Ezekiel
10 Patrick Fairbairn, Commentary on Ezekiel (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1989; orig. pub. 1851?), 208.
11 Ernst Hengstenberg, The Prophecies of the Prophet Ezekiel Elucidated (Edinburgh: Τ & Τ Clark,
1869), 161. See also, Henderson, Ezekiel, 100, and Carl Keil, biblical Commentary on the
Prophecies of Ezekiel (Edinburgh; Τ & Τ Clark, 1876), 257.
12 See, for example, A. B. Davidson, The Theology of the Old Testament (Edinburgh: T.& T. Clark,
1904), 282-86; G. A. Cooke, The Book of Ezekiel 1 (ICC; New York: Scribner's, 1937), 194—
96; and J. Lindblom, Prophecy in Anaent Israel (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1962), 387-88.
has been well-documented elsewhere, and only a few representative figures will
be presented here." Some scholars w h o took the developmental view were
apparently not disturbed by the tension between EzekiePs purported
individualism (especially in ch. 18) and his emphasis on collective responsibility
elsewhere in the book (e.g., ch. 20). They emphasized those sections that seem
to stress the individual before G o d , and downplayed or ignored those that are
more corporate in orientation. 14 Despite his disclaimer that Ezekiel does not
present a "consistent individualism," von Rad may serve as representative here:
"Auch hier ist es überraschend, dass Hesekiel in keiner Form die altjahwisitische
Kollektiworstellung erneuert. Er zerschlagt vielmehr den morsch gewordenen
Kollektivismus noch vollends, weil er zu einem bequemen Schutz geworden
war, sich dahinter v o r Jahwe zu verbergen. Hesekiel zieht den Einzelnen aus
dieser Anonymitat heraus ans Licht.. ."IS In this way, a few chapters of Ezekiel
(chs. 3, 14, 18 [especially], and 33) were interpreted through the lens of the
individual versus the collective, and then privileged as those embodying
Ezekiel's "real" message.
Others, some quite early on, were puzzled by what appeared to be a
contradiction between corporate and individual responsibility in Ezekiel, but
nonetheless did not abandon the idea that Ezekiel was emphasizing the
importance of individual responsibility in contrast to earlier corporate notions.
For a more recent spin on the developmental view, argued on historical grounds, see Baruch
Halpern, "Jerusalem and the Lineages in the 7th century BCE: Kinship and the Rise of
Individual Moral Liability," in Law and Ideology in Monarchic Israel (ed. Β. Halpern and D.W.
Hobson; JSOTSup 124; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991), 11-107.
13 Gordon Matties {Ezekiel 18 and the Rhetoric of Moral Discourse [SBLDS 126; Atlanta: Scholars
Press, 1990], 113-25) provides an overview of the history of the scholarship concerning
Ezekiel's views of individual and corporate responsibility. Especially notable is his discussion
of H. Wheeler Robinson's theory of "corporate personality," which Matties sees as a
variation on the developmental hypothesis (116-123). Paul Joyce (Divine initiative and Human
Response in Ezekiel [JSOTSup 51; Sheffield: JSOT, 1989], 79-87) places the scholarly
discussion of the issue in Ezekiel in the context of the broader developmental hypothesis
that ancient Israel underwent a shift from a collective mentality to individualism in its
thinking about responsibility.
14 Conversely, those scholars favoring a fairly radical redaction-critical approach are not
disturbed by the tension because they see the key chapters (3:17-21; 14:1-20; 18:1-20) as
secondary due to their form, that of priestly case law. See, for example, Gustav Hölscher,
Hesekiel, der Dichter und das Buch (Glessen: Topelmann, 1924), 5-6, 54, 86,104,116,165; Jorg
Garscha, Studien %um Eêchielbuch (Bern: Herbert Lang; Frankfurt Peter Lang, 1974), 303-5;
H. Schulz, Das Todesrecht im Alten Testament (BZAW 114; Berlin, Topelmann, 1969), 163-87.
15 Gerhard Von Rad, Theologe des Alten Testaments (2 vols.; München: Chr. Kaiser, 1957), 1.392.
For related views, see Georg Fohrer, Introduction to the Old Testament (Nashville: Abingdon,
1968), 417; Walther Eichrodt, Ezekiel (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1970), 231-49;
William H. Brownlee, Ezekiel 1-19 (WBC; Waco: Word Books, 1986), 50, 284, 292.
Skinner, for example, explains the tension as a result of dispensationalism:

during the time of the state, corporate responsibility applied, but when the state
dissolved, the level of responsibility shifted to the individual. 16 Bertholet notes
the tension and suggests that it is the result of Ezekiel's role as innovator; his
theology is not fully developed because it is so new. 17 Others ascribe the tension
to an inconsistency on the part o f the prophet. Wevers, f o r example, after
observing that certain chapters in Ezekiel emphasize corporate responsibility,
argues regarding chapter 18: "None the less, Ezekiel here makes his most
valuable contribution, viz. that man is not bound by laws of generation to a fate;
rather each man individually faces G o d and is judged on his own merits." 18
Here, although the tension is acknowledged, Ezekiel is still viewed as an
innovator of individualism. 19 By contrast, while arguing that Ezekiel seeks to
emphasize individual responsibility, Mosis nonetheless acknowledges that
Ezekiel is not as much of an innovator as some have claimed: "Tatsachlich
scheint Ezechiel v o r allem im ersten Teil dieses Kapitels ( W . 1 - 2 0 ) ganz
allgemein über die individuelle Verantwortung belehren zu wollen. Jedoch tut er
dies in Gedankengangen und in Redeformen, die jedem Israeliten seit alters
gelaufig waren. Gerade hierin bringt also Ezechiel nichts schlechterdings
Neues." 20 Mosis' reflections hint at a growing skepticism concerning Ezekiel's
alleged role as innovator of individualism.
16 J. Skinner, The Book of Ezekiel (The Expositor's Bible; New York: A. C. Armstrong and Son,
1903), 143. See also S. T. Kimbrough, Israelite Reügon in Soäohgical Perspective: The Work of
Antonin Causse (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1978), esp. 72-76.
17 Alfred Bertholet, Das Buch Hesekiel (Freiburg, i.B: J. C. B. Mohr (Siebeck), 1897), 75, 96.
18 J. W. Wevers, Ezekiel (London: Thomas Nelson, 1969), 140.
19 Klaus Koch seems to ascribe to a version of the developmental hypothesis, but one in which
the development has failed: "Under the spell of the collectivist anthropology of ancient
oriental civilizations, the individual is not really taken into account. Even when an attempt is
made—for example, when the correlation between act and destiny is limited to a single life
(Ezek. 18)—the solution is not convincing" (Klaus Koch, The Prophets: The Babylonian and
Persian Periode [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984; orig. 1978], 203).
20 R. Mosis, Das Buch Ezechiel. Teil I. Kap. 1:1-20:44 (Geistliche Schrifdesung 8/1; Dusseldorf:
Patmos, 1978), 208-9. Mosis goes on to note the tension between chapter 18 and chapters
16, 20, and 23, but does not see it as a contradiction: "Denn in diesen Kapiteln begründet
gerade nicht die mechanische Weitergabe der Schuld von Generation zu Generation das
Gericht über die gesamte Abfolge der Geschlechter, sondern das verantworliche Eintreten
jeder neuen Generation in die Schuld der vorausgehenden. Eine Generation wird night
deswegen verurteilt, weil die vorausgehende gefehlt hat. Sondern es wird festgestellt, dass
jede neue Generation in den Weg der vorausgehenden eingetreten und darum demselben
Urteil unterworfen ist..." (267, n. 210). According to this more determinist reading (which is
close to my own), every generation deserves the punishment it receives. Contrast this with
Zimmerli's reflections on the relationship between chapters 18 and 20: "[BJehind the
historical survey which follows, which does not establish afixed and unalterable fate, there is hidden
22 T h e Moral S e l f in the B o o k o f Ezekiel
B. Critique of the Individualism Hypothesis
As the interpretive conversation progressed, a number of scholars began to

turn a critical eye on the general consensus that individualism reaches its apex in
Ezekiel. May, for example, argues: "Individualism did not begin with Jeremiah
and Ezekiel, for Israelite thought always gave a large place to the individual...." 21
For May the crux of Ezekiel concerns not the individual, and indeed not human
responsibility per se, but divine justice. "In the Ezekiel passages the vantage
point is not the significance o f the individual (that is always taken for granted)
or even the nature of man, but rather the nature of G o d , for it is taken as a
problem of theodicy; the point of reference is the justice or fairness o f G o d in
His dealings with men (see 18:25-29; 33:17-20)." 2 2 This tendency to see
theodicy as the driving force behind the tensions in Ezekiel is characteristic of
much of the scholarship that sees an explicit tension in the text between the
individual and the collectivity. Despite his critique of the developmental view,
May follows the developmental argument that chapter 20 concerns Israel as a
nation (it is eschatological in orientation), while chapter 18 centers on individual
retribution. The tension is noted, but is still attributed to a conflict between
these two levels of accountability. 23
Like May, Lindars is critical of the developmental view as too broad and
imprecise. After distinguishing between different kinds of individual
responsibility (criminal responsibility and the responsibility of the individual
before God) Lindars suggests that the language of individual criminal
responsibility (already found pervasively in Israelite traditions) is applied by
Ezekiel, for the first time in Israelite tradition, in the area of divine retribution.
"Using the concept of individual responsibility, Ezekiel has broken through the
conventional theory of a divine retribution prolonged through succeeding
generations. He does so by insisting that the justice of G o d in dealing with the
nation cannot be less than the justice that is recognised in matters of the
individual." 24 Ezekiel is no innovator of individual responsibility, therefore, but
he does add a new dimension: he criticizes the idea of transgenerational divine
implicitly the call o f the ' f r e e d o m to repent' ( E z e k 1 8 ) " (my e m p h a s i s ) [Walther Z i m m e r l i ,

Ezekiel 1, (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), 406].
21 H e r b e r t G . May, "Individual Responsibility and Retribution," HUCA 3 2 (1961): 107.
22 May, "Individual Responsibility," 1 0 7 - 8 .
23 May, "Individual Responsibility," 118.
24 B. Lindars, " E z e k i e l and Individual Responsibility," V T 1 5 (1965): 464.
retribution.25 This is a crucial idea for Ezekiel because of his overarching goal of
bringing his audience to repentance.26
Both May and Lindars move the conversation beyond the developmental
hypothesis, and both reframe the discussion in terms of theodicy—the focus
has shifted from the type of human responsibility (individual or collective?) to
the nature of divine justice (collective [i.e., transgenerational] or individual?). Yet
May and Lindars continue to work within the larger framework of the individual
versus the collective inherited from the developmental hypothesis.
C. The Larger Goal of Language of the Individual
As the hypothesis that Ezekiel innovated or championed a thorough-going

individualism was subjected to increasing attack, a number of scholars began to
view the dynamic between the individual and the collective somewhat
differently. These scholars did not see Ezekiel as interested in championing an
individualist ethics per se, but rather the language focusing on the individual is
viewed as a means to express Ezekiel's larger orientation to the community.27
Acknowledging the importance of the community in Ezekiel's broader
orientation, some scholars began to highlight Ezekiel's overarching rhetorical
purpose: to call individuals to repentance that the community might live.28 Zimmerli
also interprets Ezekiel's purpose this way.25 Zimmerli further argues that the
original language of priestly case law, which features the individual prominently,
is reapplied in Ezekiel (here referring specifically to chapter 14) to the nation
Israel: "The divine saying does not restrict itself with this threat of judgment to
individual men, but shows immediately the deeper truth that this holy wrath has
in mind 'Israel' when speaking about the individual sinner."30
Similarly Pareira, in his work on the call to conversion in Ezekiel, frames the
issue as a matter of inclusion versus exclusion of the individual vis-à-vis the
25 J. S. Park ("Theological Traditions of Israel in the Prophetic Judgment of Ezekiel" [Ph.D.

diss., Princeton Theological Seminary, 1979], 171-72), and Joyce (Divine Initiative, 35-55)
emphasize the centrality of the critique of transgenerational responsibility in chapter 18.
26 Lindars, "Ezekiel and Individual Responsibility," 465-66.
27 May and Lindars share this larger orientation as well.
28 Some earlier commentators also emphasized this corporate orientation. See, e.g., G. A.
Cooke, "Some Considerations on the Text and Teaching of Ezekiel," ZAW42 (1924): 115,
and Herbert Haag, Was Lehrt die Literarische Untersuchung des Ezechiel-Textes? Eine phihlogsch-
theologsche Studie (Freiburg in der Schweiz: Universitatsbuchhandlung, 1943), 83.
29 Walther Zimmerli, The Law and the Prophets: A Stud) of the Meaning of the Old Testament (Oxford:
Basil Blackwell, 1965), 85-86.
30 Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, 307. For a detailed discussion of this feature in chapter 14 see his "Die
Eigenart der prophetischen Rede des Ezechiel," ZAW 66 (1954): 1-26.
community. Pareira acknowledges the "paradox" of such a call in the midst of

irrevocable punishment: referring to 14:1—8, he posits a difference in audience
as explanation for the paradox. Both audiences (in Judah and in Babylon) are
"called to conversion in order to avoid the punishment of exclusion from the
community." But concerning the individual in the land of Judah: "the meaning
and significance of conversion for him is hidden to us because Ezekiel
announced a total judgment...."31 Tilting the balance toward the community
even more, Sakenfeld also emphasizes the rhetorical purpose of the prophet,
but for her the repeated address to the "house of Israel" (18:25, 29, 30, 31)
witnesses to a corporate orientation; the individual is not the focus at all. She
observes: "The call to repentance is addressed to the community as a whole, and
it is the restoration of the whole people to life before God for which Ezekiel
presses."32 Greenberg, in his discussion of chapter 18, also understands the
address to the "house of Israel" as determinative for Ezekiel's orientation to the
corporate: "Ezekiel's message was for the nation—that is, the exilic
continuation of the nation that he regularly calls bet jisra'el .... Neither the
singular used in the legally styled descriptions of the righteous and wicked in
vss. 5—17 nor the selection of behaviors implies a shift in focus from national
community to individual souls, or even from a homeland perspective to an exilic
one."33
Thus the trend in scholarship began to move distinctly away from seeing a
sharp dichotomy between the collective and the individual and toward an
understanding of the relationship between these two levels of human
responsibility as considerably more complex and intertwined. For some scholars
this narrowing of the gap between the individual and the corporate led to a
certain unity of purpose. For Gottwald, for example, the varying emphases on
the individual and the corporate reflect different strategies, but a common goal.
The "tension" between them is
thoroughly understandable as a serious effort by the prophet to combine the predominant

collective guilt theory with a sharp re-emphasis and heightening of an equally ancient belief
in individual responsibility, it is not that Ezekielfirst introduces 'individuaäsm' but rather that he
reasserts individual guilt in company with collective guilt as two ways of seeing the same truth.34
Formulated slightly differently than Gottwald, Greenberg argues that the

"Torah laws, whose style Ezekiel imitates, use the singular in particular cases
31 B. Pareira, The Call to Converúon in Ezekiel: Exegesis and Biblical-Theology (Rome: Pontificia
Universitate Gregoriana, 1975), 41.
32 Katharine Sakenfeld, "Ez 18:25-32," Interpretation 32 (1978): 296.
33 Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20 (AB; New York: Doubleday, 1983), 341.
34 Norman Gottwald, All the Kingdoms of the Earth (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), 309.
without intent to oppose the individual to the collective; the signification of the
singular is, rather, each and every individual in the collective. The same appears
true of Ezekiel's usage."35 Kaminsky's discussion of Ezekiel in his monograph
on corporate and individual responsibility in the Hebrew Bible proceeds along
similar lines: the purpose of Ezekiel 18 is to induce the whole generation to
admit its guilt, but the individualistic language serves that purpose "as an
attempt to appeal to and motivate the individual members who together make
up the community of Israel."36 For the most part, then, as the individual and the
corporate dimensions of Ezekiel's thought came to be seen as increasingly
related, the puzzling tensions perceived among the problematic chapters (3, 9,
11, 14,16,18, 20, 23, 33, and 36) ceased to be as puzzling for many scholars.
This movement away from seeing Ezekiel as founder of the "doctrine of
individualism" and toward underscoring the importance of the community in
Ezekiel's thought advances the scholarly discussion considerably, but what
Pareira calls the "paradox," or what I have been calling the tension, has not
been clarified, only downplayed. These scholars rightly emphasize Ezekiel's
larger orientation to the community. Yet the tension between the problematic
chapters cannot be adequately explained by de-emphasizing one pole of that
tension, because the difficulty can never be satisfactorily addressed as long as it
continues to be framed largely in terms of individual versus corporate notions
of accountability. The question driving this way of thinking is: what unit of
human society is to be held accountable?
Moreover, the individual versus corporate paradigm tends to be
accompanied by an underlying concern for theodicy. Thus with respect to the
character of God, the question revolves around the nature of divine retribution,
a concern which in turn shapes the human question in terms of the relationship
between guilt and punishment, action and consequences. Undoubtedly this
framework has illumined a number of aspects of the text that would have
otherwise remained obscure; for example, it has helpfully foregrounded
Ezekiel's preoccupation with explaining and justifying divine retribution,37 and
has ultimately led to an appropriate emphasis on the prophet's concern for the
35 Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20, 95.

36 Joel S. Kaminsky,Colorai« fesponsibiäty in the Hebrew Bible, (JSOTSup 196; Sheffield: Sheffield
Academic Press, 1995), 177. Kaminsky sees Ezekiel 18 as fundamentally preoccupied with,
and as offering a new perspective on, the nature of divine retribution, but the innovation can
be attributed to the ad ¿ornature of Ezekiel's thought.
37 Attention to the individual vs. corporate language has also highlighted the forms Ezekiel
uses (e.g., useful contrasts between casuistic legal forms, constructed with individualistic
language [often identified as priestly], and the narrative retelling of the history of the people
as a whole [often identified as deuteronomistic]). More than anyone else, Zimmerli has
extensively explored the forms in Ezekiel (Zimmerli, Ezekiel).
corporate body. These are undeniably important issues in Ezekiel, but they are
not the only issues, and just as a particular framework for thinking about a
problem highlights certain features of the text, so it necessarily obscures others.
The scholarly focus on Ezekiel's concern with theodicy has led to an emphasis
on the theology of the book more generally. One of the consequences of
viewing the tensions in the book through the lens of theology, however, is that
it forecloses the possibility that a different lens might help to illumine how these
conflicting passages relate to one another.
Few would dispute that Ezekiel is concerned with theodicy, with justifying
the ways of God to the people. Yet the way in which he approaches this goal
(by foregrounding the absolute sovereignty of God) poses an intractable
problem for him: an absolutely sovereign God would seem to squeeze out the
possibility of human responsibility. Focusing on divine retribution and the unit
of human responsibility (individual vs. corporate) obscures the fact that in
Ezekiel it is not the unit of responsibility38 but the possibility of human
responsibility at aü that is brought into question by such a starkly sovereign
portrait of God. The ethical tensions evident in the book suggest that Ezekiel
may be attempting to work out a solution to this intractable problem. In other
words, theological questions have tended to dominate the scholarly discussion so
far described, but they obscure equally important anthropological questions, the
answers to which may clarify why Ezekiel's portraits of God and of human
beings take the form they do, and why those portraits satisfy both the explicit
and the implicit needs expressed in the text.
III. Wrestling with the Tension
A. Michael Fishbane
In a 1984 article Michael Fishbane struggles with the tensions in Ezekiel, and
especially those he sees emerging between chapters 18 and 20. Individual
responsibility is an important theme in Ezekiel, according to Fishbane. There is
no conflict between the fatalism that characterizes the prophet's attitude toward
Jerusalem and the calls to individuals to repent (e.g., ch. 18), because the latter
are exclusively directed to the exiles (in contrast to most of the sayings in
chapters 4—24 which are directed to Jerusalem). Nothing, to Ezekiel's mind, can
38 This phrase was apparently coined by Paul Joyce, "Individual Responsibility in Ezekiel 18?"
in Studia Biblica 1978 (JSOTSup 11; ed. E. Livingstone; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press,
1979), 187.
save Jerusalem. 39 The tension for Fishbane consists in the emphasis on

individual responsibility and repentance in chapter 18 contrasted with their
explicit contradiction in chapter 20. In chapter 18 the prophet seeks to convince
the exiles that they "are there for their own sins and not those of their parents,
and since their relationship with God is not an intractable or inherited fate they
can take responsibility for it and return to YHWH." 40 In chapter 20, however,
"the themes of repentance and individual responsibility are not so much ignored
as radically flouted."41 Fishbane views the tension as follows:
although in ch. 20 every generation after the second desert one is justly punished for its own
sins, the fact remains that YHWH himself determined that the sins of the fathers (the
second desert generation) were to be deferred to a later generation. And so even if all
subsequent generations sinned, the generation of the fathers was not punished in its own
right and the succeeding generations lived under the onus of a law that led them
undeservedly into sin. Since, then, the sons (the generations subsequent to the second desert
generation) suffered vicariously for the sins of their fathers by inheriting a law which was an
inherent punishment, the theological core of Ezekiel 20 is diametmaUy opposed to the teaching of chapter
18.a
There is no easy answer to this conundrum. Either the solution is a redaction-

critical one, which involves tenuous or ambivalent evidence, or the prophet is
inconsistent due to the ad hoc nature of prophetic discourse.43 The consistency of
the prophet's thought, if there is any, remains elusive.
While still operating on the presupposition that the critical issue in the text is
the relationship between individual and corporate (generational) responsibility,
Fishbane's discussion marks an advance in thinking about the problem. By
focusing his attention so explicitly on the tension between chapters 18 and 20,
and by articulating that tension so forcibly and starkly, Fishbane foregrounds
what was only implicit in most previous work on the problem of individual and
corporate responsibility in Ezekiel. Furthermore, Fishbane's attention to the
contrast between the language of repentance and that of fatalism (though he
attributes the contrast to different audiences) hints at a different way of framing
the ethical tension: not as a question of individual versus corporate
responsibility (the unit of human responsibility), but of repentance versus
determinism (are human beings responsible at all?). Nonetheless, Fishbane only
gestures to this move toward seeing the tension as an anthropological one. He
39 Michael Fishbane, "Sin and Judgment in the Prophecies of Ezekiel," Interpretation 38 (1984):
142.
40 Fishbane, "Sin and Judgment," 141-42.
41 Fishbane, "Sin and Judgment," 142.
43 Fishbane, "Sin and Judgment," 145—46.
continues to view the central problem as inconsistency in divine behavior, not

human behavior. Fishbane's framing the tension as one of divine inconsistency
continues the tradition of focusing on the theodicy and theology of Ezekiel,
which mutes the problem of the consistency of human behavior in the book, e.g.,
in chapter 18 humans are capable of acting rightly, but chapter 20 implies that
no generation acts faithfully because the inability to act faithfully is a chronic
human failing. The distinctively anthropological problem posed by these texts
remains.
B. Paul Joyce
Paul Joyce has engaged the problem of the relationship between the
individual and the collective in Ezekiel at some length, and his views need to be
considered in some detail.44 Joyce begins his study by focusing on the tension
between the way "heart" language is used in chapters 18 ("Get yourselves a new
heart") and 36 ("A new heart I will give you"). This tension, while obvious in
the text, is not directly about individualism or the collectivity; rather it reflects a
tension between Israel's responsibility before God and the sense that only God
can enable the people to obey.45 Initially Joyce does not frame his inquiry in
terms of the categories individual vs. collective, but in terms of divine initiative
and human responsibility (as the title of his monograph indicates). This, as will
be shown below, is part of a larger shift in scholarship; away from thinking in
terms of levels of responsibility (individual and collective) and toward thinking in
terms of the human capacity for responsibility.
Like all scholars dealing with the tensions in Ezekiel (no matter how the
tension is framed), Joyce deals with chapter 18 extensively. Having criticized the
"individual responsibility" view of earlier scholars, Joyce suggests that the
purpose of chapter 18 is "to demonstrate the collective responsibility of the
contemporary house of Israel for the national disaster which she is suffering."46
Thus far Joyce's attention to the collective is not far from the arguments of
Greenberg and Sakenfeld above, though his emphasis lies less on the hope of
salvation and more on divine punishment of human sin. For Joyce the language
44 I will be drawing principally from his monograph, Divine initiative and Human Response in
Ezekiel (cited above). But see also idem, "Individual Responsibility in Ezekiel 18?" 185-96;
idem, "The Individual and the Community" in Begnning Old Testament Stué/ (ed. J. Rogerson;
Philadelphia: Westminster, 1982), 74—89; idem, "Ezekiel and Individual Responsibility" (in
Ezekiel and His Book: Textual and Literaiy Critidsm and Thar Interrelation (BETL 74; ed. Johan
Lust; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1986), 317-21.
45 Joyce, Divine Initiative, 11.
46 Joyce, Divine Initiative, 36. Joyce assigns a pre-587 date to the chapter.
of repentance in chapter 18 serves two functions: it underscores Israel's total

responsibility for the disaster (previous generations cannot be blamed), and
consequently for the inescapable punishment, and it demonstrates that Yahweh
yearns for the obedience of the people. Repentance has no role in the plan for
salvation; on the contrary, salvation will be effected in spite of the people, not
on account of anything they might do.47 Regarding chapters 3 and 33 (the
sentinel motif) which might be adduced in support of the opposing view, i.e.,
that the call to repent is anything other than rhetorical, Joyce follows Wilson in
viewing the sentinel's function not as one who warns and seeks a response of
repentance from the audience, but as one who announces a divine legal
decision.48
In his discussion of chapter 9, Joyce, although he recognizes a certain
emphasis on the individual in this chapter,49 argues for the comprehensiveness
of the judgment; collective responsibility is the main thrust of the chapter and
repentance is not possible.50 The same two functions of the call to repentance
are perceived in chapter 14:1-11 as were seen operating in chapter 18: the call to
repentance highlights the responsibility of the people and it reveals Yahweh's
desire for the people's obedience.51 In short, in chapters 1—24 Ezekiel is not
concerned with the individual or with repentance, but only with driving home
the idea that punishment is inevitable and that Israel is completely responsible
for that punishment. 52
According to Joyce, Ezekiel downplays the activity of the people (their
repentance, or actions, will have no role in salvation) in favor of the primacy of
divine activity; the book of Ezekiel is thus radically theocentric.53 The "new
heart, new spirit" language of chapters 11 and 36 owes much to deuteronomistic
influence, and highlights the necessity of divine enablement for salvation.54 But
is there any role for human activity in the economy of salvation? Not really.
Joyce sees Ezekiel as emphasizing Israel's responsibility for the disaster in the
first half of the book, with the second half dedicated to demonstrating that
47 Joyce, Diviine Initiative, 57-58.

48 Joyce, Divine Initiative, 58-59.
49 For Joyce this is hardly extraordinary since individual responsibility has been a feature of
Israelite law since the earliest times.
51 Similarly, 14:12—23 reveals certain individualistic elements, but they are the result of the
specificity of the situation, i.e., of the unsystematic, ad /¡»mature of Ezekiel's thought (Joyce,
Divine Initiative, 74). Several other scholars systematically espouse the ad hoc theory to explain
the tensions in Ezekiel (see below).
54 Joyce, Divine Initiative, 107—24.
Yahweh alone has a role in effecting salvation, a gift rendered in spite of Israel's
unworthiness. The "new heart" language in chapters 11 and 36 suggests that
"Israel's obedience will be the result rather than the cause of deliverance, part
and parcel of the restoration and certainly not a condition upon which it
depends."55
How then is this radical theocentricity to be put in dialogue with the
responsibility of the people before Yahweh (responsibility not just for the
specific sins of the past, but in the whole of their relationship to Yahweh)?
Joyce understands the responsibility of the people as constituting one of the
characteristic ways that Ezekiel expresses his radical theocentricity, e.g., the
frequent use of the "I am Yahweh" saying in the context of judgment. In
Joyce's view, the most important statement to relate the responsibility of the
people closely to Ezekiel's theocentricity is found in 18:4 ("Behold, all souls are
mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son are mine.. .").56 Joyce
appears to see the self-referential nature of Yahweh's utterances (which tellingly
reveal the theocentricity of the book) as the glue that holds together the
responsibility of the people and Yahweh's absolute sovereignty. "Thus whilst
there might appear to be a stark contrast between the emphasis on Israel's
responsibility and the gift of the ability to respond, an underlying continuity is to
be found in the radically theocentric basis of both."57 Yet a profound tension
remains:
Israel's response is so important ... that Yahweh himself promises to make it possible. This
paradoxical conception raises the question of how far the responsibility of Israel remains
intact.... [SJince obedience is guaranteed, it would seem that the responsibility of Israel has
been subsumed in the overriding initiative of Yahweh.... If one pole had to gain
predominance, it was perhaps inevitable, given the radical theocentricity of Ezekiel, that it
should be that of divine initiative.... If the conception of the gift of obedience appears to
strain logic, it is as well to remember that this is an attempt to give adequate expression to a
tension which ultimately defies resolution and that it represents but one stage of a complex
debate about "grace" and "responsibility" which has been a feature of the Judaeo-Christian
tradition throughout the centuries.58
55 Joyce, Divine initiative, 126. The tension between the language found in chapters 11 and 36
and that found in chapter 18 is too easily dismissed by Joyce: chapter 18 ("Get yourselves a
new heart and a new spirit") is a rhetorical flourish to emphasize the absolute responsibility
of Israel (128).
56 It is not quite clear to me in Joyce's discussion how this link between Israel's responsibility
and the theocentricity of the book is made, except through the rather superficial appearance
of theocentric language when the responsibility of the people is at issue.
57 Joyce, Diane Initiative, 127.
Joyce thus evades the problem generated by the tension between the two halves
of the book of Ezekiel, between human responsibility and divine initiative,
because for him it is by its nature irresolvable, an intractable problem in the
Western religious tradition.
Joyce engages in an extensive critique of the individualism hypothesis, and
his systematic emphasis on Ezekiel's corporate orientation is a welcome voice in
the discussion of the tensions. In underscoring the corporate emphasis, Joyce
helps to shift the discussion further away from framing the question in terms of
the individual and the collective (levels of responsibility). Instead, he considers
the problem from a different angle: humans are depicted as accountable (first
half of Ezekiel), yet they are also depicted as incapable of obedience except as
the result of divine enablement (second half of the book). Joyce astutely
observes, for example, that obedience is the result of, and not the cause of
salvation in the second half of the book (I shall return to this important insight
later). This shift represents a major advance in thinking about this problem
because it ceases to frame the tensions in terms of units of responsibility and
begins to consider them in terms of capaäty for responsibility.
Nonetheless, in his effort to neutralize the individualism hypothesis, Joyce
too quickly explains away many of the textual tensions, and especially the calls
to repentance, in the first half of the book as rhetorical devices meant to
underscore the responsibility of Israel. Also, to account for the precedence of
the gift of Yahweh over the responsibility of Israel by pointing to the radical
theocentricity of Ezekiel is to beg the question. That Ezekiel is thoroughly
theocentric is generally agreed, but that theocentricity is not so much an answer
to the problem of the tensions in the book as it is part of the problem itself.
While Joyce's work constructively moves the discussion away from the
individual versus corporate framework, his recourse to Ezekiel's theocentricity
prevents the discussion from moving beyond its own form of theocentricity: at
the center of this way of posing the question is the issue of divine moral identity
with the question of human moral identity being treated in a necessarily
derivative fashion.
C. Gordon Matties
In his 1989 dissertation, Matties explores the ethical tensions in Ezekiel, with
special emphasis on chapter 18. Using form-critical and traditio-historical
approaches, Matties is primarily concerned with the legal language of chapter 18
and its relation to moral discourse. Matties addresses three major theological-
ethical problems that converge in chapter 18: "(1) the matter of responsibility in
community, (2) the human moral agent and the function of law, and (3) the
divine moral agent in relation to human responsibility, human community, and
theodicy."59 After exploring each of these problems in detail, Matties, borrowing

from Stanley Hauerwas, concludes that "E2ekiel 18 seeks the formation of a
community of character and understands that the community forms itself
through the self-conscious acts of individuals." But community formation does
not happen in Ezekiel without Yahweh, and Matties attends to the relationship
between the "human moral act and the divine moral enablement."60 Matties'
work speaks to many of the same issues that this study does, and so his
arguments deserve careful scrutiny.
First, Matties traces Ezekiel's connections to the priestly and deuteronomistic
traditions, and finds that, while heir to both traditions, Ezekiel forges a new
path by transforming these older traditions (which do not "work" in Ezekiel's
context) into a "new program of restoration."61 While helpful in making the
connections, previous traditio-historical studies overemphasized the extent to
which the book was a product of older traditions, where Matties sees Ezekiel as
both a shaper and a synthesiser of traditions.62 Earlier traditio-historical studies
had presented the presence of these two traditions as a synthesis, but this
synthesis of deuteronomistic and priestly traditions was usually seen as a
combination of "law" (the conditional covenant of Deuteronomy) and "gospel"
(the priestly unconditional covenant), respectively.63 Matties rightly criticizes this
as an oversimplification and an imposition on Ezekiel of alien (not to mention
christianizing) concepts, although the use of such language points again to the
ethical tension at the heart of the book. Matties' traditio-historical chapter ends
with two hypotheses: 1) Ezekiel 18 and the other legal traditions in the book
date from the Ezekiel Reconstruction Program, and are no later than 516, and 2)
in the face of a new crisis, the Ezekiel tradition offers a corrective alternative
within Israelite torah traditions. Thus, Ezekiel departs from the core traditions in
order to forge his own path in imagining a new future with a newly
reconstituted people.64
Matties devotes two chapters to an extended and detailed exegetical analysis
of chapter 18. Of immediate interest here is the discussion of the call to
repentance at the end of chapter 18 ( w . 30—32). The call to repent does not
necessarily imply that it is possible to avert judgment. Rather, Matties
59 Matties, Ezekiel 18, 5 - 6 .

60 Matties, Ezekiel 18,1.
61 Matties, E^kiel 18,10.
62 Matties, Ezekiel 18, 17.
63 J. S. Park's dissertation, "Theological Traditions of Israel in the Prophetic Judgment of
Ezekiel" (Ph.D. diss., Princeton Theological Seminary, 1979) is Matties' prime example here
(Matties, Ezekiel 18, 19-20). Obviously, traditio-historical and redaction criticism together
offer their own solution to the ethical tensions in Ezekiel.
64 Matties, Eîkiel 18, 22-25.
understands the call to repent as "the basic statement of human responsibility in

a cosmos that is characterized by order."65 What then is the relation between
this call to repentance and the incontrovertible fact that judgment has already
taken place? Matties argues that
the ethical and exhortatory texts in Ezekiel find their place in the imagined world between
judgment and reordering.
For Ezekiel the judgment is a result of disorder in the moral world of Israel. Salvation
is conversely viewed as a reordering. Just how that reordering is to be experienced is not
altogether clear to the twentieth-century reader.
The place of human responsibility is equally ambiguous.66
Although he argues that the "ethical" texts play a mediating role between
judgment and salvation, the tension between the envisioned salvation and the
role of human responsibility in effecting that salvation remains unresolved for
Matties.
After a lengthy discussion of the individual versus community debate, and of
several of the key chapters in that debate (7, 9, 14, 16, 17, 20, 33 as well as 18),
Matties concludes that the book of Ezekiel stands at a liminal stage in the
process of the community's self-definition. "It is from within that liminal stage
that the tension between the individual and the community ought to be viewed.
From within, the issue is not part of an irreconcilable tension, but part of a
dialogue of a becoming community, a new peoplehood." 67 The self and the
community are inextricably bound together; the one cannot exist without the
other. And so what appears to be a tension is simply Ezekiel's articulation of
two interdependent elements of a whole. The case laws found in Ezekiel, such
as in chapter 18, are consequently addressed to both the individual and the
community, and their function is hortatory and not forensic.68 In short, Ezekiel
"introduces a new configuration of concepts, not a new concept of individual
responsibility."69
For Matties, the pivotal element in the formation of the new community is
the law. The law functions as a rationale for judgment, provides shape to the
future by pointing the way from judgment to hope, and it justifies Yahweh's
ways with Israel.70 In Matties' view, the crucial function of torah is
eschatological. "Thus, in Ezekiel laws are cited not so much to describe reality
as to create and evoke a new reality." Chapter 18 is of particular importance in

66 Matties, E?ekiel 18,110.
67 Matties, Ezekiel 18,147^8.
the book because it (especially the call to repentance in w . 30—31) constitutes an

invitation to the people "to participate in the process of becoming."71 Torah is a
divine gift intended to reenvision a sustainable future, and a significant part of
that future is consequently in the hands of the people: "the human community
is fundamentally responsible for its own destiny."72
After a discussion of theodicy and of Yahweh as divine moral agent, Matties

turns to the perplexing problem of the relationship between divine enablement
and human responsibility, which is at the root of the tensions perceptible in
Ezekiel. As Matties has argued in earlier chapters, in chapter 18 a future of hope
depends upon the actions of the human community ('Get yourselves a new
heart and a new spirit" 18:31), but he acknowledges that in 11:19 and 36:26 the
emphasis falls upon Yahweh's restorative work. Matties reconciles these
tensions by suggesting that chapter 18 offers
an element of responsible human action in the context of enabling divine action. By offering
the human alternative in chapter 18, in the midst of judgment, the prophet suggests that
divine intervention beyond the present experience is not the only option for the exilic
community. By fashioning its own character as a ftra-keeping peoplehood, Israel in exile is
already participating in the divine intention of restoration.73
Matties notes that other texts in Ezekiel (he cites 33:10 and 37:11) present a less
positive portrait of the human potential for moral responsibility, but he
concludes:
The fact that people are not capable of responding faithfully does not disqualify the validity
or significance of the discourse. And the fact that divine initiative is emphasized in chaps. 34
and 36 does not eliminate the significant place given to the call to moral responsibility. The
dual focus in Ezekiel reflects the covenantal reality that undergirds Ezekiel's moral vision.
Divine enablement does not cancel the covenantal partnership to which the human
community has been committed.... The community is called, therefore, to live in the middle
of time. And that is why Ezekiel 18 is a hinge text, offering a way of being in the liminal
moment between judgment and transformation.74
Ultimately then, for Matties, a mutually responsible interdependence

characterizes the relationship between Yahweh and the people. The torah of
chapter 18 links the past judgment of the first half of the book with the future
salvation of the second half, by laying before the people a vision for life in the
present.75
71 Matties, Eêkiel 18, 194.

75 Matties, Ezekiel 18, 222-23.
Both Joyce and Matties acknowledge that a tension exists between divine
enablement and human responsibility, and both see Ezekiel as privileging one
pole of the tension more than the other, but they come down very differently as
to which pole is emphasized. It should be evident that Matties' reading of
Ezekiel places considerable emphasis on the role of human responsibility,
whereas Joyce largely attributes those texts depicting human responsibility to
rhetorical flourishes or ulterior purposes. The problem in both cases is that the
tension itself is not accounted for; rather, one pole of the tension is explained
away (e.g., the call to repentance functions only to reassert Israel's responsibility
for the punishment), or textual evidence supporting one side of the tension is
ignored. There are many other places where human beings are depicted as
responsible, why is chapter 18 to be privileged as "the hinge text"? What about
those texts where people are portrayed as incapable of responsibility, e.g.,
chapter 20? Matties, like Joyce, moves away from the individual versus
community question to struggle with the different question of how torah
functions as moral discourse. Yet like Joyce, theodicy is a controlling factor in
Matties' analysis of Ezekiel's ethics. This focus on discerning the logic of divine
ways obscures how problematic it is to discern the logic of human ways in
Ezekiel. Finally, schematizing history in Ezekiel by placing chapter 18 in the
"present" of the text with judgment in the past and salvation in the future is not
only arbitrary, it also has the additional disadvantage of singling out one chapter
as the crucial "hinge," which is in no way suggested by the rest of the book.
IV. A New Framework
A. Repentance and Determinism
As the hypothesis that Ezekiel championed individualism lost its adherents,

and consequently the entire way of framing the problem as the individual versus
the community revealed its weaknesses, a different way of thinking about the
tensions began to emerge, hints of which are already present in Joyce and
Matties. Instead of focusing on the unit of human responsibility, which
characterized the individual versus the community debate, increasingly scholars
started to think about the tension not as a question of who is responsible, the
individual or the community, but as a question of the capacity for human beings
to be morally responsible at all. These scholars contrast the apparent
determinism of chapters 16, 20, and 23 with the freedom to respond
presupposed by the various calls to repentance, and especially the logic of
chapter 18. Additionally, the divine gift of the new heart and new spirit in
chapters 11 and 36 are seen to conflict with the call for people to transform
themselves in chapter 18.
Despite this common way of viewing the tensions in the text, scholars have
come to different solutions for reconciling them. One explanation is to posit an
historical development in the prophet's thinking, usually formulated as a
development from optimism about human nature prior to 587 to pessimism
following the fall of Jerusalem. Lemke, for example, puzzling over the tensions
in the text, suggests that "[p]erhaps Ezekiel became more disillusioned with
human capabilities to affect significant inward change as the years went by."76
Kaminsky seems to share this view: "It is most likely that as the situation
worsened, Ezekiel gave up on the possibility that Israel would, or even could,
repent (Ezek. 16 and 20), and thus ch. 18 would come from a period before
things had reached such a nadir."77 Obviously, the arguments for this particular
historical development must rely on dating chapter 18 prior to 587, which is far
from apparent. 78 The difficulties posed by arguments based on the dating of
individual texts in Ezekiel are underscored by the existence of exactly opposite
interpretations of the same texts. Allen, for example, suggests that Ezekiel
understood time divided into two eras, the old one (pre-587) in which the
people are weighed down by deuteronomistic theology (bondage, supposedly
represented by ch. 20), and the new one, toward which chapter 18 points
(grace).79
76 Werner E. Lemke, "Life in the Present and Hope for the Future," interpretation 38 (1984):
177-. Ultimately Lemke prefers to leave the tension as a paradox: "Perhaps these passages in
Ezekiel also want to remind us that God's people must always earnestly desire and strive in
the here and now for that which in the final analysis only the Holy One, Blessed be He, is
able to grant fully in the age to come" (177).
77 Kaminsky, Corporate Responsibility, 160. Although Kaminsky's study is concerned with the
individual versus corporate question in the Hebrew Bible (as the title indicates), he is not
unaware of the Ezekielian tensions in the capacity of human beings to repent. In his
refutation of the idea that corporate ideas are not central to the Bible, Kaminsky discusses in
some detail Fishbane, Joyce, and Matties on Ezekiel 18.
78 By contrast, Matties' argument for chapter 18 as a "hinge" text relies on a pre-516 but post-
587 dating.
79 Leslie C. Allen, Ezekiel 20-48 (Dallas: Word Books, 1990), 13. Allen links this to Raitt's
discussion of eschatology in Jeremiah and Ezekiel, where the old era is characterized by
human obedience and repentance, and the new era is one in which God sets the standard of
righteousness (Γ. M. Raitt, A Theolog) of Exile: Judgment/Deliverance in Jeremiah and Ezekiel
[Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977], 213). A different approach, though similar in outcome,
argues that the tensions in Ezekiel are the result of redactional activity, i.e., Ezekiel was
fatalistic, where the "Ezekielian school" was more optimistic (as reflected in the "priestly"
language of chapter 18), or, as with the case of the developmental hypothesis outlined above,
vice versa. The tension that attracts Thomas Kruger is the one between Ezekiel's different
historical accounts. He sees 5:5-17, ch. 16, and ch. 23 (pre-587), as reflecting a close link
Instead of positing a development in the prophet's thinking, an alternative

explanation suggests that Ezekiel's thinking is inherently unsystematic,
consequently shows no development, and that the tensions are the result of ad
hoc preaching. Fishbane suggests this as the remaining option if Ezekiel's logic is
not to be perceived as tortured and inscrutable: "...one must either take the
evidence as it stands—together with the radical (and somewhat anarchic)
theological implications which are hidden in such a position—or acknowledge
that we cannot identify a clear continuity in the thought and ideology of the
prophet Ezekiel."80 Among those untroubled by the need for consistency in the
prophet's preaching is Hals: "The text [ch. 20] speaks not at all of repentance,
but of solidarity in guilt and continuity in stubborn grace. Chapter 20 does not
face at all the same audience mood that ch. 18 did. Here the only link between
past and present is not 'you can' but Ί will."'81 Likewise Klein sees the prophet
oriented toward different purposes at different moments: "Because repentance
is the goal of this chapter [ch. 18], the new heart and spirit are described as
human achievements. Elsewhere, where the emphasis is more theocentric, the
new heart and spirit are identified as gifts of Yahweh." 82 It is entirely possible
for the prophet's speech to address varying concerns with different audiences,
but to suggest that this adequately explains the tensions and inconsistencies in
the prophetic discourse is to beg the question: What lies beneath these tensions?
What is the fundamental problem or need that the prophet is addressing, that
these tensions should surface in this way? In asking these questions I do not
wish to suggest that Ezekiel is a systematic thinker, but I will argue that a certain
coherence can be discerned in the book bearing his name. The contradictions
and tensions in the book are worth exploring for what they may reveal about the
tensions implicit in Ezekiel's cultural context, and about the ways that he sought
to cope with them.
B. Repentance and Determinism: Recent Efforts to Confront the Tensions
Two scholars have recently confronted quite directly the tension between the
language of determinism and that of repentance in Ezekiel. Uffenheimer begins
by pointing out that Ezekiel's "radicalism was rooted in a deterministic
between act and consequence, whereas ch. 20 and 36:16-38 (post-587) show that divine
restitution is not linked to prior human behavior (Yahweh acts for his name's sake) [Thomas
Kruger, Geschichtskonqpte im Eêchielbuch (BZAW180; Berlin; New York: de Gruyter, 1989)].
81 Ronald M. Hals, E^tkiel (FOTL 19; Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1989), 143.
82 Ralph Klein, Egktei The Prophet and His Message (Columbia, S.C.: University of South
Carolina Press), 108.
anthropology of the people of Israel," and that this complete "depravity" is

explained by the compelling need to defend the justice of Yahweh.83 Contrasting
this with Ezekiel's ethics, which speak to the absolute freedom of the human
will (in chapters 3, 18, and 33), Uffenheimer underscores the "glaring
contradictoriness" of these opposing views of human nature, and further
compares it with Ezekiel's "extremely pessimistic consciousness of the present
and the jubilant eschatological belief he nurtured in a wondrous future."84
Because the justice of God must be defended at all costs, it is Ezekiel's
theocentrism which "shaped [his] eschatology and historical views."85
How does Uffenheimer reconcile these tensions? He rejects any redaction-
critical solutions, but does suggest that the tension is acceptable if one
remembers that Ezekiel's "concrete sphere of action and activity" was the
community of exiles in Babylon, whereas his deterministic judgments concerned
the fate of Jerusalem. 86 The thrust of Ezekiel's ethics is that each individual is
utterly free in the present, and Uffenheimer sees this "new position" in both
18:31, where the people are called to get themselves a new heart etc., and in
36:26—27, where this change will be the result of an eschatological act of God;
for Uffenheimer these are not contradictory, but "variations" of the same
position.87 He concludes:
Both Ezekiel's prophecies of doom, in which he wished to convince the exile community of
the inexorable nature of the catastrophe, and to justify its occurrence, as well as his new
ethics, based on a quite different foundation, were meant to save the exilic community
spiritually and psychologically, and to lay the intellectual foundations for the future
community.88
So the tension is resolved by suggesting that when Ezekiel employs

deterministic language, he is talking to the exiles about someone else, namely the
Jerusalemites, and therefore such a negative view of human nature is not to be
understood as applicable to the exilic audience. Rather, the deterministic
language functions as a necessary explanation to the exiles of why Yahweh had
83 Benjamin Uffenheimer, "Theodicy and Ethics in the Prophecy of Ezekiel," in justice and
Righteousness: Biblical Themes and Their Influence, (ed. G. Reventlow and Y. Hoffman; JSOTSup
137; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992), 201.
84 Uffenheimer, "Theodicy and Ethics," 202.
87 Uffenheimer, "Theodicy and Ethics," 223-24.
88 Uffenheimer, "Theodicy and Ethics," 225. Note the similarities to Fishbane's position: both
account for the tension, at least partly, by suggesting that Ezekiel's fatalistic/deterministic
language applies only to the Jerusalemites, whereas the language of repentance applies only
to the exiles.
to destroy the people back in Jerusalem. But where the "new ethics" are directed
to the exile community, in Ezekiel's eschatological vision it is the creative
activity of God that fashions a new people (this is not far from Matties'
argument).
The strength of Uffenheimer's argument is that he underscores the extent to
which a deep contradiction exists in the interface of these texts. Nonetheless, he
ultimately comes out skirting that contradiction. Again the recourse to theodicy
and divine justice does much to smooth out the contradictions in the character
of Yahweh, but it leaves the character of human beings riven with
contradictions that go unexplained; these tensions in the depiction of human
nature remain only superficially addressed. According to Uffenheimer's reading,
the people of the past (the Jerusalemites) are deterministically wicked, the
people of the present (the exiles) possess absolute free will, and the people of
the future (the eschatological community) are deterministically good. This
categorization into three distinct divisions is a bit too neat. To reconcile the
diverse portraits of human beings in Ezekiel by saying that each is presented to
the same audience in order to "save the exilic community spiritually and
psychologically" ignores the continuity of the problem of human moral identity
from past to present to future in the book. The way in which Ezekiel attempts
to resolve the problem of moral identity at the end of the book relates closely to
the way in which the problem is presented earlier in the book; these connections
must be teased out of the text.
Baruch Schwartz also faces the tension between repentance and determinism
head on:
If Israel's fate is long sealed, and the sinfulness of centuries has led to the imminent
destruction and exile, how can intergenerational responsibility be denied? Moreover, if
Israel's fate is irrevocable, and there are none righteous enough to survive, how can Ezekiel
affirm that repentance is a viable option?89
Schwartz rightly criticizes those who downplay either pole of the tension in
order to preserve the coherence of Ezekiel's thought; but he is also unwilling to
abandon the idea that Ezekiel is being consistent and systematic on this issue.
The key for Schwartz lies in challenging the consensus that chapter 20
represents deuteronomistic theology. 90 In its emphasis on general disobedience
89 Baruch Schwartz, "Repentance and Determinism in Ezekiel," in Proceedings of the Eleventh

