What laws were "not good"? A canonical approach to the theological problem of Ezekiel 20:25-26

Journal of Biblical Literature

Volumn 123, Issue 2, 2004, Pages 201-218

  Hahn, Scott Walker ^a   Bergsma, John Sietze ^b  

^a FRANCISCAN UNIVERSITY OF STEUBENVILLE   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 59649087045     PISSN: 00219231     EISSN: 19343876     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/3267942     Document Type: Review

References (70)

1. Hartmut Gese, "Ezechiel 20,25 f. und die Erstgeburtsopfer," in Beiträge zur Alttestamentlichen Theologie: Festschrift für Walther Zimmerli zum 70. Geburtstag (ed. Herbert Donner, Robert Hanhart, and Rudolf Smend; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1977), 140
2. Unless otherwise noted, English biblical quotations are from the NJPS Tanakh
3. See Daniel I. Block, The Book of Ezekiel: Chapters 1-24 (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 639-41
4. Johann Lust, Traditie, Redactie en Kerygma bij Ezechiel: Een Analyse van Ez XX 1-26 (Brussels: Paleis der Academien, 1969), 134-46
5. Julius A. Bewer, "Textual and Exegetical Notes on the Book of Ezekiel," JBL 72 (1953): 159-61
6. Block, Ezekiel, 640
7. Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 22; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983), 369
8. According to David J. Halperin, Ezekiel's God is "a monster of cruelty and hypocrisy" (Seeking Ezekiel: Text and Psychology [University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993], 170)
9. In this article we use the term "Priestly" in a broad sense, including the Holiness Code and the work of the "Holiness School," if there was one. On the characteristics of the Holiness School, see Israel Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995)
10. For a challenge to the existence of a distinct Holiness Code, see Volker Wagner, "Zur Existenz des sogenannten 'Heiligkeitsgesetz,'" ZAW 86 (1974): 307-16. We neither deny nor affirm a division between Priestly and Holiness sources and schools; for our purposes it is enough that they were at least closely related and share largely the same perspective vis-à-vis the Deuteronomic school
11. Ezekiel draws equally on both Priestly and Holiness texts (Risa Levitt Kohn, A New Heart and New Soul: Ezekiel, the Exile, and the Torah [JSOTSup 358; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002], 85), and it is not germane to our argument to emphasize the distinction
12. For a review of the various divisions scholars have proposed for Ezek 20:5-26, see Leslie C. Allen, "The Structuring of Ezekiel's Revisionist History Lesson (Ezekiel 20:3-31)," CBQ 54 (1992): 448-62, esp. 448-51
13. See Block's layout of the divisions of the text (Ezekiel, 622-24)
14. Corrine Patton also recognizes the correspondence between the narrative of Ezek 20 and the narrative sequence of the pentateuchal accounts of the exodus: "The clearest references to the exodus in the book of Ezekiel occur in ch. 20. The text shows clear familiarity with the exodus tradition: sojourn in Egypt (5-8), deliverance by the LORD (9-10), two generations in the wilderness (10-25), the giving of the law in the wilderness (11-13 and 25-26) and entry into the land (28).... The scheme certainly matches historical reviews present and presumed in Deuteronomic texts, including the historical review in Deuteronomy 1-11, the speech of Solomon in 1 Kings 8, and the speech of Joshua in Joshua 24" ("'I Myself Gave Them Laws That Were Not Good': Ezekiel 20 and the Exodus Traditions,'" JSOT 69 [1996]: 74-75)
15. E.g., Dennis Olson, The Death of the Old and the Birth of the New: The Framework of the Book of Numbers and the Pentateuch (BJS 71; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985)
16. Thomas B. Dozeman, "The Book of Numbers," NIB 2:4
17. See Jacob Milgrom, Numbers (JPS Torah Commentary; Philadelphia: Jewish Publicaton Society, 1990), xv, 211, 214
18. See Block, Ezekiel, 626 n. 63
