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 PrintableVersion The Message of EzekielNever boringTHE MESSAGE OF EZEKIEL Long ago when even scientists were expected to write essays the following essay title was set in the Part II of the Natural Science Tripos at Cambridge. 'Now as I beheld the living creatures, behold one wheel upon the earth by the living creature, with his four faces. The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the colour of a beryl: and they four had one likeness: and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel'. Discuss. Did the examiners of 1946 know their Bibles better than today's churchgoers? They wanted to hear about enzyme cycles. We can speculate as to whether most church congregations would have any idea where the phrase comes from. Wheels within wheels has passed into common English usage, together with 'them dry bones'. Ezekiel is otherwise too difficult for many, except those who make much of the final chapters looking for the site of the nuclear Armageddon, preparing architectural plans for a new temple, and identifying Gog and Magog in the current politics of the Middle East. The splendour of this book is that it opens up this major prophet for us so that it is just possible that someone might be found preaching on it. One of the problems for the ordinary reader of Ezekiel is the need to keep the overall picture in mind and avoid getting bogged down in the detail, however fascinating some of the images are. Chris Wright manages to do this. The introduction gives us a strong skeletal framework on which to build the rest of the study. He then divides the book up into nine sections. After dealing with Chapters 1-11 consecutively, he then divides up the middle section into themes amalgamating several chapters. The next four sections come from various chapters with a common theme. Although the Index of chapters at the beginning tells us this, it did throw me a bit when I got to it. I still think that Chapter 13 is missing. The general introduction to the BST series describes them as 'not commentaries to elucidate'. But Ezekiel needs elucidation to lead us to application. This BST achieves this. It is easy reading but there is a lot of meat there. To refer to all the quotable quotes would make this review far too long. There are some footnotes that may be passed over on first reading but to follow up all the references in some would be a worthwhile study in itself. It is a book for the study rather than the bedside table. It is an excellent addition to the BST OT series. In the author's preface, he writes of a vow never to make his handling of the biblical text boring. As far as this reviewer is concerned, in this book he has fulfilled his vow. John Marsh© Evangelicals Now - April 2003 |
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