World Congtss of Jewish Studies: Division A (Jerusalem: The World Union of Jewish Studies,
1994), 124.
90 He is not the first Both J. Lust in "Ez., XX, 4-26: une parodie de l'histoire religiouse
d'Israel," ETL 43 (1967): 488-527, and J. Pons in "Le vocabulaire d'Ezechiel 20: le prophete
s'oppose a la vision deuteronomiste de l'histoire," in Ezekiel and His Book: Textual and Literary
Criticism and Thar Interpretation (ed. J. Lust; Leuven: University Press, 1986), 214—33, argue
as opposed to particular sins, Schwartz sees more priestly themes in chapter 20

than deuteronomistic, and furthermore he finds there no interest in the quantity
of sin (a major concern of Dtr). 91 The tensions between chapters 20 and 18 thus
begin to crumble:
The wilderness generation in 20:18-24 is the precise counterpart of the second and third
generations in 18:10-18. The former exemplifies what happens when children persist in the
ways of their ancestors; the latter illustrate what happens when they do not; the principle is
the same: no guilt or merit is passed on.92
Likewise on the other pressing issue in chapter 18 (the eternal present of

judgment), Schwartz sees no discrepancy between chapter 20, "when an already
wicked personality refuses to mend his ways" and chapter 18 "when he agrees
to do so. The principle is the same: the latest stage is all that matters; any change
of direction eradicates the past." 93
Because transgenerational responsibility has been repudiated (in chapter 18),
in order to have the necessary justification to destroy the Israelites at any time,
God needs to insure the constant sinfulness of the people, and thus must
eliminate the possibility that any successive generation will repent. Chapter 20 is
the expression of this need. The underlying assumption of this logic is that
repentance is efficacious. The coherence of EzekiePs doctrine of retribution
(guilt is not transgenerational and repentance is immediately effective) is
consequently preserved in both chapters 18 and 20. "Thus, Israel's historic fate
was determined precisely in accord with Chapter 18—not recently, but in the
distant past."94 Whether the present generation can repent is irrelevant since the
judgment is already in progress, and the future will be determined as the past
was:
Either the call to 'return and live' will be heeded, in which case her ingathering and
restoration will take place because they are deserved, or the call will not be heeded—in
which case, Israel will continue to deserve death. In the latter event, she will in fact not die—
but not because she does not deserve to die, only because God, once again, for personal
reasons, cannot allow her to die. Ezekiel's doctrine of determinism, of God's acting for his
name's sake, is the result of, not the opposite of, his belief in the absolute efficacy of
repentance.95
that chapter 20 is not so much deuteronomistic as it polemicizes against the deuteronomistic

view of history.
91 Schwartz, "Repentance and Determinism," 126-27.
92 Schwartz, "Repentance and Determinism," 127.
Schwartz's resolution of the tension absolves Yahweh of inconsistent behavior,

but the price is high: the argument depends on a contorted logic depicting
Yahweh as willfully insuring the sin of the people (by overtly preventing their
repentance) over successive generations in order to punish them when he feels
like it. This, were it an accurate account of ch. 20, would undercut sharply
EzekiePs deep belief, evident elsewhere in the book, that the people are solely
responsible for their fate, and that Yahweh is completely justified in punishing
them. Again, the need on the part of scholars to find a consistent and coherent
portrait of God (while assigning that need to Ezekiel) results in a fragmented
and confused portrait of human beings, which is apparently not so troubling.
The focus of scholarship on this issue in Ezekiel has long been on theology,
and more specifically on theodicy and the nature of divine retribution, and this
has not been without fruitful results. Nonetheless I believe that this
preoccupation with theodicy has abetted a propensity to gloss over the depth of
the tensions in the book, and as a result has led to some superficial conclusions.
I am proposing that the problem can be flipped around and asked profitably
from the other side: what is going on in Ezekiel's anthropology? Reflecting
theologically is, after all, inherently connected to thinking about anthropology.
To know God is to know self, and vice versa. Attention to the human side of
this relationship in Ezekiel may therefore prove worthwhile in assembling the
puzzle of his portrait of God and the even more intricate puzzle of the
relationship between God and human beings. Ezekiel writes to fulfill certain
rhetorical needs and goals, some of which are quite apparent, but what do the
tensions in the text reveal about less explicitly articulated needs? Why do the
tensions in the book take the form they do? Exploring these questions will
involve moving beyond Ezekiel's explicitly stated theology (theodicy is an
explicit issue for him) to attend to the underlying assumptions at work in his
discourse, because I suspect that it is at the level of those assumptions that the
deeper crisis in Ezekiel's anthropology and theology may be discovered.
Chapter 3: Biblical Portraits Of The Human Moral Self
Outside Of Ezekiel
Both the view of the human moral self as "virtuous," where people are assumed
capable of choosing the good, and the "neutral" construction, where people are
depicted as incapable of choosing the good, are found in Ezekiel, as I will argue
in chs. 4 and 5. But from where do these ways of thinking about human moral
identity come? Ezekiel did not invent them; rather, they were present in the
culture of which he was a part, and that culture is available to us (albeit only
generally and to a limited extent) through other biblical texts. At this point,
therefore, before delving into Ezekiel's struggle with these different
perspectives, it will be helpful to spend some time considering how the human
moral self appears in some HB texts other than Ezekiel. The point here is- not to
establish the biblical origins of the paradigms Ezekiel was working with (this is
not a tradition history or an attempt to establish literary relationships). Nor is it
my goal to sort through and examine all the biblical examples of either virtuous
or neutral moral selfhood (this would require additional volumes). Rather, the
intent of this chapter is to demonstrate that Ezekiel was not working in a
cultural vacuum when it came to ideas about moral selfhood; other biblical texts
offer visions of human moral identity that are recognizably similar to the types
of moral selfhood with which Ezekiel struggles. In this way, this discussion will
provide a helpful background for chapters 4-6 in two ways: by illustrating that
Ezekiel draws on culturally available thinking about the problem of moral
identity, and by laying the foundation for succeeding chapters to show that
while he draws on the traditions available to him, Ezekiel articulates the
problem of moral identity more forcefully, and ultimately attempts to resolve it
by more radically creative means.
To accomplish this goal, the discussion in this chapter will focus on the early
chapters of Genesis (especially the J materials), and parts of Jeremiah. The first
part of the chapter will examine the ways in which these texts offer portraits of
human beings that largely resemble the virtuous moral self. The second part of
the chapter will trace the portrait of the neutral moral self as it appears in these
texts. The choice of Genesis and Jeremiah as sample texts is not random. In
Genesis 2—3 the birth of the moral self is narrated, thus providing a significant
window onto issues of moral identity. And Jeremiah is particularly useful for
thinking about Ezekiel because the two books share so much background in
terms of time and circumstance. Furthermore, an unusual and interesting feature
of these portions of the Hebrew Bible is the way in which both perspectives on
human moral identity (virtuous and neutral) coexist in these texts; a subtle
tension is generated by their co-presence. It is precisely this tension—which
appears even more prominently and urgently in Ezekiel—which will be of
interest in the chapters to follow.1
One difficulty is created by the choice of these particular texts, however. The
coexistence of the virtuous and neutral types of the moral self in these sections
of Genesis and Jeremiah may lead one to believe that the two paradigms are
more or less equally represented in the HB as a whole. This is emphatically not
the case. Although both the virtuous and the neutral constructions of moral
selfhood are recognizable in the other biblical materials outside of Ezekiel,
virtuous moral selfhood is the paradigm that bears the greatest resemblance to
the majority of depictions of human beings in the canonical biblical materials.
Neutral moral selfhood appears only in a minority, albeit a significant minority,
of texts.2 In most of the extant traditions from ancient Israel with which Ezekiel
was presumably familiar (narrative, priestly, covenant-making, prophetic,
wisdom, etc.), human beings are not only assumed to be capable of making
reasoned choices and of being responsible for the choices they make, but they
are also relentlessly exhorted to act on that capacity by making choices that are
morally responsible to God and to neighbor. But these traditions go even
farther and zealously urge that aU. choices be made to accord with the revealed
will of God (i.e., with toratì). Nowhere is this clearer than in the covenant-
making traditions of Deuteronomy and in prophetic calls to repentance, where
the capacity to choose between obedience and disobedience is foregrounded.
The basic picture of humans as capable of making, and indeed as being expected
to make, moral decisions for the good and bearing responsibility for those
decisions is thus pervasive in much of the Hebrew Bible. The emphasis on the
human capacity to freely make choices that accord with the divine will, the
urgency of the call to choose responsibly, and the gravity of the consequences
of choosing rightly or wrongly—these characteristics pervade and are central to
these Israelite traditions. In the normal course of reading, one is hardly aware of
the anthropology that underlies these texts; the virtuous moral selfhood is so
obvious and uncontested that it is assumed by most readers.
1 Another prominent example of a biblical text where this tension exists is in Proverbs,
regarding the nature of the fool.
2 In certain parts of the narrative traditions, in bits of Deuteronomy, a few penitential psalms,
elements of the wisdom tradition, Isaiah (and especially 2 Isaiah), and Jeremiah, the virtuous
moral self is at least partially suppressed, replaced by an emphasis on God's initiative to
effect human transformation. Some of these texts can be dated (arguably, of course) prior to
Ezekiel, suggesting that variations of neutral moral selfhood were culturally present to
Ezekiel, even if they constituted a minority voice.
The Human Moral Self Outside of Ezekiel 45
I. Virtuous Moral Selfhood: The Dominant View
A. Genesis 2 - 3
In terms o f the moral self, Genesis 2—3 is a crucial text, the one in which
virtuous moral selfhood makes its appearance for the first time (both
canonically and within the plot of the story itself). In part, the story expresses
the Yahwist's struggle to understand how human beings developed into moral
persons, how they c o m e to inhabit the strange terrain o f being both like other
animals in their finitude, and like G o d in their capacity for moral discernment.
T h e story is extremely complex, however, and this foray will necessarily leave
out much that is worthy o f consideration. It will nonetheless prove helpful to
sketch out the broad outlines o f how moral identity is presented and develops in
the story o f the primeval couple.
For the purposes o f this discussion, life in the garden may be divided into
three periods according to the different moral anthropology functioning in each
period. In the first o f these (2:7-2:15), only the OIK as yet exists, and no
prohibition has yet been uttered. T h e second period (2:16—3:5) begins with the
prohibition against eating from the tree o f the knowledge o f g o o d and evil, and
ends when the woman, followed by the man, eats the fruit. Finally, once the
couple has eaten the fruit and their eyes are opened (3:6), a new era o f the moral
self has begun, the end o f which is not recorded in the story. T h e s e successive
stages provide a framework for understanding how and why, in the mind o f the
J writer(s), human beings find themselves embodying the type o f moral identity
that they do.
Prior to the prohibition concerning the tree in the garden, the 0"1K lives in an
amoral world—there are no moral decisions to be made. Since prohibitions do
not yet exist, no distinctions between g o o d and evil are necessary or even
imaginable. In fact, it is not only moral distinctions which are irrelevant at this
stage, but other kinds o f distinctions as well. N o sexual differentiation exists as
yet, for example, nor is G o d decisively separated from the DtK; they appear to
live in communion in the garden. There is s o m e differentiation o f course, e.g.,
different kinds o f animals with various names are present. In fact, the animals
are defined by their difference f r o m the DIX (by not being the "Π333 ITI?). O n e
o f the distinguishing marks of the D1K vis-à-vis the animals is the former's
capacity for moral agency, though this difference will not emerge until later in
the story. Despite certain distinctions a m o n g the beings in the garden, then,
moral distinctions are not yet part o f the environment. An absolute freedom
appears to characterize this phase in the garden; the OIK apparently may do as it
pleases without restraint. In this idyllic state, there is no neutral or virtuous

moral self, only a neutral amoral self.
Once Yahweh announces the prohibition against eating from the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil (2:17), the situation changes considerably. The D~IK,
and subsequently the woman also, are now presented with a new possibility:
choice. They may choose to obey or disobey the prohibition. 3 Yet this is not yet
virtuous moral selfhood. No larger vision of the good (i.e., no knowledge of the
difference between good and evil; cf. 2:17; 3:5) is available to motivate the man
and woman to obey; rather they are motivated to obey or disobey according to
what feels good to them in that moment (to satisfy curiosity, appetite, etc.).
Their moral situation bears some similarity to that of a young child (from about
age one) who has learned that certain prohibitions exist.4 The child may choose
to obey or disobey them, but s/he is not motivated by a larger vision of the
good (dogs behave similarly). For example, a child may choose not to hit the cat
not because s/he understands that this is painful to the cat and therefore
harmful to creation as a whole, but because s/he hopes to avoid punishment
and/or be praised by a parent. In short, the goal in choosing to obey or disobey
is what feels good to the child. At this second stage, the man and woman in the
garden are similarly motivated—their point of reference is not the greater good,
but their own immediate gratification.
Before examining the last episode in the story, a word about the type of
knowledge offered by the tree is appropriate. As many commentators have
pointed out, the tree represents more than just moral knowledge; instead it
includes a broader, more inclusive vision of knowledge in general.5 Nonetheless,
this knowledge includes moral knowledge, that is, the ability to make
distinctions according to a larger vision of what is good. 6 Ironically, the only
way to possess a vision of what is good is by also grasping what is evil. The tree
therefore cannot be a tree of the knowledge of good alone, but must include
3 "What counts is the fact of the prohibition, the authority of the one who speaks and the
unqualified expectation of obedience" (Walter Brueggemann, Genesis [Interpretation; Atlanta:
John Knox, 1982], 46).
4 Landy sees Eve as an innocent child for whom discipline is not yet an issue: "Instead of a
malignant sinner, we have an innocent, i.e. undisciplined, child, responsive to her inner
promptings" (Francis Landy, Paradoxes of Paradise: Identity and Difference in the Song of Songs
[Sheffield: Almond, 1983], 242-43).
5 See Claus Westermann's excursus, Genesis 1-11 (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984), 242—44. Von
Rad equates it with the knowledge of "everything" (Gerhard von Rad, Genesis [Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1972], 86).
6 J. Baird Callicott argues that the knowledge does not simply involve how to distinguish good
and evil, because that knowledge is already implied when the prohibition is announced (J.
Baird Callicott, "Genesis and John Muir," in Covenant for a New Creation: Ethics, Retigon, and
Public Potig [eds. Carol S. Robb, Carl J. Casebolt; Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1991], 123).
knowledge of evil as well. Only then does full knowledge, and with it the
possibility of the good, exist. Knowing good and evil therefore entails
possessing the capacity to make distinctions, to evaluate, and to choose.
Two aspects of the text support this understanding of the knowledge that the
tree represents. First, the knowledge will enable the humans to "become like
god(s), knowing good and evil" (»71 aiû "BT DTÒK3 Drrm, [3:5; cf. 3:22]),
suggesting, at least in part, that they will be able to make the same kinds of
distinctions, moral and otherwise, that God makes.7 Secondly, the human
capacity to make moral distinctions is immediately tested in the story of Cain
and Abel. In fact, the human propensity to make poor moral decisions is
thematized throughout the primeval history (more on this below). The
possibility of moral choice is initiated in the garden, but the biblical writers
express their considerable ambivalence about the implications of that ability
within the story itself, and in the stories which follow it.
It should not surprise us that the woman disobeys the prohibition and picks
the fruit that opens her eyes to knowledge: "The woman saw that the tree was
good for food, was pleasing to the eyes, and that it was desirable for gaining
discernment" (mrai dt»1? κίΓΓΓηκη "οι S s K n b pan aits ' a ηώκη κ-ιηι
1
"raion ? fun, 3:6). Choosing to disobey the prohibition was in some sense
inevitable, since her desire for all of these things represents a fundamental
aspect of lived human existence.8 Still in the moral universe I am calling phase
two, the woman acts out of a desire for self-gratification; her curiosity
outweighs her fear of punishment. As we learn from what follows, it is the last
of the three attributes that the woman saw in the tree (the desire for knowledge)
which has the greatest implications for human existence: "Their eyes were
opened, and they knew (1»T1) that they were naked..." (3:7). This is the
narrative moment when the virtuous moral self is born, when the possibility of
moral choices based upon an orientation to the good becomes a reality.
At first it is not clear that this is a consequence of having eaten from the tree,
since nakedness is not usually associated with moral knowledge. The traditional
interpretation of this verse associates the couple's nakedness with their sudden
shameful awareness of themselves as sexual beings. Yet Callicott persuasively
argues that this reading does not fit the evidence, since the text strongly implies
7 Trible reads Yahweh's remark in 3:22 ironically—the humans are completely unlike God in
their vulnerability etc. For her, eating from the tree provides no "transforming wisdom"
(Phyllis Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuaäty [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978], 136).
8 David Nolan Fewell and David M. Gunn, Gender, Power, and Promise: The Subject of the Bible's
First Story (Nashville: Abingdon, 1993), 30. In her classic analysis, Trible highlighted the
woman's positive role in the story (Trible, God and the Rhetoric, 113). See also Mieke Bal,
Lethal Love: Feminist Literary Readings of Biblical Love Stones (ISBL; Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1987), 125-26.
that the first couple have a sexual relationship already in Gen. 2:24 (".. .and they
will become one flesh").9 Instead, the knowledge gained by the first couple is
better understood as primarily conveying the dawning of self-awareness.
Callicott emphasizes this aspect of the story, understanding the knowledge
acquired to convey "the power to judge, to decide, to determine what is right and
what is wrong in relation to self This knowledge, then, opens the way to
anthropocentrism.10 Yet the possibility of anthropocentrism implies the
possibility of theocentrism, as well, which was not a real option in the second
stage described above. Thus, "[b]y plucking the fruit, human beings became
conscious of their capacity for good as well as for evil."11 This last episode thus
marks the beginning of true choice in how human beings orient themselves to
reality. The story in the garden is concerned to show how human beings came
to possess their apparent freedom to make moral decisions, i.e., their virtuous
moral selfhood, which, in the Yahwist's view, is a characteristic peculiar to
human beings.
B. Jeremiah
Because of his proximity in time to Ezekiel, and because of Ezekiel's free

adaptation of so many of Jeremiah's themes and images, it is both necessary and
helpful to consider Jeremiah's view of moral identity in some detail. Due to this
overlap in time and tradition, Jeremiah shares with Ezekiel commonalities in
their views of moral identity, such that the tension apparent in Ezekiel is also
present in Jeremiah, albeit to a diminished degree. In chapter 4 I will examine
Ezekiel's intermittent subscription to the dominant paradigm of the virtuous
moral self, but in this section I will address the ways in which Jeremiah
subscribes to this view (on how he diverges from it, see below), and I will
especially note the ways in which he differs from Ezekiel.12 Four aspects of
9 Callicott, "Genesis and John Muir," 122.

10 Callicott, "Genesis and John Muir," 123.
11 Karen Armstrong, In the Beginning: A New Interpretation of Genesis (New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1996), 30.
12 The redaction-critical history of Jeremiah is complex. Some of the texts I will discuss are
believed by many to be from the historical Jeremiah while others are thought to be
Deuteronomistic redactions. As with Ezekiel, I am interested in the portrait of moral identity
that emerges from the book as whole. Douglas Knight addresses the historical Jeremiah's
view of moral identity in "Jeremiah and the Dimensions of the Moral Life," in The Divine
Helmsman: Stuées on God's Control of Human Events, Presented to Lou H. Silherman (eds. J.
Crenshaw, S. Sandmel; New York: KTAV, 1980), 87-103. Perhaps not coincidentally, I find
the moral selfhood of the book to be remarkably similar to that of the historical Jeremiah,
according to Knight"s analysis.
Jeremiah will be considered here: 1) Jeremiah's positive view of Israel's

beginnings until their entry into the land, 2) the reiteration of the possibility of
repentance, 3) the problem of the evil will, and 4) human initiative in moral
transformation.
Like Hosea and Isaiah, Jeremiah looks back to a golden period in Israel's
early history. 13 "I remember the faithful devotion of your youth, your love as a
bride, your following me in the wilderness, in a land not sown" ("ΙΟΠ THST
ΠΒΠΤ TÒ · ρ « Α NANNA ·ηπκ -[¡-ob - p n ' r t e ηηπκ - p i r n , jer. 2:2). This
harmonious relationship with Yahweh was broken only at the entry into the
land, when the people defiled the gift they had just received (ΙΚΰΊΪΠΊ "ITOM
m i r r ò Diinia "TÒrm ^ Ί κ - η κ , 2:7). As Uffenheimer observes, despite
Jeremiah's harsh condemnation of Israel's present transgressions, this view of
the past suggests that "he is nonetheless convinced that Israel is capable of
repentance." 14 So Jeremiah joins the majority of prophets in seeing the Israelites
as having come into existence with a good set of moral equipment, but as
having chosen the path of unrighteousness just before (Hosea) or just after
(Jeremiah, Isaiah) their arrival in the land.15
Early in the book, Jeremiah displays a clear belief in the possibility that the
people might repent and change their ways, attested in part by several calls in
the initial chapters for Israel to acknowledge their guilt and return. Jer. 3:13—14
exemplifies this attitude: "Only acknowledge your guilt, for against Yahweh
your God you have rebelled.... Return, O faithless children, says Yahweh, for I
am your master. I will take you, one from a city, and two from a family and I
will bring you to Zion" (D"33 131Ϊ) . ,.ΠΙίώΒ -|Τ0Κ ΠΊΓΓη -piiJ "ΙΠ ψ
NNSRÁN ΟΌΟΙ -P»N ι π κ π η η κ TINPBI n a a T Ò M O J K Ό ΠΊΓΡ t u o ORANTI
yrs ΟΧΠΚ T i m m , v. 13a; 14; cf. 3:22; 18:11). Jeremiah here explicitly expresses
a view of human beings in which they are capable of "acknowledging their guilt"
and repenting of their wickedness, even if his hope that they might do so is slim.
In short, Jeremiah's underlying anthropology is optimistic—people, for him,
possess moral equipment that could, in theory, empower them to make the right
moral choices.
Further evidence of Jeremiah's view of the human moral self as virtuous
appears in the blessings and curses he announces in connection with Israel's
hoped for return to Yahweh. If Israel returns to Yahweh, removing the
,L
o f f e n d i n g a b o m i n a t i o n s FPXIPTÍ Τ Ο Γ Γ Ο Κ Ι aittín ?K ΠΊΓΤΟΊΟ Stniö" AKMVDK
13 The historical perspectives of Hosea and Isaiah are discussed in ch. 4.

15 On this question I do not discuss the narrative traditions, where the Israelites reveal a
tendency for poor moral choices from the beginning of the national history. Nonetheless,
the events described in those traditions are premised upon the idea that they had the
capacity to make wise moral choices, but elected not to do so.
ODD, Jer. 4:1), then the nations will find blessing (4:2). Refusal to change their
ways will result in the undesirable consequences entailed by divine wrath (i.e.,
curses), as spelled out in v. 4. The invocation of blessings and curses as a
motivating tool similarly reveals an underlying anthropology of virtuous moral
selfhood—i.e., it only works if the people are presumed capable of making this
kind of moral choice, of aligning themselves with the good which brings
blessing.
But Jeremiah's belief in the human capacity to make good moral choices is
not rewarded. Readers of Jeremiah have noted how the calls to repentance
diminish as the book progresses, apparently due to Jeremiah's dawning
realization that the people will not heed such calls and avert the impending
disaster.16 By 25:4—7 and 35:12—17 the possibility of repentance is mentioned as
a missed opportunity: the prophets were sent, preaching repentance (25:5;
35:15), but the people did not listen and so must bear the consequences.
Despite Jeremiah's evident disappointment that the people refused to turn and
repent, their failure does not in these texts call into question the basic idea of
the virtuous moral self. In his examination of the moral life in Jeremiah,
Douglas Knight observes: "The people are free to choose in the sense that there
is nothing intrinsic to their nature or to their community that compels them,
whether consciously or unconsciously, to a certain course of moral action." 17
The people are still presumed to possess the capacity to choose the right over
the wrong, they simply chose incorrectly in this instance. The problem, in other
words, lies in the direction of the people's will, not in their capaaty to exert their
will.
The problem of the "evil will" appears explicitly in a number of passages in
Jeremiah. Following the metaphor of the potter in ch. 18, for example, the
people are advised to repent (18:11), and their negative response is reported:
"But they say, "That is useless! For we follow our own plans, and each of us
does according to the stubbornness of his evil heart" (ΉΠΚ'Ό tíKU ΠΰΚΙ
n r á ) j n m a b n m ü ÍTK1 irmatarra, Jer. 18:12; cf. 3:17, 5:23, 6:28, 7:24,
9:13, 11:8, 13:10, 16:12, 23:17).18 From the parallelism with "our own plans"
16 Knight observes: "As events moved closer to the fall of Jerusalem, the people's
intransigence in the face of his calls for repentance evoked from Jeremiah an increasingly
pessimistic evaluation of their capability for moral rectitude ...." (Knight, "Moral Life," 88).
17 Knight, "Moral Life," 101. Knight notes, however, that this freedom is limited to a certain
degree by the people's relationship with Yahweh. Uffenheimer also observes the differences
between Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and finds that Jeremiah "is nonetheless convinced that Israel
is capable of repentance" (Uffenheimer, "Theodicy and Ethics," 213).
18 As a general rule, the texts assigned to the Deuteronomists read "the stubbornness of his
evil heart" (variations of ΙΠΠ r m ® ) whereas those assigned to the historical
(UTTDtönö), the "heart" (31?) in this context evidently signifies the seat of the
will, which controls moral decision-making.19 The root "Π® means "to be firm"
in Aramaic and Arabic, but in biblical texts it always conveys a sense of
excessive firmness, i.e., of "stubbornness."20 The will refuses to be moved from
its present course of evil, and for Jeremiah this is the moral problem at the root
of all the people's problems. As Knight observes:
Jeremiah is more intensely critical of the aspects associated with the human will than with
any other condition of the moral agent. ... [H]is primary concern is that they have developed
a disposition, a willful purpose, and a preferred course of action that are all contrary to the
will of YHWH. These are associated, of course, with choice, decision, and planning, parts of
the process of moral acting.21
In repeatedly announcing his diagnosis of the Israelites' moral problem as a

perverse will, Jeremiah locates the problem at a different level of the moral self
from Ezekiel. Recalling the distinction between the moral will and moral
equipment made in the Introduction, we note that Jeremiah cites the will as the
locus of perversity or corruption, whereas Ezekiel situates the core problem at
an even more fundamental level of the moral self, in the people's moral
equipment (this will be argued in chs. 4 and 5).
Two other texts are worth mentioning for what they reveal about Jeremiah's
basically optimistic view of human nature. First, in 4:4 the word of Yahweh to
Judah and Jerusalem enjoins the people: "Circumcise yourselves to Yahweh,
remove the foreskins of your hearts" m b i r "ΠΟΠΊ mrrb ibnn] (Jer.
4:4; cf. Deut. 10:16). The precise connotations of this image are elusive. While it
is clear that to have a circumcised heart is to possess a will capable of aligning
itself with the divine will, it is less clear exactly how the "foreskin" prevents this
(possibly it is a blockage in the heart that prevents God's teachings to enter22).
The power of the image seems to rely less on this question than on the analogic
function of the religious practice of circumcision in Israel. Just as literal
circumcision functions to consecrate males to Yahweh, so metaphorical
circumcision functions to consecrate specifically the will of the people to
Yahweh. At any rate, the implication for this discussion is that Jeremiah, like
Ezekiel in 18:31, understands the problem of human moral failure to be
correctable by human initiative—the people are capable of redirecting their will.
Jeremiah read "the stubbornness of his heart" (variations of m~H2) ). The problem is
the same, even if the Deuteronomists are more emphatic in their description of it.
19 See Knight, "Moral life," 93.
20 In Jer. 5:23 and 6:28 the root is "ΠΟ, which also connotes stubbornness.
21 Knight, "Moral Life," 92.
22 On this metaphor in Deuteronomy, Tigay suggests: "The foreskin is a metaphor for a mental
block that has made Israel stubborn" (Jeffrey H. Tigay, Deuteronomy, 107-8).
Finally, the parable of the good and bad figs (Jer. 24) inadvertently reveals
more than polemical ideology about those who remained in Judah and Egypt.
For Jeremiah, the exiles in Babylon are the "good" remnant, and his positive
view of them may be contrasted to Ezekiel's fundamental pessimism concerning
the moral nature of any group. Uffenheimer contrasts Jeremiah to Ezekiel on
this point:
Jeremiah still believed in Israel's basic moral nature that had been polluted in the present,
but that would assert itself once more via those who would return purified from exile.... In
contrast, Ezekiel is convinced that the impending catastrophe cannot be averted, because
Israel's [transgressions] are evidence of its total depravity.... 23
In Ezekiel's dire perspective, hope does not reside in any "good figs," for there
are none. Hope lies only in dusty bones, that may, by Yahweh's will, live again.
From this foray into Jeremiah's anthropology, it is clear that Jeremiah is
grappling with similar issues to Ezekiel. The question of the extent to which the
people are capable of knowing and doing the good is very much present in both
prophets. Yet it should also be apparent that their perspectives on this problem
are quite different. Jeremiah continues to assume a basically intact model of the
virtuous moral self, capable of knowing and doing the good. True, that model
has come under some stress from historical events, and we will see signs of that
stress in the second half of this chapter, but Jeremiah is able to hold on to the
dominant model by assigning blame to his own generation. Knight observes:
"For Jeremiah, then, people normally have the capacity to know and do the
good. It was his generation that refused." 24 For Ezekiel, it was not only his
generation, but every generation, that is incapable of knowing and doing the
good, thus revealing a problem in the people's moral constitution itself.25 As we
shall see in the chapters which follow, Ezekiel also assumes a paradigm of
virtuous moral selfhood, but for him that view of humanity has come under
such stress that it begins to lose its explanatory power. Due to the current
disaster, he must seek other ways to think about human beings.
23 Uffenheimer, "Theodicy and Ethics," 214. Uffenheimer cites similar evidence in Jeremiah
(idealized view of desert generation, calls for repentance, etc.) to support his view that for
Jeremiah, Israel still possesses a "basically solid moral character" (201).
24 Knight, "Moral Life," 102. See also Uffenheimer, "Theodicy and Ethics," 201.
25 Block distinguishes nicely between Jeremiah and Ezekiel on this point, but then accounts for
the tension in Ezekiel by arguing that different contexts require different rhetorical strategies
(Block, Ezekiel 1-24, 630).
II. Neutral Moral Selfhood: The Minority View
Less prevalent but still present in the Bible are those materials that depict
virtuous moral selfhood as at least partially suppressed. Where this is the case,
human moral identity is more adequately described in terms of neutral moral
selfhood, the inability to discern and do the good. I hasten to observe, however,
that a pure neutral moral selfhood is not frequently found in the biblical
materials, because such a view is inherently inimical to the biblically central idea
of a dynamic relationship between Israel and Yahweh. Nonetheless, if neutral
and virtuous moral selfhood are broadly conceived as different (but distantly
related) families of moral identity, certain depictions of human beings in the
Bible can, by their features, be seen to resemble more closely neutral than
virtuous moral selfhood. The tendency to depict the human moral self as more
neutral than virtuous is often attended by a concomitant stress on God's
initiative to effect human moral transformation. Thus, the texts studied in this
section will be those in which the human moral identity depicted shares some
common ground with the idea that human beings are incapable of perceiving
the good, and/or the balance in moral initiative shifts toward God.
Portraits of human beings that bear considerable family resemblance to
neutral moral selfhood appear in a variety of biblical texts: e.g., some narrative
texts, very small portions of Deuteronomy (e.g., 30:6), a few psalms (e.g., 51,
106), some Proverbs, and small segments of the prophetic traditions, including
Isaiah and Second Isaiah. These examples must await a separate analysis,
however. Here we must be limited to examining the way in which human beings
are depicted as neutral moral selves in the primeval history in Genesis, and in
Jeremiah. The primeval history is an appropriate choice of texts because it
recounts the consequences of the birth of virtuous moral selfhood (discussed
above), and in the process reflects considerable ambivalence concerning the
effect that human moral decision-making has on the well-being of humanity and
the earth.
Jeremiah is instructive because the presence of several examples of neutral
moral selfhood in the book reveals some of the same ambivalence that Ezekiel
expresses about human moral identity, although, as observed above, Jeremiah's
embrace of virtuous moral selfhood better withstands the critical assault of
history. Again, the goal of this chapter is not to establish all or even most of the
biblical evidence for neutral moral selfhood, but rather simply to illustrate that
such a view was present in Israelite traditions, and thus as a way of thinking
about human moral identity was likely culturally available to Ezekiel.
Nonetheless, it is important to keep in mind that the two views of human moral
identity, virtuous and neutral, are not on an equal footing in the Bible: neutral
moral selfhood is unquestionably the minority view.
A. The Primeval History26
As a general rule, biblical narrative as a genre relies on the assumption that

characters are capable of knowing and doing the good, partly because if they
were not, it would be difficult to sustain the dramatic tension, and partly
because of the centrality of the idea of accountability to God assumed in so
much of the material. Yet certain parts of the narrative traditions stand out
because they do not entirely conform to this general rule, and the primeval
history is an especially intriguing example. Earlier in this chapter I suggested
that virtuous moral selfhood was born, narratively speaking, in the creation
story of Genesis 2-3. Yet even within that story itself a certain ambivalence
about whether human beings are capable of handling the responsibility inherent
in this type of identity is evident. The prohibition against eating from the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil—this in and of itself betrays a profound distrust
of the human capacity to handle such knowledge in an appropriate manner. Yet
the fact that human beings come to possess a virtuous moral self by their own
initiative and illicitly (and not as a free gift from God) suggests even more
profoundly the doubt in the mind of the J writer(s) that human beings were
designed to be capable of such responsibility. Human beings were not created
with the capacity to cope with the responsibility of moral knowledge; rather, by
unilateral prohibited action they took this upon themselves.
The pessimistic anthropology reflected in this chapter is more broadly
mirrored in the sequence of human failures narrated in the early chapters of
Genesis. The murder of Abel, the song of Lamech, and the flood story, create
the overall impression that human beings are incapable of handling the
knowledge of good and evil that they illicitly came to in the garden. The theme
of the sinfulness of human nature, and the accompanying pattern of crime and
punishment in these chapters have long been noted by readers of Genesis.27
Thus I am not suggesting anything new here. My point is simply to highlight the
way in which these chapters illustrate the biblical writers' deep ambivalence
about the virtuous moral selfhood acquired by human beings in the creation
story, their suspicion that it entails a level of responsibility inappropriate to
human beings. That ambivalence can be seen most clearly in the way in which
the stories in the primeval history unfold for the reader the unfortunate
26 I will leave aside the story of the tower of Babel in Gen. 11:1-9, not because it does not fit
the pattern I am describing, but because it does not add anything significant to the analysis.
27 See e.g., Westermann, Genesis 1-11, 66-67; Patrick D. Miller, Genesis 1-11: Studies in Structure
and Theme (JSOTSup 8; Sheffield: JSOT, 1978). But see Bernard F. Batto, "Creation
Theology in Genesis," in Creation in the Bibücal Traditions (eds. Richard J. Clifford, John J.
Collins; Washington, D.C.: Catholic Biblical Association, 1992), 27, for a somewhat different
view.
consequences of virtuous moral selfhood, i.e., the characters in these chapters

make consistently bad moral choices, as though they were not designed to bear
the kind of moral responsibility that virtuous moral selfhood entails.28
The first story to be narrated after the expulsion from the garden reflects this
concern: motivated by anger, Cain kills his brother. Two elements in the story
are worth noting here. First, Yahweh counsels Cain concerning his reactions to
events: "Is it not so that if you do well, you will find favor? But if you do not do
well, sin is lurking at the door, its desire is for you, but you must master it"
(πηκι ιηριώη -pSto p n ηκκιπ nnab rrtsTi κ1? o t o ηκίο ϊότγβκ tobn
Ό'^ίΐ'ΟΠ, Gen. 4:7). The verse is a bit corrupt, but the general meaning seems
clear enough. 29 Yahweh advises Cain that he has options in how he chooses to
react to his situation, and implicitly urges him to engage in some self-
examination, because the human tendency to make poor moral choices is very
strong. 30 The assumption here is that Cain is capable of moral discernment, as
Brueggemann notes: ".. .a post-Genesis 3 man can do well.... He is not 'fallen.'
... He can choose and act for the good." 31 Nonetheless, the exhortation to self-
reflection, coming on the heels of Gen. 2—3, reflects some uneasiness with the
moral responsibility that human beings must bear.32 If they are not vigilant,
sinfulness, the possibility of doing evil instead of good, may overpower human
beings because, as the text takes pains to emphasize, it seeks them out: it "lurks"
( f a i ) and has "desire" (ΐηρίϊίΠ) for human beings (a strange twist on 3:16).
While sin is personified in the passage, and thus depicted as a separate entity
instead of an intrinsic part of human nature, the evocative image of lurking,
lusting sin expresses a deep concern about the human propensity for evil.33
If the writers have any faith in human ability to engage in the kind of self-
reflection necessary to avoid evil, it is not apparent in what follows. Immediately
following the exhortation to consider his moral options, and apparently without
28 Robert A. Di Vito states it succinctly: "J is explicit about what the problem in the
relationship [between deity and humanity] is: the problem is human evil (Gen. 6:5)" ("The
Divine and Human Realms in Genesis 2-11," in Creation in the Biblical Traditions (eds. Richard
J. Clifford, John J. Collins; Washington, D.C.: Catholic Biblical Association, 1992), 56 n. 75.
29 See Westermann, Genesis 1—11,298-301 for discussion. But see Ellen van Wolde, "The Story
of Cain and Abel: A Narrative Study," JSOT 52 (1991): 29-33, for an alternative translation
and interpretation.
30 Karen Armstrong notes this propensity reflected in this verse: ".. .human beings also yearn
toward evil...." (In the Beaming, 34). See also von Rad, Genesis, 101-2.
31 Brueggemann, Genesis, 57.
32 Indeed, a number of elements in this story echo events in the garden (e.g., the divine
questions, the curses for transgression, etc.). See Miller, Genesis 1-11, 31-32; van Wolde,
"Cain and Abel," 25-26.
33 See Brueggemann, Genesis, 57-58.
heeding it, Cain kills his brother in the field (v. 8).34 Matching the premeditated,
yet morally unreflected, nature of the murder is Cain's response in its aftermath.
Immediately Yahweh asks Cain, apparently knowing the answer, where his
brother is, and Cain responds infamously: "I don't know; am I my brother's
keeper?" (OJK ΤΙΚ m o n TIJJT t ò , v. 9). This response reveals Cain's utter
lack of remorse, and by extension the biblical writers' pessimism about human
moral identity. Human beings came to possess (illicitly) the capacity to choose
between good and evil, yet in their first foray out of the garden, their
representative miserably fails to undertake any moral reflection either before or
after an appallingly evil act is done. Cain exemplifies the risks and problems
entailed by virtuous moral selfhood, and thus the profound ambivalence
inscribed in the primeval history concerning the human capacity to bear moral
responsibility.
The song of Lamech (Gen. 4:23-24) appears rather strangely at the end of
the genealogy that follows Cain's story. The song expresses, ostensibly to
Lamech's wives, the bragging taunt of a man proud of the violence he has
inflicted. "I have killed a man for wounding me, a boy for striking me. If Cain is
avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-sevenfold" ΤΠΙΠ ttTK Ό
ΠΜϊίΊ D-Mti -¡nbl pp'Op" D-njntí Ό " m a r ò - l ^ l , Gen. 4:23b-24). Seen in
its connection to what has preceded in the garden and in Cain's murder of Abel,
this unabashed commitment to terroristic self-assertion continues to reveal the
negative effects of virtuous moral selfhood. 35 The evil of Cain is here intensified,
however: Cain's indifference to the fate of his brother is surpassed in moral
turpitude only by Lamech's glee at the death of his enemies, suggesting an
inverse proportion of violence and orientation to the good: as the quality of
moral reflection deteriorates, so the intensity of violence increases.36
These disturbing events37 prompt the narrator to make an anthropological
observation about human nature in 6:5 (cf. P's version in 6:11—13), which also
provides divine motivation for the flood. "Yahweh saw that the wickedness of
humankind was great upon the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts
of [their] heart was only evil all day long" ( ρ » « Π~ΙΚΠ n m Π3Ί Ό ΠΙΓΓ KT!
Dvn-^s i n Ρ η ì ì b nnttínn -ir-bDI, Gen. 6:5). This observation concerning
34 Cain's luring of Abel into the field ("Let us go out to the field") appears to have dropped out
of MT (many other manuscripts record it). Nonetheless the whole scene even in MT
conveys a sense of premeditation.
35 See Westermann for discussion of the terroristic character of the song (Genesis 1-11, 335-
37). It is not clear if the song is meant to reflect a deed just executed, or a general attitude
not related to a specific act (see Westermann, 336).
36 Westermann connects this increase in violence to the increase in progress made possible by
human potential (Genesis 1-11, 337).
37 As well as the events narrated in 6:1-4, but there human wickedness is not explicitly an issue.
human nature induces Yahweh to regret ( D n n ) having created human beings at

all, since they have caused nothing but grief to the deity ( S S U m , v. 6). T h e s e
sombre reflections reflect the suspicion underlying these chapters that while
human beings have taken for themselves (in the garden) the responsibility o f
choosing between good and evil, they do n o t actually seem fit for such
responsibility (and were n o t explicitly created for it), since in the course o f the
narrative, they have yet to choose the good.
While in 6:5 Yahweh decides to destroy m o s t o f humanity because o f their
wickedness, after the flood this distressing characteristic o f human nature is
accepted as reality: " . . . I will not again curse the ground on account of
humankind, because the inclination o f the human heart is evil from youth"
(Ynsnn j n ο η κ π ib njr ό d-ικπ - n a s a η η ι κ η - η κ n a bbpb ηοκ-*ό, Gen.
8:21). 38 While indisputably a deeply rooted problem, it is not immediately clear
whether the evil in the human heart in 6:5 and 8:21 is a problem o f the will (as
in Jeremiah, discussed above) or o f m o r e fundamental moral equipment, like the
capacity to discern good from evil. Nonetheless, the use o f certain words ("every
inclination," "only evil," "fromyouth") argues for a description o f the problem as
rooted in the moral equipment—the people are simply not capable o f doing the
right thing. This interpretation is reinforced by Yahweh's decision not to curse
the ground again, despite human evil. It is as though the problem cannot be
solved because it is so deep in the human constitution; it is n o t correctable and
so life must simply go on anyway. T h e evidence from these early chapters o f
Genesis does not support the existence o f a fully developed notion o f neutral
moral selfhood, but the narrative does reflect a tense ambivalence about the
moral abilities and identity o f human beings.
In sum, there is a reason why people should n o t have the knowledge pilfered
in the garden, and the reason is unfolded by way o f multiple examples in the
primeval history: people make nothing but bad moral choices in these stories. It
is disastrous for people to wield knowledge for which they were not designed,
and this fact betrays a deep distrust o f the idea o f the virtuous moral self, a
distrust that began in the garden. T h e problem is that possessing the knowledge
to make decisions f o r the good (as a result o f surreptitious activity in the garden)
necessarily entails the possibility o f making decisions in accordance with what is
evil, and this seems to be the human proclivity. Virtuous moral selfhood is
better reserved for divine beings (3:5, 22, but see 6 : 1 ^ ) , it seems. Thus while
narratively launching virtuous moral selfhood into the world, Gen. 2-3
simultaneously expresses deep reservations about whether human beings
possess the necessary equipment to cope with moral knowledge, and the
chapters that follow it spin out the violent consequences o f those reservations.
38 Both 6:5 and 8:21 are traditionally assigned to the J source.

B. Jeremiah
The places in Jeremiah where neutral moral selfhood can be discerned merit
special attention because several of those passages bear marked similarity to
Ezekielian texts important to this discussion. To some extent, Jeremiah and
Ezekiel share a particular concern for how human beings are constructed as
moral selves. This section will therefore examine Jeremiah for signs that he
occasionally tends to borrow from the neutral moral selfhood family of images.
Two clues that neutral moral selfhood undergirds a particular text are to be
found in Jeremiah: the view that human nature is especially corrupt and
incurable; and the perceived necessity of resorting to unilateral divine action to
resolve the moral conundrum created by that incurable corruption. This
discussion of Jeremiah has two goals: First, to examine the traces of neutral
moral selfhood in the book. These traces are more numerous and for the most
part more significant in terms of their relationship to the concerns of the book
as a whole than what can be observed in other biblical texts. Secondly, because
the traces of neutral moral selfhood in Jeremiah sometimes bear striking
similarity to passages in Ezekiel that are central to this study, it will be helpful to
examine those similarities in order to more precisely distinguish Ezekiel from
Jeremiah on the question of human moral identity.
1. The Human Condition in Jeremiah
As I argued in the first part of this chapter, Jeremiah espouses an essentially

optimistic view of the fundamental human capacity for moral decision-making,
despite his dour assessment of the conduct of his own generation. Nonetheless
on a few occasions he describes the human heart as desperately corrupt, as in
17:9: "The heart is deceitful above all else; it is incurably sick, who can
u n d e r s t a n d it?" ÇlJJJT Ή ΚΙ Π 2IJK1 b s D Π a p a , Jer. 17:9). While t h e
Septuagint softens this assessment (the heart is "deep" and "human"—βαθεια ή
καρδία παρά πάντα και άνθρωπος 4στι.ν και τις γνώσεται αυτόν), it also
suggests a pun in the Hebrew: the heart is both incurably sick (ïiiK) and human
(tìJK)—these are related conditions. An even stronger statement of the
intractability of human evil appears in Jer. 13:23: "Does the Cushite change his
skin, or the leopard his spots? So also with you, can you do good who are
accustomed to do evil?" (ibsin DnK"D3 r m a i a n inai n i i ^ i d - p r m
ΙίΠΠ Ή01? a-tsnrò, Jer. 13:23). This sarcastic remark reveals a deep pessimism
concerning the moral condition of the people. The conditions ascribed to the
Cushite and to the leopard are innate and immutable, which, of course, is the
rhetorical point of evoking them: what spots are to the leopard, evil is to human
beings—part of their fundamental being. One element in the verse may mitigate
slightly against such a strong anthropological statement: it depends on whether

"HD1? signifies "accustomed to" as in Jer. 2:24 (13ΊΏ ΊΟ1? m s ) , or whether it
bears any connotation of having been taught (as in Isa. 8:16; 50:4, 54:13). The
latter case would suggest that the people's basically bad moral character was at
least partially a learned problem. Despite this ambiguity, the overall thrust of the
verse depicts the people as inherently and unchangeably corrupt. 35
As in the primeval history considered above, these glimpsed portraits of
people as incapable of anything but evil do not constitute instances of a "pure"
neutral moral selfhood. Nonetheless, their features suggest a familial
resemblance to the neutral moral self. Jeremiah, like Ezekiel but to a lesser
extent, is struggling with two opposing ideas: the traditional view that people are
basically capable of choosing between right and wrong, and a quieter voice from
the tradition that questions whether this is an accurate way of looking at
people's moral nature, given the way history is playing itself out. As I suggested
above, Jeremiah in the end basically adheres to the traditional view, but not
before he allows his doubts into the body of his book. It is not surprising that
Jeremiah and Ezekiel to some extent share this struggle with moral
anthropology, since they are so proximate in space and time, and both are
powerfully shaped by the experience of the Babylonian conquest.
2. The Divine Response in Jeremiah
Of particular significance to the question of moral identity are Jeremiah's

repeated assertions that G o d will unilaterally act to effect human
transformation. Here care must be taken not only to discern Jeremiah's views of
divine initiative and human moral identity, but also, where appropriate, to
distinguish him f r o m Ezekiel, who offers similar promises of radical divine
salvific action. In the interpretation of the figs metaphor in Jer. 24, Yahweh
announces the gift of a new heart to the exiles: "I will give them a heart to know
me, for I am Yahweh, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for
they shall turn to me with all their heart" ('JK Ό T)K n m S a b Dnb "ηΠ31
D a ^ s a "6k DTi'nò o r ò γγπκ o m o düS , l r v m m r r , Jer. 24:7).
This text reveals Jeremiah's doubts about the people's capacity for virtuous
moral selfhood; he is suspicious of their ability to repent and choose the good.
39 Knight sees a similar anthropology at work in Jer 10:23: "the good does not reside
fundamentally within the human being" (Knight, "Moral Life," 102). But the diagnosis of
the verse is not as dire as Knight would have. True, people cannot go through life without
divine help to guide them, but they are not totally without resources. The next verse entreats
God to correct human flaws appropriately and without anger, lest people be reduced to
nothing (v. 24).
To find a way out of the difficulty posed by human evil, Jeremiah proposes that
Yahweh will effect a complete inner transformation of the seat of human moral
identity, the heart.40 The resulting change will bring the people to a knowledge
of Yahweh that was previously lacking (an important theme in Ezekiel as well as
Hosea41), and will effect an attitude of repentance in the people. As Raitt
observes: "Deliverance creates a transformation which produces the repentance expected of
God's elect."*2 In other words, the divine moral standards have not been
compromised at all, but meeting those standards must be divinely facilitated in a
way that was deemed unnecessary in earlier Israelite history. This passage
perhaps comes closest to Ezekiel with respect to the chronology of deliverance
and repentance, as well as in promising a whole new moral self (the heart). Here
repentance appears as a result of divine deliverance, a sequence we will find
repeatedly in Ezekiel but which is unusual in Jeremiah—indeed this passage
constitutes the clearest instance of it.
A variation on the same theme appears in Jer. 32:37—41. When the people are
gathered back into the land, Yahweh makes a statement of re-election, followed
by the promise to "give them one heart and one way43 that the people may
henceforth fear" him ("ΙΠΚ a1? DrÒ YinJI DTlbtÒ DrÒ ΓΡΓΙΚ OKI DííS "h r m
m a a r ò T n s i η γρίπη a m a 1 ? ! arò aits': β - ή τ τ 1 » τ η κ πκ-ρ1? -ιπκ - ρ τ ι
mo v b r b oaaSa "¡ηκ τ ι κ τ τ ι κ ι Dim ^ t i T Ó βγρ-ιπκο aumctò ι ώ κ dSuj
''ban, Jer. 32:38—40). Here again Jeremiah finds that unilateral divine action is
necessary to rectify the problem of the failed moral self and make it possible for
the people "not to turn" from Yahweh. This passage is the purest example in
Jeremiah of an underlying neutral moral selfhood: Yahweh acts alone to ensure
that the people are capable of choosing the good (v. 40). In fact, this passage
makes an even stronger statement that the work is all on God's side: re-election
here precedes repentance, which, as in 24:7, is completely dependent on divine
initiative. Raitt distinguishes between the sequence of events here and those in
24:7 and 31:31—34 (where re-election follows repentance): "Here it is quite clear
40 Raitt, Theolog) of Exile, 176-77.

41 The knowledge of God in Hosea is not simply a matter of cognitive, purely intellectual
content; it implies the intimate relationship between Israel and Yahweh as well. Buss
understands it as "more or less parallel to tora and [that it] represents a teaching in which
general ethics has fused with the more specific worship of the active Yahweh" (Buss, The
Prophetic Word of Hosea, 106). For Wolff, the knowledge of God in Hosea is a way of talking
about "theology" in the OT; knowledge of God's deeds is implied (H.W. Wolff, "Wissen um
Gott bei Hosea als Urform der Theologie," Evangelische Theologe 12 [1952/1953]: 533-54).
42 Raitt, Theolog)! of Exile, 178 (emphasis in original).
43 The Septuagint reads "another (ítepav) way and another heart," while the Syriac has "a new
(hdt) heart and a new spirit (wrwh)." The difference is likely due to a confusion of 1ΠΚ and
"ΙΠΚ. In any case, for the purposes of this discussion the thrust is the same in all three
versions.
what was only implicit earlier: the moral 'prerequisites' are not literally
prerequisites."44 Yet a subtle but significant element of this passage distinguishes
it from both Jer. 24:7 and Ezekiel's sequence of deliverance and repentance.
Here the people are not described as actually repenting; the goal of Yahweh's
actions is not that they repent but that they not sin anew in the future ("that
they may henceforth fear me" and "that they may not turn from me"). Ezekiel
sees the people looking back at their past and repenting as a result of Yahweh's
act to deliver them. In general, Jeremiah's view is more prophylactic—he
envisions better behavior in the future as the result of divine deliverance.
A possible objection should now be addressed: some may assign these two
passages in Jeremiah to the Deuteronomistic editors,45 and thus the neutral
moral selfhood present in them would not be "authentically" Jeremianic. In the
Introduction, however, I stated that I am more interested in what emerges from
Ezekiel as a whole, and the same applies to Jeremiah. Moreover, even were I to
espouse a redactional perspective, problems arise in sorting out the implications
of assigning these passages to the Deuteronomists. For example, these same
Deuteronomistic editors are also held responsible for passages where, in classic
Deuteronomistic fashion, human freedom to choose good or bad is
presupposed (e.g., 18:7-11, 21:8ff., 22:3-5, 25:5ff, 35:15).46 Does this mean that
the tension that I am arguing is present in Ezekiel is also present in the
Deuteronomistic literature as well? Perhaps. But if so, the tension is not
especially severe: the texts tending toward neutral moral selfhood that I have
cited form only a minor chord in an otherwise fairly unified espousal of the
virtuous moral self. This is true even if these texts are ascribed to the prophet
Jeremiah—the tension is present, but it has not yet become intense in the way
that it has in Ezekiel. In short, the book of Jeremiah presents human moral
identity as a problem, but it is not yet perceived as an insurmountable problem.
Jeremiah still has basic faith in the model of the virtuous moral self.47
But arguably the most famous text in Jeremiah, and a critical one for this
discussion, has not yet been explored. Jeremiah 31:31-34 offers another
depiction of God as the one who ensures human deliverance, this time by
"putting the law within them" and "writing it on their hearts" (v. 33).
The days are surely coming, says Yahweh, when I will make a new covenant with the house
of Israel and die house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their
fathers on the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—my
covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says Yahweh. But this is the covenant
44 Raitt, Theology of Exile, 180.

that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says Yahweh: I will put my law
within them, and upon their hearts I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be
my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know Yahweh,"
for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says Yahweh; for I will
forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
TI"D1 mrp-DKJ D'tO D'IT Π3Π

t ò π ϊ π π i m a K-nrr i r a - η κ ι b i n a r r r a - η κ
m ' a "pnrin e r a n m a x - η κ Tina nam m a s
v m a - n K n a n ποη—ιώκ Β-ΊΪΟ ρ κ η Díosm 1 ?
-iti* m a n ηκτ -D π ι π ^ β κ ο n a T Ò u a o j k i
n i n n a t o ο π ή c r m η π κ t?K-iäJ·' i r a - η κ m a K
v v r n n j a r o K Dab-bin o a n p a τ π ι η - η κ Tina
rrab" κ ni?b "b-rn" n o m D'nbtfb απ 1 ?
υ π m a b ν π κ - η κ ai"1«! ι γ η γ π ί κ ϊ γ κ - η »
o b n r n j j i DatapnS τ η κ u j t o b l a b a m r r - η κ
m i n a r « k S Dnwsnbi ü r a b n b o « -a n i n n a t o
The language here recalls the "new heart" which appears repeatedly in Ezekiel,
and is there associated with God's gift of deliverance in the face of the human
inability to bring about renewal. In keeping with the neutral moral selfhood
apparent in Jer. 24:7 and 32:37-41, here people are presumed incapable of self-
transformation, and this is a basic commonality with Ezekiel's view in the "new
heart" passages.48
Yet this text reveals two important differences with respect to Ezekiel. First,
while Yahweh's promises in Jeremiah reflect a lack of faith in the human
capacity to change for the better, they represent not so much the wholesale gift
of a completely new self, as in Ezekiel, but rather modifications to the old moral
self. The people are promised a new covenant in which Yahweh will cause torah
to be internalized, and certainly that will change the people's moral capacities
for the better, but it is not as radical a solution as eliminating the old self
completely and replacing it with a new one. Furthermore, as Block notes, the
divine spirit is not explicitly invoked here as the agent of change (as in Ezekiel),
but torah.4' In Ezekiel it is a part of Yahweh's very being (his ΠΤΊ) that is given,
whereas in Jeremiah Yahweh employs an old solution (i.e., revealing torah), but
makes it harder to ignore by causing the people to internalize it.
The other relevant distinction between Jer. 31:31-34 and Ezekiel's "new
heart" texts concerns repentance. Jeremiah does not tend to look for repentance
as a result of deliverance. Certainly the result of deliverance for Jeremiah will be
obedience, but as I mentioned above, that is a forward-looking goal; his focus is
48 Indeed many commentators suggest that Ezekiel knew Jeremiah's passage, e.g., Block,
Ezekiel 25^-8, 356.
49 Block, Eçkiel25-48,356-57.
to change people's behavior in the future. This passage reflects a "scene of bliss
unmarred by coercion or remorse."50 As I will argue in ch. 5, E2ekiel understands
deliverance to effect not only a change in the behavior of the people, but also a
certain reflection upon the past (repentance and remorse) that leads to self-
understanding. Thus for Ezekiel repentance is a primary goal of deliverance. By
contrast, Jeremiah's famous "new covenant" passage is preceded by a reflection
on Ephraim's repentant attitude: "Bring me back, let me return, for you are
Yahweh my God. For after my turning away,51 I repented; and after I was
discovered, I struck my thigh. I was ashamed and profoundly
dismayed/ashamed, for I bore the shame of my youth" ('D Π310Κ1
-Dïi -naia f r S r Tipao 'irnn η π κ ι "non: "aiti "-irtK-a t ò k mrr ηηκ
n i s i n a i n "flRtDî Ό -nnSro.Jer. 31:18b-19). Two elements that Ezekiel posits
as crucial consequences of divine deliverance, repentance and shame, are for
Jeremiah just as likely to precede deliverance. In fact, the divine response which
immediately follows this confession of sin and shame suggests that the people's
repentance motivates Yahweh to deliver them. "Is Ephraim my dear son? Or the
child (I) delight in? I have spoken against him long enough, I will surely
remember him yet. I am deeply moved for him; I will surely have mercy on him,
says Yahweh" (ΙΓΟΤΚ "DÎ 12 - m "niJ-'S D^tDütÜ DK ΠΉΒΚ "b Tp* p H
mrp-DW UnmK Dm lb -"»a inn ρ - b ü ΎΙΰ, Jer. 31:20). Yahweh is here
brought to consider mercy because Ephraim made such a moving plea in 38:18-
19. This response of Yahweh's is symptomatic of Jeremiah's overall theology, in
which Yahweh is emotionally motivated in his dealings with the people (the
emotional life of the prophet is also foregrounded). Ezekiel, by contrast,
presents Yahweh as emotionally distant; the divine motivation finds its source in
concern for the holy name, not love or pity, etc. Most of the evidence suggests,
therefore, that Jeremiah holds a basically optimistic view of human beings and
their capacity to repent before Yahweh has acted definitively to save them. 52
Ezekiel possesses no such optimism, displacing repentance into the future as a
desired consequence of salvation.
In sum, then, Jeremiah betrays some of the same concerns as Ezekiel about
the human propensity to fail miserably in making moral decisions, and he
therefore occasionally suggests that only God can rectify the problem because
human beings are impossibly flawed. Greenberg notes Jeremiah's ambivalence:
"Jeremiah's oracles vacillate between affirming, on the one hand, that
50 Greenberg, Ezekiel 21-37, Til (emphasis added).

51 The Septuagint reads "after my captivity" (αιχμαλωσίας μου).
52 Contra Raitt, who sees the new divine initiative in 31:31-34 as based not on any idea of
repentance, but on "the same assumptions about the hopelessness of natural man as underlie
God's initiative in 24:7" (Raitt, Theology ofExile, 178).
repentance, initiated by humans, will precede and induce forgiveness (e.g., 36:3),
and on the other, that the cooperation of God is involved in the very process of
repentance."" Yet the weight given to each side is not equal. Neutral moral
selfhood—the total reliance on God for human morality—is a minor chord in
Jeremiah's generally more hopeful view of human nature: the moral identity of
the people is basically intact, that is, they are still virtuous moral persons who,
regrettably, have chosen and acted unwisely, and who now need to repent.
III. Summary and Conclusion
Objections may well be raised about how I have used "neutral moral
selfhood" to describe some of the examples discussed. After all, to say that
human beings are congenitally sinful, for example, is not necessarily to say that
they are incapable of choosing and acting for the good. Indeed Christian
theology has long held that people are congenitally sinful yet are quite capable of
choosing the good when they will it (and when aided by varying degrees of
divine assistance). 54 It is possible, in other words, to locate the source of the
problem in the vagaries of the will (where most biblical writings put the
problem), not in the more basic moral equipment itself (where Ezekiel will
sometimes locate the problem). My object in the second half of this chapter has
not been, therefore, to argue for any instances of a "pure" neutral moral
selfhood in the Bible. Rather, I sought to show how certain texts share a fairly
negative view of human moral capacity, and can thus be seen as relatives in the
family of neutral moral selfhood. The goal was to sketch in some of the
background against which Ezekiel's understanding of human moral identity was
written, in order to facilitate a clearer picture of his own views as they will be
analyzed in succeeding chapters. Again, it must be borne in mind that the
primeval history and Jeremiah are not at all typical of other biblical texts in so
far as both virtuous and neutral moral selfhood appear in them, or, perhaps
more accurately, a tension between these views of moral identity is evident in
these texts. Most biblical texts do not reflect such a tension, instead espousing
virtuous moral selfhood as the dominant paradigm for moral identity.
What, then, sets the tension in Ezekiel apart from its articulation in other
biblical texts, like the primeval history and Jeremiah? Both the primeval history
and Jeremiah articulate significant problems created by assuming the virtuous
53 Greenberg, EqtkieÎ 21-37,736.

