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Volume 76 › Table of Contents › Article Abstract
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Ezekiel as the Voice of the Exiles and Constructor of
Exilic Ideology
Dalit Rom-Shiloni, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion |
As a member of the Jehoiachin Exile (597 B.c.e.), Ezekiel's identification with the
community of deportees is clearly apparent. The present paper suggests that Ezekiel's
sympathy with his brethren audience leads him to build a separatist ideology,
by which he constructs the Jehoiachin Exiles' exclusiveness over the community of
Those Who Remained in the homeland prior to the destruction of Jerusalem (586
B.c.e.) and in its aftermath. I argue that Ezekiel's position in the conflict between Exiles
and Those Who Remained in Judah governs his prophecies of judgment against
Jerusalem, as much as it frames his perspectives in the prophecies of consolation kept
only for the Exiles. To substantiate this argument, the study tracks down the interpretative
devices by which Ezekiel rephrases the pentateuchal concepts of land and
exile, and transforms (temporarily) the triangular relationship between God, People
and Land. These theological paths that Ezekiel had paved, indeed, constituted the
Diaspora ideology from the neo-Babylonian period and on as the national-religious
community of God.
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