Medicine Hat Joe

Week 33  Ezekiel 39

Ezekiel forecast that in the distant future Gog (a powerful enemy of Israel) would be defeated & annihilated. Ezekiel gave six details about the massive post-war clean-up operation:
1. A burial site would be designated on land east of the Dead Sea
2. An existing highway would have to be rerouted around the cemetery
3. The district – ‘Valley of the Travelers’ – would be renamed ‘Valley of Gog’s Hordes’
4. It would take seven months to bury most of the bodies
5. Special crews would continue searching for the remaining skeletons
6. A town named Hamonah would be near the cemetery.
For Ezekiel’s prophecy to be true the details would have to come true. Unfortunately for Gog those details would come too late to be of any personal use. But surviving observers could test Ezekiel’s forecast: here are six predictions. Do they actually happen?
Ezekiel was confident they would and that: from that time on the people of Israel will know that I am the Lord their God. Testing leads to Knowing.
It might be splitting-hairs but it’s probably safer to say that people “could know” or “might know” the Lord. Knowing-the-Lord wouldn’t be automatic or mandatory. I think it’s a good bet that some people might just look back at Gog and figure Ezekiel had his lucky horseshoe with him. And so those people wouldn’t end up knowing-the-Lord and the Gog Prophecy would be wasted on them. But that’s how prophecy seems to works.

Note: see the forecast in Ezekiel 39:9-16. Quote from 39:22 (NLT)

Week 33  Ezekiel 33

The Lord does a lot of assessing / evaluating / judging in Ezekiel. And sooner or later there’ll be consequences – quite a few of them not happy ones.
I guess every reader reacts a bit differently to this type of content. Sometimes Ezekiel’s threatening negativity is pretty mentally & emotionally numbing. And at some point the question crosses my mind: why does the Lord act the way he does?
Why-does-he-do-this? One simple & common answer to the question is that the Lord is just a goon. A heavyweight thug. So it’s helpful when I see this: as surely as I live, says the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of wicked people. I only want them to turn from their wicked ways so they can live. Turn! Turn from your wickedness, O people of Israel! Why should you die? (I check a cross-reference from sixteen chapters back and it says almost the exact same thing).
In terms of the Lord’s preferences he a) does not like seeing bad people die and b) he’d like it better if bad people looked to him for help.
So an interview with the Lord would probably sound something like this:
Q: how do you feel about judging & punishing bad people?
A: I don’t like it at all. I wish I didn’t have to. There’s nothing good about people dying. I really wish they’d turn to me and live.
Today that’s a very good reminder.

Note: quotes from Ezekiel 33:11 18:23 (NLT)

Week 33  Ezekiel 25-32

In the first half of his book Ezekiel’s forecasts were mostly about Jerusalem. Then he turned to the international community. (A couple of years ago I noticed this eight-consecutive-chapter collection and read it in one sitting. I did that again this year.)
Ezekiel highlighted six nations (the average length of each prophecy works out to 31-verses. But none of them were even close: Ammon (7 verses) Moab (4) Edom (3) Philistia (3) Tyre (80) Egypt (90).)
Anyway while I was going through this section I saw that the phrase ‘then you will know’ was repeated again and again. For instance Ammon had mocked Israel when Solomon’s temple was desecrated and when the people were exiled (Ha Ha! What a hoot! Looks good on you Hebrews!) What the Ammonites didn’t know at the time was that a tribe of desert nomads would eventually overrun their own country & steal their food supplies & turn their country into a pasture. When that happened – Ezekiel said – then you will know… Ditto for Moab Edom Philistia Tyre & Egypt.
I wondered: what-all will they get to know?
I counted up the then-you-will-know phrase. It was there 18 times and in every case (except one) what they would come to know was that: I (the Lord) am the Lord (25:14 was a bit different).
My guess is that interested people could proactively search-and-discover that the-Lord-was-the-Lord prior to Ezekiel’s forecasted events. But one way of the other – either sooner or later – everyone would discover who the real Lord was.

