Ezekiel 2:1-5
He said to me: O mortal, stand up on your feet, and I will speak with you.
And when he spoke to me, a spirit entered into me and set me on my feet; and I heard him speaking to me. He said to me, Mortal, I am sending you to the people of Israel, to a nation of rebels who have rebelled against me; they and their ancestors have transgressed against me to this very day. The descendants are impudent and stubborn. I am sending you to them, and you shall say to them, "Thus says the Lord GOD." Whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house), they shall know that there has been a prophet among them.
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The system Moses introduced to the Israelites was not designed to have a hereditary kingdom. At least not in the earthly sense. Israel has an eternal king, God, who rules by his statutes and his ordinances. Israel became a nation of priesthood, as every head of the households was considered as a priest, bearing the spiritual responsibilities of the family. The professional priesthood was hereditary, someone had to be born in the tribe of Levi, possibly an Egyptian group in its ethno-genesis, and in order to be able to serve at the altar, one had to be born as a descendant of Aaron, the brother of Moses. The first group was called the Levites, the second was called the kohen priests.
The society was led by the Kohen high priest, a hereditary position and the chief prophet chosen by God, based on merit, or by the mere selection of God, and they elected tribal judges to help settle the arguments. They were not allowed to elect an earthly king over the nation, because it was considered as a blasphemy against God.
It is clearly stated in the Book of Samuel, as it is written that “So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, saying that ‘ You are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have. When they said, "Give us a king to lead us," this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. And the Lord told him: "it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods …
When the people forced the prophets to anoint kings over Israel, and the kings oppressed the people and broke the Laws of Moses, it came to pass in all generations what God told Samuel regarding the people that “you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the Lord will not answer you in that day.”
Many times the prophets chosen by God had to rebuke the kings of Israel and Judah for their misdoings, for idolatry, oppression and sheer wickedness, and that is why many prophets were killed, persecuted, jailed and exiled, as we can see also in the case of John the Baptist, who was beheaded by Herod Antipas.
Ezekiel was one of the main prophets of Judah, born into a Kohen priestly family, from the lineage of Joshua the successor of Moses, in the year around 622 BCE. Some sources state that he must have been the son of Prophet Jeremiah, as being also the descendant of the Biblical Rahab. At least the same clan. Ezekiel is revered as a prophet not only in Judaism, but in Christianity and in the Muslim tradition as well.
He received his visions during the Babylonian captivity from the age of thirty.
According to the ancient sages, as it is written in the Midrash, when Nebuchadnezzar ordered Babylon to worship his idol, the famous three compatriots of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, those who later were thrown into the furnace, had come to Ezekiel a night before. They asked for his advice as to whether they should resist Nebuchadnezzar's command and choose death by fire rather than worship his idol. God told the prophet that they could not hope for a miracle.
However when the men left, determined that they will choose death anyway, God told Ezekiel, that because of their adamant faith, God will rescue them. It is written in the book of Daniel that the three were taken by the soldiers to the king who threatened them with death by fire. Nonetheless they told the King that “if it happens, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace; and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image which you have set up.”
It is commonly held that after the second century BCE or at latest after the era of John the Baptist, there were no more prophets in Israel. Very soon the Temple and Jerusalem were destroyed by the Roman Empire, and the Jews were forced to go to exile.
The prophets conveyed the message of God, as God’s personal envoys, like ambassadors.
Many times the kings instead of listening to the prophets, executed them, but at least there were prophets on Earth to judge the deeds of the mortals on behalf of God. In the prophets God had a direct, earthly voice, like a loud speaker to tell people not only to amend their ways, but how exactly to do that, as well. After the demolition of the Jerusalem Temple by the wicked Romans, the Jewish sages made a very wise decision. Until the Third Temple will be erected in Jerusalem, the prayers will substitute the sacrifices of the Temple.
The Apostles, when Jesus ascended into Heaven, they felt orphaned and abandoned. However Jesus gave them a life-compass to follow, and that compass is the Scriptures. He told them that “I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in me may not remain in the darkness. If anyone listens to my sayings, and doesn't believe, I don't judge him. For I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He who rejects me, and doesn't receive my sayings, has one who judges him. The word that I spoke, the same will judge him in the last day. ”
Prayers are the substitution of the sacrifices of the Temple in Jerusalem where God’s presence was declared by the prophets, and the words of Jesus, the words of God in the Holy Scriptures are the substitute of the ancient Prophets, where the word of God is made alive in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
That is why prayers are so important. Prayers are not only requests made to God, or lip practice, but living worship service to God, making our heart the Temple where God dwells. That is why Scriptures are so important in substituting the direct guidance of the prophets of God. If we want prophecy level answers for the ultimate questions of redemption, meaning, purpose, goal, value and worth, or just to learn what to do in our particular situation, we have to turn to the Scriptures, to the old prophets and to Jesus himself, asking for guidance, wisdom and help, in order be able to chose always the right thing to do, and follow the right path. May the Lord be praised by our godly deeds,
Amen.
