Tuesday of Week 19 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Ezekiel 2:8—3:4
The reading, at first sight, describes a strange apocalyptic vision, but its meaning is clear. The vision of the chariot of Yahweh is interrupted by the vision of the scroll or book, of which we read just a part today. This vision was probably Ezekiel’s first in which, like Jeremiah and Isaiah, he is called to be God’s spokesperson.
God speaks to Ezekiel and calls him ‘son of man’.* This is a phrase in the Old Testament peculiar to Ezekiel (with the exception of two instances in the prophet Daniel). It is used 93 times altogether in Ezekiel and its purpose is to emphasise the great gap between a transcendent God and the human being. But in Daniel it takes on a messianic meaning, taken up later by Jesus, who refers to himself several times as ‘the’ (not ‘a’) “Son of Man”.
Ezekiel is first called on to listen carefully to what God has to say. In this he is not to be like the people who are rebellious and disobedient:
But you, mortal [son of man], hear what I say to you; do not be rebellious like that rebellious house…
The prophet is then to open his mouth and eat what is given him. A hand then reaches out a scroll for the prophet to eat. Unlike most ancient scrolls, it is written on both sides. The implication is that it is totally filled with God’s word and God’s judgement on his people.
The scroll was filled with “words of lamentation and mourning and woe”. Like Jeremiah, Ezekiel’s mission was first to communicate God’s displeasure with his people and to warn them of the sufferings they would endure as the result of their faithlessness. Later on, again like Jeremiah, he will preach a message of hope.
Following the Lord’s instructions, Ezekiel eats the scroll, whose contents he is to share with the people of Israel. When he was being called by Yahweh, the mouth of Isaiah had been touched by a seraph. In the case of Jeremiah, Yahweh had put his words into the prophet’s mouth. Here Ezekiel uses an even more graphic image of how God’s word becomes part of him.
In spite of its content, Ezekiel found the scroll:
…in my mouth…as sweet as honey.
However bitter its content, the word of God is always sweet to the taste. That is because God’s word is always spoken with love and with the well-being of the recipient in mind.
Ezekiel is then instructed to go to the people and to speak Yahweh’s words to them—the words that were on the scroll and which have been fully assimilated by the prophet.
The scene represents Ezekiel’s calling to be a prophet and to speak in God’s name. The eating of the scroll is a symbol of Ezekiel’s totally absorbing and assimilating into himself the word of God. It will literally become part of him.
We will find a similar image later in the Gospel in the famous chapter 6 of John where Jesus calls himself the Bread of Life:
Whoever eats of this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. (John 6:51)
To eat that Bread is to take into oneself the very Spirit of Christ and be fully united with him in his Risen Body, the Church. The image of eating a scroll will also appear in the Book of Revelation (Rev 10:1-11).
The Word of God that comes to us through Jesus Christ is not just a set of ideas to be known or even defended. It is a vision of life that we need to absorb into our very being so that it colours and is behind everything we say and do. It results in our being able to say, as Paul did:
…it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.
(Gal 2:20)
And we also need to remember the Eucharistic element in the Liturgy of the Word. The Word of God which is proclaimed to us is meant to be ‘eaten’ and totally assimilated. There is a real presence of Christ there. He speaks to us through it, but are we listening? This part of our liturgy is so often seen as of less importance…it is not.
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*”Son of Man” is translated as “Mortal” in the NRSVue translation of the Bible, but the interpretation is the same.
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Saturday of Week 19 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Matthew 19:13-15
This short passage is an echo of the statement Jesus made at the beginning of the discourse on the Church (Matt 18:1-4). Parents were bringing their children for Jesus to bless. The disciples, with the officiousness of minor officials, thought they were doing their Master a favour by protecting him from such trivial nuisances.
Jesus scolds them:
Let the children come to me, and do not stop them, for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.
Thus, not to children alone does the Kingdom of Heaven belong, but to all those who have the qualities of the child: their simplicity and openness, teachability, freedom from prejudice and readiness for change and adaptation. Only such people are ready to hear the message of the Gospel in its fullness.
The passage leads naturally into the next one about the rich man who asked Jesus what he should do to enter eternal life. For all his wealth, he would prove to be wanting in this particular area of openness.
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Saturday of Week 19 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Ezekiel 18:1-10,13,30-32
As stated in the First Reading, there was a saying among the Israelites that the prophet quotes:
The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.