54 Several texts in Ezekiel reflect a congenital view of human moral failure, but he takes this
further, suggesting that people are incapable of knowing right from wrong from birth (a
problem of moral equipment, not the will).
moral self as the model for human moral identity. Nonetheless, for these
writers, while they consider the human moral self deeply flawed, they are
basically still convinced of their inherent mutability; people are not beyond
remediation. Even the writers of the primeval history, while disturbed by the
effects of human moral decision-making, move the story along, narrating
happier events in the rest of Genesis. For Ezekiel, on the contrary, the tension
between these incommensurate ways of looking at human identity is acute. The
tension, which lies latent in the culture at the time surrounding the exile,55
bubbles up to the surface in Ezekiel's text, affecting the shape, content, and
orientation of the entire book. Expending considerable mental energy on the
problem of theological anthropology, Ezekiel explores in his book the
conflicting views of moral identity at his disposal. He weighs the dominant view
against the historical evidence that undermines the validity of that view, and
finally offers his own attempt at resolving the problem.
55 Many of the other biblical texts which foreground the neutral moral self are also exilic.
Although this would have to be argued more fully, the abundance of examples of neutral
moral selfhood in exilic texts suggests that the problem of moral identity may have been
particularly acute for the exilic culture. This appears to be related to the oft-cited emphasis
on divine sovereignty during the exile (see Raitt, Theology of Exile, 176; Greenberg, Ezekiel
21-37, 737). The implications of this phenomenon will have to be addressed in a different
context, but it is worth noting that Ezekiel was likely steeped in a culture increasingly
pervaded by the tension between the neutral and the virtuous moral self.
Chapter 4: The Shift In The Origin Of Moral Selfhood
From Intrinsic In Human Beings To Gift From God
I. The Tension
In the first twenty verses of chapter 33 Ezekiel vigorously advocates repentance

to his audience ( c m n DDOTTO 131® 121©), but by the last verses of the chapter
his view of his hearers' potential for reform is far gloomier: the prophet's words
are heard not as the word of Yahweh, but as erotic lyrics ( w . 30—33). Present in
this chapter in microcosm is the tension that permeates the book as a whole,
that is, that people are variously portrayed as capable of obedience and as
incapable of obedience. The calls to repentance are recognizable from other
Israelite prophets, but the more deterministic portraits of human beings are less
familiar. In the context of a discussion of Ezekiel's hope for the future,
Zimmerli recognized the problem with which Ezekiel is wrestling:
Ezekiel's proclamation resonates an inner tension reached by no other prophet. No other

prophet declared as incisively Israel's inherent incapacity for obedience and its recalcitrancy
against its God, characteristics that became visible not just after the entrance into the land of
Canaan with all its temptations, but rather are already visible at the beginning in Egypt...
From its own beginnings, the house of Israel actually can be described adequately only by
the name "rebellious house." Then, however, this very prophet Ezekiel proclaims the
message of reawakening to new life through Yahweh's word to these people who were quite
justly condemned to death.1
In this chapter I want to explore the tension between the language of

repentance and the more deterministic language, in order to trace out a shift in
the origin of moral selfhood from within human beings to within God. I will
begin with the language of repentance implied by chapters 3:16—21 and 33:1—20,
followed by analyses of chapters 9, 12, 14, and 18. Because the view of the
moral self implied by the language of repentance (i.e., virtuous moral selfhood)
is more familiar to the reader of the Bible—it is the dominant biblical paradigm
as we saw in chapter 3—none of these texts will receive as much detailed
attention as the texts revealing the language of determinism. The way in which
these texts reveal their underlying view of the moral self is more transparent, I
believe, than is the case with the more deterministic texts considered later in the
1 Walther Zimmerli, "Plans for Rebuilding After the Catastrophe of 587," in idem., I Am
Yahweh (ed. Walter Brueggemann; Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1982), 112.
chapter. Nonetheless, because it is the premier example of virtuous moral

selfhood in Ezekiel, I will attempt to treat chapter 18 somewhat more
extensively. In the second large division of this chapter, I will examine the
language of determinism as it appears in chapters 16, 23, 20, 24, 11:17-21 and
36:26—36. These texts require more scrutiny, partly because the view of moral
identity informing them is not culturally dominant, and partly because it lies
further beneath the surface of these texts. The complexity of the metaphorical
language frequently present in these passages means that the concept of moral
selfhood is more opaque, and must be teased out with some care.
II. The Language Of Repentance
In chapter 3 I suggested that virtuous moral selfhood is the predominant

understanding of moral identity in the Hebrew Bible: moral selfhood is innate in
human beings and it manifests itself as moral action. The language of
repentance, frequently but certainly not always represented by the presence of
the verb 3HÚ, testifies to such a view in several of the prophetic writings (e.g.,
Amos 4:6-13; Hosea 5:15-6:5; Jer 3:12-24) as well as being characteristic of the
Deuteronomistic worldview and present in many Psalms. Repentance is
predicated on the notion that sin happens, but that people can understand
themselves to have sinned, and that they are capable of correcting the problem
by a change in their attitudes and actions. The presence of the language of
repentance in Ezekiel indicates that the predominant view of the virtuous moral
self informs this prophet's view of human nature as well. In fact, Ezekiel
inherits and to a certain extent shares this view with the Israelite traditions and,
as indicated by the language of repentance, he assumes it at various places in the
text.
A. The Sentinel (3:16-21; 33:1-20)
One of the charges that Ezekiel receives from Yahweh in the opening
chapters of the book is to be a sentinel (HDX) to the house of Israel. The
prophetic task is to warn the wicked from his wicked way so that he might live
(irrrò nsahn Ί3-ΠΙ3 ΙΚ2ΓΙ ΤΠΤΓ0, 3:18). It is worth noting in this verse that
repentance is assumed to be possible, even after judgment is announced ("you
shall surely die," 2 [ΠΙΟΠ HID]). As is obvious from the passage, the image of the
sentinel is predicated on the idea that repentance is possible (312) appears in w .
19 and 20), and that it depends upon the prophet's actions. This is true despite
the fact that recent scholarship tends to view the focus of this pericope as being
2 Or, "you are subject to the death penalty."

The Shift in the Origin of Mora) Selfhood 69
on the prophet's response to his assignment, and that the people's response to
the prophet is not at issue (this important idea will be discussed further in
chapter 5). Some scholars thus do not see a true call to repentance in this text.
Rather, the purpose of the passage is to announce Yahweh's judgment. 3 Yet
even where the call to repentance is not present, a vision o f human beings as
possessing a virtuous moral self is assumed. In v. 20 the existence of righteous
individuals is acknowledged ( p n a ) , and v. 21 further attests that the righteous
are capable of choosing not to sin, provided they have been warned by the
prophet. In this view of human beings as capable of choosing f o r good or evil,
Ezekiel is well within the mainstream Israelite traditions.
The sentinel motif appears again, in more elaborate form, in 33:1—20, which
stands at the beginning of the "salvation" section of the book (chs. 33^18). 4 In
the first section ( w . 1 - 6 ) , the situation describes the various consequences were
the people to select a sentinel w h o warns the people of coming destruction. As
in 3 : 1 9 - 2 1 the people have a choice of h o w to respond: "He heard the sound of
the shofar, but did not take warning; his blood is upon him. But if he had taken
warning, he would save his life" (ΓΡΓΡ 13 i m ΊΠΤ3 t 6 l ϋΟώ -lEItlïn b i p ΠΚ
tsbn HÍÍB3 ΊΠΤί Kim, 33:5). In this case the hypothetical sentinel is to alert the
people specifically to the coming destruction of the land by blowing on the
horn. This is rather different f r o m the general warning in chapter 3 to turn away
f r o m wicked ways, and at first glance, does not appear to bear any relation to
moral decisions on the part of the hearers. 5 But by v. 6 it becomes clear that the
3 In this connection Greenberg notes that the prophet is not ordered to relay this message to
the people (Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-24, 90). Wilson argues that the prophetic task is not to call
the people to repentance, but "to deliver to the accused a legal decision which Yahweh has
already given" (Robert Wilson, "An Interpretation of Ezekiel's Dumbness," VTZ2 [1972]:
96). Joyce does not see the sentinel passages as true calls to repentance either: "Though (like
the call to repentance in Ezekiel 18) the watchman motif witnesses also to Yahweh's
yearning for the obedience of his people, its immediate function is to deliver to Israel the
sentence of death" (Paul Joyce, Divine Initiative, 58). Contra Zimmerli: "In all this the prophet
becomes the admonisher who calls the members of the "dead" people, lost in the exile, to
concrete new steps of obedience and directs them toward a promised future" (Zimmerli,
"Plans for Rebuilding," 113-14). Block is right to distinguish between 3:16-21, which does
not involve a call to repentance, but whose function is rather to proclaim the people's death
sentence (with Wilson and Joyce), and 33:1-20, which clearly constitutes a call to repentance
(Block, Ezekiel, 1-24,141, 146; cf. Wilson, "Ezekiel's Dumbness," 96).
4 Joyce notes that the two sentinel passages form "bookends" around the judgment
prophecies, and argues that 33:1-20 should be understood not as "inaugurating a new period
of the prophet's ministry," (contra Zimmerli, Ezekiel 2, 183) but as a recapitulation of
themes in chs. 1-24 (Joyce, Divine Initiative, 144, n. 87). Similarly, Greenberg, Ezekiel 21-37,
680.
5 Greenberg observes that this "elaboration of the lookout theme in ... ch. 33 belongs to the
public nature of the discourse" as opposed to the private discourse to the prophet in ch. 3
(Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-24, 91).
sword will only fall upon those who did not heed the sentinel's warning, and
that furthermore, those people will die in their iniquity (πρ*73 "IÍ1B2 Kin). Hals
notes the way in which the illogic of the image enhances the incorrigibility of
the people:
Would one need to worry about the ignoring of the sentinel's trumpet as a serious problem?
[...] Their fate is automatic and by definition prior and thus moot.[...] But even here the
prominence of the motif of people refusing to take warning shows how the text deliberately
stresses the perverse and the unlikely. [...] Those who reject this warning are incredibly and
incomprehensibly perverse and stubborn! But it is with just such people that the prophet is
commissioned to work.6
Even in those places where he is concerned to demonstrate the possibility of the

people's repentance Ezekiel reveals a portrait of the people as incorrigibly
unresponsive. Nonetheless, here, as in chapter 3, it is clear that both the sentinel
and the hearers are presumed to be capable of choosing to act rightly or not, as
defined by Yahweh.
Then, in w . 7-9 the image of sentinel is applied directly to Ezekiel again, as
in chapter 3. These verses are almost identical to 3:17-19, calling the prophet to
warn the wicked to turn from his way (ΠΜΟ Ό~ΠΏ Ι7ΒΓΙ, v. 9), yet now
there is no corresponding call to warn the righteous. The disappearance of the
righteous may be accounted for by the lateness of the historical hour (the fall of
Jerusalem is announced in v. 21), suggesting perhaps that in selecting material
from chapter 3 to repeat here (or vice versa), a certain pessimism functions to
eliminate the righteous from discussion. Furthermore, that the wicked might
actually repent of their ways is not presented as an alternative worth depicting
either here or in ch. 3. The real issue is whether the death of the wicked can be
attributed to the sentinel due to his action or inaction. Nonetheless, even if the
outcome suggests otherwise, the task of the prophet itself assumes that the wicked
are capable of choosing to heed the sentinel, and thus of repentance.
The next section ( w . 10—20) picks up on the language and themes of
chapter 18 (see below).7 The people are cited as expressing despair over the
weight of their transgressions—how can they have any hope for the future
given their sins of the past?8 Yahweh's response is that he takes no pleasure in
the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked repent and live (in contrast
to the treatment of the wicked in w . 7—9 where the alternative of the wicked's
repentance is not made explicit). This is followed by the exhortation to repent:
6 Hals, Ezekiel, 238.

7 For a detailed comparison of chs. 18 and 33, see Block, Esgkitl 25-48, 247-53.
8 Greenberg suggests that the people have taken to heart the prophet's view expressed in ch.
18 that they are suffering for their own sins and not those of their ancestors (Greenberg,
Ezekiel 21-}7, 677).
The Shift in the Origin of Moral Selfhood 71
"Turn, turn from your wicked ways. Why will you die, O Israel?" (131(0 131(ϋ
Smtrr ΓΡ3 iniDn nnbl CJnn t w s n n , v. 11). Not only is repentance
assumed to be possible, but the question, "why will you die O house of Israel?"
reflects a perplexed frustration at the poor choices the Israelites have made, and
continue to make despite the option to turn away that has been offered so many
times. The righteous appear here, as they do in chapter 18 (considered below),
but their case unfolds badly: they shall die in their iniquity for relying on their
past righteousness (v. 12—13). As will be discussed below, in ch. 14 the people
will not be saved through the imputed righteousness of a few persons, and here
we see a corresponding principle regarding the lone individual. In ch. 14 the
deeds of other people cannot deliver an individual, whereas here the individual's
own prior deeds cannot deliver him/her. One cannot impute righteousness to
oneself—every decision at any given moment is determinative of the moral
status of the self. Likewise, there is no imputed wickedness: the wicked who
repent shall live (w. 12, 14—16). The rhetorical strategy here is clear: the prophet
seeks to alleviate the despair of the "wicked" (his audience), who do not see the
point of repentance in light of the past, by suggesting that is only the present
which will determine the future. In short, the prophet is trying to convince his
audience that possessing virtuous moral selfhood, the capacity to choose what is
life-giving instead of what brings death, is not irrelevant, but is fundamental to
Yahweh's plan for humankind. By stressing the "eternal present" as the
temporal locus for moral evaluation, Ezekiel assumes a moral self that is defined
by its micro-actions, and not by, for example, a comprehensive, more holistic
portrait of one's character.
B. Marking the Innocent (Chapter 9)
In the midst of the first great temple vision (chs. 8-11), Ezekiel hears
Yahweh call the executioners to the special task of killing those who do not bear
the mark (Π) that the man carrying the writing implement will place on the
foreheads of those who are to be spared, on account of their appropriately
dismayed attitude vis-à-vis the abominations committed in the city (9:1-5). The
slaughter will include the old, women, and children—all who do not have the
mark. Joyce notes that the spared individuals are less the focus in the passage
than the comprehensive nature of the punishment, and that the list of those to
be slain, "including, as it does, categories which one might have expected to be
exempt, seems to be designed to convey a sense of the inclusive nature of the
coming judgment."9 What is striking for the purposes of our discussion is that
there are any people worthy of the mark at all. Yahweh observes that the guilt of

the house of Israel and Judah is very very great (bilí m i m ^lOtC'ITa pa
IKO "iKDa, v. 9), hence the existence of any not held accountable for such guilt
is notable. Joyce argues that none, in fact, may have been found, based on
Yahweh's response to the prophet's question of whether Yahweh will destroy all
Israel (9:8), which appears to be in the affirmative (9:9—10).10 This may be
pushing the evidence of the text too far, but Joyce is justified in saying that the
main interest of the passage lies with the guilty, not the innocent.11
Nevertheless, the potential existence of at least some who are deserving of the
mark suggests that underlying this vision is an understanding of human beings
as capable of distinguishing between what is abominable, and what is not, that
is, as in some sense free to make informed moral choices. Particularly curious
vis-à-vis this discussion is the disappearance of the innocent, however. Once
marked, they do not appear again in the text. Their presence/absence, their
liminality, is symptomatic of Ezekiel's struggle with competing paradigms of
moral identity. The innocent exist, yet Ezekiel excludes them from the text, as
though they had no place in this story of untrammeled wickedness.
C. Consulting the Prophet (14:1-11)
As at the beginning of chs. 8 and 20, in ch. 14 several of the elders come to
consult Ezekiel as they sit in exile. The prophet is commanded to explain to
them why their iniquitous behavior generates a particular response from
Yahweh. Yahweh announces that he will answer the elders in order to seize the
hearts of the house of Israel (03*73 bK-lîiT-IVrrnK ÖSn ]üüb, ν 5), which, as
Block notes, is a peculiar phrase suggesting that the problem with the people lies
not in external behaviors but in their internal disposition. 12 The verse continues:
"all of which have become estranged from me on account of their idols" ("ItBK
,l?I7J3 TIN). This statement of guilt, in contrast to ch. 9, is
comprehensive—every heart is said to be estranged.13 A call to repent and cast
10 Joyce, Divine Initiative, 63-64. See also Block, Ezekiel 1-24, 309. Contra Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-
20,177.
11 Similarly, Block, Ezekiel 1-24, 309-10.
12 Block, Ezekiel 1-24, 427. Greenberg, citing Num. 5:13 and the Hodayot, and interpreting with
the medievale, arrives at "so as to catch the house of Israel at their thoughts" (Greenberg,
Ezekiel 1-20, 249).
13 The Septuagint may have felt this was too strong and deletes (assuming it was based on
MT; if it was not, then MT's insertion of 0*73 speaks to a desire to implicate the whole of
Israel in guilt). Zimmerli explains the in terms of Ezekiel's characteristic reapplication
of priestly case law, usually applicable to individuals, to Israel as a corporate whole
(Zimmerli, "Die Eigenart der prophetischen Rede des Ezechiel: Ein Beitrag zum Problem an
Hand von Ez. 14.1-11," ZAW 66 [1954]: 25). Greenberg, reading these lines as parallel,
suggests that the 0*73
reinforces what is said in the first line, in characteristic fashion for
Hebrew poetry (Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20, 249).
away the offending idols follows (DSTajnrr 1 » bliOl DS-'jlbj bvn la^tím "Ditti
D3,3B ITttin, v. 6).14 Joyce views this exhortation to repent as "rhetorical,
serving to underline Israel's responsibility for the inevitable disaster," although it
also "testifies to an earnest desire on the part of Yahweh for the obedience of
his people." 15 In other words, Joyce does not see the language as reflecting any
hope on Ezekiel's part that the people might repent. I agree that Ezekiel does
not hold out much, if any, hope for the Jerusalemites. It may be more helpful,
however, to understand this call to repentance, as Block does, as directed to the
immediate audience of exiles (represented here by the elders). "The doom of
those who remain in Jerusalem is sealed, but if the exiles turn their faces toward
Yahweh alone, and abandon their own forms of idolatry, they may escape his
fury." 16 Both sinful inquirers (w. 7—8) and deceitful prophets (w. 9-10) will
face punishment, so that the house of Israel will no longer wander (ΙΰΓΓ) from
Yahweh (v. 11). Block notes that this verb is used of both animals and persons
who are lost, but "[e]thically it means to abandon the prescribed covenantal
path." 17 This implies naturally that one was initially on the covenantal path; the
people started out right, but have wandered off. As will be the case in Ezekiel's
other calls to repent, a vision of people as capable of making informed moral
choices between good and evil underlies this passage; while all are "estranged"
from Yahweh, and have "wandered" away from the right path, all are
nonetheless assumed to be possessed of a virtuous moral self, and thus capable
of returning to it, even if few, if any, have elected to do so.
D. Imputed Righteousness (14:12-23)
While it does not exhort repentance, what follows in w . 12—23 elaborates

the theme of personal accountability implicit in the preceding section. When
divinely intended disaster strikes a guilty land, even the proverbial righteousness
of Noah, Daniel, and Job cannot save it. Their own children will not be spared
on account of their righteousness; only their own lives will be saved (HDΠ
D2ÍD3 i ' t ì p Dflpisa, v. 20). Thus there is no room for imputed righteousness;
the moral quality of every person's actions will be assessed on an individual
14 Block notes that the repetition of 2HÍÍ three times in this verse underscores the urgency of
the command (Block, Eêkiel 1-24,428).
15 Joyce, Divine Initiative, 69-70. But Zimmerli cautions against taking the call as a "sentimental
inconsequential saying of Yahweh" (Zimmerli, Eêkiel 1, 308).
16 Block, Ezekiel 1 -24,431.
17 Cf. Ex. 23:4 (of an ox); Ps. 119:176; Isa. 53:6 (sheep); Job 38:41 (of ravens searching for
food); Gen. 21:14; 37:15; Ps. 107:4ff. (of people wandering). All noted by Block, Ezekiel 1-
24, 436.
basis. Joyce is surely correct in thinking that Ezekiel is not trying to establish a
generalized theory of individual responsibility, and that Ezekiel is responding to
a desperate situation ad boc.li But the unsystematic nature of the discourse does
not eliminate the assumptions that undergird this rhetoric, about how human
beings function morally. Finally, w . 22—23 suggest that even the survivors will be
sinners, an image which accurately depicts Ezekiel's view here that, although the
people are capable of making moral decisions, no one actually exercises that
capacity.19 It is the combination of these two facts that will lead Ezekiel to
struggle very seriously with the traditional view of people as characterized by
virtuous moral selfhood, and at several places in the book offer a distinctly
different vision of the moral self.
E. The Responsibility of Israel (Chapter 18)20
Chapter 18 elaborates the nature of Israel's responsibility for the disaster of

the exile, a theme which is present in more concise form in the chapters
discussed above. In our discussion of this chapter, the focus will not be on the
question of individual versus corporate responsibility, but rather on what kind
of image of human moral identity is implied by the text.21 That moral identity is
central to this chapter is clear from the beginning: The people are quoted as
repeating a proverb ("The fathers eat sour grapes, and the teeth of the children
are blunted" [nrnpn CMÍl -Jtf) "103 V»«" Π12Κ, v. 2]) the thrust of which is
to deny the relevance of the idea of virtuous moral selfhood to their situation.
As Block observes, this is not so much a complaint about God's system of
justice, as it is a statement of "materialistic fatalism."22 The people are
expressing their worldview—that their fate is determined by the actions of their
fathers; their own moral choices are irrelevant. In the rest of the chapter Ezekiel

19 Similarly in 22:30 Yahweh looks for someone to "stand in the breach," but finds no one. As
Joyce notes, "It is clear that Ezekiel regards his people as sinful virtually 'to a man' and
anticipates an imminent punishment which will be well-nigh total" (Joyce, Divine Initiative,
75).
20 There are a number of extended analyses of this chapter. See Joyce, Divine Initiative, 35-60;
Kaminsky, Corporate Respontibiäly, 139-78; Matties, Rhetoric; Fishbane, "Sin and Judgment,"
131-50.
21 Fishbane is also interested in this question, albeit from a slightly different angle. He sees a
contradiction between the exhortation to individual responsibility and repentance in chapter
18 and the punishment in chapter 20 of a future generation for the sins of a previous one
(Fishbane, "Sin and Judgment," 142-44). In terms of this discussion, chapter 18
demonstrates the applicability of virtuous moral selfhood, whereas chapter 20 implies that it
is irrelevant because the people are not capable of it anyway.
22 Block, Ezekiel 1-24, 561.
sets out to refute this notion, and to reassert the relevance of virtuous moral
selfhood as the only accurate way of understanding their situation.
To do this Ezekiel begins by asserting that each and every person is morally
accountable to Yahweh (mm 1 ? p n ÜSÍD1 3ΚΠ tìS» Π3Π mtì£33n"'?D ρ , v.
4), and that the one who sins will die (ΠΊΰΠ tort ΠΚΒΠΠ 2?Β5Π). Then, Ezekiel
outlines the fates of three generations, alternating between a description of the
righteous who shall live (w. 5-9), the wicked in the next generation who will die
(w. 10—13), and the righteous of the third generation who shall live (w. 14—17).
In each generation, Ezekiel provides a very detailed list of which actions
committed or omitted lead to the judgment rendered. A righteous man, for
example, has not "eaten upon the mountains, or lifted up his eyes to the idols of
Israel, or defiled the wife of his neighbor, or come near a menstruous woman,"
etc. (κ1? m m πϊίκ-ηκι SkiSt γγπ κύη t ò v r m Ssk κ1? DnnrrbK
aip- t ò ΓΠ3 ΠϊίΚ-^ΚΙ KOB, v. 6). The wicked person, by contrast, may be
involved in committing robbery, not restoring a pledge, or charging interest, for
example (w. 12-13). This propensity to catalogue the relevant actions is of
particular significance for the way in which moral identity is understood here. A
person is evaluated morally according to the law, that is, according to his
adherence to certain prohibitions and injunctions. N o t only is the emphasis here
obviously on a morality according to actions, but the moral evaluation is based
on carefully subdivided, very specific actions. 23 This may not leap out at us as
unusual here, but it is not the only way to evaluate the moral self.24
When the people again question this logic, "why does the son not bear the
guilt of the father?" (3ΚΠ p n K&rtÒ i n n , v. 19), Ezekiel recapitulates his
argument (w. 19b-20), summing up: "the righteousness of the righteous shall
be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him" (πρίϋ
rrnn vbs irah naarn rrnn rhu p n s n , v. 20). In case this sounds too much
like the righteous will be saved by their righteous deeds of the past, and the
wicked doomed by their wickedness of the past, Ezekiel clarifies the situation:
the virtuous moral self lives in an eternal present as far as moral choices are
concerned (cf. 33:12—13). The wicked person who turns away (31ΪΓ) from his
wickedness will have his wickedness forgotten and be delivered. Similarly, the
righteous one who backslides into wickedness (inp~l3D ρΉΧ 31031, v. 24) will
have his righteousness forgotten and will be doomed (w. 21—24).
In w . 25—29 Ezekiel reiterates these same points in his effort to combat the
prevailing notion among his audience that virtuous moral selfhood is irrelevant,
evident in the people's complaint that Yahweh's ways are inequitable (pIV »6,
23 Ezekiel does sometimes sum up these laws at the end of a section, e.g., "walks in my
statutes, and keeps my ordinances," (v. 9). But the subdivision into very specific actions is
clear, nonetheless.
24 One might, for instance, think in terms of the overall moral iârarfer instead.
w . 25, 29). The people continue to claim that they are innocent sufferers (as in
v. 2), having exercised their moral capacities to no avail. Ezekiel attempts to
demonstrate that Yahweh's ways are more flexible and just, matching moral
decisions to their corresponding fates. It is important to distinguish here
between Ezekiel's apparent rejection of the paradigm of the virtuous moral self
elsewhere in the book, and the people's rejection of it in this passage. In various
other places in the book Ezekiel depicts the people as possessing no virtuous
moral selfhood, whereas here the people do not seem to doubt that they have it,
they just find the exercise of that capacity to be irrelevant to their fate. In their
view, they suffer for the sins of others. 25
This discourse ends with Ezekiel's most vigorous exhortation to turn away
from the transgressions that the people have committed (v. 30-32). 26 A call to
repentance appears three times (la^tím "DHÜ, v. 30, Ό ^ ώ Π , v. 31, and "irtam
VITI, v. 32) in this short section, but Ezekiel here goes a step further than in his
previous exhortations to repent: not only does he demand that the people cast
off their old selves, he also urges that they become the agents of their
transformation into new selves ("Cast off from upon you all your transgressions
by which you have transgressed, and make for yourselves a new heart and a new
spirit. Why will you die, O Israel?" [DnutfE "itíK D^MD-^rrriK DDân Ό^ΊίΠ
S t a t e r r n i n n n n n b i π ϊ π π m m < z n n n b d = ò i t o i o n , v. 31]). Some have
argued that this is just a rhetorical flourish, i.e., that Ezekiel is not suggesting
that his audience is "capable of moral and spiritual self-transformation." 27 But
this reading is arrived at by weighting more heavily those places in Ezekiel
where such self-transformation is clearly impossible, thus it simply attempts to
25 See Kaminsky, Corporate Responsibiäty, 166-67. Contra Fishbane, BiblicaI Interpretation, 338-39
and "Sin and Judgment," 141. Fishbane argues that w . 25 and 29 refer to what immediately
precedes them.
26 Joyce observes that repentance will not avert disaster, since the disaster is imminently upon
Jerusalem and has already overtaken the exiles. He argues that the motif of repentance
functions both to "underline Israel's responsibility for the inevitable punishment" and to
reveal "the yearning of Yahweh for the obedience of his people" (Joyce, Divine Initiative, 57).
Matties argues in a similar vein: "The assumption is often made that the call to repentance
must have the intention of averting impending disaster. That dichotomy is unnecessary....
Rather, the exhortation serves as the basic statement of human responsibility in a cosmos
that is characterized by order" (Matties, Rhetoric, 108-9). There is no reason to believe,
however, that the call to repentance should not be taken at face value as quite sincere.
Jerusalem is doomed, but the exilic audience is not in such a deplorable situation that it
might not get worse; indeed perhaps there is hope for them if they are of the right
disposition (see Fishbane, "Sin and Judgment," 142). Thus the exiles were Ezekiel's primary
audience, but the Jerusalemites may well have been included as well ( • n n a r r v a ) . For
them, repentance may not avert disaster, but would still be an appropriate posture toward
the deity, as Joyce and Matties suggest.
27 Block, Ezekiel 1-24, 588, who follows Joyce, Divine Initiative, 57-58.
eliminate by an interpretive coup the very tension that we are trying to explain.
Matties is closer to the mark:
Ezekiel ... articulates the view that judgment continues to operate in the present and that
the moral life ordered according to the divine way is the only path by which the human
being (and the Israelite community) can find a secure way into an uncertain future. 28
The tension in Ezekiel's views of human moral identity is most sharply defined
in the contrast between this fervent call to repentance and self-transformation in
chapter 18 and his deterministic portraits of the people's intractable
recalcitrance elsewhere (discussed below).
Scholars agree that Ezekiel borrows not only from the priestly legal tradition,
but also from the legal tradition apparent in Deut. 24:16 ("Fathers shall not be
put to death for their sons, nor shall sons be put to death for their fathers; only
f o r his o w n sin m a y a p e r s o n b e p u t to d e a t h , " [CiS"! ΓΙΌΚ m D V ' l Ò
innr IKtSm !2ΓΚ ¡TDK"1?» innr-tò]).29 Ezekiel's u s e o f legal l a n g u a g e is
germane to the way in which the form of chapter 18 shapes the content. In other
words, the legal language employed informs the kind of moral identity that
emerges from the chapter. To use legal language to talk about the self focuses
on specific actions as the determining factor in understanding and evaluating the
moral self. This is not very different from a modern court of law where it is the
specific actions of a defendant in a given instance that are relevant for evaluating
the merits of a case. Larger questions of moral character may sometimes appear
as evidence (officially or unofficially), but are not supposed to be the basis for
judgment. The sole question of interest is: Did the defendant do this particular
thing on this particular occasion? A very different type of evaluation of the
moral self might appear in a eulogy, where a person's overall moral character
might be unfolded. As in the courtroom analogy, the legal language of chapter
18 lends itself to an atomistic view of morality. This may not seem noteworthy
to us, but as the analogy of the eulogy suggests, it is not the only way of thinking
about moral identity. Ezekiel omits the language of desire, for example (absent
are pleas to "love Yahweh"). In fact, none of the affective aspects of human
experience, which might inform a more holistic view of the moral self, are
invoked.
28 Matties, Rhetoric, 109. For Matties, chapter 18 is the "hinge text" which bridges judgment and
salvation in the book: Its offer of torah provides "a way of being in the liminal moment
between judgment and transformation" (208). Greenberg notes that the call to self-
transformation is unique in all of the Hebrew Bible, but that it fits here in the context of the
'liberating, encouraging tidings of this oracle, designed as an antidote to despair"
(Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20, 341). Zimmerli avoids dealing with the connotations of the
language by suggesting that Yahweh commands the "determined acceptance" of a new heart
and new spirit (Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, 386).
29 Fishbane, Bibücal Interpretation, 338-39; Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, 386.
III. The Language Of Determinism
In the passages just discussed, Ezekiel has appeared to espouse a

"traditional" Israelite view of human beings as capable of repentance, and thus
moral action. Yet the more deterministic language in the book testifies that the
prophet also views human beings as inherently incapable of moral action, that is,
as possessed of a neutral moral self. Both the quantity and the intensity of the
passages presenting a more deterministic view of the moral self suggest that the
tension between these conflicting views is generating a veritable crisis. The
power of the prophet's language and the vividness of his images where he is
painting his grim portraits of the human character testify to the intensity of this
crisis of the self. This crisis is only defused when Ezekiel appropriates what is
salvageable from each view of the self and forges a new, more reliable moral
identity (discussed below in chapters 5 and 6). From his deterministic portraits
of human existence, Ezekiel appropriates the crucial notion that the moral self
does not find its locus in human beings, but in God.
A. Revisionist Histories
In the three gloomy versions of Israelite history that he sketches out in

chapters 16, 23, and 20, Ezekiel paints a dismal picture of the human condition,
casting it as predeterminedly possessed of a depraved nature from birth. While
they differ from one another in important ways (not the least of which is that
chapters 16 and 23 are extended metaphors, whereas chapter 20 is a more
straightforward historical account), these three historical retellings share a
common view of the early history of Israel that is at odds with the history
presented in other biblical traditions, and especially the rest of the prophetic
tradition.30 A brief exploration of the ways in which Israel's beginnings are
viewed in some of these texts will help to illumine the distinctiveness of
Ezekiel's perspective.
In the prophetic tradition prior to Ezekiel, Israel began to fall away from
divine commands around the time of entry into the land. Hosea, for example,
looks back on Israel's beginnings as an idyllic period before Israel began to stray
30 See Katheryn Pfisterer Darr, "Ezekiel's Justifications of God: Teaching Troubling Texts,"
JSOT 55 (1992): 97-117. In making the contrast between Ezekiel and the rest of the biblical
tradition, Darr is primarily concerned with the theological and ethical problem that Ezekiel's
emphasis on Israel's sinfulness (and especially his use of sexual imagery) poses for pedagogy.
Benjamin Uffenheimer compares and contrasts the structure of Ezek. 16 to that of Lev. 26,
and notes that the possibility of choosing the good is unavailable in Ezekiel because "Israel's
depravity [is] from its earliest beginnings" (Uffenheimer, "Theodicy and Ethics in Ezekiel,"
206).
from the path of righteousness. The people of Israel were "like grapes in the
wilderness... like the first fruits on a fig tree in its first season" when Yahweh
found them (TPfcCI ΠΓΡϊίίΤα Π3Κ1Ί3 ΠΤΏΖΟ biOST T1K3Q DOJiO
DrrVQK, Hos 9:10a). The imagery of the "first fruits" suggests the purity and
innocence of the people when they were first formed, just as the "grapes in the
wilderness" convey Yahweh's unmitigated joy at the discovery of them.31 Hosea
is precise about where this auspicious beginning went awry: "they came to Baal-
Peor and they consecrated themselves to a thing of shame, and became
detestable like the thing they loved" (ΓΓΗ Π2ί:0 ITO ΤΙΰΒ-^ΐη 1K2 ΠΰΠ
•3ΠΚ2 D'Xlpïi, Hos 9:10b). The people are capable of making moral decisions,
but beginning in Baal-Peor,32 they choose not to make the right ones.33
Isaiah espouses a similar view, though he does not articulate a specific
historical moment for the appearance of transgression. Instead, he posits the
debut of corporate sin after a golden period in Jerusalem's history: "How the
faithful city has become like a whore! (Once) filled with justice, righteousness
lodged in her, but now murderers!" (TllÒn Π3ΠΚ3 m p Π31Τ1? ηΐΤΠ HD-K
ο τ ι χ η η n n n n a •p'r p i s a s m , Isa. 1:21).
Through a painful purification process, Yahweh promises to restore the city's
judges and counselors as at the beginning ft-JUTI ilJBftnas -pBStf na^'K
rÒrtrOD, Isa. 1:26). For these prophets, the sinfulness of the Israelites is not
caused by an innate problem in their moral constitution, but by a problem of their
moral mil that manifested itself at a particular moment in their history.
Finally, as was noted in ch. 3, Jeremiah espouses a similar view of the idyllic
honeymoon period prior to the entry into the land: "I remember the faithfulness
of your youth; your love as a bride; your following me in the wilderness, in a
land not sown. Israel was holy to Yahweh, the first fruits of the harvest," (TTDT
S t o i r œnp nr-nr t ò ρ κ η n a n n a · η π κ -[rob -pnbibD η η η κ -pmai non
ΠΠΚ13Π ΓΓϊίκη mrrb, 2:2-3a). For Jeremiah also, the people began to go astray
after they have entered the land: "But when you entered, you defiled my land,
and my inheritance you made an abomination" (2:7b).34 While the narrative
31 Contra Dwight R. Daniels, Hosea and Salvation History: The Early Traditions of Israel in the
Prophecy of Hosea (BZAW 191; Berlin; New York: de Gruyter, 1990), 56. For Daniels,
Yahweh's pleasure in Israel is simply likened to eating grapes (57).
32 It is possible that 13:6 may allude to the people's transgressions beginning as early as the
wilderness period, although Daniels understands the verse to mean the people go astray
once they are brought into the land (Daniels, Hosea and Salvation Histoiy, 76).
33 Daniels, Hosea and Salvation Histoiy, 59.
34 In his article on the role of memory in Ezekiel, de Vries observes the contrast between
Hosea, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel: "Hosea and Jeremiah lamented Israel's present wickedness,
but believed that she had once been true. Not so Ezekiel. He preached that Israel had been
perverse from her infancy" (Simon J. de Vries, "Remembrance in Ezekiel: A Study of an Old
Testament Theme," interpretation 16 [1962]: 60).
traditions posit the beginning o f corporate disobedience somewhat earlier, in

the wilderness (cf. Ex. 1 4 : 1 1 ; ch. 16), in the three chapters which w e will n o w
consider, Ezekiel offers a version o f Israelite history that is distinctly different
f r o m these, wherein the people w e r e already disobedient in Egypt, f r o m their
very beginnings.
B. T h e Foundling
T h e narrative metaphor 5 5 o f the foundling in chapter 1 6 strikingly portrays

the p r o f o u n d sinfulness o f Jerusalem and the graciousness o f Y a h w e h ; in this it
bears remarkable similarity to other prophetic judgments outside o f Ezekiel. 36 A
key difference, however, between the view o f history outlined here and that o f
other biblical views is the emphasis in this chapter on the innate sinfulness o f
the people o f Jerusalem from birth?1 T h e beginning of this history does n o t bode
35 On this terminology (and why "allegory" is not an appropriate term) see Julie Galambush,
Jerusalem in the Book of Ezekiel: The City As Yahweh's Wife (SBLDS 130; Atlanta: Scholars Press,
1992), 10-11. Galambush suggests that chapters 16 and 23 have '"allegorizing tendencies,'
but are not allegories per se."
36 Much of the recent literature on this chapter focuses on the pornographic nature of its
sexual imagery, and the ethical implications for modem interpretation. J. Cheryl Exum
discusses both chapters 16 and 23 in her "The Ethics of Biblical Violence Against Women,"
in The Bible in Ethics: The Second Sheffield Colloquium (eds. John W. Rogerson, Margaret Davies,
and M. Daniel Carroll; JSOTSup 207; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 254-56, as
does Darr, "Troubling Texts," JSOT 55 (1992): 97-117, and Robert P. Carroll,
"Whorusalamin: A Tale of Three Cities as Three Sisters," in On Reading Prophetic Texts: Gender
Speafic and Related Studies in Memory ofFokkelien van Dijk-Hemmes (eds. Bob Becking, Meindert
Dijkstra; Leiden; New York: Brill, 1996), 67-82. See also Christi Maier, "Jerusalem als
Ehebrecherin in Ezechiel 16: Zur Verwendung und Funktion einer biblischen Metapher," in
Feministische Hermeneutik und Erstes Testament: Analysen und Interpretationen (ed. H. Jahnow;
Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1994) 85-105; Mary E. Shields, "Ezekiel 16: Body Rhetoric and
Gender," Journal of Feminist Studies m Religion, forthcoming; Carol J. Dempsey, "The 'Whore'
of Ezekiel 16: The Impact and Ramifications of Gender-Specific Metaphors in Light of
Biblical Law and Divine Judgment" in Gender and Lav in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near
East (eds. V. H. Matthews, Β M. Levinson, T. Frymer-Kensky; JSOTSup 262; Sheffield:
Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 57-78; Renita J. Weems, Battered Love: Marriage, Sex, and
Violence in the Hebrew Prophets (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), 58-67. For a thorough
discussion of the complex metaphors in 16 and 23, see Galambush. For the purposes of this
discussion I will be focusing not on the relationship between the vehicle and the tenor (the
foundling=Jerusalem), but on the way Ezekiel describes the foundling, in order to
understand how he conceptualizes the nature of the people of Jerusalem and their history.
37 Interpreters disagree on whether the metaphor recounts the history of Israel from its
beginnings, or more narrowly, the history of Jerusalem as an Israelite city. Darr ("Troubling
Texts," 103), who ascribes to the latter view, cites among the former the rabbis, and
Greenberg (Ezekiel 1-20, 301). Greenberg notes that "God entered into a covenant only with
well for what follows: "Say, Thus says the Lord Yahweh to Jerusalem: 'Your
origins ("prPDO) and your birth ("[ΤΠ^ΏΙ) are from the land of the Canaanites.
Your father was the Amorite and your mother a Hittite" (v. 3). Established from
the outset is the unpromising nature of the people—they are tainted before they
are born by a suspect lineage. Ezekiel rewrites Israelite genealogy, positing not
Abraham and Sarah as ancestors, but these "pagan" peoples, who "represent
human depravity at its worst." 38 Greenberg suggests the reason why the
patriarchs are not invoked:
The prophet ignores the traditional ancestors of Israel, the patriarchs, precisely because they
gave honor and encouragement to the people.... he chooses instead the pagan antecedents of
Jerusalem, thus providing a motive for the cruel abandonment of the infant ... and a
hereditary ground for her future dissolute conduct.39
From the outset, then, Jerusalem's origins are established as contemptible and
depraved.
Then, immediately after birth, the usual procedures for caring for newborns
were not followed. The umbilical cord was not cut, the child was not cleaned,
nor salted at all,40 nor swaddled at all (v. 4). Two implications stand out: 1) no
one took responsibility for the child and 2) the child is consequently unclean
and unkempt. Concerning the first point, that no one cared for the child is less
pertinent to our discussion than the fact that, as Greenberg notes, the child has
inherited the "wanton cruelty" of the parents. 41 But it is the second implication
which is of particular interest here: the child/the people of Jerusalem were born
filthy and polluted (the blood rendering the child ritually impure). As Galambush
has suggested, the pollution associated with every type of blood will cling to the
woman throughout her narrated life (menstrual blood and bloodguilt follow the
blood at birth). In a manner peculiar to him, Ezekiel manages to exploit fully
the people, never with the city (vs.8)" (Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20, 301). I also suspect that the
whole history of Israel is being sketched here (although the specific references to Jerusalem's
history, e.g., of royalty and temple idolatry, suggest that Jerusalem is the particular focus
within that larger history) because, as Darr points out, the audience would have the whole
history in mind (Darr, "Troubling Texts," 103-4). Furthermore, chapters 20 and 23 clearly
have the whole history of Israel in mind since they hearken back to the time in Egypt, and in
chapter 23 the names of the cities, Samaria and Jerusalem, are uses synechdochically for the
whole kingdoms.
38 Block, Ezekiel 1-24, 475.
39 Greenberg, "Ezekiel 16," 147. Blenkinsopp notes: "[ujnflattering allusion to ancestors is a
regular feature of vituperative satire" (Blenkinsopp, Ezekiel, 77). The function of the allusion
goes beyond a mere convention of the genre (and these chapters' status as satire is not one
of which I am entirely convinced).
40 Zimmerli identifies the salting of newborns as a specifically Palestinian custom (Zimmerli,
Ezekiel 1, 338).
41 Greenberg, Ezekiel 1 -20, 301.
"the unique ability o f the female body to exhibit" defilement and corruption o f
every kind,42 which is precisely why women's bodies serve his goal o f describing
moral depravity so well.
The next verse (v. 5) emphasizes the fact that no one cared enough to do
these things, and the child is cast out into a field. While this offers a portrait o f
the infant that evokes compassion ("No eye pitied you" []"Ί7 "pbjj ΠΟΓΓ&0]),
the child is nonetheless described as having been cast out into the field in the
"loathsomeness o f [her] person" (~[töS3 The translation o f this phrase merits
some discussion. Modern scholars appear to prefer to avoid the connotations o f
innate filth and offensiveness that the above translation evokes by making the
infant the object and not the subject o f the phrase; thus the NRSV translates,
"you were abhorred." Block suggests that the phrase conveys "a legal
renunciation o f parental obligations by Jerusalem's parents," 43 whereas
Greenberg translates the phrase as "spurned," citing the meaning in v. 45 ("You
are the daughter o f your mother, who spurned her husband and her children"
( m m HttTK nbv: ΠΝ -[DK-ro).44 Yet making the infant the object instead o f the
subject misses the profound sense o f disgust and defilement that the word
denotes elsewhere (cf. Lev. 26:11, 15, 30, 43, 44; Jer. 14:19; 2 Sam. 1:21).
Moreover, the ancient versions and interpretations support a subjective reading.
The Septuagint has τή σκολιότητι της ψυχής σου, "the crookedness o f your
soul," which unequivocally conveys that the problem inheres in the child.
Greenberg notes that medieval interpreters translated "[ÏÎS3 as "in the
filthiness o f your person," which accords with the Mishnaic Hebrew and
Aramaic sense o f "fouled, polluted." 45 I suspect that the Septuagint and
medieval sensibility concerning innate human foulness was more in keeping
with Ezekiel's than our modern concern for self-worth. The thrust o f the phrase
in v. 5 therefore seems to indicate less the perspective o f those who cast out the
infant and more the inherent detestableness o f the unclean child.
In short, the infant's uncleanness is not only beyond her control, it also
renders her innately abhorrent. The depiction of Israelite history here is one in
which the inherent detestableness o f the people is beyond their control—they
are incapable o f changing the way they were born. Furthermore, this explains
why the history o f Jerusalem (and by extension o f Israel) has been such an
unmitigated failure from the beginning.4(5 In this connection, Zimmerli notes the
42 Galambush, Jenwtf/SM», 102-3.

43 Block, Erektil 1-24,476.
44 Greenberg, E^tkid 1 -20, 275. Verse 45 should also be read, then, "who loathed her husband
and children." It is best to preserve the connotation of "filth, dung" (especially in Ezekiell)
which the word carries in the Qal (see Kohler-Baumgartner, 190, and H.F. Fuhs, TDOT
3:47-48).
45 Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20,275.
46 Galambush emphasizes Jerusalem's exclusion: "Jerusalem begins Ufe excluded, "other" in
contrast between Isaiah's view of Jerusalem's history, and Ezekiel's (discussed

above):
On the one hand, Isaiah reflects on the city of Jerusalem and thinks of the bright past when
it was still a "faithful city" full of justice and righteousness [Isa. 1:21]. On the other hand,
Ezekiel 16 insists that the Canaanite child of an Amorite father and a Hittite mother, a child
not of noble lineage whom Yahweh discovered as a foundling and saved, has from the very
beginning of its own actions been an unfaithful harlot.47
Elsewhere, Zimmerli notes the stylistic similarities between Ezekiel 16:4—5 and
P's creation account, especially the use of casus pendens and inclusio by means of
the time references ("[ΠΚ r r ò m OVa).48 What is striking in light of the
similarities are the differences: by contrast with P's creation account in which
everything was "good," the foundling is created in filth, and is in need of
cleansing, which only Yahweh provides.
Before leaving this section, a short excursus on the relationship between
physical repulsiveness and moral repulsiveness may be helpful. The description
of the infant as disgusting is purely in physical terms—the affront may appear at
first to exist only on the aesthetic level, not the moral. Yet it is not uncommon
for one's physical condition to mirror one's moral condition. In Oscar Wilde's
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian Gray's body in the portrait physically
deteriorates as his immoral behavior increases. Hollywood consistently portrays
villains in films as unattractive (e.g., Darth Vader wears a mask because he is so
hideous), and thus reifies our cultural suspicion that there is something morally
wrong with ugliness.49 This type of analogical thinking is particularly prevalent
in the history of the West with regard to the morality of women (and Ezekiel's
predilection for metaphorizing Israel as a woman is not unrelated to this
broader phenomenon). The connection between physical repulsiveness and
moral depravity is especially applicable to women because of the longstanding
Western (male) assumption that women's bodies are the source of their moral
inferiority vis-à-vis men.50 It is only a small step from this belief to mapping that
terms of her family membership, her national identity, her community status, and her ritual
purity" (Galambush, Jerusalem, 91). I want to underscore that, according to the text,
Jerusalem's "otherness" is constituted by an innate and genetic repugnant depravity which
inevitably leads to her historical failures.
47 Zimmerli, I Am Yahweh, 112. See also idem, "History and Hermeneutic," Journalfor Theology
and the Church 4 (1967): 1-13.
48 Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, 338.
49 If the villain is handsome, then that fact usually functions as a crucial part of the plot
(drawing the heroine into danger, etc.).
50 On this phenomenon see Nel Noddings, Women and Evil (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1989) esp. ?">-43. Noddings mentions the long association between the feminine and
moral inferiority back onto the body itself—indeed it completes a logical circle.
Women are less moral because of their bodies, and this fact is visible on their
bodies. In this way it is possible and even convenient to project onto the
concrete, tangible body, moral failings that are too abstract to envision
otherwise.51
To return to ch. 16: The child reaches sexual maturity (with BHS read ΠΓ3
t r i s for D,,-|D n a n in v. 7) but remains naked and bare ( m i n D1JJ, v. 7). That
nakedness is shameful is suggested by a number of texts (e.g., Gen. 3, but also in
this chapter, v. 37), 52 and thus Yahweh's covering o f her nakedness (HCOK1
•¡mi») at least partially removes the inherent shamefulness o f the circumstances
of her birth. Then, via a sexual metaphor, Yahweh enters into a covenant with
her ("[ΠΚ ΓΓ~ϋ3 ΚΊ2Κ1 v. 8). The sequence of events is curious: only now does
Yahweh wash, rinse, and anoint her—the cleansing birth rituals have waited
until young adulthood to be performed.53 Once cleansed, Yahweh clothes the
young woman in fine apparel and jewelry so that the inherent filth of her birth is
replaced by a divinely bestowed perfect beauty (ΤΐΟϊηώΚ '"lina Kin 'T'Sd
-pSi?, v. 14). But these efforts are in vain, for the young woman trusts not in
Yahweh but in her beauty, and she begins to "play the whore" (ΌΪΓΠ,54 v. 15). So
deeply ingrained are the woman's depraved origins, the suspect lineage and the
loathsome filth of her birth, that they are more powerful than Yahweh's efforts
to transform her. Thus, Jerusalem/Israel cannot hearken back to an early period
of harmony: "Ezekiel 16 does not intend that Jerusalem should think back to
the 'good old days'. Those days were in reality evil and bad." 55 Her history has
been a disaster because she was born with a nature that was predisposed for
disaster. Noting that specific sins are not enumerated,56 Swanepoel rightly
proposes that "Ezekiel here prefers to bring home the idea o f a sinful
nature (as opposed to the masculine and rationality), reinforced by Aristotle, and continuing
in various ways since then.
51 Of course it does not always happen this way. Seductresses, for example, may be viewed
simultaneously as physically appealing and morally suspect.
52 "The nakedness of Jerusalem metonymically signifies her shame; exposed and despised, she
is therefore despicable" (Galambush, Jerusalem, 105).
53 Noting that "Yahweh has left her to grow up feral and naked in the field," Galambush
suggests: "Her continuing naked vulnerability, while apparently inconsistent with her
adoption by Yahweh, furthers the narrative emphasis on both Jerusalem's vulnerability and
her shockingly evident sexuality" (Galambush, Jerusalem, 94).
54 On the variety of connotations of this word, see Phyllis Bird, '"To Play the Harlot': An
Inquiry into an Old Testament Metaphor," in Gender and Difference in Ancient Israel (ed. Peggy
Day; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), 75-94.
55 M. G. Swanepoel, "Ezekiel 16: Abandoned Child, Bride Adorned or Unfaithful Wife?" in
Among the Prophets: Language, Image and Structure in the Prophetic Writings (eds. Philip R. Davies
and David J.A. Clines; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 101.
56 Cf. Fishbane, "Sin and Judgment," 148-49.
inclination/nature of humanity rather than a number of sins. Sin is thus tackled

in its core, in its origin."57
Because in Israelite society of this period prostitutes are deemed to be
motivated by lust (and not simple economic necessity), Ezekiel's comparison of
the young woman to a prostitute is evidence of his view of her depraved
nature.58 Yet in an allegorical sleight of hand, he twists the comparison to reflect
even more poorly on the young woman/Jerusalem. No longer just a prostitute,
in w . 31-34 she is described as worse than a prostitute: she pays her lovers
instead of being paid. In Ezekiel's eyes she is "contrary" ("]3Π)59 to other
women and, incredibly, to other prostitutes. Galambush astutely analyzes this
rhetorical move:
In Yahweh's charge of "abnormal" prostitution, however, Ezekiel reverses the role of tenor
and vehicle. Defining prostitution, the vehicle, as normal, Yahweh claims that Jerusalem's
actual activities (the payment of tribute) do not conform to the norm. Jerusalem is thus
described in 16:1-43 as perverse, first, because her actions are like prostitution, and then, in
w 32-34 because, once defined as a prostitute, her actions seem unlike those of a "normal"
prostitute.60
Even within the immoral realm of prostitute behavior, the young woman
deviates from the norm. For Ezekiel, then, there is something wrong with the
Jerusalemites at the deepest level of their being, since they cannot even act
according to this socially unacceptable pattern of behavior; they are thus twice
removed from any notion of conforming to "the good."
This rhetorical move is repeated in a slightly different form later in the
chapter. In v. 45 the charge of suspect ancestry is repeated ("Your mother was a
Hittite, your father an Amorite") before an unfavorable comparison of
Jerusalem to her "sisters" Samaria and Sodom is developed. Here the deplorable
behavior of Jerusalem is explicidy linked to her unfortunate parentage. Echoing
the phrasing used to exhort adherence to divine commands ("Walk in my
ways..."), Yahweh declares, "You have not walked in their ways...
]rPD~n3, v. 47). The irony here is two-fold: not only are these untraveled
ways not Yahweh's ways, but the perverse ways of the reviled Samaria and
Sodom, but furthermore even this path of degradation was not followed by
Jerusalem! Jerusalem is accused of committing more despicable crimes than
either Samaria or Sodom ("You are more corrupt than they in all your ways"
57 Swanepoel, "Ezekiel 16," 102.