19. See n. 19 below
20. The dispersion of Israel is implied by vv. 30, 36d; regathering is implied by vv. 26-27, 36a-b, 43
21. David Rolph Seely, "The Raised Hand of God as an Oath Gesture," in Fortunate the Eyes That See: Essays in Honor of David Noel Freedman (ed. A. B. Beck et al.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 411-21, esp. 413
22. Another possibility, suggested by Kohn, is that Ezek 25:23 is a direct reference to Deut 4:27 (New Heart, 100 n. 32). The context of 4:26-27 includes language characteristic of oaths ("I call heaven and earth as my witness" [v. 26a]). If the introducing v. 25 is taken temporally ("When ..." [see GKC §164d]), the whole passage 4:25-31 may be read in the indicative as sworn prediction of apostasy, exile, and restoration. Whether Ezek 20:23 is working from this passage, Deut 32:40 as proposed above, or both, it is notable that Ps 106:26-27 also knows of an oath sworn in the desert to scatter the people of Israel
23. Consider the following: (1) if the introductory in Deut 4:25-31 is taken as "when" rather than "if" (see n. 18), the passage reads as Moses' sworn prediction that Israel will break the Deuteronomic covenant and experience judgment (i.e., dispersion and exile); (2) although there ought to be corresponding blessings for the Levites to pronounce in ch. 27, only the curses are given (Deut 27:11-26); (3) the curses for disobedience (28:15-68) are two to three times longer than the promises for obedience (28:1-14) and are far more detailed and programmatic; (4) similarly, the threats for disobedience in 29:16-30:10 are oddly long and programmatic, as if the author is not really in doubt about which of the two options (obedience or disobedience) the Israelites will choose; (5) Deut 31:16-22 consists of a divine prophecy of Israel's inevitable disobedience and actualization of the covenant curses; (6) Deut 31:26-29 consists of Moses' solemn prediction to the Israelites of their future complete violation of the covenant; (7) the Song of Moses (32:2-43) castigates the Israelites so thoroughly for their rebelliousness against the LORD that when the LORD swears to "take vengeance on my adversaries and requite those who hate me" (v. 41), the reader is tempted to take this as a reference to the Israelites themselves, who from v. 5 through v. 38 have never responded to the LORD with anything but rebellion. Corinne Patton astutely comments that, according to Ezek 20:25, "Israel has been set up for failure" ("I Myself," 79). One can only agree, and the same conclusion could be drawn from a canonical reading of Deuteronomy. The end of the book "takes for granted that the people will indeed fail to be the true people of the covenant and that this will result in the full force of the curses of ch. 28 falling on them" (J. Gordon McConville, Grace in the End: A Study in Deuteronomic Theology [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993], 135)
24. This is a classic example of fusion of Priestly and Deuteronomic thought in Ezek 20, which Kohn has demonstrated at greater length (New Heart, 98-103). Ezekiel probably saw in the covenant curses of Deuteronomy the further extrapolation and augmentation of what was present already in Lev 26
25. Patton recognizes that Ezekiel presents multiple law-givings during the exodus and wilderness wanderings: "Ezek. 20.25-26 suggests that the giving of the law was not a one (or even two) time occurrence ...." ("I Myself," 75)
26. On Deuteronomy as a second giving of the law, see Joseph Blenkinsopp (The Pentateuch: An Introduction to the First Five Books of the Bible [ABRL; New York: Doubleday, 1992], 209-10)
27. Block comments, "The masculine form, hcombining dot belowuqqîm, contrasts with Ezekiel's consistent designation of Yahweh's covenant requirements in this chapter and elsewhere as feminine, hcombining dot belowuqqôt" (Ezekiel, 636)
28. Likewise Katheryn Pfisterer Darr, "the form is masc. pl., differentiating between these statutes and those given in v. 11" ("Ezekiel" NIB 6:1283)
