Divine Horror: Ezekiel 20:26

The Bible is weird: this could be the subtitle of my introduction to biblical literature class. I have a tendency to point out those parts of the Bible that most people skim over because they are not particularly helpful for one's contemporary faith. There are these passages that, while overlooked most of the time in modern religious communities, when scrutinized and taken seriously shock the reader; remind the reader that these works are products of a different time and place.

I have been sort of collecting these passages this semester, and perhaps I will find some time to post some of the earlier ones I have discussed in class (Gen. 6:1-4; Exod. 4:24-26; most of 1 Kings 17-2 Kings 10, etc.). One such passage is for my class this friday. When reading Ezekiel's reasoning for the exile, which it is fruitful to compare to Isaiah's and Jeremiah's warnings, one finds that the problem is that the people have persistently and consistently not walked in God's ordinances and statutes (cf. Leviticus 18:1-5) and have not kept the sabbaths (the use is in the plural like in the Holiness writings). This problem was there since Egypt--that is, in Ezekiel 20, Ezekiel basically argues that there has not been a time when the Israelites actually did follow God's ordinances, statues, and properly revered God's sabbaths. This differs from the emphases in Jeremiah and Isaiah that the reason for (impending) destruction is lack of justice: not properly caring for the vulnerable in society, such as orphans, widows, and the oppressed. Although this surely can be included in Ezekiel's statutes and ordinances, the emphasis for Ezekiel tends to be more cultic: proper and improper worship. But in the process there is quite a difficult line:

and I defiled them through their very gifts in making them offer by fire all their first-born, that I might horrify them; I did it that they might know that I am the LORD. (Ezek. 20:26)

Ezekiel, as noted, is very close on most topics to the Holiness Code (Leviticus 17-26), but on this point, compare Lev. 18:21 (see also Deut. 18:10):

You shall not give any of your children to devote them by fire to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the LORD.

It is unclear what offering one's child to Molech would be. Whether this is another deity or the LORD as king (Melech). In both passages, the practice offering one's child by fire (as a burnt offering) has a negative valuation. One might argue that "first-born" for Ezekiel is not one's own human children, but this would not explain why it is so horrifying. It takes the offering of the first-born sons (e.g., Exod. 22:29) very literally.

For Ezekiel, this burnt offering is a command from God; in Leviticus it is forbidden by God. While in Leviticus, this action would profane God's name, it is interesting to note that the reasoning behind God's actions in Ezekiel 20 throughout--the reason why God does not continually punish the Israelites--is for the sake of God's name. Thus while in Leviticus, offering one's children as a burnt offering profanes God, as a divine command in Ezekiel, it defiles the people.

So, let's run down the checklist for this one verse: God demands burnt offering of one's first-born child; God is trying to horrify; God is trying to defile through the very mechanisms of sacrifice. That is, sacrifice, which is supposed to remove one's ritual impurity and moral defilements is here the very means of that defilement (and again portrayed as a divine command).

These two too contrary passages end on the same Holiness note: "I am the LORD." It is a statement that punctuates the Holiness code; it is the exclamation point and the underlying powerful reason why one should obey. For the Ezekiel passage, this divinely inflicted horror is so that the people can actually KNOW that "I am the LORD." It is the ultimate expression of divine authority. God is demonstrating ultimacy by being beyond morality, ethics, and even purity and defilement. Horror demonstrates God's terrible power, instilling fear.

Mimesis, or the Akedah Lives Again

During World War II, Erich Auerbach wrote his monumentally important study called Mimesis, while he was in exile. It begins its history of mimetic literary representation with a comparison between the revelation of Odysseus's scar in the Odyssey and the Akedah, or "binding," of Isaac in Gen. 22. This story from Genesis has reverberated throughout the centuries. You can find it in the Maccabean literature to describe martyrs, or, more accurately, to encourage martyrdom (ironically, since Isaac never died in the original story), there are hints that early Christians applied the story to Jesus, to medieval massacres of Jews in Europe (see Shalom Spiegel's fanstastic book called The Akedah), and the story has resurfaced in a new guise today.

Non Sequitur here. I have recently began to watch a new show on TNT called "Saving Grace." Grace is a cop who drinks, sleeps with married men, etc., and is basically on God's "last chance list." An angel named Earl, who eats tacos and chews tobacco, is her guide (and she does not completely believe he exists). In the last episode, a very religious father and son duo enter the story. They are conservative Christians, and the father claims that God talks to him. This actually is not, in the parameters of the show, very difficult to believe, since Earl the angel keeps coming on the scene to talk to Grace. But, even here, things start to appear a bit cooky or scary. The father tells the police to guard his son closely (he was being guarded already because he was a witness to a high profile case), because God had told him that he would not live to see his 18th birthday, and, lo and behold, the son was to turn 18 that very night at midnight (or 12:01, for you picky people out there). Indeed, just before midnight, someone knocked out the guard protecting the child and kidnapped him. BUT it was the boy's own father. In the next scene, the father holds a knife to his son's throat while he is being surrounded by police. He claims that, in fact, God told him that he would have to carry out the prophecy (that his son would have to die that night).

This story has Abraham and Isaac written all over it, down to the use of a knife for the sacrifice and the divine command. The biblical story has been interpreted many ways, of course, as all multivalent texts are. It has been understood to represent the shift from human sacrifice to animal sacrifice in Israelite society (this is a scholarly interpretation, of course). Since antiquity, however, the story has been interpreted to highlight Abraham's righteousness, obedience, and faith as well as Isaac's obedience and faith. Perhaps obedience more than anything. But, in the modern environment, when seeing a new iteration, it appears more like fanatacism or mental instability.

This raises the question: can someone have too much faith? be too obedient? I have often considered it my calling and, in fact, my duty in the classroom to bring doubt and to encourage questioning when and where certainty have long held sway. Can you really have faith without some doubt, anyway? At what point can obedience slip into blindness?