The Hand of the Lord?
When life doesn’t let us choose.
Ezekiel prophesied between 593-571 B.C. Most Christians are familiar with this time frame because it includes Jerusalem fall to Babylon and King Nebuchadnezzar. Ezekiel was born into a priestly family. History records that Ezekiel was married but his wife died and he no children. He was known for being both a priest and a prophet, which at the time was unique because the two roles were often thought to be in opposition with one another.
Ezekiel traveled mostly between Mesopotamia and Palestine in some sort of visionary state, seeing strange things and proclaiming strange and dangerous messages. His visions and preaching were so strange that some Jewish traditions report that no one under the age of thirty was allowed to read from the book of Ezekiel. He just might have been the only biblical character that required a parental guidance rating.
Ezekiel was a pretty well-rounded person. He was well traveled, highly educated, and very experienced at fulfilling his roles as priest and prophet of Israel. He doesn’t strike me as a man who lacks discipline or intentionality. Ezekiel seems to be as calculated about his work for as he is committed, which is why I found his description of his entry into the valley of dry bones extremely interesting. “The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by his Spirit and set me down in the middle of the valley…”
God doesn’t have hands. Ezekiel is assigning human attributes to God in an effort to better make sense of his experience. We call this anthropomorphism. It’s the thing we do when we want to describe something as human. This is the reason we dress up our pets in sweaters and shoes. It’s the reason we travel to Orlando Florida to visit a theme park whose primary mascot is a mouse. We often assign human qualities and emotions to things that are not human in order to make sense of our experiences.
Ezekiel’s use of the word hand is his subtle way of letting us know that he didn’t choose to end up in a valley full of dry and decaying bones any more than I choose to wake up from a colonoscopy to find out that I had cancer.
Ezekiel’s story is our story. One day we all wake up to the reality that so many times in life, where we end up and what we end up having to do just to survive is by all accounts not our choice.
When this happens the question that we most often wrestle with is “Did God have a hand in this?”
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