In addition to today’s reading, we can also find the saying in Jeremiah (31:29). The meaning was clear enough—whatever wrongs the ancestors had done, their offspring would pay the penalty. We see that the idea was still prevalent in the time of Jesus. One day as he walked along, Jesus saw a man who had been blind from birth. His disciples asked him:
Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? (John 9:2)
To which Jesus replied:
Neither…(John 9:3)
However, both Jeremiah and Ezekiel (not to mention Jesus) reject the idea. Jeremiah says:
But all shall die for their own sins; the teeth of the one who eats sour grapes shall be set on edge. (Jer 31:30)
While Ezekiel, quoting Yahweh, says:
As I live, says the Lord God, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel. Know that all lives are mine; the life of the parent as well as the life of the child is mine: it is only the person who sins who shall die.
In other words, if any people suffered (as the Israelites were suffering under Nebuchadnezzar at this time), the blame could not be put at the door of their parents or grandparents. Everyone is responsible for the effects of their own wrongdoing, then “only the person who sins shall die”.
There then follows a list of actions which can be expected from the virtuous, actions which were constantly violated by the inhabitants of Jerusalem. These violations led eventually to the utter destruction of their city and its Temple and their being either slaughtered or carried away to Babylon in exile.
Among the good things listed are:
- Not eating on the mountains. This referred to performing idolatrous rituals on the shrines in the mountains.
- Not raising their eyes to the pagan idols, which Israel was now worshipping.
- Not having adulterous relations with a neighbour’s wife.
- Not having sexual relations with a woman during her menstruation. (Contact with blood was always forbidden to the Jews.)
- Not oppressing people.
- Giving back a pledge which had been offered when money was paid back after a loan.
- Not committing robbery.
- Feeding the hungry and clothing the naked
- Not lending at interest or demanding extra payment for a loan.
- Judging fairly in a dispute between two people.
- Living by Yahweh’s statutes and observing his ordinances.
Such a person (irrespective of how badly a predecessor behaved) is a good person and will surely live.
On the other hand (again irrespective of how well a predecessor behaved), if a person violates all these things, he shall surely die:
…he shall surely be put to death; his blood shall be upon himself.
The reading concludes by Yahweh’s saying that he will judge:
…all of you according to your ways…
We are then urged to turn away from and be converted from all wrongdoing, and there will be no reason to find a person guilty in any way.
…get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit!…For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord God. Turn, then, and live.
Perhaps we do not exactly think like the Israelites of those days did, but how many times have we been guilty of laying the blame for things we did on other people—”you made me do it!” There is in our society a strong tendency to find scapegoats, or to concentrate certain areas of wrongdoing on one or a small group of people.
Today’s reading reminds us that we are wholly responsible for the guilt of our wrongdoing, but at the same time let us hear again those words of the Lord in today’s reading:
I have no pleasure in the death of anyone…
And Jesus told us:
I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
(John 10:10)
Let us open ourselves to receiving that life.
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Thursday of Week 19 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Matthew 18:21—19:1
The last part of Matthew‘s discourse on the church is about forgiveness. This is not unconnected with the previous section on excommunicating the unrepentant brother or sister. As soon as a brother or sister does repent, there must be forgiveness—not just once, but indefinitely—”seventy-seven times”.
The reason is given in the parable which Jesus speaks about the two servants in debt. The one who had a huge debt to the king was forgiven, but then refused to forgive a relatively trivial debt owed to him by a fellow servant. Understand that ten thousand talents then would be the equivalent of hundreds of millions in a major currency today, and the 300 denarii would have been the equivalent of about three months’ wages.
In the Gospel, the ones with the big debt to the king are clearly ourselves; the ones with the small debts to us are our brothers and sisters.
We do not expect God to forgive us once or twice or any limited number of times, but every time. It is nowhere written that we have, say, only ten chances of going to confession and, once our quota is used up, there is nothing left. But if that is true of our relationship with God, it also has to be true in our relationships with others. We can never refuse an offer of reconciliation. And, we might add, forgiveness is much easier to fully complete when reconciliation has taken place.
This is not at all the same as turning a blind eye to wrongdoing. Yesterday’s text made that very clear. We are talking about healing divisions between people; we must never put obstacles in the way of that.