58 In the mechanism of the metaphor, of course, the woman's sexual activity is equated to
Jerusalem's political alliances and cultic practices, but as I suggested above, I am principally
interested in the way Ezekiel articulates the vehicle of the metaphor, not in its correspondence
to the tenor.
59 This term also connotes "perversity" (cf. e.g., Isa. 29:16).
60 Galambush, Jerusalem, 99.
[-pSTrbDa ]ΠΟ Tinïim], v. 47), neither of whom qualifies as an exemplary role

model. Again Jerusalem is twice removed from acceptable behavior, and here
the emphasis is explicitly on her corrupt origins as determinative for her corrupt
behavior. So egregious is the extent of Jerusalem's abominations that she makes
the sins of Samaria and Sodom appear righteous by her abominations ("plum
jmaflin-'jaa ηηιπκ-ηκ, v. 51; cf. v. 52) . 61
In sum, Ezekiel eschews the traditional view of Israelite history because it is
too optimistic in its view of human nature. The metaphor of the foundling
paints a portrait of the people in which they are peculiarly corrupt in the very
core of their being. Two implications emerge from this portrait: 1) the innately
wicked and detestable nature of the people is so intractable that not even divine
power, let alone human effort, can overcome it, and 2) the history of
Jerusalem/Israel was a failure from the beginning due to its inherently depraved
nature, and was only salvaged for a brief time by divine intervention before
reverting to its inherently wicked ways. The people's corruption appears, then,
at three levels: in their historical origins, in their inner disposition, and in their
outer actions. With respect to each of these areas, the intractability of the
problem is stressed. The language of determinism is thus quite strong in this
chapter: Ezekiel sees no room for any human capacity for self-transformation.
Jerusalem was born with an innate depravity so deeply embedded that it cannot
be altered by human or divine power.
C. Oholah and Oholibah
Another sketch of the abysmal history of Israel by means of an extended

metaphor of sexual transgression is found in Ezekiel 23. This time there are two
women, Oholah and Oholibah, who are explicitly identified as Samaria and
Jerusalem (v. 4). 62 Where the metaphor in chapter 16 focused on the question of
Jerusalem's origins by recounting the history of the foundling from birth, in
chapter 23 the childhood of the women is not recounted. 63 Nonetheless, explicit
61 Verses 52-63 will be discussed in chapter 5 in the context of the discussion of shame
language.
62 Here the cities appear to represent synechdochically the northern and southern kingdoms.
63 Furthermore, according to chapter 16 a period of harmony prevailed when Yahweh
showered the orphan with gifts (note that this harmony was achieved by a unilateral divine
action, and was not the result of any effort on the orphan's part), whereas in chapter 23, the
history of disobedience is unrelieved. "Whereas Ezek 16 had given some space to a
description of the exaltation of God's people by him and his rich gifts to them, here this is
completely suppressed. From the first recognizable impulses of love onwards, the girls
Oholah and Oholibah became corrupted. There is no noble, innocent love, not even at the
beginning of the history of God's people" (Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, 489).
reference is repeatedly made to their time spent in Egypt, which, of course, in

the tenor of the metaphor, corresponds to the birth of Israel as a people. In this
way, chapter 23 is equally concerned to recount a history of Israel in which the
people were incapable of obedience from the beginning.64 In fact, as the account of
Israel's history unfolds in this chapter, the narrative loops repeatedly back to the
women's behavior in Egypt, almost obsessively underscoring not only the
profundity of their wickedness, but also the fact that there was never a time in
Israel's history when it was capable of conforming its behavior in obedience to
Yahweh's will.
After the sisters are identified as daughters of one mother (v. 2), there
immediately follows the announcement that "they played the whore in Egypt"
(ΟΉΪΜ n n r m , v. 3). As in chapter 16, in Ezekiel's mind there is no golden era
of the past: the history of Israel is perceived as disastrous even in Egypt. So,
although we do not have an account of the unclean birth of the sisters as in
chapter 16, it is stated from the outset that the sisters behaved in a depraved
fashion from the beginning: "in their youth they played the whore" (pTlBJD
UT, v. 3). Galambush notes that the marriage of the women to Yahweh after they
have played the whore is unparalleled in the prophets: "Though the claim of
primal infidelity is inconsistent with the story in chap 16 of Jerusalem's
foundling youth, it is entirely consistent with the implications of the story of
chap 16 that Jerusalem was bad from the start."65 Such an early propensity for
immoral behavior suggests a depraved nature, that is, it appears that in Ezekiel's
view the people of Israel were born wicked, not knowing how to act other than
badly. Here one might object that Ezekiel appears to be making a case for de
facto depravity (a uniform but free choice to disobey), and not dejure depravity,
i.e., essential depravity, as I am arguing. In other words, one might say that
Ezekiel is simply arguing that the Israelites have always failed to align
themselves with the good historically, but one is not compelled to conclude from
this that he believes the people fundamentally incapable of so aligning themselves.
Yet I believe that the preponderance of the evidence in the book as a whole
(esp. chs. 16, 24) suggests that the apparently defacto evidence he presents forms
part of his larger dejure argument. The weight of the evidence in the book points
in this direction. Sliding from a de facto argument to a de jure one is not a
necessary move to make, but neither is it a difficult one.
64 Galambush contrasts Ezekiel's treatment of origins in chs. 16 and 23 to that of Hosea and
Jeremiah. Where the women in the marriage metaphors in those books at least initially are
capable of obedience, they are not in Ezekiel: "Instead, in Ezekiel 16 the woman is depicted
as first passive in relation to Yahweh, and then actively rebellious, while in Ezekiel 23 she is
'unfaithful' even before her marriage to Yahweh..." (Galambush, Jerusalem, 82).
65 Galambush, Jerusalem, 111.
The narrative moves chronologically forward, describing Oholah/Samaria's

"whorings" with Assyria ( w . 5—7), but then in v. 8, instead of continuing the
progressive march through history, the narrative suddenly doubles back to
Egypt: "Her whoring ways (ΓΡΠΙίΐη) from Egypt she did not abandon, for they
lay with her in her youth, pressed her virgin breasts, and poured out their lustful
ways (ΟΠΌΤΠ) upon her." Van Dijk-Hemmes has noted that the sexual activity of
the sisters is described here with passive verbs, the active role being ascribed to
the male partners. Therefore "[i]t would have been more adequate to describe
the events during the sisters' youth in the following manner: 'They were sexually
molested in Egypt, in their youth they were sexually abused.'" She perceptively
notes that the sisters are being blamed for being the object of sexual assault,
which may seem to pose an irresolvable logical conundrum. 66 It is only
comprehensible if one assumes that the women are to blame for arousing the
men's lust. Earlier, in the discussion of ch. 16, we noted that a male perspective
has traditionally projected women's alleged moral inferiority onto their physical
bodies—the morally repugnant becomes physically repugnant. Here the
projection is slightly different: the male perspective projects morally suspect male
sexual responses onto the women, such that the acts perpetrated against them
are seen as revealing of their true character.
While certainly a sign of his unmitigated misogyny, Ezekiel's "blaming the
victim" therefore reflects something else as well: something in the nature of the
women (from a male perspective) draws the men to lewd behavior. This is, of
course, a classic example of misogynist and androcentric thinking, but it serves
Ezekiel's purposes particularly well, because he is trying to communicate the
innately depraved nature of the people. It is therefore peculiarly appropriate 67 that
Ezekiel makes extensive use of female sexual transgression in his symbolic
system: women are already considered innately depraved, and thus they serve
extremely well as metaphorical representatives of the people as a whole, whose
fundamental corruptness Ezekiel feels compelled to portray. Women serve as
the perfect metaphor for the possibility of being simultaneously passive and
culpable.
After the loop back to Egypt, the narrative returns in w . 9—10 to the time of
Samaria's alliances with Assyria in order to finish recounting the demise of the
northern kingdom. Then the narrative picks up with the history of Judah after
the fall of Samaria. Although the behavior of Oholibah is described as worse
66 Fokkelien van Dijk-Hemmes, "The Metaphorization of Woman in Prophetic Speech: An

Analysis of Ezekiel 23," in Athalya Brenner, Fokkelien van Dijk-Hemmes, On Gendering
Texts: Vernale and Male Voices in the Hebrew Bible, (Biblical Interpretation Series, vol. 1; Leiden;
New York; Köln: Brill, 1993) 173. Oholibah is the passive recipient of sexual misconduct in
v. 17 as well.
67 I certainly do not mean that this is "appropriate" in any ethical sense, only that his use of
cultural assumptions about women is comprehensible in light of his larger goals.
than Oholah's (for good rhetorical effect to a southern audience), both sisters
are viewed as having defiled themselves; there is one way for both of them
(•(ΓΓΓκΛ -ΙΠΚ η-Π ΠΚ13Β) "=> κηκΐ, v. 13). Judah's alliances with Assyria are
metaphorized first (v. 12), followed by the entanglements with Chaldea (w. 14—
18). At the end of this historical summary, another loop is made back to Egypt
in the next three verses: "She multiplied her whorings by remembering the days
of her youth in which she played the whore in the land of Egypt" ("ΠΚ m~im
Dnxn γ-ικη ΠΓΙΪΤ "líftt m i l » -Ό^ηκ nor1? ΓΡηυΤΠ, v. 19). In the allusion to the
sojourn in Egypt this time, the genitalia of the Egyptians loom particularly large
in Ezekiel's mind (v. 20). Verse 21 explicitly links the problem of the present
with Israel's origins in Egypt: "You revisited the lewdness of your youth in the
fondling of your breasts in Egypt; in the pressing68 of your nipples of your
youth" ("pirn Ήώ pn 1 ? j - n D-nsnn niton γ ™ ηητ ηκ n p s m , v. 21).
Judah's present political alliances with Egypt are apparently intended here,69 but
of particular interest for this discussion is the way Ezekiel connects present
behavior with Judah's origins. This return again to the time spent in Egypt at the
beginning of Israelite history is not insignificant: like the return of the repressed
in psychoanalysis, Egypt keeps popping up in Ezekiel's historical account
because the origins of the sisters' problems are of particular concern to him.70 As
Blenkinsopp observes: "Israel's 'original sin' in Egypt returns to haunt her
throughout the history."71 In the midst of his retelling of Israelite history,
Ezekiel keeps returning to this point: they have been bad from the beginning.
68 Reading for pD 1 ?. Note that here again the woman is passive, but culpable, in this
portrayal.
69 "The strong anti-Egyptian polemic in this chapter confirms the view of commentators that
ch. 23 reflects Ezekiel's disgust over the pro-Egyptian policies of Zedekiah" (Darr,
"Troubling Texts," 108). See also Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1,482-83. Galambush suggests that it is
not clear whether the alliance with Egypt referenced here is the one under Hezekiah in the
period 714-705 or the alliances made during Ezekiel's lifetime; the account may be an
amalgam of both episodes (Galambush, Jerusalem, 113-14).
70 A psychoanalytic perspective is particularly appropriate here, for as Galambush argues: "The
metaphor of the city as Yahweh's wife ... is reshaped by Ezekiel into a virtually obsessive
investigation of Jerusalem's sexual impurity" (Galambush, Jerusalem, 124). Of course, Ezekiel
also wants to make the case that Israel has succumbed to a repeated and inescapable pattern
of disobedience, which stems from her depraved origins: "In her present contemptible
practices ... Israel merely repeats the sin already begun with Egypt in her youth..." (Darr,
"Troubling Texts," 108). Galambush attributes Ezekiel's historical conflations similarly:
"Jerusalem's history of infidelity is constructed so as to blur the distinction between the
offenses of the distant and the more recent past, so that the implied comparison between
Jerusalem's serial infidelities of the eighth century and her current liaisons highlights
faithlessness as the persistent pattern of Jerusalem's life" (Galambush, Jerusalem, 117).
71 Blenkinsopp, Ezekiel, 100.
The announcement of a terrifying punishment follows this lengthy

indictment ( w . 22-35). Oholibah will be mutilated and her descendants
destroyed by her enemies. The specific punishments come to an end in v. 26,
and, by way of intermission before returning to a more general announcement
of punishment in w . 28—35, the narrative again refers to Egypt as the root of
the problem: "I will put an end to your lewdness and your whorings from the
land of Egypt" (onsn ρ κ η - ¡ n u m o ηηη ηηητ t n t i m , v. 27). The verse
continues: "You will not lift up your eyes to them, and Egypt you will not
remember anymore" fllB-IStn t ò C i a o ! ΒΓΓ^Κ j r a "ΚϊΙΓΓΚVi). The
repeated references to Egypt testify not only that, in Ezekiel's view, Judah's
problems date from prior to her national existence, but also that it is her origins
themselves that present a stumbling block to a right relationship with Yahweh.72
What concerns Ezekiel is that the people are unable to break out of the
behaviors they have practiced since Egypt—they "remember" them all too well,
indeed they cannot remember anything else (cf. v. 35: "Because you have
forgotten me" [ΤΑΚ ΠΠ32ί ]ΙΓ]). The language of memory functions here to
signal the people's constitutional inability to act other than according to how
their beginnings in Egypt shaped them.73
In both chapters 16 and 23, Ezekiel intricately intertwines sexuality with
moral identity, but in a sense the prominence of sexuality masks a larger issue
for Ezekiel. It is not so much sex per se that constitutes immorality, as it is desire
in general. How do the women go astray? They express too much desire—desire
so excessive that it cannot be controlled. This is perhaps not surprising, but it is
not just excess desire that is problematic for Ezekiel. In fact, for Ezekiel even
controlled, moderate desire plays absolutely no positive role in the moral life.
Contrast this to Deuteronomy (among other traditions) where the role of desire
in shaping the moral self is crucial—moral rectitude is described with the
language of desire (loving Yahweh). Ezekiel never positively invokes the
affective aspects of human experience—the emotional life is related to moral
identity only in a negative way, as something to be avoided.
72 Several of the references to Egypt are multivalent On the one hand, it is possible to
understand the references to Egypt as evidence that Judah's recent political alliances with
Egypt are particularly irksome to Ezekiel (and hence the enlarged genitalia and unusual
semen production in v. 20). On the other hand, the emphasis here is not explicitly on pnsent
alliances with Egypt, it is on the people's behavior when they were in Egypt long ago, before
they had any national identity (contra Zimmerli, E^tkiel 1, 487). Thus the references to
Egypt reflect both Ezekiel's concern with Egypt as a present temptation, and as a symbol of
Israel's depraved origins.
73 The problem of Israel's "selective memory," i.e., that the people continue the practices they
began in Egypt but cannot "remember" the ways of Yahweh will be discussed in chapter 5
below. Also see de Vries, "Remembrance in Ezekiel," 58-64.
D. A History of Israel
In chapter 20 Ezekiel abandons the extended metaphors and allegorical

features of 'his other historical summaries: here he presents a more
straightforward historical narrative of the history of Israel, although it, like the
histories recounted in chapters 16 and 23, is profoundly revisionist.74 And as in
the other accounts, the history that unfolds in this chapter reveals a people
incapable of choosing, or even of understanding, the good. Indeed, in the four
generations of Israelites described in this chapter (representing the whole of
Israelite history), none is capable of behaving other than in a completely
depraved manner.75 A gloomy determinism devoid of hope pervades this
history, in which every generation, though admonished to eschew the evil ways
of the ancestors, inevitably finds itself repeating the mistakes of the past by
engaging in what Ezekiel considers perverse and degenerate practices.76
The prophetic task in this chapter is to make known to the people the
abominations of their ancestors (DllTin DfTDK ΓαυίΓΓΠΚ, v. 4). 77 The catalyst
for this mission is the arrival of some elders who approach Ezekiel in order to
"consult Yahweh" (ehi1? mrP'DK v. 1). The divine refusal to be consulted
stems from the people's inaccurate sense of themselves. From Ezekiel's point of
view, the people are suffering from a confused perception of their history, and
therefore a distorted picture of their identity. Their interpretation of the past is
in marked contrast to the divine perspective, and the mission of the prophet is
to reveal to the people what they apparently are unable to see for themselves. As
74 Lust reads this chapter as a parody of the Deuteronomistic view of history, in that, from
Ezekiel's perspective, the promises of salvation history (entry into the land, etc.) have not yet
been fulfilled; rather, their accomplishment lies in the future 0. Lust, "Ez., XX, 4-26 une
parodie de l'histoire religieuse d'Israel," Ephemerides Theolügcae Lovamenses 43 [1967]: 488-527).
Cf. also Block, Ezekiel 1-24, 613. In a similar vein, Pons understands the elders whom
Ezekiel is debating to be representative of the Deuteronomistic view of history, and that the
chapter constitutes Ezekiel's polemic against that conception (Jacques Pons, "Le vocabulaire
d'Ezechiel 20: le prophete s'oppose a la vision deuteronomiste de l'histoire," in Evçkiel and
His Book, 214-33). Bartelmus likewise sees Ezekiel as revisionist, because the direct
correlation between human behavior and God's actions posited in Judges is explicitly
disputed in Ezekiel 20 (Rüdiger Bartelmus, "Menschlicher Misserfolg und Jahwes Initiative.
Beobachtungen zum Geschichtsbild des deuteronomistischen Rahmens im Richterbuch und
zum geschichtstheologischen Entwurf in Ez 20," Bibäsche Notizen 70 [1993]: 28-47).
75 "In a kind of historical affirmation of total depravity, the account describes Israel as having
been totally and consistently rebellious from the beginning" (Hals, Ezekiel, 141).
76 Noting that Ezekiel suppresses more optimistic traditions pertinent to the history of Israel
(e.g., Exodus as liberation), Darr states: "[W]e realize that this story leaves no space open
through which hope can enter" (Darr, 'Troubling Texts," 100).
77 I will return to this chapter and the language of "knowing" in chapter 5. It is sufficient at this
point to note that Ezekiel is to reveal to the people their true situation, to which they are
presently completely blind.
I will argue in w h a t follows, this recitation o f t h e history o f Israel seeks t o erase

any illusions t h e p e o p l e m a y b e h a r b o r i n g a b o u t their past, a n d t o instill in t h e m
a realistic u n d e r s t a n d i n g o f their identity.
A s in c h a p t e r s 16 a n d 23, this historical a c c o u n t begins in Egypt. 7 8 Again t h e
patriarchs are bypassed because, as G r e e n b e r g suggests: "Ezekiel could n o t well
have started Israel's career o f apostasy w i t h t h e patriarchs, t h e archetypal pious
recipients o f G o d ' s blessings." 7 9 In Ezekiel's a c c o u n t , t h e n , Y a h w e h m a d e
himself k n o w n (ΒΠΚ1) t o t h e p e o p l e in E g y p t (v. 5), 80 a n d p r o m i s e d t h e m t h e
land o f milk a n d h o n e y . T h e n , immediately following, this a d m o n i t i o n : " C a s t
o u t , each o f you, t h e detestable things y o u r eyes [love], a n d d o n o t defile
yourselves w i t h t h e idols o f E g y p t " ( D n a n ''ri'jaai I D ^ t f n I T U •'Sip® 2ΓΚ
"ΙΚΏΒΓΓ^Κ, v. 7). Ezekiel is alone a m o n g s t t h e biblical traditions f o r retrojecting
t h e a d m o n i t i o n against idols t o t h e time in Egypt. 8 1 E v e n at this, t h e earliest
m o m e n t in their history, t h e p e o p l e have b e e n acting abominably, defiling
themselves with various pollutants, leading Y a w h e h t o complain: " T h e y have
rebelled against m e , a n d they have n o t b e e n willing t o h e a r / o b e y m e " ('aT®" 1 !
"Sk Vütib 13K 101, v. 8). T h e usual translation o f 13K, a n d t h e o n e a d o p t e d
here, suggests t h a t t h e p e o p l e p o s s e s s e d t h e volition t o c h o o s e w h e t h e r they
78 As in chapters 16 and 23, the predominance of the references to Egypt in this historical
account has a dual function: First, to critique the contemporary Judahite political alliances
with Egypt (see, for example, Patton, "Ezekiel 20," 77). Note, however, that political
alliances are not explicitly on the prophet's agenda in this chapter "No other historical
survey (chs. 16, 23) focuses so singlemindedly on cultic, to the exclusion of political,
issues..." (Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20,382). See also Rolf Rendtorff, "Ezekiel 20 and 36:16ff. in
the Framework of the Composition of the Book of Ezekiel," in Canon and Theology: Overtures
to an Old Testament Theohgf (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 192. Secondly, and more to our
point, the constant references to Egypt (but note there is no mention of oppression by
Pharaoh, liberation as expression of divine care) underscore the fact that the people have
been apostate from the beginning of their history. "It is... a bold move which goes
significantly beyond previous historical reinterpretations.... It would be comparable to a
leading churchman arguing that Christianity had taken a wrong direction from apostolic
times" (Blenkinsopp, Ezekiel, 88).
80 Block argues that the sense of ΙΠ1Κ is: "I became known as one who enters into a
covenantal relationship." Thus, already in Egypt Yahweh revealed himself as the covenant
partner (Block, Ezekiel 1-24, 626).
81 Patton, in her examination of Ezekiel's use of exodus motifs, notes that "Ezekiel's depiction
of the idolatry in Egypt is 'unique' in the Bible" (Corinne Patton, " Ί Myself Gave Them
Laws That Were Not Good': Ezekiel 20 and the Exodus Traditions," JSOT 69 [1996]: 76).
"No such injunction given in Egypt is recorded in the Pentateuch or elsewhere. Josh 24:14
alludes to ancestral foreign gods worshiped in Mesopotamia and Egypt, and still with the
Israelites in Joshua's time; this comes closest to Ezekiel, and it does not refer to an
admonition to stop worshiping Egypt's idols" (Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20, 365).
would obey or disobey (cf. for example, Deut. 1:26, 1 Sam. 15:9).82 Yet this
verse, in the context of this historical account, reveals in nuce Ezekiel's dilemma:
In tension with this language implying choice is the overall account of Israelite
history that he sketches, which suggests that because no generation ever did
choose to obey Yahweh, the people simply were predisposed to wickedness, and
did not possess the capacity to choose otherwise. To talk about disobedience,
Ezekiel employs the language that he has inherited, but because he is trying to
articulate an unconventional view of human nature, the language is not wholly
suitable to his needs and misses the mark. It is the shape of the history itself that
communicates the determinism of Ezekiel's perspective (here again is the slide
from defacto to dejure depravity).
For the sake of his own honor Yahweh elects not to destroy the people while
they are still in Egypt (v. 9). Having brought them to the wilderness, Yahweh
gives them the statutes and ordinances, by whose observance human beings
have life (ΒΠ3 Til D1KH Dim Πϊ)2Γ, v. 11). But this first wilderness generation
also rebels, and this time they do not even have the mitigating circumstance that
they do not know the law, as was the case in Egypt. The stylized cycle of failure
repeats itself, Yahweh declining to destroy the people though they deserve it
(w. 13-14). The cause of this total disobedience is attributed to the fact that
"their heart walks after their idols" (η*?η Da'? D n ^ l ^ η π κ "3, v. 16). Wilfong
suggests that the heart is the seat of reason, 83 and certainly the people's reason is
included in the indictment here, but it seems that the 2*7 in this context has a
broader connotation: the orientation of their entire being is misaligned.
To the children of the wilderness generation Yahweh addresses an
exhortation not to follow in the ways of their ancestors. Predictably, however,
the same cycle of disobedience and restrained anger repeats itself with this third
generation (w. 18—22). The behavior of this third generation is linked to that of
previous generations: "And their eyes were upon the idols of their ancestors"
(ΟΓΤΤΐ) r n orïQK ,lnt?:i η π κ ΐ , v. 24). This reference to the idols of the
ancestors not only signifies that the particular problem of idolatry plagues the
third as well as the first and second generations, it also suggests that the people
themselves are like their ancestors in their fundamental inability to obey
Yahweh. Darr asks: "[W]here is the Deuteronomistic Historians' view that
Joshua's generation was, for the most part, faithful? For Ezekiel, the sins of the
82 In other places it is not at all clear that "willing" is an appropriate translation. In Isaiah 28:12,
30:9, and 42:24, for example, the situation is similar to the one here: it is not clear whether it
is a question of the will to obey, or a question of ability to obey that is at issue.
83 Specifically in this context, the suggests action which is the result of the "thinking and
decision-making process" (Marsha Madeline Wilfong, "God's Promised Action on the
Human Heart Deliverance from Faulty Reasoning," Ph.D. diss., Union Theological
Seminary, 1986,167).
second wilderness generation exceed that of the first."84 The Deuteronomists

were too optimistic about human nature in Ezekiel's view. Rather, by
connecting one generation to the next in an unrelieved pattern of failure,
distinctions among generations become irrelevant, time collapses, and every
Israelite generation is encompassed by the indictment, and by a portrait of
humanity that sees no possibility of obedience.
At the end of this, the third repetition of transgression, followed by
declaration and retraction of the intent to destroy, the narrative has reached a
fever pitch of frustration. Then suddenly, this cycle is broken by one of the
most peculiar and perplexing verses in the Bible: "And also I gave them statutes
that were not good, and ordinances by which they could not live" (ΤΙΓΙί ""JK'DJl
D m TIT Κ1? D'tSBtím O^mts i ò O'pri a r ò , v. 25). How is this bizarre assertion
to be explained? Patton suggests that Ezekiel, wishing to present new laws in
the second half of the book, must paint the old laws as seriously flawed.
Ezekiel 20 sets up the possibility for the giving of this new law by the decree that the laws of
the wilderness were 'no good'.... The law itself was evil, given by Yahweh as punishment for
their sinfulness in the wilderness, in order to guarantee their ultimate destruction, while
preserving Yahweh's righteousness in the face of this disaster.®-'
While Ezekiel clearly does wish to propose new laws for the restoration in
chapters 40—48, here he is not so much concerned with the future as he is with
enumerating and explaining past and present failures.
Let us look more closely at the way the laws are described in this chapter.
Three times the statutes and ordinances are described as life-giving (arm nto-
ana Til ΒΙΚΠ, w . 11, 13, 21). Yet, the people are unable to obey the statutes
and ordinances which bring life. Ironically, however, they are able to obey laws
which bring only death (v. 25). Patton understands the giving of bad laws as a
means of tainting the entire law code,86 but if this is Ezekiel's intent, why would
84 Darr, "Troubling Texts," 101.

85 Patton, Ezekiel 20, 78-89. George Heider finds a parallel between the death of the first born
in Egypt at the time of the Exodus, and the divine ordination of child sacrifice in these
verses: both Pharaoh and Israel suffer the death of their "firstborn" for their disobedience
(George C. Heider, "A Further Turn on Ezekiel's Baroque Twist in Ezek 20:25-26," JBL107
(1988): 721-24).
86 "In a divinely granted law code, if only one law was granted in order to lead the people into
sin, then the whole legal collection can never bring life; it is a law code that cannot be the
basis for any restoration" (Patton, "Ezekiel 20," 79). For Patton the problem cannot be the
people's disobedience: "If the problem had been one of perennial disobedience, then the
restoration the book envisions would have been illogical. The vision of the temple and the
laws cited in no way guarantee obedience" (80). The illogicality of the restoration in the face
of perennial disobedience is the paradoxical problem that I am trying to unravel, but instead
of dismissing the perennial disobedience as unreal, I hope to show that Ezekiel can move
he repeatedly assert that the laws were life-givingf Ezekiel genuinely believes that
the laws are life-giving, and thus does not believe that the laws were the
problem: the people's inability to obey was the problem, and this is the
depressing fact that he is attempting to convey to his audience. 87
Let us consider another possible explanation: At this point in the historical
account, Ezekiel has described the cycle of sin and restrained divine anger three
times, and the narrative conveys frustration at the seeming inevitability of this
cycle being repeated ad infinitum.88 The narrative offers no obvious explanation
for the incapacity of the people to obey, and yet this question underlies the
seemingly endless cycle of repetition. Why are they incapable of observing these
life-giving laws? Verse 25 points toward a potential explanation, not because the
laws themselves were the problem, but because the bad laws reveal the true nature
of the people. Ezekiel suggests that the bad laws (concerning child sacrifice) were
ordained to horrify the people, so that they might know Yahweh (DßtüK
mrp ΌΚ 1ÉK 1I7T Ιώκ ]Uüb, v. 26). Of the two generally accepted translation
possibilities for DQŒÎK ("horrify" and "devastate"), 89 "devastate" is less
convincing because it is not clear in what way the "no good" laws are
"devastating" to the people. Repugnant as they are, they are the only laws the
people actually obeyed. As will be explained below, the point of the laws was
indeed to "horrify" the people.
Perhaps, after their repeated and complete failure to adhere to the good laws,
this is a test of the people to see how profound their wickedness really is. The
bad laws provide the people with the opportunity to reject what is repugnant
and to choose the good, thereby revealing some shred of goodness in their
from perennial disobedience to glorious restoration by means of a changed conception of

human nature.
87 For a summary of positions on this verse see Block, Ezekiel 1-24, 636-41. Block argues that
Ezekiel's intent is to achieve rhetorical efficacy, not to be historically accurate. "His purposes
are rhetorical — to demonstrate to the exiles (represented by the elders) that their own
rebellion is of a piece with the consistent pattern of Israelite responses to Yahweh down
through the centuries. He achieves this aim, first by painting a picture of Israel's past with as
bleak a brush as possible, and then ... establishing that nothing has changed" (640).
88 Allen suggests that the structure of this section consists of "five series of elements that saw
history repeating itself and finally turning into a grim, destructive parody of the repetition"
(Leslie C. Allen, "The Structuring of Ezekiel's Revisionist History Lesson (Ezekiel 20:3-31),"
CBJ2 54 [1992]: 462).
89 "Devastate" appears to be the likely meaning in, for example, Ezek. 30:12,14. This reading
is supported here in 20:26 by Darr ("Troubling Texts," 99), Heider ("Ezekiel's Baroque
Twist," 721), and Greenberg (E^tkiel 1-20, 369). "Horrify" is the apparent meaning in Jer.
49:20, 50:45, Job 21:5, Ezek. 32:10, and 3:15~and the one preferred by most translations.
Heider rejects "horrify" because he finds the idea that Yahweh hopes "to work repentance"
inimical to the context. Certainly in this context repentance is impossible, but what the
passage demonstrates is why it is impossible.
nature by disobeying these laws that were "not good." Since it is clear that they
have a great talent for disobeying divine laws, in theory, this should not be
difficult. But this final test fails to demonstrate anything good at the core of the
people because, as both v. 26 and v. 31 indicate, the people were not horrified by
these laws (and therefore cannot know Yahweh), but rather obeyed them,
apparently willingly. Paradoxically, then, the people do obey those laws which
are not life-giving, while eschewing those that do give life, and therein lies
Ezekiel's explanation of the cycle of failure. "By this anti-gift God only
confirmed the people in their choice of laws countering God's (cf. vss. 18f.);
this choice led them inevitably to adopt the deadly laws of the pagans...."90 Or,
as the targum interprets: "They followed their stupid inclination and they
obeyed religious decrees which were not proper and laws by which they could
not survive."91 These appraisals assign the Israelites' problem to the level of
moral choice, but in fact the bad laws reveal the problem to be deeper than this:
acting on the bad laws reflects an inability to make moral choices at all. The text
suggests that no detestable behavior is too low for them because they lack the
moral equipment to assess whether laws are good or bad. The people are not
really choosing to behave this way, therefore; rather they are subject to a
determinism which predisposes them to disobey the good laws and obey the
bad ones.92 In short, the problem does not reside at the level of the will, but at
the most basic level of moral equipment.
The present generation does not offer any hope of relief from this dismal
cycle. The question in v. 30 ("Will you defile yourselves in the way of your
ancestors?" [D^ntM ΠΠΚ DDTimN "]"Π3Π], v. 30) is rhetorical, of course; they
have been continuing in the ways of their ancestors up to the present time,
including the sacrifice of children which should horrify them, but does not, as it
should have horrified their forerunners, but did not (v. 31).93 The rest of the
90 Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20, 369. Along these same lines, Carroll argues that the bad laws are "a
primitive form of aversion therapy" (Robert P. Carroll, When Prophecy Vailed: Cognitive
Dissonance in the Prophetic Traditions of the Old Testament [New York: Seabury Press, 1979], 199).
91 Levey's translation (The Targum of Ezekiel, Aramaic Bible 13 [Wilmington, Del.: Glazier,
1987], 63). Blenkinsopp suggests that the writer(s) of the targum, like many modem liberal
commentators, sought to mitigate the dreadful implication that God could give bad laws
(Blenkinsopp, Ezekiel, 90). But it is possible both to agree with the targum writers and to
understand that Ezekiel is saying that God did give those laws, not as punishment, but as a
means of demonstrating that under any and all circumstances, the people will follow "their
stupid inclination."
92 This does not really explain the divine statement, "I defiled them" (DIYIK KDDK1, v. 26),
instead of the usual "you defiled yourselves" (D,KDt23 0ΠΚ, v. 30). Allen suggests that the
divine defilement "caps the double warning against self-defiling in the negative divine
commands of the first and fourth sections (w. 7, 18), which by implication had been
disobeyed. The punishment fitted the crime" (Allen, "Structuring," 457).
93 The fact that Ezekiel differs from Ρ and the Holiness Code concerning child sacrifice (the
chapter moves from this depressing outline of history and portrait of human
nature to a declaration of a new exodus and the return of the people to the land.
If we can expose the way in which Ezekiel makes the move from a present of
unremitting sinfulness to a glowing future of reconciliation and restoration, then
we will have gone a long way toward solving the riddle at the heart of Ezekiel.
To that end, the last verses of chapter 20 will be taken up in the next chapter.
E. The Filthy Pot
But history is not the only vehicle by which Ezekiel communicates his
deterministic view of the Israelites' capacity for moral behavior. As we have
already seen in chapters 16 and 23, Ezekiel is fond of conveying his message by
means of highly symbolic images. It is to one such image—that of the filthy pot
in chapter 24—that we will now turn. On the day that the siege of Jerusalem is
announced, the prophet is commanded to share a particular image with the
house of rebellion (bviO •nnrrrvrrbK ^ώηΐ, v. 3). Block observes that this
pericope repeats a variety of phrases from the first half of the book, thus
encapsulating in one metaphor many imagistic features of Ezekiel's judgments.94
Then appears what appears to be a kind of cooking song (w. 3b-5). 95 As Block
observes, the song confirms in the minds of its hearers the privileged
relationship between Israel and Yahweh; the Jerusalemites, and particularly
those left in the city after 597, are the "good pieces" (21B n n r b s , v. 4).96
latter legal codes requiring substitution) does not change the way the accusation functions in
its context here.
94 For example, the rebellious house (2:3, 6, 8); Jerusalem as the bloody city (22:2, 3, 27); her
undeanness and need of cleansing (22:15, 24); her lewdness (16:27, 43, 58; 22:9, 11; 23:21
etc.) [Daniel I. Block, "Ezekiel's Boiling Cauldron: A Form-Critical Solution to Ezekiel
XXIV: 1-14," VT 41 (1991): 17]. It is worth noting that chapter 22 contains similar language
to chapter 24:1-14 (e.g., blood and blood-guilt, lewdness, purging undeanness, and melting
metals in a smelter), pointing to a common theme of intractable filth.
95 John B. Taylor, Ezekiel (London: Tyndale, 1969; orig. pub. 1954) 178. Daniel Block, picking
up on this, argues that the song likely describes a very sumptuous feast, perhaps cultic in
nature (Block, "Ezekiel's Boiling Cauldron," 26). See also Greenberg, Ezekiel 21-37, 497.
Allen understands this section as a series of commands to the king of Babylon (Leslie C.
Allen, "Ezekiel 24:3-14: A Rhetorical Perspective," CBQ 49 [198η: 414). Block has a detailed
discussion of the pericope as a whole, including its form as a disputation speech. He also
notes the many textual problems; therefore, except for those that are immediately pertinent
to this project, I refer the reader to his discussion (see also the discussion in his commentary
Ezekiel 1-24, 765-83).
96 "The doctrine of election seems to be implidt in this poem" (Block, "Ezekiel's Boiling
Cauldron," 26). Furthermore, this image echoes that found in 11:3, where the people are
quoted as comparing Jerusalem to a pot, and themselves to the meat in it.
But this version of reality is vigorously disputed in the first rejoinder which
follows (w. 6—8). The messenger formula introduces a scathing indictment of
the perspective espoused in the song: " O you city of blood! A pot whose
corruption97 is in it, and whose corruption has not come out of it!" (TU 'IK
H3DD ntor t ò n n t ò m n a n n t ò n -Ιώκ Τ Ο ΟΌΙΠ, ν. 6). T h e question arises:
what is corroded, the pot itself, or the meat in it? For the corruption to be
within the pot itself "suggests an internal corruption of the metal rendering the
pot worthless and fit only to be melted down into scrap." 98 Block considers this
possibility to be "awkward" and so he argues that the corruption lies in the meat
within the pot, not in the pot itself. Yet the image of a deeply corroded pot is
quite fitting if the idea being conveyed is that the corrosion is intractable (which
the rest of the passage bears out). In fact, considering the way in which the
image plays out, it would appear that the pot is "worthless" and may not even be
"fit for scrap." Putrid meat is easily dumped out; a diseased pot poses a more
serious problem.
The last part of verse 6 is difficult, but appears to provide support for
understanding the pot to be the real source of corrosion as opposed to the
meat. Most commentators understand ΠΚ^ΙΠ as an imperative (by deleting the
mappiq), and thus the thrust of the verse is: "Remove [the meat] piece by piece!
No lot has fallen upon it." While apparently rancid, the meat is easily removed
from the pot, in sharp distinction to the disease of the pot that proves more
unyielding. The meaning of the "lot" is somewhat oblique, but Block is
probably right in hearing overtones of election: "When Ezekiel declares that no
97 n n t ò n is a crux. Most versions follow the Septuagint (ιος) in deriving this noun from t ò n ,
"to be rusty." But Block argues that copper/bronze does not rust, and the root t ò n is not
elsewhere used of metal in the HB. It is preferable, therefore, to take the noun from an
Aramaized form of n b n , "to be diseased" (Block, "Ezekiel's Boiling Cauldron," 28-29).
"Rust" gets across the general idea because metal is the object in this context, but
"corruption" is better because it retains the association with disease, and, unlike "rust," it
can apply equally well to the tenor o f the metaphor, Jerusalem. Galambush makes the
connection between the disease o f the pot (=female body) and uterine blood (Galambush,
Jerusalem, 137-38). Allen sees the corrosion as representing the unexpiated blood, but I think
the reference points more broadly to the overall depravity o f the city and its inhabitants
(Allen, "Ezekiel 24:3-14," 409). Here I am reading ηΠΚ*7Π with the mappiq, as suggested by
BHS.
98 Block, "Ezekiel's Boiling Cauldron," 29. How the pot could come to be corroded, or in what
sense it might be corroded, is suggested by Galambush's interpretation of the pot as
representative o f the female body. Following this metaphor, the corruption (defiling uterine
blood) of the pot (woman) is an inherent feature of the pot/woman. She/it is born/made
with it (Galambush, Jerusalem, 137-140). Along these lines, Kelso suggests that it could have
occurred at the time o f manufacture via a dent or scratch that allowed dirt to accumulate, or
via a too high casting temperature (James L. Kelso, "Ezekiel's Parable of the Corroded
Copper Caldron," JBL 64 [1945]: 391-93).
lot has fallen on this piece of meat he is repudiating the people's claim to special
status before Yahweh." 99
The following verse explains one aspect of v. 6: why the people possess no
special status before Yahweh ("because her blood is within her"). Yet on the
face of it, verse 7 poses a logical problem. It simultaneously asserts that "her
blood is within her" (¡ΤΠ Π21Π3 Π01), and that "she has placed her blood upon
the bare rock" (1Π1ΊΜ J?So rpn2rS»). This short phrase ("her blood is within
her") bears multiple resonances. Staying with the image of the pot, it suggests
either that the blood is in the meat which is in the pot, or, that even were the
meat to be removed as the command in v. 6 requires, somehow, inexplicably,
the blood would still be in the pot. Block argues that the blood is still in the
meat, and that this phrase "alludes to the prescription of bleeding an animal that
has been slain for food" from the levitical laws.100 But given the emphasis on
the disease of the pot itself in v. 6, and that the rest of the pericope is
particularly concerned with the defilement of the pot itself (esp. w . 11-13), and
not the meat, the blood is better understood here as being within the pot itself.
This further illuminates the question of how the blood is both within the pot
and placed on the rock: Once the blood (of the meat) has been poured out on
the rock, the blood (guilt) is still embedded in the pot as part of its corrosion.
Just as in the vocative "city of blood" in v. 6, the blood itself points in several
semantic directions: the blood that Jerusalemites have shed, thus blood-guilt,
but also the blood that contaminates and defiles in the priestly worldview. The
latter recalls the blood of the infant (actually the mother's blood) in chapter 16,
and the blood of the menstruating woman (22:10), both of which are defiling.
Blood therefore serves as a peculiarly appropriate image for the type of
corruption that Ezekiel ascribes to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
Instead of pouring out her blood on the ground and covering it, the pot/city
has poured it out on the bare rock (17*70 ΓΡΠΙΓ^ϋ).101 This surely refers to the
levitical law requiring the blood of an animal to be poured out and covered with
earth (Lev. 17:13). That this stipulation was flagrantly violated by exposing the
blood on a rock demonstrates the depth to which the behavior of the people
99 Block, "Ezekiel's Boiling Cauldron," 30. Allen understands the S "I'D to mean "retribution"
(Allen, "Ezekiel 24:3-14," 409).
100 This is supported by references elsewhere in Ezekiel not to consume blood while still in the
meat (33:25). The problem with this read, however, as Block himself notes, is that Jerusalem
transforms from victim to offender in the next verse. He therefore reads "her blood-guilt"
for ΠΙ31 (Block, "Ezekiel's Boiling Cauldron," 30). It seems likely that the blood has
multiple associations.
ιοί The metaphor breaks down a bit here. Jerusalem is still the pot, but is also the agent of the
spilling of the blood. Perhaps a middle voice would help to reconcile these elements: the pot
tips itself over.
had descended.102 This action fits with Ezekiel's view of the extreme degree of
the people's transgressions expressed elsewhere in the book, and it also fits with
the image of a pot whose corrosion is embedded in it (v. 6); why would an
inherently unclean pot be capable of doing the right thing? In a fitting retaliation
for this sacrilege Yahweh will spill their blood upon a bare rock (v. 8).103
A second rejoinder (w. 9—13) to the Stlin of w . 3b—5 follows the first
rejoinder of w . 6—8.104 The second rejoinder is not a continuation of the first,
but rather each one offers a distinctive view of the pot, changing the angle of
the lens in order to emphasize different aspects of the image.105 In the first
rejoinder, the blood that is in the pot is highlighted (w. 7—8), whereas in the
second it appears that the intensity of the fire itself is emphasized. Block notes
that the rejoinders follow the outline of the b'iiO: "The rebuttals occur in this
order, with the first paying special attention to the pot and its contents, and the
second to the wood and the fire. In fact the refutations themselves scarcely
leave the figure."106 Upon closer examination of the second rejoinder, however,
one notes that the wood and fire are briefly described in one verse (v. 10), as the
image of the corroded pot takes over and dominates the rest of the rejoinder
(w. 11-13). Furthermore, while blood was dominant in the first rejoinder, the
first words of the rebuttal of the bïJQ announce that the disease of the pot is
still within it. Thus what connects the two rejoinders is not so much the image
of the pot, but the repeated emphasis on the intractable disease of the pot. Given
Block's remark that the refutations closely follow the bvil2, it is particularly
surprising that the pot itself is not of primary importance in the b<VD. It is
Ezekiel who picks up on the image of the pot itself in his refutation, and by the
end of v. 13, obsesses about its recalcitrant filth à la Lady MacBeth.107
102 "Instead of covering the blood with dust, they had willfully poured it out on the smooth
bare rock... where there was no soil, as if to advertise their deeds. The allusion may be either
to the sacrificial slaughter of children on the high places, or to the blatant criminal activity,
the judicial murder by the leaders in the city." Left out on the rock, the blood would call out
for vengeance (Block, "Ezekiel's Boiling Cauldron," 30-31). Whether this violation is willful
or not is unknown. In other parts o f Ezekiel we have examined, outrageous behavior is
frequently done unwittingly.
103 Greenberg sees God deepening the guilt of the sinners (Greenberg, Ezekiel 21-37, 500).
Contra Block, for whom v. 8 ironically indicates that Yahweh will simply allow the blood to
remain on the rock ("Ezekiel's Boiling Cauldron," 30-31; see also Allen, "Ezekiel 24:3-14,"
408 [n.14]).
104 Following Block, "Ezekiel's Boiling Cauldron," 20.
105 Hals sees two separate interpretations (Hals, Ezekiel, 172). Thus the presence o f the meat in
v. 10 is not problematic (after its removal was commanded in v. 6), since the second
rejoinder is not a continuation of the first.
106 Block, "Ezekiel's Boiling Cauldron," 20.
107 A number of redactional explanations have been offered to explain the strong emphasis on
the filth o f the pot in w . 6 and 11-13 (Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1-24, 496-97 is representative). Hals
After the messenger formula and a repetition of the cry " O city of blood!"
the second rejoinder follows with a series of imperatives to generate a
particularly hot fire (CSJJn ΓΟΙΠ, v. 10), cook and season the meat, and then,
curiously, to allow the bones to burn (TUT mDSJJm). This last would seem to
indicate that the pot is to be left on the fire until the contents (the meat and
bones) have burned away. If the contents themselves were the focus of the
image, then that would be the end of the passage. But allowing the bones to
burn and then leaving the pot on the fire suggests that the true focal point of
the passage is the effort to rid the pot itself of its disease. This is confirmed in
the following verse: "Let it stand empty upon its coals, so that it becomes hot
and its copper glows, and its filth that is within it108 might be melted away; its
corrosion be consumed" (ΠΠϊίΠΐ m m ΠΠΠ ^ n b πρτ Π^ΠΓ^Β ΠΤΌΰΠ
κη»6π Dnn ΠΠΚΏΒ r o m a rorm, v. 11). But, strangely, this plan to burn out
the pot's disease fails.
The first two words of v. 12 (Πί0Π DOKn) are a crux.109 Following a
suggestion by Block to read Γιίόπ instead of Γΐίόπ with the vocalization of a
final ΓΙ, one may read: "Its corruption is troublesome." 110 In any case, it is clear
that the tremendous corrosion of the pot will not come out (Π33Ι2 ΚϋΓΓ*0Ί
nniòn n a i ) and that this is a source of frustration to Yahweh. (The imperfect
of KIT here picks up the perfect of the same verb in v. 6: "Its corrosion has not
come out of it" [Π300 ΠΚΧ" t ò πηίόπΊ], thus bringing us back to the central
problem of the whole passage.) The last two words of v. 12 are also difficult,
but in keeping with most versions, the thrust appears to be, "Into the fire with
its corruption!" This too reflects frustration, since the effort to remove the
corrosion by fire has already been executed, but apparently, as v. 12 relates, with
no success.
By this time a slippage has occurred in the way the original metaphor of the
pot and meat has evolved. In chapter 11 the people saw themselves as the meat,
admits that the "uncertainty about the uncleanness, whether it is rust, green tamish, ritual
impurity, or scum, makes it highly difficult to trace whatever logic may exist within and
between the various sections. In any case the meal metaphor is not traced to the point of the
consumption of the meat, although no hint is offered about the reason for this" (Hals,
Erektil, 172). No reason is offered because it is the filth of the pot that is of concern to
Ezekiel, though this was likely not a conscious concern initially. Whatever its "original"
form, in its present shape the whole passage suggests, to use Freudian terminology, a
bubbling up of the repressed from the unconscious, in this case a repressed concern for filth.
108 Note that this is the way that the blood being within the pot is described in v. 7 (Π31ΓΟ).
109 The Septuagint deletes them as dittography (as does Zimmerii). Driver transposes the Π and
the Π on the second word to read "thou shalt grow weary with great toil" (G. R. Driver,
"Linguistic and Textual Problems: Ezekiel," Bib 19 [1938]: 176). The NRSV has: "In vain I
have wearied myself." Allen admits uncertainty, but translates: "It has frustrated all efforts"
(Allen, "Ezekiel 24," 411). 0ΌΚΠ is a hapax, apparently derived from 3"IK, "trouble, sorrow".
no Block, "Ezekiel's Boiling Cauldron," 32, n. 85.
and Jerusalem as the pot (11:3), and this division seems to have held true in the
first rejoinder (the people, like the meat, were being emptied out by deportation,
but the city itself remained). Although it is the pot who is addressed in v. 13,
and therefore ostensibly the city, the city and the people are conflated here. Just
as in chapters 16 and 23 where the city is represented by the women in the
metaphors, but it is really the people who have acted wickedly, so here the pot
stands in for the city which metaphorically represents the people, whose
lewdness (ΠΟΤ, v. 13) and unacceptable behavior ("pm'y'wsi -ρ3~Π3, v. 14) are
intransigent. Thus the apparent distinction between the people and the city
(cited in chapter 11) is, in the end, blurred. Allen observes how this occurs
through word plays between descriptions of the meat in v. 10 and those of the
pot in v. 11 (ΟΠΗ and ΟΠΠ; np~im and np"l; Yin" and m m ) . "In each case terms
used of the caldron's contents are transferred to the caldron. The harsh
treatment of the city's besieged inhabitants must find a counterpart in that of
the city itself."111 If this distinction between the city and the people collapses,
then the traditional belief in the inviobility of Jerusalem also must collapse, for
the second rejoinder heralds the destruction of the city itself, since both the
meat and the pot are due to be destroyed.
Divine efforts to clean the pot are ineffectual. "On account of your filthy
lewdness, I tried to cleanse you, but you would not be cleansed of your
filthiness" (ηηκηΒΏ ΠΊΠΒ tÒT -¡ΥΠΠΒ ]Τ ΠΪ3Τ "¡ηΚΟΒα, ν. 13).112 This is the
culmination of the divine frustration with the inherent and permanent wickedness
of the people.113 The location of the disease mtbin the substance of the pot itself
(and not something that is stuck to the pot etc.)114 suggests that to Ezekiel's
mind the people's wickedness, the disease of their being, is inherent in them.
And this disease within the nature of the people is permanent in that not even
divine cleansing can remove the corrosion. Something more radical is called for,
which is here envisaged as a complete expression of the divine fury (v. 13b),
resulting in the destruction of Jerusalem. Yet in the same breath, Ezekiel hints
that a different future lies ahead, in which the city will be cleansed of its disease
111 Allen, "Ezekiel 24:3-14," 412. Greenberg observes: "[Tjhe division between what is in the
pot (filth) and what is ejected from it (cuts) disappears in the following account of the fate of
the pot and its contents" (Greenberg, Ezekiel 21 -37, 505).
112 It is not necessary to posit specific historical referents for these efforts at cleansing (contra
Block, "Ezekiel's Boiling Cauldron," 36, and Greenberg Ezekiel 21-37, 503); rather, the
whole history of salvation is encompassed by this verse. The is redundant and marks an
effort to start the sentence anew (Greenberg, Ezekiel21-37, 503).
U3 Allen argues that it is at this point that the meaning of the filth takes on a religio-moral sense
of uncleanness (Allen, "Ezekiel 24:3-14," 413).
114 Greenberg (citing Ehrlich) inclines toward seeing the "filth" as the "encrusted residue of
cooked matter stuck to the inside of the pot that fouls it disgustingly," but ultimately argues
that it "denotes any distasteful soiling or foulness" (Greenberg, Espkiel 24-37, 499).
(the presence of the 111? bespeaks hope). But, as is frequently the case with
Ezekiel, it is not clear how the movement from a diseased to a healthy way of
being will actually occur. Rhetorically, Ezekiel is seeking to convince his hearers
of the ineradicable truth that Jerusalem will be destroyed; the naive hope of the
exiles that they might return to the city, and the even more naive hope of the
present inhabitants of Jerusalem that they might escape punishment, must be
crushed. Of interest here is what underlies this rhetorical strategy: a belief that
the people (and by consequence the city) are indelibly wicked, diseased, like the
pot.
F. A New Heart and a New Spirit
The tension I have outlined between the depictions of the Israelites as

