Week 28 Ezekiel
Right away in chapter one I’m into a content-management question: what do I do with Ezekiel’s vision?
Since my main task is just reading through the answer is: not much.
Not much because the vision is so spectacular that even Ezekiel didn’t really know how to describe it. And he’s the one who saw it.
Some things he put names to: faces, wings, hands, wheels, wheel-rims.
But other things he didn’t have vocabulary for so he resorted to in-the-vicinity words. A couple-of-dozen times he used like or as or resembled or appeared because he was conceptually strapped.
I can say that I saw a dog in the lane last night if I saw a dog.
If I say I saw something that looked like a dog in the lane last night it’s because I’m not sure it was an actual dog.
If I say I saw something in the lane last night that looked kind of like a dog that was gleaming like burnished bronze then I’m taking a shot at describing something I can’t describe.
What exactly did Ezekiel see? Well he didn’t exactly know.
And it’s fair to say that a guy who’s reading through can’t exactly know something that Ezekiel himself didn’t. So I don’t exactly know either.
Note: quotes from Ezekiel 1:7, 28 (NASB)
Added note: in spite of not being able to say what he saw Ezekiel did say pretty clearly what he did: when I saw it, I fell on my face.