29. See also Gese, "Ezechiel 20,25," 140 n. 6
30. Kohn, New Heart, 99 n. 24
31. Block argues that the laws of v. 25 are clearly distinguished from the Sinaitic laws mentioned earlier in the chapter, for four reasons: (1) they are given to the second generation; (2) they are characterized as non-life-giving; (3) they fundamentally contradict the earlier laws; and (4) they are called rather than (Ezekiel, 640). These four points are characteristics of the Deuteronomic code, even (2), considering our argument in n. 19 above
32. Cf. Kohn: "Essentially, Ezekiel's contemporaries did not follow the precepts of either Torah" (New Heart, 113)
33. See Kohn, New Heart, 77. Kohn does not distinguish between P and H
34. For older scholarship examining the relation of Ezekiel and P/H, see August Klostermann, "Beiträge zur Entstehungsgeschichte des Pentateuchs," Zeitschrift für lutherische Theologie und Kirche 38 (1877): 401-45
35. Henning Graf Reventlow, Das Heiligkeitsgesetz formgeschichtliche untersucht (WMANT 6; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1961), esp. 30
36. Louis Horst, Leviticus xvii-xxvi und Hezekiel: Ein Beitrag zur Pentateuchkritik (Colmar: Eugen Barth, 1881)
37. and Leonard E. Elliot-Binns, "Some Problems of the Holiness Code," ZAW 67 (1955): 26-40
38. More recent studies of Ezekiel and P/H include Menachem Haran, "The Law Code of Ezekiel XL-XLVII and Its Relation to the Priestly School," HUCA 50 (1979): 45-71
39. Avi Hurvitz, A Linguistic Study of the Relationship between the Priestly Source and the Book of Ezekiel (CahRB 20; Paris: Gabalda, 1982)
40. Robert Polzin, Late Biblical Hebrew: Toward a Historical Typology of Biblical Hebrew Prose (HSM 12; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1976)
41. Mark F. Rooker, Biblical Hebrew in Transition: The Language of the Book of Ezekiel (JSOTSup 90; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990)
42. Risa Levitt Kohn, "A Prophet Like Moses? Rethinking Ezekiel's Relationship to the Torah," ZAW 114 (2002): 246
43. Jacques Pons, "Le vocabulaire d'Ézéchiel 20: Le prophète s'oppose à la vision deutéronomiste de l'histoire," in Ezekiel and His Book: Textual and Literary Criticism and Their Interrelation (ed. J. Lust; BETL 74; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1986), 214-33. Pons's conclusions are quite in line with the thesis of the present article: "Nous pensons avoir montré dans cet exposé que: - Éz 20 ne pouvait pas être l'œuvre d'un rédacteur dtr. - La présence incontestable d'un vocabulaire Dt/dtr venait d'un emploi voulu par le prophète. - Éz utilisait ce vocabulaire pour s'opposer à la théologie dtr" (p. 232). Pons also recognizes the affinity between Ezek 20 and Ps 106 (pp. 232-33)
44. Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Clarendon, 1979), 210-24
45. Kohn notes, "Much of D ... would have been anathema to the priestly writer: general Levite priesthood, the importance of the king and prophet; the tradition of Aaron as sinner. Yet Ezekiel is not shy about deriving terminology and ideas from D" ("Prophet Like Moses?" 246)
46. See Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, 223
47. For discussion of other differences between P and D legislation, see Scott W. Hahn, "Kinship by Covenant: A Biblical Theological Study of Covenant Types and Texts in the Old and New Testaments" (Ph.D. diss., Marquette University, 1995), 95-119
48. Gese, "Ezekiel 20,25" 146
49. Gese counts ten or eleven cases where sacrifice to Molech is designated by (Lev 18:12; Deut 18:10; 2 Kgs 16:3; 17:17; 21:6; 23:10; Jer 32:35; Ezek 16:21; 20:31 [Gese considers the text doubtful]; 23:37; 2 Chr 33:6) and nine cases where a different term is used (Lev 20:2-4 [3x]; Deut 12:31; Jer 7:31; 19:5; Ezek 16:20; 23:39; 2 Chr 28:3). George C. Heider, too, notes that is not limited to the Molech cultus (The Cult of Molek: A Reassessment [JSOTSup 43; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1985], 256)