capable of obedience on the one hand and incapable on the other helps to
explain the apparent contradiction between Ezekiel's assertion in 18:31 ("Get
yourselves a new heart and a new spirit") and the statements in chapters 11 and
36 that Yahweh will provide the new heart and new spirit. If the tension
between the language of repentance and the language of determinism, discussed
above, reveals the problematic question of whether human beings innately
possess a moral self, the proclamations in chapters 11 and 36 suggest an
alternative possibility: that moral selfhood is located in God's purview, as a
potential gift to humanity. Thus, the logical move away from the more pervasive
traditional view of an innate moral identity, toward locating that identity within
God, who may choose to bestow it on the people, appears here in the repeated
assertion in chapters 11 and 36. The transformation of human identity can only
be a gift from God (the signs of this shift also appear with the new creation of
humanity in chapters 36—37, which will be discussed in chapter 6).115
The first occurrence of the "new heart, new spirit" language appears in
11:19.116 Divine judgment has been announced ( w . 4—12), to which the prophet
115 These two passages will be discussed again in ch. 6, in connection with the creation of the
new self.
116 Here the text actually reads "one heart and a new spirit." The Septuagint has «τέραυ, while a
few late manuscripts (Syriac, Targum) following 18:31 and 36:26 read ΚΗΠ. Greenberg and
Wilfong attach significance to the "one" in this context because v. 21 implies that the
Jerusalemites' heart is divided (Greenberg, E^tkiel 1-20, 191; Wilfong, God's Promised Action,
176). But the difference may simply stem from a confusion of 1ΠΚ and "ΊΠΚ. The sense at
any rate seems to be that the people will be transformed by a unilateral divine action. I am
not making a sharp distinction in the semantic content o f r ò and m i , not because there is
no difference, but because in the context of this discussion what is significant is that the
people are in need of a complete transformation of their being~in both heart and spirit.
Wolff understands ΠΠ to be the will, whereas the heart is the seat of the "pure guidings of
responds with a question: "will you make an end of the remnant of Israel?"
(btntD·· ΐτηκώ ηκ Π tau πηκ nba, v. 13). A distinction is then made between
the Jerusalemites who wrongly presume ownership of the land, and the exiles
who, according to Ezekiel, will benefit from Yahweh's future actions. The
divine response to the prophet's question takes the form of a promise of a
future return to the land for the exiles (w. 17-20).117 Once the remnant has
returned to the land, they will remove the city's detestable things and its
abominations (v. 18). Then comes the announcement that Yahweh will give the
people "one heart and a new spirit I will set within you" (v. 19). Verses 17—20
should be read all together as one divine act of deliverance. Phase one is to
gather the people back into the land and cleanse it (v. 17-18), while phase two
consists of the new heart and new spirit given by Yahweh (w. 19—20).
To make good on this promise, Yahweh must remove the people's heart of
stone and give them a heart of flesh (3*7 0Γ0 Tirül ΒΊ&ηη ρ κ π 2b "mom
Ifta). While the imagery here is metaphorical, the literal meaning of these words
is suggestive of what is really at stake for Ezekiel. There is an underlying sense
that the people are defective in some fashion, that they are not fully human in a
significant way, since a heart of stone is not natural to the human creature (it is
interesting that the only other occurrence of Db connected with either ρ κ or
~it!D describes not a human being, but a beast: Leviathan's heart is hard like a
stone [ρκ~Ί03 pia*1 ία1?, Job 41:16]). This organ transplant, however, will
recreate the people as distinctively human, since it will provide them with a heart
made of flesh, which is proper to human beings.118 The language thus suggests
the conscience" (Hans Walter Wolff, Anthropohgy of the Old Testament [Philadelphia: Fortress,
1974], 38). Joyce also understands ΠΠ in 11:19 and 36:26 to designate the moral will, but he
does not follow Wolffs distinction between and ΠΠ: "The use of ΠΠ of the will is very
similar to what we described as the 'moral' sense of the word Indeed, it seems that the
'new heart' and the 'new spirit' both refer primarily to the gift of a renewed capacity to
respond to Yahweh in obedience" (Joyce, Divine Initiative, 111). Joyce correctly argues that
the emphasis is on corporate renewal, not on particular individuals. Joyce also discusses the
affinities between the language of this passage (and in ch. 36) and that found in
Deuteronomy, suggesting a strong deuteronomistic influence on these chapters, although the
uniquely Ezekielian features are equally compelling (Joyce, Dinne Initiative, 117-24).
117 In contrast to the present denizens of Jerusalem, who will receive the brunt of Yahweh's
wrath (cf. v. 15).
118 Wilfong understands the to denote the ability to reason (which is often viewed as a
distinguishing mark of humanity, for better or worse): "|T]he referent of the promises
concerning the leb should be understood as the restoration of the exiles' capacity for proper
reasoning — which would in tum enable their obedient response to YHWH" (Wilfong, God's
Promised Action, 199). For Zimmerli the is "the seat both of thought and of the will"
(Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, 262), whereas ΠΠ in this context (and in 18:31 and 36:26) means
"character" more generally (Zimmerli, Ezekiel 2, 567; and so Matties, Rhetoric, 206). Paul
Joyce argues that the 31? for Ezekiel is "the locus of the moral will" and "the symbol of
inner reality as distinct from mere outward appearance" (Joyce, Divine Initiative, 109). At any
that without an act o f divine intervention the people are incapable o f acting
differently than they do because their equipment is not right, i.e., not
appropriate for human beings, and not because they choose not to act rightly.
Verse 2 0 reveals the purpose o f the divine gift o f a properly human heart: "in
order that they may walk in my statutes, and keep my ordinances, and do t h e m "
(DDK I t o l n a t t r ••BStín-nKI •o'r T l p r o -janS). Wilfong makes the causative
connection between the two halves o f this verse: " T h e very fact that Y H W H ' s
action brings about the possibility o f obedience for the exiles guards against any
conclusion o f inherent virtue in the exiles...." 119 T h e divinely given heart will
make it possible in the eschatological future for the people to obey the divinely
given law, the law which they are presently incapable o f obeying due to their
hearts o f stone (cf. v. 12). Their capacity for right action is dependent upon a
radical change in their being, which only Yahweh has the power to effect. 120
Then, and only then, the verse ends, will "they become my people, and I shall
be their G o d " (DTI1?«'? ΟΠ1? ΓΡΠΚ "OKI DU1? ^ " V m ) . 1 2 1
T h e same language appears in 3 6 : 2 6 - 2 7 , this time in the context o f the future
salvation announced in chapters 3 3 - 3 7 . In chapter 36 both human beings and
the land are recreated: the people are delivered from exile, thoroughly cleansed,
and transformed in their essential nature, followed by a refructifying o f the land
itself. Contrary to chapter 11, however, it is distincdy Yahweh's spirit that is
given to the people (DD3~lp2 ]ΓιΚ ΤΤΙΤηκΐ), which underscores the fact that the
origin o f this newly envisioned human nature has its locus within the deity. 122
rate the two terms complement one another and suggest, as Gordon Matties puts it, "a
holistic personhood" (Matties, Rhetoric, 206).
119 Wilfong, God's Promised Action, 179. Likewise Zimmerli: "The fruit of this new gift will be the
keeping of the commandments (ΠΐρΓΓΒ'ΈΪΟϋΟ) of Yahweh" (Zimmerli, Eêkiel 1, 262).
120 Greenberg terms this "the doctrine of the future compulsory obedience" which is developed
more fully in 36:26-27 (Greenberg, Eêkiel 1-20,190).
121 Immediately following this, verse 21 (quite corrupt at the beginning) reads, "[As for those
whose] heart goes after the heart of their detestable things and their abominations, 1 will
bring their way upon their head, says the Lord Yahweh." This does not logically follow what
has preceded, since aU the exiles were apparently in need of a new heart, not just those who
spurned the detestable things. Marsha Wilfong suggests that verse 21 refers to the
Jerusalemites, not the exiles, but then states: "However, the larger picture which unfolds
with chs. 14 and 20 suggests that the warning of 11:21 should also be understood as directed
toward the exiles themselves, thus limiting the promise of deliverance by the demand for
obedience even among the exiles" (Marsha Wilfong, "God's Promised Action," 169). In fact
verses 19 and 20 suggest that no one is capable of following the law prior to receiving the new
heart. Verse 21 thus does not fit into the original flow of the argument in this section
(Zimmerli sees it as "clearly an addition"), but its presence here does reflect the tension
between the two versions of moral identity implicit in the book. In verses 19 and 20 human
beings are incapable of obedience due to their heart of stone, whereas in verse 21 they are
assumed to be capable of obedience, even if they have not chosen to obey.
122 The gift of Yahweh's ΠΤΊ occurs again in 37:14 and 39:29.
Furthermore, the connection between the divine origin of the new human
nature and the possibility of obedience to divine law is made even more clearly
here than in 11:20: "I will make it so that you will walk in my statutes and my
ordinances you will keep and do" (lTOtin "ΏΒϊίΒΙ Ό^Π 'pm-HÖK ΠΚ TPftHJI
Dirról, ν. 27). Such radical divine transformation of the human condition is
necessary because "Israel was incapable, by her very nature, of obedience."123
Once this transformation has been effected, then the people will dwell in the
land, and once again the text affirms "you will become my people and I will be
your God" (v. 28).124 The depiction of human beings here and in chapter 11
suggests that the problem being confronted in the text is the inherent human
incapacity for right moral action, and consequently the need for a total
transformation by God, who graciously provides a new moral nature capable of
obeying the divine commandments.
IV. Conclusion
Ezekiel presents two radically divergent ways of viewing the origin of one of
the most fundamental aspects of human existence: the capacity for moral
reasoning and behavior. This should not be seen as a contradiction in logic, but
as symptomatic of a tension in inherited cultural understandings of human
nature, and, for Ezekiel, of an underlying discomfort with the prevailing view of
the moral capabilities of the people to whom he is called to proclaim the word
of Yahweh. The texts reveal Ezekiel wrestling with what assumptions should be
made about how people relate to their world, and at various moments, sincerely
advocating widely varying views of the problem. Both ways of understanding
the origin of human moral identity are inherited from his cultural traditions, but
the dominant view present in chapters 3:16—21, 33:1—20, 9, 14, and 18—often
where he is least innovative, his language being most obviously indebted to his
priestly heritage—is for Ezekiel not the ascendant viewpoint, but the waning
one.
The idea that people were capable of understanding their moral failings and
transforming themselves simply could not bear the weight of what Ezekiel saw
as the history of failure and present of exile and destruction. And so some of
123 Zimmerli, Ezekiel 2,248. Zimmerii believes that Jeremiah shares this view with Ezekiel, but I
disagree (cf. the discussion in chapter 3 above). The implications of this verse will be taken
up in more detail in ch. 6.
124 Here, as in 11:20, scholars have seen a reference to the covenant model of the relationship
between Yahweh and the people (e.g., von Rad, Old Testament Theology, vol. II, 235). Certainly
the restoration of the divine/human relationship is only possible after iht people are capable
of obeying the torah, which is only possible after a salvific action is undertaken by God.
the longest and most interesting passages in the book depict a people incapable
of acting as virtuous moral selves in the world and especially in their relations
with Yahweh. Furthermore it is in these places—the lengthy historical narratives
unprecedented in their view of the depth of Israel's sin, and the striking image
of the pot whose disease could not be eradicated—that Ezekiel is most
innovative, creatively attempting to analyze the present disasters by examining
the past in a new light. Chapters 16, 20, 23, and 24 depict a people
deterministically unable to function as virtuous moral persons, but stripping
human beings of their capacity for moral virtue is only the first step toward a
new way of thinking about moral identity. Ezekiel moves another step toward
something new when, in chapters 11 and 36, he suggests that human beings can
possess that capacity, but only as a gift from God. This marks the beginning,
but only the beginning, of a shift from the dominant view to a new way of
analyzing, and potentially solving, the problem of how people can relate
faithfully to their world and to their God.
Chapter 5: The Shift In The Form Of Moral Selfhood
From Action To Knowledge
In the previous chapter, I argued that a shift takes place in the way that the
origin of moral selfhood is conceived in Ezekiel: a shift from an origin ascribed
to human beings to one ascribed to God alone. But what does that moral
selfhood look like? What form does it take? Where the origin of moral identity
is assigned to humanity, following the dominant model of virtuous moral
selfhood, the form it takes is action. Even in those places where the people are
depicted as devoid of a virtuous moral self, the form of the moral selfhood they
do not possess is generally assumed to center on action—the people are held
accountable for what they did not do, even if Ezekiel appears to doubt that they
were capable of doing it. Consider, for example, the list of actions that a
righteous man does or does not do from chapter 18: "if he does not eat upon
the mountains or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, does not
defile his neighbor's wife, [...] does not oppress anyone, but restores to the
debtor his pledge, commits no robbery, gives his bread to the hungry" etc.
Similarly in chapters 3, 14, and 33, to turn away from wickedness, idols, and
abominations means to desist from activities offensive to Yahweh, and begin
keeping his statutes (mpn) and ordinances (CTtSDtün).1 That moral selfhood
entails action is such a profound assumption of the dominant paradigm that it is
hardly noticeable—until one observes that in other places action starts to recede
in importance, and a new element of moral identity begins to emerge as primary:
knowledge.
From Ezekiel's perspective, the centrality of action to moral identity has
resulted in disaster. The people's actions have brought the nation to
disintegration and the covenant people near to complete destruction. Something
new is required. And so in those places in the book where human autonomy
recedes from view and God's power to transform the moral capacities of human
1 See 33:15 for example: "if the wicked restore the pledge, give back what they have taken by
robbery, and walk in the statutes of life...." Chapter 9 may be an exception to this rule. The
moral identity expressed by the innocent consists of sighing and groaning (ΠΤΠΝΟΓΙ
C p J t O m , v. 4) at the abominations in the temple. This kind of minimal activity, an almost
passive response, is midway between the maximal activity of doing the torah assumed in 3,
14, 18, and 33, and the passive witnessing that characterizes much of the human activity in
the second half of the book (and that characterizes Ezekiel throughout most of the book).
beings is emphasized, it is not action, but knowledge that emerges as the

dominant element in the new vision of human moral identity. People are no
longer exhorted to do something (parenesis as a genre is not prominent), rather,
it is simply stated that once God has acted, the people will be different because
they know something. Knowledge constitutes the primary element in this vision
of the human moral self, with any potential action flowing secondarily, as a
consequence, out of this (this will be taken up at the end of chapter 6). Davis, in
her work on the nature of the book as a written document, notes the critical
importance of knowledge for Ezekiel:
The goal of Ezekiel's prophecy is an epistemic one, expressed in the constantly repeated
recognition formula, " Ό Κ ' Ό I V T l / O n ü T ("and you/they shall know that I am
YHWH"); and that recognition constitutes both the basis of Israel's self-knowledge, and also
the fundamental condition of the nation's existence.2
Davis provides a clue to an important aspect of knowledge in Ezekiel, namely

that two kinds of knowledge are capable of transforming the people: the
people's knowledge of God, and their knowledge of themselves. The
recognition formula that Davis mentions here focuses on the people's
knowledge of God (self-knowledge is not the primary target here), and it is a
prominent feature of Ezekiel, but it is only one of several ways in which Ezekiel
expresses his desire for the people to be transformed by means of knowledge.
Knowledge of God and knowledge of self are intimately connected for Ezekiel,
and both are of crucial importance in moving the people beyond disaster and
into hope, out of the old self and into the new.
This chapter will be broadly divided by these two categories of knowledge of
God and human self-knowledge. With respect to the knowledge of God, the
prophetic call, the function of the recognition formula, and the language of
memory will be examined. The way that the prophetic task unfolds reveals how
crucial it is for the people to come to a knowledge of Yahweh by means of the
prophet's activity, and how peripheral to that task is any change in their
behavior. This knowledge of Yahweh cannot be achieved in the present of the
text, but can only be understood at a point in the future when Yahweh has acted
to instill this knowledge in the people. All of the prophet's activity is thus
distinctly future-oriented. The recognition formula repeatedly asserts
throughout much of the book that the people are presently lacking a knowledge
of Yahweh which Yahweh himself will instill in them in the future. Although
this knowledge will have important implications for action, behavioral change is
a secondary consequence of the coming knowledge of God. This knowledge
2 Ellen F. Davis, Swallowing the ScrvU: Textuatity and the Dynamics of Discourse in Eêkiei's Prophecy
(Bible and Literature Series 21; Sheffield: Almond, 1989), 75.
The Shift in the Form of Moral Selfhood 111
will make possible a new moral self, whose orientation to existence is aligned
according to the divine will, and out of which right actions will flow. The last
part of this section will examine the language of memory and its relation to the
presence or absence of the knowledge of God. Ezekiel's prophetic activity is
distinctly future-oriented, but a proper understanding of the past on the part of
the people is critical to a proper assessment of their present and future. In
Ezekiel's view the people have a completely distorted view of their past, and
replacing that warped understanding with an accurate knowledge of their past is
crucial to the construction of a morally effective self.
Memory appears again in relation to the other kind of knowledge at stake in
Ezekiel: human self-knowledge. This time, however, memory is accompanied by
the language of shame and self-loathing (the key texts will be 6:9—10; 20:43;
36:26—32; ch. 16; ch. 23). Shame for Ezekiel is a critical component of a
properly functioning moral self. To be devoid of shame is to lack a clear picture
of oneself as one truly is, which is to say, as the Other sees one (for Ezekiel, this
is always Yahweh). This is precisely the problem of the Israelites, in Ezekiel's
view. They have no shame, and thus labor under a false and distorted view of
themselves. The solution to this problem of perception is for the people to
develop a sense of shame. For the people to feel ashamed, and to loathe
themselves as a consequence of that shame, is to have their delusions stripped
away, and to see themselves as they really are. Shame and self-loathing become a
means to self-knowledge. Like all other components of the new moral self, a
sense of shame cannot be achieved by any effort of the people—it is not within
their moral capacity, which is precisely the problem. Both the knowledge of
God and the knowledge of self find their source exclusively in Yahweh, and
come only to the people by way of divine gift.
I. The Knowledge Of God
A. The Prophetic Call
1. The Initial Calk Chapters 2-5
At three critical junctures in the book the fundamental task of the prophet is
articulated and rearticulated: most expansively, at the beginning of the book (ch.
2—3:27),3 at the end of the "judgment" oracles, just prior to the oracles
concerning foreign nations (24:25—27), and at the transitional point from
judgment to restoration discourse, just after the fall of Jerusalem is announced
(33:30-33). In all three passages, the focus of the prophetic call is not on the
people and their response to the word of Yahweh, but on the prophet, and his
response to the call to proclaim that word. 4 Thus the prophet is to perform his
task "whether they hear or refuse to hear" (ΐ'πΓΤ'-ΒΚΙ lUOtí-OK ΠΠΠΊ, 2:5, 2:7).
A change in the people's behavior is not the aim of the prophet's work; their
reaction is irrelevant. What then is the purpose of the prophet in his mission? It
is not to get the people to do something, but rather to instill a particular kind of
knowledge in them.
In his initial call, Yahweh characterizes Ezekiel's intended audience as
"rebellious ones who have rebelled against me, they and their fathers have
transgressed against me until this very day" (farVDKI ΠΟΠ '111113 IfflK OmiOH
ΠΤΠ DTP! Β2ΗΠϋ -"a IJJtíB, 2:3). In yet another depiction of the people as
incorrigibly sinful, they are here presented as perpetual transgressors (their
"recalcitrance is hereditary"5); apparently no time is remembered when the
house of Israel has not been in rebellion. In the same vein, the descendants of
this group (ΒΌ3Π) are further described as being hard of face and heart (Op
ab",pTm DOE, 2:4), apparently connoting an especially entrenched intractability.
In contrasting Ezekiel to Jeremiah, Block notes that for Ezekiel, "Israel's heart
has fossilized (Ezek. 2:4; 11:13, 21; 36:26), which eliminates any possibility of
3 The call is usually understood to consist of ch. 1-3:15 (for a thorough form-critical
discussion see Zimmerli, E z e k i e l 1, 95-141, and N. Habel "The Form and Significance of the
Call Narratives," Z A W l l [1965]: 297-323). I include the material up to 3:27 (with Block,
E z e k i e l 1—24, 77) because the theme of the resistance of the people continues to this point,
further explicating the relationship of the prophetic task to the response of the people.
Margaret Odell suggests that this section is better understood as comprising ch. 1-5:17 and
that it constitutes more of an initiation for the prophet than a call (Margaret S. Odell, "You
Are What You Eat: Ezekiel and the Scroll," J B L 117/2 (1998): 248). Her argument is
convincing, but Ezekiel's sign-acts are not as important to this discussion. Similarly, I have
left out the initial vision in ch. 1 not because it is not part of the unit, but because it is not as
relevant to understanding the relationship between Ezekiel's prophetic function and the
people's reaction to him.
4 In a sense, this is the focus of all prophetic call narratives. And, as Greenberg notes, citing
the calls of Moses, Isaiah, and Jeremiah: "The resistance of the intended audience is usually
mentioned in the commissioning speech by way of steeling the prophet for his task and
forestalling his despair at its failure." But he also observes that the characterization of
Ezekiel's audience is different in that "[t]heir reproach is intensified in two ways. Their evil
character is hereditary, ingrained, and therefore hopeless" (Greenberg, E z e k i e l 1—20, 75—76).
The irrelevance of the audience's response is emphasized more than in other call narratives,
as the repeated refrain, "whether they hear or refuse to hear," attests.
5 Greenberg, E z e k i e l 1 - 2 0 , 72.
self-initiated moral or spiritual reform." 6 T o this recalcitrant group Ezekiel is to

relay the word of Yahweh. But with what end in view? Bringing the people to a
change in behavior, or even a change of heart is not envisaged as the next verse
affirms: "Whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house),
they will know that a prophet was among them" ΠΟΓΡ
D S i r a ΓΓΠ tora Ό I S T I n n n η η ΓΓ2, ν. 5). This is the key t o understanding
the point of Ezekiel's prophetic activity. Whether the people heed the prophet's
words is simply not as crucial as whether they know that it is Yahweh's prophet
who has been speaking to them. 7
H o w is this knowledge that it is Yahweh's prophet who is speaking helpful?
What kind of knowledge is this? Ultimately this kind of knowledge points to
Yahweh, and it is the knowledge of Yahmh that is at stake. Zimmerli has shown
that recognizing the prophet is tantamount to recognizing Yahweh, and
consequently this "recognition formula" regarding the prophet is similar in
function to the more numerous occurrences of the divine recognition formula.
... [t]he parallel in 2 Kings 5:9 and 15 makes clear that this "recognition that a prophet has
been present" contains a fuller reference to a recognition of God, who works in history
through his prophets. Accordingly, the statement is not very different from the formula
which is more frequently used by Ezekiel "they will know that I am Yahweh."8
Two significant and related elements emerge, then, from the way the prophetic
call is articulated. First, a change in the people's behavior is inconsequential, and
secondly, it is knowledge of G o d that is ultimately at stake. To say that a change in
the people's behavior is not a goal of the prophetic task does not mean that a
change in behavior is not envisioned as a rhetorical aim of the book as a whole.
On the contrary, part of the rhetorical strategy of the book is to offer the people
a new vision of themselves that will enable them to participate in a future of
hope and not despair. For this to happen, however, the people must embrace a
new way of thinking about themselves as moral selves, a way of thinking that
puts the knowledge of Yahweh at the center of that new self.
6 Block, Ezekiel 1-24, 630. Block also notes that while Ü,2S "Έ/ρ does not occur elsewhere in
the OT, from the use of ¡Hiíp in Isa. 48:4 its general meaning of "recalcitrant, insubordinate"
is clear. The first term "describes the exterior manifestation of stubbornness," whereas "the
second term (hizqe leb, lit. 'hard of heart/mind'), describes interior hardness" (Block, Ezekiel
1-24,119-20).
7 Davis notes that this marks a shift in the goal of Israelite prophecy. Averting disaster is
impossible, so "now the function of the prophet is simply to make known to Israel the
author of judgment and the just grounds for its execution" (Davis, Swallowing the Scroll, 56).
8 Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, 134. The parallel referred to is the curing of Naaman "that he might
know that there is a prophet in Israel." Cured, Naaman says, "Now I know that there is no
god in all the land except in Israel."
After Ezekiel has swallowed the scroll, another description of the

recalcitrance of the people follows, this time by means of an unfavorable
comparison to foreign peoples. Even people whose language is alien would hear
and heed the prophet's words, but the house of Israel will not (3:5-7). 9 In this
case the people are described as "unwilling" to hear the prophet because they
are unwilling to hear Yahweh (JíOtíb "OK"1 3:7), suggesting that here Ezekiel
envisions them as capable of obedience, but disabled by a stubborn will (the
language of hard forehead and heart appears again to indicate a similar problem
of the will).10 This verse also reveals EzekiePs future rejection by the people as
the result of a prior rejection of Yahweh, obliquely referring back to their
interminable history of disobedience. Greenberg sees a change here from 2:5, 7:
"The doubt about Israel's listening to that message (cf. 2:5, 7) turns into
certainty that they will refuse to listen."11 Block argues, however, that this
certainty is apparent even earlier, in 2:5: "On first sight, this comment seems to
suggest that some will heed the messages which Ezekiel is to deliver. But
Yahweh's picture of Israel's hardened condition is too realistic, and he quickly
deflates that expectation." 12 While theoretically possible, obedience is too
difficult for people burdened by a hereditary sinful nature and a stubborn will.
Yet again, the lack of receptiveness on the part of the crowd is not conceived as
an obstacle to the prophet's task of relaying Yahweh's words to them: the
prophet is again told to receive the words himself, and then tell the exiles,
"whether they hear or refuse to hear" (3:10-11). The next section (3:16—21) in
which the prophet is called to be a sentinel (see chapter 4 above for a lengthier
discussion) further underscores the fact that the response of the prophet to
Yahweh's commands, and not the response of the people, is the central concern
of this prophetic call. Finally, once Ezekiel has been struck dumb, only able to
speak the words to the people that Yahweh speaks to him, the irrelevance of the
people's response is repeated again (*?1ΓΓ S~inm UOtì"1 ΰΟίίΠ, 3:27). 13
9 Unfavorable comparison of Israel to foreign nations is not unique to Ezekiel (see e.g., Jer.
2:10-11), but here the charge is specifically that their resistance to the prophetic preaching is
greater than that of foreigners would be.
10 The people's unwillingness is different in Ezekiel than in Isaiah, since the people's hearts are
already hardened in the former, whereas the hardening in Isaiah is the result of prophetic
activity (Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, 138). That the people's problem is here envisioned as one of
the will is clear when Yahweh declares that Ezekiel will be given a face and forehead as hard
as his audience: his will shall match their own.
12 Block, Ezekiel 1-24,120.
13 Tromp explains the dearth of calls to conversion in Ezekiel by suggesting that the people's
refusal is the goal oí the prophet's activity and not a given of the situation: "God now wants to
bring about that nobody will change his way of life. The prophet's activity intends to
maintain the condition people are in, to consolidate the status quo" (N. Tromp, "TTie
2. The Prophet as Sign: Chapter 24
In an important sense, Ezekiel is not so much a messenger whose message is

designed to generate a particular response in the people, as much as he himself
is a sign to the people which will bring them new knowledge about w h o Yahweh
is and how he acts in the world. Ezekiel performs a series of sign-acts in the first
several chapters of the book, and these sign-acts direct the people's attention to
an understanding of Yahweh and of what the near future holds for them as a
result of their past actions. 14 His function as a sign is confirmed in chapter 24
where the people are commanded n o t to mourn, just as Ezekiel is n o t permitted
to mourn the death of his wife: "And Ezekiel will be to you as a sign (nsioV);
according to all which he did you will do. When it comes, you will know that I
am the Lord Yahweh" (24:24). Similarly in 12:6, 11, Ezekiel is a sign (nam) to
the people of coming exile when he takes his bags and digs through the wall.
Where Ezekiel is described as a nSTO, the future of the people can be seen in his
action (their going into exile, the possibility of mourning in the face of disaster
eliminated).
The connection between Ezekiel's function as a sign to the people, and the
importance of knowledge to the identity of the people is not fortuitous; the
prevalence of signs and the centrality of knowledge in Ezekiel are intimately
connected. Signs operate according to varying levels of sophistication. At the
most basic level, signs convey information, and this information, which is the
raw material of knowledge, is one aspect of the goal of Ezekiel's actions and of
his identity as a prophet of Yahweh. The signs Ezekiel employs, and especially
his own function as a sign, work in a rather complex manner, however, which is
entirely appropriate to the complexity of the knowledge they are trying to
convey. Beyond simply conveying information, these signs, and especially
Ezekiel-as-sign, are designed to communicate a complicated, holistic kind of
knowledge, involving the identity of Yahweh and the people's relation to him.
This kind of knowledge goes beyond mere information; rather it is designed to
be absorbed in such a w a y that the self is transformed by this new knowledge. 15
The signs alone are not sufficient to bring the people to an adequate knowledge
Paradox of Ezekiel's Prophetic Mission: Towards a Semiotic Approach of Ezekiel 3,22—27,"

in Ezekiel and His Book, 211). This is reading Ezekiel as though he were Isaiah, where the
prophetic task is to harden the people's hearts.
14 Odell has argued convincingly that Ezekiel 1—5 should be read as a coherent unit, and that
Ezekiel is less subject to a divine call than he is to a complete transformation of his identity
from priest to prophet "That the book should devote so much attention to this
transformation indicates that Ezekiel himself was the sign or portent of things to come (cf.
also Ezek 24:24)" (Odell, "Ezekiel and the Scroll,"248).
15 This topic will be taken up again in the section on the recognition formula (below).
of Yahweh and of themselves, however. This will only occur once Yahweh has
fulfilled the signs, as the citation from 24:24 above suggests. Nonetheless,
Ezekiel's being a sign to the people, the fact that his prophetic function is to
embody knowledge, underscores the fact that what the people lack is knowledge,
and more specifically embodied knowledge. This will have important implications
especially for the way Ezekiel envisions the role of self-knowledge in the new
moral self (explored in the second part of this chapter).
3. The Prophet as Model
The texts pertaining to the prophetic call reveal that it is crucial to

understand the moral identity of the literary character Ezekiel in order to
understand the moral identity the writer envisions for the people. Indeed,
Ezekiel is not simply a sign to the people, he is also a model of who the people
should be.16 In other words, the make-up of Ezekiel's moral identity serves as
the prototype for the moral identity he envisions for the people. Ezekiel's
moral self is constituted not by his own actions as a primary component, but by
the knowledge of God he has received from Yahweh. None of this knowledge
is intrinsic to Ezekiel; he possesses it only by Yahweh's gift. So effaced is
Ezekiel's own capacity to act, that Yahweh even acts to stand the prophet up
(2:2), makes him eat the scroll (3:2), and whisks him around the countryside
(3:12). Ezekiel is a perfect model for the people because all his actions are the
direct consequence of the knowledge of God, which has been directly given by
God, and which constitutes the core of his moral self.
This last point requires further elaboration. In the course of the book of
Ezekiel the identity of the people is transformed, such that by the end of the
book the people have been stripped of their old identity that relied on their own
resources and actions for its moral power, and have been given a new identity
rooted in the knowledge of Yahweh and of themselves. The book, then,
represents a liminal time in Ezekiel's understanding of the moral self.
Correspondingly, Ezekiel's own identity (the character, not the writer) is
transformed after a period of liminality. Margaret Odell has developed this
argument, namely, that "Ezekiel relinquishes certain elements of his identity as a
priest to take on the role of prophet,"17 and in doing so, undergoes a transition
characterized by a liminal state, "in which one has separated from one's old
16 Davis points to this facet of Ezekiel's character: "...Ezekiel is also a guide: a model of the
human creature who does hear the divine word, who responds fully and appropriately to what
YHWH is doing (24:27)" (Davis, Swallowing the Scroll, 83-84).
17 Odell, "Ezekiel and the Scroll," 229.
identity but has n o t yet been fully invested in a new one." 18 Odell evokes a
comparison between the ordination ritual in Lev. 8 - 9 and the events described
in Ezekiel chs. 1—5, with the latter comprising a "counterinitiation, a series of
acts whereby [Ezekiel] relinquishes his priestly status." 19 The liminal state that
Ezekiel experiences functions to eliminate the old identity in order to prepare
for the assumption of a new one, and to generate a sense of solidarity with the
other members of the community. 20
Although in exile he necessarily ceases to function as a priest, it would be an
overstatement to say that Ezekiel ceases to understand himself in those terms—
his portrayal in the book still reflects his identity as a priest. Nonetheless, his
primary function shifts from priest to prophet—he is specifically directed to be
a ΚΌί amongst the people (2:5). Ezekiel serves as a model for the people of
what is in store for them, and thus his movement from priest to prophet
through a period of liminality (following Odell's argument) portends a period of
liminality and a transition to a new identity for the people as well. The first part
of the book (chs. 1—24) reveals a struggle to peel away a moral identity that has
proven ineffective (much as Odell argues that Ezekiel's priestly identity is
outdated by the experience of exile), and the last part (especially chs. 36—48)
creates a new identity appropriate to the new circumstances. Ezekiel's
transformation from priest to prophet presages the moral transformation of the
people, f r o m being without the ability to act rightly, to possessing, by Yahweh's
gift, the right knowledge.
4. The Post-Destruction Call: Chapter 33
Chapter 33 is usually seen as forming a transition from the pre-fall of

Jerusalem " d o o m " sayings to the post-fall "salvation" discourses. It is therefore
not surprising that a reaffirmation of the prophetic task, with the corresponding
depiction of the intransigence of his audience, should appear at this point.
Jerusalem is announced to have fallen, and Ezekiel's enigmatic dumbness is
ended (33:21—22). Then, in case there is any mistake about the consequences of
this news, Ezekiel is told to proclaim· an indictment and announcement of
18 Odell, "Ezekiel and the Scroll," 235.

19 Odell, "Ezekiel and the Scroll," 237. Odell cites by way of evidence for her argument the
date given in 1:1 (238), the verbal instructions that Ezekiel receives in chs. 1—2 (240), the
ingestion of the scroll as a reflection of his inability as a priest to atone for the sins of the
people (241—45), and the symbolic acts as reflecting liminality (Ezekiel engages in specifically
unpriestly activity like cooking over dung) [245^48].
20 She uses the anthropological studies of A. van Gennep and V. Turner (Odell, "Ezekiel and
the Scroll," 235-36).
punishment specifically to those who remained in the land, and who may
continue to hope that events will turn their way so that they will possess the
land once more. Noting their ritual and ethical violations, Ezekiel is to declare
that the consequent devastation and desolation will be extremely thorough
(33:23-29).
A shift then occurs from the audience in Judah to the exiles with Ezekiel in
Babylon. In case this primary audience should feel smug that the Judahites were
so scathingly dealt with in the preceding section, Ezekiel's own audience now
becomes the focus of divine attention. The people are described as quite
interested in Ezekiel as a prophet, and in what word from Yahweh he might
have to convey to them (v. 30). Yet while they hear his words, they do not do
them (ΊύΙΙΓ i ò ΟΠΙΚΙ - ρ η τ η κ "imtfl, v. 31a). This characterization is by now
quite familiar: there is a missing connection somewhere between the hearing of
the words and in their execution. This gap has been understood in the book
either as an innate problem of the capacity to obey (often depicted via historical
language), or as a failure of the will to obey (often depicted via legal language);
here, the same problem gets a rather different twist. The people do not act upon
the prophetic words because "lust is in their mouths and their heart goes after
unjust gain" (-j'rn Dab oran η π κ D'to non DTSS OBIT'S, v. 31b).21 The
DâJJJ and the DÏÏ33 both denote conditions where something normal has been
carried to an abnormal excess (uncontrolled desire; profit gained by violence).
While the following verse suggests that CMB is something lovely and pleasant,
in this verse it denotes something lovely and pleasant that has been carried to
such an extreme that it is worthy of condemnation (lust). The people's
predisposition toward inordinate, grossly out of proportion desire is emphasized
by depicting both their speech (external) and their heart (internal) as distorted
by excess desire. Thus, the two parts of this section of the verse (0ΓΡΕ3 DOJJ?
and i ^ n DaS DU2J2 ΉΠΚ) are not contrastive, as they are frequently understood
(e.g., NRSV 22 ), but parallel.
This distortion in the way the people relate to their environment creates a
corresponding distortion in the way they relate to the prophet. Because
inordinate desire is in their own mouths (OOJJJ), their hearing is impaired and
they consequently hear what they want to hear, which, not surprisingly, is the
same thing which is on their own lips (C33JJ). They hear a song of sensuous lust
21 The Septuagint reads ψίύδος, prompting BHS to suggest emending to DOT3. This is
unnecessary, although the suggestion that the following two words (D'SöJJ ΠΟΠ) should be
deleted makes more sense of the line. This language echoes chapter 23, where the verb form
appears numerous times to denote "lust" (e.g., DOHU here appears to mean
"sensuous love" or "lust" (given the derogatory connotations of the word in ch. 23, "lust"
seems more appropriate).
22 The NRSV reads: "For flattery is on their lips, but their heart is set on their gain."
because that is what they hear coming from their own mouths; it sounds very
beautiful to them (Sip Π3''). The pun on D ' à » (between w . 31 and 32) works
by playing on the difference between reality and the people's perception which
distorts that reality. In v. 31 the people's speech is characterized negatively, by
what is repugnant (lust), but they certainly do not perceive it that way. In v. 32
they listen to the prophet's words, which are harsh words of judgment, but
again they do not accurately perceive the negative as negative, but hear what
they want to hear, a very beautiful song of CaJJi, which is similar to their own
speech. The problem with the people as it is depicted here is that distortions of
normal human behavior (greed and lust) have in turn distorted their capacity to
correctly understand what they hear and see.23
This is another occasion where Ezekiel's implicit view of human motivation
is apparent. As was observed in the last chapter in the discussion of chapters 16
and 23, Ezekiel understands human beings as primarily driven by their desires;
they are hedonists, seeking pleasure above all else. This pursuit of pleasure as
the goal o f life would seem to be the result of their inherent incapacity to make
moral decisions.24 Human desire in Ezekiel is never normal; on the contrary, it is
always excessive and monstrously out of control. Desire for Ezekiel is always
sexual desire, but even non-sexual desire appears to have no appropriate role in
Ezekiel's view of human identity, since it is nowhere present; all desire is
depicted as excessive.25 This is unusual in Israelite traditions. In Deuteronomy,
just to take one example, desire has a proper role when it is directed toward
God ("You shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart, and with all your
23 Fox suggests that in this passage Ezekiel rejects an "aesthetic or strictly literary approach to
his prophecy as trivial and irrelevant," which illustrates the distinction between poetry and
rhetoric (Michael Fox, "The Rhetoric of Ezekiel's Vision of the Valley of the Bones,"
HUCA 51 [1980]: 2, n. 4). The great irony of the prophetic task is that while Ezekiel wants
to emphasize the persuasive power of rhetoric, he has no hope of actually persuading them.
He speaks so that they will know there was prophet among them. This, of course, does not
impinge on the rhetorical power of the book on the naderlheartr.
24 One could argue, of course, that the hedonism is the cause and not the result of the
incapacity to make moral decisions. In either case, the defect exists from birth according to
the historical summaries.
25 The only acceptable pleasure (sensuous or otherwise) appears to be the taste of the scroll of
woe and lamentation in Ezekiel's mouth. This somewhat peculiar pleasure is a passive
pleasure and not the result of desire. To say that even non-sexual desire has no proper role
in human identity may appear to be an argument from silence, but the silence is revealing
when compared to the presence of acceptable desire in other biblical traditions (besides
Deuteronomy, also the narrative traditions, Hosea, Isaiah, etc.).
120 T h e Moral Self in the B o o k o f Ezekiel
soul, and with all your might ..."). 2 6 But in Ezekiel, desire has no proper role
not only in the old self that must be abandoned, but in the new self that
emerges toward the end of the book. The problem with desire, then, is not that
in the old self it is misdirected and needs to find its true target in Yahweh;
rather, desire itself does not seem to have a legitimate function in human
identity. The language of love, whether divine or human, is missing from
Ezekiel.27
As in the earlier passages dealing with the prophetic vocation, whether the
people are capable of hearing the prophet's words or not is irrelevant to the
prophetic call in ch. 33. The judgment, that is, the events the prophet proclaims
in his words, will take place irrespective of the people's response (Π3Π ΠΚ331
ΠΚ3, v. 33). It is at this moment, "when it comes," that "the people will know
that there was a prophet among" them (DDirD ΓΡΠ -3 ΊΙΓΓί).28 This
sequence of events bears a curious consequence for thinking about time in
Ezekiel. The whole point of the prophetic mission cannot be understood from
the point in time of the prophet's speaking; it can only be understood from a
vantage point in the future, once the events to which the prophet refers have
taken place. At that point in time, the people will be able to look back on the
past and understand that the prophet had been sent by Yahweh, and had been
speaking Yahweh's words. This is why Davis views Ezekiel's writing as
"archival": "the point of orientation for the prophetic word has shifted from
crisis to archive. Preserved as text, God's word is no longer frustrated by the
intransigence of any generation; it can wait until such time as it may be heard." 29
Thus the purpose of the prophet's activity is not to bring about a change in the
people's behavior in the present, but to instill a particular kind of knowledge in
them in the future.
In sum, the sections pertaining to the prophet's call uniformly assume that
his audience is incapable of changing its behavior; the prophet's task is therefore
not directed toward that goal. Ezekiel's job is to convey to the people the
knowledge of Yahweh, which here focuses especially on the fact that the events
taking place are the direct result of Yahweh's actions, brought on by the
people's own behavior. Action is thus displaced from its assumed place as the
26 As has been amply demonstrated in the scholarly literature, this is not the language o f
sentimentality, but o f covenant loyalty. Nonetheless, the vision o f human beings here is one
in which human beings turn their desire toward a relationship with G o d .
27 Although it is never stated, Yahweh's sexual desire is implicit in chs. 16 and 23, however.
28 Zimmerli notes that the 2 is both temporal ("when it c o m e s " ) and instrumental ("in the fact
that this c o m e s " ) (Walther Zimmerli, " K n o w l e d g e o f G o d According to the B o o k o f
E z e k i e l , " in I Am Yahweh [ed. Walter Brueggemann; Atlanta: J o h n K n o x Press, 1982], 39).
29 Davis, Swallowing the Scroll, 61. This may not hold true, however, for those places where
repentance is exhorted.
center and key to all moral identity. Since a changed course of action is
impossible in the present, the orientation of the prophet's task is to the future
where the knowledge of God he is charged to convey may be used in creating a
more hopeful future. In order to carry out this task, Ezekiel takes on the
properties of a sign, embodying the knowledge he seeks to convey. The
prevalence of signs, and the centrality of Ezekiel-as-sign, further testify to the
importance of knowledge in the prophet's work and in the book as a whole.
Finally, Ezekiel's own moral identity is a model for the people in that the
knowledge of Yahweh suffuses his whole being, and all his actions are
secondary consequences of this knowledge. In the same vein, his own
transformation from priest to prophet (following Odell's argument)
foreshadows the transformation of the people's identity in the last third of the
book.
B. The Recognition Formula 30
Above I cited Zimmerli in arguing that "to know that a prophet was among
them" and to know that Yahweh is Yahweh are functionally equivalent in
Ezekiel: the point of knowing there was a prophet among them is to gain a kind
of knowledge about who Yahweh is. Turning now to what the "knowledge of
Yahweh" means in Ezekiel, the recognition formula, "that you/they may know
that I am Yahweh," offers the most abundant evidence for what constitutes this
knowledge. Taking the extensive work of Zimmerli as the basis for this
discussion, the next section will delineate exacdy what kind of knowledge the
people are supposed to acquire, and how they are to acquire it.
The 72 occurrences 31 of the recognition formula in Ezekiel are parceled out
to a diverse audience: to Israel (most numerously), to the nations (e.g.,
30 Some confusion arises in terminology due to the extensive work Zimmerli has done in this
area, and particularly due to the variations in translations of his work. Zimmerli made certain
categorizations based on form-critical criteria (distinguishing Erkenntnisaussage [statement of
recognition], Erkenntnisformel [recognition formula], SelbstvorsteUungsformel [formula of self-
introduction], and Erweiswort [proof-saying]) which are not really necessary to this discussion
(form-critical issues not figuring prominently). Thus, I use the phrase "recognition formula"
to denote broadly the entire Ezekielian phrase: "that you/they may know that I am Yahweh"
and its variations, without breaking it down into the above-named categories. I will try to
clarify what part of the phrase is meant when citing Zimmerli. See Zimmerli, "Erkenntnis
Gottes nach dem Buche Ezechiel (ATANT 27; Zurich: Zwingli, 1954); reprinted in Gottes
Offenbarung: Gesammelte Aufsaß I (ThB 19; München: Kaiser, 1969), 41-119.
31 Zimmerli counts 72, but 78 or 80 if one counts certain other instances of 17T and
n t n (21:4; 39:21), (Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, 38). The age of the formula is debated, but its
antiquity does not affect this discussion of its function in Ezekiel.
throughout the oracles against nations in chs. 25-32), and to the landscape (e.g.,
17:24). 32 According to Zimmerli, the recognition of Yahweh is "the final goal
and actual culmination of what is spoken in the preceding divine discourse,"33
whether that discourse proclaims judgment or restoration. This accords with the
function of the prophetic task, analyzed above, whose "final goal" is also
recognition, or knowledge, of Yahweh. Zimmerli draws a number of other
conclusions concerning this knowledge which are helpful to our discussion: (1)
human effort of any kind does not lead to knowledge of Yahweh; (2) the
recognition formula is never isolated, but is always preceded by a divine action;34
(3) the knowledge of Yahweh denoted by the recognition formula does not
suppose divine essence of any kind, but always concerns Yahweh's actions; (4) it
is the divine acts themselves that will bring about knowledge of Yahweh.35 By
way of example, a passage from chapter 11 which illustrates these four points
may be cited: "A sword you have feared, so a sword I will bring against you,
says the Lord Yahweh. I will bring you out from its midst [the pot/city] and I
will give you into the hand of foreigners and I will execute judgments against
you. By the sword you will fall; at the border of Israel I will judge you, and you
will know that I am Yahweh" (ll:8-12a). This example is typical in that an
historical event brought about by Yahweh, usually in the near future,36 will
effect knowledge of Yahweh in the people, through no effort on their part.
32 Strong rightly points out that the content of the knowledge of Yahweh is different for
different audiences. He focuses on what knowledge of Yahweh means for the nations,
arguing that for them the recognition formula bears no overtones of covenantal relationship,
but simply states that the nations (except Tyre) "will come to know Yahweh as Divine
Warrior, who brought order out of chaos, and who fights on Israel's behalf against the
nations" (John Strong, "Ezekiel's Use of the Recognition Formula in His Oracles Against
the Nations," Perspectives in Reügous Studies 22 [1995]: 117). For Israel, however, the
recognition formula indicates that divine acts in history shape the covenantal relationship
between Yahweh and the people (following Zimmerli, "Knowledge of God," 97).
Nonetheless, Israel also needs to recognize Yahweh's power, since it appears to have
forgotten that Yahweh is efficacious in wielding his power.
33 Zimmerli, "Knowledge of God," 33.
34 In the very few places (6:8-10; 12:16; 14:21-23; 24:25-27) where human action appears to
precede the recognition formula, it always emerges out of Yahweh's prior action, and is
subordinate to it (Zimmerli, "Knowledge of God," 35).
35 Zimmerli, "Knowledge of God," 33—37. Zimmerli examines the use of the recognition
formula in the rest of the O T and finds that the knowledge of God is the goal of Yahweh's
action there as well. He concludes that, in terms of the history of traditions, Ezekiel is a late
witness to an older tradition from the North (Zimmerli, "Knowledge of God," 39-63).
36 The knowledge of God in Ezekiel is, especially in the doom oracles, not cast in an
eschatological time frame. The people will come to know Yaweh very soon, when certain
disastrous events have taken place. As is the case with Isaiah (11:9), the knowledge of God
in the prophecies of hope has a more eschatological time frame.
Zimmerli is correct in seeing the process of recognition as irreversible:

human knowledge of Yahweh always follows Yahweh's acts. Furthermore, as
noted above, this knowledge is not intellectual knowledge of Yahweh's
transcendent being. But what kind of knowledge is it, then, that results from
Yahweh's acts in history? A crucial aspect of the knowledge of Yahweh is that it
always connotes acknowledgment of Yahweh. One aspect of this
"acknowledgment" in Zimmerli's view is that it involves a "latent imperative,"
in which "[recognition of Yahweh is always something expected of someone,
something demanded." 37 I do not find, however, that the acknowledgment of
Yahweh in Ezekiel involves any such latent imperative. These statements in
Ezekiel are not statements of obligation to which a human affirmation or
negation is possible ("that you should know that I am Yahweh," as Zimmerli
would translate in certain instances), but statements of fact, albeit in the future
tense: when Yahweh acts to save or destroy, the people will recognize and know
Yahweh—they will have some knowledge that has heretofore been lacking.
Thus the recognition formula is not an imperative, in the sense that any human
ability to respond is assumed, but a declarative statement, in the sense that
Yahweh alone will bring it to pass.
The reason this statement must be declarative and not imperative lies in
Ezekiel's fundamentally negative view of the people's capacity to participate in
their own salvation. In many passages, they are portrayed as incapable of
obeying an imperative concealed in the recognition formula. Despite his belief
in the existence of a latent imperative, Zimmerli notes that the acknowledgment
of Yahweh is not reliant on human effort.
By his very choice of the long fixed form of the strict statement of recognition, Ezekiel
makes it clear that for him none of the preconditions for recognition of Yahweh reside in
human beings or in any preliminary human understanding; they lie totally within the divine
initiative. Human recognition and knowledge emerge vis-á-vis Yahweh's actions and axe
realized by Yahweh's own self-introduction to human beings: "I am Yahweh." 38
The knowledge, and consequent acknowledgment, of Yahweh is something the

people will have, irregardless of any attitudinal stance they may or may not
adopt toward that knowledge.
While I demur from Zimmerli concerning any underlying imperative mood
in the recognition formula, I agree that not recognizing Yahweh is tantamount
to disobedience,39 and that the recognition of Yahweh does involve certain

modifications to behavior. Citing the recognition formula in 1 Kgs. 18,

Zimmerli argues:
the event of recognition is not an inward, reflective, or spiritual occurrence, but rather
manifests itself in open, public prostration before Yahweh. Recognition is not just the
illumination of a new perspective; it is a process of acknowledgment that becomes concrete
in confession and worship and leads directly to practical decisions. 40
Zimmerli is right that what is true in Kings is true in Ezekiel: the recognition of
Yahweh ultimately entails certain behavioral modifications. These behavioral
modifications can be seen in the beginning of proper worship in chapters 4 0 -
48, and in the promise of 11:20 and 36:27 that an inner transformation will lead
to appropriate external behavior (as discussed at the end of ch. 6). In short, the
new knowledge of Yahweh will lead inexorably to walking in the statutes and
observing the ordinances, but this will be a direct consequence of divine, not
human, action.
The recognition formula thus testifies that the people will, in the future, have
the knowledge of Yahweh that they presently lack, and this will have positive
consequences for their own actions. But it is crucial to recall that those actions
are entirely subordinate to and dependent on the knowledge of Yahweh that has
been gained. Block notes the similarities of the recognition formula to Yahweh's
actions at the Exodus:
This refrain calls on the hearer of Ezekiel's oracles to stand back and watch Yahweh act,
whether it be in judgment or salvation, and then to draw the obvious theological
conclusions. Just as the deliverance of his people from Egypt centuries earlier had been
intended to impress the Israelites, the Egyptians, and the world with the presence and
character of Yahweh, so too will his acts of judgment on a rebellious people. 41
As Block's observations suggest, the people are spectators to their acquisition of

the knowledge of God; their participation is entirely passive. This contrasts
sharply with Ezekiel's version of the history of Israel, in which the people's
actions are dominant. Henceforth the knowledge of God will displace human
action from the center of the moral self, as it assumes a central and
determinative position for all subsequent human action.
I have mentioned that the people are somehow devoid of the knowledge of
Yahweh in the present time frame of the text, and this now deserves some
40 Zimmerli, "Knowledge of God," 67. Block echoes that knowledge is acknowledgment:

Yahweh's ... acts of judgment on a rebellious people are intentionally designed to bring
them to an acknowledgment of his presence, character, and claims on their lives" (Block,
E^kiel 1-24, 211).
41 Block, Ezekiel 1-24, 39 (emphasis added).
further comment. 42 Despite the fact that they presumably have had access to the
long history of the Israelites' relationship to Yahweh, the lessons of that history
do not seem to have resulted in their acquiring knowledge of Yahweh. Such a
bizarre situation can only be accounted for by recalling that Ezekiel is wrestling
with the notion that the people are lacking certain fundamental moral
equipment (here memory itself is a crucial piece of moral equipment), and the
absence of the knowledge of Yahweh is a serious consequence of this lack. In
this connection it is worth noting, as Zimmerli does, that the recognition
formula (Zimmerli says the proof-saying [Erweiswort]) is missing from 3:17—21,
33:1-9, ch. 18, and 33:10—20. In short, it does not appear in didactic, legal
texts.43 This is significant because those are precisely the places where Ezekiel is
most optimistic about the human capacity for self-transformation and where, as
noted above, action is what is demanded of them. The recognition formula does
not appear in these texts because there it is not knowledge that is crucial for a
right relationship to Yahweh, but action. The moral configuration of the people
in these legal texts does not include a divinely-given knowledge of God,
explicitly bestowed. Rather, they are assumed to already possess the basic
equipment necessary for moral activity, and are deemed ready to act.
In sum, the knowledge of Yahweh in Ezekiel connotes both a cognitive
understanding of Yahweh as the one who possesses complete power and
control over history and consequently Israel's destiny, and it also means that the
full attention of the people ("personal engagement") be entirely focused on the
relationship with Yahweh. For Ezekiel this does not mean that the relationship
will be an intimate one as this is normally understood (though it is exclusive),
but the knowledge of Yahweh does involve the whole self; it concerns at heart
an orientation to existence that shapes human identity and action. Thus, when
the people receive this knowledge of Yahweh they will be changed at the core of
their own identity in addition to possessing a new understanding of Yahweh;
knowledge of God implies knowledge of self. As a consequence of this radically
new identity, the people will be empowered to choose morally appropriate
actions and carry them out.
42 Fishbane comments on this absence of knowledge: The knowledge of Yahweh in the doom
oracles functions "to exhort the exiles to a consciousness of the fact that they will, in the
future, have the knowledge, which is now lacking, that YHWH is a god of power who fulfills
his doom predictions as announced' (Fishbane, "Sin and Judgment," 149). He notes further
that "paradoxically, the previews of doom in chapters 4—24 could bring the people—if they
believed the prophet's words—to the same state of knowledge to which the unbelievers
would eventually be brought against their will." Ezekiel, of course, betrays little confidence
that the people will believe his words. Yahweh will be made known not only to the nations
against their will, but to Israel itself (150).
C. The Language Of Memory
In his questioning of the dominant view of the moral selfs stress on action,
Ezekiel connects the language of memory to the knowledge of God. In
Ezekiel's view, the Israelites remember what they should forget, and forget what
they should remember.44 How the people came by this perverse,perspective on
the past is unclear, but it is of longstanding duration. The prophet's basic
complaint is that the knowledge of God has been available to the people, but
they have not retained this knowledge over time. Yet it is not that their capacity
for memory itself is defective, for they all too distinctly remember their own
sins, in order that they might repeat them. By emphasizing the importance of
memory, Ezekiel underscores that knowledge—what is remembered and what is
forgotten of the past—is a crucial component of human beings' moral
equipment in their relationship to Yahweh.
First, consider an example of how the memory of the Israelites functions
contrary to Yahweh's purposes. In the unfaithful orphan narrative, the people
are twice accused of forgetting the goodness of Yahweh, which, not
surprisingly, is ever fresh in Yahweh's mind: "You have not remembered the
days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, flailing about in your
blood" ( r r n 72-12 ηοοιηηη m m 0-11? - ¡ n r m γ ι ι ι η •ό-τίκ τ τ ο τ >ò, 16:22;
see also v. 43). Thus, in the logic of the metaphor, the people have no
recollection of Yahweh's coming to their aid when they were in need. And to
highlight Yahweh's beneficence, the text makes clear that when Yahweh deigned
to come to their aid, the people were not only vulnerable, but despicable as well.
In this instance, the people have forgotten what they should have remembered.
This may be contrasted to the "days of youth" in chapter 23 (w. 19, 21), which
no longer represent Yahweh's goodness, but Jerusalem's wickedness. They refer
to Oholibah's recollection of her first experiences of promiscuous sex in Egypt,
and ironically, these days of her youth she does remember. In fact, the memory
of those days drives her to even more depraved sex acts later on. This memory
will be erased when Yahweh punishes Jerusalem by allowing the former lovers
to attack her violently (v. 27). Here, the people have remembered what should
have been forgotten.
Now to turn to a more detailed consideration of the relation between
memory and the knowledge of Yahweh. Ezekiel's review and revision of
Israelite history in chapter 20 provides the most extensive example of the
language of memory functioning to underscore the importance of the
knowledge of God for the moral identity of the people. The sketch of history
44 This is the thrust of Simon De Vries' short article, "Remembrance in Ezekiel: A Study of an
Old Testament Theme," lnterprttaüon 16 (1962): 64.
offered in this chapter is prefaced by the announcement of the prophet's

mission: to make known (DiiTin) to the people the abominations of their
fathers (v. 4), implying that the present generation does not know this history, at
least not as viewed through Yahweh's eyes. The outline of Israelite history that
Ezekiel presents (w. 5—31) is punctuated by assertions that Yahweh made
himself and his laws known to the people at every step of the way by various
means. This knowledge of Yahweh was revealed first in Egypt (DnS UT)to
ΟΉΪΏ }ΗΚ3, v. 5). Furthermore, one way Yahweh made himself known (ΤΐΙΠΙΐ)
to the people was by the very action of the Exodus (v. 9), while another way
knowledge was disclosed to the people was through the laws ("ΠΚ DnS ]PIK
o r m "ΠΙΠΊΠ 'USfflirntO τηρπ, v. 11) and the sabbaths (v. 12). The purpose of
observing the laws and sabbaths is "to know (ΠΙΠ1?) that I am Yahweh your
God" (v. 20; cf. v. 26). Action, while exhorted, is subordinated to the larger goal
of knowledge.
From this historical outline it is clear that the Israelites were presented with
abundant opportunities "to know Yahweh." Yet it is equally clear that they did
not, and do not in the present, have this knowledge of Yahweh stored in their
memory. As the narrative turns from a description of the past to a vision of the
future, a new exodus is announced, in which the people will be judged in the
wilderness (w. 33—38). This future experience will instill the knowledge of
Yahweh in the people (v. 38)—an outcome which all of Yahweh's self-
revelations could not do in the entire previous history of the people. The
eschatological vision continues on Yahweh's holy mountain (w. 40-44), and
when Yahweh brings the people to the land of Israel, they "will know that I am
Yahweh" (v. 42). There the people will remember their past actions as defiling
and they will loathe themselves (more on this below).45 The gist of this
announcement of salvific divine action is summed up in the last line of the
chapter: "And you will know that I am Yahweh when I do to you for the sake
of my name not according to your evil ways, nor according to your corrupt
deeds..." (v. 44). Throughout this chapter, then, Ezekiel reiterates that despite
numerous opportunities to absorb the knowledge of Yahweh, the Israelites have
historically failed to do so. Yet the knowledge of Yahweh is so crucial to the
future he envisions that Yahweh will attempt again to ensure that the people
"know that [he is] Yahweh."
45 It is important to distinguish between the Israelites' failure to remember their prior actions as
sinful, i.e., their sins qua sins (as is the case here), and their failure to forget their prior actions
which do not appear to be sinful to them (e.g., 23:19), and, finally, their failure to remember
the good that Yahweh did for them (e.g., 16:22). These distinctions will be discussed in more
detail below.
Based on the evidence of chapter 20 alone it is unclear whether it is a

problem of memory that has caused the Israelites to fail to know Yahweh after
so many opportunities. But other texts suggest some clues. At the end of a long
series of accusations of violations of torah, a final accusation is leveled: "And
you have forgotten me, says the Lord Yahweh" (ΓΠΓΡ "Ό"IK DK] Γ)Π3ώ ΤΙΚ"),
22:12). In this context, this appears to mean that the Israelites, in addition to
their other "ethical" violations, have also failed to worship Yahweh properly (cf.
the idols of 22:3^1, etc.). And in the midst of the lengthy metaphorical diatribe
against Jerusalem in chapter 23, the language of memory appears to function as
a kind of summary of what has preceded: "Because you have forgotten me (|JP
TfiK nnnsi) and have cast me behind your back, you will bear your lewdness and
your whorings" (v. 35). Forgetting Yahweh is both a failure of knowledge and of
action. The absence of the relevant knowledge in the memory (knowing who
Yahweh is) leads directly to a failure to act on that knowledge. While both the
internal (knowledge) and the external (action) elements of this failure are
present, Ezekiel chooses to articulate the problem as an internal one, as a defect
in memory.
The people's memory is defective, then, but what would remembering
Yahweh look like if they were capable of it? As with the knowledge of Yahweh,
remembering Yahweh is not merely a cognitive exercise. Rather, it involves the
whole self, as Zimmerli's definition of "OT suggests: "In the Old Testament 'to
remember' is a genuine grasping of a reality which then becomes a new living
and present fact.'"'6 To remember is to recover knowledge, but that knowledge
is not simply information, as suggested above. Remembering requires
considerably more work than storing facts in the brain. In this connection,
Block offers helpful remarks on the meaning of "DT:
The verb %akar does not denote recalling to mind something that has been forgotten, any
more than the reference to God's remembrance of Noah in the ark (Gen. 8:1) implies that
he had previously escaped Yahweh's mind. Rather, it means "to take into account, to pay
attention to," a usage encountered earlier in Ezek. 3:20.47
I would formulate this even more strongly, however. Remembering the

knowledge that has been lost creates the possibility of a transformed self; a
properly functioning memory is crucial to the newly transformed people that
Ezekiel envisions. In short, memory is a moral feature of the self.
An example of the importance of remembering Yahweh occurs in 6:9. A
remnant will be spared from the destruction, to be scattered among the nations.
Those escapees will remember Yahweh among the nations once they have gone