Note: quote from Ezekiel 25:5 (NLT)

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.

Week 32  Ezekiel 8-11

Ezekiel’s long vision starts geographically in Babylon. From there the Spirit lifted me (Ezekiel) into the sky and transported me in a vision to Jerusalem. Four chapters later the Spirit of God carried me back again to Babylon to the Judeans in exile.
Ezekiel’s vision left me with a few questions and one of them was: What / Who is the Man Dressed in the Linen Suit?
Ezekiel says that this man came into Jerusalem from the north. He was dressed in linen and carried a writer’s case strapped to his side. The man was given a specific task: walk through the streets of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of all those who weep because of the sins they see around them. So somehow he had an innate understanding of who loved the Lord and who despised him.
In the next chapter the Linen Man took live coals in his hand – which you wouldn’t normally expect someone to do.
So at first the Linen Man seems like a regular man. And he’s even called a man. But he has capacities a normal man doesn’t.
I checked a cross-reference in the margin. Daniel also saw a man dressed in linen. But that man had a body ‘that looked like a dazzling gem’.
Ezekiel’s man didn’t glow. But I think it’s safe to say he was some kind of agent of the Lord. Not just a regular guy.

Note: quotes from Ezekiel 8:3 11:24 9:2 4 Daniel 10:5-6 (NLT)

Week 32  Song of Solomon

I read Song of Solomon over the long week-end. All I had access to was an old King James version of the bible but that wasn’t a major obstruction since the Song uses language and ideas that are pretty straightforward and uncomplicated even in 500-year-old language. The big question with the Song is: what does it mean?
I read the Song in an ordinary way and at the end of my ordinary reading I didn’t see anything religious about it at all. It seemed pretty natural and normal and human.
There were quite a few references to the human body: skin cheeks neck breasts eyes hair hands nose head teeth lips tongue arms belly navel legs thigh feet.
Domestic and wild animals were mentioned: foxes stags sheep fillies gazelle deer doves lions panthers.
I didn’t make a list but there was fruit (like apples) & flowers (like lilies) & spices (like saffron).
It all seemed like things that were going on in this world.
I checked a word book. There was no mention of God. Or of the Lord. Or angels. Or the devil. Or sin. I didn’t see animal sacrifices or the Ten Commandments or Solomon’s Temple.
The Song sounds like a romantic poem about a guy & girl in love. But I wonder if it’s about more than a guy & girl in love. The Song seems unambiguous. But I don’t feel reassured that it is. And don’t feel I know what to do if it isn’t.

Week 31  Micah 4

In the last days, the Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem will become the most important place on earth. I stop when I read this.
Most of the time I’m trying to attach some meaning to what I’m reading and it looks like in the last days (some time future to Micah) a Temple (a real building made of stone concrete steel wood glass) that’s geographically located in the city of Jerusalem (currently the “capital” of modern-day Israel) will become the most important place on earth. That’s what Micah says. Still…I move cautiously. How a prophetic projection pans out in literal-and-actual fact can be a bit tricky.
For one thing Micah was a guy writing >2500 years ago in a >2500 year-old language in a way his >2500 year-ago audience could understand. But Micah didn’t know anything about artificial-intelligence or trans-oceanic flight. So miscommunication is a real possibility.
For another thing I remember that OT content is full of Pre-liminary Material. By contrast NT readings will be moving me into a bunch of Post-liminary Material. Similarities? For sure. But with developmental-complexities that I have to finesse.
Anyway today I’m left to decide between:
Q#1: in the last days will a literal Temple located geographically in Jerusalem be the most important place on earth?
And Q#2: in the last days will a non-literal Temple not located geographically in Jerusalem be the most important place on earth?
For the time-being I’m sticking with Micah’s literal forecast.