50. Curiously, some English translations, for example, the RSV, translate in v. 26 as "offer by fire," although the word "fire," does not occur in v. 26, as it does in v. 31 and other biblical uses of for example, 2 Kgs 23:10; Deut 18:12
51. Gese, "Ezechiel 20,25," 144-45. The relevant passages are Lev 18:21; 20:2-5; Deut 12:31; 18:10; 2 Kgs 16:3; 17:17; 21:6; 23:10; Jer 3:24; 7:31; 32:35; Ezek 16:20; 20:31; 23:37-39; 2 Chr 28:2-3; 33:6; Ps 106:37-38. Gese comments, "Wenn in den historischen Fällen des Ahas- und Manasseopfers ein Sohn erwähnt wird (2Kön 16,3; 21,6), so ist das als Faktum und nicht als bedingung des Molochopfers zu verstehen; denn in der algemeinen Darstellung 2 Kön 17,17; 23,10 werden die Töchter ausdrücklich erwähnt" (p. 145). Heider remarks on Ezek 20:26: "This is the only passage in which the cult of Molek is explicitly described as of firstborn, presumably male children. Otherwise, the cult is said to involve both sexes (2 Kgs 16:3; 17:17; 21:6; 23:10) and even multiple members of a single family (2 Chr 28:3; 33:6) ..." ("A Further Turn on Ezekiel's Baroque Twist in Ezek 20:25-26," JBL 107 [1988]: 722 n. 10
52. see also Cult of Molek, 254)
53. But Heider merely assumes that Ezek 20:26 refers to worship of Molech. Milgrom demurs: "The suggestion that the Molek cult was dedicated to the sacrifice of the male firstborn must be dismissed out of hand .... Daughters as well as sons were sacrificed to Molek (Deut 18:10; 2 Kgs 23:10; Jer 7:31; 32:35) .... Children of the same family were sacrificed [2 Chr. 28:3; 33:6]" ("Were the Firstborn Sacrificed to YHWH? To Molek? Popular Practice or Divine Demand?" in Sacrifice in Religious Experience [ed. A. I. Baumgarten; Leiden: Brill, 2002], 54), concluding, "There is no connection between the firstborn and Molek" (p. 55)
54. The phrase is synonymous with the word which is made clear by passages that place the terms in apposition: Exod 13:2; Num 3:12. Neither term applied to females (cf. Exod 13:11-16; 34:19 [according to the LXX, Vulg., Theodotion, and Targums]; Num 3:11-15)
55. Gese, "Ezechiel 20,25," 145
56. See Heider, "Further Turn," 723 n. 11
57. The most prominent recent proponent of this view is Jon D. Levenson, The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 3-17
58. Greenberg comments: "Outside of our passage no evidence for such an interpretation of these laws, or for such a practice, exists; indeed, it is intrinsically improbable.... The charge that the Israelites regularly offered up every firstborn as a sacrifice ... [is] unprecedented and incredible ... [a] manifest exaggeration" (Ezekiel 1-20, 369-70, emphasis added)
59. Milgrom concurs ("Were the Firstborn Sacrificed?" 55)
60. Even Levenson points out that no human society is known to have practiced the human sacrifice of every firstborn son and admits that there is no explicit evidence for child sacrifice to the LORD in the Bible (Death and Resurrection, 3). He does, however, see Mic 6:6-8; Judg 11:29-40; 2 Kgs 3:27; and Gen 22 as implicit evidence of an ancient Israelite belief in the sacrifice of firstborn sons. Yet on closer examination. Mic 6:6-8 is a poetic rhetorical question; Judg 11:29-40 concerns a daughter; 2 Kgs 3:27 concerns a Moabite king; and Isaac is never actually sacrificed in Gen 22, wherein he is characterized as the "only son" never the "firstborn". Thus, none of the texts he cites is suitable to demonstrate Levenson's hypothesis. Ezekiel 20:26 cannot be used as evidence for his view, since whether the verse refers to child sacrifice at all is the point under dispute
61. This is Greenberg's approach; while admitting that there is no evidence for the practice of ritual sacrifice of the firstborn to the LORD (see previous note), he sees behind Deut 12:29-31; Jer 7:31; 19:5; and 32:35 the popular belief that "YHWH accepted, perhaps even commanded, it" (Ezekiel 1-20, 369). But the child sacrifices condemned by Jeremiah in 7:31, 19:5, and 32:35 were offered to Baal/Molech at Topheth in the valley of Ben-Hinnom, and it seems unlikely that the Judahites were claiming that the LORD had commanded child sacrifice to Molech (see following note)