We have now come to the end of this discourse indicated by the first sentence of chapter 19:
When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan.
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Thursday of Week 19 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Ezekiel 12:1-12
Ezekiel is instructed by God to go through an elaborate mime as a message to his people so as to warn them of the coming deportation of the people of Jerusalem into exile in Babylon. The people are described by God as rebels, as people who have eyes, but do not see, have ears, but do not hear—because they do not want to. Jesus will use similar terms in speaking of the people who refused to listen to him. He will quote from Isaiah, who received these instructions from Yahweh when he was being called as a prophet:
Go and say to this people:
‘Keep listening, but do not comprehend;
keep looking, but do not understand.’
Make the mind of this people dull,
and stop their ears,
and shut their eyes,
so that they may not look with their eyes
and listen with their ears
and comprehend with their minds
and turn and be healed.
(Isaiah 6:9-10; see also Matt 13:14-15)
Ezekiel is told to pack up all his things like a person leaving home and going off into distant exile. Maybe when the people see him doing this its meaning will begin to dawn on them and they will realise that it is pointing to their rebellious behaviour.
The packing is to be done by day in the sight of all, but then he is to slip out in the evening, i.e. in such a way that he is seen as leaving covertly. He is to leave in darkness, through a hole in the mud wall of his house. His face is to be covered so that he cannot see the countryside which he is entering. All this is to make Ezekiel, the Lord’s prophet, a symbol or sign for what is going to happen to Israel.
Ezekiel did everything just as the Lord had commanded in full sight of the people. (We need to remember that he was a prophet and people would wonder about the significance of his rather strange actions.)
The following morning God again spoke to Ezekiel. When the people ask the prophet what is the meaning of what he is doing, they are to be told that the oracle (the mime is understood as having a message from God) is directed against the people of Jerusalem and the whole of Israel everywhere.
The meaning of Ezekiel’s mime is then clearly spelt out. The people will go into exile and banishment and King Zedekiah (“the prince who is among them”) will carry his own belongings and go through a hole in the city wall; his face will be covered so that he will not be able to see the country.
In fact, Nebuchadnezzar will come and destroy Jerusalem and the people will be brought off into exile to Babylon. During the siege of the city, King Zedekiah and his army will try to escape through a breach in the city walls. But he was captured by the Babylonians and brought to Riblah. There his two sons were killed in his presence and then his eyes were put out before he was brought off to Babylon (see 2 Kings 25). The king’s blindness is a symbol of the blindness of the whole people.
In the Gospel Jesus frequently is seen healing the blind (those who cannot see) and the deaf (those who cannot hear) and the mute (those who cannot speak). These are afflictions all of us can suffer from, and they prevent us from knowing and carrying out what God wants in our lives. Let us ask today for healing and docility to God’s will for us:
Lord, let me see… (Luke 18:41)
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Wednesday of Week 19 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Matthew 18:15-20
Today’s part of the ‘Discourse on the Church’ shifts from the harm that we can do to others, to the harm that others can do to the community, and how the community and its members should respond. Clearly we are speaking here of some serious wrong which hurts the mission of the Church community.
The wrongdoer is to be tackled on three levels, and this reflects what has just gone before about bringing back the sheep which is lost. Reconciliation, not punishment, is the objective.
If the wrong directly affects one person, then that person or another should go along to the wrongdoer privately and try to help the individual change their ways. If this works, then that is the end of the matter. However, if the wrongdoer will not listen, then one or two others who are also aware of the wrongdoing should be brought along as corroboration. This is based on a passage from Deuteronomy:
A single witness shall not suffice to convict a person of any crime or wrongdoing in connection with any offense that may be committed. Only on the evidence of two or three witnesses shall a charge be sustained. (Deut 19:15)
If the wrongdoer remains obstinate in the face of this evidence, then the whole community is to be brought in. And if in the face of the whole community, there is still no sign of repentance, then the person is to be expelled and treated like a “gentile and a tax collector”, in other words, as a total outsider. The tax collectors were among the most despised people in the community. They were local people employed by Roman tax contractors to collect taxes for them. Because they worked for Rome and often demanded unreasonable payments (they had to make a profit!), they gained a bad reputation and were generally hated and considered traitors to their own people and their religion.