47 Block, Ezekiel 1—24, 231.
into captivity, and once they have taken stock of themselves (6:9b), they shall
know that Yahweh is Yahweh. It is important to recall that the remnant will be
able to remember Yahweh only after Yahweh has acted (they have been taken
into captivity and Yahweh has broken their whoring heart etc.48). Blenkinsopp
notes that the priestly writings often speak of God remembering the covenant,
but Ezekiel inverts this dynamic, emphasizing that it is the people who must
remember God.49 In these instances, the language of memory reflects the need
for the people to "take account" of Yahweh, which for them means acquiring,
after a divine action that will bring it about, the knowledge of Yahweh that has
long been available to them, but which has eluded their grasp. Thus Yahweh's
reparation of their faulty memory makes it possible for the people to acquire the
knowledge of God necessary for their moral transformation. Knowledge of the
past is a crucial component of the moral self.
II. Human Self-Knowledge
Ezekiel is concerned not only with knowledge of God, but also with human
self-knowledge, which, like the knowledge of God, finds its source in divine
action.50 Thus in the shift in the form of moral selfhood from action to
knowledge, it is not only knowledge of God that Ezekiel wants to highlight as
significant for the new moral self he envisions: it is also human beings'
knowledge of themselves. Ezekiel's thoughts on human self-knowledge are
most often conveyed by means of shame language (forms of and 1013), and
the related language of self-loathing (forms of Bip). These are often
48 This last part is a crux. The text reads: Π31ΤΠ DdViIK " Ί Τ Ο ώ HÜK, which is difficult to
make sense of, though NRSV understands "how I was crushed by their wanton heart... "
Yahweh's being debilitated or demoralized by Israel's actions does not seem in keeping with
Ezekiel's overall view (except for dishonoring the holy name). BHS suggests emending to
TnatC which gives "I broke their whoring heart," which is more in keeping with the rest of
the book. The first part of the verse would then read: "Those among you who escape will
remember me among the nations when they are carried into captivity, when I have broken
their whoring heart which has turned from me...." For further discussion see Block, Ezekiel
1-24, 230, n. 62.
50 Zimmerli relates this to the self-introductory formula: "This incorporation of Yahweh's self-
introductory formula into the statement of recognition within the context of symbolic events
and divine judgment expresses the fact that Yahweh alone remains the subject of all
recognition events—not only of those involving human recognition of divine action, but of
human recognition and knowledge itself. Precisely when human knowledge thinks it is performing
its own action, it finds that Yahweh introduces himself and can never be "taken" by human
recognition" (Zimmerli, "Knowledge of God," 85, emphasis added).
accompanied by the language of memory, with the sequence of events of critical

importance. As is the case with the knowledge of God (the result of a prior act
of God), human beings' self-knowledge is always preceded by a divine action
(usually of deliverance) which enables that self-knowledge to occur. The
recovery of memory and/or a sense of shame are thus announced after a divine
action. This arrival at self-knowledge (represented by a sense of shame) is
equivalent to the acquisition of a new moral self (made possible by divine
action), which is now capable of seeing behavior as it really is, and consequently
feeling ashamed. In this section I will digress initially from exegetical matters in
order to consider the implications for Ezekiel of some theories of shame. Then
I will proceed to examine the relation between memory and self-loathing (£S1p)
in 6:9-10, 20:40—43, and 36:27-31, followed by a discussion of the texts where
dSd and 013 are prominent, specifically in chapters 36, 16, and 23. The
discussion of Bip is separated from that of 0*73 and 2)13 to facilitate clarity, but
all of these terms involve the experience of shame, as will be suggested below.
A. Excursus On Shame
Shame plays a significant rhetorical role in Ezekiel's discourse. At several

important junctures he either announces that the people will experience shame,
or admonishes them to be ashamed of their actions, as in ch. 36: "Not for your
sake am I doing this says the Lord Yahweh, let that be known to you. Be
ashamed and feel your disgrace (lobsm 12)13) on account of your ways, o house
of Israel" (36:32). Shame, evoked here by both dSd and ÏÎ13, is a complex idea,
and the question is: what do they mean for Ezekiel?51 To illumine this question,
it may be helpful to pursue a short digression into shame theory. This discussion
will involve delineating several distinctions from the outset, in order to facilitate
our understanding of shame in Ezekiel. First, it is necessary to distinguish
between feeling ashamed, and shame as social sanction. Although both fall
under the category of "shame," they require different kinds of analysis.
Secondly, there is a distinction in the scholarly literature between social
51 In chapter 3 I explored the differences between Jeremiah and Ezekiel on the larger question
of moral identity. Here a brief but more specific comparison of shame in the two books is in
order. Jeremiah, like Ezekiel, is concerned with both the absence of, and the need for, two
kinds of shame within the people (shame-as-positive value: 3:3,6:15,8:12; shame-as-negative
value: 3:25, 14:3, 22:22, 31:19). But in Jeremiah the people never experience shame ajtir
Yahweh has acted to deliver them; in what is considered the more theologically normative
sequence, repentance and shame precede deliverance. In 3:25 and 31:18—19, for example,
repentance and shame are part of the people's imagined plea for deliverance. See
Uffenheimer, "Theodicy and Ethics," 201.
The Shift in the Forni of Moral Selfhood 131
anthropological and psychological approaches to shame. In order to employ

anthropological categories, shame will also have to be considered through the
lens of gender analysis, since what is shameful for men and what is shameful for
women are not always the same. In the discussion of the psychological approach
to shame, a clear understanding of the difference between guilt and shame will
need to be established, in addition to articulating a workable definition of
shame. My own approach to Ezekiel will be somewhat eclectic, employing
elements of each method, social anthropological and psychological, as they best
facilitate our understanding of the relevant passages in Ezekiel. Yet, finally, I will
try to make the case that the psychological approach offers the greatest insights
into Ezekiel's formulation and use of shame.
Shame is a complex phenomenon in any culture, and articulating shame in a
particular culture is rendered even more complex by the lack of terms in English
for different kinds of shame.52 One source of confusion can be eliminated from
the outset by distinguishing between shame as an emotional response, i.e.,
feeling ashamed, and shame as a form of social sanction, i.e., putting someone
to shame. The former is not necessarily a public experience whereas the latter
always is. Ezekiel articulates both kinds of shame, but it is the former type, the
experience of feeling ashamed, that is of primary interest here, because it bears
most directly on how Ezekiel diagnoses the people's problem of a defective
moral self, and how he proposes to fix it. This aspect of this discussion of
shame distinguishes it from many others in biblical studies, which focus more
often on shame as social sanction, a direct result of a similar focus in
anthropology. 53
In a trend not unrelated to this interest in shame as social sanction, the social
anthropological view of shame has predominated in numerous recent studies of
shame in the Hebrew Bible.54 In these discussions shame is almost always paired
52 Michael Herzfeld notes that the Engjish word "shame" has a wide semantic range which is
not often overlapped by the shame words of the language being studied. He rightly urges
caution both in the translation of terms, and in the tendency to overgeneralize from one
Mediterranean society to the next (Michael Herzfeld, "Honour and Shame: Problems in the
Contemporary Analysis of Moral Systems," Man 15 [1980]: 339-51).
53 See, for example, Lyn M. Bechtel, "Shame as Sanction of Social Control in Biblical Israel:
Judicial, Political, and Social Shaming," JSOT 49 (1991): 47-76, and Saul M. Olyan, "Honor,
Shame, and Covenant Relations in Ancient Israel and its Environment," JBL 115 (1996):
201-18. Unni Wikan questions anthropologists' focus on the "facts" relating to honor while
neglecting the "processes of recognition": "We are given information about the grounds or
standards according to which honour is judged, but not about how and by whom it is judged
in actual social relations" (Unni Wikan, "Shame and Honour: A Contestable Pair," Man 19
(1984): 638). It is precisely the process of shame recognition that is of interest in Ezekiel.
54 Apart from dictionary entries, some of the more recent works that approach shame from an
anthropological approach to a greater or lesser degree include: Lyn Bechtel Huber, "The
with h o n o r as its opposite, with the meaning o f both terms understood to focus
on the question of status. Saul Olyan's discussion of these terms may serve as an
entry into the issue:
In short, honor and shame communicate relative social status, which may shift over time....
Honor is meant to be recognized and acknowledged; it is very much a public phenomenon.
Loss of honor or diminishment results in shame; diminishment communicates a loss of
social status. Like honor and its inscription, diminishment and shame also have a public
dimension 55
Olyan, like several other biblical scholars w h o take an anthropological approach,

adapts to the ancient biblical world the pioneering w o r k o f Julian Pitt-Rivers
(among others), w h o was among the first to explore the anthropology of shame
in the Mediterranean. 56 But the relationship between h o n o r and shame is more
Biblical Experience of Shame/Shaming: The Social Experience of Shame/Shaming in

Biblical Israel in Relation to its Use as Religious Metaphor," (Ph.D. diss., Drew University,
1983); idem, "The Perception of Shame Within the Divine-Human Relationship in Biblical
Israel," in Uncovering Andent Stones: Essays in Memory of H. Neil Richardson (ed. Lewis M. Hopfe;
Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1994), 79-92; Olyan, "Honor, Shame, and Covenant
Relations," 201-18; Margaret S. Odell, "An Exploratory Study of Shame and Dependence in
the Bible and Selected Near Eastern Parallels," in The Biblical Canon in Comparative Perspective
(ANETS 11; ed. K.L. Younger, Jr., et al.; Lewiston: Edwin Mellen, 1991), 217-33; idem,
"The Inversion of Shame and Forgiveness in Ezekiel 16.59-63," JSOT 56 (1992): 101-12;
Bechtel, "Shame as Sanction of Social Control in Biblical Israel," 47-76; Odell (in the former
piece) and Bechtel use a combination of social anthropological and psychological models of
shame. Other relevant studies of shame in the HB include: David Daube, "The Culture of
Deuteronomy," Onta 3 (1969): 27—52; Martin A. Klopfenstein, "Scham und Schande nach
dem Alten Testament (ATANT 62; Zurich: Thologischer Verlag, 1972); Nancy R. Bowen,
"Damage and Healing Shame and Honor in the Old Testament," Kainonia 3 (1991): 29—36;
Ken Stone, Sex, Honor, and Power in the Deuteronomisüc History (JSOTSup 234; Sheffield:
Sheffield Academic Press, 1996); All of volume 68 of Semeta is devoted to honor and shame,
with the following treatments of HB texts: Dianne Bergant "The Song of Songs and Honor
and Shame" Semeia 68 (1994): 23-40; John K. Chance, 'The Anthropology of Honor and
Shame: Culture, Values, and Practice," Semeia 68 (1994): 139-51; Ronald A. Simkins,
'"Return to Yahweh:' Honor and Shame in Joel," Semeia 68 (1994): 41-54; Gary Stansell,
"Honor and Shame in the David Narratives," Semeia 68 (1994): 55-79. Significant work has
been done in NT studies, see especially, Bruce J. Malina, The New Testament World: Insights
from Cultural Anthropology (Atlanta: John Knox, 1981), and Bruce J. Malina and Jerome H.
Neyrey, "Honor and Shame in Luke-Acts: Pivotal Values of the Mediterranean World," in
The Soaal World of Luke-Acts: Models for Interpretation (ed. J.H. Neyrey; Peabody, MA:
Hendrickson, 1991), 25-65.
55 Olyan cites several biblical texts by way of example: Isa 23:9; Nah 3:10; Lam 1:8 (Olyan,
"Honor, Shame, and Covenant Relations," 204).
56 For anthropological literature on shame, in addition to Herzfeld cited above, see for
example, Julian Pitt-Rivers and Jean Peristiany, "Introduction," in Honor and Grace in
TTie Shift in the Form of Moral Selfhood 133
complicated than this definition, shared by many writing on shame in the

Bible,57 supposes. In fact, honor and shame enjoy a complex semantic
relationship (acknowledged in the anthropological literature). On the one hand,
they are opposites (honor vs. shame-as-dishonor), as Olyan's definition
suggests, yet on the other hand, in certain contexts they are synonymous (honor
and shame-as-honor). Shame-as-honor can be characterized as a concern for
repute, that is, a sensitivity to public opinion (sentiment), and the public
recognition of that sentiment.58 Most studies of shame in the Bible focus on
honor and shame as contraries, but both types exist in the biblical texts, which
makes it difficult to generalize about shame from one text and context to
another. In Ezekiel, both shame-as-dishonor and shame-as-honor are at issue.
Indeed the experience of the former can lead to the development of the latter,
an outcome with which Ezekiel is very much concerned, in that ultimately he
claims shame as a positive value in the construction of the new moral self.
As already noted, Olyan's definition of shame does not apply well to
Ezekiel's presentation of shame. Furthermore, for Ezekiel the public dimension
of the experience of shame is not central; in fact he is concerned more
particularly with the inner, private experience of shame due to the intimate
connection between the experience of feeling ashamed and the moral self.
Malina offers a useful distinction: "Shame assessments move from the outside
(public denial [of a claim to status or worth]) to the inside (a person's
Anthropology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); David Gilmore, "Introduction:

The Shame of Dishonor," in Honor and Shame and the Unity of the Mediterranean (ed. D.
Gilmore; A Special Publication of the American Anthropological Association 22;
Washington: American Anthropological Association, 1987), 2-21; Julian Pitt-Rivers, "The
Anthropology of Honour," in The Fate of Shechem, or The Politics of Sex: Essays in the
Anthropology of the Mediterranean (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977); John Davis,
People of the Mediterranean (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977); J. Peristiany, "Honour
and Social Status," in Honour and Shame: the Values of Mediterranean Society (ed. J. Peristiany;
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), 21-78.
57 In their introduction to the 1994 Semeia volume, "Honor and Shame in the World of the
Bible," Victor Matthews and Don Benjamin define honor and shame as "parallel labels used
by anthropologists to describe either physical conditions or human behavior of which a
culture approves or disapproves" (Victor Matthews and Don Benjamin, "Social Sciences and
Biblical Studies," Semeia 68 [1994]: 11). A helpful discussion of the complexity of shame and
honor language can be found in Bruce Malina's The New Testament World: inúghtsfrom Cultural
Anthropology (Revised ed.; Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1994), 50-5?, and Bruce
Malina and Jerome Neyrey, "Honor and Shame in Luke-Acts: Pivotal Values of toe
Mediterranean World," in The Social World of Luke-Ads: Modeltfor Interpretation (Peabody, MA:
Hendrickson, 1991), 41-46. For a more general anthropological discussion of gender, see
Sherry Ortner and Harriet Whitehead (eds.), Sexual Meanings: the Cultural Construction of Gender
and Sexuality (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981).
58 Pitt-Rivers, "The Anthropology of Honour," 20.
recognition o f the denial)." 59 Ezekiel is especially interested in the problems

associated with this m o v e f r o m outside to inside. He presents an abundance o f
shame as social sanction directed at the people, but focuses a great deal o f
literary energy on the people's inability to recognize the denial. The emphasis in
anthropology has been overwhelmingly on the former, and whereas Ezekiel is
primarily interested in the latter, this aspect of the anthropological approach is
less helpful to the texts in question.
A further consideration to be weighed in thinking about shame is gender.
While both men and w o m e n in various cultures can experience shame as both a
positive (shame=honor) and a negative (shame=dishonor), anthropological
studies have shown that the behaviors that constitute shame and the value of
shame can vary considerably according to gender. 60 Despite their interest in
h o n o r and shame as reflecting gender-based values (control of sexuality is
thought to be pivotal), biblical scholars are less apt to make these distinctions,
and are consequently prone to generalizations about h o n o r and shame in the
Bible without regard f o r gender distinctions (unless the subject is specifically
women). 6 1 The h o n o r vs. shame dichotomy can w o r k quite well in those biblical
texts where the subject or object of shame is male. 62 But shame and honor
function very differently f o r w o m e n in the biblical world (as they do in any
society, according to Pitt-Rivers 63 ), and it is therefore not possible to make
59 Malina, The New Testament World, 52.

60 This is a recent trend, however. Several studies by anthropologists have criticized the
oversimplification of honor and shame as antonyms, and the related blindness to gender
distinctions (Gideon M. Kressel, "Shame and Gender," AnthropokgcalQuarterly 11 [1992]:
34—46, and Unni Wikan, "Shame and Honour: a Contestable Pair," 635-52).
61 E.g., Matthews and Benjamin, Olyan, Odell, Simkins, and Bowen; but see Stone, (Sex, Honor,
and Power, 37—49) for a discussion of gender. Most scholars operate on a model of honor and
shame that presupposes gender distinctions at their root, but the practical effect of this is
usually to note simply that women's sexual purity reflects a man's honor. Again, Malina
makes helpful gender distinctions (The New Testament World, 51-52; and Malina and Neyrey,
"Honor and Shame in Luke-Acts," 41-45). Bergant ("The Song of Songs and Honor and
Shame") and Lillian Klein, ("Honor and Shame in Esther," in A Feminist Companion to Esther,
Judith and Susanna [ed. Athalya Brenner; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995], 149-75)
make more elaborate and helpful distinctions, because both are writing specifically on
women and shame. Bergant argues that Song of Songs does not conform to the usual
honor/shame pattern regarding women's sexuality.
62 Although Unni Wikan's critique of the honor vs. shame pattern should be noted: she
contends that in many societies of the Middle East shame is much closer to the daily
experience of the people, whereas honor is a (male) theoretical construct. Her argument
would have to be tested on the biblical texts, but in Ezekiel, at least, the language of shame is
much more frequent than that of honor (Wikan, "Shame and Honour A Contestable Pair,"
635-50).
63 Pitt-Rivers, The Fate of Shechem, 20-21.
TTie Shift in the Form of Moral Selfhood 135
generalizations about their function in the Bible. The problem in a nutshell is

this: shame can be synonymous with honor or dishonor for both men and
women, but differences begin to appear according to gender in two areas: 1)
shame as a positive value (shame=honor) is more frequently associated with
women, and 2) honor-inducing behaviors for one gender are shame-inducing
for the other.64 "Thus honour and shame, when they are not equivalent, are
linked exclusively to one sex or the other and are opposed to one another."65
Both of these areas of differentiation are relevant in Ezekiel because the
places where the most significant instances of shame language appear are also
the places where Ezekiel metaphorizes his audience as a woman (chs. 16, 23).
Consequently in these passages (and at other significant junctures), shame is
construed as a positive value that confers honor, not dishonor. Regarding the
second point, the prominence of female addressees in Ezekiel's discourse
demands that any discussion of the role of shame in them attend to the
distinctively "feminine" construction of shame. The behaviors constituting
shame for women in the Bible include deference and submission to male
authority, a certain passivity in behavior, covering nakedness, sexual
exclusiveness, a lack of sexual desire, and modesty in attire and deportment.66
These behaviors, which constitute a sense of shame for women, would,
conversely, bring shame upon a man who exhibited them.
The anthropological approach to shame clarifies definitions and maps out
the confusing terrain of shame. The psychological model also offers potential
benefits in that it tends to focus on what the experience of feeling ashamed
means for human identity, which, as I mentioned above, is of particular interest
to Ezekiel. In short, the question at hand concerns the rhetorical function of
shame, and psychological approaches to shame may help illumine this function.
Psychological categories, like anthropological ones, pose a certain risk when
64 Behaviors that are considered shameful or honorable are often local and variable, but the
sexual behaviors regarded as shameful for women, despite variations, reflect a remarkable
consistency over time and space (unregulated access to unrelated men, sexual infidelity,
promiscuity, sexual desire, etc.). On the problem of the local nature of honor and shame, see
John K. Chance, "The Anthropology of Honor and Shame: Culture, Values, and Practice,"
Stmtia 68 (1994): 145.
65 Pitt-Rivers, The Fate of Shechem, 21.
66 Most of these are listed by Klein in her study of Esther ("Honor and Shame in Esther,"
151). Renata Rabichev compares ancient and contemporary Mediterranean societies and
comes to similar conclusions in "The Mediterranean concepts of honour and shame as seen
in the depiction of the biblical women," Rlügon and Theofyy 3 (1996): 51-63. Lest an
accusation of invalid "upstreaming" be leveled at this characterization of women's shame
("upstreaming" being an anthropologists' term for the difficulties of mapping present
insights onto ancient cultures), this characterization of what constitutes shameful behavior
for women can be derived from Ezekiel's text.
applied to ancient texts, so, as always, the text of Ezekiel will have to serve as a
control to the use of these categories. With this caveat in mind, Michael Lewis's
relatively simple definition of shame may serve as a starting point: "the feeling
we have when we evaluate our actions, feelings, or behavior, and conclude that
we have done wrong. It encompasses the whole of ourselves·, it generates a wish to
hide, to disappear, or even to die."67 An important component of the experience
of shame is exposure, as Fowler observes: "Shame is the awareness of the self as
disclosed to others, or to the self, as being defective, lacking or inadequate."68
Fowler's definition is especially useful for its suggestion that the presence of
others is not necessary to feel ashamed; it can be a very private experience. Both
shame and guilt are judged by reference to a standard, but shame is
distinguished from guilt by its comprehensiveness: shame perceives a total
failure of the self, whereas guilt focuses on the failure of specific actions; the
latter is not nearly so devastating to the self.69 Shame and guilt are also
distinguished in the Bible, where the words associated with shame have no
connection to guilt language.70
Shame is always defined by a standard which is held in common by a
community, but this does not necessarily make it a public experience, as
Fowler's definition suggests.71 The psychological approach is likely to be helpful
in reading Ezekiel in that it does not restrict shame to the public sphere. The
experience of feeling ashamed is just as likely to be private, and as I suggested
above and will examine further below, although the public dimension of shame
is certainly present in Ezekiel, his real concern is with an internal experience of
67 Michael Lewis, Shame: the Exposed Self (New York: The Free Press, 1995), 2. In her study of
poor people in Cairo, Unni Wikan observes that a cry of shame ('eb) denotes that a specific
action is wrong; it is not a statement about the whole person. Honor, by contrast, is an
attribute of the whole person (Wikan, "Shame and Honour A Contestable Pair," 637-38).
In Ezekiel, however, it is not just that the actions of the people are wrong in specific
instances, but that their entire being is suffused with worthlessness (see esp. chs. 16, 20,23).
68 James W. Fowler, Faithful Change: The Personal and Public Challenges of Postmodern Life (Nashville:
Abingdon, 1996), 92.
69 See also Fowler, Faithful Change, 92. There is no unanimity on the distinction between guilt
and shame, especially outside psychological circles. Peristiany and Pitt-Rivers, for example,
understand guilt as "simply internalized shame" (Peristiany and Pitt-Rivers, "Introduction,"
in Honor and Grace in Anthropology (J.G. Peristiany and Julian Pitt-Rivers, eds.; Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1992), 6. This understanding is predicated on understanding
shame as social sanction, i.e., as a public experience of externally imposed shame. At any
rate, there is unanimity that the old dichotomy between shame cultures and guilt cultures is
no longer applicable.
70 Huber, "The Biblical Experience of Shame/Shaming," 51, 55.
71 Again, Wikan's critique is pertinent She observes that anthropologists have
underemphasized "the value of a person in his or her own eyes" (Wikan, "Shame and
Honour A Contestable Pair," 649).
shame. The central question is not whether the people are being shamed by
others, or should be ashamed by their own actions, but do they experience their
shame as shame? 72 Do they feel their shame? Another helpful distinction that
Lewis makes concerns the difference between "primary emotional states" and
"self-conscious emotional states". To be in a state of shame is an example of the
latter; it is an interpretive act because it requires one to compare one's own actions
against a standard.73 It is this objective self-awareness that the people are lacking
in Ezekiel's view; they do not experience shame as they should.
Psychological terminology can also help to further nuance our understanding
of shame. Carl Schneider distinguishes two categories of shame for which
English has only the one word, shame. Before an act, discretion-shame is similar
to modesty (French "pudeur"), as in "a sense of shame," the opposite of
shamelessness. After an act, disgrace-shame (French "honte") creates a painful
break in "the selfs relationship with itself and/or others." 74 Schneider thus
provides both a terminology and a chronological distinction for the problem
stated above, namely, that shame can have either a positive value as honor
(discretion-shame) or a negative value as dishonor (disgrace-shame). As
mentioned above, both women and men may possess discretion-shame and
experience disgrace-shame, depending on the culture. But because sexuality is so
closely tied to shame as it is constructed for women (in ancient Israel as now 75 ),
discretion-shame plays a larger role in the configuration of women's shame than
of men's. Furthermore, for women disgrace-shame is much more likely to result
from sexual activities and attitudes.76
There are several features of discretion-shame worth noting. First, it has a
moral character: "The concept of shamelessness suggests that the lack of a proper
sense of shame is a moral deficiency and that the possession of a sense of shame
is a moral obligation." Secondly, discretion-shame is not just an emotion, "but
reflects an order of things.... [D]iscretion-shame not only reflects, but sustains, our
personal and social ordering of the world." This is the positive type of shame
72 Huber notes that the experience of shame does not always result from the social sanction of
shame (Huber, "Shame/Shaming," 119, 122).
73 Lewis, Shame, 75, 29.
74 Carl D. Schneider, Shame, Exposure, and Privacy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1977), 22.
75 Contra Matthews and Benjamin, who see almost no connection between constructions of
shame and honor in ancient Israel and those constructions today, though they are not
referring to women specifically (Matthews and Benjamin, "Social Sciences and Biblical
Studies," 11).
76 Pitt-Rivers notes with respect to the pueblos of Andalusia, that "the conduct which is
honourable for one sex may be the opposite of that which is honourable for the other" (Pitt-
Rivers, "Honour and Social Status in Andalusia," 45). In the realm of sexuality, this
opposition in shame-inducing behavior is true across many times and cultures.
that w o m e n especially should possess; this is shame synonymous with honor.

Disgrace-shame, by contrast, is "painful, unexpected, and disorienting." 77 With
disgrace-shame persons become acutely aware of themselves as they are at that
moment. Something happens that turns their attention to themselves in such a
way that they are not simply there, but see themselves there, and this seeing
arouses shame. Shame opens up a new level of consciousness of the self.78
Schneider, like Lewis, understands the experience of shame to involve an
acute self-awareness, and as will become apparent, this is the most pivotal aspect
of shame for Ezekiel as well. Disgrace-shame is often considered a negative
experience, but it, like discretion-shame, has a positive role to play in sustaining
personal and social relationships. Although not referring to shame per se,
Martin Buss notes the necessity of an Other in creating self-awareness: "In fact,
it is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve self-awareness without the assistance
of another person in w h o m one is mirrored and whose gaze directs attention to
oneself." 79 Through painful and disorienting experience, disgrace-shame brings
with it the peculiar capacity for self-knowledge: "I recognize that \ am 2& the
Other sees me." 80 Thus disgrace-shame offers the possibility that "identity may
not only be confirmed, but shaped, enlarged, and put into perspective." 81
Schneider distinguishes between shame on the one hand, and disgust and
contempt on the other. 82 This distinction is not maintained in Ezekiel, however,
where self-loathing and shame are synonymous. Self-loathing (Bip) is the result
of the same kind of self-awareness that shame entails, at least in Ezekiel. 83 The
people's self-loathing arises out of an accurate view of the past, as Zimmerli
observes in connection with 6:9: "In the DiVJBa IBpJI... there must lie the
recollection of shame over what has happened, which shows in men's faces." 84
It should come as no surprise in a book where the worthlessness of the people
77 Schneider, Shame, 22.

79 Martin J. Buss, "Selfhood and Biblical Eschatology," ZAW100 (1988): 217.
80 Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology (trans. Hazel E.
Barnes; New York: The Philosophical Library, 1956), 221-222, as cited in Schneider, Shame,
25.
82 Shame does not involve a complete break with the object of shame that disgust and
contempt imply (Schneider, Shame, 25). Fowler acknowledges the possibility of contempt in
the shame experience (Fowler, Faithful Change, 92).
83 Of the three instances of Bip, two function similarly to KHD and d S s in that Yahweh
announces that after he has acted the people will loathe their past selves (6:9; 20:43). The
other instance appears in parallel to and ü S d (36:31-32).
84 Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, 190. Greenberg also notes the connection between self-loathing and
shame (Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20, 306). Shame is a dominant theme in the early part of the
book as well, especially in some of Ezekiel's sign-acts.
is a dominant theme, that shame language would also participate in evoking

feelings of worthlessness.85 Shame as a feeling of worthlessness derives from an
acute recognition that one is exposed to the gaze of others. Yet this sense of
worthlessness, at least for Ezekiel if not in the view of modern psychology, can
lead to the creation of a new self based on a more accurate self-understanding.
It is difficult at first to see how the anthropological and the psychological
approaches to shame relate to one another. Psychology presupposes that feeling
shame in some form is a universal human experience. Yet, anthropologists are
concerned only with those particular cultures which are socially organized by an
honor/shame dichotomy. Are there points of intersection between these
perspectives?80 Obviously, one would look for connections in those cultures
where both types of analysis are possible, namely, in honor/shame-based
societies. If psychologists are correct that a private feeling of shame is common
to human beings,87 then this private, internal experience of shame must underlie
honor/shame based societies (like Ezekiel's). This aspect of shame does not
appear in the social anthropological literature because it is methodologically out
of range, and because it is often not necessary to understand the socicil dynamics
of honor and shame. But this does not mean that it does not exist or is not
relevant in certain contexts. Ezekiel is one of those places where a combination
of social anthropological and psychological approaches best illumines the
function of shame. Yet because of Ezekiel's concern for the people's private
experience of shame, it is the latter that will be most effective in discerning what
he is doing with shame.
B. Shame: Memory And Self-Loathing
Turning back to specific Ezekielian texts, it will be useful to revisit the

discussion of 6:9-10 begun above regarding the relation between the language
85 Margaret Odell argues against an understanding of shame as connoting worthlessness in

Ezekiel. In her article on shame language in Ezekiel 16, she prefers the more anthropological
"loss of status" sense discussed at the beginning of the shame discussion. Her argument will
be treated more fully in the discussion of chapter 16 below (Odell, "Shame and
Forgiveness," 105).
86 I suspect that this is partly what underlies Unni Wikan's critique of anthropologists'
treatment of shame (though she does not say this). While still within an anthropological
framework, she is dismayed by the lack of attention to the "processes" of shame (Wikan,
"Shame and Honour A Contestable Pair," 638).
87 "Shame is one of a limited number of neurophysiological affects with which we are bom"
(Fowler, Faithful Change, 93). This is the unreflected type of shame as raw experience; the
interpretation of the experience comes later in development.
of memory and the knowledge of God. Earlier it was noted that the language of
memory in this passage ("they will remember me among the nations") is linked
to the knowledge of G o d that the people presently lack but will possess in the
future. But in that discussion the end of verse 9 was passed over, and now it
must be considered. The whole verse reads:
Those among you who escape will remember me among the nations when they are carried
into captivity, when I have broken their whoring heart88 (which has turned from me), and
their eyes which whore after their idols, and they will loathe themselves (ΒΓΓ333 líipJI 89 )
for the evil things which they have done, regarding all their abominations (6:9).
This provides the first occurrence in the book of a sequence of events that leads
f r o m the people's ignorance/lack of memory to a knowledge of themselves and
of God. The first element in the series is Yahweh's action, which in this case is
represented by the departure into captivity and the breaking of the heart and
eyes. Only after Yahweh has acted will the people "remember" and "know"
Yahweh (v.10), and it is also only at this point in the future that they will look
back upon their past, and hate themselves for what they have done. The
people's present view of their actions is apparently distorted in such a way that
they do not see them for what they are: loathsome. What distinguishes the past
from the future is an act of Yahweh that somehow removes the blinders from
the people's eyes regarding their own behavior. Once Yahweh has acted they
will be able to see their past actions as they really are—and feel ashamed of
them. 90
As earlier in the discussion of the prophetic call of ch. 33, a distinction must
be made between the time frame of the narrative (i.e., the text's internal time
frame) and the time frame of the composition of the book (in so far as we can
know this). Although the time envisioned for remembering and knowing
Yahweh is the future from the perspective of the narrative's time frame (the
present of the text is pre-fall, and the envisioned future is one of exile),
88 See note 48 above for discussion of this phrase.

89 The form appears as if from t5C3p.
90 Blenkinsopp notes the sequence of events: "[t]he surviving "remnant" in exile ... will
remember who their God is and finally acknowledge him through their sufferings. The
necessary precondition is a process of reflection on the past (remembering), which will lead
to self-knowledge (a loathing of the past self) and, finally, to acknowledgment of God and
his purposes (knowing)." But Blenkinsopp does not stress that human beings are incapable
of setting this sequence in motion of their own initiative. Instead he speaks of "existential
humility, an attitude that makes it possible to break with old habits and make a new
beginning" (Blenkinsopp, E^tkiel, 42).
presumably this "future" has become the present for Ezekiel's exilic audience.91
The fluidity of time perspective in Ezekiel has important ramifications for the
rhetorical strategy and effect of the book, and this will be taken up in the last
chapter. What is crucial for the discussion at present is that self-knowledge (by
means of shame and self-loathing) is always an event that occurs in the future
(from the perspective of the narrative time frame) and always follows God's action
in the future.
To return to another text discussed above: the revision of history in chapter
20. I argued that the chapter highlights the fact that the knowledge of Yahweh
was made available to the people, but that their whole history reflects a lack of
that knowledge. Now the end of that chapter (which was not considered in our
earlier discussion) must be addressed, to see what light it sheds on the issue of
human self-knowledge. In the eschatological vision that follows the new exodus
of judgment (the latter in w . 33—38), the people will come to the holy mountain
and be accepted by Yahweh, as they worship properly at last (v. 40). Yahweh
and the people will renew their relationship, and Yahweh will manifest his
holiness through the people (v. 41). Then, in v. 42, a summation of these events:
"Then you will know that I am Yahweh, when I bring you to the land of
Israel...." As elsewhere, knowledge will be acquired once Yahweh has acted to
bring it about; forgiveness precedes self-knowledge.
It is at this point, once they are returned to the land by the hand of Yahweh,
that the memory of the people will be activated: "You will remember there
(Dttí'DniDTl) your ways and all your evil deeds by which you defiled yourselves,
and you will loathe yourselves ( W i S S DntSpJI) on account of all your evil
actions which you have done" (v. 43). As in chapter 6, the people's deliverance
paradoxically entails painful revelations concerning their own past behavior. The
capacity to remember their actions as loathsome, to possess such devastating
clarity of self-perception, is the equivalent of a new moral self, capable of
making accurate moral assessments. In 16:45 the metaphorical
woman/Jerusalem is excoriated because she is like her mother and sisters who
loathed their husbands and children (strangely including, presumably, the
addressee) (PPJÏ) ΠΪΓΚ rbû'.I ΠΚ -]nK"rO, 16:45). The problem with the old self
is that loathing is misplaced. The new moral self envisioned in ch. 20, however,
redirects loathing toward its proper object, the people themselves. But this new
sense of self comes at the end of a series of divine acts of deliverance that began
91 Greenberg (among others) therefore sees an historical development in the way memory and
self-loathing are portrayed in the book: In 6:9 "Ezekiel still adheres to the pre-exilic notion
that punishment would humble the survivors and turn their hearts to God. The later
passages [16:61-63; 20:33—44; 36:31] reveal the prophet's growing realization that the
anticipated consequences of the catastrophe were beside the mark" (Greenberg, Ezekiel 1—
20, 141).
with Yahweh's gathering of the dispersed (v. 40). Davis articulates the
importance of the sequence in these verses:
Dante correctly perceived that the condition of radical separation from God—hell—is better
imaged by ice than by flames. Habituation to sin brings increasing immobilization, so that we
become finally unable to choose another course (cf. Jer. 13:23). Therefore, however just the
punishment of exile may be, that in itself cannot bring Israel to self-recognition and thus to
repentance. Only God's prior act of deliverance from the effects of sin makes it possible for
Israel to stand at some critical distance from its own conduct. 92
Again here, as in 6:10, the gift of human self-knowledge is linked to the gift of
knowledge of Yahweh ("Israel knows itself only vis a vis YHWH"93), which will
result from Yahweh's gracious salvific actions toward Israel (v. 44).
In chapter 36 another instance of self-knowledge acquired by God's gift of
painful memories presents itself, and here too it is found in the context of
Yahweh's acts of deliverance. In w . 26-27 Yahweh announces the gift of the
new heart and new spirit, by which he will make the people obey torah. The
consequences of a new moral self divinely given is spelled out in the verses that
follow: life in the land, relationship with Yahweh renewed, abundance (w. 28—
30). The restoration of memory follows: "You will remember your evil ways and
your deeds which were not good, and you will loathe yourselves on account of
your iniquities and your abominations" ( w ' p b r o i ΟΤΙΠ DSOTTOR 0ΓΠ3Τ1
Ds-maain Svi dsvuu? bu odos2 ontspji D'mtinò ι ώ κ , v. 31). As in the
previous texts where the people suddenly become aware of their past, their
"recovery" of memory and consequent self-loathing in this text appears only
after Yahweh has brought about a definitive change in the people's situation, in
this case through acts of deliverance.94
C. Shame: 2Í13 and dSs
1. Chapter 36
The other terms denoting shame in Ezekiel, ΐ?Ό and D^D, require analysis,
and since they appear in the passage just under discussion (36:26-32), it is
logical to begin there. Yahweh's plea in 36:32 (IT3 DD'riDTO^DHlTO13
92 Davis, Swallowing the Scroll, 115, emphasis added.

93 Davis, Swallowing the Scroll, 115.
94 Block notes the similarities among these three texts (6:9, 20:43, and 36:31). "All delusions of
nobility and every notion of privilege before Yahweh will be demolished. In their place will
be a recognition of utter worthlessness before Yahweh" (Block, E^tkiel 1-24,232).
*?Κ"12Γ) is that after the evil has been done, and after the people have been
restored to the land, they will look back and experience the painful, disorienting
revelation that Yahweh (and others) sees them quite differently than they see
themselves. They will be brought to a "new level of consciousness of the self."
In 36:32 it appears, therefore, that 2Í1D and d S d are concerned with disgrace-
shame. 95 The pre-deliverance people are apparently unable to feel shame, that is,
they do not have an acute sense of themselves and their actions as others see
them, and this is a moral failing in their character. In 39:26 a similar situation is
described: after Yahweh delivers the people (39:25), "they shall bear their
shame" (DÍIQ^S W l ; cf. 44:13)96. Again the text reiterates that this will only
occur "when the people dwell securely in the land" (ΠΒ21? DnDIK'bl) Drattía).
The sequence of events in these passages is therefore crucial: Yahweh acts to
deliver the people, and only then will it be possible for them to feel ashamed. (To
be sure, 36:32 does n o t say that they do feel ashamed, only that they are urged to
do so, but it is clear f r o m the rest of the book [esp. chs. 16 and 23, see below]
that they were previously incapable of it.) Though it may seem paradoxical, the
possibility of feeling shame is the result of a previous divine act of deliverance
(restoration to the land etc.).
The order of these events has posed a theological problem for generations of
interpreters. Odell notes that there have been essentially three scholarly
responses to the problem of shame as a consequence of grace: 1) ignoring the
problem, 2) rejecting the theology as inferior, and 3) touting it as a profound
understanding of the paradox of divine grace working amidst human feelings of
unworthiness. 97 As a recent example of this last, Block suggests that "the
experience of divine mercy drives true covenant people to their knees." 98 In a
similar, though less narrowly theological vein, Davis observes that the text is
95 There does not seem to be any major distinction in the meanings of tfn and DSS. They
appear in this verse together with no apparent difference in meaning, and the same appears
to be true in chapter 16, where they are used interchangeably (ttiO: 16:52, 63; DSD: 16:27,
54, 61). The two terms also appear together elsewhere in the HB (Jer. 14:3; 22:22; Isa. 41:11;
45:16, 17; Ps. 35:4, 69:7), apparently as parallel terms. Klopfenstein's study (Scham und
Schande) sees them as having distinct meanings at various stages of development, and
suggests that shame is a symptom of guilt, but his distinctions are not convincing and he
does not sufficiently distinguish between guilt and shame. Both Klopfenstein and Seebass
("ntüia tlíO" TDOT II, 5O-6O) note that shame becomes particularly prominent late in
Israelite history.
96 NRSV renders "they shall forget their shame" derived from Í12Í3. But this would sharply
contradict the sequence of deliverance followed by shame expressed elsewhere in Ezekiel
and must therefore be rejected. See 44:13 for an example where the text is clearly K2)J. More
likely the Κ has apocopated from K2J3.
97 For bibliography, see Odell, "Shame and Forgiveness," 102.
98 Block, Eivkiel 1-24, 658.
"one of the most p r o f o u n d biblical insights into the affective logic of

reconciliation." 99 Without evaluating its profundity, I want to emphasize the
connection between shame language and the larger issue in Ezekiel of h o w the
self is to be configured in such a way that it can function properly. T h e
connection is made by the sequence of events, which points to the creation of a new
moral identity that was impossible prior to the divine intervention.
T h e strange reversal concerning shame in Ezekiel's vision of restoration,
represented three times in chapter 36, deserves brief comment. When Yahweh
acts to restore the people to the land, he will also remove the shame (always noun
forms: HD^D HSU"!100) that the people have endured at the hands of the nations,
presumably inflicted at Yahweh's behest. "I will n o longer cause you to hear the
insult of the nations, neither will you continue to bear the reproach of the
peoples" (·η»- , κ(οη κ1? D ' a s n a n m c u r t ηη 1 ?^ ~na -ρ 1 ?* jpntíK-tói, 36:15;
cf. 34:29, 36:6, 7, 30). T h e removal of shame at the time of restoration is n o t an
u n c o m m o n biblical theme. 101 Yet if the goal of inflicting shame on the Israelites
is to get t h e m to feel ashamed and thus to instill a sense of shame in them, and
if the people are to feel ashamed after Yahweh acts to save them, and only because
he has saved them, then why do these texts state that shame is removed as part of
deliverance?
T h e answer seems to lie in the varying effects of disgrace-shame. If I feel
ashamed, the effects are potentially two-fold: I can painfully realize something
about myself, but that shame can be the occasion for others to insult me, which
is also painful, but does n o t lead me to new knowledge of myself. If I suddenly
realize that I have made a gross error in a public speech, f o r example, I do n o t
need anyone to say anything for me to feel ashamed (I suddenly realize I have
exposed myself as stupid or ill-informed, etc.). If people begin to point and
laugh, I have n o t gained anything in self-knowledge, but the pain of the
experience is increased significantly. This is the distinction mentioned above in
the excursus on shame between the public and private experiences of shame.
For Ezekiel, it is the private experience of shame that matters. T h e Israelites
need this solitary experience of shame, where one is aware of the gaze of the
Other, but the active participation of the Other is n o t required (this perhaps
explains the inefficacy of the escalating shame inflicted in chs. 16. and 23).
Yahweh thus promises to eliminate the insults of the nations occasioned by
Israel's shame, which serve n o didactic purpose, and worse yet in Ezekiel's view,

100 Π31Π appears in 5:14,15; 16:57; 21:33; 22:4. It seems to denote "reproach, disgrace, shame,
scorn, slander." 710*73 occurs in 16:52,54, 63; 32:24,25,30; 34:39; 39:26; 44:13, and denotes
"reproach, ignominy" (Huber, "Shame/Shaming," 44).
101 E.g., Joel 2:27, and see Simkins, '"Return to Yahweh': Honor and Shame in Joel," for
discussion.
bring dishonor to Yahweh. 102 The public dimension of shame is to be eliminated

in the restoration, a restoration of which the private, inner experience of shame
is a cardinal element.
In sum, for Ezekiel shame is not an inherent part of human identity, a
"given" of the human condition, but something bestowed from an external
source. But the inversion of conventional thinking about shame goes even
further: the very capacity to experience shame constitutes a salvific act by
Yahweh—it is a gift from God. This disgrace-shame is a gift from God because
it strips the people of their delusions about themselves, their old self
disintegrates, paving the way for the people's identity to be shaped in a new way
by the self-knowledge that results from the experience of shame. And this new
identity, in which the people see themselves as "they really are," i.e., as Yahweh
sees them, will ultimately lead to the restoration of their relationship with
Yahweh. 103
2. The Foundling (Reprise): Chester 16
The metaphor of the abandoned orphan in chapter 16 offers the most

extensive treatment of shame in Ezekiel. In Chapter 4 I looked at the
deterministic language in that chapter; it is appropriate now to examine the
chapter again, this time to see how shame functions, and to see whether the
hypothesis that Ezekiel is principally concerned with disgrace-shame is tenable.
The overarching problem of the Israelites, as it is depicted in the orphan
discourse, is that they engage in shameful acts which, shockingly, they do not
perceive as shameful. Recall that the prophetic task stated at the beginning of
the chapter is to "make known to Jerusalem her abominations" (v. 2), because
she does not presently know them. 104 The entire discourse is governed by the
fundamental problem that Jerusalem lacks self-understanding, and consequently
shame. How is this problem articulated and addressed in the text?
In order to underscore the shamelessness of Jerusalem, Ezekiel depicts
102 This effect of the shame experience is, I believe, what is meant when shame is understood as
a 'loss of status."
103 We are relentlessly reminded by the text that this gift of new identity from Yahweh is not for
the sake of the people, but for the sake of Yahweh's name (e.g., 36:32). Nonetheless,
Yahweh has to provide a new identity for the people in order to restore the relationship,
which in turn will do honor to the divine name.
104 Greenberg notes that "Jerusalem is oblivious to her shame" (Moshe Greenberg, "Ezekiel 16:
A Panorama of Passions," in Love and Death in the Andent Near East: Essays in Honor of Marvin
H. Pope [eds. John H. Marks and Robert M. Good; Guilford, CN: Four Quarters, 1 9 8 η ,
145).
groups traditionally thought to be morally suspect as more morally perceptive

than the Israelites. This strategy appears in the first occurrence of shame
language in chapter 16, where the Philistine women will feel ashamed of the
lewd m a n n e r o f the Israelites (rïlD^DJn D T i t t i Γ Π 3 2 -pmtOÍa tt>S32 "priKI
ΠΟΤ ~p~nn, v. 27). The Philistines, as despised enemies of the Israelites, are
traditionally considered contemptible, both morally and religiously. So it is with
bitter irony that they are depicted as ashamed of Israelite behavior: The moral
obligation to feel shame at such actions is ascribed not to the chosen ones of
Yahweh, but to those who normally are thought of as devoid of religious/moral
sensibilities (cf. 1 Cor 5:1). The contrast here could thus not be more sharp: the
Israelites' moral failure to feel ashamed of their actions is highlighted by the
Philistines' moral success at feeling ashamed of them. This is a standard
rhetorical device in this discourse: in w . 30—34 the woman/Jerusalem is worse
than other prostitutes, in 47—52 she is repeatedly described as more corrupt than
her sisters. In the case of the prostitutes, the woman's behavior is worse than
that of run-of-the-mill prostitutes because the latter are not so driven by their
lust that they pay their customers instead of the other way around (v. 34). The
frustration evident in the text seems to issue from the excessive lust of the
woman/Israel, and, one can infer from the text, from her lack of a sense of shame
concerning that lust. The problem is not simply that the woman does not feel
shame after her acts, she also does not have a sense of shame about future acts;
she is, in fact, shameless.105 Consequently, there is nothing to stop her from
pursuing more and more partners for her outrageous lusts (w. 26—29). In this
chapter, it appears that the woman lacks both discretion-shame and disgrace-
shame, a situation which has resulted in massive moral failure.106
What is the punishment for shamelessness? Paradoxically, it is to further
expose the woman to shame. Though she exposed herself to so many of her
own accord, and felt no shame in doing so, Yahweh decrees a punishment
wherein her former lovers will be gathered around to see her "nakedness"
(-¡rrnirbrrnK ι κ η DHSK -|rvni> Trb:n m o n -pba οηκ Txapi, v. 37b).
Having one's "nakedness uncovered" in the Hebrew Bible produces, or should
produce, the experience of shame, though, significandy, it has failed to do so for
105 The two types of shame are bound together by both the "generic core" of exposing what
should be covered, and the inextricable connection of cause and effect: possessing no
discretion-shame about future acts means experiencing no disgrace-shame after the fact, and
vice versa.
106 That and 0*73 can cover both kinds of shame is suggested not only by Ezek. 16 and 23,
but also by several passages in Jeremiah where discretion-shame is at stake. In Jer. 6:15
(repeated in 8:12), the leaders are indicted because "they did not feel ashamed, they did not
know shame" p-^Dn-QJ H a i m Ò ΙΙΠ"1 tÒ] (see also,Jer. 3:3).
the orphan. 107 Worse than this pornographic gaze, the gathered crowd will be
permitted to strip her physically, exposing her nakedness (TH33 i m « ICttísm
m s i B T « - p m m -¡mKBn "Sn inpbl, v. 39), and finally stoning her and
cutting her up (v. 40). What is the point o f further abandoning the orphan to
the shame-inducing experience o f exposure if she appears to be impervious to
its effects? One reason is stated in the text: this form o f punishment appeases
the jealousy and anger o f Yahweh (v. 42). Is it not also possible, though, that the
intensification of shameful experiences is a frustrated attempt to get the woman
to feel some shred o f shame for her conduct? Conceiving a scenario as shameful
as possible might be a last ditch effort to induce a sense o f shame in a shameless
woman. I f so, this rhetorical strategy would parallel the one noted in 20:25,
where the bad laws are given in the hope that the Israelites will reject them, thus
revealing a modicum o f moral goodness in their character. Michael Lewis may
provide some clue as to why this strategy fails. He argues that two types o f
events induce shame: "specific physical events (like exposure o f the genitals)
and those related to thoughts about the self." 108 Ezekiel is most concerned
about the latter, but he employs methods involving the former to arrive at his
desired goal, and this strategy fails.
A curious shift in the audience occurs between v. 40 and v. 41. Yahweh
announces that the woman/Jerusalem's houses will be burned by the mob, and
that "they will execute judgments against her in the sight of many women" (-p"lto1
man D'ró T i ò Quatti). This little detail indicates that the audience for the
woman's punishment has shifted from a male one (the gaze o f the former lovers
in v. 37) to a female one. 1 0 9 The text's attention to this detail demands careful
scrutiny. Intensifying the woman's exposure to a male audience would likely fail
to make her feel ashamed of her actions (failure seems inevitable given her
"insatiable lust"—why would she now find their gaze shame-inducing if it never
has been in the past?). But perhaps a female audience for her "nakedness" will
have the desired effect. In this scenario, other women are not sexual objects
from the woman's point o f view. She would ostensibly identify with them as a
peer group, unlike the men who are Other. The potential to feel ashamed o f her
sexual activities may be greater under the scrutiny o f a peer group than it is
under the gaze of her sexual partners. Thus, part o f the reason for the form of
107 There is general consensus that nakedness is a shame-inducing condition in the Bible. See
Klein, "Honor and Shame in Esther," 152; Olyan, "Honor, Shame, and Covenant
Relations," 217; Bechtel, "Shame as a Sanction of Social Control," 63-64.
108 Lewis, Shame, 35.
109 Although the mob, presumably a mostly male group, is still present, judging the woman.
Galambush suggests that the watching women "shared in the objectifying role of the male
spectators, identifying themselves with the community and its norms..." (Galambush,
Jerusalem in the Book of Ezekiel, 105-6, n. 45).
this particular punishment is an effort to bring the woman, who so clearly lacks
discretion-shame, to feel her disgrace-shame as acutely as possible. Presumably
the experience of disgrace-shame would generate a sense of shame concerning
future acts. Successful in placating Yahweh in his jealous wrath, this strategy
also proves to be a failure in inducing the woman to feel any shame for what she
has done, as shall be explored in more detail below (w. 53—54).
After this announcement of punishment, Jerusalem is unfavorably compared
to her "sisters," Sodom and Samaria, in order to highlight the depth of
Jerusalem's depravity (w. 44—52). Zimmerli observes that the comparison to
Sodom is "incomparably more offensive" than the one to Samaria, since Sodom
traditionally occupies the lowest point on the moral spectrum.110 For having
outdone her sisters, the woman/Jerusalem is exhorted to bear her shame at the
end of this section:
Yes, you, bear your shame, for you have interceded for your sisters—account of your sins
which you have made more abominable than theirs, they are more righteous than you! Yes,
you, be ashamed and bear your shame because you have made your sisters appear righteous
( T u p i a n p n n n a n m m - p n K t s r o - | m n t ò n S S s η ώ κ - ¡ n n ^ a ^ t o ηκ"03
- | η ν π κ - [ n p - i s n - j n n b D •'tùia η κ - ο : η - ρ η , v. 52).
Unlike the similar exhortation in 36:32 where Yahweh has already acted to save
the people, making the experience of shame a possibility, here the imperative
appears before any salvific divine action has been announced (punishment, of
course, was doled out in w . 35—43). Yahweh has not yet acted to create the
possibility for the people to be anything other than shameless. The imperative
appearing at this point does seem inconsistent with the sequence in ch. 36.
Yet, the next two verses, which mark the turning point toward deliverance,
clarify this very point. Yahweh decides to "restore [the] fortunes" (TO2)1
ρηΌΙίΓΠΚ, v. 53) of the three sisters for the purpose of indudng shame in them: "in
order that you may bear your shame and be ashamed of all you have done,
becoming a consolation to them" (n-tBS η m *7DD no*7Dr - [ Π η 1 » '«(an "¡IlKib
] m "[ΟΠ33, v. 54). This verse declares what was implicit in w . 35^43, namely
that the point of divine action, in this case an act of deliverance, is to make the
people feel ashamed of their past actions. Almost in passing, Davis notes that
shame plays an important rhetorical role in affording the people an accurate
sense of their past:
Although there is no possibility that the judgment will be reversed, nonetheless it is

necessary that Israel be brought to recognition of its own deserving (especially through the
110 Zimmerli, E^tkiel 1, 350.