Note: quote from Micah 4:1 (NLT)

Week 31  Joel

Joel uses the phrase day-of-the-Lord five times.
I check a word book. It looks like Obadiah Zechariah & Malachi use the expression once. Amos Zephaniah & Ezekiel twice. Isaiah three times. So Joel has more to say about it than anyone else.
When I look at Joel’s five references I don’t get any impression that the day-of-the-Lord is something to look forward to:
The day of the Lord is on the way, the day when destruction comes from the Almighty. How terrible that day will be!
Let everyone tremble in fear because the day of the Lord is upon us. It is a day of darkness and gloom
The day of the Lord is an awesome, terrible thing. Who can endure it?
The sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon will turn bloodred before the great and terrible day of the Lord
The day of the Lord will soon arrive. The sun and moon will grow dark, and the stars will no longer shine.
Joel says that the day-of-the-Lord will be terrible. Destructive. Fearsome. Unendurable. He also adds physical-observable-astronomical elements – the sun will get dark. The moon will turn blood-red. No starlight.
The day-of-the-Lord hadn’t happened yet. It was future to Joel. And it either isn’t or is future to me now. If I had to guess I’d say it’s yet to come. But there’s likely a big debate about that.

Note: quotes from Joel 1:15 2:1-2 2:11 2:31 3:14 (NLT). Reading report for January-July: 64% completed. So I’m still ahead.

Week 31  Lamentations 5

Right near the end of his lament Jeremiah says: it was our ancestors who sinned, but they died before the hand of punishment fell. We have suffered the punishment they deserved.
I wonder what Jeremiah is getting at here.
Is he saying that a guy breaks the law and doesn’t suffer any consequences?
Does Guy #1 break the law and then – later in time – Guy #2 gets punished instead of Guy #1?
Does guilty Guy #1 get off scot-free but Guy #2 – who’s maybe an innocent guy – just suddenly get hit with Guy #1’s consequences?
Breaking it down this way makes no sense to me. Quite a few times I’ve read that every single individual person gets the benefit of a personal review and assessment. What I’ve worked at deserving is what I’ll get.
It’s possible that Jeremiah was thinking here about how things play-out on a more macro-scale. For instance a government can make an evil law that works out pretty well for some people in the short-term (a bad law can be rewarding). But it’s still a bad law. And over the long-haul it’s badness ends up damaging people.
One of the Basic Rules in the bible is that I get to input a whole bunch of consequential actions over the course of my life. And eventually my consequences come full circle.
I don’t think Jeremiah is arguing against that. But I’m just not sure what he is arguing.

Note: quote from Lamentations 5:7 (NLT)

Week 31  Lamentations 3

Jeremiah puts together a long list of what he calls afflictions that come from the rod of the Lord’s anger. The afflictions aren’t against Israel…they’re against him! I counted 21 of them. (There’s at least 21 because if there were 2 in one verse I only counted 1 (for example Jeremiah says the Lord has attacked me and surrounded me with anguish and distress).)
Anyway here are 10 of the things the Lord did to Jeremiah:
1. He brought Jeremiah into deep darkness
2. His hand was heavy on Jeremiah
3. He broke Jeremiah’s bones
4. He buried Jeremiah in a dark place
5. He bound Jeremiah in heavy chains
6. He shut out Jeremiah’s prayers
7. He twisted Jeremiah’s road with many detours
8. He blocked Jeremiah’s path
9. He shot his arrows into Jeremiah’s heart
10. He rolled Jeremiah in the dust.
That’s 10 afflictions and there’s at least 11 more. Summing up how he felt about things Jeremiah says: I will never forget this awful time. And that sounds like a pretty typical and understandable reaction.
So it’s a bit of a surprise when Jeremiah wraps it all up by saying: yet I still dare to hope when I remember that the unfailing love of the Lord never ends. By his mercies we have been kept from complete destruction. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each day.
I’d class that as a non-typical reaction. Somehow Jeremiah’s reflection on the Lord looks like it’s totally independent of his own excruciating and oppressive personal circumstances.

Note: quotes from Lamentations 3:1 5 2-16 20 22-23 (NLT)