The word Matthew uses for ‘community’ here is ‘church’, ekklesia or, in Hebrew, qahal, which refers to the gathering of a Christian community. As mentioned earlier, this is only one of two places where this term is used in the Gospels (the other is Matt 16:18).
Jesus now goes further in saying that all such decisions by the community have God’s full endorsement:
…whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. [i.e. by God]
Jesus also tells them:
…if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.
This mandate seems to be given to the community as a whole and not just to specific individuals.
It would be worth our while going carefully through this text and seeing how it applies to our church situation today. To what extent do we feel responsible for the wrongdoings of our fellow-Christians? To what extent do we realise that our behaviour, both as individuals and groups, reflects on the overall witness that the Church is called to give as the Body of Christ? Do people clearly see the message of the Gospel from the way we live both individually and corporately?
While, on the one hand, we are told to be compassionate and non-judgmental, are we over-tolerant of people in the community who believe that anything they do is just their own business? Every Christian community has a solemn responsibility to give witness to the vision of life that Jesus gave to us. There have then to be standards of behaviour which bind all. Moments of weakness can be and should be treated with compassion, but deliberate and continued flouting of our central commitment to truth, love, justice and other foundational principles cannot be overlooked or allowed to undermine the central mission of the Christian community to be a sacrament of the Kingdom. It is not a question of image, but of our integrity.
What has all this to do with the way we use the sacrament of reconciliation, and what is the relationship of the sacrament to this passage? The passage is closely linked with what Jesus says about the problem of giving scandal, of being a stumbling block in people’s coming to Christ. At the same time, as tomorrow’s passage will indicate, the long-term aim—above all—is not punishment, but reconciliation and healing of divisions.
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Wednesday of Week 19 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Ezekiel 9:1-7; 10:18-22
Today’s reading is in two parts:
- Slaughter of idolaters (chap 9);
- God’s glory leaves the Temple (chap 10).
It is another apocalyptic-style account using very symbolic language in which God’s punishment comes on all those who have sinned.
As Ezekiel listens, there comes the thundering voice of God. He is calling on the “executioners of the city”, that is, those who are to inflict punishment on wrongdoers.
Immediately six men are seen coming from the gate on the north side of Jerusalem, each one armed with a deadly weapon, a war-club or a battle-axe. In their midst is another man, dressed in white and with a scribe’s ink horn in his belt. Clearly the latter is the one who keeps a record of people’s doings. These are the six guardian angels of the city, with the seventh dressed in linen. They correspond to the seven angels of the judgement in the Book of Revelation (8:2,6).
They stop in front of the bronze altar in the Temple. Now the glory of the Lord, traditionally understood as seated on the cherubim (in the Holy of Holies), moves towards the Temple threshold. God is leaving the Temple.
He gives instructions to the man in white. He is to put a mark on the foreheads of all those who deplore the idolatrous practices that are going on. These are the faithful remnant of God’s people. The mark was a taw, the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, which looks like an “x” (and so translated as “cross”). The rest were to be mercilessly struck down. (The text does not indicate that anyone was, in fact, found worthy to be marked with a taw, but it would indicate the remnant that was spared to return from exile.)
Ezekiel is the preeminent prophet of personal and individual retribution. The innocent inhabitants of Jerusalem are to be spared, while those guilty of idolatry are punished. With other prophets, the whole community, the innocent along with the guilty, may be punished.
The punishment begins right at the entrance to the Temple where God’s people are, and begins with the eldest and excludes none—old men, youths and maidens, women and children. The Temple is to become defiled with the corpses of people who are unclean. It does not matter because Yahweh is no longer there.
In the second part of the reading, Yahweh leaves his sanctuary. Riding as usual on the cherubim, he leaves the Temple by the east gate. The east gate was the main ceremonial entrance into the Temple and was also known as “gate of the house of the Lord”. It overlooked the Kidron Valley towards the Mount of Olives.
Now Yahweh has left Jerusalem and the Temple. The prophet says that:
The cherubim lifted up their wings and rose up from the earth in my sight as they went out with the wheels beside them. They stopped at the entrance of the east gate of the house of the Lord, and the glory of the God of Israel was above them.
For us Christians, God is never confined to one place. He is everywhere and we are urged to seek and find him in all things. We do not seek him in a temple. On the contrary, we are called to be his temple, the place where he is present. We can, however, expel him from our hearts and bring ruin on ourselves just as the people of Jerusalem did. The choice is ours.
