{"id":3208,"date":"2017-06-14T21:26:47","date_gmt":"2017-06-14T21:26:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/?p=3208"},"modified":"2017-06-14T21:26:47","modified_gmt":"2017-06-14T21:26:47","slug":"ezekiel-nature-and-grace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/2017\/06\/14\/ezekiel-nature-and-grace\/","title":{"rendered":"Ezekiel, Nature, and Grace"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" In my ongoing reading of Ezekiel along with Robert Jenson’s Brazos Commentary<\/a>, I came to the amazing poem in Ezekiel 27:1-36. \u00a0This text is a lament over the fall of Tyre, a pagan port and trading city on an island. \u00a0The poem pictures Tyre as a splendid ship:<\/p>\n

They made all your planks<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>of fir trees from Senir;<\/span><\/span>
\nthey took a cedar from Lebanon<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>to make a mast for you.<\/span><\/span>
\nFrom oaks of Bashan<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>they made your oars;<\/span><\/span>
\nthey made your deck of pines<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>from the coasts of Cyprus,<\/span><\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>inlaid with ivory.<\/span><\/span>
\nOf fine embroidered linen from Egypt
\n<\/span>w<\/span>as your sail,<\/span><\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>serving as your ensign;\u00a0<\/span><\/span>
\nblue and purple from the coasts of Elishah<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>was your awning.<\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The texts lists every sort of valuable good traded with Tyre by surrounding nations, including Israel:<\/p>\n

silver, iron, tin, and lead . . .<\/span>\u00a0human beings and vessels of bronze . . .<\/span>horses, war-horses, and mules . . .<\/span>\u00a0ivory tusks and ebony . . .<\/span>\u00a0turquoise, purple, embroidered work, fine linen, coral, and rubies . . .\u00a0<\/span>wheat . . . millet,honey, oil, and balm . . .<\/span>wine of Helbon, and white wool . . .\u00a0<\/span>wrought iron, cassia . . .<\/span>saddlecloths for riding . . .\u00a0<\/span>lambs, rams, and goats . . .\u00a0<\/span>all kinds of spices, and all precious stones, and gold . . .\u00a0<\/span>choice garments, . . . clothes of blue and embroidered work, and . . .carpets of coloured material, bound with cords and made secure. . . .<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Notwithstanding its prosperity, Tyre ultimately is set up for judgment and ruin:<\/p>\n

Your riches, your wares, your merchandise,<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>your mariners and your pilots,<\/span><\/span>
\nyour caulkers, your dealers in merchandise,<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>and all your warriors within you,<\/span><\/span>
\nwith all the company<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>that is with you,<\/span><\/span>
\nsink into the heart of the seas<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>on the day of your ruin.<\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s tempting to suggest Tyre is judged\u00a0because\u00a0<\/em>of its luxuries, but the text doesn’t exactly say so. \u00a0In fact, in his commentary, Jenson suggests that God regrets that Tyre must face judgment:<\/p>\n

In our text, God regards humanity’s natural achievements with admiration, but he does so within a context of sorrow for their failure, a failure that is measured by the supernatural demands and promises made to his own people. \u00a0This suggests, for one thing, that the gift of natural goods to all humanity is not finally independent of the gifts made in history to God’s people: \u00a0the story of the Lord’s conflicts with and benefits to his people encompasses the stories of the Lord with the Gentile nations — how that is to be worked metaphysically currently divides the theologians. \u00a0And it further suggests that that the Lord’s supernatural regard to natural gifts is always at once affirming and mournful.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jenson Commentary, 217. \u00a0Jenson’s comment puts the lament of the fall of “Babylon the Great” in Revelation 18<\/a> — clearly, I think, an echo of this text from Ezekiel — into a somewhat new light for me. \u00a0Revelation 18:11 contains a similar list of luxury cargo:<\/p>\n

And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her, since no one buys their cargo any more, <\/span>cargo of gold, silver, jewels and pearls, fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet, all kinds of scented wood, all articles of ivory, all articles of costly wood, bronze, iron, and marble, <\/span>cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, olive oil, choice flour and wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, slaves\u2014and human lives.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Perhaps here, too, God regrets the destruction of these cultural artifacts, although I think both here and in Ezekiel the inclusion of human beings \/ slaves suggests part of how the culture became corrupt. \u00a0Yet in Revelation 21, we see the New Jerusalem, a city built of gold and jewels, to which the “kings of the Earth” bring their glory (Rev. 21:24), suggesting that the finest things of culture are not finally destroyed after all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my ongoing reading of Ezekiel along with Robert Jenson’s Brazos Commentary, I came to the amazing poem in Ezekiel 27:1-36. \u00a0This text is a lament over the fall of Tyre, a pagan port and trading city on an island. \u00a0The poem pictures Tyre as a splendid ship: They made all your planks \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0of fir […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[86,84,81],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-eschatology","category-ezekiel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p824rZ-PK","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3208"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3209,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3208\/revisions\/3209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}