Week 33 Ezekiel 17
A multi-coloured eagle swooped down and plucked the top branch from a cedar tree and planted it in a city. Then it took a seed and planted it by a river. The seed grew into a healthy spreading vine that oriented itself toward the eagle. But then a second great eagle came along and the vine reoriented its growth so it was now growing toward the second eagle.
In Ezekiel’s riddle Eagle #1 wasn’t an eagle. Eagle #2 wasn’t an eagle either. The cedar wasn’t a tree and the vine wasn’t a vine. None of the things were the actual thing. And the audience was supposed to dope out what each of the things was.
Starting next month I’ll be reading the NT. Which means I’ll be reading the parables of the Lord. He used a similar teaching technique to Ezekiel – telling his audience indecipherable parables. The Lord’s opponents didn’t get them. And his own disciples didn’t get them either. Neither enemies nor friends got them.
The big difference was that the Lord’s enemies thought that he was a bit of a lunatic (although a dangerous one) and that his teaching was a bunch of mumbo-jumbo. But his disciples – even though they had a sense of the mumbo-jumbo-ness of the parables – were intrigued by them.
The first group thought the parables were stupid and disregard-able.
The second group figured that the stupidity was more likely on their side and that what they needed was extra instructional input.