Water (and Blood) in Ezekiel 16 and 36-37

Abstract

This article compares Ezekiel 16 and Ezekiel 36:1-37:14 as an example of “resumptive exposition” (D. I. Block) with particular attention to the ways that the message of Israel’s restoration in the later chapters allude to the message of Jerusalem’s judgment and rehabilitation in the earlier one. Although commentators have occasionally noted various lexical and thematic links between Ezekiel 16 and Ezekiel 36-37, none has yet provided an integrative assessment of these chapters with respect to the foundling motif. The prophetic indictment of the adulterous Jerusalem in Ezekiel 16 recurrently appeals to YHWH’s merciful treatment of Jerusalem in her youthful years as an exposed orphan and uncovered virgin (vv. 1-14). The author proposes that the ancient Near Eastern texts on the birth ritual and the foundling inform the rhetoric of Ezekiel 16. A careful examination of the chapters warrants the conclusion that Ezekiel 36:1-37:14, in connection with Ezekiel 16, employ literary reversal and amplification through skillful interlacing of lexical elements (e.g., to multiply, to know, to remember, and to live) to augment the import of YHWH’s message for the eschatological renewal of Israel. Moreover, in both chapters (Eze 16 and 36), the water ritual intimated at the beginning of YHWH’s deliverance of the covenantal partner is allusively linked to priestly texts on riddance rituals (e.g., Num 19; Lev 16), underscoring the irony of divine forgiveness of the house of Israel to her shame. Ezekiel’s prophecy of the restoration of the — house of Israel (Eze 36:33-38) and the vision of the bones in the valley (Eze 37:1-14) parallel the depiction in Ezekiel 16 of Jerusalem’s encounter with YHWH as a foundling in response to his divine command, “Live!” (Eze 16:6/2x). The creative imperative reverberates throughout Ezekiel’s vision of the dry bones in Ezekiel 37 (vv. 6, 9, 10, and 14) with the word to live ( חיה ) serving as a characteristic leitmotif. This pronouncement powerfully affirms YHWH’s eternal loving-kindness for his chosen people, whom their parents had abandoned (Eze 16:2), in contrast to the way these estranged parents entreat the river god for their lives while abandoning an unwanted child in the Mesopotamian riddance ceremony. Ezekiel 16 is thus a significant dialectical partner in understanding the prophetic discourse on the hopeful future of Israel in Ezekiel 36:1-37:14.