lurid portraits of chs. 16 and 23). Only this recognition, more humiliating than the
destruction itself, can serve as the basis of a renewed relationship with YHWH....111
The experience of shame is a form of self-recognition, and thus of self-

knowledge. Furthermore, the intensification of shame within the metaphor
parallels the rhetorical goal of escalating the experience of shame within the
target audience. The woman in the text is not susceptible to the punishments
designed to induce shame, but the audience may well feel increasingly ashamed
(this topic will be taken up in the last chapter). The question of how the
restoration of the people's fortunes will result in their being capable of
experiencing shame for their actions is vague at this point. But it is clear that
Yahweh's deliverance of the people somehow opens the possibility of a new
moral identity for the people based on an appropriate sense of shame leading to
self-knowledge. "Ezekiel subjects his audience to the most stringent test of
moral maturity: whether they can be brought to pass judgment on
themselves." 112 In the post-restoration life they will have the capacity to see
themselves as Yahweh sees them, and be ashamed, and this new self-knowledge
will in turn create the possibility for a restored divine-human relationship.
This new moral identity may appear to be somewhat at odds with the effects
of the restoration as they are described in the next verse: the three sisters will all
return to their "former state" (]nmpb ρ ώ η , v. 55). It is left to the reader to
decide which "former state" of the sisters is indicated. The context of the whole
chapter suggests that this refers to the golden time after the young orphan has
been exquisitely adorned by Yahweh, but before she began to indulge her
"lusts." Yet the beautiful orphan had a character flaw in that ostensibly gilded
age: she soon exhibited behavior indicative of a lack of a sense of shame. This
suggests that the "former state" is not a reference to the orphan's (or sisters')
whole character, but to her physical beauty, which, in the logic of the metaphor,
is equivalent to the material condition of Jerusalem. A return to the former state
does not mean a return to former character, therefore; it means that the city
(and the people) will be restored to its former splendor, wealth, etc.113 To
underscore the disjunction between the old life of transgression and the new life
in restoration, Ezekiel reiterates at the end of this section that Jerusalem must
bear her lewdness and her abominations (v. 58).
Despite Jerusalem's history of failure and breaking of the covenant (v. 59),
Yahweh opts to renew relations with her by means of a covenant. "I will
remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth and I will establish

113 Zimmerli interprets the return to the former state as a general "cleansing and restoration"
(Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, 351).
with you an everlasting covenant" ("piM "[ΠΙΚ WIS'llK ,3K ΤΓΟΠ

1 114
D*71B n-na I ? TVinpm, v. 60). In contrast to Jerusalem who did not
remember "the days of her youth" (w. 22, 43), Yahweh does remember and
acts faithfully on that memory. Once the new covenant has been established,
then Jerusalem will remember her ways, and be ashamed ("psnTlR ΓΠ3Τ1
nnbsjl, v. 61). Where previously Jerusalem has exalted her sinful sisters by her
even more egregious transgressions, now Yahweh inverts the hierarchy, exalting
Jerusalem over her sisters, so that they become "daughters" to her (v. 61). Only
when the divine/human relationship has been restored, and Jerusalem is
returned to her "rightful" place, both by a unilateral divine action, will the
proverbial fog be cleared from the people's eyes so that they can see themselves
and their past as they are "in reality." From this new perspective, appropriate
feelings of shame inevitably will follow. The irony that Jerusalem must be exalted
over her sisters in order to feel ashamed of her actions should not, by the way, be
missed: we do not normally associate moments of triumph with experiences of
shame, but for Ezekiel, this is the hallmark of salvation. Because experiencing
appropriate shame is crucial for moral identity, this new self-knowledge will
constitute a new moral identity for the people. This entire process of
remembering and then feeling ashamed is impossible in their present moral
condition; their inability to remember and feel ashamed blinds them to the
truth, but Yahweh's action will change that definitively.
The end of the chapter creates a link between self-knowledge and knowledge
of Yahweh. The last two verses serve as a global summary of what has
preceded:
I will establish my covenant with you, and you will know that I am Yahweh, in order that
you may remember and be ashamed. And, in the face of your shame, you will no longer
open your mouth, when I purify you from all that you have done, says the Lord Yahweh
(τργρ kSi n a m -nam -¡do1? mrr o r - o n i m ηηκ w o t r o r • , mn , pm
mrp •'HR DR3 rrœu ntíR-^sb - i b - n a r a -]nnSs o b d na -pruna n u -¡b, w .
62-63).
The sequence of events must be carefully noted: a unilateral divine action (the
covenant established) leads to knowledge of Yahweh, which is crucial for the
people to come to a proper sense of themselves. The final clause, announcing
that what precedes will be the result of Yahweh's purification of the people, is
unusual. As Block observes, the verb ("133)
usually describes the ritual action a priest performs on a sacred object for the purpose of
decontaminating it of its impurity (cf. 43:20). Ezekiel's construction, with Yahweh as the
114 Whether this is a new covenant, or a re-establishment of an older one, is not clear. For a
discussion of the question see Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20, 291; Block, Ezekiel 1-24, 516-17.
subject and humans as objects, is rare in the OT.... No ritual acts, no priestly mediation, no
acts of penance are able to accomplish this purging; it may occur only through the gracious
intervention of Yahweh himself. 115
The structure of these verses is significant: Yahweh's divine action is both the
first element in the sentence construction (I will establish covenant), and the last
(I will purify from deeds). The resulting knowledge of God and knowledge of
self form the middle elements, surrounded by divine action. The people's
knowledge is always encompassed by divine action.
But a puzzling element in these verses has been thus far ignored: as a result
of this self-knowledge the people will be silenced. What is the significance of
this last consequence of possessing knowledge of God and knowledge of self?
In her article on shame in this passage, Odell works with the anthropological
understanding of shame as loss of status, and finds that the peculiar sequence of
forgiveness followed by the experience of shame in theses verses is "an
intentional manipulation of a ritual device used to deal with the experience of
shame." 116 In her view, Ezekiel's exilic audience already feels an overwhelming
sense of shame (i.e., the loss of status, abandonment by God) due to their
present predicament in exile. The people's opening their mouths on account of
their humiliation in v. 63 refers to a "formal petition to God—a complaint in
which the people call God to account for their experience of humiliation and
failure."117 Chapter 16 represents a rebuttal to this complaint, revealing it to be
without foundation. The silence, then, is the result of the people's realization,
based on the exposition in ch. 16, that they have no grounds for formal
complaint against God.
One of the difficulties of Odell's reading is, as noted above, that it is based
on an understanding of shame as loss of status without consideration for the
painful self-awareness entailed. The exilic audience may well have keenly felt its
loss of status, and been outraged at Yahweh over it, but these sentiments have
not resulted in self-awareness at any real depth. Sensing a loss of status does not
necessarily lead to self-awareness, to an understanding of one's own role in
failure. This is the problem of the exiled people. As far as Ezekiel is concerned,
115 Block, E^tkitl 1-24, 520. Block notes the other instances of this construction as Num. 35:33
(object is the land), Deut. 21:8 (of Yahweh's people Israel), Isa. 22:14 (Israel). Galambush
suggests that it refers to Yahweh's cleansing of the entire people, although she then states
that Yahweh is less offering forgiveness to the people than he is cleansing the holy place
(Galambush, Jerusalem in the Book of Ezekiel, 109).
116 Odell, "Shame and Forgiveness," 103. For Odell, the meaning of shame is not the traditional
psychological one: "...the expression of shame is the opposite of what we would consider
the feeling of unworthiness; rather, it is the expression of an individual's outrage that others
do not acknowledge and respond to his or her claims," (105).
117 Odell, "Shame and Forgiveness," 107.
the people are incapable of seeing themselves as Yahweh sees them, and thus of
accurately assessing themselves and their history. They have exposed and allied
themselves in inappropriate ways to others, and they appear to be ignorant of
how painful this has been for Yahweh, and how painful it should have been for
them. In short, they suffer from shamelessness. Ezekiel is concerned then, as a
rhetorical goal, to make sure that the experience of exile does result in the
experience of shame, which in turn, would lead to a sense of shame about future
actions.
To return to the meaning of the silence in this passage: Odell refers to
Wilson's argument that silence functions in Ezekiel to formally delimit divine—
human communication.118 Silence and speech are markers of Ezekiel's changing
role as intermediary between Yahweh and the people. But the people's silence in
16:63 is not just, as Odell suggests, "an analogous limitation of speech for the
people."119 Rather, as the syntax of the verse suggests, their silence is a direct
result of their sudden memories of their past, and the shame those memories
generate. The new self-knowledge that shame affords the people stymies any
impulse they may have to deny or rebut the charges against them, or, as
Greenberg argues, to assert themselves over their sisters (v. 56).120 This is not to
say that there is no link between Ezekiel's silence and the people's silence here.
His silence and passivity in the first part of the book, discussed earlier in this
chapter, foreshadows the silence and passivity that will be a hallmark of the
people's new identity in the second part of the book.121 The people's silence
here offers a hint of this new identity, forged by memory and shame, which is
explored more fully in chapters 37-48.
118 Odell, "Shame and Forgiveness," 106. Robert Wilson, "An Interpretation of Ezekiel's
Dumbness," VT22 (1972): 91-104.
119 Odell, "Shame and Forgiveness," 106. Odell argues that HD ρΠΓΒ refers to a "mouth
opening," a ritual of complaint performed in the cult. This suggestion is based on Mishnaic
evidence, as well as on the grammatical argument that the phrase Ό3Β does not
modify the entire sentence (the most common reading). The Mishnaic evidence is not
determinative and the grammatical point is unconvincing (contra Block who follows Odell,
Ezekiel 1-24, 519). Furthermore, the only other biblical occurrence of HD "ρΠΓΒ occurs in
Ezek. 29:21 where it refers to Ezekiel's proclaiming salvation to the exiles. The phrase
appears to have a general meaning of verbal speech. See J. M. Kennedy for another view,
namely, that Jerusalem will cease to have communication with idols (J. M. Kennedy,
"Hebrew Pithon Peh in the Book of Ezekiel," KT 41 [1991] 233-35).
121 Galambush sees the disappearance of the metaphorical woman as symbolized by her silence
here: "The restored city is faithful, but only because the elimination of the city's female
persona has made infidelity impossible" (Galambush, Jerusalem in the Book of Ezekiel, 148).
}. Oholah and Ohoiibah (Reprise): Chapter 23
N o n e of the Hebrew words for shame appears in chapter 23, yet shame
nonetheless figures prominently in this companion narrative to chapter 16.122
Shame first appears in the passage when the foreign lovers are said to have
"uncovered the nakedness" of Oholah/Samaria (ΠΠΠΰ 1*73 ΠΕΠ, v. 10)
presumably a public shaming experience that would normally lead to an internal
experience of shame. T h e narrative affords her little time to respond, as she is
promptly killed by those same lovers (Assyrians). But her real function vis-a-vis
shame in this passage is not to experience it herself (it is the other sister who is
the focus here), but to serve as a means for her sister to feel shame. So after her
death she becomes a "name to w o m e n " DÌTTtrvi), or, as the NRSV
translates (with LXX), a "byword." As I mentioned above in connection with
chapter 16, the reference to other women in a discourse on shame is not
fortuitous. There the goal was to make the woman more susceptible to feelings
of shame by exposing her to a female audience, with which she would
presumably identify. Here the goal is reversed: her example of shameful
behavior (and consequent punishment) serves to reinforce the social value of
shame among other women (cf. v. 48).
In the next verse it is revealed that Ohoiibah/Jerusalem is one of these
women, but in her case the lesson does not take: "Her sister Ohoiibah saw this,
but her lusts were more corrupt than hers, and her whorings more corrupt than
the whorings of her sister" ("πκι non?: nriDjr nnïim m-SriK ηηιπκ K~im
ηηΐΠΚ ,313Tí3 ΓΤΊΠίΤη, v. 11). Predictably, Ohoiibah has no reaction of shame to
what she has seen; on the contrary, her shameful acts are worse than her sister's
(though patterned on them 123 ). Thus begins a cycle of actions that should
induce ever increasing feelings of shame in Ohoiibah, but which consistently
fails to do so. Moreover, a series of shifts in perspective, marked by the verb "to
see" (ΠΚ1) begins in this verse with Oholibah's skewed interpretation of her
sister's life and death. After Ohoiibah has her own interlude with the Assyrians
in v. 12, the perspective shifts to the divine viewpoint: "I saw that she was
defiled" (KOtiJ O K~iK"l, v. 13). This, of course, is the correct assessment of the
situation; Yahweh sees the shame that Ohoiibah does not.
In keeping with the pattern of intensifying transgression, Ohoiibah adds to
her already numerous whorings (v. 14). Then a depiction of the Chaldeans
122 Chapter 23 is more focused on political alliances, whereas ch. 16 fluctuates between cultic
and political transgressions. For the possible historico-political references see Zimmerli and
Greenberg.
123 Block notes in detail the parallels between Oholah and Oholibah's actions (Block, Eêkiel 1-
24, 743-44).
carved upon the wall is described, although the presentation is not entirely
neutral. There is a hint of free indirect discourse, that is, without explicitly
noting a shift out of the third person "impersonal" narrator, we see the carved
Chaldeans as Oholibah sees them (K~IJV) again in v. 14)—as dashing soldiers with
"flowing" (ΤΡΙΟ) turbans and weighty belts around their waists.124 The contrast
between the dynamic movement of the "flowing" turbans and the fact that the
images are completely static, carved in stone, further suggests the chasm
between Oholibah's perspective, and reality.125 That Oholibah's way of seeing the
world is central to her problem is underscored in the following verse by an
unusual construction, literally: "She lusted after them with respect to the sight of
her eyes" (ΠΤΰ ΠΚηη1? ΟΠ^ΰ aîJ«ïl, v. 16). Her egregious actions thus stem
from her distorted view of the world and her place in it.
After the Chaldeans have defiled her by their whorings, and she has become
defiled by them, Oholibah "tore herself away from them [the Chaldeans]," (Upm
nnn ΠΪΪΜ, v. 17). The NRSV renders this, "she turned from them in disgust,"
which may imply that she had some self-awareness concerning the
consequences of her behavior, and perhaps even felt ashamed.1261 do not think
that this is the case. Nowhere does the verb Up1' denote "disgust." Rather it
literally means "to dislocate, tear away," and more should not be read into it.127
This means, of course, that no longer is there an embedded motive for her
"tearing away" from her lovers (though the possibility that contempt is involved
should not be ruled out). But the point of this clause is only understood in light
of its presence in the next verse, where Yahweh tears himself away from her,
just as he had severed himself ('©SI ni)p3)128 from her sister. The repetition of
up* is designed to show, with some rhetorical efficacy, that just as Oholibah can
124 The free indirect discourse is even more prominent in v. 12: "She lusted after the Assyrians,
governors and prefects, officers clothed to perfection, charioteers, riders of horses, desirable,
choice men, all of them." The gaze that sees these men as "desirable" and "clothed to
perfection" is clearly Oholibah's, not the narrator's. For a more detailed discussion of "gaze"
in this chapter, see Galambush, Jerusalem in the Book ofEzekiel, 115-16.
125 Besides noting that it is difficult to imagine where Oholibah would see carved figures of
Babylonians in Jerusalem (it perhaps reflects Ezekiel's view more than a Jerusalemite one),
Greenberg further observes that the arousal of Oholibah's lust by carved images reveals the
problem to be escalating, since it had been real people (Assyrians) who aroused her earlier
(Greenberg, Ertici 21-37, 478).
126 ""...she was filled with revulsion at this immoral affair...." (Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, 487). For a
similar view see also Greenberg, Ezekiel 21—37,479.
127 It is used to describe Jacob's hip being dislocated in Gen. 32:26, and appears in Jer. 6:8 in a
similar context to the one here. The Arabic cognate means to fall, fall down, etc.
128 Up3 does seem to be a parallel term for IJp\ The former appears to mean, literally, "to be
severed" (cognates support this meaning). Up3 appears again in v. 22, "the ones from whom
you severed yourself."
abandon her lovers, so can Yahweh abandon his, namely Oholibah. Yahweh
may well be acting out of disgust, but his motivation is derived from the
preceding clause ("she revealed her whorings and she revealed her nakedness,"
v. 18), not the verb Bp\ Some indication of Oholibah's motivation appears in v.
28: "I am about to give you into the hand of those whom you hate, into the
hand of those from whom you have severed yourself' (n*Oíí! τ a "]3Π3 "33Π
ΟΠΟ "|BÎDJ ΠυρηώΚ T a ) . This clarifies Oholibah's motivation in rejecting her
lovers, but her hatred of her lovers remains an outer-directed emotion. Loathing
them does not suggest that she has gained any understanding of herself (through
disgust at herself, shame, etc.). Finally, v. 19 confirms that the pattern
established in v. 11 continues: she multiplies her whorings (v. 19), underscoring
the fact that Oholibah has not gained any insight from her rejection of the
Chaldeans. The escalation distinctly demonstrates how contrary to expectation
her behavior is: instead of feeling ashamed, she instead increases her shameful
behavior.
As in chapter 16, the punishment for these behaviors involves further
exposing Oholibah to shame. She will be stripped and left naked and bare ( w .
26, 29), so that the nakedness of her whorings will be exposed in the presence
of, and in fact by the hand of, her former lovers (v. 29).129 Exposure of this kind
would, under normal circumstances, induce shame in the victim. That shame is
a goal of the punishments is confirmed in v. 32 when Jerusalem will drink of the
cup of Samaria and be subjected to scornful laughter and derision (ρπ:0 Π ΤΙ Π
W ^ l ) . In a sense the punishment fits the crime in that shamelessness is to be
punished by shaming, but the paradox, which I noted above in the discussion of
chapter 16, is that more shameful experiences are hardly likely to induce shame
in Oholibah when her shamelessness is precisely the problem. Again, conceiving
a scenario as shameful as possible might be a final attempt to force this
shameless woman to feel ashamed, and thus to see herself as Yahweh sees her.
Yahweh's command to Ezekiel to tell the sisters of their abominations (v. 36)
emphasizes that self-knowledge is at stake. Nonetheless, as elsewhere (16:59-63
36:31-32), ultimately Ezekiel seems to believe that the people will only come to
this shame-as-self-knowledge through divine initiative alone, that is, when
Yahweh has acted to restore the people. The public sanction of shame does not
in this case result in a private experience of shame; only divine salvific action
will induce shame.
129 The "straightforward" physical brutality (removal of nose and ears, killing of offspring,
general terrorizing) can also be shame-inducing, although the extreme degree of brutality
may simply be seen as symptomatic of the frustration at the woman's failure to come to any
self-awareness.
4. 'Rhetorical Implications
In that he has chosen to metaphorize Israel as a woman, it is not surprising

in chapters 16 and 23 to find Ezekiel employing, by way of a standard, a
"feminine" construction of shame as positive value (discretion-shame),
consisting of distinctively female behaviors and attitudes. But how does he make
the rhetorical move from speaking about women's shame in the metaphor to
instilling shame in his mixed audience? In other words, how are we to
understand a "feminine" construction of shame as it is applied to the whole
people? First, the desired experience of shame (disgrace-shame) is the same for
both addressees (the women and the whole people). Ezekiel's goal is for the
target audience to identify with the women in the metaphors, and thus recognize
that they have not evaluated their own past correctly.130 They will also realize
that when God acts to restore them (establish a covenant, return to the land),
they should feel ashamed because God has declared that they mil feel ashamed.
The people's experience of shame is not contingent; it is a result of God's acts
of restoration and is therefore not something within their own control. This can
have a rhetorically powerful effect: the people have only to claim an identity that
is already theirs.
But what about the content of this feminine shame? Here too, there is
correspondence between the shame in the metaphor and the desired shame of
the people. Ezekiel wants the people to experience a feminine kind of shame
about their conduct vis-à-vis Yahweh. They have been unfaithful, immodest,
and disrespectful of authority (Yahweh) in their political alliances and religious
practices. The literal shameful practices of the metaphors are metaphorical
shameful practices for the people.131 In their feeling this kind of shame
(disgrace-shame), the people can move to possessing a sense of shame
(discretion-shame). But, as was noted in the Excursus on Shame above,
discretion-shame is most often reserved for women. So even though Ezekiel
assumes a male audience (a mixed audience is a male audience by default), the
respectful, reserved self that he envisions possesses a feminine type of
discretion-shame in its relations with Yahweh.
130 Corinne Patton, in her response to Mary Shields' paper at the 1998 Annual Meeting of the
SBL ("Gender and Violence in Ezekiel 23"), also argues for a "feminization" of Ezekiel's
audience in ch. 23, possibly related to historical emasculating atrocities suffered by Israelite
men at the time of the exile. Similarly, Susan Komionkowski argues that the male Judean
audience of ch. 16 experiences a gender crisis brought on by emasculating experiences of the
exile (Susan Komionkowski, "Breaking through the Binaries: A Case Study in Ezekiel 16,"
paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the SBL, Orlando, Nov. 23,1998).
131 Galambush notes a related phenomenon, in which "the (male) people have behaved Tike' a
menstruant" (Galambush, Jerusalem in the Book of Ezekiel, 147).
III. Conclusion
In the previous chapter I argued that in certain passages, (which include

chapters 16, 20, and 23—so peculiarly E2ekielian in their composition and
content), human moral identity is no longer depicted as finding its origin within
humans themselves. Moreover, other passages (e.g., chs. 11, 36) complete the
picture by suggesting that the ability to make moral choices resides in God, to
be bestowed upon humanity as a divine gift. N o t surprisingly, it is in many of
these same chapters that the shift in the form of moral selfhood is perceptible.
Where right actions constituted morality in some texts (e.g., 3,18, 33), following
the dominant model, elsewhere action recedes in importance, replaced by a
stress on knowledge. Knowledge of God, gained by witnessing and
"remembering" God's acts, and knowledge of self, gained by "remembering"
one's own acts and feeling ashamed, together form the basis of the human being
as successful moral self. In the Bible, knowledge of G o d and knowledge of self,
while distinct in many ways, are inextricably bound together—one is impossible
without the other.
Why does knowledge supercede action as the basis for moral identity?
Human action has proven to be at the root of Israel's history of failure, and so
great is Ezekiel's pessimism regarding that history that he replaces human action
with something more reliable, the consequences of which are less likely to lead
to disaster: knowledge, which for Ezekiel is always theocentric knowledge. In
keeping with what I argued in the previous chapter, namely, that human moral
identity resides exclusively within Yahweh's provenance, both types of
knowledge that will serve as the foundation of that identity are impossible
without a divine act of deliverance. This future-oriented vision of a human
moral identity based on knowledge will therefore only be realized
eschatologically through God's unilateral decision to make it so. Yet Ezekiel's
rhetorical goal is to instill a sense of hope in his audience, but not a hope based
on what he sees as a flawed model of human moral potential. The dominant
model of the virtuous moral self has failed to negotiate history, so the future
must be founded on a more "realistic" model, which transfers all moral power
to God, who in turn bestows it on the people. Of course what I have examined
in this chapter does not demonstrate a complete shift to this new model, but
rather reflects an alternative to the dominant model present in, for example,
chapters 3, 14, 18, 33, etc. The presence of both models interspersed
throughout the first 36 chapters suggests that Ezekiel is vacillating principally
between two models of the moral self, the traditional one and the innovative
one he is exploring in the passages considered here. The next chapter will
consider how this vacillation plays out in the last part of the book (chs. 36—48),
and what kind of human moral identity Ezekiel is proposing in his ideal future.
Chapter 6: The Shift in the Origin and Form of Selfhood
and the Portrait of Human Beings in the Restoration
Chapters (Chapters 36-48)
Thus far the evidence of Ezekiel has suggested that out of the apparent
tension between competing understandings of moral selfhood in the book, a
subtle but significant shift is emerging. The traditional view of virtuous moral
selfhood begins to recede in favor of a conception of moral identity as external
to human beings (in its source) and as constituted by forms of knowledge. The
evidence of this shift continues in chapters 36—48 where human beings are
created anew by Yahweh, and in that new creation are depicted as almost
entirely passive: human action is not the primary component of the new
identity. The shift in the origin of moral selfhood is detectable in chapters 36—37
in that Yahweh creates a new humanity with a new identity; this new human self
is thus the product of a unilateral divine action. The shift in the form of moral
selfhood can be seen in the passivity of the human characters throughout
chapters 36—48, and in the corresponding emphasis on knowledge as central to
human identity.
This chapter will be divided into three major sections. The first will deal with
the divine origin of the new identity and the resulting wane of human action. In
this regard we will look at chapter 36 where the people are multiplied by
Yahweh like sheep ( w . 37-38; cf. ch. 34), and Yahweh is the subject of almost
all action. Likewise in the Gog chapters, the people are almost completely
passive (which one would expect in proto-apocalyptic material). They are
described as "the quiet ones" (Cíipttín 38:11), but they will know that Yahweh is
Yahweh (39:22). The second major section will address the ways in which
knowledge in these last chapters manifests itself as the primary component of
the new self. In the final temple vision, the centrality of knowledge is
underscored as the role of the human characters is largely limited to witnessing,
and to telling others what they have witnessed. 1 This has been the prophetic role
from the beginning of the book, of course (as we saw in ch. 5), and now
characterizes the people in these last chapters (see 40:4, 44:5—6, 47:6). The
importance of knowledge is also apparent in the role of the priests, in shame
1 For a redaction critical and traditio-historical approach to Ezekiel's vision of the future, see
Stefan Ohnesorge, Jahwe gestaltet sein Volk neu: Zur Sicht der Zukunft Israels nach 11:14—21;
20, 1-44; 36, 16-38; 37, 1-14.15-28 (FB 64; Wurzburg: Echter, 1991).
language (again), and in the sinfulness of ignorance. All of this suggests that
what the people need in this new vision is knowledge, of the temple torah and of
their space in it, knowledge that will prevent them from acting improperly and
thus precipitating further calamity. Yet action is not completely eliminated from
the new moral self, and the last section will deal with action as a significant, but
nonetheless secondary, consequence of the new identity.
I. Divine Re-Creation and the Waning Of Action (Chapters 36—39)
A. New Land for A New People: Chapter 36
Throughout the parts of Ezekiel where judgment against Israel is the

dominant theme (primarily chs. 1-24), we have seen hints of the new moral
identity that Ezekiel is trying to articulate in his vision of the future. But we
have not thus far seen how this transformation is to be effected. How will the
people come by this new identity? The problem of an inadequate moral self is a
serious one, and the solution envisioned must be commensurate with this
severity. And so Ezekiel presents a truly radical solution: in chapters 36 and 37,
both the earth and the people are recreated. Employing creation language to
imagine the future is, of course, common in the exilic period. Raitt observes that
one of the distinguishing marks of eschatological literature is its emphasis on
Yahweh as creator. Furthermore, and especially germane to our discussion, is
his observation that God improves upon human nature in exilic prophetic
eschatology.
It is the shift from the arena of history to the arena of nature and a fundamental
improvement in nature which calls attention to itself as an eschatological act... And, I would
suggest that the ultimate resolution to the theodicy articulated in the depths of Jeremiah's
and Ezekiel's judgment message is the new historical possibilities which God creates in his
eschatological intervention by further perfecting his original fashioning of human nature.2
Raitt's observation is on target, yet I would modify his general statement as it

applies to Ezekiel: the prophet is not "further perfecting" human nature, but is
utterly rejecting the old nature in favor of a complete overhaul. Furthermore,
Raitt groups Ezekiel and Jeremiah together on this issue, but I have already
made clear that I believe there is a distinguishing difference in their views of
human nature. As I argued above in chapter three, Jeremiah is not nearly as
gloomy about human nature as Ezekiel is, with the result that the contrast
between Ezekiel's human portraits (irredeemably corrupt old self vs. divinely
2 Raitt, A Theology of Exile, 216-17.

The Shift in the Restoration Chapters 161
created new self) is much starker than in Jeremiah. Additionally, Ezekiel's deep
pessimism leads him to devote more sustained energy to descriptions of human
re-creation than Jeremiah. 3 Second Isaiah also features abundant creation
imagery, of course, but he does not address the recreation of human beings with
the same emphasis and energy as Ezekiel; he concentrates on the creation as a
whole, and on specific historico-political events (e.g., Isa. 44:24—45:8).4 As the
vision in 37:1—14 reveals, Ezekiel is more preoccupied than his exilic colleagues
with the refashioning of Israel's inner being, and with describing a future that
has such creatures actually functioning in it.
1. 36:8-12s
Since there is general scholarly consensus that Ezekiel describes a complete

re-creation of human beings in chapters 36 and 37,1 will not spend a great deal
of time rehearsing all the arguments, but will rather highlight those aspects of
these chapters which are especially relevant to this discussion. Chapter 36 begins
by offering a promise of restoration to the mountains (to whom judgment was
announced in ch. 6), which in turn becomes a promise of restoration specifically
for the people. The form of that restoration is a renewal of creation,
distinctively marked by the use of language specifically associated with creation
in the priestly tradition. The mountains will send forth branches and will bear
fruit (v. 8a), a mixing of images that is less an agricultural error than a means of
expanding the promise of recreation to plants, which in turn enriches the
creation imagery with visions of fruitfulness.6 The reader is reminded of the
Garden of Eden, as Greenberg notes:
Two items of the Garden of Eden story come to mind: fruit-bearing trees, planted by God,
were readied for Adam before he was placed in the garden; and arboriculture preceded
3 In Ezekiel: chs. 11:19-20; ch. 36:9-38, 37:1-14. In Jeremiah: chs. 24:4-7; 31:31-34; 32:37-
41. The key difference is that Jeremiah's passages are isolated, whereas the sustained re-
creation imagery in Ezek. 36 and 37 forms the basis for Ezekiel's entire vision of the future,
including the temple vision.
4 Compare Isa. 43:20, where Yahweh forms the people for himself, to Ezekiel's vision in
37:1-14.
5 For an overview of the text critical issues involving chs. 36-40, see Block, Book of Ezekiel 25-
48, 337-43. With Block I assume the basic integrity of MT.
6 Most commentators divide 35:1-36:15 from what follows, linking the oracle against the
mountains of Edom with the oracle to the mountains of Israel. But the creation first of land
in 36:1-15 and then of people in 36:22-38 also links the two parts of the chapter together.
agriculture (Gen 2:5-16; 3:17-19). This accords with the relative importance of each in the
natural economy of the land.7
The similarities with the Garden of Eden story suggest that this is a new creative
act by Yahweh paralleling the first one. The next verse clarifies that just as the
old garden was created for Adam, so this land is renewed for the new Adam,
who will soon be returning (KinS imp Ό Skist -ni?1?, 8b).8
In keeping with Ezekiel's view of the depth of human depravity, the
statements in v. 9, "See now, I am for you, and I will turn to you," (OJH Ό
DD^tt ΤΠΒ1 DD,l7K), are unconditional declarative statements of fact, unlike the
similar promises in Leviticus 26:9 which are conditioned on Israel's ability to do
torah (Lev. 26:3): 9 "If you walk in my statutes..." (ΤηϋΐΤΠΚΙ laSn TiprtrrDK
DDK Drptoi vwtfn [Lev. 26:3]... nsriK " r m m osnK -rmsm m ^ k "mai
•2ΠΚ TT-Q-nK , nn , pm [v. 9]). For Ezekiel the future must be created without
human help. In this same verse (36:9), Yahweh proclaims to the mountains that
they will be tilled and sown DnJTlTJI ΒΓΠ3ΰ31, intensifying the vision of a lush,
abundant landscape. As in the priestly creation account, a rich and foliate land is
created in preparation for human occupation: "I will multiply human beings
upon you, the whole house of Israel, all of it" (rpa" 1 » DIN DS^Ü TTmm
n^D StOiC, v. 10a). This entails a divine act of recreation, but instead of
employing the verb from the priestly creation account used for the creation of
humankind (nto), here the deity "multiplies" the people. The active human role
of multiplying themselves in the first creation here is a function of Yahweh's
action; the people are completely passive.10 Moreover, Ezekiel stresses that it is
not just some of the people who will be remade, but the "whole house of
Israel"; this is a comprehensive new beginning. Connected to this emphasis on
humanity, the imagery shifts from the agricultural images of w . 8—9, to human
constructs, i.e., the rebuilding of civilization: the towns will be inhabited and the
waste places rebuilt (v. 10b).
Yahweh's role as proliferator of people, and now of cattle, is underscored in
the next verse (ΠΒΠ31 Β "IK Drrbr T r m m , v. 11). The last half of this verse
continues to depict Yahweh as the sole actor in the new creation: "I will cause

8 Dexter Callender has noted the "primal man" traditions behind Ezekiel's anthropology:
"The Significance and Use of Primal Man Traditions in Ancient Israel," (Ph.D. diss.,
Harvard University, 1995). Regarding Ezekiel in particular (esp. ch. 28), see idem, "The
Primal Man in Ezekiel and the Image of God," presented at the Annual Meeting of the
Society of Biblical Literature, Orlando, Nov. 23, 1998. For a contrasting view see James E.
Miller, "The Melek of Tyre (Ez. 2 8 , 1 1 - 1 9 ) , " Ζ Λ Ι Γ 1 0 5 (1994): 497-501.
9 Greenberg, E¡fkieÍ 21-37, 720.
10 Yahweh does promise, in connection with the covenant, to multiply the people in Gen. 17:2
and Lev. 26:9.
you to be inhabited as you were formerly, and I will make you better than you
were at first, and you will know that I am Yahweh" (DDTTimpD 02ΠΚ ΤΰϊήΠΊ
m¡T ^K-'D ΟΠΰΤΊ DDTIIDK-in Tiatsm).11 Two specific references to the past
(bSYlimpa and MTltítClD) indicate that this restoration is to be compared to
the previous situation in Israel. Moreover, the second reference to the past
(DDTIÎÎKIO Viatsm) suggests that this creative act of Yahweh's, with newly
multiplied people in a freshly recreated and fruitful land, will be better than the
first divine act of creation.12 That Ezekiel cherishes the hope that the new reality
will be better than the old one should not be surprising given his dismay over
the moral performance of human beings in their previous incarnation. The
emphasis on Yahweh as the unique actor in the drama of this new creation
continues in the next verse, where Yahweh will cause human beings, i.e., Israel,
to walk upon the mountains (SkKD"' 'Όΐτηκ D1K D3,L?B ToSim, v. 12). The
LXX apparently reads the first word as TTÒim (γεννήσω), intensifying the
impression that Yahweh is recreating humanity from scratch.13
2. 36:13-21
The next section returns to the theme announced in w . 1-7, namely, that
Yahweh will no longer allow the surrounding nations to inflict toxic (and
therefore didactically useless) shame on Israel. This despite Israel's having
caused Yahweh shame throughout its history, presented in an abbreviated recap
in w . 16—21. Yahweh acts now to prevent the shaming of Israel not out of
concern for human feeling, but to defend the honor of the divine name (w. 22-
23). The private experience of shame that is intimately connected to human self-
knowledge (see ch. 5) has a positive effect on human identity, whereas public
11 In between the two halves of this verse are two favorite words from the priestly creation (in
reverse order): "they will multiply and be fruitful" fHSI O i l ) . Assigning the task of
multiplication to humans is not in keeping with the rest of the verse (or v. 10), and given
their absence in LXX, BHS correctly suggests that they are additions. Greenberg notes that
the reversal of the two terms "exemplifies late Biblical Hebrew's penchant for reversing
traditional pairs" citing A. Hurvitz, '"Diachronic Chiasm' in Biblical Hebrew," in Bible and
Jewish History (in Hebrew) (ed. Β. Uffenheimer, Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1971), 248-55
(Greenberg, Eqkiel 21-37,720).
12 Grammatically, the "you" in DDTHOKID ΤΟΒΓΠ appears to refer to the mountains, but I
believe the object suffix "slips" from its original referent, expanding its range to the land, the
people, the creation in general. Or, perhaps better stated, the mountains serve
synechdochically for the whole of Israel, people and land.
13 For Greenberg, causing the people to walk the land is a means of bringing them into
possession of it He finds LXX's "I will beget" "bizarre" and attributes it to "an erroneous
Voriagi' (Greenberg, Eêketl 21-37,721). It does not appear so bizarre in the context of the
need to radically re-make humanity.
shame is toxic not only to human identity, but also, and more importantly, to
the divine identity.
Especially notable in this section is the equation of Israel's ways to the
impurity of a menstruous woman (v. 17). The blood of women (which is
technically ritually but not morally defiling) is again associated with moral
failure, partly through the association with shed blood, and partly because of the
deep connection between women and moral failure. H o w is this problem of
total moral failure to be rectified in such a way that it cannot happen again?
H o w the people can avoid repeating the disastrous history recounted in ch. 20 is
the crucial issue for Ezekiel in chapters 36—48.14 If the people are incapable of
obedience, which, based on the evidence of chapters 1—24, Ezekiel strongly
suspects, then how can a future be envisioned in which Yahweh is not profaned
by Israel's moral failings? H o w can such a fundamental problem be fixed?
3. 36:22-34
T o correct this situation, Yahweh must begin from the beginning in creating
a people who will be capable of obedience. He intends to resanctify his holy
name by restoring Israel ( w . 22-32), and it is in this restoration that we see
further hints of a people endowed with a new identity and character. Ezekiel is
commanded to tell the people that a series of divine actions (note the long string
of first person verbs in 24—30) will create a new people. 15 First, the people will
be gathered f r o m exile and brought into their own land (v. 24), then Yahweh
will ritually clean them of defiling filth by means of cleansing water (Tip "IT
DDWKOB ΟΓΠΠΒΙ οηΊΠΒ CO D3 ,1 ?r, v. 25). This filth is b o t h ritual
(DDTTIKQB) and ethical (DDTmUi, v. 33). Unclear from this text is whether the
rmii? reflect the results of the people's moral incapacity (as is often the case
where ill) designates a type of sin16) or the actual condition of their moral
inability. Psalm 51:7 suggests that the latter is a possibility: "I was born in
iniquity" (TÒbin In a number of passages in Ezekiel an ambiguity
between these two prevails: "If you warn the wicked f r o m his way, to turn from
14 Zimmerli identifies this fear as the "hidden despondency" of the exiles. It is certainly the
thorny issue at the heart of Ezekiel's work (Zimmerli, Ezekiel2, 239).
15 Zimmerli sees three stages: purification by water to eliminate the old, gift of new heart and
new spirit, gift of Yahweh's spirit. For a brief comparison of these verses to Jer. 31 and Ps.
51 (and the New Testament), and their creating the possibility of spontaneous and voluntary
relationship with God through the bond of the covenant, see Heinrich Gross, "Der Mensch
als neues Geschöpf," in Der Weg Zum Menschen: Zurphilosophischen und theologschen Anthropologe
(R. Mosis and L. Ruppert, eds.; Freiburg: Herder, 1989), 98-109.
16 On the ethical nature of ΓΠ3117, see Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16,25. Greenberg calls the Π1Κ0Β
of v. 29 "defiling evil deeds" (Greenberg, Eêktel 24-37,731).
it, but he does not turn from his way, he will die i n / f o r his iniquity (1)122
m n - ) . . . " (33:9; cf. 3:18, 19; 18:17, 18; 33:8). ill? thus gestures both toward the
results of the people's actions (sin), and toward the source of those actions
(their moral incapacity).
Yahweh's purifying acts in these verses mimic the Day of Atonement ritual
in Leviticus 16. Just as the Day of Atonement rituals require no human effort
beyond fasting (repentance is not required, for example), so the emphasis here is
exclusively on Yahweh's actions. 17 The rites of purification described here recall
the foundling from ch. 16 who was born ritually unclean, a condition that
reflected her moral unfitness (see ch. 4). The filth associated with the people is
here removed by Yahweh, and by logical extension, their moral incapacity will
also be eradicated in the cleansing. With the old self eliminated, the way is clear
for a new self in its place.
I addressed w . 26-28 at the end of my fourth chapter, but there the
discussion centered on how the passage reflected the assumption of an
inherently defective human nature, whereas now the focus turns to Yahweh's
new creation of human nature in these verses. As in the first creation, a lush
environment is envisioned to sustain a new creature, but in this case the OIK
must be stripped of the old self (hence the language of purification and
cleansing, v. 25) and invested with a new self, instead of made f r o m the dust. It
is fitting that Ezekiel uses the language of ritual to symbolically recreate the
people, since he had envisioned the problem of their moral depravity with the
language of ritual. In chs. 16 and 23 the moral decrepitude of the people is
evoked by the ritually defiling blood of the menstruant. Here those impurities
are cleansed and thereby eradicated.
The language of the new heart and the new spirit most clearly reveals what is
at stake for Ezekiel: the internal recreation of the people. The language of the
heart transplant reveals the deep concern for a total transformation of the inner
life. The old heart was made of stone—an inappropriate substance for a human
organ. 18 The new heart will be of flesh, which is proper to human beings, as the
text itself emphasizes when it repeats "1(112: "I will remove the heart of stone from
yourflesh, and I will give you a heart offlesh." What belongs in flesh is flesh: the
heart will finally match the rest of the human body in its substance. A properly
human heart is one capable of obedience, yes, but it is more than this: a people
in possession of a divinely given human heart will take on a new moral identity,
17 Greenberg, Eapkiil 21—37, 730. "Evocation of the rituals of Lev 16 suggests that just as they
are effective in themselves (the people's role in the Day of Purgation is only to fast;
repentance is not called for), so God's purification of impenitent Israel takes effect without
Israel's volition" (738).
18 Greenberg sums this up nicely: "Implicit is the idea that presently Israel's inner nature is at
odds with its moral, creaturely frame" (Greenberg, Evgkiel 21-37, 730). See also Wevers,
Ezekiel, 274.
will possess "an inner core which is spiritually alive."19 The distinctly human
quality of the heart, mentioned in the previous paragraph, and the distinctly
divine origin of the heart make for a curious image. A heart truly human in
substance must be wholly divine in origin. Thus far this passage is virtually
identical with the one in 11:19-20. Yet here in 36:27 an additional element
appears: it is the spirit (or breath or wind) of Yahweh himself which will be
placed within the people, replacing their own "hopelessly corrupted" spirit. 20
"Spirit" (ΙΤΠ) in Ezekiel bears a multiplicity of meanings. Of the eight
semantic possibilities that Block lays out in his article on this topic, three are of
particular interest here: ΠΠ as animating agent, as agent of prophetic inspiration,
and as approximately synonymous with "mind." 21 Especially notable is the way
in which these categories of meaning, while distinct in some passages, overlay
one another in others, 22 creating a complex matrix of reverberating echoes. Let
us begin with ITTI as parallel to "mind": In 11:19 the new spirit, in parallel with
the "one heart," seems to offer a new mind (cf. 13:3), "the seat of the emotions,
the intellect and the will."23 This connotation is also present in 36:26,24 where
Yahweh again promises a new heart and a new spirit. Yet the gift of this new
mind (=new self), because it finds its source in Yahweh, will also animate the
people anew; it is an act of re-creation. 25 Where previously Yahweh gave life
(D^n ΠΟώί, Gen. 2:7),26 he now gives a new mind/spirit/self in order to avoid
further repetitions of Israel's history of failure. Yet Yahweh is not simply the
source of the new spirit; in 36:27 it is Yahmh's spirit (Tin) that will animate and
suffuse the people. In a sense, then, the people will receive the "mind" of God,
and this will motivate all their subsequent behavior, since they will then be
capable of keeping the torah (36:27b). Their actions will be determined by their
new identity, which in turn has been shaped by the "mind" of Yahweh.

20 Greenberg, Ezekiel 21-37, 730. See also Zimmerli, E?ektel2, 249; Allen, E^kiel 20^4-8,179.
21 Block distinguishes eight separate meanings for ΠΠ: wind, direction, side, agency of
conveyance, agency of animation, agency of inspiration, mind, and sign of divine ownership
(Block, "Prophet of the Spirit," 29).
22 Ezekiel 37:1-14 is particularly rich in this regard. See Werner Lemke, "life in the Present
and Hope for the Future," Interpretation 38 (1984) 179 and Michael V. Fox, "The Rhetoric of
Ezekiel's Vision of the Valley of the Bones," HUCA 51 (1980): 14-15.
23 Block, "Prophet of the Spirit," 43.
24 Contra Block, "Prophet of the Spirit," 39. Block sees 11:19 as reflecting this meaning (45),
but not 36:26. For Block, the latter text reflects the agency of animation (39). The two are
not mutually exclusive.
25 This is Block's interpretation of ΓΤΠ in 36:26, which he argues based on 36:27 where the
spirit is expressly marked as Yahweh's.
26 Block notes the evidence linking this expression to the ΓΤΠ: Gen. 7:22, 2 Sam. 22:16, Job
34:14, Isa. 42:5; 57:16; Job 4:9; 27:3; 32:8; 33:4 (Block, "Prophet of the Spirit," 35).
This interpretation of ΓΤΠ is supported by the way it functions in terms of the

prophet's initial encounters with Yahweh. In 11:5a the ΠΠ of Yahweh falls upon
the prophet (ΓΠΓΡ m i " b v * 7 B m ) , suggesting that he is suffused with the
knowledge of God (unlike the false prophets in ch. 13 who "walk according to
their own ΓΤΠ and see nothing" [13:3]).27 In 2:2 a ΠΠ enters the prophet (cf.
3:24: the spirit of Yahweh, or simply a wind from Yahweh?) and stands him on
his feet, while Yahweh was speaking to him (^K "ΙΠ KÄÖ ΠΠ ' 3 Kam). This
animating ΓΤΠ is closely associated with the speech of Yahweh,28 the speech
which constitutes Ezekiel's intimate knowledge of Yahweh throughout the
book. Ezekiel functions as a prototype of the people (cf. ch. 5 above)—imbued
with the knowledge that they lack in the first sections of the book—and as the
ΠΠ bears knowledge of Yahweh to the prophet, so it will bear this same
knowledge to the people. Thus the declaration in 36:27, "I will set my ΓΤΠ within
them," resounds with echoes from other passages, evoking the knowledge of
God which fills and transforms Ezekiel, and promising to the people a similar
transformation of identity.
More agricultural creation language follows the formation of this new human
identity. Yahweh will call the grain into existence, then multiply it, along with
fruit and other produce, so that the nations will be unable to mock Israel on
account of famine (w. 29-30). Thus an appropriately abundant land is newly
minted for a newly created people,29 who will have distinctly new moral
attributes, including memory, self-loathing, and shame (w. 31—32), discussed
above in chapter 5. The refructification of the land continues: After again
asserting that the towns will be inhabited and the waste places rebuilt, Yahweh
announces that the land that had been desolate will be tilled (v. 33). While
employing the language of priestly creation (Π3Τ and ΉΕ etc.) Ezekiel goes
beyond the primitive life of the Edenic garden to invoke images of civilization
only hinted at in the first creation: tilling the land, building towns, etc.
4. 36:35-38
All of this renewal of the land is summed up in the reaction attributed to

future onlookers: "They will say: this land that was desolate is like the garden of
Eden; the devastated, desolate, and ruined towns are inhabited and fortified"
(nioinim mnaJam mrinn o n u m p i r p nrrn η η ώ π i ò n ρ κ π πηκι
27 Block argues for understanding ΠΠ as prophetic agency of inspiration based primarily on

ch. 13 (Block, "Prophet of the Spirit," 4 1 ^ 3 ) .
28 Block, "Prophet of the Spirit," 41.
29 Zimmerli suggests that the human obedience made possible by Yahweh is linked to the
condition of the land: internal and external life are intimately connected (Zimmerli, Ezekiel 2,
249).
Ό2Γ nwisa, v. 35). This verse offers a curious mix of images. In Israelite
tradition Eden was considered more a divine dwelling place than a human
paradise, although it increasingly became associated with the latter as time
passed.30 In any case, it is always outside of civilized human culture. Crucial for
understanding the simile here is the abundance and luxury of Eden (whether a
divine or human abode, it is associated with superabundant fertility; Heb. pi>,
"luxury, delight"). The land that Yahweh is creating for Israel is supremely
fertile, and hearkens back to that first garden where God and humans
communed together in harmony. Part of Ezekiel's vision of the future, the motif
of the edenic land is elaborated more fully in chs. 40-48 (where creation
imagery is also important). There, humanity will enjoy full communion with
Yahweh in a paradisiacal setting.31 The paradise envisioned in v. 35, however, is
unlike the first garden in an important way. This one must include towns and
other elements of civilization because history has brought the people to this
point—there is no returning to the first garden. 32 Yet by invoking the garden of
Eden Ezekiel aims to convey the idea that this is a divine act of creation of
similar magnitude to the one long ago.33 And as in that previous creative act,
Yahweh is the sole force behind these events; there is no room for human effort
(v. 36) ,34
Yahweh acts alone in recreating human beings in such a way that the
problems associated with the old self (manifest in the first part of the book) will
be purged, replaced by memory, self-loathing, and shame as the necessary
elements for a new moral identity. In this creation story, Yahweh assumes
control even of multiplying the people, a human task in the first creation story
(but cf. Gen 17:2 and Lev. 26:9).35 This is perhaps not very surprising given
Ezekiel's particular concern for the sovereignty of Yahweh, but this emphasis
on Yahweh's activity also testifies to another feature of human identity in the
new creation: the people are essentially passive. Beginning in ch. 34, where they
30 In Isa. 51:3, Ezek. 28:13, and 31:8-9, 16, 18, Eden is explicitly linked to the garden of God
or of Yahweh. In Gen. 13:10 the lush landscape of the plain of Jordan is compared to the
garden of Yahweh.
31 Jon Levenson explores the Eden traditions underlying chs. 40-48 in Theology of the Program of
Restoration of Ezekiel 40-48 (HSM 10; Missoula, MO: Scholars Press, 1976), 25-36. In a
similar vein, Susan Niditch sees parallels between the Genesis creation story (Gen. 1-11) and
Ezek. 40-48 (Niditch, "Ezekiel 40-48 in a Visionary Context," CBQ 48 [1986]: 208-24).
32 Niditch makes this point vis-à-vis chs. 40^(8: Ezekiel's paradise includes hierarchy and
social structure (Niditch, "Ezekiel 4 0 ^ 8 , " 220).
33 Contra Zimmerli, who asks rhetorically if mention of the garden of Eden is "intended to
bring a somewhat pagan local coloring into the language of the foreigner?" (Zimmerli,
E?ekiel 2, 250).
34 One exception is the human effort implied in the tilling and sowing announced by Yahweh.
35 I am not arguing for the priority of P. Rather, I assume that Ezekiel and Ρ borrowed from
common creation traditions, and shaped them for their own purposes.
are depicted as sheep vulnerable to the whims of incompetent shepherds, the

people are increasingly represented as passive.
The end of ch. 36 picks up on this image of the people as sheep: "I will
multiply them like a flock of humans" ( D " I K Ο Π Κ Γ Π Ί Κ , v. 37). Contrary
to former times (14:3, 20:30), Yahweh will now respond to the people, and this
promise to multiply the people constitutes that response. The image of
multiplying the people certainly conveys a sense of abundance: people, now but
a few, will be as numerous as sheep. These are not ordinary sheep, however:
They are holy, like the flocks of Jerusalem at festival time CttHp
m a m a D^tìTT, v. 38). Ezekiel applies to the spiritual condition of the people
what refers to the physical condition of sacrificial animals in the priestly
writings. The comparison is apt not because the people are to be sacrificed, but
because they are whole and complete, as sacrificial sheep are supposed to be. 36
The people are to be holy both because they are set apart (from 2Πρ), and
because their human nature is without the defects that plagued earlier
generations. This new sheep-like character is in stark contrast to the people's
previous identity which was deeply blemished by transgression. Because
Yahweh has multiplied them, the ruined cities will be filled with these flocks of
morally and spiritually defect-free, relatively passive humans. And when it
happens, they will know that Yahweh has done it (v. 38).
The prophet's thinking about human moral identity is powerfully shaped by
the priestly images and motifs that he has inherited. Just as he used the imagery
of ritual filth and cleansing to describe and to rectify the problem of human
moral identity (see above), Ezekiel again employs language from the ritual
sphere in order to reconstruct the moral identity o f the people. As the problem
of human depravity is symbolically conceived in ritual terms, so the solution is
also offered in those same terms.
B. The Risen Bones: 37:1-14
Ezekiel is arguably most famous for his description of the revivified dry
bones in chapter 37. The purpose of re-examining this episode here is to
consider it within the context o f Ezekiel's views o f moral identity, to ask how its
powerful imagery fits into Ezekiel's struggle to envision a future without a failed
moral self shackling the people to a repetition of their miserable history.
Immediately one realizes that this passage expands in great detail the concise
36 Some argue that the priestly writers are concerned that sacrificial sheep be "healthy" and
"normal," and thus not physically defective in any way, though "perfect" is overstating the
case (John H. Hayes in personal communication). For a different view, see Jacob Milgrom,
Leviticus 1-16 (AB 3; New York: Doubleday, 1991), 147.
promise of 36:26—27 (and 11:19-20) that the people will be made new by the
gift of a new heart and a new spirit, which in the chapter 36 version turns out to
be the spirit of Yahweh. In much the same way that the imagery in chapter 36
recalled other Israelite creation traditions, so chapter 37 also evokes God's first
creation of humankind: the spirit/breath/wind of Yahweh animates the human
creature.37
The form of the vision mirrors its content. This is no static image; rather, it
leaps across the imagination of the hearer in a dynamic movement.38 Four
elements of this movement are worth noting. First, the inadequacy of the old
self has led to its death. The description of the bones as "very dry" ("IKD msn*1,
v. 2), the people as "slain" (ΰΜΤΐΠ, v. 9), and Yahweh as bringing the people up
from their graves (DSTn-QpD 03ΠΚ Tpbun, v. 12; cf. v. 13) all make clear that
the old self is quite literally dead. Secondly, the importance of knowledge is
reiterated when Ezekiel announces that Yahweh possesses knowledge that he,
Ezekiel, does not have (v. 3). This helps to align Ezekiel with his audience,
which both lacks knowledge and is likely incredulous at the possibility of life for
these bones. Yet when the people are made new they will have the crucial
knowledge of Yahweh's identity (w. 6,13—14) and power. The rhetorical goal of
this whole vision, as in so many other places in Ezekiel, is to instill this
knowledge in the people. Thirdly, the new human creation is incomplete with
only the sinews, flesh, and skin; it requires a new spirit to give it life (w. 8-10).
And finally, as in 36:27, the spirit that gives life must come from Yahweh (v.
14), in keeping with the idea, negatively articulated in the "doom" chapters, that
human beings do not have it within themselves to regenerate; it must come
unilaterally from God. The inpouring of Yahweh's spirit transforms "a nation's
moral character and remoldfs] its psychology.... The promised rebirth will not be
merely a restoration of the nation to its former condition, but a fundamental
restructuring of the national psychology."39 Thus the implications of this vision
for the moral self are profound. The mistakes of the past will not be repeated
because the old self will be replaced by a new and improved self, filled with the
knowledge of Yahweh.
A further element of the vision deserves comment. I argued in chapter 5 that
Ezekiel's behavior makes him a prototype of the new identity that Yahweh is
offering to the people: their behavior will mirror his. As we saw, Ezekiel is
peculiarly passive as Israelite prophets go. He is lifted up and transported to
various locales so that he can witness certain events, mainly through visions
(chs. 1—3; 8—11; 40-48). The vision of dry bones offers further evidence of this.
37 On the parallels to the Genesis creation story, see Christopher R. Seitz, "Ezekiel 37:1-14,"
Interpretation 46 (1992): 53; Fox, "Rhetoric," 10; and Zimmerli, Ezekiel 2,257.
38 Fox, "Rhetoric," 10.
Ezekiel's task in this vision is to see it, and to tell (prophesy) what he is
commanded to relate (37:4, 7, 9,10,12). He participates minimally in the vision,
only when he is directed to prophesy specific words to the bones. Fox's
comments are especially germane in this regard: the writer's rhetorical strategy is
to align his perspective with that of his audience (the exiles), and symptomatic
of this strategy is the presentation of Ezekiel not as divine messenger (typical of
Israelite prophets), but as "an essentially passive spectator" to the events
described.40 Certainly his role of relaying to the bones what he is told to
prophesy is a crucial one, but his attitude is one of stunned incredulity (v. 3), in
keeping with the presumed attitude of his audience. Again the prophet's identity
presages the new human identity, and his conduct provides an example for his
audience. Because he shows no initiative, he is once again cast in a passive role,
yet the two things he does do, seeing and telling, are not negligible. Rather, they
are morally charged activities, in part because they are associated with ways of
knowing. Both seeing and telling will play especially important roles in the rest of
the book, as the new moral identity predicated on knowledge takes shape.
In sum: from chapters 36 and 37 we learn that the old self has died. Exile has
meant death for the self which could not function successfully due to its
inherent defects, as historical events have all too clearly proven. But the death of
the old self clears the way for the creation of the new self, which is given by
Yahweh, is animated by Yahweh's spirit, and recalls earlier Israelite creation
traditions. Central to the people's new self will be forms of knowledge,
knowledge of Yahweh and knowledge of themselves. This latter knowledge of
self will manifest itself as painfully acute memories of their former actions, and
the consequent shame those memories entail (36:31-32). Their own actions will
be subject more to the divine will (36:27, discussed below), and they will be less
prone to act on their own initiative (in this they will be more like sheep) than
they were in the past. Action thus recedes in importance as the primary
component of moral identity, replaced by an emphasis on knowledge. The
human self is constructed anew around an epistemologica! center.
C. Quietism in Chapters 38—39
Although the Gog pericope has been sharply distinguished from the rest of
Ezekiel by some scholars in the past, I wish to emphasize its continuity with
what precedes and follows it. Despite pronounced proto-apocalyptic elements,
40 Fox, "Rhetoric," 9. Contra Zimmerli {Ezekiel 2, 257) and Block (E^tkiel 25^f8, 372), who
emphasize Ezekiel's active participation in the vision. In my view, whether his behavior is
considered active or passive is less important than the form his participation takes (witnessing
and telling others what he has heard).
these chapters reflect a concern for Israel's restoration (albeit a two-part