62. E.g., Jer 3:24; 7:31; 32:35; Ezek 16:20-21; 20:31; 23:37-39. The fact that child sacrifice took place at the high place of Topheth in the Valley of Hinnom (Jer 7:31) - dedicated to Ba'al and Molech (Jer 32:35) - shows that it was separate from the cult of the LORD at the Temple. Still, Levenson argues that the worship at the high place of Topheth was understood by the people as to the LORD, whereas Jeremiah ascribes it to Ba'al and Molech (Death and Resurrection, 4-5, 10). If this were so, however, one would expect the one to whom the Worship at Topheth was offered to be a point of dispute between Jeremiah and his contemporaries, yet it never appears as such. Furthermore, even if the child sacrifice at Topheth were to be shown to be to the LORD, it still does not provide an example of the sacrifice of firstborn sons, since the sacrifices there were nondiscriminatory with respect to gender or birth order (see n. 40 above). Ezekiel, for his part, castigates the people for entering the LORD's sanctuary on the same day on which previously they had offered their children as sacrifices to idols (Ezek 23:38-39). It is clear from his statements that child sacrifice was not taking place in the temple nor as part of the cult of the LORD: he rebukes the people for defiling the temple by entering it on the same day they were involved in child sacrifice, not for offering child sacrifice to the LORD or in the temple. If such things were being done, he would have phrased his rebuke differently, in order to address those issues
63. On the possibility of multiple sanctuaries in H, see Milgrom, "Does H Advocate the Centralization of Worship?" JSOT 88 (2000): 59-76
64. See Deut 15:20, "year by year"
65. By "voluntary" is meant those sacrifices that Milgrom describes as arising "in answer to an unpredictable religious or emotional need" (Leviticus 1-16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AB 3; New York: Doubleday, 1991], 134), but are not mandated on a regular basis. None of the types of non-firstling sacrifices explicitly mentioned in Deut 12:6, 12, 17, 26, 27 are obligatory. Curiously, the expiatory sacrifices (traditionally translated "sin" or "guilt" offerings), which would be obligatory if an Israelite had committed sin or become ritually unclean, are not mentioned in Deut 12. It is unclear whether their omission is intentional
66. Gese, "Ezechiel 20,25," 148, 147 (emphasis added)
67. Thus Weinfeld notes: "The author of Deuteronomy instructs the Israelites to consecrate the first-born of his animals to the Lord (Deut. 15:19), a command which openly contradicts the injunction in Lev. 27:26...." According to P, "man can neither make the firstling holy nor secularize it by redemption" (Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, 215)
68. Our translation
69. The root "to desolate" (and the related noun), is heavily associated with covenantal curses (cf. The use the word[s] in Lev 26:22, 31-35, 43). We concur with Darr, Greenberg, Block, and Heider that ought to be translated here as "I might desolate" or "devastate" rather than "horrify." The sense is not that the LORD intended to produce a subjective emotion in the Israelites (horror), but to render them utterly destitute in fulfillment of the covenant curses
70. For a review of the rabbinic and patristic approaches to Ezek 20:25, some of which have certain similarities to our own, see P. W. van der Horst, "Laws that were not good: Ezekiel 20:25 in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity," in Sacred History and Sacred Texts in Early Judaism: A Symposium in Honor of A. S. van der Woude (ed. J. N. Bremmer and F. García Martínez; Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1992), 94-118