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Tuesday of Week 19 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Matthew 18:1-5,10,12-14
Today we come to the fourth of the five discourses which are the distinctive characteristic of Matthew’s Gospel. This one focuses on the Church (and is called the “Discourse on the Church”), the Christian community, and in particular the relationships among its members.
The reading begins with Jesus asking the question:
Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?
By implication, this question is asking about the greatest in the Christian community—a sign of the Kingdom.
Jesus answers the question very simply by putting a child in front of his disciples. To become the greatest is to become a small child.
Why? Children have many precious qualities. They are born free of prejudice and they are totally open to learning. It is these qualities, which we tend to lose as we grow up, that we need to enter the Reign of God. We need to be totally open and free of prejudice when it comes to listening to God, and to allow ourselves to be fully teachable, malleable and flexible. Then we will be ready to receive everything that God wants us to have, and to become everything God wants us to become. Furthermore, to welcome a person who has these qualities in Jesus’ name is to welcome Christ himself.
From that the Gospel moves on to another related consideration. It skips a passage which deals with those who cause others to fall into sin and the kind of punishment such people deserve. Instead, it moves from children to the “little ones”. The “little ones” are not just children, but the weaker ones in the community, and they may be adults. But they are the ones who can very easily be led astray by the bad example which others give. And there are severe penalties for doing this (which are mentioned in the omitted passage).
This is emphasised by the parable of the lost sheep. God is compared to a shepherd who has lost just one sheep out of a hundred. When he finds it again he is happier than over the other ninety-nine which have not strayed. As such, the Gospel concludes:
So it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.
How terrible, then, if one of us is responsible for someone’s being separated from God forever! Sadly, sometimes it feels like that happens quite a lot in our society and in our Church.
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Monday of Week 19 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Matthew 17:22-27
For the second time Jesus warns his disciples about what is to come: his suffering, death and resurrection. Once again the word ‘delivered’ or ‘handed over’ (Greek, emiparadidomi) is used. It is a refrain running right through the Gospels—applied to John the Baptist, to Jesus, to the disciples, and to the giving of the Body of Christ in the Eucharist.
We are told that the disciples are overwhelmed with grief over what Jesus says. Whether that is purely out of sorrow for Jesus, or whether it represents their disillusionment, is hard to say. This was not the kind of end they were expecting to the coming of the Messiah.
The second part of today’s reading is a peculiar scene, only to be found in Matthew. The collectors of the temple tax want to know whether Jesus pays it or not. Peter assures them that he does.
But on entering the house (there is that anonymous ‘house’ again, which seems to symbolise the Church or the Christian community), Jesus asks Peter (though, interestingly, he calls him by his old name ‘Simon’):
What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tribute? From their children or from others?
In other words, from whom do they collect taxes, from their subjects, or from foreigners? Peter replies:
From others…
And, in fact, the Romans did collect taxes from their colonised peoples and not from their own citizens.
In that case, Jesus says, the sons—that is, he and his disciples—should be exempt from paying the temple tax. After all, the Temple is God’s house, and Jesus is his Son, and his disciples are his brothers, sons of the same Father.
But to avoid giving scandal and misunderstanding, Peter is told to catch a fish in whose mouth he will find a shekel, enough to pay taxes for both of them. A half shekel was levied each year on all Jewish males of 20 years or older. It was for the upkeep of the Temple. A half shekel at this time was roughly equivalent to two days’ wages.
This passage seems to reflect a dilemma of the early Church, in fact, a double dilemma. Should Christians who are Jews continue to pay the temple tax? And, should Christians in general have to pay tax to a pagan government, especially one whose emperor claims to be a deity?
The first dilemma solved itself in time, especially with the destruction of the Temple (which had already taken place when Matthew’s Gospel was written). The second dilemma took longer. The problem seems to have been solved by the principle laid down elsewhere by Jesus:
Give therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s. (Matt 22:21)
We too have to discern what is legitimately required of us by our governments and make our contribution to the needs of our society while, at the same time, not compromising on issues where universal principles of truth and justice are at stake. Civil disobedience is sometimes not only a right, but also a responsibility.