restoration) in so far as it leads to both Israel's and the nations' knowledge of
Yahweh. 41 In this respect the Gog episode is in keeping with chs. 33-37 and 40—
48.42 In the depiction of Gog of Magog and his devastation of Israel and
subsequent defeat by Yahweh, three elements are of particular interest for
thinking about human identity. First, the Israelites are depicted as living a very
subdued and peaceful existence in the land. Indeed they are described as the
"quiet ones, living in safety, all of them" ntsab DTlpÖn, 38:11). From
related occurrences, CtSpttin seems to be in parallel with the notion of living in
a tranquil state of security.43 Cook notes the apocalyptic perspective here:
".. .Ezekiel and his group expected to play a passive role in the end times.. ..The
Ezekiel group—and Israel as a whole—would participate in the last days of
history basically in the role of spectators." 44 This depiction of the people as
placidly watching history unravel by the hand of Yahweh may be contrasted to
Ezekiel's portrayals of the people's previous history, when they themselves
raucously and dangerously made history (e.g., chs. 16, 20, 23). The people's new
disposition to trust Yahweh in quiet tranquility thus distinguishes them from
their old selves. On this day the people live quietly and safely, acting only when
the word of Yahweh compels them to do so, not on their own initiative (such as
burning weapons and burying enemies, 39:9, 12).
The second element of note in these chapters is the recurrence of shame
language at the end. In the final section (39:21—29), a truncated summation of
exile and return, 45 the first several verses (w. 21—24) give the reasons for exile,
followed by, beginning in v. 25, a description of the quality of life in the
41 For an overview of the arguments for and against understanding these chapters as
apocalyptic, and a defense of a more holistic reading lite the one I am espousing, see Block,
Ezekiel 25-48, 424—32. Stephen Cook sees these chapters as proto-apocalyptic, but also
wishes to stress the continuities between them and the rest of Ezekiel (Stephen L. Cook,
Prophecy and Apocalypticism: The Postexiüc Sodai Setting [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995]: 85-121).
For an in-depth critique of form critical readings, see Margaret S. Odell, '"Are You He of
Whom I Spoke by My Servants the Prophets?' Ezekiel 38-39 and the Problem of History in
the Neobabylonian Context" (Ph.D. diss., University of Pittsburg, 1988) 1-42.
42 See Cook, Prophecy and Apocalypticism, 98-108, for a list and discussion of continuities
between chs. 38-39 and the rest of the book of Ezekiel. Cook understands 39:21-29 as a
later addition, following most scholars, but as nonetheless intimately connected to the rest of
chs. 38-39 (117-21).
43 See Judg. 18:7, 27; 1 Chr. 4:40, Zech. 1:11.
44 Cook, Prophecy and Apocalyptiàsm, 111-12.
45 For a fuller discussion of the redactional issues surrounding this passage, see Daniel I. Block,
"Gog and the Pouring Out of the Spirit: Reflections on Ezekiel XXXIX 21-9," V T 37
(1987): 257-70.
restoration.'·6 It is a time of reconciliation: Yahweh will show mercy to the

whole house of Jacob, bringing it out of captivity (v. 25). But, as we have seen
before (in Chapter 5), this mercy paradoxically means that the people will
experience shame: "And they will bear their shame and all their unfaithful acts
which they perpetrated against me when they return to their land in safety"
(nun*? DnOTK-ba οηηΐή -a-óan ιώκ obtfD-SD-nto cinnbrrnK rár, v. 26) .47
In keeping with what I argued in ch. 5, feeling ashamed is part of the divine
restoration and mercy, and the people will only begin to experience their shame
once they are already back in the land. Thus one of the hallmarks of the new
identity of the restored people is the self-knowledge resulting from the shame
they experience.
Thirdly, the other piece of knowledge so crucial to the new human identity in
these chapters is the knowledge of Yahweh. To that end, the recognition
formula appears seven times in these two chapters—more densely here than
anywhere else48 —linking these chapters closely to the rest of the book. As
elsewhere in the book, the recognition formula reveals a concern for a moral,
spiritual, holistic kind of knowledge of God (as opposed to merely cognitive
knowledge). Both the nations and Israel will come to a knowledge of Yahweh
that will transform the way they understand themselves in relation to the deity
and to one another—it will be life-changing knowledge. Thus, a coherent
portrait of human beings is beginning to emerge from chs. 36-39. The people
newly created by Yahweh are rather docile and passive beings, whose sense of
identity and self is radically altered—for the better—by the on-going experience
of shame and the self-knowledge it entails, as well as by the knowledge of
Yahweh which suffuses them.
II. The Centrality of Knowledge in Chapters 40—48
The nature of the material in chs. 4 0 ^ 8 continues to elude any precise

definition capable of winning anything approaching unanimous support. The
46 While these verses were likely added during a later phase of redaction, Cook has shown their
intimate connection with chs. 38-39 and the rest of the book of Ezekiel. He sees these
verses as both a summary of the book to this point, and as a sign of "routinization" among
the Ezekielian millennialists (Cook, Prophecy and Apocalypticism, 117-21). For another defense
of their integrity see also Block, Ezekiel 25—48,479, and idem, "Gog and the Pouring Out of
the Spirit," 257-70.
47 The first word, 1ÍÜ31, is most often read as though from ÌH03, "to forget," instead of KÍÜ3,
"to bear" (BHS, NRSV, REB, NIV), but this is an unnecessary emendation. The Κ has
simply apocopated. See Block, Ezekiel 25-48, 478 and Zimmerli, Ezekiel 2, 295, 320, for
lengthy arguments in favor of KÏÎ3. See also Chapter 5, n. 96.
48 38:16, 23; 39:6,7,22, 23,28.
problems of interpretation are numerous, and for the most part beyond the
scope of the present discussion.49 Nonetheless, a few guidelines for
interpretation are in order. I understand chs. 4 0 - 4 8 to be a vision comparable to
the other major visions in the book (ch. 1; chs. 8 - 1 1 ) in that it is primarily
concerned with conveying theological realities; the relationship of the specific
content of the vision to potential historical events (e.g., was/should the temple
be built?) is irrelevant to my concerns here. These last eight chapters are the
necessary conclusion to the "plot" of the book. A t the beginning of the book
we learn that Yahweh is not in the temple (ch. 1), then we find out why he
leaves the temple (chs. 8—11), and now the longed for return is necessary to
complete the drama. My understanding of these chapters comes closest to the
view expressed by Susan Niditch that the vision is cosmogonie, in that the
world is symbolically created and categorically organized, in the same way that
Gen. 1 - 1 1 creates and orders the world. 50 The vision functions rhetorically to
offer Ezekiel's audience a symbolic picture of the future which is hopeful, and
in which they can envision themselves as participating productively. Thus these
last chapters serve to motivate the people to embrace both Ezekiel's
interpretation of the past and his ideas about the future.
In keeping with the theme of new creation introduced in chs. 36—37, the final
temple vision also prominently incorporates strong creation traditions.
Levenson traces the Edenic traditions throughout chs. 40—48, noting specific
49 The literature on these chapters is extensive and cannot be reviewed here. The following
represents only some of the major and/or especially relevant works. For a recent overview
of the many issues arising in these chapters, see Block, Ezekiel 25-48, 494—506. Block views
the material "ideationally" (and thus not eschatologically), that is, as concerning "spiritual
realities." For an older but more detailed discussion see esp. Levenson, Ezekiel 40—48, who
understands the vision as revealing an eschatological polity. Steven S. Tuell, on the other
hand, arguing for two distinct sources, suggests that the institutions described in chs. 40-48
are actual institutions from the Persian period (The Law of the Temple in Εφkiel 40—48 [HSM
49; Atlanta; Scholars Press, 1992]). Other relevant studies include: Niditch ("Ezekiel 4 0 ^ 8
in a Visionary Context"), who understands the chapters as a kind of mandala in which the
ancient mythic pattern of a deity overcoming chaos is revealed; Kalinda Rose Stevenson is
interested in the human geography of space in The Vision of Transformation: The Territorial
Rhetoric of Ezekiel 40-48 (SBLDS 154; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996); Jonathan Smith
analyzes Ezekiel 40—48 according to social categories in To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual
(Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 47-
73. For a discussion of the thematic unity of chapters 40—48 see especially Niditch, "Ezekiel
40-48," 211; Levenson, Ezekiel 40-48,161-62; and Stevenson, Vision ofTramformation, 125-
42. Niditch also provides a discussion of the weaknesses of fragmenting chapters 40—48
according to style and vocabulary; similarly Moshe Greenberg, "The Design and Themes of
Ezekiel's Program of Restoration," Interpretation 38 (1984): 181-208.
50 Niditch, "Ezekiel 40^8," 216-217. In a related vein, Steven Tuell sees chs. 40-42 as an
account of the prophet's ascent to the heavenly temple, with the text functioning as a
"verbal icon" (Steven S. Tuell, "Ezekiel 40-42 as Verbal Icon," CBg 5 8 [1996]: 649-64).
textual parallels that suggest tremendous fecundity and the strifeless coexistence
of God and human beings. 51 Niditch, picking up on Levenson's work, asserts
that these chapters are essentially cosmogonie, and the parallels between them
and Gen. 1—11 reveal Ezekiel 38-48 as a creation account patterned upon the
former. 52 Furthermore, the legislation in these final chapters casts itself as a
second giving of the divine law, with Ezekiel in the role of Moses, 53 and it thus
forms a fitting sequel to the new creation in chs. 36-37. This pattern of new
creation followed by new law reveals Ezekiel's conviction that the life of Israel
must begin all over again from scratch, with a new human identity capable of
fulfilling the new laws.
One difficulty of assembling a portrait of the human moral self in these final
chapters must be addressed head on: there are not very many people in this
brave new world. In his stimulating paper on the search for an adequate
psychological approach to Ezekiel, David Jobling suggests a reason for this: the
land is too perfect for people. And even where people do appear, they do not
speak, such that speech also is too perfect for the people. 54 This observation
arrives by a rather different route at a similar conclusion: Ezekiel is very
concerned about the capacity of human beings to destroy the paradise
envisioned, and steps must be taken to avoid this eventuality. Throughout chs.
4 0 ^ 8 , for example, the behavior and even the movement of human beings are
severely restricted (e.g., ch. 46 prescribes precisely how the people are to enter
and exit the temple, never exiting whence they entered [46:9-10]). The recent
work of Iain Duguid underscores Ezekiel's concern that the mistakes of the past
not be repeated in the future. Those groups chosen to lead the restored Israel
are those who were among the least guilty in the past, while those deemed
especially at fault are demoted.55 As Duguid notes, the people themselves play
no significant role in the new temple because their sins were so egregious in the
51 Levenson, E^tkiel40-48, 25-36.

52 Niditch, "Ezekiel 4ÍM8," 220-22.
53 Levenson, Ezekiel 40-48,42—44. The relationship between the two codes is disputed, but the
similar pattern is apparent. See also Block, Ezekiel 25-48, 498-501, for a comparison of the
two.
54 David Jobling, "Towards an Adequate Psychological Approach to the Book of Ezekiel,"
presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, Orlando, Nov. 23,
1998. Galambush argues persuasively that the metaphor of the female body must be
excluded from the purified temple in chs. 40-48 because the possibility of further defilement
inheres in it (Galambush, Jerusalem in the Book of Ezekiel, 147-57). Iain Duguid notes that the
entire laity has been "downgraded" because the people as a whole are most accountable for
the disasters of the past (Iain Duguid, Ezekiel and the Leaders of Israel, VTSup 56 [Leiden: E.J.
Brill, 1994], 131-32; 137-38).
55 Duguid, Ezekiel and the Leaders of Israel, 133-39.
past. 56 The dearth of people is thus meaningful in and of itself: Ezekiel is deeply
concerned not to let human actions result in a repeat of the disastrous history.
Ezekiel has two strategies for insuring that human beings do not destroy his
envisioned future: one is backgrounding the role of human beings. The other
strategy, as we have seen, is to envision those human beings as radically
different from their previous incarnation. While few regular folk appear as
distinct characters in these last chapters, the prophet, priests, and the people as
redpients of their knowledge, provide ample clues to the nature of human moral
identity in the Ezekielian future. Thus, in the rest of this chapter I will once
again focus on the role of knowledge in the new human moral self, because
moral identity reveals itself here (as elsewhere in the latter part of Ezekiel) to be
crucially shaped by different forms of knowledge. Specifically we will consider
the morally charged prophetic role of seeing and witnessing, along with the
related teaching role of the priests. For both priest and prophet the task is to
convey knowledge to the people because it is knowledge that will shape the
people's moral understanding of the new reality, and their place in it. Shame
language reappears in these last chapters, once again forging the link between
self-knowledge and moral identity. And finally, the nature of sin tellingly reveals
the primacy of knowledge in Ezekiel's construction of the moral self.
A. Seeing & Witnessing & Teaching
The emphasis on vision as the primary means of absorbing divine revelation

is especially prevalent in Ezekiel when compared to other Israelite prophets.
The highly visual nature of ch. 1 sets the tone for the whole book (cf. 43:3). It is
therefore not surprising to find sight as a key element of the last vision as well.
At the very beginning the prophet is told to see with his eyes, hear with his ears,
and place within his heart what Yahweh will show him, but the emphasis is on
sight (4x in 40:4; cf. 41:8; 4311; 44:4-5; 47:6). It is not simply that vision is
underscored as the preferred mode of receiving knowledge in Ezekiel, however.
The goal of all this seeing in 40:4 is to pass on ("Ι3Π) the knowledge which the
prophet has just absorbed to the house of Israel. This command to tell
reappears in 43:10 (cf. 44:5-6), where the prophet is commanded to tell the
house of Israel about, the temple. This is reformulated slightly in 43:11 as an
injunction to "make known to them" (ΙΠΙΠ ΟΓΊΊΚ) the temple plan. Similarly, the
primary task of the priests vis-à-vis the people is to teach them and to make
known to them distinctions in ritual purity (KOtS'yai SrÒ ΪΠρ "pa TIV ,ηΐΓΓ)ΚΊ
• i r r r lints'?, 44:23). This may have been their presumed task all along (cf. Jer.
18:18), but its reassertion here emphasizes Ezekiel's ultimate epistemologica!
56 Duguid, Ezekiel and the Leaders of Israel, 137.

goals. Underlying this prophetic task of telling and the priestly role of teaching is
the assumption that what is crucial for the people is knowledge of the new
reality, which both prophet and priest can provide.
B. The Necessity of Shame
Elsewhere it was noted how Ezekiel claims the experience of shame as a

formative part of the new Israelite identity, and the final vision continues to
offer a crucial role to shame. When the I O S of Yahweh enters the temple in ch.
43, Yahweh offers a spatial explanation for the problem created by Israelite
idolatry: the walls were just too thin to protect him from their contaminants
(43:8). Following Yahweh's statement that it will not happen again, Yahweh
commands the prophet to describe ("ΠΠ, 43:10) the temple to the house of
Israel. This is a pivotal moment in the "plot" of the vision and of the whole
book. 57 Ezekiel has already been given an elaborate guided tour of the temple
(chs. 40—42) before the dramatic moment when the glory of Yahweh returns to
the temple following a painfully long absence (both historically and in terms of
the narrative time of the book). With Yahweh back in the temple, the divine
half of the divine/human equation is in place, ready to begin a renewed
relationship. But the people must have the knowledge pertaining to the new
reality. They must know the temple, and the prophet is the one to relate this
knowledge. This new knowledge must be communicated to a people who are
significantly different from their previous incarnation. As we have seen, a newly
created human half of the divine/human relationship has been in preparation
for much of the book. But as though to reinforce the crucial connection
between self-knowledge and this new identity at this significant moment in the
narrative, the language of shame appears again here, during the injunction to
describe the temple to the people.
At first reading it appears extraordinary that the purpose of describing the
temple to the people is so that they might feel ashamed of their iniquities
(DnYllJlDO I d S d ^ , 43:10). How does describing the temple arouse feelings of
shame in the people? And why is it important for the people to feel ashamed at
this point in the story? To answer the first question requires attending to the
crux at the end of v. 10 and its relation to v. 11. The relevant section reads:
"You, mortal, tell the house of Israel about the house, so that they might be
57 Block sees this as a recommissioning scene, and notes numerous parallels with the initial call
in chs. 1-3 (Block, Ezekiel 25-48, 587).
ashamed of their iniquities. Let them measure the perfection,58 and if they are
ashamed of all that they have done, make known to them the plan of the
house—its arrangement, its exits, its entrances, and its entire plan, together with
all its statutes, all its plans, and all its laws make known to them...." (~p ΠΠΚ
i n t r o n i :m3rrnt< m m o r r m r a n m ^ m ιγπγγπκ Stoùr-rrrrnK nan d i k
-bm r n p r r b a nxi inns-^si vxaim vksidi inyom rv^ri m i a iímr-ιώκ ban
Dmtí 1Π1Π i m n v b m imis, 43:10-11). The first part of v. 10 serves as a global
statement of what is elaborated more specifically in what follows. The prophet
is to describe the temple to the people, and the resulting knowledge will cause
them to feel ashamed, presumably because the perfection of the temple, its
divine sacredness, will cast their own shameful past actions into high relief. The
contrast between the perfection of the temple and their own past sinfulness will
occasion a moment of clarity—of self-knowledge—about the past.
In the subsequent elaboration of this general statement, the sequence of
events should be carefully noted. The temporal relationship between shame and
knowledge of the temple, i.e., that the former results from the latter, which we
saw in the general injunction in v. 10a, is elaborated in the next several lines.
The people are to "measure the perfection," a task that requires not so much a
yardstick as a receptivity to the knowledge afforded by the new temple. Block
makes this point, noting that the verb "ΠΟ "calls for a mastery of the internal
and external boundaries of sacred space," but "the verb also involves the
recognition of the spiritual and theological significance of those boundaries."59
By "sizing up" the perfection of the temple, these spiritual and theological
truths become available to the people. For the people the result of
understanding the new reality, as it is represented by the new temple, is shame
(v. 11). Again, shame as a form of self-knowledge arises from the implicit gap
between the perfection of the temple and the gross human imperfections
apparent in Israelite history.
It is only at this point, when the people have absorbed enough of the overall
perfection of the temple that they will feel ashamed. We now confront what
appears to be a curious contradiction in the text. In v. 11 Ezekiel is to make
known to the people the details of the temple only after they are completely
ashamed of all that they have done. No longer does knowledge of the temple
induce shame, rather knowledge of the temple is contingent on a prior
experience of shame. How can this sequence be reconciled to the one in w . ΙΟ-
Ι la? The answer lies in a critical difference in the kind of knowledge implied in
v. 10 over against the kind of knowledge suggested by v. 11. In v. 10 the
58 Based on some of the versions many readers emend to 1Π313ΓΠ from | Ό (e.g., Zimmerli,
Ezekiel 2, 410). MT (from makes sense here and preserves the sense of perfection that
is also present in Ezek. 28:12, the only other occurrence of the word.
59 Block, Erektil 25-48, 589.
prophet is to present to the people a global overview of the temple, and the
people's measuring of its perfection likewise involves an overall understanding
of the spiritual and theological implications of the perfection of the temple.
Shame will result from this general understanding. Once the people feel
ashamed, the prophet is to reveal to the people the details of the temple
blueprint (v. 11). These are n o t insignificant details; knowledge of them is
crucial to understanding the sacred space of the new reality and how to live in it,
but the kind of knowledge they represent is different from the general
knowledge of the temple's implications for the new reality. These details of the
architectural features of the temple must be written down (ΟΠΤϋ1? 2Γ01) so
that the people will understand how the sacred space is organized and
consequently obey its rules (v. l i b ) . In short, first the prophet proclaims to the
people the implications of the existence of the new temple, they feel ashamed,
and then he reveals to them exactly what its architectural features look like.
Shame results f r o m grasping the significance of the existence of the temple, but
because it is sacred space, it is also necessary to feel that shame before
imaginatively entering into the temple itself. 60
With this in mind, the rather strange conditional clause in v. 11 may now be
explained. Most scholars emend to "when they are ashamed" because it seems
unlikely that a condition would be introduced after the purpose clause in v. 10
suggested that shame would be the result of being told about the temple. 61 It is
true that introducing the idea that there was some option in the matter is not in
keeping with Ezekiel's portrayal of shame thus far in the book. Consequently, I
concur with the general consensus that a real condition is not being introduced
here: understanding the significance of the temple inevitably leads to feeling
ashamed. What prevents me from eliminating the DK is that it emphasizes that
feeling ashamed is a necessary precondition of a full, detailed knowledge of the
temple. Possessing a general understanding of the significance of the temple
leads to acute self-awareness (i.e., shame), but it is precisely the self-knowledge
produced by shame that is a prerequisite for admittance into its precincts.
60 There is one other occurrence of shame language in the final vision. The Levites must "bear
their shame" "IKtüíl, 44:13). This type of shame is not meant to instill self-
knowledge but is a form of public disgrace, and is part of the anti-Levite polemic. It is
similar to the shame that Elam and the Sidonians must bear (32:24-25, 30), as well as the
shame that Israel must bear at the hands of the nations (34:29; 36:6-7). All are examples of
shame as public disgrace, the kind of "toxic" shame that does not participate in creating a
new self based on self-knowledge.
61 So BHS and NRSV; Zimmerli, E%kiel2, 410; Block, E^kiel 25-48, 586-87.
C. Ignorance as Sinful
As in the priestly legislation in Leviticus and Numbers, atonement must be

effected in the new temple. First, the prince is to offer the rÒJJ, D'Oasi, ΠΚΒΠ,
and ΠΓΠη sacrifices for the sins of the people (45:15—17). Unlike the priestly
torah, what constitutes these sins in Ezekiel is not spelled out. Secondly,
offerings must also be made to purify the sanctuary (v. 18—19), a necessity found
in Leviticus as well. Thirdly, sins committed out of ignorance require
atonement: "And thus you will do on the seventh day of the month for the one
who sins out of ignorance or from lack of knowledge; so you will atone for the
house" (rrnrrnx nrnsDi "nam nasi ϊτκη urina nsatía ntoan pi, v. 20).
The related roots H3tt) and 333) appear throughout Leviticus and in Numbers
15 to denote inadvertent errors, committed out of ignorance, which pollute the
sanctuary and require atonement. Curiously, the same root also refers to the
people as sheep who have gone astray in Ezekiel 34:6. Given its frequent usage
in the pentateuchal priestly writings, however, it is not surprising to find this
type of sin mentioned here. But the TIB is an interesting addition. This term
occurs elsewhere almost exclusively in wisdom material (in Proverbs and
Psalms), 62 where it refers to those who are easily enticed or led morally astray
due to simple-mindedness, or who lack good sense or wisdom. In parallel with
Π32ί, the use here of TIS reveals a concern with ignorance, and inversely, the role
of knowledge in the moral formation of the people in this new reality. We have
seen how Ezekiel repeatedly emphasizes the importance of knowledge for the
moral self, and now we see this concern for knowledge in his attention to the
other side of the equation, in his emphasis on the problem of ignorance.
III. Action as Secondary Consequence Of The New Identity
By now the portrait of the new human identity in Ezekiel, with its emphasis
on the determinative role of knowledge, is almost complete. It is now
appropriate to address an issue which I have skirted since the beginning of the
discussion of the shift in the form of moral selfhood from action to knowledge.
That is, what is the role of action, if any, in the new self I have described as
shaped by knowledge? While human activity is extremely limited once Yahweh
has acted to restore the people, human action does not entirely disappear. On
the contrary, right action, that is, obeying torah and especially the new temple
torot, is an important component of the new reality.63 Thus some kind of action
62 The D^KflD appear in Ps. 116:6, and ΠΠΒ appears in Hos. 7:11.
63 I will not address those texts where action is emphasized but where virtuous moral selfhood
is the assumed paradigm for human moral identity (e.g., chs. 18, 33). In this section I will
is a necessary component of the new self, and so the pressing question becomes
not, is there a role for action in the moral self, but rather, how can we map out
the role of action in relation to knowledge in the construction of this new self?
Several texts in the temple vision suggest that morally right action is
especially incumbent upon the leaders of the restored Israel. The Zadokite
priests are enjoined not only to teach the people (44:23), but also to keep a
variety of laws for which the torot and the statutes serve as a summary (44:24).
The prince is also exhorted to be just and fair (45:9). Both groups (priests and
political leaders) are singled out for two reasons: they have significant leadership
roles in the envisioned future, and they have been especially negligent of their
moral duties in the past. But the possibility of adhering to the torot, of doing the
right thing, is now open to these people thanks to the watershed event of
Yahweh's recreation of human beings in chapters 36—37. In Ezekiel's more
deterministic moments earlier in the book, where the people are only endowed
with neutral moral selfhood, such declarations ("they will keep my torot and my
statutes," 44:24) and exhortations ("put away violence and oppression," 45:9) as
those found here would have been impossible. Now, however, the people, and
here specifically the leaders, possess a new moral core, and are capable of
fulfilling the statements and heeding the exhortations.
But the people as a whole are also empowered to act by virtue of their new
identity. In 43:10-11, the shame language of which we examined above, the
prophet is told to make the temple torot known to the people and to write it
down, in order that they might understand and obey its regulations (43:11b). A
significant goal of the divinely given knowledge the prophet is to instill in the
people is that they might act based on that knowledge. As in the discussion of
shame, the sequence of events proves crucial. Knowledge of Yahweh (available
through the temple torot) and knowledge of self (available through the
experience of shame) are primary in Ezekiel's vision of the new human being.
Out of this knowledge the right actions will flow as a natural consequence.
The two texts that speak most obviously to this question are 11:19-20 and
the parallel text in 36:26—27. These were discussed in chapter 4, but the focus
here is on the relationship of action to the new identity created by Yahweh. In
11:19 and 36:26 Yahweh removes the morally defective self, which was not
proper to human identity (a stone heart), and replaces it with a new, properly
human, self (a heart of flesh with new spirit). The next verse provides the
motivation for creating this new human identity: "in order that they might walk
in my statutes and keep my ordinances, and do them" ("ΠΚ1 ID*?"1 TlprD "¡BD1?
DDK 1Í2Í71 n n a r •'tìBtin, 11:20). The point of divine recreation of human identity
is to make it possible for people to act rightly (an impossibility in their previous
deal only with the role of action in the new moral self, where knowledge has displaced action
at the center of the self.
incarnation as we saw in chapter 4). In 36:27 the language is even stronger.

N o w it is specifically the divine spirit that Yahweh gives them, with Yahweh
explicitly making it possible for the people to obey the laws (]ΓΙΚ TTrrnK
Dirían nntfn "Maim -obn "'pnmaíK ηκ "rrtoi oDmpa, 36:27). But again
the sequence of events is crucial. Right moral action is important as a goal of the
new identity, but that identity must be created first (so 37:24 follows the
creation of the new human being in chs. 36—37). Thus right action naturally
follows the establishment of the new identity, but is subordinate to it in that it is
utterly dependent upon that new identity.
Scholarly opinion is divided on the question of human freedom in these
texts. Is human freedom utterly sacrificed to ensure the success of the new
program? Does the necessity of Yahweh's unceasing glorification (the ultimate
goal of the restoration) destroy the possibility of human self-determination?
Some argue that human freedom is severely limited by Yahweh's explicit
causative role in human moral action ("I will make it so that they obey..."). 6 4
Certainly Yahweh is directly involved in making it possible for the people to
obey the laws. But this does n o t necessarily involve the curtailment of human
freedom when one remembers that the old self is gone, replaced by a new
human identity that is defined by its knowledge of Yahweh and its knowledge of
self. Human freedom is severely constricted in these texts if one views the human
moral self as one whose primary moral identity centers on action. By the latter part of
Ezekiel, however, the paradigm of virtuous moral selfhood has been found
inadequate in face of the new historical reality, and has consequently been
abandoned. Knowledge of Yahweh and of self is at the center of the new moral
identity now, and consequently the right moral actions of these newly created
people will flow naturally out of this knowledge. Human freedom thus looks
different in the new paradigm. "When one has God's spirit in him he does
God's will because he wants to do God's will."65 The knowledge at the center of
human identity strongly predisposes the person to act in accord with the divine
will. There is consequently no abrogation of human freedom because the self is
already profoundly oriented toward G o d through the two forms of knowledge.
In sum, the whole self has changed so fundamentally that it cannot be evaluated
with a notion of human freedom based on a view of the self which assumes
moral action as the determinative core.
64 E.g., Greenberg, Ezekiel 21-37, 735-36. See also idem, "Three Conceptions of the Torah in
Hebrew Scriptures," in Die Hebräische Bibel und ihre zweifache Nachgeschichte (Neukirchen-Vluyn:
Neukirchener, 1990), 375. Similarly, Block, Ezekiel 25-48, 356. Zimmerli does not go this
far, but notes that Ezekiel "allows Yahweh to participate directly in man's new obedience"
(Zimmerli, Ezekiel 2, 249).
IV. Summary and Conclusion to the Chapter
Throughout the first 33 chapters of the book, Ezekiel struggles with a

tension between two competing paradigms of human moral identity. In the last
third of the book, where he tries to move out of the past and into the future, his
attempt to resolve the conflict between virtuous moral selfhood on the one
hand (which has failed historically), and neutral moral selfhood on the other
(which is untenable in a theistic worldview) becomes more apparent. Ezekiel
tries to forge a way out of the impasse encountered in the earlier chapters of the
book by proposing a third possibility. Hints of this new possibility appear in the
earlier chapters, but the new self is not explicitly created anew until chs. 36—37.
To be sure, even here Ezekiel's effort is a tentative one, such that the portrait of
human beings in the last chapters is not especially well-defined. In fact, I suspect
that the reason the people in chs. 38-48 are so hazy and ill-defined (and Jobling
would note, hardly even present) is because Ezekiel does not quite know how to
flesh them out based on this new way of conceiving human identity.
Nonetheless, the beginnings of an outline of the new self can be traced. To
envision this new self, Ezekiel uses the knowledge he has gained from his
critiques of the two previous understandings. Out of the deterministic portraits
he derives the conclusion that the origin of moral identity does not reside in the
people, and he thus transfers that capacity to God. Thus he posits the origin of
the new moral self in God, to be given in a new act of creation. From the
paradigm of virtuous moral selfhood Ezekiel retains the ultimate goal of human
action, but he nonetheless displaces action from the pivotal role it enjoys in that
formulation, moving instead into the central and crucial spot the knowledge of
God and of self.
Chapter 7: Conclusion
I. Summary of the Argument
The book of Ezekiel presents conflicting portraits of human moral identity.

The language of repentance in several chapters (e.g., in chs. 3, 14, 18, 33)
suggests an underlying anthropology of virtuous moral selfhood: people are
assumed to be inherently capable of making moral decisions that accord with a
vision of the good, which for Ezekiel is always coterminous with Yahweh's will
(most often manifested by torah). By contrast, the language of determinism
(found especially in chs. 16, 20, 23, and 24) is less positive in orientation: it
suggests that people are inherently incapable of acting in accord with the good
(they possess a neutral moral self). The tension between these two
anthropologies constitutes a central problematic within the book of Ezekiel, and
significantly affects the way in which salvation is envisioned in the second half
of the book.
Despite the tremendous creativity that the prophet exhibits in much of the
book, he did not invent these two anthropologies. Rather, he inherited both of
them from the Israelite traditions available to him. Virtuous moral selfhood
characterizes the majority of extant HB traditions outside of Ezekiel, whereas a
few texts suggest a more deterministic view in keeping with neutral moral
selfhood. Ezekiel draws broadly on both of these traditions in his presentation
of human moral identity, yet shapes each to his own needs and interests. He
particularly emphasizes the inherently and ineradicably depraved nature of
humanity in his depictions of human beings as neutral moral selves, exceeding
the pessimism found elsewhere in the biblical witness.
By examining the pertinent passages in detail, I have argued that the tension
between these anthropologies is symptomatic of a crisis in the way that the
moral self is conceived, a crisis occasioned by the historical experience of exile.
Yet the problem did not begin with Ezekiel. On the contrary, evidence of this
tension is present in other biblical materials, albeit in muted forms. The
experience of exile rendered the problem of the moral self more acute, however,
(for Ezekiel the moral self is always a religious-moral self, one grounded in
relationship to Yahweh), and thus provided the occasion for its more sharply
defined articulation in Ezekiel. Out of the tension between competing visions of
the moral self, a tension that permeates the book of Ezekiel, a shift in Ezekiel's
conception of human moral identity is discernible. This shift has two aspects: it
entails both a shift in the origin and in the form of moral selfhood. The origin of
the moral self shifts from being inherent in human beings to existing only as a
potential gift from God. Where people were thought to be born with the
capacity to choose the good, they now find themselves helpless to do so unless
God explicitly makes it possible. This shift is evident principally in the tension
between repentance language and the language of determinism. The former
assumes an inborn ability to conform to the good, whereas the latter suggests
that this ability is not an inherent human trait. Several texts (e.g., 11:19; 36:26)
present God as the alternative source for the moral capacity missing from
human beings.
The form of the moral self in the dominant tradition that Ezekiel inherited
(virtuous moral selfhood) centered on action: to be a virtuous moral self was to
do the right thing. This understanding fades by the end of Ezekiel, as a view of
moral selfhood emerges in which knowledge plays the central role. This
knowledge has two crucial elements: knowledge of God and knowledge of self.
The role of the knowledge of God in the new moral self appears in passages
pertaining to the prophetic call, in the ubiquitous recognition formula, and in
the language of memory. Of equal importance in the vision of the new moral
self is human self-knowledge, expressed in the language of memory (again), and
by the evocation of shame and self-loathing as necessary and transforming
human experiences. Instead of viewing shame as an innate and unavoidable part
of the human condition (the modern tendency), Ezekiel sees the Israelites as
utterly devoid of this experience, and this inability to feel shame has led to
moral failure. This "positive" type of shame leads to a profound understanding
of oneself as seen by an Other (always Yahweh for Ezekiel). Yahweh alone has
the capacity to bestow this transforming experience of shame upon the
people—and thus shame itself becomes a divine gift that makes possible a new
and properly functioning moral self.
In the final chapters of Ezekiel (chs. 35-48), the solution that Ezekiel
proposes to the problem of the moral self becomes more evident. Human
beings are created anew by God and endowed with a new moral identity, that,
because it is divinely-given, is not subject to the same failings that plagued the
earlier vision of the moral self. This new identity, as suggested in earlier
passages, is constituted by two types of knowledge—of God and of self. Human
actions in this section of the book are few: they fade into the background
(divine action dominates), and where human action does appear, it is strictly
controlled by precise regulations. Action is not completely eliminated from the
moral self, however (it is difficult to imagine what this would look like anyway).
Where people are described as doing things, those actions emerge as a secondary
consequence out of the new moral identity at the core of the moral self.
Character displaces action as the central component of the moral self.
Conclusion 187
This change of framework for understanding the moral self, in both its
aspects of origin and form, should not be interpreted as a chronological one
within the book of Ezekiel. The evidence of the book is too haphazardly
organized and difficult to date to lend itself to such a conclusion. The shift does
have a logical coherence, however; one way of thinking about the self
encounters insurmountable difficulties and cedes the way to a new conception
that attempts to avoid those difficulties. Furthermore, by the last third of
Ezekiel the traditional view has all but disappeared, replaced by a self whose
moral identity is given by God and is constituted by forms of knowledge.
II. Implications for Ezekiel
Before broaching the question of how successful Ezekiel is in reconfiguring

the moral self, it will be helpful to clarify how he imagines his audience—an
issue that has come up in a number of places in the preceding discussion, but
which has not been fully articulated. The argument he is making about the self
cannot be understood at the time that each individual oracle is delivered, but
only later, at the time that the book is brought together more or less in the form
that we have it (prior to about 520)-1 A number of the oracles themselves
suggest that what the prophet is saying can only be understood after God has
acted in thefuture (thus the prophet's mission as a whole does not depend on the
immediate response of the people). In 6:9, for example, Ezekiel proclaims that
in the future the exiled people will come to a knowledge of God and self
through remembering the past (a past which in the time frame of the oracle
includes the present). Memory of the past is the key to understanding Ezekiel's
message. To the audience of the oracle, Ezekiel thus projects the possession of
this knowledge into the future.2 But for the audience of the book, that future is
1 This is not to say that minor additions were not made later than this. Many scholars now
attribute much if not all of the book to Ezekiel himself, including chs. 40-48. See, e.g.,
Moshe Greenberg, "The Design and Themes of Ezekiel's Program of Restoration,"
interpretation 38 (1984): 181-208; Hals, Ezekiel, 285-289. Hals suggests a pre-539 date for the
final form of the book because the restoration is nowhere mentioned (5). Block argues,
based on eight discrete points, that Ezekiel was likely the author of much of the book. He
further speculates that the prophet himself may have been involved in the organization of
the book as a whole (Block, Ezekiel 1—24,17-23). While I hesitate to associate so much with
the exilic prophet Ezekiel (cf. Kalinda Rose Stevenson, Vision of Transformation, 9) it appears
likely that the book came together before 520, in part because the composition of chs. 40^48
would be peculiar, and rhetorically very weak, given the presence in Jerusalem of an actual,
but substantially different, temple.
2 In Davis' formulation: "The point of orientation for the prophetic word has shifted from
crisis to archive" (Davis, Swallowing the Scroll, 61).
now. The audience for Ezekiel's presentation of a new moral self is therefore
the audience of the book as a whole, not any discrete audience posited by a
particular oracle (whether Jerusalemite or exilic). The slipperiness of Ezekiel's
time frames has rhetorical implications for his struggle to articulate a vision of
the moral self to which a late exilic audience can lay claim (this will be taken up
below).
Has Ezekiel presented a rhetorically compelling solution to the crisis of the
self occasioned by the Exile? The new self he proposes does address the
problems he saw in the old self, but the solution itself creates a number of other
problems, one of which is the idealized portrait of human identity that he
constructs. Cloaked with this new moral identity, people will easily conform
their wills to Yahweh's, a vision of reality that may lack the confirmation of
lived experience. True, the possibility of error remains—otherwise Ezekiel
would not be so nervous about the presence of the people in the new temple,
and he would not be concerned about errors made out of ignorance. Sin will
continue to be a problem in the new temple, but because the people are
predisposed toward the good, the level of sin is presumably tolerable.
Another obstacle facing Ezekiel's proposal concerns the receptivity of the
people to this new identity. Sometimes the people's receptivity is implied in the
text (e.g., when they are to "measure the perfection" of the temple [43:10-11]),
but often it is not. The people in Ezekiel who are transformed by God's action
are for the most part not depicted as possessing the freedom to choose or
refuse this gracious gift. Rather the gift of salvation ensures their receptivity of
it—it is part of the gift.3 The absence of human freedom that such a view
implies poses potentially serious problems for the rhetorical efficacy of the book
for the same reason as above: experience may tend to deny the accuracy of its
claim. Yet this very aspect of Ezekiel's portrait of the moral self may also prove
to be its most powerful rhetorical weapon.
Despite the potential limitations just noted, this offer of a new identity that
minimizes the role of action in morality is potentially powerful. The audience of
the book, a dispirited group of exiles, who may feel they are incapable of
"getting it right," is told they do not have to worry about that anymore. The
onus of morality is lifted from their shoulders. The book's rhetorical power lies
in its ability to rouse demoralized people to claim an identity that, despite being
projected into the future, is already theirs, and which will enable them to act
rightly. Ezekiel implicitly urges his audience to accept the new identity that
3 For Buss eschatological salvation is always a divine act, to which humans respond with
"receptivity and acceptance. But this must not be understood literally, as though it meant
quietism" (Buss, "Selfhood and Biblical Eschatology," 220). Cf. Idem, "The Language of the
Divine T," The journal of Bible and Religan 29 (1961): 104. Ezekiel, however, does not present
human beings as receptive or unreceptive to divine action—it simply happens to them.
Conclusion 189
Yahweh offers, with its recovery of memory, and the experience of shame and
self-loathing. This painful experience of self-knowledge is worth the distress
involved because it makes a future with God possible. The rhetorical effect of
the fluidity of time frames noted above is now clear. Paradoxically, Ezekiel
posits self-knowledge and knowledge of God in the future in order to persuade
his audience that this self-knowledge and knowledge of God are presently
available to them—they just have to claim them.
And so, the receptivity which is largely absent from the people in the book
becomes crucial for the exilic audience posited by the book. 4 Buss observes that
eschatological salvation "relates to a self which is questioned; it seeks what one
can 'be' rather than what one can 'have.'" 5 The emphasis on "being" in Ezekiel
means that the people may rest assured that no longer will they be reliant on
their own resources to do the right thing. Simply knowing who you are and who
God is will make obedience possible. Viewed through this prism, the self that
Ezekiel has constructed is extraordinarily powerful, and at later times, will find
other, perhaps even more articulate, proponents.
III. Implications for Us
Does Ezekiel's effort to articulate a vision of moral identity bear any relation
to the problem of moral identity in our own time and culture? Three areas for
further reflection present themselves: First, the form in which Ezekiel chooses to
articulate the problem may be instructive. Ezekiel's ethics is what Michael
Walzer terms "thick" moral argument, that is, it is deeply particularist and
contextual, "locked into a locally established symbolic system or network of
meanings." 6 Because Ezekiel's argument is embedded in the particularity of the
changing conditions of the Babylonian crisis, a thin, universal morality, or vision
of the moral self, cannot be extracted from the book without extreme violence
to the text and to our own contemporary situation. A second implication of the
form of Ezekiel's argument is also suggested by the idea of thick moral
argument: where moral argument is thick, it has "the radical potential of an
internal critique." In Walzer's words, "Social criticism in maximalist [i.e., thick]
4 Buss's insight into the relationship between receptivity and identity is germane here: ' T o be
in touch with infinity, one must necessarily relate oneself to it receptively"(Buss, The Prophetic
WordofHosea, 139).
5 Buss, The Prophetic Word of Hosea, 139. Buss cites J. Wach, Der Eriosungsgedanke und seine
Deutung (1922) and H. Jonas, Augustin und daspauünische Freiheitsprohlem (1930), 63f. in relation
to this idea.
6 Michael Walzer, Thick and Thin: Moral Argument at Home and Abroad (Notre Dame, Ind.:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), xi. The vocabulary of "thickness" is modified from
Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973).
terms can call into question, can even overturn, the moral maximum itself, by
exposing its internal tensions and contradictions." 7 Ezekiel is deeply shaped by
the traditions he inherited, yet his critique of them is profound because they fail
to provide a coherent account of the present reality. The extent to which the
biblical writers engaged in forms of internal critique is suggestive for how we
understand biblical ethics, and poses a problem for how we understand biblical
authority.
Secondly, and this is a corollary to the previous point, Ezekiel's struggle with
the problem of moral identity deters us from an overly simplistic appropriation
of biblical ethics. It is not helpful to analyze Ezekiel's portrait of the self and
then hold up that portrait as authoritative for our own context (whether Church
or society) because it is "biblical." Rather, what is instructive is the process by
which an ethical problem is thought through in the Bible.8 The question for us
is how ethical problems are mediated through the symbolic forms employed in
the biblical materials. By examining the imy Ezekiel thinks about a moral
problem, without focusing exclusively on the product of that reflection, we may
find that Ezekiel has much to tell us about those ways of thinking ethically
which have proven problematic, versus those which may prove helpful in
sorting through the moral issues confronting us at the present time. In other
words, Ezekiel's final portrait of the human moral self as one who almost
inevitably does the right thing may prove less instructive than the path by which
he came to that conclusion: he wrestled, quite respectfully, with the traditions he
inherited, finally fashioning something new out of the raw material they
provided.
But I do not wish to discount the substance of Ezekiel's thinking about the
moral self. Putting knowledge (i.e., identity) at the center of the moral self
instead of action is worth thinking about, because the pervasive understanding
of the moral self in our own culture is not that dissimilar from the one Ezekiel
inherited (for us also, action is central to the moral self). But in the postmodern
era, we as a culture are once again experiencing a tension between this inherited
view and evidence that challenges the assumptions upon which it is based. The
postmodern critique has effectively undermined our assumption of a coherent,
autonomous self. Indeed, the very idea of a "self' is under attack; what is
traditionally understood to be the self is seen by many critics as a construction
of cultural forces (social, political, economic). The self is not an actor; but is acted
upon by a variety of constraints beyond its control. Ezekiel shares a strange
kinship with the postmodern critics in that he too calls into question the
7 Walzer, Thick and Thin, 47.

8 Martin Buss discusses relationalism in "Hosea as a Canonical Problem," in Prophets and
Paradigms: Essays in Honor of Gene M. Tucker (ed. S. Β. Reíd, JSOTSup 229; Sheffield: Sheffield
Academic Press, 1996), 89.
Conclusion 191
assumption of an inherently integrated self capable of action.9 But for Ezekiel,

human identity is coherent; it is simply a matter of knowing that that identity
does not originate in us—rather it must be accepted as something external to us,
as a gift from God. Thus Ezekiel's struggle with a shifting sense of moral
identity provides a point of reference for our own struggle to reconstruct a
workable notion of the self.
Recently, as I mentioned in the Introduction, a number of philosophers have
taken up the challenge of constructing a theory of the self that is appropriate to
the postmodern context. Of the many thinkers whose work might profitably be
put into conversation with Ezekiel's, I will draw attention to only one here,
whom I cited in the Introduction in order to introduce the whole issue of the
moral self: Charles Taylor. Taylor is an appropriate conversation partner
because he is especially interested in what type of moral self is viable and
coherent in his own cultural moment, an interest he shares with Ezekiel. My
intention is not to develop a sustained dialogue between Taylor and Ezekiel, but
rather to sketch out some avenues of reflection that might be worth pursuing in
more depth.
Tracing the development of the modern understanding of the self, Taylor
argues that we moderns perceive morality as concerned with "what it is right to
do rather than with what it is good to be"10 (procedural ethics). This is related to
the different ways that ancients and moderns understand practical reason. For
ancients to be rational was to have the correct vision, it is a substantive reason.
For moderns, however, practical reasoning is understood procedurally, it involves
having the right principles of action.11 Taylor offers a corrective to this
damaging modern perspective by suggesting that we must appreciate the role of
the good in our moral life.12 He is not so naïve, however, as to suggest that what
constitutes the good is self-evident. In place of a vision of a single good, Taylor
argues for a diversity of goods—the good is made up of multiple and varied
goods (this would be unintelligible to Ezekiel, of course, who knows without
doubt that the good resides in obedience to torah as a sign of total allegiance to
Yahweh).13
Although Ezekiel is not interested, of course, in concessions to
postmodernity through validations of diversity and difference, significant
convergences between Taylor's project and Ezekiel's are discernible. Both
Taylor and Ezekiel are trying to move away from an emphasis in morality on
9 Carol Newsom observes a similar phenomenon in the Community Rule: the autonomous
self is decentered. Carol Newsom, "Knowing as Doing," 147.
10 Taylor, Sources of the Self, 79.
11 Taylor, Sources of the Self, 86.
12 Taylor, Sources of the Self, x.
13 Nor does Ezekiel's disobedient flock rely on a proceduralist form of reason in their moral
life as moderns do, according to Taylor.
action and toward a conception of the moral life that resides in a conviction of
what it is good to be. For Ezekiel this emphasis on "being" appears in the
centrality of a moral identity shaped by knowledge—of God and of self. Action
plays a secondary role. When Yahweh says that he will give the people a new
heart and spirit (his own spirit!), and will cause them to keep torab (36:26—27),
the gift of this new identity will enable the right actions to follow. Action discloses
who you are; it does not determine who you are. Historically, Ezekiel stands at or
near the beginning of the effort to articulate this conception of moral selfhood,
whereas Taylor charts the development of this perspective over the last 2500
years, and then laments its absence from contemporary discourse. Despite the
significant differences created by the gap in time and culture, for both Taylor
and Ezekiel people have lost sight of the good as a significant constituent of the
moral life because they understand their morality principally in terms of action.
Taylor's central question is: "what sources can support our far-reaching
moral commitments to benevolence and justice?"14 For Taylor, while we
presently share broad moral values like benevolence and justice, they are not
grounded in anything substantive, but rather in moral obligation alone. Right
actions, he argues, cannot sustain themselves without eventually generating
contempt within the agents of those actions. Taylor traces the "sources of the
self' from ancient times to modern in order to identify some of the potential
sources of the moral life that have become obscured in the
modern/postmodern construction of the self.15 Broadly speaking, Ezekiel and
Taylor share a concern for moving beyond action as the core of the moral self
toward positing the source of the self in something external. Taylor finally
suggests, rather apologetically, a vague form of theism as the source of moral
identity,16 whereas Ezekiel, of course, exhorts very unapologetically a vigorous
Yahwism. In sum, Taylor and Ezekiel reflect a peculiar convergence in their
critique of action as the central focus of the moral self, and in their envisioning
by way of corrective a moral identity formed and sustained by a transcendent
God.
It seems that we are at a crossroads concerning the self. Both the academy
and popular culture are wrestling with what it means to be a moral human
being. As western society becomes increasingly multicultural, and as our
scientific knowledge of human beings accumulates, this struggle will likely
become more intense. In a related development, the critique of the self launched
by postmodern thinkers appears to leave us without the coherent self we
inherited from our ancestors. Yet, as we have seen, some, perhaps many, still
wish to assert that there is such a thing as the self, but do not quite know what it
14 T a y l o r , Sources of the Self, 515.

15 Taylor, Sources of the S l i f , 518.
16 Taylor, Sources of the Self 517-18.
Conclusion 193
looks like. Despite the massive chasm of time, space, and worldview that
separates us from Ezekiel, he too struggles with an inherited self that no longer
seems to function adequately in new and demanding historical circumstances.
He hints at a new self capable of flourishing in a new context, a self formed by
the empowering knowledge of who we are and who God is. Yet while Ezekiel's
particular vision of the self may contribute to our own reflections on moral
identity, it is the dynamics of his struggle to articulate that vision (which mirrors
our own struggle) that may prove most significant for shaping a new
understanding of moral identity.
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Jacqueline E.

Can These Bones Live?

Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahme

Lapsley, Jacqueline E.:

I. Imagining the Moral Self 1

Chapter 2: A History of Scholarship 15

Chapter 3: Biblical Portraits of the Human Moral Self Outside of Ezekiel. . 43

I. Virtuous Moral Selfhood: The Dominant View 45

Chapter 4: The Shift in the Origin of Moral Selfhood from Intrinsic

Chapter 5: The Shift in the Form of Moral Selfhood from Action

I. The Knowledge of God Ill

Β. Shame: Memory and Self-Loathing 140

I. Divine Re-Creation and the Waning of Action (Chapters 36-39) 160

Chapter 7: Conclusion 185

I. Summary of the Argument 185

I. Imagining the Moral Self

modern understanding of the role of action in ethics this is undoubtedly true.

B. The Tension in Ezekiel

My central thesis is that a dual shift in the understanding of human beings as

knowledge as an important, but derivative consequence. This knowledge can be

chronologically, however. The two previously existing paradigms, virtuous and

II. Practical Matters

For the purposes of this discussion, I am understanding the general term

11 Timothy P. Jackson, "Restoring the Moral Lexicon: Ethics from Abomination to

12 Jackson, "Moral Lexicon," 497.

the neutral moral self are always morally fraught, even t h o u g h , in an i m p o r t a n t

My thesis concerning the shift in moral identity in Ezekiel is reliant upon

an unfortunate tendency to view reason as the sole province of morality.15

C. Unity, Authorship, Method

In general, I will address only a few of the many redactional questions

with a particular emphasis on the modern period. The apparent contradictions

2 This sketch of the history of interpretation makes no claim to comprehensiveness, especially

Christian counterparts, however, ch. 18 was of little interest to Jewish

B. Divine Sovereignty and Human Duty

A. Ezekiel and the Triumph of Individualism

Skinner, for example, explains the tension as a result of dispensationalism:

B. Critique of the Individualism Hypothesis

As the interpretive conversation progressed, a number of scholars began to

implicitly the call o f the ' f r e e d o m to repent' ( E z e k 1 8 ) " (my e m p h a s i s ) [Walther Z i m m e r l i ,

C. The Larger Goal of Language of the Individual

As the hypothesis that Ezekiel innovated or championed a thorough-going

25 J. S. Park ("Theological Traditions of Israel in the Prophetic Judgment of Ezekiel" [Ph.D.

community. Pareira acknowledges the "paradox" of such a call in the midst of

thoroughly understandable as a serious effort by the prophet to combine the predominant

Formulated slightly differently than Gottwald, Greenberg argues that the

35 Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20, 95.

III. Wrestling with the Tension

save Jerusalem. 39 The tension for Fishbane consists in the emphasis on

There is no easy answer to this conundrum. Either the solution is a redaction-

continues to view the central problem as inconsistency in divine behavior, not

of repentance in chapter 18 serves two functions: it underscores Israel's total

47 Joyce, Diviine Initiative, 57-58.

theodicy."59 After exploring each of these problems in detail, Matties, borrowing

59 Matties, Ezekiel 18, 5 - 6 .

understands the call to repent as "the basic statement of human responsibility in