Wednesday Bible Study: E is for Ezekiel

This week we go to a question Laurie asked me long ago:  Why is it that Jesus calls Himself the "Son of Man" 81 times in the 4 Gospels- Ezekiel is called "Son of Man" BY God over 90 times in his prophetic book- and someone else is called that just one other time in the whole Bible?  This one I was really struggling with, looking at several different angles- and I kept feeling God tell me, "You have all the pieces you need".    It took quite a bit of thinking and "just let it come to you", but at last I found the final piece- in a blog post with which I disagreed!


There were quite a few pieces that have nothing to do with the story I had to find to put it all together.  But oddly enough. it was an offhand complaint by Ezekiel to God which put it in the right direction for me.  In Ezekiel 20, the elders of the Israelites, at least the ones in Babylon at the time (Ezekiel prophesied from Babylon as an exile in one of the first two waves before Judah was destroyed), had asked him to consult God for them.  God answered, "As I live, I will not be inquired of by (the elders)", at least on THEIR question, which we don't find out what it was.  HOWever, he has quite a bit to say TO them, and He gives Ezekiel a two-chapter butt-chewing for them.  Midway through this- at the end of chapter 20, Ezekiel kinda throws up his arms and says:

Eze 20:49  Then I said, "Ah, Lord GOD! They are saying of me, 'Is he not a maker of parables?'" 

And that made me think of another connect between Zeke and Jesus- using parables so the hard of heart won't get it.  Ezekiel is told at the beginning of his ministry (chapter 3) that these people WON'T listen to him; Jesus tells parables so they won't be able to understand even if they wanted to.

So I considered why it was that Jesus called Himself Son Of Man.  Here is where that last piece from that blogger comes in.  He suggested that, while Ezekiel was called that just to remind him he was a human being, that Jesus used it because it had come to be a Messianic reference, because of this verse in Daniel:

Dan 7:13  I was looking in the night visions. And behold! One like the Son of Man came with the clouds of the heavens. And He came to the Ancient of Days. And they brought Him near before Him. 

Nowhere I think this blogger went wrong is the fact that Daniel himself is the only other person CALLED Son of Man:

Dan 8:16  And I heard a man's voice between the banks of Ulai, and he called and said, Gabriel, make this one understand the vision. 

Dan 8:17  And he came beside my place. And when he came, I feared and fell on my face. But he said to me, O son of man, understand, for the vision is for the time of the end. 

And that, one chapter later!  Now, here's the deal:  Jesus is called both by Daniel and by John "Like a Son of Man"...

Rev 1:11  saying, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last; also, What you see, write in a scroll, and send to the seven assemblies of Asia: to Ephesus, and to Smyrna, and to Pergamos, and to Thyatira, and to Sardis, and to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea. 

Rev 1:12  And I turned to see the voice which spoke with me. 

Rev 1:13  And having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the seven lampstands One like the Son of Man, having been clothed to the feet, and having been girded with a golden girdle at the breasts. 

Both times, Jesus was shown IN HIS GLORY, being both human and God, and glorified by His Resurrection, so that He looked "like" human- but MORE than human.  But on Earth, before His Resurrection and glory, HE used the term, "Son of Man" to HUMBLE Himself- because He was human like you and me.  So Ezekiel was probably called "son of man" for this same reason- but why him?

Well, how about this- he is one of FOUR Biblical characters who had a vision of being IN heaven, and each of them had to be humbled after the great privilege of seeing the Throne of God.  We establish this principle by the testimony of the third of the four, Paul:

2Co 12:2  I know a man in Christ fourteen years before--whether in the body, I do not know, or out of the body, I do not know, God knows--such a one was caught up to the third Heaven. 

2Co 12:3  And I know such a man--whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know; God knows-- 

2Co 12:4  that he was caught up into Paradise and heard unspeakable words which a man is not permitted to speak. 

2Co 12:5  On behalf of such a one I will boast. But I will not boast on my behalf, except in my weaknesses. 

2Co 12:6  For if I desire to boast, I will not be foolish, for I speak the truth. But I spare, lest anyone reckons me to be beyond what he sees me or hears anything of me. 

2Co 12:7  And by the superabundance of the revelations, that I not be made arrogant, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan, that he might buffet me, that I not be made haughty. 

Everything I learn about Paul changes my opinion of him and amazes me more.  Here, he's so humble that he doesn't even, in telling the story, admit that HE was the one who had the vision!  But in that last verse, he tells us that HE received his 'thorn in the flesh' BECAUSE he had been to heaven, and thus had to be prevented from arrogance.