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Monday of Week 19 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Ezekiel 1:2-5,24-28
Today we begin reading from the prophet Ezekiel. The language is often very apocalyptic in style and full of symbolism. His special contribution to the prophetic tradition was through his interest in the Temple and liturgy. He also had a great influence on the period after the Exile, when the refugee Jews returned to Jerusalem. He has been called the “father of Judaism”.
Ezekiel became a prophet in Babylon, as a member of the first group of exiles deported by King Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BC. He was the first to receive the prophetic call outside of Israel. His first task was to prepare his fellow countrymen in Babylon for the final destruction of Jerusalem—which they believed God would not allow to happen. But Ezekiel reproached Israel for its sinful and idolatrous behaviour, and foretold more destruction and a second and more complete deportation into exile for the people of Jerusalem. All of which, of course, happened in 587 BC. But after this event, just as Jeremiah had believed, Ezekiel thought that the exiles were the hope of Israel’s restoration, once God’s allotted time for the exile had been accomplished and they could return to Jerusalem.
Today’s reading begins by introducing Ezekiel in the third person. The time of this first vision is dated as the fifth year of King Jehoiachin’s exile in Babylon (593-92 BC). The name Ezekiel means “God is strong”, or “God strengthens”, or “God makes hard” in different contexts of the book. The prophet, like Jeremiah, belonged to a priestly family. (Note that the ‘el’ in a Hebrew name refers to God. For example, the names of the archangels are Micha-el, Gabri-el and Rapha-el.)
Ezekiel, still being spoken of in the third person, says:
…the hand of the Lord was on him there.
This phrase is repeated six times in the book, and indicates a powerful experience of God revealing himself in a vision.
The experience described here in part is called the “Chariot of Yahweh”. Its central message is that God transcends any specific place. He is not, as the tradition held, tied to the Temple in Jerusalem, but can be with his people in their exile (as he was with them in their journey through the desert during the Exodus). This is a breakthrough which will be picked up by the people of the New Testament and emphasised by Paul.
The vision begins with the words, “As I looked”. The symbols at the opening of the vision all speak of the presence and power of God: the stormy wind, the great cloud surrounded by light, the fire with flashes of lightning looking:
…like gleaming amber, something that looked like fire enclosed all around…
In the centre appear what seem to be four animals in human form. ‘Four’ represents completeness as also seen elsewhere in the Old Testament by the image of four directions and four quarters of the earth. The idea appears several times in this chapter and over 40 times in the whole book.
The four creatures (which are later referred to as “cherubim”) attend on God’s throne. Here they represent God’s creation. In our reading their detailed description has been omitted, but the four separately symbolise:
- humanity—God’s appointed ruler of creation (see the creation story in Genesis);
- the lion—the strongest of wild animals;
- the ox—the most powerful of domestic animals;
- the eagle—the greatest of the birds.
They will appear again in the Book of Revelation, and are commonly depicted in medieval art where they represent the four evangelists (Matthew the man; Mark the lion; Luke the ox; and John the eagle).
Above the vault over the heads of the cherubim was a sapphire shaped like a throne on which sat “something that seemed like a human form”. This is the prophet’s way of describing God, but he is careful not to say that he saw God directly—no one could see God and live.
Again from his loins upward and downward, the figure like a man was surrounded by fire:
…and there was a splendor all around. Like the bow in a cloud on a rainy day, such was the appearance of the splendor all around.
To the prophet it all spoke of the glory and presence of the Lord, and he fell to the ground in adoration. The glory of Yahweh is often described in the Bible as a bright cloud (e.g. the pillar of cloud with the Exodus people, and Jesus covered by a cloud during the Transfiguration). Also, after his resurrection, Jesus ascends into a cloud—that is, into the presence of his Father (see Acts 1:9).
What is significant here is that for so many centuries God’s glory and presence had been linked to the Temple in Jerusalem. But now the Temple is far away and God is with his people in their Babylonian exile. This is a major theme in the first half of Ezekiel’s message. This is a foretaste of the presence of God through Jesus and, through the Spirit, in the Church, where God’s people become his temple.
Spirituality in later times will also constantly find the glory of God in all of creation. As the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins said, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.” God is always with us revealing his truth, goodness and beauty to us. It is for us to open our eyes and learn to see. We may not have apocalyptic visions like Ezekiel, but we are surrounded by dazzling beauty if only we would look.
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