Hamas

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1. The Deeds of the People in the Temple

   Part 2

   Dr. Tova Ganzel

   The consequence foretold in Sefer Devarim for idolatry is exile. Along with this message, Yehezkel’s prophecy again emphasizes that these acts by the people have caused the defilement of the nation, the land, and the Temple – a result not mentioned in Sefer Devarim but in Sefer Vayikra. However, there is a quantitative difference: in Vayikra, only two verses speak of idolatry as causing defilement of the people and of the Temple, while in Sefer Yehezkel this issue appears in no less than thirty verses. The necessity of repeatedly emphasizing this matter during Yehezkel’s time is understandable bearing in mind the constant presence of false prophets, who continued to insist that the Temple would not be destroyed.

    

   Yehezkel’s descriptions of the varieties of idolatry committed by the people deliberately follows the style employed in Sefer Devarim in the commands and warnings not to follow the deeds of the nations and not to serve their gods. This technique lends additional validity to Yehezkel’s prophecies about the sins – particularly about the punishment that God will bring. In addition, the nation’s sin is amplified through a broad generalization of all the different types of idolatry and their enumeration together in Chapter 8. In this way the prophet underlines the prophetic message that he is conveying: the sins of the people have included idolatry, and this represents justification for the imminent destruction and exile.

2. The Soul that Sins – It Shall Die

   Dr. Tova Ganzel

   The people of Yehezkel’s generation claimed that since the destruction was inevitable, their individual actions no longer had any importance and it made no difference whether they remained loyal to God’s commandments or not. Others believed that “The way of the Lord is unfair”.  Therefore Yehezkel repeats and emphasizes the responsibility of every individual for his actions and the life-and-death consequences that follow. Yehezkel concludes by stating that the people’s claim – that the son dies because of the sins of the father – is simply incorrect.

   The prophet also declares that the gates of repentance remain open to the individual. These verses are quite unusual given that nowhere in the book is there any call for the people to mend their ways so that God will not destroy His Temple. Although the prophet here calls upon the people to repent, he offers no promise that this will prevent the destruction; he only speaks of deliverance from the death for the sinners when the destruction comes.

   The sins brought about the imminent destruction of the city according to Yehezkel are idolatry, sexual immorality and bloodshed. Yehezkel does not seem to attribute the destruction of the First Temple to the social transgressions of the nation as a whole – in neither the prophecies before nor after the Destruction.

    

   In Chapter 22 as the Destruction of Jerusalem draws nearer the prophet appears to place more of an emphasis on the personal responsibility that the leaders of the people bear for their actions, along with the dire consequences of their corrupt leadership for the nation as a whole. This chapter attributes sins both social and religious in nature to the office-bearers in leadership positions. Thus, the fate of the city is sealed because of idolatry, sexual immorality, bloodshed, and – finally – the deeds of the leadership.