So there we get "winner, most humble", plus the establishment of the requirement of humility for the heavenly vision.  And thus, it's not surprising that Ezekiel was constantly reminded of his OWN humility- since it would be hard NOT to be self-righteous preaching to the apostate Jews of his day.  But I said there were FOUR such men- does the pattern hold?

Well, we know John fell on his face before the One "like a Son of Man" in his vision, but he was also the one who wanted to call lightning down on a town for not hearing Jesus.  So which one was he?  Well, consider:  Much of his gospel sounds like he and Peter have a friendly competition going on for "who's the boss?"  But after being filled with the Holy Spirit, you hear nothing else other than him being Peter's "Barnabas", with Peter doing the talking.

More important, consider:  By the time he wrote his own Gospel account (which would have been 30-60 years after Jesus's death by most accounts), he never referred to himself by name, just as, "the one Jesus loved".  I grew up thinking how conceited this seemed; now I see how utterly, heartbreakingly humble this was.

And that brings us to the first, second shortest, and most puzzling for me member of the group: Isaiah.  Where Ezekiel described things in breathtaking detail, Isaiah keeps his look at heaven short and sweet:

Isa 6:1  In the year that King Uzziah died, then I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up. And His train filled the temple. 

Isa 6:2  Above it stood the seraphs. Each one had six wings; with two he covered his face; and with two he covered his feet; and with two he flew. 

Isa 6:3  And one cried to the other and said, Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah of Hosts; all the earth is full of His glory! 

Isa 6:4  And the doorposts shook from the voice of the one who cried; and the house was filled with smoke. 

Where Ezekiel used all but the 4-verse introduction of a 28-verse first chapter, Isaiah uses four.  In fact, some Jewish scholars considered Ezekiel sacrilegious for going into SO much detail, instead of following Isaiah's example.  

Ezekiel’s vision of the God was the most criticized verses in the Tnakh by the sages of the Talmud.  They compared his vision very unfavorably with Isaiah 12. They were very concerned about his writing of the merkavah (chariot) vision.  In their opinion Isaiah saw the same vision but was discrete in not sharing it with others.

Despite Ezekiel’s cautious image - he four times uses the term ‘the likeness of’ and seven times the ‘appearance of’ - the Talmudists were staunchly opposed to his use of any image of God - for them God was imageless. They likened Isaiah to a sophisticated city man, while Ezekiel was like an unsophisticated village man unaccustomed to understanding or seeing the glory of God. 13 The sages stated in a sarcastic tone that even young handmaidens saw more of the Divine glory that Ezekiel. 14

The writers of the Talmud greatly feared the vision. Yochanan ben Zakkai is reputed to have seen and studied the merkavah surrounded by a heavenly fire so that no one would see it (BT Chagiga 14b). Several accounts appear in the Talmud of people studying the merkavah and they die; a child speculated on the chashmal (a Biblical term unknown in ancient Hebrew other than in Ezekiel’s vision) and he died. 15  (Rabbi Moishe Reiss)

Worse yet was the reason some commentators give for Isaiah's shortening of the tale:

Rava (a third century AD Rabbi) states in the Babylonian Talmud that although Ezekiel describes the appearance of the throne of God (Merkabah), this is not because he had seen more than the prophet Isaiah, but rather because the latter was more accustomed to such visions; for the relation of the two prophets is that of a courtier to a peasant, the latter of whom would always describe a royal court more floridly than the former, to whom such things would be familiar (Wiki).

So apparently they think it's just because a "more intelligent" speaker would know not to talk so much.  And, while I think it a false theory, it certainly dovetails with the descriptions/learning correlation of Paul and John.  But if that was Isaiah's reasoning, wouldn't that disqualify him on humility?  No, I think that, like Paul, Isaiah reasoned FROM humility.  And to that end, let me now go back to what followed Isaiah's description:

Isa 6:5  Then I said, Woe is me! For I am cut off; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live amongst a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, Jehovah of Hosts. 

Isa 6:6  Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, snatched with tongs from the altar. 

Isa 6:7  And he touched it on my mouth, and said, See, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin is covered. 

He would have considered himself unworthy just for his ethnicity- basically, for BEING a human being!  Therefore, I believe that humility on Paul's level was the reason for his short description, and that it is the final proof for why Ezekiel got called Son of Man all those times:

If you want to see heaven, it takes humility.